#i have so many projects due next week its unreal

[bumblevoid]

oh yeah show 3 of our musical. show 2 of the day. i have dutch bros. let's goooooo

[fmpmelissa]

Week 12: Conclusion and Reflection

Self Reflection: Over the past four months, it has been a massive learning experience, gaining new skills in both technical aspects and teamwork. Working with a team to create a full cinematic has been challenging, especially since none of us had experience making one before. However, as a team, we overcame each challenge. By learning to work both independently and as a team, we maintained a smooth workflow, staying on track with our planned Gantt chart. I have been quite impressed with my own improvements in learning realism and developing new skills, particularly in sculpting. I also gained unexpected skills in technical aspects, such as working with Unreal Engine and sound design. The spider model I created meets industry standards and is ready for use meeting my goals. However, I believe the design could have been more interesting and better suited to the horror genre by adding features like extra eyes, hairy legs, or even wounds and blood. Elements such as bulges of pus or cuts exposing bones would have significantly increased the fear factor. Additionally, enhancing the spider's animations, like making the steps larger and giving it longer legs, would have improved its overall impact.

I do wish I had participated more by providing additional assets and props for the scene, rather than relying on purchasing an asset pack. Near the end of our project, I often found myself with few tasks to do, as I had completed my planned tasks early. When we entered the implementation stage of our Gantt chart, we did not clearly define what needed to be done and who was responsible for each task. As a result, this stage was somewhat disorganized, and we often realized a feature was missing, leading to a scramble to determine who would handle it. I often picked up these odd jobs, as working on the cinematic was out of my reach; the files were kept on a single PC, and only one person could work on the Unreal Engine scene at a time. While I may return to stylized work, this experience has opened my eyes to different styles and how they achieve their results. Taking the time to study for my master’s degree has improved my skills and prepared me for the industry, especially through teamwork and creating these blogs. I'll continue learning and hope that one day I'll be able to work for one of the many companies creating games or films.

Feedback: As our project entered completion, we published a final render seeking feedback to carry into our next project. Overall, the response was very positive, with most comments highlighting the scene transitions and the first-person camera POV as highly immersive. However, there were a few suggestions for improvement, particularly concerning the story timeline, which sometimes felt rushed or forced. For example, the spider scene lacked the impact of the bite, as it wasn’t fully realized. I feel like we could have spent more time planning out our storyline and breaking down the beats of the cutscene so it would flow more naturally. The most significant issue identified was the lack of ambient lighting or effects to bring more life into the cinematic. This could have been addressed with post-processing and additional environmental lighting. Unfortunately, these features were overlooked due to time constraints while trying to get the cinematic recorded, leaving little time for touch-ups. In the future, preparation for the cinematic should be divided into two separate phases: implementation and finalization, to better manage the pressure of completing our tasks on time.

Gantt Chart

Light Red highlights marks the day

This is in place to keep me on track what has been or needs to be done this day of the week.

[gwaltctrl]

Final Project Evaluation

Despite my desire to stay away from what I already knew for this project, due to a variety of reasons that led me to struggle early on in the project I think I did in many ways fall back on using similar mechanics and ideas to my previous projects. Despite this I still did think I improved in many areas like presentation of the item system and game feel. I used my knowledge of the typical control scheme and used it to create what I think is a unique idea with the control based debuffs that disorient the player by changing that typical control scheme they’ve become so used to in so many games. The execution of this idea was rocky due to a variety of different reasons like stress early on and not properly deciding on the best way to make it early on. While the systems and mechanics I implemented were not drastically better than the ones I’d made in previous projects I used my constantly improving proficiency in unreal to get those mechanics working in a much more efficient and clean way than I had in previous projects.

The majority of the first part of my project was spent trying to understand unreals nav-links and getting them to work how I needed too for my game so that the AI could jump around the levels which was a part of the game that I didn’t think would take nearly as long as it did. After a hell of a lot of trial and error I finally managed to get them working how I needed too along with a smooth looking jump for the AI but this didn’t change the fact It had taken forever which meant other aspects of my project had been left behind like rescuable NPCs, hub world and visual elements and in the end I didn’t have enough time to implement them all. Even close to the end of the project I still felt like the visual side of the game was too far behind but after combining the two clashing parts of my game (the outside snow and the inside casino) and making a strong effort in the penultimate week I managed to get the games visual side to a standard I was happy with for the end of the project with what I think is a unique look of casino elements mixed in with a snow covered forest and cave system. Despite the fact I had to give up the reusable NPCs and hub world I think the core gameplay itself is some of the best I’ve made with game feel, item systems and visual consistency all being much more refined and polished than my previous projects.

For the majority of this project, all the way up to the penultimate week I felt as if the game was far below my own standards, even considering the shorter project time compared to some of my other projects. I think it is due to a variety of reasons like setting my own standard too high due to how well I think I did on my year 1 FMP project which was twice as long as this project and frequently miss judging how much I’ve made and completed which I think is what happened until this penultimate week where upon adding some more polish I realized that considering the shorter time I’ve put into this project and the stress and difficulty of the first few weeks that this project is up to the same standard as my others. I still think It's very far from being one of my best and most impressive projects, mostly due to having to give up on the hub world and NPC elements due to time but if I ignore what I couldn’t create and look at what I did create then I think that I made something of a high standard that despite not reaching my own expectations in many areas, exceeded them in others.

I think the main thing that would’ve made thai project better would’ve been better management of time and planning so that I know what I want to do and how to do it before I try which is something that I think would’ve made implementing AI jumping with nav links significantly faster and would’ve helped me find time and ways to implement the other mechanics that I wasn’t able to by the end of the project. I think for next project, for each idea I have whether its for one mechanic or just for a solution I’m going to put more effort into researching it, looking for inspiration, going over all the possible ways of doing it and planning how I’m going to do it before I attempt it which I think will make my process of making games more efficient and better managed, as well as benefiting my blog.

By the end of the project I felt proud of what I’d made and can see ways where I’ve improved in my processes and proficiency and feel confident that with proper planning and time management I can successfully make whatever idea comes to mind within the brief.

[cards-and-creatures]

–Cards and Creatures– (Randomisation in games) -page 1

Introduction:

Randomisation, the act of making something random, but not in a haphazard way, is a key component in the gaming industry, present in many facets. Randomisation usually apparates as an in game system for world generation, loot drops, enemy spawns and a sleuth of other mechanics far larger, and much smaller, than one could see to imagine. Randomisation is a key pillar of the RPG, Rouge-Like and Card based games made today, with them heavily indebted to its existence in most major cases.

In this topic, we are to look at Randomisation and its uses and make something of it, be it a game, art assets and even music. I believe that I am going to lean heavily in an artistic representation for my project as it is where I have the most strength, however, I will still dive into learning the fundamentals of getting it to work in a game engine like Unreal 5 and the mathematics of how it is formulated, while also coming up with a brief of the idea for my game, tentatively called, “Cards and Creatures.”

I aim to look into a variety of different games to see the wide range of how randomisation is used in different situations and the severity of the randomisation mechanic in them, seeing how needed it is and how the game would be affected without this core component. I also stride towards looking at other artwork for games with randomisation, as I wish to see how other people dealt with the situation of developing artistic interpretations or randomisation, while also seeing if I can take any inspiration for my own project. Other areas where I wish to look are that of the real world and false randomisation, what can be used to enhance an experience or harm the player.

Destiny 2 -(D2):

A game made by Bungie, the original creators of the Halo franchise, is an MMO lite which, since the first games conception back in 2014, has heavily relied on randomisation for its guns. In game, a collectible item called an engram deciphers into a weapon for the player to use with a random set of perks, effects that gives the weapon its own set of minor abilities that can enhance the players power. These have become a staple of the franchise, with some guns becoming know for their power, such as Eyasluna, Hacksaw, Gnawing hunger and so much more. 

These guns have what is called a, “god roll,” a roll (selection of perks) on a gun that is considered by many the best combination.

These rolls are a main part of the harder core playerbase who desire the best tools in the game for the end game content to make their lives easier, what entices replayability as players continue to go for a gun again and again till the roll they desire drops, what can take weeks, depending on the luck of the player. Rolls have made Destiny what it is, and due to recent developments in the game, more and more perks keep getting added, making even more variety and causing players to find what they think is the best, with more varied and unique perks getting made, such as Headstone, which causes precision based kills to spawn an ice clust at the point of death, which can be destroyed for a small piece of AoE or even to be used as cover.

Sadly, however, random rolls nearly were fully exterminated from the game during the Vanilla years of Destiny 2. At launch, it was obvious that D2 was aimed far more at casuales than those who had stuck around since the apologetic launch of the original, and this hurt the game drastically. The game lost a bit too much of its dark fantasy and most appalling, random rolls were removed for static rolls, meaning every time you get a gun of the same type, such as the original year 4 handcannon Better Devils, it would be the exact same as the next one you got.

This made every drop feel so watered down, as there was no excitement for a new engram to the latter half of the game as it was just going to be the same as your previous gun, disconnecting a players attachment to their weapon.

Some guns still gained fame, such as the beloved Midnight Coup what dropped with good perks for a hand cannon, but removing such a fundamental pillar of the game was not the right choice, what Bungie realized, turning the clock back for D2’s first major expansion, Forsaken. 

With the reintroduction of random rolls, (and the revitalisation of the franchise with Forsaken,) the game lit up again with its fans. Bungie would later return to fixed rolled guns, but to counteract how they made hunting feel pointless after getting the gun, they instead made them harder to get, locking them behind a quest or even a vendors reputation. These became known as pinnacles, refurbished guns that were originally to be found in the loot pool but given a twist. Most of the original guns were given unique perks that only they had and unique archetypes, famous for it power was the Recluse, a submachine gun with Master of Arms, a trait that gave it a damage boost if you get a kill with any gun, or Redricks Broadsaw, which dropped with the Desperado trait, making a reload after a precision kill cause the gun to fire at a godly pace for a pulse, making it a makeshift auto rifle.

Many agree that these were fun, being seen almost as mini-exotixs, other guns with fixed rolls, but with the caveat that only one could be used at a time, that held extreme power and devastation with their unique exotic perk. But outrage came from those who didn't play avidly who couldn't obtain the guns, such as the devastating MountainTop, who’s quest was long and arguish, but the reward to powerful to not reach for, that ripped through players like wet paper. Bungie would, sadly, discontinue the pinnacle weapons the following year and replace them with less unique fixed rolls, 1 for each major playlist vendor,  which again would be cut even further, with only one pinnacle spread across all 3.

Recently, during the last major update since writing this in 2022, The Witch Queen, introduce weapon crafting, a new system in which a player can choose their own perks for their gun from a curated pool of specific perks. This system hasn’t gotten as much backlash as when fixed rolls were first introduced, but its inclusion seems counter productive. Bungie, perhaps seeing that crafting a gun with no challenge was a bit boring, introduced resonance frames, a red border would appear around guns, and if you get a set amount of kills wit them you would obtain their frame and be able to craft them if they were in the system, still, at least, making players to grind for them to get a god roll, in a way, the same way they would have if going for a natural random roll.

Yet, you needed around three to five frames to make it for yourself, which doesn't sound so painful, but the frames were another roll of the dice for the player, meaning that you could waste hours grinding for one gun, get it 10 times, but not get a resonance frame, meaning you got no where. This was exacerbated by the new activity, wellspring, which was the only way to obtain 4 guns, and they were uncommon and the resonance frame was even harder to get, causing disdain in the community, causing Bungie to change drop chances, but this has continued to be a problem to this day with newer guns and activities, such as Dares of Eternity what got the red border treatment as of late.

Overall, Bungie have done a lot with the Randomisation of their weapons throughout the years, going through many phases throughout the games storied history, from its introduction, to its sudden exclusion and reintroduction, to trying to lessen the grind with crafting which indirectly made it harder to get what you wanted. There is a bunch to learn for Destiny, from its highs to it lows, but one simple thing is that randomisation brings its pitfalls, but has the chance to exhilarate a player, and to actually give a player a reward without trial is not always the best approach. I also saw that randomisation doesn't need to be big to be impactful, as the gun rolls show that something as simple as recoil, stability, making a gun do slightly more damage, can mean so much more than it seems. Because of this, I will look into making the randomisation minor, or adding other factors that are less crucial to the games foundation what could entice the player and their drive for better loot.

[unoriginalanimeho]

Angel Beats! Review: (LOL this is a long ass review. Please enjoy as i felt like it was appropriate for this one to be more from-the-heart like the anime itself :o and Yes, I highly recommend it as you can see. Happy watching)

How to begin... It was a Saturday night when my coworker suggested we watch this anime that he held in high regard. The three of us had just finished work and planned to relax with food, burritos from La Vics. After deciding that we would enjoy our late night meal with a show, my coworker logged into his Crunchyroll account and then... we all fell asleep. The End Jokes aside, I didn’t expect to binge watch an entire 12 episode series in a night. Especially when I had work the next morning. But like the unreal, exhausting next day where I struggled to stay awake for the next 7 hours of work, there is probably no other that comes to mind in terms anime when it comes to Angel Beats!. Animation, Soundtrack, Emotion, Angel Beats practically topped every expectation that I had whenever I begin a new series that I knew so little about. The animation for Angel Beats! is superb. Every movement the characters made, during fast-paced battles to the high-energy school concerts to even just the interactions the characters have with their friends was all on point. There hasn’t been a moment during my viewing where I thought to myself “huh, the animation quality dipped”, which is rare for any series. Especially when similar series with fluid animation quality still suffered during the middle of the series. But most definitely, the most eye-catching thing about the show that highlights this point is the opening. HOT DAMN!: the piano, the Angel’s movements, camera rotation. I can go on and on. Openings are one of the most important and memorable things about an anime. It get’s you hyped for it each week a new episode airs, you connect the opening to the anime whenever you hear it being played as you walk down the street. The animation team for AB! did one helluva job with this project and it’s become one of the most memorable things that I love about Angel Beats!

Speaking of the opening, everything music related about the series is amazing! Let’s first address the hidden support of any anime ever, the soundtrack. Soundtracks are important imo as it keeps the viewers engaged while watching. The music whenever the Afterlife War Front are plotting their secret operations or just up to no good, are all catchy with their tempos, almost reminding me planning phases of a tactics video game. Which could also be synonymous to how the Afterlife War Front are afterall, while they fight to repel the Angel, it’s almost like theyre plotting to play tricks on their fellow student(s) and live out their lives as if they were alive and causing trouble at school. Meanwhile, you have the anime’s rockband group, Girl’s Dead Monster. Despite being a front so the main protag and his posse can pull off their Operations discretely without getting innocent students involved, the rock band’s music not only do a splendid job keeping the student’s attention but mine as well. It’s almost like how K-On has their own music for the anime but is also commonly listened to on other’s free time. The anime’s “singles” as I would call it, also remind me of FLCL, how the identity of the music is synonymous to the anime and vice versa. It also fits so well in the anime so that it has purpose and reason for being included instead of a gimmick to make viewers go “yeah Angel Beats! is good! did you know it also has a single in it as well?”. It instead makes you go “yeah Angel Beats! is amazing! They even have their own songs that help tell its story!” Also Iwasawa’s “ballad” tho TT_TT  Now finally the opening. The opening is beautiful. When the song begins to reach the climax and then hits the chorus, it’s strong as it shakes your soul. It moves you as the piano in both the song and the anime opening strikes each key with power. And the lyrics. While the song is great to listen to without reading or understanding the lyrics, the passion from the singing is fine enough, the lyrics fit so well to the themes and the plot of the anime itself. And honestly, when reading the lyrics during the final episodes of the series, hooo boy does it hit you like a truck.

Going back to what I said about the anime at the beginning, Angel Beats! topped every expectation I had about it. While the story was familiar, students in another world fighting against a common enemy, what made this series stand out so much from anything else I typically watch was its humor, its suspense and its sad moments. The series is fun as hell to watch as the character’s interact with one another. Though all anime are gonna have this sort of interaction between close friends, the way they make fun or prank each other, Angel Beats! seems to knock that out of the ball park with its flavor of punchlines, references to other anime, but moreso, the memes. There are so many jokes that they use throughout the series and they’ll often reoccur, such as the RIP theme, cutting off other characters whenever theyre talking, so on so forth.  Angel Beats! is also memorable as hell for how suspenseful and sad it is. All the characters have suffered most unfortunate deaths, resulting in their revivals in the limbo school/realm (for lack of a better term) where they can continue to live their lives as regular students and fill/replace the voids and bad memories that have occured to them in the past. You have Iwasawa’s inability to live her dream to perform for a live audience due to head trauma caused by her abusive father, Yui’s inability to live a normal life in the first place due to being paralyzed at a very young age, Yuri’s inability to save her own young siblings from thieves/murderers. Though that’s practically the entire list, it’s still nonetheless depressing for an anime, especially when the situations that the characters have lived through in their previous lives are so real and definitely hit so close to home (in a believable sense that is). And goddamn is it especially sad at the last episode. It’s one of the rare and few animes that have made me cry... Anyways, Angel Beats! is a high-tier on my list for good reason and I implore everyone to give it a chance if you haven’t watched it already. 

[samgibbsmultiverse]

Adding in furniture and wall decorations.

This stage is the last part that needs to be done before I am able to duplicate the level. I have been putting off duplicating the level as I wanted almost all the assets of the level to be in place before I go and duplicate it. This is so it will save me time as I won't have to put assets down again and all I will need to do in the new level is go ahead and retexture it so the duplicated level looks more modern.

As discussed before I have already collected some assets to use as furniture, However I may need to go ahead and friend some more assets to put in as well if I don't have all the ones I need or if some of the ones I have dont fit the atmosphere. Here Are some screenshots from my level. All the assets here are free to use and are either from the Edith Finch unreal packs or they are some models which I have found from online.

This is just a little screenshot of a really nice sitting area upstairs by the window. I put this hear as I feel like in the old times they would have little sitting areas in places where they had the space.

Next to the sitting area I have a bookcase with a painting. This painting shows up around the mansion but when I plan to retexture the mansion I will be changing the images on some of the paintings. I think the bookcase is a nice choice to have near the sitting area as people sitting there might want to of read a book. When placing down my assets in my levels I am trying to place them down as realistically as I can as I wont the level design to feel like ti is the layout of a mansion that someone would actually live in.

Here we have the downstairs sitting area. This is more of the living room than the sitting area. This is right as you come in the door and I decided not to make it its own room. This is due to the fact that in Resident evil 7 when they have all the furniture and living room area in the open space I think it is a lot nicer. I also feel like this is the sort of thing that would be inside an old countryside mansion.

Across from the living room area we have the dining table as well as a grand piano. Now some things still need retexturing to look a bit old but I have added in some features such as on the table are piles of dirty plates as well as some smashed plates too.

Now we start heading into the actual individual separate rooms starting with the downstairs. Here we have the bathroom which is pretty much simple. The toilet does need retexturing but I am in the process of doing that currently. In the rooms where I can I have added in some curtains which do contain blood on them to add to the horror effect.

Across from the bathroom we have the study. This is mainly full of books and a desk. Unfortunately many of the downstairs rooms are mainly just for fillers and to add more character to the environment as I have more space than I thought I needed. In the room we also have a tipped over chair. I do plan to eventually go along and misplaced inside of the level but thought when it comes to duplicating the level it is easier for all the furniture to be in its natural position before I go and change them.Its easier to make an object misplaced than it is to fix a misplaced object.

The next room we have is a sewing room. This is mainly for the maids to use and is why the room is across from the maids room. In here we have 2 sewing stations as well as some mannequins. 

Here we have the maids room where all the maids stay and sleep. They all get a set of drawers each and share 2 mirrors between them. This again was just a room that I filled up as I really had no planned use for it. This room was originally the room which lead downstairs to the basement. However I decided to get rid of the basement as it was not needed. I didn't have anything to fill the basement with and I couldn't think of what I could fill it with.

Now with the downstairs done we are now heading to the upstairs. This first room is the teenage daughters bedroom. In here she has her own little painting area as well as a reading area in the corner.Here is one example of one room having the same painting. These again will be changed soon.

The next room is the nans room. Much like in resident evil 7 there is also an Ill nanny.This is here room where she has a hospital bed as well as a wheelchair and walker. The wheelchair could be used as a horror feature if I have time. We can have it so the wheelchair mysteriously moved when no one it touching it almost as if it has been moved by a ghost.There is also some pill bottles on the bed too. I am trying to use the assets in order to try and do some environmental storytelling. In this room I am trying to tell the story about how someone was really ill. This can make the player ask questions such as why were they ill, who were they, did they survive and are they still in the house as a ghost.

This next room is the parents bedroom. The main feature for this is the blood stained bedding which is there to hopefully add more to the atmosphere as well as the environmental storytelling.

Finally we also have the kids room where they have their own halves of the room which contain there own little forts. As part f my hopes for this is to have some sound effects which indicate children ghosts this room is important as it showed that 2 siblings lived here.

Feedback:

I did go ahead and get some feedback from people and most people said that they really liked it and enjoyed it. One person did mention that the rooms seemed to rectangular and had no depth and dimension to them. I 100% agree with this however due to the game being so dark I feel like going ahead and trying to change the room shapes wouldn't be as impactful. Also with me only having 2 weeks left to complete my project I need to focus on other parts of my project to make it playabele.

[skeksissquid]

Progress Blog: Weeks 12 -         12-10-19

      Over the last week, I have done quite a bit of work, in my opinion. First, I finished working on the skull and the UVs on it work incredibly. I also learnt that the reason that Terry was taking so long was solely because I was creating his UVs wrong, and created too many seams and too much project from view. Either way, I had to redo the UVs on Terry due to there being too many surfaces pieces for the UVs to be readable on Substance painter, so I also took the opportunity to change Terry’s position so that they are on their side with the wound exposed, and bent the legs in the proper positions accordingly, with some distortions, unfortunately, but I was able to try to fix said details as much as I could, but one leg is skinnier than the other with the foot being skinnier as well, which I couldn’t fix due to time issues. But after changing the position of the body, I ended up starting and finishing the new UVs relatively quickly. After accomplishing this, I fiddled around with a bit of Substance painter and added a texture for the skull model as a test so I can see what the system is like. unfortunately, the resulting texture didn't turn out too good, but it was a pretty good stab at what I was trying to learn. Afterwards, I started to mess with Terry’s textures, and it led to me spending a lot of yesterday, specifically the second half, trying to find what brushes would best fit Terry’s hair type, specifically on his face. Also, with yesterday, I learnt more about how to export UVs and materials properly thanks to Destin and I going through trial and error trying to decrypt Compton’s sword demo, and since the both of us couldn’t really figure out what was happening, I ended up going to Mr. Compton and asked for help. Turns out that you are supposed to have one UV with all objects linked to the material with that UV, which was different to what Destin and I attempted, having multiple materials, and multiple UVs. I did learn though more about why people rarely do and work have multiple UVs on a single object, but since I don’t have the time, nor the need, I probably won’t be researching into that until after break, or over it. Anyways, back to Terry on substance painter; In an odd way, its similar to a sort of mix between photoshop and brush to an extent, but the goodies within this program will be much preferred at this point to photoshop, especially with tools like veins. Its kind of mesmerizing to watch the lights go, but with heights applied to the tool, it can create really good depth, which I used on Terry to good effect.

     So in Summary:

- Thursday: Worked on the skull, and started UVs

- Friday: Finished skull UVs, repositioned Terry, started and finished UV mapping Terry, started substance painter with the skull

- Monday: Exported Terry, learnt about multiple UV layers in Blender, as well as exporting, started working on Terry on Substance painter

- Tuesday; Worked on Substance Painter with Terry

Skull (front)

Skull (side)

Terry (front)

Terry (side)

Terry (top)

What I hope to accomplish next week:

- Mainly just further learning Substance painter as well as learning how to properly import and prepare objects in unreal to be finished, (also hair for the quills on Terry)

- Finish Terry (FINALLY!)

Problems I might run into:

- I might run out of time before the game is judged and it might be scrapped

- Unreal might take a while to learn

- As per usual, might get distracted

[sakuraxakatsukifanfictions]

My three Annoying Teachers (SakuAka) - Chapter 3

WARNING: LEMON AHEAD!!

My three Annoying Teachers

Chapter 3; History, Math, and Uchiha

"Sakura-chan... Sakura-chan..." a quite frantic voice called me out of sleep. My arms shot up from the softness of the bed and went to rub my eyes, to ease the sleepiness. A yawn cringed from my mouth, as I placed down my arms on the bed, and quirked one eye open. With the open eye, I scanned my surroundings, and noticed Naruto hovering over my form.

"Na..ruto?" I questioned hesitantly, as he gave me a confirmed nod. "Why are you waking me up..." I said in a quite drowsy voice, as the sleepiness had not left me.

"I came in to check on you and then I heard your phone vibrating, Sakura-chan. I thought it might be important so..." he looked down towards his fingers, that he was fidgeting.

"Thanks... I guess..." I yawned and then shut my eye closed, feeling the tiredness overcome me, before it halted as I heard the same noise of my phone vibrating.

With a small groan leaving my mouth, I got up to sit on the bed, leaning my back against the wall that was behind of my bed. I looked over to Naruto, with an tiresome gaze , and pointed towards my phone. Naruto got the hint at immediately and brought it to me, I mumbled a fine thank you, and then stopped with opening my phone. I glanced to him once more, as I could feel his stares on my side, and they were concentrating on my phone.

"Na..Ru...To..." I murmured tediously, while giving him a long wave with my hand. "Please leave. I 'm gonna go back to sleeping and if I find you waking me up tomorrow, on my home studies day. I won't be so friendly." I stated, quite serious, and smirked, when I noticed him tense.

"Y-yes, Sakura-chan," and moments later, I heard the door slam shut. Smiling in content, I opened up my phone, and my eyes blinked.

*two new messages*

Sender: Hyuuga Neiji

Time: 19.59 pm

Message: We will meet at the Uchiha household and discuss the project there. -Neiji

I sighed and rubbed my temples. 'Which means... A possibility, to meet Itachi-sensei on a day off...'

'It's not really a day off... OMG ITACHI-SENSEI! Maybe he will steal our virginity, omg,' inner got into tons of nosebleeds, at her own comments, and I only shrugged, unfazed.

Sender: Ino-pig

Time: 20.00 pm

Message: Hey, Forehead! I am done with the history assignment thanks to you! Are you also done? If so can't we do something tomorrow?~Ino

I laughed at this. "Good for you Ino-pig." and then I scribbled my reply.

To: Ino-pig

Time: 20.02 pm

Message: I would love too, but can't. I missed Itachi-sensei's lesson remember, so I have to meet my group for the math project. Apparently it is due this friday...

A few minutes later and my phone vibrated again, I opened up the message, and read it with widened eyes.

Sender: Ino-pig

Time: 20.06 pm

Message: Ah right, there is only one group that had to be done by friday. Maybe it's because you're smart ones? My group has to finish the project until next week, on friday. Sucks to be you forehead!

I glared and put up a few scenarios of me yelling and throwing hard things at Itachi-sensei. After awhile of thinking, I finally decided to write my reply back to Hyuuga Neiji. Who was in fact, so kind to answer me.

To: Hyuuga Neiji

Time: 20.12 pm

Message: Sure, I don't mind, but I don't know where he lives...

a few minutes later, my phone moved in my hand, and I looked at the new message.

Sender: Sick bastard

Time: 20.13 pm

Message: I'll get my brother to get you tomorrow, 9 am, Hn. Better not be late.

I stared blankly at the message I received back from Sasuke this time, instead of Neiji, the one I actually replied too... I shrugged it off and closed my phone, putting it back to the bedside table. I let my back get dropped towards the lovely bedsheets and then groaned inside of my mind. 'Why do I have to go up so early... I also still have my history essay to write...'

'Oi, Saku! Why are you complaining, when the sexy, emotionless hottie Itachi will get us with his car, and get us to meet Hyuuga Neiji-sama!~' Inner said in a sing song voice. '

'Since when did you like Neiji?!' I asked, somewhat curiously, but also quite stunned.

'Um... Don't you remember he picked up our pencil ones, during math? When we dropped it? I bet he would be a great sex partner!' drool began dribble down at the corners of her mouth, making me choke on nothing in particular.

''What?! Did that actually happen...' I pondered for a bit, not believing her at all. It was just too unreal, for another kind of quiet guy to be helpful... Plus, he also hung around Sasuke-bastard a lot. Now when I think about it... I wondered who that Gaara guy was, I have never heard of him, but since he's inemy class... Well in my math lessons at least, I should have seen him... Then I never looked around boys during those classes, mostly because Ino was bugging me all the damn time, and asking me to help her, and such. That is how I got more workloads at home...

'YES IT DID! Omg... You are the stupid me, aren't ya?' Inner said with a small giggle.

'And I should stop talking to myself, to the stupid side of myself, that is,' I snorted with a quiet reply .

'-' looked like this made Inner go silent, I smirked deviously, and then closed my eyes, feeling sleep overtake me once more. But before I could actually fall back into sleep, I heard my phone vibrate more violently, as a signal it was ringing. Groaning, I snatched it from the bedside clicked the green button (without even looking who it was), and then put it to my ear.

"Sa..ku...ra...speaking..." I said sleepily my eyes shut and then when I received nothing in reply, I said my name a bit more louder this time.

"Sakura? I heard you will work on a project tomorrow with my lil bro, how have you been?" That was indeed a familiar voice, that I knew pretty well. In respond to her, I rose up from my bed quickly, and opened up my eyes, as I got into a sitting position: placing my feet on the floor and leaning my back a bit against the wall at behind of me. A smile adored my lips, as I decided I have let her wait too long.

"Temari-san! And your brother... Who might that be?" I asked questionably, as she has never spoken about her family, and such, when I met her in england. Well then I didn't tell her so much about mine either.

"He is Sabaku Gaara, a shy guy, don't talk so much, but nice, and so much better then the sicko, " she told me, making me go laughing by her nickname for Sasuke. When we met in england, both were from here, and so both have met Sasuke as well. We didn't like him so much, he behaved so wrong...

"*cough*" I heard from the speaker, as she cleared her throat, I stopped at once. "Also, he told me you will work in two, for the project. That you will split it up."

"Ohh, really? Do you know whom I'll be working with then? And then there's no need for everyone to meet tomorrow..." I said, whilst pondering somewhat.

"Mhm..." it sounded like she thought for a bit, as she mumbled. "I am not sure... You will probably know tomorrow then?"

"Haha, let's hope so. So started school yet?" I asked, smiling a bit.

"Starts next week. Also, I never mentioned this, but Akasuna Sasori is our older cousin, I advice to finish what ever he gave you, before tomorrow. I think you will be held up at the Uchiha household. I also heard that it's a very hard project to do," she explained carefully and I stared, my hues looking up, down, and then in circles.

"Guess I'll have to complete it then... Thanks Temari-san," I said and heard her sigh at the other end.

"You still call me by that? I said Temari was just fine... Sakura, talk to you later," and she hung up, making me giggle. She has told me many times before, just to call her Temari, not that it would make me stop adding the -san after her name, though.

"Wonder how much the clock is," I muttered, yawning widely into the space of my room.

'20.30 Outer-chan. Do we have to do it now, I wanna go back, and have my wet dreams of our Senseis,' Inner whined as a child who had just lost its candy.

"Shut up..." I grumbled, getting up from bed, and strolling towards the desk. I pulled out the chair and say now, opening the lock of my laptop, and turning it on. "Guess it's time for some working time..."

'You go girl!' Inner was cheering me on, with tears at the peak of her eyes, and I only sighed. I already knew what she had in mind: Skip History, skip Math, and then get punished by the teachers.

*Time skip- two hours later(22.30 pm)*

I slammed my head lightly on the comp and felt my eyes roll back into my head, as I fell asleep. And I didn't realize, my finger had made it to the delete button, so I was basically deleting most things of my essay. Two hours later, I awoke from a loud scream coming from the house.

"Huh?" I asked quite groggily, as I took away my head, and fingers, from the laptop. Then I stared at it and almost fainted! "WHAT!?" I half yelled and only saw the first few sentences of my essay. "Oh screw this, I'll finish it tomorrow," I murmured angrily, as I saved the file, then turned it off, and went back towards bed.

In bed, I could not sleep, I turned, and turned. Did not find any comfortable place in the bed, maybe it could have been out of being anxious now when I screwed everything up!

Cussing a few words into the pillow, I took of my pants, and shirt, leaving me in my underwear. And then I recalled a weird dream I had, before Naruto woke me up... It was really weird...

Dream/Flashback

I was running, running, but from what? I did not know, I just ran, and ran. My legs mustered strength, as I ran on tree branches, having people with red clouds chasing me. They were close behind and there were ten of them! Seriously TEN! I looked back a few times, seeing how closer they have gotten, and it made me frightened. Who were those people and why did they look so strange? And foremost, why were they chasing me?

"S-stop!" my lungs screamed back, my heart beating quickly, as my breath had gotten rough, and quick. I received no reply back, only more feet slamming onto tree met with my ears.

And as I stared down onto myself, inspecting how I looked, I got surprised. I was wearing a red shirt, pink skirt I suspected it was, then black shorts beneath of it, I also wore black gloves, and a headband on my forehead, as well as dark boots. As I looked myself over, eyes widened at my new attire, I felt a hand slam into my spine, and making me tumble over.

"This bitch is so fucking loud," a cussing voice commented, as I was screaming, when I fell towards the ground. But before my body hit the solid, a pair of arms had caught me, and now I was leaning against a man's chest! I looked up towards my... Rescuer, capturer? And saw long black hair, tied in a low pony tail.

"Itachi-sensei?!" I almost shouted at him, as a dark blush came upon my cheeks, and he only looked at me.

"Sensei..." he said the words, that got spoken from my mouth, as he looked distressed. "Kunochi, I am not your sensei..."

"Yes you are! You are a sensei that harasses me! Also, what the hell is kunochi?!" I told Itachi-sensei, groaning when his eyes blinked momentarily, it was so fast, that I didn't believe it happened.

"I am not your sensei. And I do not harass you," he said firmly, his red eyes inspecting me, and they were spinning.

"Why do you have red eyes? They're supposed to be black!" I shouted, throwing my fists up into the air, and aiming to hit him. Sadly I failed and my hands got snatched elsewhere, that is when I felt something bite them! I cringed away from the touch and heard soft laughing from above me, I looked up, and blinked.

"Deidara-sensei! You're here too?" My mouth gaped in shock, trying to register what the hell was happening.

The familiar blue eyes stared at me confusedly. "She calls me for sensei too, hmm?"

"Apparently, brat," and that familiar voice... I turned to my right side, where the sound came from, and choked at the short red hair I took notice of.

"Omg, you too Sasori-sensei?" I said in disbelief, while he stared at me like I was some sort of crazy person.

"Why the fuck is the bitch calling you bastards for senseis?" An angry voice questioned, with a growl.

I looked towards the sound and gasped in shock. "Even Hidan-sensei..." I whispered, him smirking as he heard me.

"Look at that, I am fucking a sensei too," he mused, making me think he had lost his mind or something.

"Shut up Hidan." a groan could be heard next to Hidan-sensei's side.

"Kakuzu-sensei..." I said knowingly, earning myself a few stars from my senseis, which only made it more uncomfortable.

"Why is pinky here calling you guys for senseis, maybe she lost her mind or something," I heard a low chuckle coming from next to Itachi-sensei's other side.

"kisame-sensei! I had you last year!" I told the blue man, who only stared back at me, and I blushed at his intense stare.

"Looks like she's calling you for sensei too," Itachi-sensei stated lowly, making it barely hearable. The blue man huffed in reply. "Itachi-san, shouldn't we just get this over with? Not sure what is going through pinky's head here..." a small sigh made it known, from the big blue man, Kisame-san.

"Why are you acting like I am some sort of an idiot?! You three!" I pointed at Itachi, Sasori, and Deidara-sensei. "Always harass me... Especially Deidara-sensei..."

The blonde haired looked at me. "I harass you, hmm?" He questioned and then smirked widely. "If you don't keep quiet, I might just do that, hmm," his lips quirked upwards, grinning wider.

I blushed at his comment and leaned more against Itachi, wrapping my hands around his neck. "I don't think it's wise... You might anger Itachi-sensei," I bellowed, sticking out my tongue, like I was some small child, that loved pranking people.

Then laughter erupted from his lungs and startled me, confused, I opened up my mouth to make a remark, but Sasori-sensei beat it too me. "Brat, why do you say that the Uchiha would stop him?"

"Well... You would too, Sasori-sensei," I stated carefully and eyed his expression, who only wore the same bored look across his face.

"Kunochi, why do you say that?" Itachi-sensei asked me calmly.

"Well..." I started, cautiously. "I don't know why the three of you are bothering me so much... I haven't even done anything to be bothered. I completed your classes last year with outstanding grades... Deidara-sensei has tried to kiss me several times, succeeding yesterday, and Sasori-sensei just gave us new work to do. And you, Itachi-sensei will pick me up tomorrow..." I groaned, seeing all of the men's surprising looks. They all shared a glance between each other.

"What fucking world is the bitch living in?" Hidan-sensei cussed loudly, making my ears stir at the noise.

"Well, who cares, let's just get this over with," two different voices said, the first a bit lighter, and then the second one much darker.

"Get over with what?" I questioned, staring around the group of men, and then I jumped off from Itachi-sensei's arms, as I saw yet another familiar face.

"We have to bring your conscious back, if not, they will kill us."

"PEIN-SENSEI!" I screamed and ran up to him, taking him into a huge bear hug. "Finally a nice person...!"

"The. Fuck?!" Hidan said, gaping in shock from behind of me.

"Pinky... Is hugging leader.." Kisame-san commented dryly.

"Now that's a disturbing sight, hmm," I heard Deidara-sensei add in, while I then could feel Pein-sensei's aura getting darker.

"Deidara..." he whispered darkly, silencing the blonde at once, which only made me yawn into his arms.

"This chick is fucking crazy, so are we fucking doing this shit or not?"

"Wait," Pein-sensei called out to the group of senseis and some unknown people. "she's falling asleep. We will have to try it the next time she wakes up. This time you will lock her in chains and keep an eye on her."

"Yes, leader-sama," and at that moment, my eyes shut closed, and I drifted away..

Dream/Flashback

"Why did I even dream about my senseis... And those clothes... So odd..." I murmured feeling myself sleepy, and drift back into sleep.

*Next day, tuesday*

"Sakura-chan! Sakura-chan!" a bang could be heard from my door and I jumped out of bed, feeling tired, as all of my powers had left me, and as I slept. It felt like I was wrapped into something hard, making me unable to move, so now my muscles were sore.

"What?!" I called back, groaning tiredly.

"Itachi-sensei is here to get you for the project, he told me you have to do?" Naruto said, questionably, and it made me sweat drop.

"How much is the clock?"I said after a moment of pause.

"9.05 am. Sakura-chan, I think you should hurry! He looked scary..."

"Yeah, yeah," as that was said, I hurriedly got up from bed, and went over to my wardrobe, pulling out random clothes. Since I was already wearing underwear, I didn't bother with changing them, and took on a white tank top, and some really short blue shorts. I skipped the socks and went over to the door, dragging it open, and making it accidentally hit Naruto in his face.

'What are you doing to cute Naruto?' Inner whined and I chuckled. 'I didn't do it on purpose..'

'Yeah right...' I just shrugged for a bit and stepped out of the room. "I am going," I yelled back to whoever was awake this early... I was certain that Minato-sensei would be up at this time though.

"Don't be late for dinner, Sakura-chan!" Kushina shouted from inside of the kitchen, or at least it sounded like it.

"Have a nice day, Sakura," that was Minato's voice and I couldn't help but to smile, as I rushed out of the front door.

Moments later of running from the house towards the parking lot, I eventually found Itachi, and his car... A black volvo. It looked quite nice I had to say. I shook my head and then rushed over to him, he was sitting inside of the car, and I opened up the door, to sit beside him. I plumped down on the seat in silence and looked outside of the window, ignoring his presence.

'Kyaaa Itachi-sensei-sama!~' inner got a nosebleed as she stared at the sensei.

I face palmed, mentally at her. Seconds later, Itachi began driving the car, and he was quite quiet as well. Actually too silent, it made me feel uncomfortable, especially after the weird dream I had.

"Sakura-san," he started and I immediately tensed, feeling his intense gaze go up, and down on my side. I decided to ignore it, even though I did not reply, he continued anyway. "where is your bag."

I shivered, as his voice had gotten much more colder now, and it was emotionless seconds ago. "I... I..." I began, feeling my stomach churn, and twist in disgust as his stare had still not released me.

"Yes?" his voice said, back to being emotionless, which made feel less tense, and a bit more relaxed. Not that it was possible to be relaxed around his presence anyways..

"Forgot it..." I said dumbly, feeling his glance leave my body, as the car stopped, at this I looked around where we were. I took notice of a huge house, it looked like a freaking mansion, and it even had a Uchiha crest on the house. As I went to open the door, I heard a lock sound, and blinked.

"You are not leaving so quickly. Sakura-san," he said, his voice lowering for each word he spoke, and it made the disgust feeling coming back to my abdomen. Decades later, or at least it felt like it... I felt fingers wrap around my neck and fastened on my throat, his nails pointing at my lungs. With one pull of his arm, my back met with his hard chest, as I was forced to sit on his lap. His hand, still squeezing my neck, and making it unable to breathe.

"You should learn, not to skip anymore of my classes, Sakura-san," he whispered duskily, as I felt his other hand, that wasn't crushing my lungs, place on top of my navel. It slid down towards my inner thighs, beneath of my shorts, and close to my panties.

'Seriously that was about time! Itachi-sensei! Hurry please! Mhm, now this is hot, so much better then porn,' Inner's lips was smeared with her own drool, as she took out a camera from nowhere, and began taking pictures.

I on the other hand shrieked, though not really making any sounds, as his hand wouldn't leave my throat alone. After a few thoughts inside of my head, I brought my hand towards his, and pierced my nails through his skin. At this, he finally released me, and looked over at his wounded hand.

"Hn, you deserve to be punished," he murmured as he put the bloodied hand on my lips. "lick it clean."

First, I refused, but then as I felt his other hand place just above my panties, I protested into his hand. "Lick it clean, or feel pain." I did as told, after a moment of pondering.

My tongue swirled out slowly past my lips, then I placed it softly on where the blood were leaking from, and began licking. I grabbed a hold of his hand with both of mine and put it closer to my mouth, holding it firm, as I began sucking on the blood.

Slurp suck slurp

I blushed as I felt myself getting wet down there, I pulled back from his hand, when I finished. I cleaned my mouth with the palm of my head, my eyes half lidded, and my face flushed.

"There, let me go already," I murmured, feeling heat rush into my body.

"I don't think you wish that, Sakura-san," he whispered and then two pair of fingers squeezed around my hidden jewel.

A scream rustled from my lungs, but got silenced by Itachi-sensei hand, the one I had just licked off..

''Mhm, this feels good,' inner muttered in bliss, making me get more redder at her flexible comment.

Itachi put his, quite cold lips onto my neck, and shivers went down my spine. His fingers were stroking around my sensitive spot and I couldn't help but to moan beneath of his hand.

'This was really better then porn...' I though silently, eyeing inner, as she partly fainted at the sight.

Then his hand went to pull down my shorts, so my white underwear was visible to the sight, and I was positioned on top of Itachi's legs, as my slightly parted legs, were pointing towards the window. I blushed and only hoped no one would caught us in this act... Well him forcing himself onto me, even if I might gotten some help, I refused to have someone staring at this embarrassing form!

Moments later, he went on with pulling down my panties too, so my hidden parts were visible, and that is when I saw how wet I was. It was seriously dripping down there. A blush crept at my checks and I shut my eyes closely, scared to look ahead.

"This is what you have been waiting for all along, Sakura-san," he spoke, huskily into my neck, as he forced a finger in my tight hole. A gasp of pleasure left my mouth and I tried to stifle in the moans, I felt coming.

After awhile of having his one finger deep inside of me, I saw lightning flash in front of my eyes, and I looked up at once.

"W-who?" I spurted out, noticing the person's ringed, orange mask. My vision shifted towards the phone he was holding and taking... PICTURES?! "S-st-ahhh," I moaned, when Itachi's hand had ceased it's hold onto me. It was still in front of my mouth, but not not really pressing onto my face, so I was able to speak now. I could move my lips freely.

The man who took the pictures waved eagerly at me, while I shoved him a glare. Then it did some weird hand gestures and I felt Itachi-sensei's head nod, as if he just agreed towards the masked man.

The masked man's body turned around in one sway and left us, in pure silence.

"That was for blackmail," he spoke emotionlessly, as another finger plunged my insides, and stirred, hitting my walls forcefully. "So you won't try and skip my classes again." his chilling voice washed over me, as he got back to nibble on my neck. My skin stood at each end and I felt myself screaming loudly. Screaming for pleasure and begging him to stop, I even yelled for help! And that was when his hand pushed onto my lips roughly, cutting up my lips in the process, by his fingernails.

"You should do well and stop your struggling, Sakura-san," this time his voice had gotten colder, much colder, and I didn't like it. This is the first time I saw a different side, of the always quiet, and emotionless teacher. And I must admit, I disliked this with all of my heart. I preferred his ignorance to everyone in the class, doing his own things, but now... Here he was... Touching me, for skipping his class... And I am sure I wasn't the only that has ignored his class... Even if it was a pure accident...

'Pfft, stop that! You will thank me for it in the end anyways, look at how you are enjoying yourself!' Inner came back from the dead and smirked, whilst I shook my head, and made an inward sigh.

Then a third finger joined in and I felt something deep, a real deep sensation cross over. Then it teared at my insides and clawing its way out. A scream burst out from my throat, as I threw my head back against Itachi-sensei's shoulder.

"Ohhh! Aaah! This... Ooohh!" I moaned at the very first time of having an intense orgasm.

'That was... way too intense...' Inner huffed at the corner of my mind and I nodded in agreement.

Zsss Zsss Zssss

I heard the buzzing sound of my phone as it vibrated inside of my pocket, shakily I grabbed a hold of it, and put it to my ear.

"Y..yes.." I breathed lowly, the orgasm still tilting my insides.

"Hn, where are you? It has gone an hour," the gruffly voice said, sounding annoyed.

I tried to speak, but it was so hard to muster the words. The feeling at my purity, was just too much to bear.

"She is on her way, Ototo," Itachi said into the phone and brought up his hand, that laid above my nakedness. As he hovered it over my eyes, I took notice of how wet his fingers were, with all of my love juices... He placed some of his fingers inside of my lips and I groaned in reply, blushing madly.

"Mghfkmhgfghgf," Itachi ignored my complaints and snatched my phone of my ear, deciding he would speak with his jerk as of a brother.

"Which one is Sakura-san partnered with, ototo," he asked into the speaker, making me roll my eyes , 'Like it was important for him to know,' I thought with a sweat drop.

"...Gaara." he murmured after a pause, I bet he got confused as well to why his brother even asked.

"He already left, hn." He added moments after.

"Then I'll drive here there, which house?"

"He said they're staying with their cousin, Sasori-sensei...Hn."

"Thank you, ototo," he said, hanging up, and putting back the phone in my pocket. His hand placed at my back and pushed me slightly forward, so my face splashed into the window.

"That hurt," I swore quietly, rubbing my cheeks, and forehead. Before I even had the chance to fix my panties, and shorts, he had already started the car, surprising me. In a hurry I brought my hands down to my panties, dragged them up, and felt how the wetness from the fabrics glided against my thighs. I shrugged the feeling off and put back my shorts, as I sat there silently in my seat, my crotch tingling unstoppably. My face was red, in heat, and of shame.

'Hey.. HEY SAKURA!' my inner shouted from the depths of my mind and I scowled at her loudness. 'What?!' 'Does this means... We will also meet Sasori-sensei... And Temari's little brother Gaara?! We might even meet Temari too!'

'Are you thinking any dirty thoughts again inner...' I heaved an tiresome sigh at her.

'Oh come on, like I didn't see how you enjoyed Itachi's fingers. Geez.'

I decided to go back to ignoring her. Moments later, Itachi-sensei stopped his car for a second time, and this time I spotted an apartment complex. 'And I was sure Sasori-sensei was also rich...'

'Who cares, he's hot as hell!' Inner cheered and made a high five to her own shadows... Yes, shadows... Blinking, I changed my attention towards my teacher, who had said something..?

"Um... Repeat that please..." I whispered, uncertainly.

"Tell Sasori-sensei, to check his phone, Sakura-san," he spoke and I nodded swiftly, as I then got out of the car, seeing how he smirked towards me.

'But why did I have to tell him that anyways...' I sighed and watched as the car retreated and drove on the roads. With a small slump of my shoulders, I headed towards the apartment, and glanced around. 'Either the door will have "Akasuna" or "Sabaku",' I pondered silently towards myself.

'I don't think there will be Sabaku, but Akasuna... It's Sasori-sensei apartment right?' Inner told me, carefully looking for my reaction.

"Yeah, yeah, I don't care," I muttered fiercely, trying to dissolve of the image of her stripping at a bar...

"Are you... Talking to yourself?" I heard a low voice at the front. I glanced up and saw someone that resembled Sasori-sensei a bit, but he had dark eyeliner around his eyes, and a tattoo over his right eye.

"Gaara?" I said without thinking.

"Yes," he nodded and placed a hand on my shoulder. "this way, Haruno-san." He led me inside of the apartment.

When we got inside, I stared amazed at the apartment. It was big and beautiful, taking my breath away. There were lots of red, gold, and yellow adoring the walls. In the corner of my eyes, I spotted crafted dolls at the shoe rack.

"Wow...!" I said, as my lips had parted, and I was now gaping at the pretty handy work.

"It's made by my cousin, Sasori," he told me calmly, while dragging off his footwear, and hanging his jacket by at one of the crooks. I followed his lead and pulled off my own shoes, sandals actually, and then I placed them next towards the tiny dolls. They were in a very small size, I noted.

"Come," Gaara had rounded his fingers around my wrist, as he pulled me along, wherever we were heading too. Then we stopped, having gotten all the way towards the living room, and it was seriously huge. From the outside, it was impossible believe that something big would fit.

He directed me to sit at the couch while he was getting the needed things for our project. As I waited, I heard the front door swirl open, and then moments later, Sasori-sensei entered the living room. First we shared a few glances, until I decided to break it, and look away. This action made him chuckle slightly.

"Are you done with your essay for my class, Haruno-san?" He asked me, appearing as if he didn't care anyway, but had to ask, since I was his student.

"No..." I face palmed, remembering that I had accidentally deleted the whole thing. Only leaving behind a few sentences...

"Sasori-sensei!" I called, recalling what Itachi told me to do.

"What?" He snapped angrily, ruffling towards his red locks, while his eyebrows furrowed slightly. I assumed he wasn't in a very good mood... I shuddered as I heard his next words. "Do keep me waiting and I'll do something about that mouth, of yours, Haruno-san," his voice ripped with venom, making me even more scared to say a word. But I forced myself to speak. "Um... Itachi-sensei, told me that he wants you to check his p-hone," I said simply, feeling a bit awkward, as I stuttered towards the end.

For long moments, I could feel his gaze set on me, and then I heard a click sound, probably coming from his phone. Then a smirk appeared and he turned around the phone, to show me a picture... A picture of myself... Naked in Itachi's car... Having an orgasm...

'OMG!' I screamed, my nose bleeding at the view of myself. I turned around and leaned at the far end of the cough, swinging back, and forward. "This can't be happening... This can't be happening... This can't be happening... " I chanted to myself, as I heard the sound of the phone shutting close, and soundless steps approaching.

"You shouldn't have enjoyed that, dirty little girl," a warm breath stung my ear as my nipple got pinched from under the cloth, making me pant. Then he pinched it harder and I kept a scream from escaping my mouth. "painful, isn't it?"

"S..stop," I gasped quietly, feeling his other hand slid underneath my shirt, and press against my scar.

This made my inner loose her mind, she was already throwing things in my mind, and yelling murderous, threatening words. I tried to calm her, but with the situation I was in, my own was soon to be lost. I felt tears swelling at the peak of my eyes, I mustered enough power to keep them from leaking, but it was so hard... So painful... The memories...

"Sasori, what are you doing to my partner?" That was Gaara's voice, anger hinted to the tone he used while speaking.

This made the red headed sensei let go of his grip. "Nothing of importance, brat." and after while, of me just staying there all frozen, there was a hand on top of my head. Stroking it gently. I visually relaxed into the kind gesture and felt him pulling me too look towards him, my watery eyes opened, and closed, staring.

His fingers trailed the water at my eyes and whipped them away, with a small smile. "Can we begin now?" he asked in a quiet whisper. I nodded my head and tried to form a smile at my lips, but it was hard.

I sat next to him, as he went over to sit by the equipment, and then he explained to me what we had to do. We had to do a poster with math problems, very complicated math problems too. So there were some colored pencils, as he gave me the paper to color. I did as told and watched in the corner of my eyes, when he was attempting to solve the problems. I must say, he was a genius. The problems he had solved so far, were really hard, but it didn't take him a few seconds to complete them.

'I think we will get passing grades for this, what do you say inner?' I laughed when she sniffled in response. '… I want my... Punishment... By Itachi-sensei... Meanie outer-chan...'

'Of course you do,' I said, smirking, as I went to grab a hold of a pink pen, and a blue one. I smeared pink and blue together on the paper.

"Done," Gaara had put down the pen on the table and looked over to my work on the poster.

"You're quick," I stated the obvious and he merrily nodded.

*30 minutes later*

I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket, as I finally finished with the poster. I handed it towards Gaara, who had offered to put the pieces together. I thanked him gratefully as I checked my phone.

*4 new messages*

Sender: Naruto

Time:12.00 pm

Message: SAKURA-CHAN?! WHERE ARE YOU! YOU HAVE BEEN GONE FOR SO LONG! No... she has only been away for three hours -_- NARUKO STOP TAKING MY PHONE! ALSO SAKURA-CHAN! HURRY BACK! DINNER IS AT FOUR.

"If it is at four, I don't need to hurry..." I murmured, earning a concerned look from Gaara. I laughed sheepishly towards him. "N-nothing!" He still eyed me suspiciously before he went back to the work at hand.

I went on to read the second message.

Sender: Flirty teacher

Time: 11.58 am

Message: *picture showing* I see you had fun with the Uchiha, hmm. You better stay after class tomorrow, hmm.

My mouth gaped at the picture and I hurriedly covered my phone, from Gaara's silent stares.

'Even Deidara-sensei has that picture... Those three,' I shifted my weight on the cough, a bit more to the side, as I uncovered the phone, and began typing a reply, hastily.

To: Flirty teacher

Time: 12.02 pm

Message: Deidara-sensei... That was really uncalled for and a teacher shouldn't be blackmailing his student, now I really want to skip you lesson tomorrow.

After clicking the sending button, I continued with reading the last messages on my phone.

Sender: Ino-pig

Time: 11.55 am

Message: OI FOREHEAD! Guess what, I got an A on the essay! Thank you so much for the help, I promise I'll buy you anything you wish, FOR FREE!~Ino

This made me giggle slightly.

To: Ino-pig

Time: 12.05 om

Message: That's good piggy-chan, I want lots of ice cream on saturday! Also, did he already correct yours then? I need to hurry with finishing mine. T_T

Now I went towards the last message. "Another one from Naruto," I stated calmly to myself, before I opened it.

Sender: Naruto

Time: 11.50 am

Message: Sakura-chan... I am sorry for waking you up earlier... But Itachi-sensei really scared the shit out of me, believe it!

I decided to write him a reply.

Tor: Naruto

Time: 12.10 pm

Message: Don't worry about it Naruto, I'll see ya when I get home.

One second my phone vibrated again and I looked at the message board.

Sender: Naruto

Time: 12.10 pm

Message: SAKURA-CHAN! WHERE ARE YOU?! Hurry home, SAKURA-CHAN!

Ignoring his message with a silent glance, I placed down my phone back inside of my pocket, where it belongs, and looked towards Gaara, when I heard something buzzing.

His hand reached out towards the phone on the table and he turned on the object, putting it to his ears. He didn't get any chance to speak, as a person yelled into his ear.

"GAARA?! DO YOU KNOW WHERE SAKURA-CHAN IS?! SHE'S SUPPOSED TO BE ON THE SAME PROJECT AS YOU, RIGHT?!" It felt like if my ears would drop from my head and get destroyed, that is how loudly he yelled.

Gaara had taken the phone away from his ear, as he looked dissatisfied. After a moment, Naruto's voice quieted down, and we heard another at the end. "Gaara, sorry for my brother. He's just worried about Sakura-chan, if she is with you, tell her I said Hi." then we were met with a *peeep* sound. Gaara closed it and held it, securely, as if he was in deep thought.

"Well, we are finished here," he turned to me.

"You know the Uzumakis?" I voiced my thoughts aloud, seeing a smirk adore his lips. Then his lips parted. "Yes. We are friends."

"I see..." I mumbled and rose up from my sitting position on the sofa. "I'll take my leave then. I still have to finish the history essay, that Sasori-sensei handed on monday."

"You where the one that skipped, both Sasori, and Itachi-sensei classes? They did not look pleased. Having their lessons skipped on the first day," he noted slowly, rising up as well.

"Yeah.. Though it was an accident, but oh well," I muttered and shrugged.

"Mhm, I'll let Sasuke, and Neiji know, that we are done."

"Please do," I said and thanked him and as I began walking, I felt the wetness between of my legs grind against my thighs, and my hidden parts. I growled silently. 'Those stupid fluidly panties..'

"You ok?" He asked me, I only grimaced back, and strolled out of the living room, giving him a last wave. "I can find my own way out," I called, when I heard him walk after me.

As I stood outside of the living room's door, I found my sensitive spot tingle even more, and it frustrated me. "I'll borrow the bathroom first..." I announced, as I made my way towards what seemed like a bathroom. I opened up the door and then stepped in, hearing water pouring, from behind of the shower curtains.

I yelped quietly, when I saw Sasori-sensei step out of the shower. The curtains parted and my eyes slid down from his chest, towards his manhood, staring with widen hues. Then I covered them at once, while inner got a HUGE nosebleed.

'OMFG THAT THING IS HUGE!' inner had time to say, before she was out blank.

"Sakura-san," he observed dryly, not caring in the slightest that I saw him naked. "why do you smell like you are in heat?"

My eyes flashed in anger. "I am not!" I retorted, trying to stand my ground, in my teacher's house.

I could hear him chuckling. "Then why is there a stain on your pants? Sakura dear."

"There is not!" I said shielding my crotch from his view, then he came closer, his naked body... So close! His newly cleaned hands placed on my shoulders and the warm water stained my clothes.

"I doubt that," he said, looking bored as he stared into my eyes. I gulped when I saw him smirking. "pardon."

I raised an eyebrow when he went to sit on his knees, in front of my hidden parts! He pulled down, both my panties, and pants in one swish. My hands were still covering my innocence and so he had to pull them aside, to be able to see anything. Which he did, he pinned my arms behind of my back, with one hand. I snarled threatening, but he ignored my rage, and went on to part my neither lips.

"You're dripping," he stated and smelled my scent... His nose was pressing against it and I felt the tingling sensation increase like to no end. It felt so weird and at the same time so good.

'I am going to faint again, I fucking love this,' inner said, as she slowly began waking up from her unconscious state, but it didn't really mattered. She had already gotten back into a deep, pervy slumber.

"Sasori-sensei... Please stop, I... I need to leave," I said, hoarsely, as I missed the feeling of cool water in my mouth. It was so dry.

"Is that so," he spoke lowly, while I felt a finger getting inserted.

"Oooh god," I whimpered at the feeling and felt myself leaking, more sticky liquid pouring out of my lower lips.

After a few moments of my face getting hotter and the tingling sensation, enlarging. A soft knock could be heard. "Sakura?" He said. "you have been in there for awhile already." he commented, making me blush madly, as my body lowered, and pushed Sasori, making him stumble a bit. I took this chance and hurriedly put back my panties, and pants, while I opened the door slightly, to make sure he wouldn't see the naked red head on the floor. I slid out between the door gap and closed the door, grabbing a hold of Gaara, and pulling him with me. Like I would let him find out that I accidentally stepped inside of the bathroom while Sasori-sensei was showering!

Gaara looked taken aback at my pulling, but didn't make any sign of trying to get out of my grip. We made it towards the hall and I grabbed a hold of my shoes, throwing them on.

"Then I'll take my leave now, it was nice meeting you Gaara-san," I bowed respectfully and he nodded, watching me as I turned around, and left.

When he had shut the front door, I dashed out from the apartment lot, and went to stand a few good meters away from it. Then I check the clock on my phone, staring at the time. "13.00 pm..."

"Soo... How do I get back to the Uzumaki place," I pondered, staring absentmindedly on my phone's screen. With no inner to reply to my worries, I sighed, and opened placed the phone on my ear. Waiting for the person to answer. After a small *peep* sound, I heard the familiar voice of Temari.

"Hii, need any help?" she questioned, curiously.

"Can you pick me up, outside of your cousin's apartment?" I asked, with an hopeful glint in my hues.

"Sure, I'll be there in five minutes," she told me and then hang up. I smiled and after a few minutes, I could already see her car driving in, I did a small victory dance in my head, as Inner was snoring away this stunning day...

I strolled towards the car, opened the door, and plopped down on my seat. I smiled cheerfully to her.

"What have you been doing over there?" she asked, with a sly smirk set in place.

I blushed. "Me and Gaara got to be partners, so we finished our part just moments ago."

"Ahh," she mumbled, focusing on the road, as she started the car.

Chapter 3; History, Math, and Uchiha end

Hope you like this chapter <3

[koukoustudios]

Lethe’s 1st Anniversary and Lethe 2

Today we at Faber Interactive and KoukouStudios are very happy to celebrate the first year since the release of Lethe: Episode One and a  50% anniversary sale will be running on Steam as part of the week-long deals. If you didn’t have a chance to play the game yet, it’s a great time to try it out now. There have been several updates since day one, including Steam Achievements support and several optimizations and improvements.

And some exciting news: The announcement of Lethe 2: Origins.

Lethe 2: Origins

Lethe 2: Origins is our new title currently in development. The game takes place in a remote village on the same island as Lethe: Episode One but 30 years earlier.

If there’s one thing that we think we nailed in the first game, it is the atmosphere and that’s something we are passing over to Lethe 2. There’s a great difference between the two games though. Unlike its predecessor, in Lethe 2: Origins, storytelling is the place where everything else meets while gameplay is knitted around it. Another big difference (undoubtedly welcomed by many) is that the world is no longer limited to underground interior spaces.

As you might have already noticed, Lethe 2 doesn’t include the word episode. Yes, we have abandoned the episodic approach and there are two main reasons for it:

The episodic approach had a negative impact on sales and the game’s reputation:

When we started with the development of Lethe: Episode One the story was screaming for further future expansions. That’s when the idea about the episodic approach came along. The plan was to make three standalone episodes that didn’t necessarily rely on each other but in the long run if put together, they would explain parts of the story that in some episodes would remain unclear. Unfortunately even though we were pretty clear about the standalone nature of each episode, people were scared away by it and the episodic part of the game’s title costed us a large number of sales. Knowing that even AAA developers have failed to deliver episodic games before, we don’t blame them.

Longer development times due to technology and game mechanics changes:

Lethe: Episode One was developed on the Unreal Development Kit. Since Epic Games abandoned the project and moved to Unreal Engine 4, our best bet was to follow suit. Migrating the project to their new tech and developing new features took an extra amount of time, adding up to a new project already detached from Episode One that can no longer be considered an episode.

We can’t give away much just yet so let’s leave the topic here for now. There’s more to come in the near future as we push forward through development.

Let’s take a look at what happened since August 1st 2016.

Lethe: Episode One - Reception

With YouTube overflowing with search results after typing “Lethe: Episode One” in its search-bar and over 2,6 million views on a single gameplay video by Markiplier, we are more than happy to have invested in the project.

Unfortunately the popular press totally ignored the game and not a single of our attempts to contact them was ever replied (Episode One made it to Metacritic but got stuck with just two reviews and never got a rating because of it). Considering that we didn’t have any insiders or the power to fund a place on their pages that was to be expected. On the other hand the medium/small press guys gave us a very warm welcome in the industry and we’re still very thankful. User ratings have been very encouraging too, summing up to “very positive” rating.

With Lethe we aimed towards a specific audience interested in slow-paced atmospheric horror. A good number of them embraced our work and offered their valuable feedback for further improvements. Sales haven’t been as pleasing as we hoped for, but a small cult has formed around the title.

Lethe: Episode One - Sales

While the quality standards for Lethe: Episode One are far higher compared to several top indie game sellers for 2016, with 7500+ units sold on PC to date it isn’t exactly considered an indie financial success. Yet, given the size of our team at the time (2 core developers and 3 freelancers) it has done far better than the average median indie game, while in the meantime we are able to keep our small studio running solely on the gas our sales provide. Once again thank you for supporting us in this journey.

I believe that the low number of sales can be brought down to three reasons (I’m certainly not an analyst though and I’d be very interested in hearing your opinion on the topic).

Lack of a promotion campaign:

Lethe: Episode One was never given a proper promotion campaign. We’re a very small studio and by the time we reached that point we had already invested all we had in the production. We went this far thanks to the word of mouth and your support, and we’re very grateful for that.

Episodic title:

As already stated above, even though we were clear about the standalone nature of each episode a lot of potential buyers were scared away by the episodic title. Some even stated that they like the game but they won't bother buying until all episodes are released. Of course that’s a double edged knife for a small developer like us. Reduced sales usually mean that future releases are less likely to happen.

High amount of competition:

2010 introduced the second “survival horror apocalypse” in gaming. And alongside the “indie apocalypse” it spread so fast that by the time Lethe: Episode One came out the audience was already fed up with “run and hide simulators”. On top of that Steam is still flooding in extremely poor-quality horror projects. It’s not a wonder that people are cautious when it comes to products by new developers nobody knows. Going for a mainstream horror game by an already popular developer reduces the risk factor of wasting time with refund policies.

Piracy

It’s sad but yes, piracy is a huge issue for us. By the end of 2016 we tracked down an approximated number of 25000 pirated copies of Lethe: Episode One. A number that is already more than three times greater than the current legit sales and rising twice as fast.

When considering that with the added income we could have hired a few people to help us with our next production, instead of working an average 10 to 12 (and sometimes even 16) hours a day… Well, it’s disappointing at the very least. Unfortunately there’s not much we can do, other than hope that those people are at least planning to buy the game in the future if they enjoyed it.

Verdict

If we take in account that Lethe: Episode One came out of the blue, without any sort of a promotional campaign and from an unknown developer, we can safely say that it performed fairly well. Though in the long run the financial uncertainty spreads in the air more often than we hope for. It certainly doesn’t help with clearing out our worries and to focus on the development of our next big title, but as long as we manage to keep the number of sales stable until the release of our next installment we’re very positive that everything will end well. As a safety measure though, we're currently also examining possible alternatives when it comes to funding the project. Any suggestions from the veterans among you are most welcome.

[jubilantwriter]

A Benchful of Memories (Abandoned)

Chapter 2 - Bracing All the Pain

(Previous)  (Next)

Getting shots didn’t hurt as much anymore.  It was all to help you stay healthy anyway, and dying seemed like a big pain.  Ha, that was a good one. ��But honestly, you didn’t really care whether or not you’d die.  The shots were more for the comfort of your nurses and family than anything you cared about.  You rubbed your arm gently, the areas where you got the shots just a bit sore.

“Well that should be it for your weekly shots.”  Your human nurse (her name always escapes you) starts to carry away the syringe and medicine bottle, leaving you with your monster nurse so that she can dispose of the syringe.  The kindly monster wiggles her strange gills (were they gills, considering that they extended off her head?) before smoothing out her uniform and sets her clipboard down.

“Now to examine your soul!”  You nod and face her, allowing her to carefully pull your soul out of your chest.  The pulling sensation always makes you jerk forward a bit, no matter how hard she tries to do it slowly, but she always smiles apologetically and you just nod and stare at the floating heart.  The cyan glow illuminates the room as she works her magic around it, mumbling to herself and jotting things down as the magic swirls around it, gently prodding and poking the soul here and there.  

“What are you doing?”  The words come out before you can even stop yourself, and you quickly cover your mouth.  Shit.  You didn’t mean to blurt that out.  She looks up at you with surprise, before smiling and waving her magic away.

“I’m just checking on your soul.  There’s some things that I need to examine that allows me to see what kind of… I guess mental and emotional state you’re in.”  

“Really?”  Curiosity rings through your words, and your monster nurse smiles and lets your soul return to your chest.  Your hands go over the area it entered, and you look up at her in hopes of an explanation.  She looks over at your door, and then to the clock before nodding to herself and sitting down on your bed.

“Well, since I do have some time, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to tell you more about your soul.  I don’t think humans know much about them anyway.”  She hums to herself, tapping her long fingers (at least, they looked like fingers) against her clothed leg before looking at you.  “You know about when the monsters came from the Underground right?”  You nod as she continues.  “Well, it’s been roughly a year or so since then.  Progress with monster rights has been going slowly but at least we can get jobs now!  Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here.”  She winks and you nod again, wondering where she was going with this.  “And… one of the biggest reasons why I’m here is to study human souls.  You see, I’m part of a research group that has been assigned with the task of examining human souls and understanding how they work.  I heard that there used to be studies down in the Underground regarding human souls but uh, it didn’t go very far.

“Anyway, once we arrived on the surface, monsters began to accidentally tug out human souls.  There was an uproar after this, as humans haven’t ever seen or even knew that their souls could manifest in such a way.  I guess it comes with having no magic qualities.  Um, no offense.”  You shrug.

“None taken.”

“Right.  So.  Because of this, human scientists were curious about this new human manifestation that they never heard of before and wanted to study it as soon as possible.  Seeing as monsters were the best bet in drawing out human souls without problem, the scientists went about convincing the government to give them funding for the research.  It took awhile, but eventually the grant was approved and a group of scientists, both human and monster, formed a team to study the human soul.  At first, they only studied on themselves as they had yet to find any willing volunteers who were eager to have their souls examined.  The scientists found that human souls were uniquely different from monster souls in that each soul could possess a different quality that was unlike its neighbors.  They discovered that while monster souls were generally of the same kind, human souls had a variety of traits that were reflected through color.”

“Color?”  You couldn’t help but interrupt her here, as it seemed strange that traits were being reflected by colors, or that colors represented traits.  It made no sense honestly, and it didn’t seem very scientific to jump to conclusions like that.

“Yes, color!  So far, a total of seven main colors have been discovered, and only one of them has been given a corresponding trait, due to the previous research done Underground.”  She pauses for emphasis and grins excitedly as her hands waved dramatically in the air.  “Determination.”

“Determination?  Why?”  The amount of questions you were asking was unreal.  Never before have you asked this many single worded questions in your life.  Although honestly, that probably wasn’t saying much.  You don’t even say much.  There isn’t much to be said.  Stop it.

“It’s been correlated to figures who have shown very determined personalities in the studies done on souls.  The human child who freed us, Frisk, has the same colored soul and is a very determined little human.  Other humans with a similarly colored soul also show high levels of determination through their actions and personality, showing some similarities to Frisk themselves.  Now that the studies have progressed thus far, the group of scientists have been getting willing volunteers to allow for more observations and examinations.  They’ve even came up with tentative traits for the rest of the colors!”  Your nurse is absolutely giddy as she continues her talk, tapping her fingers together and bouncing lightly on your bed.  You can’t help but smile fondly at her.  How adorable.

“That sounds pretty great.  But why are you working in a hospital?  Are you part of the group studying human souls?”  She hums softly before responding, a thoughtful look crossing her face.

“Yes, and no.  I’m not exactly part of the in-group, where they get to do all the research in a lab and stuff.  But, I am part of branch that works under them, helping provide data and results by examining the souls here at the hospital.  It did take some paperwork of course, and not everyone was willing to have their souls examined, but-”

“Wait, paperwork?”  You clearly don’t remember signing anything.

Or.

Maybe you did.

You’ve never really had that swell of a memory.

She nods, looking slightly surprised when you questioned her.

“Yes, paperwork.  Each patient was given a form detailing what the research was about, how we were going to examine the souls, and if they were willing to participate.  Since I’m with you now, I’m assuming you signed the papers when they were given to you.  Or…?”  A concerned look is directed at you, and the lingering question hangs in the air.  You shrug.

“Maybe I did sign them.  I don’t really remember things that well.”  She stares some more at you before picking up her clipboard and scribbling something down.  

“Well then,” she gets up with her clipboard in hand and smiles, “I think that’s all I have time for today.  Get some rest, since you’ve been out for a while.”

“Okay.”  She waves goodbye as you settle into bed and, shit, you totally forgot to give her a paper craft like you normally did.  And double shit, you forgot to give your human nurse a craft as well.  Well, there’s always tomorrow.

The spot where you got your shot starts to bother you, so you massage it gently, carefully maneuvering over the bandage so that it doesn’t peel off.  You hum to yourself, wondering what to do now that you were alone in the room.  Laptop?  Nah, there wasn’t much to do on the internet.  Text someone?  Pfft, who was there to text?  Cell phone games?  Nah, you weren’t in the mood for staring at a tiny screen.  Origami?  Nah, you’ve done enough of that today anyways.

Speaking of which.

Your eyes trail down to your backpack, it leaning against the larger table’s leg.  Your folded crafts were still in there, and yet you didn’t really feel bothered to get up and actually take them out.  The sight of your backpack reminds you of the skeleton man (skele-man?) that you met earlier.  

He was funny, nice, and really chill.

Like, chiller than the weather.

(you giggle to yourself and wonder if you can make that pun around someone sometime)

He was pretty friendly too.  Maybe you’d run into him again tomorrow, if the weather permits.  It wasn’t like you had much people to talk with anyways, so it was nice to talk with someone who wasn’t a nurse or doctor or extended family member.  Humming to yourself, you lean back against the pillows and decide that the TV was worth a shot at entertainment.  There was that one segment with that one square robot that was pretty entertaining to watch, so maybe you can do with that.  

You grab the remote besides your bed and turn the TV on, flipping through the channels until you find the robotic calculator dancing around on screen.  Ah, he seems to be wearing a dress this time.  Time to enjoy some classic television.

//-//

“...and so I said, if you’re going to be like that young man, then you should make your dinner yourself!”  You laugh along with your human nurse, who’s helping you string together the next chain of cranes and flowers.  She’s working on one end of the chain while you work on the other, carefully poking a sewing needle through the tips of the wings.  Today, it seems that the cranes are going to be the main project as number slowly decreases as the two of you work together in finishing the chain.

It’s after hours in the hospital, and since you were one of the patients that has to be housed overnight (or over the week), she can dedicate a lot of her free time in spending the night hours with you.  It also helps that she’s assigned to be your nurse as well, so you can at least take comfort in the fact that she’s being paid to help you with these little chains.

“So what did your husband do in the end?”  

“He puffed up his cheeks like a child and stormed off into the kitchen!  Take it from me sweetheart, if you’re gonna fall in love with someone, make sure they respect you as well.  It’s not good to have someone try to make you do things as though it’s your job to cook for them.”  You shrug and continue working on your end of the chain, poking your needle into the wings of a blue crane.

“I don’t think I’ll be finding love anytime soon, ma'am.”  Your nurse clucks her tongue before shaking her finger at you, needle pressed firmly against the length of it.

“Now don’t be giving me any of that nonsense!  I’m sure you’ll find someone who’ll love you.”  A shrug is made as a noncommittal noise escapes you.

“Why are you so preoccupied with me finding a date anyway?  You know my chances of finding someone are pretty low.”  She puts down her needle and pats you gently on the shoulder.  You look up at her and see the motherly gaze she’s fixed on you.  Oh crap, not this again.

“Sweetheart, I’ve known you for as long as you’ve been here.  You’re like my very own child, and I just want you to live a happy life.  Even if you’re not going to date, I’d at least feel better knowing you made friends that care about you just as much as I care for you.”  She’s bringing up that topic again.  Crap, you really hate making her feel bad for you.  It’s one of those things you’re indirectly good at.  You sigh and put down your end of the chain to pat her hand.

“I know.  You just… You just gotta be patient with me alright?  This stuff takes a while, for me at least.  I’ll have a friend soon.  Who’s, you know, not a nurse.”  She smiles and pulls back, putting her efforts back into making the crane chain.  

“Patience is something you have, not me.  You know I kicked my man out once he started being a little shithead towards me.  I want to see you have visitors soon, and not just your cousins!  They don’t count!”  You shrug.

“Maybe one day.”  She sighs and shakes her head.

“Alright.  But I hope that someday is soon.”

“I don’t think it’d be cool to rush relationships.  Just sorta gotta let them happen, you know?”  She chuckles and continues to work on the chain while you reached for a few more cranes.

“Of course you’d rather sit back and let things happen.”

“It’s not sitting back.  It’s letting things happen naturally.”  Although it would be funny to lazily create relationships.  Was that even possible?  Maybe.

“Alright, alright.”  The two of you continued to chatter amiably and eventually, the chain was finished.  Satisfied with your results, you and your nurse place the complete chain on the table, stray paper flowers still scattered about.  You can deal with those later.  Your nurse got up and dusted off her pants.  “It’s getting late now.  I’m going to go around and make my rounds.  Have a nice night.”  She smiles and makes to leave the room.

“You too.”  She nods in response and closes the door behind her.

Silence.

You got onto the bed and turned the TV on.  As you browse the various channels the hospital had to offer, you idly realize that you didn’t mention the skeleton to your nurse while you were on the topic of friendship.  Well, it didn’t matter really.  You probably wouldn’t see him again, or if you did, it wouldn’t be for a long time.  Humans and monsters rarely visited the park, so it wouldn’t be surprising not to see him there.

What was his name again?

Thinking hard on the question, you realize that you forgot it.  Although, that’s not really surprising.  You rarely remember names after all.  You usually got by by reading the nametags on your nurses uniforms, but the names never really stuck with you.  Ah well.  You probably wouldn’t see him again anyway.

Settling down on a channel, you ease yourself into bed and watch the screen flashing whatever show was showing at this hour.  Eventually, you fell asleep.

//-//

When you returned to the park, there you weren’t surprised to see that no one was there.  After spending some time there, the skeleton had yet to show up.  When you had spent a solid hour out on the bench, you packed up your backpack and headed towards the small shopping district that was located by the park.

Half an hour later found you browsing the bookshelves of the used bookstore, the old couple manning the store idly reading whatever books interested them at the moment.  The bookstore was one of your favorites, as it held a collection of books that always interested you, and the elderly couple were kind and happy to have you as a frequent customer.  

“Mmm…”  At the moment, you were pondering whether or not you should buy Frankenstein, the thick read weighing heavily in your hands.  You wondered how much lighter it would make your wallet, and suddenly the book grew even heavier in your hands.  

“Ahh, Frankenstein.  Interesting pick.”  You turn your head to see the elderly woman standing next to you, smiling as she puts back the book she was reading.  “Makes you wonder who the real monster is in that whole mess.  Ohohoho!”  

“What makes you say that?”  You thumb through the pages absentmindedly as she looks through the bookshelves for another book to read.  

“Well, the book is titled after the main character.  But the name belongs to the creator, not the monster.  Don’t you find that interesting?”

“A lot of things are interesting, in my opinion.”  Despite your response, you found yourself eagerly reading the first page of the book.  It started out with a letter.  How strange.

“It might be a difficult read for you, but I have faith in your ability.  Considering the world we live in now, maybe dabbling back into Frankenstein wouldn’t be such a bad idea.”  

“Maybe.”  Without a word, she ambles away to the cash register and takes her place behind it, looking at you expectantly.  

Damn.  Well, you already started reading it, so why not right?  You make your way to the old lady and put the book down, taking out your wallet as she rings up the price.  Luckily, the book doesn’t cost as much you thought it would and you nod your goodbye as you leave.  As you leave the store, an insulted voice rings out from somewhere in the back of the store.

“Why didn’t you tell me that they were back again?!  I didn’t even get to say hello!”

You leave, smiling as his wife laughs in response.

//-//

“COUSIN!”

“AARRGH!”

A blur tackles you in your bed, book flying up in the air as the force of your cousin knocks it out of your hands.  It lands with a heavy thump, probably leaving a few pages bent and folded over.  You huff in annoyance and shove your cousin away.  With a giggle, she sits down on the bed as her brother meanders his way in.

“Sup.”

“Sup.”  

“Sup!”  He bends down and picks up your fallen book, looking over the title with a raised eyebrow.

“Frankenstein huh?  Not my choice for a good read, but whatever floats your boat cuz.”  He sits down on your chair and grins, putting the book down safely on your table.  “But how are ya?  We haven’t visited you in like…”

“Three days!  Three days too long!”  His sister, ever so excited, clings to you as you huff again.

“Three days of peace and quiet, thank you.”

“It’s always a riot with us around.”  His grin gets bigger and he leans back.  “Besides, you can’t just talk to your nurses only.  What kind of loner would that make you?”

“A content one.  I got to go out recently you know.”

“Ooooh, that’s great!  We can start hanging out now!”  

“Nah.”

“Oh.  Ouch.”  Ben holds a hand over his heart and feigns pain.  “That hurts, cuz.”

“Oh whatever!  You’ll join us one of these days.”  Kelsy grins eagerly at you, and you can’t help but smile back.

“One of these days.  When I feel like it.”

“Booooo!”  The three of you laugh and snort, and Kelsy begins to blather on about how her schoolwork has been going on, the happenings in their family, and how Ben was slowly getting better at baking muffins.  While she was keeping you busy with her one-sided conversation, Ben was pulling out a textbook from his bag and setting it on your bed.

“School time.”  Kelsy paused mid-sentence and groaned.

“Right now?  Do they really need to learn math and stuff.”  She looks at you and you shrug, already flipping through the pages to where you left off.  Ben just chuckles and pulls out a notebook and some pens.

“Just cause you don’t like math doesn’t mean I should skimp out on their education.  Besides, you’re better at it than me, why don’t you teach them instead?”  She puffs out her cheeks and looks away.

“Cause I hate math.”

“Suit yourself.”  He moves the chair closer to your bed and starts on your math lessons.  Ever since they realized that you wouldn’t be allowed to go to school due to your weak state, Ben had taken it upon himself to teach you whatever he was being taught in class.  This involved frequent visits to the hospital during their high school years, and lots of cursing on Kelsy’s part since Ben frequently “forgot” his textbooks in your hospital room.  Luckily, he never seemed to need them so you worried less and less as time went on.  Now, your cousins were both in college and the visits were less frequent.  However, it only meant that Ben was even more focused on making sure you were being taught during their visits.  Kelsy would entertain herself on your laptop while the two of you worked, and so no one was really discontent during the visits.

As you powered through math, Ben was preparing another book from inside his bag when there was a knock on the door.

“Knock knock!”  Ah, only your monster nurse did that.  

“Come in!”  The monster shambles into the room, taking in the sight of your guests before smiling pleasantly and placing her clipboard down.

“Oh hello!  I hope I wasn’t interrupting anything.”  Ben smiles easily and shakes his head.

“Nah, Rajena.  Think cuz here just finished with their math.  Right?”  You look down at the math problems and figured yeah, you were pretty much done with them.  Now, were they all correct?  Absolutely not, but you could just bother Kelsy into helping out later.  

“Yeah I’m pretty done with math.”

“But I’m not done with this laptop.”  Kelsy leans closer to the screen and grumbles, typing furiously away.  

“Well, I need to do their check up real quick, so if you don’t mind?”  

“Oh right.  Kelsy get off the bed.”  Your cousin lets out a groan but lets her brother pull her off, laptop still being held in her hands.

“Alrighty!  Now, as you know…”

“Yeah, we both have to leave.  Gotcha.”  Ben starts to pull Kelsy out of the room as she protests.

“What- why can’t we stay?!”  Ben sighs as they leave.

“Because it’s super private.  We’ve been through this.”

“But if she does anything suspicious-!”  The door closes on her sentence, and you let out a sigh.  You look over at your nurse, finding her still smiling and looking at ease.

“Um, sorry about that.”  She shakes her hand and gestures you to move to the edge of the bed.  As you do so, she holds her hands out to start the procedure.

“No, I understand.  It’s not all the time that family members are made to leave during a check-up.  And besides, she treats me nicely enough when we bump into each other in the hospital.  She’s just concerned for you.”

“Yeah, I know.  I just wish she didn’t have to be so…  Mean about it sometimes.”  Your soul is being pulled out as she hums thoughtfully, the little gill tentacle things on her head wiggling as she works.

“I don’t think she’s being mean.  Maybe a bit on edge, but that’s alright.  That passes once she sees you.”

“Heh, yeah.”  She smiles at you as she goes through with her routine.  Several minutes pass before she nods her head and allows it to sink back into your chest.  

“Okay, that’s it for today.”

“No shots?”  You haven’t seen your human nurse all day, and usually she’d come with your monster and give you the shot before she examines your soul.

“Nope.  Miss Millie will be coming in later to explain why.”

“Why can’t you explain?”  She grins mischievously as she makes her way to the door.

“Because Miss Millie wants to.”

“What?”  Before you can question your nurse anymore, she leaves with a “ta-ta!” and leaves the door open for you cousins.  They enter and resume their respective places, chattering as they continue their conversation from outside.

“-but she really looks like that one character from Animal Crossing!”

“No offense sis, but I have no clue who you could be referring to.”

“You know!  The weird pink looking one!”

“I dunno about you, but she doesn’t look THAT weird.  Plus that’s rude.”

“Not her!  THE CHARACTER!”  

“Chill.”  You intervene before Kelsy starts up a shout-fest, poking Ben in the cheek as he grins in a way that echoes your nurse’s grin.  “So, science next?”

//-//

You wake up, the sun shining down on your face pleasantly as you roll onto your side.  It was a nice day out.  Smiling, you stretch out on you bed before staring up at the ceiling.  Your human nurse had practically waltzed her way into your room last night, bursting with joy when she told you wouldn’t need shots every day from now on - in fact, you’d only get them every other day!  Yay!  The doctors had noted that your immune system had gotten a bit stronger, so they decided to lessen the amount of shots you received to ensure that the medicine wouldn’t cause an accidental overdose.  Which was nice, since it meant that you didn’t have to look forward to being jabbed with a needle everyday, but rather every other day.

Eventually, you’d maybe get it shortened to three shots a week.  Now wouldn’t that be nice?  

But things take time to progress, and the fact that your immune system was actually getting better really did make you happy.  It meant that you wouldn’t have to suffer through colds and coughs as frequently now.  Nice.

Your stomach growls, reminding you that you need to get some food before you starve.  Food is essential to a healthy body, which is something you’re trying to desperately maintain the image of.  After taking your medicine, you shuffle out into the hallway and head towards the cafeteria.  

You get the feeling that today will be a good day for a walk.

[arremaster]

Weekly Reflection (Week 3)

At the end of this week, I came to the conclusion, I hate working from home, I much prefer working at college / an actual work environment rather than my bedroom, in my opinion there are just so many distractions at home whilst at college you are in one room surrounding by others doing the same thing as you. This was an issue I had in my FMP last year and something that I’m starting to feel now, but I won’t let it drag the quality of my work down.

In this past week, I have managed to finally make my timer in my game work as intended and also polished up a few more of the coding so its not all over the place and producing errors, but I also now have an issue with my second race I was gonna do, which now crashes Unreal every time I try to open it, but this may be due to how my Unreal at home is on .26 whilst the project itself is in .25 so I may need to downgrade to work on my second race but this would also mean having to redo all my new coding, as a result of this I have disconnected the button that opens the second race level as even pressing it in game will crash, so until I get it to work it’ll remain disconnected. The game is basically at a point where I could upload it onto itch or gamejolt (or similar platforms) this would allow me to get information and feedback from my peers or maybe even people from around the world, which could be really beneficial to my project. 

My next steps forward are gonna be to work on the main menu and finally incorporate a settings menu, because currently it just opens a menu of nothingness and you also can’t get off it. I aim to add more detail in the menus and not just have be a black screen with some white basic looking text. Now that I have access to photoshop at home I can get around to make some stylised buttons, images or text for my game in order to make the menu carry the same level of quality the rest of my game has.

[ronnykblair]

Public Pension Fund Investment Management: Interviews, Jobs, and More

Have you noticed that roles at pension funds attract almost no interest online?

There are countless articles, videos, and threads about investment banking, private equity, and hedge funds, but almost nothing about pensions.

But pension fund investment management roles can offer plenty of benefits, from solid work/life balance to access to the best portfolio managers in the world.

And, unlike in traditional finance roles, you might even help people who need it and do something good for the world – as our reader today found out:

Public Pension Fund Investment Management: What It Is and How to Break In

Q: Can you summarize your story for us?

A: Sure. I grew up in “a Southern state” in the U.S., studied finance at a non-target university, and then joined a rotational program at a middle-market investment bank.

One of my roles in that program was to analyze and recommend investment managers (mutual funds and hedge funds) to clients, and the job intrigued me.

I couldn’t network my way into a full-time role there, but a few months later, I found a similar role at a public pension fund in a “large state” (i.e., in the top 10 by population).

I interviewed for the role, won an offer, and have been here ever since.

I’m at the hedge fund allocator here, which means that we evaluate funds, hire and fire managers, and find new managers who fit our strategies.

It’s similar to what a fund of funds does, with a few key differences – which we’ll get into later.

Q: OK. Can you briefly describe what pension funds do and the key benefits of working for one rather than a hedge fund or private equity firm?

A: Sure. First, note that most U.S.-based funds are quite different from the ones in Canada, which increasingly operate like traditional private equity firms and hedge funds.

In the U.S., pension funds invest employee contributions into pension plans, aim for a certain annualized return, and then distribute the proceeds to the beneficiaries when they retire.

Public pension funds are ones run by federal, state, and local governments to provide for the retirements of public-sector employees such as teachers and police.

Some of these funds have groups dedicated to direct investing, but most also do a significant amount of fund-of-funds-style investing, where the goal is to back the best hedge funds, mutual funds, and private equity firms.

The main benefits of working in pension fund investment management include:

Building Relationships and Learning from the Best Investment Managers and Hedge Funds – I get access to managers at funds like Bridgewater, Pershing Square, Citadel, Millennium, PDT Partners, Two Sigma, AQR, and Marshall Wace here.

Improving Beneficiaries’ Lives – My work directly contributes to beneficiaries that truly need the help, such as teachers in underfunded elementary schools. This is in sharp contrast to many other roles in finance, where the goals could be summarized as “make the rich even richer.”

Work/Life Balance – I work 45-50 hours per week and travel 1-2x per quarter to meet with hedge fund managers. We’re not under pressure to do deals constantly, so the 80-hour workweeks you see with investment banking hours simply don’t exist.

The downsides of working in pension fund investment management include:

Much lower compensation than in IB/PE roles.

More bureaucracy since you’re working for the government.

Undesirable living locations at some funds (e.g., Sacramento if you’re at CalPERS in California).

Q: Thanks for that summary.

What types of candidates do you usually recruit? Could someone get in straight out of undergrad?

A: Funds usually want candidates with some full-time experience, either as “capital introduction analysts” (professionals at large banks who introduce their prime brokerage clients to potential investors) or in other buy-side roles.

Your work as a cap intro analyst is quite similar because you analyze investment managers and recommend them to institutional investors based on their preferences.

You’ll also develop a useful network of fund managers, an understanding of investors’ mentality, and an understandable story (e.g., you have experience and still want to be in the industry at a high level without the hours and stress due to family/other commitments).

If you’re a recent grad at the MBA or undergrad level, it’s often best to start at a college endowment fund.

Many of these funds have $1 – $10 billion in AUM, they tend to be open-minded, and they make faster decisions about hiring investment managers.

You can learn the ropes there and then leverage the skill set at a pension fund.

Q: And what should you expect in the recruiting process for pension fund investment management?

A: First, the process will take 3-4 months between the first interview and the final one, mostly because of the bureaucracy that comes with a government entity. That would be an eternity at an investment bank, but it’s par for the course here.

You’ll go through at least 3 interviews, a case study (“Should we keep or fire Hedge Fund Manager X?”), and an Excel test.

All the interviews questions revolve around teamwork, communications, and your investment beliefs.

Every decision here is a team decision, so there will be quite a few behavioral questions, and the same goes for communication skills; your guide to investment banking fit questions applies to pension funds as well since you need to present concrete examples and stories.

For the questions about investment beliefs, you can prepare and learn more by:

Investing and developing your own track record, especially using more complex strategies such as ones that include derivatives.

Studying the strategies used by famous hedge funds. For example, I’m a big fan of Cliff Asness at AQR and read a lot of his writing and his firm’s whitepapers, from which I developed some of my own beliefs (e.g., that quality + momentum investing is a killer combination and the Warren Buffett is overrated as a “value investor”).

Pension Fund Interview Questions and Strategies

Q: Any chance you could share some of the questions that candidates might receive in pension fund investment management interviews?

A: Sure. I’ll separate these by category:

Resume, Teamwork, and Communications

“Walk me through your resume.”

“Tell us about a time when a colleague treated you unfairly and explain how you dealt with the situation.”

“When you are a member of a team, what type of role do you tend to assume? For example, do you generate ideas, take notes, run the numbers, or plan out tasks?”

“Can you describe a time when you told a team about some uncomfortable truths that the other members did not want to acknowledge?”

“What’s the best way to communicate a complex topic to an audience who doesn’t know you?”

“Tell us about a project that met resistance initially, but which you pushed through to completion. How did you organize your efforts and overcome the resistance?”

These questions may seem a bit different, but they’re not difficult if you’ve outlined your story and prepared your 3 “short stories.”

Most of them are just disguised strength/weakness or success/failure questions.

Investment Beliefs

“What’s your view on active vs. passive investing? How might a move to more passive investment approaches impact the equities market?”

“How would you think about factor exposure (e.g., value, momentum, and quality) when building an equity portfolio?”

“Suppose that you’re aiming to build a portfolio of long-only equity managers who will outperform the global equity markets. How would you implement this portfolio, and which issues would you consider?”

“What is the most overused statistic when measuring performance and risk, and which statistic does not get enough attention?”

“You’re going to meet with a hedge fund manager for the first time. What would be the 3 most important takeaways from that meeting?”

“Suppose that you’re analyzing a fund, and your gut feeling contradicts the numbers. How would you resolve the conflict?”

There are not necessarily “correct” answers to these questions – but there are well-thought-out answers and poorly reasoned ones.

Q: Great. And what about the case study and Excel test?

A: The Excel test is fairly basic and assesses your knowledge of functions like IRR, NPV, HLOOKUP/VLOOKUP, INDEX/MATCH, and other financial formulas. If you have at least some experience with modeling and valuation, it’s straightforward.

The case study involves an exercise like the one you described in your private equity funds of funds article, where look at criteria such as historical performance in different markets, realized vs. unrealized gains, team structure/cohesion, and strategy and risk exposure.

For example, if a fund has consistently delivered 20% annualized returns, the fund size and senior managers have been very consistent, and no “one-time wins” have propped up its returns, you might recommend investing.

On the other hand, if the fund’s performance has been spotty, with huge variations from year to year, and it wants to double its size next year, you might recommend against it.

The Pension Fund Analyst Job Description: A Day in the Life

Q: Thanks for that explanation. Moving on, can you tell us about the job itself?

Also, can we return to that point about how pension fund investment management is different from a fund of funds?

A: I spend most of my time sourcing new potential managers and evaluating existing managers, so hire/fire decisions are always top of mind.

I take an average of 1-2 calls or meetings per day, which usually means speaking with team members or external managers.

Once we make a hire/fire decision, we present a lot of analysis to make the case to the broader team and the investment committee.

These activities take up around 95% of my time.

The work is different from fund-of-funds jobs because we focus on finding specific types of managers that meet our criteria for AUM and strategy.

Funds of funds are often more general in their sourcing; they see a lot of managers and can write smaller checks, but we don’t even pay attention to the manager unless we can write a 9-figure check.

They also tend to make investment decisions (both “hire” and “fire” ones) more quickly, which is why some in the industry view FoF investments as “low-quality capital”: it comes and goes easily.

Q: Digging into this in a bit more depth, can you explain how you would analyze a hedge fund and make an investment recommendation?

A: First, I would try to understand the specific market inefficiency that the manager is trying to exploit.

Then, I would assess whether or not they have an “edge” in exploiting it, and then I would try to understand how they make decisions.

Most managers cannot even articulate the inefficiency they’re taking advantage of, so they get eliminated in step one.

If the manager can explain this adequately, and it seems like they have a clear “edge” regarding proprietary technology/data, a niche market, or a different investment philosophy, I might take a deeper look.

We can figure out the first two parts – the inefficiency and the edge – via the sourcing process, the investor deck, and an introductory call; the time-consuming part is understanding how the investor makes decisions.

That includes everything from how they size positions to when they buy/sell/add/trim positions to when they hire personnel and how they handle underperformance.

This process can take years because we have to observe the manager in different market conditions.

But if the person seems promising, he/she will be seriously considered once a spot in our portfolio is available.

Pension Fund Salary Levels and Hierarchy

Q: You mentioned earlier that the hours and lifestyle are fairly good, but the compensation is also much lower than IB/PE pay. Can you quantify that?

A: I can try!

The usual hierarchy in pension fund investment management is Investment Analyst, Investment Officer, Senior Investment Officer, Portfolio Manager, Program Director, and Chief Investment Officer (CIO).

At the Analyst level, base pay is a discount to base pay in equity research, which, in turn, is a discount to investment banking salaries.

Your base salary will grow as you advance, but by far less than it would grow in IB, PE, or even ER, and your bonus will never come close because you’re working for the government.

Rather than paying you a large bonus, public pension funds would prefer to increase beneficiaries’ benefits or save the money for a rainy day.

My rough estimates for pay in pension fund investment management roles in mid-sized-to-larger U.S. states would be (as of 2018):

Investment Analyst: $60 – $100K

Investment Officer: $100 – $125K

Senior Investment Officer: $125 – $175K

Portfolio Manager: $200 – $300K

Program Director: $300 – $400K

CIO: $400 – $600K

Some CIOs at large funds can earn more than that (e.g., closer to $1 million), but the path to the top is much slower than in investment banking, and pay is far lower in entry to mid-level roles.

You can also Google terms like “[State Name] pension fund compensation” and look up the data for yourself because governments are required to report salaries publicly.

The trade-off is that the hours are far better (45-50 per week), and my schedule is very predictable; my hours tend to spike only when I’m part of a team bringing a hiring recommendation to the investment committee.

Pension Fund Exit Opportunities

Q: Thanks for that overview. What are the potential exit opportunities from pension fund investment management?

A: If you’re earlier in your career, the most common exit opportunity is to move to another buy-side role, such as at a hedge fund or asset management firm.

I’ve seen ambitious Analysts join emerging market macro hedge funds, become quant researchers at the top hedge funds, and even start their own hedge funds.

You could also get into a good MBA program from here, though the top 3 programs will still be challenging regardless of your background.

If you’re later in your career, this role is typically the end goal, and the main exit opportunity is joining another pension fund.

If you want to do that, I strongly recommend working for a firm that believes in active management because it will help you develop your views and will lead to better lateral opportunities.

Q: Great. To sum up everything, what are the best and worst parts of the job, and how can someone decide if it’s right for them?

A: The best part is that you get to learn investing from the smartest minds in the industry and pick the brains of the top managers about their entire decision-making process.

And while you are taking risk and investing money, you are doing so in a less stressful way than at the typical hedge fund, and you’re helping people who need the financial security.

The worst parts are the bureaucracy and the number of meetings – some days, you will simply run from meeting to meeting without getting any real work done.

Everything moves slowly, and sometimes you can’t bring ideas to the committee because a single person is opposed to the manager’s style.

The Board of Trustees may also get in the way of investment decisions, though that’s more common on the private equity side.

The best way to decide if this role is right for you is to complete an internship in a related area, such as at a fund of funds or in a group that deals with asset allocation and fund manager selection at a large bank.

Q: Thanks for your time! I learned a lot.

A: My pleasure.

The post Public Pension Fund Investment Management: Interviews, Jobs, and More appeared first on Mergers & Inquisitions.

from ronnykblair digest https://www.mergersandinquisitions.com/pension-fund-investment-management/

[counterstrike2-blog1]

Download and Install Counter Strike On Android

The Counter-Strike series may consistently hit the top end on Steam's chart of concurrent users today, but this competitive multiplayer phenomenon began with humble origins. To commemorate the 15 years that have passed since Counter-Strike was first released, I spoke to co-creator Minh "Gooseman" Le for an insight into the creation of the original mod, and its evolution into a standalone game.

counter strike android

At its core, Counter-Strike focuses on an ongoing multiplayer battle between two teams; the terrorists and the counter-terrorists. Both teams have objectives that need to be met in order to win a round and gain a point, which contributes to the larger goal of gaining enough points to secure overall victory.

For Le, the decision to create a game centered on the conflict between terrorist and counter-terrorist squads spawned from a personal interest in the subject. "There weren't a whole lot of games out there that dealt with that theme," Le said, although he did cite Rainbow Six as a sole example. "I thought it was kind of like a mysterious topic that hadn't been covered as well."

Such a theme required a more realistic setting for the game he envisioned, which was the main reason why Le chose to mod Half-Life. At the time, Unreal Tournament and Quake were also available, but lacked the inherent realism he sought to achieve and would have required more work. Despite the learning curve Half-Life's then-new engine presented, Le was passionate about making the game, working "about 30 or 40" hours per week on the project while studying at university.

"I was really just hoping we would find a small player base to grow from--nothing too substantial," he said. When the mod first launched, the reaction from the community shocked Le, who was taken aback by the amount of popularity it quickly gained.

Feedback from the community was facilitated by Jess Cliffe, who ran the website where player discussion was held. Communication with fans was paramount to the development of the subsequent versions of Counter-Strike, with Le making alterations to the game according to feedback he received.

Le described the process as an "open development" operation, due to the level of involvement the community had.

"We didn't actually make any of the levels for Counter-Strike, all of the levels were made by the community. They would make levels and submit them to us, and we would review them. We would choose which ones we liked and include those in the next version we released. So basically that is how the game was developed. It was me, my partner Cliffe, and the community. It was kind of like crowd development." Le said.

His goal to create a shooter steeped in realism paid off, with Valve taking interest and acquiring the rights to re-release the game for PC in 2000. In a time when first-person shooters such as Unreal Tournament and Quake were popular, Counter-Strike stood out for its slower-paced combat and emphasis on teamwork. The success of the game impacted how the genre evolved over the next few years.

"We started to see more games that emulated that style of gameplay," Le said. "They focused on realistic, slower paced fighting. After Counter-Strike became a hit, we saw games like Call of Duty and Medal of Honor. Games that were steeped in realism started to become more popular."

It was Counter-Strikes stronger emphasis on realism and straightforward mechanics which Le believes helped to make the game more attractive for competitive play.

"I think there will always be a place for CS, because people appreciate that skill-based gameplay. They really want the game to focus more on what their skills are."

"Counter-Strike is more something for the esports scene, and that's why it's distinctly different to Call of Duty and Battlefield 4. I think there will always be a place for CS, because people appreciate that skill-based gameplay. They really want the game to focus more on what their skills are."

Le went on to join Valve and worked on developing Counter-Strike: Source, a remake of the first game powered by Half-Life 2's Source engine. While the game retains a high number of concurrent players on Steam today, initial reactions from the community were divided. The backlash was surprising to Valve, whom Le described as having expected "everyone to jump over from the older version". To him, the differences between the games felt "very subtle".

For example, a number of Counter-Strike maps have remained fundamentally unchanged throughout the different versions of the game.

"But a lot of the hardcore players, they feel that it's a night and day difference." He said. Le described the issue as a point of frustration for Valve, who subsequently approached development of the follow-up game, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, in a different light.

"I think Valve got to the point where they were like, 'Yeah, it's impossible to please everybody'." Le said. "So they just focused on making CS: GO as good as a product as they can for whoever chooses to play it."

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive went on to be released in 2012, 13 years after the launch of the original mod. The suitability of the game for competitive play has contributed to its longevity in the esports scene, with it featured most recently in this year's Electronic Sports League (ESL) Intel Extreme Masters Grand Finals held in Katowice. The event saw the best Counter-Strike teams in the world compete for a $250,000 prize pool as a record number of viewers spectated.

Le did not foresee that the series would possess such a long life. "Even five years ago I thought it was going to die out," he admitted. "It's just amazing how much longevity it's shown. But I think all of it is attributed to Valve's involvement in the franchise."

Although many of the fundamentals of the Counter-Strike games throughout the years, the landscape of the genre has evolved significantly since the game was first released. In comparison to the Call of Duty and Battlefield games, Le dubs Counter-Strike "a simple game".

Speaking about the future of the genre, Le expressed a desire for change in player movement. To him, introducing dynamic movement seemed the most appropriate way for shooters to evolve.

"Titanfall for example, it pushes the boundaries in how the player can move and by doing that it allows more diversity in gameplay. I think that's something we'll see more in future games." Le said. Such mechanics have already been explored in the likes of other games such as Warfaceand Brink.

Fifteen years after the first version of the mod was released, the Counter-Strike series has sold over 25 million copies, spawned several different successful iterations, and established itself as a core title in competitive gaming. While the first-person shooter genre has shifted dramatically away from what it was 15 years ago, Counter-Strike still retains a strong user base--a testament to the timeless relevance of the game.

[bestmovies0]

Kings of loser comedy: how Flight of the Conchords took off

New Zealands fourth most well known folk-parody act are on a sold-out arena tour. Is there a shrewdness behind the duos laidback shtick?

Few comics ever play London’s O2 Arena and fewer still oversee three nights in a row. Those who do tend to have some things in common: a relatable observational style, limited creative desire and ruthless commercial savvy. None of which applies to Flight of the Conchords, perhaps the unlikeliest act ever to reach those airless elevations of the comic stratosphere.

I insured Flight of the Conchords last week, warming up for their forthcoming realms tour with a run at the 140 -seat Soho theatre. Watching their suite of kooky sungs about medieval romance, piano-playing seagulls and spoonful thieves, laughing at their low-key converse and minutely detailed interplay, the believed to be their imminent transfer to arena stages was supremely incongruous. Not least to the Conchords themselves.” We’ll continue that in for the O2 ,” they’d remark, after this or that improvised quip or ramshackle moment of fun.

If you first learnt Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement, as I did, in a dingy cellar on the Edinburgh fringe 15 years ago, you are able struggle to wrap your head around the scale of their new tour. But if you factor in a Disney film, writing an Oscar-winning song for The Muppets, a sleeper make HBO sitcom, and the fact that this musical-comedy duo is one of the funniest and most talented acts to come along in two decades- well, an explanation have started to take shape.

It’s certainly not down to any dead-eyed careerism. In my 20 years of interviewing comics, few showed as shambling and un-starry as McKenzie and Clement in 2003– the year they were nominated for Edinburgh’s Perrier award. The previous year, theirs had been the festival’s breakout present, due largely to word-of-mouth enthusiasm spread by fellow comics.

Watch the chant Hiphopopotamus vs Rhymenoceros, from episode three of Flight of the Conchords.

Their shtick was artless banter spliced with improbable comic ballads , notable for their pernickety lyrics and eclectic musicianship. Zoological rap combat Hiphopopotamus Vs Rhymenoceros was an early favourite (” They call me the Hiphopopotamus/ My lyrics are bottomless” and” I’m not a large water-dwelling mammal/ Where did you get that absurd hypothesis ?”). The Humans Are Dead, with its” binary solo” and robo-vocal report of the cataclysm, was another, while their Space Oddity spoof Bowie’s in Space was achingly near the mark.

With merely a couple of acoustic guitars and a digital glockenspiel, they were maestros of every pop music style imaginable, although they concealed their talent with gags.” You can tell when we’ve learned a new chord ,” they told me,” because we’ll use it in our next three anthems .” On stage, they played losers who thought they were wins. Off stage, they were wins who pretended to be losers. They’d been invited to Hollywood to pitch a project, they told me- but” you needed a clearly defined suggestion of what you wanted to do, and we didn’t have any suggestion at all “. So they were sent packing.

I left that interview unsure whether I’d gratified the “real” Clement and McKenzie or an extension of the gormless act. From the off, they excelled at clambering true and fiction- as per the blissful bit of onstage talk in which they guess when the other is in character (” You’re in … now you’re out … now you’re in …”) It helped that they took deadpan to whole new tiers of blankness.

” It’s so dry and so Kiwi ,” says their compatriot and fellow comic Rose Matafeo, who is not alone in tracing much of the Conchords’ distinctiveness back to their national character.” The constant self-deprecation, the playing it straight, these are so common in New Zealand. We’re at the bottom of the world, so isolated. We’re like what the fuck is happen if “youve left” someone alone in a chamber for a day .”

Jarred Christmas, another New Zealand comic, is surprised how far this took them.” I never envisioned there’d be an international espouse of that. I’d never seen that happen, comedy-wise .” Christmas co-starred in the Conchords’ eponymous 2005 Radio 2 sitcom, as did Jimmy Carr, Daniel Kitson and Rob Brydon( the Conchords have always surrounded themselves with fast-rising flair ).” What struck me ,” Christmas says,” is that no matter how laidback they find themselves, they’ve always believed they’re good enough. You’ll notice that, on the radio demonstrate , not one of their chants was played in full. So they retained the rights, rather than those defaulting to the BBC. Clearly, they had their visions set on something bigger .”

No strife, only placid acceptance … the HBO series Flight of the Conchords. Photograph: BBC/ Paul Schiraldi/ HBO

Something bigger duly came in 2007, with the launch of the duo’s HBO sitcom, again eponymously named. They played themselves as hapless immigrants in New York, inducing zero impression as a band whose director( played by Rhys Darby) moonlights as a culture attache at the New Zealand consulate. The series feigned to taunt their homeland’s eccentricity and boringness. But, really, it celebrated those qualities. Eccentricity and boringness were the show’s touchstones, while its USP was the radical flatness of McKenzie and Clement’s performances. They took the faux-real stylings of The Office et al and ratcheted up the humdrum, but blended it with wildly incongruous flares of carol in which Bret and Jemaine’s fantasy lives paraded in all the regions of the screen.

The show ran for two series, featuring soon-to-be-illustrious co-stars( Aziz Ansari, Kristen Wiig) and winning Emmy nominations. Clement and McKenzie likewise won a 2008 Grammy for best comedy album. The series was never more than a cult hitting, in the UK at least, but its significance outperformed its ratings. It opened the world up to indie Kiwi culture and alerted American Tv to overseas flair. Where McKenzie and Clement led, the likes of Trevor Noah, John Oliver and James Corden have followed. Likewise, in its depiction of failure, in its disdain for TV conventions( it was part-improvised ), and in its uniquely hip brand of musical comedy, the present proved more influential than its modest impact at the time might suggest.

Conventionally, failing in comedy has been something to rail against: it’s the fight that builds it funny. In Flight of the Conchords, there is no battle, merely placid adoption.” It demonstrated you didn’t have to be an alpha male ,” says Christmas- and in so doing, it winged the flag for a new generation stimulating more arty and intimate, less obvious and aggressive slapstick. But it cross-fertilised that strain with the gentle surrealism of Spaced and The Mighty Boosh, to show that you could be dorky losers and rock deities, showed bachelors and lotharios.

Key to this were the hymns, two per episode, that underscore the flights of fancy that offset( or should that be overtake ?) Bret and Jemaine’s feckless real lives. The songs alter current realities, moving the plot along in unreal routes, as if singing yourself out of loser-dom genuinely were an option. Narratively, it stimulated tenuous sense, but you were enjoying the hymns too much to care.

” One of the hardest things in musical comedy is to write a number that people want to hear again ,” says Phil Nichol, of 1990 s Canadian musical comedy act Corky and the Juice Pigs.” Usually, once you’ve heard the gags at the end of each stanza, you know all you need to know. But both Jemaine and Bret are astounding musicians. They write stuff that stimulates you think,’ Wow, why didn’t I write that ?’ Their ballads are exceptionally replayable .” Many of them match or even overshadow the trails they pastiche- such as the Emmy-nominated Carol Brown( based on Paul Simon’s 50 Lane to Leave Your Lover ), or the Peter Sarstedt take-off Rambling Through the Avenues of Time.

The villainous crustacean Tamatoa voiced by Jemaine Clement in Disney’s Moana. Photograph: Allstar/ Walt Disney Productions

It’s certainly a rare accomplishment to stimulate musical comedy cool . A rarer feat still is to alumnu from writing funny sungs to winning best chant Oscars, which McKenzie did in 2012 with Man or Muppet from that year’s Muppets movie. Clement’s interim job has been even more eye-catching, with voiceover roles as Fleshlumpeater in Steven Spielberg’s The BFG, as the villainous crustacean Tamatoa in Disney’s Moana, and as intergalactic criminal Boris” the Animal” in Men in Black III.

” People who discovered them at the movies have then gone back and watched Flight of the Conchords ,” says Christmas.” And the sitcom did what The Office did: it stopped at its peak, arguably before its peak, so people have remained perpetually desperate for more .”

And now they’re get it, as McKenzie and Clement touch down for the UK leg of their world tour.” They’ve just been so consistently good over their entire job ,” says Matafeo, who credits the life she’s living today as a New Zealand comic, based in the UK and working internationally, to their example.” Everyone has their own special relationship with a stage of the Conchords’ job. Some people learnt them early, at Edinburgh. Some people- like me- recollect downloading bootlegs of their hymns from the internet. And some people came to them after the sitcom finished. It’s all been so good that, whenever you encounter them, you fall in love with them .”

Flight of the Conchords are at Portsmouth Guildhall from 5-7 March. Then touring the UK until 3 April. Phil Nichol’s tour Your Wrong starts in September . li>

Read more: https :// www.theguardian.com/ stage/ 2018/ disfigured/ 04/ flight-of-the-conchords-comedy-tour

from https://bestmovies.fun/2018/03/06/kings-of-loser-comedy-how-flight-of-the-conchords-took-off/

[jiaquanliufutureworks-blog]

Project Evaluation + Reflection – 1500 Words

For this project we have been assigned to groups of four and were given the freedom to create any game we desired in the span of six weeks.  Without a structure to base our game from, we began researching into multiple genres that all of us would enjoy producing. From a process of elimination, we came across the decision to create a comedy, fantasy role playing game which everyone had high hopes for. David then proposed the idea to base the game from a comedy show, Blackadder, however with a little twist; the characters will be portrayed as animals instead of humans. With no other ideas or objections, we agreed on the suggestion.

Split into different roles, I was selected the role of environment artist. However, the prop artist of our team is frequently absent, therefore I switched into prop artist and the whole team evenly distributed the environment artist’s work. The reason I took the role of prop artist instead of sharing the work amongst each other was because that we required a lot of props in our game which is also the main priority in gameplay. By taking charge of the props, it will be completed on schedule. The environment assets are not as important, as its main role is to make the game aesthetically pleasing. This will enable us to be on top of the environment artist’s work if he does not complete the assignments on time. As a result it has been proven really effective as the only work we received from that individual was a barrel without texture.

During the first two weeks of the project I noticed that other projects have been interfering with the schedule we had planned which dragged me behind on the character modelling. It was really difficult to keep on track of the planner, this mostly due to the fact that stylising characters is complicated. I did not expect that creating my own version of characters would require so much thought and adjusting. And since most of my models revolved around characters, it took me a long time to complete them. Although the modelling was the biggest factor of difficulty, the UV and texturing was pretty straight forward and did not cause any problems. For the characters, I used mainly flat colours and hand painted some clothing and details using the brush tool on substance painter. I also left out the arms, legs and eyes as they will be animated in Unreal Engine for a more entertaining effect. After finishing ten character models I noticed that I was incredibly behind schedule and had to scrap the hedgehog and weasel characters. The other team members did not object with this as they were also behind therefore it was the best option to get everyone back on track as it also removes implementing the dialog and interactions for those characters.

Having fewer models to do, I slowly caught up to the plan and finished all of my character models by week 4 andallowed me to move on to the next stage; props and environment. Unlike the character modellng, the props or environment assets does not need to be stylised. They can be based off existing props and shapes from games. I found that making these assets were a lot simpler than animals from my own creation and was able to speed through them. However, the schedule was altered by removing a few models. This lead to me doing; a tree, platform, wall, crate, closed barrel, open barrel and title screen instead of the other in game assets. Reassigning these tasks allowed me to follow up on things that needed to be produced of the highest of priority to grant the game the necessary assets for gameplay.

Throughout the whole project, I have stumbled upon many difficulties and challenges. One of which was the character modelling. It has been the most time consuming models to create as well as texture. However, I have enjoyed creating them as it shows off my style and my artistic flare. Hand painting these textures was very different than just throwing a material onto substance painter. It enabled me to customise the animals with my unique ideas and getup. I am very proud with the results of the final models, especially the badger and boar. I believe that they turned out the most promising and were exactly how I pictured them to be like. If I were to improve the character models, I would most likely be changing the queen squirrel mainly because of the texturing rather than the model itself. It was unfortunate that we had to discard some of the potential characters in the game as a result in lack of time, but I do believe that it was the best option for our current position we was in. In future, I would pay more attention to time management as it has shown to be our major downfall for this project. Since we have implemented comedy in the game, I had fun with modelling some bizarre characters such as a genuine electronic mouse rather than the animal. Although it was a simple model to produce, I enjoyed the comedy aspect of the model and how it appears in the game.

Following the character assets I also took pleasure in constructing the prop assets. They were very straightforward to produce due to the simple shapes. For the barrels and crates, I inserted a wooden texture from substance painter and then edited it to remove the seams from the texture and decorated them to look stylised. For the crate I added a black outline around the edges so it looks stylised rather than realistic as this was our approach to the theme. Similar to the crates and barrel, I applied a concrete texture to the wall model, and stylised it by drawing outlines where the bricks would appear on the model. The end results were pretty pleasing and I did not have any problems other than a small stretch on the wall’s UV when wrapped; however, I could not find a solution but it didn’t affect the quality of the model therefore it was not a big crisis. One thing I would have liked to have done if I had the chance is to learn and add animations to the assets in addition to characters.

On the other hand, I included an animation for the title page. This consists of just over a hundred frames of the main character, the fox, strolling through the forest. The scenes were copied and pasted with the silhouette moving in frames across the screen. It is a start to animation and test piece given that I have no experience with animation whatsoever. Visually, it was aesthetically pleasing and comprehensible.

Overall, the project was a success. We have functioning gameplay and we stuck towards the planner. As a modeller for this project, not many problems occurred on my side. This was probably because of how simple the models were as they were not required to be very detailed. This meant that emission or transparency was rarely used. But in the final outcome, it has proven to be aesthetically pleasing and blended well into the game. If I were given the opportunity to improve it for another project, I would like to have focused more on the props rather than characters. I noticed that the characters were more high quality than the scenery and environment, which ever so slightly distorted the way the game blends. Therefore with an even quality of props and characters, it will merge cohesively in the game’s visuals.

[enfaeutchie]

Horoscopes: December 7th, ‘17

During the time this was written, the group these were written for were getting excited about a game of the Cyberpunk TRPG "Shadowrun." Because of this, I decided to look not only ahead, but also to the side to find a series of predictions from far-off realities which could be creatively reinterpreted as relevant to the time and place at hand.

Howdy-ho, cyberfriends! I have not been looking into the future, since as we know all forms of mental or physical time travel, any method of non-approved prediction and general temporal mucking aboutery were all outlawed an unknown and possibly completely destroyed amount of time ago. If I had, though, I would be saying to keep your methods of perception peeled for the following...

Capricorn: Capricorns born during or after 2178 have been found to be susceptible to a genetic defect resulting in allergies, tiredness, and spine independence. If your local clinic, shaman or other practitioner diagnoses you with the defect, it is recommended to source a new spine before the current one gets tired of your crap and gets a job as an anatomical model. Waking up every day, brushing its vertebrae, dunking itself into a bowl of milk and settling in for a hard day's work. Spare it that fate and have it put down humanely.

Aquarius: Keep an eye out for hot, hip, happening and available newly-sentient beings in your area. New entities are emerging from their metaphorical cocoons and into your life every second! Seize the day before they reveal their new xenophobic tendencies and are wiped out for the good of the collective! Produce entirely new races as offspring which will hopefully never be killed off in any purges following hostile takeovers! Again! And again!

Pisces: Sanctioned predictions show that Pisces will likely be an ideal choice for Our Blessed Overlords' Entertainments this fortnight! Don't worry, ~~the pain goes away~~ you get used to the pain pretty quickly, and your face can sometimes even return to its original colour! And you may even make enough profit to pay for a small amount of the mental repairs so that you can remain functioning, if you give it your all!

Aries: This may be a good time to invest in that new body you were always considering! That old one won't last more than another 80 years, and the salvage value is barely present. Besides, just think of the new technology has come out since. You can't keep putting it off. It's got to happen eventually. We're all waiting for you to stop messing around and do it. Don't keep us waiting.

Taurus: Jupiter is rising, and will likely be sucked into the All-Consumer within a week. Scientists hope it will give Him indigestion. Meanwhile, making small clay effigies of Him has been shown to relieve the stress of imminent destruction of all that you have and ever would have known! Many of the small sects and religions that have sprung up around Him also believe that making enough effigies may lead to Him taking mercy on you by putting you into a relatively pleasant district of the boundless plane of eternal torment He has within Himself!

Gemini: The future is yours to seize, for there is nothing that could stop you. There is nought but perfection stretching out indefinitely, yours to shape. The sum of human effort has assembled into a pattern that will never need to be remade or changed again. This horoscope will repeat in 336 hours.

Cancer: Cancer Branch of the Universal Singularity will be going down for maintenance. In the meantime, please enjoy a series of dreams set in reconstructions of the pre-collapse 21st century in which you will experience such sensations as FLESH and EMOTION. We apologise for the inconvenience and hope to provide a better replacement service in the next cycle.

Leo: My star charts tell me that they'd be in a favourable position for you about now. Assuming we've not got our dates too wrong, heh. Anyway, the new northern route looks promising for salvage, and you've got luck on your side (so much as any of us have), so you might want to give that a look. Or maybe work on that project you've been putting off for so long. Build the new chicken coop. Oh, and mind the rad storms out in those parts. The tea leaves reckon they'll be bad. I think. This book does't mention them for some reason.

Virgo: Take a long, quiet walk down a quiet facet of unreality this fortnight (give or take depending on preference) and see one of your omens of choice. If you have not selected an omen, they are available from all main spirituality vendors. Other main buzzwords required for proper function: conjunction. Fifth house. Rising. Falling. Luck. Future. Carpe diem. Your subscription has been automatically renewed. Have a pleasant time.

Libra: O Libras, your future is bright. Your positions of power so effectively and justly wielded remain unchallenged. Your grace and intelligence without equal. There can truly be nothing that could remove you from your various thrones. Why not take some lovely exposed walks or sedan chair rides in public places just so you can show off how amazing you are? Nobody would dare do anything bad.

Scorpio: Scorpios have been chosen for this period's bad luck recipients. For the good of the colony, you will take all inconveniences previously assigned randomly to ensure proper order. It is recommended you remove yourselves from public or important duties at this time. Consider barricading yourself into your survival space. Induced sleep is advised against due to inevitable complications. You will be reimbursed for any major injury or misplacement of life.

Sagittarius: Predictions show low rates of death for you! Your sign is less likely to be brutally slaughtered this fortnight, and planets with high Sagittarius proportions are marginally less likely to be rendered inhospitable lumps of semi-molten slag! On the other hand, these things tend to equal out, so watch out for your next 'scope. Best of luck to all. I'm off to my safehouse made of Sagittarius flesh.

...This was a poor idea. But hey, here's the silver lining: no matter what happens, there will always be horoscopes. So I reckon none of it can be that bad, eh?

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