#until the 8th to get a higher rank

[cheriladycl01]

The Rookie Prodigy - Carlos Sainz x Driver! Reader Part 5

Plot: You are a rookie coming into the 2022 season of Formula One into Alfa Romeo with team member Zhou Guanyu, being in a mid tier team can you help them rise up the ranks. What pressures occur for the only rookies within the 2022 line up!

As said in your interviews you did spend the time in the break working on your fitness. You and Zhou stayed in Switzerland the whole time, you both were in the gym pretty much everyday.

You guys watched as your team made core improvements to the car, using lots from the Ferrari currently on the grid. You knew the car would be quicker for Italy and you were excited to race there as it was a track your car would do well in.

You didn't think much about what happened with Carlos either, because why would you. It was a heat of the moment thing where there was an obvious attraction to Carlos, he had the hair, the puppy dog eyes, those soft muscles and the accent. The accent was the thing that really got you.

You'd worked too hard to get to where you are now and you weren't going to risk neither your job, nor your reputation for a guy. Regardless of how insanely attractive you found him.

The break between your last race in Australia until IMOLA felt very short despite it being a two weekend gap. Your mind was extremely clear and you were ready for this weekend.

You and Zhou flew to Italy from Switzerland and went right to the track. You both messed around for the whole of media day to the point where people couldn't actually find you both.

You were causing chaos round the paddock, running up and down the strip seeing who could do it the quickest or seeing who could sneak into a different teams hospitality and take a snack.

When media did find you, both you and Zhou couldn't stop laughing at everything the both of you were saying. Sometime's you'd say a joke to him in Chinese which obviously had the two of you screaming of laughter while the team and presenters awkwardly tried to work out what was so funny.

You eventually answered the racing related questions which everyone especially your PR managers were happy for even though you couldn't tell them about any of the improvements on the car. Just that you felt like this would be an more interesting race putting you into the higher mid field than you were right now.

Race day came so soon, and after being told to attempt to sand bag a little in FP1 coming 11 overall. You ended up qualifying 8th overall, which wasn't what you or you team were looking for but after running into some last minute car issues you just weren't there.

Saturday was awful, because of those car issues you didn't actually manage to get out for FP2 and went straight into the Sprint race. Luckily you were in points position coming in P7.

When it came to the race your car was fully ready and so were you. Zhou however had the opposite of you, where he had to have work done on his car when in Parc-Ferme conditions so he had to start from the pit lane.

You'd managed some immense overtakes throughout the race and you managed to come P4. It was your highest position yet and your race engineer couldn't be happier with you.

"Amazing race Y/N, guessing you had changes to the car after Australia and well, we really got to see your driving abilities up there today. You know considering that was a mid-field car, you really really showed us what you are made off!" the interviewer offers.

"Yeah it was a fantastic drive, just shy of a podium. Lando, was driving extremely well and defended from me until the end and I cant congratulate him more for that podium. Is it okay if i call this short, I want to be there to support my friend!" you smile, looking at the time next to the clock by the interviewing knowing the podium would be soon.

"Yes, yes of course!" she shoos you away, making comments on how you have some of the purest and kindest relationships on the grid.

You ran up to where all the Mclaren and Red Bull workers stood. You waited off to the back waiting for Max, Sergio and Lando to come out.

"Hey, we haven't spoken for a while" a voice says behind you making you jump a little.

"Lewis?" you ask in shock, looking around to see if anyone else was here from Mercedes but he seemed to be alone.

"Yes, Y/N?" he asks looking directly at you.

"What are, what are you doing here?" you ask.

"Just watching the celebrations. Well done on the race today, you did amazing!" he compliments making a light blush come across your cheeks.

"Thank you, I er, would say the same for you but today was a kind of shit show for you!" you smile softly.

"Yeah, the car had no pace at all. I'll come back next week in Miami!" he smiles rubbing your shoulder. After a minute of silence he starts the conversation up again.

"I haven't really spoken to you for a while, what's been going on?" he asks titling his head to the side.

"I've just been focused on getting better, I-" you say about to mention Carlos but decide against it.

"You what?" he pushes looking over at you.

"Ceremony is starting, shhhhh!" you smile putting a finger up to your lip and cheer loudly as Lando comes out onto stage. Your jumping up and down, making him laugh and shake his head. All the McLaren workers turn to look at whoever was celebrating more than them, laughing when they see you.

"Of course it's her!" one of them jokes, before turning back as Sergio walks out shortly followed making the whole of the Red Bull Team go wild.

You stand there respectfully as the Deutsch National Anthem starts to play. Once it ends and everyone starts to leave where they are you turn to Lewis.

"Did you want to go out in Miami, I know this amazing Vegan restaurant and I think your personal trainer will be happy with what they serve there" he offers and you think about it for a few seconds.

I mean, Carlos literally cornered you and kissed you, but Lewis he was just asking you to dinner as friends before the next race.

"Yeah sure, I'd like that. I don't have any friends in Florida. So having one will be nice!" you smile, before your PR manager comes up to you explaining that you need to go to the race debriefing.

You and Lewis had of course been photographed in the paddock together and loads of media accounts had gotten a hold of it.

Carlos had seen these posts, some of them particularly the tweets suggesting that you were both flirting and other posts suggesting that you watched the podium together.

He was shocked at first, he was angry that you would reject him the way you did and then say yes to Lewis.

But after he had some time to cool down and realize what had actually occurred, he came to the conclusion that these posts were the exact reason you couldn't be in a relationship with him. Everyone was always up in your business and it meant that whatever you were doing outside of driving they would use to critique your skills.

You probably had just bumped into Lewis at the podium ceremony and that picture was taken at the perfect time for the media to stir ridiculous stories about Lewis asking you out on a date in Miami to a Vegan restaurant.

He understood why you said what you said, now seeing how easily picked apart your life was. But he wanted to change that, he wanted to be able to be with you without all this animosity.

But how the Miami weekend would change things Carlos or yourself wasn't prepared for.

Taglist:

@littlesatanicassholebitch @hockey-racing-fubol @laura-naruto-fan1998 @22yuki @simxican @sinofwriting @lewisroscoelove @cmleitora @stupidandunnecessary @clayra-g @daemyratwst @honey-belden @moonypixel @lauralarsen @vader-is-hot @ironcowboycopnickel @itsjustkhaos @the-untamed-soul @beebo86 @happylittlereader @ziejustme @lou-larcher5 @thewulf @purplephantomwolf @chasing-liberosis @chillyleclerc @chanthereader @annoyingmoonballoon @summissss @evieepepi08 @havaneseoger08 @celesteblack08 @gulphulp @fandom1ruined2me @celebstories @starfusionsworld @jspitwall @sierruhh @georgeparisole @dakotatankbig @youcannotcancelquidditch @zzonsbeek @tallbrownhairsarcastic @mellowarcadefun @ourteenagetragedy @otako5811 @countingstacksandpanicattacks @peachiicherries @formulas-bitch @cherry-piee @hopexcroc @mirrorball-6 @spilled-coffee-cup @mehrmonga @bigsimperika @blueberry64857959 @eiraethh @lilypadlover @curseofhecate @alliwantisadonut @the-fem1n1ne-urge @21stcenturytaegi @dark-night-sky-99 @spideybv28 @i-wish-this-was-me @tallrock35 @butterfly-lover @barnestatic @landossainz @darleneslane @barcelonaloverf1life @r0nnsblog @ilove-tswizzle @kapsylia @laneyspaulding19 @lazybot @malynn @cassielikereading @viennakarma @teamnovalak @landosgirlxoxo @marie0v @jlb20416 @yourbane @teamnovalak @nikfigueiredo @fionaschicken @0picels0 @seomako @urdad-hot @formula1mount @tinydeskwriter @butterfly-lover @ironmaiden1313

[jenkinstheartis]

PinkPantheress ☆ Heaven Knows

song ranking. released: November 10, 2023

13 songs ; 34 minutes

my dark gothic queen, ya'll don't see the real vision, she just has the key to my heart in her songs and every time i listen she unlocks new parts of me.

i wanted to try something new,, i am ranking the 13 songs instead of rating them, seems like more my speed. i listened on shuffle and ranked them as they came up!

disclaimer: this is all my opinion, im no critic let's have fun

13th | Boy's a liar Pt. 2 feat. Ice Spice

(overplayed by me, could recite the lyrics in my sleep)

12th | Capable of love

11th | Mosquito

10th | Nice to meet you feat. Central Cee

the music video, the adlibs, she wouldve been higher if this whole piece of work wasnt just a masterpiece

9th | Bury me feat Kelela

i'm not a big fan of their voices together too much of a hard shift for me

8th | Ophelia

7th | Blue

6th | Another life feat. rema

5th | Feelings

"because i cant stay sure, ill carry on, ignore / my worries / 'cause no one ever told me to worry / i realize that im peaking too early" how could i not love her when she knows so much about me?

4th | Feel complete

"i never wanted to end this book, this fairy tale / not another drink this week, i just wanna feel complete" "i wish that it would end when it stopped bein' fun" a track about alcoholism was kinda left field but she's really showing you she plays the whole field.

3rd | Internet baby (interlude)

"i hope you know you're not me, you can let it go / to me, you're just somebody i know" i love a good interlude. sometimes people needy and sometimes I kinda like that,, real

2nd | The Aisle

"a little bit more of this mystery / i will make you wish that you had never come to me" was number one until i really listened to true romance, but she had me from the get! like how you know bad things be happening to me!

1st | True romance

"say what you want, this is true romance / i know you're older, but i really know im sure / held my tickets since they landed at my door / i've been a fan of you since two-thousand-and-four" "tell me do you view me the same? / or do you call me a stranger / 'cause baby i don't care about the fame" "im in the crowd, can you see me hand? / bring me on tour, help me understand" as a victim of parasocial relationships, this is our anthem and once i realized she was talking to the deluded i couldnt help but be it's biggest fan

[imasallstars]

8th ANNIVERSARY PLATINUM CHANCE EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT!!

Starlight Stage will be having a small in-game lottery to hype things up and test out your upcoming luck for the Anniversary!

Schedule

Ticket Collecting Period: until September 10th 23:59 JST

Announcement of Results: September 17th 15:00 JST

You will gain Chance Tickets from daily logins or extra ones from special EVENT MISSIONS! There are tiers towards these prizes! The higher the tier, the better the prizes! The tiers and rewards are available to checked out in-game

MISSIONS

Play 1/3/5/7/10/15/20/25/30 lives

Play an ALL-TYPE/CUTE/COOL/PASSION song 1 time

Play GRAND MODE 1 time

Play WITCH MODE 1 time

Clear 1/3/5/7/10/15/20/25/30 BUSINESSES

Like 1 room

The prizes you can get are:

(blue) Scout Ticket! (allows you to pick a PERMANENT card of any rarity from R to SSR)

(yellow) SSR Scout Tickets! (allows you to pull a random SSR)

(yellow) SR Scout Tickets! (allows you to pull a random SR or higher card at 97% SR, 3% SSR rate)

(purple) Comeback SR Pick Tickets! (allows you to pick a Dupe SR Card)

(pink/purple) REGULAR Gacha Tickets!  (1 pull per ticket)

Special Technique Master Trainer Tickets!

Star Rank Trainer Tickets

Master/Veteran Trainer Tickets!

Money!!

Starjewels

This campaign only allows players who have reached PLAYER RANK 20 AND REACHED THE SECOND PANEL MISSION!! If you have not reached these requirements, all your tickets will be defaulted to tier 10.

Good Luck!

[sylvarantii]

I know, amazing. I didn't actually wait several months to over a year to get around to the next movie. Though that's more because I'm forcing myself to catch up since I'm so behind and while movies are non canon, it feels important to kind of try and keep up on them.

Rambling aside, Detective Conan Movie 8: Magician of the Silver Sky

I am so happy to say I loved this one. It's probably the movie that gave me the most reactions between laughing at the humor and gasping from the suspense.

I mean, seriously. Kaito disguised as Shinichi? Some AMAZING and suspenseful action scenes? An actual murder case happening? This is a movie that felt very cinematic and was very gripping. I definitely will be singing its praises.

And it's even more of a relief to have loved a movie starring Kaito Kid considering I really didn't want my thoughts of the 3rd movie to give the impression I don't like Kaito Kid related content.

It's true I find some of the episodes a little boring in the series, but if anything, I kind of blame that more on Jirokichi since his antics get a little old and it feels like the same thing is usually recycled over and over just for a small cameo of Kid. I really should watch Magic Kaito sometime, I think maybe I'd be more invested in Kid as a character.

I have to say, it's pretty amazing that no matter how short, I think they got most of the supporting cast in with the main cast into this movie. I guess the only main supporting characters I can think of that weren't in it were maybe Takagi and Satou? But I mean, I was kinda already surprised Megure and Shiratori showed up for a bit at the end. They didn't really need to be included, so you know, it's not like it bothers me.

So, this next rating might come as a surprise!

1.) The Fourteenth Target (2nd Movie)

2.) The Time Bombed Skyscraper (1st Movie)

3.) Magician of the Silver Sky (8th Movie)

4.) Captured in Her Eyes (4th Movie)

5.) Crossroad in the Ancient Capital (7th Movie)

6.) The Phantom of Baker Street (6th Movie)

7.) Countdown to Heaven (5th Movie)

8.) The Wizard of the Last Century (3rd Movie)

I really went back and forth on this one. I still don't know if I'd say I like it better than Captured in Her Eyes and I REALLY need to go back and watch the movies closer together, but I had such a good time watching it, so I had to give it a high rating.

Despite my doubts, I think I can be pretty happy with this one, even if maybe I should've even voted it higher than the 1st movie. But meh, I'll still stand by what I've decided. ...At least until I do some sort of movie marathon and review the rankings again.

[mmagoats]

MMA GOATS - Blog 4

Stepping into the 8th tier of my MMA goats list, at this point and from now on,  the list is going to introduce more and more newer fighters who are still currently fighting and or champions because personally, I think the newer fighters are better, showing more skill and technique that the older fighters (and because I’m currently watching them and can better grasp their greatness). With that said, the two fighters that made it onto the 8th tier of my MMA goat list are both still in the bantamweight division, ranked and still active (for the most part) in the sport, one of the most intriguing division in my opinion because of how many fighters I like who are currently fighting.

Henry Cejudo 

The first listed in this tier is the controversial “Triple C” or “The Messenger” Henry Cejudo, a fighter who was an olympic gold medalist for freestyle wrestling and a double champion, but became and obtained the belts in a way that's extremely disputable and controversial. I’m on the side that he didn’t exactly earn his belts in the ways some other fighters did, and plus I’m not a fan of his “know it all” personally, I find it kind of annoying at times.

Henry was born in LA, California to Mexican immigrants and was raised in harsh conditions of a violent father in and out of jail who was deported and constantly living in poverty, only at the age of 6. But like many others, used fighting as a way out, specifically boxing and wrestling until he reached MMA within the ufc in 2013. When he first stepped into the octagon, Henry began like any other future world champ, amassing win after win and only two losses before the first controversial fight with Demetrius Johnson where he won by split decisions. His title defense against a weakened T.J Dillashaw, becoming double against a declining Marlon Moraes. I'm not saying he didn’t go through war fighting his opponents and making a name for himself despite his tragic upbringing, but his fights seemed to be unequal to others higher on this list. And after his return loss against Aljamain Sterling, it seems time is starting to catch up with Henry, all though he is still active with a possible fight next year. Overall, I can’t look past his double champion title, olympic gold metal, winstreaks and domination, and that's the reason he’s above all the other fighters, but I can’t see myself putting him higher on the list or even on the tier because of his “easy” (ish) rise when compared to the dominance, sacrifice and pain that the others on my goat MMA list endured. And that's the truth for this next fighter on the 8th tier.

“Sugar” Sean O’Malley

In my opinion, the most entertaining and spotless fighter to ever hit the scene in the bantamweight division, Suga Sean, if not for his cocky manner and spectacle-like fights he puts on. Even having him on this list is controversial because of the short amount of time he has spent in the sport, only being 29 years old and debuting back in late 2017. But it's for those reasons I'm placing him here and possibly in the future, higher up in the list.

To start off, Sean O’Malley was born on october 20, 1994 in Montana, blessed with freak athletic genetics that made him stand out to his coaches and friends all throughout his early life. But at the age of 16, he decided he wanted to start training in all sorts of styles where he eventually met his coach and close friend Tim Welsh. Then, like other great talents he started making noise and got into the octagon in 2015 amassing 7 wins and no losses in his professional MMA career, later getting put on the scene and signing a deal with the UFC after a KO win in Dana White's contender series. This marked his debut to greatness, already starting off flawless. Through the last 6 years, he has climbed his way to the top, becoming the bantamweight champion this year after beating Aljamain Sterling, and beating Petr Yan right before that. And looking at his only loss, which was because of a one in a million chance when Marlon Vera kicked a nerve in his leg and gave him drop foot, disabling his leg for the rest of the fight he was dominating, he’s been undefeated his entire career. You could say Vera won that fight fair, but I think he didn’t because he never proves his skills are better than O’Malley.

Now, I know he isn’t even in his prime but because of that loss that I see as a technical zero on his record, because of how he has dominated all the other fighters in the division and because of the time it took him, I think he has a real future of becoming the best bantamweight to ever do it (as long as he continues this at pace). Sean is an entertainer at the end of the day, so even if he doesn’t go any further, I’m going to always tune in to his fights and listen to what he has to say because I find him entertaining.

[olivereactsaboutgarbage]

One Piece Chapters 184-192

Um umm uhh... December 8th Moments with Lufpy

Chapter 184 - Moletown Block Four

Mrs. Claus ??? trapped his dog in a cannon. That’s animal abuse!

WAIT, IT’S A GUN THAT ATE A DEVIL FRUIT THAT TURNS YOU INTO A DOG??? HOW DOES A GUN EAT???

Anyway, Mrs. Claus Ruth has a dog that shoots bombs, and Karen Santa can dig, and that sucks for Usopp and Tony Tony Chopper, and that’s what happens in this chapter.

Usopp attacks with a big cartoon hammer.

Chapter 185 - Oh... Is That So?

Oh, I see why Oda gave Usopp a big cartoon hammer while having him fight a digging woman. It was all for this moment: Whack-A-Mole Joke

Of course, Usopp’s big cartoon hammer was a super weak weapon. Karen Santa hates super weak weapons and decides to kill Usopp! So Usopp gets played with in a cartoonish fashion.

Meanwhile, Tony Tony Chopper has been calculating the exact method which will defeat Team Christmas in a surefire way, like some kind of an anime genius: By attacking every hole at once, you can win at whack-a-mole

Chapter 186 - 4

Chapter 182

It turns out that winning at Whack-A-Mole isn’t enough to save you from a game of Whack-A-Mole. That’s the nature of Whack-A-Mole: There never aren’t moles.

Usopp fills in as a backup baseball for the batter so the game can go on. Wait, but baseball is super boring! Baseball games are better off over than when they’re ongoing! I thought better of you, Usopp.

Usopp loves being covered in his own blood even more than Zoro loves it. Meanwhile, Tony Tony Chopper has big horns. This cleverly causes Karen Santa to be a backup Usopp while Usopp is being a backup baseball. I thought better of you, Karen Santa.

Then because Mrs. Claus Ruth is no longer a relevant character he gets a hammer thrown at him and is knocked out instantly. Whatever

Chapter 187 - Stalemate

Nanohana is looking for a place to stay. They’re looking for a place to belong. Tragically, no one loves them enough to take them in.

Also, there’s a huge bulle terrorizing the high school students. All the nerds and losers are getting bulleed. Will no one put an end to their torment and suffering?

These two conundrums seem simultaneously unsolvable, until...

And then they teach each other to love.

The princess’s journey continues. Meanwhile, Sanji is fighting... actually, who cares?

A mere swanhead attempts to tell a joke. It doesn’t work because they’re not Zoro. Sanji, though... well, he doesn’t tell a joke. He’s not Zoro.

Ah... okay... when normally-hinged characters’ bodies are worn by unhinged impostors... that’s kind of sexy, sorry... I’m with Sanji on this one... I, like Sanji, think starvation is bad...

The princess wants to end the conflict, obviously.

Chapter 188 - Oh Come My Way Karate

Okay, that’s pretty good. I couldn’t articulate to you why I would rank this joke far higher on the Tier List of All Jokes than in Homestuck when a character’s eyeglasses fly off and they have blank faces underneath, but I would.

Zoro isn’t allowed to access the Tier List of All Jokes, obviously. If he learned the #1 joke on that tier list... he would wield the power to annihilate the world in an instant...

I’ll let Nami access that tier list though.

...Wait... am... I Sanji...? No... NO...! This is a fate worse than death... I’m going to lose all my Sanji Points!

Ah, just like Kaguya Shinomiya.

okay i actually looked up the thing i was referencing to make sure that joke works and it totally doesn’t work... but i want to make the joke anyway for the sake of my own ulterior motives (inflicting torment)

...i like how sanji can’t bring himself to attack a nami impostor, but tricking a nami impostor into ceasing to be nami is totally fine

...Genuinely. The more divorced a “clever tactic” is from mundanity and coherency, the better the epic anime fight scene is. That’s my sincere belief.

Chapter 189 - 2

Chapter 187

Sanji is fighting someone, but it’s just a swanhead. Sanji decides swanheads aren’t even worth killing.

For a second, I thought he’d said “I’ve always liked pancakes” in this panel. I wish he had.

Chapter 190 - Climate Baton

Team Large is menacingly following Nami around. She gets saved by a Zoro ex Machina. Except nearby is where he was supposed to be all along, so it’s more like a Zoro ex Nearby. Still, despite having just been complaining a couple seconds ago about how he wasn’t nearby, she reacts with a level of gratitude which implies that this Zoro ex was in fact Machina.

The male member of Team Large can be a sword with his human body. Just like the male member of Team Katanagatari. But subtly different...

Nami has a dramatic flashback to a recent time when she asked Usopp to fix the problem where she’s the only pirate who doesn’t have special moves, and resolves to stand up tall and fight. The female member of Team Large accidentally impales her trying to make a door.

It turns out the female member of Team Large has the Needle ability from Kirby!

Nami declares that her set of Special Moves will be the Powers of the Gods... however, she instead activates the Powers of a Stage Magician. I have no idea why replacing her one large weapon she never uses with three small weapons for her to actually use wasn’t good enough.

Despite having claimed that her new weapon’s gimmick is weather, Nami immediately uses its... gun form. Yes! My favorite type of weather! Gun! I know most people prefer sunny weather so they can have a nice time outdoors without stuff landing on them, and maybe go swimming while they’re at it or something else suitably generic, but my favorite weather has always been Gun Weather.

This form creates flowers. Ah... since I’ve read the Mob Psycho 100 manga and am watching the currently-airing final season... end of thought.

Nami getting a weapon from Usopp that saddles her with Usopp’s trademark fighting style (goofiness) is cute. Maybe her combat gimmick starting now will be stealing all her crewmates’ combat gimmicks. She DOES love stealing, after all. She can ask Lufpy for a new baton and get a stretchy baton, she can ask Zoro for a new baton and get a sword instead, she can ask Sanji for a new baton and get... a baton with a foot on the end... I guess...

...

...

...

Anyway.

Chapter 191 - She Who Controls the Weather

This fight isn’t going well for Nami, naturally.

I... what... if this was a perfectly normal set of instructions for stage magic, why did Nami think it was godlike power? Don’t blame Usopp for this... this one’s on you, girl... I can’t believe Usopp would make a weapon for someone who would blame Usopp for her own inability to read! I thought better of you, Usopp.

Suddenly, Nami gets saved from the female member of Team Large by... of all people... Nico Robin!!!

But wait, what’s this?! Nico Robin has a friend... a guy who tried to name himself after the Egyptian symbol of life, but was kind of an idiot and thought the letter C would suffice for any noise which could phonetically be produced by the letter C! Not only that, he was also too stupid to meaningfully discern the difference between “C” and “[“! As for his last name, he decided to pick a last name that would remind people of awesomeness and epicness! However, he has a fatal flaw... he can easily be calmed down by anyone he tries to attack, as long as they use gentle words! As if he’s some kind of dog!

That’s right... Nico Robin is friends with the ultimate himbo!!! And now, the ultimate himbo is attacking the female member of Team Large!

And so, Nami’s attacks continue to be ineffective. Nico Robin’s attack fails... Ultimate Himbo An[ Cool’s attack fails... even Nami’s lightning ball fails...

However, Nami can use her baton as a boomerang, and it’s way more effective than batons.

Usopp also included instructions for how to use the boomerang as a musical instrument:

I love playing the “E” note!

lmao i see, nami’s brand of special moves is that she can take underwhelming powers like those of the ultimate himbo and just pull off whatever dumb jojo’s bizarre adventure-ass bullshit she wants to

that’s WAY better than sanji’s brand of special moves: yelling about meat while kicking people normally

Chapter 192 - Tornado Warning

Woah... how’d Nico Robin get all the way over to the palace this fast?! She was just near Nami a second ago!

Meanwhile, after Nami does a whole lot of ???, the female member of Team Large stabs herself in the shoulder to become stronger. Wow... a truly appropriate opponent for Nami!

Nami makes a lightning cloud out of pure nonsense, and then says “Next is a tornado.”

Oh... that’s kind of an unfortunate place to end my reading for today... I wanted to finish this fight...

[polarispost]

First finished chapter!!

This is just me, posting stuff I write knowing no one will see it, so I have a digital diary of my accomplishments. 

I have literally been writing this piece for like 2 years now, over a hundred random scenes out of order and none of them feel like complete chapters. BUT TODAY!!! I finished this one, and it genuinely feels finished. Never mind that it doesn’t take place until like 7/8 of the way through the story, it’s done!!! and I love it :)

                                        Time

    In the summer after her 8th year of school, Astoria had a lengthy discussion with a non-magical man that gave her a piece of information she had deemed interesting, but mostly useless, until this very moment struck her.

    Dr. Martin Wang was a top-rated professor of some high-ranking science field Astoria couldn’t remember the name of if she tried. In short, he knew an awful lot about time and space from a physics perspective. And he had spent nearly 2 hours sharing this knowledge with her over an extended lunch in a nearly empty café in the country.

    How exactly did this conversation come to happen? It was a much simpler build up than one would expect. Astoria and the professor had both frequented the café that summer as separate parties, and it was her innate and overbearing curiosity that led her to ask, after 2 weeks of regular occurrences, what the professor’s ever-present pile of papers and books he leafed through each lunch were about.

    “What are you studying?” She spoke clearly, just loud enough to carry across the empty café to the man marking notes on a thick stack of paper while stirring his coffee. He looked up unsurprised, as if he had been waiting for her to finally ask.

    “Not exactly studying, more correcting the work of those who are studying, but um- topic wise it’s mainly physics, quite a few branches of it.” She nodded, waiting for him to elaborate further, but it seemed he was gauging whether she had the interest and knowledge to follow the conversation he wanted to begin. He continued, still sticking with more general terms to further his investigation.

    “I’m a professor of physics and cosmology at the University just north of here. I teach a seminar every summer for some of the more advanced students, and I like to give an assignment where I have them propose to me a new and unlikely scientific theory. Any branch of science will do, but they must offer enough explanation and potential evidence to convince me it could be real. It’s nothing too serious, mainly just a fun way to get their argumentative work kickstarted, but some of the theories they come up with can be interesting.” The professor certainly knew how to stroke her curiosity, and she was arrogant enough about her knowledge in science to assume she could follow along with any discussion he may lead to. She spurred him on,

    “Come across any entertaining ones yet? I’d love to hear about them.” She maintained steady eye contact as he studied her for just a moment before nodding to the empty seat across from him. She grabbed her cold class of sweet earl grey and moved across the café to his booth to sit opposite the aged man. He sorted through the pile of papers to his right before pulling two packets she assumed were ones he found the most interesting.

    “This one here wasn’t bad, it proposed that people who have developed hyperesthesia are actually more evolutionarily advanced than regular people and are more likely to produce children with higher rates of sensory processing.” Ah. Alright. He’s decided to test her, see how well she can really follow his train. It was still mostly simplistic, but he threw in some words and concepts the average person would likely need explained. She did not. In fact, she would prove as much.

    “Interesting in general I guess but seems a bit low-hanging. I mean how many superhero stories center around a character with enhanced senses? That’s essentially all its saying, people with better sensory processing are inherently more powerful than the rest. I feel like that’s sort of obvious.” The professor smirked in a way that nearly reminded her of someone she refused to think about, but it was purely to indicate she had passed his test. A match of wits, at least enough for him to speak without mental restraints the way he normally would when considering his audience. He extended his right hand across the table to her in greeting and she shook it with strong politeness.

    “Martin Wang.”

    “Astoria Stryker.”

    “Are you a student Miss Stryker?”

    “I am, but I attend a small private institute quite a ways from here. The years are a bit skewed from regular schools, so we attend from age 10 to age 20. I’ll be done in 2 years.” Astoria was trying to be vague to avoid questions, but she also knew he’d likely ask questions anyways. She was gathering they were alike in that way, always questioning, searching for new knowledge to gain.

    “I don’t think I’ve heard of a school set up like that, mind sharing a name?” He sipped his coffee and awaited his answer. She figured she could just tell him, as he wouldn’t be able to find any information on it anyways.

    “Stellavinea. It’s a private boarding academy. They teach general topics in the first few years and allow choice specialized classes in later years.” Again, just enough detail to answer the question while keeping the full picture out of reach.

    “Well Miss Stryker,” He pulled out another packet of paper from the pile he searched earlier, “I’m not sure what kind of ‘specialized classes’ you take at this academy, but I think it’s safe to assume you have above general knowledge and interest in the sciences.” He passed the packet he had grabbed to her. “Tell me what you think about that one.”

    Astoria scanned over the essay and the professor’s notes written into the margins. It was certainly a bold claim, but one that piqued her interest more than she expected. It proposed a relation between ghosts and an existing theory on time. Once she finished reading enough to understand, she looked back up to the professor to state her opinion.

    “I enjoy this one. I can see how it’s sort of ‘out there’. It’s not based on fact on either side, just speculation and a growing theory, but it still somehow seems entirely plausible.” The professor nodded along. “If I’m honest though, I don’t know much about this time theory they mentioned, I assume it’s relatively obscure, is it something you’ve gone over in class?”

    He half smiled and set his tea down to prepare for his explanation. “It’s what I sometimes refer to as a ‘half theory’. As we know, time is entirely imaginary, it was made up by people to essentially make more sense of their lives. It’s just numbers and concepts applied to patterns and vague happenings.

    “This theory, specifically, is called the ‘Florsi Claim’. It took the knowledge we have that time is not linear, and more fluid, and ran with it. In general terms, it states that as opposed to events happening sequentially, as a linear time design would bring, everything that has ever, is ever, and will ever happen is actually occurring all at once. There is no before or after, or even a now. Its why time travel has never been possible; there is no forward or backward to travel to. Everything is just one and none.” His passion for teaching seeped out the more he spoke, hands gesturing, expressions jumping. Astoria was drawn in, and she had about one million questions she wanted him to answer.

    “Wouldn’t that make time travel easier though? You’re basically erasing the ‘travel’ part. If every event is overlapped, why is it impossible to go to a different one? Why can’t I see people from 100 years go, or 100 years from now, walking down the street if they’re supposedly not in a separate time at all?” Professor Wang smiled at her questions and nodded again, pleased by her attentiveness and astute curiosity.

    “That part is where the Florsi Claim starts to get a bit wobbly, but that’s why I liked the proposal I had you read so much. It argues the issue is really with people, and our incredibly low rate of perception. There are microscopic creatures with sensory intakes more than double our own. Common shrimp hold over 4x the amount of color receptors than we do, jellyfish survive without brains, octopi can regrow a limb in just a few months. Humans, while perceived as the most mentally complex on our planet, are far from it. We just hold a superiority complex that animals do not.

    “It wouldn’t be surprising if our lack of connection to the events happening around us are simply do to a miswiring in our cells that hasn’t been connected yet. But I suppose it could. And wouldn’t it be incredible if it did?” He looked at her with absolute amusement, and she smiled in thoughtful agreement. Wang once again lifted his cup to finish off his tea, and as he placed it back down, stated something that had her first genuine smile since she left school leaving instantly.

    “I suppose if any of us were close to that point though, it would be one of you incredible wizards.” He smirked at her, knowingly, but she was about a quarter of a second away from setting the entire building on fire. As if he could sense his own impending doom, he sped to assure her. “You needn’t worry Miss Stryker. My wife is a professor at Stellavinea, she heads the Astronomy department. She keeps me updated on all the ‘magical gossip’ and news, and I keep her updated on nonmagical happenings. I do know about you, but I assure you, I’m no threat.”

    The professor seemed aware that his words had convinced her to stay for the moment, but did nothing to erase the spike of fear she was now consumed by.

    “I can’t imagine how scared you must feel all the time, Miss Stryker. The terrible events that have plagued your life thus far are nothing short of vile, and I wish deeply you were not so well acquainted with pain.” His sincerity was palpable, but all she could offer was a small stiff nod before rising from her seat and walking out the door of the café, never to see the professor again.

                        She hadn’t thought about that meeting since it happened, but now, as she soaked her hands into the thick blood puddling around Castor’s head, she was disturbed to find it was all she could think about. Perhaps it was a sign. The conversation had been purely theoretical, but with the person she cared about more than anything growing colder by the second, she was exactly crazy enough to try it. Consequences be damned, she would bring Castor back.

[witchybiitchy]

kit’s out of the bag | m.v

masterlist | read on ao3

chapter 3

It was 1:27 in the morning according to her phone, and Kit was well and truly smashed. After meeting the tennis players at 8 and being introduced to everyone, Kit had quickly become the centre of attention. She was having drinks handed to her, she was being led onto the dancefloor and then swiftly led off it again, she was showing fascinated tennis players the driver rankings (on which she was embarrassingly low in 8th, but that was more Pierre’s work than her own). She actually felt quite bad for stealing the thunder of the guy who had just won the tournament, Matteo something or other, but she caught a glimpse of him as she was stumbling out of the club for some air and he seemed to be having a decent enough time, Ajla in front of him and a random girl behind as they danced to the thumping bass. 

The night air was cool on her sweaty legs, exposed in the little black dress she’d bought from the airport. 

“Can we stop here for just a second? I have to get something quickly.” Kit said to Christian’s assistant who seemed to be leading the charge as they walked through the Italian airport. 

“Sure, but be quick.” The assistant said. The drivers didn’t have to be anywhere, but Christian always seemed to have too much on his plate to be healthy. Still, Kit didn’t feel that sorry for him. Most of it was press stuff that he chose to do to try and make the RedBull narrative of any incident the widely reported one. And everything was an ‘incident’ to Christian. 

“Yep, sure.” Kit sped inside the store, beelined to the first dress that seemed appropriate for a night out, grabbed it in her size and then shoved it in her backpack after paying. The only person who seemed to care, unfortunately, was Max.

“Where are you going?” He asked as their party took off.

“Out. Dad.” Kit scoffed.

“With who?” He continued, becoming more interrogatory.

“Some tennis players. One of them’s an Aussie chick. Why do you care, anyway?” She asked.

“Just don’t want you to fuck up the race again this week end.” He shrugged. 

“Sorry, again? Who DNFed last week?” Kit said antagonistically. 

“Fuck off. If I had finished, it would’ve been higher than fourth.” He muttered. 

“To come first, first you have to finish.” Kit sang jokingly. 

“Just don’t show up to the team meeting on Wednesday still hungover.” He grunted, and their conversation ended there as they filed into waiting cars. She inwardly cursed him for somehow always getting the last word. 

“What are you thinking about?” A heavily accented Italian voice said from beside her. Kit turned her head sluggishly despite the jump in her heart rate, the alcohol slowing her movements. It was the man who had won the tennis tournament, Matteo.

“My shithead teammate. But what’s new?” Kit laughed, even though she knew that that statement probably meant nothing to him. She had now fully turned to face him so that her whole body weight was supported by her shoulder on the wall. 

“Is that, uh, Max van der thingy?” He asked, and the confusion on his face was endearing. He was actually incredibly attractive, something that hadn’t dawned on her until that point. She’d been downing shots at such ferocity that everything out of her direct eyeline had slipped out of reality. 

“That’s the one. Asshole.” She smiled even as she said this. 

“I understand the feeling.” He said bitterly. 

“But you, uh,” Kit wobbled a bit despite her weight resting on the wall, and Matteo’s arm reached out to steady her. His hand felt warm on her upper arm, and she had to stop her mind from racing too far ahead. Fucking horny bitch. “You, thanks, you don’t have a teammate?” The question took her an embarrassing amount of time to formulate. 

“Yeah, but I hate all of them, so.” Matteo trailed off as he nodded towards the building, a sad smile on his face.

“Hate? You didn’t seem to hate Ajla just then.” Kit giggled to herself.

“Okay, okay,” Matteo laughed, raising his hands in surrender, “Maybe I don’t hate them, that’s the alcohol talking. But I don’t really like them either. And Ajla, she’s nice but, no. I had my eyes closed, didn’t you see?” Kit actually couldn’t remember anything right now except the feeling of his hand on her upper arm, as he’d also turned his body in to face her fully and she could now appreciate the full scale of the man in front of her. Even slouching on the wall he was taller than any of her fellow drivers, and his olive skin and dark brown curls made him look like something out of a gladiator movie. 

“Mm, right, eyes closed.” Kit murmured, her eyes half closed herself. The early morning was starting to catch up to her.

“I was imagining she was you.” He said slyly, and if it was anyone else she would’ve rolled her eyes and told them to get lost. There was just something about his tone, he was toeing the line between totally joking and trying to make a move on her, and it was really hot. She needed a guy that didn’t take himself too seriously. She was surrounded by enough of those everyday. 

“Oh, you’re smooth.” Kit replied, leaning her head back against the wall, turning away again. She needed some air because her stomach wasn’t exactly agreeing with the cocktail of beer and fireball, and the space between her and Matteo was beginning to feel overly hot. 

“Is it working?” He asked, and his voice sounded closer than before. She turned her head, and his body was now only centimetres from hers, his breath just fanning her cheeks as he tilted his face down to look at her.

“Maybe a bit.” She was nearly whispering. His large hand reached up to the side of her face, tucking a piece of hair back behind her ear before lowering his hand to the side of her neck. His thumb moved back and forth over the front of her throat, and god she was turned on. He leaned forward tantalisingly slowly, his eyes darting down to her lips and then back up again. She was practically panting under his touch. His lips brushed hers gently, the faintest contact made, and she was scared to blink in fear of ruining the moment. 

As if breathing out to steady his nerves, a flush of air was released from Matteo’s mouth that just happened to be hovering near Kit’s nose. His breath, while not totally unpleasant, smelt entirely of gin and tonic, and the medicinal, alcoholic smell went straight to her already uneasy stomach. “Hold on, I’m gonna -” was all Kit managed to get out before she was rounding the corner of the bar into a small alley and vomiting straight onto the ground. One of her hands leant against the wall and the other on her knee to steady herself, and she was grateful when she felt Matteo’s hands scoop up her hair out of the line of fire. 

“God, I was that bad, huh?” Matteo said jokingly, and Kit tried to laugh but just ended up retching more. After a few minutes her stomach had settled and she wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, the acidic taste of bile still on her tongue. She moved a few steps away from the vomit and leant back against the wall, closing her eyes to avoid having to look at Matteo’s probably revolted expression. 

“That was so disgusting, I’m sorry.” Kit said, the back of her unused hand resting over her eyes. 

“It’s okay, I’ve seen worse.” Matteo laughed, and Kit uncovered her eyes to look at him doubtfully. “Tennis players go wild, especially in Australia. You should know all about that.” He smiled, and Kit just rolled her eyes. 

“As much as I would like to continue our earlier activities, I think I’d better get a taxi.” Kit said reluctantly, Matteo’s brown Roman eyes still shining down at her as if he didn’t just watch her vomit onto a wall in an Italian alleyway. 

“I think that’s probably a good idea.” Matteo said, also seeming sad that their night was cut short. He placed his hand on her lower back to guide her to the side of the road, and she nearly shivered under his touch. He stuck out his arm and a taxi pulled over with a slam on the brakes. The ride home could be unpleasant, Kit thought to herself. 

“I’d like to see you again.” Matteo said as he opened the back seat door for her. Her heart sunk as she remembered that this was technically only a one night thing. 

“I start work again on Wednesday, and then I leave Italy Monday morning.” Kit said with a disappointed tone in her voice.

“Tomorrow night then. It doesn’t have to be as…well, I won’t let you vomit.” Matteo said, smiling gently. “And just us this time.” He tacked onto the end, making sure she caught his drift. 

“I like the sound of that. Here, hang on.” Kit reached into her bra to retrieve her phone (having not brought a suitable clubbing bag to Monza) and unlocked it, giving it to Matteo to put in his number.

“Ho avviato il contatore!” The taxi driver yelled impatiently.

“Dammi un minuto a me e alla bella signora.” Matteo leaned his head into the taxi and replied, which made him appear 100 times hotter in Kit’s eyes. “There.” He said, handing back her phone. He’d put his contact as ‘Matteo Berrettini 🇮🇹🍻🤢’ and sent himself a text message reading ‘ciao bello ;).’ Good, he was funny. Kit smiled at him and wished she could give him a kiss good night, but settled for a squeeze on the hand before she settled into the taxi. 

“Era quel Matteo Berrettini?” Kit didn’t speak Italian, especially not while drunk, but she could vaguely guess the question.

“Si, uh, si.” She settled for in response. 

“È un bravo ragazzo, rende orgoglioso questo paese, dovresti trattarlo bene.” The driver continued, and Kit just nodded her head with absolutely no understanding of what he was saying. She also realised that he had begun driving without her giving him an address, and struggled to ask him where they were going.

“Uh, andiamo? Where adiamo to?” Pathetic.

“You are pilota, no?” The man said. She’d heard French journalists use ‘pilote’ back when she had a lot of interviews with Charles, so she assumed he knew she was a Formula 1 driver.

“Si.” Kit said tentatively. 

“I know where you stay, all of us,” he said, pointing to his taxi driver licence, “we all love Ferrari, we drive all the piloti. Same hotel, every year.” He said, looking pleased with himself for providing such good service. 

“You speak English much better than I speak Italian.” Kit said, searching for some way to make up for the fact that she wasn’t a Ferrari driver.

“Grazie bella, I think that you learn with Matteo, no?” He asked, now grinning ear to ear, looking back at her expression in the rear-view mirror. 

“Oh, I don’t know. I’m not in Italy alot, I might not see him after tomorrow.” Kit said, finding it only mildly concerning that the person she probably felt most comfortable talking about her love life with was this taxi driver. 

“Matteo, he move from Roma, he live in Monte Carlo now that he is rich and famous. You live there too?” The driver asked.

“Si.” Kit said, even though she was slightly embarrassed to admit it as she noticed the worn hems on the driver’s sleeves and the meagre sum on the metre, despite the fact that they were nearly back at the hotel.

“Good, good, Matteo needs a nice girl like you, take care of him in Monte Carlo.” He continued, and Kit only blushed deeper. 

“We only met tonight.” She clarified, and the driver batted his hand nonchalantly. 

“My wife, I ask her to marry me the day I meet her. At the Beatles in 1965.” He said the year in Italian, but Kit still caught his drift. “I had 19 years, she had only 17. She say yes, we marry, now we are married for 54 years.” He said proudly, giving Kit a knowing look in the mirror as they drove up the circular driveway of the hotel, the lobby empty at this time of the morning. 

“Grazie for the drive.” Kit said, and the driver waved her hands away as she went to get out some cash to pay him. 

“No bella, free, free for you.” The driver said, still grinning ear to ear. Kit looked at the metre, 

€ 21,35. She pulled four € 50 notes out of her wallet and folded them over so that the driver wouldn’t see. 

“Then this is just a present.” Kit said as she leant forward to give the driver a kiss on the cheek, depositing the notes into one of the front cupholders as she did so. 

“Buona fortuna for Sunday, bella.” The driver said at the sight of the money in his car. “I hope that it will be you in third place, after only the Ferrari.” He said, smiling again. 

“Grazie mille.” She replied, getting out of the car and watching the taxi drive off. She felt her phone buzz and looked down to see a few texts, one from Matteo and two from Max. Opening Matteo’s first, he had just sent a simple ‘I had a good time tonight,’ to which she responded ‘I did too, especially in between the club and my vom 😬.’ She hoped the more she joked about it the less embarrassing it would become. As she entered the elevator and pressed the button for her floor, she then opened Max’s text messages. They were from only 10 minutes ago, which meant that he was awake a lot later than usual. He’d sent a photo, which Kit had to zoom in on to see any details. It was a screenshot of someone’s instagram story, and in it was a very blurry photo of  Matteo and herself standing next to the cab. It was immediately after he had replied to the driver, so his head was tilted up and looking at her smiling face. It was actually quite a cute photo, and she didn’t really mind that she’d been seen. Unlike what the taxi driver seemed to think, there wasn’t anything serious between them. 

Under the photo Max had said ‘i was just joking, jeez 🙄.’ She didn’t reply to him, mainly because she’d reached her hotel room and felt like going to bed, but the text made her feel annoyed. Who was he to think that the only reason she would take interest in someone as objectively stunning as Matteo, who also had a personality more likeable than Max’s by a mile, was because he had made fun of her for having no sex. 

She took off her makeup and changed into comfortable clothes in a foul mood, making sure to brush her teeth after the night she’d had, and nearly went to bed with a scowl on her face until she saw another message from Matteo. ‘Don’t worry, tomorrow night will be an improvement.’ followed by a link to the website for a homey but upmarket looking Italian restaurant. She was already feeling giddy, and instead went to bed with a smile on her face.

[theofficersacademy]

It’s May! We’re nearly halfway through the year! But more importantly, it’s the month of TOA’s annual Ethereal Ball event! Please keep reading for more information.

Housekeeping

Current Month in TOA: Ethereal Moon

We’ve added new missions to the Golden Deer mission board. Check them out here, but don’t forget that you need a Golden Deer-affiliated faculty or student to participate in the mission tasks.

The Ethereal Ball will officially begin on May 15th this year, but before that, we’re offering the opportunity for single individuals to signup for a blind dating mini event! Anyone who wants a date to the ball but hasn’t managed to get one yet can fill out a dating profile here. From May 8th until May 14th, participants will be shuffled and half will receive a single line from a random dating profile. They will have to try to guess who it belongs to from the list of potential suitors. If they guess incorrectly, they’ll receive a new line, and so on until they find their perfect match! More information will come on May 8th when the mini event officially begins.

We would also like to introduce a new beginner class: Recruit. This class can be accessed by achieving D rank in Authority, Heavy Armor, Riding, OR Flying. Upon mastery, it will grant Resistance+. If you qualify for this class, please send a message to the masterlist to claim it.

For those of you in our Discord server, we have now allowed all Members and Veterans to create their own events (Smash tournaments, Mafia, movie nights, liveblogging, Hunger Game sim, etc.)! To schedule an event, simply click the drop-down for the Officers Academy, then “Create Event.” Fill in the information and the notification will display at the top of all of the channels once you’re done. Other members can RSVP through the notification as well, so you can get an idea of who might be interested. If you wish to stream an event in our voice channel, set the event location as the #gamenighttext channel and a mod will open the voice channel when it’s time for it to begin. 

We would like to remind everyone not to reblog threads or asks from other members without adding anything to them unless they’re intended to be archived as thread/interaction closers. Bloating your archive with posts that aren’t yours makes checking activity at the end of the month more difficult for the mods.

Please don’t forget to leave feedback on our feedback poll for this month! Last month we received many good suggestions to improve BOEL and combat in the future. Feedback is an invaluable resource for making TOA the best community it can be; however, feedback is only useful when it provides explanations. Simple “Yes/No” responses to questions that ask for more are difficult for the mod team to use and don’t contribute much.

Combat Updates

The combat manual is currently being worked on for our next big combat event. Below are descriptions of the updates that have been made so far.

The Iron series has been updated. Iron weapons are balanced relative to the Iron Lance, which represents an average. The Iron Sword has one step higher accuracy for one step lower damage, and the Iron Axe has one step lower accuracy for one step higher damage. The Iron Bow is the ranged equivalent to the Iron Lance, and the Iron Gauntlets are intended to consistently output roughly the same amount of damage as the Iron Sword by attacking twice in a row. Since Iron weapons are received for free upon reaching rank D in their respective categories, they are used as the baseline for all other weapons.

The Steel series has been updated. Each steel weapon deals one step higher damage than their Iron counterparts for no change in accuracy or crit rate. These weapons are the most basic reward one can choose from the rank chart and are reliable to use.

The Training series has been updated. Every training weapon now has Increased Hit and Training damage. This ensures that weaponless new characters can manage to consistently deliver a small amount of damage no matter which type of training weapon they choose.

The hit rate categories have been updated. In the combat manual, each category shows the percent chance to hit (for example, Increased Hit shows 95 - 85%). These numbers previously included the chance of a barely hit, which made some weaker weapons more unreliable than they were intended to be. While the Iron Sword was listed as having an Increased Hit, in reality it had only a 65% chance to deal damage since its barely hits deal 0. The hit rate categories have now been changed to reflect the chance of landing a true hit, and the window to land a barely hit, in most cases, as been shrunk to balance the damage stronger weapons with low accuracy can deal on a barely hit.

A new hit rate category has been added: Broken Hit. This is the opposite to the Never Miss category and falls below Gamble Hit.

The wording for the Beginner class masteries (HP+, Speed+, Strength+, Magic+, Defense+, Resistance+) has been updated to be more clear about how they affect stats. HP+ will grant a 20% increase to HP in any setting, Strength+ and Magic+ affect base damage, Defense+ and Resistance+ are calculated after the attacker’s damage is calculated, and Speed+ grants a speed increase to the unit (Speed as a stat has been reconceptualized - more information below).

To be more comparable to the exponential damage increase that Strength+ and Magic+ grant to all weapons, thus making them more viable to bring to events even if your muse is a veteran, the damage reduction of Defense+ and Resistance+ has been increased from 0.5 to 1. We hope this makes these masteries more worth claiming and bringing to events.

The combat manual now has a section explaining each of the stats used in TOA’s combat. Most notable of these is the Speed stat, which is treated separately from the Avoid stat, and will grant a character the chance to attack twice in a turn once it reaches +6. This buff can be stacked with Avoid buffs, but only the Speed stat will grant the extra attack.

There is much more to be done, so stay tuned for future updates!

Other

May Mun Birthdays: Erica (3rd), Toca (17th), Elf (25th), Sam (28th)

May Muse Birthdays: M!Morgan (5th), F!Morgan (5th), Elice (6th),  Cynthia (14th), Linoan (17th), Luthier (17th), Seliph (24th), Chrom (27th), Siegbert (28th)

First-year mun anniversaries this month: Lucius (1st), Nel (4th), Nic (4th)

Second-year mun anniversaries this month: N (23rd)

First-year muse anniversaries this month: Elincia (4th) 

Second-year muse anniversaries this month: Leo (14th)

Muses who have been in the group for a solid year will also be granted an Academy Brooch to put in their inventory. It doesn’t do anything. It just lets others know your character has been around the block. These characters are also granted a new opportunity to change houses if they wish to do so.

- The House Leaders

[carlatsukinamistolemyhamsandwich]

Diabolik Lovers Survey 2020 Results

This year I got 138 responses in total, which is close to double the number I got in 2019 (74 responses) so a big thank you to all of you for taking part and for those who helped to promote it! Now onto the results:

Question 1. Who is your favorite DL character?

1. Subaru Sakamaki (18 votes) (3rd in CL poll, joint 4th in 2019 survey) 2. Shu Sakamaki (16 votes) (1st in CL poll, 1st in 2019 survey) 3. Ruki Mukami (13 votes) (4th in CL poll, joint 6th in 2019 survey) 4. Laito Sakamaki (12 votes) (8th in CL poll, 10th in 2019 survey) 5. Ayato Sakamaki (11 votes) (2nd in CL poll, 3rd in 2019 survey) 6. Reiji Sakamaki (10 votes) (9th in CL poll, 2nd in 2019 survey) 6. Carla Tsukinami (10 votes) (11th in CL poll, 4th in 2019 survey) 6. Kanato Sakamaki (10 votes) (6th in CL poll, joint 6th in 2019 survey) 9. Azusa Mukami  (8 votes) (12th in CL poll, 13th in 2019 survey) 9. Yui Komori (8 votes) (7th in CL poll, no votes in 2019 survey) 11. Yuma Mukami (7 votes) (10th in CL poll, joint 6th in 2019 survey) 12. Shin Tsukinami (6 votes) (14th in CL poll, joint 11th in 2019 survey) 13. Kino (3 votes) (13th in CL poll, joint 11th in 2019 survey) 14. Kou Mukami (1 vote) (5th in CL poll, joint 6th in 2019 survey) 14. Richter (1 votes) (did not feature in CL poll, no votes in 2019 survey)

Note: 3 people said they didn’t have a favorite character and 1 person skipped the question. Karlheinz, Beatrix, Cordelia, Christa and Yuri were all available options but they did not receive any votes. I’ve included where they came in the CL poll (the most recent official popularity poll) to show how the results compare. Below you can also see how the voting breaks down compared to the 2019 survey.

While I was a little surprised that Subaru managed to dethrone Shu as the fandom’s overall favorite, I was not surprised by him, Shu, Ruki and Ayato all featuring in the top 5 considering their rankings in the CL poll. Laito also managed to sneak his way in there but considering that he was the winner of the 2018 survey, that wasn’t much of a surprise to me either.

The thing that I really don’t understand is what on Earth happened with Kou. Up until 24 hours before the survey closed, he didn’t have a single vote (lone Kou fan, thank you for stepping up), despite doing pretty well in the CL poll and the 2019 survey. If anyone has any theories on where all the Kou fans have gone then let me know because I am baffled.

Anyway, onto the rest of the survey, because this post is extremely long, I’ve put the rest below the cut.

Question 2. Who is your least favorite diaboy?

1. Kanato Sakamaki (42 votes) (1st in 2019 survey) 2. No least favorite (15 votes) (2nd option in 2019 survey) 3. Kino (14 votes) (3rd in 2019 survey) 4. Ruki Mukami (12 votes) (joint 6th in 2019 survey) 5. Ayato Sakamaki (10 votes) (4th in 2019 survey) 6. Carla Tsukinami  (9 votes) (no votes in 2019 survey) 7. Reiji Sakamaki (7 votes) (joint 6th in 2019 survey) 8. Shin Tsukinami (6 votes) (joint 6th in the 2019 survey) 8. Azusa Mukami (6 votes) (joint 10th in 2019 survey) 10. Shu Sakamaki (5 votes) (no votes in 2019 survey) 11. Kou Mukami (3 votes) (5th in 2019 survey) 11. Laito Sakamaki (3 votes) (9th in 2019 survey) 11. Yuma Mukami (3 votes) (joint 10th in 2019 survey) 14. Subaru Sakamaki (2 votes) (no votes in 2019 survey)

Note: I discounted one vote for Subaru on this question, as the participant had also voted for him as their favorite character so I assumed they misunderstood this question.

Every single year I’ve done this, Kanato has come first in this category by a massive margin and (while I will admit he’s my own least favorite) I am still no closer to understanding why he gets so many votes. If anyone does have any theories then do let me know.

Other than that, Kino’s placement certainly isn’t a surprise given his place in the 2019 survey and that he was the villain in all of the other characters LE routes, which I suspect has not endeared him to many. I do find it interesting that Ruki and Ayato (who did well in the popularity poll) were also in the top 5 for this question. 

I also wasn’t expecting Shu, golden boy of the fandom, to actually rank higher than some of the other characters in this question and to only have one less vote than Shin (who is considerably less popular and did some fairly deplorable things in the other character’s DF routes). 

Question 3. What is your favorite type of DL media?

1. The games 60 votes (1st in 2019 survey) 2. The drama CDs 46 votes (2nd in 2019 survey) 3. The character songs 9 votes (3rd in 2019 survey) 3. The merch (e.g. plushies, badges, straps etc) 9 votes (4th in 2019 survey) 5. The anime 8 votes (5th in 2019 survey) 5. The manga 6 votes (6th in 2019 survey)

I don’t really think there’s much to comment on with this one, the results are pretty similar to last year and given that the drama CDs and the games collectively provide most of the story content for DL, it’s not at all surprising that they’re the fan favorites.

Question 4. If you have played and/or read translations for the games, which is your favorite?

1. Dark Fate (39 votes) (1st in 2019 survey) 2. Haunted Dark Bridal (27 votes) (2nd in 2019 survey) 3. More Blood (13 votes) (3rd in 2019 survey) 4. Vandead Carnival  (10 votes) (7th in 2019 survey)  5. Lost Eden 8 votes (5th in 2019 survey) 6. Chaos Lineage 8 votes (4th in 2019 survey) 7. Lunatic Parade 6 votes (6th in 2019 survey) Note: 20 people said they had not played the games or read translations of them.

DF, HDB and MB all remain as the top 3 games of franchise. I was a bit surprised to see VC jump up so much though, although I know some more translations for it have been posted recently, and a game being translated will always help to boost it’s popularity within the fandom.

Question 5. If you have listened to and/or read translations of the drama CDs, which set of CDs includes your favorite?

1. Bonus CDs (19 votes) (4th in 2019 survey) 2. Para-Selene (18 votes) (2nd in 2019 survey) 3. Bloody Bouquet (14 votes) (1st in 2019 survey) 4. Zero (13 votes) (joint 5th in 2019 survey) 5. The original do-s vampire CDs (11 votes) (3rd in 2019 survey) 6. More Blood do-s vampire (8 votes) (joint 5th in 2019 survey) 7. Verus II (7 votes) (joint 5th in 2019 survey) 8. More, More Blood (6 votes) (not an option in the 2019 survey) 9. Dark Fate (4 votes) (no votes in 2019 survey) 9. Born To Die (4 votes) (joint 9th in 2019 survey) 11. Verus I (3 votes) (joint 9th in 2019 survey) 12. Eternal Blood (2 votes) (no votes in 2019 survey) 13. Versus III  (1 vote) (joint 8th in 2019 survey) 13. Versus IV (1 vote) (no votes in 2019 survey) 13. Chaos Lineage  (1 vote) (joint 8th in 2019 survey) Note: the Lost Eden CDs (joint 8th in the 2019 survey) did not receive any votes and 26 people said they had not listened to or read translations of the drama CDs, 6 more than those who had not played or read translations of the games. 

I was pretty surprised to see the Bloody Bouquet CDs bumped down to third place considering that they won far and away in the 2018 and 2019 surveys, especially with the Zero CDs coming so close behind them. Para-Selene (my own personal favorite set of drama CDs) is still a fan favorite, and while I know many people enjoy the bonus CDs, I certainly wasn’t expecting to see them take the top spot.

In terms of other things to note, I do find it interesting that the Eternal Blood CDs (which feature the Mukamis) are less popular than the Born To Die CDs (which feature the Tsukinamis and Kino), considering that in this survey, the Mukami brothers got more votes combined than the Tsukinamis + Kino, and I’m pretty sure all of the Eternal Blood CDs have been translated, while to my knowledge, no English translations exist for the BTD CDs (although you can find a summary of Shin’s on this blog), so I would have expected this to be the other way around.

Question 6. How long have you been interested in DL?

1. More than 4 years but less than 6 years (55 votes)  2. More than 2 years but less than 4 years (26 votes)  3. More than 6 years but less than 8 years (15 votes)  4. Up to six months (9 votes)  5. Over 8 years (7 votes) 6. More than 6 months but less than 1 year (6 votes) 7. Less than 1 month (2 votes) Note: 6 people said they couldn’t remember how long they’d been interested in DL for.

It seems the majority of us have been here for years (truly, there is no escaping diahell) but it was nice to see so many newcomers to the fandom take part this year, especially as we haven’t really had that much new content. 

I mentioned this in the 2019 survey results post but I do wonder whether the release of the MB anime (a little over 5 years ago), may have some correlation with a large chunk of the fandom (or at least the portion that took part in this survey) being into the series for between 4-6 years.

Question 7. If you answered the survey I did last year, have any of your choices changed since then?

Note: Multiple options could be selected here.

My favorite character has changed: 21 votes

My least favorite diaboy has changed: 17 votes

My favorite DL game has changed: 9 votes

My favorite drama CD has changed: 18 votes

There were definitely more changes this year compared to last year (although given the much larger sample size, that’s to be expected), but it does seem most are fairly firm in their favorites. 

Question 8. If you purchased one of the More, More Blood CDs, which version did you get? 

Deluxe edition: 7 votes (5.22%)

Regular edition: 4 votes (2.99%)

Deluxe edition from Animate: 7 votes (5.22%)

Deluxe edition from Stellaworth: 2 votes (1.49%)

Deluxe edition of the same CD from Animate & Stellaworth: 3 votes (2.24%)

Multiple MMB CDs (some regular, some deluxe): 5 votes (3.73%)

Did not buy any of the MMB CDs: 106 votes (79.10%)

Note: 4 people skipped this question.

I mostly asked this question because I was curious as to how many people bought the deluxe edition versus the normal edition, especially as after listening to Shin’s (and from the comments I saw online) I feel like you really need the bonus CD you get with the deluxe edition to nicely wrap up the story.

I was sort of expecting most people to go for the deluxe edition, as I think if you’re ordering your favorite's CD, you’re going to want the maximum content with them possible, even if it does come with a bigger price tag.

As for why so many people went for the Animate bonus over the Stellaworth bonus, I imagine this was because Animate has an international online store (although I think whether you can actually get the bonus drama CDs from them is variable) while Stellaworth only ships in Japan, which means if you order from them, you have to use a proxy service which really hikes up the price.

Question 9. Out of the following things released within the last year, which has been your favorite?

1. 4-panel More, More Blood comics (28 votes) 1. Winter of Lovers merch (28 votes) 3. More, More Blood CDs (24 votes) 4. Masquerade Jewel merch (18 votes) 5. My Melody collaboration merch (15 votes) 6. Other (14 votes) 7. Merch from Rejet 2020 Fes (10 votes) Note: 1 person skipped this question.

I thought for sure the More, More Blood CDs would win this one but I seriously underestimated just how popular the More, More Blood comics and merch lines were. I suppose given that the bonus drama CDs came first in the Drama CD category and the MMB comics are much in the same vein (as in they both contain humorous content), it isn’t that much of a surprise, especially as the comics are posted online and are therefore much more accessible to international fans than the drama CDs.

As for the merch lines, Winter of Lovers is the most recently released set, so it may be possible that this is partially responsible for it’s popularity (i.e. it’s the merch line freshest in people’s minds).

Question 10. Which of the upcoming DL releases are you the most excited for?

1. Young Blood manga (64 votes) 2. Daylight CDs (25 votes) 3. Releases that have yet to be announced (20 votes) 4. Count Off (9th anniversary song) (7 votes) Note: 22 people went for the “Can’t choose/ Not excited for any of these” option.

The Young Blood manga won here by a massive margin, which is pretty interesting considering that the DL manga ranked lowest in question 3. That being said though I suspect this manga will be more popular than the others as it should give us more of the boys’ backstories.

I’ve seen several people hoping for the unannounced release (that we should find out more about April) to be a new game. Personally I’m not super convinced that’s going to be the case as new game announcements tend to be done at Otomate party (as was the case with CL in 2018), which is scheduled for July. However, I do admit that I think a new game would be a really good way to celebrate DL’s tenth anniversary (which is coming up December next year), so I don’t think it’s completely outside of the realms of possibility that we may get another game at some point. 

Either way I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens in April.

And that’s it for the 2020 survey. Again, thanks to everyone who took part, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the results, was there anything that surprised you?

[darkpetal16]

Can’t wait until Overlord gets posted!!! I’ve only ever found one fanfic of it I’ve liked and it’s a HP crossover

:)

Character Sheet

Name: Momonga

Title: The Strongest Magic Caster with the Appearance of a Skeleton

Level: 100

Race: Heteromorphic Race; Undead

Job: One of the Almighty 42 Supreme Beings; Ruler of the Great Tomb of Nazarick

Residence: Great Tomb of Nazarick; Room in level 9

Alignment: Extreme Evil; Sense of Justice - 500

Racial Level: Skeletal Mage lvl 15; Elder Lich lvl 10; Overlord lvl 5

Job level: Necromancer lvl 10; Ruler of Death lvl 10; Eclipse lvl 5

Creator: N/A

Personality: Cautious, loyal, avid collector.

.

Name: Lumière

Title: High Priestess of Light

Level: 100

Race: Heteromorphic Race; Angel

Job: One of the Almighty 42 Supreme Beings; Lady of Light

Residence: Great Tomb of Nazarick; The Hidden Tower

Alignment: Extreme Good; Sense of Justice 500

Racial Level: Angel lvl 15; Archangel lvl 10; Seraph Empyrean lvl 5

Job level: Light Priestess lvl 10; High Priestess lvl 10

Creator: N/A

Personality: Demure, loyal, romantic,

.

Name: Albedo

Title: Warm and Caring Devil of Pure White

Level: 100

Race: Heteromorphic Race; Succubus

Job: Great Tomb of Nazarick Overseer

Residence: Throne Hall; and a room in level 9

Alignment: Extreme Evil; Sense of Justice - 500

Racial Level: Imp lvl 10

Job level: Guardian lvl 10; Blackguard lvl 5; Unholy Knight lvl 10; Shield Lord lvl 10

Creator: Tabula Smaragdina

Personality: Loyal, yandere, extremist

.

Name: Jack

Title: The Smiling Ripper

Level: 100

Race: Heteromorphic Race; Undead

Job: Great Tomb of Nazarick Head Researcher

Residence: The Hidden Tower; and a room in level 9

Alignment: Extreme Evil; Sense of Justice - 500

Racial Level: Skeletal Mage lvl 15; Elder Lich lvl 10;

Job level: Necromancer lvl 10; Researcher lvl 10; Assassin lvl 10; Master Assassin lvl 5

Creator: Lucille

Personality: Loyal, yandere, cruel

.

Name: Aura Bella Fiora

Title: Renowned Trainer with an Indomitable Will

Level: 100

Race: Human Race; Dark Elf

Job: Great Tomb of Nazarick 6th Floor Guardian

Residence: 6th Floor Giant Tree

Alignment: Neutral ~ Evil; Sense of Justice - 100

Racial Level: N/A

Job level: Ranger lvl 5; Beast Tamer lvl 5; Shooter lvl 5; Sniper lvl 5; High Tamer lvl 10

.

Name: Mare Bello Fiora

Title: Unreliable Envoy of Nature

Level: 100

Race: Human Race; Dark Elf

Job: Great Tomb of Nazarick 6th Floor Guardian

Residence: 6th Floor Giant Tree

Alignment: Neutral ~ Evil; Sense of Justice - 100

Racial Level: N/A

Job level: Druid lvl 10; High Druid lvl 10; Nature’s Herald lvl 10; Disciple of Disaster lvl 5; Forest Mage lvl 10

.

Name: Cocytus

Title: Ruler of Glaciers

Level: 100

Race: Heteromorphic Race; Vermin Lord

Job: Great Tomb of Nazarick 6th Floor Guardian

Residence: 6th Floor Snowball Earth

Alignment: Neutral; Sense of Justice 50

Racial Level: Insect Fighter lvl 10; Vermin Lord lvl 10

Job level: Sword Saint lvl 10; Asura lvl 5; Knight of Niflheim lvl 5

.

Name: Demiurge

Title: Creator of the Blazing Inferno

Level: 100

Race: Heteromorphic Race; Arch-Devil

Job: Great Tomb of Nazarick 7th Floor Guardian

Residence: 7th Floor Blazing Shrine

Alignment: Extreme Evil; Sense of Justice - 500

Racial Level: Imp lvl 10; Archdevil lvl 5

Job level: Chaos lvl 10; Prince of Darkness lvl 10; Shapeshifter lvl 10

.

Name: Shalltear Bloodfallen

Title: The Bloody Valkyrie

Level: 100

Race: Heteromorphic Race; True Vampire

Job: Great Tomb of Nazarick 1st ~ 3rd Floor Guardian

Residence: 2nd Floor Burial Chambers

Alignment: Great ~ Extreme Evil; Sense of Justice - 450

Racial Level: Vampire lvl 10; True Vampire lvl 10

Job level: Valkyrie / Lance lvl 5; Cursed Knight lvl 5; Cleric lvl 10

.

Name: Pandora’s Actor

Title: Ever Changing Man Without A Face

Level: 100

Race: Heteromorphic Race; Doppelgänger

Job: Great Tomb of Nazarick Treasury Zone Guardian

Residence: Treasury Zone Manager Office

Alignment: Neutral; Sense of Justice - 50

Racial Level: Doppelgänger lvl 15; Greater Doppelgänger lvl 10

Job level: Expert lvl 10; Craftsman lvl 10; Lord of the Castle lvl 15

.

Name: Cheshire

Title: Cackling with Madness

Level: 100

Race: Heteromorphic Race; Fairy

Job: Hidden Tower Guardian

Residence: Hidden Tower

Alignment: Neutral; Sense of Justice - 100

Racial Level: Fairy lvl 15; Trickster lvl 10

Job level: Illusionist lvl 15; Shapeshifter lvl 10; Stalker lvl 10

.

Name: Victim

Title: Sacrificial Fetus

Level: 35

Race: Heteromorphic Race; Angel

Job: Great Tomb of Nazarick 8th Floor Guardian

Residence: 8th Floor Tree of Life (Sephiroth)

Alignment: Neutral; Sense of Justice 1

Racial Level: Angel lvl 10; Archangel lvl 10

Job level: Patriot lvl 1; Saint lvl 4; Martyr lvl 1

.

A Sneak Peek

In the year 2138 AD there was a term: DMMO-RPG. That word was an acronym for “Dive Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game”. It was a revolutionary new way to play games that used virtual reality and nano-technology. Among the myriad DMMO-RPGs that thronged the market, one of them stood head and shoulders above the others: YGGDRASIL.

That game had been painstakingly developed and released twelve years ago, in 2126.

Compared to other DMMO-RPGs of the time, YGGDRASIL’s selling point was player freedom; it had over two thousand basic and advanced job classes.

Every class had a maximum of fifteen levels, and so in order to reach the overall level cap of one hundred, one would need to take at least seven different classes. However, players could take as many classes as they wanted as long as they met each class’s prerequisites. A player could even take a hundred classes at level one each. As such, in that system, it was exceedingly difficult to make identical characters unless one was deliberately trying to do so.

One could use various creator tools (sold separately) to fully customize one’s armor, weaponry, flavor text, appearance, and other cosmetic settings. A vast playing field awaited its players. There were nine worlds in total: Asgard, Alfheim, Vanaheim, Nidavellir, Midgard, Jotunheim, Niflheim, Helheim, and Muspelheim.

In essence, YGGDRASIL boasted a massive world, numerous classes, and freely customizable appearances.

It was inevitable that it would skyrocket in popularity and infinite the muses of millions of creative players.

Of course… that was all in the past now.

.

A gigantic table carved of gleaming black stone sat in the center of a luxurious room, surrounded by forty two chairs. Of all of those chairs, only three were occupied.

One of the seated attendees was clothed in a magnificent black academic robe edged in violet and gold. The collar was excessively gaudy, but it still melded well with the overall design. The person’s head was exposed, revealing a bare skill. Points of dark red lights glowed in its large eye sockets. Behind that skull pulsed a halo of black radiance.

Further down the table was a being that was not human either, merely a mass of black, sticky substance. Its tar-like surface roiled and writhed continuously, never staying in shape for more than second.

At the very end was a person who at a glance could pass as human, if not for the pointed ears and wings at their back. That person wore magnificent priestess robes of silver and blue. Its halo at the back of its head illuminated its long curly white-blonde hair.

The first attendant at the table was an Overlord, the highest-ranked of an undead magic-caster. The second was an Elder Black Ooze, which boasted the most powerful corrosive ability of the slime families. The last was a Seraph Empyrean, the highest-ranked of an angel-raced healer.

One might encounter those monsters in the most difficult of dungeons in YGGDRASIL. Overlords could use powerful curses or spells of the highest tiers of magic; Elder Black Oozes were dreaded for their ability to degrade weapons and armor; and Seraph Empyreans were universally despised when found near bosses.

However, they were not game monsters, but players.

In YGGDRASIL, players could choose their character races from three broad groups: humanoid, demihuman, and heteromorphic.

Humanoids were the basic player type and comprised humans, dwarves, wood elves, and the like. Demihumans tended to be ugly, but possessed superior attributes to humanoids. Examples of demihumans were goblins, beastmen, ogres, and so on. Finally, heteromorphic races had monstrous abilities, but despite their stats being generally higher than those of other races, they also possessed various drawbacks. There were around seven hundred playable races in total, including the advanced versions of those races. Naturally, the Overlord, Seraph Empyrean, and Elder Black Ooze were among the high-tier heteromorphic races that were playable.

The Overlord—who was speaking at the moment—did not move his mouth. That was because even the most advanced DMMO-RPGs of the time still could not overcome the technological hurdle of properly modelling the changes on a character’s face in response to emotions and speech.

He spoke in a jovial tone, “It’s really been a while, Herohero. Although this is the last day of YGGDRASIL, we didn’t expect you to show up.”

The slime wobbled. “Indeed it has, Momonga.” The slime nodded in the direction of the Overlord, then at the angel who nodded back in return. “Lumière.”

“How has work been for you?” asked the angel.

The slime sighed, letting loose a small tirade of complaints. Momonga and Lumière listened patiently as their friend vented.

After about ten minutes, the torrent of words that flowed from Herohero dwindled to a trickle.

“...I’m sorry for making you listen to my whining. I can’t complain much IRL.”

“It’s really no worries,” assured Momonga. “We’re happy you were able to come by at all.”

“Ah. It was so nice to see you both after so long. I was afraid to find no one here.” Herohero’s tentacles waved at both of them. “But it is getting late… How long will you two be on?”

“Until we’re automatically logged out once the servers shut down,” answered Lumière.

“Since it’s still a ways off, we might get more visitors like you,” added Momonga.

“Ah. I hope so. I see you both have taken good care of this place.”

Momonga and Lumière did not respond, neither of them wanting to show the surge of mixed emotions Herohero’s words caused.

There were a few more parting words, but eventually, Herohero left and it was only the two remaining members once again. Momonga sighed again and Lumière spared him a glance. Their expressions could not be relayed through their avatars so she sent him a frowny face instead.

The quiet disappointment was understandable. Their guild, Ainz Ooal Gown, had slowly died out over the years as more and more members left the game. In the past two years only Momonga and Lumière regularly logged on. They had sent emails out to the other members of the guild asking for them to join them on the final day, but unfortunately only Herohero responded.

“I’m going back to the tower,” said Lumière. “Meet up later?”

“Yeah. I’ll talk to you in a bit.”

Lumière left after that point, teleporting to the Hidden Tower at the 10th floor of the Great Tomb of Nazarick.

The Great Underground Tomb of Nazarick had once been a six floor dungeon, but it had been dramatically altered after Ainz Ooal Gown took control of it. Currently, it was a ten floor dungeon, and each floor had its own unique theme. The First to Third Floors were modelled after a tomb. The Fourth Floor was an underground lake. The Fifth Floor was a frozen glacier. The Sixth Floor was a rainforest. The Seventh Floor was a sea of magma. The Eighth Floor was a wasteland. And the Ninth and Tenth Floors were the realm of the gods—in other words, the home base of Ainz Ooal Gown, which had ranked among the top ten of YGGDRASIL’s thousands of guilds. In the Tenth Floor there were a few hidden areas, although only one was regularly used—The Hidden Tower.

The entrance was hidden in the Throne Room. It was a tower built by Lumière, Blue Planet, and Amanomahitotsu as a hidden level. Not that it mattered since the only raid that came close to it was stopped in the Throne Room.

The tower had five levels, the first three dedicated as testing areas for Nazarick’s lead Researcher, Jack. The fourth floor was a luxurious library with a big fireplace, and lots of comfy spots to lounge in. At the top of the floor was Lumière’s room.

Upon entering the tower Lumière stopped before the Tower Guardian, Cheshire.

In a game like YGGDRASIL, guilds enjoyed several benefits if they possessed a guild base of castle tier or higher. The NPCs that the Great Underground Tomb of Nazarick could field were undead monsters. These automatically spawning NPCs—or “pop monsters”—had a maximum level of thirty. Even if they were destroyed, after a while they would respawn on their own, at no cost to the guild. However, players could not customize the AI and appearances of these “pop” NPCs. They were hardly useful in deterring intruders, who were universally players.

There was also another type of NPC; the ones designed from the ground up to their makers’ satisfaction. If a guild possessed a castle-grade guild base, the owning guild would be allowed nine hundred levels to be distributed between any number of NPCs they wanted.

Because the highest level in YGGDRASIL was one hundred, by those stipulations, a guild could make seven level one hundred NPCs and four level fifty NPCs, or any combination thereof.

When designing an original NPC, one could customize weaponry and other equipment in addition to clothing and appearances. As a result, one could create NPCs that were far stronger than the automatic spawns and place them in key locations. Of course, not every NPC had to be designed for battle. A certain guild which called themselves the “Kitty Kingdom” fielded no NPCs other than cats or cat-related creatures.

It was a nice guild to visit.

Cheshire was one of those specially crafted NPCs. It was a shapeshifting fairy created by Lumière. Its default form was that of a dark cat with stripes and an eerie smile that showed several rows of sharp teeth. It was heavily inspired by the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland, albeit with a more malicious mindset. It was designed to use “illusions” to trick players when entering such as changing what they see on screen to something else, or swapping what keys did what and so on.

Cheshire always floated down to whoever entered the tower. Its default setting would be to greet whoever came. It had a special message tailored for all the Supreme Beings.

“Welcome back, Mistress!” greeted Cheshire. As Lumière was its creator, she designed it to greet her as mistress, or my dearest lady. She gave the same order to her other creation, Jack.

Jack was stationed at the first floor of the tower. He was near some desks in the lab designed to look like a mad scientist laboratory. Lumière made up his character, leaning into an assassin-lich trope. She almost went with the skeletal appearance, but Bukubukuchagama talked her out of it. Bukubukuchagama bemoaned how there were already plenty of other “scary” monsters in the guild. She tried to bribe Lumière to make Jack a genderswap like her Dark Elves, but Lumière resisted. She compromised as a bishie. Or at least as much of a bishie as an undead could get.

Not that anyone could see it since Jack wore a mask.

That way he could appear as a “scary” monster to befit the evil lab, but in actuality, he was a pretty boy underneath which satisfied Bukubukuchagama. A happy Bukubukuchagama meant free visual novels for Lumière which in turn made for a happy Lumière.

Win-win all around.

Lumière brushed past both of her creations, stepping in to the laboratory and looking around.

Well, it is the last day, she thought as she glanced over at her creations.

“Come with me,” she ordered both of them.

Neither responded, both simply stepping closer to her. Er, well, Jack stepped forward while Cheshire hovered closer. She guided them up the tower to her favorite spot in Nazarick; the cozy little library.

With a wave of her hand she turned the fire place on and took a seat on the lush, red couch in front of it. She let out a slow sigh as she stared at the flickering flames.

[23:55:48]

She hadn’t even realized so much time had passed, she had zoned out watching the flames dance. That had been happening with greater frequency the past couple of weeks. Lumière’s body in reality wasn’t in good condition. It was a struggle to even get out of bed, her lungs slowly filling with fluid each day. She’d need another draining surgery in a month.

Her fatigue caused her mind to drift away, not quite falling asleep but close to.

What will I do when they shut the game down?

It was a question that had occurred to her several times, but she never found an answer. It wasn’t that YGGDRASIL was the only game she ever played--Civilizaiton CXI and Warhammer were nice ways to pass time, but YGGDRASIL was special to her. Ainz Ooal Gown was a place she finally had proper friends.

[23:59:58, 59—]

Lumière closed her eyes. What a shame.

[0:00:00...1,2,3]

?

Lumière knew something was immediately wrong when the first breath she took was not one hampered. She reflexively breathed deeper and found that it did not incite a fit of coughing. Her eyes shot open and she abruptly stood up from her seat.

Even the movement came with ease.

What in the?

[0:00:38]

Lumière twisted her body one way to another, breathing in the scents of--

Scents?! YGGDRASIL couldn’t mimic smells.

But lo and behold Lumière could distinctly smell the fire. It had a odd woodsy scent to it, as if it were scented logs burning inside. Lumière had never gone camping before, nor had she experienced fire first hand in her life. She marveled over the odd smell it emitted, sniffing delicately at it.

I quite like this smell, she thought.

“My dearest lady?”

Lumière twitched in surprise, looking over at Jack. The NPC had approached Lumière, a hand placed over his chest where his heart would have been had he not been undead. Jack, like all of Nazarick’s NPCS, had two default outfits: battle and casual. The battle would originally have only been triggered during a raid, so he currently wore his casual.

Lumière had been pretty huge into Sherlock and anime at the time of his design, so he was heavily inspired by an anime version of Jack the Ripper.

He had a black ulster coat with the collar flipped up. Underneath was a white button up shirt, and black and red suit vest. He had the classic dark white gloves, and black slacks to complete the look.

Oh, and of course the famous top hat. Could never, ever, forget the top hat for someone inspired by Jack the Ripper.

Lumière opened her mouth to say something but rapidly closed it. She placed a hand over her chest, breathing.

I can breathe easy. I have a sense of smell and touch. Is it--did I die?

Isekais were rather popular. Given her sickly body it wouldn’t have been too much of a stretch to say she passed away and had no memory of it.

The end result was still the same: she was in her avatar’s body. A body strengthened by a hundred levels and not plagued by illness or frailty. A smile curled her lips and she said, “Jack, how are you today?”

A question that an NPC could never answer unless specifically programmed for. Lumière had never given such line to Jack which meant that if he answered--

“Lovely now that I can gaze upon you,” he answered, stepping closer.

A surge of embarrassed adrenaline shot through Lumière at his intensely warm tone. Ah, wait--

She had almost forgotten how she programmed Jack’s personality. Leaning into the guild’s theme of “monsters” and “evil” she pushed on with his serial killer design. Cruel, sadistic, obsessive, and dangerously smart. She went all out, using a character design sheet Tabula put together. Lumière wasn’t as inventive or imaginative in the edgy department so she asked Ulbert to help. Ulbert had already made a pretty evil demon, Demiurge, and was delighted to try his hand at an evil undead serial killer.

At the end of the design she, as giggling joke with Peroroncino she added that he was a yandere for her.

Ahahahaha… I’m sure it’ll be okay.

「Message from Momonga」 Lumière?

Uwa! Momonga’s here?

「Message to Momonga」 Momonga! You came here too?

「Message from Momonga」 Came here… you’re really in the game, too?

「Message to Momonga」 It looks like it. I can breathe without trouble.

「Message from Momonga」 Ah. I’m happy for you. I’m going to conduct some tests to make sure I can cast more spells. Do you want to meet up in the arena?

「Message from Momonga」 Yeah, I’ll meet you there.

“Cheshire,” Lumière said, raising her hands up. “Come here.”

The fairy disguised as a monster cat floated over with a wide smiles. “Yes, Mistress?”

She reached out and the monstrous feline leaned into her palm. She felt his fur, his warmth, and beneath it all a heartbeat.

Jack responded with an answer on his own, Cheshire is warm and has a heartbeat, I can move freely… I’m here. This is real. They’re real.

Lumière smiled shyly, taking Cheshire into her arms. He was fluffy and warm. “We’re going to the arena to meet with Momonga.”

“As you wish, my lady,” demurred Jack while Cheshire flicked his tail.

[siriusly-orion]

Camp Espada

I know this is extraordinarily niche, but I've had this idea in my head for literal years and have only just gotten the notion of put it out there into the wilds of fandom tumblr.

The basic conceit of this post is thus: what is the 10 primary campers from Rooster Teeth's "Camp Camp" filled out the roster of the Espada from Tite Kubo's manga, "Bleach"? That's the long and short of it, so there's no point in dillydallying, on with the list:

Noveno Espada: Space Kid

Rank: 9th Espada Tattoo Location: Left cheek Hollow Hole Location: His solar plexus Mask Fragment: The base of his helmet Aspect of Death: Ambition Cero Colour: Orange Zanpakuto: His Helmet Release Command: "Blast off to the Moon!" Resurrección: Hombre Cohete

Description: To release his Zanpakuto, SK lifts his helmet off his head. Going into his release form gives SK rocket-like gauntlets and boots that blast fire and plasma at extremely high speeds and high temperatures. His attire looks akin to an astronaut's suit, with it and his helmet acting as a second layer of Hierro.

Notes: The newest member of the Espada, having only recently been given the rank after the death of one of the highest ranked ones. He stood out among the lower Arrancars in terms of power, but has a long way to go before ever moving up. He isn't taken very seriously by his superiors or inferiors, the latter of whom still see him as their friend and not their boss. He's upbeat and happy to do as he's told, but is aware that he's only filling the position out of the necessity that there needs to be 10 Espada and he was the only viable candidate at the time. Still, he tries to have good relationships with his fellow Espada, even if some of them don't care for him too much.

Octova Espada: Preston

Rank: 8th Espada Tattoo Location: Palm of Right Hand Hollow Hole Location: His tongue Mask Fragment: Left half of his face, resembling the Phantom of the Opera Aspect of Death: Dedication Cero Colour: Light Green Zanpakuto: A Katana with a purple hilt and a skull for a guard - Yellow scabbard Release Command: "Perform!" Resurrección: Mano De Escenario Description: Preston's release form gives him the appearance of a Shakespearean actor, with yellow tights, green shoes, a green vest and a red cape. His blade and hilt disappear, leaving with just the skull guard. The area around Preston becomes bathed in a darkness, with the only light appearing around himself and his opponents. He is then able to force his opponent to follow a "screenplay", but only according to what the skull itself declares. The scenarios can include anything from a Machiavellian plot, to a lovers' story, Preston doesn't know until the skull says. This ability is able to keep those with roughly equal and lower Spiritual Energy entrapped inside itself, but anyone whose competently stronger will be able to go "off script". Notes: By far the most dramatic Espada, Preston is closest with Espadas 2 and 7, and they can often be seen together. He often tries to hold his own community events, but struggles to compete with Nerris in this department. He does have a particular soft spot for the newest Espada, Space Kid, who only recently ascended to the rank as a standout amongst the lower ranks. This is primarily because he is no longer ranked lowest, something some higher numbers wouldn't hesitate to remind him of when they felt he was getting a bit uppity.

Septima Espada: Nerris

Rank: 7th Espada Tattoo Location: Back of right ear Hollow Hole Location: The centre of their chest Mask Fragment: Pointed tips of each of their ears Aspect of Death: Detachment Cero Colour: Violet Zanpakuto: Takes the form of a shortsword with a d12 dice shape for a guard - purple scabbard Release Command: "Make Believe!" Resurrección: Maestro Del Juego Description: Upon releasing their Zanpakuto, Nerris' clothes become ethereally violet, with a cape covered in stars and crescent moons and a pointed hat to the same effect. Their sword turns into a flail whose chain can extend indefinitely. When an enemy is hit with the flail, 1 of 12 different effects will randomly happen:

The enemy will be healed

A fiery explosion with engulf the opponent at the point of impact

An frosty jet with ice spikes will shoot from the point of contact

The enemy will be paralysed with an electric shock

The enemy will be blasted with a thunderous boom so powerful it can shatter rock

The enemy will be inflicted with minor poison that can slow them down and cause dizziness

A ringing will shoot through the enemies head, dazing them

The enemy will be blasted by a wave of invisible force

The point of contact will rot and decay

The flail will instantaneously grow to hundreds of times its size and then roll another outcome - the effect will be increased exponentially

The enemy and Nerris will swap places

The enemy will be ensnared in an ethereal cloak that will sap their Spiritual Energy

Notes: Nerris is closest with Espadas 8 and 2, and the three can often be found together talking about their passions. They have a good working relationship with the rest of the Espada but their interests and sense of humour is often lost on them. They are the most popular Espada among the lower ranks due to their fun-loving and optimistic nature, and Nerris often leads community events to make the Espada as a whole seem down to Earth.

Sexta Espada: Dolph

Rank: 6th Espada Tattoo Location: Upper Right Arm Hollow Hole Location: His upper left arm Mask Fragment: A white band around his tattoo, with a gap so the tattoo can be seen Aspect of Death: Hubris Cero Colour: Red Zanpakuto: Takes the form of a Small Sword with a curve coming off the guard with a golden hilt - white Scabbard Release Command: "Align." Resurrección: Infanterie Description: Dolphs release gives him a long white trench coat and ornate army officer's uniform. His Zanpakuto retains its previous shape. His mask fragment now covers his entire arm, in which he holds his sword. He is able to, from the point of his blade, summon infantry soldiers who will do as he thinks. He can generate an indefinite number of these soldiers but the more he makes the farther his Spiritual Energy is spread. These soldiers can all see through each others' fields of vision, as well as Dolphs, who is also able to see through their fields of vision. The soldiers are all also capable of using ceros and balas. The true strength of Dolph's ability is how he is able to coordinate with his infantry and corner opponents - their seamless cooperation and ability to share information lets him analyse and pinpoint weaknesses very quickly. He's also able to stay farther back from battle and send his soldiers in, though he will step in if the opponent is too strong for them to deal with, and simply use the soldiers to augment his own fighting and distract the opponent. Notes: Dolph is the Commander General of all non-Espada combatants - he oversees much of the day-to-day administrations of Los Noches and keeps track of much of the important data and goings on. He also has the greatest number of direct subordinates to make this as smooth as possible. In his downtime he likes to keep to himself and indulge in art, though he isn't opposed to mingling with the other lower half of the Espada from time to time.

Quinta Espada: Neil

Rank: 5th Espada Tattoo Location: Left side of the neck Hollow Hole Location: His heart Mask Fragment: A featureless skull that takes up the upper-right part of his face Aspect of Death: Obsession Cero Colour: Red Zanpakuto: He has augmented his Zanpakuto to take the form of a mechanical lynx, with the hilt being stored in the back - it is covered by a liquid metal which Neil can simply reach into in order to grasp and release his Zanpakuto. If necessary, the lynx itself can turn into a bladed weapon. Release Command: "Envision." Resurrección: Deus Ex Machina Description: Neil's release form coats him in a metallic armour that is stronger than most Arrancar's Hierro. Similar to the Quincy, Neil is able to absorb the Reiatsu from the area around him via plates on his body (5 vertical ones down the length of his back and two each on the tops and bottoms of his forearms). In the centre of his hollow hole, there now exists a tesseract, which acts as a transmuter for all the Reiatsu he's absorbed. In a pinch, Neil can convert his own Reiatsu and can even convert things he's made into Spirit Energy which can reabsorb back into his body to restore energy. After absorbing Reiatsu, and converting it, Neil can transmute it into whatever he can imagine. So long as he understands the machinations and chemical make-up of what he wants to make, he can make it. From bombs to life forms to automatons, even to spiritual attacks like lightning and fire, Neil is only limited by what he can absorb and his imagination. Notes: Neil is the most intelligent Hollow. His mind for science and strategy is second to none (Except for Dolph regarding the latter) and he doesn't mind reminding people of this. Though the Primera and Cero are not afraid to put him in his place if he gets too big for his britches. He's responsible for most, if not all, of the technological innovations in Las Noches and is well-liked by the masses for his contributions to everyday life, even if he only did these things to make himself more popular. He doesn't fancy getting much stronger, as he desperately wants to avoid his release becoming forbidden because his ability to transmute is often essential to his experiments.

Cuatro Espada: Ered

Rank: 4th Espada Tattoo Location: Throat Hollow Hole Location: Naval Mask Fragment: A curved and pointed diadem-like shape across her forehead Aspect of Death: Ambivalence Cero Colour: Dark Pink Zanpakuto: A switchblade Release Command: "Splatter" Resurrección: Rebelde Description: Ered's release form gives her an immense boost to speed, strength and durability. She is able to, upon seeing an ability once, able to nullify it by using her own Spirit Energy and weaving it in whatever way she needs to to make it come apart at the seams. For example, were a cero or kido spell to be used against her, she could observe its spiritual makeup and manifest the perfect counter to it to make it dissipate and fizzle. And if the ability is within her ability to recreate, she can. This makes her to only Arrancar known to have the ability to use Kido. Notes: Ered doesn't let anything get to her, though she does take some pride in being as highly ranked as she is. Though she won't admit that being the cut-off point for Forbidden Releases does bristle her now and then, especially when reminded of this by Nurf, and Max to a lesser degree. She gets on best with Espadas 0 and 7, feeling kindred with them as the only non-male Espada. She's definitely the most laid-back of the 10, and finds herself relating to the Primera the most, even if he can be an ass.

Tercera Espada: Nurf

Rank: 3rd Espada Tattoo Location: Back of right forearm Hollow Hole Location: Gut Mask Fragment: A horned Helmet that covers his forehead and the top of his head Aspect of Death: Rage Cero Colour: Red Zanpakuto: A Greatsword with a yellow hilt and and ivory guard - blue scabbard Release Command: "Cover and Shield!" Resurrección: Armadura Description: Nurf's release form triples his size and coats him in a thick, plated armour made from dense Hollow bone harder than any Hierro, making him extraordinarily difficult to damage. He is covered from head to toe, and he has red tassels on his wrists, ankes, and around his waist. These are made from Extremely fine Hollow bones and look like Hair, though touching them would be akin to touching razors. His Zakpakuto becomes a proportionally large Greatsword that can charge and fire ceros and pure Spirit Energy waves. He can also form a shield as durable as his armour should the need arise. Despite his immense size, Nurf is still extremely quick and agile, his plated armour bending in whatever way he needs it to. Final Attack - Arrasar: Nurf sacrifices all defences and dedicates all his Spiritual Energy to offense. His armour disintegrates and all his energy and effort goes into his blade. It shimmers a bright lights and becomes so hot that it melts everything around it, turning rock to lava and glassifying sand - when swung, the sword will release all his Spirit Energy in a single, massive blast that is said to be capable of killing higher ranked Espada, but renders Nurf unconscious and vulnerable after the fact. This level of power is the benchmark for what is considered a Forbidden Release - a release so powerful that it is forbidden in the Castle of the Espada: Los Noches. All Espada from this point on have Forbidden Releases. Notes: One of the more brutish and primal members of the Espada, Nurf represents the faction of Hollows who think that might-make-right and that strength should be ones sole determining factor in regards to worth. Though he has been softened on this front over the years as he's worked as part of a team more and more. He's not particularly close to any Espada, but doesn't despise any of them, though he does find numbers 2, 7, 8 and 9 irritating, and often seethes that he's below someone like the Segunda. He admires the Cero the most, as she is the prime example of what he believes, and feels that she vindicates a lot of his beliefs.

Segunda Espada: Harrison

Rank: 2nd Espada Tattoo Location: Right eyeball (usually covered with an eyepatch) Hollow Hole Location: Right palm Mask Fragment: A pair of flame-looking patches above his eyebrows Aspect of Death: Loss Cero Colour: Yellow Zanpakuto: Takes the form of a long black cane with a white tip Release Command: "Imagine!" Resurrección: El Mago Description: Upon releasing his Zanpakuto, Harrison dons a very understated release form: he looks every part the magician, with long black coat, a white shirt, a bowtie and a vest. His Zanpakuto itself becomes a shortened version of itself, resembling a wand. Firstly, from this wand, Harrison is able to fire the Gran Rey Cero without any of its prerequisite conditions - that being the need of the Espada's blood to fire it. It can also fire the Cero Oscuras without the need to charge it. As for Harrison's unique abilities: he is able to absorb Reiatsu based attacks and Reiatsu constructs into his wand and incorporate them into himself and his powerset. He is then able to bring them up to his own level of Spiritual Energy, usually increasing their potency given that he has a far above average Spiritual pressure. Pequeño: Harrison can point his wand at an inanimate object and shrink it the size of a grain of sand. Grande: Harrison can point his wand at an inanimate object and make it up to the size of Los Noches. Cerca Neagación: Harrison can trap beings of comparable and weaker Spiritual Energy in a localised Negación box which is nigh impossible to escape. Notes: If the two Espada ranked above him didn't have their specific abilities, Harrison would be the Cero Espada without a doubt. However, Harrison isn't the only one in that body. He and his brother were both within the Menos Grande that eventually became the Segunda Espada, but Harrison won out in the evolutionary battle, though this has left his brother to fester and moulder inside him. Occasionally he bangs on the walls but Harrison is good at keeping him inside. However, were they to ever swap places, the malice in the brother would be so great that it would force his and Harrison's body to undergo Segunda Etapa, making him the Cero Espada regardless of the abilities of the two above him. But this brother wouldn't have the kindness nor the consideration of Harrison, and would make for a much different Hueco Mundo. If this change were to take place, Harrison's tattoo would change to be a "0" in his left eye. As he is, Harrison is closest with Espadas 7 and 8, as they can appreciate his showmanship. He generally gets along well with the rest as well, but finds the Primera and Tercera intimidating. He also likes the newest addition to the Espada, Space Kid, whose rose to the rank after the recent death of previous Primera Espada.

Primera Espada: Max

Rank: 1st Espada Tattoo Location: Chest and sternum Hollow Hole Location: Below navel Mask Fragment: A pair of pointed lines that go from the bottom of his cheeks, down his neck and to his chest Aspect of Death: Stubbornness Cero Colour: Black Zanpakuto: A glaive with a white handle Release Command: "Get on with it" Resurrección: Chupavidas Description: Max's released form renders hum shirtless with black markings trailing around his neck, sides, chest and arms, as well as under his eyes and down his cheeks. His Glaive grows in size and becomes more ornate in design. The blade of Chupavidas becomes like black obsidian, sharp on both sides with a curved end. When the blade strikes someone, it opens both a physical and spiritual wound - not only does it bleed profusely, the blood unable to clot, it also bleeds their spiritual energy from them. Max is then able to absorb this spiritual energy into himself, keeping himself strong and building an immunity to the abilities of his opponent. As the Primera Espada, Max has a gargantuan amount of Spiritual Energy and a suffocating Spiritual Pressure. His basic cero is the strongest of all the Espada, taking the form of the Cero Oscuras, an ability that all other Espada must release their Zanpakuto to go into. Segunda Etapa: Max is the only Espada capable of Segunda Etapa, a second release. This is what puts him in the position of Primera, without it he would likely be ranked 4th or 5th. While in his Segunda Etapa, Max's entire body becomes black from head to toe, with white marking on his chest, back, and vertically up his cheeks - his hair also becomes much longer and turns white as well. Chupavidas becomes one with him, his fingers becoming glassy and razor sharp to the point that he's able to damage nearly anything, carving through even Nurf's Hierro with ease. In this form, his base speed, strength, and stamina increase several times over, as does his ability to bleed and absorb spiritual energy. Notes: He's considered the true leader of the Espada. When things are serious, he's the one dolling out orders and organising people as the Cero Espada has zero proclivity for any such thing. He prefers to chill out and only train to keep himself sharp enough to stay at number 1. He likes this as, in normal times, this dissuades most from asking him to do anything. He's closest with Espadas 0 and 5, doesn't really like Espadas 2, 7 and 8 as he finds them too flashy and peppy.

Cero Espada: Nikki

Rank: 0th Espada Tattoo Location: Left cheek (covered badly with bandage) Hollow Hole Location: Sternum Mask Fragment: Pointed coverings on her temples and across her forehead Aspect of Death: Recklessness Cero Colour: Turquoise Zanpakuto: A bandage-wrapped dagger with a frayed green hilt and broken guard Release Command: "Run Wild!" Resurrección: Salvaje Description: Nikki's release form sees her become more reptilian in appearance - she gains a scaly texture across much of her skin, her nails become pointed, she grows a tail of pure muscle, and her teeth sharpen. Nikki doesn't possess any intricate abilities like the other Espada, her power is pure, unabashed, raw strength. She has the most overwhelming and powerful Spiritual Pressure of any Hollow, even able to contest Max when he enters his Segunda Etapa. Her Hierro while released becomes the hardest thing in Hueco Mundo, and her mere presence causes Spirit Particles to behave erratically around her. Even Espadas ranked 6 and below find it hard to stay conscious when she's released her Zanpakuto. Notes: Nikki likes to keep her tattoo "covered" as she believes her opponents will flee if they know she's the strongest Hollow and she won't get to fight at all. She constantly pesters for Max to spar with her at full power, but he's usually not at all bothered to do so. She's also asked for Neil to make things to make her weaker for sparring, but he has a hard time getting a grasp of the breadth of her Spiritual Pressure. She's friendly with everyone, but is closer to Espadas 1, 4 and 5.

[seostudios]

GEEK CHARMING: MARK LEE

pairing: mark lee x fem!reader genre: rom-com, fluff, angst, comedy info: high school!au, film-club-kid!mark, diva!reader, non-idol!au, mentions of other members (principle!sicheng, car!jeno, student-body-president!doyoung,  film-club-kid!johnny, film-club-kid!jungwoo) synopsis: You are Yonsei Academy's peachy princess, having the best boyfriend, the most fashionable friends of mos, always updated with the latest trends in fashion. But you come face-to-face with your own personal creature-self-professed film nerd, Mark Lee, when you scratch your Holli crystal-embellished ROSANTICA purse. In exchange for her purse repair she let Mark film her for his high school popularity documentary. Reluctantly, you let low-class Mark into your A-list universe, and you are stunned to discover that nerds can be pretty awesome at times. However when your pro-claimed, boyfriend charming prince dumps you flat, your life and social status drops. Would you still win Spring Formal Queen at Yonsei Academy now? Will Mark win the Annual Film Festival?  Could even you put together the pieces to bring back your happy-ever-after, with Mark 's help? warnings: swearing, mention of alcohol word count: 7.5k tag-list: @count-your-shadows​ @jimjamjaemin @minaczennie @renjunvinates @pervieve @rjoonie @marksrainbow@commentgirl @rarestgrace @08skrr @bangtanismylifw @traashytae @superheros-and-others @johnnysnipple @00-baejin-05

a/n: this is the longest writing piece i’ve written yet on this blog and it’s inspired by a disney movie?! behold geek charming starring mark lee. your local film club nerd entering the school’s prissy princess’s life but did that make her finally turn back from her arogant ways or did it make her more of a bitch!! >_< i’m actually so happy

"I'm proud to announce this year's Annual Yonsei Spring Formal Queen Kang-" 

"Hello? Y/n? Snap out of it." Your train of thought quickly crashed as you direct your attention to the student body president, Kim Doyoung. "Y-Yes?" You ask, straightening your posture. "I asked if you are applying for Spring Formal Queen?" He put a question to, waiting for a response. Viewing as you turn to Sooyoung, who delivers you a pen, jerking it out her hand, you grab the clipboard from the plastic table in front of you, signing your signature on to the paper. Making sure your sign was large enough to cover most slots of the page. 

"Toodles," You sang to Doyoung before you and the girls walk away. “Next!”

The three of you strut down the narrow hallway, Sooyoung and Yuna trailing behind you, "This year is going to be our year ladies," you look over on both sides to see them smiling wide grins enveloping onto their lips, as they stopped to walk at your pace, "Once I'm crowned Queen of the Spring Formal, it's guaranteed I'm the well-liked, prettiest and just overall the best here at Yonsei," you finish halting your steps at the door frame of the cafeteria. Looking over your shoulder, you make a gagging motion with your finger to the pack of hungry students. In front of you three, you decide to walk through the tables showing the two lingering behind how you'd win the students' heart if you already haven't.

Walking by a table with miniature stage set-ups, you see three students huddled together revising a script "Drama kids," You start "They'll be an easy vote seeing how they just adore my dramatic gestures," Making your way down a couple more tables "Film club nerds..." You start to roll your eyes coming up with a reason why they would vote for you. "You're like a movie star to them," Sooyoung quickly interjected watching as your flip your head to pose.

You stride down some more, "I can't believe you used to be friends with Shin Ryunjin." Yuna throws in as you walk by the stage crew table. "I know right," Sooyoung agrees. "It's a burden I carry, but at least I traded up to you two." You say earning beaming smiles on both sides.

"Y/n!" Someone called, skipping happily towards you. It was Jisoo. "I got bangs since you said they would suit me! I couldn't agree more, thanks!" She beams, "Of course, just want the best for you!" You smile, reciprocating the energy she gave off until she walks off to her friends. "See? People know I care. This will be a piece of cake."  You said before stopping in your tracks to see, Jung Wonyoung; your biggest competition at Yonsei Academy. Yuna and Sooyoung see you as someone superior to them (right?). As a higher-ranked princess here at Yonsei you shouldn't let such a wretched thing like Jung Wonyoung get to you, especially with that tacky head-band she decided to pair with her uniform. But what good candidate for Spring Formal Queen would you be without a little competition, winning was a given but winning unopposed is an embarrassment. The girls notice your stink-eye towards the table and rather than letting yourself get angered in front of your girls, you oppose chatting in the most unaffected way you could muster up. "Whatever, we all understand who's gonna be crowned Queen, why let someone who pairs blue polka-dot headbands with navy plaid uniforms get in my way?" They hum in response as you two make your way to the popular table.

Yuna and Sooyoung took their seats in front of Jihoon, your lovely, amazing, perfect boyfriend, as you walked around to sit next to him. "Hi baby," He said, which sounded scripted but, you paid no attention to since he was your prince charming! His looks over-looking his flaws, you leave a small kiss on his cheek before digging into your meal.

You are finished your meal, getting up and walking to the bin to throw. On your way back you- BAM! Right on the chest, you are greeted with the expired milk the canteen provides having it spill all over your chest,  drenched. "Ugh!" You cry, a boy in front of you with his lunch tray now on the floor, his hair scruffed up with a school-provided bow-tie. "You- You geek!" You bark as he is taken aback with his words, but he isn't afraid. "You are so gro-oss!" You shout emphasizing the word gross he's already tired of your shit and it hasn't even been a minute since your first encounter. Without hesitating he relates "Actually gross is one syllable-", "I don't care just go- just go read a book or something, you nerd!" You argue not wanting to hear what he has to say before marching away out the cafeteria.

The boy watches as you make your way out the commissary. He kicks his tray to the side, walking back to his table with a glint of annoyance struck onto him.

"Dark Victory of course. It stars Bette Davis, George Brent and most importantly Humphrey Bogart from Casablanca." Jungwoo said swiftly to the two geeks in front of him. Johnny, the only one of the three who could properly score a date with the popular kids started a debate on which film from the late 1930s to the early '50s was le Meilleur which is French for  'the best'. "Did you forget The Great Lie? Probably one of Bette Davis's only good films since she has co-starred with the one and only Mary Astor" He argues speedily. "Hello??" Nayeon says budding in between, "A Stolen Life will remain the best film from the 40s, 50s, and possibly forever I will and could go on about-", "Looks like Film Club's assistant president finally showed up," Johnny says cutting off whatever nonsense Nayeon probably had to add to their already ridiculous conversation. "Sorry, I got stuck in traffic with Yonsei's little princess," Mark says with an obvious eye-roll.

"Watch your words Markie,"  Jungwoo quickly told him. "Her dad-"

"Who funds 75% of the school!" Johnny added, Jungwoo turned to his side giving an annoyed stare before looking back in front of him to Mark. "Her dad who funds 75% of the school. Will ruin you if he gets notice of his daughter's uniform being spoiled with the cafeteria's milk from a film geek." He finishes sipping on his water. Nayeon turned to him, "He can get our club shut down within minutes Mark, watch how you talk to her." 

"So what? Like they'll even come close to us." Mark scoffs, "They're like a whole new alien species." The two in front of them nod, but Nayeon is a little too distracted with the tuna sandwich her mom packed her. "You guys is it just me or is the tuna moving..." Nayeon says slapping Marks forearm softly to grab his, then everyone else's attention. Just before she did Mark's attention was already taken by something- or should I say someone else. "Hey Ryunjin," He quickly says waving towards the girl walking by towards the exit, she turns around to wave before heading out. That's where Johnny inquired, "Face it. You and Ryunjin" He brings his hands up and around to make an 'x' with it, "Never gonna happen." He says watching his shoulders sag slightly, "You've been crushing on her since what? 8th grade, and having numerous occasions to ask her out and not doing so. You missed your shot awhile back unless we had a time machine you and name are a no-go." He finished now invested in what Nayeon's sandwich was up to.

"I-I'd go out with you!" Nayeon says dropping the sandwich into Johnny's hands. "Look, I don't even have time for dating why would I even ask Ryunjin out? I'm cool with being known by her. Plus there's no way I'd do it now, the school board's Annual Film festival is only a little over a month away, I'm our school's candidate how do I mess up because I was distracted by some girl with purple highlights" He said flat-out ignoring Nayeon. "That's true," Johnny says leaning in, "And you are our school best shot at bringing home that huge ass trophy, what's the other prize again?" Jungwoo said agreeing before taking a bite of his pasta. "It's a summer getaway to a Hollywood film camp, I gotta win," Mark said signing the application forms he had in his pocket. "I'm supposed to be a cinematic genius, so what better to do than murder the competition and bring home a trophy after going on a getaway trip to Hollywood to better my knowledge I'm gonna be like the Frank Capra or Victor Fleming around here!"

Johnny grabs Marks's application form to read the requirements, "You have to document something and make it worthwhile..." He read aloud, "What's the documentary about?" Jungwoo asked, "I have no idea." Mark said before snatching the paper. "He has no idea...." Jungwoo whispered almost inaudible in disappointment. Mark writes down ideas on the back of the paper while discussing it with Jungwoo, "So," Johnny starts, "Wanna go out with me?" He said. "No." Nayeon answers strictly as if she was waiting to reject the boy who's attention was back onto her tuna sandwich.

"Anyway, I gotta go hand this into Principle Dong." Mark said witnessing the awkward interaction before getting up and leaving the vicinity

He was playing with the hourglass on his office desk when a knock on the door was heard. "Come in!" He chirped and in came a student. "Ah, Mark." He sang motioning the boy to sit down while he took his legs off the desk. "Came to finally hand me those application forms I've been begging your little club to hand over I see." He said noticing the paper in hand. "Haha, Yea," Mark said avoiding eye contact as he brought his hand up to hand the paper. "Can't wait to see what one of my star students has prepared for the Festival." He said opening the folded paper reading aloud, "A documentary about how lunch ladies keep old food fresh, and our bellies full," His voice started off strong going quieter word by word, looking up at him. "Yeah, you know how the lunch ladies always give us the same green looking sauce every day, or the same batch of oatmeal cookies from months back, every time we sink our teeth into it. It tastes fresh! I've always wanted to know and I think it'd be a cool thing to find out" Mark your blabbering, Is what Principle Dong wanted to tell him so he'd shut up. He didn't want a lame documentary about something to make his school look bad in to be put out in front of dozens of other schools. "Mark." He stops the boy, "Your artistic vision is lunch ladies?" He asked. "Yes, NO! But yes? I'm struggling I can't come up with a good topic that's not gonna bore students and teachers." Mark said. Mr.Dong could see how strongly Mark expressed his struggles with a mere school contest, he probably wants that prize more than anything. He knows he shouldn't help him, since it'd be unfair but he wasn't gonna let him put out something that can ruin his reputation. "Stop playing safe Mark. Challenge yourself by widening your perspective maybe instead of documenting lunch and stuff that you know will bore people and try going after something to catch their attention." Mark's eyes slowly open as he looks up to Principle Dong nodding understandingly "Alright I get it, I get it" He says before clasping his hands together. Mr.Dong sees his improvement and instead of picking another student to compete he can rely on Mark who's now being ushered out the room by him, "Now don't forget I need a new proposal by tomorrow." He said before shutting his door.

"Dude I know exactly what Mr.Dong was getting at,"  Jungwoo tells him. Their school day was over about two hours ago and now they were at their part-time job, at Yong's, a popular little cafe in the middle of a jam-packed shopping mall. "Something challenging...like I don't know maybe a certain diva you encountered during lunch?" His eyes lit up, looking over his shoulder to look at a grinning Jungwoo who flipped his non-existent long flocks of hair like he was the diva. "You're a genius!" Mark said now ecstatic, but quickly going back to his little stressed self, "No, but then how am I gonna convince her?" He said placing his hand up under his chin. 

The bell rings by the entrance, which meant there was a costumer quickly brushing off crumbs from a cupcake he snuck in he turns around to see his proposal for the Film Festival itself. You looked different, you were wearing a pair of plaid pants with a tightly fitted black turtleneck, accessorized by dangling earrings, a heart pendant necklace and a simple gold chain. Your face was quick to cringe after seeing who was about to take your order, "Ugh It's you." You spit looking him up and down, he doesn't look too bad out of school you thought before handing one of the many many bags of clothes to your father's butler. "Here Minho, get a seat for us, please," You tell him watching him rush to one of the many empty seats. "Hi, Welcome to Yong's what can I get for you today?" Mark asked, tone sounding uninterested. "Shouldn't you be happy to see me? I am a miraculous sight for sore eyes," You said getting a half-suppressed laugh from Mark. "Anyway, I would like a grande green tea latte. one pump classic, nonfat, 6 enormous scoops of matcha, 195 degrees, and ABSOLUTELY NO FOAM." You finish, right before starting back up again, "And,  I would like a venti caramel frappe with extra caramel drizzle." You finish finally reaching into your purse to pull out your (dad's) card. When you go to hand the card you see not only Mark but also Jungwoo looking at you, mouths open, jaws almost touching the floor. "Did you not get it? Do I have to repeat my order or something?" You say with a hint of irritation, "Ah- No. Sorry it'll  be 15.50" Mark said averting his gaze from you.

After paying you, tell Mark, "bring it to my table will you?" before walking off to Minho.

"Dude go," Now's Mark's time to actually shine. He makes sure the drinks are perfect knowing ruining them could ruin his entire attempt.  He strides along between the tables finally towards your booth handing you both your drinks. But Mark just stood there, you motioned with your hand as you would to stray animals. "Why are you just standing there, go do your job?" You said already bothered, "Nope, I have a proposal for you.", "Whatever it is, No." You said not even wanting to hear what he's got to say, "I'm gonna ask anyway." He said towering over you and you seated butler. "I want you to star in my movie for the Film Festival this year," You look up, surprised an obvious smile dancing over your lips. "What's it about?" You asked still not sure, "You! I'll have to document your lifestyle til the Spring Formal." Mark said. You bit your lip not knowing to go through or not, but it was a nice ego boost, having someone film your daily life, letting everyone know you got the best friends and most fashionable friends, a prince-charming and a purse worth more than your teacher's salary. Jung Wonyoung, who's also a runner up for Spring Formal Queen having the football team paint her posters and make pins but what's that compared to a freaking movie documenting your life...Winning this year is gonna be easier than expected. "Deal," You said, Mark, cheers a little too loud before bringing his hand out to shake, you reject kindly before letting him know "Don't look like a freaking weirdo at school though. We can start tomorrow at lunch," You finish before seeing him run off to Jungwoo.

Finally home being able to rest from begin outrageously gorgeous today you skip down to your bedroom, hoping into the shower then changing into a more comfortable attire. As of now you were in the middle of your bed doing some homework before the phone went off, it was a notification from Ryunjin, she tagged you in an Instagram post of you and her when you were younger. Your mom took that photo on the first day of grade school back when you and Ryunjin were inseparable. Mom died later that same year and it was heartbreaking but you were stronger than that you knew you shouldn't pity yourself, or have others pity you simply because she passed away, she wouldn't want you to be like that. 

It was a brand new day and Mark was in the principle's office, don't worry this star is nowhere near in trouble when Mark hands in his proposal. "This is marvellous, I can see the growth Mark. Please keep me updated,"  Mr.Dong said watching Mark skip away cheerfully to lunch, where he'd meet you. Fridays at Yonsei were known as the only days of the week students didn't have to wear uniforms to school which often made them pull together a swagger (Johnny's words not mine) outfit for the rest of the school to see. Mark wasn't one to dress up on these days so today he decided to wear his black and blue striped t-shirt paired with black denim jeans,  his black hair parted in the middle this time. He did not look like a film kid. He looked like he belonged to sit beside you, "Hey" you were busy opening up your lunch when he stood behind you with his camera. "Oh-" In all honesty, you thought he'd be wearing baggy trousers and a worn-out shirt but you were filled with joy to see him looking presentable to you. "Hey, sit." You said to him, "I'm gonna just cut to the chase and record..." He said fiddling with the camera for a minute too long, "A few rules before you point that thing in my face," you started as he lifted his face to see you, "Absolutely no filming my left side, no hanging a minute later after filming I need you out of my sight when I hear you say cut." You were strict but not so sure if you meant it. He gave you a thumbs up before clicking record.

"So, Y/n why are you so determined to be Queen at the annual Spring Formal" Mark asked zooming in and out for a few seconds finally focusing, "Because it ensures permanent popularity and I can't fall from my throne can I?" You ask, "Aren't you already popular?" He asked looking up from the camera confused, "Companies at the top of the list don't need to advertise but they do it because..?" , "They need to stay at the top of the list," Mark says understanding where you were getting at. "Exactly, it's not easy to be popular like me nowadays," You say placing your hair behind your ear, "So not easy being like Y/n" Yuna said, Sooyoung agreeing. "Girls not now, this is my time-" , "Actually if they wanna add something they-", "Being popular isn't something you can just fool around with, it's like royalty to us hormonal teens. It's not easy, I gotta live up to these beauty standards, and be on my A-Game whenever." You finish. Not knowing what to say next you smile at the camera hoping Mark would do something- anything but suddenly your knight in shining armor is here- Jihoon takes a seat next to you. "Oh Babe!" You say kissing his cheek; making sure it was on camera. "Only 10's can get date 10's like Jihoon, we're perfect for each other!" You express, but Mark snickers to the scene unfolding behind you watching Yuna and Sooyoung roll their eyes at that certain sentence. "Are you coming to my game today?" Jihoon asked, before noticing Mark. "Why is there a fucking geek near us," He barks but you quickly come to the save. "Ji, we went through this. Mark here is going to be making a movie on how I win Spring Formal Queen." You say, gripping his hand slightly so he could get the memo. "He better not show up to my games", "Never, just eat." You said as he glares at the boy. "Alright, and cut." Mark said before getting up, "Thank you." 

"So...you don't have a job?" Mark asked filming you going through a bunch of clothes, you shake your head no. "You just shop til' you drop huh?" He asked amused at your simple lifestyle, "Of course, now don't come in here this is a school film." You said going into the change room. "Here she comes," You cheered (for yourself) minutes after changing into a short black skirt which was most definitely breaking dress code and a tight white long sleeve which had a deep cut in the back. Mark's mouth is slightly agape seeing you, you were gorgeous indeed he thought. "So tell me what it's like to be...." He trails off trying to find a synonym for the popular " Amazing? Well, there are levels of popularity, at the top moi, and at the bottom..you." You said giving him a grisly glare."Ou! Love these!" You acclaim to a pair of black heels, "Hate these." You say to a set of hot pink ones beside them. "I have two of these!" You declare cheerfully at a pair of white heels which shimmered with sparkles; definitely your style. "How do people get popular?" Mark asked, ignoring your admiration over ridiculously cruel footwear. "Well some are just born with it," You say then go in closer, covering your mouth in a whisper action, "But some gotta follow the diva's around for it." You said, clearly talking about Sooyoung and Yuna.

"Gonna try these on, out Geek," you said to Mark who was almost walking in there with you. "Oh- right sorry!" He said now moving over to your two (deemed) friends. "So, since she's not here... " Mark started  getting the camera up to focus on the two, "Do you have anything about Y/n you can spill?" He asked, "Like, does your popularity only come from following her around," Yuna was quick to fire back, "We may not be as popular as Y/n, but we do know some secrets..." She trails off letting Sooyoung start. "Like when Y/n doesn't get her way, she has the biggest hissy fit,", "And Jihoon is only with her cause he likes the attention, you know to she makes him feel better about himself," Mark couldn't understand how your two announced friends were fundamentally spilling everything about you to an insignificant camera and film nerd. "Behold!" You squeal opening the curtains, to reveal your outfit (which admittedly, had Mark's jaw drop). You were some-what dress shopping for the Spring Formal and you saw this magnificent dress, a silk orchid dress which fell all the way down to your knees frilling at the bottom. The right amount of skin and the right about of puff! You thought; pairing it up with black heels, "God, I look fantastic. What do you think?" You ask the three in front of you, "You-I think you look great!" Mark said the camera to his side, "Film!" You shouted suddenly, as he ponderously brought the camera back up. "Ladies?" You ask the two behind Mark, "You look so good!", "Agreed." They say. The four of you voted to get smoothies before departing and you were ever so willing to pay for all four, "So popular people can't hang out with... nerds?"  He asked filming you sip on the mango smoothie, "Of course we don't," He moved on, placing the camera down to take a sip out of his smoothie thinking there wasn't too much to embellish on, although you continue. "It's better that way, no interference. Why would a dime like me hang out with a nickel?"  You asked oh so wisely which made Mark mumble a WTF. "See, if you two were to go out... The school would go mad as a hatter and it's not gonna end well on both ends." Yuna adds you look to her in the seat beside you, giving her a warning look to 'not talk this is my movie' as she sinks in her seat. Mark sees the silence as an opportunity to ask a question from his cue cards filled with questions that would have something engaging, after finding something to grab not only your attention but the audience about to watch this's attention, he springs the question on you. What if you don't win Spring Formal Queen? "What if I don't? That's not a question, of course, I will? If I don't my life will be over!" You said sliding your drink aside stressing the word over. 

It was in the late hours of the evening and Mark was confined inside his bedroom, editing and stressing. How was this a high school documentary? She only cares about herself, 'fashionable' friends, and prince charming, in which two out of the three didn't even care about her. Maybe she's like this because of what it's like at home? He thought questioning about your at-home life was. Does she have a deep heart-aching past which makes her act like such a nuisance? Nah who am I kidding this isn't some movie. His night was mostly spent, under his blanket with a laptop screen shining into his eyes (probably the reason why he has contacts). 

Saturdays were beach days. That's what Jihoon always said. You'd meet him at the beach where all the (popular) kids from school would go on Saturday mornings, not to sun-bathe but to attend the main volleyball matches would be held. The teams were unauthorized, but for the student's entertainment, our Yonsei's official volleyball team would pick Saturday mornings for a friendly event against Joongdong High. You texted Mark beforehand to meet you there which took him a minute to agree on, but only if he brought his friends, Johnny and Jungwoo. "Hey, you're late!" You tell the boy who's jogging towards you with his tiny camera, you look behind him to see a taller fellow, "And you brought  friends..." You said uninterested and rather irritated, "I'm gonna help Mark, so you look extra beautiful today Y/n!" He quickly said chiming in; his effort in pleasing you was extraordinary. You give him a small smile before nodding. You look beside Mark to see a familiar face, "Johnny!" You cheer before embracing the boy, "Hey Queen Bee" He joked, as you slap his arm jokingly. You and Johnny's dads are business partners, which often made you two spend time together growing up so, in your world, Johnny was your only nerd. Mark just awkwardly stands the before Johnny scatters away with Jungwoo for soda cans, but Mark follows you. Mark was busy filming your little interactions with Jihoon before catching a glimpse of his Ryunjin. He thinks to himself, I can put the camera down for a second, before jogging to Ryunjin, who was getting a soda from the vending machine. "Hey," He said awkwardly. "Hi Mark, didn't come across to you being a beach guy..." She responded laughing at his getup in the hot climate. "OH, I'm just filming for Y/n." He stated catching 'O' shape form on her lips before they start talking casually. You back away, momentarily from the crowd to give yourself a little break, being gorgeous is a workout, you thought, before snickering. You look to your right to see Mark in the distance talking to a brown-haired girl, noticing the purple highlights, hidden between her locks, you realize it's not some rando,  it's Ryunjin. I have to get him out of there. You don't really think before grabbing a spare volleyball to flinging it over the crowd to Mark's head. Running over you ignore the girl aiding Mark, "Are you okay? You look okay. We don't have time for breaks." You said sternly before grabbing his arm and sprinting as fast as you could in a pencil skirt and orange stilettos.

"God, your so lucky I was your knight in shining armour out there. Saved you from your utterly wretched flirting." You tell Mark posing for the camera he set. "Flirting? What, no. Why would I flirt with Ryunjin?" He demanded panicked that you might do something knowing you. "Oh please, your crush on Ryunjin is way more obvious than Wonyoung's fake gold." You said adjusting the skirt you had on. "Can't believe I used to be her friend," You mutter, which he caught onto quickly, "Wait, what?", "Yea, in elementary but look at us now, way out of her league, she's almost at the bottom of the list with her, 'I'm in a rock band' getup." You spit before posing dramatically. 

You sit at the bench in front of the now, empty parking lot. Jihoon ditched you for 'pizza with the boys' to celebrate their victory along with the two friends who just needed to tag along for the sole purpose to tell everyone they hang out with the volleyball team during their free time. "Hey," Mark said sitting down beside you, "They left me and took my car." You say recalling Jihoon asking for your keys to drive to the pizza place. "Now I'm stuck here, do you have a car Mark, let's go somewhere." You whined quietly watching as Mark put his camera away, grabbing your hand to bring you away. "This is Jeno." Mark says, pointing to his Silver 1965 Oldsmobile, "He's getting old but isn't vintage a style you princesses adore?" He asked, chuckling before telling you to get in. "Spot on Film Geek!" You praise, before hopping in. You notice from the corner of your eye a group of kids from Yonsei walking by, you duck down, hiding from them "What are you doing now?" Mark asked confused, before noticing the batch walking down and taking a turn. "Okay Miss Popular, they're gone." He said a little insecure this time giving you a dry laugh. You notice from the corner of your eye a group of kids from Yonsei walking by, you duck down, hiding from them "What are you doing now?" Mark asked confused, before noticing the batch walking down and taking a turn. "Okay Miss Popular, they're gone." He said a little insecure this time giving you a dry laugh. The car failed Mark this time, and not wanting to break the already broken car he tells you "Let's bus it, this car isn't going to start anytime soon,", "What? No way I'm going inside a jam-packed van just for it to stop a block away from my place!" You argue. "God why don't you quit this diva act and just face were gonna walk back which is probably a little over two hours I know you won't ever do or take a thirty-minute bus ride which you should consider knowing your so-called prince took.", "What did you just call me? A diva? Hello?? I'm a star in your film!" You bark, now furious at the boy, "No. You are a stuck-up, arrogant, annoying brat who's in my film." He fired-back. No remorse at all. "You're-You're fired!" You shout. "No, this is my film you don't do the firing!" He said back, "Don't care, I'm the star here and I say you're fired!" You finish before he grabs your wrist, "Oh please I'm the only one who demands are going to be valid and I say you're fired." Mark finished walking away from the bus-stop down the street, leaving you alone and forced to call a cab.

Mark thinks he hit jack-pot, finally getting rid of you. "It's not too late to change projects right?" He tells himself on that gloomy Monday morning, combing his hair with his fingers in the mirror before going downstairs to eat breakfast. Here he was, eating a bagel in Principle Dong's office. "I'm afraid you can't Mark," He said towards the boy. 

"Hello! Yonsei!! It's me your future Spring Queen! Y/n! You want to better the halls of Yonsei? Vote for me, I'm sweet just like candy!!" You shout, the crowd you have in front of you, this was your way of campaigning. "Out of my way," Wonyoung says, grabbing the mic, to advertise and get people to vote for her. As per usual, she one-ups her opponent; you. "Oh my god, Y/n thanks for the advice on flirting, I finally got Wooseok to go with me for Spring Formal," Jisoo said, from behind making you turn with a happy smile, "So I can count on your vote?" Her smile faded quick, she mumbles a little something, before stuffing her face with the homemade cookie's Wonyoung provided, quick to run away.

It was almost the end of the school day and you were stuck in literature recapping on how to write proper paragraphs before your end of the year essay. You notice a semi-familiar face, Nayeon. You know she and Johnny are friends, so she must be close to Mark, you thought. You were gonna ask her to ask Mark to meet you but you'd rather not bring more geeks into your already geek-filled life. You read her phone screen that illuminated brightly in the dim-lit classroom. 'The Fifth Element is having a showing tonight,' A group chat called 'Hollywood's Trash' sent in, Mark would definitely be there. Writing down on a sticky note the address provided thankfully you slip it into your binder focusing your attention back on the lesson, this time with a smile.

You and probably the only other person you'd allow in your bedroom with you is Minho. He's been your family's butler for a little over 25 years now and has been with since day 1. Aiding since you unintentionally fell and cut a mark after attempting to bike without training wheels to strengthening you with your mother's passing. Minho was with you when he dropped you off at the very, very empty cinema. "They're probably inside, just wait until it's over which is..." He looks at his wrist, to his watch. "Another 10 minutes," He gives you an assuring smile before reaching over to open the door. "Knock em' dead," He tells you, before driving off. You sit on the sidewalk ledge with a soda in hand, sipping on it here and there until you began to see people walk out. Standing up, you pat down your skirt and look for anyone that resembles Mark. You see a short boy, black-parted hair and a graphic t-shirt paired with baggy trousers. "Mark!" You shout, he looks behind him to see your petite figure run up to him, "Hey," He said confused. "What are you doing right now?" you asked him eagerly, seeing him turn to Nayeon, Johnny and Jungwoo. "Yong's, we are totally digging sugar cookies," Jungwoo said before Mark could open his mouth, you smile leaning in a little closer to the odd trio,  "Mind if I tag along?", "No! Feel free." Johnny said, grabbing your forearm to drag you along. 

"God how can you guys drink those dreadful things," Nayeon said watching Johnny and Jungwoo gulp down smoothies. You and Mark already finished your drinks a while back, "Nayeon you do know, smoothies have a health glow about them? They’re often a fundamental part of cleanses, and they’re ubiquitous at health food stores and health-centric restaurants. And the smoothie trend is still going strong. Workout studios serve them up post-class, dietitians preach their powers and fit celebrities tout their nutritional prowess. The fruits used at Yong's are fresh and have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits with low-sugar, employee's here have also learnt to provide fibre, calcium and vitamins A, C and K they add dark leafy greens like spinach or kale. "Y/n what the fuck??" Nayeon said. You stare at her dumbfounded... Have you said the wrong thing? Were you wrong?

It's still the early hours of twilight, and you are still wandering with Mark and his friends, roaming around the lit-up town. "So, since when did you get so smart?" Mark asked. The two of you were walking delayed to get a chance to talk after your dispute. "What do you mean I've always been like this," You said, a little offended he thought that low of your academic abilities. He mutters a 'wow' before continuing "Well I thought pretty diva's like you only cared about popularity and crowns," He said poking fun at our egotistic side. You gasp before laughing, "So you think I'm pretty?" You sneakily stated which made the boy stutter like crazy, he couldn't answer back without the rosy tint on his cheek growing so you continued on with a little heartfelt apology in hopes he'd continue the documentary. "Look I was hoping you'd let me hire you back to finish this stupid film," You started smiling eye-to-eye hopefully, "You mean, I could hire you back?" He said. "Yes, whatever. Just continuing this- whatever" you pointed at him, then back at you repeating his vigorously "whatever this is.", "Only under one condition, you being a little bossy duchess is not gonna be happening, I like the cool nerdy Y/n I saw at Yong's," He said, which you quickly fired back with 'I'm not a nerd!' You accept your mini defeat against Film Club boy, letting him know you need a ride home before anything. "Alright, get in."

"Wha-What are you doing?!" Mark asked, laughing so much he almost dropped to the floor. You invited him inside after he agreed to drop you off at home. "Making cookies duh!!" You cheer, grabbing all the chocolatey goods from the cabinet. He's quick to pull out his camera and hit record, "Welcome to my Y/n's baking show!" You sang, adding a  trumpet noise (with your mouth). "So, what's the new with you and Ryu?" You ask, sitting beside Mark diving into a very, very unhealthy mess you call a cookie, with Mark. "Nothing really, how are you and Jihoon." You sigh to look over at the spacious living room, Mark understands your silence and understands your having trouble in paradise. "How about I ask some of her band mates- who worship me. If they can ask Ryu to go on a date with you" You suggest to Mark with a soft smile. He looks at you, thoughtfully, "I got someone else on my mind nowadays..." He tells you with a crimson red colour visible on his cheeks. "I-I should get going now it's nearly ten." He says going to grab his things, you nod and walk towards the front door. Maybe some nerds are cool, you thought, before Mark went out. 

3 weeks. You've spent the last three weeks with Mark Lee. Getting to know him, documenting your- I mean our movie. He's been warming up to you, and you've been less of what he liked to call you; diva. You've started flaking out on some dates with the girls, just to film with Mark, you two have learnt more about him through the movie nights you spent over at your place after filming. He's really cool and you're grateful you stopped clowning around to know him.  Today you went over to Mark's place extra early since you wanted to give him a makeover. His dorky striped tees were getting old and you'd like to see him rock the nice clothes in his closet you knew he had. "Wear this, this and OH! Make sure to put these to use." You say handing him a pair of khaki pants, a yellow shirt, patch denim jacket and a beanie to wear. It was beautiful to see him actually clean up for once, he almost made you fall for his looks. "If Ryunjin doesn't ask you out, don't mind if I do," You said laughing "Aren't you too busy with Jihoon to look after me?" He said bluntly laughing before stopping to look for a reaction which was nowhere to be found, "Jihoon broke up with me because apparently, I'm a part of the geek team now!" You said chuckling, a hidden sadness underneath. "Hey, don't worry I've been a member of the geek squad for about my whole life I think we roll far better than rich snobs-", "Hey! Take that back I was one of them" You said punching his arm. "Don't worry you're good," He said laughing it off. To be honest his feelings for Ryunjin over the past few weeks have now shifted into distant memories after getting to know the real you. I think Mark's really been feeling lucky he's got you and he knows you're aware who he's got his eyes on now. You're parting his hand, in between his legs as he sits on the stool, his hands were sneaky to make their way to rest on your hips; you hum unaffected, but proceed to part it nice and neatly before ripping his hands from somewhere it shouldn't be.

It was D-Day. Spring Formal was no longer weeks away, it's hours. You had just recently gotten news that Mark's little documentary he's been making about and with you has won first place in the Annual Film Festival, due to this he had won the summer getaway to Hollywood film camp, which by the way, was exclusive. He was lucky, and he aspired and reached his goal like no other, you on the other hand... Let's just say Spring Formal Queen wasn't something you were looking forward to nowadays. But it did feel nice to win something at a party you didn't even bother to attend, you were too busy telling mark farewell at the airport to be at a function that was still being supervised by faculty. "Don't forget to text me, Mark," You tell the boy in front of you. Today Mark is sporting a red and black striped tee with an In The Row Leather Jacket (gifted by who else other than you!) and some dark blue jeans. "Can't believe you missed the fricken' Spring Formal to hang out with the film geek! Ah You really have evolved," He said standing in front of your hands reaching to nothing when he stuffs them in his jean pockets. "You make me sound like those Digimon characters you collect," You say ultimately making him facepalm at your words Digimon? Really Y/n? he thought before going into a fit of giggles, oh why should he correct you anyways you seem so cute."But no, I won't forget." He assures hand reaching out to rub your side. This time spent with Mark is something the old you would've retched at, but the current you? The current you are thankful, Mark helped you go back to your regular self, showing you that you didn't have to be some type of Barbie doll for some; what Mark called rich slobs. You were better than that now, and you had Mark. You've come to realize that Mark Lee isn't just that geek from the film club. He's above that. His place in your hear is indescribable. Who knew he would be the one to make your heart run laps from simple gestures. It's hilarious in a way, you'd be aggravated if he even came into your vicinity but now you'd be anticipating his visit.

"Mark," You start, watching his eyes light up at you call him. Your eyes meet, looking into one another's dark coffee bean orbs. Your gaze was sharp as if lined with shards of glass around the edges, his eyes. God, when your eyes met, you could see the glow in them, it was irresistible. That is when you finally realize, this newly discovered desire you found in yourself, is in Mark. He foresees your next moves bringing a hand up to your cheek, caressing it. "God, you're so beautiful," He whispers watching both of your arms trail up his torso to rest firmly on his shoulder. Leaning in, you finally taste his peach lips. His heart was racing, once he dipped his face down to you. He knew that once he places his soft pink lips on you, he wouldn't want to stop.  Breaking the kiss, you whisper, "Goodbye, Mark." Hand raising to ruffle his hair, "Make me proud out there," You tell him, leaving a less-heated peck on his lips. "Thank you, goodbye Y/n" He wanders off into his designated area before taking off almost immediately pulling his phone out. Is he really that addicted to elec- Oh, your phone rings. He's calling you, "I miss you already," he tells you the moment you answer. "I miss you too." You tell him. "I have to go, my Uber is here." you bit your lip, the words tangling up in the pit of your stomach, should you tell him the eight letters you've been longing to? "I love you, be safe." You look over the crowd to the seat to see him, looking for you. He brings the phone up back to his ear, "I love you too- Fuck so much," It looks like he's been waiting just as long.

Let's just say your happy ending took couple wrong turns but it looks like you finally reached your destination, in Mark's heart.

[rinscupoftea]

2021 Review Written in 2022

Hi again 🤗 today is January 4th and I am currently in Semarang. Although kinda late but still I wanna do review of my 2021 and wanna make it as tradition to do review of my life every year. So,,, let's start 😉

In January and February, from what I remember, my dad was diagnosed of covid-19. Thanks God that he didn't suffer much from covid and isolated in the house for two weeks. During this months, we experienced flood with the height around chest, that's higher than usual flood!!

In March until April, I joined beauty class provided by Kementerian Ketenagakerjaan. You know, at first, I thought the class would cover how to do makeup, turned out the class taught us skills for hair salon employee, such as creambath, hair blow (that's hard😬) body massages, manicure, pedicure, etc. Never thought that I would learn those skills and I'm grateful for the opportunity. Besides that, I met many friends with different background. Some were SMK graduates, some were college students, there was a fresh graduate like me, and the most special, there were mothers who joined the class. Here is the photo of me and my friends during makeup class.

After that, I continued to find job. I got interview chances in some schools. I got varied results. There was a kindergarten who accepted me but I can start teaching in 2022. There was a school who accept me but I rejected it due to some reasons and there was a elementary school who didn't give me any news after the first interview. From those chances, I experienced how job interview is done especially for teacher, like the interviewers asked me why I'm interested in becoming teacher, my opinion about who good teacher is, and how to nake students interested in learning English.

During July-September, I was accepted to be a translator for a project from Badan Bahasa. That's really unexpected because I thought I failed since I mistook the date of announcement but thanks God when I prepared my job interview, I checked my email and got the news that I was accepted as translator. That's amazing opportunity because I have a thought to be a translator instead of a teacher and the competition among the participants for that project was crazy (I forgot the exact number of the participants). I translated 28 books for children from storyweaver. It looked easy but it's difficult because I need to choose the right words, arrange the sentences so that the stories make sense and understandable for Indonesian children. The salary for this project was also high. It's something that I couldn't believe that I could get a big sum of money for two months and I only sit in front of laptop. I use the money for my emergency fund. I'm really happy to get that experience.

During September-October, I tried my luck to be PNS for pengembang buku position . After I passed the administration test. I studied for SKD test for around 1 month. I studied again civic subject like the meaning of Pancasila for every sila, UUD'45, history of Indonesia, and so on. I also learned basic math like percentage, deret aritmatika dan geometri, kalimat logika, etc. I did the test and got the score 444, far from my target but well I did my best. I didn't pass the test but when I saw the rank for all applicants of pengembang buku position, I ranked 8th from around 3 digits participants (again I forgot the exact number of participants) not bad tho 😆 444

The last, in November, I was officially accepted as an English teacher in SDIT Al Irsyad. The process was fast like 3 days of interview and microteaching then I started to work after that. I kinda confused with the system things because I started one week before PAS and I need to catched up things that hadn't been done by the teacher before me but overall my colleagues were helpful and that was nice. I'm delighted that I achieved my goal in 2021, get a job. This is my photo taken on the first week I work

For trivia things, now I enjoyed Japanese anime and music. So far, I finished watching Mob psycho season 1 and 2, Love is hard for otaku, Jujutsu Kaisen and Natsume season 1-6. For music, now I enjoyed Eve's songs like Kaikai kitan, Yusei boshi, Aisai, and How to eat life. I also enjoy listening anime ost even though some I haven't watch the anime like LiSA's gurenge and homura, Hero A, and Attack on titan wmid. For game, I've finished Dress Nikki game and the ending is "eh 😓" now I play Obey Me and I try to finish the story hehee

For building habits, I think in 2022, I need to set when I need to do certain habits since I already work, I need to set the time between works and other things. I want to continue learn Korean and I need to learn English because I feel my English speaking skills becomes meh, I forget many vocabs that I repeat same words during class. I also want to continue my work out habit but I don't know when because I'm so tired after work. Wish 2022, I can build healthy habits and continue to do so.

All in all when I flashback my 2021, I've experienced so many new things and I'm so grateful for that. Alhamdulillahirobbil'alamin 💖

[greatworldwar2]

• Hiroyoshi Nishizawa (Japanese IJNAS Ace)

Hiroyoshi Nishizawa (西澤 広義) was an ace of the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service as a Lieutenant Junior Grade during World War 2.

Hiroyoshi Nishizawa was born January 27th, 1920 in a mountain village in the Nagano Prefecture, the fifth son of Mikiji and Miyoshi Nishizawa. His father was the manager of a sake brewery. Hiroyoshi graduated from higher elementary school and then began to work in a textile factory. In June 1936, a poster caught his eye, an appeal for volunteers to join the Yokaren (flight reserve enlistee training program). Nishizawa applied and qualified as a student pilot in Class Otsu No. 7 of the Japanese Navy Air Force (JNAF). He completed his flight training course in March 1939, graduating 16th out of a class of 71. In October 1941, he was transferred to the Chitose Kōkūtai, with the rank of petty officer 1st class.

After the outbreak of war with the Allies, Nishizawa's squadron (chutai) from the Chitose Air Group, then flying the obsolete Mitsubishi A5M, moved to Vunakanau airfield on the newly taken island of New Britain. The squadron received its first Mitsubishi Zeros (A6M2, Model 21) the same week. On February 3rd, 1942, Nishizawa, still flying an obsolete A5M, claimed his first aerial kill of the war, a PBY Catalina. On February 10, Nishizawa's squadron was transferred to the newly formed 4th Air Group. As new Zeros became available, Nishizawa was assigned an A6M2 bearing the tail code F-108.

On 1 April 1942, Nishizawa's squadron was transferred to Lae, New Guinea and assigned to the Tainan Air Group. There he flew with aces Saburō Sakai and Toshio Ōta in a chutai (squadron) led by Junichi Sasai. Sakai described his friend Nishizawa as about "5-foot-8, 140 lb (64 kg) in weight, pale and gaunt, suffering constantly from malaria and tropical skin diseases". Nishizawa's squadron mates nicknamed him the "Devil," considered him a reserved, taciturn loner. Of his performance in the air, Sakai, himself one of Japan's leading aerial aces, wrote, "Never have I seen a man with a fighter plane do what Nishizawa would do with his Zero".

They often clashed with United States Army Air Forces and Royal Australian Air Force fighters operating from Port Moresby. Nishizawa's first confirmable solo kill, of a USAAF P-39 Airacobra, was on April 11th. He claimed six more kills in a 72-hour period from May 1st-3rd, making him a confirmed fighter ace. Nishizawa was a member of the famed "Cleanup Trio" with Saburō Sakai and Toshio Ōta. On May 17th, 1942, Lieutenant Commander Tadashi "Shosa" Nakajima led the Tainan Ku on a mission to Port Moresby, with Sakai and Nishizawa as his wingmen. As the Japanese formation re-formed for the return flight, Sakai signaled Nakajima, that he was going after an enemy aircraft and peeled off. Minutes later, Sakai was over Port Moresby again, to keep his rendezvous with Nishizawa and Ōta. The trio now performed aerobatics, three tight loops in close formation. After that, a jubilant Nishizawa indicated that he wanted to repeat the performance. Diving to 6,000 ft (1,800 m), the three Zeros did three more loops, still without any AA fire from the ground. They headed then back to Lae, arriving 20 minutes after the rest of the Kōkūtai.

In early August 1942, the air group moved to Rabaul, immediately operating against the US forces on Guadalcanal. In the first clash on August 7th, Nishizawa claimed six F4F Wildcats. On August 8th, 1942, Saburō Sakai, Nishizawa's closest friend, was severely wounded in combat with U.S. Navy Grumman TBM Avenger torpedo bombers. Nishizawa noticed that Sakai was missing and went into a mad rage, he searched the area, both for signs of Sakai and for Americans to fight, presumably even if he had to ram them. Eventually, he cooled off and returned to Lakunai. Later, to everyone's amazement, the seriously wounded Sakai arrived. Nishizawa, Lieutenant Sasai and Toshio Ōta transported the obstinate but unconscious Sakai to the hospital. In frustrated concern, Nishizawa physically removed the waiting driver and personally drove Sakai, as quickly but as gently as possible, to the surgeon. Sakai was evacuated to Japan on August 12th. The extended conflict over Guadalcanal was costly for Nishizawa's air group (renamed the 251st in November) as American aircraft and tactics improved: Sasai was shot down and killed by Captain Marion E. Carl on August 26th, 1942, and Ōta was killed in October 1942.

In mid-November, the 251st was recalled to Toyohashi air base in Japan to replace its losses, with the ten surviving pilots all being made instructors, including Nishizawa. Nishizawa is believed to have had around 40 full or partial aerial victories by this time. Nishizawa, while staying in Japan, visited Saburō Sakai, who was still recuperating in the Yokosuka hospital. Nishizawa complained to Sakai of his new duty as an instructor. Nishizawa also ascribed the loss of most of their comrade pilots to the ever increasing material advantage of the Allied forces, the improved U.S. aircraft and tactics. Nishizawa could not wait to return to combat. "I want a fighter under my hands again," he said. "I simply have to get back into action. Staying home in Japan is killing me." Nishizawa publicly chafed at the months of inaction in Japan. He and the 251st returned to Rabaul in May 1943. In June 1943, Nishizawa's achievements were honored by a gift from the commander of the 11th Air Fleet, Vice Admiral Jin'ichi Kusaka. Nishizawa received a military sword inscribed "Buko Batsugun" ("For Conspicuous Military Valor"). He was then transferred to the 253rd Air Group on New Britain in September. In November, he was promoted to warrant officer and reassigned to training duties in Japan with the Oita Air Group.

In February 1944, he joined the 203rd Air Group, operating from the Kurile Islands, away from heavy action. In October, however, the 203rd was transferred to Luzon. Nishizawa and four others were detached to a smaller airfield on Cebu. On October 25th, 1944, Nishizawa led the fighter escort consisting of four A6M5s, flown by Nishizawa, Misao Sugawa, Shingo Honda and Ryoji Baba for the first major kamikaze attack of the war, targeting Vice Admiral Clifton Sprague's "Taffy 3" task force, which was protecting the landings in the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The kamikaze volunteers, led by Lieutenant Yukio Seki, piloted five bomb-armed A6M2 Model 21 Zeros, each carrying a 250 kg (550 lb) bomb. They deliberately crashed their planes into U.S. warships in the first official kamikaze attack of the Tokkōtai suicide squadron "Shikishima". They were the first kamikazes to sink an enemy ship. The attack was very successful, as four of the five kamikazes struck their targets and inflicted heavy damage. While flying fighter escort to this kamikaze mission, Nishizawa recorded at minimum, his 86th and 87th victories, the final aerial victories of his career. Nishizawa reported the sortie's success to Commander Nakajima after returning to base. He then volunteered to take part in the next day's Tokkōtai kamikaze mission. His request was refused.

The following day, his own Zero having been destroyed, Nishizawa and other pilots of the 201st Kōkūtai boarded a Nakajima Ki-49 Donryu ("Helen") transport aircraft and left Mabalacat on Pampanga in the morning, to ferry replacement Zeros from Clark Field on Luzon. Over Calapan on Mindoro Island, the Ki-49 transport was attacked by two F6F Hellcats of VF-14 squadron from the fleet carrier USS Wasp and was shot down in flames. Nishizawa died as a passenger, probably the victim of Lt. j.g. Harold P. Newell, who was credited with a "Helen" northeast of Mindoro that morning.

Upon learning of Nishizawa's death, the commander of the Combined Fleet, Admiral Soemu Toyoda, honored Nishizawa with a mention in an all-units bulletin and posthumously promoted him to the rank of lieutenant junior-grade. Nishizawa was also given the posthumous name Bukai-in Kohan Giko Kyoshi, a Zen Buddhist phrase that translates: "In the ocean of the military, reflective of all distinguished pilots, an honored Buddhist person." Because of the confusion towards the end of the Pacific war, the bulletin's publication was delayed and funeral services were not held until December 2nd, 1947.

[mogwaei]

Wolf Statues and the Tower of Bone tinfoil!

A theory about wolf statues crossed my dash again which...got me thinking along a somewhat separate train of thought of all the different places we find them. I’ve seen the posts about the Dales/Exalted Plains, but not much about somewhere like Emprise du Lion. I’m not sure if this has already been talked about, but I’ve been searching and can’t find any posts elsewhere.

This is going to be a long and rambling post about Wolf statues and Emprise du Lion, so a two in one theory 😂. I’ve never actually written a meta and I generally hoard my theories and write them in fic...because I’m not good at writing anything that isn’t in story format. You’ve been warned lol

First, some really long and tangential exposition about statues.

There are a ton of Wolf statues across the game. We’ve got a whole pack of them across the Exalted Plains watching over various locations. But they’re also located in a lot of the elven temples we run across as well. @serial-chillr​ and I were talking about the possibility that, assuming the Wolves are all Fen’Harel statues (unless the ones in the Dales are Emerald Knight wolves, but I kinda doubt that), then what is the likelihood of Solas himself having built these statues?

We know from Solas himself that elvhen nobility used to mark their slaves to honour the ‘god’ that they subscribed to. Sooo, why wouldn’t the more zealous ones build great big monuments in addition to marking their slaves?

What I fail to see mentioned in a lot of fics and theories is much mention of these nobles or the politics of Elvhenan. I’m sure that higher ranking elves probably owned land within Evanuris territory, and they probably needed permission before doing so, but I’ll bet that if a kiss-ass noble came up to one of the gods asking to build a pretty statue (hoping for bonus points) the narcissistic bastard god was probably like “You want to build a statue of moi? BUT OF COURSE!!!” and maybe gave the noble a pat on the head and a cookie for kissing butt.

For posterity:

That being said, because I can’t help but mention my own worldbuilding fic, The Guardian, I’m assuming the statues were built of Fen’Harel, and while Solas might not have really approved (or maybe wasn’t even able to stop them from being constructed ‘nu stop I’m not a godddd‘) he would instead have found a way to use them to his advantage. I write that he begins placing statues where allies (both agents and freed slaves) can find them and follow them back to safe places marked for the Rebellion. I go into slightly more detail regarding these special wolves (how he would get statues into the temples/palaces of the Evanuris and how to distinguish them from regular ones) in a plot involving infiltration of a compound in Chapters 111-120. I can’t give away all my secrets!

Anyway, moving onto statues in specific locations:

The one in Emprise du Lion

hewwoh big boi

What I find fascinating about this one specifically is that it’s also located in the same region as Suledin Keep (which also has wolfies inside of it ofc). Because of the landmarks codex in Emprise I’m hedging that this land used to belong to Elgar’nan. Look at Pools of the Sun for reference - THAT’S ALL I GOT FOR NOW

Anyhow, floundering, but my attention was next drawn to the Tower of Bone

In this story, a blood mage summoned a greater pride demon,  who then possessed the entire tower. When the mage died, his sons were  unable to control the demon, so they commissioned eight monstrous iron  chains intended to hold it. The touch of the cold iron chain is the only  thing holding the stone abomination in place. Should they break, the  tower will pull itself off its foundations and walk, destroying  everything in its path.

I know that they found human bones in the tower, but bear with me. I’m tinfoiling hard and trying to read deeper and tie it all together but I’m just a humble apostate hobo.

Anyway, some blood mage summoned a greater pride demon who in turn possesses the tower - of the companions, Solas has the Tower tarot card. The next sequence in the story, the sons bind the tower with 8 chains. The only mention I could find of the number 8 is in the Draconis codex where it mentions there being a possible 8th Old God being stricken from records.

Should all the chains break, the Tower will destroy everything in its path.

The Tower tarot, as we’ve seen in a hundred other tin foils, is commonly interpreted as meaning danger, crisis, destruction, and liberation. It is also associated with sudden unforseen change.  WHICH ISN’T NECESSARILY A BAD THING! (Look, despite everything, I’m hanging to that thread of hope that Solas will have a good ending).

So, again, I’m probably totally wrong but the symbolism here has some pretty interesting potential if it is referring at all to Solas and the Evanuris.

Recap:

>random thought (because I’m totally writing this on the fly) but IF the 8 chains  symbolise something more, then maybe it’s possible that the 8th ‘God’ could be the Sun that is briefly mentioned in elven legend (referring to the codex I mentioned above). And the Sun could be symbolism for yet another thing we aren’t aware of. Whether that’s some sort of dragon or spirit or entity we haven’t been introduced to in game (yet).

>The chains themselves could also be representative of holding back...again, something we don’t know. Blight? Something worse? (thinking about the Dread Wolf Rises mural and the seals, but there are only 7 there. Maybe the 8th is the thing they’re holding prisoner if it isn’t free?) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

>While I’m down this rabbit hole, maybe the 8th is part of this: “A final eluvian is situated in a peaceful bolt-hole where Solas has painted murals. Fen’Harel was here and wanted to make sure nobody ever found what the other gods were doing.” - this can be found in the game files under bolt_hole (in other words, maybe it has to do with whatever they found?)

>A big ass, greater Pride demon (more Sooooolllasss symbolism? looking at Tevinter Nights and some other cool theories on Dread Wolf - Pride demon connections)

>Reoccuring tower symbolism (does the little wolf Rook that Mark Darrah tweeted a while back count?)

>Breaking chains (liberation?)

>ALSO THE TOWER IS COVERED IN RED LYRIUM (AAAAAAAH)

>Someone’s gonna go wreak havoc when a Specific Thing Happens (*cough* Solas? *cough*)

I realise I flew off the handles here and I’m not sure if anyone is going to even be able to follow this tangent 😂

Anyway, that’s it for now until I think of something else. If you’re into a long winded fic of worldbuilding and lore weaving, check out The Guardian where I do a lot better job of putting my thoughts into words. I swear I’m not usually this scatterbrained and I spend a LOT of time weaving theories...that I then hoard like Smeagol. :3

As a closing message, I’d like to include this shot of my dear friend @schoute​ ‘s Piper Lavellan who doesn't know where the fuck she is.

Thanks for reading and I apologise if you’ve lost any braincells in this thought spaghetti orz