#maybe 4/5 hours max per day

[jeffbiblesupremacy]

I’m not going to translate anything today because I have a huge headache, sorry :/

[alocon]

Forever Irresistible [5/5] - Lando Norris

Lando Norris x Fem!Reader

written by alocon

Summary: Despite all hope, Lando never lost his feelings for his best friend's twin sister. However, he still hadn't acted on it. Well, that was until the party, which led you two into a long-term secret relationship

Warnings and Tropes: Fluff, implied smut (no actual smut though), final part

[Part One Here] [Part Two Here] [Part Three Here] [Part 4 Here] [Masterlist]

Irresistible - LN4 x Fem!Reader

“Can we get lunch together tomorrow to talk? Just me and you?”, the 12 words which had been absolutely overwhelming you for the past hour. Rather than give you an idea about what your brother wanted to talk about, Max had instead left you with an ominous “could go either way” message.

You see, it seemed like he was coming around after that family dinner, when he asked you to message him, but no. He instead expressed that he would not be talking to you for a while to work out how he felt about it. It's fine, you thought, a while may only be a couple of weeks. However, he instead decided that “a while” would be at least 8 months. That being said, it was now the day before you and Lando would fly out to Austin for the COTA grand prix. You would be meeting up with Max for breakfast instead of lunch and then would go straight to the airport to what might possibly be one of your favourite tracks. The atmosphere was great, the racing was fun, and there was only a tiny chance that you would manage to walk around the paddock without Daniel or Logan putting a cowboy hat on your head.

A lot had happened after the 2024 season. Lewis had, of course, gone to Ferrari. Nico Hulkenberg had left Haas, leaving an empty space that Checo filled in. And he had done surprisingly well, scoring Haas’ first ever win. By the power of magic? Who knows but that man had become a hell of a good driver to be able to do that. To bring a tractor to 1st takes some skill, especially with 2 Red bulls, 1 Mercedes and 1 Ferrari still in the race. 

Daniel had taken the Red Bull seat, of course, and Yuki was next in line for it. Liam had taken his place in AlphaTauri. Mercedes had seen a new addition to Formula One, with Frederik Vesti taking the Mercedes seat. It was meant to be Mick but after his Le Mans win, he realised that maybe he preferred world endurance a little more. Carlos had obviously left Ferrari with the addition of Lewis. However, instead of joining another team, he left F1 for a season to rally with his dad and would be driving again in 2026 when Valtteri was planning to do a Kimi and go do another type of racing for a couple of years. Other than that, the grid had remained the same. Max in Red Bull, George in Mercedes, Charles in Ferrari, Lando and Oscar in McLaren (Lando had signed a contract until 2027), Fernando and Lance were still in Aston Martin and were rocking it, Lance having got his first win and Fernando his first in like 10 years in 2024, along with 2 more for his collection. Pierre and Esteban still drive for Alpine, Nico for Haas, Zhou for Sauber, and Alex and Logan for Williams. Logan had done really well, too. He got a couple of podiums the previous season.

Lando still hadn't got his first win. Lots of podiums, but no wins. However, that was hardly his fault. The Red Bull, as per, absolutely ripped. 

Walking into the café, you were nervous. You had no reason to be, realistically speaking. Lan had proven to you that he had absolutely no intention of leaving you because of Max, as he had proven over the past 2 years and a few months. You saw Max already there when you arrived so you took a seat at the table with him. It was mostly quiet until you both had ordered your breakfast and drinks, after which you finally spoke up. “Why have you called me here, Max? After not speaking to me for like 8 or 9 months.”

“I miss you. I miss being your twin, having you to look up to and doing dumb stuff together. I miss being the iconic non-driver grid duo. I-”

You cut him off. “Max if you're going to tell me that and then say something about me breaking up with Lando, I will leave. I will walk out of the door right now.”

“You don't need to do that. I just miss you. If you and Lando being together makes you happy, which it clearly does, then maybe I was overreacting.”

“Maybe? Max, you told him he had to choose between me and you,” you said as you took a bite of your food. “You shouted at me for being with him. Made comments about how it wouldn't last because he doesn't love people. But he loves me. He has for years. And I love him. And I just want that to be okay for someone.”

Max nodded, understanding completely why you were upset with him. He looked at you, waiting a few moments before speaking. “I accept the relationship, just so you know. I think… I have for a while, it just upset me a lot that you didn't think that you could tell me for over a year so I freaked out.”

“I think freak out is an understatement, there. Now if that's all, I have a plane to catch.”

“Wait,” he said, placing his hand on your arm to stop you leaving straight away. “It sounds silly but there is a type of counselling/therapy for family members who want to repair their bonds. I've been going to individual therapy for a year, maybe we could give at least one session of the family therapy a go, see if it helps?”

You sighed, mentally weighing the pros and cons. “Okay. One session and we will see where that takes us. I seriously have to go though, Lando is here to get me.”

You stood up, quickly paying for both of your meals despite your brother's objection. You gave him a hug before you left. COTA here we come, you thought.

The journey to America was on a private jet with some of the other drivers. Lewis had, ever so sweetly, invited you and Lando on his jet along with him (obviously), Charles, Arthur (who was racing this weekend as Charles had badly sprained his wrist the previous day but still wanted to watch his brother drive), and George. The plane ride was great, as always, you all talked and played games, you humbled your boyfriend in many games of Uno and Mario kart, you and Lewis caught up, you and Arthur gossiped, overall, it was a great plane ride.

“And Lando Norris wins the United States Grand Prix!”

You don't think you'd ever cried as much in your life as you had watching your boyfriend cross the finish line. He had tried every single race and finally, for the first time, he had come first after so much bad luck. 

As the checkered flag waved and the roar of the crowd filled the air, Lando stormed across the finish line, the first-time winner of a Formula One Grand Prix. He could hear cheers through the radio from his pit crew, him equally excitedly screaming back. The euphoria of the moment engulfed him, but as he slowed his car to a stop in the pit lane, his mind was consumed by one thought: he had to find you.

In the midst of the chaos and celebration, Lando’s heart raced with anticipation as he tore off his helmet and looked towards the crowd of people waiting for him. He spotted you in the crowd quite quickly, your eyes filled with tears of joy and excitement. He didn’t hesitate to make his way to you, embracing you and lifting you off of your feet and over the barrier that separated you.

"I did it! I finally fucking did it!" Lando whispered, his voice trembling with exhilaration as he buried his head into your shoulder.

Your smile was bigger than he thought he had ever seen before as one of your hands gently played with the curls in his hair. “I knew you could do it, Lan. I’m so so proud of you,” you whispered back, your words filled with unbridled happiness as you gently rocked you both back and forth on the spot. You placed a kiss to the side of his head as you felt his tears soak through your shirt. You didn’t care, though. 

In that moment, amidst the chaos of victory, the blaring of the engines, and the cheers of the crowd, you and Lando found solace in each other's arms. Your love had weathered the turbulent journey of a competitive racing world, and now, in the exhilarating embrace of a triumphant win, you both knew (or more proved to those around you) that you were destined to conquer any challenge together.

As you stood together, surrounded by the intoxicating scent of victory and the warmth of love, Lando realised that this moment was not just about his first win; it was about sharing it with the person who had been his unwavering support for years, his pillar of strength, and (by far) his biggest fan.

“Am I even allowed to be over the barrier?” You inquired quietly as Lando stayed attached to you.

“I don’t know… or care.”

“Well, put me back over, you have to hug the rest of your team and go do your interviews.”

He groaned. Very dramatically. “I don’t want to, I want to stay with you.”

“I’ll be here when you get back, darling.” You looked at him as he sighed before lifting you back over, placing a long kiss to your lips and celebrating with his team before doing his interview. The second he was done with all the podium and media obligations, though, he was dragging you back to the hotel, wanting to cuddle before you all went out to party in the evening. 

Once inside the hotel room, you kissed him. His arms travelled swiftly back to your waist, guiding you backwards as he kissed back, you soon feeling your back touch the door as he crowded you against it. You deepened the kiss, hearing him groan softly as he pressed his body closer to you. His hands started to snake under your McLaren polo that you had “borrowed” from him the day previous, placing themselves on your bare waist. Your hands were in his hair, gently tugging at the curls every so often, making him let out quiet but obscene noises as you kissed. He then started moving you again, this time towards the bed. 

“Are you going to sit there and continue to eye fuck me, Lando?” You asked as you adjusted the bottom of the dress that you had just changed into for the party.

He leant his head back on the wall behind the bed. “I can't help it. You look amazing.”

You chuckled, walking over to him and placing a kiss on his forehead. He responded by pulling you onto his lap. You looked at him, seeing the familiar look in his eyes. “Don't start this again, Lan.”

“Why?”

“We have a party to go to. Wait until later.”

He sighed, pulling you closer into a hug. “You're the most beautiful person in the world, you know?”

The party went as normal. You and Lando both didn't drink much but everyone else did. As usual, there was a lot of chaos caused - mostly by Max, Checo and Daniel, you were convinced that Charles would end up with alcohol poisoning with the amount that he and Lewis drank together, and Logan, Oscar and Fred almost burnt the place down.

Everything seemed (almost) perfect as you laid in bed, in your boyfriend's arms, having just celebrated his first win. Neither of you were asleep yet. Lando could tell because your breathing pattern was different when you slept. Whilst running his hand through your hair, he took in the atmosphere. The way that you softened into his embrace, the little snores you did when you slept, every little thing you did reminded him of how much he loved you.

“Marry me.”

“What?” You said, head instantly snapping up towards your boyfriend.

He was already looking at you. “Marry me.” 

You sat up, him leaning over to switch the bedside lamp on. He returned to look at you, holding a ring in his hand. You were dumbfounded. “Lan.”

He looked into your eyes, placing his forehead against yours before beginning to speak, softly. “I don't want you to think this was the spur of the moment. This sounds silly but I've had this ring for like a year and a half. I've just been waiting for the right moment. And this feels like the right moment. If you don't want to, or feel it's too soon, I completely get it. But if you do, I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” He smiled, genuinely, watching as a tear fell down your face. “Please don't cry, it's okay.”

“Yes.”

“Yes as in yes you'll Marry me or you think it's too soon?” He asked, voice soft as he felt a glimmer of hope in his chest

“Yes, as in yes, I will marry you, Lando.”

Now everything was perfect.

instagram

youruser

liked by landonorris, oscarpiastri and others

youruser: My boy won his first race finally!! So so proud of him, so here's a Lando appreciation post ❤❤

tagged: landonorris

-comments limited-

landonorris: I love you xx

youruser: I love you too xx

----

landonorris

liked by youruser, mclaren and others

landonorris: Soulmate appreciation post because she's not the only one allowed to be sappy on the main. I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with this beautiful woman ❤❤

tagged: youruser

-view all comments-

youruser: You're stuck with me now x

landonorris: Wouldn't have it any other way x

mclaren: Congratulations!! Welcome to the McLaren family officially (although you were already in it to us), future Mrs. Norris

youruser: My favourite sm admin, thank you x

-The End-

-Word Count: 2,230 (ish)-

Hi, Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this mini series x If anyone has any requests for one-shots, possible series, etc about drivers, please feel free to request. You can do so by clicking on my profile and there should be a requests/questions box. Have a good day x Alocon

[daddy-dins-girl]

Kindred - Chapter Two

Main Masterlist Series Masterlist

AO3 link

Chapter 1 || Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5

Chapter Summary: Max repays the favor ;)

Maxwell Lord x f!Reader (Nanny)

Word Count: 7k

Notes: Doing my best here with early 80's references but this story takes place before I was born so... take it easy on me.

Chapter Warnings: 18+ MDNI. Smut (so much smut). Dry humping, vaginal fingering, oral sex (f receiving), masturbation (mentioned), explicit language.

Tagging my Maxwell baby mutuals who inspired this part 2! @boliv-jenta @suzdin @heavennumber2 @prolix-yuy

By the time Friday had finally rolled around you were exhausted. It had been a long week of juggling all 3 of your jobs at once with the impromptu addition of Nannying for Alistair this week, but you wouldn’t complain. The extra money you’d make at the Lord’s this week (and likely next week you presumed, as you had yet to hear anything about Alistair’s mother returning any time soon to take him back as per the usual schedule) would provide a nice cushion for your savings account which you liked to keep for the times when either of your other two jobs would slow down. You would get Alistair to school in the mornings then make deliveries or do your haircuts during the day, then rush off to pick up Alistair, bring him home, entertain him for a couple hours, make dinner, clean up after yourselves and then make sure he was bathed and put to bed at a decent time. Max always tried to get home in time for bedtime for Alistair but it hadn’t happened at all this week so you’d done it each night. Not that you minded. Alistair was, in terms of children you’ve cared for, one of the easiest you’d ever dealt with when it came to bed time. He liked a snuggle in the rocking chair by his bed while you read him a story, then you tucked him in, flipped off the light and left the room, letting him fall asleep on his own. Max always made sure to call though when he knew for certain he wouldn’t make it in time. He would talk to Alistair on the phone, ask him about his day, and on nights when he had a few free minutes of time he would make up his own story to tell to Alistair in lieu of actually being home to read him one from his bookshelf.

That’s where you found yourselves now; you were wiping down the kitchen counters while Alistair sat at the table, phone cord twisting around his fingers as he happily babbled on to his father about the day he had. A smile tugged at your lips as you overhear Alistair tell his Dad about the goal he’d scored in soccer today in gym class, the same story you’d heard from him three times already tonight when he’d forget that he already told you. You gave the same excited reaction each time regardless, letting him have his victory he was so proud of.

“Okay, one second” You hear Alistair say into the phone a couple minutes later and look over to see him holding the phone out in your direction. “Daddy wants to talk to you Nana” he tells you, using the nickname you’d accidentally adopted from the boy when he’d called you it the first time you met. Max had explained to him that you’d be his Nanny and Alistair had gotten confused, thinking it was your name and shouted “Nana!” excitedly the first time he saw you. You and Max had laughed so hard at it that Alistair found it hilarious (even if he didn’t know why you were laughing) and so he’d just continued to call you it. You didn’t mind. At first you were a little weary that it made it sound like you were some kind of grandmother to him but you were also far too young for anyone with half a brain to believe you were old enough to be a grandparent so it didn’t bother you. You’d get the occasional odd look tossed your way when he’d call you it out in public or around the school pick-up, but you didn’t even notice it anymore.

Your brow furrows slightly when Alistair holds the receiver out towards you but you head over and take the phone anyway. Typically they chat to each other and just hang up but maybe there was something important Max needed to tell you.

You had barely spoken to him, you realize, since your (incredible, in your mind at least) night together at the beginning of the week. He was always off to work so early in the morning and though you did see him in the mornings, Alistair was typically in the same room as at least one of you at all times, either getting his breakfast or just spending the precious few minutes he had with his dad before both of their days started. So on those busy mornings you hadn’t exactly talked about how you’d tied your employer to the same kitchen chair where Alistair was eating his Cheerios and gave him a life-altering blow job that you haven’t been able to stop thinking about. Not quite a family breakfast table conversation with a 6 year old in the room. And in the evenings you’d actually been asleep by the time he had gotten home each night. Usually you’d try and wait up but with all the extra work you’d been pulling this week you just couldn’t keep your eyes open long enough to see him. You hoped he didn’t think you were avoiding him because you absolutely weren’t. The truth is you were actually glad Alistair was always around in the mornings because if he wasn’t you doubted you’d be able to control yourself long enough for Max to get out of the house in the morning.

That night - the night - after you had parted ways from Max from the kitchen you had gone down the hallway to your bedroom and gotten yourself off so hard that you had to wash the sheets the next day and he’s all you thought about since.

“Hello?” You say into the phone once you’ve taken it from Alistair.

“Tell Alistair to go watch TV” Max tells you promptly and your cheeks heat up immediately. Clearly whatever this is, he intended for it to be a private conversation away from young ears.

“Hey buddy, go find a show for us to watch OK? I have to talk to your Dad for a minute then I’ll be right there” you tell the boy before ruffling his hair affectionately.

“Ok” Alistair shrugs and hops off the chair, running down the hall towards the living room.

“Hi” you try again, hoping he can hear the smile in your voice.

“Hi Angel” Max greets you warmly and you swear your stomach flutters.

“Listen, I know I’ve been home late all week and I’ve missed Alistair’s bedtimes,” he begins and you frown. It’s not exactly why you thought he wanted to talk to you with Alistair out of the room…

“Oh.. Um, it’s ok, I really don’t mind doing it” you tell him with a shake of your head.

“I know, but still. I should be there. I want to be there. Anyways, I really want to try and see him tonight. Will you try and keep him up a little late for me? I’ll try not to be too late, but it will be a little past his usual bedtime I’m sure”

“Yeah, of course” you agree easily. “No school tomorrow so he’ll probably be jazzed about getting to stay up late anyway” you shrug, knowing it’s true. Alistair was constantly asking to stay up late but you’d always stuck to a pretty regular schedule to keep his routine on track so he wasn’t too affected whether he was at his mom’s or his dad’s house.

“Good, good” You hear Max sigh with relief. “I really want to spend some time with him”

“Of course Mr. Lord”

“And um, Angel?” He begins again and the familiar warmth comes flooding back at the change in his tone.

“Yes?”

“I’d really love to spend some time with you, too, if you could wait up for me after I get Alistair to bed”

“Oh,” you breathe, surprised. “Um,” you don’t mean to hesitate, but the tingling sensation that runs through your veins when his deep honeyed voice comes through the phone throws you off guard and all you can do is bite down on your lower lip in anticipation, forgetting momentarily that he can’t actually see through the phone how his words are affecting you.

“Only - Only if you want to. I mean, we don’t-” Max starts rambling and you quickly gather your wits to cut him off.

“No! I mean, I do, want to. Of course I want to, Mr. Lord” You make sure to say his name teasingly this time, unlike moments ago when you were talking to 'your boss', and you hear him chuckle into the phone.

“Well good. I’m… looking forward to it then, Angel”

“Me too” you whisper into the phone, smiling as you wrap the phone cord around your fingers.

“See you in a few hours” he promises before the line clicks signaling that he’s hung up. You sigh dreamily and hang up the phone before wandering off to find Alistair; a stupid smile playing on your lips the rest of the night.

…

It’s 10pm and you’re doing your best to keep Alistair awake an hour now past his usual bedtime. You were playing a board game for a while because you thought it would be a better way to keep him awake then a movie or tv show but after it was done he’d asked if you could watch something instead so you agreed and now you sat on the couch with Alistair's feet in your lap. You would give his feet a little tickle each time you noticed him starting to nod off and he’d break out into a fit of giggles that seemed to keep him awake for a few more minutes each time but you weren’t sure how much longer it would be a successful tactic. Thankfully you don’t have to wonder though because you hear the click of the lock at the front door and Max calling out announcing his arrival and Alistair jumps off the couch as if he hadn’t just been nearly drooling on the arm of it five seconds ago.

“Daddy!” he shrieks in excitement, running down the hallway as fast as his two little legs could carry him and nearly knocking his father over when he barrels into him with his arms spanned outwards.

“Ooof! Hey buddy” Max groans when he catches him. “Look who’s awake” he grins at his son.

“Yeah, Nana let me watch Knight Rider” Alistair explains enthusiastically.

“Oh she did, did she?” Max brings his gaze up to find yours as you too came out to the hallway and he raises an eyebrow at you. It wasn’t exactly a show meant for 6 year olds but in your defense it was 10pm on a Friday night, there weren't exactly any kid-friendly shows on TV.

“Hey, you wanted him to stay awake, David Hasselhoff provided” you shrugged and Max huffed a laugh. You knew he wasn’t actually upset. You’d never let Alistair watch anything really inappropriate and Max knew that.

“Yeah the car is SO COOL Dad!” Alistair carries on. “You should get one I think”

“Oh you think so, do you?” Max teases, hauling his son up to sit on his hip so he can place a kiss to his forehead.

“Daddy gets me whatever I want” Alistair turns his head towards you to explain and you laugh.

“Well then you are a very lucky boy, mister. I think KIIT might be on contract to the TV network for at least a few more seasons though so you might have to wait on that one” you joke and Alistair only shrugs in his father’s arms.

“That’s ok, I can wait. I can’t even drive yet” He explains and both you and Max let out a hearty laugh at that.

It’s sweet how much Max is endeared by his son. Though Max may be on the verge of being successful, he’s certainly not a wealthy man but to Alistair he might as well be royalty. The way Max carries himself and speaks of himself alludes to wealth well beyond his actual means, but that is part of what makes him a great businessman and what pulls in his investors, you presume. Though Alistair leads a humbled life, he’d never know it the way his father treats and spoils him. He’s always clothed and fed, but their home and lifestyle is modest at best. In the 6 year old’s eyes however he wants for nothing and he latches on to the way Max projects not only himself but his family. Max has an image to uphold and it’s important and although he does provide for his family, you know it’s not as much as he’d like to be able to, and that’s why he works as hard as he does. You’d had an honest and upfront financial conversation when you’d first been hired and Max had been apologetic that he couldn’t offer you a higher salary. He knew it wasn’t enough but it was what he could afford and you assured him you were fine with it. Living at his house for half the month helped you out a lot, financially. Your utility bills were essentially cut in half, same for your groceries, though you did still have to pay your full rent each month obviously, despite only living there half the time. But you’d be paying it regardless, so having a paycheck from Max and all the money you saved on essentially living “for free” for half the month each month was more than enough for what you needed to live your life the way you wanted to.

You didn’t know much of Max’s past or upbringing but he did share some of it with you one night a month or so ago when you’d both been relaxing on the back deck with a bottle of wine long after Alistair had gone to bed. You hadn’t meant to dig deep into your past and spill half of your life story to him, but you did. When he was at home and relaxed like this and not having to put on the act he always did out in the world or when television cameras were rolling on him, he was so easy to talk to and you felt so comfortable. So you’d shared (or maybe overshared, though he didn’t seem to mind) and soon, he shared also. It wasn’t much, but he did tell you of his very humbled beginnings, how he’d gone to school in tattered clothes and holes in his shoes. How he was treated by his peers at school and when you reached out to place a hand on his arm in comfort he quickly shook his head and told you that it was ok, it pushed him to be where he was today and motivated him to give his own son the things he never had. You’d quickly brushed away a tear that had slid down your cheek as he confessed parts of his past to you, hoping he didn’t see it, you didn’t want to make him uncomfortable. You tried to pry even further and asked him about his parents but he just cleared his throat and pretended to look at his watch, commenting on how late it was and that you should both probably get some sleep. You never pushed the subject again.

“Ok buddy why don’t you go get your PJ’s on and pick a story and I’ll be right in OK?” Max says suddenly, breaking you out of your thoughts as he gently places Alistair back on the floor. The boy rubs his tired eyes and nods before turning on his heel to head up the stairs to get ready for bed.

Max leans on the bannister, watching Alistair go until he’s out of eyesight before turning his attention back to you and taking the few strides forward until he reaches you.

“Thank you, for keeping him up. It’s been a crazy week, I feel like I haven’t seen him at all” Max sighs and your shoulders fall. You feel for him. Max is always working like crazy and you can’t imagine how hard it is for him to already only have 50% custody but then still barely get to spend any time with him even when it is his time.

“Happy to do it” You smile. “He missed you this week. We um…” You pause, looking down and feeling suddenly shy. You reach out to tug gently at the bottom of Max’s tie hanging loosely around his neck, feeling the fine fabric between your fingers and memories from the last time you touched his tie flooding your thoughts. “We both missed you” you shrug, finally bringing your gaze back up to meet his, a smile playing on your lips. Max’s eyes close and he lets a deep breath out through his nose before opening his eyes again to look at you.

“Good, just… hold that thought, OK?” He asks, bringing his hand up to cover yours on his tie, his thumb rubbing absently across the backs of your knuckles.

You nod and Max brings your hand up to place a kiss to the back of it, giving you a quick wink before he drops your hand and takes off up the stairs calling after his son, reminding him to brush his teeth.

Time seems to be running backwards while you wait for Max. Or maybe you’re just terribly impatient. You look at the clock on your bedside table again and it’s nearly 11:00. Alistair usually doesn’t take more than 15 minutes to put down and it’s been nearly 45. You’ve been staring at the same page in your book for at least 10 minutes. Constantly losing your place or forgetting what you’d just read all together as you keep glancing back over to the clock. You’re still exhausted, too. Today has probably been the busiest of the whole week and the anticipation of spending time with Max is the only thing keeping your eyes open. You wonder what’s taking him so long and try to push back the negative thoughts in your head that are wondering if he’s changed his mind entirely and not seeking you out tonight. Maybe he’s had a change of heart or doesn’t want to complicate things. You couldn’t even blame him for it, though you hoped it wasn’t the case.

The thoughts don’t have a chance to plague you any further though as you hear a soft knock at your bedroom door and you quickly flip over onto your back, holding yourself up on your elbows as you call out for him to come in.

“Hi” Max sighs with relief when he enters your bedroom. He closes the door behind him then turns back towards you and runs his hands through his hair. You notice then that his hair is wet and he’s not dressed in his typical dress suit and tie that he’d been in when he got home. Instead he’s wearing a pair of black pajama pants and a plain white t-shirt. You’d always thought Mr. Lord looked incredible in his suits but this look was positively delicious, you decide.

“You showered” You mention because you suddenly feel like your whole mouth has gone dry and you have no grasp on how to speak in more than 2 word sentences when this man is standing in front of you looking the way he does. It should be criminal.

“Oh, uh, yeah” Max looks away, almost like he’s embarrassed but you’re not sure why he would be. He’d been working for nearly 14 hours, of course he’d want a shower when he got home, you rationalize. You of course were oblivious to the fact that he had actually showered because he wanted to fuck his fist before coming to see you so the night wouldn’t be over before he really had a chance to begin it. He’d been in absolute agony all week thinking about you. Your hands on him, your mouth, the way you spoke to and treated him. He’d even jerked off in his private bathroom at work this week - something he’d never done before - when it got to the point where he couldn’t even concentrate on his work because he couldn’t get you out of his head.

“Alistair’s asleep?” You ask, getting up on your knees now on the bed and shuffling over to the side edge.

Max simply nods before taking quick strides to meet you over at your bed, his large hands instantly coming to your waist to roam up and down your sides as he stands in front of you, his eyes watching the movement of when the hem of your tank top rides up slightly to reveal some skin.

“Angel you’re so beautiful” he sighs and though you wouldn’t exactly agree, you believe he means his words.

“Max, I’m literally wearing a tank top and sleep shorts” you giggle. You didn’t exactly have any sexy lingerie over at your babysitting gig so you’d just changed into your regular sleep clothes when Max had gone to put Alistair down.

“And still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen” Max confesses before he presses forward and captures your lips in a searing kiss. He wastes no time running his tongue along your bottom lip and you open up to him gladly, moaning into his mouth when his tongue strokes against yours. He tastes like mint toothpaste and heaven. Your hands go up to push through his wet hair, pulling him even closer to you.

“Mmm, fucking missed you” Max groans into your mouth as his grip on your waist tightens. “Tell me you missed me” he breathes heavily before capturing your mouth again and swallowing your moan that follows.

“I missed you Maxi. Haven’t stopped thinking about you” you admit.

“Oh, fuck, me too Sweetheart” Max groans, his mouth leaving yours to trail down your throat instead. He licks, nips and sucks all the way down the side of your throat until he reaches your collarbone and then ascends back up to meet your mouth again for more hungry kisses. His tongue explores your mouth, the wet muscle fighting for dominance against yours as his hands slowly push up, up, up your sides and under your tank until they’re at the bottom of your breasts and he deftly reaches his thumbs up to brush across each of your nipples. His hands seem enormous on your body and they’re driving you mad.

“Maxxx” you whine when you feel your nipples pebble under his ghosting touch. You want more of him. Need more of him. Without bothering to ask, you push off of him for a brief second just long enough to hastily tug your tank top up and over your head, throwing the offending garment off to some corner of the room before you pull him into your body again and your mouths meet once more. You’re very glad at that moment that you had decided to forego a bra tonight.

“Needy girl” Max groans into your mouth, his hands now greedily grabbing and kneading into your breasts. Your back arches so you push further into his touch and you can’t help the whine that escapes you.

“Please Max” you whimper. You’re not even sure what you’re asking him for. You just know you need more.

“Angel, Max is here now darling” Max soothes, pulling his mouth away so he can study your face instead. Your eyes are half closed, mouth open, you know you must look positively wrecked already and it’s because you are.

“Let me take care of you” he whispers before he leans in and presses a quick kiss to your lips. You try to deepen it but he pulls away too quickly. You don’t have time to complain however because as quick as he leaves your lips he lowers his head and puts his mouth on your left breast, his hand pushing it further into his mouth as he alternates between suckling on and flicking his tongue over the pert bud.

“Oh Max, baby, that feels so nice” you praise him by running your hand through his hair as you look down and watch him mouth at your breast, humming his satisfaction into it while his other hand pays the right side equal attention, massaging it in his palm and pinching the nipple between his thumb and index finger. Your head is rolling back as his warm mouth continues its assault and there’s a slow burn beginning to build deep in your core as he takes his time with you.

He continues sloppily kissing, nibbling and lathing his tongue over your breasts for what you could swear is hours but in reality is more likely only minutes. He’s switching occasionally between the two sides, his hand and fingers always making up for the attention the one is not getting from his mouth. Your head feels like you might as well be on another planet. You can’t concentrate on anything but Max’s hands and mouth on you, driving you absolutely insane. Heat continues to coil in the lower parts of your belly as he keeps showering you with attention and all you can do is whimper and continue tugging on his hair while pushing your breasts into his face. He hasn’t even touched you beneath your waist yet and you’re not sure how you’ll survive that, if this is how he’s making you feel already. You can’t remember the last time someone had focused so much attention on you without seeking out their own pleasure at the same time but you get the feeling by the way Max is constantly moaning and babbling adorations into your breasts that this is giving him nearly as much pleasure as it’s giving you.

Your panties are uncomfortably wet, you can feel them already, and as if on queue, Max seems to read your mind as he suddenly shifts his position and lifts his left leg a bit so he can place his knee on the edge of your bed. His hands let go of your breasts and he brings them to your legs and yanks you forward you so that your legs straddle his thigh and you let out a guttural moan when your aching center rubs against the firm muscle of his thigh.

“That’s it baby” Max coos, his mouth releasing your breast to place wet kisses to the mounds instead. “Take what you need, I’ve got you” he promises before placing his hands on your ass and pressing you harder into him, helping you rock back and forth and create the friction he knows you're begging for.

You're moaning freely now, not caring how desperate you sound. It’s everything but still not enough. Without giving it a second thought you reach down to tug your shorts down, needing to get them off as quickly as possible. Max reaches down too, helping you as you awkwardly try to get them all the way down and off your legs to kick them free. It takes a few seconds, not easy given your kneeling position, but you manage and then gasp as Max pulls you hard back into position and you start grinding against him again with renewed vigor.

“Oh Max, oh fuck”

Max’s attention goes back to your throat again. He’s kissing and sucking all over and pulling sounds from you that you can only pray won’t wake the sleeping 6 year old upstairs.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck” you’re chanting now. You’re so close and it feels so good that you’re not even the slightest bit embarrassed about how you’re getting yourself off like some kind of rabid dog, grinding up and down on Max’s leg. You can hear the wet squelch of your desire that’s soaked the inside of your panties and you know you’ve not only ruined them, but surely Max’s pants as well.

“Come on baby,” Max encourages, his hands back on your ass as he helps speed up your rhythm and push you harder against him. He starts jutting his own hips forward so that his leg rocks into you, meeting your thrusts and your head lolls backwards. Max takes full advantage of that, finding a particular spot in the hollow of your throat and running his teeth along it before sucking you hard into his mouth. He knows it will leave a mark and he absolutely does not care.

“Oh my God, Max, yes, yes” You cry out as your orgasm hits you like a freight train. You feel like a fucking teenager - not that you’re complaining - getting off from dry humping and hickeys, but Max does something to you that you haven’t felt in years. If ever, even.

Hell, the man just made you cum without even taking your underwear off.

“Holy shit” you breathe as the rocking of your hips slows dramatically and Max continues to moan into and suckle on your neck, but with a restrained intensity now as he feels you come down from your high. His hands are still groping your ass, squeezing and kneading the flesh in his large hands as he moans into your throat. You rest your chin on top of his head and wrap your fingers around the back of it, hands petting over his hair as you float back down to earth.

“Angel you’re so good for me” Max hums into your neck before placing a few more kisses to it and pulling himself back to look at you. He brushes the hair out of your face and you manage a lazy smile.

“You’re not so bad yourself” you retort. It’s beyond cheesy but the grin Max gives you in return tells you he loves it.

“Lay down” he instructs before pressing a quick kiss to your lips. “I’m not done with you”

You quickly oblige him, moving to lay down on your back in the middle of the bed with your head resting on the pillows. Despite having just came, you’re already squirming, waiting for his hands to be on you again. You don’t have to wait long before he’s crawling onto the bed on his knees and swinging one leg over the other side of your hips so you’re between his legs. His strong hands come down to rest at your waist before beginning to play the waistband of your panties and then he lifts one edge of the elastic right by your hip bone, stretching it and then letting go so it snaps back against your skin and you whimper in anticipation.

“Take these off” he orders and you don’t need to be told twice, quickly pushing them down and shimmying out of them.

“So beautiful” Max murmurs, looking down at your naked core and running the back of his hand over you so his knuckles brush against your hip and then down to the top of your thigh.

“Maxxxx” you whine, needy for his touch. He’s so close, and yet still hasn’t touched you where you’ve been dying to feel him all week.

“Fuck, Sweetheart” Max moans before he lets out a growl and lowers himself down to kiss you hard. It’s all teeth and tongue and desperation and you love it, grasping onto his shoulders to keep him close.

“Baby,” Max breathes between urgent kisses. “Angel, I…” he cuts himself off again, not able to pull away from your mouth long enough to form a complete sentence it seems. “If you don’t want… If you want me to stop you have to…” he trails off, the thought unfinished as you pull him back into another heated kiss. You know what he was getting at. If you don’t want to go any further tonight you need to tell him to stop now or pretty soon he won’t be able to.

You kiss him a few more times before finally pulling back and taking his face into your hands to ensure he hears you.

“If you don’t touch me soon Maxwell Lord, I’m fucking quitting” you tell him. You’re of course kidding about the quitting part and the grin that crosses his lips tells you he knows, but you do need him to touch before you actually lose your mind.

The moment the words leave your lips Maxwell’s hand is cupping your sex and you arch your whole body into his touch, moaning into his mouth when you recapture his lips.

“Mmmm, Sweetheart” Max hums in delight when his digits slide through your soaked folds. “So fucking wet for me”

“All for you baby” you breathe against his lips, hips chasing into his touch.

Max slides his fingers delicately through your folds, bringing the tip of his middle finger that’s slick with your desire up to swirl around your clit a few times and you gasp into his mouth.

“Max!”

“Shh, shh, shhh” Max soothes, peppering kisses to the side of your face now as his fingers slide back down and begin to nudge at your entrance instead. You widen your legs instinctively, pushing his knees apart and giving him more access and you feel him huff a little laugh against your cheek.

“You really are my Angel, aren’t you”

“Yes” you whine, your hands coming up to grab at the hem of his t-shirt and you begin pulling, suddenly needing to feel more of him, his body against yours.

Max quickly gets the hint and his hand unfortunately leaves your aching core momentarily while he sits up and tugs the t-shirt off his head and tosses it to the end of the bed before his large frame comes back down on top of you. He slides one leg between yours and nudges your left leg further out and then brings his other leg over as well so you’re spread out on either side of him, impatiently squirming with him between your legs.

“Do you know what I’ve been thinking about all week, my dear?” he asks, his breath fanning against your ear and you shake your head.

“I want to know what you taste like” he whispers and you moan, your arms coming up to wrap around his naked back.

“Tell me baby” you whisper against his lips before capturing his bottom one between your teeth gently before letting go. “Tell me what you’ve thought about”

Max groans and shoves his tongue inside your mouth to kiss you greedily for a few moments before pulling back and resting his forehead against yours. “Angel I want to fuck you with my tongue, my mouth” Max confesses and you whimper. “Want to make you feel so good like you did for me. Baby do you know how many times I had to fuck my hand this week because I couldn’t stop thinking about you?”

“Really?” it comes out breathy and you're arching your hips off the bed to grind into Max’s lower half, feeling his hardness under the confines of his clothes. “I had to wash my sheets twice this week” you confess your own discretions and Max practically growls in response and it sends a surge of heat straight to your core.

“Fuck” Max groans, not able to help but rut his hips into yours. “My needy girl, gonna make you feel so good”

“Yes, Maxi” you moan, your hips coming off the bed again to thrust against his. “Want your mouth on me baby, please” you beg him and he groans.

“Fuck” he curses once more before placing hot open-mouthed kisses down your throat, the top of your chest as he inches his body down further and further, his mouth following his decent until he’s hovering just above where you need him most. Your hips thrust up into the air but you can’t reach anything and you let out a whine.

Max is just staring at your glistening pussy and were you not completely fucked out you might be embarrassed but you are so you do nothing but moan and writhe beneath his stare, begging without words for him to do something.

He does. Oh boy, he does. Two fingers suddenly plunge inside of you just as his mouth latches on to your clit and you practically scream out in pleasure at the simultaneous intrusions.

“Oh Max, oh fuck, yeah, yeah” you’re writhing beneath him, your hands coming down to grab fistfuls of his hair as you secure his face into your cunt and he moans against you, sending another wave of pleasure coursing through your veins.

“Just like that baby, right there” you encourage, your hips rutting against his face unabashedly. His fingers continue to plunge in and out of you, fingertips curling just right as they hit as deep as they can go and his mouth is alternating its attention between licking through your folds and tonguing frantically at your clit and god help you, but you’re coming again already.

“Oh Max, yes, yes, fuck fuck fuck! Don’t stop. Max. Max!”

You’re loud as you come for him, and you know it. Absolutely debauched and you can’t help it. Your thighs are shaking as they grip either side of his head and you’re practically riding his face as you come completely undone at his mercy and Max dutifully laps away at your folds and leisurely fucks you with his fingers for minutes long after you come and you just hum happily as your hips continue slowly rocking into his face and your hands continue to get lost in his hair.

Maybe it was because you hadn’t gotten off from anything but your own hand for much longer than you’d care to admit, or maybe Max Lord was secretly some kind of sex God, you weren’t sure, but all you did know is that you just had 2 of the most incredible orgasms of your lifetime and he hasn’t even fucked you yet.

Yeah, you were leaning more toward the sex God thing.

You’re so lost in your post orgasm bliss that you literally almost fall asleep while Max still has his tongue buried deep in your pussy. He seems perfectly content to just nuzzle into your folds and leisurely lick and suck and fingerfuck you like he has all the time in the world. He’s probably been at it a good five or ten minutes at least since you came but its soft and slow and sensual and the intimacy of it feels so heightened. He’s not trying to bring you to another orgasm, or overstimulate your sensitive sex, he just wants to be close to you, savor you like you’re his last meal, and you let him.

Your good boy.

He notices after a while how you’ve stopped rocking your hips into him and your hands have slowed from running through his hair and he finally pulls his mouth off of you and his fingers out and you groan tiredly at the loss. Max presses soft kisses to your mound and the insides of your thighs before pushing himself up onto his elbows and crawling back over top of you. Your head is lolled to the side, your eyes closed but a ridiculous smile playing on your lips. You actually nearly fucking fell asleep.

“Mmmm, that was nice” you mumble into your pillow.

“Angel I think I wore you out” Max chuckles and your eyes open wearily to look at him, your slick smeared across the bottom half of his face should maybe be embarrassing to you but you can’t help but find it anything but incredibly sexy.

“No, ‘m not…” you trail off for a moment, forgetting what you’re saying. “Not even tired” you try to sound convincing, but know you’re anything but.

“Get some sleep, my darling” Max’s voice is soft and suddenly at your ear, though you hadn’t even felt him move. He presses a kiss to your temple and then you feel him shift all of his weight off of you and you whine at the loss of body heat.

“Baby?” You murmur, reaching a hand out blindly for him. He takes your hand in his and brings his lips to your knuckles before placing it gently back down.

“Go to sleep, Angel, I’ll see you in the morning”

“But you didn’t…”

“I’m ok” he quickly promises. You highly doubt that. You felt him hard as a fucking rock against you earlier but you honestly don’t know if you have it in you to go another round either.

“You’re leaving?” You say, suddenly realizing he’s off the bed and standing beside it, pulling his t-shirt back over his head. You don’t mean to sound as whiny about it as you do, but you can’t help it.

“Alistair” he sighs.

“Oh, I’m sorry, you’re right” you quickly agree. You both know if the boy happens to either wake up in the middle of the night or get up before his father does, his dad’s room is the first place he’ll go and if he’s not there and finds him in your bed instead, well… neither of you were ready to go down that road with the boy just yet.

“I’m sorry Sweetheart, I wish…” he trails off, the thought unfinished but you hear it in his voice. You know he’d stay if he could.

“I know. It’s ok” you assure him, reaching up to squeeze his hand at his side.

“I will make it up to you” he smiles and you know it’s a promise, one that brings a grin to your lips as you snuggle further into your bed.

“I’ll hold you to that mister”

“Good night Angel” Max tells you, dropping your hand and leaning down to place a kiss to your forehead before he pulls your covers up and places them over you.

“Night Mr. Lord” you smile cheekily and he huffs a laugh before he heads out of your room and you hear the door click shut behind him.

You’re asleep the moment your head nestles back into your pillow so you don’t hear the shower coming back to life from Max’s ensuite, either.

Next Chapter

[todayimgonnaplay]

Today I'm Gonna Play: Persona 3 Reload

Phew, this took a pretty long time to complete! This was one of the many awaited games of this year that I've wanted to play, and I've finally completed it today! This isn't my first time playing P3, but since I only have experience with Portable, that's the only version I can compare it to when I talk about P3R.

I'm probably in the minority that liked Tartarus in the original versions. The randomly generated dungeons and amount of them didn't bother me at all. Each floor felt it had a short and even length to explore, and the shuffle cards encouraged me to fight every single enemy (or Shadow) that appeared. Reload definitely improves on a couple aspects in that the floors look more appealing in terms of design, and are also varied per set/block that you traverse through. In addition to that, there's even additional dungeons for more challenge or encounters that spice up climbing through these floors. Despite that, I kind of felt myself getting pretty bored about 20-30 hours in the game grinding through them. I'm not sure if it's because I've been playing Persona games the past 6+ months that I'm starting to hit a fatigue, or if there's something I don't like about this revamped design. In the end, I had to switch to playing Peaceful to just get through the game. One thing I do miss and wish were in more RPGs that do dungeon formats was being able to split your party to search the floors. This made clearing them much more faster, and also helped with leveling up too. Although I think leveling in Reload is a lot more lenient, and there's a new scouting feature instead where you send 1 party member to move up a floor in advance, which is probably why they removed splitting. But this occurs randomly rather than something you can do by choice, and is mostly for item collection.

In terms of non-combat or the social aspect, I definitely liked seeing familiar and new faces, yet also didn't like them at the same time. Seeing them fully voiced in a 3D environment compared to P3P is like night and day and makes it much more immersive! Being able to see their stories as these characters struggle and change really pays off well when you finish the game. Compared to Persona 4 where I loved how tight-knit the main cast was, I couldn't really get into the social links individually (but I loved the detail of many of them being acquainted with one another). With Reload's theme of Death, it beautifully illustrates how death can be both literal and metaphorical, and how people can overcome or accept it, while looking forward to a better tomorrow. That being said, some social links definitely felt infuriating to go through, which made it hard to sympathize with those characters. 4 on the other hand at least made them bearable at most (except two that I really disliked). One really neat aspect that Reload added were link episodes with male characters and even antagonists to flesh them out more, as well as activities with the main cast. Not only were they enjoyable and added more characterization, they still provide gameplay benefits just as much as the regular social links do, so they didn't feel like a waste of time.

This is probably a nitpick but one thing I'd REALLY like to see improved upon in future titles (or maybe I'll change my mind with 5 Royal) is to allow for more time to socialize. For a game about time management, they're really brutal with how often can you hang out considering the amount of holidays, exams, and even time skips that block your progress. It makes this one unique aspect of this series so stressful to go through if you want to max all social links, unless you use a guide and follow it strictly. Fortunately, multiple playthroughs do solve this apparently as these stats can carry over. But personally, to think about going through a second playthrough when I've technically played this entry 2 and a half times, it can get really exhausting.

Apart from gameplay, the best highlight for me is the UI. Portable's UI is one of my favourite (if not my most) in all video games. I love how minimalistic yet stylish it is. Reload completely revamps it by using a water motif as a reference to the sea of souls, while also propping the protagonist. It never gets tiring to look at!

A mixed opinion I have is about the music. The new music is always great, which I think only P3 has been able to pull off compared to the others regardless of version(for e.g. I'm not a fan of Shadow World and whatever 5 Royal's opening and battle theme are). But the old singer is definitely someone that is hard to replace. Although she performs amazingly in the new songs, and I have come to accept some of the remixes; She carries a sense of monotony compared to a relaxed yet somewhat carefree style that the old singer had. Maybe monotony fits with how the protagonist is, but this is just preference.

Overall, I think this remake was made with a lot of hard work and passion, trying to bring fresh ideas yet being faithful to the original version of 3. Although I felt tired of playing it at some point and started rushing, I'm still glad I had the opportunity to go through this journey one more time. I think it's going to take a lot longer now to check out Persona 5 Royal, but I will be looking forward to Episode Aigis this year!

[lord-pigeon]

The thing you're not getting about why genshin is worse is because events are not meant to be the primary source of quartz in fgo. It comes from your weekly log in, live streams, 50 day ten pull, ascending servants to their second last ascension, story quests, free quests and the ten quartz you get from doing ten of them, rank up and interludes and the quartz you also get for doing ten of those, and special occasions like anniversary and new year. If you do ten rank ups you get a ten pull and you can do this in maybe an hour or two, now try grinding a ten pull in genshin. It'll be a lot more time investing and taxing considering you're just pressing buttons in fate. Also genshin's odds are just lower and it bleeds whales way harder by making constellations do more than just damage and they make modern 4 stars suck without them. Yes genshin has a better pity but that isn't the be all end all, you need to get 5 copies to max a 5 star in fate where as genshin its 6 AND 5 copies of their weapons. I could keep going on about ways that it's worse all day long, especially when genshin has way more micro transactions and predatory practices like battlepasses and resin but take that fate is worse is utterly baffling tbh

Oh boy let's get into the math here because this is where the fun begins.

Don't get me wrong, I'll never defend Genshin's dogshit practices, but I have a personal grudge against FGO fans sucking on it when it's literally the bastard of the mainstream bunch. This argument is me pitting garbage against garbage to say which one is stinkier.

This gonna be long so I'm putting this under a cut:

Alright FGO dailies list (I'll use NA for FGO, since Genshin is a global server schedule):

Day 2=1 SQ, Day 4=1 SQ, Day 6=2 SQ and Day 7=Ticket (3 SQ equivalent)

Total: 7 SQ

Needed for a tenfold: 30 SQ

Weeks needed for a tenfold via Log-In alone: 4 weeks and 4 days. 32 days total.

It should be noted that if you miss a single day, it resets from the very start. You must log in no matter what. It might take but a few moments, but note, you have to.

Genshin dailies list:

10 Primos per Comm/action, total of 40, and a 20 Primo bonus for turning into Katherine

Total: 60 Primos

Needed for tenfold 1600 Primo

Weeks needed for a Log-In alone: 26 days total.

Genshin's big detriment is that while you never lose your place, you need to spend time on Commissions. It can be anywhere from 5-10 minutes, which is a bit of a serious timesink. It's a bit better with the Fontaine update but it's still a pain in the ass for those on the go.

Alright, but Lord, that's just raw Log-In, what about monthlies?

Monthlies are the same, since both give you 5 tickets/fates to use. Genshin is at the disadvantage here since you need to spend the stardust you get from summoning on it, but Fate also requires you to spend Mana Prisms. Fundamentally similar, it's just that Fate wins out by the small margin Mana Prisms are slightly easier to obtain.

What about pity?

Eat my ass, Fate's pity system just happened cause they were getting this ass beat monetarily and they gave up and did a base-tier QOL update. Six FUCKING years we waited for pity and its over 900 SQ??? ((330 pulls btw))

I saved a whole year and a half back for Musashi's inital release and I just barely had that shit. And that was events, dailies, so on and so forth. (I got her in three tickets so nobody come at me with the fact I'm just a bitter old bird who didn't get my cute girl.)

While there's the 50/50 mechanic with Genshin, that levels the idea of 180, and that's going to hard-hard pity. No matter what, you can, and will, at least get the character you want.

Now what if we include Weapon Banner, since people assume Weapons+Characters *must* go together rather than it just being BIS and disregarding the completely different game mechanics of turn-based FGO and action rpg Genshin (<bitter).

Weapon Hard Pity is 240 pulls. You get a Fate Point for 80 pulls if you don't get your directed weapon, and you get another one if you get screwed again. Two Fate Points guarantees the next 80 is what you want.

Now, that might equal 420 pulls, but there's a catch few people acknowledge: Soft Pity.

Genshin has a system that, the closer you get to that hard pity, the higher the rate goes up. Therefore, it's not often someone actually goes to the hard 80 or 90. I'm just using the hard numbers as a point.

FGO is a hard pity, nothing about the rates changes from Summon 1 to Summon 330. Plus no guarantee you actually even get something from those 330 pulls--at least in Genshin you get a Basic Banner character who has some measure of utility you can use to make progress.

Also FGO pity doesn't carry per banner, but Genshin's does, so if you get fucked over and wanna wait a few months, you have another shot instead of wasting all of it cause you got close but no cigar.

But what about upgrades? Constellations?

NP-bonuses are rather minor and not as key as say, Xiao C1 or Hu Tao C1, so FGO has the edge there. However, that leads me to the side point of:

Weapons.

Reasonably, everyone talks about how the 3-star weapons suck, yadda yadda. You get so many weapons from the game as welfare that are good and can be used by multiple characters. You don't need a 5-star weapon, just because you aren't hitting 300k a hit doesn't mean shit.

Genshin has a lot more versatility in team building than FGO tbh, since a lot of FGO's boils down to "Do you have Merlin/Skadi/Chen Gong/Waver/Tamamo/Castoria/Support Caster.png" that you can then use with any other character.

Not saying Genshin doesn't have that too with Qinqiu and Bennett, but due to the nature of Spiral Abyss, people have gotten smart about using others instead of just them cause it's a split up team system.

Citation: I didn't get a single 5-star Weapon until Year 2.5 of Genshin. Fun fact, I also didn't have a single DPS 5-star either (all I had since launch was Diluc and Venti), until fucking Cyno came out. I managed to play the game just fine.

Now in FGO NA, I was also there since Launch, and I didn't get my first SSR until the Solomon raids, in which I finally got Florence Nightingale. I was playing the game carried by Kiyohime, Salter, and throwing SQ at revives. And guides, christ, so many guides it made Arknights look elementary.

What about general SQ/Primo flow (the Anniversaries and whatnot mentioned)?

FGO, the year of 2023, had, according to a Reddit post which I can link if people want the source, is: 2571 SQ, tickets included.

This Reddit post involved Servant NP Ascension Quests, Events, Chunked Log-In Bonus, Live Streams, Bond Stuff, ect ect (also, stuff you can't do if you didn't roll them, the post was being generous with people getting what they rolled or had)

That is about 85.7 tenfolds. So, if you don't spend a penny and not miss a day of logging in, the average joe might get about 2, 3 hard pities on who they want. Presuming I'm doing the math right on that.

Genshin, in the year of 2022, had, according to another Reddit Post, roughly 100k Primogems.

That equals about 62.5 tenfolds, or over 620 Fates. Now, tossing that into the system with someone with the worst luck imaginable that wants a character, that's about the same amount of 3 to 4 guaranteed pities.

One might note that the numbers are about the same, and yeah, that checks. However, there's a lot of variables, such as Spiral Abyss for Genshin, and actually having the characters to do Interludes on.

Half-baked conclusion

FGO is a money sink, Genshin is a time sink. They both sink your serotonin. Nobody wins.

Look, I play both, I have grief with both, I have fond memories of both. I wouldn't have a stupid expensive Okada figurine sitting next to a custom Cyno plushie if I hated these games.

But they're gacha, they're both out for your money, it's just that one is just a raging cunt about the whole affair.

Reddit Post Citations:

[diamondseaside]

It’s been a few years since my unemployed period but there were a few things that helped me, that maybe will help you. If not, that’s cool, everyone is different.

1) Work smarter not harder with job applications. When you’re sending out hundreds a week and getting nothing it can feel like the solution is to blanket the world with more of them. Nope. If you’re sending too many, you’re not targeting them the way you need to. One solid application is worth way more than five half-assed ones. It may take you two hours to edit your resume to use the same language as the job posting and write a specific cover letter. With that in mind 2-4 applications is the max you should be sending per day, and you should only be sending them 5 days a week.

2) Pick a schedule. You said you’re burnt out, so schedule four hours a day (five days max) for applications and hold yourself to that. Set alarms on your phone for the start and end time. It’s your job right now so treat it as such but it’s okay to try to calm the burnout by making it a part time job for a minute. And when I say hold yourself to it I mean hold yourself to it only being four hours. Obviously if you’re almost done with an application finish it out, but don’t start another. If you finish one at 3.5hrs let yourself quit for the day.

3) As scary as it is, remember that mentioning you’re hunting for a job is a way to network. It’s okay to say you’re unemployed. It’s hard, because this country places so much emphasis on what you do for a living as your worth, but really. Most people, especially millennials and younger, have been in your shoes and dealt with the ridiculousness of the job hunt in the modern age. Let them commiserate and also keep their eyes open for you.

4) It really really does get better. Your mid-twenties is just the absolute worst. I’m in my mid-thirties and it’s not all unicorns and glitter but it is endlessly better than my mid-twenties. Breathe. You’re okay, and you’re going to be okay. This is just hard and it’s okay to find it hard.

yeah i’m very intentional with which jobs i apply for and tailor my resume and cover letter for every single one, which is really time consuming for me bc i overthink everything. it’s also hard trying to fit the mold for a job you don’t have the experience for, which is most of them at this point. i def need to be better at timing myself and holding myself to it bc oftentimes i get carried away and lose track of time. thanks for all the advice!

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

I was tagged by @onmywaytonarnia so here's some stuff about me

Nickname: Florida Man or just Florida (god help me, I hate it down here...)

Sign: PEDESTRIAN X-ING, REST AREA - 3 MILES, or perhaps SPEEDING FINES DOUBLED WHEN WORKERS PRESENT (I do not believe in astrology)

Height: 6'1" or 6'2"

Last thing I googled: Perseverance rover

Song stuck in my head: for some reason I have a mashup of Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls and Breakaway by Kelly Clarkson stuck in my head. I don't know if I actually heard a mashup somewhere, or if they were both part of that 4-chords song by Axis of Awesome, but I can't stop thinking of the two choruses layered on top of each other (🎶and I don't want the world to see me cause I don't think that they'd understand/🎶I'll spread my wings and I'll learn how to fly🎶)

Follower count: officially 3222, but I noticed when I was just starting out that tumblr inflated the actual count by like 20, 30, 40%. When it said I had 100 followers, I counted, and I actually had 85. When it said I had 1000, I only had like 700. I stopped counting after that, so I have no clue how many I actually have right now. Probably more than 1000, but probably not more than 2000. I have maybe 100 followers who regularly interact with my stuff, about 30 of whom are mutuals (maybe 10 or 15 close friends).

Amount of aleep: AHAHAHAHAHAHA (5, maybe 6 hours on a good night? Sometimes none, just endless tossing and turning because my brain won't shut off)

Lucky number: 13, and I'm not being ironic about that. I'm serious. 13 is my favorite number of a variety if personal reasons

Dream job: I want to be part of a creative team, I want to work with a bunch of people to make something for people to see! I want to make art, and I want to collaborate so I'm not alone. Writing scripts or making props or dressing sets, some manner of production design. I want to craft!

Wearing: Goodfellow t-shirt and cargo shorts

Movie/book that summarizes me: Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir feels like it was written for me personally. That is how my thought process works, that is how I deal with problems, that is who I want to be. I have a higher than average understanding of math and science but I always try to explain it in as simple terms as possible for people who find it all too daunting. This is the kind of book I want to write, sci-fi that explains the sci.

Favorite songs: Ramblin Man, the Gambler, Country Roads, the Devil Went Down to Georgia (I'm noticing a country pattern...), anything by Weird Al Yankovic (Hardware Store and Albuquerque are probably my top 2 of his),the Little Shop of Horrors movie soundtrack, White Squall and Northwest Passage by Stan Rogers (I went through a sea shanty phase when Wellerman was big), anything by Jonathan Coulton (Skullcrusher Mountain, Code Monkey, Blue Sunny Day, Big Wide World One, Shop Vac, Mandelbrot Set, to name a few), Climb Out Your Window, Addicted, and Here We Go by Walk off the Earth, and the Celtic Woman cover of Danny Boy (this is my go-to cry song; if I need a nice long cry, I put this on and it all comes flowing out of me)

Favorite instrument: I love brass, trumpet specifically, I could listen to Louis Armstrong all day

Aesthetic: analog technology, typewriters, instant photography, clockwork watches without quartz, sacrificing convenience for the sake of privacy, nostalgia for the early 2000s (but through the eyes of a child, so no George W. Bullshit)

Favorite author: per capita, Andy Weir. He's only written 3 books, but I love them all and want to emulate him. Max Brooks for World War Z. Cormac McCarthy for The Road (very depressing, but hopeful near the end; one of the only books to really tug at my heartstrings). John Steinbeck for Of Mice and Men (another heartstring tugger). Audrey Niffenegger for The Time Traveler's Wife.

Currently reading: Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

Favorite colors: cyan, lime green, heliotrope purple

Favorite animal sounds: the scuttling of crabs on pavement, the sneef-snorfing of a curious dog, the bleat of a baby goat, the EHHH of a baby sloth, the MEHH of a baby deer, the chirping of bats, ethereal whale songs

Last song: either I'm Going to go Back There Someday from the Muppet Movie, or Hey I Don't Work Here by Tom Cardy

Last Series: Owl House (Lulu + Hootcifer 4ever!!! Oh yeah and lumity's pretty good too I guess)

Random: I once learned all the lyrics to Bobby Darin's Mack the Knife without ever actually listening to the lyrics of Mack the Knife. Like, I listened to the song all the time, but I never paid attention to what was being said. It was just gibberish to me, but I learned the gibberish, and I sang along to it in the car one day and my mom asked why I was so enthusiastic about murder. Turns out Mack the Knife is about an old londontown ripper named Macheath. Still a banger though.

@goldenmoldies @olivia-online @nsomniacsdream @schifty-al @richardjager @n-brio @orange-birdie

[blackfire-fanfiction]

Alright, we're doing this again! The last time I did this was in November, and I've probably read ~10 million words of fic since then, so we'll see what changes have happened with the numbers (I don't think there's that much of a change but who knows).

254 fics left -> 6 sections

0k+ -> 4 fics // ~44,000 words

20k+ -> 38 fics // Max 1,140,000 words possible; probably ~950,000 words

30k+ -> 58 fics // Max 2,900,000 words possible; probably ~2,204,000 words

50k+ -> 87 fics // Max 8,700,000 words possible; probably ~6,960,000 words

100k+ -> 57 fics // Probably ~14,300,000 words

TBR (longer fics I want to read first) -> 8 fics // ~880,000 words

Maximum Total Words -> 27,964,000 words Best Guess for Actual Word Count -> 25,338,000 words

And now... the time it'd take to read it all! These predictions mean nothing considering my reading habits change all the time, and it's not even adding in the 30k words worth of updates I get every day. I'll use the same average words I read per day -> 70k and the most amount of words I can physically read in a day -> 300k that I used last time I did this to calculate it all.

0k+ -> 44k // 1 day (Max 2 hours, using my 30k per hour average)

20k+ -> 950k // Minimum 4 days; Probably 14 days

30k+ -> 2,204k // Minimum 8 days; Probably 32 days

50k+ -> 6,690k // Minimum 24 days; Probably 96 days

100k+ -> 14,300k // Minimum 48 days; Probably 205 days

TBR -> 880k // Minimum 3 days; Probably 13 days

Minimum Total Time -> 88 days / ~3 months Best Guess for Actual Total Time -> 361 days / ~12 months

So. Less fics total than last time, but I have more 100k+ fics. There'd only be 155 fics (5 months) without that section. So. Long fics take up a lot of it all, duh. Anyway, that's that! I'll do this in another 6 months, maybe sooner if I get through a lot of the hoard.

[tonkiregister]

Average mortar worktime

#Average mortar worktime full#

Hi, my name is Gresh (Gresham), and welcome to CBNation powered by Blue 16 Media (Web Design & SEO). Thanks to Kerri Jonikas, HomeSmart Realty Group! My clients' happiness is worth the amount of work I put in everyday. While showing houses or selling houses sounds like an easy task there's a lot of work that is done behind the scenes that is necessary for a positive experience for my clients. On average my productive hours are 95 hours per week. Some days I am working through cooking and eating dinner. I take a break for lunch about 15 minutes but most days I work while eating and take a break for dinner about 30 minutes. On an average day my day ends at 10:30 PM with that last phone call or e-mail. My day starts at 6:30 AM everyday with answering e-mails, preparing documents needed for my day (whether that's getting together last minute paperwork for a listing appointment or preparing for a closing), checking the multiple listing service for my buyers. I often hearĬomments that Realtors receive too much money for their commissions. There are so many misconceptions about the amount of work that Realtors do. I am an entrepreneur, business owner, Realtor. Thanks to Nick Disney, Sell My San Antonio House! Most entrepreneurs accept that they will put in more hours than other people and I find that if you keep some balance you can stay productive and happy. After my kids go to bed, I will put in a little more time on my projects and reach back out to anyone that I missed from 6-9pm. From 6-9pm I focus on spending time with my family and avoid emails, calls, and texts as much as possible. I then pack in as many productive activities as I can into my schedule before 6 pm. I get up early so that I can get some productive time in before anyone expects me to be available and then I take about a 45 minute break to help get my kids ready and off to school. 50 gets no special consideration despite being 4 men, and Ostheer support team shouldn't either.I feel like when you are growing a business as an entrepreneur or business owner, you are rarely 100% off because people need you for direction and guidance and because you are always thinking about your business…This being said, I do believe that work-life integration is very important to being happy. 40 MP isn't that big of a deal, and it will make the MG42/ mortar a more meaningful choice and also a more fairly performing per cost one.Īlso, the mortar is not meant to be usued in combat, so if it is being shot at you are doing it wrong. A 20-40 mp cost increase on the MG42 and the Granatenwerfer will let them keep their current effectiveness, while not requiring a buff to the Soviet mortar/ Maxim, both of which are performing per cost (except maybe the maxim). The Granatenwerfer is absolutely a great unit at all ranges, it always does what I need it to do, at all ranges, and is overperforming for cost when compared to the 120mm and the 82mm. A factions advantages or disadvantages are no reason for a unit to be more cost effective per cost. I've said it before and I'll say it again. The Soviet mortar doesn't need a HUGE buff, it just needs a reload of 5 seconds.

#Average mortar worktime full#

The German mortar is more than fragile enough to get rid of if it's annoying you to much (and at max range even firing full speed it won't hit much), increasing it's price will just make Ostheer in 1's and 2's even more of a bitch to play early game were your strapped for MP. Jump back to quoted post, 02:26 AM Alexzandvar

[wenevergotusedtoegypt]

It has been a DAY, let me tell you people

After waiting for almost an hour after our appointment time at the pediatrician we finally got in and had the pleasant surprise of actually getting to see my son’s doctor instead of another doctor at the practice, he promptly diagnosed the ear infection and wrote a prescription for antibiotics, great.

Normally we use a pharmacy that delivers, but when the prescription came through shortly afterwards, they had no delivery windows open til tomorrow afternoon. Which like...no, not waiting that long to start antibiotics. This actually happened to me a different time, also with antibiotics, and that time I called customer service and they were able to squeeze me in that day. So I decided it was worth a shot trying that again.

They were not able to do that this time, so they offered to transfer the prescription to a different pharmacy so we could get it today. I gave them the information for the closest pharmacy to us, which was a mistake, because I should have KNOWN something would go wrong. At least some small minor thing has ALWAYS gone wrong every time I’ve used that pharmacy, which is why I stopped using it and switched to this other one. But we had a cranky as heck toddler to deal with, and going further out of our way to a different pharmacy seemed inadvisable.

That was all in the car on the way home. After we got home, my husband went to do some errands near that pharmacy and stopped in to see if they had the prescription yet. They told him to come back at 5:00. This was about 3:15.

At 5:00 I called the pharmacy. I said, “Hi, I have a prescription that was being transferred to you and I wanted to see if it was received yet.” The woman asked for the date of birth, which I gave her, and the last name, which I gave her. She said, “Yes, I see it, it came in today.” I said, “Great, when will it be ready?” She said that it has to be mixed so I said ok, when will that be done, and she clarified that it has to be mixed at the time of pickup so whenever we come to pick it up they will mix it and it will take about 5 minutes for it to be ready.

At about 5:45 my husband showed up at the pharmacy to pick up the prescription and was told they did not have it. One of the employees claimed that I called and asked about the specific medication, and coincidentally they had just received a different prescription for the same medication, but I never gave my son’s DOB or name and so they didn’t realize it wasn’t for him (which was framed as my fault). Which, first of all, if that had been what happened, that still would have been a screwup on their part? You should not confirm that you have received a particular patient’s prescription without finding out who the patient is?? But also, it’s not what happened. It played out exactly as I wrote above. I DID give his DOB and name and I DID NOT ask about the medication by name, mostly because I do not frickin know how to pronounce it so why would I try.

Anyway my husband keeps trying to talk to various staff for a while and Pharmacist 1 (of 2, to be relevant later in the story) then adds to the story to be that they have been trying to get in touch with the original pharmacy and have not been able to and that my husband should call them. So my husband calls the first pharmacy and they say that they left a voicemail for this pharmacy, which Pharmacist 1 says was not received. Pharmacist 1 then proceeds to give the other pharmacy a completely different phone number than the one publicly available for this pharmacy.

My husband waits a bit longer and then Pharmacist 1 tells him that he needs to call back the first pharmacy because they haven’t done some administrative mumbo jumbo with the prescription that would allow it to go through with the insurance. By this point it is after 6pm and the first pharmacy is closed. Pharmacist 1 tells my husband there is simply nothing they can do today.

By this point I was flaming mad and in full mama bear mode because my husband had been telling me about the whole thing and I couldn’t believe the way they’d lied about my 5pm call and were taking zero responsibility for things (if they had told me at 5pm that they didn’t have the prescription, we would have had 45 extra minutes to sort it out with the first pharmacy, but no, I was told we could walk in anytime and walk out 5 minutes later with the medication). I was also staring at a second night in a row of basically no sleep with a toddler in pain taking up half my bed thanks to this incompetence. So I grabbed my son and ran out of the house with him, met my husband halfway to hand off the toddler so I wouldn’t have to take him into an enclosed public space, and headed into the pharmacy.

At this point I had no hope that we were going to actually get the antibiotic today, but I wanted them to own up to the fact that they screwed up and at least make some attempt at rectifying the issue (like, “we’ll get on this first thing when we open tomorrow morning and call you the moment it’s ready” or something along those lines). Now, there were 5 staff in this pharmacy, 4 of whom could theoretically have answered the phone per their positions. Of those 4, 2 were men and so definitely did not tell me at 5:00 that they had my prescription, and 2 were women. One woman had a heavy accent. It was not her who I spoke to. So I basically 100% knew when I walked in the door who was responsible for this issue (this is not a place that has a zillion staff running around, and they close at 7, so it wasn’t a new shift from 5:00). 

I waited in line and when I got to the front, to the woman who told me at 5:00 that they had the prescription, I said, “Hi, my husband was just here asking about a prescription for my son and I need to follow up with someone about what happened.” This woman acted like she had no idea what situation was being referred to even though my husband had left maybe 10 minutes ago max, and politely requested my son’s information like it was the first time she was dealing with it. She then told me they did not have his prescription. When I related the 5:00 call (without letting on that I knew I’d spoken to her - and now I was even more sure because I recognized her voice), she just said she didn’t know who I’d talked to but they didn’t have it, and refused to take any responsibility either personally or institutionally for what I’d been told. 

At that point, Pharmacist 1 jumped in and related the same story she’d told my husband and told me that she couldn’t fill a prescription that she didn’t have. I told her that I understood that at this point it seemed we were not getting the prescription tonight, but what I wanted to address was the fact that I was told at 5pm that I could walk in and walk out 5 minutes later with my son’s medication and now he was going to start his antibiotics a day late. She continued to tell me over and over that she couldn’t fill a prescription she didn’t have, no matter how many times I reiterated that what I wanted was not for her to do that, but for the pharmacy to just take responsibility for the fact that they screwed up and because of that my toddler was going to have to suffer an extra night. This kept going back and forth with no headway being made, just getting more and more heated, until she got sick of talking to me and handed me off to Pharmacist 2. With whom I initially proceeded to have the exact same exchange of “we can’t fill a prescription we don’t have” “I’m not asking you to do so, I just want to speak to someone who will take responsibility for what happened here” “well we can’t fill a prescription we don’t have” “I KNOW I AM NOT GETTING THIS PRESCRIPTION TONIGHT, I JUST WANT SOMEONE TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR WHAT HAPPENED AND RECTIFY IT”

....and then suddenly he’s like, “well if you just give me the doctor’s name and number, I can try to get the doctor to send a new prescription directly to us.” OH. OKAY. IS THERE SOME REASON THIS IDEA DID NOT OCCUR TO ANYONE BEFORE I HAD TO DRAG MYSELF OVER HERE AND TAKE THE TIME TO YELL AT ALL OF YOU??? Like, you know, when my husband was there?? I don’t actually enjoy yelling at pharmacy staff or just at people in general! This is not a thing I go around doing! In fact, I had never done it before and if the medication were for anyone other than my sick small child I probably still wouldn’t have! And apparently you had this super sensible, doable, easy solution the whole time but we had to go through all of this crap and me making a giant scene* to get there??

7 minutes later they have the prescription and 8 minutes after that I’m walking out the door with the medication. 🤦🏻‍♀️Pharmacist 1 rang me up at the register and told me that it was ok that I yelled at her because she would have done the same thing for her child in my shoes. People. We didn’t even need to do this!!! You literally could have just called the doctor when my husband was there without my ever setting foot on your awful premises! Why!!!!!!

Anyway then I FINALLY got home and my son was a cranky, exhausted, snotty-faced mess and we still had to actually get him to take the medication, which did not go well. I’m not sure how much he actually swallowed. Really need to figure out a new strategy going forward, but he has no appetite so mixing it into something is unlikely to work. So I asked for advice in a group and while I did get some workable suggestions to try, I also had a rando stranger ask me why he was prescribed antibiotics, as if perhaps her judgment might be that they were not necessary depending on the reason and perhaps I might weigh that more heavily than our literal doctor 🙃(I responded that he was prescribed them because our doctor deemed it necessary)

*my husband’s friend, who knows me as a relatively quiet, calm, and collected individual, was in the pharmacy for the duration of this encounter and I’m sure he was like WHAT THE HECK who knew she yelled like this??

[random-thought-depository]

A short vignette I wrote as part of a discussion on a forum I post on, with past/present tense and other grammar and formatting and math somewhat cleaned up from the rough version I posted there, and I’ve given it a title; it is a stand-alone piece and is not connected to any of my main SF settings; I took the liberty of re-using some relatively generic planet names and taking a little inspiration from John M. Dollan’s Arcbuilder Universe (if you’re interested you can find links to a little of John M. Dollan’s more recent writing on his Twitter):

----------

Advantages of Specialization

As I departed Cordillera, I passed a sign of the times. There was one of the big Hegemony freighters, on its leisurely upward fall toward minimum safe distance. It was much too far away for unaided eye visual contact, of course, but Mariposa's telescope gave me a fine view of it. And Cordillera space traffic control had supplied all the relevant details, of course; planned trajectory and burn timing, alpha-numeric designation - and a name; the Humbolt. Humbolts are whales that sing. Appropriate, I guess; it was big. Next to it little Mariposa would look - well, like a butterfly flitting around a whale, I guess. Mariposa is 50 meters long and masses 100 tons, 500 tons fueled up, with space for about an elephant's mass in cargo. Mariposa could fit inside Humbolt's fuel tank. Mariposa could fit inside the nozzle of Humbolt's fusion rocket.

Humbolt had finished its escape burn from Cordillera two days ago and it was just falling up now, not very fast. Its orbital rockets had burned at a leisurely .5 MSS, only a twentieth of a G, and hadn't burned very long. It hadn't even reached escape velocity from Cordillera's sun. Mariposa had burned hard, 3 G on the way up from Cordillera's surface, then 1.2 G the rest of the way to outbound flight velocity. Mariposa passed Humbolt quickly; the velocity differential was huge. Mariposa hadn't just reached escape velocity from the local sun, Mariposa had reached escape velocity from the galaxy! If I never burned her rocket or did a hyperspace jump again Mariposa would fall up very long and very far, into intergalactic space, where she'd fall up until her atoms evaporated by proton decay or the Big Rip tore her apart or she disintegrated from the slow sandpapering of the intergalactic medium, whatever came first. Of course, that wouldn't happen. I'd reach the local hyperlimit and jump to hyperspace in three months or so, then it'd be a few days in hyperspace, then another two months to get from the 82 Eridani hyperlimit to Hyannis. Funny; a few months to cross a few dozen AU, a few days in hyperspace to cross dozens of light years, a light year is more than 60,000 AU. Our-space distances aren't applicable to travel in hyperspace, of course, but I still think it's funny. Lots of people do.

As I passed Humbolt I studied telescopic images of it, studied its weaknesses, and thought maybe a whale wasn't the right analogy for it after all. Something from an ocean was, but not a whale. It was more like one of those deep sea fish that explode when you bring them to the surface, into the light.

Humbolt hadn't landed at San Ysidro Spaceport. It couldn't have. It wouldn't have survived trying. Humbolt is a pure creature of the void, that will never know the kiss of air or the touch of ground. It unloads and loads cargo at space stations, leaving transport to and from planetary surfaces to specialized local surface-orbit shuttles.

Humbolt is long thin pillar more than a kilometer long, with the fusion rocket at one end, a spherical fuel tank and the cargo and a small crew section spun for centrifugal gravity at the other end, and huge radiator wings between them. The long pillar is to protect the rest of the ship from the heat and radiation of the fusion drive. The fusion drive has a maximum rated acceleration at full cargo load of 2 MSS - one-fifth of 1 G. If Humbolt tried to accelerate much faster with a full cargo load, its engine would melt with waste heat. And if by some miracle it got itself up to 1 G that long pillar would snap and crumble. Put Humbolt on the surface of an Earthlike world, and it would disintegrate into a mass of rubble. If Humbolt tried to land like Mariposa, it would have the aerodynamics of a brick, and pieces of it would snap off from air friction, and its great rocket wouldn't have the thrust to control its own fall, and its own weight would break its back before it even touched the ground.

Maybe a whale isn't a bad analogy after all. The blue whale is the biggest animal to ever live on Earth; it's easier to be big in the water.

It's about efficiency, see. Humbolt should never experience a force of acceleration much above 2 MSS, so it's not built to take more than .5 G or so. That's a good safety margin, given the gentle acceleration its drive maxes out at. Building it fragile like this is efficient. Saves mass. Saves construction material. Saves fuel. Saves money.

It doesn't even really have a cargo hold. They just attach stuff to the front. Lots of different configurations are possible. On that trip Humbolt's front end was a greebled sphere of snapped-together rectangular cargo containers half a kilometer across, with a sort of tarp draped across it to protect it from high-velocity dust. There must have been hundreds of thousands of tons of cargo in that greebled sphere of cargo containers. It must have been a non-trivial fraction of Cordillera's yearly offworld trade. Cordillera isn't a big colony; it's a dusty dry world with only a few small seas, marginally habitable, only 160 million inhabitants. The sphere is the most efficient shape for a container, and the protective tarp is light, and Humbolt doesn't need to worry about streamlining. Trucks and trains and planes and boats and Mariposa are long and narrow because if you have to worry about streamlining you want to minimize frontal area. Humbolt doesn't have to worry about friction, so its cargo can be gathered into a sphere, which is efficient.

Free traders like me with ships that can take off and land like Mariposa are still a lifeline on Cordillera. Until a few years back Cordillera had just one orbiting space station to service big cargo ships like Humbolt. The Hegemony gave them another one a few years back though. Gave them another space station. A whole space station. Just dragged it in all the way from Alpha Centauri. The Hegemony must have plans for Cordillera.

Humbolt fell behind quickly. After they'd passed a few million kilometers behind they sent a text message telling me they were about to fire up the big fusion rocket. The burn timing was already registered with Cordillera space control who'd passed it on to me, of course; it was just standard procedure. The Hegemony were sticklers for this kind of thing. The contents of the message were very standard too; if it hadn't been composed by a computer it might as well have been. I wondered if it was AI composed or some sort of standardized form they had a human fill out. There'd be an audio warning and check-in too.

The audio warning was less standardized. A male voice, with an accent that might have been Tolimanish, saying, "This is the Kentauric Hegemony nationalized transport KDY-442-A74F, the Humbolt, calling free trader Mariposa. Hello, Miss, uh ... Miss Cherinise? Did I pronounce that right? Just as per standard procedure we're giving you a redundant warning that we're going to fire up the big atomic flashlight in 600 seconds. Please acknowledge."

Mariposa and Humbolt were almost seven light seconds apart at this point; far enough apart for light lag to noticeably influence conversation. I could have fired up the subspace radio, but Humbolt hadn't bothered, and I wasn't going to spend power on it if they weren't.

I sent back, "This is free trader Mariposa, I understand and acknowledge your message. I see we have the same destination. Does that make this a race? Seems to be going pretty well for me so far if so; I left after you and I'm already ahead of you."

I couldn't resist the dig, even though I knew it was lame and wasn't even an effective one, it just drew attention to my own weakness. I made it sound happy, like I was joking and saying something to have an excuse to talk to somebody for a few minutes.

The voice from the Humbolt said back, "You'd lose. Might want to make sure any un-hardened electronics are protected before we fire the big rocket, and maybe put your fuel tank between your crew and cargo compartments and us, just to be extra safe. You should be OK at that distance, but it's gonna be some real Manhattan Project hours out here when we fire. KDY-442-A74F over and out."

I said back, "Mariposa's been in battles and flare star megaflares and I've had to navigate more than one particularly nasty gas giant and brown dwarf magnetosphere. My ship's built tough, I'll be fine. Free trader Mariposa, over and out."

For some minutes Mariposa and Humbolt fell up away from Cordillera's sun, glowing only with the warmth of life support and radar and power reactor standby power and cargo environment maintenance. Then Humbolt's main rocket fired.

Mariposa can do 4 G at a steady burn, more in a sprint. The big limit is my own tolerance. Compared to Mariposa's muscular rocket, Humbolt's great rocket is weak in thrust. It imparts the gentlest of pushes. Humbolt's great radiator wings soon sizzle with heat at a fifth of a G. It ejects less than 200 kilograms of fuel per second, for a ship that masses hundreds of thousands of tons fueled and loaded. It's built for fuel efficiency, endurance, not thrust. The big rocket fires continuously for more than two weeks, compared to Mariposa's 22 hour 1.2 G burn.

And that efficiency implies its own sort of power. That 200 kilograms flies out of the rocket nozzle at more than two percent the speed of light. Humbolt's big rocket is a butterfly's sigh in terms of thrust, but in terms of energy it's a nuclear bomb that explodes continuously for more than two weeks. Ships like Humbolt have to maneuver near planets using weaker secondary orbital rockets because of the damage that storm of radiation and high-velocity charged particles might do. Alerts squawked nervously as Humbolt became a dark speck at the end a brilliant comet of charged particles and radiation thousands of kilometers long, the brightest thing in Mariposa's sky except for the local sun.

Mariposa uses not a lot of energy to eject a lot of fuel not very fast. This gives it the thrust to blast off the surface of a world. It's like one of those gasoline-powered SUVs you see on a lot of low-population worlds with big stretches of hostile terrain; go anywhere no matter how bad the road, power over rocks and through sucking mud puddles. But it's like an SUV; it guzzles fuel. And fuel-guzzling, in space, ultimately means slow. Humbolt uses terawatts of energy to eject a little fuel very fast, and this makes it fuel-efficient, and fuel-efficient in space ultimately means fast.

The man was right. If it's a race, Mariposa will lose, I'll lose. Humbolt will reach the hyperlimit of Cordillera's system in a little over a month, reach Hyannis in a little over two months, well ahead of me. And with ships like Humbolt the Hegemony can charge shipping prices half of the minimum I can charge to stay in business and come out with a 20% profit. And they can ship high-bulk goods that are just out of reach for me. Mariposa is a flying fuel tank with an engine and a crew quarter and a cargo compartment attached, stuffed into something shaped like a delta-winged aircraft. Humbolt gets almost three times my delta V while being less than half fuel by mass.

Free traders like me kept trade flowing through the age of fragmentation and economic contraction after the disintegration of the Terran Empire. Our tough versatile little blast off from anywhere land anywhere rockets were just what human space needed back then. But it's getting tough for somebody like me to stay in business nowadays.

[prorevenge]

Give my hours away to a new-hire? I’ll leave you with a store to close yourself, misfiled paperwork and get you fired.

This happened a couple months ago at an old employer. I worked at a supermarket in my state throughout high school and while in college in the United States making $9 to start and only $10.50 at the end. The store had 1 Store Manager, 2 Assistant Store Managers, 1 manager and assistant manager per department, which there were 9 departments. For 5 years, I worked every position there because who knew what hiring was, right? Understaffing was a regular here, so if a department needed closing and I worked, I had to close it. From stocking to register to managers duties, everything was game. My biggest acknowledgements were being a Book-Keeper (Out terms of the person who keeps track of all the money), Monitor (Glorified cashier, basically wrangle the regular cashiers and divvy up cash drawers to each register), Service Desk (Cigarettes, lottery, customers bullshit) and store opener/closer. There were 5 people who knew Book-Keeping, 2 other people besides me and the 2 managers who ran the front end of the store. There were about 5 monitors who all needed to be trained on Service Desk as well. Every monitor and Book-Keeper needed to know how to open the store and close it. For being a supermarket in a town with about 20,000 people, we were severely understaffed. I worked 12 to 16 hour shifts at least once a week because people would call off all the time. Keep all this in mind for later on.

Backstory: I started working here at 16 in high school originally as a stock person. 25 hour work weeks, eventually moved up to 35+ hour work weeks. Moved up to register, then monitor, then Service Desk and finally Book-Keeping when I turned 18, now 21. The hours were always good, never had a week drop below 35 hours at least. But it all changed because of some dickhead.

At the start of COVID-19, I was working while in college, so all these guidelines had to be followed. Everyone needed their toilet paper and hand sanitizer to keep COVID away. No biggie. On top of the guidelines, we also had been hiring a copious amount of people. This store had a history of training new hires with other people who have been working for maybe a month or so. So as you could guess, training was a disaster. But since COVID-19 had the store busy all the time, we needed more people. I wanted to train people the right way because I got sick of doing other people’s jobs. In March, we had gotten 4 new-hires to train for my position. Now these new-hires needed training on the service desk. Easy, let them run it while I watched and helped out the best I could. Easiest way to get people to learn. Most of them needed trained on here because there were 3 of us total, at the time, who could run it. After training everyone, one per shift at a time over 4 weeks, there were 7 people now ready to fuck up the world. But everyone who knew how to run the service desk needed training on Monitor too. Guess who had to train everyone for another position? After another 4 weeks of bullshit, everyone got trained. Around this time was the end of May. This is where the juice begins.

The Juice: Starting in June, we had been starting to lay off the hours since COVID-19 started to slow down. Hours started to get cut from all the register people, from about 20-30 hours a week to 10 hours max. We got over staffed and people started quitting left and right. Not a big deal because those positions were easy to fill. But that’s when MY hours started getting cut. At the time, the one new-hire who started in March, who we’ll call Helen, had been getting really good hours, I’m talking about MY hours. We had the same problem, college money, car money, the works and all. But then I got scheduled for 16 hours one week and they got scheduled for over 35 hours. Not once since I was 18 did I get less than 35 hours. So I decided to confront the Assistant Manager who was in charge of scheduling, we’ll call him Frank.

Me: Hey Frank, I noticed my hours got cut. What’s happening?

Frank: I know, everyone’s hours are getting cut. I have to make room for everyone, ya know?

Me: I couldn’t help but notice that Helen is getting quite the hours, so you made room for her and no one else?

Frank: I was unaware of that, I’ll get you some more hours next week.

The reset of the week was kind of boring since I was a workaholic. No one called me to cover shifts or anything. The following week, I asked around to see who covered any shifts last week and it turns out that ALL the new hires got called first. That kind of pissed me off but hey, can’t do anything about it now. Later that day, I check my schedule and whaddya know? The same 16 hour week. I was livid at this point, I should have been honored for my seniority there, not getting fucked over in hours. I went back to Frank and confronted him.

Me: Hey, what the hell is this?! I thought you’d be finding me hours this week, I can’t live off of this.

Frank: Well it turns out that I couldn’t find you hours. I tried calling-

Me: Bullshit you tried calling me, not a single person called me. Instead, all the new-hires got called. What the hell man?!

Frank: There’s nothing I can do, you might have to just find another job.

This PISSED me off beyond belief. I was ready to pop. But this is when my bright idea came into play. For a couple days, I searched around for other supermarkets in my area offering jobs. After about a day of searching, I found a job paying DOUBLE what I made now for the same qualifications. I gave them a ring and got an interview for the following week. The following day, I went into work, for what I didn’t know was my last shift, and told Frank what was happening.

Me: Hey Frank, I just wanted to let you know I took your advice.

Frank: Advice? Do you mean finding another job?

Me: You’re A fucking right, I hope you have fun!

I will never forget the look on his face. Completely baffled. He didn’t expect me to actually find another job so quickly. This is where my revenge began.

Revenge: After I walked out of dickhead Franks office, I went around doing my usual work. During every shift, a metric fuckton of paperwork needed to be processed in the computer in order to close the store correctly and setup Book-Keeping for the next day. Fun fact, that day in particular was SNAP-day. For those who don’t know what that is, it’s the day that government funded Food-Stamps arrive on everyones EBT card, monthly. That day I decided to say fuck paperwork and just don’t do shit, I was quitting that day because my anger got the better of me. The store closes at about 12am, and I walked out of that shit hole as free as can be.

The next day, I woke up to find some really obnoxious and angry texts from coworkers. I completely disregarded them, unknowingly that they said I worked that morning. I went down to the supermarket to grab some things for my house and as soon as I walked in the door, every ex-coworker of mine looked at me as if I had just passed on the floor. One of them pulled me aside, let’s call them George, and this happened:

George: What the fuck bro? I had to cover your shift this morning and you have the balls to walk in here after that?

Me: I don’t work here anymore, fuck off.

I continued to get my groceries and talked to one of my closer ex-coworkers there about what happened. As it turned out, the Frank had no idea that the previous day was my last AND that the ENTIRE front-end of the store had gotten brutally fucked over. Since the store closed at 12am and no paperwork was filed, our Corporate called the Assistant Manager, also in charge of making sure all departments are closed correctly, and asked where all the paperwork was. No idea that I had not filed it, Frank had to go into the store, over an hour away from him, to file all the paperwork himself. Not only that, tons of violations were given to him because since none of the paperwork got done by the person closing, no one had a record of anything done at the store from the previous day. On top of everything, the amount of paperwork needed done was practically doubled since that day was SNAP. As soon as the Store Manager heard about this, she was LIVID.

After about a month, I was working my new job and heard some information about Frank. Apparently he had to go into a meeting with our Corporate bosses and the Store Manager. He had gotten fired from his position due to all of this and had not been able to get a letter of recommendation from that employer also. Sucks to suck huh?

TLDR: Manager gives my hours away to new-hire and tells me to get another job. I walked out and got him a bunch a violations and fired due to his stupid remarks.

(source) story by (/u/FweakinLittle)

[apathycarestostudy]

Academic Success Tips from My Parents

Out of all the things my parents enforced in my siblings and I, the most profound were educational and life success tips. Legit would get 100% regardless of the subject/ course/ workload. Here’s a bunch of them.

Before class:

Spend no more than a quarter of the journey to class chilling. 

Organize your study materials according to subject. Files and folders in the back, then textbooks, then notebooks. Stationery in appropriate places.

Always carry a folder full of blank sheets (plain, graphed, all the kinds!).

Fix your bag before you sleep. Hang your wristwatch on the strap so you don’t forget it when you go.

Clear your desk/study area as soon as you’re done - you’re not allowed to move out of that spot until you do.

If you have a study journal/ school diary/ study guide, read it everyday before class. 

Be the first one there, at least 15 minutes early (30 mins to an hour early is favourable).

If the teacher walks in, you better greet them with a smile, regardless if they’re crabby or not. Everyday.

You have the option to relax and do whatever before the teacher walks in. However, you have to preview the lesson before it starts. No exceptions.

Make ‘preview’ notes, which is basically little helpful tidbits about what’s to come, stuff you’re not sure about, questions and guides, how formulas connect - literally anything that’ll make the class go smoother for you.

During class:

You can talk to your friends before class, but as soon as it starts, not a word or glance in their direction.

Have all your materials either out if you have the space, or within reach. 

Listen carefully and take notes where appropriate (on printed ppts, on the corners and margins of the textbook, or an actual notebook), always, every class. There’s no such thing as ‘I didn’t take any notes today’ or ‘There wasn’t anything going on’. 

Always write the date and the day. Make an index as you go.

No highlighters during class. Underline textbooks with pencil only, and use pencils for sketches.

Whenever a teacher assigns work or extra readings or reference materials, write them down - always. Optional or not.

You better write down test/ quiz/ exam dates, even if they’re happening the next day and you’ll obviously remember. 

Speaking of exams, if the teacher mentions that word, write down everything they say, dialogue tags and all.

Answer as much questions as you can. It would be favourable if you answer twice per class or more, but it’s fine if you don’t. Your performance matters more.

Give people a chance to answer and ask questions.

Listen to what they’re saying and what response the teacher gives, even if you know it. Listening skills are important.

If an exercise is assigned during class, get on it like it’s an exam, and show the teacher your work (if possible) for corrections.  

If there’s a couple minutes before the class ends, but the teacher’s lesson finished for whatever reason (a final exercise is going on and you finished, they’re taking questions etc.) you keep to yourself if you’re not talking to the teacher. Read a book, do some work, anything productive.

You can help your friends and classmates now. Never say no, even if you’re not sure, say so and let them know you’re willing to struggle with them for a solution.

If you lend stationery, get it back before you bounce.

Arrange your materials backwards as you go through the day.

If you have another class right after, you better get over there immediately. It doesn’t matter if you’ve gotten more than enough time to mess around. Take your friends if you if you’d like.

During breaks:

Study, read, review, or preview. Something light for at least a quarter of the break this time.

If someone asks for help, help them (again). It’s good practice for you to see if you understand, and it’s good practice for when you go out into the world.

NEVER GO TO TEACHERS UNLESS IT’S ABSOLUTELY DETRIMENTAL.

If you have nothing light you can do, you can do whatever. 

After class:

Start by finishing all your homework. It isn’t due this week? Doesn’t matter. Always do your homework as soon as it’s assigned.

Once you’re done with your homework, check your study journal/ school diary/ study guide again. Take note of what’s coming up.

stUDY NOW PLEASE. All the subjects / courses you’ll have tomorrow should be either a) memorized if you didn’t have more than an hour of homework time or b) read and reviewed and tried and tested if you did. 

You can use highlighters now. Make summary notes and formula master lists. 

Organize your stuff again. 

You’re caught up with everything and barely did an hour today? Time to bust out the optional readings then.

You have no extra stuff too? Time to go on the computer and get some resources yourself. 

If there’s a big project, plan every step with excessively precise details. Follow them. Don’t forget to add buffers in case you miss something.

You missed something? Plan all over again. 

Go to sleep by 7 if you’re in school and 10 if you’re in college. You haven’t finished studying? I’ll wake you up at 3/4 in the morning then.

Did I mention do your assignments the day they’re assigned to you?

No relaxing till the weekend. You wake up, go to classes, come back, shower, eat, then study until you go to bed. Oh, and lay out your clothes right down to the shoes and socks (accessories too) right before you do.

Weekends:

Sike. You only get one day off. 

(Legit tho, back in the day, my work week was from Sunday to Thursday, and my parents would allow Thursday night and half of Friday off. We had to get up at eight-thirty in the morning max and study until lunch with zero breaks. Lunch would usually be at 1:30 pm. You can forget about most of Saturday too. We’d study till lunch, then have to go back again until late afternoon (about 5:30 pm - 4:30 if we were lucky). And then of course, since we were starting back on Sunday, we’d be in bed by 7. People would wonder how in the world we’d be able to sleep at 7 with all that we had to do as students - now you know.)

Don’t get me started on exams lol. This may seem harsh, but without this type of discipline, I wouldn’t be doing as okay as I do now with the subpar standards I’ve seemed to developed in college. Well. I’ve got a bunch of other things I used to do (some still do), as these are only the ones I could remember on the top of my head. More coming soon maybe?

Hope this helps you!

EDIT: DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT ADVOCATING ILL-HEALTH. THIS IS ONLY THE ACADEMIC ASPECT OF MY LIFE, NOT THE ENTIRETY OF IT. IF YOU’RE TRIGGERED, READ THIS. THANKSS.

[theotherjourney7]

“(As of today October 5th 2020), I was gonna do another The Week In Tory but, try as I might, I could not find a thing they’d done wrong since Friday.

No corruption. No ineptitude. No lies. No hypocrisy. Just a solid 96 hours of honest, decent and reliable governance.

Only kidding: it’s an absolute shit-show...

1. A report found the “Eat Out To Help Out” scheme cost £500m and didn’t do a single thing to improve the economy of the UK’s hospitality sector

However, it did help to double the number of infections, although they forgot how to count, so didn't notice

2. As infections spiked, the government briefly woke up and introduced local lockdowns

But predictably, the local councils responsible for implementing the new plans were given literally (not making this up) 5 minutes warning and no additional resources whatsoever

3. It was revealed absolutely not a single penny of the £1.58bn “Arts Rescue Plan” announced to great fanfare in July has actually been handed out to the artists or venues relying on it

So unsurprisingly, the country’s largest cinema chain had to close, costing 5,500 jobs

But thankfully Work and Pensions Minister Thérèse Coffey was on hand to reassuringly tell them they can all become Care Workers with "very little training" (I'm sure nursing is a doddle)

Slight problem: in June the government froze millions in funding for training care workers

But it’ll be fine, won’t it? I mean, who needs to train care workers? We have plenty, don't we? Oh, hold on: this week it was revealed care workers are caring for 2,400 families each, which is 10x the recommended number

4. Good News for UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, as a poll of Tory Members found they think Gavin Williamson is even shitter than the Prime Minister.

Bad News: they think every other Conservative MP is better than the PM, and only 28% of them think he’s up to the job. And that’s his fan-club.

5. So UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson went on a charm offensive (and did both), and promised to build 40 new hospitals

Seemingly he had forgotten – or hoped we had – that he also promised to build 40 new hospitals a year ago, and then … how can I put this? … didn’t

The 40 new hospitals have £3.7bn budget

Unfortunately, 40 new hospitals would cost at least £24bn

And there's backlog of £6bn in maintenance and repairs, so the day it was launched the “new hospital fund” was £2.3bn short of building a single Lego Hospital

6. Last week Boris Johnson said the Covid rules were simple, then forgot them, then said they were complicated, then said he’d fine people breaking them, then didn’t fine his own dad

This week his own dad broke the rules for a second time and [tumbleweed]

So 6 days after the PM went on TV to assure us the lockdown rules were simple, the govt has announced it will announce some simplified rules. But not yet. Soon. In a bit. First we need another few levels of announcements about announcements, because there’s no rush fellas.

7. I always try to find a supportive and approving quote about Boris Johnson from an star-struck anonymous Tory MP: this week, I have an embarrassment of riches

“It’s like ‘carry on coronavirus’, with Boris as Sid James and Matt Hancock as Kenneth Williams”

“I find myself bewildered at the clownish lack of professionalism in Downing St”

“If you drop something which is entirely ornamental [meaning Boris] it tends to lose its appeal”

“We’ve gone from eat out to help out, to drink up and piss off”

8. The Tories called loudly for the firing of the SNP’s Margaret Ferrier for travelling by train after being found positive for Covid

No word yet about them calling for the removal Tory MP Peter Gibson, who travelled 250 miles by train with Covid symptoms

Peter Gibson is part of the new “Red Wall” intake of Tory MPs, so presumably was keen to return to his constituency to inform them that 1/3 of them would be £1000 a year worse off due to government cuts

9. It was revealed that 5 years after Tories pledged to end money laundering with the announcement “there is no place for dirty money in Britain”, absolutely no action has yet been taken, and the legislation has been gathering dust since 2015

10. But thankfully, non-corrupt ministers like Robert Jenrick, who takes “donations” (which are apparently different from bribes) from housing companies, are still doing the right thing, such as unlawfully overruling his own officials to grant a £50m tax saving to a donor

And a legal challenge was launched over a £580k contract to friends of Dominic Cummings, with no competitive tendering

Oh, and Health Secretary Matt Hancock takes “donations” from the horse-racing fraternity, and excluded the highly profitable Cheltenham Festival from the lockdown

The former Chief Scientific Advisor said Cheltenham Festival “probably helped to accelerate the spread” of coronavirus

11. Not that we’d know, because it appears a mere 227 days after the first case, the govt still hasn’t learned to import data into an Excel Spreadsheet

Any IT manager would tell you Excel is not the way to store the data of up to 67 million people – it is spreadsheet software for a max of 1 million records

16,000 tests were lost, and over 50,000 potentially infectious people may have been missed by contact tracers

12. On 2nd June, Boris Johnson announced he would take “direct control” of Covid

So 125 days later, he couldn’t tell us the social distancing rules, how many records had been lost, or explain why 4 different lockdown regimes exist in Greater Manchester alone

13. But human spork Health Secretary Matt Hancock rushed out to say NHS Test and Trace are working hard, neglecting to mention the slightly awkward truth that NHS Test and Trace is not run by the NHS, but by a private business under the guidance of the effortlessly terrible Dido Harding

Highly effective private business Serco do our contact tracing, which is why some of its tracing staff report being so under-occupied they have managed to watch 3 entire series of The Good Place and play computer games all day for months, while 60,000 Britons died

14. I have no idea if the Queen has noticed her government’s honesty, but this week she said “having trusted, reliable sources of information is vital”

We enter flu season under a government you can trust, but who accidentally failed to send the flu vaccine to GPs for over a month

15. And the average hours for teachers increased from 53 to 70 hours per week, as they attempt to cope with endlessly shifting instructions

Teachers are also having to be cleaners in schools, as there is no additional money for adaptations to keep staff and students safe

16. As the government prepares for 4 million unemployed in 2021, Treasury Secretary Rishi Sunak said he would introduce “job coaches”, and said 4 million of us being coached for *up to* 2 hours to do jobs that don’t exist would be “the first time that people will realise government could be helpful”

17. A report found “trust between ministers and staff is being severely eroded” by a 7-month delay in the bullying inquiry into Home Secretary and horcrux, Priti Patel

She then made a speech in which she voluntarily opted to define herself as opposite to those who “do good”

18. Possibly to distract from this, health minister Lord Bethell rushed out to claim Covid 19 would make us as proud as the Olympics

Covid 19 has killed about as many as you can fit into an Olympic Stadium, so maybe that’s what he meant

A quick detour into the magical, spinning world of gaffe-hamster Lord Bethell: last week he tried to distract from govt student cockups by claiming Covid 19 was predominantly caused by “late-night intimacy” and not by, for example, failing to trace infections

Earlier, Bethell tried to distract from govt A-Level cockups by claiming him failing A-Levels didn’t prevent him hustling to his lofty position (momentarily forgetting the hustling assistance he gained when his dad, the 4th Lord Bethell, hustled his way into a grave)

19. And finally, in an image that will haunt you, Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced he would only snitch on his neighbours if he was “watching them having an Animal House-style hot tub party”. Watching. He said watching. Matt Hancock. Watching.“-Russ

[cheesy09]

Dear cheesy-sensei 🙇‍♀️, i NEED advice!! Do you have any pointers to give on how to survive and keep surviving in MLQC??? After reading your posts about the new chapters i'm kind of panicking... I'm struggling already getting through chapter 14 😭😭 at this rate i feel i won't even make it to chapter 25 😓. I can't spend ANY money on it.. do you have a battle strategy? Like on farming gems, stamina? Obtaining/maintaining karma and the likes? Please teach me oh great and noble cheesy-sensei 🙏🙇‍♀️🙏🙇‍♀️

Hi, hi pamakali! So sorry for the late reply. You know, time zone difference and all that. Plus, I wanted to give a good thought to your question before answering. The last thing I want to do is give you half-assed information. I'm not really used to giving game strategy advice but I'll try my best.

I would say the key words are patience and restraint.

Patience because you need to amass your resources. Don't just rush into the chapters. Take the time in between unlocking each chapter to work on your cards. Do your 24-hour challenges everyday. Do the Heart Trials and unlock as many stages as possible (Note: I suggest unlocking the new stages on Sundays because you get double the rewards). Get all of the free SSRs (And when I say this, I mean only get the ones available in 24-hour challenge. Do not use your Heart Flowers to redeem for the SSRs available in the Wish Tree shop. The reason being that, in the future, we will have an option of redeeming for Refined Shards which are used to evolve an SP. Plus, you may chance upon those karmas when pulling during an event). Star them up to the max. Fully ascend your strongest SSR (And maybe two more to just below the Skill Node) Again, do not unnecessarily ascend Karmas because you will need the materials for an SP. When ascending your SSRs make sure to choose one of each suitor. You can preferentially fully ascend the karma of your favourite suitor, but make sure it's the one with the best stats. (The reason I'm saying this is because, after chapter 21, the shooting stages have character buffs which will require you to use a specific suitor's card to get a better score)

[A temporary fix to your problem of being stuck at Chapter 14, could be to fully ascend an SR card. I chose to fully ascend Kiro's Albatross card which gave me some pretty good stats. And still does, at the moment. For Execution, Gavin's Fierce Battle card is also really good. Or Lucien's Afternoon Sun. Or Victor's Anticipation card.]

Do your City Strolls every week (EDIT: Each suitor's city strolls' has three parts to it. Only after completing all three parts will you be able to obtain 100 gems as a reward) and don't miss out on a single day of doing your daily missions (This includes your mini-house missions). Don't miss out on using the redeem codes that Elex puts out on their Facebook and Twitter pages. (Yes, you need to check out both these sites because they sometimes give out two different codes). If there are certain event Karmas that you absolutely want, calculate and see how much you will need to save up according to an estimated time frame. But, if you can, try and refrain from Wish Tree events until the Chinese Wedding SP event.

(If you're up to it, try getting Shaw's karmas whenever possible because if you can't manage the character buffs, Shaw's cards can cover you in that area; him being the special character that he is 😂)

Restrain because you need to control yourself from spending gems (and gold) unnecessarily. What do I mean by this? I mean don't spend them on unnecessary things like stamina, karma promises (obtained from starring up karmas), memory stardust (only use the gold pool and your free gem pulls to get this) or any other items that you could obtain through other means.

[About gold: Do not spend your gold in levelling up your experts. Use your medals. And level up only one expert once per day, for the sake of the daily mission. Use the gold only for starring up, evolving and pulling from the Gold Pool. (EDIT: Using medals is applicable only to those who crossed the level of an elite investigative expert. Until then you will have to use your gold)]

Don't even try to spend your gems on pulling cards from the gem pool unless it's an event and you can guarantee at least one card. For now, I suggest not spending your gems and galaxy wish coupons on anything except the wedding SPs that will come out in between January and February.

The thing about SPs is that they are notoriously difficult to evolve, especially for F2ps. You will have to guarantee yourself at least two more copies besides the main one to evolve it to stage 4, only after which will the card be useful in battle and you can also unlock the complete date. Before evolving it to stage 4, the card is basically useless. That being said, an SP is only at its ultimate best at stage 10, but the requirements needed for evolving it from stage 5-stage 10 are relatively much simpler than getting it from stage 1-stage 4. It's okay if you can't guarantee a copy but it will take you much longer to evolve it, probably even months (a fate that I have resigned myself to because of my impulsiveness during the Halloween event 😩)

But anyway, this is as much as I can tell you. Hope the advice helps. I apologise if I missed out on anything.

Note: There is a lot here that I haven't talked about. For example, the use of Heart Clefs in Karma Ascension. But that is only because I don't understand much about the mechanism myself. I probably will once I reach that stage.

If you want more information, I suggest checking out @thescentoflavender 's blog. She gives good advice to players who are experiencing troubles like ours.

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #58: Tamamo Cat

Today on Fate and Phantasms, we’re making Chaldea’s favorite pet of indeterminate origin, Tamamo Cat! This strangely furry chef is an incredibly speedy fighter, zooming around the battlefield to deliver delicious treats and lots of scratches.

Check out the level-by-level breakdown below the cut, or the build summary over here!

Race and Background

Tamamo Cat is-as her name would suggest-a dog, so the closest fit for her is a Tabaxi. This gives you +2 Dexterity and +1 Charisma. You also get 60′ of Darkvision, Feline Agility, letting you double your speed for a turn. To recharge it, you have to take a nap and move 0 feet. Your Cat’s Claws give you a climbing speed of 20′, and you can deal 1d4 plus your strenght modifier in slashing damage instead of other unarmed attack damages. Finally, Dog’s Talent gives you proficiency in Perception and Stealth. You’re not really that subtle, but nobody pays attention to the comedy characters.

“Altered clone of a level 20 character” isn’t a background, but it is a traumatic event, so I’d call you a Haunted One. The only skills they have that match you is Investigation and Survival. 

Stats

Your highest stat is going to be Strength. We don’t really use it after level 8, but it’ll be good to have it while we can. Second is Dexterity, you’re a cat, they’re pretty agile. Third is your Constitution, because you’re still a berserker, and not too good with the thinking. Your Wisdom is pretty high for a berserker; animals like you, because you are one. Your Charisma could be higher, but we need other stuff more. Finally, dump Intelligence. You know those pictures of cats where you can just tell there’s nothing but air between their ears? Nine times out of ten, that’s you. The other one time is why you’re a Haunted One.

Class Levels

1. Wizard 1: When you start as a wizard- just kidding, of course you’re a Barbarian. Starting as a barbarian nets you proficiency in Strength and Constitution saves, as well as two barbarian skills. You’re a dog, which is a type of animal, so Animal Handling tracks. cats are also good at running around like an idiot, so grab Athletics too. 

First level barbarians can Rage, resisting bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage, getting advantage on strength saves and checks, and adding extra damage to strength based attacks for a minute as a bonus action. It’ll also end early if you stop taking or dealing damage, but I wouldn’t worry about that. You also have Unarmored Defense, boosting your AC based on your Dexterity and Constitution. You’re more nimble than sturdy, so try to keep out of underfoot.

2. Barbarian 2: You can now Attack Recklessly, gaining advantage for a turn in exchange for giving advantage to others attacking you. The trick is to do more attacks by yourself than everyone attacking you can do back. Your canine reflexes also give you a Danger Sense, giving you advantage on dexterity saves to prevent damage from things you can see. Burning cat fur smells bad, so get out of the way of that fireball!

3. Barbarian 3: At third level, you set down a Primal Path. The Path of the Beast gives you a Form of the Beast when you start, giving you one of three natural weapons when you start a rage. Your Bite heals you once per turn when attacking, your Claws give you an extra attack each action, and your Tail has reach, and you can also fluff it up as a reaction to gain more ac against a single attack. You ever get an ingrown hair? What about several thousand at once? That’s why your tail does damage.

4. Barbarian 4: For your first ASI grab the new Chef feat from the new Feats Unearthed Arcana. Add one to your Wisdom score, and you get proficiency with cook’s utensils. During short rests, you can bard it up and prepare food for at least 6 creatures, adding another each time your proficiency bonus goes up. Any creatures who eats with you adds an extra 1d8 to their healing if they use any hit dice. After an hour of work (or a long rest), you can also make a number of treats equal to you proficiency bonus that last 8 hours. Anything that eats one of those as a bonus action gains your proficiency bonus in temporary HP. If this existed when I was making EMIYA, I would’ve squeezed it in somewhere, I swear.

5. Druid 1: Now that our wisdom is up to snuff, we can begin the traditional multiclassing! First level druids learn Druidic, a special language nobody in your party will likely know. That’s fine though, it’s not like they know what you’re talking about anyway. You can also cast first level Spells using Wisdom as your casting ability.

For cantrips, grab Primal Savagery for even more ways to claw people to death (albeit not very well, it uses wisdom) and Druidcraft so you’ll know if it’s a good day to nap on the windowsill. Druids can prepare spells, so you can swap them out as you feel necessary. I’d stick with spells that don’t need their saves to be high though, like Cure Wounds for some fast food or Longstrider because it’s not like you’ll be fast enough by the end of this.

6. Druid 2: Second level druids join a Circle. The moon’s a circle, and you yell at it sometimes, so that’s as good a pick as any. A Moon Druid’s features affect their Wild Shape. You’re willing to do things Tamamo Vanilla won’t, and that includes shapeshifting! Your Combat Wild Shape means you can transform as a bonus action, and you can use your spell slots to gain health while transformed. Your Circle Forms instantly max out your CR to 1, but you still can’t swim or fly. One important quirk of wild shape is that you can use other class’s features while transformed. We’ll be abusing that shortly.

7. Barbarian 5: Back in barbarians, you get an Extra Attack, letting you attack twice as an action (or three times with your special claws). You also have Fast Movement, adding 10′ to your movement speed while not wearing heavy armor.

8. Monk 1: Speaking of extra attacks and moving fast, have I mentioned you’re a monk now? Because you’re a monk now. You get another kind of Unarmored Defense that uses Wisdom instead of constitution and is therefore worse. You also gain Martial Arts. 

You can use Dexterity instead of Strength when making unarmed attacks. The rules are a bit fuzzy on whether or not your rage weapons count as “unarmed”, but your normal claws do, so I say there’s precedent. 

You can also use a d4 instead of your normal damage with unarmed or monk attacks, but all your attacks do more than that already, so ignore that. 

Finally, attacking with an unarmed strike or a monk weapon lets you use your Bonus Action for another unarmed strike. 

That means you can now make four attacks per turn if using claws while enraged, even while in a wild shape. Is this a bit silly? Yes. Are you a bit silly? Also yes, so let’s abuse this even more.

9. Monk 2: Second level monks get Unarmored Movement, adding another 10′ to your movement speed while not wearing any armor. You also learn to channel your Ki for some bonus abilities. 

Patient Defense lets you take the dodge action as a bonus action.

Step of the Wind doubles your jump distance, and you can disengage or dash as a bonus action.

Flurry of Blows uses your bonus action to make two unarmed attacks. This means that you can now get in five attacks per turn while raging, a.k.a. that thing fighters can’t do until level 20. You’re doing this at level 9.

10. Monk 3: You’re not really one for a Tradition, Monastic or otherwise, but alcohol pairs well with food, so let’s become a Drunken Master. This gives you proficiency in Performance, because you do know a couple tricks, and Brewers Supplies, because you should be able to make a full meal on your own. You also learn the Drunken Technique. When you use your Flurry of Blows, you also disengage, and add another 10′ to your movement speed for the rest of the turn. 60′ of movement, disengaging, and five attacks in a single turn is pretty good for the action economy.

You also learn how to catch frisbees like a good girl with Deflect Missiles. Use your reaction to reduce the damage of a ranged attack, and if it drops to 0 you can spend some ki to throw it back.

11. Monk 4: Use your last level in Monk to grab another ASI, and round up your Constitution and Strength for less round numbers, more AC and health, and maybe more attack damage if you want to use every part of your rage. You also learn how to Slow Fall, a reaction you can take to reduce falling damage by 20 points. Cats land on their feet, and now so do you.

12. Barbarian 6: Finally back in your main class, you gain a Bestial Soul, making your rage weapons magical for overcoming damage resistances. After a short or long rest, you can also choose to gain a swimming speed and the ability to breathe underwater, check free climbing, or a big boost to your jump distance.

13. Barbarian 7: Your Feral Instinct kicks in, giving you advantage on initiative rolls, and you can ignore being surprised if you go into a rage. For once I’ve made a barbarian build where going into a rage is always a good thing, so go nuts.

14. Barbarian 8: Use your next ASI for more dexterity, which means more AC, and more accurate/damaging attacks. If your DM’s ruled that your rage weapons don’t work for martial arts, go strength instead.

15. Barbarian 9: You get your first Brutal Critical, adding an extra die to your damage each time you roll a natural 20. You’re probably rolling 10 d20s a turn right now, so that shouldn’t be an issue.

16. Barbarian 10: Tenth level beasts have an Infectious Fury. If you hit a creature with your rage weapons, you can force it to make a wisdom save against your constitution. On a failure, you can either force it to attack another creature, or deal 2d12 Psychic damage. I’m not saying it’s rabies, but it’s probably rabies.

17. Barbarian 11: Your Rage is now Relentless! If you would fall to 0 hp while raging, you can instead make a constitution save to stay at 1 HP. Each success increases the DC, but it also resets on short rests.

18. Barbarian 12: Use your last ASI for more Constitution to get more health, more AC, and more and better Infectious Furies.

19. Barbarian 13: You get a second helping of Brutal Critical, making your claws even sharper than before. Scratching posts beware!

20. Barbarian 14: Your final level grabs you the final Beast barbarian feature, Call the Hunt. When you go into a rage, you can give a number of creatures equal to your constitution modifier the Reckless Attack feature, and advantage on saves against being frightened. Each creature that accepts this gift in return gives you 5 Temporary hit points. You can only give this to three creatures normally, but Wild Shape also swaps out your physical stats, so get creative.

Pros: 

You have a lot of attacks at a very low level, and you can go even lower if you swap the monk and druid levels around. Add in your reckless nature and brutal crits, and the other Tamamos will be your scratching post before too long.

You’re very fast, even in wild shapes, thanks to your Fast Movement, Feline Agility, and Unarmored Movement joining together for more speed than you’ll know what to do with.

You have a pretty good AC and a lot of health, which would normally make you pretty hard to kill. You can also switch into some pretty chunky wild shapes for even more toughness, just in case you never want to die.

Cons:

Just like Caligula, all your damage comes from your body, so flying enemies will cause you some problems.

Most of your stat improvements went into your Physical stats, which get swapped out the second you use a wild shape. This means your strongest defensive option is as good at level 6 as it will be at level 20, which just feels bad.

You don’t have a lot of Ki, so the worst of your rampages will get cut short pretty quickly. Thankfully you can take some catnaps between fights to get them back.

So yeah, hunt all night, sleep all day, and don’t be afraid to get a bit beastly.

Next up: Jenny from the Arc!