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astaroth1357 · 4 years

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Demigod MC Series: Dionysus

Hey y’all, sorry for going dark! I’m alright, almost completely recovered in fact! I just got so sleepy while my body was fighting stuff off and couldn’t really work up the energy to write... Still going to be spotty for a short time, but I’m glad to have gotten this done. See ya soon!

Demigod MC Series: Intro, Aphrodite, Hermes, Hades, Dionysus

Lucifer

Well, this mortal stumbled out of the portal covered in glitter, body paint, and carrying a red solo cup… which they proceeded to stare at like, "'ell sshhit… Thiz iz sum stron s'uff…"

First impressions were not on their side here.

He spent a depressingly long amount of time more or less assuming that the MC was a drunken f-up and spent the first few months trying to make them more… presentable.

But like… How do you stop someone from acting like a drunk fool when they can turn any drink they touch alcoholic???

For months they would show up to meetings buzzed or stumbling, all smiles and all giggles but HORRIBLY unprofessional, and he just couldn't stand it!

But then he found out their little secret…

Assassination threats befall the exchange students all the time. Most of them are dealt with quickly but some (through skill or dumb luck) manage to slip through...

He had been walking with the MC through their new vineyard in the House's courtyard, yet again trying to lecture them about their drunken behavior, when suddenly the two were ambushed!

Ten or so heavily armored demons dropped down from the sky to attack them! Lucifer was so preoccupied that he got cornered by three of them and it took him a hot minute to destroy them.

When he looked back at the mortal (who had been fighting a 1-on-7) he was certain they'd have been kidnapped or worse…

But he saw that they had already cut down two attackers with their weapon with ease. The other five were rolling in the dirt, babbling about inexplicable terrors and imaginary pain as their minds succumbed to madness…

Meanwhile, the MC just stood in the middle of it all with the icy glare of someone who’s just revealed how stone-cold sober they've always been under the surface...

When they turned back to him, they put their usual ditzy smile back on over the tormented wails of the demons around them...

MC: Whoopsie… Gotta little mad there. 🙂

He uh… took a big ol'step off their back after that. Surprisingly, they're more pleasant (and less dangerous) "drunk" than they are sober…

Mammon

Oh HELL yeah!! Lucifer actually gave him a mortal that knows how to party!!

Admittedly, they looked like utter trash when they first met, like, "Hey, I've been at this party since DAWN" trash, but they gave him one good look and pulled together a surprisingly hot smile.

MC: "-ey yer cute… Ya like strip poker?"

Spoken like someone else who also makes shit decisions… They were going to get along just fine!

And they did. The MC to him was that one friend that's always down for anything. Just anything. Whenever. Wherever.

He wants to try sneaking into Lucifer's room to steal stuff? Sure, what time?

He wants to take a mattress and see if he can ride it down the grand staircase of the palace? Alright, we bringin' pillows too?

He needs to set up another scheme that's gotta involve live rats and box of tiny hats and monocles?? That's oddly specific but count them in!!

Sometimes he honestly can't tell if they're laid back or just crave chaos... but it works out fine for him either way so who cares? 🤷‍♀️

And if you think normal Mammon is a pain in the ass for Lucifer? Check out drunk Mammon. All the same urges but literally none of the (marginal) competence!!

At one point, the eldest ended up stringing both Mammon and the MC from the ceiling after they both barged into his office looking for Goldie… while he was still in there… watching them wander around aimlessly calling out for a piece of plastic like it was a missing puppy…

They end up together on the ceiling a lot come to think of it, but hey, at least now he has some company. 😌

Leviathan

Thinks they're the most normal normie to have ever normed on this normie planet!!!

No, seriously. They're a billion times worse than Asmo!! All they want to do is go to parties and drink all the time! What kind of use is he to someone like that??

… That being said they ARE pretty fun to be around… And their sake is WAY better than anything he could get off Akuzon!!

They also like karaoke too! So at least he has someone else to go with (even if they get so drunk they can’t remember any lyrics and just belt barely coherent discount Mariah Carey vocals behind him...)

Of course, the real fun between these two is everybody else getting to watch a couple of the Devildom's sloppiest drunks attempt to communicate with each other…

Levi: MMM-*hic*-MCCC…!!! *throws himself at them from across the bar*

MC: What Leviachan??? 😨 Did the chair kick you off?!

Levi: Nooo! *pokes their cheek* I wanna-I wanna tell you sometin'...! *tries pulling them closer*

MC: Whaa? Secrets?? *leans in eagerly*

Levi: Mammon used all ma money on’a pyramid scheme a thou-zand years ago… AND HE STILL WON'T PAY ME BAAA-!!! 😭😭 *starts shaking them violently*

MC: *getting flung around like a limp noodle* Waaaat?! Nooo!!! I'm so sowwy!! 😢

Mammon: *watching it all go down right next to him* 😑 Ya guys need some water… I'm cuttin' ya off, got it?

MC: 😱 Shut yer whore mouth, criminal!! *starts pelting him with pretzel bites*

Levi: 😤 Yah!! *joins in*

Good thing he's a shut-in, because the hangovers he gets after those escapades are unreal…

Satan

A little concerned for their liver, honestly… How much damage have they already done to the poor thing...?

But at the same time, he'll be damned if they don't make some utterly fantastic wine!

Alcokinesis wasn't a power he would have pegged a demigod to have but apparently the great art of making drinks comes from their godly DNA.

When they first met, he was trying to get the MC to act less slovenly but made the mistake of agreeing to a wager: he'd let them dress however they pleased if they could give him the BEST drink he'd ever tasted.

Now, Satan isn't a huge drinker (thank you terrible alcohol tolerance), but he's still a man of fine tastes. Plus, he's sampled Demonus from Diavolo royal stock before. They should not have won…

But on that day, he had to let them go to RAD in a pink blanket toga... 😑 Their wine is just THAT good.

He hates to admit it, but they've gotten him drunk more times than he could probably count too… He's not a huge fan of clubbing with them and the others, but if they bring over a bottle from their vineyard he just can't resist. They're a master of their craft, truly.

And it's a good thing he likes their drinks so much, because if they called him, "Kitty-boy," when he's sober, he may have just become a sour grape himself…

They also may or may not have copious amounts of blackmail material of him either meowing between sentences, sobbing over some fictional character he likes, pole dancing on dares….

Yeah, he's been trying to destroy their phone for months now. If Lucifer were to see ANY of that, he's done for… 😣

He has also been meaning to ask them about other aspects of their abilities, their father is also the God of Madness after all, but anytime he tries to bring it up they shove another glass in his hand and tell him not to kill the mood...

Eh. What's the harm in having another drink, right? 🤷‍♀️

Asmodeus

Honey. He's MET Dionysus. He's been to a Dio-party or two and they're INSANE. He could not be more thrilled by this!!!

He practically scooped them up on the first night that they were in the House and it’s practically been a nonstop rave between these two ever since. They’re like the party twin he never knew he needed!!

He absolutely abuses their ability to turn pretty much any drink they touch into alcohol at clubs. It makes the nights so much easier on the wallet PLUS it makes an excellent little party trick to impress the succubi! Who doesn’t want a free drink? 😏

And can he just say that their drinks are better? Just flat out amazing! If it weren’t so unhealthy he’d consider drinking nothing but their booze and wine for the rest of his days, Satan’s certainly getting close to it.

But little does Satan know, he’s not even getting the GOOD stuff...

There’s the normal wine: grapes picked from the vineyard, hand squeezed, then magically helped through the fermenting process. But their real good stuff? They were given enchanted oak barrels from their father and anything that comes out of those is worth starting a WAR over. 😩

He knows, because he gifted an extra bottle to Diavolo once and Barbs came to him the very next day demanding to know what vineyard had produced it with the look of man willing to annex a small nation...

Asmo had to beg Lucifer to talk to Diavolo after the butler more or less kidnapped the MC back to the Castle… Devil knows even Barbs wouldn’t ever be able to reproduce their wine, so they could have been locked there for eternity!!

Thankfully, he got his party-buddy back and their debauchery continued! (Just now with Barbatos following them around sometimes like he’s trying to gather state secrets... It’s an impossible task but he hasn’t given up yet, bless his black heart.)

Beelzebub

He isn't much bothered by their carefree nature, at least they seem to be having fun with his family which he appreciates. 🙂

To be honest, though, he nearly ate them when they first met because they smell like freshly peeled grapes… and for good reason.

By their third day at the House they had (somehow) planted and cultivated a full on vineyard in the courtyard. Hell, the wall growing to their bedroom balcony was covered in grapevines!! Always ripe and completely healthy in defiance of the lack of sun... Whatever magic they used was strong.

And, of course, their grapes were also delicious! Easily among the best fruits he's ever tasted! Every cluster is ridiculously plump, juicy, and sweet like little droplets of pure Heaven… 🤤

When their fruit first ripened, the MC came out with a basket to collect some only to find Beel had gouged himself on over half of their crop!!!

… which may have been why he got snared up on one of the courtyard walls by pissed off grapevines... Even with all his strength, he couldn't break through them and had to wait for Lucifer to cut him down… 😔

From then on, Beel was pretty much the pesky rabbit to the MC's harvest. They had to set up traps and magical barriers to keep him from their precious grapes…!! Which inevitably meant one of his brothers had to come rescue him from their furious vines at least once a week... 🙄

SOMETIMES, the MC will bring him along to help harvest with them with the deal that he can have an extra basket for however many he helps them pick. But the second he takes a bite he shouldn't, it’s back on the wall!

Out of the vineyard, they're nice enough. But put some grapes between these two and they're mortal enemies… STOP messing with their plants, Beel!! 😤

Belphegor

So… this drunken fool is supposed to get him out of the attic? Never mind, this is never going to work…

He was SEVERELY underwhelmed when the "human" finally made it up the steps. This was who they decided to bring for their exchange program? They seemed like they could barely stand!

Naturally, he figured all the better for him. They probably wouldn't even last that long!

Some poor, incompetent human falling victim to a demon out there? Diavolo's reputation would in tatters and he wouldn't even have to lift a finger! (His favorite way of doing things really 😌).

But… they just kept coming back? Like. Nothing was killing them….! How guarded were they keeping this moron??

Or… maybe it was something else?

Sure, the MC seemed like a drunken idiot but there were times when he'd swear that they were just… too aware to be sloshed…

MC: *suddenly stops smiling at him mid-conversation and looks him in the eye* You tilt your head when you lie. You know that?

How can someone so cheerful ALSO be so unnerving…?

So really, he should have seen their sudden heel-turn after they opened the door coming. There he was, fully intending to take them by surprise and choke them after a hug…

...and they knocked him down, climbed onto his back like a spider monkey, and rode him around like a bucking bull using his horns like handlebars!!

It wouldn’t have been AS humiliating if they didn’t also keep shouting things like "Giddiyap!" And "Yee-haw!!"

It took him a whole month to be sure that any and all footage of that nightmare was erased and he STILL hates the MC quite a bit for it…. But he's too scared to attack them now, so…

The lesson here? It's not a fair fight when one side’s crazy... 😔😒

#obey me #obey me shall we date #shall-we-date-obey-me #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me demigods

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imagine-organization-xiii · 4 years

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Want to go on vacation so I have to live vicariously through this blog - org xiii going on a cruise?

oh my god let’s get this chaos rolling - I’ve never actually been on a cruise before but I would absolutely love to go on one

if i had drawing skills i would totally draw some of this because it just cracks me up to no end

EDIT: i added some stuff about Xigbar because i forgot about him lmao

Xemnas: “Whoever is humming the Jaws theme song is going to get their ass kicked.“

They’re all sorely in need of a good vacation, something that they can all enjoy where they can do their own things but not be bothered by each other. Someone mentions a cruise in passing and some of the members are doubtful at being stuck on a boat with one another for a long period of time, but... Well. The boat is large and there’s an open bar and a WATER SLIDE so it doesn’t take long to get everyone on board with the plan.

They know that a lot of rooms on cruise ships don’t actually have windows, but Lexaeus, Marluxia, Vexen, and Xemnas all demand rooms with windows. Lexaeus and Marluxia can get a bit seasick if they’re in the bottom of a boat without seeing where they actually are, Vexen is high maintenance, and Xemnas isn’t having anything less than the best.

They don’t plan on paying out the ass for rooms, so they all decide to share. Roxas and Xion get their own room that’s connected to the room shared by Vexen and Lexaeus. Lexaeus, who was originally going to share with Xaldin, was forced to switch when Vexen refused to room with Xigbar. Xemnas refuses to share with anyone other than Luxord (because Luxord spends most of his time out and about and is actually rarely in the room), while Saix shares with Axel. Larxene and Marluxia cling to one another while Demyx and Zexion claim the last room with a window because Demyx wanted to see the ocean.

Vexen: Okay, kids, just remember to stick with your buddy when you’re on the ship and that if you go overboard, none of us are going after you.

Zexion: I have a question.

Vexen: Yes?

Zexion: What happens if you go overboard? Do we just not go after you?

Vexen: If I go overboard then it means I went overboard on purpose to get away from all of you.

There are so many things that you can do on a cruise ship and everyone is ready to stay far enough away from each other while they still enjoy themselves. Even if they’re attending the same event, chances are that they won’t be sitting near each other. They have ONE night where they all sit and have a nice dinner together, but otherwise it’s free roam for each and every one of them.

The younger ones spend most of their time lounging in or around the pool, playing around on the water slides and generally causing a lot of chaos. Roxas and Xion enjoy swimming and playfully splashing each other with water when the life-guard (and Saix) aren’t paying attention, and they all enjoy trying to tip Lexaeus and Xaldin over when they decide to join them at the pool. Axel and Demyx manage to literally carry and drag Zexion out to the pool sometime during the second day, and the young magician actually manages to enjoy himself even though he’ll never admit it.

Demyx: Zexion, stop being a sourpuss and come terrorize people at the pool with us.

Saix is also at the pool, only so he can keep an eye on the others. It’s a good thing he does because chances are that someone is going to get in a fight with someone else - probably Larxene, when she and Marluxia decide to do some sunbathing - because some asshole thought it would be cool to hit on Larxene when she’s relaxing and that’s just going to be hell for everyone.

Some mornings are for GETTING PUMPED. Not wanting to get lazy just because they’re on vacation, Xaldin and Lexaeus do spend a bit of time in the fitness area, lifting weights and waking themselves up before they enjoy themselves with other activities.

Near the gym is the SAUNA/steam room! You can bet your ass that Axel will NOT be working out but he’ll definitely be in the steam room a few times during the trip. Demyx will join him on occasion and they usually get a big kick out of all the old people that end up there. Overall, they just like sitting and chilling like two bros

SPA TIME. You can guarantee that Marluxia and Larxene are spending a lot of the time in the spa with giant mixed drinks - mimosas in the morning with fancy breakfast treats, mai-tais in the evening. Facials, manicures, pedicures, massages, everything they can think of until they’re limp and pliant and lazy. Xemnas joins them one day for a back massage, much to Marluxia’s chagrin, while Demyx joins them when they get facials.

Saturday night brings a casino night in the main area of the ship, a tiny competition that has Luxord all but shaking excitedly with energy. Of course, he sweeps the floor with the competition during a giant poker match, and wins a nice $2500 prize for coming in first place. They’re all shocked and extremely impressed at how good his poker face is. He spends a good amount of time in the casino area during their cruise, but takes frequent breaks to go swimming, to the spa, or to tan on one of the Adults-Only decks with Xemnas.

All of the eating areas are a big hit. The younger group tends to go for the tiny food places by the pool, where they can find burgers, curly fries, hot dogs, tator tots, and giant slushies. The older ones like the sit down restaurants. Expensive wine, lobster with a delicious garlic butter, top rated filet mignon with a specialty seasoning, and live entertainment - usually someone playing piano, occasionally accompanied by a singer. Overall, they both agree that they have wonderful dining experiences.

Holy shit, when I tell you that Vexen somehow ends up entering and WINNING a shuffleboard tournament? It takes the whole organization by surprise. Somehow he just ended up on one of the decks and was observing some of the skilled, veteran players, and one of them asks if he’d like to give it a shot. He does and DAMN, he’s like an expert immediately????

Vexen: *comes back to the room he’s sharing with Lexaeus with a giant trophy in one hand and a margarita in the other*

Lexaeus: Uh... what’s that?

Vexen: Hm? A margarita, what does it look like?

Xemnas is the one who mostly sticks to himself the whole time. He tries a little bit of everything. Swimming, the hot tub, reading on a chair and getting a deep tan, relaxing at the spa, getting a bit of a work out, etc. He’s a fancy bitch who enjoys the fancier things in life, and holy shit they paid a LOT of money for this cruise for 14 people so he’s absolutely going to get his money’s worth.

Movie night is every night on a cruise ship, so everyone will gather together and lounge either in the pool or on one of the deck chairs and relax as a movie is played on a giant screen. It’s a good way for them to do something together without bothering one another. Axel and Saix help pass out sodas, icee’s, and popcorn before moving to lounge in the hot tub before the movie begins.

Xigbar has made himself known to the waitstaff on the ship for two reasons - he has good taste in alcohol and he’s an incorrigible flirt. He doesn’t mean any harm with it and he has no intentions of acting on it any further than a few playful words, so everyone knows not to take him seriously when they spot him flirting with a cabana boy or the staff in the gym.

Xigbar also has a secret night time routine, surprisingly with Saix. One night, Xigbar just couldn’t sleep and he found himself walking around the ship at three in the morning, when it was quiet and most people were asleep and the halls were almost empty. He ended up on the bow of the ship and it was AMAZING to look out on the water and the sky and just enjoy the sea breeze. He did the same thing the next night and found that Saix had beaten him there. After some quiet glaring, they mutually agreed just to enjoy it and not bother one another.

Finally, most of the younger group barely get any sleep. They order room service like crazy for various midnight snacks and have fun in the arcade beating high scores on all of the games they can manage until they all end up dragging themselves back and passing out in a single room together.

#i am also in dire need of a vacation my friend #organization xiii headcanons #kingdom hearts headcanons #organization xiii

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normallee · 4 years

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They Were Roommates || Notia and Norma

TIMING: Before Christmas LOCATION: Norma (and Notia’s) Apartment PARTIES: @humanmoodring and @normallee SUMMARY: How to be a Human 101

“Hello, roommate! I have arrived home!” Norma called out as she hung her pirate hat onto the coat rack inside the door. The entire apartment looked bare to her. Nadia had been pairing down her belongings and attempting to make it appear more human. She wasn’t convinced she was doing a very good job but the ghost in a mortal’s body was the authority on these matters. She supposed she’d have to trust them. She stepped inside and looked around some more. “Did you leave Tom on the porch again? That’s not very nice. We need to keep him until Christmas. I heard it, too, requires a turkey. And I cannot imagine having two of them running around.” She went to the sliding glass door and let the turkey back into the apartment. It was big and smelly but she had grown strangely fond of this large feathered creature. Maybe it was because it reminded her vaguely of a shriken. She wasn’t sure. “Are we going to have more lessons today?” she asked. “I have a pen and paper and everything this time. I’ve been told that is what students bring to classes. They also always have gum in order to make bribes of friendship and annoy teachers.” She reached in her back pocket and pulled out a pack, holding it towards her roommate. “Would you like some chewing gum?”

The lack of loud colors in the apartment meant nothing when there was a loud turkey and an equally loud Norma running around, but Nadia had been nursing a cup of coffee long enough that she only flinched a bit when Norma walked in. “Hi, Norma,” she said, a bit too tired for a proper greeting. She wasn’t sleeping much, these days, and… she wasn’t cold, she didn’t get cold, but her body sometimes reacted like it was, shivering for hours before she could get it to stop. She was fine, now, but it came and it went. “Tom?” The fucking turkey. “Oh, yeah! You know, it’s actually proper etiquette that, between the holidays, the holiday turkey is kept out of living spaces. Turkeys need plenty of fresh air, you know. And grass. Keep ‘em inside for too long and they get interior depression.” The turkey thing had been Norma’s idea, sure, but Nadia was rolling with it because, fuck, it was funny. Annoying as hell, but so, so funny. “Yeah, I’m down for more lessons.” They were pretty fun, especially when half the shit that came out of her mouth was made up. Sure, she gave Norma a few good pointers; she didn’t want the woman to get caught and end up killing this body because of some bad advice. “Yes, perfect. It’s always good to take notes. You’ll be quizzed on all of this, later.” She took a stick of gum. “Thank you. See, politeness. A very useful tool.” She popped the gum in her mouth and settled in for the inquisition. “So, what do you wanna know today?”

“Yes, Tom the Turkey. He informed me that was his name through a series of gobbles.” Norma started scribbling notes already as the turkey started to follow her around. “I think he also says that he much prefers the indoors, but we will take your advice into consideration.” She sat on the couch, sitting on the edge with rapt attention with her pen in hand, ready to learn. She would have to take good notes if there was going to be a quiz. Did she need a highlighter? She saw most people studying used one of those and they looked like fun. Oh, right. She had to pay attention. “Well you rearranged my apartment and I’m still not sure as to why. So more about that, please. And as well, I need to understand how a book of faces works. And why toks tik. And what a yeet is. And what humans shop for. There are so many shops and strange items to purchase, I don’t understand the value structure. Did you know that some rocks cost more than others? Why? They’re all rocks. It’s very odd.”

“You… understand the turkey.” It wasn’t a question, but Nadia still cast a doubtful glance towards the creature, looking into its beady eyes for a sign of intelligence. It, Tom, whatever, stared back. Even though the turkey blinked first, Nadia felt like she’d lost a battle of wills or some shit. “Well, thank you both so much for your consideration.” She looked around the apartment, grateful that it wasn’t in the same state that it’d been when she arrived, though it was still a bit odd. The flamingos had been allocated to outside, and she’d managed to get rid of most of those damn trophies. The furniture was better put together, though she didn’t have the patience to really build shit, and she’d short circuited the fucking apartment twice putting things together, but it looked less like an alien lived in the joint. Instead, it looked like an alien and their human roommate lived there. “Okay, so I rearranged things to look, like, more human. Yeah, yeah, all the shit here was very human, but too much human stuff makes you look… less human and more human impersonating. Also, some of that shit was old and obsolete. You don’t need it. Now it looks more liveable, you feel?”

Nadia chewed thoughtfully on her gum. “Okay, so a book with faces on it’s like one of those people from Game of Thrones that’ll steal your face and pretend to be you, but a Facebook is a website, like that town forum thing but with more videos of cats and babies. Uhhh, toks tik is, like, a clock metaphor, and to yeet is to projectile vomit, I think. Humans are dumb, but they typically make purchases for necessity and amusement, in that order if they’re smart.” This was something that she knew about. “Necessity’s like food, water, booze… Toilet paper and hygiene stuff. Amusement’s literally anything to keep them entertained for their short, short lives.” And she knew all about that, didn’t she? “Most of the stuff you’ve got here’s amusement purchases. You need more necessities. Some stores specialize in certain things, be it necessity things or amusement things. And the rock thing is all about rarity and aesthetic. Some rocks are more valuable because they’re prettier, shinier, or because they’re so damn hard to get a hold of. Then, of course, there’s paper money, where someone just wrote a number on a piece of paper and the rest of us are supposed to go along with it like chumps.” Nadia snorted. “Don’t get me wrong, I love money, but it’s fuckin’ useless.”

“Well I can’t be completely sure but he’s easier to understand than most humans, I will say that much,” Norma said. Tom gobbled in agreement before waddling off looking for seeds. The entire apartment felt oddly empty now that Nadia had rearranged it and had removed some of her belongings. They had all been meaningless but she had come to enjoy them and the sense of familiarity they brought. “Old? None of it was very old. All of it was from the last century at least. That is very recent, let me tell you. Nothing has even started to rust yet.” There was barely any dust, too. She had been very proud of this fact. Humans were always so dusty. As Nadia talked, Norma scribbled furiously, taking as many notes as she could. They were in a few different languages, mostly something that just amounted to furious scribbles. She wasn’t entirely sure what note taking actually entailed but it seemed like she was doing it the same way she had observed. It’s not like she needed to read these later anyway. “Food, water, booze. Booze? This is alcohol, correct? That is necessary? Interesting. I do find humans more tolerable when inebriated.” It made them drop their inhibitions and without those, they were far more prone to chaos. She did very much appreciate the improved hygiene over the years, she would say that much. Her face scrunched up in confusion again. “Wait, money is useless? Then why is it so often considered valuable and a thing that mortals will both risk and waste their lives on?”

“Seriously?” Nadia asked, marginally curious. “What does he say?” She watched the turkey, completely confused by the dynamic that he and Norma had going on but, really, it wasn’t the weirdest thing about her roommate. Norma was odd as hell, and that was saying something because some of the fuckers Nadia had worked with over the years had been strange. “Anything older than, like, twenty years is considered old. Some old things are good. Old might mean that it’s worth more, or is considered vintage. But, sometimes old is shitty.” She paused. “Phones older than, like, three years are very shitty.” She peaked at Norma’s notes, frowning at what looked like a mess of squiggly lines. What the fuck? Some of that couldn’t even be an actual language. “You gonna be able to study those later?” she teased. But then she sobered up. “Booze is alcohol, yes, and it’s absolutely a necessity. The drinking kind, not the medical kind. That kind’s not important. But it’s vital that humans have alcohol at least once a week, unless their lame and abstain from that kinda thing. But yeah, most people are way better to be around drunk.” It made them more fun and easier to manipulate. Nadia was a fan of doing business in bars. “Because people apply a fictitious value to slips of paper, and people think they’ve got to work themselves to death to get it, which is dumb. It’s just paper. Just, like, take it.”

Norma thought that Nadia’s question was very strange. “He gobbles a lot. And makes strange clucking noises. Your ears function, yes?” She shook her head. Did she think the turkey spoke in English? That was very silly. Tom made another gurgling noise and she nodded. “You’re right, Tom. Humans are simple minded.” She made a mental note (and a scribble in her notebook) to get Tom more grain. He seemed to enjoy it very much. “Twenty years?!” Norma shot up and practically dropped her pencil. “That’s so recent! Like a blink of an eye!” She let out a huge sigh and reached down for her writing utensil. “How am I supposed to remember what’s recent? That’s such a short time span, the next twenty years are almost here.” She broke the tip of the pencil at her next eplatantion. “Three years? Why do you bother having these gadgets if they are immediately outdated? Why bother? This is silly! That’s no time at all. Do you all really think a year is a long time? Like it matters? This is exhausting. How do you all live so slowly and quickly at the same time?” This felt hopeless. She threw her pencil away, behind the couch. It didn’t matter. “So all humans need alcohol to survive and I can just take their paper money. What about their plastic money? That one is mostly unlimited, right? The currency that is allowed on the small rectangular cards? I ran into some issues the other day but I think I resolved it.”

“Yes, my ears fucking function.” Nadia sighed. “I don’t think that the turkey speaks English. I was wondering if you spoke turkey. How the hell do you understand him?” Asshole. But she didn’t call Norma that, didn’t want to come off as too much of a jackass, even though Norma was the one to start the name calling with that simple minded shit. “Yeah, twenty years is pretty recent, I guess. In the grand scheme of things,” Nadia mused. “But not all of us live for… how long have you been around again?” She was hoping, maybe this time, Norma would say. She was beyond curious about her seemingly ancient roommate. “Technology upgrades at a rapid pace. New stuff comes out every few months, each thing better and more technologically advanced than the last. We’ve come a pretty long way from the invention of the wheel.” She laughed a bit bitterly. “Good question! I did the smart thing and just upgraded bodies when the old one expired.” She took a sip of coffee, glad that Norma was at least absorbing some information. “Yes, and you can, but you’ve got to be sneaky about it. It’s not taking so much as stealing. And you can steal the plastic money, credit cards, they’re called, too, but you gotta be especially sneaky, and you can’t use them for long, or you’ll be tracked. Credit cards are pretty simple: you use one, and they charge you for it. Not immediately, but eventually. I don’t use ‘em. I don’t trust banks.” They were only good for being robbed.

“I don’t speak turkey, I just understand the turkey. It’s very different.” Norma gave an exasperated sigh. It was far less complicated than being human was so it was strange to her to get such pushback about it. Tom agreed. She could tell by the ruffling of his feathers. “I lost track,” Norma said nonchalantly as she doodled severed heads and some intestines spilling on the floor, along with some nice bleeding hearts with knives through them. “Based on your current calendar, quite a few centuries, I believe. But there have been other calendars and other systems of time so it’s all rather subjective and silly.” She added some more blood splatters around the heart with a flourish of her pen. “The real solution would be to get a better, less human body,” she said, mostly to herself, with another sigh. “Can you upgrade bodies like technology? That’s only a ghost thing, correct?” She had a feeling if humans could, they would. They tried so hard as it was to appear less old and feeble as they progressively aged. “Stealing. That’s a thing that is against the human laws, right? Most of them seem to be very against that. I know there are many in different places but that one has always been frowned upon. Humans are very possessive despite the fact their goods and money does not go with them to death.” Her next doodle was a man dying by way of a small plastic rectangle. ‘What’s not to trust about banks, though? Is that not where the money lives? Which you need. Please explain.”

Nadia blinked at Norma, unsure if this was a topic she wanted to keep discussing. “Okay.” It wasn’t. She cocked her head a bit looking at Norma’s paper with raised eyebrows. Violent. She could get behind that. “Damn, okay. That’s, like, an impressively long time. And you don’t age or…” Norma didn’t look much older than Nadia Diaz’s body. At the most, Norma didn’t look any older than Nadia had been the first time she’d died. “Right, right. Super subjective. Very silly. Time’s an illusion, and all that.” She raised her eyebrows a bit. “I mean, you’re not wrong or anything, but less human bodies aren’t exactly easy to find, you know? Outside of this town, at least.” She kind of liked her humanness, too. It was familiar and useful. So what if she couldn’t light herself on fire or have supernatural strength? She could blend in, and humans were in an abundant supply. They trusted their own, even if they didn’t always realize that other species existed. “Yeah, it’s just a ghost thing. I kinda dig this body, though. She’s worked well for me for, like, over six years, now.” She wouldn’t give up this body without a fight, at this point. Besides, it’d literally die without her in it, now, since Nadia Diaz was gone. “Stealing, yeah. It’s definitely against human laws, but laws are subjective. What’s another person to tell me what I can and can’t do, you know?” She grinned lazily, leaning back. “Doesn’t matter. We like to look good, impressive, for the living. Nothing’s more exciting to most people than being better than everyone around them. Wealth makes them believe they’re better. And banks steal money. They all just work for big corporations and the government, and they’re fucking useless when people come along and take your money from you.” Like Nadia literally did all the time. “Why should a group of bureaucratic assholes be in charge of the value of pieces of paper? It’s fucking ridiculous.”

“Physically? No, not really,” Norma answered, eyes still glued to her paper and the hatch marks she was adding to the spleen sketch to add some shading. “For the most part I believe I look relatively the same as I did when I was last human.” The words always felt a bit like boiling water in her mouth. To admit she was ever anything so plain was shameful and never something she enjoyed advertising to her demonic cohorts. They all thought they were so much better than her because they had never once been mortal but it was not her fault that her near godhood was delayed a few years. It hardly mattered in the grand scheme of eternity anyway. “If you say so. You are right, however. There really is an overabundance of humans. I see why it would be much easier to acquire one of their bodies. But you should really consider a siren. I think it would suit you.” Norma tilted her head to get a better look at her work. She ripped the page out, crumpled it up and tossed it behind her before she started on her next set of illustrations. Norma was unsure if anything that Nadia was saying about these bureaucratic institutions were correct but she found herself nodding along in the appearance of understanding and solidarity, something they had gone over in the previous weeks. Questions were an indication of non human behavior, at least that was what she had been told by her current tutor. “So we steal money to be wealthy and toppled the banks. Very much noted,” she said, letting out a small sigh as she finally looked back up at her current roommate. “This is all very nice. Thank you. I appreciate you. But can you just show me how to find the cat videos in the world wide web again instead?”

“Huh.” Nadia took all of Norma’s information in with interest; it was the first time the other woman had admitted to once being just that, a woman. A human woman, in fact, who had somehow managed to become immortal in a way that seemed way better than any deal the undead got. “That’s pretty fucking cool.” Maybe she could check in to figuring out how Norma had become, well, Norma. It’d be pretty fucking funny if she made this body immortal. Then, if Nadia Diaz’s ghost really was still hanging around, there would be no doubt that she’d outlast it. She laughed, though, at Norma’s next remark. “A siren? Makes sense, I guess. I’ve been told I have a wicked good tongue, anyway. Imagine if it was supernaturally so.” Whether or not Norma actually took her words to heart was irrelevant. Half the time, Nadia was just fucking with her. It was fun. Norma seemed to genuinely believe whatever came out of Nadia’s mouth, as long as she said it in the right tone. And, besides, what harm could it do? It was fun, and, if Norma ended up robbing a bank or something, it’d be funny as hell. She could feel that Norma was losing interest, though, so the cat videos question didn’t come as a surprised. Nadia was only a little exasperated as she finished her coffee and went to grab her laptop. “Actually, this time, you are gonna show me how to find cat videos. Remember, it’s just like I taught you.”

#writing #wickedswriting #chatzy #humanmoodring #nadia #notia #they were roommates

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adamrevi3ws · 4 years

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Zack Snyder’s Justice League (The Snyder Cut)

The so-called “Snyder Cut” of Justice League (2017) is finally out, and I have seen it!

For those of you that haven’t been constantly harangued by its online presence, Justice League had a very messy behind-the-scenes, hindered by a lot of studio meddling and the fact that its original director, Zack Snyder, left mid-production due to studio conflicts and a massive family tragedy. Snyder was replaced by the now-infamous Joss Whedon, who conducted several reshoots and was later accused of workplace misconduct and harassment, especially from the actor who played Cyborg, Ray Fisher. Many have attributed the problems with the theatrical cut to its behind the scenes chaos, and this theory, combined with the fact that other movies by Snyder have been vastly improved by their director’s cuts (see: Batman v Superman), has caused outcry from a very small but loud group of fans, demanding Snyder’s version of the movie. This basically started right after the movie itself came out, and confused many due to the……mixed… opinions on Snyder’s directing, but somehow WB caved in and gave Snyder an absurd amount of money to finish post-production and film a new scene or two, finally releasing a full four-hour director’s cut on HBO MAX this past Thursday.

Although I had some intense skepticism, I think the hype was overall worth it. Yes, I’m biased because I initially liked the movie in its crappier form, and also generally liked Snyder’s first DC movie, Man of Steel, but trust me on this one. The directing is overall a massive improvement, and unlike the original, it doesn’t look so damn ugly. The CGI is actually finished, and it has this rough and detailed quality that reminds me of the visuals from Man of Steel. Another improvement from the theatrical version is the humor, which feels much drier and thinly spread out (and less sexist), therefore giving its funny moments a lot more value. I think one of the BIGGEST improvements of the film is its character work, delivering much better pathos and characterization. While it’s no Logan, the Snyder Cut delivers some level of heart and soul to an otherwise soulless genre. I think the biggest example of this is with Cyborg, where in the original film he was in maybe two scenes, but in the Snyder Cut, he has a very fleshed out and detailed character arc. It’s very easy to understand why Ray Fisher hates Whedon and WB so much. Even without god knows how much of a toxic environment he had to deal with, literally most of the scenes he got to actually act got cut out of the original movie. This and his extended edition for Batman v Superman are only further proof that Snyder excels when he’s able to add in all the scenes and details otherwise removed by the studio, allowing his movies to be so much more coherent, compelling, and fleshed out. With this extra space, he even gets to go all out with this Chekov’s gun mentality, in which many major details and minor plot points brought up, in the beginning, are often referenced or in some way resolved in the end. Even though I nearly forgot about half of these, it’s a very rewarding experience for attentive viewers. Speaking of attention to detail, Snyder’s greater room to breathe allows him to have the film organically connect to and reference other DC movies, cementing its role in the universe and smoothing out any plotholes of the original. He even adds in a couple of extra DC characters and references to the universe, so you got to admit, this man loves comics, even if you don’t think it’s for the right reasons. This love is exactly why the Snyder cut excels, finally allowing the director to bring his grandiose and mythological vision of the DC universe to the small (but intended for big) screen. Oh, and the scenes with Darkseid are pretty cool.

Despite these clear improvements, the movie itself is still pretty flawed and makes a lot of clear sacrifices for its improvements. The first one I’d like to point out is its lack of filter. It doesn’t really justify its four-hour runtime, and while a lot of the newer scenes are necessary, a good amount feels like they go on for a bit too long and could be trimmed down a bit. The first half of the film is the biggest culprit in this, taking a bit too much time for setup and having a lot of scenes that felt like they didn’t even need to be in a specific order. While the film benefits a lot from adding, idk, nearly every scene they filmed, that doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be any discretion whatsoever when it comes to editing down its content. The movie really should have been three or three and a half hours instead of a full four, because it was very easy for me to space out in this. I definitely recommend watching it more like a show than a movie, since it’s conveniently divided into “chapters” anyways. Much of my other gripes are pretty standard aspects of Snyder’s work in the DC universe and others, such as the fact that it sacrifices the color of the original for something more detailed yet… monotone (it’s almost all in this sleek, charcoal shade), the fact that Superman is a bit more of an asshole than he should, and weird soundtrack choices. Finally, the ending is a bit strange and also kind of drags, where it would be much more fitting for its final scenes to be separated into a post-credits sequence, but alas, I don’t know if that works as well in streaming.

Even though it’s definitely still a flawed product, I have reached the conclusion that the Snyder Cut was very much worth making, and definitely worth watching, if you can stomach a four-hour superhero movie. I give it a 7.9/10.

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werewolves-blog · 4 years

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SnapDragon’s Merchant Thoughts

So the game started a day late which made me very sad but whatever. Then I woke up from my nap and realised the game had started. I looked at my role and discovered I was a merchant. I spend the first five minutes wondering what the actual fuck, but that is besides the point.

Merchants huh? That is new. My objective is having the most money at the end of the game as living Merchant. Which is in fact an interesting concept but not entirely new. It debuted in ext-300 under the name “Bandits” but instead of working together we work against each other and we don’t know who we all are.

We get money by selling items. And we spend money by buying them. So my initial prediction is that we are here to play stock market and that items are the stock. In my honest opinion some items will be worth a ton and some will be worth nothing. For example in my opinion Protection items will be worth a lot so merchants have to chose between keeping them to protect themselves or selling them and get lots of gold. The same applies to weapons because it can be used to eliminate loot piñatas.

We are also the literal definition of loot piñatas. As in the role personified. Therefore claiming will be risky if not doing it at all.

So now a LOT of setup speculation. “You are a Merchant. You are here to exploit the chaos and make your fortune” is the fluff text. Therefore I’m gonna assume this is going to be a slow game with roles that can exploit the loot piñata mechanic. No extras joined so that rules out Undead since they cannot abuse loot piñatas. Vamp however live on recruiting loot piñatas so that is my lock-in for evil faction. Vamp however need a supporting evil faction. Coven fits this role to a T. With 18 players I’m going to assume 1 VM and around 4-5 coven. There is also the supporting cast of more merchants. My initial guess is there is more than 2 but less than 5 so 3-4 is my guess. The amount of merchants also influences the amount of coven there is.

On the topic of village roles. We talk about a loot piñata game. Therefore we talk about Thieves. Thieves will be the bane of our existence since it will make keeping items risky as all hell. Then we have some RuneSmiths, apothecaries and blacksmiths.

My final idea of a setup will be VM+1 Harpy, 1 Witch, 2 Djinns, 1 Furie, 3 Merchants -> 8 evil/neutrals. This leaves room for 10 villagers. With 3 merchants I’m going to assume 2 thieves, 1 runesmith, 1 apothecary and 1 blacksmith and 5 random roles that are going to be close to Vampire and Coven related roles. Stalkers/Militias/Gravediggers/Revivers and the lot. My guess is going to be 1 Stalker, 1 Militia, 2 gravediggers, 1 reviver as the final village roles. I exclude seers because they are too swingy for this setup. Except for maybe the novice seer because they would also see us as neutral and give us an incentive to claim.

On to some more merchants discussion since I think I barely scratched the surface at this point. I as a merchant want to win from the other merchants which means both staying alive as long as possible while making the largest amount of money existing. But I think there are also some drawbacks to buying and selling. I think that every merchant gets the same night options offered with no price visible. Therefore if we all want to buy the same items the price will be high because competition. If nobody wants to buy an item the price will be low. The trick I think is going for items that are not as desirable as other items but still better than the bad items. Avoiding the competition, going for the bargains. My other guess is that craftable items are worth near nothing because… well… they’re craftable. The obvious exception being Armour items (If they are craftable, I don’t have much knowledge of the BlackSmith yet).

My second thought related to merchants and selling is that selling to a fellow merchant will inflict penalties of some sort. Either being that you sell for low or sell for very high and they lose money. The other option being a bonus in that selling to a merchant will make money for both of the merchants. On that topic of protection items. I think they sell for high, but giving them to a fellow merchant is not something you’d want to do because they then can sell them the next night for also a lot of money. Then another thought. If items decrease in amount over the game they will become more valuable. That is if they end up in the GY or get used or anything.

That brings us to the next topic. What items are we able to expect over the course of this game? My guess is mainly consumables and renewables. Runes + Armour + Weapons + Potions. I think Demonic Relics are out simply because they’re rare and they would be worth a fk tonne to the lucky soul who winds up with them ergo they swing the market too much. On the same note wolf items are out too assuming a vampire. As for starting items I think Merchants will start with some. Armour + a random item. This is because we have to buy N1 and will lose money if we don’t sell so we need to have the option to sell N1.

This also brings us to the 3th Merchant thought: Trade-routes. My guess is continuously selling to the same person brings a bonus or malus depending on the items being sold. The idea being that selling to the same person establishes a trade route which will give more money depending on if you sell different items to them but less money if you sell the same item continuously. This gives us Merchants the dilemma of having to choose between maintaining a trade route or selling for gold.

On another item topic: Popular buys will become more expensive to buy as the game progresses. And as the game progresses the items we will be presented will also increase in value. This brings me to another point that I previously didn’t even consider. There may be relic items in the game and we get the option later on to buy the relics that can trigger/remove their effects (Demonic Eye and Heart of Hades). The flaw with this is that we as merchants may decide to not buy the relics so a possible DemonCult can never trigger them. And the possible demonic items that are in the village may turn out to be useless if we never buy the trigger items. This is a very specific scenario though.

On to the next topic: Council. I think council is in the game and every merchant worth their salt wants to be on it. This is because Council can generate items out of thin air.

My last thought: Outlaws. If we try to sell to an outlaw they will just take the item and we will generate no money.

To the last point: Strategy, I’m going to employ a high-risk strategy. With potential thieves etc keeping items is a waste of inventory. This also makes sure I can buy high later on when I believe the value of items increase.

N1:

Okay so apparently we’re able to leave the fking town. This puts dirt in my setup speculation since I do have to eliminate coven over a numbers issue. Perhaps if it was more than 20 I would have allowed coven to remain as a viable option. If all supposed 3 of the merchants are able to leave -> 4-basement, 5-coven 6 village with the 3 loot piñatas leaving. Merchants I think are balanced around them becoming loot piñatas at all points in time which allows for the coven. Instead I’m putting in a subfaction war. Subfaction war also fills in with the chaos because subfactions want to finish each other off to detriment of the village often. There is also no council which is kind of disappointing. Then again it’s maybe good because whoever as merchant gets on the council has a definite advantage. My proposed setup is this:

VM, MS, IL, 2 GD, 1 Stalkers, 1 Militias, 2 Thieves, Novice Seer, 3 merchants, RS, BS, Apothecary, LM, Mortician.

I’m also given the Potion of cleansing buying option so I’m not gonna rule out Damned and Demoncult just yet.

I start with as predicted: Armour and a Hvísla Rune (low cost item). I’m obviously going to sell the Hvísla for 4 gold to make some money for next nights purchase. I will keep the Armour for now eventhough keeping it does not fit in my high risk playstyle. The armour is worth 31 gold at this point. I am also going to buy cleanse potions because of the volume of the items that is. All items are tier 1 items so I’m going to assume the value between the three does not vary a whole lot so 2x cleansing is more than 1x weakness eventhough weakness costs less. The other choice was Fjat Rune which costs as much as the 2x cleansing potions.

Then we go to a second alternate setup. One involving Outlaws. Merchants and Outlaws have synergy. Outlaws want to collect items while Merchants want to sell them. Therefore it would not totally be out of the question that this is a potential combination. It also poses a second neutral faction to support the vampire because both Outlaws and Merchants want the game to not finish too quickly. Collecting items and selling items etc. This poses as help for the very confirmed Vampire who wants the game to start slow even if they’re found early. This WILL eliminate the novice seer since there will be too many neutrals and instead puts in a drunk or even a regular seer. A possible setup for this would be: VM, 3 Merchants, 2 Outlaws of varying degrees, 2 Thieves, 1 RS, 1 BS, 1 Apothecary, mortician, (drunk) seer, 1 stalker, 1 militia, 2 gravediggers, whatever.

I’m not sure if I consider my ability anything strong. In general I don’t really give a crap about who I transfer items too, I just want to make bank. The only thing it does is identify potential merchants in the early game and/or find potential evils later in the game. However I’m still using the ability to generate visits AND to find a potential Merchant N1. I’m using it on the one who nukes the everloving SHIT out of the game in Gandhi who I’m also going to transfer my Hvísla to.

I have also already identified Tomyris as a potential Bandit/BoB/Merchant due to the “new faction confirmed” comment. Same with Gilgamesh referse psychologying the shit out of everybody.

On the topic of things already being proven false

- No council

- Price options are visible so no invisible bidding against other merchants

The rest has to remain to be seen.

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behindthestory00 · 5 years

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Chapter 30- Summer Chaos

Sleeveless shirts are back in fashion. Shorts are shorter than before. Ponytails have gotten higher. It’s hot but the summer air is fresh. The season has been a long awaited season by many and since school work is not a problem anymore it’s better. The only thing to worry about is the fact that you are going on an overnight trip with the new and old friends. It was Jimin’s idea just like how spring break was his too. Yoongi did help a little bit in this event. They didn’t tell anyone where the overnight will be spent all they said was bring a swimsuit. Nobody knew anything only who was driving with who and it really is the spring break trip all over again. You just hope that Jungkook doesn’t ignore you the whole time and you don’t get drunk.

“Play the good music not your trashy sex playlist, Jimin!” Taehyung yelled from the back and Jungkook added on, “If the first note is bed creaking I’m throwing Y/n out the car.”

“Please play your sex playlist.”

“You aren’t throwing her out the window!” Yoongi shouted as if he was the dad dealing with his kids. Jimin giggled at his outburst and looked back grinning, “My sex playlist is only for Yoongi.”

“EW!”

“NO WHORES ALLOWED IN THE CAR!”

“I might just throw myself out the window instead.” Eurwangni beach and a hotel stay was the outcome, which is miles away from home. Everyone in the car and the other cars have been to this beach before some even stayed at the same hotel. It’s nice minus the amount of annoying kids that come with their even worse families. Everyone settled into the beach and Taehyung screamed out, “Last one there is a little bitch.” Surprisingly Yoongi bolted to the water before Jungkook could even put his stuff down. That will probably be the only time you see him run.

“Literal children.” Namjoon chuckled out and Jin taunted him, “Oh looks like Namjoon’s the little bitch.” He looked at us land creatures to see even Hoseok ran right after Jungkook, to try and beat Yoongi.

“Fuck.” He jogged over to the water where the four are already trying to drown the other.

~“I told your bitchass that I’m sharing a room with Yoongi.”

“Actually you didn’t! Trader!”

“Y/n, let him get his dick tonight.” Jin waved you off to calm down as he soaked in the sun. You huffed your nose and looked out to the rest of the boys. Namjoon and Yoongi are really the fathers of the group. Or how Jin put it they look like a really old married couple that bought their sons out one last time before they go to war. That was funny and all but god damn it, you can't focus. Seeing a shirtless Jungkook made your blood boil.

“You should take a picture it will last longer.” You heard Jin smirk.

“It’s too bad Lotte and Miley couldn’t stay that long.”

“She’s changing the topic again.”

“I’m not doing anything!”

“And that’s the fucking problem! You two obviously like each other a lot like days ago you ditched Chanyeol to go ‘hangout’ with him.” Jin raised his voice even louder and used air quotes to express the hangout part.

“Don’t you dare use air quotes on me. Is there a problem with feeling bad that Jungkook really wanted to hangout that day so I ditched Chanyeol.”

“Speaking of that Chanyeol guy, are you two like friends again? Say no so I don’t hit you.”

“For your information Jin, I was the bigger person and told him off finally.”

“She can’t have an ex running around if Jungkook’s here.” Jimin said from the ground and you kicked some sand in his direction, “Shut your damn mouth.”

“Being in denial was cute when you first told us about your feelings for him but now I think you are really trying too hard to lie to yourself, Y/n.” You bite the inside of your cheek and looked at the other boys. Lying to yourself? You admit that you have basically found him attractive since the first day you started working at Creamy Sweets. Feelings for him happened a while ago too. So to be fair you aren’t in denial or lying about anything. The fear of him not liking you back is what’s getting you and yes basically everyone has said that he most definitely likes you too. The only word that seems to come out of his mouth are ‘friends’. Later in the day energy was drained from others and everyone entered the hotel. All was well until you figured out who you’re rooming with.

“You’re leaving me with three idiots?” You whispered to Jimin as Namjoon passed you the room key. Since Miley and Lotte had to go home your roommates had to change to Hoseok, Taehyung and Jungkook.

“It’s better than being in the sex rooms.” Hoseok elbowed your shoulder and you sighed grabbing your bookbag off the floor. Everyone went to their respective rooms and after a quick bicker between you and Taehyung about how keys work you finally got in the hotel room.

“Ah ...only two beds, you know what that means.” Jungkook grinned ear to ear and Hoseok spoke with disgust, “Your horny self is sleeping on the couch.” That brought laughter into the room and it quickly died down when showers were taken. Everyone laid down in the room freshly cleaned with lazy stares at phones or the TV.

“I’m starving!” Taehyung whined from the bed next to you and you quickly turned to him, “Oh thank god I’m not the only one.”

“Get room service then.” Jungkook said from the floor as he stared at the TV screen, “They’ll put it on the billing that Namjoon is paying for.” You and Taehyung shared devilish smiles as you bolted to the phone, “Get the menu.”

“Oh wait! 15 bucks for some nugs that’s bullshit, let’s just get McDonalds instead.”

“You and Hoseok go while I stay here.” You suggested and Hoseok whined from the bed you were in, “Why do I have to go?”

“Don’t ask questions! Let’s go bother Namjoon for money.” Taehyung dragged him from the bed and pushed him out the room then turned to you with a wink.

~You woke up in a stage of discomfort as you felt your stomach turn and the taste of metal in your mouth. It was a nightmare. You can’t really recall what it was about all you understand is that it wasn’t a fun experience. You laid there in the darkness next to your cousin wondering if you should wake him to ease the fear building up in your chest. Don’t bother others. It quickly turned into a mental argument with yourself if getting up is the best option. You listened to the reasonable voice in your head but as you got up you saw no sign of Jungkook. Since the TV is still on it gave enough light to prove he wasn’t in the bed with Hoseok. Where did he go? You peeked over the bed into the hall to see if the bathroom light was on. It isn’t. You decided to text him and after minutes of waiting for an answer he finally responded. At the beach was the last thing he sent before you already made it halfway there. The coldness was the only thing you could think of as you opened the doors to the outside. Out on the shore he sat there looking ahead at the sky. You hurried along to sit next to him and as soon as you did he spoke, “Why are you up so late?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking that question first.”

“I couldn’t sleep.” The waves spoke louder than the silence that occurred. Everything in this moment is worth saving, the breeze was the thing that shot you wake once you came outside.

“How you’ve been?”

“You see me mostly everyday, Jungkook. I think you know the answer to that.”

“Did Chanyeol bother you after you ditched him that day?” He asked not even looking in your direction and you tried to peek at his expression. Blank…

“He did actually just on the same day. He wanted to know if his apology was enough.”

“Was it?” He quickly made eye contact with you and your eyes stayed widen from the jump you did when he turned.

“Oh sorry…..was it?” He fixed the tension in his shoulders and you shook your head smiling at him.

“Oh that’s good.” He barely whispered.

“I told you to stop worrying about me and him.”

“Yeah I know but I don’t have to listen to you.”

“Wow some friend you are.” You had a hiss in your tone that silenced him. Chanyeol is old news. He’s not allowed to be in this new life that you created for yourself. You won’t let him destroy this one too.

“Hey, Y/n?” You looked at him and realized how much closer he got to you, “Yeah…”

“What can I do to make us not friends…..in a way.”

“If you don’t want to be friends with me anymore you could just say it.”

“No not in that way! Just- forget it.” You tsked at his answer and he turned back to you with some kind of emotion in his eyes. Determination….

“It’s easier to say that you hate me. Say something like this, ‘Hey, Y/n you’re an asshole.’”

“Hey, Y/n you’re amazing.” He kissed you. He’s fucking kissing you. Who the hell does this boy think he is giving you mixed signals. He called you amazing and he is fucking kissing you. Fighting mentally with yourself your body reacted almost instantly to him. The warm feeling is awarding for how long you waited for this moment. You two leaned back still trying to make the makeout session last longer but you looked him in the eyes instead, “That’s not what I said.”

#BTS jungkook #bts #BTS jimin #BTS jin #kpop BTS #bts jungkook x reader #bts namjoon #bts namjin #bts yoongi #BTS Yoonmin #BTS v #bts jihope #jungkook x reader #bts taehyung

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fandomimatrix-blog · 6 years

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Revisiting Life is Strange (Part 4)

(ominous music in the background)

All pictures are taken from the official Life is Strange Wikia.

Fun Fact: One of the bands Chloe likes in this universe (according to her computer) is PissHead, Skip’s band from LiS:BTS.

Max has to choose whether or not to kill Chloe. Foreshadowing. Clearly the universe wants Chloe to either die or suffer. There are no good choices when it comes to Chloe’s wellbeing in this game. Either she gets hurt or someone else does. But Max, being the champ she is, just wants to keep Chloe alive.

So what exactly was Max’s endgame here? Find Rachel, find out what happened to Kate, and then somehow stop the tornado with her badass powers? Max and Chloe literally never discuss exactly what they’re going to do, other than their main mission. Kind of makes you wonder if they were planning to just ditch Arcadia Bay altogether or if either of them even gave a shit about the tornado at that point. The latter is an interesting idea, because Max kind of just gets wrapped up in what Chloe wants, which is finding Rachel and eventually taking down Nathan.

Gal pals.

So why was Max a member of the Vortex Club in the alternate timeline? I honestly think it’s because she actually stayed in touch with Chloe (to an extent anyway) and Chloe gave her the confidence she needed (because Chloe is about 70% reckless confidence) to actually put herself out there. We know Max is a good photographer, she just lacks the confidence to put her work out there and try to impress people. But with Chloe’s help, Max would have been a lot less shy about her work and able to prove her worth as an artist. One thing led to another and she ended up joining the Vortex Club.

Kate you absolutely precious little bean. BTS has Samantha, but no one will ever replace this precious cinnamon roll.

Primary ship in LiS: PriceField. Secondary ship: MarshField. I hope those two got together after the Sacrifice Chloe ending, because Max could really use someone like Kate in her life after all the bullshit she had to go through. These two deserve all the hugs.

Opinion: Justin’s voice in LiS is way too over-the-top. His voice actor in BTS does a much better job.

Max being on-and-off oblivious to Warren’s feelings for her is more evidence that his status as a “love interest” is practically nonexistent, regardless of player choice. This supposed romance lacks Max’s affirmation. While she enthusiastically smooches the shit out of Chloe for a “dare”, at no point does Max express anything other than friendly affection for Warren. She acknowledges that he has a crush on her, but the game itself brushes it aside so we can focus on Chloe and Max. Max even seems annoyed and dismissive when Chloe brings up Warren’s crush. I can tell what the writers were going for, but they kind of wrote themselves off the edge of a cliff in regards to Warren and Max.

Now back on topic. Interestingly enough, the choice you’re given here (let Warren beat the shit out of Nathan or step in) has no lasting consequences, despite being presented like it does. Wonder if the writers had some grand storyline to do with Nathan that they abandoned at the last minute.

Frank Bowers, criminal mastermind.

There are about three or four ways this confrontation can end and two of them involve Frank dying. Poor Frank. Poor guy just wants to eat beans.

This interaction is also important for Chloe, because it shows how little control she has over the chaos she loves to create. If you’re unlucky enough to piss Frank off too badly, Chloe ends up shooting Pompidou when he rushes out of the RV and then Frank when he tries to attack her. And despite all of Chloe’s big talk about how great it is to have a gun, she’s completely traumatized by what she’s done. Chloe might act like a total badass, but in reality she’s scared and vulnerable. Having a weapon might have made her feel like she was in control, but it turned out that it just made her more irresponsible and reckless, which in a twisted way is what Chloe thinks being in control means (at least for her).

Just two gals being pals, solving mysteries and kissing each other because they’re gay as fuck.

Everyone else: Pick a genre

LiS Writers: How about all of them?

A coming-of-age, slice of life, psychological thriller, supernatural thriller, mystery adventure game starring two gay best friends. Behold the best genre in existence.

How the hell did this game get so disturbing in such a short amount of time while nailing the atmosphere and maintaining its basic premise? Because it’s a fucking work of art. Say what you will about anything else in the game, but this transition from casual to creepy was masterful.

Ahem.

Kate Marsh (in Episode 2): “I woke up in a room. I thought it was a doctor’s office because it was so white and bright.”

Note how when Kate mentions “someone talking to her in a soft voice”, she says “someone”. Not Nathan, whom she mentioned by name twice in her story. Someone.

And here’s a really good one from the second episode: Mark Jefferson says they’re going to be learning about chiaroscuro. The contrast between light and dark. You know, like how Mark Jefferson has both a light side (the one he uses to make friends with all of his students) and a both literal and figurative “dark side”.

Fun fact: A full moon was once believed to cause madness. So would two moons cause twice the amount of madness?

Let’s appreciate the fact that Warren is a total lightweight and neither Chloe nor Max give him shit for it.

Another thing I wanted from BTS: A better look at the Vortex Club and the idea that it was a cult. Because this seems like an absurd amount of money and effort for what is essentially just a party where people are going to fuck and get high/drunk off their asses. Seems like the Prescotts had some kind of angle, but the story never explains what it is and BTS completely ignores the opportunity to expand on it.

So who wrote this? Probably Nathan, but there’s the slightest chance it was Mr. Jefferson. He could have meant it to be an extra layer of proof that Nathan was responsible for everything if anyone came looking.

Chloe was almost shot by Nathan, which is what started the whole thing. Then she actually gets shot by Mr. Jefferson, bringing things full circle in the worst possible way.

Dun dun dun.

I am going to have a lot to talk about in Part 5.

#life is strange #pricefield #max caulfield #chloe price #revisiting life is strange #analysis #foreshadowing #essay #video games #the penultimate

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pierrehardy · 4 years

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Until We Meet Again, Globalization

A globalized world is one of those concepts that economists would see as an ideal world—a world with less friction in doing business. Globalization removes the friction made by countries' borders: people can work anywhere, products can ship anywhere, businesses can set up anywhere, capital be yeeted anywhere, and supply chains be set up anywhere. It comes with costs, but its benefits outweigh it: it makes products cheaper, innovation faster, and workforces more talented, to name a few.

Sadly, over the last decade, globalization has been taking hits, and the final blow is made by COVID-19. This write-up is about how we can expect deglobalization. We'll talk about what caused it, what will replace it, and what will be the consequences. We will also touch upon how different supply chains will look like because of the COVID-19.

TL;DR

First blow to the chin: the 2008 financial crisis. The second blow is to the body: The sino-American trade war. The winning shot: the COVID-19. And down goes globalization.

With the pandemic exposing how chaotic countries bicker, people are understandably uncomfortable because their safety relies on cooperation and intricate supply chains. Nowadays, countries refuse to play nice and supply chains are too China-dependent, a country that won’t hesitate to coerce anyone critical of them. Plus just the fact that everyone’s eggs are in one basket. This triggers a trend away from globalization and towards self-reliance. As an economist, this is not ideal.

First of all, what is globalization anyway?

The idea is a more global world. Cheesily, this means a world with fewer borders. This means supply chains can cross countries with ease, and so can goods (with trade), money (capital), and people (as workers or citizens).

Okay, so what's replacing it?

As I mentioned, self-reliance. This means supply chains will be rejiggered (this deserves its own bullet point further on) and the flow of capital will be more controlled. National champions (aka local firms) will be prioritized. Doesn't sound so bad, no? But it kind of is.

See, restricted capital flow means the money can't freely go where it needs. Without restriction, money naturally goes to where it is most efficient (Mind you, efficiency is not always humane. But that’s a discussion for another time. But just take it from me for now: it’s a good thing). Restrict that, and you miss out on better investments and businesses miss out on capital.

National champions are also known to have a high chance of being zombie firms. If your local company is the best at what it does, that's alright. But if it's not, then you're getting the short end of the stick by either getting an inferior product, or a more expensive product or maybe both.

Travel in all forms will be politicized: for tourism, for business, and for migration. Trade and tourism will have to deal with travel bubbles and copious amounts of testing and quarantining when arriving and leaving. Meaning, there will be a lot of friction.

Immigration will be more restrictive. With unemployment surging everywhere in the world, governments will be more protectionist.

Let's talk about supply chains. Here are some educated speculations on what will change. In general, though, the trade-off is between safety and efficiency, with the pandemic calling for more security.

Things will be less "lean" as inventories get fuller. One part safety against supply chain disruption and one part because of the accelerating trend for e-commerce. Online shops need 3x more inventory space than physical shops.

Supply chains will move away from China. But just as you can't spell Supply Chain with China, it'll be more of a China+1 sort of deal. Having all chains in China is the opposite of diversification, after all, so this spreading out may bring some benefits. We have a chance to make a safer chain, albeit not as cost-effective.

Those hoping that this may bring back jobs might be disappointed. First, offshoring some administrative tasks may be a trend. Managers realized that telecommuting works and may want to cost-cut and outsource some more administrative tasks to remote workers from cheaper countries.

The trend towards automation is also accelerating. They're cheaper and more efficient in the long run and plus, they don’t get sick.

Ultimately, deglobalization will make us worse off.

Recovery from this crisis will be slower. Self-resilience will result in more expensive products, especially in wealthier countries, hurting consumers. Developing countries will also find it harder to progress since we will get less business and less collaboration to catch up technologically.

The world will be geopolitically more unstable. You only need to read the news to see that this is already happening. A world order worth maintaining requires international cooperation, and the same goes for solving global problems like climate change. A more disconnected world will not help.

Less globalization is literally the opposite of diversification. This will make economies more fragile and vulnerable. Globalization, like capitalism, isn't perfect, but instead of throwing it away, fixing it is still the best thing to do.

Was the TL;DR still too long? Ah well. Don't want to rewrite it. It'll do.

What brought it down?

To be clear, globalization wasn't knocked out by the virus single-handedly. Instead, it's been beaten down for more than a decade now, starting with the 2008 financial crisis. This was the last recession we had before this bastard of a year that is 2020. A housing bubble and lousy loaning practices brought down the world's financial system, with Lehman Brothers being the most famous victim. This spooked the world, stagnating trade and foreign investments. But that much is understandable.

After that, globalization would pick up again, but never back to its previous levels. Then came the second hit: Donald Trump. He waged a full-on trade war against China and basically anybody. This hastened the decoupling of the technology spheres between China and America, making for a world with less innovation. Add Brexit to the mix, and you can see that the 2010s weren't a good decade for economists.

Then finally, the pandemic. Aside from the apparent effects of the whole world going into lockdown and businesses closing, there are two other things that the virus exposed that would turn people off from globalization: a Chinese supply chain and the truth behind global cooperation.

When China went into a harsh lockdown at the beginning of the pandemic, it paralyzed so many supply chains. This paralysis in businesses shocked people into realizing that they've been building supply chains all wrong: a global supply chain purported by globalization was, in reality, more of a Chinese supply chain. This goes against the idea that globalization promotes diversified supply chains, which would be safer.

The pandemic, which needed global cooperation, exposed that countries are barely capable of it. Globalization, it seems, did nothing to bring the countries closer. It showed how France and UK bickered on health protocols to China bullying naysayers like Australia to America too busy with internal conflicts to assume leadership (though their establishments of trade swaps with central banks around the world was commendable.)

All the chaos that was unveiled frustrated as well as scared the public: why do we have to rely on cooperation with uncooperative countries to survive? People will understandably demand their governments to be more independent and resilient. People are not comfortable with the fact that a bulk of medical supplies come from China, a country that won't hesitate to coerce anybody critical of them. And what the public wants, the public (usually) gets. Bye for now, globalization.

What will replace globalization?

In general, the world will be a more unfriendly and disconnected place. There will be three primary outcomes: politicized migration, politicized travel, and a rise in self-reliance. That last outcome may sound like a good thing, but it's not. I'll explain more a bit later on but a quick summary is basically that cheesy quote: united we stand, divided we fall.

Migration is an issue that has been very political recently, especially in the US. Now that Trump has a valid excuse, he's sure to use it. The pandemic did cause an all-time high in unemployment rates. Restricting new workers and citizens into the country is a solution that many Americans will find sensible: fewer newcomers and less competition for scarce jobs. But this is horrible to businesses that rely on highly skilled foreign talent.

Travel will be trickier since not all countries are fighting the virus with equal levels of competency. Some states are either unsafe to travel to or ban foreigners from entering to keep the 'rona out. This doesn't just affect tourism but also traveling for work and for goods.

Businesses that span borders rely on travel to get going. This is the most obvious impact of travel restrictions to the unraveling of globalization and international business.

Goods would ship much slower due to added restrictions and stricter border checks.

As for other forms of travel, talk of "travel bubbles" is something I've heard lately. Basically, it's when countries form groups of free travel among each other. The formation of such bubbles would depend on how integrated their trade and workers are and their infection rates. This will also require trust (already a dealbreaker to most) or plenty of testing during departure and arrival.

Governments around the world are already taking action or voicing sentiments (like India and Japan) to be more self-reliant. For example, America urged Intel to bring supply chains closer to home and the EU has drafted plans to back up their supply chains and mark some strategic goods that should be made closer to home. Defenses against predatory buying of foreigners to weakened local companies are also being set up. What else can happen?

The first thing that may occur is that the public may become more nationalistic when it comes to which companies to support. This may partly be because so many local companies are propped up by their own tax money.

Another possibility is restricted capital outflow, keeping investments at home. This can lead to less return on investments for locals and less capital for poorer countries.

The most interesting outcome would be how supply chains will change because of this. This warrants its own section.

Supply chain regionalization

Fundamentally, when trying to speculate on which direction supply chains will change, it's a trade-off between safety and efficiency. The corona thing gave the urge for more security while sacrificing some efficiency and cost savings. Here's a list of educated speculations.

Inventories will grow.

The way of working that prizes efficiency the most is anything with "lean" slapped in the title. So we can expect that there will be a downtrend for lean manufacturing. Still, I also anticipate this to be temporary. People are generally myopic and short-minded, and when things stabilize, the hunger for efficiency will return. But for the short term, inventories shall be fuller.

If history is a guide, [1] investors will reward businesses that will moderately increase their stocks for safety in a time of crisis.

When lockdowns forced shops to close, this boosted e-commerce. Additionally, weakened firms may also close more shops to save money on rent and instead, rely on e-commerce more. This expected growth of e-commerce will require more inventory since online shops need three times the warehouse space than physical ones.

Companies will indulge in short term ways to increase safety.

One way to increase safety is to raise cash on hand for companies and to have enough buffers to withstand tough times.

Now a bit contrary to the previous point, which is about saving money to be safe, another way is to spend money to be safe. Basically like paying insurance for when things go south. This need is more apparent now, during a crisis. During good times, companies will usually drag their feet to spend on something that's not immediately and obviously needed. But at least for now, they will.

Reduce payables and pay a premium for safer and more redundant suppliers. Also, to help the suppliers out and cultivate a good relationship with them because if they go down, they will drag you with them.

Reduce product margins in favor of less efficient but safer practices. Good luck convincing investors with this plan, though.

Supply chains will shift away from China… a bit. More plausible is this China+1 policy that's been floating around. China will still be a significant supplier to the world because they're still cost-efficient. Still, some links will be regionalized, depending on the market and the product. This can be a good thing because it will diversify the global supply chain, making it safer. How to know if a particular link is worth shifting? Here are some factors.

First, it depends on the product. If it's complex products with plenty of parts that go back and forth between borders, keeping the supply chains closer together and closer to home will be simpler and more resilient from shocks, even though it may be a bit more costly.

Is the country a dependable place to do business in? You can use their response to the pandemic as a guide if they are.

People who complain "they took our jobs!" will be hit with a double whammy. The first one is that probably, even more work will be offshored, which includes some administrative functions. Why?

It is cheaper.

The whole sudden push to remote working made managers realize that it is possible to manage people remotely and still get the job done.

The second one is that this will likely increase the trend of automation. Businesses are weak right now, and cost savings will be a priority. Plus, robots don’t need breaks and don’t get sick.

Figure 1 [1]

One point of the possible dilemma are companies that were saved by governments using taxpayer money. This may become a thorny issue because these are companies that failed to invest enough to keep themselves safe and resilient and yet were saved anyways. It's like rewarding someone who didn't do their homework. This may disincentivize companies to spend on insurance to keep themselves safe during a downturn and instead rely on government rescue. This will set a bad precedent.

The world less connected

What does a deglobalized world look like? As an economist, my answer is that it's worse off.

The world right now is badly hit, and because of deglobalization, recovery will be slower.

A less global society is a more expensive world, especially for richer countries that benefit from the cost savings of offshoring.

As for the poorer countries, they will find it harder to catch up economically (because less business will be made with them) and technologically (the more connected we are, the more we learn from each other.)

A geopolitically unstable world. A less connected world is a more uncooperative world. This makes big problems that require global cooperation to solve more daunting. It will also be more challenging to maintain the current liberal world order. Just read the news, and you'll see the cracks already deepening as I type this.

A more economically vulnerable world will result if global supply chains start to untangle. Aside from the rude realization that a global supply chain was apparently just a Chinese supply chain, deglobalization is not the answer. Deglobalization is literally the opposite of diversification. The solution is in fixing it, not throwing it away. The exact same thing can be said about capitalism and society in general.

References

[1] Chen, H., Frank, M. Z., & Wu, O. Q. (2007). US retail and wholesale inventory performance from 1981 to 2004. Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 9(4), 430-456.

A note on how I reference: if you always read my blogs, you'd notice that today's reference list is… short. Let me explain myself. See, most of the time, I don't keep logs of things I read. When I write, I have to do the chore of tracking down what I read in the past. This is not very fun. I thought to myself, why am I writing a thesis right now and end up writing another mini-thesis on my downtime? So for the sake of keeping blogging relatively more fun for me, I decided to be less stringent. Besides, if you don't believe what I write, you can always Google and confirm it, which is something all of us should practice anyways.

#current events #politics #china #finance #economics #Business #technology

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flowing-paint · 7 years

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Time travel

It’s Sunday again and this means a new post on the blog. I actually lost two weeks worth of posts because of my trip back to Italy but I don’t really care: that was an awesome trip and gave me so many inputs and ideas! It was like traveling back in time to high school. Tabletop wargaming speaking, of course! In this post, I will briefly go over the experience and post some pictures of my really (really) old Warhammer Fantasy models. Wanna see them?? Click on the link below! Just be aware: a lot of pictures, so you’re in for a sloppy paint job ride!

So, I was back to my parents’ house where all my pre-Japan nerd stuff is carefully watched after by my Mom. She is not actively caring for it, of course. She just put all the junk in some big cardboard boxes and stuck it in the basement. Luckily our basement is a wine cellar so we have perfect humidity and temperature year round and my Magic The Gathering cards are still doing fine. My Warhammer figurines ended up in the same basement so, one of the first things I did was going downstairs and start digging through all the boxes to find them.

If you follow me on Twitter (unlikely, I know... but there’s still a remote possibility) you probably saw the pictures I took of my old models. Well, not all of them; just a small amount of representative ones my wife wanted me to upload on the blog. At the beginning, she just wanted to see how “good” I was back in the days mainly because she thought she may win a free “make fun of your nerd husband” ticket. However, after seeing the miniatures she thought it would be nice to upload them here: my painting at the time sucked so much that we thought it may be worthwhile to show it to those beginners on the internet that are just moving their first steps in the hobby. You know... just as some motivational stuff.

Taking proper pictures was hard: as I didn’t bring my light-box with me the picture quality is really bad... but, hey! not that I am blaming the pictures for my sloppy paint jobs. They are barely tabletop standard in some case (Skinks, I’m talking to you!) and lack proper contrast in most of the others. I will upload them here so that you all can see how one can evolve from hobby-zero to hobby-hero! (ok, this last one came out a little bit too presumptuous),

Dark Elves

During high school, I was a great fan of Tolkien books.... I still have all of them in my bookshelf. I really liked Elves as they were the most “likable” faction in all books so when I first approached Warhammer Fantasy, Elves was my to go choice. Still, high elves with all their white and pointy faces did not appeal to me too much and the Wood Elves looked more like Robin Hood imitations. So I naturally ended up with the Dark Elves with all their human sacrifices, blood drinking, and naked boobies. Impressive how teenagers mind works (or really, doesn’t). I went with the color scheme suggested in the army book and ended up with some cool looking models. I just happened to make two big mistakes:

I did not coat them when I was done with the painting. Actively playing with them and storing in sub-optimal conditions led to a lot of paint chipping and the models are now completely covered in blemishes.

I left them on display in a bright spot. The UV from the light slowly ate through the paint and the more delicate pigments just died (especially the blue and the yellows)

Read these two points well and avoid the same mistakes! I am coating the models now but the very first units I didn’t protect are to be fully repainted. Do you really want to do it? No, you don’t. Well, maybe, if they were really bad you can think about it.

So, let’s actually see some pictures!

These are the two leaders Malekith, the Witch King on his black dragon and Morathi the witch on her black pegasus. They look like they’re black only while the wings and some part of the body were painted with a blue-violet gradation.... that’s totally gone. I also urge you to focus on the bases: yes, that was the “only” style back in the days. Goblin green and flock aplenty! I may actually say I was going fancy as you can see a couple of stones and a log on the lady’s base.

Not sure about the name of the first one but the second one is an assassin. I remember using these two guys a lot: they were good at killing big stuff so I recall using them against my friend’s chaos demons. Not that I was able to win easily because, back in the days, chaos was super-overpowered!

Dark Elves are rich in witches.... like, literally everybody is a witch. Even the supreme commander/king. They use to hang around a boiling cauldron full of blood they used to do sacrifices and magical rituals. I clearly remember the cauldron being one of my favorite models back in the day: the machine itself is still super cool. What I didn’t really like were the witches themselves: they show how bad GW miniatures were then... super ugly. I mean, look at them.... I can’t believe I painted 20 of them...

Last, one of the few ranged units in the army, the Reaper bolt thrower. It was really useful when all other units were basically close combat. I only had a 10 man unit of bolt thrower equipped infantry and I was just flying forward with my big guys and charging with cold ones. Mmmm.. not the best strategy. That’s probably why I didn’t win too much with these guys.

Lizardmen

This is still my favorite army by a long stretch. I won big games with them and I mean that all my friends hated playing against them and kept asking for the Dark Elves... But do you really want to know the best thing of all? I had 90% of the army for free. I’m talking being in the right place at the right time. I was shopping with all my friends in a small shop that was my FLGS at the time and the owner came and asked all of us: anybody into starting Lizardmen? Back in the high school, we didn’t have money and, as you know, GW stuff may be pretty expensive.... so everybody went like “no thanks, I already play xxx”. I was the only one that actually replied differently; something along the lines “No, thanks... I don’t have money. But I wish I had ‘cause they look epic!”. That’s when the store owner replied “Then you’re in luck! I don’ want money for them: here you are. pick this bag and have fun!”. We had just realized the store was going out of business and he was giving away bargains but nobody wanted lizardmen because of the sheer number of dudes required. I just got a bag full of them and my friends kept blabbing about my luck for months. I’m still in love with them, their mesoamerican Aztec-like fluff and their tactics so I am still collecting them even in the new Age of Sigmar. I wish I could rebase them all easily.

Let’s move on to some pics!

Aerial view of a “typical” battle configuration. With 90% less skinks... I mean, I was fielding 100ds of skins. On average. They were able to fire two arrows in a row and were super-cheap. I like old skinks way more than present skinks. They were actually useful back then.

My favorite unit in the whole game. They were three flame throwers.. pretty solid ones! A salamander and 2 handlers got lost somehow... They kept killing tons of foes while being pretty resistant too. I was really happy to see they didn’t get nerfed in the AoS warscrolls! The color scheme was completely original... the suggested colors were greenish IIRC but as you all know I am not a big fan of “standard” colors.

The general of my army, the Slann is being carried around by 4 Saurus temple guards. This dude was a beast! But he actually looks like he was painted with my toes... unfortunately. I remember I had to paint him fast to field him in a game... but now I regret doing it. I should have taken more time to do it better. He is not even washed! Guys, please treat your generals with some more respect than I did....

Prehistoric flyers... this model actually looks good. It clearly shows what the protective coat does... he was out in the light with the dark elves but the blue is still there and the red is still bright. Game-wise... Terradon suck. I should try the new flyers, the “ripperdactyls”

I also had a lot of characters to field from the crazy cavalry dude on an enraged horned one (Inxi huinzi) to the snake priest (Tehenhauin) and the blow-machinegun (Oxyotl). I think I had even more but I’m not super-sure. Here are the pics I shot.

I think we can consider ourselves done with pictures.... I have some more but basically, this is it! What do you guys think? Did looking at this metric crapton of sloppy minis motivate you? I hope it did ‘cause it motivated me to repaint them! Maybe somewhere in the future... who knows. Or maybe I’ll give them to my son when he will grow up and let him have fun with them. After stripping them of course... luckily they are all metal!

To close this long post, I just anticipate that looking at my old minis I also had some proxy ideas for my AoS armies that I will show you next week! Stay tuned!

... game on!

#painting #Warhammer #age of sigmar #aos #oldhammer #Lizardmen #seraphon

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violetsystems · 5 years

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#personal

I haven’t written many of these lately for a lot of reasons. One of those keeps ringing in my head every time I think about sharing information online. I’m not really a fearful person. The last year alone is living proof of that. But there are things out there that actively try to subvert your quality of life. And they rattle some people’s nerves a lot more than mine. I had to review some training videos for work in relation to cyber security. The most impressive of which was a description of the GDPR which is one of the most extensive European privacy laws in regards to the Internet. The other big one was about Social Engineering. Great fishing expeditions in the sea of information trying to catch the Great White Shark. for fun and profit. There were some great videos showing examples of this in the training. Thankfully there were no demonstrations of cat fishing or reverse cat fishing to which I am relieved. There was a line in there that hit home about people exposing other people’s private information for profit. What I’ve learned after being targeted left and right the last few months has been simple. I bring a lot of it on myself. Instead of saying it is what it is I stop myself. It comes with the territory. Brushing up against a lot of these scams has taught me a few things. Healthy skepticism towards people with the best intentions is key. So is having your shit together. I had to quit drinking three years ago to regain my focus. This is the first year where I see it all for what it is. It doesn’t scare me. It definitely disappoints me. People behave badly. That includes respecting another person’s privacy. We bring it on ourselves sometimes trusting the wrong people. Sometimes we give people second chances for being manipulated. This city is constantly manipulated into dumb shit. But there’s a healthy does of resistance after awhile that comes with standing your ground. One of the people from security spoke about this concept of “putting on the mask” in Chicago. It’s a useful technique in the Midwest. Scare people away so they don’t take advantage of you. Everybody here thinks everybody should be friends. It’s true people are genuinely nicer in Chicago. But that Midwestern pushiness can wrestle you to the ground sometimes. In a playful way right? Gain your trust and get you to talk about yourself more. Give up bits and pieces of personal information that you feel is innocuous at best. And then there’s the reality of a million cameras, microphones and devices recording every nuance and tick. One of the most intense battles in the tech sector in regards to privacy is facial recognition data. I’d say based on GDPR it’s still pretty barbaric how we value, respect and protect privacy here in America. The life I live these days is a fragment of everything I’ve ever sharied in public. A vulnerable space outside my home where I exist only as an avatar of myself. A hallucination of celebrity every step I walk. That’s kind of why I stopped writing to be honest. That and I know the person I write for already care and knows what I’m thinking. I care about intimacy. I care about privacy. I used to be so shitty at keeping secrets. Until I end up keeping one that means more than I bargained for.

Reverse cat fishing aside, the modern world has many mysteries that remain unsolved. Why I keep to myself should be my own business. And yet I find myself referencing Mark Fisher’s concept of Capitalist Realism more than I am comfortable with. I was reading about China and their housing market the other day. It said there are some strict Chinese families that won’t let their children marry unless the spouse owns a home already. Things have gotten rocky enough lately that the government has started to accept Intellectual Property as collateral. So there’s hope in that I guess. Here in America I work a non profit. I’m enrolled in a credit union. I make a decent living with a decent rent. Going into debt for a mortgage by myself to show how productive I am isn’t my kink for sure. I’d rather have children. The moderate amount of stability I have and how I achieved it is always under scrutiny by other people. Everybody ignores me but talks about my history behind my back. I live with the pain of three generations of people saying they know me yet I haven’t hung out with any of them in years really. If I thought about all this negatively it would drive me crazy. With putting my past behind me I planned a lot more for the future. I train. I run. I cook healthier food. I know what I run on. I know how much that costs. And I could sit here for days and complain about money and how fucked I am in the face of the upper class. And I could waste my entire life worrying about people who don’t worry about me. Or I can make it happen in a realistic way with what I have. A full and albeit peppered grey head of hair that keeps growing back. A cat that wandered in from outside that now sleeps next to me at night. A weird way of looking at the world that is both tender, cautious and brutal if attacked. The mind fuck of it all is that you have to be comfortable with what you want to achieve. And there’s no shortage of people out their that want to take advantage of your confidence and trust for thousands of reasons. Which is why I’ve gradually thought more about how I share things online. Also how I spend money in public. Is it respected? Is it safe? Does it have context? Can it be manipulated? Will the terrorists win? Who keeps sending me all these mother fucking political robocalls? Will I ever make enough money to afford a home? Does that even matter to me right now? How much is my intellectual property really worth? Reach out to attorney’s in your area. Targeted ads commencing in five, four, three, two you get the idea. We are all living in this utopia where we are desperate to connect. Hellbent on being reassured in the face of absolute chaos. And the switchboard operators are happy to link you into some bullshit that isn’t worth your time in the matrix. It’s a proven fact. When you lead there are no maps. Nobody to follow except your own internal gut. And facing the gut instinct that my hunches are always well informed with skepticism has been key. But I still have to live my life in the face of all of it. That’s my responsibility.

I do prefer being alone than with somebody who isn’t really there. Fairweather friends are a liability to my responsibilities for sure. It’s a funny realization because some of my best friendships are vapor at best. There are people that get me without having to write a word anymore. I don’t read too much into the why’s or how’s. And there are some people so chatty and fake that I’m never really part of the conversation. We all crave intimacy deep down. We want to share an intimate secret with someone. Real love. Care and affection. And at the core we let our guards down to let that in. Sometimes just to feel it. To know it’s there. And the end result is based on mutual trust. We seek out validation in places we feel are safe. And ultimately those spaces become compromised after awhile. Because the people we trusted abused the connection. They couldn’t keep a secret. They didn’t value or respect your privacy. They threw the bait and caught the shark. They hunt the whales with shitty harpoons and flaccid lines. After awhile the sharks stop swimming in those waters. The ecosystem gets all fucked up. And the party is over. The sharks just got smarter. Or they found safer harbors for their emotions. However poetic I describe it the realization for me is all the same. I have not had the best of luck being open and transparent. We as Americans love our freedom of speech just as much as we love taking it away from other people. Human nature is flawed. Revenge isn’t very constructive. Being proactive about protecting the things you love is a better idea. Just how draconian you react is bound to show up somewhere in your aesthetic. I prefer a culture of avoidance. I wash my hands of the virus just like the flu. I quarantine myself from the for profit news cycle and the petty scammers. I set up a bulwark in my life of practical thinking and fiscal austerity. Sometimes it’s not fun. Other times nobody bothers me with how I live my life behind closed doors. That’s a constant negotiation that has nothing to do with class privilege or conceptual art. I literally am the worker that Marx talks about and at the same time know the unfortunate realities of Capitalism. I also know a lot of people’s opinion are backed up by hot air. They don’t put in work. They live to disrupt. To make it hard on you. To justify it as some test of your usefulness. I’m pretty useful. I enjoy my life. I work hard. I go to the movies by myself like a boss. I have an empty space next to me at all times. What fills that space is nobody’s business. The person walking around in spite of all this in my own skin is testament enough. I’m still alive. I’m still pretty done with all of this shit. And I still understand that I have to live it. Being vigilant all the time can be shitty especially if you keep surrounding yourself with the same negative influences. I’d rather surround myself with my cat and the occasional fishing across the ponds. They don’t call them the Great Lakes for nothing. There have definitely been some choppy waters out here in the deep web. You know I’m a pirate of the High Seas. More like the captain. Ahoy you fucks. Keep your ship together. And I will promise to do the same. <3 Tim

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nightshade-victorian · 7 years

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i need to know more about N'kari 👀

I’ll do the Oc Character meme thing for you and answer any other questions you might have after… there is so much on him :D @marbleunderthefridge there is some new canon you might like and I hope you don’t mind me tagging you @occultdetectives but you might enjoy this…

@sisterofsilence thanks so much for drawing my baby

Full name: He has many names; some are daemon names gifted by Slaanesh for excellent acts of excess and indulgence, some are his own inventions to inspire appropriate reactions and some are locked tightly away to prevent rivals from gaining an upper hand. He goes mostly by N'Kari the Shining Subjugator (which referances his war band, the Silver Sàde) or alternatively Silk-strings. As you can tell he likes his phonics to refer back to Slaanesh as you can never be too polite to an multidimensional transcendental beings. N'kari is actually the name of the Keeper of secrets that he has imprisoned in his staff; the Vaas'thi'ek (King of pleasure). His real name is Shukura Nanaja and was in fact one of the only surviving Terran Emperor’s children. He keeps this really locked up tight as names have power.

Gender and Sexuality: N'kari isn’t as fluid as he looks and has a very clear sense of self which is predominantly masculine in nature. This doesn’t mean that he doesn’t like experimenting with his presentation like any self respecting Slaaneshi… he is one gorgeous bastard is all I’m saying.He’s very gay and never showed interest in his female astartes colleagues even when not corrupted. Only men have seen his dubious affections which they all wish they hadn’t barr maybe a few.

Pronouns: he/him. He’s not very patient with ‘silly’ and ‘made up’ pronouns though he rarely sees anyone as fully worth his time/respect and mostly refers to others like chattel or inanimate objects.

Ethnicity/Species: Astartes (however Fabius has grafted Eldar DNA to him which has resulted in some interesting developments in his Psychic abilities and visual appearance. He really wasn’t happy about it).

Birthplace and Birthdate:Shukura was born on Terra and the youngest terran Emperor’s children marine made. He comes from the Emperor’s own Birthplace of what was modern Turkey to a noble family of scientists who lived within the imperial palace courtyards. His family were especially honoured when their son was chosen for the Astartes Legions and gave him only the best.

Guilty pleasures: Anything that brings him pleasure for that moment. Actually he’s very much in control of his urges for pleasure which saves much of his sanity though he is deeply sadistic and takes great pleasure in inflicting pain on others. I suppose his really pleasure (and weakness and possibly only love) is August Gerhard… an Ultramarine he captured and tamed into a pet for himself. He has decidedly twisted feelings for poor Gerhard which stem from bad memories, deeply personal desires and straight up corruption. N'kari both adores and hates Gerhard for this. He loves vintage music boxes and carousels on a less morbid note and has been known to restore ancient ones to full glory.

Phobias: Loss of Control. That is really his only fear… he has such a control complex even though it in itself is tightly controlled. When situations go beyond his control, he will seek to tighten his grip on what he does have under his power (usually Gerhard). He rarely lets everything slip away from him and will hoard elements of control like jewellery. It’s all part of his superiority personality that sees only himself and a few select others as actually full and complete beings with totally rights over the imperfect scum.

What they would be famous for: N'kari is already famous in the Eye of Terror for multiple reasons. He is well-known mostly as a man of business rather than combat. Combatants are a hundred a penny in the Eye and so Chaos marines that make a very successful living out of businesses are quite rare. Runs three businesses on a permanent basis and has his fingers in innumerable others, mostly as a shareholder. His most notable business is Slave raiding/trading which seeing as slaves are practically currency in the Warp, he’s practically the equivalent of a money lender. He tends to specialise in exotic and high quality slaves such as large rare Xenos breeds and unfortunately Astartes. Astartes are his most sought-after commodity so N'kari has developed ways of mass capturing Astartes that have driven Chapters to the brink of extinction. That in itself is considered a feat, has affording him large amounts of privilege in the Eye and granting him unchallenged interaction to exclusive places/people/events.His second and arguably his most famous business is his Psykosurgery and Soulmetrics. The warp is the stuff of souls and thus it’s only natural that its inhabitants want souls to be proud of even if it increases their risk. Think of it like plastic surgery but for the soul… N'kari can imbue souls with flavours, patterns, essences and many other abstract concepts that are only tangible in the Warp. A slaanesh cultist may want to embody a certain concept and have their soul modified so that their very spirit compliments their theme or a warrior might wish to increase the fear they inspire on the battlefield and have a warsong grafted into them. The possibilities are endless and only N'kari truly understands the arcane science behind it. He guards the secrets so jealously that even Slaanesh is kept guessing. Similar methods are frequently applied to slaves that are of particular value to increase their desirability and usefulness. Some are made into ‘living dolls’, their very souls scrubbed clean and prepared for new personalities or purposes.

What they would be arrested for: Literally everything he does is a crime against humanity and life in general.

Oc I ship them with: N'kari has four official ships which are the most plot important. His first relationship is the most plot important but also the most tragic. Shukura as a loyal marine was deeply in love with an Ultramarine Captain called Varius Lucretius. Shukura was a Librarian and thus (wisely) avoided by most but Varius while a little unnerved by Shukura’s possessiveness, was actually rather in love with him. Varius’s levelheaded and emotional healthy person was a good influence on Shukura and if their relationship had survived, it could have saved many lives however it didn’t. In fairness the initial disaster wasn’t Shukura’s fault but his need for control, his suppressed sadism and inability to let go combined together to make a tragedy that could have been avoided. Varius died in complete agony and terror which left such a mark on Shukura that even ten thousand years after, the event is so burned into his mind that it cannot ever dull. The second ship is a follow on from the above but it is so down the unhealthy and abusive scale that it’s not really a ship… more like the worst Master/slave relationship possible however it is the longest and most significant. Varius’s geneseed was successfully recovered and was of course returned to Macragge. It had several hosts over the next thousand years, giving it a respected position and age in the Ultramarine lineage records. The geneseed was actually going to be retired from implantion as it was no longer successfully replicating new ones but it was decided to implant it into one last host. This host was a young peasent neophyte called August Gerhard. To his immense misfortune, Gerhard grew to echo Varius’s features so well that when he faced off against N'kari, N'kari became obsessed with his capture and risked an entire catch of Ultramarines just to snare him in the most perfect way. Gerhard was captured and taken by N'kari back to his ship where he ‘trained’ to be the personal pet of N'kari. It is the most miserable life you can imagine for Gerhard; he’s the subject of intense psychological/emotional/physical abuse which has actually shattered his resistance leaving him broken and deeply traumatised. N'kari loves Gerhard but in the way only a chaos marine can; with a twisted mix of affection and cruelty. Gerhard himself is actually unaware of how much he resembles Varius leaving him with tormenting questions as to why N'kari treats him the way he does. The third ship was the shortest but has a lot of later plot importance. Shukura and Fabius used to be partners. Shukura was the first person to be taught by Fabius in the Haemonculus ways and more importantly the only one to survive. Fabius and N'kari understood each other on a level that was completely unprecedented by both and while it wasn’t really a sexual relationship, it was a deeply intellectual one. It ended very badly of course when their experiments on each other finally reached a limit. Fabius had grafted Eldar DNA to N'kari which in his eyes was like pouring pollution into a lake. N'kari got his revenge however in using his newly found eldar abilities to give Fabius trypophobia (a fear of hole clusters) which greatly impeded his work. They despise each other to this day but sometimes find that they are the only ones that can understand the other.The fourth is way more casual and doesn’t yet have any plot significance; Vicious and N'kari. Vicious and N'kari have had a thing for about as long as they have been traitors. Its more a case of ‘You scratch my itch and I scratch yours’ XD.

Oc most likely to murder them: Oddly enough this is most likely going to be Gerhard. Gerhard after he had escaped from N'kari’s chains and wants revenge with every fibre of his being. N'kari just can’t bring himself to kill the face of his lover despite it being his deepest desire. Though honestly a lot of people have it out for Nkari… he’s not exactly popular for his personality. The other person might actually be my other Slaaneshi Warlord Calliope; an ambitious mortal who is already making a lot of waves in the Eye. She’s powerful enough and if N'kari presents a threat to her plans… it doesn’t matter if he is still technically an ally.

Favourite movie and book genre: well he is complying his own encrypted notes on his Psykosurgery and Soulmetrics, reading whatever material he can squeeze from Fabius and the piles of arcane texts he can find but apart from that he doesn’t have the time or the inclination to ‘enjoy’ the creative work of others.

Least favourite tv/movie cliche: He hates Tv. Seriously even as a loyalist… he couldn’t stand it. Shukura was one of those super snobby people that would make passive aggressive comments to people who are always talking about TV programmes or films and make out how much better it was without it. It’s especially ironic because his character originally inspired by the Childcatcher in the film Chitty Chitty bang bang

Talents and powers: N'kari is a very talented person and boy does he know it. He has a very thorough understanding of his own abilities and is always pushing the limits he has found like a true son of Fulgrim. Even as legionnaire, Shukura was never the best close quarters combatant, only ever being just average in swordplay and marksmanship but he really excelled in his psychic abilities and his uncanny strategic planning. His Psychic abilities manifest usually in a mix of illusion, telekinetic energy and highly destructive empathetic channeling. It wasn’t uncommon to see him hang back, casting subtle illusions to confuse the enemy and wait for an opportune moment to unleash a mindflaying torrent of emotional energy against the leader and his minions. Naturally this didn’t earn him much favour with the martial III legion but Fulgrim encouraged Shukura to explore and perfect his abilities. It was in pursuit of this that Shukura began to study Astartes Psychology under the apothecaries, believing that in the understanding of his own mind, he would be able to push his abilities further than ever. This however didn’t happen as intended as he grew more interested in the science and theories behind Astartes Psychology rather than applying it to his own psychic studies. He devoured anything that involved general psychology and began to make his own studies on Astartes behaviour and it’s manipulation. Shukura quickly became the foremost expert in both Astartes Psychology and Psychiatrics, routinely assisting the apothecaries. It was in these studies that Slaanesh would find a businesslike but willing supplicant in Shukura, stoking his fascination for the more extreme behaviours and disorders. As the legion fell, Shukura experimented on his own brothers but rarely to their pleasure or enjoyment. He pulled the threads of their minds and hearts apart, subjecting them to intense psychic stresses that even the slaanesh corrupted marines struggled to handle. N'kari during the heresy had ample astartes captives to perfect his techniques and skills to the point where he can manipulate an Astartes’s deep thinking without even using psychic abilities. This is one of the reasons why he goes unchallenged by most warbands… they are genuinely scared of him. His most useful abilities revolve around this but he does have a few extra ones he developed when the Eldar DNA was grafted. His favourite is psychic strings (hence his name Silk-strings) allow him to control every action, word and sometimes thought of the being in question. They become extensions of his will. His second favourite is soul crystallisation… he will drive souls into a intense frenzy of sensation and pleasure-pain before crystallising them at the peak. These crystals then can be used like stun grenades releasing the huge amount of psychic pressure on unguarded minds.

Why someone might love them: N'kari is charming and terribly charismatic… at least on the surface. To the right people, he’s a lot of fun and will always give highly intelligent conversation that are unlike anything else. He’ll always have what you want…. and give it to you for the right price.

Why someone might hate them: see above XP. A metric ton of reasons… personality wise, he’s callous, cold and incredibly cruel. You never ever know where you stand with him. He has a superiority complex which is sky high…etc. etc.

How they change: welp… he used to have two normal arms, no horns and eyes that didn’t change colour but now he does and his left arm and shoulder is now 6 tentacles with big blinking eyes that he can see through. And he didn’t have eldar abilities. But on the serious tone, Nkari’s story is more about Obsession in its many deadly forms and how it will change a person into a monster if not careful.

Why I love them: because he is my beautiful trash baby. He’s pure evil and really any redeeming quality he had has long been burnt away. Plus he’s the AstartesCatcher!!!! He has the nets and cage chariots to prove it…

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bisbyworl · 7 years

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Alright then, it's been well over a month since I yelled about 7th Dragon so now it is time to YELL ABOUT OTHER GAMES.

DO YOU LIKE CHARITY?

DO YOU LIKE OLD RPGS?

WELL STRAP YOURSELF IN BECAUSE IT IS TIME FOR THE

FINAL FANTASY FIVE FOUR JOB FIESTA

What is it?

Well, the FJF is simple. You play Final Fantasy 5.

Only you only have four, randomly selected, jobs.

You also need to have one of each job in your party at all times. (usually)

You can also DONATE MONEY TO CHILD'S PLAY!

SOME PEOPLE EVEN OFFER MONEY PER RUN CLEARED SO YOU CAN HELP CHIP IN EVEN IF YOU'RE BROKE!

What do I need?

1) Any version of FFV. Literally any. Stab Y Burns with the mighty Butz on the Playstation release? Sure. Play on the go with FFV Advance on the GBA? By all means, the jobs and dungeon added in that aren’t used in any way in this to keep it fair for the other versions. Stay modern and use the Steam release? Go right ahead, my guy.

2) A twitter account. This is non-negotiable. I don't care if you have no interest in social media, just make a throwaway account for this. Hell, only thing I use mine for is this and uploading PS4 screenshots.

3) Some method of taking pictures. Emulating or using the Steam/Mobile versions will make it easy, but if you want to play on a console even a cellphone camera will work just fine.

4) That's it!

How do you sign up?

Step 1) Login to said twitter account.

Step 2) Go to http://fourjobfiesta.com/

Step 3) Choose your run type.

For a first run you should probably just stick with the default selections for a normal FJF run, but I'll yell about all the runs and modifiers later anyways.

Step 4) Let the site post the tweet for you.

Step 5) Wait for Gilgabot-senpai to notice you.

Step 6) You're done! Now you just have to wait for the fiesta to start.

Step 7) Once the fiesta starts, tweet #Water, #Fire, and #Earth to @FF5ForFutures when you reach the respective crystal to get your next job.

Step 8) Tweet #VictoryShinryu or #VictoryOmega if you manage to kill either of them, plus #Victory for killing Exdeath. Just make sure to attach a picture of them dying with the tweet. Screenshot or cell phone picture doesn't matter, all that does is proof that you killed them with your assigned jobs.

Wait, what are all these run types?

Each run can have up to four segments; run type, job pool, restrictions, and BERSERKER RISK. Some choices on one part can lock out others, and I'll bring those up as I go along.

RUN TYPES

Normal/ #reg The regular FJF run. You get one Wind job, one Water job, one Fire job, and one Earth job. No fancy tricks beyond that. You can reclass everyone freely as long as you have one of each job in your party at all times. You can use abilities from your other jobs. Freelancer may only be used until you get the Wind Crystal, and once you get multiple crystals you need at least one of every job in your party.

Random/ #regrand Each new pick can give you ANY JOB YOU CURRENTLY HAVE UNLOCKED. That means you have four chances at a Wind job, three chances at a Water job, two chances at a Fire job, and one measly chance at an Earth job. Hope you like the basics.

Chaos/ #RegChaos Each new pick can give you ANY JOB FROM ANY CRYSTAL. That means you can pull something like Samurai from the Wind Crystal. This means that you'll have to go without that job until you actually get the Earth Crystal, but makes it possible to get sillier team comps.

Pure Chaos Run/ #RegPureChaos Each new pick can give you ANY JOB IN THE GAME. The difference between this and Chaos is that you can GET FREELANCER AND MIME, which is impossible in any other run outside of buying them in the Job Fair. INCOMPATIBLE WITH: All job pool restrictions

Popular Run/ #RegPopular New to FJF2017. All picks are weighted towards the top jobs voted for in The Run.(which will be covered later) INCOMPATIBLE WITH: All job pool restrictions

JOB POOL

All Jobs/ default NO RESTRICTIONS. Despite the name, does not actually have all jobs, you can't pull Freelancer or Mime normally.

Team 750/ #reg750 You can ONLY PULL JOBS THAT CAN EQUIP RODS. Named after the elemental rods of Karnak, which cost 750 gil and boost damage of their respective element by 50%, or can be broken for one shot of a tier 3 spell.

Team No 750/ #regno750 Opposite of Team 750. You can ONLY PULL JOBS THAT CAN'T EQUIP RODS. Have fun staying healed.

Classic/ #RegFF1 You can ONLY PULL JOBS THAT WERE IN FINAL FANTASY 1.

RUN RESTRICTIONS

Natural Crystal/ #natural NO MULTICLASSING ALLOWED. Bartz gets the Wind job, Lenna gets the Water job, Faris gets the Fire job, and Galuf gets the Earth job. Everyone's jobs remain as Freelancer until you get their respective crystal. Team No 750 runners are not allowed to use their Freelancers to break rods. INCOMPATIBLE WITH: Upgrade

Upgrade/ #upgrade EVERYONE IS IN THE SAME JOB. Set everyone to the Wind job as in a non-natural run, but once you pull your Water job you must set everyone's job to that. You are not allowed to switch back to earlier jobs, so whatever you pull from Earth will be your only job till the end of the game. Abilites from previous jobs may be used freely. Because of the nature of this run, the normal rules for getting a new job is tweaked. Instead of tweeting for your next job when you get the crystal, you TWEET FOR IT WHEN YOU ARE READY. This way you don't have to grind out 1000AP on 1AP fights if you happen to pull Red Mage. INCOMPATIBLE WITH: Natural

Fifth Job/ #fifthjob New to FJF2017. Krile gets her very own job! Once she enters the party tweet #krile to replace Galuf's Earth job with a new one. YOU LOSE THE OLD EARTH JOB. No sneaky shenanigans to get free abilities.

BERSERKER RISK BERSERKER RISK BERSERKER RISK BERSERKER RISK

BERSERKER RISK/ #BERSERKERRISK HERE WE FUCKING GO. PREREG EXCLUSIVE MODIFIER, ONCE THE FIESTA STARTS THIS GETS LOCKED OUT.

WHAT DOES IT DO? WELL FOR EVERY $10 DONATED DURING THE DAYS LEADING UP TO THE FIESTA A RANDOM BERSERKER RISK PLAYER GETS A BERSERKER. $1000 AND 100 PLAYERS? EVERYONE GETS ONE BERSERKER. $1500 AND 100 PLAYERS? EVERYONE GETS ONE BERSERKER, 50 PEOPLE GET ONE MORE. FUN FACT: THE ONLY THING STOPPING YOU FROM RUNNING THIS WITH UPGRADE IS COMPLETE AND UTTER TERROR AT HAVING TO FACE SANDWORM WITH QUADZERKERS

THE JOB FAIR

Want to try an extremely gimmick team but RNG isn't being kind? Did RNG screw you harder than the countless dead Nakks that run into a Team 750 runner? Just happen to pull a job you just can't stand? Well with the power of money you can CHANGE YOUR JOBS. You can buy any job in the game, Freelancer and Mime included! Sure it defeats the entire point of the run, but hey, it all goes to charity anyways!

And on a final note, The Run.

http://fourjobfiesta.com/therun.php

The run is a four way race done to kick off every Fiesta. The jobs are chosen via votes. You can pick one job from each crystal in your vote. The vote adds 1 to the total for those jobs, but you can donate money alongside your vote to make it worth an equal amount, donating $10 will boost each of the jobs you pick by 10. The results of the votes also determine how a Popular run is weighted, so keep that in mind.

#final fantasy #final fantasy v #four job fiesta #FJF2017

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topicprinter · 4 years

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LET'S DO THIS!I've been getting some questions recently from people that have reached out to me for advice and I wanted to pay it forward to the community. I've advised a ton of businesses from idea, to seed, to raising money and exiting.My focus is on business strategy, sales, and marketing. All around building repeatable processes and streamlining operations.This is what I advise my clients to do right now -General thoughts about B2B and B2CIf you're B2B you're looking at either ongoing services or software and in some cases a little of both.If you're B2C you should be looking at consumable products, things people buy multiple times, with high LTV (lifetime value) customers or a product with a subscription element. NO OTHER EXCEPTIONS HERE.If you're selling into either businesses or consumers today, it's all about perceived value, which means there is some wiggle room depending on who you're selling to, BUT the following really should be held as foundational:These are pretty much the only reasons people buy things for B2B:It saves them time (reduces friction or replaces a time consuming task)Makes/saves them money (creates revenue/ adds value that lets them win business)Adoption is simple for their workforce (is easy to incorporate into an existing workflow and anyone can use it/cost of switching in relearning)Adds transparency and allows for bigger insights (provides data)B2C additional one - provides them joy or enhances their lifeThat's it.The most high growth businesses usually knock out at least two of the above. Really high growth companies hit four or more.Uber is an example of hitting just about all of them:No need to call a cab company and hope they show up, know where they areSaves them money, no more guessing on price and subsidized ridesJust download an app on your existing phone and add your cc numberTells me where my ride is, how long until they come to me, and how much it will costGives me an easy way to get a ride when parking is tough or drinking is involved because of their reliabilityThis works for a lot of businesses though - and there are more than a few SaaS companies that I’m close with that have nailed the majority of them and are creeping up in clients and funding as a result in historically busy spaces.Overall management advice because it’s more important than people thinkManaging is tough, just because someone was a great employee doesn’t make them a great manager and just because someone is an executive doesn’t make them a great communicator.Respect that everyone has different ways of communicating.Two lessons I’ve learned from working with a ton of senior leadership.Internally, break down everything into little goals, constantly ask yourself "What's my goal?" when it relates to calls, emails, outreach, posting, hiring, meetings, etc.Make that shit your mantra then distill it down to the simplest form it can be.You should always strive for clear and concise communication throughout all interactions. If you disagree with a request or find it not in the best interest, agree anyway first, then raise questions about it. Remember, we’re all in this together and our goal as a company is to help everyone clearly articulate “What’s my goal?” at a micro level to encourage good communication.Record all your processes from day one - process is what sets apart winners and losers, always be looking to improve your processes because down the line you're going to be looking to automate these - having records of your approach and what worked and didn't will be invaluable while growing, scaling, or building systems to streamline your approach.There is a tool for everything, that doesn’t mean you should use every tool. Find what works for your team and what has the highest level of adoption, create good habits around using the tools that provide you the best organization.Pep talk done let’s get down to businessWhen you're starting out the only things that matter are:Business strategy, partnerships, product, and marketing strategy.IN THAT ORDERSome of you will argue a team should be included, but I’m of the belief that if you nail all the above correctly, the people you have running it don’t matter as much. It’s more a matter of consistency and process than the people are executing.Today most smart businesses follow the same path:Start with your revenue and monetization plan (are you targeting a sector that has money and can/will pay)Align yourself with others in your space (cheapest way to get traction/credibility)Work on road mapping your product to align with what complements your partnerships (cheapest distribution)Work on building a marketing strategy that can help expose and align your brand while strengthening its recognition with your partners (will this make us both look good)Build customer advocates along the way, tell their stories (lead with examples)The above if done correctly massively increases your chances of successLet’s go over them one by one. (this post only covers number 1 - let me know in the comments if you want me to write up 2 through 5)REVENUE AND MONETIZATION - Will they pay? Do they have money?The following three questions can help you quickly weed out your ideas:Is what you’re building something that people are used to paying for?Is the part of the business you’re looking at a cost center or a revenue generator?Is what you’re providing a race to the bottom or increasingly a data play?You're answers should be, YES, Revenue Generator, Data Play.This is your best shot at success. Even a reduction in costs isn't as sexy all the time. Just compare your support budget to your marketing budget and these things become clear.Story time relevant to number 2 above - cost center v revenue generatorWe were using a series of three tools to automate a series of tasks we all hated. The three tools cost us around $1500 a month, the tools that did all the automation that we added, less than $200. We had to use the other tool either way but for $200 we were able to automate 80% of our work. To us we would have paid 10x for those solutions. The gap was we didn’t have any other good options to accomplish what we needed.I thought about building out a system and a product to fit this space, knowing the amount of savings this provided, but I ran into a problem - People weren't used to paying that amount for what we could provide, the part of the business was viewed as a cost center, and the data play is something that hadn't been used in that way before. Great idea, needed, proven out, but not marketable.You always want to be part of revenue creation - people are willing to pay more just about every time.Even really good ideas sometimes aren’t worth pursuing if the market conditions can’t support them.If you hit all the above three then we can move on to the best steps for getting this up and running.The steps for validating an ideaMarket knowledgeCompetitor researchNicheEarmarked budgetMarket KnowledgeKnow the industry you're entering.Please, for the love of everything, only start a company if you have intimate domain experience. Put differently, if someone was looking for someone to present even at a local level around what you're building would you be able to speak articulately about it where people would respect your opinion because of past work you've done?If the answer is Yes, pat yourself on the back.If it is no, stop, don’t pass go, you’re stuck with two options -Recruit someone to work with you that has enough domain knowledge for the both of you, orGo get some experience in the field, then come back to your planFar too often I talk to people that have had massive success or are really really smart, but they are taking on a project or product that is outside of their sweet spot. This leads to utter and total chaos and really is a waste of time and money in the vast majority of cases.Those that don’t know, partner. We’ll get to more of this in the second step, I’ve seen this work with companies where some groups lacked complete domain expertise. These were 3x CEOs and founders with healthy exits. This is harder to do, but works if you're smart about it.So what happens when a founder doesn’t have domain level experience especially in the early going, problems with go to market and validation, sometimes a general lack of understanding of business principles and market conditions. The result 99.9% of the time is that without domain expertise, founders end up misjudging the market massively and fail to provide the appropriate value.They often find themselves playing catch up and not in a good way, this is something that is easy to avoid, but hard to admit to oneself.I’m a huge proponent of learning an industry on the fly, but I feel like the better decision when possible is to get paid by someone else while you’re learning.But what about getting advisors and consultants to help me bridge the gap?I’ve seen this one in person, I’ve been part of this one, people don’t listen all the time. In some of the companies I’ve done work for, I’ve laid out what steps they should take, and watched as they fought back based on calculations that lacked all possible basis of being remotely possible losing millions of dollars in the process. The lack of domain expertise kills you when it comes to decision making if you’re not open to listening. But as an advisor, your job isn’t to make decisions for the teams, it’s to provide guidance and engage in conversations to bring issues to light and help people focus on goals.I've literally called business results months in advance in single meetings with executives only to watch things play out exactly how I predicted - usually negatively.Competitor Research (this is just an overview - this is it's own post and a half)The basicsSelling to someone that is using an existing solution is easier than enticing someone on a new concept or idea - cheaper tooIf there's competitor there are easy ways to build entire spreadsheets of their client listLook for industries within those client lists to build case studies aroundRemember you're in the game of creating content - be a resource for your communityQualify potential customers by using their opinions in your content marketingUse existing platforms for distribution where possible (integrations anyone?)You have more competitors that you know when launching a product, even if you’re a market first, you’re going to quickly find that the barriers to entry are steep and if the market is big enough people will be able to out spend, out maneuver, and out shout you pretty quickly.This shouldn’t deter you, it just means you need to be smarter.Existing ProvidersKnow the entire landscape for the type of product that you are creating. Know all the sort of competitors, talk to people and see what they are using, ask questions on Reddit and in other forums, understand who people know in the market.Then go to G2 and capterra and every other place that people talk about those products, scrape all the reviews with pros and cons - on some websites the reviewers even have linkedin links - go to their profiles learn about the companies they work for, the roles they have etc.There is so much data out there, work smart from the start.This is literally a post in it’s own or a chapter of a book. (if you’re reading this and you want me to break this down I can in another form).Correlate what your competitors do well, what they lack, and everything else in between.If you look up CRM you’ll see more than 250 listed probably more than 300 now, not including all the new ones like airtable and others that have popped up recently that aren’t direct traditional CRMs but just as useful.That’s a lot of space junk to get through.But there’s an easy way to get through it.NICHE YOUR SHIT DOWNThe biggest problem that most companies have is being able to properly niche down to the most ideal customer profile first, then work to expand the market after the fact.Remember that perceived value comment from way above.So how do you find yourself in the best possible chance of creating something that you can do well with?Build something that people are paying for, generates revenue for the business, and includes a data play as icing on the cake that improves processes and decision making.This will never work in broad terms, you need to be specific.One of the most common missteps people have is saying, their product is for everyone or every business. This is a red flag, don’t do this. Focus on doing one thing better than everyone else, look for data that supports a 10x uptick. This is basically required if you want someone to give your product a try as moving things over from an existing system are annoying.Your product needs to be very narrow, when you think you’ve gone narrow, you need to go more narrow.Example:We’re a helpdesk product.v.We’re a helpdesk product for eCommerce companies.v.We’re a helpdesk product for eCommerce companies using Shopify.v.We’re a helpdesk product for eCommerce companies using Shopify and Shipstation.v.We’re a helpdesk product for eCommerce companies using Shopify and Shipstation that have less than 100 skus.v.We’re a helpdesk product for eCommerce companies using Shopify and Shipstation that have less than 100 skus and do less than $10 million in annual revenue.v.We’re a helpdesk product for eCommerce companies using Shopify and Shipstation that have less than 100 skus and do less than $10 million in annual revenue with support teams less than 5 people.v.We’re a helpdesk product for eCommerce companies using Shopify and Shipstation that have less than 100 skus and do less than $10 million in annual revenue with support teams less than 5 people who are looking to automate their processes.v.We’re a helpdesk product for eCommerce companies using Shopify and Shipstation that have less than 100 skus and do less than $10 million in annual revenue with support teams less than 5 people who are looking to automate their processes who are currently using Zendesk.Just keep going deeper.There are perks to going deeper -The deeper you go usually the less competition you have - the more specific and tailored the easier the sales pitch is because you spend time creating things to help with workflows that relate to how they are working. When you know these workflows it's easier to have meaningful conversations.I’ve harped on the idea of process the entire time. And I’m going to continue to do it. Build things to simplify processes and watch people sign up and pay you to solve their problems.The ideal solution is turnkey that works with all the workflows people have or simplifies them with the amount of tools out there find the ones that you want to be part of the process with and integrate deeply.Earmarked BudgetIs the budget expanding, will it be expanded if you can tie results back to your product?This is actually really important because it comes to the ability to grow an account once you are in the account. Some businesses are better than others.If you’re a support desk product like above, and you reduce the amount of work people need to do, you’re reducing seats, if you can’t add features and other elements to increase the revenue per account or the size of the support team you’ve actually tapped out. This is the argument behind being a revenue generation company rather than a cost center. When it comes to a cost center it’s a race to the bottom and kills expansion, it forces you to always be acquiring new customers to increase revenue.This should be plenty to digest as you're thinking of ideas to pursue.Let me know your thoughts in the comments, hope this helps people out.I've got to stop here, we hit question 1 of 5 and we've barely scratched the surface.

#/r/startups #reddit

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hie87 · 7 years

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Hi world,

Today is my day off which gives me time to finally sit down and write about our wedding. Honestly, I can’t believe that it’s already been two months since we got married. Time goes by so fast, you guys! Christmas is just around the corner, and 2017 is coming to an end. Personally, I cannot wait to see what 2018 will bring us, as you probably read in my little update from the other day. More about that later, though!

In other words, this post is highly overdue, but better late than never, right?

If you have read the post Finally, I Do!, you know that we planned on getting married in Denmark. Basically, we were eloping, something that had started out as a joke, because it was more difficult to make all the ends meet with the planning for a wedding here in Stockholm, than we originally had expected.

The date was really important to us (read: me), and having the wedding in Stockholm would mean that we would have to compromise that date, at least if we wanted to get married at a really beautiful City Hall in town. So a seed was quickly planted and as time went by, it took root and it seemed like the perfect way to get what we wanted: To be married October 10.

Eloping to Denmark took some extra effort to plan, not gonna lie, but it did feel really right at the time. We would get married in a place that was very dear to my heart, close to where I grew up. We would keep it small and simple with only a few people from my family, and it would be at City Hall.

We knew that we both eventually wanted a church wedding, and a huge party for that matter, but at the time, we just didn’t have the money to do everything “right” right away, so it felt like a great compromise with a City Hall-wedding, so we no longer had to wait. It was such a relief, because that would give us three years to save up for the big wedding, we were both dreaming about in 2020-10-10. (10.10.20 as we would write it here)

It felt so good knowing that we wouldn’t have to compromise on sharing the special day with all of our friends and family, not to mention to throw one hell of a party and celebrate our love with them. The thought of that still gets us very excited. In fact, those plans are in the making, and we have so many amazing ideas, constantly adding new ones, so yeah!

October finally arrived, and we started the long drive down to Denmark for a little mini-vacation at my sisters place before the wedding. Those drives are always stressful, and spending 8-9 hours in a fully packed car with two impatient kids and two big, excited dogs was definitely not helping the situation.

Looking back on it now, I actually do wish that we would have done things differently. Don’t get me wrong. I love that we went back to Denmark to get married, but it just added an enormous amount of stress and that is so not what you need at a time like that.

We did however try to make the best of it. Knowing that on the last day we would finally get married, was just a bit surreal, at least it was for me. It was almost to the point where I had to remind myself that we were getting married. I was ready, I was excited, but I just had so much on my mind, so it was hard to give in and enjoy everything. It seemed like I had waited for an eternity for this day, and now it was so near that it was almost within reach. That was really difficult for me to wrap my head around.

When the kids finally saw each other again, I knew that it was worth all the trouble and stress of going down a couple of days before the wedding. They rarely ever fight, and they just have so much love for each other, it both warms and breaks my heart at the same time, since they can’t see each other more than a couple of times per year. But, as I tell our boys: Missing someone sucks and it can hurt a lot, but we are so lucky to have people in our lives that is worth missing.

Saturday and Sunday went by in a blur, we laughed, played games till late at night after the kids had been put to bed, watched GOT and it was just a great time like always.

The day before the big day, I wanted to have a nice, relaxing day with my sister. I really wanted to have my nails done and for the first time ever, try eyelash extensions. It would make everything so much easier for the wedding. Or at least, so I thought.

Nothing about that day was particularly relaxing though.

In fact, the girl that was doing the eyelash extensions who was under training, ended up doing something to my right eye, and it hurt so bad. My eye got blazing red instantly and started watering, but the girl said that it would disappear quickly, and I trusted that… I mean, what do I know about eyelash extensions?

As I walked into the other room to get my nails done, my sister was left in the far corner, where she had been sitting for two hours already while waiting for me to get done. That was not at all how I had wanted the day to be. The whole point of going there together was so that she could be close and we could talk. Honestly, the guilt of dragging her there to spend time with her and not being able to, added to the stress I was already feeling inside, due to my hurting eye.

So, I’ve had my nails done before, but never have I ever felt pain like that nail woman put me through. She squeezed, pinched, clipped and even hours later, my cuticles were still bleeding. My hands and fingers were so sore when she finished, and I just wanted to get the hell out of there as fast as possible. It was not a good experience at all, and on top of that, they charged me $32 extra for the eyelash extensions, than the price originally had been when I booked the time online. Had I known that, I wouldn’t have made the booking in the first place, because $135 for eyelash extensions done by a “trainee” is a joke if you ask me! However, I had to pay, and I went home from there with nothing but disappointment and pain overshadowing everything.

As the day progressed, my eye got more and more red. It was hurting more, it was constantly watering and I was slowly starting to freak out. Never had I seen my eye that red before, but I was hoping and praying that it would be gone by the next morning, just like they had said it would.

It didn’t go away, in fact, when I woke up at 5 o’clock on my wedding day to get ready, I realized when I came to the bathroom to take a shower, that it had only gotten worse over night. The pain in my eye had made it really difficult for me to sleep, but as I stood up, I realized that it had only intensified over night. It literally hurt if I so much as tried touching the skin around my eye, even blinking sent a stabbing pain into my eyeball.

I was slowly starting to panic for real. It was so not how I thought I was going to feel on this big day… a day I had longed for ever since I met Björn the first time. Luckily for me, the plan had been to have a birdcage veil all along, so I hoped that that could somehow hide that blazing red eye of mine, and that was at least some comfort.

Thinking back, everything that morning was just so stressful. Three happy dogs, two stressed cats, four bored children and three other stressed adults running around. It wasn’t really the best circumstances to keep it cool.

As I tried to do my own hair in the middle hallway, centering point of all the chaos, I ended up having my first real melt-down of the day. It was a minor one though, considering what was to come.

I had wanted to do my hair in a certain way, I had practiced and for what it was worth, I thought it had looked pretty good, everything considered. I still don’t know what I did different that morning or what I did wrong, but it ended up not looking like shit, and not at all like I had hoped it would. I absolutely hated it. I was so upset and frustrated, I just felt like crying and giving up. My eye was hurting, my nails were hurting, my back was hurting from the bed we had slept in, and I was ready to just throw in the towel. On top of all that, there had been so much drama going on that previous week within my family, that I can’t even be bothered getting into, because that was probably the last thing I needed before the wedding. Anyway, it all pushed me over the edge for a split second, but I quickly managed to get back on track when my sister came and offered to make some adjustments to my hair.

Sure, it probably wasn’t as big of an issue with the hair in reality as it was to me at that time, but with everything else going on, that was just the tipping point. I think that any bride can relate to the smaller or bigger incidents that surely will cause any bridezilla to freak the fuck out on her wedding day.

The problem was averted, even though my hair didn’t look at all how I had dreamed. Of course I was disappointed, because all I ever wanted was to feel and look pretty for Björn, but it would just have to make do.

The real meltdown, that probably would have scared any other groom-to-be far away, happened when I was getting dressed. I had problems getting the dress on without ruining my makeup and hair that I had already been struggling with for an hour. Björn was trying his best to help, but the panic, stress and exhaustion from not having had enough sleep or any food for that matter, just took over.

I ended up screaming and yelling at him as I literally threw him out of the bedroom and slammed the door. My sister came and asked through the door if I wanted her help, and I ended up screaming at her too, which I have never done before in my whole life. She is usually always the one that can calm me down when I’m upset, but I knew that if I let her in, I would break down crying, and I didn’t have time for that.

It was definitely not my finest moment at all, I have to admit! Thankfully everyone knows me and my temper when I’m stressed (and hungry) so they took it fairly easy and gave me some space to calm myself down.

I managed to get the dress on, on my own, and I called Björn back in to help me zip it up. I apologized, and kissed him. He didn’t deserve my anger, frustration or stress, and I felt like shit that I had acted like that.

After that, everything started moving along more smoothly. The kids all got dressed, we were all ready to go except from Björn, who had been running around all morning, trying to fix everything. I was still stressed, but when I saw Björn fully dressed in his navy blue suit only ten minutes later, I was overwhelmed with this proud feeling of how good my man looked. The suit was perfect. He looked amazing, so beautiful and I couldn’t believe that within the next the hour, I would finally be his wife.

The drive felt so long as I sat there in the car next to Björn with the four kids. The kids wanted to ride together, and since we have six seats in our car, of course they should all be allowed to ride together. It was probably the last thing I needed at the time, but for me it’s always about trying to give them as much time together as possible while we are there, because we all know that it will be a long time before they see each other again.

They were all so happy and overly excited, but I just sat there, totally quiet in the car, trying to calm my nerves. My hands were shaking, and I asked Björn how he could be that calm, because I was really nervous. He just looked at me and said: “Baby, I have nothing to feel nervous about. It will all be perfect” and I prayed that he was right.

Eventually we arrived and parked at the small, closed-in town square, with the city hall right next to it. I always loved it there. It is such a beautiful place with a lot of old buildings, cobblestones and you can just feel the history oozing out from every corner, as you’re taking it all in. It felt so familiar, and it reminded me of some of the happiest times in my childhood, and I could finally breathe a little. I hadn’t been there for almost 20 years, and everything had changed so much, but it still felt comforting to be back.

As we got out of the car, people where honking their horns as the drove past us, waving, congratulating us and saying how beautiful we looked, and it was hard not to feel anything but happy.

Quickly I was surrounded by my closest family, and it was really a special moment walking towards the City Hall together all of us, though it wasn’t anything at all compared to the feeling I had when we walked into the room of this magnificent building that bad been around since the fifteenth century. Royals and nobles had gotten married there, and it had a special kind of atmosphere, and I wonder what stories would have been told if the royal blue walls could have talked.

The Officiator showed us to our place. He was a great guy with an amazing sense of humor. We really couldn’t have hoped for anything more. As we took our seat it hit me: “This is it… This is my happily ever after”

I sat next to Björn, his hand in mine, listening to the speech that had probably been spoken to thousands of others before, but it didn’t matter because I just felt so happy. Tears were swelling up in the corner of my eyes, as I looked at Björn and he gave me the most dazzling smile, pure happiness written on his face. I knew I was the lucky one, but he would never agree to that.

It had probably only been 5 minutes, but everything was so calm and moved so slow, so it never felt rushed. We got up, listened to the rest of the speech as we came to the most important part of the day.

Björn said his I Do’s and put the ring on my finger. I still couldn’t believe that I deserved a ring and a guy like that, and a soft sniffle escaped to prevent the tears and snot from overpowering this beautiful moment. The Officiator then looked to me for the same answer…

“I do… Always and forever” I putted the ring on Björn’s finger and just like that, we were officially a married couple. It felt amazing!

We spend the next couple of hours with my family, toasting and taking pictures, and next you can see some of my favorite pictures from the day:

Eventually everyone was starving, so we decided to go to Burger King and eat. Nothing fancy about that, except from our dress code of course! Haha! As yo can see, I have the picture to prove it!

I realize that it might sound a bit trashy, but if you know us just a little bit, you will know that it actually is 100% in our spirit to do something as casual like that. We don’t care really what other people think, it doesn’t matter where we are, as long as we are together, and honestly, I really had the best time there with my family.

So that is basically the story of how we eloped to Denmark and got married. It was amazing and special, but it has only made us much more excited about the wedding in 2020. We can’t wait to do it right, surrounded my all the people that means the most to us in this world.

My next post will hopefully be up within the next couple of days. I have some thoughts that I want to share with you about what it feels like to be married a second time around.

Take care till then, guys!

Nothing but love, Maria

P.s. In the mean time, if you haven’t already read the full story of how we met, then feel free to catch up via the links below:

CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER 2 CHAPTER 3 CHAPTER 4 CHAPTER 5 CHAPTER 6 CHAPTER 7 CHAPTER 8 CHAPTER 9 CHAPTER 10 CHAPTER 11 CHAPTER 12

If you're curious about our wedding, then you can read all about it in this post 🖋💕 Hi world, Today is my day off which gives me time to finally sit down and write about our wedding.

#blog #Life #long reads #Love #Love story #Marriage #my blog #my thoughts #post a week #Relationship #wordpress

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