#probably not going to do the combat idea i had for long term effects of shiva training

[alternis]

okay so the reason i was staring out at powerlines earlier was through a series of nestled flashbacks and Visions i had the idea that third eye au tim has extremely good eyesight, because the Eye Motifs

like so most people think of 20/20 vision as being perfect but the actual limit is more like 20/10 or 20/8 vision, (so you'd see an object 20 feet away with the same clarity 'normal' eye would see something 8-10 feet away), which i am going to give tim as being a result of shiva's training because i think her being able to literally bring out The Limits Of Human Potential through her training fits her whole 'force of nature' deal

it also, very funnily, doesn't improve his combat skills bc he didn't specialise in ranged combat. it's just useful for Observing Details, and Spying

[fandom-trash-xl]

If you're still doing headcanons I have a few ideas, no pressure though! Feel free to ignore: 1: How do you think Zarbon, Dodoria, and the Ginyu force would be as babysitters for Kuriza? I can totally see them all being goofy uncles (especially the ginyus I mean, come on, you can’t say that’s not cute) 2: Hoo boy, I live for angst. (Kind of playing off the Kuriza in danger headcanons) How do you think Frieza would handle him going missing (via being kidnapped or assassins or something) and

Not a problem at all! I'm always up for headcanons.

In terms of the original Z Frieza Force as babysitters, I feel like Kuriza babysitting ends up being one of those out of the blue side assignments that eventually most of the elites have to take on at one point or another. Basically, if Frieza needs to take on something last minute and needs someone to watch Kuriza, usually in the event of Berryblue's unavailability (she'd definitely be elsewhere in the Force fleet during the events of Namek, else she wouldn't make it Super), it falls on one of his most trusted associates to take a temporary non-combatant position for this high honor- he doesn't let just anyone manage his son.

I headcanon Zarbon and Dodoria as babysitters as being similar to Dude Dad's "If Toddlers had Bodyguards" videos. The Ginyus are definitely more of the fun uncles. Guldo could probably get some entertainment going with his time-freezing ability. The gig is often a group effort, all members of the force willing to pitch it. However, Jeice, Burter, Guldo, and Recoome almost never get tasked with a solo job. This is because, out of the whole Ginyu Force, Kuriza imprints the most on Captain Ginyu himself- it's mainly because of the horns; Frieza would be in his First Form during this period. Ginyu doesn't mind at all- in fact, he welcomes the title of honorary uncle.

Kuriza of course picks up a plethora of poses from Uncle Ginyu... somewhat to Frieza's dismay once he starts striking said poses obsessively. It was a long week before that phase died down.

If we have Kuriza around during Namek era, I headcanon that he stayed with King Cold during that arc. Frieza deemed it a bit risky to take him along to Namek; good foresight there.

Now that we've covered the fluff, let's dive into the angst shall we?

Kuriza going missing would definitely send Frieza into an anxious frenzy, often going sleepless until Kuriza is found, deploying search parties and recovery teams to seek him out. Of course, there's great motivation in the teams' search efforts- they'll not only be spared the emperor's wrath but the first to find him will be rewarded handsomely.

At one point, Kuriza briefly wanders off to explore out of boredom during one of Frieza's conquests... not knowing that his brief little roaming would result in a pack of troops being sent to hunt him down. Frieza gets worried sick. What if he had gotten lost? What if he had gotten hurt? Kuriza wishes his hand would be held a bit less when he gets older.

On an unfamiliar planet, where his dominion has yet to be established, Frieza is given justifiable reason to worry, as Kuriza being the heir practically paints a target on his head. Kidnapping for a ransom can be a risky move, as it's rare that Frieza will pay up... instead the kidnapper may pay him in their own blood. Plus, Kuriza has powerful ki attacks on his side, a pretty effective "stranger danger" whistle.

Assassins are a whole different matter; even an attempt is an act of high treason. I've actually used this concept in some older one-shots. Assassins are dealt with swiftly and often very bloodily, and since most conspirators stem from within a planet's government as a coup, the punishment is often more widely spread across the lands.

In the very dark event of the assassins proving successful, Frieza enters a state of utmost fury, rational thought switching off, and the coup planet is destroyed without a second thought, no matter what value was left on its surface... his mentality is overwhelmed by his emotional half; why should he care about what valuable resources this planet of traitors has to offer when they've taken his most valuable resource from him? After the initial heat, there is a depression soon to follow. Negligent parties are reprimanded accordingly yet he feels there's a pang of blame to be put on himself.

[dragonflight203]

Mass Effect 3 replay, Citadel post coup:

-Notably, the C-Sec officers on the human embassy level are all turian.

On the presidium, the C-Sec officers are human.

Was this intentional of Bioware? Maybe the idea is to minimize potential conflict of interest on the investigation into Udina by assigning non-human officers to it and assigning the human officers to public spaces?

-Why do the C-Sec officers forbid Solik from filming the refugees on the docks?

They claim it’s because he’d be “disruptive”.

I suspect they’re actually trying to avoid a potential PR disaster if people see the conditions on the docks.

-Cerberus specifically looked for Kelly.

A bit flattering, in a sense – she’s more important to them than she thought!

Also a bit terrifying. TIM is really pissed at everyone who left Cerberus and is determined to clean up loose ends. There’s no other reason to go after Kelly; she’s no threat to Cerberus.

-Conrad is one of the best parts of ME3. All that busywork in ME1 finally pays off!

I know he’s supposed to be a joke about all the side quests, but I wish more or ME3 relied on past decisions like Conrad’s.

Maybe not to the extent that you lose content if you did not do so something, but so outcomes were at least influenced by them.

There are parts of ME3 influenced by past games – is Wrex alive? Kirrahe? Legion? Etc. – but there are a lot of past decisions that make no difference at all, like the turian insignia or if you got Lorik to testify against Anoleis.

Even if they just added flavor, I’d appreciate their inclusion.

-If you go renegade with Jack, you learn that her students helped get civilians off Palaven.

Interesting – turians usually don’t regard adult turians as civilians, since everyone has military training. The term is normally reserved for children or client races. So is Jack using the term in the human sense of non-combatants or the turian sense?

I’m probably thinking about this more than Bioware did.

-If you flirt with Joker, he just about panics. He does not think of Shepard that way.

-Joker won’t consider Shepard because they’re both in uniform and there are regulations against that.

There are no regulations against dating the ship AI, however, so that’s okay.

That’s cutting it awfully thin, Joker. I’m sure if the Alliance had ever considered the possibility of a ship having an AI they’d have regulations against it.

-Paragon or renegade, the fact Edi’s body is made of metal and Joker has brittle bones is brought up.

To go completely off script: Is this really relevant? They don’t have to have sex. Or they could get very creative. This is not what I would consider a deal breaker.

-If you go renegade with Edi, she brings up the lifespan difference between her and Joker.

Apparently she spoke to Liara about it and Liara was no help at all.

Interesting – Liara’s the obvious choice, since she’s an asari. However, her own relationship experience is very lacking so it’s logical she would have little to offer Edi. Very much a case of the blind leading the blind.

-As Thane dies, if you go paragon the last prayer is for you.

If you go renegade, the last prayer is for Thane.

-Shepard to Thane after he passes: Goodbye, Thane. You won’t be along for long.

Yeah, Shepard does not expect to make it through the Reaper war.

-The volus bank teller is skeptical of Sanctuary. How can it promise more safety than the Citadel? Second time a NPC’s called bullshit on Sanctuary and it’s another volus. I suppose I shouldn’t be shocked that the merchant race recognizes a scam when they see one.

Now we just need to set them up with an official broadcast so they can inform everyone else instead of one person at a time.

-Captain Sommers wants to kill a C-Sec officer who assisted Cerberus during the coup. He killed other officers and is now bargaining for a better deal by offering intel. He’s former Alliance and Sommers feels that the Alliance should deal with him.

Paragon, you tell Sommers to stand down because the intel may save lives. Renegade, you use spectre authority to let Sommers kill him legally.

It’s a nice touch to have another sidequest where paragon/renegade feels very different.*

In most of ME3 it feels like renegade has had the teeth removed; it just feels “softer” than in ME1 and ME2. This is a good instance of the two differing more.

*In main missions they differ more, although there the renegade dialogue still “feels” softer.

-Ghorek is the only time Shepard has to really deal with the consequences of destroying a colony in Arrival, and it’s disappointing.

He’s a terrorist, so you’re already predisposed to dislike him. You only exchange a few lines, and there’s no opportunity for investigate or a real back and forth.

I’m glad Bioware included it, but it feels very surface level with little depth. I wish there was more to it to really show the harm Shepard did and how they’re dealing (or possibly not dealing) with it.

Also, there should be choices between letting him die and calling over the nurse. Is there a reason I can’t call over the nurse AND inform C-Sec he’s a terrorist?

-Officer Noles is an excellent reminder on the importance of CyberSecurity. Balak’s using codes from when the batarians had an embassy on the Citadel.

That was what, 20 years ago? Those codes should have been decommissioned as soon as the embassy closed.

But they were not, and there are dead humans for it.

This is why it’s important to have standard operating procedures and regular asset reviews, people.

(How did Balak even get the codes?)

-Balak continues to be compelling.

He’s an evil bastard that’s been killing humans out of misplaced revenge, but paragon or renegade you can appeal to his desire to save his people and he’ll give you his support. You can see how much it costs him to do so, but he’ll set aside his personal desires to serve the batarian people.

In another timeline, Balak could easily have been hero. He has more than enough courage, intelligence, and drive.

In this one, however, he’ll just have to settle for being the lesser evil.

(Also, Balak can see that working with Shepard is the batarians’ best bet, but you expect me to believe that Udina thought Cerberus was a better option?)

-Also, nice of the C-Sec officer standing right there to ignore Balak holding a gun to head. Great job, sir.

-The callback to the Levaithan of Dis first mentioned in ME1 is also well done. The reveal it was a Reaper corpse, that the batarians who studied it all became indoctrinated and that’s why the Hegemony fell so easily – harsh and completely in line with lore.

-Kaidan: Knowing that you acted with integrity – then it matters.

Ah, Kaidan. Paragon of paragons, integrity carved into your bones. Regardless of who took the shot, you handle Udina’s betrayal poorly.

It wasn’t your fault.

-If you refuse to let Kaidan on board, he handles it very well. He doesn’t argue; just takes the polite rejection well and leaves.

Normandy

-When you speak with Traynor to receive the mission about the Cerberus scientists that have quit, Shepard mentions that many who worked for Cerberus believed they were doing the right thing. Shepard did.

And of course the game doubles down that Shepard did do the right thing by working for Cerberus in ME2 and that the Cerberus was working to stop the Collectors while the Alliance did nothing.

Did I hallucinate the Virmire Survivor on Horizon during all my playthroughs? And has the game forgotten that spectres have leave way to choose their own missions – so Shepard could have pursued the Collectors as an agent of the Council rather than a terrorist?

-If you let Traynor take a shower but don’t join her, Shepard comes off as the most oblivious lady in the world. It’s actually rather funny. Traynor left the door open and Shepard registers nothing.

-James’ meeting is very touching. He opens up and is vulnerable – last time he was in command he lost everyone. He’s afraid it will happen again.

For all the bravado he puts on, there’s a lot going on behind that facade. He’d probably make a great officer and N7.

-There was a Cerberus spy working with the Collectors. How much you want to bet he was sanctioned by TIM?

Yet the game still insists Shepard was right to work with Cerberus in ME2.

Ugh.

-The game keeps talking up Kai Leng, especially Andeson, but when he doesn’t have plot armor he’s a wimp.

He’d have died in the attack on the salarian Councilor if a single character in that scene had had any sense.

Citadel

-And once again Cerberus leaned on the “we saved colonies from the Collectors” angle to get an in with someone, this time the Din Korlack.

Apparently it can even excuse fighting with the Alliance.

And surprise, surprise the terrorist organization turns around uses the aide you provided them to blackmail you. It’s almost like they always had their own reasons for what they did.

-Din, it’s bad enough you helped Cerberus at all. Refusing to turn over the name of the colony you sold out unless Shepard is charismatic enough? Be better.

-The game’s refusal to explain Zaeed’s beef with Cerberus pisses me off to this day.

Once again, a Codex entry would easily have solved this problem. Or a few more lines from Zaeed. But no, keep guessing.

-James, stop shrugging while you’re getting a tattoo!

And getting a N7 tattoo before you’ve completed the program is a terrible idea.

-James panics even more than Joker when Shepard makes a pass. Lol, Kaidan’s the only human man that can keep up with femShep. The rest all run away.

-Kelly: I heard about the terrible things Cerberus did during the coup. That’s not the organization I joined.

Yes, Kelly, it is. Here’s a list of terrible things Cerberus did during ME1. Ask Jack if you want some more items that predate it.

Cerberus has always been terrible. The apparently just have the best PR department in the galaxy since everyone is shocked every time some new terrible thing they did comes to light.

-Liara still won’t speak to me on the Citadel, although everyone else will.

Well, except Garrus but that’s because he’s not there. Liara’s the only one both hanging around and not initiating a dialogue.

-Kaidan also takes it well if you reject him on the Presidium, although his hurt shows through more.

He does stick you with the bill, however.

[theobscurepotato]

Happy Birthday @straysinfiltrator! I am so sad to not be there this year celebrating with you. I hope this year ahead is filled with only the best for you. <3

Unfortunately I have not finished your birthday fic yet, so I will offer you this tumblr teaser instead.

---

It should have been a standard mission. When Blake muttered something to that effect out loud, Avon laughed humorously. 

"You realize, Blake, that even your 'standard missions' are rife with mishaps." 

The comment stung more than Blake expected. He thought himself inoculated against most of Avon's criticisms, finding himself generally amused rather than annoyed. 

It's the truth of it that rankles you. Because you know he's right. No–right or not, now wasn't the time for wallowing in guilt. 

"How are the teleport bracelets coming along?" 

A flash of annoyance crossed the other man's face and for a split second, Blake wondered if Avon was going to throw the pieces on the ground and storm away. But after a moment of uncomfortably long eye contact, Avon resumed fidgeting with the components. "Just as they were when you last asked me. No, I stand corrected: three minutes further along than when you last asked me. Which was-–"

"Three minutes ago. I know." 

The worst thing about it was that the entire crew had agreed to this mission with none of their usual bickering. Planet Zedlak was-–according to Orak–-the host to a rare plant that could be used to combat psychic assault. "It would make me feel safer," Cally had said, hesitantly, and even though Blake had seen the strange sort of friendship growing between her and Avon, he was still surprised when the other man volunteered to accompany Blake down to the planet's surface. Volunteered being perhaps not the most accurate of terms--Avon simply told Blake that he was going in a tone that practically invited Blake to argue with him, and so Blake had agreed in order to not give into what he wanted. By…giving into what Avon wanted. (Well, it made rather more sense to him in the moment…)

And it hadn't been unpleasant. The mission had started out quite well. While Zedlak was a harsh and unforgiving planet during the day, prone to temperature extremes, the night air felt cool and fresh. And the planet was possessed of a certain beauty that few planets still retained: the desert floor looked like a reflection of the starry sky; the blooms of the mariposa flowers that were their objective shimmered softly before them, flickering in the darkness. 

It wasn't until they had harvested a kilo of the dense roots that they realized that Avon was having some sort of allergic reaction. And even then, it wasn't until they tried to contact the Liberator and failed that the panic started to set in.

Avon set the bracelets down abruptly and turned to cough wetly into his sleeve. Blake frowned.

"You sound worse. We should move away from the plants."

"A brilliant idea," Avon finally muttered, "if we had any idea what else is out there in the dark." 

"We better hope it stays dark," Blake commented. "Or that desert sun could do some real harm." 

Avon's jaw twitched, but he kept silent as he fidgeted with the bracelets, twisting them back and forth with more aggression than was probably necessary. 

A shock of fluorescent light startled them both. As the harsh beam began sweeping back and forth over the field, Blake pushed Avon to the ground and dropped down next to him. 

"We better hope it's not Servalan," Avon whispered, with an odd smile that looked more terrified than anything else. "Because she will do us real harm."

And enjoy every moment, Blake thought miserably, as he watched Avon bite the palm of his hand to stifle his coughing. "Avon, we need to get out of here. I'll take the bracelets. Keep low and follow me."  

Avon looked like he wanted to argue, but either he lacked an alternate solution, or simply didn't have enough breath to explain one. 

"Follow me," Blake repeated, and without looking to see if Avon complied, he began army-crawling into the thicket.

[random-thought-depository]

A-bunch of assorted notes/thoughts on the large herbivores, in many different potential directions

The tusks in addition to the very large facial horns and the sloth hands is a bit much, as a facial weapon the rhino horn and tusks have heavy overlap, as tools the tusks have heavy overlap with the claws, unless maybe the tusks are only for ritualistic sparring/display and too specialized big and fragile to be effective weapons? In which case the rhino horn is impractical as it’s useless as a weapon for being too close to the tusks, another thought is tusks as digging tools for water, sloth/calicothere claws are very differently shaped from digging animals

Muntjacs have antlers+ fangs but both are real small and I believe? the antlers are more vestigial/ for fighting predators , the males only use the fangs to spar, not the antlers

I suggest osteoderms on the belly, not as extra weight on the back, for something that can rear up on its back legs ( as implied by the sloth/colicothere arms)

For the large animals ( glyptodonts/tortoises) that went with Osteoderms/bony shells as a main defense, they were all slow lumbering tanks that our ancestors answer to was to walk up to and smash with a rock. Pangolin scales would allow them to be faster and more lightweight, the rhino horn could even be a modified scale, another option is quils

Sloth/calicothere claws though are for browsing, not grazing, and that sort of limb is also not going to be as efficient at traveling long distances or supporting a giant body as a more standard limb somewhere on the rhino/horse/deer/elephant spectrum

Hippos are aggressive but not… that aggressive as their reputation . The main reason they are “ Africas most dangerous mammal” is cause they rise to the surface and knock over small boats, but part of it is the standard polygynous large male mammals fighting aggression + that they depend on having access to water space to wallow in or else dye of heat stroke , a male that gets kicked out doesn’t need to just find females but a new wallow, and that doesn’t count just fighting for space in a wallow, they normally are killed by droughts that limit their water area access. The closest comparison would be pinnipeds and their combination of male combat over harems of females and the intense competition for land to rest on. Their’s very specific demands on hippos to protect their territories that don’t apply to the generic large nomadic grazer you are looking for.

I acknowledge that they are kind of "awesomebro" and probably not very plausible, but I suspect you'd need something like that to give hominids the evolutionary push to evolve into a species like bearfolk.

If I had to justify it in Wattsonian terms, I'd say a sample of one planet is a limited sample for evaluating what's possible, and they were shaped by a selection pressures not quite like anything experienced by any herbivore species on Earth. Maybe there's something about life on the bearfolk world that intensified predator-prey arms races compared to how things work on Earth (a bit like how dinosaurs seem to have evolved gigantism more easily than mammals).

They are very much a first draft, I literally just worked out an idea of them while taking a walk yesterday, so I might change things about them. For instance, I do agree that horn and tusks might be redundant and might get rid of the horn or the tusks.

Thanks for the feedback!

[talenlee]

Story Pile: Person Of Interest, Season 1

Story Pile: Person Of Interest, Season 1

In my teenager years, I came to appreciate the block of TV shows I thought of as ‘good shows’ in the 7:30 to 8:30 bracket. This typically took the form of a pair of back-to-back sitcom episodes, or, as I got older and the options got better (and my bedtime crept back), an hour long dramedy TV series, often built around a single high-concept hook, or even taped from late-night TV. A lot of these shows were, to my mind, ‘American Shows’ (and therefore good shows), were typically high-concept shows with sci-fi ideas in them that could be executed on cheaply with a small special effects budget, and included things like Time Trax and Pointman and, strangely important in my mind, a series called Fortune Hunter. I liked to refer to Fortune Hunter as a sort of example of forgettable 90s TV ephemera, a low-budget story about a wannabe James Bond type who was relaying everything through super-technology contact lenses to a nerd in a chair who could instantly relay everything to him. I, at the time, thought that Fortune Hunter was a great reference to make, like Street Sharks, which would make people in the same age range as I go ‘oh, yeah, that show, I remember that, kinda.’

Turns out that this was a terrible idea because, at the time I did not know, that Fortune Hunter aired for all of one month in America and only played out the full run of its episodes here in Australia because we were a dumping ground for failed attempted TV series that relied on high-concept sci-fi ideas that could be executed on cheaply with a small special effects budget. But those shows had some common traits, like Time Trax with its decreasing list of villains to apprehend, or Pointman with the fantasy of a strange billionaire appearing out of nowhere to save ordinary people, or Fortune Hunter with its gimmick of a super-nerd teaming up with a terrifying badass super-spy to save the day for single individuals.

I bring up this meandering reference to 90s television because these different stories with their modest production budgets and mediocre executions through actors who never quite got the respect they deserved are presented their absolute apotheosis in the form of the 2011-2016 sci-fi action series Person Of Interest.

Person of Interest is a sci-fi crime drama series that started airing in 2011 and that should make it hilariously dated except it’s not because it’s about the idea of a mass surveillance state and predictive models of human behaviour which is kind of a thing we’re talking about a lot right now.

Your basic structure is that our heroes are composed for John Reese (probably not his name), a probably-CIA super-badass who goes around kicking ass against criminals that are typically, grossly outmatched against him, with a shockingly abrupt combat style (that films very, very quickly and easily) and a love for shooting people in the knee (you know to show how good he is with guns but also to not run the risk of killing people), teaming up with Harold Finch (probably not his name), an awkward gonky weirdo billionaire with supertech (that films very, very quickly and easily).

But really, it’s about The Machine.

The Machine is the core of this series in this season; it is the impetus for action and the establishing presence of the myth arc that the narrative runs on. In simplest terms, the Machine is a surveillance program that observes everything in the attempt to pre-emptively detect terror attacks made in the wake of 9/11 paranoia. This is a fun concept to work from because it’s a real thing that people tried to do, and it ran into all sorts of problems with how they got made, what they could try to do, and the limitations of publically available, legally actionable information. In this case, the conceit of the universe is that the device could be built and operated entirely discretely, and as long as nobody knows it exists and nobody knows what it could do, it’s just the same as a machine that makes anonymous tips to the authorities that happen to have a 100% reliable hit rate at detecting conspiracies for terror activities.

That’s super interesting, and they talk about ways this conceit is interesting, in ways that we aren’t grappling with perfectly right now. And since the conceit of the Machine is about taking care of terrorism, it generates a lot of false positives that don’t care about that primary goal. It finds crimes that are going to happen, deaths that are going to occur, and it then, if it can’t link them to mass casuality terrorism events (which we kind of get an indication disappeared in this universe because of the Machine), it discards them.

This is the story of our two protagonists as they try to address those numbers before they’re discarded. To answer a question ‘what would you do if there was something you could do?’ And the answer to that question is a lot of beating up baddies and cool car chases as the machine spits out weird cases, in no small part because the kinds of things the machine can detect are about isolating seemingly impossibly unrelated pieces of data. It’s a successful formula, of a crime-of-the-week hour-long series like your Blacklist and NCIS and CSI and BPA and IPL and you know I’m just making those up at this point.

It’s a cool hook for this season and I get the vibe that there’s a lot of storytelling space that’s being built out and not used. It’s shown in this first season that the story of these characters can do things like show up for a second appearance, that solutions and resolutions are being held back so that the story can do more with them later and that there is something of a conspiracy at work that doesn’t feel like it’s just using the same central thing as an excuse the whole way along, laying out track in an inward spiral.

Of course, the Machine is horrifying, and its appearances – the origin story for it, and its perspective – are both shot like a horror story and conceived of as like a horror story. There’s a long rolling background to the Machine that’s told in coldly lit, stark background stories that even when they’re trying to be told in ways that are funny or cute, are still all done as starkly and remotely as you might imagine archival footage of a tragedy happening.

Towards the end of the first season, Finch says he doesn’t regret making the machine, but he didn’t realise what it would cost him. The personal cost of the machine is manifold, and it means the whole machine is effectively running on human suffering and it’s all generating dreadful, painful guilt on every single intervening step, guilt that Finch and Reese spend their lives trying to dilute.

There’s no way for this kind of thing to exist, no way for something so powerful to work, without it being fundamentally, a structure for compromising. Compromising people, compromising security, compromising our ethical framework, our standards for legal strictures, and all of those things are necessary for something like The Machine to exist. What good is it doing? it’s saving a small number of people, every day, and it’s preventing international terrorism, but surely, is it the best way to do that? International terrorism happens because of causes and effects, it doesn’t run based on bad meals.

This first season feels like a prequel. It feels like a series that maybe wants to do something else, that there, like Fringe is going to be a conceptual escalation from season to season. It’s got some good names involved, and it ran for five years, so I’m genuinely wondering what I’m going to see as the series moves forward.

In the last episode of the first season, an antagonist, in response to Finch’s admission that he is okay with having made the machine, it’s in response to an antagonist asserting angrily to him that you have made god.

It’s an odd way to describe having constructed a kind of Laplace’s Demon.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#Media #StoryPile #PersonOfInterest

[plushdragon-art]

hi all !! i’m starting to post my art here because instagram’s captions were too short for this post specifically, and i imagine i may get similarly carried away in the future. i primarily make mlp nextgens right now. thanks for stopping by!

anyway, IT’S TILLYYYY !!! buckle up because she’s got a LOT going on

when i first designed this character in high school, i didn’t draw her mouth because i didn’t want to ruin the drawing with eraser marks (expressions are hard to nail on the first try, at least for me). this sparked an idea: i thought tilly should be non-verbal, at least in part.

since then, i’ve done some research, and i’ve settled on tilly being selectively mute. selective mutism is basically when someone cannot speak in certain situations due to overwhelm, anxiety, etc. it is sometimes referred to as situational mutism, which is the term i will be using going forward.

often, someone with situational mutism is only comfortable speaking with their immediate family. they may (or may not) also have trouble showing their emotions, which happens to fit with my image of tilly as well (again, based on them not originally having a mouth lol). part of me thinks that perhaps tilly has a stutter as well, which adds to their anxiety around speech. however, this stutter would disappear when singing.

tilly first started really paying attention to singing when they were given music therapy as a child in order to combat her situational mutism. she found that it was the best way for her to express herself to others. music made her feel safe and comfortable when nothing else did. her special talent is not just being a competent singer, but specifically singing with the intention of conveying and imbuing emotions. i haven’t yet decided if she occasionally uses magic to enhance the effects of her songs. probably?

i have an image in my head of tilly being flown by pegasi above a battlefield to sing to her people to boost morale and motivate them towards victory.

it’s quite unfortunate for a royal to be unable to speak to their people, but Tilly has managed well. they are seen as a steadfast symbol of strength, unaffected by even the direst of circumstances (when, in truth, they are constantly petrified). Tilly also serves as an ideal of innocence; she is, after all, the youngest in her family. her unchanged visage in the face of crisis is what everyone hopes for their own foals, to be shielded from tragedy. in a sense, the day tilly cries is the day hope dies. that may or may not be a saying among the crystal empire’s denizens lol.

tilly is present at basically every festival and royal function, which they hate, but they do get to sing for everyone, which evens things out a little. virtually no one outside the royal family knows about Tilly’s condition, primarily because she’s embarrassed about it and would rather it not be mentioned. one day, i think they’ll grow out of this mindset.

but i haven’t even gotten to the coolest part !!! did u know tilly is a Bad Bitch

what i mean by this is that Tilly studies dark magic. nOw she’s not evil (yet), she’s just very curious, and surprisingly pragmatic. she’s gotten very begrudging permission from her parents to do this, entirely because she made some really good points.

Tilly has been told their whole life that dark magic is bad, but few of their instructors could concretely answer why, or how it works, or what can be done to stop it (other than maybe wait for the princesses to figure something out on a case-by-case basis). this was unsatisfactory. Tilly knew that, if dark magic was ever to be safeguarded against, it must be understood, and that would never happen so long as it remained taboo to even THINK about.

so, Tilly wrote up and presented a proposal to their parents. it was challenging to get them to even consider it. after all, the whole Sombra incident had left Cadence and Shining Armor quite untrustful of dark magic. still, they couldn’t ignore how much work and thought Tilly had put into this idea, and although they liked to baby her, they had to admit that she was incredibly observant and intelligent. she had a point.

Tilly started off small, only allowed to study this magic with supervision from their aunt, Twilight. eventually, Tilly would be permitted to study on their own. their insights would prove invaluable over time. one day, i think Tilly will officially be the head royal advisor, a title not often taken up by anyone of the royal family.

i’m not sure how the dark magic will affect her. i think they do a lot of journaling in order to sort out their thoughts and keep sane. their extreme anxiety might make them easily corruptible, but they’re also smart enough to know better than to give in to the magic, so it might balance out. she definitely knows when to take a break.

i briefly considered that perhaps Tilly would be nonverbal because dark magic had removed their mouth, which would be very in line with her original design, but i thought that would be a poor choice. still, i think Tilly probably has a non-zero number of dark magic-induced nightmares in which she has no mouth, which are scary for her, but she can’t help but think “gee, how deep, i wonder what THAT dream was about” when she wakes.

that’s Tilly !! i love them, thank u for reading :)

[nexlance]

Procrastination: Practical Guide To Stop Procrastination

Discover some practical ways to stop procrastination. We've all heard about the procrastination phenomenon. When we procrastinate, we waste our spare time and put off crucial chores that should be completed until it's too late. And when it is too late, we worry and wish we had begun sooner. Many years of a chronic procrastinator's life will be spent in this cycle. Delaying, putting things off, slacking, escaping from work, tackling work only when it's inevitable, and then repeating the cycle. It's a nasty habit that eats away at us and keeps us from obtaining more success in life. It's vital to realize that you're not alone if you procrastinate. Everyone has been there. Overcoming procrastination is a difficult task. But, with the correct tools, mentality, and techniques, I'm convinced you can effect the desired changes you wish for.   First, before reading about how to stop procrastination, you should consider reading my post on "Procrastination: Why Do We Engage In It & Reasons To Avoid It."

  Steps to stop procrastination.

  1. Break the habit by creating a better habit

Procrastination is a habit, a deeply entrenched behavioral practice. This implies you won't be able to break it overnight. Habits only cease being habits when you stop doing them, so try as many of the tactics listed below as you can to give yourself the best chance of success. Forgive yourself for previous procrastination. According to research, self-forgiveness might help you feel more positive about yourself and minimize the probability of future procrastination. Make a commitment to the job. Concentrate on doing rather than avoiding. Make a list of the chores you need to perform and set a time to finish them. This will enable you to approach your task more aggressively. If you finish a challenging project on time, treat yourself to a slice of cake or a cup of coffee from your favorite coffee shop. Also, take note of how satisfying it is to complete tasks! Peer pressure is also effective! This is the underlying idea of self-help groups. If you don't have somebody to turn to, an internet application like Procraster can assist you with self-monitoring. Rather than putting off tasks until another day, tackle them as soon as they arise. Internal dialogue. The words "need to" and "have to" indicate that you have no option in what you do. This might make you feel powerless and perhaps lead to self-sabotage. Saying, "I choose to," on the other hand, suggests that you own a project and can help you feel more in control of the situation. Every day, try to get those things that you hate done first and fast before anything else. This will give you the remainder of the day to concentrate on more fun work. If you're delaying because you dislike a task, attempt to think about the "long-time goal." According to research, impulsive people are more prone to postpone things, since they are focused on the present. To combat this, consider the long-term rewards of finishing the work. For example, an impact on your yearly performance evaluation or end-of-year bonus? Another technique for making a task more enjoyable is to identify the negative effects of avoiding it. For example, what will happen if you do not finish the work? What impact might it have on your personal life, team, or organizational objectives? It is also vital to recognize that we frequently exaggerate the discomfort of an activity. So give it a go! After all, you might discover that it's not as bad as you thought!  

2. Don’t let your emotions take over.

We shun tasks that elicit unpleasant feelings. In psychology, avoidance and its close relative, rumination, are known as transdiagnostic factors, which means that they represent indicators of a wide range of prevalent mental health issues. People who use avoidance methods to cope with stress are more sensitive to melancholy, anxiety, ADHD, and eating disorders, creating a vicious cycle. When their mental health deteriorates, so does their avoidance. Even people who only sometimes feel depressed, unsure, or nervous about their jobs—or who can't stand the monotony or tension they cause, still avoid projects or jobs that elicit such feelings. During times of uncertainty, this reaction is amplified. You are more inclined to postpone things when you are overwhelmed. Even basic chores, such as responding to emails, might appear intimidating in this condition. To determine whether your emotions are the major reason you put off work, ask yourself the following questions: What is the state of my mental health? Do the tasks I avoid elicit certain emotions? Are they boring, do they make me angry or worried, or resentful? Then try the following strategies: Disentangle your emotions. Accurately defining your emotions, referred to by psychologists as emotional granularity will assist you in managing them. When it comes to procrastination, it's also helpful to consider how each emotion influences your attitude toward work. For example, you may discover that making a presentation for your boss causes anxiety at a level of let's say 8/10, resentment at a level of 6/10, and boredom at a level of maybe 4/10. Once you've scaled it this way, you can effectively handle the emotions one by one. The rating system will assist you in determining how effective you are at minimizing them. When a task bores you, set a reward for finishing it or accomplishing it in a particular time frame. Find what you actually appreciate about a task when it makes you feel angry or frustrated. Perhaps you are irritated by having to make the adjustments that your boss requests, but you value mastering your art. You may be irritated by a teammate's request for technical assistance, but you value being a supportive colleague. When a task makes you nervous, start with the parts that make you the least nervous and work your way up. This is exposure therapy: progressively exposing yourself to what worries you the most. What seemed unachievable at first, will feel doable once you've completed the simplest tasks. Practice self-compassion. Compassionate self-talk has been shown in several studies to help heal emotional scars. Here's an example of how it may sound: "In the past, I've been dissatisfied with my performance, which makes me reluctant." That is a natural and understandable reaction. "But I was a novice back then, and I'm not today". It is acceptable to learn via experience. Discover and then repeat self-talk that works for you.   Check out my post on “Self-talk guide” here.  

3. Break Your Work into Little Steps

Part of the reason we procrastinate is that we unconsciously believe the task is too difficult for us. Break it down into small pieces, then concentrate on one at a time. If you still procrastinate after breaking the work down, break it down even further. Your work will soon seem so simple that you will think, "hey, this is so simple, I might as well just do it now!" For instance, I'm working on a new book (on How to change bad habits). Book writing is a massive undertaking that may be stressful. However, when it's divided into phases, such as: - extensive Research -  preferred topic - Craft outline - Draft content - Writing Chapters and many more It now appears to be fairly easy. Then I concentrate on the current step and complete it to the best of my abilities, without worrying about the previous phases. I move on to the next task after it is completed. Consider the prolific output of the well-known author Anthony Trollope. He wrote 47 novels, 18 nonfiction books, 12 short tales, 2 plays, and a variety of essays and correspondence. How did he manage it? Rather than assessing his progress in chapters or books, Trollope monitored his development in 15-minute increments. He established a target of 250 words every 15 minutes and stuck to it for three hours a day. This method enabled him to experience sentiments of happiness and achievement every 15 minutes while working on the big job of writing a book. List tasks out. Didn't you know I was going to say that? Lists are useful because they are enjoyable to create and much more enjoyable to discard once completed. If you can't stop procrastinating, lists can help you deal with at least two of the three factors that cause procrastination: risk aversion and rewards. Process: Making a list makes you feel like you're accomplishing something. It feels wonderful to cross something off your to-do list. Making a list minimizes the likelihood that you will forget to do anything, and therefore will mess up and fail.  

Make the Task More Achievable

As previously stated the exact cause of procrastination is generally aimed at starting something.  It's typically easy to continue working once you've started it. This is one solid reason to keep your steps modest and simple to begin; if your steps are small and simple to begin, you will be less likely to postpone things. The 2-Minute Rule, which states that "when you start a new habit, it should take less than two minutes to do," is one of my favorite ways to make things easier. The goal is to make it as simple as possible to begin, and then to trust that momentum will carry you further into the task once you begin. It becomes very easy to continue doing anything once you start. The 2-Minute Rule eliminates procrastination and laziness by making it so simple to get started that you can't say no. Reasons why this is important. Small steps forward help retain momentum on the long run, which means you're more likely to complete enormous jobs easily. The sooner you accomplish a productive activity, the faster your day develops a productive and effective mindset. The rate at which you accomplish your first work of the day has proven to be soo important in overcoming procrastination and sustaining a highly productive output day after day.  

Change your mindset and thinking pattern

Some cognitive variables that contribute to procrastination are quite universal—for example, most of us underestimate the complexity of activities with extended deadlines—while others are highly individualized. Here's an example of one of my own troublesome patterns: When people tell me they like a particular piece of my writing, I tend to assume that my other work is bad, which causes me to tangle when it's time to write again—even though I've just received praise for one! To determine whether cognitive blockages are contributing to your procrastination, ask yourself the following questions: Is the work seen to be more difficult than the stages truly are, given my abilities? Do I like a task once I begin it? If you answered yes, it means you have a tendency to think about work in a way that makes it appear more unpleasant than it is. To overcome your mental or mindset blocks, try the following methods: Brainstorm in reverse. Although I have never used reverse brainstorming before, it's one of my favorite strategies. It is imagining what you would do to make your work impossible to do or something you would really like to avoid doing. Once you have those solutions, you then come up with their opposites to feel less blocked. It's pretty simple, think of a problem you can create if you don't want to do something, then think of the solution to that problem you just created. boom you're off For example, a task may appear insurmountable if I anticipate needing to execute it perfectly the first time or in the exact same manner as a colleague whom I admire. The work will appear easier if I accept that mistakes and faults may occur and tackle them in my own unique way, leveraging my own strengths. Another fast reframing strategy is to consider how the work you're putting off is similar to the one you can or have complete easily and successfully. For example, I am completely at ease writing blog articles but definitely not presentations. Both, however, include expressing a few points fast, keeping the language conversational, and providing the listener with a personal feeling. The trick here is to specify the situation precisely, as I have done, making yourself aware that this is the problem and solution or this is the same as this that I always do easily. Accept activity that every project is filled with its own unique issues/problems. Some projects are more likely to be completed effortlessly and hence seem more fulfilling than other projects that are more challenging but potentially more valuable. That's why we frequently prefer to cross little tasks off our to-do lists rather than tackle larger projects at once. Remember that if you show up to perform an essential project and approach it as strategically as possible, you will make progress, even if it doesn't seem like it. The more tolerant you are of a difficult project, the less likely you are to postpone them. Commit to executing the work with the most potential for a period of time each day, even if it results in turbulent sensations and ideas. Limit your working time to small bursts. When a task is critical or we have been putting it off for a long time, we frequently assume that marathon work hours are required to complete it. Most of the time, this thinking is motivated by self-criticism fueled by guilt over lost productivity. However, the prospect of slaving away on a difficult task all day tends to increase procrastination. You should try the two approaches below to solve this: - Set aside 10 minutes today to work on whatever you're avoiding and pick it up again tomorrow. Doing something little today can help you get over the emotional hurdle of starting. - Set a time limit of 90 minutes for yourself today. If you're used to doing serious work, you should be able to get yourself to accomplish practically anything for that period of time. It's a reasonable objective. This idea is also adaptable. For example, you could try increasing the time you spend on the task by 10 minutes each workday until you reach two hours total. It's similar to preparing for an endurance race.  

Eliminate Your distractions.

Determine which browser bookmarks consume the majority of your time and move them to a separate, less accessible folder, LOL. Turn off the automated notification feature in your email client. Remove any distractions from your environment. I'm sure some people will get out of the way by deactivating or deleting their Facebook accounts. I think it's a little drastic and extreme because dealing with procrastination is more about being conscious of our actions than using self-binding methods, but if that's what you need, go for it. Mute your Emails when working Checking emails is one of the worst things you can do when you first start "working." Checking emails early thing in the morning is bad for you. It will put you in a "non-action" frame of mind. Instead, bring out your job list and begin with a large assignment. Later, check your email. Get Rid of Social Media for the moment. Everything — Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, ohh Youtube— To overcome procrastination, turn them entirely off. Concentrate on the work at hand. Always Time yourself. Setting a definite time for oneself to work is a wonderful approach to fighting Procrastination. Let's say I'll get this done in 25 minutes. After the allotted time, take a little break and do anything you like. Then, work for another period of time.   If you think have been able to help you solve procrastination in one way or another through this post, kindly drop a comment bellow I'll love to hear from you. I always reply to every comment. Thank you. Read the full article

[artbyblastweave]

Hi hello I'm on my semi-annual re-read of Worm-but-only-arc-12 through 19, and I needed to talk about my favorite moment which is during the lull in the echidna fight when Brian goes catatonic and Taylor asks Aisha to take him home but aisha wants to stay and Taylor asks if aisha wants taylor to do it instead. I don't have the quote pulled up but taylor says something to herself along the lines of 'I wouldn't want to but I would leave if I have to' and it's probably the most blatant moment of self deception in the series because Taylor would never, never never walk away she's in so fucking deep in so many ways and I always wonder how Taylor would have twisted the situation to stay if aisha had asked her to go, how she would have justified her choices. Because Taylor fundamentally is someone who acts and then rationalizes her actions and uses that to not interrogate herself and like, does she know on some level? Did she say this knowing that she was never going to have to make that choice? Is this something she thinks she believes or is this something she's saying in the moment to make herself feel good about her actions. Anyway good morning and Taylor Hebert is my favorite character in media, she needs therapy

You know, purely by coincidence I actually re-read this sequence yesterday, and I had the exact opposite takeaway; I think Taylor was being completely earnest about this and absolutely would have walked away for Grue's sake if Aisha had forced the issue.

Taylor has this throughline of, when the chips are down, behaving self-consciously selfishly to keep her loved ones alive, even if it cuts against the greater good she otherwise often pushes for. You see this in Shatterbird's initial attack; Taylor wrestles with whether to warn her Father (and the other civilians) of Shatterbird's impending attack, or whether to go all out in trying to kill Jack and maybe stop the end of the world; in the absense of surety she chooses the "selfish" option of making sure her father is okay. You see this in Gold Morning, when, during a hectic firefight, she chooses to try and save one of Rachel's dogs instead of a more morally valuable human combatant, admitting all the while that this is the selfish choice.

And Boy howdy does she exhibit this with Grue specifically. When he gets freezered, she refuses to euthanize him even though there's a strong argument to be made that this is the pragmatic and merciful choice out of all the options they have available; hell, mounting any kind of rescue mission at all is probably not the most pragmatic strategy. During Gold Morning, at the height of her rationalization and optimization, and when she believes that Grue has cut himself off from her life to the greatest extent possible, she still spares some drones to keep eyes on the cabin she thinks he's in. The idea of a relationship with Grue, having a family and raising kids, is something that gives her serious pause when it comes to her plan to surrender herself to PRT custody.

So yeah, I think this scene is one where Skitter is, rather than deluding herself, actually being honest about her priorities and what she values; and this is after a couple sequences in the aftermath of Brian's second trigger where she's kinda goal-and-problem-oriented to the detriment of their ability to get along. I do not interpret the Echidna fight as one that Taylor has a lot riding on personally, in comparison to the other do-or-die situations she's been a part of; in point of fact it comes after she's accomplished her goal of 9 arcs, it's something she throws herself into because it's there and it's a problem to solve, but this is the most rudderless in terms of a long-term plan that she's been the whole book. The heroes are present in force, and more are likely to come; no real Endbringer truce is in effect, The Undersiders are the only villains that showed up to help with this and they're half-expected to cut and run at some point anyway. Miss Militia is pretty likely to accept "Skitter had to leave to take care of Grue" when all the other Undersiders are still on the battlefield, as well; even further than that, the Cauldron reveal ultimately ends up recontextualizing Echidna as an in-house problem, a ball firmly in the Protectorate's court. if there was ever a fight I could see Skitter walking away from for her teammate's sake, it'd be this one.

(Man, it might be my shipping goggles, but I get the impression she really likes this guy or something.)

[rheawritessometimes]

A Bad Deal

{ Childe x GN!Reader }

{ Summary } A continuation of "Childe gets an owie." Series Masterlist

{ Warnings } Mention of Injury, Physical Intimacy, Undefined Relationship, Questionable Behavior, Bad Writing, Please Let Me Know if Anything Needs to be Added.

{ Notes } I realized when I decided to write this that I didn't title the last fic, but the best works are always untitled. Not really I'm just forgetful. This time Childe can have mercy. I was so surprised with the response to the last fic, the amount of people who liked it was a huge surprise. Also, the comments on it were so kind. So obviously I needed to write a follow-up right away. I hope it's equally as enjoyable. Set up for a continuation if people like it. Masterlist

{ Word Count } 1,940

Getting Childe back to Liyue was a simple affair, he wasn't hindered by any pain he might have been in. The Snezhnayan wasn't one to complain about pain, even if he wasn't numbed up. He seemed to be in a cheerful mood, chattering animatedly as you walked. The fact he intentionally moved closer to you so that your shoulders occasionally brushed did not escape your notice. Neither of you said anything about it.

Luckily the Golden House wasn't very far from the harbor and the path was clear of any monsters, for which you were thankful. You were more than capable of handling most monsters on your own, but you were worried Childe would jump into combat and end up hurting himself more than he already had been. He was capable as a fighter but you thought him to be too reckless.

The visit to Bubu Pharmacy was entirely uneventful, it was confirmed that Childe had two broken ribs on his right side and he was given some medication for the pain. There wasn't much else to be done other than recommend regularly icing the area and no strenuous activities. That was expected, broken ribs were good at healing naturally, given rest. You wondered if it would even be possible for him to take it easy as a Harbinger, but it seemed the other Harbingers weren't as active as him so perhaps it was possible.

"I think I can just take it easy for two weeks and then go back to business as usual," Childe remarked as you began down the stairs. You looked at him with a frown, wondering if he was serious. This man had no regard for his long-term wellbeing.

"You need to rest for six weeks, at least. It's better for you to recover entirely before you get back to... whatever it is you do," you said with a stern tone. Sometimes it really did seem like Childe was a child. Haha.

"I'm a busy guy, I can't take that kind of time off," he argued, not seeming concerned by that in the slightest. It was true that broken ribs weren't the worst injury to work around, but it still wasn't wise to be so careless.

"Well, you're a valuable asset to Snezhnaya, surely you'd be allowed time off to recover. The Tsaritsa must be at least that understanding," you reasoned, now realizing you were walking along with him not sure where you were going. You didn't even know where he lived, it was clear he didn't spend his nights on the streets at least.

The Harbinger hummed thoughtfully, clearly scheming. You wondered what excuse he would come up with. Probably something about how he was 'very strong and can recover quickly'. You could almost scoff at the mere thought, it seemed entirely in character for him.

"Alright, I'll request time off to recover," he said, grinning cheekily, "if you help me while I recover."

You raised a questioning brow, that was something you hadn't predicted he was considering. Still, you cared enough for him to want him to fully recover, and helping him out wasn't beyond your abilities. Aside from one attempt to destroy Liyue, he had been pretty harmless.

"You'll rest for the whole six weeks?" you asked, still skeptical. You weren't sure it was possible for him to stay away from a fight for that long.

"Yep, I promise."

"Alright, deal."

Childe offered you his hand to shake, and you took it. Looking back on it, it was probably not the best idea to solidify your agreement in the land of contracts. Not when the terms hadn't been thoroughly discussed, at least.

"Great, you can stay at my apartment while I recover," he chirped, opening a door to what you assumed to be his apartment. You hadn't even realized you'd arrived in front of the building, too busy trying to convince Childe to take care of himself.

You opened your mouth to argue but quickly closed it when an ominous feeling washed over you. For some reason, it felt like it would be unwise to break your agreement. You silently cursed your past self, maybe you were the careless one.

Your displeasure must have been showing on your face because Childe laughed after seeing your expression. You clenched your jaw, but decided it would be better if you didn't say anything, he was certain to tease you if you rose to the bait.

"Second floor," he said as you walked down the hall, gesturing to a stairwell. He huffed once as you were going up the stairs, and you could only assume the numbness was beginning to fade. A wave of guilt washed over you at the thought. You broke his ribs and forced him to take off work for six weeks, so you were probably out of the running for friend of the year.

You could immediately tell which door led to Childe's apartment when you got to the second floor, there was a Fatui guard standing outside of it. He looked entirely out of place and you could imagine he was bored out of his mind just standing there. When he noticed your presence he eyed you suspiciously but said nothing, instead bowing his head to Childe.

The Harbinger completely ignored his subordinate, opening the door to his apartment and ushering you inside. Once the door was closed he ran a hand through his hair, letting out what sounded like a sigh of relief. It was probably nice to be home and finally able to relax after all that walking around with broken ribs.

"Your guard doesn't seem to like me," you remarked absently as you scanned his apartment. It was clean and surprisingly spacious, but a little bare. The floors were hardwood and there was a large carpet in the middle of the living room, with a sofa and some other furniture atop it. There were no houseplants to be seen.

"Yeah, I don't bring many people home," Childe laughed in response, plopping down on his couch which had no throw pillows or blankets. There was a wooden coffee table in front of it, but not much else around it.

"Oh, are you having relationship troubles?" you quipped in response, lips quirking up at the corners. He scoffed indignantly at your words.

"Have you seen this face? Of course not, I'm just waiting on the right person," he stated, lying sprawled across the couch. You shook your head at this, moving to the kitchen in hopes of finding some ice. Childe didn't say anything about you snooping around his kitchen, so you assumed there was nothing he felt he had to hide in there.

After gathering a dish towel and some ice, you came back with the make-shift icepack. He hadn't had a proper icepack in his freezer, which surprised you considering his line of work. Maybe later you would head back up to the pharmacy to get some.

"Ice your side for now. You should wash up and get changed soon," you told him after you handed him the icepack. While there had been no blood the fight was physically straining, so he probably needed to clean up. You realized after saying this that you had no change of clothes here, you'd need to go back to your place to get some things if he planned on having you stay here for six weeks.

"Okay, mom," he joked in response, you could only roll your eyes at this. He left the icepack laying on the right side of his chest, not bothering to hold it in place. You didn't bother to nag him about it, it was close enough.

"I'm going back to my place to get some stuff, I shouldn't be gone for long," you announced, turning to leave the apartment.

"Wait!" he shouted, sitting up suddenly, the icepack sliding down into his lap. "You owe me a kiss!"

You turned to look at him, a bit surprised by him shouting. You had forgotten about that entirely, but you did promise. So you walked over to the couch and leaned down to press your lips against his. You had intended for it to be a brief kiss, but his hand gently held your wrist and the other went up to brush against your jaw.

With a sigh you deepened the kiss, allowing yourself him to indulge for a little while. You were surprised by the slow pace he set, but certainly not displeased. He gently bit your bottom lip before pulling away, opening his eyes and giving you a smug look when he noticed your face had become a bit flushed.

"Get washed up and put clean clothes on while I'm gone," you said as you pulled away, trying to seem as unflustered as possible. It wasn't very effective, if his laughter as you fled the apartment was anything to go by.

Gathering everything you thought you would need from your apartment was entirely uneventful, you tried to pack everything you'd need for six weeks into a duffel bag but it was hopeless. You were bound to forget things and a duffel bag isn't much space, so you decided you could just come back whenever you needed something.

The Fatui guard stationed outside Childe's apartment was not shy about giving you a dirty look as you approached. It was safe to say the Harbinger probably didn't often have company. The guard seemed particularly suspicious of your bag, like that was the thing to worry about when it was commonplace to materialize weapons out of thin air.

"Stop," he ordered in a booming voice as you neared the door. You followed his order, halting outside the door. You proceeded to stare him dead in the eyes as you knocked three times on the door.

It swung open shortly after, Childe stepping out of the way to let you in. The way the guard clenched his jaw made you feel very smug.

"You don't have to knock, just come in," he said, and you were silently very thankful for those words. It was a little something extra to rub it in. Perhaps your loathing was a little misplaced, that man was likely not one who had attacked you in the past. But, he did still give you a dirty look and was none too polite, so there was something. Sometimes people are petty, and that's okay.

Once you were inside the apartment, you noticed Childe had showered and changed into a fresh set of clothes. The white t-shirt and grey sweatpants were rather different from his usual look, but it strangely suited him rather well. Maybe everything looks good on him because he's a pretty Fatui boy.

"How are you feeling?" you asked, shifting the weight of your bag as you followed him to the kitchen.

"Good, doesn't hurt much. What do you want for dinner?" he asked, opening the cupboards to survey their contents. How casual the atmosphere was made it feel awfully domestic.

"Um, I'm fine with whatever you make," you replied, banishing the thought from your mind. You weren't really sure about your feelings on the matter yet so you would push them all off to the side and sort through them some other time.

"Oh, right. There's a spare room down the hall across from the bedroom. You can put your stuff in there," he said, looking over at you standing in the doorway with your bag. You were already walking away when he added, "Or you're welcome to stay in my bedroom with me~"

"You wish."

Maybe six weeks with Childe wouldn't be too bad.

[the-dubstep-strawberry]

Blind Betrayal: In Defense of Elder Maxson

(I have no idea what prompted me to go full Elder Maxson Defense Squad late at night, but I’m having thoughts on this that won’t leave me alone, so here goes...)

Picture this.

You are Arthur Maxson. 

You’re a member of a famous family line known for leadership, courage, wisdom, survival, tactical genius, accomplishing feats of glory in battle, and so on and so forth. 

You are also the last member of that family line. 

As a result, you have not only been saddled from birth with Expectations of Greatness, but with the terrible knowledge that if you fuck it up, you have doomed your entire bloodline to extinction and potentially placed the future of your faction - your home, family, friends, comrades, and whole way of life - in severe jeopardy.

No pressure.

You’re also twenty years old. 

You were orphaned as a child and were quite shy, but you were also quite bright, creative, maybe a bit of a daydreamer. You liked to write stories and thought Liberty Prime was cool. The Scribe caste might have been a good niche for you. Unfortunately, you are Arthur Maxson, Last of His Line, and any control that you might have had over your own life has already been overridden by people older, wiser and more powerful than you. They’ve decided that you had to learn how to be a Knight and go charging into battle to perpetuate your family’s glorious reputation in combat, but also not to get yourself killed or else Your Whole Faction Is Doomed (again, no pressure).

So you learned to be a Knight, and probably got kicked up the ranks a little faster than most teenagers because not being a child prodigy was not an option for a Maxson. Luckily for you, you were able to live up to at least some of the hype, pulled off some brilliant tactical and diplomatic moves to crush Super Mutant invasions and incidentally reunite a rogue chapter, which became disillusioned on ideological grounds and left years ago, with the rest of your faction.

Nice job. Your fans will probably fill in the gaps with a little extra stardust and hype, so if you flubbed your lines once in a while, it’s probably not going into the Codex.

And now you’re Elder of the Brotherhood of Steel. Your entire faction looks to you for leadership and relies upon you for survival. You have quite a large army at your command and have cultivated an impressive reputation, and have now decided to leave your usual stomping grounds; you’ve embarked upon an ambitious campaign to liberate humanity from the sinister clutches of The Institute and the army of synths that they’re hoping to replace actual humans with. People expect nothing but complete and total victory from you. This is no time to screw things up.

(Did I mention that you’re twenty? Most guys your age are still finding their way around their Power Armor, goofing off in the barracks, chasing after girls, getting into hijinks on shore leave, and so on. But you are Arthur Maxson, and you have Responsibilities. No slack whatsoever will be cut here, and failure is not an option. If you go down, the Brotherhood of Steel falls with you and it will be your fault.)

Everything appears to be going well, the new Pre-War recruit is exceeding expectations and even grumpy Knight Rhys appears to merely resent their existence. All is going according to plan...

... until you find out that one of your men, Paladin Danse, a highly respected field officer of many years’ standing, is not what he appears to be.

You have long been impressing upon your crew the need to completely eradicate any and all synths because they are The Enemy and will destroy mankind, but one of them has infiltrated your senior command and knows all kinds of key strategic stuff about your faction, classified stuff, military intelligence, and other things that you really do not want The Enemy to know. If he’s been reporting back to them, they will soon know how to destroy your faction from the inside out.

He has also gone missing in suspicious circumstances and you think your new recruit, who was training under his wing, knows - or can at least find out - where he is. You’ve made efforts to keep this quiet while you tried to verify this intelligence with the rest of your senior officers - checking and double-checking, because holy shit, how could this have happened? This can’t be true. You don’t want it to be true. You trusted this man as a fellow officer and as a friend, and always spoke of his abilities and character in glowing terms. But this is not only a personal betrayal - it’s a professional one, with potentially far-reaching consequences. After all, how can your judgment be trusted if you confided in someone who was sent as an enemy agent to infiltrate and betray the Brotherhood? This could potentially destabilize the Brotherhood of Steel’s entire command structure and spell doom for yourself, your men, and possibly even humanity itself.

So now your faction is unexpectedly in mortal peril and the shit has hit the fan. Word has gotten out about this revelation and people are talking. Whispering, in fact. All the while, looking to you to see what needs to be done about this problem.

It’s clear what has to be done. However much you liked Paladin Danse, he is potentially a traitor with too much important information about your faction, and he cannot be allowed to run loose - or, worse still, report back to the enemy which placed him in your midst in the first place. So you send your new recruit after him, with the strict instruction that he is to be terminated. 

You are, naturally, very pissed about all this and want the problem to go away as soon as possible. A threat to the safety and integrity of your faction, which has already splintered off into rival groups once, to disastrous effect, over disagreements with the general direction and trustworthiness of its leadership, is an unacceptable existential threat. You are not about to let the Brotherhood disintegrate on your watch. You can’t. You have no choice but to keep this together.

Unfortunately, there is a problem. Danse is very sincerely professing to know nothing about his true identity and claims to have always served the Brotherhood with unfailing loyalty. Your new recruit is inclined to believe him and is refusing to follow through on their mission objective.

You have no idea if he is telling the truth, or if he has been programmed to say this convincingly - so much so that he possibly even believes it himself. You are most likely incredibly pissed off by this whole situation, but there are greater things at stake here. 

Like humanity’s future. And your faction and family legacy not being torn apart by internal division, with great risk of harm and death to the people who rely upon you for protection, justice and their very survival.

You can order that Danse be killed and know, whatever happens, that your faction will be safe from betrayal to its sworn enemy, even if the poor guy didn’t even know that he was being sent to spy on the people he was taught to call his brothers and sisters. You are very aware that this is a horrible outcome if he proves to be an unwitting party and genuinely unaware of his origins, but also acutely aware that if you start recanting your own statements about synths being The Enemy, you run the risk of undermining your entire campaign, losing the trust and respect of your men and your senior command staff, and possibly even being deposed as Elder. You were appointed Elder after a succession of unsuccessful candidates followed in the Lyons’ wake, and it’s very likely that whoever will take over from you will be - at best - a lesser candidate, and at worst, a potentially disastrous choice who will lead the Brotherhood into ruin, despair, madness, death, etc, etc.  You know damn well that weak leaders don’t last long in the wasteland, and neither do leaderless factions. This is potentially a choice between Danse’s survival, or the Brotherhood’s - you can sacrifice a single hapless soldier to appease the threat of Scylla, or opt for Charybdis to try to spare him and risk having your whole ship pulled out from underneath you, condemning yourself and countless others to a terrible fate.

Or... you’ve been given a potential out. You can declare the former Paladin dead, but spare him by way of permanent exile, upon pain of death should he ever return. Only the new recruit will know the truth. Danse will still potentially be running around as someone who Knows Too Much about the Brotherhood’s military secrets, which is obviously a less than desirable state of affairs, but he will no longer be in a position to continue to spy and report back, so that aspect of the (perceived or actual) threat has, at least, been permanently removed. This option is merciful and, if you’re really honest with yourself, you probably prefer this one because it lets you off the hook to a degree and you no longer have to kill a trusted officer and friend. However, it also requires you to assume a great deal of personal risk, particularly to your reputation as a leader. What are your men going to say if they see the “dead” guy running around the Commonwealth and it becomes clear that you have not only failed to execute a traitor, but lied about it to everybody in your faction? How are you going to explain why you refused to kill someone who was planted in your organization’s ranks by a sworn enemy?

You have to choose one or the other. You’re the leader of the Brotherhood and this is a particularly shitty dilemma which you would really prefer not to be in, but you were appointed because these kinds of impossible decisions frequently arise in times of war, and you know that effective leaders sometimes have to make deeply unpleasant choices, opting to sacrifice one man in order to protect many more.

Either way, there’s going to be a downside and you’re either going to be regarded as a complete asshole (even if people are forced to reluctantly agree that you didn’t have much choice in the matter and acted out of concern for the safety of the Brotherhood and the success of your mission), or you can risk a great deal - perhaps far too much - all for the sake of a man you’re no longer sure you can trust, because good leaders are merciful and Danse has never steered you wrong before, even though he’s had plenty of opportunity to do so in the past.

It’s a hell of a decision and not one to be made lightly, but you have to make it nonetheless. You may be twenty years old, but the world is depending on you all the same, and there’s no way out of this one. The fates of you, your men, your mission, Danse, and all of humanity are potentially at stake and riding on that one decision.

Choose wisely, Elder.

[dwollsadventures]

The second part of a request from TheLOAD from... a while back. The initial one was the Nix/Nokk/Knucker piece. This one took me a little longer for a few reasons. Mostly school reasons. And writer's block reasons,  which is why this is taking the place of the monthly preview. And because, for research, I had to re-read the entirety of Drakon by Daniel Ogden for information. For those not used to my pedantry, this is not an "in-canon" family tree of the Greek dragons, such as you might see in those huge Greek mythology family tree pictures that are on the internet (I've got a few in my favorites from waaaaayyyy back as well). Rather, this is a way of showing how the concept of the dragon came about throughout time and how other beings are related through those branching lines. Of course this is presented as a lot more neat than it probably should be. If it were truly accurate it would have interconnected lines all over the place and obscure the little lizards. Before we talk about what's on the tree let's talk about what's not on it. Though Odgen talks about every (and I mean every) slightly Draconic being in Greek and Roman mythology, I've opted to include a trimmed down version. Because some, like Medusa and Lamia, I personally do not consider dragons proper, and others like the goddess Keto are relatively obscure and probably only exist to explain the existence of a related being (like the ketea). Creatures like Chimera and Typhoeus are included because, while not usually serpentine or draconic, they are in effect dragons; horrible, vaguely reptilian monsters slain by a hero. Not every individual dragon is depicted, only the ones I thought pertinent to include. (warning: LONG)

To start with, a drakon is a snake. The Greeks used the word to refer to both huge monsters and mundane snakes. Drakon itself is derived from the word dérkomai and is believed to literally mean, "the one who sees". The hypnotizing power attributed to snakes is present in drakons, traditionally given the job of the sleepless guardian of treasure. Going back even further, we see that the drakon comes from two disparate cultural perceptions of snake, each of which is still present in its classical form.

Snake Goddess - One of the native precursors of the Greeks were the Minoans. They had more in common with their Egyptian and Near Eastern neighbors than the Italians and Balkans. From what little we can gather of their culture, it appears the snake was a symbol of the goddess. Whether or not it was any goddess in particular is unknown. This theme survives into ancient Greece, however. Athena often uses snakes as agents when acting with mortals, Hera uses them as well (the twin serpents who attempted to strangle Heracles and the Hydra), and Medea had a chariot pulled by snakes. Earth goddesses in particular are heavily associated with them. Python was a direct product of Gaia, and the snake was a divine symbol of Demeter, who also had a rad snake chariot. Even in mortal women, their dynamic with snakes and dragons is nurturing. Several heroines sing to snakes as their masculine counterparts steal the treasure they guard, fulfilling a nurturing role in comparison to the destructive masculine one. Here the snake is a guardian, a creature of the earth and everything beneath it, including gold and the dead. These dragons are usually not slain, but pacified by the presence of a woman. In addition, the beard is an originally Greek symbol associated with snakes, particularly those connected to the gods. This was quite possibly a signifier of their supernatural status above mundane serpents. The goddess depicted above isn't any one in particular, though her dress does pull from a statue of Athena holding a curled python.

Drakaina - One way in which the snake goddess has survived is in the drakaina. This word is simply the feminine form of drakon, but also encompasses the numerous beings characterized by having the upper body of a woman and the lower body of a drakon. Numerous beings in Greek mythology fit this theme, but the one I've focused on is the Scythian drakaina, a woman who intercepts Heracles during one of his labors and kidnaps some cows. She offers to return the cattle in exchange for a night of intercourse. And then Herc is off and we're told the three sons of that union go on to become kings of great renown in Scythia. Some authors interpret this as a Greek adaptation of a Scythian myth, with one of the key pieces of evidence being that the drakaina's name is Hora, meaning "Seasons". Regardless of whether or not this is a goddess, it is a story where the snake-woman is neither killed nor stolen from, instead given the prestige of being the founder of a line of kings.

PIE Chaos Serpent - From the Proto-Indo-Europeans up North, we get the dragon we're all more familiar with. Serpents of this breed, such as Apep, Tiamat, and Jormungand, are all enormous, destructive creatures allied with darkness and the unforgiving seas. They represent the primordial chaos from what order sprang out of, and often have a hand in trying to return the world to that way. One of the primary themes associated with them is the dragon slayer: a god or hero who fights a dragon to save something, be it a land or treasure or an Ethiopian princess.

Typhoeus - This guy, though significantly more humanoid and giant-like than any others, is the clearest example of a PIE chaos serpent in Greece. It does not get more typical than a giant snake (like) monster fighting a storm god. Typhoeus probably sprung from traditions where he was more serpentine, but gradually added other aspects. Such as his own storm god qualities. In Greece, gods associated with the winds are always given wings, save for Zeus. The two's battle is reflective of a battle between the terrible whirlwinds and lightning strikes and the calmer, helpful rain showers that enable humanity to survive. 

And then we get to the drakon proper. Taking elements from both sides of the tree, the archetypal Greek drakon is an enormous, often monstrous serpent associated with both the underground and the waters in some way. They are agents of gods, most often goddesses, sent to battle heroes or guard priceless treasures. Sometimes they're killed, sometimes they're merely lulled to sleep by a helpful maiden. Rather than breathing fire (which everything from mechanical bulls to horses to giants do), they possess venoms and rows of sharp teeth. Mention of their terrible gazes is often made. This drakon has both a beard and a casque-like crown, common elements in drakon descriptions from Greece. Its face is much less serpentine, being modeled after a clay illustration of the Colchian dragon. This gives is a suitably monstrous look, as if it were being pealed from layers of mud.

Chimera - Despite its odd appearance, the chimera fits the pattern of a dragon terrorizing a countryside and being slain by a plucky hero. The chimera may in fact be the originator of the classical Saint George imagery, where the saint is depicted as towering over a crawling, pitiful dragon. A 3rd century mosaic from Imperial Rome may have started this trend. What makes her (because despite her mane the Chimera is a female) stand apart from all the rest is the sheer strangeness of her form compared to others. Especially the little goat that comes out of her back, like a rider. Which I had to cut for spacing reasons :(

Hydra - Another classical Greek dragon is the multi-headed hydra, who has given its name to a whole genre of creatures with more heads than they ought to have. In addition to having the attributes of a typical Greek drakon, the Hydra has two traits seen in Mesopotamian monsters as well. The first is the amount of heads. Having many heads is not as common in Greece as it is in the Near East, where the idea of an eleven-headed sea serpent pops up numerous times across several different cultures. The second is that the hydra, in its earliest mentioning by Hesiod, is said to have been raised by Hera specifically to combat Heracles. This same tactic is done by a few Mesopotamian gods. In their realm of influence, monsters are pawns of the gods, who send them out to do their bidding on Earth while they lounge in Heaven. Our Hydra may have been a later influence from Greece's neighbors to the East. Also, had to add in the crab that Hera also sends in to help the hydra. If this were a spec bio piece, I would make it a species of crab that evolved to clean the hydra of parasites.

Cetus - Sea monsters such as these are perhaps the furthest from the traditional Greek drakon, while still remaining core parts of the mythology. In form cetoi range from exaggerations of real whales and sharks to dog-headed serpents with frilly fins and ears. Or even animal-headed fish. Because they live underwater, they almost always function as tools of divine vengeance. Kinda hard to steal treasure underwater. Heavy metal tends to sink. While cetus was originally a word for any sea monster, it would eventually become the root of the scientific term cetacean: whales and dolphins.

But the tree doesn't end there. See, even after the culture we recognize as the Ancient Greeks and Romans faded, their dragons still lived on. Medieval Europe, with its glorification of Greco-Roman texts, derived many of their folk beliefs from their predecessors. Or, the people who they liked to imagine were there predecessors.

Draco - The Romans adopted the Greek drakon whole-clothe, like a lot of stuff. The only noteworthy original dragon to come out of the pre-Fall Roman era was the Dacian Draco. The Dacians used the image of a dragon as a standard during war-time, represented as a serpent with the head of a dog. When conquered, the Romans adopted this, possibly beginning the Western tradition of associating dragons with military power and identity. The dog-headed serpent would also survive to the modern period, showing up in descriptions of Balkan lamya. 

Indian Drakon - Here begins a tradition in Greek and Roman literature that claimed that foreign parts were full of large, dangerous, and more interesting fauna than the mundane peninsula they were all stuck on. This is a common theme of humanity in general, where everyone you're not familiar with is teeming with exciting and ancient life. Just look at cryptozoology. India in particular was a favorite of Greek tall tales, being far away for journeys to be rare, but also rich and full of exotic animals. Philostratus populated India with three types of drakons: the lowly marsh, the silver hill, and the dazzling golden mountain drakons. They were typical in every respect, having enormous sizes, red crowns, beards, and guarding treasure beneath the earth. An interesting addition was that they were the mortal enemies of elephants. Being the largest land-animal (in real life), they made perfect prey for these humongous serpents. Feeding on them was fraught with peril, however, as the struggle between reptile and mammal could result in the death of either party, or both. To symbolize the foreignness of the drakon, I drew it as a sort of hybrid between the drakon and the Hindu naga. 

Pliny's Drakon - This drakon is otherwise the same as the Indian, but is the start of another theme. As time went on, philosophers began taking more grounded looks at fantastical animals. While also perpetuating even more outrageous falsehoods. None was more popular than Pliny the Elder, hence the name. He believed that, while foreign drakons might be real, they were much more similar to the snakes of Greece than the monsters of legend. He scoffed at the crowns and hair they were adorned with. His Natural History was the first of many instances where the fantastical elements of the dragon were toned down to seem more palatable to a scientifically minded audience. It also introduced an interest into the life history of the dragons, treating them as real animals with lives beyond the myths. Our dragon up top evolved to resemble pythons, rather than the other way around to what probably happened in real life, where pythons were exaggerated to become dragons.

Then, we get two foreign influences, which would come to shape the modern definition of the European dragon. Christianity's influence cannot be understated here. As Jonathan Evans states in Medieval Folklore, the dragon came to be confused with several other desert animals. In Jewish and early Christian belief, desert animals were themselves demonic, living in inhospitable regions devoid of human life. Later, texts like Revelations would specifically denote dragons as heralds of evil, and even harbingers of Armageddon itself. This is in contrast to the morally neutral Leviathan. In the medieval era, dragons were beings of evil, without a doubt. Bestiaries were full of on the nose fables about how the natural lives of dragons. Like how they could not stand the breath of a panther (a symbol of Jesus Christ). Or how they could not catch birds that nested in the Peridexion tree (the tree being the church and the birds being Christians, who are safe from the devil so long as they do not stray from the arms of God). This is represented by a typical medieval devil, being brightly colorful and made in mockery of God's creations, aka a weird hybrid with a snake coming out of his butt. Then, the Germanic dragon. This is seen especially in Northern and Western Europe. The Germanic dragon is otherwise similar to the Greek, except that it began as a character of evil. Lindworms and other serpents are almost always antagonists, and there is no heroine who saves them from their fate of death. They also had a stronger connection to treasure. Greek dragons guarded treasure as a job, but the very existence of Germanic dragons is tied with their golden hoards. In addition, in Greek myths, getting transformed into an animal is usually the end of one's story. With the Germanic dragon, it's merely the beginning. Transformed dragons act as antagonists and moral lessons wrapped in one; a lesson to all to not be greedy. Germanic dragons, represented by the lindworm, reinforced their role as antagonists and agents of selfish evil.

Which finally brings us to the medieval dragon. In a way, this creature is a mix of everything above. The dragon is an animal and demon in one, simultaneously a figure of evil who spoils the land around them and a living being with its own life and needs. The medieval era also introduces the origin of dragons, showing them as having nests and young, not simply coming into existence out of the earth or sea like before. They also developed some less reptilian traits, like wings and hair. This was probably because of artistic traditions among the monks who wrote bestiaries rather than popular legend, which continued to conflate them with snakes and lizards and even crocodiles. This particular line of the tree would develop a life of its own, spreading far and wide across Europe and eventually reaching beyond the seas. Our modern conceptions of dragons are a whole 'nother story.

[utilitycaster]

Skill Proficiencies are the Bedrock on Which the Success of a D&D Party Rests, Monks are  a Utility Class, and Other Correct Opinions

This came up when I was thinking about the Cobalt Soul subclass and the discussion thereof, especially the dismissive way in which people sometimes treat the mystical erudition feature. I am also a bard player, in my longest-running game, and I prefer utility classes in general, so I decided to write a whole essay that maybe like 5 people will appreciate, two of whom are in my inbox (thanks for the encouragement, @ayzenigma and @agigabyte and one of whom is me.

In D&D, on a fundamental level, this is what happens:

A DM describes the world

You decide to interact with the world in some way

The DM decides if you automatically can do what you want, if you automatically can’t do what you want, or if there are a range of possible outcomes. If the last option, roll a d20.

The DM narrates what happens when you act or fail to act, ie, describes the new state of the world; the cycle begins anew.

The vast majority of those d20 rolls will be skill checks. Some will be combat rolls, which are a whole other thing, but most will be skill checks. Some will be incredibly important skill checks. Some will be relatively minor. Sometimes you’ll be aware of how important the roll is; sometimes you will not. Spells can sometimes guarantee or improve the chances of a success, as can some class abilities; but those are finite resources, and in the end a lot of D&D is resource management, and many of the choices you make in interaction are going to be influenced by what resources you have left.

Consider: the party comes upon a door with a single lock. The party is D&D four-person-party classic: a mage archetype, a thief archetype, a healer archetype, and a strength-based battler archetype.

The mage can cast knock to open the door. This does guarantee success, but it’s extremely loud and will not only alert anyone nearby but also uses a second level spell slot. They may be able to get around this if they or the healer also casts silence, depending on how you play it*, but that’s either another spell slot gone, or ten minutes wasted.

The battler can, for free, either kick down the door or attack it. This is also going to be very loud unless silence is employed, they might choose to use a finite resource (a once a day weapon ability, a rage) and even if this itself doesn’t alert anyone on its own, the big hole where a door should have been, or even the smashed keyhole, probably will.

The thief can, for free, pick the lock. Assuming they are specifically a rogue, because of their class build there is a very high chance of success, and specifically a high chance of quick, quiet, secret success even without additional help. And if they fail, well, the other options still exist and only a small amount of time has been lost.

Things like a single rage, or a second level spell slot, don’t seem like much on their own, but that is the other thing about D&D: usually you go to bed with some things left in the tank, but occasionally you do not, and as the resources get into the red line it is not terribly difficult to get into a death spiral of throwing your limited resources at a problem too large to be solved by them. When you’re in a game where, mechanically, there is no difference between having 100 hit points left and having 1 hit point left, but there is a vast chasm between having 1 left and having none, that extra second level slot worth of healing or damage can mean everything.

Or: at levels 5 through 8, with a cleric, the difference between an ally’s life and potentially permanent death is whether the cleric is left standing with one third level spell slot at the end of a battle.

This isn’t to say you shouldn’t use spell slots to achieve things, especially if they’re important; just that there’s a balance, and sometimes a single good thieves’ tools check, investigation check, or persuasion check makes just as much of a difference in terms of the party’s success as a high level spell, even though it’s far less flashy.

The game designers realize this. Older versions had the idea of taking ten: if time is not of the essence and there is no significant penalty for failure, you could take ten and guarantee an average job (which does still require some skill proficiency to take that assumed roll of ten to “pretty good”). This still remains in 5e in the form of passive checks. It’s a core element of the rogue and bard classes that they are people who are highly skilled - both have more skills than most classes and access to expertise, which significantly increases their proficiency bonuses and therefore reduces the chance of failure - and both have additional class features that either improve the breadth (jack of all trades for bards granting them partial proficiency in everything) or depth (reliable talent for rogues granting them a guaranteed average job) of those skills. Frequently, and especially for bards, this is not seen as a significant help, possibly because it rarely comes up in combat. This is wrong.

Here’s the thing: combat takes a long time at the table but in terms of what the party is doing, two minutes of combat a day (20 rounds, total) would be considered an incredibly difficult day. The rest of the time, you’re not in combat.

Here’s the other thing: how did that combat happen? Did it happen because someone failed a check - that a better stealth roll or deception check, perhaps made by someone with expertise in one of those two areas, could have prevented? Or if this conflict was inevitable or necessary, was the party able to use that stealth or deception to get a surprise round? Investigation, nature, arcana, or history to know a little bit more in advance about what they’re about to face? Perception or survival to even find the enemy they need to stop? Persuasion to gain an ally? All of these can make the difference between a success and a failure.

When you come to the end of a long-running D&D game, you will probably think back a lot to combat moments and RP moments, and unless it was one of those few clutch ability checks where you knew how momentous it was at the time you probably won’t think back to the dozens of locks picked without issue, or social encounters navigated with relative ease, but they’re going to be there, and you would have felt the strain without them.

This isn’t limited to skill checks, honestly; it’s a problem with almost all so-called fluff/flavor abilities. It’s interesting, in that the words we use to describe a well-built character are themselves quite neutral in terms of the specific build (min-maxed, optimized) but in practice many people assume these fit into one of two categories: the tank, or the glass cannon. Of course, those are combat-specific abilities, and see above with regards to combat. And maybe you are in a D&D game that is very much about combat and combat only, but if you’re not, that so-called fluff is far too dismissive of utility.

And monks, in particular, are more of a utility class than one would expect. Sure, they get a lot of attacks and they’re sort of tanks of the ‘too fast to hit’ variety and they can stun, but monks are utility in a negative-space sort of way.They don’t need your buffs, and a monk in your party, like a rogue who can pick locks or a bard who can talk their way out of trouble, saves your resources. They are incredibly fast, and don’t need longstrider or jump cast on them. They don’t need feather fall or fly because they run up walls and avoid falling damage. They don’t need to be healed, if they just catch the arrows that were shot and evade the area of effect spell; they don’t need a magic weapon (or any weapon); they don’t need a restoration to end effects, they don’t need protection from poison or disease, they save you the need to cast comprehend languages or tongues, they’re less likely to need a buff to help them save against other effects, eventually they don’t even need food or water. A monk, like a skill check, helps the party by saving finite resources. The Cobalt Soul build merely makes it a little more literal by granting the monk themselves the ability to make those skill checks.

In conclusion: skill checks are cantrips that everyone gets, and if a class got 8 cantrips when most others got 4, and they had an extra bonus to hit, you’d absolutely notice.

*per a quick search it’s up for debate based on the ranges of the respective spells and whether the lock needs to ‘hear’ the spell or not and anyway if this is what you choose to fixate on in this essay I cannot stress this enough: you have the reading comprehension of a slime mold and the sense of relevance of a Republican congressperson.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Patton and Monty at War: Unbelieving the unbearable rivalry.

Monty is trying to steal the show and with the assistance of Divine Destiny [Eisenhower] he may do so.

- General George S. Patton, on the Sicily Campaign, private diaries 16 July 1943

So every week I play my usual game of chess over a glass of wine with one of my neighbours in my Parisian apartment building. He’s a retired army general but remains active as a military historian and speaker. He’s curmudgeonly but one warms to him quickly as he doesn’t suffer fools gladly. He’s not a fan of women in the military but reluctantly concedes he would make an exception for me (besides who else could he play chess with?). We get on really well now because of the Covid lockdown this past year. We often have long discussions about military history and current politics until the bottle of wine is completely drained.

On one occasion he invited me to watch the 1969 classic war film, Patton, about the life of one of America’s greatest iconic World War Two generals, George S. Patton. It’s been years since I’ve seen it and I almost had forgotten how great the movie is with George C. Scott as Patton and Karl Malden as General Omar Bradley. We watched it in English and then discussed many things that came out of the film.

Hollywood and history usually do not mix. It is quite common for  filmmakers to take a historical subject and to distort it for their purposes and to dumb it down for entertainment purposes. In the case of the movie, Patton, there was no real attempt to distort the story of Patton. It was a fantastic and stirring Hollywood movie. Moreover it was an excellent study in character given Oscar worthy heft by the great George C. Scott as the crusty General George S. Patton. Francis Ford Coppola’s script was severely under-rated.

However there remain glaring inaccuracies such as Patton’s opening speech in the movie - admittedly a an iconic bit of cinema - but even this was based on his statements and captured the character of  the man, something even acknowledged by the Generals’ family.

Much  of the details of his role in the defeat of Germany are true. The only real omission was the lack of focus on Patton’s Lorraine Campaign, where he distinguished himself. There are some exaggerations in the movie and some minor distortions such as in the weather-prayer scene. In general,  the movie managed to produce a great overview portrayal of the  character and career of an extraordinary American leader.

The film does accurately relate the leading role played by Patton in the  liberation of Sicily. His daring use of armour was crucial in the defeat of the German army on the island.

However long after the film had ended I did think about one thing that irked me. And this was how the movie seemed to linger on the belief Patton was motivated by the desire to do better than General Montgomery, the victor  at El Alamein. Indeed the film probably reinforced the accepted conventional wisdom that these two driven and ambitious men hated each other.

There was a great personal rivalry between the two men.  They were both driven and wildly ambitious. The movie suggests that the rivalry between Montgomery and Patton was the main feature of the Sicilian Allied campaign and was perhaps a factor in why it ended so quickly with a  decisive Allied victory.

The rivalry was not as intense as the motion  picture suggests and the two men worked together when needed for the  good of the Allied cause.

Born two years apart, both were commissioned within a year of each other  and both were wounded in France in the First World War. Both men  encompassed very different but very valuable characteristics in combat:  Monty-careful and meticulous, Patton-dashing and diplomatic.   Despite  the differences, both generals demonstrated striking similarities:  commitment to their careers, a ruthless egotism, interesting when you  consider neither held superior command. This did not impede their desire  for the limelight and fame in warfare, arrogance and the manipulation  of colleagues in high places to advance their careers.  Both were  machiavellian in their own affairs and self-interested in their own  personal progression.

The great rivalries amongst the Allies that made a real imact were Marshall and Brooke over war policy, Nimitz and MacArthur over resources, Eisenhower and Montgomery over strategy; and then between Percival and MacArthur for incompetence,  Patton and O'Connor for aggressiveness, MacArthur and Clarke for vainglory,  (and possibly  Clarke and Wavell for the stupidity of letting defeated enemies escape),  were the issues that defined the war for the Western allies.

The idea  that a competition between Patton and Montgomery was more important is cute, but naive. I am not even sure where the idea comes from. 

Much is made of the bet between Patton and Montgomery over reaching Palermo in Sicily first, but in practical terms that was the only time in the war that Patton ever appeared on Montgomery's radar.

For the rest  of the war Monty was so much higher up the food chain than Patton that  he was unaware, or disinterested in Patton's opinions. Montgomery  was, by 1944, an experienced general who very successfully fought extensively in both combat and staff roles for 4 years throughout World  War One. (Patton got a combat command for a few weeks when the Germans  were already collapsing.) Montgomery led a division very successfully  through the Battle of France, and a corps through the crucial Battle of  Britain training and rebuilding years. He led an army in combat for two  years, through many successful battles both on defense and in attack.

By  1944 Patton had led a corps for a few months, and an army for a few weeks. For the very brief period of the Sicily compaign they were  theoretically equals in command, but probably only in Patton's mind. Montgomery saw Patton as an enthusiastic if amateurish old man but respected his aggressive boldness. Montgomery saw his HQ 'betting book' as a bit of fun (and was delighted when bet a  B17 by someone who should have known better).

When he and Patton met  and co-ordinated the Sicilian campaign Alexander seemed not interested in co-ordinating, Monty saw Palermo as a similar bit of fun to pursue, no bigger or smaller than the hundreds of other bets in the book.

Patton saw it, as he saw anything relating to his persona, as the most vitally important challenge of his whole life...up until the next one.  Montgomery lost a bet and moved on to the next challenge. Patton won but  didn't. (Or at least that is what bad writers have tried to suggest. I  think he moved straight on to the next challenge anyway.)

That  was the last time Monty and Patton were in direct competition, no matter what revisionists or romantics would say.

The next time Patton was  allowed in the field he was one of half a dozen army commanders in  Monty's Normandy army group, and, familiarly, he did not arrive until  the Germans in Normandy were already collapsing. Very soon afterwards Eisenhower split off Bradley's army group, and Monty had no control, nor much interest, in what Patton was up to thereafter.

The  romantics like to suggest that thereafter Monty railed against Patton's supplies, and that Patton railed against Montgomery's caution. The truth is less foolish for both of them. In fact Montgomery railed  against Eisenhower's broad front strategy regardless of which of the  other sub-commanders was benifitting (to the point of Montgomery making  an offer to serve under Bradley as long as someone got single control to  pursue a single strategy). He railed against the diversion of resources  anywhere not at the main point where a thrust might have achieved early  victory.

Leaving aside whether that victory could have happened,  Montgomery's beef was with Eisenhower first, his appalling chief of supply Lee second, fellow Army Group Commanders who couldn't control the excesses of their subordinates like Bradley (and to a lesser extent) Devers third, and only then with the several army commanders who each tried to do their own thing.

In practical terms Montgomery seemed more appalled by the negative effects of the incompetence of Hodges (1st US Army,) and  the obnoxiousness of General De Gaulle's orders to 'his' army (French First Army), and perhaps even  the ineffectiveness of his own subordinate Crerar  (Canadian 1st army) , than he did by Patton's enthusiasms. There is  hardly a mention of Patton in his diaries through this period, compared  to several comments on Bradley and De Gualle, and endless ones on  Eisenhower.

Patton too is being maligned by the pretense that his  war was taken up with a vain competition with Montgomery. Patton, like  Montgomery, was totally concerned with the main issue of defeating  Germany. But unlike Montgomery, he did not have Brooke  -  the Chief of Imperial General Staff - to rely on for support against  Eisenhower's broad front strategy.

Patton too was convinced that this was the wrong way to go, but to get his version of a thrust (with him at  the front) happening, he had to be a bit more manipulative than Montgomery.

Every word Patton used to wheedle and manipulate  support, or at least a blind eye to what he was doing, was designed to  get more resources from his superiors. Indeed, if he couldn't get them from Eisenhower, he was willing to steal them wherever he could, and  then get Bradley to pretend to not know what he was doing. In this he was quite willing to encourage Bradley's inferiority complex in relation  to Montgomery, and to happily manipulate Bradley into tantrums to get  what they both wanted, but it seems likely that Patton was more  interested in getting his way by making his superiors compete with  Montgomery, than in competing with Montgomery himself.

Patton is  actually a more complex and clever character than the romantics give him credit for. His 'kill them even if they try to surrender' speeches in  Sicily were part of his stage management of troops, not part of his innate personality. HIs 'us against the world' propaganda was more  manipulative, not so much like Bradley's inferiority complex. He wanted to win, and he would use anything to get what he needed to win, even  ramping up his superiors to distrust their allies. But his genuine competitiveness with Montgomery at this stage was less about him and Montgomery, and more about him and how he could maneouvre others to  support him. He would have shown the same level of competitiveness, and  the same willingness to undermine, any competitor at this point, British, French, Russian or even American.

Montgomery on the  other hand only saw Patton as one more junior general syphoning supplies  from an inadequate source. Montgomery was in competition with  Eisenhower for control, and possibly with Bradley for resources. Minor  army commanders in other people's army groups only registered on his horizon if he could get their armies assigned to his army group.

Just for amusement, it might be fun to consider how Montgomery and Patton might have worked together?

Montgomery was notoriously superb to serve under, no matter what your nationality.  British, Australian, New Zealander, South African, Indian, Canadian, French, Polish, and American troops who served under him  were all very happy to do so. So were their generals. Bradley certainly learned more  about being a field commander from a few months of Montgomery's distant mentoring than from anything Eisenhower ever did for him in their much closer relationship.

There is no doubt that Montgomery preferred effective subordinates to ineffective ones, and it seems possible that Patton would have made a preferable subordinate to Crerar or Bradley in his mind.

As for Patton, he would have served anyone who got him what he wanted. Had Montgomery offered him the chance to spearhead the attack into Germany, there is virtually no doubt that Patton would have  jumped at the chance.

Patton was not the racist that Bradley or Eisenhower were, and was happy to have black troops. He was not the American supremacist that Roosevelt or MacArthur were, and worked well with others (as long as they let him have enough lime light).

Had Montgomery been left as land forces commander, there is little doubt that he would have used Patton's aggression in a way that would have  made Patton much happier than Eisenhower's broad front strategy ever allowed.

It is fun to imagine Montgomery as land forces commander using Patton's 3rd Army in conjunction with British 2nd to leapfrog ahead at top speed into Germany. The best British tactics were never the  broad front strategy that the worst American's like Marshall and Eisenhower fancied. They were always the 'hold the enemy, crumble the  enemy, breakthrough the enemy, and pursue with as much force as fast and  far as possible' skills that had worked since the development of  mechanised warfare in 1918. (As demonstrated by the Germans in Poland  and France and Russia, the British and Germans in North Africa, the  Japanese and British in Asia, and the Russians in Eastern Europe.)

Montgomery would have used his traditional two corps up, one back, one resting deployment, adapted to armies, to keep up the momentum. Patton's preferred tactics were almost exactly the same, and he and his 3rd  Army would have fit it like a glove into Montgomery's thrust strategy.

Personally  I think that the limited reality behind their competitiveness paid trumps in Sicily, and I wish that it had been repeated in France. Patton could not have been a worse Army group commander than Bradley was, and would almost certainly have been better.

It is amusing to think of Patton and Montgomery effectively conspiring to destroy the broad front strategy while they got on with winning the war in the best spirit of competition. Although I have a sneaking suspicion that one of Patton's biographers was right to suggest that by 1945 he had suffered a few too many hits on the head, there is little doubt that he would have been almost as valuable to the Allied cause in Bradley's place against Eisenhower's policies directly, as he would have under Montgomery's army  group. That might have been a useful version of rivalry.

[kumoriyami-xiuzhen]

Hakuoki Shinkai: Ginsei no Shou - Saito Chapter Four

Well, this is probably my 2nd favourite chapter from Ginsei no Shou... Final edits will be done later as always. Need to go over the punctuation and some of the sentences which were compounded in the translation I used so I also need to review that... though it’s probably going to take a while before i get to the subtitled video for this since my finals are literally next week, with the last one being on friday and im only about 3/5 done with the timing for the first chapter. 

Chapter 4 occurs in Edo.

enjoy!

Hakuoki Shinkai: Ginsei no Shou - Saito Chapter Four

Translation by KumoriYami

Twelfth month, third year of Keiou. 

The Shinsengumi was very busy following the aftermath of the Battle of Toba Fushimi and other political affairs, and was very busy......

However, in comparison, the current political situation has undergone even greater changes. [check jp mtl. reword later].

The Edo Shogunate which had been provoked by Western vassals, had been unable to completely suppress them, finally accepted the Imperial Restoration Order [check jp mtl]. 

In name, the shogunate was abolished and a new government was established [reword later].

However, the Shogunate, which had held power for so long, naturally refused to give it up [check jp mtl]. 

At the end of the third year of Keiou, many soldiers had been stationed in Kyoto and Osaka in order to prevent the Sat-cho's forces/armies/troops from entering the capital. 

The Shinsengumi which had been stationed at Toba-Fushimi, also confronted the Sat-cho's forces.

Then, on the third day of the first month, before the atmosphere of the New Year had yet to dissipate——

A single gunshot started the Battle of Toba-Fushimi. 

Until now, the Shinsengumi which wielded blades, could have been regarded as invincible. 

However against the Sat-cho which with the latest weapons and equipment, they had been unable to make up the gap in performance granted by guns [reword later.]. 

The warriors fell down one after another before they even stepped into the attack range of a sword, and their dead bodies piled up like a mountain. 

Watching how he was no longer able to rely on his battle-honed swordsmanship, could only watch as Kyoto, which he had guarding with all his heart, turned into a sea of flames, I had no idea about what Saito-san had been thinking [reword later].

I had always viewed the Shinsengumi as samurai, and so, their defeat felt like it signified the end to the age of samurai...... 

I wasn’t able to put this into words, and was only able to watch in silence. 

After, in order to avoid pursuers, we decided to retreat to Osaka Castle. 

In addition to Amagiri-san, who had been repeatedly fought against.

 because I was the target of that male oni——Kazama-san, we ended up being obstructed once again.

The fighting with the Sat-cho forces had ended up [with them] being completely suppressed by the latest firearms [check jp mtl]. 

Yet even the katana that he had always believed in was unable to resist the strength Kazama-san wielded as an oni......

Even so, Saito-san was like a well-tempered steel blade, completely unyielding——

In order to fulfill his orders to protect me, he drank the Ochimizu, became a rasetsu, and was finally able to drive back Kazama-san. 

Afterwards. 

We arrived at Osaka Castle, and met up with the rest of the Shinsengumi. 

We followed Yoshinobu who retreated to Edo [check jp. pretty sure this is Yoshinobu being mentioned here], and vowed to make a comeback from Edo. 

The reason why I was living with the Shinsengumi was originally to find my missing father.

Now, since there wasn't much meaning in doing so, I didn't seem to have a reason to follow them anymore......  

After pulling myself together, I took [my] sword [check jp for kodachi] from Saito-san, and decided to follow the Shinsengumi. 

This must have been because of being in contact with them all the time , the Shinsengumi had become my home. 

First month and a half, Fourth year of Keiou [uh... reword later.].

We finally returned to Edo, and borrowed a hanamoto's residence/mansion [check game for the term they use] to use as our headquarters to regain our strength.  

But, it wasn't easy to restructure/reorganize a severely damaged organization. 

Kondou-san and Hijikata-san, in order to negotiate with the Shogunate, were attending meetings all day. 

Inoue-san and Yamazaki-san had sacrificed their lives, and Okita-san was still recuperating......

The greatest burdens naturally fell onto Saito-san. 

After turning into a rasetsu, he would feel unwell from simply being awake during the day, but he still never complained and devoted himself to working all day and night/tirelessly working. 

Second month of the Fourth year of Keiou

One day during the second month of the Fourth year of Keiou, when I saw deeply distressed over how Saito-san was working and reluctant to even sleep, the following story occurred. 

Second month of the Fourth Year of Keiou

During the first month of the year, the former/old shogunate army, which had been defeated at/in the/during the Battle of Toba-Fushimi, retreated to Edo, was waiting for the opportunity to make a comeback.

The Shinsengumi, who had also returned to Edo, first stayed at a hotel in Shinagawa, then borrowed a hanamoto's residence in Edo to use as their headquarters. 

In order to revitalize/restructure the situation [reword later. think that reads oddly], every day was very busy.

About a month after returning to Edo...... 

Yukimura: Um, I remember that this box should have......

I was in the middle of hastily organizing all sorts of things that had been bought for the/at the new headquarters/I was at the new headquarters and arranging all sorts of things that had been purchased [check jp mtl]. 

However, I couldn't waste too much time on this.

Because I still had to go shopping, and there were many other things that had to be done——

Yukimura: Ah……!

Because of how flustered I was, I accidently knocked down a pile of luggage. 

Yukimura: Ah……

Those things need to be put back/returned to their original positions as soon as possible. 

Thinking this, I quickly/hurriedly picked up the luggage. Just then/At this moment, someone opened the door, and a cool/clear/cool and clear [check jp mtl] voice came [echoed]. 

Saito:……Yukimura.

Yukimura: Ah, Saito-san. I thought you went out, but it turns out you were here [reword later].

Saito: I just returned....... putting that aside, I heard a loud noise just now.

Yukimura: Ah...... I'm sorry, I wasn't careful and knocked some of the luggage down [reword later?]. I'll clean it up right away, so don't worry about it.

Saito: It'll be difficult for you to do this by yourself, so I'll help you. 

Shortly after he spoke, he picked up the luggage and returned it to their original positions [reword later].

Yukimura: But, Saito-san, shouldn't you be very busy……？

Saito: I'm not so busy to the point that I don't have time to put these back.

Yukimura:……Thank you, Saito-san.

Shortly after, we finished packing the luggage [thesaurus later].

Saito: Anyway, Yukimura.

Yukimura: Nn, what's wrong/what is it?

Saito: Are you the only one sorting out the luggage here?

Yukimura: Yes. It's because the other warriors have their own work to do. In the past, Inoue-san would help me clean up, but——

After saying that, I quickly stopped myself.

Yukimura:…………I'm sorry.

Saito: No, you don't need to apologise.

Yukimura:…………

Inoue-san and Yamazaki-san, they died during the Battle of Toba Fushimi.

During such normal daily circumstances, to suddenly think of……

It was depressing/I couldn't help but feel depressed [check video].

However Saito-san and the other warriors would never publicly express their grief.

That's why...... I try to not to mention Inoue-san to them as much as possible.

Saito: Anyway, Yukimura. I would like to take you somewhere later....... Do you have anything you need to do?

Yukimura: I was planning to go buy food for dinner after....... I was just thinking about which of the warriors I could go with.

Saito: In that case, I'll go with you. Afterwards, I hope that you can accompany me. 

Yukimura: Alright, that's fine, but where are we going?

Saito: Matsumoto-sensei. So I can see the circumstances of the wounded.

Yukimura: Ah, so it was like that....... But, is that okay for you? It's still early. 

Having become a rasetsu, Saito-san would feel unwell in the sunlight [check jp mtl 'during the day'?]

But, he still......

Saito: That doesn't matter. Please get ready as soon as possible.

Although I  was very worried about him, but...... [check game]

Yukimura:.......I know.

I'm afraid that telling him to rest now, would instead be more painful. 

I silently convinced myself, and decided to go with him.

Afterwards, we visited Matsumoto-sensei, confirming the/Matsumoto-sensei to confirm the circumstances of the wounded......

Yukimura: The majority of people seem to have recovered from their injuries, which is good [check jp mtl].

Saito:......Yes, it can be said that this is good luck/blessing despite misfortune. In order to prepare for the next battle with the Sat-cho, it is necessary for as many soldiers to recover from their injuries as soon to regain [their?] combat effectiveness. 

Yukimura:......Nn.

Saito: Unfortunately, Souji......

Yukimura:......!

Hearing Okita-san’s name, I froze.

Just now, according to Matsumoto-sensei, Okita-san's seems to have seriously/significantly deteriorated——

In the future/From now on, I'm afraid that/perhaps he will never be able to hold a sword [ever] again. 

Saito: The Chief and Vice-Commander hope that they will be able to fight against the Sat-cho again soon, but I do not know if they will be able to fight alongside Souji the day that hope becomes a reality...... [check jp mtl. difficulty with translating]

Yukimura:…………

Even Saito-san, who rarely expresses himself, couldn't help but feel extremely regretful when he thought of never being able to fight alongside Okita-san again. 

Shortly after, he shook his head. 

Saito:......Sorry, I’ve upset you by saying that. [check jp mtl. Tl is more literally: Sorry, for saying that, hearing that upset you]

Yukimura: No, how could that be…...

Saito: [We’re going] back to headquarters [check jp mtl], there is still work that needs to be done.

Just as Saito-san finished speaking, and was about to move [tl is “to take a step”. Check jp mtl]. 

Saito: Guh……!

Suddenly, he winced and groaned in pain.

Yukimura: Saito-san!?

I rushed forward to support him.

Saito:......No, you don’t need to worry, I was just feeling dizzy [check game for punctuation].

Yukimura: But......!

After Saito-san turned into a rasetsu, even/just walking in the sunlight would cause pain beyond imagination/would be accompanied by unimaginable pain. 

Yukimura: After we return to headquarters, why don't you go rest for a bit? You've recently been busy with work, and don't seem to have enough rest [reword later.]. 

Saito: There is no time to rest now. 

Yukimura: But, if you continue like this……!

Saito: I said that you don’t need to worry. Now, we’re going back to headquarters.

Yukimura:......

From the bottom of my heart, I could not accept Saito-san's words. 

But, I also knew that the work he was doing, was something only he could do. 

For that reason, I didn't say anything, and returned with him to headquarters. 

Following that, it seems that Saito-san seemed to be reluctant to spend any of his time on sleeping/reluctant to even sleep, and buried himself in his work. 

It wasn't like visiting the injured soldiers yesterday, or dealing with various trivial matters, such as allocating the necessary supplies for headquarters, would do anything to raise the funds that were needed to pay for the expenses during this period of time, or anything/and so on [check jp mtl. had difficulties with this sentence].. 

Additionally, preparing money/funds for new clothes and bedding, the purchase of weapons, preparing medicine, arranging for food ingredients [reword later. check jp mtl. "money for clothes." word i have can be translated to a money-related word or "change" as in 'change of clothes']...... There were a lot of things that needed to be dealt with.

Of course, I also wanted to help as much as possible. 

Despite that though, I am unable to completely do everything. 

If only he would take a day off for his health......

Yukimura:……?

At this moment, I heard some noise from in front of the entrance. 

Those voices, it couldn't be......

I hastily ran over to the entrance. 

Opening the doors, standing in front of me were——

Yukimura: Nagakura-san, Harada-san, are you heading out?

Shinpachi:: Nn? Ah, yeah. I was planning on asking/inviting some of the soldiers to something good to eat/to eat something nice, to(/and) cheer them up [reword later]. 

Yukimura: That's it/That's...... 

If only doing something like that could encourage/cheer Saito-san up. [check jp mtl. Don’t think “cheer” is appropriate for Saito though that’s an accurate translation. thesaurus later?] .  

Seeing how I was unusually lowering my head, Harada-san looked at my face. 

Harada: What’s wrong? Did something happen?

Yukimura: Actually......

I told them about what I thought when I went out with Saito-san yesterday. [reword later?]

Harada: A way to cheer up Saito…... 

Shinpachi: What can we do about that [though?]? Even if you told him to rest, there's no way he would just obediently do that. 

Harada: Yeah. There'd be no choice but to use force to get him to sleep, right? [check jp mtl]

Yukimura: Fo-Force/By, by force? 

Shinpachi: Hey hey, you're talking nonsense, Sano. How can a girl compel Saito with brute force? [check jp mtl]

Harada: We also should be helping [check jp mtl], but,  it's not good to leave the other warriors to themselves...... 

Yukimura: The other warriors, are they too busy that they don't have time to rest......?

Shinpachi: Well...... we were ultimately defeated in battle. There are a lot of guys who are constantly accumulating resentment [reword later]. 

Harada: After all, they're all vigorous youngsters/young people, if they aren't allowed to drink and vent their frustrations, I really don't know what they might do. 

Yukimura: That’s…...

Harada: Once we come back, we'll take on/share a portion of Saito-san's work. We can't always leave the entire burden on him/all the responsibilities to him...... right?

Yukimura:......Nn, both of you, thank you.

The two men walked shoulder to shoulder. 

Watching their backs, I suddenly got an idea. 

Yukimura: Letting them drink sake to vent/express their frustrations......

I didn't know if such a thing would work with /if such a method would be effective for Saito-san. 

However, compared to doing nothing....... perhaps it was worth trying. 

Thus, later that night. 

Yukimura: Saito-san, are you/did you fall asleep?

I asked the question from behind the sliding door. [reword later?] 

Saito: Come in, Yukimura.

Yukimura: Yes, excuse/pardon me.

Saito-san still looked too busy to pay attention to me/still looked too busy to me...... [check jp mtl]

Without looking away from the/his desk, he remained focused on writing a letter. 

Saito: It's very late, is something wrong? [reword later]

Yukimura: Saito-san, are you busy right now?

Saito: There are still matters that must be completed [reword later]. Western-style training and weapons must be arranged for as quickly as possible. 

Yukimura: Then when that is finished, will your work for today be done?

Saito:......?  

Saito: No, after that's done, even though that is finished, there's still work that needs to be done and it is best to start sooner——

Turning his head, when he saw me, his expression instantly hardened/froze. 

Saito: Yukimura, what is that?

Seeing how speechless he looked, I replied with a smile. 

Yukimura: It's sake——I'll wait for you to finish that letter, there will be drinks tonight [check jp mtl. had difficulties with this sentence]! I'll be accompanying you too!

Saito:……What……?

When Saito-san's work finally came to an end......

I hurriedly explained my intentions, and poured the sake into a cup. 

Saito:.......What is this/this for. What on earth are you thinking?

Yukimura: The letter's done. You can finish the rest of your work tomorrow....... 

Saito: Even if it's not urgent/an emergency, it's better to finish this early. 

Yukimura: But, can't you have a drink? It's important to rest properly. 

I pushed the cup of sake in towards him/in front/before him.

He hesitated doubtfully for a moment, [but?] he still took the cup. 

Saito:…………

But he still didn't drink. 

It was difficult for someone to drink by themself, I thought, so I poured myself a cup, and drank it without the slightest hesitation. 

Yukimura: Ah...... It's, it's good sake! Saito-san, please [check jp mtl. word i have is "please" but it can also mean 'to ask/invite' or 'request'. maybe change to 'please have some'?]! 

Saito-san’s brows furrowed tightly, as if he was thinking for a moment......

Saito:......In the end, what is your purpose? [reword later? i don't like how that reads]

Yukimura: Actually, I——

How should I answer that?

Choices:

[It's to get you drunk] <-

[I just wanted to drink with you]

Yukimura: Because…… it’s to get you drunk.

Presumably it was because my answer was too startling, that Saito-san fell silent/was speechless [probably change to the latter].

Saito: To get me…… drunk? Are you able to drink a lot [tl is more “hold your liquor/have good capacity for drinking. reword later]?

Yukimura: Th-That's......

How was I supposed to say that I almost never drank, but was I being too bold to try and get Saito-san to be drunk? [reword later]

But......

Yukimura: If I don’t do this/If this isn’t done, you’re never going to rest. If you continue like this, you’ll definitely collapse one day. Please, just for tonight, please listen to my request and drink this sake/drink this [check game]!

Saito: Wa-Wait. You're not making any sense. Considering that....... you're not actually drunk, are you?

Yukimura: I'm not drunk! I only had one cup. Rather than me, you should be drinking this, Saito-san! This sake was specially prepared for you!

Saito:......Apparently, you won't let me go if I don't drink [reword later?].

He finally raised the cup of sake to his mouth.

Yukimura: Saito-san, did you drink it......?

Tonight's goal was to get him to rest properly.

If I was the only one that got drunk, then it was meaningless. 

While I only had one drink, I wasn't sure if he actually drank anything......

Yukimura: Saito-san...... what do you think of this? [how is it]

Saito:  Ah, aah......

Although I felt dizzy, I felt comfortable, like I was soaking in a warm bath. 

Yukimura:.......By the way, Saito-san, you always, always...... act recklessly. Do you know how upset I get watching you...... No, you don't know.......

Saito: Even if you say that you are suffering/upset, as a member of the Shinsengumi, I must follow the Vice-Commander's orders....... 

Yukimura: Then, when you were fighting against Kazama [check for -san], your entire body was covered in blood...... At that time, I really thought that you were going to die....... 

Saito: I, I see....... Sorry.

Yukimura: Since coming to Edo, you've obviously been unwell, but you've been working so hard...... That's why I hoped you would be able to rest, and at least have a drink.

Saito: I understand.

Yukimura:....... Re-Really?

Saito:......Yes, I ended up drinking. But, you drinking in order to get me to drink feels odd....... For forcing yourself to drink to get me to drink, I apologize. [check game]

Yukimura: No......! I don't need you to apologize to me....... I just....... wish that you would cherish your body a bit more......

After that, Saito-san began drinking, and while I didn't know how much time passed...... 

I was hit by an intense feeling of drowsiness, and I couldn't even sit properly——

I fell onto the tatami like that. 

I felt so weak and couldn't get up. [reword later]

If I relax a bit more, I'll probably fall asleep like this. 

It was only out of a sense of duty that I wanted Saito-san to rest, and I then opened my mouth to ask a question.

Yukimura: Saito-san...... how are you......? Are you asleep......?

Saito:…………

I heard quiet breathing from the person sleeping beside me. 

Yukimura:......That's great......

Although this method was a bit rough [thesaurus?], Saito-san finally slept.

I felt relieved from accomplishing this and I couldn't help but say what was on my mind. [check game]

Yukimura: I.......

Yukiura: I've always been worried about you....... You drank the Ochimizu, and now have a body that loathes the sunlight, and it's my fault...... that you've become a rasetsu.

Saito:…………

Yukimura: But....... if you didn't drink the Ochimizu and become a rasetsu then....... I would no longer be here...... and I would never see you again....... 

Saito:…………

Yukimura: So even though it's painful...... even though I feel sorry...... and even though I feel sad...... I still want..... to thank you....... for protecting....... me.

…………

…………

Saito:……………………Are you asleep, Yukimura?

 Yukimua:…………

Saito:……Really……to think that you'd talk to yourself if the other person was asleep....... I don't regret drinking the Ochimizu in the slightest. I only made the right choice for my own honour, and to protect you.

Yukimua:…………

Saito:.......But you're worried about this and my body. However when I think about the Shinsengumi's situation, I cannot rest...... Nevertheless/Even so....... I'm very happy for you to have broken into my heart like this. Thank you, Yukimura.

Yukimua:…………

…………

……That night, I dreamt that Saito-san was saying something into my ear [reword later].

His voice, which sounded more gentle than usual, seemed to whisper [reword later].

It sounded so comfortable, so full of affection/care......

I slept like this until the next morning [reword later].

- The End -

*happy sigh*

Well, in kyoka-roku, during one of saito’s char perspectives, he does say that he might have been attracted to Chizuru since they talked in that alley… 

[pi-cat000]

BNHA: Kakashi dimension hops crossover (6)

Summary: Kakashi gets dumbed into the My Hero Academia universe through random plot devise.

Characters:  Kakashi Hatake

Fandoms: My Hero Academia and Naruto

WARNINGS: Mentions of violence/injury

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As predicted, the day following the seal’s application is miserable. His chest is tight with almost anxiety, pins and needles run up and down his arms making his skin itch, and he is increasingly lethargic. All symptoms of a chakra imbalance and to be expected when one’s normal chakra replacement rate was thrown out. The sensations would pass once his body adjusted as they had with his sharingan.

He is eating three square meals a day, doing the bare minimum when it came to exercise routines and avoiding excess chakra use. It had been literal years since he had had this much bed rest. If he were ever going to slap a chakra collecting seal on himself, this was a perfect time. Okay, so maybe he should have steadily increased the chakra drain over the course of a few weeks for a smoother adjustment period. Hindsight and all that.

What mattered was that he would be fine, and he just had to wait it out. Bright side? No one had commented on the seal yet. Oh, he has definitely noticed serval people throwing the odd confused frown at his shoulder, but that was as far as anyone had gone in acknowledging it. His oh so clever strategy of acting like nothing was wrong worked so much better when he wasn’t surrounded by other shinobi and medic-nin.

“Your blood pressure is still too high. Are you sure you haven’t been experiencing any additional fatigue or other symptoms? Is something about the hospital causing additional stress? If there is something wrong, we should work on strategies to fix the problem.”

Well… it worked on everyone who wasn’t Wada. The man was irritatingly persistent in his doctoring. Apparently, the pressure of adjusting to an increased chakra drain wasn’t doing his body any favours.

“Maybe it’s a part of my quirk. High regeneration. High blood pressure.” Kakashi shrugs loosely not bothering to look up from HEROES and HEROINES May Issue. Unlike his previous reading material, people gave him odd looks when they saw him reading these magazines which immediately upped their entertainment value 100-fold.

Wada undoes the compression sleeve he had been using to measure Kakashi’s blood pressure, lecturing as he goes, “From what I can tell your cells produce more energy-rich molecules, ATP, NADH, then is typical, increasing cellular functions. Where your cells are getting the energy to produce these molecules, I have no idea seeing as you eat about the same amount as any baseline human. What I can safely say is that it should not influence your blood pressure. If anything, your blood pressure should be a bit lower than average. Now don’t dodge the question.”

He pauses, waiting for Kakashi to cave and suddenly confess. Kakashi, an old hat at dodging medical questions, continues reading unperturbed.

“I’ve been at this for over 30 years. An attack like the one you suffered is understandably traumatic, not to mention the stress of severe amnesia. I’m sure, whatever is bothering you, I’ve heard it before.”

Kakashi very much doubts that. “I feel fine.”

Wada huffs, unconvinced, “Young men. You all think that admitting you have a problem is a sign of weakness. High blood pressure can damage your heart and lead to problems  later in life so finding the cause is important.” Good thing a shinobi life spans tended to max out around 30. The odds of him making it to an age where he’d have to worry about the long-term effects of anything were pretty low. He doesn’t voice this opinion, continuing to read.

Wada continues talking with greater gusto, “No matter, I’ll prescribe you something for stress hopefully that’ll help with your blood pressure. However, this is no replacement for healthy habits both physical and mental. You should consider professional therapy.”

Kakashi snorts. Yeah, that sounds about right.

“Oh, you think that’s funny do you,” Wada makes to grab HEROES and HEROIENS and he lets the doctor pull the magazine free from his hand. It gives him a good view of the man’s irate expression.

“No, of course not.” Kakashi attempts to placate and gets a light smack over the head with said magazine for his troubles.

“There is no shame in pursuing a healthy mind!”

“Weren’t we going to test my quirk today?” He complains to derail the current line of questioning.

“I have half a mind to put it off and have you rest another week,” is threatened before Wada’s stern expression relaxes, “Lucky for you, I’ve booked you into serval tests that can’t be rescheduled.”

Kakashi breaths out dramatically. He thinks Wada might have made a good medic-nin if he had lived in Konoha. Sure, he is a little too trusting, but he was also not above pestering his patients into taking better care of themselves. Sakura would approve.

The doctor, with the assistance of an attending nurse he hadn’t bothered to learn the name of, helps Kakashi out of his bed and into a wheelchair, ignoring his protests about his leg being all but healed.

“You’re to avoid putting weight on it until you start physical therapy,” Wada snaps at his continued complaints, “You’ll need to be careful, extended bed rest and surgery can leave your muscles weakened. Also, leave that magazine behind. You’re doing eye tests when do you think you’ll have time to read!”

Kakashi doesn’t push the matter further, resigning himself to being wheeled down the hospital halls like the invalid he was pretending to be. It is not like Wada knew about his frequent excursions to the roof or the fact that he has been running through strengthening exercises on his own time for several weeks now.  Best he keeps that information to himself.

Partway down the hall, he pulls out HEROES and HEROIENS from where he had slipped it into his shirt, enjoying Wada’s exasperated expression. Of course, he stops reading when the doctor threatens to start lecturing again. The man could definitely talk when given the chance.

Wada and the nurse take wheel him to a set of double-door elevators which take them down several floors below the ground level. The hallway they exit of a mirror of every other hospital hallway. Grey and white walls, pale blue lino floor and bright fluorescent overhead lights. The only difference is that this hallway is lined with heavy-looking metal doors. From snooping through patient files, he knows that all quirk tests are carried out in specially designated underground ‘safety rooms.’ That doesn't make him any more thrilled about being several stories underground. It cut down on his escape roots.

“These are some of the more secure recovery wards in the hospital,” Wada explains as their little group stops at a small reception desk where the doctor taps away at a computer screen, “they’re mostly for treating patients with unstable quirks.” Kakashi maintains a neutral expression, accepting the explanation.

Wada wheels him up to a steel door, swiping his ID card which also doubled as a key to many areas of the hospital. The heavy door is automated and slides open. A lot of the doors in the hospital operate this way and always made sneaking around slightly more troublesome.

Inside walls and floor are plain white and there is an odd number of tables and chairs pushed to one side out of the way. Everything stinks of disinfectant. On the far wall is a single solitary painting of a tree in a field, the only splash of colour in an otherwise depressingly sparse room. A poor attempt at living up the space. The opposite wall sports a rectangular, reflective surface which was probably some sort of observation booth. Well, if being underground hadn’t put him on edge, this obvious confinement room definitely did the job. Kakashi eyes the space. Worse comes to worst, he could use the kamui and remove the adjoining hallway wall then climb his way out through the elevator shaft. There are only two other people in the room with him and one woman at the reception desk, all were most likely unenhanced with quirks unsuited to combat, easily removed.  He doesn’t let his body language reflect his unease. He is just a little on edge because the new seal is messing with his body’s natural homeostasis. If this is a trap there would have been other signs of deception before now.

“Yes, I know it might seem like a whole lot of fuss just to run through a few flashcards,” Wada comments, oblivious to Kakashi’s poor mood. He waves to his assisting nurse who wheels over and lowers one of the metallic tables so Kakashi doesn’t have to move from his wheelchair. “But it’s a standard safety procedure when an unknown quirk is involved. Trust me, this is a lot easier than travelling to an external testing range.”

Wada stops to give Kakashi a once over, frowning, “How much do you know about your quirk sub-type?”

Kakashi shrugs, “Nothing much.”

“Ah,” The doctor’s frown grows, and he grimaces, “Of course you don’t.” A sigh.

“Typically, ocular quirks will act to enhanced sight in some way or improve base level memorisation and recall ability. It is also common to have a replicating function, allowing the user to produce some sort of copy of things they see. In rarer cases, ocular quirks result in precognitive abilities.” Wada explanation falters, “They can also have a line-of-sight emitter effect, such as laser vision, optical blasts, a few instances of mind control and other mental effects. These can also be incredibly dangerous if the user isn’t in control. There have even been instances where whole buildings have been levelled.”

“I see.”  He supposes Wada's irritation at this private 'quirk' testing made a bit more sense. A doctor faced with an unknown and possibly dangerous ability would be annoyed if said patient went about experimenting without taking safety precautions.

“I should have checked whether you knew the dangers instead of just assuming. Apologies. That is my own error.”

He peers at Kakashi, almost guilty now, “and you don’t have a phone either so there would have been no way for you to research quirks yourself.”

“Ah,” Kakashi rubs the back of his head not likening how torn up the other man seems to be seeing as Kakashi had ever been in any real danger. “Don’t worry about it,” he reassures.  

His reassurances land flat, the doctor still frowning, “I’ll see if I can get you access to the internet somehow.”

Privately, Kakashi adds 'research' to the list of functions ‘phones’ apparently provided and 'internet' to his growing list of terms to investigate.

Wada sighs again. “Regardless, let’s get these tests done first.” He places a thick folder labelled National Standard for Registration: Kit Type 3 alongside one of those portable keyboard-less computers the doctors tended to carry around.  “Hold on, been a while since I’ve done one of these. Need to find the rights files. Ah, here we go. First, these rooms are monitored, and all tests are recorded. The data collected is confidential, accessible only to the patient and physician unless doing so causes the patent harm. Information regarding quirk function and use is shared with the Registry Office. You have a right to stop testing at any point. You got that?”

Kakashi grunts, his already poor mood souring further. He is not sure he wants the hospital - or anyone - keeping records of anything sharingan related.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Wada continues unperturbed, a testament to his serval weeks of trying to doctor Kakashi, “remember to let me know if you’re experiencing any discomfort. Don’t want you busting anymore blood vessels.

Kakashi lets out a tired breath, “Sure.” The sooner they left this room the better.

“We’ll test memory and vision first to compare to your baseline, then we’ll run through the replication and precognitive tests just in case.”

The nurse, who had been on the opposite side of the room waves, “All ready over here.” There is now a large poster with letters of varying sizes hung on the wall. He recognises the chart from his previous eye tests.

“Okay, let’s start with just uncovering it. Make sure you’re looking away from me as a precaution.”

Kakashi resists rolling his non- sharingan eye at the obvious instruction, shifting his attention to the poster on the wall. He flips his padded eyepatch up with his index finger so it partially rests on his forehead. All the letters, no matter the size, immediately snap into sharp focus. Nothing spontaneously combusts under his gaze. When he glances at the painting of the tree, he can now see a lack of brush texture, suggesting that it wasn’t a painting but a print of some sort. With that useless information now forever etched into his memory, he turns back to examine at Wada.

The sharingan picks out all the wrinkles and pores lining the older face. It focuses in on minuscule muscle movements as the man’s expression shifts from professional and accommodating to curious. The doctor’s fingers twitch ever so slightly over his computer. Most likely an unconscious habit. The man’s breath is slightly uneven like his chest can’t smoothly expand, suggesting some sort of lung problem. A past smoking habit perhaps? Nothing threatening is revealed.

“Doctor.” Kakashi prompts when Wada spends a little too long staring back at him. The sharingun did have a weak hypnotic effect, encouraging extended eye contact to help catch targets in genjutsu. Kakashi rarely uncovered his eye in the presence of civilians so he doesn’t know if the effect is more pronounced or if Wada is just curious.

Wada blinks, “Well…I certainly see where the ‘wheel’ description comes from.” He spends a second more staring then turns to start writing notes and tapping away at his computer screen. “I wonder if those spinning tomoe are purely cosmetic or if they have some other function because they are certainly fascinating to look at. There is also faint bioluminescence to the eye which is a common feature of ocular quirks…”

Honestly, the blatant eye contact is weird. Even his closest allies tended to avoid looking at his sharingan out of habit - expect for Naruto who was an outlier in almost everything - for understandable reasons. He thinks the people here would also exercise caution if an ocular abilities included mind control or exploding a person through eye contact. But no, Wada just goes right ahead and stares. A few seconds later and the unnamed nurse is also looking curiously at his eye. … …

Aside from redoing a standard eye exam, Kakashi runs through a marathon of flashcards to test both his memory and then precognitive abilities. The tests are done with lights on then in the dark and Kakashi is given a perfect 20/20 and an enhancement score of ‘15 grades above average’ for both. There are also several pages worth of words and numbers in progressively complex arrangements to test his information retention. Of course, everything is easily remembered with the sharingun active.

“Well, it seems to give general across the board vision enhancement alongside perfect recall and retention,” Wada finally concludes as he records all Kakashi’s results, “Of course, we’ll have to re-test retention in a few days so see if the information degrades over an extended period and we don’t know whether your quirk effects your long distance eyesight, but, for now, this appears to be all. The link between your quirked eye and the regenerative side-effect is still unknown. Odd that we couldn’t trigger any ‘copy’ function considering the quirks name though  ‘copy’ could also be a reference to memorisation.  If any other features do reveal themselves make sure you alert a medical professional.”

… …

Kakashi despises the process of getting an MRI with a heated passion. He hates having to lie prone in a loud confined space. It is the height of discomfort, making him tense up and clench his jaw. It is only the fact that Kakashi had researched and mentally prepared himself for the experience that stops him from accidentally snapping someone’s neck.

“We’ll have the results back in a few days,” Wada informs once the trying ordeal is over with, “From there we’ll update the Registry so you’re properly in the system. Speaking of which, have you made any progress on remembering a surname? I need something for the forms.”

“Hatake,” he grunts, too irritated to bother evading - he just wants to return to his room and wait out the side effects of his seal in peace- the question like he had every other time the man asked, “I think I prefer Kakashi though.”

It wasn’t like the name meant anything here and, who knows, maybe someone would come looking for him. This way they would have a trail to follow.

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