#this is potentially a big step foward

[area51-narutorun]

Australian PM referred to ICC for complicity in genocide

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been referred to the International Criminal Court as an accessory of genocide to Gaza, announced this morning.

He's the first leader of a Western nation to be referred to the ICC over complicity in genocide. This could set a precedent for other leaders, such as Joe Biden and Rishi Sunak, to also be referred and potentially face trial.

Sources:

Birchgrove Legal Files Case for Complicity to Genocide to the Hague- International Criminal Court [Media Release] | Birchgrove Legal

Australian PM First Western Leader Referred to ICC as 'Accessory to Genocide in Gaza' (commondreams.org)

Antoinette Lattouf on X: "BREAKING: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been referred to the International Criminal Court as an accessory to genocide in Gaza making him the 1st leader of a Western nation referred to the ICC under Article 15 of the Rome Statute. 100+ Australian lawyers back this move https://t.co/5lQDdbU589" / X (twitter.com)

[butmakeitgayblog]

How is my favorite ball of floof, Sal?

I was just writing him today while waiting in the doctor's office 👀 he's good, he's good. Living his best life. Meeting one of his soon to be bestest friends ever

//////////////

The door swung up open before she could even finish her third knock. 

Clarke felt all the air escape right out of her lungs.

Because framed in the picturesque doorway was - possibly, potentially, easily debatable once her brain would start working again - one of the most beautiful women Clarke had ever seen in her thirty nine years of life. 

Just… not the one she'd expected. 

“Can I help you?”

Clarke blinked back at the rounded, deep amber eyes that stared at her in gentle questioning. Blinked at the sight of a messy curled bob of black hair that fell carelessly across the elegant line of petite shoulders. Dark brown skin looked almost velvety in the shadowed threshold between inside and out, and Clarke physically swayed foward on her toes just to catch a stronger whiff of her floral perfume. 

Mentally rolling her tongue back up into her skull, Clarke recovered enough to lean a sharp hook at the waist toward the left, just far enough to take another glance at the house number tacked on the side. 

‘Hm… Yep, I can still read…’

“I uh...” Clarke managed to right herself and actually stammer out loud when whatever celestial being she was gawking at only continued to look at her with serene patience, “Does, uh… Does Lexa live here?”

“Yes?”

Clarke frowned when nothing else came. “O-kay… Is she… Is she here right now?”

“Well I certainly hope so. Otherwise I'm breaking and entering.” White teeth shined in a perfectly aligned row when this riddle-baring goddess's lips bent into a teasing smile. But rather than feeling like the punchline of some joke she was being left out of, the effect of this sweet angel faced woman's charm only made Clarke smile in return. 

Before she could reconfigure the slog of words bumping around in her brain, a clatter of lazy tip-tap tip-taps grew loud enough to jerk Clarke's attention toward a rather large and decidedly hairy nose wedging its way into the exchange. A nose became a muzzle, became a panting white, black, and brown face. One with droopy eyes and even droopier jowls that nudged the door-guardian out of its way.

“Dude, c'mon.” Those ridiculously white teeth flashed in another soul brightening smile as the woman pushed herself away from where she'd been hip-checked into the door, and gave the beast-sized brute of a Saint Bernard a few scratches on the head. “Manners, my guy. What would your mother say about this kind of violence?”

Doleful eyes slid shut in a look of ecstasy at the rake of fingernails through his coat of cowlick laden fur.

A distant echo of muddled footsteps had the beautiful stranger turning, craning around to look behind her into the shadows of the house, which seemed entirely like an open invitation for Clarke to lift up on her toes and chance a peek into the darkeness beyond as well. Nothing gave itself away even as the padding of steps drew closer. Clarke rocked back onto the flat of her feet just before the door widened enough for another face to fit into the bizarre tableau, though it was the one single face that helped Clarke stop feeling like she needed to have an evaluation done of her own sanity. 

“What is the hold up out here— Clarke,” Lexa breathed as a smile lit up her blessedly familiar face. Glasses propped on top of her head and normal school attire button down exchanged for a tight knit Henley, the sudden vision of this entirely different version of Lexa added itself to Clarke's mental catalog of the woman. Lexa slipped past the mountain of a dog, giving it an absent command of ‘Back it up, big man,’ along with a snap and a point at the floor beside her that seemed sufficient enough to have him reversing several feet out of her way. She elbowed past the woman in the doorway to beckon Clarke inward with a wave of her hand. “Sorry, I didn't know it was you. Come in. You're early.”

“Uh, yeah. I hope that's not a problem.” Clarke floundered as she stepped in at the urging, eyes darting between Lexa and the dog who'd sat itself in a flop of limbs at her side, and the stranger now silently watching it all. 

“Not even a little.” The easy cadence of Lexa's words only helped to ease a fraction of Clarke's nerves. “You just said you couldn't make it for another couple hours.” 

Clarke tugged upward at the collar of her sweater that suddenly felt a touch too revealing. “I dropped Madi off with her dad a little early. Much to her numerous complaints.”

The soft tilt of Lexa's lips dipped into a frown. “Everything okay?”

“Of course. Just, getting her to understand that I actually had plans was met with great disdain. It's a theme we've developed, she and I. Ever since she's gotten her license, she doesn't seem to understand the concept that my car is not somehow now her car.”

Lexa's face relaxed into a kind of relieved understanding. “Ah, I see. A driving teenager. I don't envy you.”

“We're braver than the marines,” Clarke said amidst a roll of her eyes. 

In the quiet and fondness of Lexa's smile, Clarke let herself uncoil another fraction of an inch. She returned the soft sweetness of that green-eyed gaze with a herculean effort to not be the first to reach out. She'd pictured this moment more than a few times on the drive over - a few hundred more the previous evening, if she were being honest - but where'd she'd fantasized about just grabbing the woman and kissing her very pretty face off, possibly backing her into a hazy and ill-defined wall to have her way with her the second she would walk in, Clarke found herself rather perplexingly stuck to the spot. Unmoving in the relief of being in Lexa's space again. Unrushed and content to keep sharing smiles like a couple of idiots.

It was only an inelegant ruffle of fur and flapping jowls that broke the moment, followed immediately by a rather wet sounding sneeze prompting Clarke to finally drag her gaze away.

“You have a dog.”

Lexa glanced down at the mountain of black and tan fur at her side and back up. “I told you that I have a dog.”

“Uh, no,” Clarke laughed at that wild understatement and gestured to the device in her hand as though proof enough. “You text me an hour ago, ‘You're not allergic to dogs, right?’ And when I said no, you marked it with a thumbs up.”

Lexa seemed to pause in thought as her teeth worried at the plumped corner of her bottom lip. “... I did do that.”

“You did.”

“Okay, I think I might see where the breakdown in communication happened.”

“Solid work, Professor,” said a voice that drifted from over Lexa's shoulder.

“Your input isn't appreciated,” Lexa said to the startlingly still present but unidentified goddess hovering near the door. Forcing down a rather painful looking swallow as she nudged the glasses more securely up the slope of her nose, Lexa buried the obvious lede in the room and instead gestured to the hulking pile of dog sitting patiently where Lexa had left him. “Right, so I suppose introductions are in order then. Sal. This is Clarke. Clarke, this is my dog Sal. Sal, say hello.”

As if on cue, a giant paw went up in a clumsy mimic of a wave.

Clarke let out a surprised chuckle at the display, waving back on instinct before realizing that she was, in fact, waving at a dog. She let her hand drop. Idiot. “Hey, Sal. He's a… big guy, huh?”

“I'm convinced he's part moose,” Lexa sighed with an affectionate ruffle of Sal's ear. “In my defense, he was not this imposing when I got him.”

////////////

[lucypenniiies]

Just a little honest opinion

I like inanimate insanity and all, but now my opinion on the show has become more complex than a rubix cube at this point

Maybe its just because im getting into some darker media that's whats influencing a sour foiling over my thoughts on the show nowadays, but to cut to the chase, I don't really think I like the direction of where the show's going at this point...

When it's just season 1 and 2 existing, to me the show's whole thing was that it was a neat little niche show that while the first season... didn't age so well, the second season really made such a big impact from it being just this niche little show thats able to start diving into more complex, darker tones, and showed that it had the potential that it wasn't afraid to get even deeper and fleshed out.

Meanwhile invitational, the 3rd season, is more like a spin off of the already existing ii, but its still counted as being canon to the franchise and just makes a lot of moments in the show feel fluctuating and retconned, and the third season is at this point is what the crew is focused on 98% of the time. The crew says that they wanted to go back to how ii was like before s2 and its serious tone. That is the case usually, with the exception of a couple moments in the show where it does get heavy. What i am trying to say though is that... its just not effective. Its a little hard for me to explain, but it just makes it feel... stale? Its like the show took 1 step foward and 3 steps back.

Another problem (more like fear) I have is that I feel like I can't say or speak out on how I feel or have an honest opinion that'll contradict what a majority of what the community thinks and how i'll get metaphorically plummeted simply because I'm not following the hive-mind.

I don't think me being aware of the existence of object shows for a long time and how that's resonated with me for a long time makes these feelings any better as well.

I can't lie though, there are some nice things about ii now, and all the new characters its brought along, but its also kinda hard to enjoy those nice things with everything else i mentioned... long story short is that to me ii has gone from a niche show and with enormous potential and story-telling and showing that, to fans vs. favorites, to fanservice and playing favorites...

[ssickprimus]

latent jerrick everywhere...(spoilers!)

*takes a deep breath* so, first of all, they literally made morty interact with his main crush (jessica) at the beginning and then, they made rick interact with jerry. a moment later, they go to make-believe land and this page happens. hghghghg.

both rick & mort look at their supposed loved interest someone they know, but now in furry version, haha. i don’t even talk out of my ass, both the poses and then, the energy of this page!!! i swear to fucking god. they just HAVE to keep some of it (the friction) in mind, before they drawn this. 

rick treats king jerry, like he usually treats any jerry and i love this familirity. rick always feels so entitled, when it comes to his son-in-law, no matter the universe or the rules of said universe. it’s always like you’re a jerry. i just KNOW how you are. 

rick is one true jerry expert out there lol. the fairytime jerry, he called him. ah, cute lil name rickster. cute. and it even better, when rick still does what this jerry wants from him, despite being a jerk about it at first. 

their designs are cute too tbh. even if it's a fairly simple one. but i love how the king jerry is like half-serious and half-himself always. no matter the dimension. and he also have some buff dudes to serve him (like doof jer and his army of bodyguards/rick slaves), so you know lol. 

for once, it was nice seeing the knight actually being loayal to him (the poor dude was so sad, when he learned that jer is the real bad guy). he’s in charge here, and actually, it happens a lot of times, when beth doesn’t exist/died/they never met or were together. jerry’s potential always shows in places, where nothing (read no family) is there to hold him back. all hail king jerry...! 

HHHHHijezerg. this page tho....this part!!!!! jerry, who is less willing to take shit from him, sorta makes rick lose his swag every damn time. sure, he’s still being an ass to him, but he’s so surprised, when the dog finally bites him back. strongly or not. 

and more so, this time he actually goes along with what jerry wants. as half-assedly as he does it...and...

and yeah, this isn’t suggestive at all lmao. esp at how humble he is after that part. like what you wanted to do to this image right here, jer? all alone and all villain like. the big bad spies on ‘the hero’, who they use as a tool, such a classic, ah. 

but i liked, that he has an eye on all of them, it seemed. and i love how it’s always part of the comic villain jerry thing. he has cameras or a way to just watch someone from afar, keeping a track of them. this is kinda very jerry tbh. idk how to properly explain it, but it feels like smth that he would do. time after time. 

i also loved how he’s so anti-kids in a way... as if this is his latent fear to have one, haha. and also jerry once again, build an impressive machinary almost fully on HIS OWN. and some people still trick themselves into believing like betch-milf mcgee is the smart one??? witch jessica clearly helped him, but still, he had tapped his toes into this. and figured the rest out, after she helped him to do the first steps. similar to how 'holy father' jerry created a bomb that wiped the whole universe, based on rick's invention. jerry came up with a device, that could transfer him to different worlds. 

i also may say, that making villain jerrys into a 'conqueror' sorta suits his personality. not even in a way, where he wants more control, or how he just wanna rule over someone. tbh i always feel, that it has smth to do with just how he always walks foward, how he cannot stop, once he starts. 

and oh, i guess, it’s confirmed that king jer was created based on rick’s perf and ideas lol. but just think about it...out of all familiar faces, there were just jerry and jessica. not summer. not rick’s friends. or some gal that mort had a crush on for one issue/ep. nope. it were jer and jess specifically. and then, rick & mort as the only people, who could conjure them up. make jessica powerful and make jer cunning and a king. 

then this.... 

it’s hilarious how they would react to one another, when they’are on opposite sides of conflict. so cheezy. both of them. always. and once again, so much familiarity. you don’t treat your enemy like this, more like ‘we are so used to one another, that it’s not even serious most of the times’. and jerry speaking hot topic slang is just too good lmao. like doofus jerry’s miggity mack shit all over again, haha. 

the ending wasn’t all that ‘huge’ or anything, but i was like huh, that’s new, when they made rick act more gentle toward jer. and it was so sudden too. since for someone, who wanted to fuck jer up (rick screams it lmao), he really didn’t do anything too drastic. he wasn’t able to. and then, rick always just bark, when it comes to actually really kill/hurt jerry most of the times. 

it’s good, that they kept this part. and like after-word of it all. mmm. it was nice as well. mort gets talk to jessica normally, and rick soften up toward jer. 

overall, it was fun issue and i take it over rnm DND any day. and any moment. it was more of adventure and then, some situation stuff vs fam rights or whatever. and those lil jerrick bits were good, haha. as slim as they were. and even the very end, where jerry is allowed to join the fun and wreck stuff together with rick & mort was satisfying last note. he looks so happy here, even if he has no idea what they’re doing or why. 

i haven’t expected much from that comic, bc they’re a HUGE hit and miss for me, but this one. i liked alots! it was a fun lil ride and also art was pretty decent too. so props to them for this! 

[gb-patch]

Ask Answers: July 10th

I really let asks get away from me lately. I was super focused on working on that Patreon Moment. With that done I can finally think about doing other things, so here’s a new collection of answers!

Thank you for sending in questions everyone ^^.

For the new Patreon moment, will you be able to reference it in step 4? Or just like a tiny nod to it if you pick certain choices?

There won’t be. I’m sorry if you were hoping for that! The Patreon moment is meant to be entirely optional, it’s not something that gets you extra content in the main game.

Is the new CG artist the main one now? :0 I’ve noticed theres been a difference in the art style recently. Is the old CG artist still going to make art for the game? :0

The original artist still makes CGs for the game sometimes, but he mainly focuses on character sprites.

Are you going to put the NSFW our life moment on a website other than patreon? I would love to get it but I can't use patreon atm.

I don’t know. I'm afraid we can't release the Patreon Moment on a normal game storefront because we can't mix 18+ content with our family friendly game. If there's some other place similar to Patreon where it's not the normal type of full-scale public content releases we'd consider using that, but I’m not sure if there is another site that’s better than Patreon in that regard. I'm sorry.

Out of curiosity, in all of your games so far, which characters in each were the most fun to write? They obviously don't have to be your favorite characters!

Buffalo Seer in AFA, really everyone in XOD/XOBD is pretty equally entertaining to write, The Guide in LoV, and Cove in OL!

idk if you accept "personal" questions, but is there anything you've been watching/ listening to lately

Mostly, I’ve been watching/listening to Authortube videos as of late! It’s people who talk generally about the process of how books become traditionally published and/or share their own experience as they attempt to be published. I don’t have an interest in writing normal text based books, but it’s really interesting to hear about that world. I’m listening to a video about royalties right now as I answer these asks.

Will one of the desserts we get to pick be fudge? That'd be such a cute reference! 

Haha, yeah, it should. Unless I completely blank on it and forget when trying to include the various referential food options.

I don't know if this has been asked previously but what would be the approximate heights for the presets MC can choose from Step 2 ~ 4? Are there any measurement you had in mind? Sorry if I didn't make myself clear kk I've been struggling with my English lately 💀 

I don’t know, ahah. I didn’t have any numbers in mind for that. So it’s whatever you imagine it is!

I noticed a bug with the Patreon moment when it comes to what your character wears. When Jamie and Cove are kissing while my character only had dresses selected, I had both the option to remove the dress or to remove the shirt... Picking one of the options to interact with Cove, after he removed his shirt, it had Jamie remove their shirt followed by ther pants despite only having dresses picked. 

Thank you for reporting ^^

I keep refreshing steam to see when the new doc for xobd will be released. I noticed you haven't posted anything about it in quite some time. Would it be possible to ask about a timeline/potential date? (If it's even this year—) I know you and your team are probably working super hard, I'm just super curious! ~Thank you!~ 

There are more stories done, I just haven’t gotten around to publicly releasing them. Hopefully I will have a chance to spend the time on that sooner rather than later!

hello!! i’m not sure if it’s an update but i’ve just replayed our life and at the end i can’t propose to cove anymore? :(( i’ve actually tried playing twice but the options are not there anymore, did you guys remove the options? i’m sorry if you’ve answered this before!! thank you and have a good one :) 

I’m afraid things haven’t been changed or removed, so I think you might’ve accidentally picked the wrong things somewhere along the way and locked yourself out of being able to propose by mistake. Sometimes you meant to say you want to get married but instead you mis-click and have it so the MC isn’t thinking about marriage or something. All I can suggest is starting from the beginning of Step 3 and making sure to follow the steps listed in the FAQ. I’m sorry for that.

Did yall remove some of the options for when youre making out with Cove in the charity moment? I could've sworn you could grab his bonkadonk and its not there anymore 

This is the same situation as the above. We didn’t remove things and you’re not wrong that there are sometimes those options. But there are various choices you have to make to get those options and it sounds like you accidentally missed something. If your relationship isn’t long-term, you can’t do it for example.

HI IM SO EXCITED I CAN FINALLY GET THE STEP 3 DLC 

Thank you for getting it!

Is Shiloh super totally straight bc I’m very gay and a huge Shiloh fan, would my man make an exception?😩

Sadly, he is one of our super straight characters. I’m sorry.

Hi, I have a very dumb question. In Step 2 does Cove not wanna share his drink with us at the mall (or rather why he stops drinking it) because it's an indirect kiss? Or is it like ...weird to him to share? Because if I remember right he eats off our spoon in the birthday scene right? 

Yeah, he’s awkward about it because he likes the MC and it feels very personal to share a straw with his crush.

Hi! If you don't mind me asking, who is the artist for OL2? Their style is so pretty! 

Thank you for saying so! This is her Twitter- https://twitter.com/redridingheart

Do Beginnings & Always and Now & Forever exist in the same universe? 

Yep! XOXO Droplets also exists in the same universe. It’s one big GB Patch world, haha.

Do Pran's parents regret the way they raised him? Do they feel ashamed of it?

No. They’re the type of people best cut out because they’re not gonna change. Which is why Pran does go very limited contact when he’s an adult.

Hi! I just wrapped up my second playthrough of Our Life, and I absolutely adore it, but I had a question. I went to the gallery and found I was missing 2 CGS (specifically Step 1-3 and 2-3) and I had no clue where they would've shown up. Which moments are those found in? 

You get it by telling Cove about his dad offering you money to be his friend in Step 1 and Step 2. You can’t get both in one playthrough, since you can only tell Cove the truth once. I’m really glad you liked it!

Hi hi! Please, how tall is Baxter and Derek? Love the game so much and I can't wait to see more! 

I don’t know, aha. I think Baxter was around 5′10 and Derek was like 5′8/5′9, maybe. I really am not one who has specific heights for things in mind.

is adult cove a bottom, top, or switch? 

A switch, though would choose the top if he had to pick.

I was wondering if there is a way to transfer save data? Even if through the game files. I wanted to be able to transfer my save data from my desktop over to my laptop so that I could continue playing right where I left off from but I'm not entirely sure how to go about that. 

If you save the save folder/persistent data of the game from your desktop and put it into the game folder on your other device, that could work.

Hi! Is it possible for us to know the date when our life: now and forever comes out on steam? Sorry if you've mentioned it before but I haven't seen it and I'm looking foward to that happening and just wanted to know :) 

It’s gonna be a long time, I’m afraid. There’s no estimate right now.

I started playing Our Life with my sister a while ago, and I think you guys should know that we discovered your secret. >:)

L from death note and Cove are clearly the same person, and this whole game is just an origin story!!

I’ve never seen that show so I’m sorry to say I don’t understand the connection/reference you’re trying to make. I’m pretty out of the loop when it comes to media. I don’t watch movies or TV.

Will OL2 have options for disabled MCs?

I understand if it's too complicated, just curious

Unfortunately, it’s not really something we have a plan for. We couldn’t finish the game if we tried to include every disability and have it be meaningful. It’d just be too much content to create. But if we decide to only include a few, how would we choose which disabilities get to be represented and which are left out? I don’t know. It’ll probably have to be something we don’t include as an option again, sadly. I’m sorry.

playing our life > anything else 

Haha, I’m glad you’re enjoying it.

Honestly, I would like to thank Our Life for helping me come to terms with my sexuality. Before, I never would've actually thought that it was possible to like boys romantically and still be asexual. Almost all of the BL visual novels I've read had unskippable sexual content in them and it honestly just didn't click with what I feel. I'm glad I found Our Life. I love the game, the developers, and this fandom so much. Now, I can safely come out as homoromantic AND asexual (at least anonymously here anyway; my parents are still huge homophobes 😂). 

Aw, it’s great to hear you felt comfortable being yourself in the game! That’s wonderful. I’m really sorry about your parents, though.

Will the demo for OL2 be on android? Really not sure if I could wait any longer than I have to aha 

Yeah, it’ll be available for Android once we eventually release a demo!

Do all these reveals perhaps mean development is progressing ahead of schedule? Please let that be the case I'm already obsessed with Qiu 

No, sorry, aha. Art comes along much faster than script/programming-work for us. It’s gonna be a long time before the game is a finished thing you can actually play. But at least we can look at the beautiful images.

Hey! First of all I wanna say I reallllllyyyyy loooovvveeee Our Life and XOXO Droplets! I have over 300 hours of playtime on Our Life… Anyways, I was just wondering, are the Derek and Baxter DLCs going to come out at the same time? If not, which one do you plan to release first? :3 

They will come out separately and Derek will be first! Glad you like the game.

I keep replaying Our Life to get every possible iteration and I am loving it <3 I was wondering if Cove gets locked out of his confession because MC was talking to Lee, would it be possible to confess to him in step 4? 

Yeah, you can avoid the confession in Step 3 and then get it in Step 4.

Hi, my Cove wears bracelets through step 2 and 3 but I still don't get an option to give him a bracelet? I didn't even know that was possible until I seen someone else ask about it lol 

Hm, did you use the Cove creator? Maybe there’s a bug where using the creator to add bracelets doesn’t fulfill the requirement to give Cove a bracelet in Step 3.

Wait, I'm dense, when does Baxter appear in step 2? Is it from big park firework? I feel so bad since i really love Baxter and waiting to buy his dlc. 

It’s in the Soiree Moment. You have to be just friends with Cove, indifferent, or crushing but not ask Cove to the dance at all. Then while there you can find someone new to dance with. But if you bring Cove to the dance while crushing, the MC won’t wanna dance with anyone else so you can’t get the scene.

In step 2 when we go to the soiree I made my mc go alone and baxter chooses the mc to dance, i'm curious, why did he pick the mc? sorry if this has been asked before! 

Because the MC looked to be around his age, seemed to also be searching for a partner, and had nice legs. A perfect option for him.

I read some of the FAQs, and I saw that we could tell Baxter about the condo that he rented there was previously the mean old grandparents. how do we get the mc to tell him that? 

It happens in the DLC Moment “Late Shift”. If you don’t have a job you instead get a longer scene with Baxter.

I don’t know if you’ve addressed this or not, but are you planning on paying voice actors for our life: now and forever? 

Yeah, we pay our VAs in all our projects.

hey can i ask how you did the moments thing in ol? im trying to get into making visual novels and while im VERY sure its out of my comfort zone and all that atm i kinda wanna know just for the future, bc im p sure it would work well for something i wanna do :O but its also fine if you cant say for other reasons :> 

I’m afraid I’m not sure what you mean. Are you asking how we programmed the screen or something script related? Adding Moments like that is pretty straightforward, though. You just have buttons that open to different labels and then the scripts are essentially individual short stories/vignettes. Good luck with your VN!

Since Autumn becomes gender fluid later in the game, will there be a character who remains as he/him to romance in game? 

OL1 has the he/him LIs, OL2 is all about other genders.

I don't want to impose on your creative plans, but a parrot could possibly make a good pet in an OL-type game? They're pretty long-lived and likely to still be thriving by the end even if the MC got them back in step 1. 

I do appreciate the suggestion, but I’m afraid it’s not likely going to happen. I understand there are technically some animals that could theoretically live long enough to last the whole game that or we could have the MC only get a pet after some years have already passed. But the many things that would have to be considered/accommodated for makes it just something we probably can’t manage adding. I’m sorry.

As time passes will we be able to see Qiu and Tamarack's other stage arts as well?

They are both so cute i can't wait to be friends with them!

Yeah, we’ll show content from other Steps in the future. It’ll be a little while from now, though.

Can you date Cove and still have your family comfort you in the car?

You can’t get Cove’s Step 3 confession scene if you have the family comfort you in the car. But that’s not the only way to date him. You can get together with him earlier in the game or later on in Step 4.

Is Mc always going to be the one walking down the aisle or could Cove do it? Also could you choose to have one of your moms walk you? 

No. Cove wouldn’t want to walk down the aisle like that and the MC automatically respects that. And the MC also gets to have their preferences respected, so it’s up to you whether they want to do an aisle walk or not. You also can pick who, if anyone, walks with you.

Once step 4 is out, will you be able to go the whole game on crush/love without either of you confessing? 

Yes, as long as you tell the game you don’t want to progress the relationship. Even in Step 4 it won’t force you to officially get together.

Howdy, so in Step 4, there will be any Romance with Derek that is not part of any dlc? 

He’s only a friend unless you get his romance story.

Will the step 4 in OL2 be one big step or are you considering moments? 

Step 4 is just an epilogue in both games.

hi kind of a weird question but!! we know tht cliff doesn't start dating again but. wht abt flings? like does he ever do 1 night stands or anything? thank u!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Nope. Cliff has a very small interest in sex. If he’s not in a real relationship with a partner he’s crazy about it simply isn’t something he feels a need for, so one night stands wouldn’t even cross his mind.

sorry if you've already answered this, but i was wondering if there were plans for there to be bonus love interests in OL2 like how we have derek and baxter in OL1.

Maybe! There are side characters who could be given romance stories, but whether or not it will happen depends on funding and how long everything else takes to finish.

I don't know if i'm allowed to ask about ol2 here yet, if not u can ignore this or answer it later. My question is can you date one of them and be good friends with the other? I don't want to be strangers with the other bcs i love them both a lot :<

Yes you can!

what patreon level do i have to be to unlock the nsfw moment? im on the $5 one right now, will that give me access to the moment, or just access to the moment progress? 

That’ll give you access! Tier 2 and anything higher allows the player to download it.

[technowoah]

Revolutions Always Fall

You should've learned from L'Manburg. The Butcher Gang was a mistake.

- REQUESTED!

- I tried to put 2 requests in one here.

- its really long 🤧🤞🏽

Prompts!

13) "You made me lose all my faith and trust in you"

38) "They warned me about this.” “About what?” “You.” 

47)“Are you satisfied now...?”

⚠︎ memtions of blood, voilence, fighting, swearing, Technoblade's execution episode. Angst.

Masterlist!

Dear Technoblade,

I wont make the same mistakes again

- an old friend. ♤

Technoblade was always a threat, and you learned that from L'Manburg. You had befriended him when he joined Pogtopia and very quickly you two seemed to click. He saw the world through different eyes and that intrigued you. You wanted to be him, live life the way he does it for just a day.

He was a killing machine, he was smart tactical, but still had the thirst for blood that made him be so smart and tacitcal with how he kills.

You on the other hand were not a big fan of killing, but this war was an exception. This war made you practice, it made you angry, it lit a fire underneath you that you didnt know you had. Along with the other members of Pogtopia, Technoblade helped you fight, how to wield a sword, knife, gun, anything that you can get your hands on you turned it into a weapon, you Soon enough you had mastered weapons and you werent so passive.

You questioned yourself if this was living through Technoblade, the need to fight, hunt, to protect. You felt poweful. As you hold your own crafted swords in your hand you know what you can do. You could do so much damage with this sword, he gave you that sword. It wasn't special at all but you made it special, because in your eyes it was.

"You can do so much with a sword, people just don't know how to use it to its fullest potential. They dont know their full potential either. But now you do."

Thats what he said to you in between those stone walls called Pogtopia.

After what he said to you had done so. Used the sword to your full potential, used anything to your full potential. You wanted to be more and more you became.

"You ready?" Technoblade smirked.

"Hell yeah Im ready to kill that bastard." You smiled

"Woah-oh! You weren't saying this a couple months ago."

"Schlatt deserves it. That's not L'Manburg. This is L'Manburg." You stretched out your arms to the others who were gathering armor and polishing their weapons for the battle yet to come.

You smiled knowing this will all end soon, you wouldn't be in a cave anymore, you wouldn't have to hide the fact that you knew where Wilbur was and that he was planning the attack, Pogtopia will be no more and L'Manburg would be back.

"L'Manburg will be back." You said while taking a sword out of a chest.

"Sure." You heard him scoff beside you.

"What's that supposed to mean?" You asked slightly offended. Wasn't he fighting for the same thing?

"I dont know. Revolutions always fall." He turned his back to you and walked away leaving you to your own thoughts.

You hated it. He was right, he was always right and you hated it. And everyone else did too, they knew he was right. It wasnt what the majority wanted, we wanted L'Manburg while he didn't want to be held by government in the first place. That's what he meant that day in Pogtopia.

L'Manburg, one defeated, was now growing once more. After the "end" of L'Manburg you couldn't forgive him. Your anger and the feeling of betrayal kept growing and growing everyday, every time you picked up that damned sword he gave you. It was the best sword you had, you had enchanted it multiple times. You had to use it, but the only thing was the memories that came with it.

Your anger only worsened as time went on, having to hear about Technoblade and how he was such a threat to L'Manburg only made you want to destroy him and the past you two had created. That would be the closure you needed, but someone was already three steps a head of you.

In spite of your anger you and Quackity had the most magnificent idea to make a gang to finally kill Technoblade for the sake of L'Manburg. The idea was to go confront him at his house and take him back to L'Manburg for an execution. You were on board with the idea 100%. This was better for L'Manburg and better for yourself, finally someone who got you.

Quackity and you planned tirelessly to try and get Technoblade's location and bring him back. The Butcher Gang was made from the cabinet of L'Manburg. During these long days you two grew closer, you two were so different in ways of thinking, but you two shared the same end goal which worked out in your favor. You two went through hell and back just to find out that the easiest way to get to Technoblade was sitting in L'Manburg right at that moment. Philza, some may say Technoblade's only friend at the moment. He was loyal to Technoblade and you dont blame him at all, but you needed to find out where his companion was.

It was all going well, the Butcher Gang had put Phil on house arrest and Tubbo had found a compass that led them straight to Technoblade's location. Everything was going well and according to plan, you didnt want to show it on your face as you saw Technoblade's house from the spot in the woods the Butcher Gang was hiding in, but you wanted this so badly. You didnt where he was going to be, he could've came and bestowed more destruction. It was like knowing he was there, but not knowing when he was going to strike.

The anxiety that came with not knowing where Technoblade was always with you, but now it wont be.

The Butcher Gang ended up taking Technoblade by force back into the city. You were proud that you were all able to get the blood hungry pig-man to come back with you all. He was behind bars with an anvil hanging high over his head. As Tubbo gave his speech your short lived happiness soon faded as a man appeared and smoke filled the area. You started to get attacked by what seemed like Dream and Punz while Tubbo continued to yell for Quackity to pull the lever to finally kill Technoblade.

"Pull the lever Big Q!"

"Kill him Quackity!" You yelled with him.

He did it. The anvil fell fast towards Technoblade's body, but as fast as the anvil landed on him his skin, bones, and blood regenerate and return to its normal state. Your eyes widened as the totem in his hand began to disintegrate into gold dust.

"DAMMIT!" You yelled in agony while Ranboo and Fundy continued to fend off Dream and Punz until they retreated.

Once they did you realized Technoblade was gone, you saw him in the distance running away from the scene, but you couldn't let this happen. You couldn't let the fear of Technoblade being out there doing God knows what forever. The fear of him boiled in your heart as you broke out into a sprint towards Technoblade.

As you ran into a more secluded area you heard footsteps behind you. You glances back to see Quackity following your lead with an axe in his hand. Slowing down a bit you both ran side by side.

"Let's get this son of a bitch!" Quackity huffed as you both came across a cave.

You both knew Technoblade was in there so you both prepared for the mental and physical pain you would both endure. This wasn't like the Butcher Gang where it was 5 against 1, it was 2 against 1 and you've seen Technoblade fight this fight before.

"You ready to kill this bastard?" He calmed his breathing down.

"Of course I am." You kept your eyes foward.

You walked deep into tha cave to see 6 chests and a sign that said "final control room", that bastard. Wanting to be quiet you tried to sneak up on Technoblade, but Quackity's anger got the best of him.

"What the fuck is this Technoblade?! What the hell are you doing here?" He asked gripping his sword too tight.

"It not what it looks like." Technoblade airly laughed. He had an enchanted pickaxe in his hand and an open chest with netherite armor.

"How the hell did that anvil not kill you?!" Quackity yelled.

Technoblade started laughing, he was laughing, he was taunting us. "Do you really think that death can stop me? That you could kill me that easily."

Your emotions tried to get the best of you as you tried not to let frustrated tears fall onto your cheeks.

"How did you do it? What... How did you even do that?"

"You think that can stop me Quackity?" Technoblade asked again.

"Just answer the fucking question!" You yelled before either of them could speak. It was silent for a while before Technoblade slowly spoke up.

"A totem. I used a totem of undying. I always have it on me." He smugly said.

He continued on. "You know what?! You know what? Ive got a lot to say, I was gonna say it at the trial, but we got a little bit interrupted. You know I tried convincing you guys that government was not the answer, the government was actually the cause of all your problems!"

You rolled your eyes as he continued his infamous speech.

"I tried to convince you guys by fighting alongside you as brothers and you cast me aside, you used me. I tried to use force, but you still formed a government! And when I went into hiding, when I retired, when I swore off violence, you hunted me down, you hurt my friends." Technoblade finished.

"Techno you dont understand what we're fighting for!" You started finally finding your voice. "I thought you were for us! You were always against us!"

"I was always for you! I needed you guys to understand!"

"We needed YOU to under-"

Technoblade interrupted you. "You dont understand me! You never did!"

"At least I fucking tried and you gave me so much shit for it! I wanted to be you Technoblade. I wanted to see life through your eyes, I was fascinated by how you walk, fight, your mind."

Your anger began to subside as you continued to speak. "But, you made me lose all my faith and trust in you."

Technoblade laughed again. "Same here! You guys left me! Betrayed me so-"

"So the feeling is mutual." You growled.

It was quite for a minute, but you could feel Quackity's sympathetic stare as you poured your feelings out to a man who dosen't even matter to you.

"They warned me about this." Your arms gestured to the area the three of you were in.

"About what?" Technoblade scoffed.

"About you." You stared at Technoblade. It wasn't a glare, it was more calm.

"Quackity, Tubbo, Fundy...Even Ranboo." You airly chuckled.

You had stopped talking trying to get yourself back together. Quackity caught that you weren't talking anymore so he spoke up.

"What we have up there is a country and what we need here is organization and power. And I dont care how long it fucking takes me or what I have to do to get you Techno. Im going to fucking kill you. Im going to kill you Technoblade." Quackity gripped his axe in his hand.

"I just have one question Quackity." Techno smirked.

"What do you have?" Quackity responded and you took the sword out of the sheath hanging on your hip.

"Do you think you two are enough to kill me? Even unarmed with iron armor?" Technoblade closed the chest that held netherite armor signaling he didn't need that. "Do you think you both could take me?"

"Oh we do." You spoke up. "We need this, Technoblade."

"You know what?" Quackity rose his axe and you followed suit. "Lets find out you son of a bitch!" He charged towards Technoblade and you followed close behind.

Technoblade started running out of the long cave, but you two followed. He threw potions on the ground as he turned around and fought us head on. You were able to get a couple of cuts and hits on him, but he was cutting you more with his pickaxe.

The thing about Quackity was that he thought he was invincible. He kept going full force towards Technoblade, hopefully he would focus on him so you could finally get a critical hit on him. Your heart rate kicked up as your face came too close to his pickaxe. And it kept going, each swing he took towards you became closer and closer until Quackity slashed his arm with his axe.

Technoblade whipped his head his way. "I have a pickaxe and I'll put it right through your teeth!"

Technoblade swung his axe and slashed Quackity's face, including his eye. He then turned his pickaxe to the flat side and swung it, hitting the side of his head. The blow to his head sent him flying against one of the walls of the cave, knocking him out.

He then turned to you and in a flash you could tatse the metal of his pickaxe as it swiped across your face blinding one of your eyes as well as Quackity's. He had hit you on the side of the head like he did with Quackity. Your body was aching as you fell to the ground, your mind slowly shutting down. You were loosing a lot of blood quickly, and so was Quackity. You two knew you were going to find the strength to get out of this cave and follow Technoblade's path out.

You laid on the cave's cold floor realizing that this was a mistake. You were too loyal, easily swayed, you were a follower. You never knew when to stop, from L'Manburg to Pogtopia to The Butcher Gang you seeked things you couldn't have. You couldn't have L'Manburg, neither Pogtopia, you couldn't kill Technoblade and ease your fears snd anxieties. You need to seek that some where else.

Your mind began to slip, and you fell into unconsciousness.

You should've learned. He was right. Revolutions always fall.

The Butcher Gang was a mistake.

Dear Technoblade,

I remembered the day. It still pains me. The day you spawned those wither. I thought you were the traitor, but turns out I was wrong at the time. Im sorry for that.

I also remember when you left me for dead. But I made it out as you see.

But now I am resigning from L'Manburg. Im going my own way, my own path, and I don't want you on my path.

Think of this as closure, something I never got. As I am writing this I dont know why I am giving you closure, lifting a weight off of your shoulders, you dont deserve it.

I know people say that to you alot.

You really made a dent in this damned place.

I hate what you're doing. You get to live in solitude while we get to live in the debris you left here. I wanted to be like you.

I hate to say it, but I learned a lot from you. I hated what I learned, about myself, about you, about the current state of this horrible place.

I wont make the same mistakes again

Are you satisfied now?

- an old friend ♤

[syubub]

May 13th Reading

Definitely long awaited and way bigger than I intended it to be so buckle up.

Funky disclaimer: this is for entertainment purposes only and not to be taken as fact! This is my interpretation of the cards!

Oh boy. The continuation of yoongis soulmate saga.

(Note frome future me: it's not proofread but I'm hungry. Sorry for mistakes!)

So so so so

Let's start.

I started with all the normal jazz. Connecting with his energy and shit. Same as usual same old same old. Platform= same same. I was like, "hey, let's talk about your soulmate and the whole may 13th shit" and we connected via energy stringy thing to the forehead and such. I was intresting bc my end of the string was kinda my energy color! Neato. Looks like some rest has really done me good!

Okay, here's where I start actually asking shit. I made notes at this point before the reading as I usually do. I'm just gonna insert the screen shot here.

The 14 thing really fucked me up. You'll see later. Also, when I got the whole Pisces Jupiter thing I had to do me some googling bc we established that Jupiter went into Pisces ON May 13th so I was like?? Am I missing something?

I was. I forgot that it goes retrograde and then co.es back to Pisces on December 28th. And I do indeed think it to be significant.

The shit about temperance makes a lot of sense. In yoongis first soulmate read I flipped my shit bc he was like, "You're gonna get temperance reverse" in regards to a card for his soulmate and I was like "pft whatever. Don't play me like that"

And then I got temperance reverse. It's been a significant card from the jump.

I asked him if he had any advice for his soulmate and that's what "Don't wait for big things, you'll miss the small ones that lead you to bigger things" and "Look for facts before assuming" and "Don't try pushing it, forcing it won't make sense" and "A spade is a spade/ ace is an ace" and "Don't make ill informed guesses" all were

Now this part:

"Union has happened , yet to on the physical"

Gave me some hints thankfully because he straight up said no more hints.

This ties back into the whole Jupiter thing too. The seeds are/ have been planted and now they have to grow before they can be harvested.

Well Mr. Yoongi, I'm impatient and I don't want to wait. I want to see you in love pronto.

Anyways

He showed me a little dream box/ trinket box looking thing and a super vague Keychain with no further explanation... so... there's that I guess.

I can't quite decide if "Don't make ill informed guesses" was a tongue-in-cheek pike at me or if it was genuine advice to his soulmate? He just loves to not explain things.

Now let's begin the monster read.

So. The first row of cards

I asked the question, "what the fuck was May 13th and what was it's purpose in regards to your connection"

Important is what it was lol. I interpret this as them finding their footing and this being the starting point of the genuine foundation being layer. Like they've been manifesting eachother for a while but May 13th marked the start of them making the real life changes in their actual lives that will be the set up for them meeting.

The seven of coins is about thoughtful planning and creating security/ stable plan. The tower is essentially ripping away anything and everything that was built on unstable foundation and challenging/ testing your character (an extremely rude awakeing if you will). Judgement is releasing the past so you can rise above it and confronting yourself as you are (Also legit awakening) the queen of coins is financial security and self confidence in your abilities. Ten of coins is prosperity and abundance and most of all, stability. Eight of wands is explosion of potential and rapid movement. Temperance is awareness and balance between physical and spiritual. It's also that quiet peace where you find balance.

So. Seeing all those cards it really does seem like maybe his soulmate took on something new that could lead straight to union? Same for yoongi. I'd like to analyze and recent or new-ish habits or hobbies he's picked up?

Moving right along though. I asked what the 13th did for each of them in their personal life and personal journey. Kinda like what came as a result of that energy? Let's start with yoongles

This was really intresting to me. I think he definitely gained some form of clarity about the situation with that sun card. The 5 of cups tells me that either he was kinda forced to confront some of his flaws in a way that he was trying to avoid or he had to consciously let go of something dear to him? Could be something he had to leave behind because it crumbled with the tower moment but he didn't see it coming or didn't know that it was time to part with it? With that queen of wands though fits beautifully with the sun! Its like he's found warmth after a long winter. Definitely found a spark of compassion and generosity from a place of happiness and love rather than anger, fear, obligation or pitty.

I asked for clarity cards/ anything else that may 13th signified bringing in and we got the 2 of cups and 10 of swords. I have two thoughts. Either he let go of a relationship that he was already in because he didn't feel as though they were particularly compatible anymore (Also ties into the above section) OR the 13th had made him very much consciously aware of his soulmates incoming status and he is now preparing and working on himself for when this person comes. The 10 of swords would be him releasing the past and the pain and any ill fitting behavior that don't vibe with him any longer. Yellow really seems to be working for him by the way.

Soulmate time

Lol. All signs point to his soulmate genuinely starting a new venture. New creative pursuit that will bring them good money. 10 of pentacles is abundance, prosperity and stability. The ace of wands is a new creative spark and passion and it's the first big steps into something new. The 2 of wands is "the world is in the palm of your hands" vibes. Choices need to be made swiftly and with the ace of wands I think they will be. With the heirophant too, it will be a well informed decision because they've been manifesting this and has been searching for all the possible information.

As for clarity, we have the moon. Damn. Soulmates been doing that shadow work. Dredging up all their bullshit and getting rid of it while still taking the time to sit with it and release it so nothing is unresolved. Also probably extra creative due to all the emotional baggage being thrown out. (Definitely helping with the ace of wands vibes tbh)

Now for the bad boys in the middle

The question I asked is what those individual changes (detailed in the last two sections) will bring for the bond and I just can with them. These fuckers. I am so invested in their love story bc it's so... them? And just so fucking ROMANTIC. UGH I CAN'T.

Back to the point. High priestess, 4 of wands and the lovers. The high priestess is deep knowing and insane intuition, the 4 of wands is the purest joy and marriage and the lovers is well, the lovers.a magical union.

FUCK DUDE I NEED THIS TO BE A ROMCOM.

For the row of bottom cards

I asked if they had anything at all to add so I'm gonna explain each card individually bc I think they could be individual tid bits of shit.

Knight of coins is good news about finances/ money looking promising and organized work (also dependability!!). Death is all about transformation, the beginning of a new chapter and accepting in order to move foward. Ace of coins is spiritual and material abundance and also a reminder to keep grounded. Page of swords is confidence, important news coming and really good insight! Roots out secrets or hidden things like a truffle pig. The star is promising potential, healing and guidance from an enexpected place. The two of cups is a soul connection, love, intuition especially in regards to another person and a good bind. The emperor is self awareness, foresight, fearlessness to achieve a goal and confidence. Eight of coins rev is poor discipline and skating by on low effort.

Now to the sides!

Yoongi is the left, soulmate is the right.

So, let's begin with yoongi. The first two cards are anything he wants to say to his soulmate. Wheel of fortune and three of swords reverse. I take this as "its all in divine time/ it's destiny" (wheel of fortune) and "trust your intuition. It's okay to get hurt, you just need to remember you can always pick yourself up" (3of swords rev.)

We have now cards that I asked what he was learning through this process/ in this time. Be positive and first step.

The last two cards are affirmations he wants to give his soulmate.

"When I introduce joy to a situation, I change the vibrational frequency of what's happening around me" and "directing my focus onto what's thriving creates more of what I want"

Now for soulmates cards (same structure)

Strength and eight of swords. "You're stronger than you think. Take every part of yourself and acknowledge it. You're a force to be reckoned with" (strength) and (soulmate snapped at him on this) "the only thing holding you captive is you."

Now we have peer pressure (I think soulmate is learning to say "fuck you" and "fuck off" to people who have a set idea of how everyone should be living their lives), emotional healing and open your arms to receiving.

Then we have "its good to feel good" (lol I feel like yoongi definitely needs this one) and "when I connect to the spiritual realm, I open the door to recieve divine guidance, clear direction, and great wisdom"

The last stretch my friends.

So. Completion, leave behind the things that no longer serve you. Exist in the present and don't keep mulling over the past or any future happenings. Magic, pay attention to the magic around you. Listen for the signs of the universe and take them as they come (essentially listen to divine guidance) . Be open minded but logical as well. Luminous warrior, try focusing on the good in yourself instead of berating yourself for every small flaw. Spiritual path, self explanatory. The blade, your power can be a weapon when used willy nilly (most often wounding the wielder) or it can heal. Don't fear it but also consider how you choose to utilize it. The give away, be greaful for the sake of being greatful for it, not because you want something in return. The rain maker, manifestation station. Create with the tools you have because you have everything you need in order to manifest. "Don't take life personally"

Now we have heaven sent.

""Let yourself be helped" assistance is coming your way so act on it and say yes"

" This Oracle also comes with the message that you are to trust in the things that you feel and say to others without knowing why. It moves them. You might not understand, but through trust you are allowing yourself not to overthink and censor yourself. As such you are able to become a vessel through which the spiritual gift can be passed on to others. Don't block yourself. Let life happen through you. Only benefit can come from this."

And free from judgment, free to love

" If you have been asking life for a solution to a specific difficulty you have been having, this Oracle comes with the message that a solution is in gestation right now. This situation is already being sorted out and the resolution will come to fruition very soon. Hold tight and wait for the eminent birth of that resolution."

" This Oracle also brings you a message about love. You may find that you are loving, or soon will love, in a different way. You may worry about this love, given that it defies what you have known or been taught about love. Perhaps you are becoming able to love another tremendously, even though you don't have much of a personal relationship with them. You might question if this love is real. It is real Kama it is just happening at a different level to the love and attachment you experience when you are involved in a personal relationship with someone. It is not more or less, it is just a different facet of love. It may be that you are opening up to love the planet and her creatures, including the animals, the ocean dwelling life, your own body, the trees and so on, more than before period you may feel passionately purposeful about giving your time and energy to causes that protect and nurture the Earth and her creatures. You are affirmed in this love too. The universal mother is operating through you to nurture life. She will support you in your work, so that you can continue To come from love and not become drained, depleted or lost in despair or fear of futility. Instead, you will be energised and expanded by your dedicated service to life."

" Finally, this Oracle has a message for those who may be feeling alone or lonely in a need of greater nurturing from others. You are asked to stop, relax, centre and settle into your body to feel your connection with life itself. The air in your lungs is the same as the air that moves through the trees. The water in your blood is the same water that fills the oceans and is moved by the phases of the moon. The flesh of your body is the same substance as the body of the Earth itself. The heat in your digestive system is the same fire and heat as that from the Sun. Feel this connection, then do something nice for another without agenda. Make a donation, even if just a small one, smile, say a prayer, sent out a good thought or make a wish for another. That's it. You have connected to life again and in doing so, life can connect with you. And so it shall.

And that's all for the cards but but but.

Someone (either my guide or yoongi) was like, "do a song. Do a song. Do a song." And I was like, "oki doki, sounds good.

So I asked what numbers I should try refreshing and then it hit me. The number 14 came up before the reading and it seemed a bit misplaced? So I did 14 shuffles and look what popped up

You gotta be fucking with me.

Istg these fools will actually be the death of me dude. Euphoria is so romantic and I lowkey feels like it describes a bit of what their bond must be like.

YOONGGGIIII

Anyway,

I came back to the platform to be like, "thanks homie" and it was weird bc he was practically pure energy? Like usually I visualize his energy as what his physical body looks like because it's easier to comprehend? But nope, he was just a big shimmery glob of energy.

As I was going to disconnect, a few things happened. I felt tingly and the platform was vibrating almost? So I was like, "hold on, what the fuck is this?"

And then

It hit me

"MIN YOONGI IS YOUR SOULMATE HERE??"

I could tell this fuckin asshole was smug even in his blue glob form.

The color was... blue like yoongi but also a light lavender/ pink kinda vibe. Pretty damn distinct.

I was so stoked and I thought we'd all get to chat and I could yell at his soulmate for being an elusive asshat

But Mr smug butt had different plans.

My dude dropped a little marble thing in my hand and I was like ??? And he was like, "you'll know when you need it" and I was like ?????

My guide took pity on me and said, "it's just a representation on information that you've been given but it isn't the proper time to unpack it yet"

Cool cool so like and energetic zip file that will release itself whenever it damn well pleases? Cool cool cool.

(Asshole)

Anyway, I genuinely think that my excitement of this whole situation must somehow also influence how yoongis energy handles my prodding? Like what the fuck is this marble bullshit?

To top it all off, he gives me a friendly shove off of his platform.

Thanks, buddy.

Now we are here. And as always, I'm left with more questions.

My main take away is that amay 13th through July 28th will be all the foundation and ground work and December 28th 2021 through May 10th (11th? 9th?) 2022 will be a more likely time for physical union and actual relationship stuffs.

Anyone who knows more about astrology please feel free to chime in on this whole Jupiter in Pisces bit! My understanding is super surface level!!

~~~~

That was a big boi and now my thumbs hurt real bad. Hope you were entertained by the chaos.

[skymoonandstardust]

Love and Light in Hell

Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2 , chapter 3, chapter 4

Chapter 5:

"They should be here by now. Why aren't they here?"

One of the noblemen stood and bowed at your words. 

"We do not know, your majesty, but give it time. This silence from Asgard may be a good thing." 

Before you could open your mouth to speak, a court lady rose indignantly to her feet 

"Just because we haven't heard anything,  that doesn't mean no attack is coming. It could be closing in on us as we speak, sitting here like lambs waiting to be slaughtered! I say we gather our forces and bring the fight to them!”

Instantly everyone in the hall rose to their feet as cries of protestation and support clashed with each other, creating an incomprehensible roar of voices trying to shout over each other.

Lifting one finger you signaled to Grimir, who was laying by your throne.

Your sign had him on his feet and losing a howl so piercing all noise in the hall immediately stopped.

Everyone but you was in a defensive state. Some had merely covered their ears, eyes scrunched up in pain while others lay curled on the floor with their arms around their head. A few had turned to look in surprise at the source of the noise, only to flinch and cower back, scrambling to hide.

Grimir's howl slowly faded out after a moment and he lay down again, licking his lips and resting his head on the floor to go back to his nap.

Once you were sure the uproar died down, you smiled and stood. 

It was almost like the aftereffects of a bomb.

At first everyone stayed frozen, as though doubting or not realizing that it was really over. Then, the first one dared to peek out and get to their feet. Slowly, one by one in small groups, the rest gradually stood as well, looking embarrassed and chagrined.

"Thank you, for your input, but I will not have troops sent out to potentially start a needless war. If Asgard attacks, so be it. We will fight back. But only when it is clear that is their intention."

 With a few murmurs and grudging looks, they all bowed and conceded.

"As you say your majesty. It may be a Midgardian cliche, but your wish is truly our command." 

You smiled ignoring the barbed words.

"Indeed it is, Carlsson. We will wait till Asgard declares its intentions-- and until then, I expect you all to give me your unwavering loyalty and to see you all at tonight's feast." 

 Noticing some smiles in the crowd and the new happy tone to the mummers in the room you guessed your last words had had the effect you hoped.

The one thing to take their minds off of this would be drinking, dancing and revelry. 

"Unfortunately, I'm going to have a bit of a harder time dressing up for this affair than all of you will so I need to go begin getting ready now. I'll see you all there.”

Some chuckles followed you as you rose and exited the room.

Walking alone to your chamber you finally let the doubts and worries and what ifs to seize you for a bit.

What if they do attack us to get this precious prince back? They're scared of me and this place, but they might risk it on his account. . .and the army might be mobilized too late.

You sighed barely audibly as your gaze passed over an image of a serpent encircling the world. . .

Don't be so down. Maybe they'll just send someone to smuggle him out or try to negotiate. They can't want a war anymore than you do. Loki's plan will fail.

Your half convincing thoughts were interrupted by your chamber door being thrown open in the distance. 

Already fingering famine you continued forward cautiously, waiting for anything to happen, even entertaining the impossible. 

How much do you want to bet it's Loki bringing more good news and fatherly love?

It's a good thing you didn't really make that bet with anyone because you would have lost as you found out a second later when your lady in waiting’s face peered out from around the door. 

"What are you doing dawdling? You're late! And we need every second to get you ready in time--hurry up!"

You rolled your eyes but relaxed and let your hand leave famine's hilt.

"I said move your royal behind!" 

 You did as she said and sped up, basically running through the door a second before it closed.

"Outdone yourself once again, my friend. It's exquisite.."

That was the only way you could think of to describe it as you examined the sheer corset top adorned with it's beautiful patterns of black lace roses. Giving in to the urge, you spun, watching the plain black petticoat like skirt flare out and feeling the decorative tulle cape fluttering behind you, unencumbered by the small black beads adorning it.

As you came to a stop you were grateful for the strip of lace that kept it in place. Though it had been hard to get on (it was one piece so it had to be lifted and put on over your head), it did the job and without it, the garment would certainly have ended up on the floor just then.

I don't even want to think about how I get this thing off. . .but it is pretty. Just have to remember not to do any running.

Turning, you smiled at your lady in waiting. 

"Come, let's be on our way before the ball starts without us."

You knew they wouldn't dare to, for fear of facing a short headless existence, but you set off anyway, leading the way as your routine trailed behind.

Of course you needed to make a big entrance. 

The doors opened with a loud boom, making everyone in the room leap before chuckling nervously and embarrassedly, turning to face the empty entrance. 

You allowed a smile to flicker on your lips as the crowd turned, just in time to see the two wolves come through the door. They stalked the edge of the crowd, snapping occasionally and growling. You had to stifle a laugh every time some foolish courtier jumped when they got too close or made a playful lunge at someone. 

Right as you planned, a gust of cold wind brought in a light but continual dusting of snow. All those nobles in their finery started to shiver, but didn't dare complain as a loud caw rang out and your raven flew forward. 

Gracefully, Alistair and Archibald soared across the room to land on the arms of the empty waiting throne. 

You noticed that as the birds took flight the mass bowed as one and stayed bent until their landing. None of them even dared to look up, but of course not. The raven was the sacred animal of the Allfather, and what's more, these ones belonged to you. They would not dare anger you--or him by showing any less than proper respect to the animals.

Finally, your music struck up and you walked forward through the gently whorling snow, Grimir by your side. 

Unlike the wolves he did not snap or snarl, but walked on, eyes fixed ahead, paying no attention to the crowd. The crowd, of course, paid attention to the two of you.

Just as they had raised their heads and gotten to their feet you entered, forcing the nobles to quickly lower their faces once more and stoop onto hasty bows. Following Grimir's lead, you kept your gaze on your throne and did not look at a single courtier until you had taken your place at the table at the head of the room.

Once in front of your seat you paused, leaning foward slightly with your hands resting on the table.

"I suppose I do not need to introduce tonight's guest. I’m sure you all know why we’re all here here. I suppose you have all heard and know by now, so I only say, let us give him a warm hearty welcome. From this day hell will be filled with light and joy because of his presence.”

You nodded and waved as you sat down, acknowledging the applause and cheers that met your words.

The doors opened once the noise died away, and you felt like all the breath had been stolen from your lungs. It had nothing to do with the blast of chill air that entered the room and everything to do with the boy standing in the doorway, glowing brighter than anything you'd ever seen.

His light had been overwhelming even in the infirmary. But this? . . .this was. Incredible. He looked incredible. 

The impeccably tailored suit fit his frame perfectly, giving a hint at the toned muscles underneath. The silky black material and gold filigree of the jacket complemented his hair and made his eyes pop. Those gorgeous azure eyes were without doubt his most prominent feature. They were what you remembered most about him from your first glimpse of them those eons ago, other than the general impression of overwhelming beauty. 

If it had been so then, it was even more so now, in this dark room among the grotesque and dead.  

Harrison was shining like always, seeming to light the entire room all by himself.

Was there even light in here before he arrived??

You found all breath had left you as Harrison took his first step toward your table. Like the rest of those in attendance, your eyes fixed on him and didn't waver, tracking his every movement until, seemingly suddenly, he was standing before you.

The eyes were boring into your soul and now every little detail was visible. This was closer than you had ever been in the infirmary and though you would have sworn you had no heart, you almost felt it stop. You might not have quite needed air, but your breath hitched silently in your throat as you glanced him up and down.

Oh great Norns. . .

There in the hall, his back straight as a rod with all the eyes in the room on him, and literally glowing he looked more kingly than he ever had. All that was missing was a crown.

He doesn't need one, though.

Your nobles certainly seemed to think so as they all bowed and paid respect to him in the background. 

Really, you should have been upset at that. You should have made some kind of example to assert your authority and show him and everyone in the room to whom their allegiance and respect and loyalty should really go to. . .but, somehow, the thought didn't really tempt you at all.

He is the son of the ruler of the universe, I suppose. The would-be king. 

Harrison nodded to you in respect, then he did something totally unexpected.  

You'd explained to him before that the nod was all that was required of him, and then he could take his seat beside you and you would start the feast. However, instead of edging around the table and sitting in the chair, Harrison reached out and gently took your hand. 

Spellbound, you watched it as it gradually rose through the air and met his lips. The stillness in the room that had sprung up as soon as you entered deepened.

You couldn't blame them, you were shocked too. The whole thing felt distant and disconnected, as though you were watching it happen to someone else far away or you in another life long ago. If not for the ghost of his lips tingling on the back of your hand as you brought it back to the table you would have believed you dreamed it all.

Harrison rounded the table, all the courtiers in the room still watching him. That was good, because it meant that they all missed you sitting there stunned and shellshocked for a moment.

 Thankfully, you got your face under control by the time Harrison sat down.

As half the room turned to you again, you were once more sitting tall, frigid, and imposing.

"Let the feast begin!"

Your words rang through the hall and were immediately followed by a cacophony of clapping and cheering. The staff took their cue and started bringing the food in at that moment, setting down a seemingly never ending parade of food and placing some at each of the tables. 

You were pouring mead into Harrison's tankard after piling a large helping of venison into your plate when the hall's great doors crashed open.

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[nobodies-png]

Hello!! Absolutely love your work ❤️ How do you think Riku and Sora would handle a zombie apocalypse??

Glad you like it, nonnie ! I went with a more Modern-Zombie AU here ! It’s pretty angsty c a u s e , y’kn ow, zombie aus are always s a d 

Sora : 

Out of the two, he’s the most reluctant to harm zombies - specially if we’re talking about someone he personally knew. It’s gonna take him a long time and training to get used to the thought of h a v i n g to kill to survive. Nightmares would plague his mind each night, while he tries to convince himself that he’s putting them out of their misery. Even though he despises firearms, he’d bring himself to learn how to use one - just so he can take down zombies quickly, instead of using more brutal weapons like in movies and videogames. Sora c o u l d use them though, he has the strength, but not the will.

His first instinct is to make sure his loved ones are safe. He might get a bit too ahead of himself and do some reckless stunts on impulse, but Sora is d e s p e r a te to know that his family and friends are okay. They’re his number one priority. No t h i n g else matters. Without them, he’d be lost and completely numb. If he found out that all of them either died or were turned, Sora would just go into a murderours rampage - forgetting all logic and reason and killing just to get it out of his system. Until there’s no zombies left or until he becomes their next meal. 

If only Kairi and Riku were okay, Sora would n e v e r let anything happen to them. It doesn’t matter to him if Kairi and Riku are capable of protecting themselves, he isn’t ready to lose them again or risk the posibility of them getting hurt - he’d become obsessed with the idea of keeping everyone safe, even if it means dying in the process. It’s definitely unhealthy and heartbreaking to see.

The world might’ve turned into a much darker and cruel place, but Sora would retain that sense of warmth he always had - welcoming everyone into his group and teaching them to stay together and united no matter what. He’d end up creating a safe haven after recovering and cleaning out an entire city. A lot of people would follow him, but of course, some others would take advantage of his neverending kindness. 

Due to his young age and attitude, he’d be seen as naive - but trust me, he’s not that dense. Sora is aware of all the second and third and even fourth chances he’s given to people who didn’t deserve them - but he’s too tired to get involved into fights. So instead, he tries to be as peaceful and fair as possible. If you fuck up that’s okay, you’ll be forgiven as long as you own up to your mistakes.

Don’t e v e r bring up the subject of a “cure” around him. All these years of doing what’s needed to survive have taken a toll on him - he’s had to separate lovers, tear apart families, mothers with their children, siblings, friends. He’s seen so many people die and so many continue on leaving every day, Sora doesn’t f e e l like he deserves to know anything about a cure. He was late for all these people, what would a cure do to all of them ? To all the people that were left behind ?  Like, don’t get him wrong. Hope for salvation is always great news, but he would never set a foot outside to fight for said hope. He’s not the hero he used to be and he’s perfectly content with carrying on his duties in his little community.

Riku :

Riku doesn’t have a problem killing zombies. Okay, maybe he does at first - but it’s mostly the fear what holds him back. While he might have potential, he’s still just a kid facing an entirely new and dangerous world by himself. But as soon as he sheds away those last traces of empathy and sympathy away and learns that zombies aren’t and will never be who they used to, he’d have no problem in getting rid of them. If necessary. Long distance weapons are preferred, but he’d use anything that he can get his hands on. 

Riku would try to figure out if his loved ones are okay too - but only after making sure he’s in condition to do so. Like, what help can he be if he just rushes out unarmed ? Friends and family are also everything to him, but unlike Sora who n e e d s their presence to be strong, Riku i s strong for the sake of everyone he wishes to protect. To support them like they’ve supported him in moments of need. If he found out that everyone he cares about is dead or turned into a zombie, Riku would insist on proving them wrong - his friends taught him to keep on believing and moving on no matter what, so if his heart tells him they’re alive, then sorry Janet, but they a r e. In the end, he’d blind himself with false ideas of hope to force himself to keep pushing foward.

If everyone were okay, though, then he’d be extremely relieved and would do his best to ensure their survival and safety. But if rumours about a possible cure started spreading around, Riku would gladly drop everything and set out to help finding it. Sure, everything might be dandy now, but he n e e d s to be one step ahead and think of the future - wouldn’t it be better if the world was safe once again ? Unlike Sora, he doesn’t want the deaths of all those victims to be in vain or sit around doing nothing, seeing more and more people die. 

Chances are he’ll venture into the world by himself after having a big argument with Sora - but like the stubborn mules they are, neither of them is willing to come to an agreement so Riku sets off to find a cure as soon as he can, leaving no trace and no possibility of following. Cause he k n o w s that sooner or later, Kairi and Sora would most likely end up trying to find him. Probably ends up being followed by a stray animal instead, like a dog or a cat that he’ll name Pluto.

Riku would gain a reputation among other camps and groups as a solitary wanderer, which means a lot of encounters along the way - both good and bad. He’d send the friends he made back towards Sora’s camp, to both help and to let them know that he’s still out there kicking ass. At some point, he’ll probably end up killing another human being in self defense, but at this point Riku’s completely numb to the death and misery around him.

And even if it did affect him, Riku would never go back on his promise to find a cure. This is something he feels like he h a s to do - not for money, fame or to prove anything. Just for his friends, family and a chance to live another day next to them, without fear of being devoured at any time. Man, I meant to end this on a bittersweet / happy note, but now i’m thinking of Riku finding a cure and going back home, expecting Sora and Kairi to welcome him with open arms only to find that either one or both have died or turned into zombies. Whatever you do, don’t think aBOUT THAT SAD OUTCOME -

[junker-town]

NBA mock draft 2021: Latest rumors and buzz for final first round projection

Here’s the latest on the 2021 NBA Draft.

The 2021 NBA Draft is finally here. After a full year of evaluating this class, the next generation of NBA players are about to learn where they will begin their careers. You can watch the 2021 NBA Draft at 8 p.m. ET on ABC, ESPN and the ESPN App.

We did our first mock draft for this class the day after the 2020 NBA Draft. There have been some big risers and fallers since then. International players like Josh Giddey and Alperen Şengün have emerged as likely lottery picks after great seasons in pro leagues overseas. Certain college players didn’t quite meet expectations. The end result is a 2021 draft class that feels extremely talented within the top-four and then becomes something of a grab bag throughout the rest of the lottery.

This mock draft is based off what we’re hearing ahead of draft night. We have already published our top-30 big board player rankings, and in-depth profiles of first round picks Sharife Cooper, Ayo Dosunmu, and Giddey. We also profiled Cade Cunningham almost two years ago to the day as he started his journey to become the No. 1 overall pick.

Here’s how we see the first round playing out:

The top four of the NBA draft appears to be locked in

Cade Cunningham was widely projected to be the No. 1 pick coming into the year. He maintained that status with a tremendous freshman season at Oklahoma State. While there have been rumors the Rockets and Thunder tried to trade up to No. 1 — as well as rumors Detroit has yet to fully commit to Cunningham — he’s obvious choice at the top. Anything else would be shocking.

While we have a preference for Evan Mobley as the No. 2 overall pick in this draft (more on our top-30 big board here), the Rockets seem zeroed in on Jalen Green. There’s certainly an argument for Green as the safer pick. He could flirt with being a 30-point-per-game scorer at his peak.

The Cavaliers should be doing backflips that Mobley is still available at No. 3. He’s a wonderful fit next to Darius Garland, Isaac Okoro, and (if he isn’t traded) Collin Sexton. We think he can play the four next to Jarrett Allen early in his career while also unlocking lineup flexibility when he slides to the five. Mobley has the highest defensive ceiling of any player in this class, and while he’s not hardwired to score, his passing skill and shooting potential will make him an effective offensive player.

The Raptors have reportedly been considering Scottie Barnes at No. 4, but it’s hard to imagine them passing on Jalen Suggs. Suggs is less of a heliocentric star and more of an overqualified complementary piece in the backcourt, but he’s a well-rounded player who should be a plus on both ends of the floor. He’s the last player in this draft class who feels likely to one day compete for All-Star bids.

The Magic appear to be settled on Scottie Barnes at No. 5

The level of talent in this draft drops another tier starting with the fifth pick. The Magic were seen to have two options when they landed at this spot in the lottery: G League Ignite forward Jonathan Kuminga and Florida State forward Scottie Barnes. It appears Barnes will win out.

Barnes is a Florida kid who played his entire high school career in the state. He fits the Magic’s longstanding history of favoring players who are, well, long. Barnes’ 7’3 wingspan and elite motor help make him one of the best defensive prospects in this class. His creation ability as a passer is the most enticing part of his offensive game, but he’ll have to improve as an outside shooter. Barnes feels more likely than Kuminga to make an immediate contribution.

The Thunder are a true wild card at No. 6

The Thunder reportedly made a strong offer for the Pistons No. 1 pick, with some speculating they included star guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in the package. It wasn’t enough for Detroit. If they stick at No. 6, the Thunder will have a ton of interesting options. Given their history of favoring players with impressive physical tools who are still raw, Kuminga feels like the most likely option.

The Thunder appear to have no interest in winning until they get a shot at drafting 7’3 French phenom Victor Wembanyama in 2023. By that time, Kuminga could be ready to contribute at a high level. One of the youngest players in this class, Kuminga is a big 6’8 wing who showed off poor shooting touch in the G League, but has all the tools to eventually be the type of two-way foward teams covet. He just feels more likely to be OKC’s selection given their history than someone like UConn sophomore James Bouknight, who has also been getting buzz.

The Warriors have two lottery picks and plenty of options

Golden State picks at No. 7 and No. 14 in the lottery. Their top option should be a trade for immediate help with Steph Curry coming off a near MVP season, Draymond Green still playing at an All-Defense level, and Klay Thompson finally returning after two years missed because of injury. It’s just hard to find a deal out there that feels worth it for both sides.

The most likely option is the Warriors making two picks on draft night. We would have a preference for two players in this spot: Franz Wagner and and Josh Giddey. Wagner feels like the most overall talent on the board (we have him ranked No. 5 in this class) because he’s the best bet to shoot of the big forwards while still offering potentially elite defense. Giddey is a 6’8 Australian playmaker who could offer redemption after the Warriors foolishly decided to pass on LaMelo Ball last year.

Golden State could also consider Baylor’s Davion Mitchell, Kuminga, and UConn’s James Bouknight. We’ll give Bouknight the edge here given the recent buzz. His scoring ability is seen as a known quantity in a draft that doesn’t offer many outside of the top-four. It’s not our favorite pick personally, but Bouknight’s instant offense and endless motion in the halfcourt could be a nice fit in Steve Kerr’s offense.

The Memphis Grizzlies are reportedly looking to trade up again

The Grizzlies already made a move from No. 17 to No. 10 after completing their deal with the New Orleans Pelicans. They reportedly want to move up again. Memphis is said to have two targets: Giddey and Wagner. It’s likely they need to move up to get Wagner, who is widely projected to go No. 9 overall to the Sacramento Kings.

We’ll guess Wagner doesn’t make it to the Kings’ pick. The Grizzlies may trade up to No. 7 with Golden State or No. 8 with Orlando to get their guy. It’s also possible the Warriors or Magic just take Wagner with their own pick.

Where will Alperen Şengün get drafted?

The big man put up incredible production in the Turkish league at 18 years old to force his way into the lottery conversation. He doesn’t have ideal tools for an NBA center, lacking ideal measurables, quickness on the perimeter defensively, and three-point range on his jump shot. At a certain point, though, Şengün’s production will be too tempting to pass on.

Sacramento at No. 9, Charlotte at No. 11, and San Antonio at No. 12 feel like the most likely options. He’d also be a solid pick for the Warriors if he slides all the way to No. 14.

3 ‘old,’ tall shooters could crash the top-15

Corey Kispert is well known to basketball fans after a starring role on a Gonzaga team that fell one win short of an undefeated season in the national championship game. Virginia’s Trey Murphy III and Oregon’s Chris Duarte were lesser known names during the college season who have gotten plenty of buzz in the pre-draft process. All three are on the older side in a draft class largely filled with freshmen. All three have a chance to go in the top-15 of this draft because of their skill as three-point shooters.

Kispert or Duarte feel like an obvious selection for the Warriors at No. 14. Murphy is getting buzz at No. 15 to the Washington Wizards. The back-end of the lottery is still anyone’s guess, but at this point it would be a surprise if any of the three slipped out of the top-20.

2 big sleepers in the 2021 NBA Draft

Sharife Cooper is the best playmaker in the draft after Cade Cunningham. He has an ultra-quick first step, an endless combination of dribble moves, and the best vision and passing ability in this class. Cooper is held back by his lack of size (6’1, 180 pounds) and unrefined three-point shot, but we think he’s a top-10 overall talent in this class. The Knicks at No. 19 or No. 21, and the Houston Rockets at No. 23 and No. 24 feel like wonderful landing spots.

Jaden Springer is the youngest American player in the draft. He’s also one of the best on-ball defenders. While didn’t get to show everything he could do offensively on a Tennessee team that provided little spacing around him, it feels wild that he’s projected to slip outside of the top-20. The Knicks, Rockets, Suns, and Jazz would be nice fits for Springer late in the draft, but we’d take him much earlier than that.

The Knicks could trade up in the 2021 NBA Draft

New York picks at No. 19 and No. 21 coming off a surprising season that saw them grab the No. 5 seed in the Eastern Conference in their first year under Tom Thibodeau. The prevailing logic is the Knicks will take a guard and a shooting wing with these two selections.

In our mock, the Knicks take the ‘best available player’ with their first pick with mega-athletic guard Keon Johnson dropping. They also take Kentucky big man Isaiah Jackson, who is a CAA client and has ties to assistant coach Kenny Payne, who used to work for John Calipari and the Wildcats.

It also wouldn’t be a surprise if the Knicks moved up, as ESPN’s Bobby Marks reported. The Hornets could be an option at No. 11. It makes sense after Chicago Thibodeau’s Bulls once traded the No. 16 and No. 19 picks to move up for Doug McDermott. Kispert, Murphy, or Durate feel like targets for New York if they trade up.

2021 NBA Draft date, time, and channel

Here’s how you can watch the 2021 NBA Draft.

Date: Thursday, July 29

Time: 8 p.m. ET

Channel: ABC, ESPN

Stream: ESPN App.

[storesfromtheunderground-blog]

Hope and the 3 hopeless dates. Chapter one-Gabriels Promise

Hope Winchester was pissed. She had been sitting in the impala  while her brothers were off chasing the trickster who had taken Cas from them. She had begged to tag along so she could be face to face with the man who had torn their little family apart. Dean had given her a dark look after she asked to go for the 10th time, his eyes cutting her her voice off mid sentence.

"oh dean for the lov-"

No Hope..you can NOT go, we have no idea what we are dealing with and the last thing we need is you getting hurt or worse taken like Cas!" Hope knew Sam and him meant well but she was always being left in the car to stare out the window and at 19 she was just tired of being left on the sidelines.

Hope pouted a little but then gave in after they stared each other down in the cool autumn air.

"Fine Dean..whatever...just....just be safe please? and bring Cas back...I really miss him ya know.." Dean embraced her in a tight hug and Sam squeezed her right shoulder. They all missed their angel more than anything.

Dean finally let go and gave her one last look.  " I mean it Hope...stay put for Cas..you know how he gets when you get even the tiniest scratch."

"You mean how you act?" She smirked up at her big protective brother who sometimes was more dad than brother. He gave her a soft smirk of his own and reached out to ruffle her hair .

"ya kid...me too ." he pointed his finger at her and they both waited for her to get in the impala and even checked to make sure she had locked the doors. Hope watched as they poured salt around the car, her blue eyes suddenly wet with tears. She hated when they left her, she worried for their safety always. Sam tapped the window to let her know they were done and then turned his back to follow Dean.

That had been more than two hours ago and her eyes were tear-less and now heavy with sleep. She fought the sleep though. She was way past worried. Her cell was dead and she had no way of knowing if they had tried to call for help, and her charger was back at the hotel they had rented for the week. The street was dark and fog surrounded the car, no street lamps were lit to light the way. She looked out each window trying to see , but failed. There was no way of knowing if anyone was outside the car or nearby at all.

"where the hell are you guys...please don't be hurt...or...." she couldn't even finish what she was saying into the silence that she sat in. She sat there for a couple moments more then made up her mind to go find them. They couldn't be that far away, surely they were in one of the warehouses she had seen on the way there.  She grabbed her beaten brown backpack that carried all her hunter weapons and donned her favorite black leather jacket Dean had given her last christmas. She unlocked the door and stepped slowly out of the car, her eyes searching the darkness for any danger that might be lurking in the shadowless alley ways.

Her boots crunched on the graveled road as she started walking forward away from the only thing that secured her safety.

"I can do this...I won't be stupid...I'll be safe...maybe Dean and Sam won't kill me later? .." she had to stop talking to herself or even the demons they hunted would think she was crazy. Then again..sometimes she was her own company so who cared anyways right? The chill in the air made her hug her jacket tighter around her body, goosebumps rose up on her arms and her teeth chattered for a second when the wind seemed to blow right threw her. She passed each broken building , stopping at each one to listen for any voices or sounds of struggles and fights. Nothing could be heard though and she began to panic again. She stopped next to a broken brick wall and leaned over, her breathing becoming jagged and rough as a panic attack hit her hard. Her heart felt as if it was going to burst from her chest as she waited it out. Finally after what seemed like forever her heart slowed back down and her breathing went back to normal. She slowly brought her body back up to standing , her head still woozy from the small attack. She had to find her brothers soon or each one would be longer and worse than the last.

She began to walk faster, wishing she could call out for them. She knew if she did though she could be putting them in potential danger and didn't want that to happen. A few more buildings up and her prayers were answered. She could hear the distant but yet close sounds of her brothers voices and another mans shouting in the building ahead of her. Her feet began running and she stopped at the rust corroded door that would lead her to them. Her shoulder pressed againist it, and it gave way to a dark hallway. At the end of the hallway she could see a faint light glowing. She reached the end and stared into the large open room. Her brothers stood in front of the trickster who was surrounded by a ring of holy fire, the flames rising up like angry arms ready to set fire to who ever dared touch them.

"Well played boys...well played.. I gotta ask..where'ed you get the holy oil?" the trickster clapped his hands as he spoke, no one had noticed her arrival in the room yet so she stayed put in the shadows near the door.

"You might say we pulled them out of Sams ass?" Dean's sarcasm dripped like venom when spoke. He was not in the mood to play the tricksters games.

"Where'd I screw up?" the tricksters eyes finally landed on her but he didn't say anything at all. She kept her eyes on him even when he turned his own back to the men in front of him.

"You didn't, but nobody gets the jump on Cas like you did."  Trickster stared daggers at Sam when he spoke Cas's name.

"Mostly was about the way you talked about armageddon " Trickster shook his head.

"Meaning?"

"Well call it personal expierence, nobody gets that angry unless they're talking about their own family."Dean knew he was right when the trickster shifted from leg to leg and dared him to deny it.

"So which one are you, grumpy, sneezy or douchy?" Sam asked. Tricksters eyes shifted back and forth and he turned his head away for a moment, his eyes focusing on her again for a split second, letting his gaze roam over the beautiful girls body from head to toe.

His voice was strong and firm as he looked back at Sam. "Gabriel..okay, they call me Gabriel."

"Gabriel...the archangel..?" Sams face was clouded with anger while Gabriel's was smug.

"Guilty"

"Okay Gabriel..how does an archangel become a trickster"

"My own private witness protection, I skipped out of heaven, had a face transplant, carved out my own little corner of the world, till you two screwed it all up !"

The room went silent for a few seconds as the brothers and Gabriel stared at each other. She stepped foward slowly, not wanting to startle her brothers with her entrance.

"Boys....and girl, Now what, stare at each other for the rest of enternity?" Dean and Sam jerked around to find her standing sheepishly behind them, her arms raised in mock defense.

"What the hell Hope! I told you to stay in the car and you just couldn't listen could you !"

"look I got worried ok , don't be pissey with me right now when I thought you two were DEAD!" Hope shoved him back, tears pricking her eyes again as she looked up at him, demanding he not do this to her again.

He brought his hand to her shoulder and held it there. " you gotta start listening though sis...we can't ever lose you...that's why i make you stay behind...you just...you just can't run off in the dark by yourself anymore..it's not safe and I can't have that.." He wanted nothing more than to lock her away in a padded protected room when they were gone so he knew she was kept safe and sound.

"I know bubba...i know..i'm sorry I didn't listen" her whispered apology was heard by Gabriel who was listening intently to the two as they talked.

"As great as this show is, there's not any popcorn or comfy seats just holy flames licking at my feet so we could finish this or what!"

Dean turned back to the archangel and glared at him, his body moving in front of Hope to shield her from the angels eyes.

"Well first of all you're gonna bring Cas back from where ever you stashed him."

"Oh am I?" the archangel looked like he was having fun toying with Dean.

Two could play that game though and Dean played it well.

"Yeah, or we're going to dunk you in some holy oil and deep fry our selves an archangel"

Hope peeked around her brother at the man who had taken her guardian angel from her.

"please...I need him....WE need him..he's family to us too ..can't you even begin to understand that at all?" her voice shook, tear threathing to spill from her blue eyes if she didn't get Cas back soon.

"Is that right sweetheart? well..Maybe for you I can grant this one wish hmm? I don't feel like being burned alive anyways"

Gabriel knew this girl, had always known her even before she was born and now here she stood begging for his own brother to be returned to her as if he was a lost puppy. He knew if he didn't comply that Dean and Sam would no doubt do as Dean had said. He wasn't looking to die that night so he rolled his eyes and lifted his hand up to bring back Cas. He snapped his fingers and an electric pop sounded. Cas appeared behind Dean and hope, his face cut up and anger towards his brother was dominant in his eyes.

"Cas you ok?"

"I'm fine" His glare redirected to Gabriel at the same time Deans did.

"Hello Gabriel"

"Hey bro, hows the search for daddy going?.... let me guess?.. Awful"

The angels stared at each other , Cas breathing hard from his decent back to earth.

Hope embraced Cas from the side, her hand coming up to cradle his face.

"I was so worried Cas!" a few tears escaped as she hugged him to her , careful not to hurt his bruised up body.

"I'm fine really Hope" he leaned his head into her palm and gave her a reassuring look. He hated to see her so destraught.

"We're out of here, come on Sam, Hope.."

Gabriel became skittish as they turned to leave him there in the flames. He had to get out of there or risk being trapped there for enterity.

"Um, ok...um GUYS so ...so what ? you just gonna leave me here forever?!"

The winchesters and their angel kept walking to the door and stopped when Dean turned back to the tratious angel.

"No...we're not cuz we don't screw with people the way you do. And for the record this isn't about some prized fight between your brothers, or some destiny that can't be stopped!, this about you being too afraid to stand up to your family!" his words echoed in the room. Dean looked at Gabriel one last time and then turned back to the door. He reached over to break the glass around an old fire alarm and pulled it  down, an alarm and  the celing spray nossels came on, the water flowing down like a shower putting the holy flames out slowly around the angel.

"Don't say i never did anything for you!" Dean turned from the angel and put his hand on his sisters back to guide her from the room. The angel waited for the flames to get lower, wanting desperatly to free of the circle he had almost been trapped in. Cas was the last to leave the room allowing him to be the last person his brother saw before they were gone.

Gabriel knew that hiding Castial had been wrong, but he had felt it was the last option he had had at the time. Returning him had took away alot of his pride but it was worth it when he saw the relief on the young girls face when she embraced the angel. It was like he was her brother as well, her real actual guradrian angel in the flesh. He had for a moment wished she had been embracing him instead. He had wanted to smell her , to see if she smelled like sunshine and flowers on a warm spring day. He shook his head to rid it of the thoughts he was having and stepped from the circle once the last of the flames had washed away. He had to find her again , he wanted to know her, to hold her close and he had no idea why. He could remember the girl when she was but a baby in heaven. She had been adorable and he had held her himself, passing her to and from Cas to watch in the days before her and Adam were sent to earth to be born to Kat and John. He had been beyound grateful that she had been born the good twin and not the evil one. He delighted in the years to come, watching her grow up, even during the hard times when John would come and go, sometimes barley visiting the little one at all. The last time he saw Hope was when she was 16. There had been no "sweet 16 " party. Only a gloomy rainy day spent sitting in her room alone. He often wondered why the young girl hadnt had many friends, but then he remembered..she had been able to see beings such as hisself from a young age and that is never easy to explain to meer humans.

"I'll see you again sunshine...I promise you that right now" his words weren't heard by anyone, but he didn't care. He was going to find her and he was going to have her, no matter what he had to do to win her over.

He left the warehouse quickly , only to be hit with the smell of the young girl at the door. Her scent had lingered even after they had left from where she had leaned against the door...she really did smell like sunshine and flowers...honeysuckle growing on wild vines...and oh how he planned to suckle those sweet petals soon...

[simicartnew-blog]

New Post has been published on https://www.simicart.com/blog/pwa-app-stores/

Publishing PWA to Major App Stores: The Whys and Hows

Starting with Google Play Store, one after another app marketplace jumped on the bandwagon of welcoming Progressive Web Apps (What is Progressive Web App?) into their store, making it the new go-to approach for software delivery. With all this in play, it would be a waste not to take advantage of this newfound technology to better expand the reach of your app.

To give you a clearer perspective on the whole Progressive Web App movement, specifically the publication process, today we’ll be reviewing the current state of PWAs in major app marketplaces as well as how to publish a PWA to said stores.

Why should you publish your Progressive Web App to major App Stores?

It used to be that Progressive Web Apps were limited to web installations (Add to Home Screen) only. However, with time, app marketplaces such as Google and Microsoft started recognizing the potential of PWAs and made initiatives to move foward adoptions of this technology of the future.

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The web today is an incredibly powerful platform, but there's still a gap between what web apps can do and the capabilities of native apps. Progressive Web Apps get us part of the way there, but to truly compete, the web needs access to more powerful APIs, too. Well, good news! They're coming! Listen to this talk titled "Bridging the native app gap" from Sam Richard to learn more about the new and upcoming APIs. . . #SimiCart #ChromeDevSummit #ChromeDevSummit 2019 #SamRichard #pwa #nativeapp

A post shared by SimiCart (@simicart.official) on Dec 1, 2019 at 11:43pm PST

If you have the capabilities and funds, our professional opinion is that you should go for it—make your PWA omni-platform. After all, big brands such as Twitter, Uber and Spotify have all jumped on the bandwagon and were met with stellar results, proving this technology indeed isn’t all marketing and worth considering over. Microsoft themselves even went one step further by planning to make Progressive Web Apps the primary experience in Windows.

Recommended reading: Spotify PWA: The Movement is Now.

How to publish your PWA to Google Play Store and Microsoft Store

Google Play Store

Being the forerunner of the PWA movement, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Google Play Store holding open arms for Progressive Web Apps. With TWA (Trusted Web Activities) in-place, the whole publishing sequences has been made much easier and should be over in no time.

Requirements

Android Studio installed

A Google Developer account

A working and quality-checked Progressive Web Apps.

Step 1: Make a clone of the TWA Starter Android App and modify

Clone the svgomg-twa project with the following command:

git clone https://github.com/GoogleChromeLabs/svgomg-twa.git

Import the project into Android Studio using File > New > Import Project.

In /app/build.gradle, modify twaManifest to your purpose. The specifics as to the what and how to change can be found within the build.gradle file.

Note: The applicationId should follow a format of <com>.<your-brand>.<your-app>

After modifications, your /app/build.gradle should look something like this:

def twaManifest = [ applicationId: 'com.simicart.app', hostName: 'simicart.com', // The domain being opened in the TWA. launchUrl: '/', // The start path for the TWA. Must be relative to the domain. name: 'SimiCart PWA', // The name shown on the Android Launcher. themeColor: '#ED8A19', // The color used for the status bar. navigationColor: '#303F9F', // The color used for the navigation bar. backgroundColor: '#bababa', // The color used for the splash screen background. enableNotifications: false, // Set to true to enable notification delegation. // Add shortcuts for your app here. Every shortcut must include the following fields: // - name: String that will show up in the shortcut. // - short_name: Shorter string used if |name| is too long. // - url: Absolute path of the URL to launch the app with (e.g '/create'). // - icon: Name of the resource in the drawable folder to use as an icon. shortcuts: [ // Insert shortcuts here, for example: // [name: 'Open SimiCart', short_name: 'Open', url: '/open', icon: 'splash'] ], // The duration of fade out animation in milliseconds to be played when removing splash screen. splashScreenFadeOutDuration: 300 ]

Step 2: Create a key store and verify APK

Key stores or upload keys are necessary for verification of your APK. To create a key store, launch Android Studio and navigate to Build → Generate Signed Bundle/APK and fill in the required fields.

Once you have created a Key Store, you’ll need to extract the SHA256 fingerprint from it using the following commands:

keytool -list -v -keystore ~/dlbr-keystore.jks -alias twa -storepass •••••• -keypass ••••••

Entry type: PrivateKeyEntry ... Certificate fingerprints: SHA1: ... SHA256: 2A:9B:A8:64:32:0A:69:99...: 👈 copy this line

Step 3: Configure the Digital Asset Link

A Digital Asset Link is needed for ownership verification of your web content which can later be used to link to your APK.

Generate a statement file

Use the SHA256 fingerprint that you extracted earlier and generate a statement file with the Statement List Generator and Tester.

Once you have generated a statement file, the next step is to create a publicly accessible file that contains information from the Digital Asset Tool. The file should be placed in your web host and in this location:

.well-known/assetlinks.json

The location of this file is dependant on the build process of your web app, but normally it should be on the deployed directories, namely the ‘public’ or ‘dist’ directories.

When all is done, the next and final step for you to do is to deploy your app.

Step 4: Build and release your app on Google Play

With your Google Play Console at default settings, go to All Applications → Create Application.

Create an Internal Test

Navigate to App releases → Internal Test Track → Create release to create an Internal Test Track of your app.

Build a Signed APK

In Android Studio, navigate to Build → Generate Signed Bundle/APK and use the SHA256 key store that we extracted earlier. Do make sure that you check both the signature version boxes.

Upload the APK

You’re now at the end of this process. To upload your apk, simply go to Google Play Store, App Releases → Internal Test Track → Edit Release.

Don’t forget to complete the Store Listing

All required fields must be filled out before your app can be listed for the review process. These fields are needed for crucial information such as pricing details, store listing, content rating, etc. When this process is completed, you should see four green checkmarks ✔️ indicating that all required fields are filled in.

And that’s it. Your PWA is now ready for review and will be ready for public download in a few hours.

Apple App Store

Of all the major app marketplaces, Apple App Store might just be the one that’s the least bit welcoming or even hostile to PWAs, which is kind of ironic considering Steve Jobs was the first one to vision a future of Progressive Web Apps.

The full Safari engine is inside of iPhone. And so, you can write amazing Web 2.0 and Ajax apps that look exactly and behave exactly like apps on the iPhone. And these apps can integrate perfectly with iPhone services. They can make a call, they can send an email, they can look up a location on Google Maps.

-Steve Jobs, 2007

To get your app published to Apple App Store, your app must go through a series of red tape. And as if that’s not enough, there’s the final layer of red-tape which is the reviewing process. This process requires that your PWA must behave no different than a native application while severely cripples your ability to write JaveScript at the same time, thus driving PWA developers to use plugins (Cordova Plugin) in order to trick iOS App Store into recognizing your PWA as a valid, native application.

Fortunately for all of us, there’s a tool that makes this whole process of turning your web apps into app packages easier, namely PWA Builder. PWA Builder is a tool developed by Microsoft to help move PWA adoption forward; and while it was originally developed for Microsoft Store, it now supports all major app marketplaces including Apple App Store.

Within a few simple steps, PWA Builder can generate for you a complete XCode project which can later be built with Xcode. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? Sorry, that would be too easy and ease of publishings like that would cost Apple profits. Xcode requires MacOS for complete functionality—so good luck publishing PWA on Apple App Store using a PC, unless you use some kind of workarounds like MacinCloud which costs $25/month.

Microsoft Store

As stated in our Windows 10 and PWA: The future of Software Delivery article, Microsoft has been laying out the groundworks for a Progressive Web App store for quite a while and it’s step by step becoming a reality. PWAs from more popular brands are already populating all over the app marketplaces and with no less of exemplary results for others to follow.

Like Google, Microsoft welcomes PWAs and even go one step further—they plan to popularize and replace native, UWP apps with hybrid apps – a kind of Progressive Web Apps wrapped in native shells.

In theory, publishing your Progressive Web App to Microsoft Store shouldn’t take you any effort at all since it was originally planned to be an automatic process that uses Bing as a crawling mechanism for quality PWAs. However, the whole thing is still in an experimental stage and doesn’t work quite as effectively as planned, which is why you would need to manually submit your PWA as a Windows app package (.appx). But don’t worry, the process isn’t as nerve-wracking as a certain app store.

Requirements

A Windows Dev Center account

PWABuilder

A working and quality-checked Progressive Web App that meets the store policies

Step 1: Reserve a name for your app

The first step in publishing an app in Microsoft Store is reserving a name. In case you’re wondering what would happen if one mad lad decided to reserve every name in existence: don’t worry, the name reservation will expire after 3 months.

Fill in the required fields and note them somewhere as this information will be required later.

Step 2: Generate an AppX using PWABuilder

As mentioned above, PWABuilder is a great way to generate a functional package publishable on major app marketplaces. It’s one of the first tools on the market that was developed by Microsoft solely for the purpose of moving PWA adoption forward.

Generate Manifest

On PWABuilder, enter the URL of your PWA and click on Get started. Do note that this step is crucial as it automatically identifies and/or fills in the missing information in your manifest.json, which is often needed for PWAs that are not specifically built for Microsoft Store.

The next step is building Service Workers for your PWA, but assuming that yours is a typical Progressive Web App in which service workers are already integrated, this step will be skipped and we will move forward to the final step—obtaining your .appx package.

Generate AppX

Upon clicking generate AppX, you should see something like this pop-up:

This is where the earlier information can come in handy. Fill out the fields and a download box containing the .appx package will be shown. Download it and you will now be ready for publishing your PWA to Microsoft Store.

In case you want to test your PWA before publishing it on the store, there’s always the option to Windows-test it by enabling Developer Mode → Right-click on test_install.ps1 → Run with PowerShell. Doing this will automatically add your PWA to your desktop and Start menu, from which it can be launched and tested to see if everything’s working properly.

Step 3: Submit your app package to Microsoft Store

To publish your PWA to Microsoft Store, you’ll need to navigate to the package folder inside the .zip that you downloaded earlier. In this folder is everything that you would need to publish to Microsoft Store. For clarifications, this folder doesn’t contain any of your code as it only serves as a directing mechanism to your PWA on the web and other unrelated Store metadata.

Once you have located the windows.appx, head over to the submission page in your Dev Center and fill in the required information:

The ‘Packages‘ tab is where you’d want to upload your windows.appx

After completing all the steps and filling in all the required fields, the “Submit to the Store” button should light up, indicating that your PWA is now ready for the review process. It will take an hour to several days for this process to complete; once it’s over your PWA will be certified and available to public/private downloads (depends on your availability settings in Dev Center).

Conclusion

After all this, perhaps you’re still wondering why should you even build a Progressive Web App—much less go through all this trouble to publish one. And you’re right to ask such fundamental questions.

Progressive Web App is step by step proving itself to be the future of software delivery and the next natural step in the Evolution of Web Techonology. As of now, it’s already widely used everywhere in the eCommerce world where unified and engaging experience across all devices is the key to high conversions.

Being a new technology, it’s already hard enough to build one Progressive Web App as it is. With SimiCart, you no longer have to worry about your Magento PWA‘s development phases as we provide a complete and the best cost-effective solution on the market.

Explore SimiCart PWA

[occupyvenus]

Am I the only one who thinks this season is going slower than anticipated? Maybe it’s just because they kept hyping it as super fast-paced and my expectations were too high. I’m honestly feeling a little underwhelmed right now. Can’t really put my finger on why exactly, but still.

Maybe it’s because they are being so silent about r+l=j and white walker related stuff? I feel like these two things should really start driving the plot forward.

But Bran has had like 5 minutes of screentime, so no new white walker revelations there and that whole “we really need dragonglass” obsession is kinda getting boring. It doesn’t seem like he’s going to reveal anything about Jons birth to Sansa or Arya anytime soon neither.

I would have totally accepted if Tyrion and Jons entire cliff-interaction happened off screen, with Tyrion just showing up to tell Dany about the dragonglass out of nowhere. I really hope the whole conversation about Jon being a “northern fool” pays off somehow. Either by him causing his own downfall by making the same mistakes as Robb or Ned (falling for a foreign woman + trusting Cersei), being tempted by it and resisting because he learned his lesson, or doing that glorious double-agent stuff some people speculate about - acting like a “northern fool”, but fooling everyone else instead. 

Even if that scene was meant to pave the road for a positive romantic / sexual / platonic / familial / political / whatever relationship between Jon and Dany, it’s very sloppy writing. They should form a bond through their own actions, not through Tyrion playing wing-man, telling each of them how great the other person is. If that was the only purpose of that scene I am going to scream. 

That screen-time could have been used for way more interesting things. I mean, we could have gotten some unexpected Jon interacts with free-flying dragon moment instead. Imagine Jon standing on that cliff, but instead of Tyrion, Viserion/Rhaegal shows up, lands in front of him, they both stare at each other for a while before the dragon takes off again. Or even better, Tyrion showing up after that, witnessing that little interaction and looking a bit ~suspicious~ at Jon during and after their “I’m an idiot”, “Dany isn’t so bad” conversation.

I just feel like Jons targ-heritage should start to influence the plot soon. Especially now that he is in Dragonstone, face-to-face with the other last living targaryen and we know about his true parentage. I like all the little hints with Jon saying he isn’t a stark and the dragon flying by at the perfect time, I suppose it read the script, but I would want an actual character to hint at it. I want something more tangible. His entire conversation with Dany would have been way more interesting if the audience (especially casual viewers) were more aware of his situation. It would have simply had a bigger emotional impact if we already “knew” or at least strongly suspect that Jon “was born to rule the seven kingdoms” (according to the targ line of succession), that he is “the rightful ruler”. I absolutely loved Jon standing up for the north and telling her how it is, but it would have had more potential. Even Jons death and resurrection is kept a secret, ie hold back from influencing the story, because .... I don’t know. I don’t feel like we have time to set up new mysteries, when there are so many old ones waiting to be lifted.

I really hope that r+l=j will come up in the winterfell-plot somehow, because Littlefinger - without this peculiar information - has kinda stopped being a worthwhile villain. Seriously, Sansa is so done with his shit, neither Bran nor Arya are prone to manipulation, Lord Royce hates him, what vital threat does he pose to the starks if not for some juicy r+l=j info ? And the following implications concerning a certain redheads and northern kings romantic potential) But instead of making some sneaky comments about Jon parleying with the dragon queen, we get a weird metaphysical ... whatever that was. 

Jons true parentage is like the biggest twist off the entire series and having it only impacting the story in the very, very, very last episodes feels … unworthy of it? I’m not even talking about revealing the truth to Jon or another major character, but they should just do ... something ... with it. 

The same thing goes for Bran. Him being the three-eyed raven should really start to be important and crucial to the plot. I am going to assume that it will be very important ~somehow~, but until now he was nothing but a script-page with EXPOSITION written all over it. If he’s going to spend the rest of the season sitting in winterfell, devoid of all emotion, saying ominous shit and doing nothing but figuring out the “big mystery” who Jon’s dad is.... I’ll be really disappointed. I need Bran to be as important as he should be. I need Bran to be more than what he is now. Considering that we are moving towards the series ultimate conclusion, it should happen soon. I’m worried that he will stay in camp easy-exposition, only to ex-machina the shit out of his undefined powers out of nowhere.

Sam’s time at the citadel is similar in this aspect. Like what did he really accomplish there? Finding out that there is dragonglass in dragonstone (duuhhh) and healing Jorah. He is sitting on this huge mountain of fascinating information, the biggest accumulation of knowledge in all of westeros and we do not learn anything new by him being there. Nothing about “blood and fire”, dragons, the long night, the ptwp, azor ahai, the children of the forest, etc.  He could really impact the big war there, but so far he hasn’t. 

I’m rather content with the season so far, yes some of the writing is pretty sloppy, but what else is new. I don’t know, it’s just that the pacing feels ...kinda weird. It feels like there is so much going on, but they are holding back the most vital elements of the story for ... some reason, I suppose. Even Danys invasion feels like it hasn’t even really started yet. I don’t know most of these major plotlines just kinda stand there without having much movement themselves. They threw the tower of joy scene at us in the last finale and haven’t done anything with it. Keep in mind, we are already almost halfway through season 7.   

The only two incidents that seem to really push the “big plot” in any direction are the whole Euron and Cersei situation and Jon meeting Dany. On second viewing even that long anticipated meeting feels a bit drawn-out and under-used, when considering it’s potential. I’m not saying that anything in the first three episodes necessarily falls into the “filler”-category, that’s not it. But there are only 10(!) episodes left. None of this would bother me if the last two seasons weren’t as short, but under these circumstances our major characters feel a bit too .. stationary.  

The one exception would be Cersei, her plot is the only one I would call “dynamic”. It develops from scene to scene, she actively shapes her surroundings and is faced with new challenges or simply different situations almost every time she comes back on screen. Jon, Sansa, Arya, Bran, Dany, Sam, etc. mostly seem to talk about the stuff, they already talked about in the last scene, sometimes with a different character or a tiny bit of new information. Or they talk about things that happened to other characters. Seriously, Cersei already went through an entire arc, while everyone else feels like they are just finished with setting the stage. She is the most interesting, engaging character right now. There, I said it. 

Jon started to actively further the plot by coming to dragonstone, but the Jon’s “big issue” in the second half of episode 3 was literally that he is stuck on Dragonstone and can’t leave. I actually enjoyed his little discussion with Dany very much, them meeting is a crucial step towards the final conclusion , finally coming closer to an answer to the big question behind all this “will they fight or fuck or both or switch between those ...”. But all the tension build in that interaction immediately dissolved when the ended with the half-baked conclusion of him being her prisoner somewhat, but not really. 

This was only supposed to be like one or two paragraphs of mild complaining, but it ended up being way longer, because I just don’t know how to accurately put this into words. So thanks for sticking with me until the end. I’ll say it one more time, Cersei is the only character who seems to actually make both personal and political progress. Maybe they are finally done with putting all the pieces in place and can start with really pushing the story foward, but in that case, maybe cutting the episode number wasn’t such a good idea.

A bunch of stuff happens, but it doesn’t feel like stuff actually happens. Does that make any sense? Does anyone get what I mean? Is it only me? 

[annavoigmarchen]

Here There Be Heroes

Summary: In a timeline where something sent Percy back in time to save his family, young Percy recives some good advice. Even if he doesn't believe in fate himself, his family is safe and his hunger for something more isn't going away. Until an elven dignitary come with his two half-elves twins in tow, and Percival sees in them the spark Old Percy told him about before he left.

OR

The alterned timeline AU no one asked for where VM fucks up, Percy ends up savig his family and younger Percival is left with the task of finding Vox Machina.

read on AO3

Percival Frederickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III used to think he was an ordinary teen - well, as ordinary as a teen from royalty can be. He knew he wasn’t going to be the one ruling Whitestone when the time came, and that granted him a freedom his older brother didn’t have. So he dedicated himself on the things he liked instead of the things he needed to know to be a good ruler, and was excused for it. Praised for it even.

He wasn’t worried about his future.

That changed on the day they call “the incident”. It started with the mysterious Briarwoods. They were invited in, came to court, and they attempted to kill the de Rolos. An attempt that wasn’t successful, thanks to a strange man that appeared in the castle some days before.

At first, they didn’t know who he was. Julius thought it would be best to lock him up. But none of the de Rolos could deny the uncanny resemblance, and after his strange reaction at seeing all of them, it was easy to extract the truth from him - as strange as that truth could be. Apparently, he was Percival Frederickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III. He was Percy, just not their Percy. An older and more marred version of the teen presented himself, and after a brief explanation on how he ended up where he was (something about a spinning orb and a god? Percival wasn’t paying much attention to what his other version was saying, and more in analysing the man) it was decided he would stay at the castle until they could find a way to get him home. Wherever and whenever that home may be.

However, something remained about the way Old Percy (as what they had taken to calling him) looked at all of them, something nostalgic with a hint of pain. Johanna, with all the wisdom being their mom got her, was the first to understand at least a bit of why. Vesper was the second, and even if the girl was younger than Old Percy, she still got her older sister grip on him. She was the first de Rolo he told about their deaths. So when both Vesper and Old Percy protested vehemently against the Briarwoods coming, Johanna knew something wasn’t right.

That day, Old Percy told them about what happened in his past, and swore to never let it happen in this timeline. And he proved his words true, when with the help of his strange contraptions he called guns and the rest of the de Rolo family, they defeated the Briarwoods.

Since the incident, Percival knew he wasn’t meant to stay in Whitstone. Ok, his family was safe and sound, and much more aware of strangers now, and all of that thanks to a strange and old version of him. But that… That was exactly why he knew his fate was elsewhere.

He remembers, that day when he was sixteen, right after they defeated the Briarwoods, and while they were waiting for Old Percy’s friends to get him back… He remembers the drawings of the guns, his older self teaching him how to build them, his cautious expression when telling how he came up with the idea… But, most of all, Percival remembers his words.

“You won’t be contented here.” He said. Percival made a face, and Old Percy laughed. “I know, I was you once. And… While I made a lot of bad decisions, you have the potential to not to do them. To be a better person. And I know that, after you saw all that could be, you won’t be here in Whitestone forever. So I’m giving this blueprints to you... Just in case. I don’t know what’s going to happen from now on - this…” He made a gesture showing everything around them. “This is not my future. And I am not someone who has all the answers for you, Gods forbid. But if know one thing is that… You will find them, or they will find you, one way or another. Vox Machina. It’s our fate, you know?”

“You believe in fate?” Percival asked, incredulous.

“I believe that some things are meant to be, yes. I’ve seen too much to not believe at least in that.” He scratched his beard for a moment. “Listen, Percival. You want an advice? Do not let them get away. If the opportunity presents itself, drop the prick facade and be ready to go. Fate has a way of making the things she wants to happen, happen one way or another. And the second option is not always the best one. So don’t give her a chance to make bad things happen? I went through too much trouble saving our family for it to be lost again.”

And somehow, young Percival knew Old Percy wasn’t only talking about the de Rolos.

So that’s why, when Percival saw the Vessar twins sneaking past him in the wee hours of the night while he was coming back from his workshop, he was propelled to do something.

“What are you doing?” He asked, making both half-elves jump on their skin. They turned slowly towards him, and Vex’ahlia took a little step foward.

“Oh, Lord Percival!”

“Percy,” He corrected, pushing his glasses up. “And if you’re trying to run away, I would recommend not doing it through the front door. Nor on the second day of your stay, that would only make it easier for eventual search parties to find you.”

The twins paused for a second, surprised, but soon their expressions turned dark.

“And you have a better idea?” Asked Vax’ildan, slightly vexed, his arms crossed.

“I do, in fact. But you might as well continue with your plan,” Percy said. “Good night!” He continued his path to his bedroom, counting down with his mind.

“Wait!” Vex’ahlia called, making Percy stop exactly on zero and smile a little before turning. He saw Vax’ildan pulling his twin aside for a moment.

“Vex’ahlia, what are you doing?” Asked her twin, in hushed whispers.

“He could help us, Vax. Just… Let me…”

“Yes?” Percy called back, not wanting their conversation to grow, and put his serious face on. Vex’ahlia got out of her twin’s grasp, turning back to Percy.

“What do you want from us in return for your ideas?” She answers, her voice sweet as honey. Percival stopped his smirk from showing up in the last second.

“I want to go with you.”

The twins were both taken back by his response.

“What?” Asked Vex at the same time Vax asked “Why?”

“Let’s just say a man once told me to not let opportunities pass by me. So I saw one and I’m taking it.”

“Opportunities? Great!” Vax sneered. “We’re stuck with the big dreams of adventuring noble.”

“But… What do you have to gain from coming with us?” She questioned, puzzled. “You have everything here.”

“Indeed.” Percy nodded. “Why would I leave?”

“He’s fucking with us, Vex’ahlia. Let’s go!” Vax pulled his sister’s arm, but she didn’t move.

“I am not fucking with you,” Percy said, with a straight face. Vex raised an eyebrow, sceptical, which did made Percy smirk a little. “Ok, maybe I am, a little bit. But that doesn’t change the fact that I know how to navigate the castle, the city and most of it’s surroundings like the back of my hand. Or the fact that I can make Whitestone guards look the other way with one word. Or the fact that I can put my family on board with this and actually help us get away without your father knowing. I can give us the perfect opportunity, and all you have to do is let me tag along. So…” He held his hand for one of them to shake. “Do we have a deal?”

The twins looked at each other for some seconds, apparently having an entire conversation with just their eyes. Percy held his hand up, unfazed, while they were deciding, and after a sharp look from Vex, Vax took his hand and shook it.

“Alright, fine. We have a deal. What’s your plan, de Rolo?” The half-elf asked.

“If you can wait, meet me by the door tomorrow after breakfast.” The human replied, his eyes twinkling. “It’s probably best if we not speak of it in a corridor in the middle of the night… And it will give me time to prepare. Right now, it’s best if I simply bid you two good night.”

Percival turned and resumed his way to his bedroom, leaving behind two very confused half elves.

[sualkmedeiors]

Should You Trust Influencers to Promote Your Brand? Consider These Problems First

Influencer marketing is drawing more and more suspicion from brands and advertisers alike. There is a growing concern in some business sectors that consumer trust in influencers is waning or has reached its peak. Empirical data, however, shows that influencers still have a lot of pull. They can still raise brand awareness, push customer loyalty, and boost engagement. One study by Marvrck also shows that cost per acquisition (CPA) was also far lower with influencer marketing compared to other types of advertising like Facebook ads.

While there's no denying that influencer marketing works, it has a lot of issues that have resulted in brands having a general lack of trust for influencers.

4 Reasons Why Brands Don't Trust Influencer Marketing

1. Hard to Measure ROI

The majority of brands find that choosing the right metrics to use and measuring return on investment are the main challenges they face when it comes to influencer marketing.

Every marketing campaign should be based on measurable objectives, like an increase in revenue, higher brand awareness, or more social media followers. You need to determine your objective first. Once that's done, you can then identify how you will track your KPIs and evaluate how the content or an influencer has performed.

Luckily, most of the tools used in tracking conventional and digital marketing are also appropriate for influencer marketing. For instance, tools like Google Analytics, promo codes, giveaways, vanity URLs, and UTM parameters can all be used to measure the results of an influencer marketing campaign. Social media platforms like Pinterest are also taking steps in this direction by giving access to their APIs to ensure that influencers and marketers can work well together.

2. Fake Followers and Fake Accounts

Fake followers and fraudulent accounts are also behind the mistrust of influencers. According to a New York Times report, this practice is so rampant that about 15 percent of Twitter profiles are fakes and many celebrities and influencers buy followers to inflate their perceived social influence.

Too often, brands look for influencers with the largest number of followers and pay big money for access to them. So it's not surprising that some influencers pad their numbers with fake accounts. Unfortunately, the practice messes up one crucial element of this marketing method—influencing another individual. After all, you can't wield your influence over an imaginary person.

To combat this problem, brands should focus more on quality than quantity. Instead of looking at the numbers, they should concentrate on the kind of consumers that follow the influencer, and whether said influencer is suitable for the brand. Social media platforms should also put more effort into cracking down on dubious accounts. 

More importantly, the influencers should hold themselves accountable and check for fake followers, even if it means they have to scroll through their list of followers and vet each one.

3. A Million Followers Doesn't Mean More Profit

A social media account might have tens of thousands of followers but not have much influence. There are people who are influential in one area but not in another. For instance, an account that specializes in memes might have a million followers but those followers are not there to buy anything. They just follow the account for its entertainment value.

Brands should first determine whether an influencer is considered trustworthy by their followers or just a digital performer. The former has an impact on a follower's buying decision while the latter doesn't. Companies can tell which is which by their posts. Consumers respond to honesty and passion, and a good influencer shows these in their posts.

4. Competition Between Influencers and Marketers

If your brand has a marketing team, they may view influencers as a direct threat. This implied threat is due to the fact that influencers work in direct competition with traditional marketing strategies. Moreover, a lot of marketers don't totally trust social influencers with regards to content development.

To get past this problem, you'll need to understand how influencer marketing actually works. Influencers have to be authentic and strive to show this in the tone and passion of their posts. In contrast, your marketers need to double check everything or have some say in the content creation process. You'll need to find a good compromise between the two groups to prevent conflict.

Should Brands Still Trust Influencers?

Many consumers have relationships with influencers that are more like friendships. And according to Neilsen, 92 percent of consumers trust the recommendations of family and friends. For this reason, influencers still have the power to greatly impact a brand. However, the problems that come with influencer marketing have gone largely unresolved.

Part of the problem is that these issues have only recently come to the forefront, so best practices have not yet been established. Brands and influencers are still learning and adjusting. 

Moving foward, more influencers will need to audit their followers and check for fake accounts. Branded content should merge well with integrated content, and sponsored posts should be kept to a minimum. Meanwhile, it's imperative for brands to thoroughly research their potential partners, making sure they only work with credible influencers and choose the right platforms to promote their products and services.

The post Should You Trust Influencers to Promote Your Brand? Consider These Problems First appeared first on WebProNews.

from https://www.webpronews.com/should-you-trust-influencers-to-promote-your-brand-consider-these-problems-first/

[ramialkarmi]

The video game ratings board is cracking down on microtransactions — and it could have major repercussions for the future of video games

The Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) oversees video game ratings in North America.

On Tuesday, the ESRB announced that a new label will be applied to games "with in-game offers to purchase digital goods or premiums with real world currency."

The label will show up on retail boxes in stores, as well as on digital storefronts like the PlayStation Store and Xbox Games Store.

The move comes after lawmakers in several states have proposed steps to regulate in-game purchases.

The group that oversees video-game ratings in North America just announced a huge change that impacts all games, and the future of the industry as a whole.

Going foward, any video game "with in-game offers to purchase digital goods or premiums with real world currency" must be labeled with a new sticker that says "In-Game Purchases." 

More directly: Any game with in-game purchases must now be labeled as such.

The move is a warning to consumers about potentially expensive components of a game they're about to buy. The group that oversees game ratings in North America, the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB), is framing the move around parents being informed.

"With the new In-Game Purchases interactive element coming to physical games, parents will know when a game contains offers for players to purchase additional content," ESRB president Patricia Vance said in the press release that announced the new labels.

Beyond informing parents, the move is in response to the controversy surrounding several notable video games released in 2017. The biggest most recent example is "Star Wars Battlefront 2," which infuriated players with its choice to lock major characters behind a paywall (the move was quickly retracted). 

Players were mad enough, and vocal enough, that legislators got involved at one point.

Then, in February, Senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire got in touch with the ESRB directly.

"I respectfully urge the ESRB to review the completeness of the board's ratings process and policies as they relate to loot boxes, and to take into account the potential harm these types of micro-transactions may have on children," Hassan wrote in the letter.

Without saying as much directly, the ESRB is adding the label in an attempt to assuage the concerns of legislators. It's a small move, but it's one that impacts all video games published on game consoles in North America. Whether or not consumers will notice the label, or care, is another question altogether. 

Beyond the new label, the ESRB has also launched a website dedicated to educating parents on various aspects of gaming — from parental control instructions for each console, to information about how various online services work, and all sorts of other stuff. 

SEE ALSO: A state politician in Hawaii says the new 'Star Wars' game encourages kids to gamble and he wants to ban sales to anyone under 21

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