#yes i have about 50 hours in game yes my stats are fucked because i largely play mvm

[duskgryphon]

if i can figure out how to record clips i should upload some of my mvm matches i think very very silly things happening in there

[centrally-unplanned]

I played Needy Streamer Overload, which was a lot of fun, with an asterisk. NSO is a Lifesim Management game for a batshit up-and-coming streamer, where you as her 'boyfriend' allocate her time between streaming, resting, and content inspiration/development to hit 1 million followers. The writing is very on point for actual streams culture;the topics and comments and all that are very true-to-life, while its zany edgecore presentation is hilarious. And the UI is full kino:

Vibes - and also, spoilers, not just a cutesy aesthetic, as the player is not in fact a real person so the digital viewport is ludonarratively cohesive, +1 point.

However, it also pissed me off for specific me reasons!

So, these games tend to go into two buckets. One is the engine builder - managing the lifesim is both involved and The Point of the game. You work hard to optimize and achieve the goal. The second is narrative device - the lifesim elements are more about narrative choice than challenge, and either can't be failed or are trivially cleared. You approach playing those 2 game types differently.

NSO presents itself like the former - its mechanics are pretty involved. Managing Followers, Stress, Affection, & Mental Darkness, all on a clock, while unlocking ~10 different streaming content topic progression trees, its a lot to track. Not saying its crazy hard or anything, but its what you spend your time doing. You will be asking yourself questions like "yes I could have sex with her for the third time this week to lower stress and boost affection so I can burn that affect buildup on the Sexy Stream lvl 2 to sync my highest topic bonus with my streaming streak bonus before I need to end it for a rest cycle, but I can only play that card so many times, is day 13 too early?". That is fun, and where your focus lies. On my first playthrough I tried to hit the 1 million target, barely succeeded, but burned out Ame's stats so much I got a short, pretty-much-failed ending.

So on my second playthrough I tinkered around and stumbled on a soft infinity engine, where I could push Ame's stress to the limit in the opening days to get her follower count to the point where she would unlock "follower milestone celebration" streams that I could bank, that did not increase stress but would count towards a streaming-every-day streak bonus, and never take a rest day to get that bonus insanely high. I got several million followers with low stress, low darkness, I thought I did a good job.

And I got a short, pretty-much-failed ending.

Turns out this game has 30 endings, and the lions share of the long, involved ones are from you completely fucking up. You will get a way more interesting ending if you make Ame-chan overdose on LSD and she trips her way into breaking though the illusion of the internet. You want to raise her darkness high as hell for half of them. You can found a cult, you can induce all sorts of violence against her or others, whatever you want. But the game didn't tell me!!

It instead presented me with a solid optimization puzzle, which I spent like 10 hours doing. I shouldn't have bothered! It doesn't really tell this partially for surprise, but if we are being honest its because they expect you to google it, and they expect you to watch streamers unlock 25 of them after you do 5. Which is how modern games are made, but personally I don't love relying on that. I do think games are at their best when they self-teach a player the right way to engage with it.

But I respect that some people would see the discarded scraps of a tryhard faildaughter that is Ame-chan and immediately push her into doing conspiracy theory streams while smoking weed. I am just not someone you can plunk an engine in front of and expect me not to try to tinker with it. This is 50% on me.

[i-put-the-yan-in-polyandry]

Teyvat's Beloved — First Acolyte

< Prev | 3 | Next >

In the middle of a field, surrounded by your beloved slimes and hilichurls, you stood tall and smiled wide. “Alright then!” You announced. “Time to get to work!”

“Dada, Mumokuzi!” A few hilichurls clapped while the slimes bounced around your feet excitedly. ‘Mumokuzi’ was their name for you. You couldn’t understand Hilichurlian, but you could always understand the gist of what they said to you.

You hoped they could understand you in return.

A number of quests appeared after you’d completed [First Contact]. The story(?) quest locked levelling behind it, so you made that your top priority. If you got your level up, you could surely survive better; after all, world level didn’t seem like it could work in real life.

Deus Omnium, Act I: Home At Last

Welcome Home

Gather Believers (94/5) Establish a Place of Worship (1/1) Accept an Apostle (0/1)

Reward

Level Up Unlocked Player: Weapon Unlocked Player: Artifacts Unlocked Inventory Unlocked

Now you definitely knew what those words meant individually. But how any of it applied to you or your situation? You’d literally just escaped from being tortured and killed as a heretic, you could open that can of words later.

So for all your bravado, you had no idea where to start “getting to work” or what it even meant in your situation. If only you had your own Paimon to guide you, or literally anyone who could actively commune with you to bounce ideas off of.

“No use complaining about what you can’t help,” you reminded yourself. An anemo slime bounced at your feet, you picked it up with a smile and huff. “Maybe you can be my Paimon, would you like that?”

The slime didn’t say anything, it was a slime, but a warm, bubbly feeling radiated off of it. It rushed through you, tickling under your skin. You laughed softly at the feeling. “Okay, you can be my Paimon.”

[Quest Completed: Welcome Home]

[Would you like to accept Rewards? Yes/No]

Well, uh, that was easy. You selected yes.

5 Followers Reached - Level Up

10 Followers Reached - Level Up

15 Followers Reached - Level Up

20 Followers Reached - Level Up

30 Followers Reached - Level Up

40 Followers Reached - Level Up

50 Followers Reached - Level Up

…

Fuck it, you didn’t have the energy left to react. Too many things at once, come back later.

At least your stats went up, you now had… of course you fucking had 200 attack and defense and 5k HP because that made SENSE. Level 8 and you could probably take out level 40s with ease. If you could fight.

Catalysts didn’t seem to need a physique, some part of your brain helpfully supplied.

You fired your brain.

---

After sorting through your inventory (filled with everything you’d had in game and more) and fucking around with the menu for an hour, you came away with a few more answers.

Your weapon choice dictated your talents.

You were technically elementless, but only in that it was an empty void that you could fill however you liked (not that you were good at it).

You could level up your new slime acolyte.

And you could still access your characters inventories. You felt great pulling the four-star catalyst off of Lisa and remotely shoving an Apprentice’s Note into her hands.

In fact, every character that chased you had their weapons replaced and artifacts removed. After all the time and energy you poured into them, they didn’t deserve any of it. Foolish cretins took and took and only cared to make themselves feel superior. You’d—

Alright, nope, you weren’t opening that can of worms. Wherever the fuck that came from could stay a hidden part of you what the fuck.

You just wanted to practice protecting yourself with the Hilichurls and fuck off out of Mondstat. But did you go to Dragonspine and try your luck with Albedo or see if Liyue would be more welcoming?

[mydramaspace]

Part 3: "Are you really that oblivious?" In which everything floods out into the open.

If you're new here, you can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here! :')

Part 3. Posted on 7 May 2021.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sometimes, you feel like your entire life is going to be a series of duck-and-hides from people you know. Because that is what you have been doing ever since you ran out from the cafeteria a week ago when you saw Joo Hyuk looking at you. Min Hyuk has been trying to contact you everyday, but you've ignored every single one of his texts and calls, and have hardly left your room. Yes, it is unhealthy to eat only slices of bread for breakfast, lunch and dinner each day but desperate times call for desperate measures and you know for sure there has been no person more desperate than you for a while now. But today, you will have to step out. You will have to brave the world, and confront anything that needs confrontation. But that's okay, you've got a solution for that: headphones, loud music, and power walking. No one would dare approach you if they couldn't see you power walk your way past them. One can only catch you if they see you, haha!

Even as you step out into the street, you know your plan is the stupidest thing you've ever thought of, and you've done many stupid things, including but not limited to thinking fuck meant a variety of fish. You duck your head, put on the most fast-paced music you have and begin your walk of shame to the administrative office to drop off your test results. Walk of shame indeed, your answers on that test will be enough to give your examiner second-hand embarrassment for most of his life.

Your mind must be playing tricks on you because everywhere you look, you keep seeing Joo Hyuk. Or so you think, because it is never actually him. He wears a lot of the same fandom shirts for some game that a lot of boys at your university wear too. Capitalism has really made life difficult for everyone on the planet, and you finally agree with every anti-capitalist argument you've heard till date. Capitalism is making it difficult for you to walk a few meters without flinching every time you see a t-shirt that reminds you of Joo Hyuk. You're so busy keeping an eye out for him, you forget about the other annoying brat who's on your tail. Min Hyuk.

And Min Hyuk grabs your hoodie and drags you all the way to the classroom upstairs. You struggle, throw a tantrum, almost like you're crying for your life because who knows what sort of nonsensical things he's gonna feed into your mind at this point. You resist until he lets you go in front of the classroom, both of you breathing hard, and whack him on his head. Hard. "Ow! That almost makes me regret helping him." Min Hyuk glares at you. "Help? Help who?"

"Why don't you find out genius?" You shoot a dirty look at him and walk into the classroom, only to come to a dead halt. Joo Hyuk is standing there, his back to you, and on the board in front of him, is a graph and many many equations. A laugh strangles its way out of you, and then you're laughing loudly, clutching your stomach. For a moment there you thought, no, you hoped, he was going to confess that he likes you. Foolish foolish thought, Y/n. Min Hyuk must have snitched to him that you're struggling with your Statistics revision, and being the good best friend he is, Joo Hyuk has stepped forward to help.

You are so embarrassed, you want to fling yourself off the cliff that is a few kilometers away from your campus.

Joo Hyuk jumps, startled by your laugh. When his eyes land on you, his entire body relaxes, and you realize how painfully him that gesture is. Well that is what best friends are like around each other right? Completely at ease. That's what your mind is saying, the logical, rational way of thinking. The way that will not end up in you hoping for something more, then being disappointed and then crying yourself to sleep again. But your heart...you heart is saying something else entirely.

"You're here!" It's as if his entire being lights up on seeing your awkward wave and he excitedly grabs you by the shoulders and pushes you to stand in front of the board where all the equations begin. You know, I'm really not in the mood for stats now, of all times. Maybe you should say it out loud. Maybe you should tell him, for once, and safeguard yourself from the hurt you know is going to consume you the minute you realize it's not the confession that your heart is hoping for.

"Joo Hyuk I-" your sentence is cut off when you realize how close Joo Hyuk is standing to you. Your back is almost touching his chest, and you can feel the heat emanating from his gray sweatshirt, smell that ocean-scented detergent he always uses on his clothes, and feel the hairs rising on your hand, your ears going red, and the throbbing of your heart. You can see the smudges of chalk dust all over his face, and the lights overhead sparkle in his eyes like star dust. And his eyes are on you. "You what, Y/n?"

"I-" Words seem to have fled your mind.

"You can tell me later. First, take a look at the board."

"I'm not in the mood for a math lesson, y'know?"

"Okay, but it's not a math lesson."

You cut a quick glance to the board and scoff. There are plus and minus symbols all over the place, and similarity indexes scribbled hastily alongside a graph chart. "Okay fine, it's a stats lesson. But I'm not in the mood for that either."

"Really? Did you take a proper look at the first equation?" You roll your eyes but take a look, curiosity stemming through you. "The mode equation?" You wonder out loud, and Joo Hyuk voices an affirmation, and that's when you feel the warmth spreading all over your arm. You turn sharply, to see his hand over yours, a piece of chalk tucked into your fingers. You look at him, hardly breathing, hardly hoping because these things only happen in fiction. How can this be happening to you? No, he's just helping you out that's all. Nothing more. Nothing-

"Look at it properly, Y/n, please." He guides your hand to the equation, the feel of his rough calloused palm against the back of your hand sending shivers running through you. "See what it says?"

All sense, all coherency, all your English words have deserted you when you most need them. "The what now?" And he laughs looking at your expression, and its a laugh that rumbles through his chest into you like a physical hug of comfort and you want to wallow in it forever, you don't want this moment to ever end. "The formula for the mode of my thoughts."

That snaps you back. The mode of his...thoughts?

"Your thoughts?"

You've never been so grateful that he's taller than you. Because this, standing with him, feels like heaven. And even if he never confesses to you, you'll take the memory of this to your grave, relive it a hundred times in life and even more so in death. So much more that you're determined to be called the ghost of reliving in whichever place all people go to after they die.

Joo Hyuk's laughter gets happier, and you slap your free palm across your mouth, horrified that you said all that out loud. "But, Y/n, I am confessing. Or at least I'm trying to, but you're not cooperating." He grins at you like everything is alright in the world, like he hasn't just dropped a verbal atomic bomb on you just now.

"You're what?"

He pulls you gently to the graph, one hand still enclosed around your hand with the chalk pressing into your palm. You clutch it tighter, almost unable to believe that this is actually happening. "Take a look." he lets go and steps back, and you step back too, almost in reflex, to get a good look.

And your breath leaves you in one breath.

Because on the graph, you see your name multiple times. "Wait, you do know what mode is right?" Joo Hyuk sounds panicked, and you would have smacked him if you weren't so inexplicably happy right now.

"Yes. The element that is repeated the most number of times. So if this is a mode of your thoughts..."

"It means I think of you the most every day of the week, every hour of the day, most of the minutes of the hour, because I do spend some minutes thinking of when to do my laundry sometimes and then I need to think of feeding my dog and I-"

You don't let him finish the sentence and fling yourself at him, enveloping him a tight hug. "You're such a dork." Your voice is all wavy because of the emotions threatening to consume you. Happiness, surprise, happiness, surprise, love. "Is that in a good way or a bad way?"

"What do you think?" You demand, unable to believe how oblivious he's being.

"Well, about 50% of researches online say it's a negative connotation, and the remaining 50 are divided in their results and I don't know which one I believe frankly because most of their data is skewed and their data sets rarely match the published-"

"Oh my god, it's a good thing you dork!" You press your lips to his, effectively silencing him. It takes him a good moment to kiss you back, but when he does, it's enough to make the world slip beneath your feet.

But that's okay because he grabs onto you, and you're very sure you will not be letting go of him too. And in the corner of the board, in the teeniest letters ever possible are the words I see sparks fly, whenever you smile.

xxxxxxxx

A/n: I had the biggest grin on my face while I was writing, cause ahhhhh these two nerds <3

Hope you liked this haha!

[baodurs]

i filled out this super cool button character profile by @extraordinarymage for sabrina! thank you for making this, it was a lot of fun to fill out <3 the bulk of it is under a cut and oh boy is it long !!!

Short, Quick Reference

Name: Sabrina Wiseman

Pronouns: She/her

Sexuality: Bisexual

Love Interest: Kent

Main personality trait: Confidence

Secondary personality trait: Morbidity

Relationship with Nick: Full of love, haunted by unaddressed guilt and frustration. But mostly full of love.

Nickname for Nick: Saint Nick (used sparingly)

Resentful or accepting?: Slightly resentful

Main strategy (interpersonal, insightful, innovative?): Insightful

Ethical or expedient?: Expedient

GENERAL

Name: Sabrina Larkspur Wiseman

Nickname(s): Sab, used by anyone; Sabby, only Nick and Sally; and, of course, Button for Nick.

Birthday: I think I made her an October Libra for the purpose of a template I did months ago, but I’m not sure! No concrete birthday yet, I’m always very slow to nail down details like this.

Age: 20

Pronouns: She/her

Sexuality: Bisexual

Hair color + style: Blonde. A little past shoulder length, sometimes wavy. Usually a middle part. For Aeon, tied back in a bun.

Eye color: Blue, entirely because of the section of Frank O’Hara’s “Meditations in an Emergency” that goes, “My eyes are vague blue, like the sky...”

Height: 5′5

Piercings: Multiple in each ear, but a couple have started to close.

Tattoos: None yet! Sab likes the idea of a tattoo but is worried about finding the perfect design, whether she’d end up hating it, that the pain might be greater than she expects and she’ll look like a baby in front of her tattoo artist. I’d like to think she eventually consults Sally and/or Glitch to come up with an idea that she falls in love with, but I haven’t come up with what that would be!

Clothing style: Mostly solid colors, not a lot of patterns. Nothing super bright, but a fairly varied mix of pastels, neutrals, dark colors, black. Partial to denim skirts and sweater tops. Ankle boots. Likes a good turtleneck. She’s bolder when it comes to formal wear, and especially loves suits. Big fan of silk and satin.

Since she has a pretty accurate face claim, I’ll link some gifsets I’ve rb’d for appearance ref if you are so inclined.

STATS

I’m always adjusting minor things and swapping scenes around, but these are from my most recent Sab run! Most scores hover somewhere around these values.

Personality:

Confidence: 53%

Humor: 5%

Morbidity: 22%

Resentful: 57% | Accepting: 43%

Strategy:

Interpersonal: 12%

Insightful: 50%

Innovative: 10%

Ethical: 43% | Expedient: 57%

KEY DECISIONS:

What is Nick’s nickname and why?: Saint Nick, used very rarely. It’s a joking reference to the time she thought Santa was an evil Ment out to ruin Christmas, and a point about Nick overdoing it with the cheer. “Saint Nick” is usually code for “I know you mean well, but please mind your own business.” Otherwise, she just calls him Nick.

What is their favorite type of cookie (and its name and why?): Salted caramel chocolate chip! No special name.

What was their initial reaction to Sally hugging them, as kids?: She just froze. That could just be me projecting adult Sabrina onto her childhood self; I don’t imagine that she was as uncomfortable around strangers or quite as cautious back then. But that’s what I’ll stick with.

How did they ace the ASE test?: The in-game option she takes is “My entire life has revolved around strategic avoidance,” but the one about being just plain smart also sounds like her. If Sab has the chance to thoroughly (over)prepare for something, she will do it. Her mind blindness also has her constantly (over)analyzing situations. So, hard work and relentless anxiety!

Did they manage to win their first assignment? How?: Yes, by having Sally block the door. I’ve headcanoned some slight differences in how it plays out, which I wrote about in-depth here. To summarize, Sab thinks of blocking the door as a desperate last resort, not a clever loophole, and she pushes back against Rosy’s praise because she wishes she could have done it the “real” way. Rosy goes from being impressed to being annoyed that she’s willfully missing the point.

What was the primary emotion Button felt during the Aeon bombing (love, gratitude, etc?): Guilt. She feels very guilty about how much Nick has given up for her in general, but I think that in the moment, it’s on a smaller scale. The fact that Nick was on the phone with her when it happened, coming to her rescue like always, becomes emblematic of their whole relationship for her, and she really fixates on that.

Who drove them home from the hospital from and why?: Glitch. Sab responds to her initial text with “Are you sure?”, and is relieved when Glitch takes that as “Yes, please.” She doesn’t relish the idea of being around someone more connected to her family or Nick at that point.

How do they feel about Nick riding around in their mind?: Worried, at first. Just because it’s so unknown and absolutely insane. After seeing Doctor Amari, she’s excited! Sab is thrilled to be a Pollard Five and intends to take full advantage of it. I am not looking forward to seeing how she reacts when that’s taken away from her.

Why did Button agree to do the undercover mission?: To prove she still deserves to be an MIV. Sabrina feels stupid and reckless for putting herself, Nick, and Aeon in this position, but she knows she’s smart, and she hasn’t worked this hard for nothing. She wants to prove what she could do with a normal Pollard Score and make herself too valuable to give up even when she’s back to Zero.

Told Glitch about your mind blindness?: Depends on the playthrough. I’m constantly going back and forth on whether Sab meets Glitch for coffee or wanders the city with Nick in her second chapter 5 slot (after trying to track down Kent). If she does meet Glitch, though, she absolutely tells her; with how touchy Sab is about privacy, she couldn’t stomach not warning Glitch that Nick could hear everything they said.

Figured out K’s secret?: Nope. She finds enough of the clues to be given the “I knew it!” option in-game, but she didn’t actually put it together. Sab is too angry and embarrassed by learning that Kent is an AMO to find any reason to interrogate it. “The random guy I met before school just happens to be a jerk” is a perfectly sound explanation to her.

Found Noh’s clues?: Not at the metro station. Sometimes she sees the Vengeance brooms in chapter 5 (again, depending on the playthrough), but that’s it.

ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP:

Love Interest: Kent

Why them?: Sab feels an immediate kinship with Kent after learning about the NPO program. It’s kind of funny how quickly he moves from the least sympathetic position in her eyes (Ment who got past me and read my mind without my knowledge) to the most sympathetic (non-powered child of a prominent family aiming a league above where he “belongs”). A lot of new respect for his competence. Her fate is sealed when she realizes that his kindness at the hospital wasn’t him trying to make up for some wrongdoing, but just him being very sweet. (She had scoffed over “You needed help.” But now she’s like, “Oh. He meant that?! Fuck.”)

As they spend more time together, Sab realizes how weirdly similar they are in other ways, too. And she starts to feel safe/secure around him in a way that she’s extremely not used to. Growing up surrounded by Ments, Sab has a lot of issues about being too much, too difficult, needing to “be worthy” of love. So someone like Kent who is not a Ment, who has no “obligation” to care about her, and whose judgement she trusts implicitly? Being around him and being loved by him mean a lot, and I think will go a long way towards helping her reflect on her other relationships!

What are their first impressions of each other?: Okay, there are like 3 first impressions with Kent. First: he’s tall and handsome and secretly adorable, and they have similar career goals, so she’s drafting a five-month plan to woo him and get his number. Second: he’s a lying, self-obsessed loser who owes her many explanations. Third: oh no, the first impression was true! And he’s been continually, selflessly kind to her in spite of her overt hostility. Scratch the five-month plan, because the crush was only fun when it was entirely superficial; now she really, really likes him and that just sucks.

We know that Button makes a good impression on K by stopping for their dogs, but apart from that... I mean, the “we confused each other” from chapter 7 is very apt. Sab has lots of shifting personas, and Kent sees pretty much every one within 24 hours. The prevailing impression before everything gets cleared up is probably just that she cares a lot? About everything? Her stopping for the dogs, how seriously she takes the first assignment, the way she seems so deeply affected by something he said or did that morning. It’s a rare side of her to meet first because she usually pretends to be above everything.

What feature does your Button find most attractive in their RO (ex. appearance, personality, etc.)?: Probably his composure. And his... steadfastness? The way he seems unruffled by anything, his soothing presence. She really admires that about him and finds the calm contagious.

What do they do to spend time together?: Going on drives together! Kent driving while Sab plays songs she thinks he’ll like, talking or not talking. Cuddling on the couch while reading their own separate books. Museum dates. Walking the dogs together.

Do they argue? How do they handle arguments and disagreements? How do they make up?: I imagine that the first month or so of their relationship would be difficult, just because they’re both bad at expressing themselves and not used to relying on other people. Kent kind of negates a lot of Sab’s impulses to get defensive or hostile, so instead of arguments, I think there are more likely to be awkward periods where she’s just stewing in something without addressing it. Most of their fights would be, like, one of them becoming really distant for a concerning number of days until the other tries to awkwardly check in on them.

What does their future look like?: Uhh some random lore: I think eventually they do get married, despite neither of them caring that much about it. Sabrina would be excited to have something to plan, and she knows it would make the people around her happy. They have a long engagement; there’s never really an “official” proposal, just an acknowledgement that yeah, they’ll get married one day, and then eventually they get rings. The engagement is almost Sab’s favorite part, honestly. She likes planning and showing off her ring and calling Kent her fiancé, a lot of fanfare on her part for a wedding that ends up being very modest and chill.

OTHER RELATIONSHIPS (Feel free to go in depth!)

Relationship with Nick: When I first started developing Sab, I thought that with as difficult/prickly as she can be, her relationship with Nick would be worse than it is. Never bad, but certainly strained, with more jealousy/resentment on her side. However, she rejected this. She is resentful, but never towards Nick—she internalizes the negative parts of their relationship so they manifest as guilt instead. And that’s the problem, not resentment. Sab thinks he’s overprotective, but that doesn’t make her angry; it just makes her sad. She wishes things were different and he didn’t feel so responsible for her, but she also doesn’t know how she could manage without him taking on so many of her burdens. So, guilt! So much love, but always looming guilt.

Having Nick in her head has helped. It’s added a new kind of guilt (“I’m a horrible person for being so giddy that people can’t hear my thoughts even though that requires my brother to be in a coma”), but getting inside Nick’s head for once and really feeling his love for her changes things. Makes her feel way more secure, I guess? It’s easier to see her brother as human person, a friend who loves her, rather than a perfect selfless paragon who sacrificed everything to raise her, which is an important shift.

There are also Things happening with self-presentation in the fact that they’re both models, and flirts, and pretend to be shallow. And the ways that they’ve responded to vastly different expectations. And selflessness versus selfishness. But I have no idea how to talk about that yet.

Relationship with Father: Strained and distant. Sabrina doesn’t necessarily blame him for leaving, but she hates how he’s handled it. She’s incredibly frustrated that John insists on keeping them in this miserable limbo of uncomfortable visits, even though moving away was (to her) a tacit acknowledgement that she and her parents are better off without each other. He’s trying to force a relationship that Sab thinks is ultimately harmful for everyone involved. For Nick’s sake, she’s willing to grin and bear the visits, but it never works because John can obviously tell it’s an act. He pushes her, she gets defensive, and so on to infinity.

Relationship with Mother: Like with John, Sab doesn’t resent Hope for the incident itself, or for leaving afterward. It was terrifying, and the idea of being around Hope makes her panic—but she thinks of that as just another irrational anxiety symptom, and she’s trying to work through it. What she does resent Hope for is letting it get to that point at all. Sab is incredibly bitter that Hope will suffer silently to the point of almost killing her (during the incident) and potentially herself (with the BRS), while Sab has no choice but to be completely open. Especially because they’re so similar in that way—she’s almost jealous. “Oh, so your silence is allowed to almost kill me and it’s ‘nobody’s fault’ but I can’t pretend to enjoy a single lunch with Dad without him calling me out for lying?”

And even though she doesn’t hold the incident itself against her, Sab is very hung up on “Why are you never quiet? Why are you always there?” She knows, on some level, that this was not a Personal Judgement against her. But because Hope keeps so much quiet, this is the only honest expression of her mother’s feelings that she can remember! It would take a lot for Sab to believe that Hope was really, genuinely interested in reconnecting with her, rather than just pretending to love her "enough” this time because to do otherwise would reflect poorly on Hope as a mother.

Relationship with Sally: Besties <3 Sally is the only member of the Wiseman inner circle that Sab doesn’t have complicated feelings about. They both have hidden morbid streaks that they bring out in each other, and can laugh about. They both have competitive streaks that work well together because they’re always on the same team. And their wants/needs from the relationship complement each other well, I think. Sally has always felt valued because she’s useful and not because she’s loved, while Sab has always felt smothered by love/care without feeling like she genuinely adds value to other people’s lives. So it means a lot to both of them that they’re able to help each other practically, while also genuinely loving and supporting each other outside of that.

Relationship with Gray: Full of trust and genuine care, but predicated on distance. Sab loves him a lot for being so careful not to cross any boundaries, physical or emotional, with her. She’s grateful that he’s there for Nick in a way that she doesn’t feel she can be. But "I like Gray because he doesn’t push me and is good to Nick” means that any hand he extend makes her defensive, because she’ll either view him as an emissary of Nick or start to panic because their normal routine is being disrupted (she doesn’t tell him about Hope in ch 3, for example).

They get along very well in a friend-of-a-friend sort of way, and bond over being cautious counterparts to Nick. Also, Sab never had a crush on Gray, but she is not immune to tall superhero and thinks it’s fun to fake flirt with him. (You know Isabela’s “You have pretty eyes” routine from DA2? Sab does that to Gray when conversations steer towards things she’d rather not talk about.)

Relationship with Glitch: I’m really excited about these two! They click from the start, and Sabrina feels immediately comfortable around Glitch, which makes her feel distinctly uncomfortable whenever she catches herself. Externally, they have pretty different personalities, but they’re both perceptive and... socially manipulative? aware of their self-presentation?... in ways that they both pick up on right away. So it’s a lot of conversational maneuvering and trying to figure out what the other’s game is, while also genuinely enjoying each other’s company.

Relationship with Kent/Kenna: I could go truly insane here. See the romance section above instead.

Relationship with Kim: Sab wants him to like her sooooo bad. He’s one of the only people to ever really get through to her, re: my headcanon conversation after the first assignment. Authority figures tend to treat her as special, whether that’s negatively because of her mind blindness or positively because she’s such an overachiever. She had no idea how to respond to that not being the case (and didn’t handle it well at first), but chapter 6 solidifies her respect for him.

It also turns Rosy’s opinion of Sab around; he was impressed by her in class but left his office thinking she was self-absorbed and naive. But the bombing is a reality check, and her response is very measured and practical in a way that surprises him.

Relationship with Lev: She doesn’t mind the comparisons to Nick or the “maybe one day they’ll fix you” comments as much as you might think. They aren’t her favorite, but she prefers that sort of thing to the inspirational platitudes belied by coddling that she got from her family growing up. Sab has fond memories of Lev and is grateful that he’s always been kind to her, but doesn’t have any particular feelings apart from that.

Relationship with Clarence: Holds a grudge against him for causing a scene, making her late, and generally being a jerk. But she can’t fault him for being right, after what happened! Mostly she just wants to avoid him, but she’ll be thrilled to lord her success over him if/when she proves herself.

Relationship with Dean Branham: Like Rosy, another authority figure that Sab desperately wants to impress. But without the personal investment she has in Rosy’s validation, more “Oh, this person is in charge, so I should make her like me!” Despite Nick’s and Rosy’s reservations, Sabrina doesn’t really have a problem with being “strongarmed” or manipulated into cooperating; for now, she figures Branham was just doing her job and respects her tactics.

Relationship/attitude towards Ments in general: Mostly just uncomfortable and wary around them. Sab doesn’t want her mind read, and she figures that no Ment wants to be forced to read it either. So she has a pretty strict “no Ments” rule for close personal relationships (excluding Nick, Sally, and Gray, of course. But only Nick really counts because he’s the only one who can hear her thoughts whenever she’s nearby). Not out of hatred or resentment, just because she knows it will be easier for everyone in the long run.

Do they have any other important relationships, past or present? (Relatives, friends, etc.?): Not many, but yes! Sab dated around a lot in the 2 years before Aeon (more like year and a half, because she completely shut it down once she was more focused on preparing for the MIV program), but there are 2 relationships that were formative/important for her. A high school sweetheart, and someone Sab met through modeling. She doesn’t keep up with her high school ex, but the model is her best friend outside of Sally and Nick, and they still keep in touch! I’m still developing them/the relationships, and I’ll probably post more about them someday. They’re fun!

PERSONAL BIO

Describe their personality: Confusing and contradictory. She has two main modes that confuse people who meet both (e.g., Kent). She’s either cold, stuck-up, and sometimes hostile, OR she’s charming, frivolous, and sometimes flirty. Mode 1 is tense but stoic and inexpressive; mode 2 is seemingly relaxed but very posed and insincere. Mode 1 is for when she feels uncertain or has no agenda apart from “get to point B”; mode 2 is for when she’s more comfortable or trying to manipulate someone. Her actual personality is a bit closer to the second, but she doesn’t pretend not take things seriously or hide when she’s annoyed.

Strengths: Analytical, methodical, detail-oriented. Very driven and hardworking. May not always act like it, but does have social skills/charisma; a great liar, if you can’t read her mind. Unfailingly loyal and loving to her favorite people, so so so warm and affectionate and supportive if she really loves you. Very perceptive.

Weaknesses: Way too proud. Can be petty and vindictive. Self-absorbed (she doesn’t mean anything by it, but it’s hard for her to see past herself sometimes). Stubborn, hates being wrong. And... emotional isn’t the word, but strong negative emotions can really cloud her judgement. It ties into her being proud, petty, and stubborn; if she’s really upset about something, she can cling to that emotion instead of re-evaluating it or moving forward.

Phobias: From this ask about the phobias that are planned to show up in-game, there are a few that I could see fitting Sab, but I want to wait to see how they’re implemented before I fully commit. Which is very metagame-y, I know (and I am very metagame-y about IF), but “fear of X” is so broad that it really does depend on when/how it manifests in the text.

That being said, agoraphobia is almost a lock; crowds do make Sab very anxious if she can’t keep track of everyone within a certain distance, and if she can’t leave when she starts feeling antsy. Claustrophobia is a maybe. The choice that triggers it (in chapter 4, about hating MRI machines) suits Sab, but I’m not sure if she hates MRI machines because she hates tight spaces, or if it’s more related to her general anxiety about hospitals, medical tests, etc. Which she definitely has!

What activities/club did they do in school?: She avoided anything group-oriented as far as possible. She took piano (maybe violin?) lessons and did recitals, but wasn’t in orchestra. The one exception was maybe National Honor Society or some equivalent, which she would have joined for her resume’s sake. And I think she would have tutored!

Where do they escape to when they need space?: A little used library corner, where she can people watch without being seen/heard.

How do they feel about/cope with their mind blindness?: Sab hates it but tries not to dwell on it. She knows that it’s no one’s fault, and she mainly just tries to... minimize it? Drown out her thoughts, limit her contact with Ments. And, least healthily, very rigidly managing herself. Because there’s so much of her that exists outside of herself, without her control, she tries to either filter or completely suppress everything else. Part of why she got into modeling, she can perform and be perfect and have total control over the final product of her body in the photographs for whatever campaign. Some Day This Will Be Better. But definitely not where she is in current canon.

How has your Button changed since the Incident with Hope?: Developed many new anxieties and disorders and syndromes :) She also became way more self-conscious, as in literally conscious of and way more tightly monitoring herself, what she’s thinking, what she’s expressing, how she’s sitting, etc. Less emotive face, more rigid posture.

If they weren’t an Aeon student, what would they be doing?: Sab would have beaten herself up forever if she “proved everyone right” by avoiding Unity/Ments entirely, so she’d want to stay in the family business somehow. She probably would have ended up doing scientific research on mental agility. Maybe even working for Mirrortech or some other biotech company, which I imagine would have been an interesting conversation to have with the family.

RANDOM FACTS:

Zodiac sign: Like I said, I assigned her Libra months ago for the sake of a template. But I don’t know enough about astrology to commit. Libra or Leo, probably.

Hobbies: Music, reading poetry, “cooking” (i.e., sitting on the counter and not helping while Nick makes dinner)

Likes: Watching other people (Nick) play video games, dressing up, taking long showers/baths, dark chocolate with caramel, back hugs

Dislikes: Being patronized, hot weather, going to the doctor, driving, doing anything she is not good at

Type of bedsheets: Bamboo.

Drink of choice: Cucumber mint lemonade! For hot drinks, some kind of caramel coffee. For alcohol, she refuses to get drunk because she’s terrified of having even less control of her mental broadcast, but at home/around people she trusts she’ll have a glass or two of wine. Doesn’t know enough to be picky, but doesn’t like it too sweet.

Favorite food: Probably some pasta dish Nick makes with asparagus and tomatoes and a lot of garlic.

Favorite color: Like a light turquoise!

Favorite music: Music to her was another mind-shielding tactic before anything else, so she tends to like upbeat-ish electronic/pop stuff. Catchy and repetitive, and/or with lots of personality to drown out her own thoughts. On the other end of the spectrum, she does have a soft spot for crackly, lo-fi, old or old-sounding slow songs—something about fuzzy recordings simulating a weak telepathic signal.

Favorite season: Hmm, spring and autumn are both good. She likes either side of winter.

Anything else you’d like to share: My heart and a long, fulfilling marriage, with anyone who reads all this 💍

[codename-adler]

Kevin Day and his Oblivious Literature Lover, pt.IV

In times of college finals, aftg is my coping mechanism of predilection. hope it helps some :)

>> Table of Contents,TW and other parts here!

i’ll let you guess what Kevin and Juliet chose for their project

oh, yes

the letters of Hamilton, Eliza and John + Hamilton: The Musical

i will fight you on this

at first, when Juliet suggests it, Kevin stares at her so hard bc really?? a musical??

but then she lends him the 50$ leatherbound official book of the musical (you know the navy blue and beige one? you know what i’m talking about, right?) and reads it all in one evening and wow

lin-manuel miranda? genius. ron chernow? Genius. alexander hamilton? Dumb Genius.

oh yeah and Juliet? Absolutely mind-blowing genius.

as Andrew & Neil grow closer and the match agaisnt the Ravens rounds the corner, Kevin finds himself looking more and more forward to the time spent at the library with Juliet

she is just so focused on their project and so oblivious as who he really is and doesn’t really care if sometimes he is more anxious, if freaks over everything to be perfect, if he babbles on&on&on&on about any bit of history he discovered

she’s just there, smirking, stiffling her laughs and asking for more

they’ve exhanged phone numbers and she installed snapchat on his, and although he never sends her anything, she always has a short video and a funny caption that pop up from time to time; they’re that little reminder that the world goes on outside of exy and that he exists outside of exy

she introduces him to funny videos and he didn’t know absolute dumb shit could make him snort??

his favorite is the peanut butter baby

at first the Foxes give him this judgemental look when he ugly-snorts in the locker room or at Eden’s, but eventually they just get that glint in their eyes as if they were in on the jokes

sometimes, Juliet’s so focused on writing down bullet points in her notebook, peeling the skin off her lips, so unaware of Kevin’s personal hell of a life, that he just wants to spill out everything

although he’s not sure if it’s because he wants her to know him and stay, or because he wants her to reject him and therefore spare himself the trouble of getting attached...

she takes the decision for him

on a Thursday afternoon, on their planned study session, she doesn’t show up

she doesn’t answer her phone either

he even tries out a completely blacked out snap with “r u alive?” in caption

no answer

he gives her space, sending her occasional cat videos he thoroughly researches

if she watches them, she doesn’t say anything

on Monday afternoon, she doesn’t come to class

that’s when the panic Kevin’s been reigning in just... bursts

what if it’s Riko? 

what if it’s the Master?

what if it’s Ichirou?

what if, somehow, it’s the Butcher’s people?

that afternoon’s practice is hell for the Foxes, Kevin is ruthless and an asshole and very agressive

Dan waits for him outside the boys’ locker room as all the other Foxes leave (not even Andrew and Neil want to wait for him)

“Spit out your goddamn problem before I tell Coach to bench you next game”

oh, how Kevin wants to cuss her out

and then he looks  at her face, ready to vomit words, when he sees her worrying her lips

just like Juliet

it shouldn’t be enough to make him tear up, but it does

he still manages to keep as much of the truth to himself as he possibly can

“My EAL partner isn’t responding to my messages or my calls and she didn’t even come to class today and it stresses me the fuck out and what if it’s like with Neil, Dan?” he says in one breath, trying to tear out the net of his racket

Dan recomposes her face and gets that very serious look, the one she usually gets when someone touches her family

“It’s not, Kevin. That’s over. We got Neil back, we got you back, you got Jean back. The team didn’t even know who that person was. The most info we’ve gathered is what you just told me now. Yeah there are some bets but it’s mostly for funsies, nothing even remotely serious. You wanna look for her?” she soothes him.

“I don’t even know...”

“She lives on campus?” she asks.

“I don’t- I don’t know, Dan. I spent months with her and I can’t even vaguely say where she lives! How fucked up is that?” Kevin yells.

“It’s not even remotely fucked up, Kevin. You should know that. Does she have instagram? twitter? Or like, facebook?” she questions some more.

“God, I don’t know. She only sends me stupid fucking videos and I never even respond like the goddamn asshole I am...”

“Shut up. We’re all assholes at the end of the road, ‘kay? You ain’t better or worse than others. Now she sends them to you in text or somewhere else?”

“Sometimes texts... Sometimes the yellow app, the chat one. Why.”

“Oh great, that’s great. We can locate her, with snapchat, if she forgot to turn off the sharing. And if you’re comfortable with that, too. I know you’re not a creep like that. You’re creepy sometimes, don’t get me wrong. But, not a creep.”

“Gee, thanks, Dan.”

“Hey, shush. You down or what?” she says, arching an eyebrow.

“Okay,” he answers, unable to make the fear go away without knowing for sure.

And so it turns out Juliet’s location is, in fact, knowable. Dan grabs one of Kevin’s shoulders as he leaves the court, squeezing her affection into her grip; he nods emotionally in her direction, as far as emotions can translate unto his face.

he doesn’t even know what he’ll do once he finds her, his brain is solely focused on the animated map that brings him closer and closer to Juliet

the more he progresses, the more he realizes he is far from Fox Tower, on a campus area he has never even seen

he stops before a decrepit building, old and moldy-looking

Jackie Kennedy Hall

student dorms? this shabby? she can’t possibly live-

except that she can, because there isn’t another building close and the map has brought him here, and he doesn’t really know her...

so Kevin straightens his shoulders, inhales deeply, and goes inside

he could go on and on and on about everything that is just wrong with the place, from the smell to the decoration, but he makes a beeline for the front desk (he’s lucky there’s even one)

he asks for a way to contact someone, flashes his press smile at the women behind the desk, gives up his ID in exchange for the room number

Juliet Grier, 418

stairs, stairs, stairs, stairs

heavy door, right, 412, 414, 416...

418

what, now?

Kevin hesitantly knocks once, twice

no answer

he knocks again and decides to speak up, in case she didn’t hear

“Juliet? It’s Kevin. Day. From EAL? Can I speak with you?”

still nothing

maybe she isn’t home... no, the map says she’s here. maybe she’s sleeping...

he decides to try one last time

“We really should finish that project, you know? I think we could both use the free time...” he says without his heart into it.

without surprise, no response still

he decides to take a loose paper from his sachel and writes down some words

Greetings Hi,

My friend Dan helped me look for you, but you don’t have to worry about your privacy; it’s because of the yellow app. You should turn that off if you don’t want other people to be nosy. 

You weren’t in class today. I’ll share my notes if you want them. But, you should come to class, it’s better. For learning. 

I’ll wait a few in case you’re asleep. 

Text me or call me or whatever when you’re ready.

- Kevin D. (your partner from EAL)

quick, efficient, to the point

Kevin slips the paper under the door, and waits

he refreshes the map too many times, to see if her location changed or if somehow there was a glitch

it stays put

he ends up sitting on the hallway floor, his back sliding down the wall

he catches up on a book for another class, checks exy stats and watches many, many videos of Jeremy Knox on the court and in interview

some students pass him with a nasty look, eyeing the lack of earphones on his phone

some other students walk by him and will themselves to keep going, because holy shit it’s Kevin Day in Jackie Hall

it’s at least an hour and a half before the doorknob slowly and quietly starts to click

Kevin was absorbed deep into whatever move Knox was making before scoring

the 418 door opens

Kevin gets up in one move, all things Jeremy Knox and exy forgotten

she’s loosely holding Kevin’s paper in one hand, the other clutching a large scarf that covers up the majority of her body

from what he can see, though, she’s wearing sweats from head to toe; her hair’s tied on the top of her head, but most of the curls escaped and it looks unwashed and her curls, dry

her skin’s turned pale, dark circles under her eyes, a haggard look in them, her cheeks stained with dry tears

Juliet looks terrible

“Hi...” Kevin attempts

she finally looks up from the paper and gives him a bored look that could rival Andrew’s

with a rough voice strained from cries and many days without speaking, she asks, “My EAL partner?”

“Well, yes. In case.”

“In case of what.”

“I-”

“I know who you are, Kevin.”

and isn’t that both his most ardent wish and his worse fear?

with that, she turns around and goes back to her dark room, leaving the door open behind her

is that... an invitation?

Kevin’s never been to another person’s place, apart from the Columbia house, Abby’s and Wymack’s

he reminds himself why he came in the first place and decides it would be a waste to leave now, right?

the small studio is a mess, much like its occupant

there are clothes everywhere, on the floor, on a chair, on the bed, on the desk

all the curtains are drawn, no light is on, the only source coming from Juliet’s laptop somewhere amongst her bedsheets

it’s like she made herself a nest and hasn’t moved from there for a long time

maybe even since last Monday, the last time he saw her

Kevin doesn’t understand the scene he has before his eyes

he’s never seen such apathy in someone that is not Andrew

and at this point, apathy is pretty much Andrew’s default state of being

not Juliet’s

Juliet is a soft glow, toothy grins, wild curls, countless jumpers, dumb jokes and references, color-coded notes, an organized mind, unwavering focus and determination, flowing words and warm, kind eyes...

so what is this?

then Kevin realizes he spoke aloud

and Juliet can only chuckle sadly, almost mockingly

“This? This is why I don’t have friends. This is why I don’t mix with people. This is why I’ll never amount to anything in life. This is my dirty laundry, both metaphorically and literally. This is it. That’s... That’s it. This is what I get,” she answers flatly

Kevin’s mind is spinning

he doesn’t understand

he needs to understand, though

“Explain it to me,” he says

Juliet looks at him like a brick just hit him on the head and made him speak Swedish

“Why.”

“Because, surely there’s a way to work with it.”

she laughs

it doesn’t reach her eyes, nor her lips or her cheeks

it’s just a desperate sound

it makes him think of Andrew again

and that gives him an idea, a gut feeling, if you will

“Can I try something out?” he asks

“Kevin... I can’t- I’m tired... It’s not a good idea... I’m tired, Kevin,” Juliet responds, pain noticeable in her voice and her movements slow

“I know, I- I know. Someone I know... He plays this game. It’s really not a game, it’s more like a communication thing. He calls it “A Truth for a Truth”.  In exchange for something I tell you, you tell me something. And in exchange for something you tell me, I’ll tell you something else. It’s made me... work through some things... before,” Kevin explains calmly

Juliet keeps on observing him from her bed, silent

“Look, can I just stay here to do homework? I have nowhere to go right now,” Kevin asks, almost blurting out “Please” before Andrew’s ghost caught it in his throat

she lies back down, burries herself in her covers, a silent “yes”

Kevin ends up falling asleep sitting on the floor, books open, head resting at the end of Juliet’s bed

he wakes up around 2 AM

he’s got multiple texts from Aaron and Nicky, one from Andrew, and one from Dan

“told everybody you spent the night at Coach’s. take care.”

he silently vows to thank her later

now he either really goes to Wymack’s to finish his night there, or... he stays exactly where he is

Juliet is still sleeping soundly

in a haze, he palms for a pillow or cushion, pulls his hoodie on and lies back down on the carpeted floor

he’s only awaken in the late morning when he brutally gets stepped on

“What the shit?? Kevin! How...???” Juliet yells

“Um, ow? No, no, don’t apologize so quickly. You just, you know, crushed my lungs and a couple of ribs, no worries, Jules!” Kevin groans

“Ju- you know what? I’m not sorry. Right now I gotta pee, so you better have a damn good explanation when I get back,” she replies and leaves her room to go to the bathroom at the end of the hall

instead of dread, Kevin feels calm about the upcoming conversation

he doesn’t prepare lies, doesn’t run away, doesn’t resort to assholery

he just stays put where he is on the floor, snuggles deeper into his hoodie, and waits for relief, for the truth

he waits for Juliet

[shesawriter39049]

|FAMILY TIES| M| MAFIA AU| 4|

SNEAK PEEK #2 1.1 K

Soo you've gotten 3k of the chapter between the two(It will be around 13 all together so there’s still a lot in between lol )

GENRE:SMUT/ ANGST

AU SUMMARY :  A powerful alliance made up of of 4 families spanning over a decade, is suddenly turned on its head when one family has a new leader after an unexpected death. Well let’s just say he’s not down to follow the somewhat civilized rules your families have inforced. Sooo now, it’s game on…

LOCATION: Shanghai Pudong International Airport 11PM Wednesday night

You were out like a light, not even bothering to wake you until, the cargo plane had also landed, it was pushing almost 11pm at this point. Waking up to the feeling of someone slipping your shirt over your head, in combination with the sound of thunder rumbling against the plane. Eyes slightly hazy as they fluttered open slowly….

“It’s pouring and barley 50 degeress, you’d freeze in that…” Gaze dropping down to silently  observe the way he delicately slid your body into your oh so subtle Gucci tracksuit. “Eww when did you get so sappy!” The playful tease rolled off your lips and against his tongue, not hesitating to let his hand make a firm imprint on your ass. Holding it in place so you felt the sting against your flesh, forever reminding you how instant his duality could be.

A whimper slipped past your tongue while he smiked into the kiss, “Who the fuck are you calling sappy?” a low growl left his lips, as he sunk his teeth into your bottom lip, before shifting your body beanthe him, flipping you over so you were straddling his waist. Lazy kisses and sweet nothings were brushed against each others lips as you waited to unload the jet. Jet lag was in full affect that’s for damn sure ,this was NOT a smooth ride at all.

It felt surreal yet so natural..the two of you..not holding your breath with how long it would last, well aware that you both had a lot on your shoulders right now. Emotions are at an all time high so you tried not to over analyze the affection he was giving you, no matter how much you loved it.

Upon stepping off the plane you were greeted by almost terrifyingly dark skies , I swear mother nature tries to drop hints….she tries. Thankfully the mood was brightened slightly by Lay’s deadly dimples noticeable even tucked under a hat making his rounds as he greeted you all one by one. While you all loaded a little car comparable to an oversized golf cart where he drove you all a little further down the lane where the freight plane landed. 

“Okay so I need a favor, I need every box counted and marked,as you guys load each one nto the truck I want them loaded in numerical order…tonight!” Smiling up at him doe eyed, his body just slumped at the sound of that. It was wet and cold, and late as all hell, due to the weather they probably weren’t even going to unload until the morning!  But he'd never question, or complain about anything you requested of him. Shooting you another charming smile before  bowing out, to instruct his men to do as you asked.

It took close to an hour to get through every box, stregicially placing them based on weight, size, and  if any of them were marked as “Fragile “  The seven of you waited in anticipation, as they loaded the last 3 boxes into the trailer.

“54!” You heard Lay's voice echoed through the wind...A combination of relief and confusion now danced through the atmosphere. 

‘Does this mean I could actually, possibly leave China for once without killing someone!? ’ Hoseok spoke up for the first time since waking up voice sitting extremely groggy.

A drowsy chuckle filled the space as you all stood under the awning of the building to avoid the rain. Back pressed  firmly against Tae for extra warmth, as you all started walking towards the terminals. According to Lay’s packing sheet the driver  left with 60 boxes...he claims they took six so, so far his “robbery”stories kinda  lining up...

“I don't know man, I just still don’t get how they got away with six freight boxes before he noticed...has the driver’s plane landed?” Taehyung’s eyes cut over to Jin, as he checked the airports stats on his phone.

‘Nope, the rain has him delayed , at least another hour or so…”

It was getting late and none of you had the patience to wait for him, also not wanting to ambush the driver, wanting to weight until you’d collected a little more info. 

“How about this, instead of him taking the semi home, and coming back in the morning for the trailer, have Lay take him home...just makeup some bullshit excuse. I want Hoseok to drive it in, tomorrow morning instead . Tell the driver he can come in at 8 with all the other shop workers…” Jin nodded, walking over to give Lay the new game plan, before descending into the chaos that was the airport.

As you lot trucked through, believe it or not it was still packed..regardless of the fact it was pushing midnight. The line for Customs & Immigrations was ungodly and the 7 of you definitely drew attention, some stairs lingered longer than others. Taehyung and yourself were strategically placed between the other 5 men, purposely shielding you from view. Yet the presentation felt natural, it didn't appear like a barricade to the naked eye, if you didn't know any better you’d just think you were walking in a group.

A good hour, and lack of patience later you were the last to get verified, you understood enough Chiness to gist that everything documentation wise was all good. Just as the smiling face in front of you handed back your passport a member of TSA steps into frame.

Almost snatching your passport right out of your hand “Rude…” Slipped past your lips, eyes rolling to the back of your head without even a second thought.

You could hear him mumbling something in Chiness to the other TSA the almost sounded like “Back room” 

“Ms. Sever-”

“Severiane’ ” Tone dry as all hell, you could tell he was struggling and you weren’t in the mood, already annoyed by this blatant attitude.

“Yes’ we need you to step out of line, and follow me..” First thing you noticed was how clear his accent was, as he spoke to you in English with no hesitation.

“For what!?” The words slipped past all of there lips simultaneously before you even had time to rebuttal, completely ignoring the men to your right as they chimed in. The lack of response clearly wasn’t working in your favor as both guards stepped from behind the counter,and just like clock work, Taehyung and Namjoon were at your side as the men started to invade your personal space.

Both of there faces screamed “Back the fuck up..now!”

“I’m only going to ask you one more time, as long as you cooperate this won’t take long..”

You could feel Tae’s grip on your waist get tighter, pulling you into his frame as he locked eyes with the guard in front of you. If looks could kill, this man's head would be on the other side of the airport right now . You swore you could almost hear Taehyung’s teeth grinding together his jaw was clenched so tightly,

“Yeah, okay, ,whatever…not like my bags and passport didn't already clear your system but sure..lead the way” Flagging your hand to gesture you were ready to go, nothing subtle about the attitude that dripped from your lips

As you went to walk off, the grip Tae held on the back of your joggers never faltered jerking you back into him. “I got this…” Brushed past your lips and you swore he growled in response, forgetting how possessive this man could get. His eyes cut from yours and over to gentleman to your right before nodding tentatively. 

Smiling faintly in Namjoon’s direction as well, knowing he was feeling all the same emotions as Taehyung! Wigging out of his hold, fingertips gracing yours until the last possible second, the final glare that shoot from their eyes into the Tsa was lethal….

Walking down a long hallway before finally being led to a room in the back corner. 

Upon taking a seat the gentleman that walked you in left without saying a single word….

“That’s a beautiful plane you guys have…” Another extremely clear American accent graced through the doors as a different agent walked in to take a seat in front of you. His name tag translating to “Han”.

“Thank you…”

“So what brings you to Shanghai at this time of night…”

You could tell he was just beating around the bush and you really had no patience for it whatsoever “I didn't plan to get here this late, but it’s a long flight and the weather sucks..” Shrugging nonchalantly as you crossed your legs, slouching back in your seat.

“Is it your first time here?”

Just shaking your head “no” in response, the utter lack of enthusiasm earned a chuckle from the gentleman in front of you.

“Ohhhkay..and what brings you here this time?”

“Food..shopping...aesthetically pleasing pics for my Instagram..shall I continue…” Crass nothing but crass…

“So your telling me you flew 16 hours to shop, eat and take pictures?” Brow arched at the implied question triggering a smirk to crawl up your face.

“Clearly you can tell I can afford it” Letting your hand trail up and down your body everything from your tracksuit, to the diamonds that danced along your body screamed affluent. “So yes, that is why I’m here..and if all you wanted was my itinerary can I go?”

“No, I actually called you in because  when your bag got checked.. We noticed your weapon wasn’t stored properly. But instead of just taking it, I decided to be nice and give you a warning,I even brought a pamphlet for the proper protocol when traveling  with a concealed weapon.

Bullshit, utter bullshit, there was nothing wrong with your gun and if it was it would've gotten flagged when they checked your bag…They don’t play around when it comes to weapons registered or not!

“Hmm, well aren't you a gem, thank you, I’ll be more careful next time..” Flashing him an Oscar worthy smile ...to go with his bullshit excuse for why he called you in here

“Anytime, make sure it’s secured when you leave though,  we won’t be as generous next time…” Slowly rising from his seat, just nodding in response.

“Enjoy Shanghai Ms. Sunjata…” You felt your spine go ridigit at the sound of that, completely readjusting in your seat. Footsteps rattled behind you, as you heard the door shut. Trying to run through any scenario in your head, that could explain why you were 99.99 percent sure this TSA agent just referred to you by your original surname!

That was all the conformation he needed...silently observing the obvious shift in body language.. 

And just like clock work you realized he wasn’t actually leaving, the door was never closed when he came in to begin with….

Soooo like….Ya’ll ready for part 4 or Nah? Lol lemme know whatcha think…This is the last sneak peek no promises but I’m thinking Next week it should be up! It’s almost done.....

Love you as always..

Rocki

[eponymous-rose]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E50 (Feb. 5, 2019)

Are any of us ever, really, on the internet?

This week’s guests are Taliesin Jaffe and Matt Mercer!

Brian shames Taliesin and Matt for (to be fair, accidentally) pouring coke in with their 22-year-old scotch. I am also physically pained by this. I may need a minute to compose myself. (@loquaciousquark: “I like how you’re Brian in this and I’m Matt.”)

Announcements: MAME drop airs three hours before Talks every week! Next week’s Between the Sheets will feature Will Friedle, and last night’s episode featured Quyen Tran! Critical Role will be taking this coming Thursday off, and Talks Machina will be taking next Tuesday off, but the show returns on Valentine’s Day!

But for now, let’s jump into Episode 50: The Endless Burrows

Stats for this week’s ep: Fjord got the 50th HDYWTDT in the 50th episode! The Roper’s crit on Caleb would have one-shotted him had Caduceus not reduced it by negating the crit. Spurt is the first on-screen guest player character death in the history of the show. Chris Perkins was at the table for 22 minutes and 15 seconds. Taliesin: “That’s an episode of network television right there.”

Chris was in town unexpectedly, and asked if he could come watch the show. Matt had written Spurt as an NPC character, just to see how the M9 would react to him. As he was driving to the studio, he realized it could be a lot of fun to let Chris play the character instead. Chris was on board, and Matt told him “You’ll know when to jump in,” and that was that. Nobody else had any idea he was going to be playing.

Caduceus is “in his element but out of his element” underground. “He’s looking for things to be excited about. Not a lot of things to be excited about here. It’s kind of awful.” Taliesin is trying to let him be a little more tactical, to just take care of things and do what needs to be done. “He’s on edge, but it’s a healthy edge.”

Matt clarifies that the party haven’t really emerged into the Underdark---they’re just skimming the edges of it. After spending a lot of time there in the last campaign, Matt didn’t necessarily want to bring it back there again.

Caduceus doesn’t see the group as being deceitful so much as just people who haven’t had the option of being open before. “He’s trying to make that option available.” Part of his training at the temple involved talking to people, helping them feel better, and helping them open up, so this is nothing new to him. Matt: “The solitary therapist.” Taliesin: “He really, really likes them.”

Spurt was originally intended to be a potential hindrance to keep the group from getting past the fire giants stealthily, if he wound up coming along with them. Turned out he... sort of removed himself from that equation.

On the parade of tragic backstories: “I don’t think Clay fully comprehends how bad this all is. I don’t know if he can comprehend art film horror. ‘That’s rough, man.’“ Matt: “He’s the Fred Tatasciore of the group.” Everyone is delighted by that comparison.

Matt was looking for opportunities to bring tragic backstories together. Taliesin calls it a “car crash” approach.

Why are D&D characters often so tragic? Taliesin: “It’s harder to make an interesting happy person.” Matt: “That’s true, but it’s not impossible.” He talks about how it’s natural to try to build something into a character’s backstory to propel them into the dangers of adventure. It’s also the opportunity for a player to work through something they’re going through out-of-game in a safe, cathartic way.

Caduceus is “still a little lanky”. Taliesin points out that this is to be expected because he’s a “vegan on the road”. There’s a long discussion about how the food he makes is “basically semi-firm tofu”.

Matt freaks out a bit about the unintentional callback... VM also being a mid-level party descending into the Underdark in search of a halfling and almost losing a rogue’s foot to lava. A lot of things had to go a particular way for that to happen, and he definitely wasn’t expecting it, especially since he was consciously trying to avoid familiar territory with the Underdark this time around.

Brian: “Which is funny, because the writers never even saw the first campaign.”

Taliesin points out that a trickster cleric is meant to be more of a toolkit, whereas a grave cleric build is more of a medkit.

Taliesin: “I’ve learned my lesson, and I have like three new character ideas ready to go, for this campaign or the next.”

There’s a lot of debate about where the hell Spurt got a skunk, which leads to the creation of the magical item Skunk Jug, which produces a skunk.

Caduceus enjoyed the romance novel, but it hadn’t “entirely clicked”. “He’s aware that: ‘Ah, they’re doing the hanky-panky stuff.’ It’s not really in his wheelhouse.”

Matt was very proud of the group coming up with their plan to get past the giant, and he felt a bit bad that Nott rolled so low (although he also loves the “magnificent clusterfuck” moments that are the hallmark of D&D). Brian: “That’s just a testament to how bad Sam is as a player.” 

Caduceus took Warcaster as his next feat. “This seems to be in-character and useful.”

Fan art of the week: Nott running across the lava! Taliesin: “I want to play that game. That’s an 8-bit game I want to play.”

Brian asks Matt if the game’s about where he thought it would be at episode 50. Matt: “We’re charging into Xhorhas earlier than I was expecting. We need to get Ashley back soon.” (They’ll get her back in a couple months.) He also points out that some story beats have happened in the world in the group’s absence. He didn’t want to tailor the story’s trajectory to manufacture a big moment in episode 50. The group’s involvement in the Empire has been less than expected, but the direction they’re taking is much more direct than he was expecting. Taliesin points out that if the group had been Vox Machina, they would’ve involved themselves in the politics of the war instantly. Matt reiterates that he loves DMing in a reactionary way when the players push in an unexpected direction.

All Taliesin wants to do right now is fix that sword. He’s expecting it to be, like, a +1 cursed sword that just sings constantly and can’t ever be put down.

Taliesin: “I’m enjoying corralling all the kids.” Matt points out that he’s a much-needed influence on the group. Beau is the one that Cad considers to be his best friend. Dani: “You two can’t not be best friends in this show.” Cad thinks of Fjord as an angsty teen. He thinks Caleb is occasionally up his own butt a bit. He hasn’t figured out that Jester’s an adult yet. “’Oh, she’s happy and fine. Thank goodness someone is.’ And obviously she’s not, but he hasn’t figured that out yet.” He’s disappointed in Nott for the amount of drinking, although he hasn’t said it out loud.

Taliesin: “Cad thinks dangerous things have wisdom. Sometimes just walking up to something and asking is very useful. Sometimes you can avoid getting arrested in front of a coffee shop by offering the officer a hot pocket.”

Matt talks about how getting players to avoid combat is a teaching process that involves incentivizing out-of-the-box approaches. That’s in direct contrast to the more traditional grind-through-fights approach to D&D that was prevalent in the early editions, so it can be a process. He points out that you can talk to players out-of-game, or you can change your own plans to allow players a non-combat win even if it’s a bit of a stretch.

Taliesin and Matt both own a pair of chaps. As you do.

Taliesin’s personal inspiration for Cad’s staff was very Dark Crystal-driven. The crystal comes from the land he lives on. He dug up the crystal and made the staff himself; the beetles crawl into and out of the stick continuously.

Talks Machina: After Dog

Brian: "Are you relaxed right now?” Taliesin: “Yeah, there’s something in this Coke that’s really...”

Taliesin got started with eyeliner in high school with Vampire LARPing. He had a (mumblemumble)”furk idee” that got him into goth clubs early. Matt first learned to apply eyeliner for cosplay, then wore it for the first time outside of cosplay clubbing with Taliesin (they also had an industrial goth karaoke night).

Dumbest way they’ve managed to injure themselves? Matt was editing There Will Be Brawl’s final episode, which was a bit too overambitious and he was the only editor, and he didn’t sleep for 72 hours and threw his back out horribly from sitting too long. Taliesin was doing a student film as a teenager, and was asked to do a stunt that involved holding someone up to a moving train (Matt: “What the fuck, Taliesin?”). He had really long goth nails at the time and managed to break all ten of his nails off entirely doing that stunt. “I didn’t drop him into the moving train!” Matt: “That’s why unions are good.”

Brian: “I lit myself on fire with a molotov cocktail.” Yes, really, but he wasn’t badly burned. Taliesin: “Did you at least hit the man? Did it stick to him?” Brian: “It was not a man. It was a porta-potty.” Matt reiterates how grateful he was not to have grown up with cellphone video.

Matt: “So you’re saying...” Taliesin: “I was Emperor Norton, yeah.” Matt: “Aw. I’m proud of you!”

We all learned... a lot today. See you in two weeks for episode 100 of Talks Machina!

[girlwiththegreenhat]

2, 23, and 67 for the viddy game asks please!!

2) A game that has influenced you creatively? Writing, drawing, etc.

Arguably most of the games I’ve played had some influence on me creatively. Like, I can’t tell you how much time I’ve spent drawing fanart for video games, and all their styles left some mark on my own. I think some of the biggest credits go to TF2 and BATIM, I really like how TF2 handles it’s characters both visually and… as characters, and I’ve done a lot of art studies based on it’s comic and you can prob see it’s influence on my art if you squint.  And while I didn’t get much visual influence from BATIM directly, the hundreds of hours I spent drawing either direct BATIM fanart or BATIM AU art did me a lot of good the last couple years xD It’s also the game I’ve written the most for, so I probably got the most writing experience from it too.

23) The game that you’ve logged the most hours into?

Speaking purely on what I have real statistics for, Team Fortress 2 recently overtook Borderlands 2 as my most played game. never thought that’d happen

(if you include the Borderlands 2 playtime logged on my brother’s PS4 though, it definitely still wins xD)

If we’re just doing estimates, probably MapleStory - I played that like, every day for years as a kid. I’ve only got 25 hours logged on it in Steam, but if I had a counter for how much I played it in my lifetime, it’d absolutely be in the thousands. I wasted. Soooooooo much time on that game lmfao. And it was time well wasted, mostly. Sometimes I still shudder over the time around 12 or 13 where I spent four straight hours trying to do the Zakum jump quest, and the only reason I stopped was because I had severe eye strain. Couldn’t see anything, it was all violent flashing black and white strips webbed across my vision. My mom had to lead me back to bed because I literally Could Not See. Almost thought I was drugged lmfao. The real kicker was nailing the quest first try the next morning…

67) Do you have a happy gaming-related childhood memory you want to share?

I’m pretty sure I already told the story Several Times about when I found my older brother’s GameBoy with some mario game loaded onto it and it was like one of the best weeks of my childhood, but it’s kinda tricky to think of any other memories. My parents were very strict ‘no video games’ people so aside from a couple free online games and chill stuff like Rollercoaster Tycoon and Zoo Tycoon I didn’t get to play them very often. They bought us a Wii for christmas when I was nine or ten, which was the point when they started to lighten up about them…

One of my fav memories is probably when I was 12, over the summer I decided I wanted to actually level up a character in MapleStory instead of just leveling when my friends wanted to. I made a character, a new class at the time called Aran, and decided I was going to level her up all the way to 200 (the max level at the time). This was before the Big Bang patch of late 2011 that made leveling STUPID easy, so having a high level character was a BIG deal. The first big milestone was having a character that was level 50, because at that level characters unlock Mounts, which were monsters you could ride. Prior to this it had taken me months to get my first character to around level 37, aaand I also fucked up all her stats so as a warrior she had like no strength but a bunch of health, cuz I was like ‘oh dying in fights suck, so if i have a BUNCH of health, i will have enough time to escape!! BRILLIANT LOGIC IN A GAME ABOUT FIGHTING MONSTERS, YES.’ (I distinctly remember finding a fellow warrior and telling them about how much health I had, and tldr their reaction was ‘!? you’re lying that’s illegal’).

BUT ANYWAYS, i set my first goal and ended up hitting it, which was getting my new character to level 50 in a month. There was a party quest I loved doing, I think it had a Real Name but everyone just called it the Ludi PQ. It was based in a town that was basically made of toys and legos, and it had the prettiest background music Ever. It also gave ASSLOADS of EXP for the time, so it was faster than farming monsters for EXP or doing regular quests. I played it more than any other party quest, and cuz it was summer I could literally play nonstop every day, so… I did! And I got my character to level 50 in exactly a month. It felt SO good running around towns on my fancy new mount, which for this class starts as a brown wolf.

(not my character, all my old MS screenshots are on my laptop = u =)

This is more like a long and broad story rather than one memory, oops. Anyway yeah, level 50 in a month, it was a Big Accomplishment back then. From there it was my childhood Mission to get my character to level 200, which I did end up doing three years ago. I hardly had much interest in MS at that point, but I was so close and I had to get to the finish line, if only for the dumb 12 year old who invested her heard and soul into being the STRONKEST ARAN EVAR SO I CAN DEFEAT THE B L A C K  M A G E… … … … … …

i’m sad they made the level cap 250, cuz i didn’t get the cool [GALAXXI HAS REACHED LEVEL 200! CONGRATS!] server-wide announcement when i finally did it, and they don’t do it for level 250 so there’s no point in getting that far 8) (level 200 is still the level cap… IN MY HEART.) i’m also sad you can get to level 50 in like two days now, mere hours if you grind like your life depends on it, but damn it’s fun having the memory of that month when my life was maplestory morning to night, playing the Ludi PQ for hours and bonding with strangers over memes and teamwork, and the EUPHORIC moment when i finally hit level 50 and all that hard work paid off.

... this post got Real Long but I got caught up in The Memories okay? xD thanks for the ask!!

[chemicalmagecraft]

The Gamer Hero, Deku Chapter 6

A/N: Sorry for the wall of text. I just wanted to get what Izuku's passives dealt with so everyone knows.

To Silverspirit: Thanks! I really do appreciate constructive criticism like this! Hopefully I'll be able to mellow out a little more with the skills now (though I feel like Midoriya should probably spend some skill fragments soon if I think of anything to spend it on). Something I'd like to note, though, is that the reason that Bakugou is so much more mellowed out is a combination of the fact that he has no reason to be angry with Midoriya and the fact that he's had ten months of offscreen character development.

To Shadow S. Korosu: Yep, you're totally right. Bakugou shouldn't and isn't going to have the same level of magical ability as Midoriya. Yes, he is going to learn some magical skill, but he explicitly can't develop as fast as Midoriya. As in the original manga, The Gamer is stupid broken and lets its user do stupid broken things. The reason why it seemed that Bakugou was so good in that battle is because he has a fire affinity five times higher than Midoriya's air affinity, so he explicitly has the advantage when it comes to his fire spells. Still though, he can't do something stupid like gain a new elemental affinity in the middle of a fight because the one he's using isn't working. That being said, it'll be a lot easier to become powerful with magic in this fic than it will be in The Gamer because I really like it when people are super powerful in whatever media and reality can be whatever I want it to be now.

Edit: Chopped up some of the longer paragraphs because what the heck was I thinking with that?

xoxoxo

A few days after Kacchan revealed he could use magic, All Might got back to us about... whatever he had to do about the fact that we'd discovered that magic existed. Apparently, he'd had to contact some government higher-ups, though he didn't go into too much detail about it. "If anyone's discovered magic before you two, whoever did it kept it a secret," he told us. "The official ruling is that 'magic' and 'Quirk usage' are legally synonymous for the purposes of public Quirk usage laws. Additionally, you two are totally allowed to teach other people magic, but the suggestion is to only allow people who can be trusted with that power to learn about it, for obvious reasons. I've been asked to tell you that they need some notes from the both of you about the details regarding magic, like how to use it. Some scientists are going to do some serious research on the subject."

We agreed to do what he asked. Aside from that, we went on as normal, training for Yuuei. Kacchan decided to focus more on practicing his magic, with some physical workouts. I mostly did conditioning for One For All while training what magic I could at night and occasionally during the day, plus constantly having Halitus out to level grind Summon Basic Elemental without having to put in any actual effort. Aside from that, I decided that, while I would only have as many elementals as my skill's level would allow me to have out at a time, I should at least have the affinities for the other two elements just in case. Getting water had been as simple as just sticking my hands in the ocean until I got it, but I couldn't figure out how to safely get fire affinity (Kacchan smacked me on the head when I suggested just layering up buffs and then sticking my hand into a fire while using Healing Hands) until Kacchan had the bright idea to have me see if I could use Pyra instead of fire. Despite the fact that Pyra was made of fire in her fully summoned state, she would only burn things if she wanted to and was just warm to the touch when she didn't. I felt a little weird placing my palm on her forehead, but it did get me fire affinity. I found that Fire Aura gave me a 30% boost to attack damage, a 15% boost to movement speed, a 10% STR bonus, and the ability to generate heat. Water Aura, interestingly enough, gave me a 30% increase to magical defense, a 15% increase to magical attack, a 10% INT bonus, and the ability to both condense water from the atmosphere and generate it with MP. Their respective elemental weaponry skills gave similar bonuses. While I did occasionally use Elemental Aura in my physical training to see how they affected my abilities, I mostly just used my natural strength in the hope that that'd be the best for upping my VIT. It took most of the ten months before the entrance exams, but eventually...

Through rigorous exercise, your VIT has increased by one!

Congratulations! The quest Roaring Muscles was completed!

Completion Rewards: One For All (speak to Toshinori), 5000 EXP, 5000 Skill Fragments, Increased closeness with Bakugou, Increased closeness with Toshinori

Your level has increased by one! (x3)

I got my VIT up to 50. I looked at my stats.

STR: 44

VIT: 50

DEX: 46

INT: 73

WIS: 69

LUC: 49

I grinned. Most of my stats were either already past the fifty benchmark already or close enough that I could hopefully get them up to it within the next two months. But first, I had to do something. "All Might!" I called out.

"What is it, young Midoriya?" he asked, currently in his civilian form.

"I got my VIT to fifty!"

He switched to his hero form, then gave his trademark grin. "That's great, young Midoriya! Now I can pass my power on to you!"

"About that," I said. "How do you pass your power on to someone?"

"You see," he pulled off a piece of his hair and said, "for you to receive my power, you have to eat my hair."

"What the fuck!?" Kacchan asked as he walked over from the inferno that he'd made, with the fire dying down as soon as he left it. "Why the hell does Deku have to eat your fucking hair?"

"I can pass my Quirk on to someone through making them eat my DNA. I feel that the best thing to use for that is my hair."

I gulped, then took the hair that he offered me. "Down the hatch..." I muttered, then placed the hair in my mouth. It was hard to swallow, so I used the first step of a water spell that I'd made, Water Gun, to condense some water from the air to wash it down. I shuddered when I'd finished the water and, thankfully, the hair. "That was a little unpleasant..."

"I still remember how weird it was when I had to do it," All Might commiserated. "Now we just have to wait a few hours for your new Quirk to come, young Midoriya."

"Why the fuck doesn't it come automatically?" Kacchan asked.

"Does it have to digest first?" I theorized. "And maybe the Quirk factor has to take time to grow in even after it-" I was cut off my a ping.

A skill has been created by gaining the power of All Might! By having All Might pass his Quirk to you, the skill 'One For All' has been created.

One For All (Active and Passive) LV1 EXP 0.00%

When Quirks first started to come into existence, there was chaos. In that chaos, one man born with the power to take the Quirks of others and give them to others or use them for himself took advantage of the situation to amass power. This man had a brother, who was born with the rather underwhelming ability to pass his Quirk, the ability to pass his Quirk on to another, on to another. While it is unknown whether it was out of malice or compassion, the man forced the Quirk Power Stockpile onto his brother, and from the combination of the two Quirks, the Quirk known as One For All was born.

Skill grants the user a second MP bar. When skill is not in use, this second MP bar fills over time when the first MP bar is filled, using the same MP regeneration rate. This second MP bar has no upper limit.

When activated, user can draw upon the second MP bar in place of the natural one.

User can expend MP to increase the power of most stats and skills.

"Wah!" I exclaimed.

"What is it, young Midoriya?" All Might asked me.

"I just got One For All. I think that my Quirk sped up the process of me getting One For All, which actually makes sense when you think about it. In most games, whatever effect food and other edible things have is applied immediately, despite how it would logically require time to digest. I guess that that also means that I can use food to... Wait, that's not everything." I looked once more at the description. It was weird. The skill felt a little more complicated than what it said. Aside from that... "The description of the skill states that it was made by someone with a Quirk that can steal other people's Quirks and give them to others. Do you... know anything about that?" I asked.

All Might sighed. "Sit down, the both of you. This will be a shock." Kacchan and I sat down on the sand as All Might sat on his chair. "That man was called All For One. He was probably the most dangerous villain in the history of the world. He gained many followers in the early years of Quirks thanks to his abilities. Thankfully, his own brother, the first bearer of One For All, disagreed with him and stopped him. Unfortunately, however, All For One survived and, I'm assuming, took some form of life-extending Quirk. I know this because he was the reason why I got this wound five years ago. I'd like to say that he's dead, but we never found the body, so we can't say for sure."

I... didn't say anything. I couldn't say anything. Even with the Gamer's Mind, it was a lot to take in. I think that if I could have said anything, it would have been exactly what Kacchan was saying. "Fuuuuuuuuuck. That's... fuck."

"I understand if you have reservations," All Might said. "I hoped that this wouldn't come up just yet. I wanted you to have a school experience unmarred by worry about All For One."

Kacchan scoffed. "Well maybe you still should've fucking said something about that shit before Deku ate your gross fucking hair, dumbass."

"It's fine, Kacchan," I said. "I was already prepared to be a hero, so learning that I already have an arch-nemesis isn't that bad. I'm still going to need some time to process this, but for now..." I got up and walked over to an area where there was only a stretch of sand so as to avoid collateral damage. "I've always wanted to do this." I cocked my arm back. "DETROIT!" Energy flowed through my whole arm, and for some reason I got a Sense Danger warning. That really should've been a red flag, in hindsight. "SMASH!" I punched the air, the simple force of it causing a shockwave that sent sand flying. It wasn't as strong as All Might's, but it was still a Detroit Smash! My excitement was almost immediately destroyed by the fact that my arm felt like I'd punched the sound barrier, which I had.

System Warning: Using One For All at full power is inadvisable in current condition. Usage should be limited to lower power. Level up skill to decrease damage taken.

The level of the skill Physical Endurance has increased by one!

I looked at my health, then winced and activated Healing Hands and Regeneration. "I think that my body still isn't completely up to the task of using One For All yet," I said. "My health dropped about a quarter from that one punch. I think that I should probably train my physical stats a bit more in the next two months as well as One For All practice. That might be for the best."

"Deku you better not fucking break yourself in half," Kacchan scolded.

"Yes, I would prefer that you not kill yourself, young Midoriya. That would be bad," All Might agreed. "If that's the case, then you should get back to work.

xoxoxo

I stared at the school. It was huge! I got the vaguest feeling that, if not for Gamer's Mind, I would have been shaking. "We're here..." I said.

"Yup," Kacchan said to with a toothy grin. "It'd suck pretty hard if you fucked up now and got no points at all, huh?" I looked at him. Sometime during the last two months of training, his title had changed in addition to the levels and points of INT and WIS he'd gained.

Art is an Explosion

LV 27

Katsuki Bakugou

"I doubt I'll get zero points, Kacchan," I said. "My stats are all above fifty, and INT and WIS are both approaching one hundred. I'm probably the most powerful person taking the exams, and that's not even counting One For All." It had taken a tremendous amount of effort, but I felt great about myself for managing to get all of the fifty point skills before the Yuuei entrance exam.

The skill 'Heroic Strength' has been created through STR rising above 50.

Heroic Strength (Passive) LV2 EXP 2.14%

Some are endowed with the strength to move mountains. This skill grants enhanced physical ability.

10% increase to STR.

10% increase to physical attack.

50% increase to strength-based skill effects.

The skill 'Iron Body' has been created through VIT rising above 50.

Iron Body (Passive) LV5 EXP 7.21%

Some are bestowed with the vitality to endure any punishment. This skill grants enhanced physical durability.

10% increase to VIT.

10% increase to HP.

50% increase to HP-based skill effects.

The skill 'Fleet Foot' has been created through DEX rising above 50.

Fleet Foot (Passive) LV 3 EXP 3.21%

Some are bestowed with the speed to rival the wind. This skill grants enhanced swiftness.

10% increase to DEX.

10% increase to movement speed.

50% increase to DEX-based skill effects.

The skill 'Born Lucky' has been created through LUC rising above 50.

Born Lucky (Passive) LV1 EXP 87.56%

Luck can be a very fickle thing. This skill is bestowed upon those who luck favors.

10% increase to LUC

10% increase to loot drops.

50% increase to LUC-based skill effects.

Kacchan scoffed. "Like I'll let you just take that title without a fight," he said, lightly punching me on the shoulder.

"It's a contest, then!" I smiled. "Let's see who gets the most points!" "I feel really good about this!" I mentally exclaimed. Then I tripped. "Or not." Before I could even have Halitus try to stop my fall, I just... stopped. I felt odd, like gravity had stopped working on me.

"Sorry for using my Quirk on you without asking," a female voice said, "but I thought that you might not like going through your exams with a bloody nose!" Someone pulled me into a position where I wouldn't fall, then gravity reasserted itself on me and I landed on my feet. "I hope that's okay!" she said. I turned to see a cute brown-haired girl with rosy cheeks and a bright smile.

Space Kid

LV 19

Uraraka Ochako

"Oh no, it's fine!" I said. I probably would've just frozen up and blurted out nonsense words if I didn't have Gamer's Mind. I used to get really nervous when first meeting attractive people like that. "So your Quirk is some sort of gravity-manipulation power, right?"

"Yeah!" she said, then showed me one of her hands, or rather the pads on the ends of her fingers. "I can make objects weightless if I touch them with these things. It makes me all kinds of nauseous if I use it too much, though..."

"Even with that, it seems like a really powerful and useful Quirk," I said. "You'll probably be a great hero!"

She beamed. "Thanks! I'm Uraraka Ochako, by the way. Are you two here for the hero course too?"

Kacchan did that thing where he punches his fist into his other palm and makes an explosion to look cool. "Yup! Deku and I are gonna dominate this thing, so you'd better watch out."

I sighed. "Kacchan, could you please be nice to someone who could be our future classmate?"

She laughed. "It's nice to meet you two! I'll see you two in the hero course!" Then she ran off.

A few moments later Kacchan exasperatedly said, "Son of a bitch she only knows me as Kacchan now."

"We have to get to our exams, Kacchan," I reminded him.

"Yeah, yeah," he sighed.

xoxoxo

The written exams were... well, I suppose they were difficult, but my INT was so high that I breezed through them. After that, all of the hero course students had to attend a presentation (By Present Mic!) about what the practical exams would be like. The answer was robot-fighting, apparently. During the explanation, a boy stood up to ask a question and decided to scold me for muttering as well. That was embarrassing... After that, they escorted us to the fake cities where we'd be taking the exams. Unfortunately, Kacchan was sent to a different training ground than me, probably because they didn't want people who know each other working together. Present Mic announced that we'd have a few minutes to get ready for the exam, then clarified that that meant things like stretching but also things like preparing our Quirks. At that moment, I got a new quest.

A quest has been created!

Start Line

The Yuuei entrance exams include a ten-minute mock battle against robots. Get as many combat points as you can!

Optional objectives: Destroy the zero-pointer.

Completion: 100 EXP per combat point, 100 Skill Fragments per combat point. Optional: 2500 EXP, 2500 Skill Fragments.

Failure: You don't get any combat points, decreased closeness with Bakugou.

I readied up my buffs, holding them so that I could use them the moment the exam started but also regenerate my MP and use One For All to charge them up. As I looked over the crowd, I saw Uraraka. I started to walk over to her to thank her for earlier when I felt a hand on my shoulder. "What do you think you're doing?" I turned around to see the boy who scolded me earlier in a tight-fitting shirt that really showed off his muscles, unlike my tracksuit. He also appeared to have engines in his calves, which was probably his Quirk. "She appears to be getting ready for the mock battle." You could tell from his voice alone that he was really strict. "Were you going to use your Quirk on her to soften up the competition?" He looked at my left hand. I looked at the four balls of colored light in my hand. That probably looked bad, didn't it?

"It's not what it looks like!" I blurted. He raised an eyebrow. "The balls are for me, not her!" I clarified. He was actually really intimidating.

His face softened up a bit, then he bowed at a ninety-degree angle. "My apologies," he said, then came up. "What were you going to do with her, then?"

"I tripped earlier and she caught me. I don't think it would've been too bad thanks to my Quirk, but I wanted to thank her anyways," I explained. He nodded. I took a look at his name.

Class President

LV 24

Iida Tenya

"I see," he said. "I apologize for my harsh tone. It seemed at first that you were trying to distract the others."

I would have said something to him, but before I could, Present Mic yelled, "GO!" and a timer appeared on my UI, counting down from ten minutes. Everyone went quiet and started staring at him. "What are you standing there for, listeners!? You don't get countdowns in real life! Start already!" I panicked a bit, then popped my Speed Up and started using Air Aura. I dashed off into the mock city as fast as I could, looking at my minimap as I did. Now that the exam was starting, the robots were appearing as red dots on it. "Halitus, Dune," I muttered. My air elemental appeared, and next to him was my new earth elemental. I'd made her only a month ago. She had a very different style of clothing from the other two elementals I'd seen, with what looked like some sort of military desert camouflage uniform and a pair of goggles pushed up onto her hair. She had short, sandy blonde hair and dark brown skin that reminded me of rich soil. "Point me to where the most robots are," I told them. As I did, Iida ran up to me.

"A fellow speedster, I see!" he exclaimed over the wind. "I look forward to seeing what you can do if you get into the hero course!" Before I could say anything to him, he got even faster and dashed off. A few moments later, my elementals pointed me to a street where there were a lot of robots. I used the Attack Up, Defense Up, and Regeneration that I'd been saving for an encounter, then made a katana with Bound Blade and used Air Aura on it. Air seemed like it'd be the best for the mock battle because the speed bonuses meant that I could rack up a lot of points quickly. I proved myself right when I charged at the robots, carving through most of them in seconds. When there were only a few left, I shot my hand out at them and made a crushing motion, causing them to crumple like tin cans as Dune and Halitus combined their powers to destroy them with a combination of increased air pressure and their own armor pressing in on them. 

"That was so awesome," I muttered. I dropped my Air Aura and dissipated my Bound Blade to let my mana fill back up. I'd already gotten twenty-nine points and two level-ups in the span of... I checked the timer. Two minutes. "I'm doing great!" I exclaimed. As I ran to the next hot spot, a one-pointer surprised me by jumping out of the wall like an evil Kool-Aid man. I yelped, then pulled out my sword to slice at it. The robot managed to almost dodge my swing, ending up with me only chopping off its toe. Before I could utterly wreck it with a spell, a laser beam came out of nowhere and decimated it, resulting in me getting some, but not all, of the experience points from the kill. I turned to where the beam of light came from.

"Merci," a pretty boy (Was he... sparkling?) with blonde hair and a strange-looking belt said. "You and I make a great team, monsieur. You seem like excellent bait for les robots." He then ran off, likely in search of more robots. I decided to let it not bother me due to the exams being a bit of a competition and instead just continued on, destroying the robots I saw. I decided to use ranged skills to destroy them from a distance. "Air Slash!" I yelled. A blade of air shot at the three-pointer, cutting its "head" off. "Fireball!" The next robot I found was exploded and melted. "Water Gun!" The third robot was pierced by a bullet made of water, its delicate insides soaked into uselessness.

It continued on like that for a while until I found where most of the fighting probably occurred. Robot remains were everywhere. As I watched, Iida kicked a robot with his engine leg so hard that it just stopped working and Uraraka pressed her fingers together, releasing a bunch of robots to the cruel reign of gravity. It looked like everyone was resting before splitting up to find more points. I was about to leave when the ground started shaking. A towering, building-sized robot, the zero-pointer, rose up from the ground and started thrashing about. It goes without saying that this caused everyone to panic and run away. I was about to join them when I heard a familiar voice cry for help. I saw Uraraka trapped under a rock, with the zero-pointer coming closer. It wasn't even a question what I should do next. I ran as fast as I could, using Air Aura and another Speed Up to replace the one that ran out. As I ran, I used an Attack Up, Defense Up, and Regeneration on myself, then shot another Defense Up and Regeneration at Uraraka just in case. When I was close enough, I jumped, using a barely-harnessed Air Burst combined with some One For All to send me flying skyward. As I rose, I felt the glow of One For All rise up in my arm, and I let it go full-force, even added to it with some air mana. Because it was supposed to be a secret that I had All Might's Quirk, I didn't shout any of All Might's attack names. Instead, when I wound up my punch, I shouted, "LIMIIIT!" I punched at the robot with all my might. "BREAAAAAAAK!" The rush of air slammed into the zero-pointer, hitting it so hard that its face crumpled in. The zero-pointer toppled backward from the force of the punch.

Your level has increased by one! x7

I didn't feel as bad as last time, but it still hurt. I began to fall and gulped when I saw how far away the ground was. I really didn't want to know what would happen if my already low HP hit zero. I immediately activated Healing Hands, hoping to get my HP up enough that I wouldn't die upon hitting the ground. When I was closer to the ground, I made a sword and shield with Bound Blade. I crossed my metaphorical fingers and tried to use Earth Aura on myself and the shield while using Air Aura on the sword. It worked! Before I could begin the next phase of my plan (try to make a delayed Air Burst on the sword and then throw it at the ground), though, someone slapped me on the cheek and I felt myself become immune to gravity's pull for the second time that day. I stopped within half a meter of the ground and deactivated my skills as Uraraka released her Quirk. "Thank goodness!" she said sickly as the robot part that she was on touched down. "I was afraid you'd..." she started barfing before she could finish her sentence.

"Thanks, Uraraka!" I said. I jumped up to her and used Healing Hands on her. "I wasn't sure if my plan would work or not, so that was a relief."

She bolted upright as my skill began to take effect. "I don't feel nauseous anymore!" she remarked as she wiped her mouth off with a wet wipe she pulled from her pocket. She turned to look at me with excitement in her eyes. "Can you heal people with your Quirk?"

I nervously rubbed behind my head. "I guess you could say that..."

"That's awesome! Thanks for getting rid of my nausea, by the way!" Her smile was infectious.

"TIME'S UP, FOLKS!" Present Mic's voice blared over the speakers.

"Eep! I forgot about the exam!" Uraraka said. We both sighed and sat down on the robot. "It's too late to do anything now... How many points did you get, by the way?"

I counted the robots I fought up for a moment. "Thirty-eight," I said.

"I got twenty-nine," she sighed. "I hope that that's enough to get in the hero course. You're totally going to get in, though." She paused for a moment. "I don't think I got you or your friend's name, just nicknames."

"Yeah," I said. "I'm Midoriya Izuku. My friend's name is Bakugou Katsuki. Those were nicknames we've had for each other for a while."

She smiled. "Great to meet you then, Midoriya!"

"Are either of you two hurt?" someone asked. I looked down to see an old woman with a syringe-shaped cane.

"Recovery Girl!" I said. I looked at my HP to see if I was hurt, then jumped off the robot part. "I'm fine, thanks."

"I'm good too!" Uraraka said and jumped off as well. "It's cool seeing a pro like you!"

Recovery Girl nodded and then gave us some gummies. "Neither of you look hurt, though I suggest the two of you go to the doctor if anything starts hurting. Eat those one at a time, they'll help you recover your strength."

"Thanks!" Uraraka said. As Recovery Girl walked off to treat the other examinees, Uraraka turned to me and said, "Can you believe we just met Recovery Girl?"

"I know, right!" I exclaimed. "I should probably go now, but I hope I see you in the hero course!"

"Bye!" she said. I waved to her as I left.

xoxoxo

A/N: I stink at titles and names, apparently.

Yeah, I ended up using the TGWP names for two of the skills (made up my own effects for all the skills, though). It took me a few days to get Fleet Foot and Born Lucky and I just had writers' block for the other two... hope that's okay!

[kagemane]

In honor of FFVIII's 20th anniversary, I want to share my most cherished memory of the game:

Be me at 11, playing this game for the first time ever. I'm at the end of Disc 2 in Galbadia Garden. I decide to do some level grinding and find the perfect place to do so: the ice rink.

Fun fact about FFVIII, there is a set amount of EXP for every level - 1000, that's it. HOWEVER, the enemies will level up with you and, depending on where you are in the game, they will have better magic than you.

So here I am, level grinding at the end of Disc 2 with the hockey players. Each fight with them, depending on how many show up for the encounter, gives you like 200-600 EXP, which means leveling up is hella fucking easy there. Like too easy. Like you spend a few hours and you can be on level 100 at the end of Disc 2. Which is exactly what I did and I was so damn proud, like the rest of this game is gonna be so easy now.

As mentioned before, the enemies will level up with you. And they most certainly will have much better magic than you at the end of Disc 2. With FFVIII's leveling/stat mechanics, you were able to draw magic from enemies or refine it from items/cards and equip it to your stats. At the end of Disc 2, in Galbadia Garden, the strongest magic you could really acquire at this time was like the "-agas."

And yes, they are useful, but they are not useful against a level 100 sorceress who knows fucking Ultima and Flare.

So here I am, 11 years old and full of pride for being level 100 just half way through the game, and I march up to Edea, and she fucking kicks my ass. She just obliterates me. I'm trying to take her on with my GFs, my Tornados, my physical attacks, and she just doesn't care. She's level 100 too and she has actual strong magic. I'm not far enough in the game to get the really good magic, I have fucking Blizzaga and that doesn't do shit to her. And her stats are jacked and mine aren't because I don't have that really strong magic to equip to and boost my stats. So her magic defense is ridiculous, her normal defense is ridiculous, and I'm level 100 but may as well be a goddamn ant in her eyes.

I get mad because she keeps beating me, so I decide to level up the other characters I haven't invested in to try as well. I draw magic from every enemy I can. I spent probably a good 20 additional hours going every where I could at the end of Disc 2 to get whatever magic to help boost my stats.

I go back. I feel like I can do this now. I spent hours drawing Tornado and "-agas" and I fucking got this. My stats are slightly better than before, it's gonna happen for sure. And it doesn't. She annihilates me once again and I try like 50 more times and I just cannot beat her so I had to delete that save file and start the game over from the beginning because I decided level grinding was a great idea at the end of Disc 2.

And that's my most fond memory of FFVIII - getting my ass continuously beat at the end of Disc 2 in Galbadia Garden by Edea because I fought too many hockey players.

[farfromdaylight]

OKAY HERE WE GO, THE STAT POST TO END ALL STAT POSTS

first and most important: what the everliving fuck, i wrote a million words in a year. if you told me this time last year that this was what i was going to aspire to, i would have assumed it was an april fool's joke. like. lmao you're kidding right.

end total was 1,000,111! i had wanted a million and one words but when i calcuated my numbers i had, uh, a million and thirty. :"| so i had to write some 80 words in the like 10 minutes i had left. way to go, me.

october is highlighted for a very important reason: it's the month i switched to colemak. the fact that my wph/wpm has only improved since that time is a pretty strong vote in its favor, i think. i do still experience hand pain, but i think that has more to do with the fact that i write for two hours a day than the keyboard layout. certainly it's nice to have a more ergonomic design. (most of my current pain is actually from my mouse location; working on fixing that issue next.)

more highlights & tl;dr under the cut bc heaven knows this is going to get obnoxiously long

firstly, a project breakdown -- what is that million words made of?

immortal au -- 813,127 words (unintentional but delightful)

everybody says this is your home -- 166,680 words

roughly 20k of cuts, snippets, drabbles, etc

so, not surprising; heaven knows i only worked on two real stories in the past year. this is something i want to change over this next year, though i'm not yet sure what those stories will be.

highs & lows

most words written in a single day: 11,181 (11/1)

most time spent writing in a single day: 8 hours, 20 minutes (11/1) (start of nano, also i was going on vacation that weekend and wanted a buffer)

least words written/day: 80 (9/24)

least time spent/day: 5 minutes (9/24) (i had had zero sleep)

best words per hour/minute: 2159/36 (2/26) (i wrote 203 words in 4 minutes and nearly lost it, because i am That Kind Of Person)

worst words per hour/minute: 599/10 (10/1) (first day of colemak; i didn't even write 600 words in the hour i spent writing)

most time spent writing/month: 107 hours, 16 minutes (november) (duh)

least time spent writing/month: 39 hours (may) (ah yes, back when i was aiming for a thousand words a day... that didn't last long...)

other stats

on average, i write for about 57 hours, 40 minutes per month. no wonder i haven't been able to play many video games lately -- writing took up that timeslot.

that said, i only spent 8% of the past year writing. 691 hours sounds like a ton of time, but it averages out to 2 hours a day. given that i spend 8 hours a day sleeping (...give or take), 2 hours is really not that much of a loss. though as i mentioned in the other post, 1 hour of writing often equates to two hours of real time. even then, 16% of a year/1400 hours is really not that much time in the grand scheme of things.

i have made roughly 500 posts about writing on here in the past year, for which i apologize. the number's rough because there are a few more posts than that on dw but i don't feel like sorting through it at the moment to figure out the exact number. either way: i am so, so sorry. how have you all not unfollowed me. i do not understand.

quartiles

i calculated the quartiles for words/time/wph, and i find them pretty interesting:

words

first quartile (25%): 1,355

second quartile (50%): 2,239

third quartile (75%): 3,555

time

first quartile (25%): 1 hour, 3 minutes

second quartile (50%): 1 hour, 27 minutes

third quartile (75%): 2 hours, 30 minutes

words per hour (wpm)

first quartile (25%): 1,214 (20)

second quartile (50%): 1,407 (23)

third quartile (75%): 1,619 (27)

the reason i find them interesting is that they don't match up at all! you'd think that since the wph is calculated from words over time they'd even out, but apparently not. despite all evidence to the contrary i'm actually not great at statistics, so i'm not sure what conclusion to draw, but my guess is that it has to do with the fact that my wph did something of a bell curve over the past 12 months. but who knows.

(incidentally i do want to turn all these numbers into Pretty Charts, but i... have not figured out that part of google sheets yet, lmao. i'm sure i'll figure it out eventually. so far all i have managed are a bunch of squiggles. they are pretty squiggles but they are squiggles nonetheless.)

etc

so one of my overall goals for 2018 was to write a million words in 2018 specifically (ie starting jan 1--ending dec 31), and i'm not sure if i still want to go for it. on the one hand, i'm about 50,000 words ahead of pace, and like, that's a terrible buffer to lose. i am also Very Bad at giving up goals.

on the other hand...... the reason i am ahead is because i noticed in january that i was really close to writing a million words in 365 days. i tried to tell myself that i wasn't going to aim for it because of how burnt out i was, but. 😐 we can see how well that worked out. 😐

the thing is, though, i am tired. i am unbelievably tired. that chart says that i averaged 2 hours of writing a day in march, and as far as math in concerned, that's true. in actual fact, though, i averaged 1h30m of writing from 3/1 through 3/24, and four hours a day for the past week. i'm fucking exhausted. and it's exactly what i did in february, and in january. i can't do a whole year of that.

so. i am going to aim for 50,000 words next month, because it's camp nano and because 50k is, at this point, a very achievable number. (i mean for god's sake, i just did it in a week. i can do it in a month. in fact i would love to do it in a month.) and i am going to use the rest of that time to work on the worldbuilding, planning, and plotting i have pushed aside for the past five months in pursuit of ever-growing wordcounts.

that's april. the rest i can figure out later.

[shirlleycoyle]

The Best ‘Call of Duty: Warzone’ Season 4 Loadouts, According to People Who Win Sometimes

For the last three months, some of the reporters and editors of Motherboard have been obsessively playing Call of Duty: Warzone on a near-nightly basis. As we’ve previously noted, it’s a great way to stay connected in a world that’s been flattened with constant, exhausting Zoom calls. It’s also a way to get a brief respite from a world that’s been terrorized by a global pandemic and police violence.

Besides playing far too many hours and constantly tweaking our own loadouts, we’ve also read countless other "best loadout" articles and watched YouTubers like JackFrags and BennyCentral discuss their favorite Warzone loadouts and best Warzone strategies. Lots of the advice in those articles and videos is great, but, honestly, picking a Warzone loadout is about figuring out what you personally feel comfortable with and tweaking it as you go; there’s no one-size-fits-all answer. Lots of people are running Graus with iron sights, but if you suck at aiming, there’s no shame in using an optic—not everyone is a pro-level player (and we certainly aren’t). There are also a few different perks you can use that, depending on how you play, will make you more resilient in Verdansk.

The Warzone meta has changed dozens of times over the few months we’ve been playing it—RPGs have been nerfed, everyone is running a Grau, and the season 4 introduction of the Fennec puts it in contention with the MP5 and MP7 as best close-range SMGs in the game.

What we're saying is this list is subject to change, and while we're far from pros, we've dumped enough hours into the game to become somewhat good at it. We win sometimes—Emanuel and Joseph have in the neighborhood of 15 wins apiece, and all of us have spent far too much time thinking about what the best Warzone loadout is. Here’s what the Motherboard staff’s current loadouts are, why we use them, and a few tips we’ve picked up along the way.

An M13/Fennec loadout, and quick weapon swapping with Amped

Primary: M13

Attachments: Monolithic Suppressor, Tac Laser, VLK 3.0x Optic, Commando Foregrip, 50 Round Mags

After countless hours with a failed SMG-only build and a misguided attempt to use the powerful-but-difficult-to-use Scar, I have settled in nicely with the M13, which has an SMG-like fire rate, barely any recoil, and better range than SMGs. I think it’s the cheap-man’s Grau, but I didn’t get multiplayer until recently, so I still haven’t unlocked and leveled up the Grau. The monolithic suppressor is key to extending your range and staying off the minimap when you fire. I like the Tac Laser as it lets me lock on to targets much faster (and is only visible when I’m aiming down sights), and the 3x zoom optic lets me hit targets that are far away without impacting aim down sight speed too badly. I think the M13 is a great build with the Fennec, for reasons I’ll explain in a moment.

Secondary: Fennec

Attachments: Monolithic Suppressor, ZLR 16” Apex Barrel, 5mW Laser, Commando Foregrip, 40 Round Drum Mags

The Fennec is my new "fuck you" gun. Its fire rate is insane, it absolutely shreds people inside buildings and at short distance, and is accurate enough with the laser to fire from the hip, but fast enough aiming down sight to be useful there, too. So far, I’m liking it better than the MP7 because it feels like it kills faster to me—in one-on-one situations, I’ve killed many folks who came at me with an MP7. There’s a few things I want to note about this gun and my loadout in particular: The 5mW laser is visible, which is why I call it a fuck you gun—it kills so fast that the goal here is to simply destroy other players even if they know you’re there. The Fennec’s biggest downside is that it reloads slow as hell; the sleight of hand gun perk helps this somewhat, but instead I’ve opted to run overkill and amped as two of my loadout perks. This means you can kill someone with the Fennec, and essentially instantly switch over to the M13, which has an excellent fire rate. You don’t want to be reloading the Fennec at all in the middle of a gunfight, so the move here is to switch back and forth between the guns, and hope you’re able to kill whoever you’re fighting to give you the breathing room to reload.

Perks: Cold-Blooded, Overkill, Amped Lethal: C4 Tactical: Flash Grenade

Like I think everyone else I play with, I use C4 because of its flexibility—the Amped perk also lets you throw C4 faster, which is invaluable for clearing out rooms or blowing up trucks. I have recently been experimenting with flash grenades instead of the heartbeat sensor, because so many people are using Ghost, but I’m thinking of switching back.

-Jason Koebler

A Kilo with Ghost

Primary: Kilo 141

Attachments: Monolithic Suppressor, Singuard Arms 19.8" Prowler, G.I. Mini Reflex, Commando Foregrip, Granulated Grip Tape

Call of Duty YouTubers and gaming blogs will offer endless reasons for why you should use this or that gun, which guns have the least recoil, shortest time-to-kill (TTK), or why the meta demands you'll use a particular attachment. I find that ultimately people are best with the loadouts they're most comfortable with, which is why I use the Kilo. It's the first assault rifle the game throws at you, and at this point I've probably used it for more than a hundred hours (RIP). I know its recoil pattern and effective range, the attachments I have increase accuracy so it's perfect for mid-range, and the suppressor just keeps me from showing up on other players' mini maps when I fire.

Secondary: .357

Attachments: Compensator, .357 Long, Tac Laser, Match Grade Trigger, Akimbo

I have not killed a single person with this secondary. In fact, I'm not even sure I attempted it. But running around with a long revolver in each hand, a laser pointing out of each, is cool as hell. I look completely deranged, like a tactical Yosemite Sam. The real practical advice here is to just pick up a better secondary in-match, ideally a gun that uses different ammo and compliments the Kilo by being better at either longer or shorter range.

Perks: Cold-Blooded, Ghost, Amped Lethal: C4 Tactical: Heartbeat Sensor

–Emanuel Maiberg

A Kilo/Sniper combo

Primary: Kilo 141

Attachments: Monolithic Suppressor, Singuard Arms 19.8" Prowler, Operator Reflex Sight, Commando Foregrip, 50 Round Mags

I don’t get the hype around the Grau. Sure, the iron sights are good enough that you don’t need to attach an optic, the low recoil is useful, and since everyone runs with it you can regularly just loot someone’s corpse for a kitted-out gun if you’re hard-pressed for a weapon. But it just doesn’t have the same punch as the Kilo. Instead, for me it’s the Kilo with a 50-round magazine. With 50 shots, it feels much easier to take on a two- or three-person squad without having to fiddle around with reloading while being shot in the face. More than anything, the Kilo is just the first gun I invested proper time into, so I’m used to controlling the recoil most.

Secondary: AX-50

Attachments: Monolithic Suppressor, Singuard Arms Pro, Tac Laser, Singuard Arms Assassin, Stripped Grip Tape

I keep the Amped perk to quickly swap to the AX-50 sniper, and have the weapon setup to get a good, balanced aim-down-sight speed. Typically try to grab a second loadout for Ghost half-way through the game.

Perks: Cold-Blooded, Overkill, Amped Lethal: C4 Tactical: Heartbeat sensor

Heartbeat Sensor is a must in solos or duos, and C4 still works well even if everyone seems to have caught onto the idea of if you’re driving a car without a trophy system, avoid someone holding explosives at all costs.

-Joseph Cox

Grau and RPG for psychological warfare

Primary: Grau 5.56

Attachments: FSS 20.8" Nexus Barrel, Thermal Hybrid Optic, No Stock, Operator Foregrip, Conen Sniper Elite Rear Grip

Yes, I run a Grau, and yes, it even has a gold skin. I don't care, because it's pretty much unbeatable. The thing about a Grau is that it has excellent overall stats and low recoil that makes it a rare "laser," but it's how you tweak it that makes it shine. My Grau, for example, has several attachments that give accuracy and range a huge boost, while adding a "no stock" option that still lets me pull it up immediately. The result is a weapon that is capable at longer ranges but is also fearsome in close quarters. Accentuating this versatile capability is a medium-long range thermal scope (perfect for scanning rooftops and houses) that has a side-mounted holographic scope. Yes, cast-aside Graus litter the landscape of Verdansk, but I don't want just any Grau, I want my Grau.

Secondary: RPG-7

The RPG-7 was nerfed during a previous update, but I still find it useful both to get kills and as a weapon of psychological warfare. The RPG-7 still, almost without fail, will send your foes running in the other direction.

Perks: Cold-Blooded, Ghost, Amped Lethal: C4 Tactical: Heartbeat sensor

C4 is far more deadly than the RPG-7 in many situations and worth keeping around (much better than a grenade, because you can set traps), and a heartbeat sensor can be the difference between life and death when storming a building. As for perks, I run cold-blooded because as a thermal scope user I don't ever wish to be in someone else's sights like that, ghost for stealth from UAVs, and amped.

-Jordan Pearson

The Best ‘Call of Duty: Warzone’ Season 4 Loadouts, According to People Who Win Sometimes syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[smokescreen24]

50 DND Questions

1. What do you think your d&d race would be? Proabably human. If I get the choice, I’d like to be either an Elf or Dragonborn. I’d be cool with either of those. 

2. What class? Mostly likely a fighter? I’m not religious enough for a cleric, and not smart enough for a sorcerer or wizard. I like the idea of being able to throw hands. 

3. What two feats would you have? I’d want the Alert feat, and more than likely the Lucky feat. Alert means my initiative gets improved, and Lucky means that I can reroll a bad throw. Those would get used a lot. 

4. What has been your favorite d&d character you've played? (NPCs count for DMs) I’ve only got the two for now, but Liander’s been getting the most love. She’s probably my favorite. 

5. Which of your d&d characters has been the most like you? Oh, Liander, without a doubt. She’s pretty close to my baseline personality.

6. Which of your d&d characters has been the least like you? And that would be Cade. Cade is just this side of Chaotic Evil, so she’s a little harder for me to get into the right headspace for. Playing her takes a lot out of me, to be honest. 

7. How do you go about making a character or NPC? That’s hard to say - I give the session about an hour or so to feel it out, and let the personalities develop naturally over time. My playing style is reactive, so I let the situation dictate how said character would respond. 

8. What is the most memorable natural 20 you've ever experienced? That would be with Cade. I’d rolled to take out a stone giant, suplexed them (because she’s a barbarian and her strength stat is wild), then chopped his dick off with my battleaxe like I was swinging a golf club. It uh, made an impression on the rest of the party, and the rest of the enemies. 

9. Has one of your d&d characters ever died? How? Not yet, so don’t jinx me! I’m still attached to both of them, and would like to keep them around! 

10. What is your favorite class to play? So far, it’s been my ranger. She’s fun, and I’m digging the whole ‘animals as companions’ thing she’s got going. 

11. Have you ever fought a dragon? Yes. Between Cade and Paileous, we cut it’s head off. It’s currently a trophy back at home base. Got a lot of gold for our trouble, too. 

12. Have you ever fought a beholder? NO. Not entirely sure I wanna, either! 

13. Have you ever fought a mind flayer? No, but it’s coming up. My buddy is having us roll new characters for the Underdark campaign. I might try a cleric just for funsies. 

14. Have you ever had a romance with an NPC or another PC? Nope. I am here to tell you that neither of my characters is looking for any of that. Liander’s too busy, and Cade is a halfling barbarian surrounded by equally questionable Drow paladins and rouges. No thanks. 

15. Do you prefer to DM or play?  I have no desire to DM. I’ve only been playing for a little while, and I’m not creative enough to attempt it. I’ll stick to playing. I’m good at that. 

16. What is your favorite D&D pod/vodcast? I’ve been listening to Critical Role - I’m relistening to the Whitestone/Chroma Conclave arcs. I love No Mercy Percy so much. 

17. Who is your favorite "celebrity dm?" I only know the one - Matt Mercer. 

18. Do you use props/minis/terrain in your game? Very rarely. I think we’ve only had like, two sessions that actually had terrain and mini’s. 

19. How did you discover D&D? My friends. I sat in on one of their games, and just for the hell of it, they rolled me a character, and thus Cade was born. 

20. If you run a homebrew game, give an out of context spoiler. I’m not running it, but smuggling is a thing, and the dude we’re smuggling for is someone whose face is on a wanted poster in my pocket. 

21. Drop a picture of a mini you painted (if applicable) Sorry, I don’t have any minis. They’re all with my DM. 

22. Write a brief scene centered around one of your characters! Uh, hang on -  "That was nice. I didn't ask you to get it for me, and I distinctly remember telling you I can get my own. Not my fault you don't listen worth a damn." Liander says with a slight grin. She doesn't know why, but she likes poking at Chancel. Not many folks react the way he does, and the scowl he sends her just makes her grin wider. "Come on. I cannot possibly be the only one who's pointed that out to you." 

 "Yeah, me. Two minutes ago." Zulth mutters into his mug.

23. Do you have any art of your characters? Yeah, one of my more artistic friends drew a sketch of Liander for me, complete with her cat on her shoulder. It’s pretty cool. It’s also huge, which is why I’m not posting it here. 

24. Have you ever played any TTRPGs other than D&D? No, this is my first foray into TTRPGs. 

25. What is your favorite snack for d&d? I reach for Cheetos or Doritos usually. They’re good, crunchy snacks. 

26. If you could have one potion from d&d, which one would you choose? If I could just load up on superior healing potions for life, I’d be a happy woman. 

27. If you could cast one spell from d&d, which would you cast? Fireball. That’s a nice equalizer, I think. 

28. What is the most memorable natural 1 you've experienced? Oh man. That would be with Liander this time. She was trying to sneak into a well fortified part of the city, and tamper with the water supply for one family. Well, I had to roll to hop the fence to do so, rolled a natural one, my foot caught in the fence, and there was a dog right in front of me. Landed on my face, and got bitten for my trouble. Still got the mission done, though. 

29. Have you ever been drunk playing d&d? I’ve been buzzed. Does that count? 

30. Homebrew or prewritten? Both? Both. Both is good. 

31. Tell me about your current party! Which one? Well, for the Alagaesia campaign, there’s my character Liander, a dwarf named Thorin, a rouge(?) named Zulth, an herbalist named Liam, and the man who hired us, an NPC named Bjorn. We’re actually trying to accomplish something with this campaign, or so the DM says. 

For the Guardians of Gravenhollow campaign, I’m a halfling barbarian named Cade, there’s a drow Paladin named Varis, and another Drow rouge named Paileous. This particular campaign is just chaotic evil fuckery. 

32. Most memorable NPC you've encountered in a game you played in. Victor. He built a clock, I wanted his tinkering kit, and wound up buying both at a just criminally low price. I kinda feel like I ripped him off, tbh. 

33. Do you listen to music while playing? What kinds? Mostly the Skyrim soundtrack with a little Witcher soundtrack thrown in for funsies. Atmospheric stuff. 

34. Favorite accent to do for characters? I don’t really have one for either of my characters. Mostly because I’m bad at keeping it up. I forget. 

35. Favorite classic d&d trope Tragic Backstory(TM). Only one of my characters has it, but it’s damn fun to role-play.

36. What was your first d&d character you made? That would be Cade! She started out as kind of a throw-away, but she got mixed in with Paileous and Varis and she’s living her best chaotic life. 

37. What is the most recent PC or NPC you've created? That’d be Kahtri, actually! I haven’t played her a whole bunch, so I’m not really familiar with her yet, but it’ll be interesting to play a Drow cleric who doesn’t actually worship Lolth. (I don’t do spiders.)

38. Goblins or Kobolds? I actually haven’t dealt with either yet. I’m slightly more familiar with Goblins simply because of CritRole. 

39. Favorite villain you've defeated? Uh, I dunno if I’d classify her as a villian exactly, but Cade’s killed an NPC named Creed who was a servant to the god Grotz. Pretty sure he’s out for revenge now. 

40. What d&d deity would you be a cleric of? I am a cleric of the Drow deity Elistraee. (I had to double check the spelling on that) 

41. Give an out of context quote from one of your games! Liander - “I tried to stop him, but he fucking yote me across the room like I wasn’t even there. Is it weird I’m bitter about that?”

Thorin - *emerges from the wreckage of the crate we were smuggling holding dragon eggs* “I FOUND LIVING ROCKS!” 

Liander and Zulth in tandem - *knows exactly what he’s holding* “Oh for fuck’s sake!” 

42. Have you ever rolled turn into a potted plant on the wild magic table? No, I don’t think I know anyone who plays that particular class, so I’ve never seen it happen. 

43. Minis and terrain or theater of the mind? Theater of the mind, good sir/madam. 

44. Mulligan, Mercer, Murphy, or McElroy? Mercer! Mercer! Mercer! 

45. What is the longest session you've ever had? Oh, jeez. Like, fourteen hours, give or take?

46. What is the longest battle you've fought or run? Uh, that’d be the fight with Creed. It took us like two hours to beat her down with three of us. She was stupid powerful. The bounty was great, though. 

47. Have you ever played at level 20? No, my highest level character is a level 11. I’m working on it, though. 

48. Does your dm say "How do you want to do this?" Oh yes. The table just blows up when that happens, not gonna lie. It’s fun to hear, especially if it’s aimed at you. 

49. Have you ever played an edition other than 5th? No, I started playing last year, so 5th is all I know. 

50. Will you try to convince others to play? Already done so. I’ve added a couple people to the group - my husband, whose character is the best straight man to our fuckery, and one of our mutual friends whose lunacy works with our brand of crazy. 

[cncorner]

I Got T at Howard Brown! An Overly Detailed Post

Note: I wrote several in-depth descriptions on Reddit about some of my experiences so far. Here’s one I posted on April 5

I got T! I am T'd! My leg hurts... because it's full of T!

Here's another overly detailed account, this time of me getting T. I'll be highlighting areas again.

About Me

I'm FTM! I've been dressing like a guy for my entire adult life and have been fascinated with transition-related stuff since I was like 15, but Not Because I Was Trans, Nope. I've been in therapy since the beginning of the year to deal with gender-related issues.

Why I Chose to Start T

I've wanted to go on T (and "could handle not being on T, I'm serious") on and off ever since I decided that I could handle giving myself shots, so maybe 7 years? But I hate talking about it and doctors make me kind of nervous because I have trouble standing up for myself. Talking with my therapist helped me gather the confidence to talk to strangers (essentially) about transitioning needs. I visited my family last month and being around them made me feel "done" with being a woman, so when I came back home I told my therapist that I'm Fucking Ready, let's do this bitch.

Planning the Appointment

I told my therapist that I wanted to start, and they told me I had a couple of options: Howard Brown, Planned Parenthood, and an endocrinologist who works with trans people whom my therapist never mentioned again so I axed that option. My therapist said that Howard Brown liked doing bloodwork (which I liked) but there was a waiting list (which I didn't like); PP didn't have as much of a waiting list it was kind of implied that they didn't do bloodwork. Both work under consent-based models. My therapist also mentioned that Howard Brown just hired a bunch of phlebotomists who could be kind of strange.

When I got home from that appointment I found the closest Howard Brown clinic (which was, like, a 40 minute drive away) and made an appointment. They asked my legal and preferred name, and preferred pronouns. The waiting list was like two weeks, which I was okay with.

I also wanted to see what the waiting list for PP was, so I looked online. I thought there would be a location closer to me (I'm in the NW Chicago suburbs), but the closest was still a 50 minute drive. But I had gone to that one before when I didn't have insurance so I knew where it was and where I could park. I tried making an appointment through their online booking application, but apparently for new trans patients you have to call. I called the number the application gave me and it gave me a phone tree with two options: Family Planning, and Abortion. I figured that was the wrong number, so I dug up the number for the particular location I was interested in. It gave me the same phone tree. I tried the first number again, and got the same phone tree, then just chose the family planning option.

The receptionist who answered didn't ask me about family planning, and I told them that I wanted to start HRT. They said that they do first-time HRT patients with two visits. The first visit would have been that Monday and the second visit the Monday after that (ending up being 4 days before the Howard Brown appointment). Both times available were during my work hours. I was still going to make the appointment and deal with the work stuff later when my phone connection failed and I got hung up on.

I took it as a sign and didn't try calling again.

Waiting

Sucked.

The Appointment

They recommended showing up 15 minutes before your appointment; I got there in 20. I parked on the street and walked up to the building, which was a large stand-alone clinic. They had a small parking lot but it was full. There was a lot of street parking options around it, and I noticed a bus stop sign right outside. There was a Walgreen's pharmacy inside.

There was a front desk right inside the door and I stopped by there and got my new-patient paperwork, as well as an anxiety/depression questionnaire that they said that they give to everyone every time they visit. They also gave me a large laminated card with a number on it and told me to sit in the waiting area. There were a lot of visibly... GNC/queer (?) people there, which made me feel more at-ease.

I sat down and almost immediately my number was called before I filled out the paperwork. I was called up to a booking station (? I'm not sure, I've never seen two "receptionist" desks in a clinic before) and they took my ID and insurance information. They said to give them the paperwork after I was done with it. I sat back down in the waiting area and filled out my paperwork and gave it to the booking lady.

Five minutes after my appointment time I was called in (appt time at 11:20, so I was called in at about 11:25), and put in an exam room. The nurse tech (??? I have no idea) took my blood pressure, temperature, and O2 stats (that finger thing), said that someone would come see me in a bit, then left.

I had no cell phone reception so I played solitaire on my phone.

The More Important Nurse (but not a doctor) came in at around 11:55 or so. We talked about (in some order I don't remember): my current prescriptions, my family medical history, my preferred pronouns, my gender identity, what I was in for that day, planning the rest of my visit, figuring out my preferred method of T-delivery, and the side effects of T. She handed me a pamphlet with the effects of T and estimated rates of changes, and the expected frequency of visits and bloodwork. She also asked if I'd like to make Howard Brown my GP and I said yes. She said that they bought T in bulk (something like that) so they can sell it directly because a lot of insurances don't cover it.

After I agreed that I wanted to start T and that I'd like subdermal injections, we went to the lab. At the lab I did a urine test (for STDs because I haven't been tested in a while and it was like "might as well") and I got blood drawn. I had to wait a bit to make sure I didn't pass out so I talked about getting blood drawn at military clinics because apparently me and the phlebotomist both were military brats, so that was kind of cool.

After the lab I went back out into the waiting area and to the Walgreens to pick up my prescription. It was around 12:30 or so at this point. It took a while to get it together (about 20 minutes, because it had just been ordered). I talked with another patient who didn't know great English, but her English was better than my Lebanese so she was probably better off than me. I got a vial of testosterone, needles, syringes, a sharps container, and a pile of alcohol wipes. The T was $20 and the pharmacist said that it'll last for ~230 days, which blew my mind. I asked how much it would be covered by my insurance and she said that under my insurance it was $30 for 30 days.

I checked in at the front desk again for injection training and they gave me another laminated card, this time with a letter on it. I went into the waiting room and was immediately called up. I told the booking lady that I needed injection training and she seemed confused. She called someone up and said she had a patient in front of her, and told me to sit down again.

I waited for an hour. I saw a music video for PrEP and lost a lot of games of solitaire.

I got up to call my fiance to let him know that I might not get home in time to take him to work and if he needed to take an Uber then I'll buy him dinner. On the way in the receptionist noticed me and asked if I needed anything else. I told her that I'd just been waiting for an hour and needed to call someone. She got upset on my behalf and checked the scheduling system to learn that they didn't put me on the schedule for the injection training. She apologized and said that it would be another 20 minutes. I didn't really have a choice, so I sat back down.

Twenty minutes later I got called in to a different exam room. This new nurse (???) asked if I wanted her to demonstrate how to inject or to walk me through it. I definitely wanted to inject correctly once before leaving so I took the second option. I took apart my bag of medication and she walked me through all the steps. Subdermal was easy for me because I'm chunky and I have a lot of space to inject and fat to pull up. I "felt" the needle, it was the barest pinch, but most of the stress of having a needle in me was from the knowledge of having a needle in me and not so much from feeling it. About 3/4 inch of the needle went inside of me. I felt fine afterwards. It took a bit for me to get dizzy and the nurse said that sometimes the adrenaline rush after getting a shot masks the dizziness and that I took self-injecting well for someone who's afraid of needles.

After that I was done. It was about 2:30 then, which was far longer than it should have been because they forgot to put me in their schedule for self-injection training. My fiance had to take an Uber, so we're probably eating sushi tonight.

Two Hours On T

Nothing has happened. I feel hungry, but that's because I was so nervous that I hadn't eaten anything today yet. I did feel a small wave of calm about an hour ago that felt similar to a drug hitting my brain but I'm definitely chalking that up mostly to either adrenaline wearing off or anxiety wearing off.

But I'm T'd now. 👍

[kristawashere]

4 u

Ask some questions, get some answers 1. Favourite colour. Maroon 
2. Number of people you’ve slept with. 16
3. Cake or ice cream? What are my options? Probably cake. Moo
4. If you were a superhero what would your power be? I could pull up stats on anyone, for anything. 
5. Ever been in a fist fight? No. Some day 
6. Do you live in the country or the city? City
7. Biggest kink? When my partner sees me as a human being 
8. Favourite video-game? Tony hawk pro skater 3 
9. Words you live by? You are responsible for the way your own heart beats 
10. Best book you’ve ever read? Fight club, or the bell jar 
11. Favourite film?
12. Horror or romance? Horror 
13. Biggest fear? Being kidnapped
14. Best memory? Osheaga weekend 2012
15. Worst memory? Learning that my friend had died
16. Where are you from? Ur mums house 
17. Ever done anal? I poop from there
18. Would you prefer to be Mary Berry’s grandchild or Paul Hollywood’s bitch? Wut
19. Favourite outfit? Pants with a cardigan and dope boots
20. Snapchat or Instagram? Insta
21. If you could freeze time what would you do? Snoop through my loved ones personal items 
22. Best LUSH product in your opinion? Shower bombs 
23. Should people wear red shirts or brown pants in your presence? Brown 
24. Favourite television character? Michael Scott 
25. Do you have a nemesis? Is that like a type of neopet
26. Are you a hard-worker? I'm a hardly-worker
27. What’s the best holiday you’ve ever been on? Christmas holidays 
28. What’s your dream? To be happy 
29. Where do you see your life ending up? In the toilet 
30. Describe your last sexual encounter. Woke up to my girlfriend being frisky 
31. Cake by the ocean or sex on the beach? Why not both 
32. Ever done drugs? Drugs are bad mmkay 
33. Harry Potter or Lord Of The Rings? HP
34. Are you a jock or a nerd? Class clown 
35. On a scale of 8 to 34.7, how gay are you? 35
36. Do you live for Tumblr discourse or hate it? Um
37. Favourite trashy television show? Trashy tv is boring
38. Last time you watched porn? I have it penciled in for this weekend 
39. Do you have a recurring sexual fantasy? My mind is always in the gutter 
40. Weirdest dream you ever had? I dreamt my mom said she loved me 
41. Ever had mental health issues? Oui
42. What’s the answer to the question you wish someone would ask you? Mushroom, red pepper, bacon
43. Do you wish people paid more attention to you? No
44. Do you have anyone who you’d happily slap right across their chops? Sure
45. Dog person or cat person? Meow meow meow 
46. Sneakers or heels? Sneaks
47. Favourite cocktail? Meh
48. Day or night? Night 
49. Pokémon or Digimon? GOTTA CATCH EM ALL
50. How big is your dick? 240 pounds
51. Favourite musical? Couldn't say 
52. Favourite song? That's too hard 
53. Are you secretly a goblin/alien/android? It's not a secret 
54. Why are you like this? I didn't get enough attention as a child 
55. What’s your guilty pleasure? Eating pb out of the jar 
56. What would you say if I said ‘I love you’? Why?
57. What’s the story behind your URL? I was here, once 
58. Tell me something that worries you. That I'll never be happy with myself 
59. What have you been worrying about today? My fat gut 
60. I’m only sending you these questions because I have a crush on you and I’m too tragic to actually just say it. Gross 
61. Hot dogs or burgers? Burg 
62. Nintendo or the other trash-consoles? Get a life 
63. Which fandom ruined a show that you used to like?
64. What do you wish you could tell your best friend? That I miss her 
65. Tell us a deep dark secret. I pick my nose 
66. Are you curious about having a man in leather spank your botty ‘til it’s all red? What's a botty 
67. Favourite Tumblr couple?
68. Do you have any dietary quirks? Eating is hard 
69. Do you want to have someone pleasure your genitals orally while you do the same to theirs? Yep 
70. How old are you? 255555555
71. Which Buzzfeed listicle sums up your existence? Stop
72. Do you have any pets? A cat and a cat 
73. What colour underwear are you wearing? Pink OUUUU LA LA
74. Boxers or briefs? Briefs
75. Fuck me, Ray Bradbury? My name is Krista 
76. Which television show do you want to last forever? I don't care
77. In a zombie apocalypse how long would you last? 1 hour 
78. Do you have good internet connection or do you want to punch your router every ten minutes? What's internet 
79. Would you find it somewhat saucy if I sent bawdy nudes in your direction? Mhmhm 
80. Which country has the best flag? MURICA
81. Do you consider yourself *iconic*? Ironic 
82. Most overrated food? Tempura anything 
83. Most overrated film? I'm in no position to answer that 
84. Most overrated television show? Each and every one
85. Most overrated type of cheese? Blue
86. Which brand would you never shop at? Omg who cares 
87. Wisdom, courage, or power? Courage 
88. Would you prefer to travel in time and stay in the same spot, or travel in space with time elapsing as normal? The first one 
89. What’s the best birthday present you ever got? Everyone got me bottles of wine one year. That was dope 90. What present do you wish someone would give you? An anklet 
91. Do you have an ex? Why did you break up? Bad breath 
91. Why does 91 appear on this list twice now? Someone screwed the pooch 
92. Spare a thought for the humble creator of this list, it’s difficult to think of this many questions. I simply don't have a thought to spare 
93. Do you prefer anons or non-anons? 
94. Who do you wish you could have sex with more than any other? Ur mum
95. What is your spirit animal? Kimmy gibbler 
96. Do you have one word that you really love the sound of? Hush 
97. Do you still have any of your stuffed toys from when you were a kid? Of course 
98. What makes you super nostalgic? Chicken soup with crackers 
99. Give me an answer to a random one of these questions. (But don’t make it a shit answer like ‘yes’. Don’t be an asshole.) no 
100. What’s your favourite cocktail? U AXED ME DIS 
101. Sonic screwdriver or Ron’s shit broken wand from the second Potter book?
102. Laptop or PC? Lappy 
103. What’s the sexiest accent in your opinion? Dirty dirty English 
104. Would you let Donald Trump tickle your nipples for an hour for £6,000,000? Hell ya 
105. You should check out a great little British website called Pretty52. Kk
106. If you could dye your hair any colour, what colour would you change to? Dirty blonde
107. What would you change about your body if you could? I'd exchange it for a new one 
108. Do you prefer to be hot or cold? HOT
109. What’s your favourite way to orgasm? With a partner 
110. Are you a mermaid or a unicorn? I'm just a regular girl 
111. What’s the name of your favourite pet when you were a kid? Jackal 
112. What was your favourite class at school? Math 
113. Are you superstitious? I'm a little stitious 
114. What do you think happens when we die? People are sad af
115. Pie or pi? Talk nerdy 2 me 
116. Your followers a question.
117. Lick my genitalia. Kk
118. What’s your favourite number? 11
119. Do you ever look up at the stars and feel small? No 
120. Do you have a good relationship with your parents? Sure 
121. Tell me about a quirky personality trait. Anal af
122. What was your favourite story when you were younger? Cinderella 
123. Are you old before your time or young at heart? Ive heard both about myself 
124. Why do you do the things you do? Please. Tell me. - I do wut I want 
125. I hope you enjoyed these questions. No
126. Which Tumblr blog would you recommend to all your fans? Ur mums