#meaning you don't need to kill Every Single Enemy On The Map

[prismit]

i love thinking i'm good at a game, and then watching someone else play it and realizing "oh my god i'm an idiot"

[cerastes]

Hello mr.Dreamer sir, I've defeated Mouthpiece and now I'm going after Playwright. I was wodering if you had any suggestions before I start bashing my head against this particular wall. Regardless I hope you're having a good day!

Hey, congrats on the Mouthpiece clear!

Alright, so, The Playwright:

Playwright needs two distinct Encounters to unlock in a run, and his fight takes place in the Sixth Floor. This means that, in addition to preparing for Playwright, you must also gear up to fight either Phantom or the Big Sad Lock. When it comes to Mouthpiece, the Phantom -> Mouthpiece routing is the most obvious one since Big Sad Lock requires burning through Encounters to trigger, and is diametrically the opposite fight to Mouthpiece's (fully static vs. the single most dynamic boss in Arknights). For Playwright, you'll still want Phantom -> Playwright, simply because burning through Encounters is wasteful when those could be Battle picks, BUT the thing is, set-ups for BSL actually work very well against Playwright, so BSL -> Playwright is actually pretty viable, if such a routing suits your fancy.

Now, let's go over what Playwright and his map, New Chapter, demands of you:

As you can see, this map is quite large and 'honest': What I mean by honest is that it makes no secret as to what the boss' route will be, if you simply look at where the arrows lead: Playwright will spawn from the upper left, reappear on the upper right after taking the staircase, and finally, he will appear on the lower left, where he will then start walking towards the Objective. Otherwise, we have no paratroopers, and all units come from where you expect them to come from, based on enemy spawns.

Now, let's talk about the fight itself: New Chapter is very heavy on incoming damage. This is in start contrast with the other IS2 bosses, which pace themselves into "enemy burst" phases that only occur if you don't manage the enemies before they become an issue, such as the Scarlet Singer carousel to the right of the Phantom fight. New Chapter continuously sends copious amounts of Arts Damage your way the whole way through: Winterwisp Blood Shamans, Winterwisp Blood Magisters, Originiutant Alphas, and Playwright himself all are heavy Arts enemies. So, a good bulk-to-dps ratio is essential, because if you only have bulk, you'll not be able to actually kill in time, and you'll leak enemies because you'll simply not have enough Block to contain the continuous stream of enemies, and if you only have damage, you will buckle sooner rather than later due to Playwright's constant bombardments and enemies that explode into sizable Arts damage when they die. The lower right spawn only produces Theater Golems (four of them) so don't fall for it: Just one or two units can handle the Golems (remember, Theater Golems are actually pretty fragile!), the rest of your team should focus on the main lane.

So, with the context laid bare on the table, let's talk about the guest of honor: The Playwright.

The Playwright has global range and will attack with a Cross AoE once every four seconds. Meaning, his regular attack hits the main target and all adjacent (not diagonal) allies. His Skills include:

A map-wide attack that hits every single unit in the map, creating a Cross AoE Arts explosion on them after a short delay. This hits with 80% of The Playwright's ATK. Playwright uses this 10 second after spawning, and will use it every 20 seconds after the first cast.

The Playwright will target the latest deployed Operator with a debuff that permanently halves their Attack Speed and that also deals Damage Over Time equals to 4% of their Max HP as Arts damage. Operators with this effect that are retreated will have their redeployment time increased by 50% and the tile they were using will become unavailable for the rest of the fight (think of FrostNova's black ice). He will use this every 20 seconds, and if the latest unit is already afflicted by this, he will instead target the one deployed before that one, and so on. He cannot use this on Summons like Mon3tr, Thunderers, etc.

And arguably his strongest ability: Enrage. When Playwright's HP falls under 50%, Playwright enters Enrage, engulfing himself in blue fires and getting the following effects: All of his damage +50%. Double DEF (total: baseline 2000 DEF). RES increased by 80% (total: 90 RES), and he will combo his skills shortly after entering enrage, with the map-wide attack shortly followed by his debuff. His cooldown for both abilities becomes 15 seconds instead of 20 seconds as well.

He is also unblockable and like the other end bosses, will take 30 Lives if he makes it to the Objective.

His baseline stats, before any IS modifiers, are: 80000 HP, 800 ATK, 1000 DEF and 50 RES.

Between his global range, map-wide skills, and immense bulk, Playwright is an ever present threat for as long as he's alive.

Now with all of this in mind, let's talk about solutions:

Arts mitigation, such as Nightingale, are immensely powerful in this map, since all relevant damage is Arts.

AoE Healers, like AoE Medics and Bards, help a lot with the constant damage and global attacks as well.

You want tough laneholders with DPS capability to hold lanes and also kill in time before you start leaking enemies. Centuriors, Dollkeepers, Juggernauts, the works. You also want heavy duty Ranged damage to help them, ideally, damage type doesn't matter.

If you can, you want to kill Playwright as soon as possible. With good DP generation, like a Flagbearer or two, you can actually set up a spawncamp burst on the upper left, where Playwright spawns. Pozyomka and Schwarz are popular choices, having hefty Physical damage and being specialized ranged Physical assassins. Moreover, Playwright is vulnerable to Hand of Choker! Meaning, the moment they get get him to 30% HP, they will instantly kill him. Regardless of the method you go with, you want to kill Playwright as soon as possible.

You have to save your Skills/burst for Enrage. Playwright becomes immensely bulky during Enrage, with a baseline of 2000 DEF and 90 RES. Arts damage, thus, is not good against him, and you'll want to rely on Physical or True instead. For Nearl the Radiant Knight users specifically: You can't True Damage Playwright with her, because he is unblockable, and blocking is her True Damage conditional! Bring S2!

And the most important thing: Do diagonal set-ups. Don't put units next to each other, or your formation WILL explode, due to Playwright's entire kit relying on Cross AoEs. Mind your deployment order as well, because you will need to have a sturdy unit take his autoattacks, and you don't want your important units to be afflicted with half Attack Speed. For this reason, Vanguards help a lot with this fight, giving you the freedom to set-up fast and however you want.

The main thing with Playwright is that he's makes you juggle a lot of plates, but once you understand what each plate entails, he's not too hard, assuming you prepared accordingly. If you kill him very fast, then the map just becomes a heavy-damage but otherwise very manageable map. If you neglect him, he'll really make your life hell by whittling you down little by little, initially, and then, whittling you down REALLY fast. Don't let him do that. Obliterate that catboy immediately. No mercy for the French and their Arts damage.

[alexissara]

Fire Emblem Engage: One Year Later An Anniversary Of Mid

Fire Emblem Engage is now a year old and as a massive Fire Emblem fan I want to talk about it. Engage is a game I don't like and I am nothing if not a hater so I want to talk about it more about a year out since I think being a hater that goes beyond a boring critique of hair or anime bad is more valuable.

First let's talk about where I place it in the overall series.

I am going to dive into things in a lot of detail down below. Obviously everything is subjective, blah, blah, your reading my opinions, I don't really care about being "objective" so take what you want out of this. The TLDR though is that Engage is a game that fails in every single way, there is not one thing that it is particular amazing at but it is not the worst at any particular thing either. It's a text book mid game but in some ways I like it less then things I think are worse because the squandering of some decent concepts.

Designs

Mika is an extremally talented artist with a wonderful sense of design but even she questioned why they were hiring her to do a Fire Emblem game. While I like some of the designs of the characters as general characters designs but their almost all bad character designs for story telling, for explaining a deeper sense of character, for fitting into a war setting, for fitting a diverse range of ages or bodies, etc. I don't mind Alear's hair, I think red and blue hair makes sense, that's the enemy phase and ally phase colors, it's not terrible but the outfit is a bit too white. The designs in general are simply great designs for a silly little person but not great for the wider depth of characters not creating characters you could see doing a war. If the tone was different I could see these working but it need to lean far more into comedy or cheese then it does. I really don't have a lot to say here but it kinda just had to be the first thing to address. I like them more than the average person but I still don't love them. Like Etie is supposed to like be buff and stuff but she is a twig. Saphir is supposed to be pretty old but she looks fairly young. Mika's style simply doesn't blend well with Fire Emblem despite me loving Mika's work prior to this.

Story

This is the most often critiqued part of the Fire Emblem Engage experience that even people who love it typically concede and for good reason. The story of this game is a fairly simple and basic story structure. Hero awakes and must do their fate, mother dies, protag cries, they go on a journey to collect the plot items, they collect plot items but OH NO THE ENEMY HAS PUT A WRENCH IN IT! Then they build themselves back up, collect the items and murder the big bad. Along the way you get some angsty zombie stuff but it's cheap emotions, kids complicated relationships to their parents, a theme which you'd think maybe is one of the grander themes but really isn't touched on with Sombron and Alear/Vayel despite Sombron being the main baddy.

Alear has a minor story arc, Alear is scared but then Alear isn't scared only Alear basically always stepped up so the gameplay and the story don't intgrate well here, if Alear even had one map of running away when she shoulda fought and that is why they lost emblem rings or something it would have more solidly locked in "oh Alears character flaw is that she runs away but now she knows to stay and fight" or it could have been a contrast and been like "it's a good thing that Alear knows when to run" and separate Alear from other lords in the series.

The games plot is deeply uncurious aiming for the most simple solutions down to the point where Vayel doesn't have an evil second personality [which I mean is ableist but they still make you think that] it's actually mind control evil second personality. It turns out Vayle and Alear is just goddy good Fell Dragons and all the other ones were totally naturally evil and okay to kill I guess. Vayel could have had an edge to her, there could have been redemption for the "evil" part of Vayel that would be a far more complicated set of emotions and more interesting then no one needs to forgive her because actually every bad thing she did to everyone was evil mind control and every good thing is the real her.

Then there is the DLCs plot which almost makes Engages main plot look good taking you to an everyone is dead AU where everyone is fucked up cuz their zombies I guess or they just are like this in this world but also it only is interested in exploring the lords and the "good" versions of the bad quad with an addition of two new characters. Theirs an obvious twist villain but they try and just red herring you to think it's the girl twin instead of the boy twin who is more clearly evil by showing Nel do some things that seem evil out of context. It's fairly boring, it doesn't engage what it wants to hard enough, it presents it in some fucking awful map designs and it's place in the plot being able to show up before you met the vast majority of the characters actual selves means it's possible you come in with both an army that isn't fun to do the maps with and without a good set of emblem rings but you also have no idea why it should be shocking to see a character like this. It mostly makes me wish that they had instead of making this all DLC worked some of the complicated relationships between characters into the actual plot of the game and had some more fell dragons that were a bit more complicated but redeemable potential party members.

Thematically and politically I am at a loss at what it wants to say, it doesn't even seem to want to say like war is bad or something basic like that. The only recurring theme is like parent dies and that's sad and that is like true for most people and their parents but it's not a particularly well done version of that theme. It's not really about the bounds of friendship and love because like idk there is so few scenes where people overcome things with the power of friendship of love. Like there is some tension between evil coded country and the others but like those are resolved by the future queen having a divine dragon kink and will be good because she worships the good god.

Characters

Fire Emblems cast is kind of like the cast of a Disegea game, which I typically enjoy only not over the top enough nor in a game with a tone consistently silly enough to justify the wild over the top energy of the characters. Characters all have bits and this is true of many fire emblem games but it is more rare for basically every single character to have a bit that is pretty definitive to them rather than a character trait. They are designed and written like a vtuber in a lot of ways, their meant to be cute, for you to find your fav and for you to hyper focus on that one. Only unlike a Vtuber you can't hop on and invested dozens of hours a week watching Yunaka shout Zappy as she murders someone in a video game and banters with chat.

There is a layer of depth to the characters that explain why a character is like this TM but these things typically come at the end of an A rank support which leaves you to assume "This girl sure does talk a lot about tea" if your not rushing to A with someone or if you RNG into one where ya she's mostly just talking about Tea. Again there are characters that are like this in other Fire Emblem games but few characters get the cool join situations, the cool moments in the story to really make you invest that deeply into them since the game is really focused on these lords and doesn't have a lot of interesting recruiting given every character is a lord or a servant of a lord. Not to mention that depth is usually not that deep like it's more like finding a foot bath in what you found thought was just someone spilling water rather then going into a hot tub of complex lore, character drama, and passion.

I did enjoy the characters for my time with them like a light hearted kids animated show where I go "aww these guys are fun" but like one of those I don't really think about the characters after. I enjoy when I see art of Yuanaka or the Racket of Solm fan art, I go "Oh I like those girls, their neat" but I never feel like "OMG Yes, let's fucking go!!!!!" like I do for many other characters in many other pieces of art.

Then in terms of the villains Sombron is paper then with a random new motive at the very end that is utterly uninteresting. The four hounds are fun enough characters since their allowed to be a little complicated but their also as an enemy on a map over staying their welcome for the amount of times you put swords into their bodies lealthy. The four hounds then feel under cut by the "good" versions of them that exist in the DLC which are basically what if they were boring, they are the good versions. Evil Vayel as mentioned earlier is boring because she's just mind control evil and not a real person. There is very few enemy of the map type enemies to think about and the ones that do exist are paper thin, your not going to get a stand off with a commander that you feel complicated feels about having to kill here.

Then we got to get into the endings, the lack of paired supports give everyone a static boring ending unless Alear wanted to give them a special friendship bracelet which totally doesn't mean romance HAHAHA alear doesn't want to date children or married men HAHAHA pay no attention to the man behind the mirror. It strips agency from the player, the translation no romos several romances with Alear that should be totally fine anyway, their just extremely poor at creating a sense of what you did to the world after you saved it because the world was perfect basically except Sombron was a dick. The characters don't feel like they grew in their little ending bits for the most part it's kidna like they went on to do what you'd expct them to do.

Then there is the emblem rings which are given fairly shallow interactions that range to them being pretty out of character to them saying a one line joke to them saying "remember that thing from my game." The shallow level of interaction with the rings is really unfortunate but also fortunate because it meant they didn't write a ton of these characters. They still feel like they should have beena bigger deal and been a bit more involved in the plot as well as having some deeper relationships with characters.

Also you get two fucking dragons on your team both of whom can't turn into dragons, there are these hot older women who are capable in battle but can't get recruited for the cause because I guess their not young and fuckable, there is so little interest in the world of this game outside of lords and their servants [which is a flaw in a lot of modern FE], why the literal child soldiers like Anna, there is a lot of frustrating character choices that could have been done better.

Presentation

I think the graphics are good, I think they look pretty, I like bright colors in my eyeballs and it works for me. I think graphically it's a clear step up from houses, the places look very beautiful. They make a fairly uninspired choice of diving the game into 5 themed regions with a kinda similar design principle across the maps Flower, Mountainy, Evily snow, Sand, really evil. This does take away from a kinda unquie feeling to each place you go but they don't look bad.

Music wise, the opening theme is dumb, I like it but it's corny and clearly gonna be divisive but it suits the game that it is for. As music in the game goes though it's fine, it's a fine soundtrack of fine songs that are fine. Only a few songs are really bangers though and a lot of the music doesn't stand out to me a year later I can basically just think the opening theme and the engaging an emblem remix. I am actively trying to recall another song as I write this and I end up just getting the Three Houses Monastery music in my head instead.

The animations I will simply give full marks too, the animations after many years after the GBA finally don't look bad. Crits look cool, the engage attacks look cool, there is some coolness to be had there where the more real and grounded animations since Gamecube were never my favorite. Great job engage, I hope the series keeps it up.

Gameplay

People talk about Fire Emblem Engage's gameplay being the best in the series but it really isn't and it's not like stunning SRPG design in general. Perhaps if your looking for a challenge the maddening experience is some sort of revolution but the average player of any video game will be playing on the "normal" mode which is by default the intended mode. The game features mechanics that one might think is for grinding but utterly fail at that, the loading screens between managing things make the act of building characters tedious and annoying, the mini game gameplay that optimize maps is awful, the way you can spend resources for cosmetics that you can't use in battle is awful, the lack of little touches to the smithing system like being able to alter or name your weapons is bad. These are all gameplay, these aren't the maps but there part of playing the game and while you can in future runs maybe ignore most of these things you will likely experience some of these and some things were stream lined with patches but these patches will go away and eventually getting supports between characters will go back to being fairly annoying.

Then we can talk about the beloved maps and engaging. The gameplay using the skill system is utterly flawed with the SP being so poorly distributed makes building characters utterly prone to accidently wasting SP and not being able to get a build on that character that will feel good for the rest of the run. This effects gameplay in maps as does the fact you only have two slots for said skills making for fairly small amounts of build possibilities for the wide swath of options you get especially if you get the DLC. The map design doesn't present the fun diverse set of objectives an SRPG is capable of with most maps being kill the boss or kill all the things. They do present different little map gimmicks and they do make some of the maps good but the maps fail in the biggest way that a map can in an SRPG which is to be narratively uninteresting.

I could make a whole article about the sin to the world that is Xenologue 5 which is a top contender for worst map in all of Fire Emblem. In general the Xenolouge maps really are a perfect exercise and exposing the magic of the pretty lights of Engage and going "Oh this game is awful".

It's boring to fight the same 4 dudes. Your so rarely put up against someone new and neat and the characters you are fighting don't grow much until their about to actually die. The repeating four hounds fights creates a dissonance where your people permanently die if they lose in battle but you can't get the kill on these people your doing 1000 flashy attacks on. If you can enjoy a map in isolation perhaps these maps are good, great even but it doesn't fix the issues.

The Bonus Content TM

I talked about the stuff in gameplay but I want to reiterate that the bonus parts of the game are in fact a part of the gameplay.

First off we got costumes which are utterly frustrating even outside of being locked to the hub world. The clothes are gender locked where boys where boy clothes and girls where girl clothes expect Rosado who is a special femboy and in no way a dirty tranny we make fem boys not dirty transgenders in Fire Emblem [this is sarcasm, I am trans] who gets to wear girl clothes. Never mind Jade wearing more masculine clothes in her casual outfits if she had to chose between a butler or a maid outfit clearly she'd pick to be a kawaii maid. The only kind of gender deviation being allowed in the random costumes even for Alear being the femboy fetishist at IS's pet project is pretty pathetic. Also pathetic is the gender lock applying to the amiibo lord costumes which in addition are also even more limited only being wearable by lord characters and only lords of the right gender even if Lucina clothes are mens wear their only for women and very special bloodline women. Then all of this taking resources simply damages the game further.

The mini games include a Rhythm game with no Rhythm as if Fire Emblem has no amazing songs to be playing a work out mini game to. We have a flight sim on rails shooter thing but no enemies or added depth. A fishing game that is a fishing mini game. These are boring to passable but they all give you benefits from doing them so if you wanted to truly optimize you'd need to do them between every map.

Then there is the "interactive" bonus elements talking to people at Somnel and post map, inviting people to dinner, sending people to do an activity together. I've avoided comparing this game to Three Houses until this point but I have to here, Three Houses and Engage started development at roughly the same time so Engage had many more years in development but each and every one of these things are far less in depth then in Houses. There is no voice acting for these sections, unlike houses where every map you have new voiced interactions with every character some of which are dynamically tied to choices you made you get mostly rotating lines with a few people interjecting a text box of almost nothing of value. There is no special bonus conversations for sending people to work together who might have something to say to each other. The meals and creepy bed time interactions are voiced but the interaction between characters is very limited and the lines are pretty repetitive only working with an RNG system of if the food is shit or not which is only annoying. The bedtime interactions of someone waking you up are totally RNG based meaning a character you hate might come wake you up and you have to here about the Alpaca hero and they change when you raise up supports with them meaning each special voiced interaction with sleeping requires you to go out of your way to do something of no value to hope you RNG into the character you like saying a few words less you accidently support them and miss a piece of dialogue. It feels cheap, it feels bargain basement, it feels undercooked.

The grinding here kinda feels like it wishes it was Scared Stones but the pay off for climbing the grind in this game isn't exclusive post game characters, exciting special weapons but some orbs for an optional upgrade system randomly given to you so maybe you can upgrade the weapon you want but maybe not. The bound rings gacha is not an indepth system that is fun to play with. It's just another place where things feel super under cooked despite the long development cycle on this game.

Final Thoughts

Talking about the game I actually feel a lot more negative on it then when I put together the little list at the top or when I wrote an Anniversary of mid, I kinda just feel like actually it's just bad but like it's probably mid and not bad and I am just impassioned writing all my complaints. This is a game that had a ton of potential but I feel squandered it at every opportunity.

I wish I liked Engage, I Wish I liked Fates, but if this is the direction that IS is taking their games when their the primary devs of Fire Emblem I am just not gonna buy IS developed Fire Emblem games because ultimately I got way more physic damage playing these games then I got joy. Fire Emblem is my favorite game series, the one I would say I am actually part of the fandom of and I want to love every new entry, to be hype, to fall in love, to gamble on my phone for little jpegs but I'm just not here with this.

I think Engage presented cool new ideas like the Break System which I think is great and should return but in general I fear this direction. I'd love to see something akin to Engage skills with some flashy over powered stuff. I like how these these interact with the core mechanics and I think their fun additions to the formula.

I just hope this one year anniversary set of thoughts is enough to free me of my Engage demons and I can just never think about it again and go onto playing fan games, rom hacks and replaying older games I enjoy along with new Indie SRPGs leaving this behind to simply exist for the people who love it.

If you enjoyed this look back at Fire Emblem Engage and you want to help me play more Fire Emblem or other SRPGs then Patreon and Ko-fi are a great way to support me so I can afford to talk about queer art and stuff.

[azelle-intermisson]

My first Maddening Playthrough mvps!!

I only used units I didn't use on my first playthrough(other than pandreo) and I had a lot of fun using these units. I also only used dlc emblems for the last two chapters because I forgot to build a tank and I desperately needed one. I'm prob gonna end up doing another run on random growths with all the units I liked from my first two playthroughs.

Chloè- Other than Alcryst she carried me throughout the whole game. I loved Marcia in fe9 and gameplay-wise Chloè was exactly the same. She was an actual monster and I honestly did not need to give her all of those weapons because the foraged steel lance was more than enough. With the Erika emblem she demolished every single boss and any enemy in the game other than armor knights. I could have made her a wyvern to make her even stronger but I just kept her in griffin knight.

Alcryst- He is def one of the best units in the game, he is so low investment and kills anything with luna crits. He only had lunar brace for the last two maps and I didn't really feel the difference it made but I'm sure it was doing something. He did like 60% of the damage on the final boss. Also I really loved his support with Céline it was super sweet.

Kagetsu- He started off as a replacement unit after like 4 units died in chapter 11 but was able to keep up with Chloè and Alcryst pretty well. He got the Sigurd emblem because he did not have enough sp for canter but having Sigurd on a flier was soooo useful. I made him a wyvern rider because I don't really like sword masters in this game and I wanted him to fly around. Speedtaker was super useful because wyvern rider has a kinda low speed cap and it let him have 2 chances at criting with his killer axe. His supports where pretty funny too I liked him a lot.

Pandreo- Love this guy so much best supports (other than Yunaka and Zelkov) in the game he is really funny and a very versatile unit. I put him in sage because I thought it would be better than high priest but he ended up having a hard time hitting things so I had to give him divine pulse. With thoron and Corrin he was essential to beating almost every map and having staff access meant he could also heal if he had nothing better to do.

SPOLIER UNIT BELOW

Veyle- She was not a unit I intended on using when I got her but I barely scraped by chapter 24 so I caved and used dlc on her. I didn't want to use dlc originally because in past fe games the dlc made them really easy but I needed a tank so bad that I caved and used them. This is a genuinely broken combo if you are having difficulties with madding use this build. Flare's dragon type bonus on dragons combined with a crit foraged Obscuritè makes her have 100% crit rate on every hit. Hold out and vantage means if she misses or gets one shot she still lives and gets to attack first on the next combat and heals everything back. The only other fe unit that even compares to how strong Veyle is with Soren is Robin in Awakening but at least nosferatu could break. She took on all of the reinforcements on the left side of chapter 25. I also sent her up alone on the left side of endgame and her and Alcryst ended up killing Sombron before I broke his barrier.

[hopeformankind]

@104thsquadfam continued from here.

--

The only thing standing in his way was himself? No...that didn't seem right what was the blond even saying ? Did he not realize that he was doing this for Paradis? For their people, the one's they loved and cared for? Or perhaps Eren was just that deluded with his twisted ideals.....

"....." Eren stared at the Commander in silence for a few seconds, he wasn't a kid anymore yet he was lecturing him like he still was....he may be his subordinate but that wasn't going to stop him from achieving his goals just as Erwin would not stop at nothing to achieve his own....were they really so different? Why was he acting so high and mighty now when he's let so many of his own die for his own dreams? " I'm doing this for the people of Paradis....I'm not a child anymore Commander and I don't need your lectures." he stated plainly standing behind his cell bars simply staring at the larger man " Do you really intend to keep me locked up forever? You do realize I could leave this cell anytime I want, these bars won't hold me." was that a threat? Maybe. " You said I was the best hope for humanity.....having regrets now?"

" No. I'm not. If I regret my choices, I'll falter and have others making choices for me. "

The gaze Eren had was met with a much more similar one-- icy eyes that stared him down as the bars of Eren's cell separated them. Two sides of the same coin, some would say-- two people that would do anything for their dreams, two people that knew how much needed to be sacrificed, but there was a difference in this scenario. Despite Eren's own ideals, he still looked at everything as if looking through a tunnel-- while Erwin himself had matured over his years in the Survey Corps to see the bigger picture.

" You could leave this cell. You could transform, you could tap into the minds of Eldians or even my own-- you could kill me in seconds, Eren. Those bars can't hold you, not even for a second. "

" You could kill me in so many different ways that'd leave even the Royal Government from before Historia's rule blushing and taking notes. You could destroy this dungeon and escape. But why haven't you? Is some part of you still curious about what I'm telling you? Is it 'out of the kindness of your heart' as you play God, or is it fear? "

The way Erwin looked at him from the side was the same way he'd looked at Reiner those years back-- challenging him. Testing him. Even with one arm, Erwin would fight to the death and go down fighting if he had to. He stared at Eren, watching him and his movements. Testing him. Mapping out all sorts of plans in his head for every single outcome... he looked at Eren like he was the enemy, and in a true way, he really was. Erwin's eye bore into him, staring at Eren then.

" So I'm going to use what time I have to tell you this. And I expect you listen well-- because this could truly define the outcome for Paradis as a whole. "

" You were the hope for Humanity... until you allowed yourself to kill mindlessly. Despite you being older now, your plans are still horribly flawed-- you look through everything from a tunnel. If you let those Walls crumble, they will kill many people on Paradis due to how the Walls are structured, meaning the only people truly safe are those within Wall Sina. And even then, there would be casualties. "

" You hope to demonize yourself, but you don't realize that in this moment, you are demonizing the whole island-- you represent everyone in the eyes of Marley. You ARE Paradis and its leading figure, and thus... they believe themselves fully justified in why everyone should band together to wipe us out. In your crude view, you only see things in black and white while not realizing that you yourself became the Titans you hated so much back then. You may be an adult in body, but you still have the mind of a child. "

Erwin wasn't pulling any punches here-- he stared deep into Eren's emerald eyes, his hand lifting to grasp at one of the bars... and he leaned in, with his gaze forever staring into him, his very soul.

" You're repeating history, and in your false grandeur you think you'll somehow be hailed a hero when you killed millions, perhaps billions for the sake of 'freedom'. Perhaps you'll tell me then, I've done the same with the Survey Corps. But this is where we're different. "

" I will not deny how many people I've had killed under my leadership, how many suffered and died, torn apart at the hands of Titans, how much I've led to their deaths to be ripped to shreds by flying rock-shrapnel all from a mix of my own dream and what I'd led myself to believe. I'm no hero... in fact, the people from the Walls were completely justified in calling me a devil... but you must understand who will die in this war if you make your choice, Eren. So many innocents are dying-- people with families. Children. Mothers. People that will lose their mothers just as you had. People that will lose their fathers in the onslaught and be left alone. Children that will be crushed, grandparents left as mere stains on the roads while soldiers believe themselves completely justified in the thought that all Eldians are devils like you and I. "

Erwin's head was pressed against the bars then, as if he were the one that could've slid right through, broken through, and strangled Eren with one hand alone, as if he were the Founder. It was in that moment, perhaps, it might've become clear-- The bars weren't to protect Erwin from Eren. They were to protect Eren from Erwin.

" You are no hero. You are no God... you yourself are a Devil such as I. But what separates us here is our understanding of war and its outcome. " It was then when Erwin's teeth began to slowly clench, lip curling upward and brows furrowing further and further into a look of rage that truly could only be described as a devil's anger, looking like as if in this moment, he could rip through those bars like they were mere putty and reach out to Eren then. Despite this, Erwin himself... wasn't actually as mad as he made himself look. No. This was calculated. All of it.

" Is this what you're ready for, Eren Jaeger? For the world to look at you like I am, right now? For your efforts to be in vain despite how much you'd 'struggled' to reach this point? Your efforts to have Paradis be hailed as heroes to instead be looked over as simple devils not wanting to wipe themselves out? Devils that'd allow this Rumbling to go on for so long and advocate for it until someone stepped in? Are you prepared for all of Humanity-- not just those within the Walls-- to look at Paradis and justify themselves that whom they are killing are indeed killers? Are you truly prepared for such a burden? Because I will tell you this. Maybe you understand you won't be seen as a hero... but you don't understand just how many friends you'd kill. "

" Assuming that your friends would live after the Walls collapse... Armin would be executed like I was supposed to be, alongside Captain Levi, and deemed an enemy to Humanity for associating with you and thus, war criminals. Mikasa would be tortured due to her strength as an Ackermann and be left dead in a ditch. I could go on about the rest of the 104th. Jean would be left the same as Marco Bodt, left in half, alone and cold and left to die because no one could reach him. Connie would be shot like a dog just like Braus was. Or... perhaps, something worse. They'd become Titans. Like Pyxis, and our comrades. And you yourself would have to slaughter them all as they're stuck in an eternal nightmare filled with unending suffering, becoming the very things you all fought against. "

" Are you really ready for that? To have your friends, your loved ones, all be demonized alongside you?... when all you, Armin, and Mikasa had wanted... was to see the sea for the first time? "

[leam1983]

Diablo IV - Thoughts

If you'd told me that I'd eventually hear Ralph Ineson serving as one of the main Blizzard releases' characters back when the first title released, I'd probably never would've believed you.

Diablo began as a very grungy series, where the studio formerly known as Blizzard North had to scrounge up voice talent amongst the game's own designers. The Lord of Hatred himself was actually voiced by North's CEO, Bill Roper. From the first game to the third, there was a bit of a sense that you were watching a WWE Summerslam special in terms of acting chops - just with more grandiose stakes. Diablo III's killing off of Deckard Cain for the sake of cheap pathos felt a bit like the end of an era, notably.

In the ten years since, it feels like the wordsmiths at Blizzard either changed or strongly matured. Killing off demons that have no other characteristics than the one sin they represented got old pretty fast, I'd wager - so now we're left with a demoness who resents the order of things and who intends to reclaim Sanctuary for her own ends - as the world is now little more than the staging ground between Heaven and Hell, in a complete mockery of the, well, sanctuary that Lilith and Inarius built for one another.

Imagine that: a relatable antagonist... Yeah, the purists are going to crow that Lilith isn't Diablo and that you can't plaster the Lord of Hatred's name on the box without actually invoking him - but now we've got the Big Cheese's own daughter - which stands to reason that Diablo himself isn't far behind. I'm not so far into the game as to have seen Diablo myself, so I don't really know in which capacity he's present. Yet.

No, the real shocker is in the game's structure. Diablo-by-way-of-live-service feels like a travesty to some, seeing as it leaves many of the series' cornerstones on the chopping block. Gone are the procedurally-generated levels, gone is the traditional four-Act structure interspersed with map changes, what we've got instead is a plot that atomizes itself across Sanctuary and that can be followed mostly non-linearly. No more Inventory Tetris, now every item takes two squares no matter its size. No more potion-hoarding, now you've only got four Health ones by default and a smattering of stat-boosting Elixirs to carry. Not all changes are like to seem sacrilegious to the purists, however - as now every single 'toon starts with the Town Portal spell permanently bound to T on your average keyboard. You'll need it, too - Sanctuary's a big place, and hopping between settlements is more vital than ever. If you're open to experimentation by a team that clearly knows what it's doing, you're likely to tolerate this new mixture.

Where this takes a ding from me is in the inclusion of World Events. As everything is shared in the same fashion as with Bungie's Destiny, now, some bosses appear not as plot contrivances but rather as randomized instances that anyone can attack. This makes multiplayer more of an emergent feature than your usual toggleable option, seeing as you can more or less luck onto Darin DePaul's version of the Butcher - iconic voice line included - at any point in the campaign and more or less stumble into two or more characters spam-casting like their lives depend on it. You can still book private sessions with people on your Friends list, but you'll always see randoms going off on their own thing. That's fine in and of itself, but it also means that World Events feel generic by default. They involve souped-up regular enemies in most instances, and only rarely feature named mobs or iconic demons like our cleaver-wielding friend.

Consequently, the challenge factor seems to have been tweaked a bit. Corpse runs no longer seem to be mandatory, and death only sends you back a few hundred meters away - and typically wipes your immediate surroundings clear of all enemies. There's no death tax, no sense that your biting it is a bit of a punitive measure in and of itself - it feels quite light, all things considered.

The same can't be said about the game's tone, however. This is Sanctuary at its darkest, an obvious response to the previous game's notoriously lighter palette - to the point where it's a bit detrimental to panels with adaptive brightness or a good color range. Your blacks are about to get really fucking black, which does wonders for the Dark Fantasy universe's expected grim and dour undertones, but also makes certain elements of the navigational experience a little uncomfortable. If you're like me, you'll spot the map markers denoting interactable changes in the terrain's level, like cliffs to climb or ladders to slide down from, but you'll have trouble seeing the objects they refer to. It might take you a little while to really dial things in with your monitor of choice.

Generally speaking, I'd consider this a return to form for the franchise - despite the cringe-inducing inclusion of microtransactions in the final package. There's no Diablo Immortal-esque character boosts in sight and everything is cosmetic, but everything feels rather pricey for what it is. The rate for Platinum is exponential, with the only decent value being the exorbitantly-priced 115$ bundle. Considering Kotick's latest comments regarding player spending habits and monetization, this is both egregious and sadly unsurprising.

Diablo IV gets a cautious recommendation from me, seeing as I'm well aware that first-hour fans might not entirely appreciate it.

[7outerelements]

Playing Tears of the Kingdom has been a mixed bag. The world is usually dense enough that exploring is interesting, but the world's verticality makes horseback riding inefficient and eventually I wind up having to run distances I'd rather ride through. There's still a persistent feeling of wonder when I find something visually stunning or practically useful (the lake underground is a particular standout), but eventually that's going to run out. So what else is there?

The combat is fun but frustrating. Lizalfos are especially irritating to fight, and this game still hasn't solved the problem of enemy health scaling punishing you for playing the game. I like killing things, but it's a lot less enjoyable when I'm fighting tier three enemies with a traveler's sword tied to a rock. I know the solution to this is to use more valuable disposable items to boost my damage output, but I'm not used to thinking of monster parts as damage sources so it's a hard habit to get into. Dodge timing is still wonky from BotW, and big enemies hit like trucks so it's too easy to get one-shot in the early game, but in all it's still fun to whack things and do clever things with arm powers. Yiga ninjas are especially interesting to fight, and are a welcome relief from 'blins and 'fos. The inventory limit system and Korok seeds are still irritating mechanics that damage gameplay, though.

The story is difficult to follow, in multiple ways. It's not clear what's going on, and this game is difficult to take on in a straight line. Emergent stories and side quests stand out more than the mainline narrative, and those range from somewhat charming to mildly annoying, which is a step up from BotW's quests which were occasionally agonizing.

The only time I really get annoyed with TotK is when I'm stonewalled by physics-based Garry's Mod bullshit. Putting things together is a pain in the ass, and a significant chunk of playtime is spent doing it. The sense of joy from a device working as intended is more than wiped out from the frustration of things not working quite right. Devices not cooperating and getting randomly one-shot are the most frustrating parts of this game, and they're both features of integral parts of the core game loop. It's like a hamster wheel with caltrops glued inside at random places, which sounds like something you could probably build in TotK.

Stepping away from punishments, the game's loot reward is difficult to pin down. There are certainly more and varied currency rewards - Zonaite, crystalized charges, treasure maps, other more esoteric rewards - but there are still chests with arrows or random gems inside, which can feel lackluster. It's better than BotW's constant weapon rewards, and the rupee economy feels less tortured this time around with more types of wealth. I would actually prefer more food and elixir-based rewards because I hate the cooking mechanic so much. A six-ish button input process to make a single healing item is unconscionable, and if I could import an estus flask and throw all of my rice balls and meat skewers into the fire, I would.

I don't appreciate optional busy work (like taking pictures of items), but worse by far is the way the game wastes my time with mandatory actions. I need to collect light spirits, not leveling up is going to kill me often enough that I'll rage quit the game, but every time I level up it means sitting through or skipping several cutscenes - a problem from BotW they failed to learn from. The amount of time I spend watching the same cutscene I've been served dozens of times before is nauseating, especially since the timer will continue to climb until I've spent more time NOT playing this game than I have spent PLAYING some others.

It's not a total shit show. There's lots to like about the world and the ways Link can interact with it. Parts of the game were clearly made by very clever people. But it makes me miss Zelda games that were made with a different design philosophy.

[sacred-stanning]

Chapter 13 Part 7: Wandering around and being inefficient

I left Seth here, but only realized afterwards that he would be in range of the pirate, which means he'll kill the pirate. Seth, I was saving that for Marisa!

Ephraim moves forward and takes out the armor knight. The Great Knight with the hammer is standing there because he also has a hand axe, so he ran to the right and attacked Ephraim from across the river during enemy phase.

Unfortunately for him, that puts him in range of Lute. She uses Elfire for the first time. It does slow her down enough that she can't double, but it also has enough might that she just one-shots the guy!

After last turn, when Selena targeted L'Arachel, I remembered to actually looks at Tethys's stats, and I realized that she could be one-shot by thunderstorm. It only has one use left, so I have her wait over here for this turn.

L'Arachel heals for a level up. She actually has pretty good growths. It's just too bad she joins so late and is stuck only using staves at first. As you can see, she's still only at level 5, and she's been acting almost every turn since she joined.

The shamans around Selena don't seem to move, and also have Luna tomes., so their accuracy is horrible.

Cormag moves in to remove the annoyance. As is usual, the troubadour is pretty dodgy.

But the gamble pays off, and we no longer need to deal with sleep, and we get an energy ring, which raises either strength or magic by 2!

Wait, I mean, it raises strength or magic by 2 and I am excited about that, not that it raises them by 2 factorial, though I guess 2 and 2! are the same thing...

I leave Franz here for some reason...

???

Franz gets attacked and gets his sword rank up to C. Tana also gets attacked and goes up another level. And it looks like Selena targeted L'Arachel again with her last thunderstorm.

Seth finally has a free moment to visit the village, and we get a magic shield staff. Kind of like the restore that we found in a chest at the end of the map where we rescued Tana, this would have been nice to have at the beginning of this map. Selena is all out of thunderstorm now!

But I'll give this to L'Arachel so that she has a staff to spam every single turn even if there is no one to heal. I wanted to do that with the torch staff on this map, but I discovered that you can't use a torch staff if there's no fog/darkness.

I consider having Cormag attack this shaman, but then I have him get the cavalier instead.

Cormag and Tana have supports, so I am able to leave Tana next to Cormag, she can attack the shaman, and she'll be able to counter Selena on enemy phase! Selena does decent damage to Tana, but can't kill her.

Also, I finally have Moulder attack for once just because why not?

Lute also builds her staff rank a bit.

And then I have Vanessa beat up on a dead tree so that Seth can pick up Marisa, and then Franz can take and drop her.

It's that time! It's bully the boss time!

Also Tana takes out this last loser

Next time: Why do I boss-grind when I'm playing this game that allows actual grinding???

[tears-of-boredom]

okay im going to find out how different genshin is rn. i dont have money for zelda games so the knockoff gacha version will have to do. if its not horrible still. sorry i just fucking hated kind of everything about sumeru. i mean the aranaras where cute, but their quest line was literally the only one i cared about. and the restrictiveness of it all started to piss me off. you couldnt really do shit. cant catch big animals. cant interact with like anything in the world. cant even buy cooking ingredients with the small ass stock. cant lower the rendering distance. cant do quests because "a character is busy with another one of your quests", like what even is that. just hide the models if you don't want the player to see double of a character. also I really hate the animation that happens when you go to the menu/tab thing. I hate how the counters on choosing stacked objects accelerate. i hate how every character looks the same. I hate how you cant skip dialogue efficiently. i hate the arbitrary limitations in the teapot realm build mode. I hate the pointless dialogue options. I hate how the bounty enemies spawn near other enemies. i hate how the hilichurls have been proven to have sentience but the player has to continue killing them. I hate how limited the "difficulty mode" chooser is. i hate the way you have no indication on if a surface is climable or not. i hate the way trees show no indication when you've gotten all the wood that you can from one. i hate how pyro characters get cold just as easily as others, and how fire from their abilities does not affect the cold meter at all. I hate the way boss enemies cant be hit multiple times in a row, and need a pause in between every hit for them to register. i hate the way ley line blooms have no visible count down to their dissapearance, despite there existing one. i hate how they made a single new bait for every fish in sumeru. I hate how the map doesnt show underground areas. i hate how boss enemies take forever to complete their wake up animation, making surprise plummet attacks impossible. i hate how they're getting kids addicted to gambling. "Fresh and Tasty Chop Suey!". "We'll grill your entire fish!". "Fengen's Ironmongers". "Moonpies! That's what I'll make him!"...

have they released a new nation yet? im most excited about the hydro nation probably. I don't have much faith in pyro, and cryo aka uhh i forgot the name...wtv so i feel like cryo will be too story focused that you won't really get chances to do things on your own. I mean id like some old ass, fancy ass, russian empire stuff. maybe we'll get female characters that dont wear booty shorts and thigh highs. perhaps we'll get slavic faces. although thats just wishful thinking. i doubt that they'll spend money on any more player skeletons lmao. although they really arent doing shit with the models either. actually yeah, even if they didnt want to pay someone to make new skeleton rigs, they could definetly do a lot more with the models than what theyre doing now. like genuinely it would not be hard to alter the models to make each one at least a bit unique. like please dont continue to do that smooth skinny dolls with little noses ass shit. also why are their faces so bare. most there is is when the hair covers a part of their faces. but like,, tattoos? smudges? freckles? moles? scars? birthmarks? piercings? like literally anything omg.

i dont have any faith in HoYo to have fixed any of these tbh. i just like having games that have routine things you can do every day, with no big consequences if you miss a day or a week. ill see what updates i can find on it. ill probably download it either way, even if it still sucks and feels tiring. ill delete it if I hate it so much.

[arabian-batboy]

WFA has me craving a batfam medieval au comic that starts out super gritty and serious but slowly becomes more comical and ridiculous until Damian snaps and you find out that it's a family DnD session that Damian is DM'ing. He had an entire Tolkein-esque storyline prepared with hand drawn maps of the every fantasy realm they travel to, schematics of every building they could potentially enter, he learned over a hundred accents to give each of the npc's their own distinct voice, and he has Goliath there to make fantasy creature noises when needed. Bruce and Dick take the campaign super seriously because they know how hard Damian has worked and how much this means to him (even if he won't outright say it). It's Duke and Cassandra's first DnD campaign so they're learning on the fly but they try their best. Tim is invested solely because Damian keeps finding ways to kill off his player character so it's personal now. Stephanie and Jason have been goofing off since the campaign started. It would be a mess but I think that it would be so cute!!

Okay, but I honestly would die if the ending of the upcoming Dark Knights of Steel comic was exactly what you just described.

Especially since Damian is the only Batkid that wasn't revealed yet, I can imagine him appearing at the end as an all-powerful King that will single-handedly defeat the enemy's army on his own and afterward we would have everyone thanking him and telling him how awesome he is, then we will see a random bubble speech saying "hey now, that's a bit unrealistic don't you think?" then it get cut out to the living room in the manor and we find out that this entire comic was actually narrated by Damian while he was playing DnD with the rest of the Batkids (with some intervention here and there, which would explain why Tim is constantly coming back to life after being killed).

[my-least-favorite-savior]

If you're Tracer, Sombra, or Reaper, and you start bitching in the chat that you aren't getting healing, all that tells people is that you don't know how to play dive.

Your healers are most likely on the objective with your tanks. You are making a choice to be on the other side of the map, harassing enemy backline. That may or may not be a good choice in any particular game, but either way, the healers can't heal you. Not a single healer in the game can do more than three seconds of healing without a direct line of sight to you--except maybe Moira, if she's either very lucky or very skillful with her orbs, but, even then, you cannot count on Moira to be throwing you orbs when she can't even see you. Half of them aren't going to get to you even if she tries. The orbs are probably better used on the objective, where she can see where she's throwing them.

Every character I directed this rant at has some means of escape if they get in a bad situation. If you need healing, you have to escape to your healers. (Also, you should definitely know where the health packs are if you plan to try diving.) Do not expect your healers to chase after you when you are diving, because they will be slaughtered--especially since all three of those characters' means of escape from a bad situation leave every healer except maybe Moira (if she didn't blow her fade getting to you) to die in your place if the healer follows you. People who role queue "support," are not volunteering to die in your place.

Stop picking fights you can't win on the other side of the map from your healers and then cussing out the healers in chat when you get killed.

[skull-storm-daily]

Sorry to disturb, but bad player here still trying to work out how to beat the Skull Storm. Any general advice on how to defeat it?

Absolutely, happy to help! This response ran a little long, so I’ll put the rest of it under the cut.

There's really two key components you need to consistently keep track of to win your skull storm runs, those being:

1) making sure you have a surefire way to deal 6 damage on your first turn (especially important for map 3 when the totems get more dangerous and combats can quickly overwhelm you), and

2) having a contingency plan to get past the Bear Rush on phase 2 of each boss battle.

The first point here is fairly easy to succeed with, at least more so than the second, and this is by manipulating an internal game mechanic present throughout the entirety of Inscryption, called fairHand- which essentially makes sure you always have at least one usable card that isn't a pelt you can place down on the first or second turn. fairHand accounts for every kind of card in Inscryption, including energy- and mox-cost cards, as well as rules for bones, but the only important part of this we need to know for skull storm is the rule for the blood cards: essentially, a squirrel and two other cards are drawn, and if either of those does not have a blood cost equal to the number of free cards you have in your hand (ideally only the squirrel, meaning one blood cost), then the last card you draw will always be a card of that cost.

How to use this to your advantage requires you to be pretty careful with your deck management over the course of the run- in order to consistently win combats quickly and effectively, you need to stick to a single 1-blood cost card for the entirety of the run, since you'll always draw it on the first turn, and do everything you can to not have to pick up any other 1-blood cost cards for the rest of the run, or to get rid of them as quickly as possible- via sacrifice stones, campfires if you haven't gotten rid of the survivors yet, or the rare bone lord event. (It's also probably best to avoid picking free cards along the way too, like tadpoles, since they can mess with your fairHand.)

I should also note, that any starting deck can win a skull storm run, including the Curious Egg deck! Some are certainly easier to do so than others, but it is possible to win with any of them through playing carefully and maybe with a little luck.

Here are a few notable good 1-cost cards to consider picking up, plus a few notes on each:

Black Goat - excellent for when you have a lot of high cost cards that you've buffed fairly well, and is even included in the high cost starting deck. Best buffs to consider are Undying (when you have many high cost cards to play) and Searcher (when you have a single powerful card, ideal for winning on the first turn.)

Warren/Beehive - helpful in the same vein as the Black Goat, but only Excellent with the Undying sigil. Generating large amounts of undying rabbits or bees (which you can then use to play the Warren or Beehive again) is the ultimate recursive strategy to play just about any card you have. (Warning: Bees also fly and deal 1 damage and work with Insect totems while rabbits don't- but be VERY careful, as Beehives require them to be HIT first to spawn your bees, and they cannot stop flying enemies. My suggestion to solve this is to either stock well up on items or somehow put the Mighty Leap sigil on your Undying Beehive as well, whether via fusing two different Beehives with each sigil at the Mycologist event, or with an Insect-Mighty Leap totem.)

It should be worth noting that the Skink can also perform the same role as the Beehive as mentioned, with the same shortcomings as it requires being struck first, but has its own benefits and detriments as well- it requires space in combat to move to, and only leaves a single tail behind before it is killed, but this tail also keeps any sigil inscribed on the Skink, as well as retains the Skink's stat improvements from campfires.

Mantis, Mantis God - these cards are good if you want to deal damage directly on turn 1 rather than setup- and can even win right away, if the Mantis is buffed to 3 power or the Mantis God to 2. The Mantis God deck notably already starts with one, although the two ringworms with it can make it hard to use since they're also 1-cost and can trigger fairHand- although they're actually less difficult to get rid of, since they come with the Annoying sigil, which you can put onto another card you don't care about at the sacrifice stones, and the second one gets fed to the campfire folks, obviously.

The Mantis and Mantis God's Bi-strike and Tri-strike sigils make them work well as 1-cost cards, but you could put their sigils onto just about any other 1 cost card instead, as long as it's powerful enough to make use of them, if you really wanted. However, using them in tandem with each other is better- since they'll strike 5 times instead of the usual 2 or 3.

Outside of our Mantis buddies, the purpose of most of these 1-cost cards are to make the rest of your cards easy to play- and what really cinches your win is filling the rest of you deck with cards you can win with. Some easy clues to keep an eye out for:

Grizzly - by itself it isn't that helpful, but it's bulky and strong enough at 4/6 to be something to keep you standing until the next turn, at least- and even better if you buff its power with a campfire. It's a more worthwhile card if you put sigils on it like Bi-Strike, or...

Double Strike (and to a lesser extent Dire Wolf Pups) - Dire Wolves naturally have Double Strike, which you can sac onto just about any card with 3 power or higher (some common cards are Moose Bucks, Wolves, Wild Bulls, Great Whites, even Grizzlies) as an easy win card if you draw it turn 1. Alternatively, if you have a Dire Wolf or Dire Wolf Pup on hand and none of these other cards, you can buff them at a campfire and boost their power by 1 (no risk involved) to get a 3 power Dire Wolf and win with that. Double Strike cards are also the most common method of getting past the Bear Rush, since they only need one opposing tile to be free to work. All these cards are fantastic to put Double Strike on, but my personal favorite is to save it for my dear Lammergeier, which I'll speak about in a moment.

It's helpful to have as many of these cards as you can manage, especially if your 1-cost doesn't have the Searcher sigil to find the card you want.

Now, for point 2), the Bear Rush.

Since every phase two boss fight is the same, you can plan around all three of them relatively similarly, depending on what cards you have- although most of the time it will be rng based, since often you will need to pick up items along the way in between boss fights. Here are a few strategies that work:

Scissors/Carving Knife/Wiseclock + 5 damage - The concept behind this is simple- just use an item to remove a bear or otherwise create an empty space on the opponent’s side, then attack that space with 5 damage however you can- whether from a card attack forward, attacking to the side via bi-strike, adding a damage from pliers, whatever works. However, this only works that turn, since the bear behind it will come forward to fill the space on the opponent’s turn. Other means of getting opening up a space such as attacking with a death touch card and then attacking that space for 5 damage or more also works, but isn’t as easy to set up (however, this also means you don’t have to rely on items at all). One other thing about the Wiseclock in particular- the placement of your cards especially matters here, as you could end up accidentally blocking your win card, or even sending your win card to the opposing side. If you’re using a wiseclock and have a win card that attacks the space directly opposing it, put it on the second column from the left, and if your card attacks to the side, put it on the third column from the left instead. This will plop your cards exactly into the places they need to be once you use your wiseclock.

Brute Force (+ optional Hourglass) - This strategy is usually reserved for very late in the run, when you’ve had more chances to buff your deck and pick up powerful cards. Essentially, if you have a card that attacks the same tile twice (whether with Double strike or having both Bi- and Tri-strike sigils) and has a power of 6 or higher, then as long as you play that card and you are able to attack with it on the first turn of Bear Rush, you will win. If you have cards that can only deal 6 damage total to a single space instead, that works too, but only if you have an Hourglass item to stall the turn, or enough cards in your hand to stall TWO turns, to give you a chance to take out the second bear and then attack on the third turn of Bear Rush. Items such as spare Frozen Possums or Boulders can also help to stall, and both last at least two turns of Bear Rush. This strategy can be a bit spooky to pull off, but with strong enough cards you can win.

Magic Bleach + Fan or Flying cards - This strategy is clear enough, especially if you have a Fan to give flight to your non-bird cards: use magic bleach on the first turn of Bear Rush to remove the Mighty Leap sigils (I just had an unrelated thought of how terrifying bears would be if they could leap into the air like that), then play as many flying cards as you can to add up to 5 damage, using a Fan if you have one if necessary, and win. However, bird cards aren’t usually very powerful, with few exceptions, and it’s easier to pull this off if you have a Fan. This isn’t the only strategy Flying cards are essential to, though...

Starvation stall, Flying card - really for your last ditch effort attempts, like running into a boss with no items or you had to use your items to survive phase 1, no cards powerful enough to brute force it, and maybe you have a Fan or you stocked up on some good flying cards but never picked up any Magic Bleach to go with it. This strategy can be pretty tricky to pull off, but it’s really your best bet if you have nothing else. The strategy is essentially this: stall in phase 1 of the boss fight for as long as you can (usually easiest with Trapper or Angler, at least in map 1) so you draw almost all your cards, then defeat the boss’s phase one on exactly the turn you draw your last card- but don’t play your good flying card to win. The idea here is that as soon as the Bear Rush rolls out and it passes to your turn again where you draw a card, a Starvation card will replace ONE of the bears at the front- which critically, does not have the Mighty Leap sigil on it. As soon as the Starvation is played, play your good flying card (or any other win card if you have a Fan at your disposal) in front of it, and deal direct damage.

The absolute BEST card to use this strategy with is my lovely dear Lammergeier, as hopefully by the time phase two rolls around you’ll have plenty of bones to capitalize on (hopefully at least 7, since the last 3 will come from the cost Lammy needs to be played- unless you have a black goat, or something). However, if you have some cards to stall the bears with, such as the aforementioned Boulder or Frozen Possum bottle items, then you can use flying cards with a slightly lower attack power, such as a Turkey Vulture (3/3) if you can stall the rest of the bears for one turn, or even an unaltered Raven (2/3) if you can stall two turns. Risky, and depends on you still having cards in your hand that don’t have the Waterborne sigil, but works.

Those are the key points to keep in mind when playing a Skull Storm run- but as much rng manipulation is often involved, developing your own skill as an Inscryption player is a major part of this too! You can’t pick up an absolutely perfect deck every time, of course, and learning to think on your feet to handle those unexpected situations that come your way is important, too, like running into an unwanted inescapable 1-cost card, or encountering a combat with the Thorns totem when your best cards only have 1 health. All I have to say is, practice! Experiment with different strategies and starting decks, discover what way to play feels right to you. Here are some extra tips of things I’ve picked up playing for as long as I have, that I’ll let you know now:

Pack Rats - If you have trouble with your item luck, picking up a Pack rat or two can go a long way- ESPECIALLY if you put the Undying sigil on it! If you draw your Undying Pack Rat during a combat, that means you’ll get multiple chances to roll for new items, which is especially helpful if you’re in the third combat in a map and you still haven’t found any Scissors or Wiseclocks.

Soft Resetting is your Friend - This might be a bit cheating, but if you’re quick with the escape key, you can quit out and reload the game to back before you load the coming event, and choose differently. This can be done to check different cards on cost-choosing or tribe-choosing Add Card events, Cave Trial events if you fail the trial (before you’re sent back to the map), Item Backpack events, Prospector mining events (although the card placement is still randomized), and notably also the Campfire events- but ONLY if the card was not eaten, since the game autosaves the instant a card gets eaten (a good way to manip this is to put a card you want to get rid of first, and if it isn’t eaten, quit out and buff a card you want instead), and of course, Combat encounters. Just about all of these choices can be redone without penalty, since each event and outcome is rolled at the very start of when a new map is generated. You can even reroll the whole map if you’re looking for a specifc pathing at either the very start or when you move onto the next map, since it saves after you beat a boss and doesn’t save again until you complete an event on the new map. If you run into trouble and feel the need, a quick escape key and quit out can save your whole run, no joke.

(Interestingly, soft resetting also does not work for Goobert's Card Painting event, as it autosaves once your copied card is revealed- I suppose to keep you from fishing for better copies. It usually doesn't matter though, as fusing the og card and its copy at the Mycologist event is one of the quickest ways to buff the attack power of your best cards, since the attack and health are usually doubled.)

Woodcarver Totems - Not usually necessary for Skull Storm runs, and going out of your way to pick some up can mess with your pathing and collection of Necessary things you need to win- but if you stumble upon a Really good sigil for a totem, then complete it as fast as you can and lean into it. HARD. Pick up as many cards as you can of that creature type, or switch to a better totem head if you find one- essentially feel free to base your whole strategy for the rest of the run around that totem. Some particularly good sigils and combos that I recommend are Undying, Searcher, Item Hoarder, Bi-Strike, Double Strike, Blood Lust, Death Touch, and Morsel on just about any creature type- although in my experience the Elk creature type seems to benefit the most from most of these sigils (Elk-Morsel is my personal favorite, especially when use in tandem with Undying Black Goat- if you ever stumble upon that totem, give filling out your deck with elk type creatures and let me know how it goes!) Another sigil you do not want to sleep on is the Dam Builder totem, as the Dams created by each card who has it gains every sigil on the card with Dam Builder- especially neat for cards like Black Goats with the Worthy Sacrifice sigil on it, since that sigil makes those cards with that sigil on it able to be sacrificed! Also useful if your dams get Fledgeling- it’s a really good sigil, god dam. Another totem combo I should mention again is Insect-Mighty Leap, which absolutely erases the risk of using an Undying Beehive as your 1-cost card if you have one, but that’s really the only use I can think of for it, other than maybe Undying Corpse Maggots being used as a stall card...

Do not pick up Ring Worm it’s not good :( - Ringworms can really mess with your run, bud. They’ve absolutely killed more than a few runs because I hadn’t managed to burn them in time and they showed up instead of a card I needed in fairHand... If your strategy involves killing the Campfire survivors and you aren’t already starting with Ringworm (whether from the Mantis God starting deck or if you’re running without pelts), do not under any circumstances pick up a Ringworm- kill the Campfire people with an Adder instead, or any other card that has the Death Touch sigil on it (having it via totem doesn’t count).

And that’s all from me- have fun with your Skull Storm runs in the future, give Royal a kissy on the forehead for me when you see him!

[moxfirefly]

I have to thank @southernblossoms for this one, she got evil!Leo in my brain and he hasn’t left ever since.

TW: Violence, Gore, Blood, NSFW content below

Rated Explicit (18+ years)

“She said I'm looking like a bad man, smooth criminal

She said my spirit doesn't move like it did before

She said that I don't look like me no more, no more

I said I'm just tired”

Leonardo always knew there was an inch inside of him that was darkness.

If left alone and unchecked, it would spread. Fester like some disease and he feared that someday he’d allow it to course through his body so freely.

And let it win.

It seemed today would be that unfortunate day. A night like any other, just more bloodshed than necessary. But hey, who said they should go and kill his father? Torture him to such an extent and string up his body for his brothers and him to find.

In that very moment that inch had grown in his soul to a degree that it blinded him. All he knew was to destroy, to hurt and erase those who had done this. He felt so cold, hands cupping his fathers motionless bloodied feet, the gentle tapping of blood and the cries of his brothers echoing in his ears.

So when Leo stood, bloodied (not bathed in his own), holding the head of the monster responsible, how could he regain peace? This had only brought a momentary second of reprieve and it was so fleeting. He looked into Shredder’s lifeless eyes, numbness spreading but a need that had started out as an inch. A need to kill everyone who had been part of this, directly or indirectly.

They all deserved so much worse.

They all deserved death.

Slow and torturous.

He had disappeared after that night. His brothers knew that this was the end of their leader, of their beloved brother who wanted to believe that good in this world could prevail.

For them they never imagined that Leo would just let the darkness take hold of him, nestle him with such a loving embrace. For him to embrace it right back felt justified, for his brothers it painted the gory picture of things to come.

They never expected to meet him in the opposition. To view him as foe and not family. Leonardo had quickly taken hold of the scum of the earth. He had molded the darkness to serve him.

Raphael thought Shredder was their worst enemy.

He never expected to have Leo claim that spot in a matter of months.

The Foot had fallen under his ruling, and he wasted no time in setting examples, and the bloody path those examples left behind never seized to churn the brothers stomachs.

There was no means of bringing him back, and perhaps it’s for the better.

Because whatever has eaten away inside of Leonardo cannot simply be flushed out of his body, nor ripped from his very soul. The body counts too high by now as he strays further and further away from what he was taught.

From what his father taught him...

_______________

You run with the unsavories. An eat or be eaten mentality that has caused you to survive years and years of gang wars and mutant freaks. Not like you’d throw about that last bit, much less when you’re standing single file, close to pissing yourself because he’s there.

And Christ he’s a sight to behold.

A rumor, a legend, a monster.

You tell him you’ve got valuable info, you know where to follow the trail that’ll lead to success. Even when your partner tries to push his chin up in front of Leonardo, you’re already wincing at what his demise will be shaped in.

Leo really loves cutting heads off.

A strong emphasis on loves.

You swallow, eyes flying anywhere but the rapidly growing puddle of blood that approaches your feet. Even then, your eyes stray towards the newest leader of the Foot, Leo punctures his katana into the head, a crude skewer as he lifts it and examines the severed body part as if answers lie in the gush of blood that falls. Those dark blue eyes move on you, you swallow.

He walks over to you, blade in hand, blood tap tapping onto the ground “Your information” Leo’s voice is weightless, bored almost. You motion towards your pocket, the crumpled up note with a poorly drawn map the key to your salvation. Leo reaches his hand in and you’re still, stiff and frightened by the intrusive touch and his proximity.

He pulls the note out and examines, the ghastly expression of horror on the decapitated head so close you can smell the coppery scent. “Can you get more of this? The coordinantes?” You crane your neck to look at him, his stature imposing. “Yeah, I’m your girl for that shit, swear on it” He flicks the blade and the sound of the head rolling makes your stomach flip flop along with it.

You feel the tip of a bloodied katana on your chin.

“Don’t make me cut off such a pretty head, hm?” You want to nod but the blade digs and Leo’s mouth twitches in something akin to a smirk. The small cut to your chin stings, but you wonder why other parts of you vibrate.

The danger, the adrenaline, Leonardo.

_____________

Your next meeting doesn’t quell your nervousness. Leonardo is an impressive sight as always and it’s imposible to ignore that maybe you won’t make it out alive every time you both meet. Unless proven useful, which you take to heart. You bring all sorts of information, names, rumors, possible gangs wanting to take him on, the police. Any word you heard in regards to him.

“It’s possible they might try to meet you half way, catch you off guard” The warehouse is chilly, that fall weather starting to hit but Leo’s unfazed, the black tails of his mask move with the gust of winds. “Stupid of them to assume that” The second floor of the warehouse seems to be his own, leaving the rest of the crew bellow. He sits on the windowsill, cloth running up his katana, it had been bloody when you were brought in.

“I’m just repeating what I heard, I’m sure you’re more than adept to take them on” You stick your hands in the pockets of your jacket, you’d been frisked not like you were stupid enough to bring a weapon to this.

But then again, the more he polished that sword, the more you wished you had something.

“What else have you heard? Any word on Karai?” The woman in question had appeared to have disappeared into thin air after Shredder’s death and Leo taking command of the Foot soldiers. Wether she planned to reclaim what was hers or if she had simply quit was beyond you and anybody else. “Nothing on her, she might’ve skipped town or the country” You offered, eyes following the sword as Leo placed it on a nearby table.

“She strike you as the type? A coward?” He walked over towards you, his expression so eerily unreadable.

Yet, your eyes wandered over him. Over muscle and scales. Overs scars and bruises. That illogical part of your brain making you wonder and fantasize, because fear could be exciting.

There was something exciting about Leonardo.

“Well?” He was in front of you, looking down at you. It hits you how minuscule you must look to him.

“Probably plotting? You did murder her dad” You find his eyes, you swallow.

“Well he murdered mine. Eye for an eye...” He spoke gently almost.

“Makes the whole world go blind” You finished for him, and maybe that was stepping on a line but you noticed the corner of his mouth twitch up. For a brief second you catch his eyes scan yours, move across your face and settle at your lips.

Passed your neck, towards your breasts.

He turns around and grabs his sword.

“One week, find more info on her, your pay is downstairs” You’re dismissed and before you process anything a Foot soldier is ushering you downstairs and shoving an envelope in your hands.

That night you dream about what your lips might feel like against reptilian scales.

—————————

Karai’s whereabouts are practically unheard off. If there was a trail it had run cold months back and judging from the word of mouth being passed around there wasn’t anything sustainable. You dig up anything and everybody. Every dirt bag with an agenda, ex Foot soldiers, opposing gangs, the mob and just about anybody you have in your radar.

It yields nothing.

You can’t return to Leo with nothing.

Rubbing a hand across your tired face, you make your way through the back alleys of the city. Your one week was coming up and all you had were weak possibilities and baseless assumptions. In your line of business enough information to create doubt can go a long way, but this was conspiracy levels bad.

So you thought and you thought quick.

Pulling out your phone you called him first. Perhaps a dumb move but at the same time you figured it showed that you were trying. You asked if the two of you could meet, the line briefly went quiet before your text tone startled you. He hung up and you were met with the address of a building in Brooklyn and to go up to the roof.

To say you were scared was to put it lightly.

You were shitting yourself.

The roof of the building had a green house which seemed unused but it looked like it was being kept up with the vegetation still green and alive. Your hand made for the door knob but something you could only name as a sixth sense made you freeze.

Leo was there, the shift in the atmosphere was impossible to deny. Your turned and blinked.

Wherever he had been, it must’ve been worse. There was blood on him, a fresh gash by his arm and the steady drip drip of blood hitting the concrete. “Jesus are you...?” You knew he was ok, but whomever had been on the receiving end of this had it by far much worse.

“Inside, go inside” He motioned for the green house and you did. Your eyes scanned around hoping to find something to help with. There was a nest of sorts in a corner, several blankets and cushions, a table and a chair amidst the plants. You found what you were looking for near the bonsais, a shelf with a box of first aid. Leo went towards a counter with a basin and a jar of water, he went about cleaning the gash on his arm.

You approached him with the box of first aid, blue eyes were cautious as you took out antiseptic and gauze. Leo had turned to face you, giving you more room to work on his arm as you bandaged it. “You alright?” Your voice held hesitation, Leo’s questioning gaze turned to amusement. “I’m fine, what I want to know is why you wanted to meet” You finished bandaging him and took a step back.

Pick your words wisely, you thought with a slight shutter.

“Listen I’ve spoken with any and everyone who might have any clue but Karai is off the radar”Swallowing a lump in your throat you shrugged off your jacket, worry manifesting in heat. “I know this isn’t what you wanted and I’m really fucking good at my job but this bitch is either underground or who knows! Dead for all I know!” The exasperation and worry was clear as day, he either took this the right way or the wrong way.

Wrong way being you end up pushed off this very building, at best ironically enough.

Leo swallowed the information, clearly bouncing it around his head. The dry specks of blood scattered across his green flesh. An odd silence fell amongst you both and even when he rose in all his imposing glory you kept your eyes focused on him. Getting a read on that cold calculated gaze of his was hard enough.

Your throat feels painfully dry once he has you backed up against the wall. Something about dying alone with not even an audience to witness it didn’t sit too right with you.

But then again, Leo’s large hand gripped your neck, nothing too tight but enough to alert you to its presence. Those blue eyes looked haunted but just beneath that laid something you couldn’t just place your finger on. The tips of his fingers lightly caressed you, one of them fascinated with your quickened pulse. You can’t blink, unsure what may happen and when he dips down your adrenaline makes you flinch.

Leo halts his movement, his blood feels like it’s pumping loudly enough for you to hear. Wide eyed you lean up instead and ghost your lips against his, Leo sighs through his nostrils and it stays that way. A pull but not enough of a push because there’s still fear in your blood and a hesitation that you can’t put a name to from Leonardo.

Your phone going off startles you, nearly making you jump out of your skin and to a fraction of your dismay Leo takes a step away. One of your contacts name flashed on the screen which meant there could still be some good news. Your turned away to speak, pulling a marker from your pocket you write down some information on your forearm. It’s a quick conversation and once done you turn to see Leo putting together his gear again.

You bit your lip, whatever was about to happen would just have to take a back seat. ‘Fucking coward’ you can’t help but think about yourself.

“One of my guys says he might have it on good authority that Karai is still here” You watch him turn his head to listen, even if he’s got his back/shell to you. “Well?” He pushes while adjusting his swords.

“He says she might’ve just met up with...with one of your brothers” Tense doesn’t even begin to explain what his body did, the mear mention of his family was a sore subject and you had been warned to not even attempt to open that can of worms. Swallowing and feeling your throat stick from how dry it felt you see him pull out a key and toss it to you. “Send me that address, you’ll get your money at the warehouse” You barely manage to catch the key to the greenhouse, but still you raise a brow at the offering.

“Come back here when you’re ready” Is all he says about it, confusion is painted on your face but when he moved to leave he takes a moment to hold your chin. “Don’t make me regret this” He says and before you can attempt to ask he’s gone.

You stay there, twenty minutes or so in nothing but your thoughts and his words swimming around your mind.

Feeling heat between your legs and a lick of frustration consuming you.

_____________

Two weeks you contemplate the key in your pocket.

Two weeks you let your thumb hover over his number but never press down.

For two weeks you find your pillow between your legs, trying to reach the sensation he managed with just his body close to yours.

But nothing.

It’s not enough.

New York is covered in rain as you make your way through the sea of people. Regardless of the many umbrellas you still get soaked and by the time you’re up on that roof, hand digging out the key to the green house you’re drenched.

Inside you shake off the excess and remove your jacket. The cold hits you and you can’t help but feel silly that you’re here, maybe this is his way of taking you out, you’re not needed anymore by now you assume.

You turn on the few lanterns that are scattered through the room. Kicking off your boots you rub your arms and shiver, flesh breaking out into goosebumps as the door creaks open once more.

Leo’s equally drenched when he steps through, the black tails of his mask sticking to him. The two of you just stare at one another, steady drips of water and the rain outside picking up more strengh.

Carefully you watch him begin take apart his gear, leaving his katanas by the door. He’s trying to keep your apprehension at low levels, his steps slow and soft. You let your arms fall to your sides and as your heart tries to hammer out of your chest you don’t flinch this time, even as his hands go for the hem of your long sleeve. You take a deep breath as his eyes wander across your now exposed flesh. The fascination goes straight to your core, feeling yourself warm up as his hands rest on your stomach.

With trembling hands you unbutton your jeans and step out of them and the inhale Leo takes as he closes his eyes makes you reach for him. He holds you against him and sighs, large frame shuddering at the feel of your skin against his reptilian one. He buries his snout against your neck, breathing harder as his hands run all over your back and rear. Leo grips and kneads the flesh and a groan escapes against your ear that makes your wrap your arms around his neck. He feels the softness of your breasts against his chest, he’d be a liar if he said he hadn’t been dreaming about them for months now.

You can’t wrap your head around it but he feels just as you fantasized about him. The roughness of his flesh, the edges of his shell and god his teeth nip at your neck with a growl. Wiggling out of his hold you start to undo whatever else needs to be taken off and Leo can’t help but smirk at your frenzied movements. He allows you to undress him, he’s gutted when your hands land on his waist as you start to kneel before him.

“No, no, kiss me first” He cups your face and presses his mouth against yours and that’s it, you’re done for, you’re hooked and can’t go back now. His kiss is possessive, forceful and it drowns every thought in your brain.

You pressed against one of the tables with the many Bonsais when Leo’a tongue slithers into your awaiting mouth. He sits you down on the table and nudges your legs apart to fit himself in between them, you crane your neck up losing yourself in his kiss. He can taste rain water, feels the sweat and rain mingle on your skin. God he wants to run his tongue all over you, eat you whole if he could.

It feels like forever when he pulls away, reluctance in his body. Blue eyes search into your e/c eyes, he wants to see something maybe your fear so he denies himself falling into this rabbit hole. Your hands press against his plastron and gently you run your nails down the hard plates, you shake your head fascinated by the texture. He’s rough but strong, a marvel of a species.

With some difficulty you managed to push your underwear off and spread yourself again for his viewing pleasure. “I want you,” You nodded, eyes falling to the hard length between his legs. Leo wraps a large hand around it and pumps slowly, body shivering at the sensation. “God I fucking want you so bad” You feel him come back to you, mouth on yours in yet another harsh kiss.

The tip of his cock nudges against your wet heat and he bites your lip at the sensation. Leo pushes into you so frustratingly slow, even as his girth stretches you to a point you’ve never been before. You want him inside of you now, and Leo couldn’t agree more. He bottoms out inside of you with a lengthy groan, head thrown back in ecstasy. “You feel... so fucking good” He growls out through gritted teeth, hips picking up speed as you wantonly take him in. You press your lips to his chest and moan with each slow but pronounced thrust of his hips.

His hand finds itself at the back of your head, grabbing fistfuls of your hair to keep your gaze on his. The slight tug burns so good and you can’t help but keep your pleasure filled gaze on his own. Lips parted you let him rock into you steadily until his thrust start to slam into you. The sensation spreads all over your body, little shocks of pleasure rocking your body.

“Mine, you’re going to be mine and only mine” He voices lowly, a threat laced in his passion. You’re too far gone to speak, nodding aimlessly at his every word, moans falling from your lips. “Nobody will own you like I do, nobody will touch you, Y/N? You understand? I’m making you mine” He pressed his forehead to yours, lost in this feeling.

“Fuck yes, yours, I’m gonna be all yours” You lick his lips and when he reaches a hand between both your bodies your mind goes blank. A vicious shudder overtakes you as you muffle a scream against his jaw. He fills you up so good and so warm with a strange vibration that sounds like an endless growl. Each rope he pumps into you making his eyes roll back. You’re shattered against, limp and raw throat from the scream that leaves your mouth.

He watches your come down, hand against your cheek, thumb running across your lips. When he pulls out just enough to watch his essence cascade out of your pretty little hole, he pumps himself back into you. His eyes say it all, from here on out whatever your life was up to this point is over and done with. Leo nuzzles you still lazily pumping himself in you, blissful to the little tremors your cunt produces around his member making him harden once again. Picking you up, bodies still joined, he makes his way to the nest of blankets on the floor.

You hold onto him, all you can do is hold onto him.

____________

It’s rather odd to be in this position. With an entire year that’s passed it never seems to feel normal, not that you’re complaining though.

Being in a position of power by proxy has its fucking fun rewards.

For example nobody in this city will ever contemplate taking you out. Unless they want a very pissed off Foot Leader to set fire to the city and maybe even the world. From opposite points to now standing at his side. No one is to address you as below them, or touch you or let alone breath the same air you do.

You can still hear the bones that were cracked when one particularly unruly Foot soldier made snide comment about you. Each crack of the mans arm being slowly twisted until his arm broke still rang in your ears to this day. Leo hadn’t flinched, hadn’t even scowled even as the twist turned to pulling the limb off.

He did in fact fuck you hard against the glass windows of the hotel suite he had you both in. The copper scent lingering on his scales, but enraptured with the heat enveloping his cock.

With the city at war everyone had began to run amok to do their own barbaric things. Each part of the city divided between gangs, mobs, mutants, police and civilians. You were out on active Foot duties, you were still free to do as you pleased but with protection and Leo demanded your whereabouts on the hour due to possibilities of abduction.

He knew you were a weakness.

But did he give a shit? Of course not. Let them try, he hasn’t needed an excuse for his tyrannical acts thus far, but if harm did ever befall you, you only wished you could witness what his methods would be to exact his revenge.

And he was so familiar with revenge after all.

You admire yourself in the full length mirror, examining the body that training under Leo has provided you. The mutant terrapin in question comes up from behind you and wraps his strong sculpted arms around your waist. You can’t help but smirk as he rest his chin a top your head. “We’re heading out in half an hour” He mumbles against your hair, enjoying the scent. You watch through the mirror as his hands rub up and cup your breast, with a sigh you rest against his strong build. “What’s on the agenda tonight? Purple dragons?” You feel him shake his head, fingers dipping inside the cups of your bra. “Mob,” Is his sole reply.

You bite your lip, gripping his wrists. “We’ll be late” You try to muffle a moan as he tweaks a nipple, he grinds against your backside. “I’m killing them regardless, and I much rather have the scent of your cunt on my hands while I listen to their boring excuses for parley” Your knees buckled when you felt his hand slither inside your underwear, finger already parting your lips and humming as he feels how wet you already are.

You feel his other hand wrap around your neck, keeping you upright and your gaze on the mirror as his finger dips into your welcoming heat.

He engulfs your every thought, every sensation; and what’s the fate of the world when you’ve got him? He chose you just as much as you chose him. You’ve never considered yourself good, scumbag street rat who just happened to make a living amongst the other scumbags. But this? With Leonardo and the trail of bloodied heads he’s left behind, it’s hard not to be excited to see gasoline be poured on the city. He trails his lips to the shell of your ear and you can’t help but grin.

“Mine” He says.

Burn everything.

[echo-three-one]

Whatever It Takes

Sequel to A Forgotted Memory

Somewhere out there

Beneath the pale moonlight

Someone's thinking of me

And loving me tonight…

Chapter 14 to another story made by Ray (echo-three-one) Comments and Reviews appreciated! I hope you enjoy! Love you all ❤️

Previous Chapter : Alex and Augustus

Meet Me Halfway

John "Soap" MacTavish

Task Force 141

Location Unknown

18 hours ago

He thought he was dead. He thought they were going to kill him. He wished they would, just to end the suffering. But he also wished they wouldn't. He had greater plans, he still wanted to enjoy his life. And it looked like Nero granted half his wish, while depriving him of the other half. He's going to live the rest of his years in hell.

He couldn't stop thinking about that song, he lay flat on the ground, feeling weak, powerless and defeated.

If I lay here… Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

He couldn't feel a thing but he knew he was being transported somewhere. Red flashes filled his eyes as he slowly slipped away from the conscious world.

~

2 Seconds.

A single drop of water plopped on the cold floor where he laid every 2 seconds. It was getting annoying, but he thanked it for actually waking him up.

Soap struggled to get up and forced himself to do so, grunting in pain as the muscles and bones of his body reacted to his sudden movements. Enduring all the pain, he gasped and got up, moving to the direction of the only ray of light from a crack in the ceiling.

He limped but he had hope, exhaling with excitement as the light got closer every step he took. Then clang! He hit his head on an iron bar. He's in a prison cell, deep underground.

"Shite." he cursed, dropping his knees on the ground, his energy already ran out and he felt thirsty.

"That's freshwater dripping down there." An unknown voice emerged from the darkness, Soap wanted to believe he's hallucinating, but an old figure emerged from the shadows. His hair mostly greyed out and it was long enough that Soap believed he'd been here for far too long.

"The name's Jack. And I suggest you rehydrate. I've been here long enough that you could trust that it's safe." he suggested. His tone was strict but helpful and Soap knew he's trustworthy. They're both prisoners and as the saying goes: "The enemy of my enemy is my friend"

"So… uh Jake. What brings you to this dark and gloomy place?" Soap asked, his voice was barely audible but he was heading straight to the dripping freshwater.

"Turns out our friend Nero doesn't want me dead yet. He couldn't pry any information from me. I'm CIA, literally trained half my life to keep information away. He should've just killed me when he got the chance." He replied.

"So, that means he's going to get something out of you too…" he added, Soap looked worried, he didn't undergo some torture training and hes afraid of what Nero wants from him.

"Look kid, I know you're worried. That's why we won't let that happen. Okay? I have a plan." Jake patted Soap's shoulder, it still hurts from all the stomping and the tossing around but he knew he didn't mean it.

"So… CIA. Guess you crossed paths with Alex." Soap asked, his low accent echoed across the dark cage.

"Yeah. Alex. He was like my son, trained him and assisted him all throughout his CIA Career."

"He kinda disobeyed orders by joining the good side which looked bad in the eyes of the higher ups." Soap reported.

"Hm… It's very unusual of him to not follow orders, unless he believes it's for a better cause." Jack supplied to which Soap nodded, agreeing Jack's assumption.

"It was a good cause. Sacrificed himself for the greater good. Miraculously made it out, but lost his leg in the process." Soap continued, updating the old man about his protege, he's actually glad he did as he could feel the man's mood rising from grumpy prisoner to someone a little less grumpy.

"He had good morals, that kid. He could go far with that attitude… I just hoped that falling in love would not be his downfall… just like what happened to me…" he muttered. Soap didn't make out the last sentence so he assumed it was his own thoughts leaking out of his head. He didn't bother asking again.

The iron doors opened and a new patch of light opened. Jack looked at Soap with determination and nodded.

"Looks like it's showtime, sharkbait." Soap nodded noting the Finding Nemo reference at these trying times.

Jack was right. They had a practice of how to handle prisoners for interrogation. A few stomps, handcuffs, sack on the head and push you if you don't cooperate. Soap had to go through the whole thing, and as far as he knows, Jack must have gotten the key.

He limped his way to the interrogation room, buying enough time for Jack to blindly find the keyhole from the cell. He tried fighting back but the taser sticks were already giving him a bad time.

Just as Jack described, the interrogation room consisted of a dentist chair and a television, his captors were beside him preparing orders from Nero on the screen.

Soap squirmed his way out of the chair, trying to be convincing that he had no idea what's going on.

"Stop squirming! Tell us where the girl is… or I'll take a wild guess and destroy your base instead." Nero yelled. His voice was low, like it ran through a voice changer.

"Sod off…" Soap spat and squirmed again, receiving a shock from the taser. He groaned as tendrils of electricity ran through his body shaking him almost unconscious.

"Lower the voltage or he won't respond! Dumbasses! We need something from him!" Nero yelled at his henchmen.

"So… MacTavish…22nd Parachute Regiment, S.A.S., Now Task Force 141… Skilled in combat, Sniper and Demolitions… You know a proper brainwash would help me get the code from you right?" he mused.

"FOUR!" Soap roared from the top of his lungs, panting after he yelled.

"Four? What the fuck are you talking about?" Nero asked, looking confused. Addition to that, the ground shook and made everyone else in the room wonder.

"What's going on?" Nero asked.

"What? we're under attack? By who? How?" Soap's ears could hear the distress from their leader and from the looks of it, 141 already found him making it easier for him and Jack to get out of this hell hole.

"Augustus is gone? They're going to pay! Okay boys kill this man now. We have to send them a message!" Nero yelled angrily and the tv turned to static.

Meet me Halfway

Francine "France" Winters

Task Force 141

Task Force 141 Base - Briefing Room

"We're being pressured to capture Nero. With our base compromised, the Board would now decide for our force's future. Simon Riley is now researching Augustus' burner phone, if we're lucky enough, it could lead us to our next clue." Shepherd calmly informed the force about the status. He looked in distress but he had to keep pushing forward, to end this warfare.

"Some of Nero's forces are already in New York. It turns out he could command the brainwashed civilians to deploy EMP blasts but recon noticed that he could only command a few at a time. This means without the IP address, he is still powerless and trying hard." Shepherd added.

"I want you all to always be ready for an all out attack on Nero. Let's prove to the board that we're the best one for the job." He muttered and dismissed everyone. France decided to stay in the briefing room and let the quiet consume her thoughts.

"You okay?" A reassuring hand held her shoulder. She knew it was Gary and tears started to fall from her eyes.

"I… I can't stop worrying about him, Roach." She croaked and gave Roach a very pained stare. She actually missed John's presence even after being together for a short while, she felt that they shared a lot of common things together, the strive to become better, the response to danger even off duty and the determination to achieve a goal. Those were her traits that he also had, these same traits that made him like her despite his cocky first impression.

"Let's help out Ghost track that son of a bitch Nero down. And maybe it'll lead us to him." Roach assured them as they both stood up and went to Research.

"How… how can you still be so sure that he's okay?" she sobbed.

"The dogtags." Ghost interjected while typing furiously on the computer.

"If Soap was dead, he should've shown us his tag. That would cripple some of our Force's focus and would lead to his success in invading and capturing Samantha." Ghost continued, he made sense and France almost smiled with the two's support. Instead, she just breathed out and helped Ghost.

"So, have you traced each source?" France asked Ghost as she also started furiously typing codes and strings of data input.

"Yes, they're really sneaky with the encryption, but I keep on getting pings at one location before it spreads in different places." he explained.

"The nearest signal tower. Every packet almost goes through there. You see that?" France pointed at the screen.

"Yeah I do. Let's start tracing that source." Ghost muttered and the map already pinged the tower's location.

"Bingo." they both whispered and cheered, hugging each other as a sign of success. France felt Ghost's tight hug and felt something off about the guy, then he actually removes half of his mask and pouts his cheek close to hers.

"I…. uh… I'm sorry" Ghost shyly said as France pushed him away and felt awkward at the situation. Gary just stood there in shock as Price entered the room.

"What's the news?" he asked, looking at the three.

"We found him, Sir." Ghost cleared his throat and put back his mask.

"Well, bloody hell. Let's go then!" he said as they all ran towards the exit and prepared themselves. France didn't have the time to think about the events earlier as she was still worried about Soap's safety. She hopes that whatever lies in that place would give her an answer.

~

"FIRE!" Captain Price yelled as snipers quickly shot the guards surrounding the icy fortress. The gulag housed people that the world didn't want but couldn't kill, and she hoped that John MacTavish was on that list.

Danger close explosions crippled both attacking and defending forces as Price roared at Shepherd to be careful. France gulped as she saw a very open field that they're dropping in on and knew for a fact that she's very open and weak at these positions.

Her mind raced, looking at every angle. Tangos were everywhere carrying different kinds of weapons. With minimal angles to hide on, the force, led by Roach aggressively advanced to the Gulag, dodging heavy fire, grenades and RPG Rockets. As soon as they found the tunnel leading deep into the Gulag, France already felt comfortable. This was her playing zone and no one's going to stop her from getting into Nero.

The way in was almost clear, no enemies were against them but instead they ran further into the Gulag. Something was off.

Gunfire was heard deep into the Gulag and as soon as the team reached the control room, Ghost already did his magic. Opening gates, looking at the cameras and defending their six. The masked man helped them further advance into the Gulag.

"Nero's not here…" Ghost said.

"How so?" Price angrily muttered.

"He never set foot in this place. He only uses a television to communicate."

"Bloody hell. Now what?"

" I see two heat signatures behind that wall."

Roach quickly planted a c4 breach and as soon as it exploded Francine pounced at the closest person, raising her fist and looking at its eyes to see the punch go through.

Blue eyes. Those shades of blue. France stopped his fist as tears started to well from her eyes, dropping some on his bare chest.

"John…" she whimpered and smiled.

"Fra.." she didn't let him finish, she kissed him. She didn't care what everyone else thought. The gunfire and explosions suddenly felt nothing to her. She didn't care how John's lips tasted, all she cared about was that he's alive and she's on his arms.

Extraction quickly followed as Shepherd's forces already did a lot of damage on the old fortress. They barely got out just in time for the building's inevitable collapse but they're safe.

Next Chapter : Secret Alliances

Notification Squad my beloved

@samatedeansbroccoli @enderio @smokeywhalee @beemybee @whimsywispsblog @ricinbach

[specialability]

video games

f/go, sdorica, genshin, monhun

I decided to try to catch up on F/GO for the Lord El-Melloi anime event they're doing right now but uh I hadn't even finished Solomon until a couple days ago? And now I need to do all of Part 2-1 and 2-2 to do the event?? I think my arm is going to fall off and it legitimately takes a long time to get through all these cutscenes even if I skip the parts that don't seem important. Maybe I should just hope somebody is going to record all of the event cutscenes and put them on youtube...? But I got the two new event servants in my first two 10x pulls on the banner lol I have no luck in sdorica lately but here my luck is fine. Why doesn't this game have an auto-battle feature GOD I hate gacha games so much sometimes

Meanwhile genshin is also doing an event. But I am even less prepared to grind in that game. My hands would literally light on fire. The ergonomics of playing on android is not good.

Aaand MonHun Rise released their first dlc/update and I am not caught up in that game either. I haven't even bothered to buy a online subscription yet because I felt I needed to not be a total liability first, but after watching some "hidden tips!" type videos on youtube I am apparently way ahead of the pack simply because I read the tutorials and like actually click on things in the menus. There are definitely things I missed! But like... apparently there's a debate ongoing about how everyone online wants to capture the monsters even if the drop rate for some parts is better when you kill. Because it's faster I guess? And somehow people think that means it's more efficient? And video games need to be efficient??? sigh This game is so generous it actually tells you how to get every drop item after you've killed the monster once and you can change the map to show every single item on it. You can go back to camp whenever you want during a hunt without any penalty to change up your entire equipment + items set. And small monsters just become a nuicance very quickly. So this game is not "hard" in the way I expected it to be. The hardest thing for me right now is getting the timing right on counters. But it's not like I've even died once. Compared to Dark Souls, Shiren, or the early Etrian Odysseys where a mob enemy could absolutely destroy you in a couple turns if you don't use the right strategy and I died LOTS of times this feels much easier and more basic. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but kinda contrary to its reputation. I've heard longtime fans say it's too easy so maybe the older games are harder. Maybe it will get harder as I progress. IDK.

[whimsically-ominously-auspice]

https://seaworldentertainment.com/blog/coronavirus

72 hour window, sea world you can do better.

Anxiety and stress cause people to introvert and a single email or especially a phone call can be impossible.

Mental health awareness should enable you to change that policy.

Plus just the panic some arise to the occasion - others shut down

I do both. In my personal life... I don't like canceling on others. And so sometimes I just don't show up without a call. Just blow it off.

I have severe issues at times where hiding is the best feeling for me to use to survive...

I recommend that all places that charge people to go to give automatic refunds or allow travel rearrangement for up to 5 years in the future but at least 3 years to reschedule.

Having only a short window of the rest of 2020 -- well i can tell you it's highly likely people will not be doing shit on their own for the rest of the year as far as having the freedom to make plans of where and when they will go

And if they do Then you have people from March to October that need to fulfill their travel obligations plus you have the humans that want to go as well.

So, you will actually overfill your facilities and you will cause a problem on quality you can provide and have over crowding which dimishes the quality of your services and the ability of guests to enjoy the experiences and hospitality you provide.

Thus then making people not want to make plans for the following year to your business...

So i recommend at least a 3 year window to reschedule. Maximum of 5.

This allows the promise you'll have guests willing to go for the next 5 years meaning that people will go And pay like at sea world pay extra for food and gift shop items. Thus providing an income.

Some places will feel the need to financially close. Like here we have a small amusement park in Albuquerque called Cliff's... Im sure they would be fine and not close because of the tight knit community and school field trips and etc. But if they had to there would be an ability to sell so the community can still enjoy. So ...

Places should seek the ability to sell to keep the community activities available. Or at minimum give a refund and also highly advertise as much as possible Your permanent end date so people can cram in and get their dollar worth

It seems that our time on the ocean will not exceed past 2020 and so in 2021 the world will be free.

And yet we cannot promise that. I won't. Because I don't know what will happen exactly for sure for sure. Until it's done.

So i feel comfortable saying everyone will be locked down for the remainder of 2020.

Will we be? We are working as diligently as possible. I am working with amnesia and so governments have a 3 year lock down achievement plan. Across the globe. The last two years remaining of the plan are intended to be free with extra caution.

We have many things at stake. Primarily abductions and alien issues. As well as diseases which aren't a primary concern because they are created then altered in a way most people are safe. Its an inner soul that can heal. Changes in the minds and soul. Medical care is for comfort only But can not heal.

Injuries on the other hand must require hospital care and we will work to get healers in as much as possible. Otherwise traditional stitches and surgery for now.

Just don't take it too harsh when a patient dies. Just do the best you can. Know you did the best and somethings are simply out of your control.

If you did the best you could don't second guess. Ask a tree If there is a better solution. But don't torture and beat yourself up about it. Just keep adding and retaining information to help you assist in the future.

I say that as for doctors but that goes for all our Humans, New and Old.

What we hope for is a repeat time of last year where its the end of October we begin release just like we did for the human traffic victims.

So if youre wondering and you need a time placement look to last year and say "this year we will spend like human traffic victims did And we will be let free the same time Sabrina found them last year. So the end of the year holidays"

Personally like Alex I don't like the lock down modes and you can tell by the way i have responded to that.

However i do deem it is necessary for human safety and will only work if it is adhered to the strictest of rules.

Not for the spread of Viruses as i have represented is not a concern to me -- But to prevent human trafficking. And to help people get off illegal drugs.

This last week 1.489 million people were kidnapped for the sole reason of human trafficking in factories. This does not include the 7.86million from planet Xion.

With 84 trillion people in the world it is a small percentage.

However it is still too many. 1 is too many. 3 people is excessive.

Rapes have gone down by 84% since DNA4U surfaced to availability. With Quarentine they have gone up by 2% because people are not using the required recommended Friends list.

Family list is genetic. It doesn't mean you can trust them it just means they share your blood line.

You must refer to the Friends list. It is searchable and filterable. So you can find a family blood line member you can trust to babysit that will not harm your child.

So you need to help us help you by standing your foot down. Call the police if you have to And say "Some one is attempting to repeatedly have access to me and/or my family and they are on my enemy list"

This will make you a priority. And you must show proof of this so the police know how to handle the situation as there sre guidelines. They can type in their computer the codes and cross data and have about 3 different solutions. Of course they will need to "target" "satellite roam" "alert zone" and see if there is stalking going on and what else all this person is doing for the entire time of Quarentine. A list will then appear of what is considered good and bad.

7 times the first week of Quarentine to stores -- pass

7 times in the 3rd week of Quarentine to shop -- fail

8 times to enemy only after researching DNA4U -- inquire -- then it states from the looks of it -- did they go around looking in Windows? Did they go knock? So it is dependent on the quality of the people involved. They are coded by color and letter.

So basically a person of lower quality looking in Windows will state -- inquire -- FAIL FAIL

A highest quality will state -- inquire -- PASS PASS.

Highest human quality will state ------ PASS

Then there's Pass which is an alert the person is an a state of depression. Meaning white gloves. Extra care.

pass means action will occur in the upcoming months or has already. No punishment.

pass/fail means you've done shit that you shouldn't had. But we will let it go.

Then you will get s police report of Tree Quality sent to your DNA4U.

The police will also get one to the satellite map system. SMS. Which they then transfer with their comments to their local police reporting system. If they choose.

So call and report,tresspassors and other things

We called yesterday for Alex and he didn't want to. But i wasnt there. His security is to guard. He ran in the house and they fired warning shots and went in. Thus stating inside the home Chris McGayHay would be killed because that was the claimant territory. And also it auto covers any place where there is lung/gill breathing life.

So had Chris went to where the animals were even am aquarium since he had already physically attacked, he would have been shot and killed immediately.

Instead i handled his sick brain and kept him on the ground by using my experiences. Until police arrived.

I've promised him for the last 20 years i would make sure he got my revenge on his lies and forceful actions upon me and others. Since he was a "child" of 8 years old. Sometimes pure evil is obvious.

He's had time to change and if he had gotten bygones would be bygones. But like other evil he's continued.

So i never told him the police were coming.

And a sideline to "drug dealers" i promised if you used my system you would not be arrested.

I did not promise users anything except they would get their drugs and changes would occur to weight and quantity that is not the dealers concern.

So I in essence protected the drug dealers but trre does over see.

I am head of the CIA and so they do work for me, i do allow them extra pay that would otherwise go to the CIA. "Taxes" so they are paid by the CIA. I got a very tight system.

They would be laid off/fired. Which means when told to quit because theyre stupid they have to quit and then tree handles and it could include arrest if they continue to sell large amounts or to more than 20 people a few grams.

That is people whom were paid by the CIA to handle transactions of illegal drugs. Only.

So 5 people were laid off and tree had in depth discussion in person and so 2 were reihired. 3 were killed. Worldwide.

Now if someone i just explained did what Chris did they would been killed instantly due to the responsibility they hold to be an upright citizen. They would not have been arrested.

Now if Alex was a delivery personnel and Chris was a pick up and you like Alex punched him 9 times in the face and fucked him up. You would get an apology and the customer would been killed and/or arrested. Also you would get free medical care.

Now the concern was I turned him in for the quantity of drugs he had on him. He worked (no longer so mechanics find another team because Chris WILL DIE that is a fact and a promise) for NHRA. ALL NHRA employees were Ordered to get their drug issues under control. Per NHRA WRITTEN and DISTRIBUTED guidelines he was 79% over the limit. So he had almost double what he was allowed to OWN. And he is only allowed to carry one day worth on his person. Unless he just did a pick up.

So it was up to 7 ounces he could carry in the beginning. Now it is 3.4 ounces hes allowed to carry. Any NHRA employee that was employed in February 2020 or hired since then.

It lowers every week. They have to check the schedule.

That said. Any drug user with 2x more Than what the NHRA is allowed and is involved in a violent crime upon an innocent person will be charged with drug trafficking. This includes kidnapping. Domestic violence. Theft.

The minimum level for a random user with out an employee guidelines will be set at 1 ounce as max. On the person.

So that is set for criminal misconduct and that amount is set for the 4th of July.

Everyone in the world is in rehab.

In one way or another. I'm in rehab for my amnesia. Mine is on tv and in social media i can find photo. Ysll help. Its a long explaination ... But y'all help because I watch on Netflix what you do. I watch Top 10 and i watch trending and i watch new releases and recommendations. Like kinda turning on the radio... Just what's on easy access

So this way i found the series "you" which shows Alex in a non forgiving light. The different girls are all me. Basically in simple terms its called "shape shifting" the reason is for our safety... Some for his sanity... Some obviously I made mistakes... Like not realizing the emotional problem associated with

Now there is with Beck some crazy shit. Now what it was was we were being watched with all kinds of spy equipment. So we were like when i was locked in th box -- it was acting... Emotionally we released but used non identifying words to express our True emotions. So basically we were saying What the spies wanted to hear. And doing what they wanted or what we needed to do to survive.

Having to,fight the Zulululu who does mind games included

So the series "you" can be enjoyed the way it is seen or it could be understood with truth. So y'all trended it and i found it.

It was filmed,in,the 1920s 1980s 1960s all,sorts. But we always magic in technology

This is why. Because we are ass holes.

We tricked them to think there was time traveling. Which is not even possible.

We did a lot of torture.

But you see Alex always picking up little kids to save... He can't help it. Poco was an illegal alien. But Alex did all he could to make his life more comfortable and happier and safer. He loved Poco, i loved Poco. We still do. So we didn't treat Any one less than human.

But we did send in electronic devices we would use in the future that were unreleased to the public and did it via magic. And we lied about years. To trick.

We did base it on reality of the time table we set to release the electronics in the future.

So it wasn't a back to the future deal. It was allowing people to use the technology we had available but had not released.

So I am in rehab for my memories and my abilities. Changing skins... Stuff like that...,

Things i have forgotten.

Trees remember but they filmed these via their tools and so i use them so they can be busy for the future and current life.

They are helpers. Some are servants but they are not slaves. And they have human feelings.

So I sometimes need to be reminded to ask them for help. Because i can't do everything on my own.

So im getting tired. Tr33 updated you on Alex. I'll be with him and try to make his day okay

I'll be watching the tv and generally resting.

So thanks for being interested in our lives and have our real life "reality" t.v. up trending and easily for me to find.

"You" is just what i needed for Alex and i's relationship. I love him.

He wants to say what happened yesterday. And so i had sent him stuff in insta then he shared in his group NHRA chat cause it was funny and informative and he said to humans to do something in particular because it will harm them.

So alien tubes that can't handle all the attention not on them got dumb.

And Chris McGayHay went at him in group saying he was disrespectful to non-humans (aka rapists) and so Alex explained what i meant that "sexual gratification isn't expected from tools such as vibrators and shit like that but from real life human experience,such as pain and suffering being relieved by sexual intercourse and the length and intensity of a sexual orgasm is,dependent upon the emotional level of both people. If one is upset just even about the world issues, sexual impulses from the brain will create more intense and sexually gratifying orgasms which is why she said for me not to get one"

And then Chris McGayHay went after Alex all crazy saying "she said not to have sex with her and I'm gonna kick your ass for lying" and some other vulgarities based upon his interactions with me. Because I don't fuck the world. I'm celebiete except with my soulmate in a metaphysical connection.

So Alex said in response "i Wouldn't want to fight me if i were you because she actually hates you and wishes you were dead. And is thus I would beat you to the living daylights were gone only for you to live the next 3 days with your lungs drowning in blood to make you think you have the Corona Virus impeded with COVID-19 and she would have you laying in my yard in some random corner after ghosting spirit and half animal crazed dragging you to where vultures will eat you. But if you wanna bring it on. You know,the rules and you must pay up front now according to the new rules format with the NHRA. Which I don't like but it stems from the Queen's ruling and how she set it up in 1994 in the Original Fight Club. So do what you want as Sabrina says but i guarantee you, you come here to fight me or her or for her when she can fight on her own you will leave here dead or wishing you were."

He has 7 hours left. If the jail sends him to the hospital to repair his internal injuries, he will die in surgery. Doctors and hospital personnel have enough on their plates to not deal with this mess is a blessing.

He does have his phone to call his loved ones to say goodbye, bitch on the internet about me and everyone else. Look at porno. Whatever he wants. But in 7 hours he will die for what he did yesterday and in hid life. Hurting others when ever he could.

So then back to the issue of yesterday. What I then sent Alex totally Contradicted what Chris said. So then I posted it when Alex and I heard Chris saying maybe that wasn't my Insta account although I posted a screen shot last month with that exact account covered over with marker. They could compared the length. I posted a full detailed story which is why I would have that account.

So my text is in Black with pink tinted. I proved I use An old site and tree proves "magic" crosses over my posts to be a certain way via my log on and ip address and my DNA. NO ONE can post in my colors. No one can post in Alex's nor Tree.

Its like going pee. It only comes out one Way. You can't refill your bladder through your pee hole. Tubers have tried this. 89% of them world wide. 100% in the USA. it's impossible

There were classes on it.

So I coded post 2x

And still he went to beat up Alex or just plain commit suicide.

So Tree has a rather lively action adventure movie to share in schools around the world. Don't worry outs specialized. He's the Tree of Knowledge.

He will use it for doctors and lawyers, people wishing to be and those just curious. By the time it's released With full editing it will be "Old World History"

He'll have 21 different videos in regards to the event. Going back 20 years when I gave him the name McGayHeyHey.

So y'all be good. If you need hospital care and you have no insurance, go to an URGENT CARE or Emergency Room and you will be automatically put on my insurance. You'll need a $3 fee to enroll. Your visit that day will cost $1. Total of $4 at the clinic then $1 for all prescription you can pay at the pharmacy or clinc.

I know y'all got $5 on me, too.