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silverdecepticon93 · 4 years

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Promise (Part 2)

Part 1

To say that you switching from bad to good was an adjustment would be the understatement of the year.

“(Y/n)! What did you do to my bow?” Artemis demanded as she threw her weapon in front of you.

You looked up from the computer you were typing on before raising an eyebrow towards her as you stared at her with your (e/c) eyes.

“I modified it to calculate different angles, distances, and to measure you’re likelihood of hitting your target when you use it. Cool, right?” You explained proudly.

“No, not cool!” She snapped, “You can’t just mess with another person’s things without their permission!”

You frowned at her harsh tone, “Well, I apologize, I just figured you could use the extra help considering how well you did on your angles unit for school.”

Her eyes widened, “Y-You looked at my grades?!”

You shrugged, “I get bored being stuck in the cave.”

She stammered angrily for a minute but really couldn’t find anything to say, so she harshly shut your compute closed. Good thing you were quick to move your fingers or else that would’ve hurt. You watched with a confused and irritated look on your face as the blonde stormed off away from you.

“You know, even The Joker knew when to say ‘thanks’!” You shouted after her before opening your computer and once more typing on it.

From the farther side of the Cave, Kid Flash and Robin had watched the entire play out in front of them.

“See? You have to talk with her.” Robin frowned. Wally shrugged and looked down at his raven-haired friend, “So what? She was trying to help out!”

Robin’s frown grew wider as he turned to face Wally with his arms crossed over his chest, “Well, (Y/n)’s help isn’t all that helpful. Remember that anti-telepathy frequency she had designed?”

They were battling against Psimon when you had given them a little speaker that would play a frequency to fend off mind-readers. The only problem as that it affected all mind-readers, including ones like Miss Martian.

“Yeah, last I checked, we actually won that fight!” Wally reminded. Robin’s frown grew as he looked up at his friend, “We did but she could’ve at least warned us that it’d affect M’gann, too!"

In all fairness, that should’ve been something they could’ve figured out themselves. However, when Wally was going to open his mouth to explain that point, Robin already beat him to it.

“Look, if you don’t talk to her, then none of us will,” Robin frowned. Wally’s eyes widened before scowling, “You guys already talked about this?”

“It’s obvious all you were gonna do was take her side,” Robin pointed out, “I get this is hard for (Y/n) but we can’t be the only ones trying to adjust to the change.”

The boy wonder then escaped to the shadows, leaving Wally alone to ponder his words.

“Hey guys, how’re you?” You asked Miss Martian and Superboy.

The two looked over at each other before looking over at Wally, who raised a quizzical eyebrow at them.

“Did you talk to her, yet?” Superboy asked through the mindlink.

Wally furrowed his eyebrows and responded in the mindlink, “Wait, you guys were serious-”

“Let’s go M’gann.” Conner grumbled as he linked arms with the martian and walked off.

You frowned as you watched the two storm off, much like how Artemis did, and it left you in an even more annoyed tone.

“Hey, (Y/n).” Wally greeted as he walked over to you with a small smile. You gave him a strained smile and tilted your hair, “Hey, Skids, do you know what’s up with the team?”

Wally bit his lip nervously before leaning on the table in front of you and trying to find the best way to put things.

“Look, it’s not like we don’t appreciate you’re help, (Y/n),” He began, “and we’re all glad you’re here just...sometimes....well-...you can sorta be- it’s...”

You raised an eyebrow, “Wallace, unless you’re two-years-old, I don’t expect you to blubber mindlessly.”

“You do that.” Wally managed to say. You tilted your hand in confusion before blinking a little, “I’m sorry, what do you mean by that?”

Wally went silent before sighing, “Alright, I’m just going to say it. The Team’s annoyed with you because you’re kinda, well, you’re not a villain anymore but you still have the ego.”

“Excuse me?” You frowned and stood up from your spot defensively, “It’s not my fault if the rest of your teammates can’t add two and two together when it comes to the simplest of details! You don’t even need to be someone of my intellect to- Wait...I’m starting to hear it now...”

Then you slowly sunk back into your seat and rested your head on your hands as you began to reflect on your behavior towards the rest of the Team these past few weeks.

“Oh god, I really messed up didn’t I?” You laughed sadly before looking up at Wally, “They hate me, don’t they?”

“No, no, no!” Wally quickly assured you, “They don’t hate you but you need to do something to fix this.”

“How can I possibly fix this?” You frowned as you looked up at him, “I’ve been acting like an entitled child!”

Wally put a hand on your shoulder before smiling at you, “Hey, don’t worry. I help you, I promise.”

Promise, the word made you smile and put your hand over the one Wally had over your shoulder.

“Well...if you promise, Skids...”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You nervously fidgeted with your fingers as you looked at the faces of the Team, who didn’t look to happy to see you, and made you wonder if perhaps you should just go back to villainy.

“Is she going to say something or is she just thinking of new insults for us?” Artemis scoffed.

“No!” You blurted before coughing awkwardly, “I mean, no, I’m not going to insult you! Quite the opposite, it’s just I’m not sure how to put this because I don’t want it to sound like I’m trying to justify my behavior but at the same time I-”

Wally intertwined your fingers with his, making you look at him in surprise, but you felt comforted by his smiling face. He squeezed your hand assuringly and you took a deep breath before looking at the rest of the Team.

“I’m sorry,” You finally said, “during my childhood, I often looked down among my peers and made it clear to them that I thought they were inferior compared to me, so you can imagine how popular I was growing up-”

You gained some confidence when you heard a soft, whispery chuckle from Robin.

“-so I never really had any friends growing up, until you guys. I want to make an effort to be your friend, I want to make an effort to be apart of this team, but I know I can’t do that if I keep acting like this. So, if you could give me a second chance, I promise to be better,” You vowed before looking at them nervously, “...so, what do you say?”

Your heart sank at the skeptical looks the exchanged with each other, making you move closer to Wally as you waited for the sentence to be passed by your judges.

“Welcome to the Team, (Y/n).” Kaldur finally said, except he didn’t move his mouth.

“D-Did you guys patch me into the mindlink?” You asked, realizing you didn’t even need to move your mouth at all.

“You bet! we can’t have a teammate who isn’t apart of the mindlink.” Zatanna beamed as she walked over to you happily.

You smiled at her, “This is awesome. I mean, I probably could’ve made something to hijack your mindlink since I’m sure there’s a special frequency or some-”

“(Y/n).” They all groaned.

Your eyes widened before you began to smile sheepishly, “Right...sorry.”

Wally chuckled before turning over to you and putting his hands on your shoulders, a proud and beaming smile on his face.

“Congrats, (Y/n)! You were great!” He cheered.

“Thanks, couldn’t have done it without you, Skids,” You blushed before looking up at him with a wide grin, “and maybe to pay you back, I could take you out?”

He blinked dumbfoundedly as a blush began to spread over your face, “L-Like a date?”

You nodded up at him as he began to grin like an idiot.

“Um...you guys know you’re still talking in the mindlink, right?”

#young justice x reader #kid flash x reader #kid flash x you #Wally West x reader #wally west x you #dc #dc x reader #dc x you #yj x you #yj x reader #yj #young justice x you #young justice #young justice kid flash #answering your lovely requests

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phoenotopia · 4 years

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2020 May Update

I hope you're all staying safe and healthy during this time of Coronavirus!

We continue towards the finish line, slowly, but surely. Coronavirus did throw a few wrenches in our plans. Our talks with a publisher about a possible sponsored appearance at an upcoming event stalled.

But that was always just a possibility. We have a backup plan. If we didn't win a sponsor, we were just going to pay our own way to a convention. That's what most indies do! Anyway, that's canceled too. It doesn't seem like there'll be any conventions to showcase in the near future...

Nevertheless, we did move forward in other areas. We've got the press materials ready as well as the game's official launch site up. You can view it in its prelaunch state at this link. NOTE, It is in a "prelaunch" state, so some media links are being withheld until reveal time. But there are a bunch of new pictures and artwork you can look at.

You might notice the link reads "phoenotopia.wordpress.com". The plan is to direct "phoenotopia.com" to it in the near future. That means if you wanted to reach this tumblr specifically, you'll have to visit it at its tumblr link, "phoenotopia.tumblr.com" (which, I just noticed doesn't work... huh). Anyway, since this is a dev blog, I'll talk a little bit about the journey of creating the website.

SQUARESPACE vs WIX vs WORDPRESS

I actually tried 3 different services (in the above order), before I settled on wordpress. I did a bunch of researching, and most reviews seemed to point at WIX >= SQUARESPACE >>> WORDPRESS.

I went with Squarespace first, since it was recommended a bunch on some youtube videos I saw (guess marketing works). Even though it didn't win outright in the reviews, my impression of it was "less quantity, but more quality." I tried it and found it serviceable. It was kinda sluggish, with some not so intuitive areas. I had to ask for help a few times for some things that would seem simple ("how do I change the BG and font color and of the music player?", etc).

That was last year, when I *thought* I was near launch and would need a press site soon. One year later (present day), it was time to create a press site again, and since my website with Squarespace expired (I had only signed up for a trial period), it was a good opportunity to try Wix, especially since Pirate had lots of praise for Wix.

My impression of Wix was that it was... too distracting. After I chose a theme, in the editor view I felt bombarded by menus. Everywhere you move the mouse, things kept lighting and popping up. And it was slow. So I guess it was sorta like Squarespace, but maybe even a little worse?

(Easy ways to preview the website from phones and tablets was one of wordpress’s neat features)

What prompted me to try Wordpress was one of their slogans "35% of the web uses WordPress". If it's good enough for 35% of websites, it's good enough for me! I ended up liking it most of all. It's definitely less featured, which suited me, since I'm not trying to create something too fancy either. Unlike the other website builders which emphasize free-form, wordpress was more rigid. I couldn't drag and drop an element just anywhere - I found that comforting in a "I can't screw this up" sorta way. The most important thing was that it was fast. Loading the editor view to Wix took 11 seconds vs 4 seconds with Wordpress. And the speed advantage of wordpress extends across every action. Similarly, when Chrome launched 10+ years ago, it was also less featured vs Firefox, but it became my choice browser. I guess speed is something I value highly.

Anyway, my experience is from a drag/drop perspective with minimal coding. This is also NOT a paid advertisement. However, if wordpress would like to send some money my way, I would not be opposed... (call me!)

Achievements, Bugfixes, and Cleanup

Lots of small tasks and polish was done over the past 2 months. I finally fixed the time tracking bug - important because the Speed Run achievement depended on it. I also finally finished implementing all the technical stuff for the achievements. There was a bug where some enemies would stack up too many light sources, causing them to appear too bright and drain system resources. That's now also fixed. Lots of other small ones that don't bear mentioning.

A neat trivia about the game is that there's a final super hard achievement for those seeking to prove their mastery over the game. The player has to beat the game having never picked up a heart or energy upgrade. When playing under this constraint, some enemies can even kill the player in one hit! In the game's most current iteration, even I failed to achieve it, so I'm definitely going to have to go in and tweak things a little more.

Age Ratings

I went and got the game's age rating. I did a little research on this - it's quite fascinating. ESRB would be the age ratings board for the United States (where I'm based). But if you were in Europe, you'd get a PEGI rating. Then there's ACB for Australia and so forth. So if you wanted to launch a game globally, you'd have to deal with this process over and over, and each country rates things a little differently... that's a lot of work!

Enter IARC (International Age Rating Coalition), which aimed to simplify the process by being the one standard that you apply to, and from which you could then get the equivalent rating for all participating countries. IARC is an entirely automated process - probably necessary due to the boom of digital titles across all platforms, particularly mobile.

IARC is great for me, because they relaxed the standards for getting a rating. From my understanding, the process used to be more difficult. And you'd have to pay ESRB a hefty chunk to get a rating, but with IARC, it's totally free! So long as it's for digital and it's used only on licensed sites and store fronts. If I wanted to launch the game physically, I'd have to deal with ESRB on an individual basis again.

Without further ado, here's Phoenotopia's IARC ratings:

Fascinating... Phoenotopia is rated "Mature" in Australia... but for "Horror". Which seems suspect. The horror elements are rare (remember Dreadlands?). But when I was answering their questionnaire, they provided a video example of what they considered "horror", and it was pretty mild. About as mild as my game, so I checked that box. It is what it is...

We also got a "Teen" rating for ESRB for reasons of Fantasy Violence and "Mild Blood". This one is kinda iffy. In the game, if you hit a giant bug, it spits out a few drops of green blood. Does that really count as blood? Ocarina of time skirted by with an E rating 2 decades ago, and it let a dude spit out green blood. However, since IIARC is an automated process, I didn't see any place to dispute. But also, I wouldn't have disputed it anyway. A "T" rating is cooler than an "E" rating!

I'd like to mention this is not a paid advertisement for IARC. However, if IARC would like to send some money my way, I would not be opposed... (call me!)

Submission

I expect to polish the game for about 2 (maybe 3) more weeks. After which, I'll be submitting the game to the console "authority". From my understanding, I'll then have to wait a month while they "inspect" the title. After which, I'm then cleared to have an official launch date - which I'll probably set to be 1 month after getting approval.

So the plan is to have a very short marketing campaign. The reveal trailer will basically drop 1 month before release. And we're going to sprint to the finish line. Some marketing campaigns are 6 months to a couple years. Ours will be one month... Let's hope it works.

Wrench

That's what the plan looks like right now, but there is a possible upcoming wrench in this whole thing. I recently learned that my version of Unity is too old. Games running on old Unity versions are not automatically accepted - so I'll have to apply for an exemption. If the exemption gets rejected, we can't launch without upgrading, which will require *significant* work...

This came as a surprise to me. When I started dabbling in games development a decade ago, the most common advice I found online was "Make Games, not Game Engines." I interpreted this to mean lock in your technologies. There's always going to be a new and shinier bell or whistle, but if you keep chasing it, you're not going to work on the actual content of the game. That's probably what kept me to releasing the original game on Flash. That was a game I was making as a hobby while working a full-time job. By the time I quit my job to go full-time indie dev, Flash had long been a dead technology. But I remembered "do you want to build game engines or games?" And so I pressed forward.

So that mindset could potentially backfire here. If PC was the lead SKU, we wouldn't have these issues since PC is more relaxed as a platform. Consoles, as I'm now learning, have an ever forward shifting window of technologies. If we get rejected for the exemption, there's a couple ways we can play it. One, we go through the pain of upgrading which will take months... Two, we pivot and make PC the lead SKU again, but have to handle porting that plus its specific features, which will also take months...

So why is updating such a big issue? Unity has changed drastically over the years. When I started, it was a lot less 2D friendly. They didn't have an official 2D tilemap solution, so you had to build your own or buy a 3rd party library from their asset store. I used 2DTK for tilemaps - 2DTK is now entirely deprecated. Similarly, I had to search for and purchase a good asset to display crisp text - since you couldn't even do that in Unity back then (heh). That's the story for a lot of old Unity stuff. Think of it as a first mover's "disadvantage".

Hopefully it won't come to that, since I'm pretty spent as a developer. I've been ready for this to be over, and I know many of you feel the same. Hopefully soon! As usual, I'll update in 2 months at the latest (end of June). An update might come earlier if we have some good news to share sooner. Until then!

Fanart and Cosplay

This first picture comes from roccy_chair and shows Gail basked in light. I like how her pose and equipment together form an "X". That's a neat hidden symmetry. The way she floats also kinda reminds me of Crono's "Shining" spell. Perhaps Gail should have the ability to cast spells? Hmmm...

Cody G returns with a new art depicting the 2 Moonstone enthusiasts. I like Fran's starry-eyed expression here. That's true love on display. I also like how the Moonstones are depicted as flat and coin-shaped. Very unique! Also note Gail makes an appearance in the back :D

Thanks to M1shaaa for this cosplay of Gail! There's a lot to like here! The vibrant pink hair. The costume with 3 stitches across the vest. The pose with slingshot, accurate to Gail's depiction in the box art. Amazingly, this might also be the very *first* cosplay of Gail! Will and Pirate both alerted me about it excitedly since they were pretty stoked. We joked that we crossed the final milestone in terms of fandom.

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its-r-i-d-i-c-u-l-o-u-s · 4 years

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Right Side of Wrong- Ch 13: Change the World [Finale]

Words: 2,842

Warnings: Swearing, hurt/comfort but it’s mostly good stuff!

Ch 12 | Beginning

~ ~ ~

The sound of my breathing was deafening in the ship’s hallways. I found myself so distracted that I almost walked right onto the deck.

Lumiere caught my eye as I flailed to stop myself. I quickly regained my composure and signaled to him that I was ready.

As the trumpets played I ran my fingers through my bangs to get them out of my face.

“The future Lady Mal!” Lumiere announced to the crowd.

I let out a giant breath as everyone began their clapping. Here it was. My big day, as Carlos had called it.

I stepped out into the open, then turned to face my audience. A few small gasps could be heard as they got a good look at me. Just like last time, Evie made a statement with my outfit. She had taken off the front of the skirt, so that it started around my knees and just brushed my ankles in the back. That was already a push against the traditionalism I was supposed to be presenting. Then, she had insisted that all four of us VKs wear fingerless gloves, a popular item on the Isle.

“We’re a united front,” she had explained. “I want everyone to know that if you mess with one of us, you mess with all of us.”

I stumbled forward, trying not to make my injury obvious, but I was certain that most of the crowd could tell that something was wrong. And no doubt at some point during the night, my dress would shift enough for people to notice the bandaging.

When I paused, overlooking the steps and dreading my voyage down, Lumiere leaned over and whispered in his thick french accent, “You work it, girl.”

I laughed, glad to see someone in the kingdom didn’t hate me.

I caught Evie’s eye. She was standing in the front, next to Doug. Her hands were covering her mouth and I wondered if she was admiring her work on my dress, my hair, my makeup, or if she was just shocked to see that I showed up. But she was happy. And I, in turn, felt a flood of relief.

I made my way down the stairs as more cheers broke out. The heels caused shooting pains through my calf, but I made it all the way down with a smile still plastered on my face.

Perhaps the Beast could sense my discomfort, or maybe he was just being polite, but he met me on the last few steps and offered out an arm to help me down.

“Hi,” I breathed out. The rest of the Cotillion had settled and was once more distracted by previous activities.

“Hi,” he greeted.

Belle joined us, fidgeting next to her husband.

“Ben is on his way,” the Beast promised. “And you look… beautiful.”

His hesitation left me uneasy. I still wasn’t on great terms with either of Ben’s parents. “Oh,” I murmured, halfheartedly. “Thank you.”

“I know we were shocked at first,” Belle cut it, “but you- you are exactly what Ben needs.”

I blinked in sudden realization. They were being serious. The both of them.

“I- uh-” A smile tugged at my lips, but it was uneasy.

“Ben told us that he had a talk with you,” she explained, although it didn’t do much to help my understanding. “About his… situation. I don’t think he’s ever been stronger or happier than he is when he’s with you. We were worried about his transition into becoming a king. But now that he has you, I think we’re in good hands.”

“I, um… Thank you,” I said, flustered.

Their attention was drawn to Evie who stood behind me, patiently waiting for my attention.

“Of course.” The Beast gestured for me to go with her.

“Hi,” we said at the same time, giggling.

She took me by the arm and led me back to the rest of our group. “How are you?”

I sighed. “I sorta feel like I’m gonna throw up?”

“Yeah? Okay. That’s okay.”

I nodded, turning towards the steps as the fanfare played once more.

“King Benjamin!” Lumiere announced.

Ben strode out, with his usual calm smile. Evie and I cheered with the crowd as he made his way toward the edge of the steps and watched the crowd bow before him.

“Go get him,” Evie smirked, leaning into me.

We met at the bottom of the stairs, bowing/curtseying for one another. As my back straightened, he reached for my hands and looked me over, concerned.

“Your leg?” he asked.

“I told you, it’s fine,” I reassured him.

“I hope so… I have something for you.”

I raised an eyebrow, watching him reach for one of his suit pockets and pull out his class ring. My breath hitched, having completely forgotten about it.

“You don’t have to take it, if you don’t want to. But it will always be here for you.”

I nodded. “I want it.”

He smiled, and slid it on, up to my fingerless glove. Since it wouldn’t fit over the leather, it sat loosely around my knuckle, but I was positive that it wouldn’t fall off anytime soon. It was too precious.

He looked up, addressing the group around us. “I owe you guys so much.”

“Yeah,” Evie joked.

“You got that right.” Carlos patted him on the back with a smirk lighting his face.

The rest of the crowd laughed along, although I doubt they had any clue what had happened to Ben today. “So, if there is anything that you need, or anything I can do for you-”

“Um, actually,” Evie started beside me. “There is, Ben… I know a girl who would really love to come to Auradon. It’s Drizella’s daughter, Dizzy Tremaine. She lost her mother when she was young and since then, she’s been like a little sister to me.”

“Then, she should come,” Ben said, quickly.

I could see how excited he was with the proposition. Seeing the Isle had only increased his desire to help the kids who were still there. Evie was offering him a place to start.

“Okay.” Evie giggled, but it sounded like she was trying to mask tears. “Okay, great.”

Ben leaned in and stage whispered, “She’s a good guy, right?”

“Dizzy? The best,” I confirmed.

“Actually! Um…” Evie cut in once more, then backed off as all eyes turned back on her. “Ben, there’s a lot of kids who would really love it here in Auradon. Kids just like us who also deserve a second chance. Can I maybe get you a list?”

Ben’s smile grew “Yes, yes! Absolutely!... please.”

Cheers erupted around the ship at the proposition. He waited for them to quiet down before continuing.

“And seeing as I have everyone’s attention, Lumiere, if you please.”

Lumiere quickly found his spot atop the staircase. “And now, for the unveiling of King Ben’s masterpiece, designed especially for his lady.”

All eyes drifted to the other end of the ship, where a large rectangle, which had been covered previously, revealed a stain glass window depicting the two of us. We stood in front of a sunny sky, atop a green field. Ben was knelt beside me, holding my hand as if to guide me over the grass.

My eyes were drawn to a couple of features. The dress resembled the one I had worn to his Coronation, although not completely the same, but my shoulders were out in the open, and the glass was a pink color around them, indicating the scars that were there. My hair was dark purple, much like it had been when he met me, although I was certain that when he began this, I had already dyed it blonde. I wore fingerless gloves, like I would have on the Isle, but atop my head was a replica of the Queen’s crown. And my eyes were bright green, much like they would be if I were angry or upset.

I gasped, unable to pull my eyes from the piece. “You made that?” I whispered.

He chuckled. “Yeah. I mean, I designed at least. Do you like it?”

“Yes.” My voice came out almost like a sigh. “Ben, it’s beautiful. It’s… It’s me.”

“Of course it is,” he exclaimed. “Who else would it be?”

I laughed. “No! I mean… that’s me up there. That’s the real me. I’m half-Isle and half-Auradon. And you captured it perfectly.”

He shrugged. “Well, you’d think after all this time I’d know the real you.”

I pulled him in for a kiss.

“I love you,” I admitted. Not just to him, but to myself.

And finally, we both knew it was true.

~ ~ ~

After whisking me away for a few dances, Ben went to speak with Evie about her plans for bringing these new kids to Auradon. I had a feeling she was soon going to have a lot more on her plate than just sewing dresses.

I was sitting beside Carlos and Jane, listening to him explain our adventures from the past few days to her, when Jay approached.

“May I have this dance, m’lady?” He teased, offering a hand to me.

“Of course.”

I followed him to the center of the ship and let him lead me through a slow dance.

“You always put your hair in a bun for big events. For once, I want to see it in a ponytail.”

He glared at me. “Not gonna happen.”

“Please!”

“No way.”

I stuck my tongue out.

I felt grateful. So grateful. To have these moments with Jay. To have a family like Ben and Evie and Carlos. To be free.

“So…” he started, softly. “I take it this means we aren’t packing our bags and stealing a limo?”

I grinned. “As fun as that sounds, I think we can stay. For at least a little longer.”

He returned my smile. “Good. I was kinda worried how it would look to Ben if I ran off with his girlfriend.”

“Nah. Evie and Carlos would quickly explain how incompatible we are.”

“Then, they’d all run to the Isle to beat our asses.”

Our laughter blanketed the deck of the ship.

As one song ended and another began, we slid away from the dance floor and toward the railing of the boat. It was gorgeous, looking over the water. The moon, in the distance, left a glowing reflection on the surface.

“I hear you gave up your seat as captain of the Tourney team,” I said, breaking the silence once more.

“The traditionalism here is bullshit. The fact that I have to go through roundabout ways to get one of our most athletic students onto the Tourney team is bullshit. But Lonnie deserves it.”

I glanced past him, towards the Isle. “That’s why so many of the people over there are… criminals. Maybe they’re right.”

He shrugged. “We’re here to change that, aren’t we? That’s why Ben’s king-”

“No,” I grumbled. “Ben being king is on that list of bullshit.”

Jay hesitated, sensing my shift in mood. “You wanna talk about it?”

“Can’t,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Fair enough,” he responded. “Do you want to talk about something else, then?”

I paused. “I don’t know. I just wish I could be… better, you know?”

He put his arm around me, pulling me in close. “The fact that you had to go through everything you did sucks, Mal. And we’re all recovering from our trauma. Carlos is going to go to therapy, Evie is trying to lose some of her perfectionism, and me… I’m dealing with my shit.”

“You mean, your toxic masculinity? Or your impulsive stealing?” It was a joke. We had all talked the past year. I knew that certain things were sensitive to Jay, but I didn’t expect him to pull away as I said that.

He leaned over the railing, dropping eye contact with me. “Or the fact that I’m gay?”

My whole chest tightened. Oh my god… “Yeah,” I wheezed. “That’ll fuck you up real bad… Coming from your family.”

He rubbed a hand over his face. “I was so scared that I would see my father again when we went back to the Isle. He just… he wouldn't be happy with the guy I’ve become.”

“Who cares! All our parents’ were abusive assholes!” I cried, but he didn’t seem convinced. Finally, I reached out and grabbed one of his hands. “Did your dad know?”

“I think he suspected,” Jay admitted. “But I didn’t even know. Not until I was away from his lectures and expectations. I mean, Carlos just kept asking me why I wasn’t going out with any girls and I… I started thinking about it… But I- No, it’s-” he groaned, frustrated.

“Hey, you don’t have to explain yourself to me,” I said, repeating what I had told Carlos only a few days ago. “Do you think that I care?”

“No…” he said, slowly. “But my father grew up in a traditional society. Just like Auradon. That’s where he got his beliefs and ideals from. A place just like this… That’s one of the reasons I was so ready to leave with you. The Isle sucks, but at least everyone there stopped caring about things like sexuality a long time ago. They’ve got more pressing issues on their mind.”

I shrugged. “Yeah, well, so do we. I’m not going to tell you how to handle this, Jay. But, you know… maybe the people here will surprise you.”

He finally made eye contact with me again. “What a pair of family disappointments we are.”

I giggled. “I like to think more along the lines of we’re learning from the past generation’s mistakes.”

“Sure,” he agreed. “We can go with that.”

Suddenly, Evie had arrived, throwing her arms around us. “We’re going to change the world!” she shrieked, excitedly. Carlos followed along behind her.

“What’s up with you?” I snickered, watching her jump around.

“Ben has official named me ‘Counselor of the VK Initiative’. We’ll start in small batches, grabbing kids of all different ages. The teens will go straight to Auradon Prep and some of the younger kids will be given homes elsewhere. I’ve already offered to take in anyone who needs a home as soon as I get a place of my own.” She sighed, finally coming down off her excited high and looking out to the tiny island we used to call home. “Isn’t it wonderful? We’ll only take the kids who want to go and we’ll propose visiting days for those who still want to see their families. We’ll have to be selective at first, but soon enough, these kids will have a second chance! They’ll be able to see how beautiful and kind Auradon really is.”

“And we’ll see to it that it stays that way,” a new voice joined in. Ben wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “So… first four kids. Who do we pick?”

“Dizzy!” Evie started.

“How about Facilier’s daughter?” Carlos asked. “She’s sly, but then again, so was Jay,” he jabbed at his friend. “She’s pretty open minded. I think she could really use a change of scene and society.”

“And Uma,” I muttered, glancing at Ben. The whole group went silent, shocked to hear me suggest such a thing, but I was dead serious. “She deserves it. It’s all she’s ever wanted and all that she’s been working towards.”

Ben nodded. “That’s what we talked about… when she had me trapped on the Isle, I told her that I was going to do everything I could to get those kids over. And I thought… I thought she could help.”

“She can,” Jay agreed. “She’s brilliant. But, um… maybe put extra guards on the wand for the first week she’s here.”

We all chuckled. “Definitely. Until the kids are settled in, we need to keep an eye on them,” I reasoned.

“A better eye than you kept on us,” Carlos clarified. “We 100% could have broken the barrier if we wanted to.”

“Yeah, no offense Ben, but we were pretty sly when we first got here,” Evie joined. “You have no clue how much mischief we got up to.”

“Fair enough, but in my defense, I kinda saved the day, didn’t I?” He joked. “You didn’t take over Auradon all because Mal fell for my charm.”

I stuck out my tongue. “And I’d do it all again.”

“Even putting a spell on me?” he questioned.

I considered it for a minute. “Hm… I mean, what can I say? I am evil.”

“The new ‘Mistress of All Evil’,” Evie corrected.

Carlos shook his head. “Nope. As a Lady of the Court, I dub thee: ‘Lady Mal, soon to be, Queen of All Evil’.”

“Hey,” Ben interrupted. “She’ll be the Queen of everything. Not just the evil.”

“I’m not a Queen!” I argued.

“Not yet,” Jay corrected. “How about we stick with: ‘Lady Mal, Defender of Auradon’.”

Evie quickly agreed. “It’s perfect.”

“Well then,” Ben announced, “To Lady Mal, Defender of Auradon!”

“Defender of Auradon!” they all cheered.

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justheretobreakthings · 5 years

Text

Lone Wolves

A Voltron: Legendary Defender fic Central Characters: Keith, Kosmo Genres: Fluff, Friendship/Family Word Count: 7,404 Read on AO3

So, uh, heh, this fic is about, oh, five hundred years late. It was originally going to be my contribution to @keithbabybang, but then life happened, and mental health happened along with it, so it unfortunately fell through the cracks. However, the mods for the bang told me that I could post it later on, once I’m back in the writing groove and in a better place IRL-wise, so, here it is, better late than never!

I was paired with @uragirinoteme for the bang, and they made an absolutely awesome and adorable piece for the fic here!

Also, I’ve got a space for ‘Cosmic Wolf’ on my @voltronbingo Keith card, so I’m gonna go ahead and make that the second bird I kill with this stone.

Anyway: here’s a fic.

There was a lot to get used to when it came to living on the back of a giant magical space whale. Time distortions and unexpected flashbacks and flashforwards were some of them, of course, but they weren’t the only ones.

The relative isolation was one thing. Keith was here only with his mother, and they were restarting their family relationship in a rocky way, still having to feel out footholds and become comfortable in each other’s presence, which left a lot of silences in their wake. Keith had experienced loneliness before, but that didn’t mean the adjustment was ever easy, especially when life kept pushing him from isolation into groups and then back again, forcing him to adapt each time. He wished the universe would just pick one or the other for him and be done with it.

So many elements of lifestyle had to change too. As they had wound up in this place with nothing but the clothes on their backs and the knife at Keith’s side, whatever knowledge Keith and Krolia had about survivalism was being put to the ultimate test. Everything from shelter to food to water to warmth had to be scrounged up by themselves, and after all the time spent at the Castle and then at the Blade of Marmora base, with a bed to lie on and readily available food and all the amenities he could need, the adjustment was frustrating, if not downright painful.

Hell, even back in his desert shack he’d at least had a couch to sleep on, canned food to eat, and a semi-functioning air conditioner unit. Pidge had once shuddered when he’d described his life in the desert to her, commenting that it sounded almost like camping. If she could only see him now, she’d realize that that had been nothing.

He’d had to start getting used to hunting and gathering for food, relying on Krolia’s knowledge to let him know which fruits he could find were poisonous. He’d never gathered plants to eat before, although this wasn’t his first time hunting; he’d had a few jackrabbits and lizards during his desert days. When he let the fact slip to Lance once, the latter had looked like he was going to throw up and proceeded to call Keith ‘Lizard-Eater’ for the next week, before deciding it was too much of a mouthful and going back to the tried-and-true ‘Mullet.’

It was on one of their hunting outings that he’d first met the wolf.

He and Krolia had been following a series of tracks they’d found that led them to what they’d hoped would be their meals for the next few days, and managed to stumbled upon a whole group of colossal creatures that looked like some atrocity of nature birthed from a rock golem and a scorpion.

And the creatures looked to have been doing some hunting of their own, since they had surrounded a much smaller creature in a clearing. This one was furry, canine in structure, almost like a wolf pup were it not for the shades of blue that made up its fur and the strips of teal across its eyes and ears and paws that seemed to almost glow.

The pup was cowering away from the scorpion-like beasts, ears flat and teeth bared in a growl, when Keith and Krolia struck.

The creatures weren’t easy to fight off, as their tough exterior was a challenge to pierce, but they managed, bringing the beasts down one by one, putting their Blade training to good and practical use.

Keith had just finished bringing one of the last creatures down when out of the corner of his eye he saw a tuft of powder-blue fur slipping away into the bushes. A glance around told him that all but one of the creatures had been taken care of, and Krolia had the final one under control.

So, almost without thinking, he followed the tail.

The pup had shoved the plant life ungracefully aside as it had moved through them, leaving broken branches in its wake, so it was easy to follow its trail and find out where the little wolf had gone, and it wasn’t long before Keith came across it, sitting in another small clearing with its head ducked to like at its fur.

Keith approached the pup carefully, and it paid him no mind, instead putting all of its focus into licking its hind leg. A closer look showed a patch of crimson in its navy blue fur. “Are you hurt, little guy?” Keith asked.

The pup’s head shot up and it turned to Keith, its ears raised and pointed toward him, on the alert. It growled softly as Keith neared it, and although he knew it was meant as intimidation, with the pup’s size Keith was having trouble finding the action anything but cute. “Hey, it’s okay. I just wanna help, all right?”

Its ears flattened defensively as Keith got closer, and it pressed itself toward the ground, ducking away from him. With a sigh, Keith stopped his approach. The last thing he wanted to do was scare the pup. So, instead, he lowered himself down to the ground and sat, cross-legged, and held his hands up, palms out. “Okay, okay,” he said, “I’ll stay over here. Just making sure you’re all right.”

The wolf stared for several ticks more, then relaxed its posture, ears moving back to neutral, and, although it kept its eyes on Keith, it returned to licking the wound on its leg. Keith waited for nearly a minute more before he started forward again, slowly enough to be silent, not so slowly that the pup let its gaze leave Keith, but this time, it stayed more or less relaxed, and continued licking its leg right up until Keith stretched his hand out close enough that, when it leaned toward him, the wolf could touch its nose to the tip of his middle finger.

“There you go,” Keith whispered as it sniffed at his fingertips. “See? I’m friendly.”

The pup seemed inclined to agree, since it stopped sniffing and instead cautiously poked its tongue out to lick Keith’s finger.

Keith couldn’t stop himself from grinning. He held the hand that the pup was licking steady as he brought his other hand up, slowly reaching around to make an attempt at petting the wolf, but the pup froze, tongue still on Keith’s finger halfway through a lick, when a noise sounded from behind Keith.

Keith whipped his head around to look for the source of the noise, and spotted Krolia working her way through the foliage, hauling something heavy behind her. He relaxed, letting his shoulders drop. “It’s okay,” he said softly to the wolf. “It’s just Kro– um, my mother. She’s friendly too.”

The wolf’s ears twitched, and, as it gave Keith one last glance, a quick burst of white light suddenly engulfed the space where it stood. The light went out just as suddenly as it had appeared, and the space the pup had just occupied was left empty, save for a few motes of white light that floated down to the ground like sparks.

Keith gaped at the spot, jaw dropped. Had the wolf just… vanished? Just, teleported? Had he just discovered a magic wolf?

Well, it wouldn’t be the strangest thing Keith had seen since coming out to space. Not even close.

He glanced down at his hand, at the fingertip that was still just a little damp from where the wolf had licked it. He wondered idly whether the pup’s drool had any magical properties too, but, figuring it’d be awfully tough to figure out how to test that, dismissed the thought.

“Keith,” came his mother’s voice, and he looked up to see his mother half-carrying, half-dragging the carcass of one of those pincer-wielding, rock-like creatures behind her. “You going to help?”

“Yeah,” Keith answered. He wiped his hand against his Blade uniform to dry it and took up the end of the creature that was dragging along the ground.

“What were you up to?” Krolia asked as Keith hauled the carcass into his arms. “I had to finish off that last one on my own.”

“Sorry,” Keith grunted. “The wolf-y thing ran off, I was just trying to make sure it was okay.”

“Was it?”

“One of its legs seemed kinda hurt, but it didn’t seem to be bothering it much. It disappeared before I could get a good look.” He adjusted his grip on the carcass before adding, “By the way, when I say it disappeared, I mean that literally. It just sorta, poof, teleported away.”

“Just vanished.”

“Yeah. That the abyss’s doing?”

“I’d assume so.”

“You haven’t seen any other wolves around, have you?” Keith asked. “Or tracks?”

Krolia shook her head. “No, none. Why?”

“Well, it’s just – ” Keith turned to frown at the space where the pup had just been. “I don’t know much about wolves or anything, but I’m pretty sure, at least on Earth, they travel in packs? Like, there’s always a group of them?”

“Maybe that’s where it vanished off to,” Krolia suggested. “It went to rejoin its group.”

“Yeah, but why did it wander away from the pack in the first place?”

“I don’t know. Keith, this thing is getting heavy. Could we start heading back?”

“Right, right, sorry,” Keith said, hastily tightening his grip on the carcass so he and Krolia could lift it between them and start moving sideways through the underbrush. “I just, I dunno, wanna make sure it’s okay, is all.”

“I’m sure it’s fine. It was able to leave that clearing earlier, so its leg can’t be hurt that badly. It’s probably back with its pack even now.”

“Yeah…” Keith said. The word came out tentative and uncertain, but right now, the two of them needed to put their concentration and energy into hauling the carcass back to their campsite, so he let the matter drop.

He had half forgotten about the pup by the time they returned to the campsite and finished up the painstaking job of cleaning and cooking their kill, so it came as a surprise when he heard a rustling nearby.

Hand flying instinctively toward the blade sheathed at his hip, he looked up and across the clearing surrounding the cave and into the bushes, to see a dark pair of eyes staring back at him, the fluffy body of the wolf pup attached to it and visible through the sparse branches.

“What is – ?” Keith cut her off by holding a finger to his lips, then gesturing with a nod of the head toward the campsite’s edge. Krolia tilted around for a better view, then, having spotted what had caught Keith’s attention, turned back to him. “That’s the wolf you saw earlier?” she asked, voice lowered now.

Keith nodded. “I’m… surprised it found us,” he whispered back.

“You think it followed the smell? Maybe it’s hungry?”

Keith glanced from the meat on the spit over to the fire, to where the rest of the beast’s remains were propped up for later. “Or it wants vengeance,” he said with a little shrug. “It’s probably earned it.”

“Hey there,” Keith said quietly. “You came back?”

The pup didn’t so much as move, just kept staring at the scrap of meat in Keith’s hand. Keith held his hand out. “You want this?” he asked. The pup remained silent, and after several seconds of staring each other down, Keith started to tentatively walk forward. He had taken no more than three steps when the wolf pup vanished, sending those little spark-like motes of light floating down from where it had stood.

Keith blinked and straightened up, turning in place to try to see what had happened to the pup, eventually spotting it on the other side of the clearing, ducked low in another patch of bushes. Keith held his hands up. “Okay. Okay, you still don’t want me coming up to you, that’s fine. Well, I’m just gonna leave this here…” Slowly he leaned down and placed the meat on the ground. The pup watched him warily, and its tail flicked when the meat met the ground.

“If you want it, it’s all yours,” Keith said. He kept his eyes on the wolf pup’s wary ones as he unhurriedly walked backwards into his and his mother’s lean-to, then waited. Krolia stayed silent with him, watching as she chewed quietly on her own food. The pup kept its eyes on the meat and held still for nearly a minute before it vanished again. This time, though, it reappeared in the clearing. It reached down, scooped the scrap of meat up into its mouth, and, with one last look toward Keith, disappeared in another shower of sparks.

“Went back to its pack, huh?” Keith asked, raising his brows toward Krolia.

His mother just shrugged.

When the pup showed up again the following day, Keith was less surprised. It wasn’t exactly that he had been expecting it to return - more that he just… wanted it to.

It was a little silly, if he were being honest, and made him feel like a little kid again, the one who had obsessed over that stray cat that had picked through the trash cans in one of his foster families’ driveways, that Keith had set scraps out for and spent hours glancing out the window every minute to make sure that it arrived and got the food.

His foster mother had not been happy about him ‘wasting’ food, and he’d been sorely punished for it, but it had been worth it in his mind, and if she hadn’t threatened to set a trap for the cat, he would have gladly continued setting the food out for it, consequences be damned.

This time around, he didn’t have to worry about anything of the sort, since his actual mother held no bitterness toward the wolf that appeared in their campsite again - popping into view at the edge of the cave, closer than before and peering inside almost expectantly - just curiosity.

“It’s back again?” Krolia asked, brows shooting upward in surprise.

“Apparently,” Keith said. Without much thought he pulled a slab of meat away from the fire. They had plenty to spare after all, and the pup’s tail began moving back and forth as Keith approached it. He kept his steps slow, and this time, the wolf didn’t back away or vanish as Keith drew near, close enough for him to get a good look at the wolf and the way its leg had efficiently scabbed over since Keith had first seen it. It just kept its eyes firmly on the meat in Keith’s hand as he held it out. “You know,” he said quietly, “If you keep this up, you’re going to end up eating more of this thing than we are.”

The wolf, it seemed, interpreted that as an invitation to do just that, and it leaned forward to tug at the tender meat with its teeth, ripping part of the slab away and chewing noisily at it before swallowing and leaning in again for more.

A grin tugged at the corners of Keith’s mouth and he turned his head back to Krolia. “Are you seeing this?” he whispered. “It’s eating right out of my hand! Like… like it’s my pet or… or something.”

“I see it,” Krolia replied.

Keith turned his attention back to the wolf as it finished the meat. It sniffed at Keith’s hands, still coated in the meat’s fragrance, and poked its tongue out to lick his palm, keeping it up until it had lapped up all the flavor left.

Once it had moved from licking back to sniffing, Keith decided to chance it and moved his hand slowly toward the pup’s neck. Its ears lowered, but it didn’t flinch away, and when Keith managed to lay his hand on the back of its neck and start scratching his fingers into the fur, the ears gradually returned to their resting position.

“There, see?” Keith said. “I’m harmless, I swear.” The pup just lifted its neck and let its eyes drift shut.

Keith kept it up until he’d been petting the wolf for so long that his hand felt like it was beginning to cramp. When he stopped, the pup opened its eyes back up, wagged its tail, and vanished in a puff of sparks.

“Still doing that, hm?” Krolia asked as Keith straightened up from the ground.

“Yeah,” Keith answered. “But, know what? I’m pretty sure it’ll be back.”

“You’re kind of bad at being a wolf, you know that?” Keith said to the wolf once. He had lost track of the number of times the pup had shown up to his and his mother’s campsite, and he wasn’t sure if that was because it just showed up so often, or because time felt odd in the abyss, making everything hard to keep track of. Maybe it was both.

“I mean it,” he continued as he hacked a hunk of meat off of the new creature that was spinning on a spit over their campfire. “Most wolves hunt for their own food, you know? There’s gotta be something like, uh, the thrill of the hunt or whatever that’s supposed to keep you going.”

The wolf wagged its tail and leapt to catch the slab when Keith tossed it. “But you’d rather just be lazy and have me and Kro- Mom wait on you hand and foot, huh?”

The pup set the meat down onto the ground between its front paws, ripping a bite of it off and chewing noisily, sending slobber all over before going for another bite. It seemed that every time the wolf came by to visit, its table manners got steadily worse. Which made sense, Keith supposed; people were the same way.

Once the meat was gone, the pup marched forward, aiming for the spit of meat, and Keith had to physically block its path. “Oh no you don’t,” he said, throwing his arm out. The wolf simply wagged its tail and started moving around him. With a sigh, Keith reached out and grabbed it around its belly, lifting it away. The pup kicked its legs halfheartedly until Keith set it back down at the edge of the campsite.

“You’re a little guy, aren’t you?” he observed as he set it down. “Is that why you don’t seem to be doing any hunting? Gotta let the bigger members of the pack do that job?” The pup sniffed the air and then lifted its front paw to lick at it, probably aiming for anything left in the fur from the meat it had gotten earlier.

Keith frowned and lowered himself to squat next to the wolf, who didn’t so much as look up, by this point having grown accustomed to Keith’s observations of it. “How come I never see any other members of your pack, huh? None of your family’s gotten curious about where you’re getting all the delicious food?”

The wolf yawned and stood up, turning around to sniff at the ground, whipping Keith’s face with its absurdly fluffy tail in the process. Keith batted it away and asked, “You smell something good?” The wolf wagged its tail once and resumed its sniffing of the ground. After a minute it started pawing at a thick stick. “You want this?” Keith asked, stretching out an arm to take the stick. The pup didn’t give an indication either way whether that was what it had wanted, but Keith went with it. “Okay, you wanna fetch it? Want me to throw it for you?” It wagged its tail. “All right, then, here. Fetch!”

He tossed the stick and the wolf stood still as they both watched it fly past the treeline, then the pup turned to Keith with a narrow-eyed look that seemed to say, What the hell did you do that for?

“Okay, sorry, you didn’t want to play fetch,” Keith said with a shrug. He lowered himself back to the ground and sat cross-legged in the dirt. “My bad.”

Apparently the pup forgave him, since it trotted up to him, lay down beside him, and rested its chin against his leg. Keith grinned. This wolf already knew the drill, knew how easy it was to get scratches from Keith whenever it wanted them. And Keith was more than happy to spoil it, so he reached up and started scratching it behind the ears.

“So, here’s a question,” he mumbled. “I never see any other wolves around, I never see any sign that you’re with your pack. Do you even… have a pack?”

The wolf grunted and let its eyes fall closed.

“Well, that’s okay. Neither do I.”

He kept up the behind-the-ear scratches until the pup fell asleep, and stayed still afterward, putting a finger to his lips and pointing toward its sleeping figure when Krolia returned to the campsite with her haul from fishing. It slept on for another varga, long enough that Keith’s muscles got so stiff from inaction he wasn’t entirely sure he’d be able to properly stand up again after this, before its eyes fluttered open. It glanced up at Keith, thumped its tail once, and vanished.

The pup must have enjoyed its nap that day, because soon, using the campsite as a place to sleep became as much a part of the wolf’s routine as using it as a source of food. Keith obliged it, always petting it until it fell asleep and staying still for it afterward. And once it occurred to him just how soft the wolf’s fur was, and how warm it was, and how soothing and relaxing the rhythm of its breathing was, it wasn’t long before Keith started falling asleep right alongside it.

It would always disappear just after it woke, and seemed to be a lighter sleeper than Keith - which was saying a lot - so Keith would usually wake up to find the wolf already gone. He paid it no mind; it always came back. And it even started to work with Keith’s own sleep schedule, showing up ready to snooze around sunset on nearly a nightly basis.

The wolf was a comforting presence. He hadn’t realized how much he had missed having something soft to cuddle with at night, something he hadn’t had since a couple of foster brothers had ripped his stuffed hippopotamus to shreds in retaliation for some perceived slight that Keith had long forgotten. He’d never gotten any sort of replacement - the parents at that house had told him he was too old to be sleeping with stuffed animals anyway - and had instead, after an initial few tearful nights, simply tried to suck it up and deal with a loss, but now he began to wonder how many insomnia-plagued nights could have been relieved if he’d just had an animal - stuffed or otherwise - with him.

He and Krolia had fallen into the habit of talking around the campfire at night before bed. Neither of them were big talkers, and there was an awkwardness between them, one that came with two people who, despite blood, were essentially strangers suddenly thrown together by circumstance, and from their own respective social inhibitions, but it was something. A way for them to ask questions and get answers and slowly try to fill in the eighteen-year gap between them.

And having the wolf around was helpful for that. It gave him something else to look at, something cozy to focus on, to help him relax, and words came easier to him that way. It was becoming very clear to Keith why dogs were used in therapy back on Earth.

“You know, I’ve always wanted a dog?” Keith said one night as he ran his hand through the fur at the back of the wolf’s neck. The pup let out a sigh and stretched its front paws out before collapsing back against the ground, looking completely and utterly relaxed.

“Oh?” Krolia asked.

“Yeah. Most of the foster homes – I told you about the foster homes – ” Krolia nodded, her lips pressed into a thin line; she had been decidedly less than thrilled to learn how Keith’s upbringing had ended up being handled, especially when Keith had admitted a few of the darker details from the unfriendlier homes he’d wound up in, and Keith was pretty sure it would take some time before he could mention it around Krolia without her flinching at thought. “ – most of them didn’t have pets. I think some just didn’t want to complicate things if they ended up with a kid who was allergic. A couple of the houses I stayed at early on had dogs, but, they were always already so attached to their actual family, it was hard to share.”

He sighed as he moved his hand to scratch under the pup’s ear. “And around when I was, I dunno, around ten? They, uh… they didn’t – they decided they didn’t want to put me in any houses that had pets. I had started, um, started getting into fights at school and stuff, and I guess – I guess they thought that if I was aggressive toward people, then – then I would – they thought I’d…” He took a slow, shaky breath, inhale, exhale. “I think they were worried I’d try to hurt a pet if I was in a house with one. I – I wouldn’t have,” he added, looking up toward Krolia with an imploring expression, as if worried she wouldn’t believe him.

Krolia nodded. “I know you wouldn’t have, Keith.”

“I wouldn’t have,” Keith repeated quietly. “They’re – it’s not like I even wanted to get into fights or anything with people, it’s just… if – if they start hitting first, or if they start saying things like – like – ” He trailed off with another sigh. “Well, point is, dogs don’t do that.” Slowly he brought his hand away from the pup, frowning when he saw the slight shaking in his fingers. The pup glanced up when Keith stopped petting it, but then, after yawning widely and smacking its tongue a couple of times, it set its head back onto the ground and closed its eyes again.

“So, this wolf here,” Krolia said slowly, “It’s like the dogs on Earth?”

“I think so,” Keith said. He went back to his petting, deciding it was best right now to keep doing something with his hand, just keep it occupied. “It’s certainly as friendly as one.”

“You want to keep it?”

Keith raised his brow. “It’s a wild animal. I don’t think I could if I wanted to.”

“Well, I’m just thinking, it seems to be getting fond of you,” Krolia said, nodding toward the wolf’s sleeping figure. “And if it decides to stick around, then, at that point it’ll be more pet than wild animal.”

Keith bit his lip and looked at the wolf’s sleeping face, watching the way its nostrils widened and narrowed as it breathed, in time with the rise and fall of its belly. “I guess… if it decides to stay,” he answered. “Then I won’t argue with it.”

He lowered himself down, crossing his arms on the ground and resting his chin on them inches away from the wolf’s nose. “How would you like that?” he asked it softly. “How would you feel about being a pet?”

The wolf opened one eye, thumped its tail once, and went back to sleep.

It was gone by morning, but that didn’t stop it from showing up again the next night, curling up beside Keith near the fire as they both fell asleep, vanishing at some point during the night to go do whatever it was that cosmic wolf pups did when they were on their own.

The day that Keith first started thinking of the wolf as his wolf was the first day that he woke up to find it still curled up by his side.

Their normal meat supply was running low again, and it had been his turn to do some small-game hunting while his mother was in charge of water and firewood. They had managed to set up traps around the area not long ago, so his job mostly consisted of checking those, maybe searching beyond the perimeter for some other animal if none had wandered close enough to get ensnared.

He was on the lookout for small animals, though. Not the massive hulk of a beast he saw through the trees as he was on his way to check the last trap.

The moment he saw the creature he froze in place. Animals this size didn’t tend to come this close to his and Krolia’s campsite, probably warded off by the constant fire burning, so he had no idea what this one was doing so nearby. It was massive, probably nearing double size of any one of those scorpion-like beasts he had fought so long before, and its figure was bulky and bear-like, but with a solid and smooth coating more like an elephant’s than a bear’s. Definitely didn’t seem like it was worth the risk to try to hunt.

It was turned away, so it probably hadn’t spotted him. Slowly, he began to back away, ready to turn tail once he was certain he was out of the creature’s line of sight, but he didn’t see the stick on the ground behind him, the one that snapped in two with a crack like gunfire when he set his foot down on it, making him grimace.

The creature tensed and turned its head with whiplash speed toward Keith, its eyes locking onto him. It had a nose like a bear, but the skull was oddly triangular, like a snake’s head, and the eyes were orange and slit-pupiled and much too large for its face.

The eyes narrowed at Keith, and the creature let out a ferocious growl.

Keith ran for it.

He darted through the trees, hearing the creature lumbering behind him. He just had to shake it, get it off his trail. The beast hadn’t noticed him until he’d made a noise, so he shouldn’t have to worry about a keen sense of smell tracking him; otherwise it would have spotted him approaching. As long as he got out of its line of sight and stayed silent when he did, he should be in the clear.

So he did his best to throw it off, zigzagging through the trees and making sudden and sharp turns every half minute. The creature wasn’t particularly fast, but it made up the difference with size, and Keith was grateful now for his Galra-caliber stamina.

It was on his third sharp turn, though, that he slipped up. He hadn’t seen they way the ground was getting uneven beneath him, the sudden drop several into a ditch below that may at one point have been a small creek. It was all he could do not to yell out when he turned on his heel and his weight gave out beneath him, all of it on the side of his foot as his leg twisted and slid along the ground, sending him tumbling.

Keith landed hard on his side, and for a few seconds he remained still, dazedly blinking the stars out of his eyes and vaguely noticing the thrumming pain in his leg. Then he shook himself out of it, reminding himself that resting right now was not a good idea.

He shifted his weight and started shuffling onto his back and elbows, holding his breath to stop himself from letting out a pained groan as his leg started to bend beneath him, the sound of the approaching creature growing louder as branches snapped underfoot. Come on, he thought to himself, come on, get up, get out of the way before –

A snarl sounded overhead, and with a gulp, Keith tilted his head back to see that the creature had, apparently, found him. For a moment, they stared each other down, Keith wide-eyed, taking silent, panting breaths, the creature with its eyes narrowed, sharp and yellowed teeth bared and salivating. Then, with a loud growl, the creature leapt toward him.

Keith whipped his blade out from where it was sheathed at his side and threw his arms up, half to guard himself, half in an attempt to get a decent stab in. The creature was straddling him, its claws digging into the ground on either side of his shoulders, and Keith lunged out with his arm, plunging his knife wherever he could reach, which ended up being the creature’s shoulder. The blade sank an inch into the creature’s flesh before it reared up onto its hind legs with an agonized yowl, then landed again, snarling twice as hard as before.

Keith made another stab toward it, but the creature was ready this time, and it caught Keith’s arm in its jaws. It crushed the arm between its teeth, and Keith let out a strangled scream as the bones crunched under it and crimson began trickling out from between the teeth, dripping down onto him. The creature gave the arm a yank, wrenching it out of its socket and leaving Keith feeling nauseous from the sudden and excruciating pain. He tried to breathe, tried to keep himself focused despite being pretty certain he was about to lose an arm.

Then, it was letting go. Its maw opened again as it howled, and blood spurt from the holes left in his arm from the creature’s teeth as it released the limb. Another bolt of pain shot through Keith as his arm dropped to the ground, but he squinted through it, trying to see what had distracted the creature.

The fluffy blue tail arcing across his line of vision answered that question.

The wolf was on the creature’s back, its teeth sunk into the back of its neck all the way down to the gums. The creature shrieked again, bucking and jerking to the side in an attempt to throw the wolf off, but he held fast, growling as he bounced against its back.

A sudden flood of a deep green liquid poured forth, showering Keith – blood, he realized foggily; the wolf had just torn a chunk right out of the creature’s neck – until he was shielded from the onslaught, the wolf having jumped away to stand protectively between Keith and the creature. He flicked his tail, growling again. Despite the gaping wound in its neck, the creature still had the wherewithal to make one more lunge for the two of them, sweeping a clawed paw up and ready to bring it crashing down onto the wolf.

Keith squeezed his eyes shut.

But rather than the slash from the claws that he had expected, he was met with a surreal sensation. He felt suddenly like he was being pulled from his own body, like he was weightless, and a rush of wind and light enveloped him not unlike what happened whenever this abyss would suddenly pull him into one of his and Krolia’s memories.

When sensation returned to normal, he pried one eye open, then the other, to see that they were in a different part of the woods, quiet and green and no giant monster creature in sight, and he was lying prone on the forest floor, panting and shaking a little with adrenaline.

The wolf had magicked them away, he realized. And it was now standing over him, staring down at him with its head canted to side, as if watching to see if Keith was okay.

“Do you mean to tell me,” he panted at it, “That all this time, you could teleport other people with you… and yet I still had to haul supplies all over this stupid space whale all this time like a pack mule?”

The wolf wagged its tail and let out a bark that sounded almost smug to Keith’s ears.

“Jerk.”

It seemed that the wolf was selective about when and when not to help Keith out through its teleportation ability, and its selection process was a mystery to Keith, as it chose not to teleport them back to the campsite. It wasn’t a long walk, fortunately, but it was still a painful trek with his injuries. He managed to find a stick on the ground big enough to use as a walking stick, and as long as he gripped it in his left hand and kept his weight off of his injured left leg, he was able to hobble his way back, carefully sinking down against the cave wall when he made it back.

The wolf followed along beside him, and Keith was torn between being upset with it for not teleporting them to the campsite, and being grateful to it for rescuing him from that beast. He settled on the latter when the wolf curled up in the cave beside him and gently started licking his wounded arm; he just couldn’t stay mad at this creature.

He had managed to partially forget the pain in his arm and leg by the time Krolia returned to the campsite, but the gasp she let out and the loud thump of her dropping a bundle of wood to the ground was able to jolt Keith back into the present.

Krolia was kneeling beside him immediately, hands hovering over his bloodied arm. “Keith!” she cried. “What the ruggle happened to you?”

“Got hurt,” Keith grunted.

“How?!”

“The, ah, the hunter became the hunted.” At Krolia’s confused stare, he added, “Uh, sorry, Earth thing. Got attacked by some creature that tried to use my arm as a chewtoy. It, um, it’s not great.”

“I can see that myself,” Krolia sighed. “Oh, Keith.” She took the limb gently in her hands, but let it go when Keith let out a sharp gasp of pain. “Sorry,” she said, releasing her touch immediately.

“S’alright, just - careful.”

“I know. Well, it’s definitely broken. And plenty of broken skin… have you cleaned the wounds yet?”

“The wolf’s been licking them,” Keith replied.

Krolia frowned. “Keith, that doesn’t - ”

“We could re-wash them, if you want, but, apparently dog saliva actually can clean wounds effectively, so I figure the same goes for wolves.”

“Hm. I don’t suppose this saliva has any sort of enhanced healing powers?” Krolia asked.

“Huh?” said Keith.

“Well, I just thought, it’s a creature from the magic quantum abyss, and it’s able to teleport at will, so perhaps…”

Keith looked closely at the arm that the pup had been licking, but it still looked no less mangled than it had before. “I don’t think so,” he answered, shaking his head. “Thanks for trying though, bud,” he added to the wolf, who wagged its tail.

Krolia sighed. “All right, it was worth a shot. In any case, we’re going to need to reset the bone here. Would have been nice if we’d had a little magic to help out, but…”

“Great,” Keith grunted.

“I’m sorry, Keith,” Krolia said, and she certainly looked it as she frowned at him. “This is, ah, it will hurt.”

“I know. Just – ” He paused as the wolf suddenly teleported away, and mere seconds later, it had reappeared with a thick, smooth, two-foot long stick in its mouth.

Krolia tilted her head. “What is – ?”

Keith groaned, rolling his eyes. “I tried to teach him how to fetch the other day. It didn’t take, so I don’t know why – ” He winced as the wolf stepped up closer and shoved the stick right into his face. “No, not now,” he said, but the pup persisted until Keith sighed and grabbed the stick. Instead of readying for him to throw it, though, the wolf turned away, trotting around Keith to rejoin Krolia at his other side.

“… All right,” Krolia said slowly. “If, uh, if that’s done…”

“Yeah,” Keith said, gritting his teeth as his focus returned to the bone they were about to reset. “Yeah, just go ahead and – ” He paused and looked at the stick in his hand, then back to the wolf, who met his curious gaze with a knowing one of its own.

Damn if that pup wasn’t smart.

He brought the stick up to his mouth and bit down on the surprisingly soft wood, then nodded to Krolia to go ahead.

Krolia made quick work of it. Keith barely had time to squeeze his eyes shot before, with a crunch that sounded obscenely loud, fire was engulfing his arm, and a scream worked its way past the stick that he was biting down on like his life depended on it. His teeth sank into the wood, and he was sure that his tongue would have been a bloodied mess if he hadn’t had the stick.

The wolf must have sensed his distress, since it let out a low whimper and moved to shove its nose into Keith’s neck. Keith shakily reached his good arm up to pat its fur reassuringly and, once the fire started to die down in his arm, he slowly removed the stick from his mouth, peeked his eye open, and breathily asked, “Are - are you done?”

“Done setting the bone, yeah,” Krolia said with a nod. “I’ll have to get it into a sling, so it’s still going to have to deal with a bit of jostling, but that’s the worst of it over.”

“Wonderful,” Keith groaned. “And the leg, it’s hurt too,” he added, gesturing toward the injured limb. “Think I twisted it or something while I was trying to get away.”

Krolia moved to check on it, eliciting a hiss from Keith when she prodded it. “It’s not broken, but it looks to be sprained,” she said. “We’ll have to splint it still, but no bone-resetting.”

“Thank God.”

“It still won’t be fun, but - ”

“Hey, as long as it gets the job done.”

Krolia nodded and a small smile crept onto her face. “So, what do you think, nurse?” she asked, turning to the pup still hovering at Keith’s side. “He gonna make it?”

The wolf licked Keith’s face in answer.

By the time he was properly bandaged and tended to, complete with makeshift sling and splint and his arm practically mummified, the sun had started to set and he and Krolia were both exhausted. Krolia insisted on taking on all the pre-sleeping duties, from checking the perimeter to setting the campfire, so that Keith could just focus on staying comfortable and getting straight to sleep.

He settled into position for the night, half-lying down, half-seated against the cave’s wall, his bad leg stretched out in front of him and his broken arm lying flat against his chest in its sling. Just as he began to let his eyes fluttered shut, the wolf joined him, curling up beside him against the wall. Keith let his good arm drape around the pup before falling asleep.

He cracked his eyes open with the sun the next morning, and noticed immediately that something was different, something besides the muscle exhaustion and the ache in his arm and the awkward positioning of his splinted leg.

He had been growing gradually accustomed to falling asleep with his arm around the wolf pup where it would settle in next to him in the dirt, but so far, every time he had done so, he would wake up the next morning to a bit of a chill in the empty space where the wolf had been.

This morning, though, the arm that he would wrap around the pup hadn’t fallen to the bare ground during the next. Instead, it rested on a cushion of fur, moving rhythmically up and down in time with the wolf’s breaths, still curled around the animal.

“Hey,” Keith whispered, and the motion of the wolf’s belly stuttered as the pup woke up at his voice. “You decided to stay the whole night?”

The wolf tilted its head back far enough to lick Keith’s chin before resting it back on the ground.

Keith smiled. “All right. If you’re sure you want to make the commitment…” He closed his own eyes again too, and hugged the pup closer as he finished, “Guess you get to keep me.”

It wasn’t long before they had both drifted back off to sleep.

#keithbabybang #voltronbingo #keith #kosmo #vldgen #my writing #fic: lone wolves

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kamino-ink · 6 years

Text

Bubbles | Han Jisung

✧ Genre: Inspired by Fire Emblem: Awakening [gaius x fe!my unit], fantasy!au, comedy sorta, hella fluff, major angst my dudes, death//violence

✧ Summary: You were one of the many children sent back in time to help change the future - your reality. Along the way, you reminisce on old memories with a childhood friend that calls you quite the endearing name; bubbles.

✧ Word Count: 4.7k

✧ Check out my masterlist!

✧ Warning: graphic violence,, like I didn’t hold back kids - also spoilers for FE: Awakening sooo

✧

You fucking told Minho that there was absolutely no way he could suddenly go back in time to try and save the life of his aunt, who had been a peaceful sort of woman from the stories you had heard growing up. She had been a beam of hopefulness to your people and their country, especially after the past exalt had only brought destruction and misery to another foreign land who’s citizens rightfully came to despise those of your motherland. After her untimely demise during an assassination plot, it was as if everything had gone tumbling downwards - the reality in which you had been raised in had come crashing down in a wake of burning buildings and slain lives of innocent people.

But you had been approached by the very son of the past exalt - Lee Minho. Neither of you knew each other all too well, though he had heard of your strength and strategy on the battlefield during passing conversations. He had requested an audience with you, to which you hesitantly obliged, and then proceeded to tell you his masterplan; he would open a portal back into the past and save his aunt’s life, therefor saving your reality - their future. You, of course, had your doubts and expressed them urgently - if he was accidently killed during his mission, then there would be no telling of what might happen to him in the future. It was a risk you weren’t willing to take.

So, naturally, you tagged along with the prince up until the very day he opened the portal, only to be separated when the ugly creatures in your world called Risen fell through into the past as well. The hideous, violent creatures chased you until you stumbled upon a little village, where a sly girl with a strong sword arm and red hair helped you kill the bastards so that they wouldn’t bring harm to the village. She didn’t ask too many questions, thankfully, and simply gave you some basic supplies for your journey to the palace - she didn’t ask about that, either.

When you did finally reach the palace, you were surprised to notice that Minho hadn’t arrived before you had - you prayed that he perhaps took a detour to avoid the Risen, or something of that manner. One of the guards on duty, a pegasus knight with short, baby blue hair, bought your pathetic story of wishing to be a Shephard; Minho had told you that it was a band of righteous warriors his own father had led in his youth, so you could only assume that they were around still. When she led you into a shabby sort of barracks, however, your jaw had gaped so wide that the woman wondered if you had seen a frightening ghost.

Your own father, whom you hadn’t seen in years since his death, was sat only a few feet away from you, stuffing his mouth with pastries and jerky like a madman. He was donned in heavy green and silver armor, and his trusty sword was resting in its holster - he seemed more happy, more... youthful, for obvious reasons. The last time you had seen him, he had started to grow tiny gray hairs from stress and worry, and his lips were always curled into a fake smile for your own sake, as if you didn’t know any better back then.

“These are just a few of the Shepherds under Chrom’s command: the one with the iron axe is Vaike, the one struggling to carry the boxes without falling is Sumia, and the one currently eating like it’s his last damn meal is Stahl.”

“Hmpf-! I - I am not eating that much, I swear!” The man in green defended himself, wiping his lips from any crumbs as he stood tall to meet your gaze with a warm, friendly smile. “Nice to meet you, mam! Seem a bit young to be with us, but we’ll take what we can get!”

You laughed quietly, chewing on the inside of your cheek to keep from smiling so hard it would hurt. “My father was an excellent rider and swordsman, and he taught me everything he knew. I won’t become a burden, I swear it, sir.”

“Oh really? What’s his name, is he a famous rider?”

“Ah, you wouldn’t know him. But... he was the bravest man I ever knew.”

I found you, father.

The next couple of weeks were like a blur to you - while you helped the Shepherds defend their land and slaughter Risen left and right, you were left to wonder if another other visitors from your reality had fallen through the portal. If that was the case, you needed to find them, and fast. Luckily the gods had been smiling down on you, as only a short while later Minho had reappeared, though he was wearing a mask to hide his appearance and called himself Marth, likely using it as a ruse to hide his identity.

The first time you had found the prince again, was during a tournament where Chrom had to challenge the West khan - it was a bit complicated, honestly; to win the support of the East khan, you all had to make sure you were her champions and beat the other khan, since their people believed far more in power than regular diplomacy. Whoever's champions won meant that the specific khan with their support would be the sole ruler of their country until the next tournament.

You’d been hopping onto the saddle of your horse when you heard Chrom hiss under his breath as if he was shocked. Naturally your gaze trailed over to where he had been looking, and within seconds you recognized the warrior across the battlefield; it was Minho, but he was wearing a mask and new clothes. While to anyone else it seemed a bit strange, you knew he was only being cautious. Still, you were expected to fight him and the other warriors on the side of the West khan, whether you liked it or not.

You got out of the fight with just a scratch, unlike the warriors representing the West khan. The entire fight you made sure to stay as far away from the hidden prince as much as physically possible, since you figured he would rather get the chance to fight his own father for the first time in ages. What amused you, though, was the fact that you knew damn well Minho had purposefully lost the battle - he had been trained by Chrom for crying out loud, he was by far the best fighter in your time; he only let himself be defeated so the events leading up to the big night of his aunt’s assassination could play out normally. Couldn’t risk too much change, after all.

Like normal, the East khan offered the support of the Ferox soldiers to Chrom and his sister, and soon you were waiting for everything to unravel itself. In the meantime, you caught up with your father and your mother - both of them were still blissfully unaware of who you were to them, which only made battling alongside them harder than you could have ever imagined. You wanted to ride alongside the Bull and the Panther once more, where they knew you were their sole daughter, and that they had taught you everything you knew up until now. Yet the good thing to come out of it all was being able to see your own parents fall in love all over again, for you, at least.

“You’re damn strong, Stahl, but your movements are so timid they wouldn’t even scare a mouse!” Your mother chastised the young man, stabbing the tip of her lance into the soil beneath their feet.

“Ah, I may be strong, but I don’t think I’ll ever be as strong as you are, Sully. Actually, you’re probably the strongest of all the Shepherds.” The brunette laughed softly, making your lips twitch into an endearing smile from behind the piles of hay you were sat behind, listening to your parents talk to each other like old times.

“Pah! How can you call yourself a knight if you crap out so soon? The legendary knights who served Marth would never give up so easily.”

“You mean Cain and Abel? The Bull and Panther from the old stories?”

You hold back a giggle as you listen to them, bickering like a married couple. The back of your head hits the yellow hay when you relax into it, your eyelids fluttering shut in peace at the reminiscent sound of your parents arguing over the simplest of things. Maybe Minho would truly be able to fix everything after all, and you would be able to be with your family again, like normal.

That same night, Minho had appeared from the shadows again, just in the nick of time to stop the assassination of the exalt - and convince Chrom that he was indeed someone from the future. You had gotten to fight side by side with the man that night as well, to help him defend the door separating the coming onslaught of Plegians from the woman he had just saved. Still, as quick as he had come, he was gone right after the battle had ended, leaving you worried and alone. You weren’t sure what to do, since she had been saved and Minho had disappeared yet again - so you just kept traveling with the Shepherds.

And then It was all for nothing - later, Emmeryn had been captured by the Plegians, and was meant to be executed. When the exalt heard the enemy leader offering Chrom the chance to save her by giving him the Fire Emblem, she sacrificed herself. You remembered clearly, watching the kind leader falling through the air until her body hit the ground beneath her with a sickening thud, her brother still racing to try and reach her in time - but he hadn’t.

The exalt had died, even after you and Minho had travelled through time itself to try and save her.

And again Minho reappeared sometime later, revealing himself to be Chrom’s son - he had shown the doubtful prince the brand in his eye, marking him as the same bloodline of Chrom himself. Then, Minho had explained who you were, and why you came with him - only to be separated when you both arrived to the past. Together, the both of them encouraged you to tell your parents who you were, and where you came from.

Stahl had immediately started crying and ran over to your smaller body, tackling you into a warm bear hug. And even though she tried to hide them, you vividly remembered seeing the scarlet haired woman’s eyes glisten with unspoken emotions when she joined in on the hug, albeit briefly before going to think things over in her quarters - not that you exactly blamed her, either.

Then it was like the other children from the future had started appearing out of nowhere, with your band of Shepherds coming across them so often you easily lost count of who had and had not been recruited into the army. While you now were somewhat alliances with the Plegians, the kingdom of Valm had started to wage war against your homeland in return, for no real reason other than the desire to conquer. With so many new experienced recruits, though, you were sure that your army stood a chance against the ferocious conquerors of the west.

Even now, the army had taken a quick break from training and set up camp near a port where it was rumored that some of Valm’s soldiers would set foot on in a few days time, just to try and provoke the exalt, Chrom.

Your muscles were practically screaming at you to take a rest, so you obliged and slumped down against a stray crate likely filled with rations or weapons, not that you cared which was which. A soft, airy breath escaped your lips as you took a minute to recuperate, watching as your parents set off to tie their horses to a post.

“My fair maiden, if I were to theoretically take a couple of apples from the rations, would you rat me out to Chrom or Minho?” A whimsical voice purred next to your ear, but before you could reply honestly, the person speaking had already opened the crate you’d been leaning against and grabbed the fruit, plopping down beside you on the grass. “Here, you need to eat. You’ve been training for hours, Y/N.” Jisung murmured, forcing one of the two red apples into your hands while he took a hearty bite of his own.

Feeling a bit too tired to argue with the persistent boy, you go ahead and take a bite of the delicious fruit, a moan of thankfulness seeping through your lips while you chewed. The blonde boy snickered in amusement and watched as you scarfed down the snack, making sure all the while that no one who passed by you two saw that you were taking a bit of the rations.

“Thank you, Jisung-”

“Han, bubbles! My name is Han.” He hissed sourly.

“That’s your stupid codename you used when we were kids, genius. It isn’t your real name.” You retorted, flicking the sour boy’s forehead. “Besides, I know why you insist on going by Han for now - you still haven’t told Gaius that you're his kid-”

“Shhh, bubbles! He could be around any corner.” He hushed you quickly, smashing one of his palms over your lips. You rolled your eyes, licking his hand to get him to swing it away from your mouth in mild disgust.

“I just don’t understand why you haven’t told him or the tactician yet. They deserve to know, Jisung.” You tell him softly, placing your hand over the one you had licked comfortingly, rubbing the pad of your thumb over the top of his hand. The boy sighed almost inaudibly and glanced across the camp, your gaze following his.

The legendary tactician that served Chrom herself, and his father, Gaius, were squabbling over something. Everyone from the future knew too well that those two were Jisung’s parents, as he had always bragged about them in your time period, in the future - even after their deaths.

“I just -” he paused, his fingertips digging into the grass, “I’m so scared that they won’t approve of me. After everything my father did to become a good man for my mother, I ended up being just like he is now, erm… was.”

Your heart ached for the timid boy and how fearful he was to possibly be disapproved of by the people his parents were now. He had followed in his father’s footsteps, to an extent - Jisung was a seasoned thief and assassin, and he was feared in your time for being so stealthy and of course, deadly. But his father had grown out of that phase long before he was born, and you understood why the blonde was troubled about revealing the truth to two of the most respected people in the country.

Still, you flipped his hand over so you could gently intertwine your fingers with his own, squeezing them reassuringly as he glanced over at you. “Jisung, they would be so proud to be your parents. You were their pride and joy, don’t you remember?” You reminded him, your lips twitching into a warm smile as he nods at your words.

And you were right, of course; the mother and father of the blonde assassin never failed to boast about their son. It was a known fact that even during strategy meetings his mother would somehow find a way to mention him, though most of the time he had nothing to do with any of it. The way Jisung’s parents died was... horrific, to say the least, and it left a scar on him to this very day.

“Y/N, watch your flank!” Jisung hissed at you, his back pressed against yours while his sword clashed with a Risen’s, glancing back to you whenever he could.

With a quick swing you were able to pierce the heart of another foul beast that had tried to catch you off guard, it’s heavy body falling against the wet ground with a sickly thud. “Thanks, Jisung!” You called back to the concerned boy, wiping your soaked hair out of your eyes before another beast could try and surprise you. “I think - I think that’s all of those bastards down here. Hyunjin and Seungmin can handle the one’s by the hilltops-”

“Mother? F-father?”

Eyebrows furrowed in confusion as to why your partner was calling out to his parents when they were on a different part of the battlefield, you turned to face him, only to see his eyes widened in horror. You followed his gaze, only to feel your stomach start to churn in fear.

The battle force his parents had been leading against the oncoming horde of Risen had been totally wiped out and pushed back much farther than anyone could have expected; and his mother and father were completely surrounded on the top of a tiny slope by the ugly purple monsters. The storm was only getting worse with each passing second, strikes of bright yellow lightning cracking in the dark sky while the rain continued to pelt down onto the battlefield.

Gaius’s signature headband had been torn to shreds, and in its place were long claw marks slashed across the pale man’s face and part of his head, part of his ear missing along with his orange hair being matted to the top of his head. The master tactician was faring no better, her robes nearly shredded to pieces while the arm that clung to her thunder tome bled from various bite and scratch marks. You could only watch in growing horror as a Risen general drove his spear into the woman’s stomach, the tip of the steel weapon poking through her back and sticking itself into the muddy ground. Her husband screamed at the sight of his wife - the love of his life being murdered in cold blood right in front of him.

The ex-thief rushed forward, defending his wife’s limp, bleeding body until the stronger monsters overpowered him and brought him to the ground, pummeling his smaller body like a twig.

Then the horde of Risen began to charge at the remnants of your army, brandishing their bloodied weapons with sickening pride. You grab hold of Jisung’s arm, trying to drag him away before the enemies reached your positions. “W-we need to go Ji-”

“No!” His heartbroken scream tore through the gloomy atmosphere, his body thrashing hopelessly against yours in an attempt to escape. “I can’t leave them here, please - please!” You could tell by his whimpers and pleading that he too knew it would be impossible to retrieve their bodies, but his heart wanted him to fight until he couldn't anymore. Without another word he stopped resisting, instead grabbing hold of your hand so he could lead you away from the carnage safely and reunite with the other survivors.

“Of course I remember, bubbles.” Jisung let out a warm chuckle, leaning back against the wooden panels of the rations crate. “I’ll tell them soon, I promise. But... how did you tell Stahl and Sully that they - you know... died?”

You don’t flinch at the question like Jisung clearly expected you to, instead scooching closer to the taller boy so you could rest your head on his shoulder. When you told your own mother and father of their untimely demise, they only got the basic recounting, as you didn't think you would’ve been able to stomach remembering everything that happened.

Ever since Chrom and his wife had been killed in the fight for survival against the Risen army, as well as many of the other original Shepherds, your mother and father were tasked with leading the army as best as they could in their places. It tore the two apart each day, and you saw the grief swimming in their eyes whenever the deaths of their beloved comrades were brought up. Still, they had to lead now - they couldn't dwell on the past.

If they had wanted to anyway, they wouldn't have been able to for much longer.

You had been strolling around camp, too anxious to get any sleep in your tent that you shared with the other younger soldiers. So you went out for a midnight stroll to try and clear your mind, though you made sure not to stroll too far from camp.

At some point you had come across a beautiful blue lake. There were two familiar bodies standing by the water’s edge; your parents. With a fond smile you decided to hide behind a tree and listen to them talk - perhaps they would be reminiscing on the old times, and you could involuntarily learn more of their past without prying about it so much in person.

While you were honed in on eavesdropping, you hadn't noticed a shadowy presence being to make its way towards the unsuspecting couple, a scroll tight in the stranger’s fingers. The figure silently cast out an equally as dark, mysterious energy out onto your mother before they vanished as quickly as they had came.

“- honey, what’s wrong? Sully - what are you doing-!” You heard your father’s voice become riddled with fear in a matter of seconds, so you peeked out from behind the oak tree, only to witness your mother driving her lance into her husband’s chest with no remorse. When she pulled her prized weapon out of her husband’s guts, she turned it onto herself and mimicked what she had done to him, driving it through her chest.

You let out a scream, knowing it would likely alert those in the camp not too far away from where you were, and stumbled over to the two bodies sprawled out on the green grass, pools of crimson red blood growing under their bodies. First you check your mother’s pulse, only to feel nothing. A tear runs down your cheek as you quickly go to see if maybe your father is still somehow alive - and he is.

Still the great knight is just barely holding onto his life, spurts of blood seeping over his chapped lips while his oddly calm gaze searches for your frantic eyes.

“S-Sully did n-not do this, my child.” Had been his final words.

At the brink of death, your selfless father had chosen to defend his wife’s honor and integrity until the very end. It was something that would haunt you until the day you too died.

“Honestly? I told them that they had died together by a lake, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell them the truth of it all - I’m a coward, aren’t I?” You breathed out shakily, your eyes beginning to water as you reminisced on their final days in the future.

The assassin next to you shook his head vehemently before he carefully turned so that he was sat in front of you, pressing your knees together while his warm hands found your shoulders, squeezing them to reassure and to calm your nerves. “Bubbles, you are not a coward, nor will you ever be. You’re the bravest person I know next to our parents, I swear it.” He whispered to you, pulling you into a tight embrace while you sniffed into his chest, a few stray tears making their way down your damp cheeks.

Little did either of you know that four familiar faces had been watching the whole thing.

A short while later, you found out that Jisung had come clean to his parents about his origin, and how he was their son from the future - he, like you, had apparently chosen not to give them the full story of their demise, which did reassure you in a sense. Although, one thing that confused you was the fact that he refused to introduce you to his parents - now, that is, since you sort of knew them in the original timeline.

“But Jisung, I want to talk to them!” You whined to the blonde boy for the fifth time in a row, tightening your hold around his neck since you had your arms slung around his top half while he supported your legs that were wrapped around his waist.

He rolled his eyes, knowing you couldn’t see them, and pinched the underside of your calves. “Maybe later, alright bubbles? They're very busy right now, especially my mother.” Jisung huffed.

Of course you knew this was true, since the older Shepherds were starting to finalize a plan to get rid of the commander of the troops from Valm, so that the war could be ended before it became all the more destructive. You and the other kids from the future occasionally gave them some advice, but other than that a majority of you were left to your own devices; not including Minho, though. The prince was doubling down on making sure everything went according to plan, especially since none of you were sure what your futures looked like now after everything that had occurred since you all went back in time.

“I know, I know... hey, isn't that them right over there?” You hummed in curiosity, peeking out from beside the boy’s head to see the man and woman in question walking in your direction. “Gaius, -” Your words are cut off abruptly by Jisung planting his palm over your lips quickly, the boy rushing to hide behind one of the tents before his parents could spot the two of you.

“Did you hear someone calling for me, bubbles?” Gaius asks the tactician, and unknowing to them you can feel your eyes widen in shock - you could have sworn bubbles was your nickname given to you by Jisung; did his father overhear it and decide to use it for himself?

“Probably just the wind, Gaius.” The woman snorts teasingly, the pair stopping just a few feet away from where you and their own son are hiding. “Speaking of... I was thinking earlier,”

“That’s a miracle, dear!”

“Shut it before I shock you with my magic, you dirty thief!” She snapped, whacking the orange haired man with her tome. “I was thinking about how Jisung calls his friend, Y/N, bubbles too. I thought it was my nickname.”

You can feel the boy holding you up take a sharp intake of air, and if you dared to look at his plush, chubby cheeks, you would’ve been able to see how they flushed a deep red.

“He takes after his father, I suppose. It is pretty obvious how he’s basically in love with her, after all.” Gaius snickers. “I mean, I don’t ever see myself not calling you bubbles now, so my guess is that the boy calls her the same thing since it clearly worked on you.”

“Worked on me? What is that supposed to mean you little-”

Their voices start to fade away as they begin to walk again, leaving you with a very stunned and silent Jisung still holding you up on his back. You slowly slipped down off of his back, going to step in front of him with pink cheeks. His eyes start to look anywhere but you, at least, until you smoosh his cute red cheeks together and (gently) force him to look you in the eyes.

“Jisung? Do you - um...” You trail off, becoming flustered with how fast your poor little heart is beating in your chest.

“Y-yeah, I do, bubbles.” He murmurs between his squished cheeks and lips, his shaking hands coming to rest over the top of yours that are still making him keep steady eye contact with you. “If - if you don’t feel the same way, I understand-”

“I love you too, Jisung!” You say without thinking, not wanting him to even think for a second that you didn't feel the same way. His lips curl into a nervous but bright smile, and before you know it he’s gone to press them against your own into a shaky, innocent kiss.

When he pulls away, he rests his forehead against yours.

“So... I can still call you bubbles, right?”

“Only if I can start calling you squirrel.”

“Deal!”

✧

#skzwriters #stray kids au #stray kids imagines #stray kids drabbles #stray kids scenarios #stray kids #han jisung #jisung scenario #jisung imagine #stray kids angst #stray kids fluff #soft hours

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hazyheel · 5 years

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WWE Stomping Grounds 2019 Predictions

Super Showdown Part II is what this show should be called, as most of the matches on the card are rematches from Sweet Saudi Money 3, more blood money for me. Even still, that card looks okay, and so does this one. It doesn’t look like it will be one of the greatest shows of the year or anything, but there is no reason that it shouldn’t be good and fun. So here are my predictions for Stomping Grounds 2019.

Only a couple non-title matches on this show, and we are starting with Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens vs. Big E and Xavier Woods of the New Day. Both Owens and Zayn have feuded with Kofi over the WWE Championship a bit in recent months, with Owens even going as far as re-injuring Big E in storyline. This is a tough one, because nothing is really on the line, but I’m actually going with Owens and Zayn on this one, because they lost in tag matches two nights in a row. They need something, unless WWE is really trying to bury them, which they very well could be. If this is booked as a back and forth contest, then it should be good, but it probably will be a lot of rest holds and a hot tag or two. I’m not really looking forward to this.

Then we have Roman Reigns vs. Drew McIntyre. They have been feuding really since late last year, and even going into Wrestlemania, but the latest chapter in their feud stems around Shane McMahon. McIntyre is Shane’s little helper, aiding him in a match against Reigns at Super Showdown. So, Reigns and McIntyre are now having a match, probably a placeholder until Reigns can really finish off Shane. I’m going to go with Reigns on this one, but it is another toughy. I don’t know when they will pull the trigger on Shane/Reigns II, whether it be at Extreme Rules, Summerslam or later. Hell, there is a distinct possibility that Shane will be the one to beat Kofi for the WWE championship at some point, and then Reigns will take it off of him. I am hoping that we are just going to get Reigns vs. Shane at Summerslam, not for a belt, and that this match and Extreme Rules will just have some placeholders. I think that Reigns is going to win here, and he kinda has to. I mean, he lost to Shane fucking McMahon at Super Showdown. Yeah, McIntyre was the reason for the win, but still. Dude needs some momentum. I think that he wins here, although it could easily be McIntyre. This match will definitely be full of interference and shenanigans, so I don’t expect much from it, which really sucks considering how talented they both are.

Into the Cruiserweight Division, and the first of our title matches, we have Akira Tozawa vs. Drew Gulak vs. Tony Nese for the WWE Cruiserweight Championship. This is an interesting story, where Nese originally asked Drake Maverick to allow Tozawa to challenge for his championship, but Drake did not book the match. Instead, he booked a Fatal 4-way, Akira Tozawa vs. Drew Gulak vs. Humberto Carillo vs. Oney Lorcan. Gulak had also gotten a sort of career resurgence, after severing ties with both Carillo and Jack Gallagher, returning to action as a more vicious wrestler, introducing a lot more strikes and power moves into his repertoire. During that fatal 4-way, Tozawa and Gulak pinned each other at the same time in a cradle, giving us an indecisive finish. So in response, Drake Maverick booked this Triple Threat. There is also some history between Gulak and Nese, as they were once friends in the Zo Train (Enzo’s Amore’s terrible heel stable), only for Gulak to betray him when the group broke up. So there are a lot of moving parts here, and I think that this is Gulak’s time to shine. He has gotten a new attitude, he has two people that he really hates against him, he is a bit of an underdog against two face opponents, and I think that he can and should win here. It is cutting Nese’s run as champion a bit short, but three months is still pretty good. Gulak should win here, and really reign terror down on the cruiserweight division. This match should be fast paced and awesome, so I’m really looking forward to it.

And in the tag division, Heavy Machinery challenge the Planet’s Tag Team Champions for the Smackdown Tag Team Championships. Tucker and Otis challenged the champions a while ago, but since Bryan refuses to go to Saudi Arabia, the match hasn’t happened yet. But the only real background for this match is that Bryan and Rowan said there was no one left for them to beat in the tag division. So, now we have this match. I think that the champions will retain here, probably by some nefarious means, and then we can have a rematch with a stipulation for Extreme Rules. Because who better to beat some snobby environmentalists than a team that is literally named after something they hate. But for now, they will probably lose here, allowing for a bit more time with Daniel Bryan’s awesome promos.

Into some midcard stuff, we have Samoa Joe vs. Ricochet for the WWE United States Championship. This was simply built, with Ricochet winning a Fatal 5-way elimination match to qualify. Also, it’s a dream match that a bunch of people want. And while Ricochet definitely deserves the belt, I don’t think now is the right time. Joe hasn’t really established himself as a strong champion just yet, given that he kinda sorta lost it to Rey Mysterio via some shoddy officiating, but then got it back because Mysterio was injured. He needs a good defense, and Ricochet is the guy to beat to do it. This is a battle of a couple awesome workers, and is also the match I’m most looking forward to. I’m really excited for this one, and Joe should win here. Although I suspect Ricochet isn’t too far away from the title.

Then we have the women’s division, we have Bayley vs. Alexa Bliss for the Smackdown Women’s Championship. This story revolves a lot around Bliss being manipulative, and making everyone think that Bayley is awful. She is mainly working her magic on Nikki Cross, who is convinced that Bayley is a bad person on the inside after Bayley screwed them out of a Women’s Tag Team Championship match. Admittedly, Bliss did attack Bayley first, but it was still Bayley’s fault that they lost. Bliss was also spreading rumors about Bayley being mean to fans, which was starting to get to some of the other ladies. As for this match, I was kinda torn here, until I realized that Bliss was on Raw, so she should lose. I don’t know where the Cross and Bliss story goes from here, maybe they continue to feud with Bayley, but Bayley needs a big title win on Pay per view. The match could be good, but Bliss is a bit too hit or miss for me to get my hopes up. I hope Bayley wins here, because I still think about how badly Bayley was buried during their feud in 2017, and I do not use that word lightly.

On the Raw side it is Becky Lynch vs. Lacy Evans for the Raw Women’s Championship. Evans challenged Lynch for the Raw Women’s Championship at Money in the Bank in a losing effort. During her next match against Charlotte Flair for the Smackdown Women’s Championship, Evans got involved and screwed Lynch out of her second title. So they are still feuding, despite the audience getting bored of it. Becky has to retain here. She is still riding high after her win at Wrestlemania, and even though she isn’t as white hot as she was when they wrote her like a heel, she is still doing awesome and kicking ass. There is more money to be made with Becky, so she should win here. Not looking forward to this match because Evans hasn’t shown me that she is on Lynch’s level in the ring. I hope she proves me wrong, but I doubt she will. So I really don’t care about this match, but I definitely will if Becky loses.

And in the world title picture, we have Kofi Kingston vs. Dolph Ziggler in a Steel Cage match for the WWE Championship. Dolph still says that he should be the WWE Champion rather than Kingston, and he has doubled down on it since Super Showdown. Ziggler was admittedly screwed at that show, as he superkicked Xavier Woods on the outside, only for Woods to then get involved and give him an ensiguri to the back of the head as he hit the ropes. Ziggler was furious and demanded a rematch in a cage, so that no one could interfere. Normally this story is reversed, with the face asking for a cage match to prevent interference, but whatever. Kingston will still win, because Ziggler is just a placeholder feud, and he will not beat Kofi. This could be good, but Ziggler and Kingston have never seemed to have a really good match together. They are both really good, but don’t have that chemistry for whatever reason. I hope this is good, because they deserve a good match. But no way Ziggler is winning this.

And finally, we have Seth Rollins vs. Baron Corbin for the WWE Universal Championship, with Corbin allowed to pick the referee. This all stemmed from a weird story, where the two had a match at Super Showdown, in which Corbin continuously yelled at the referee. In the finish, the ref yelled back at him, so Rollins rolled him up for the win. Corbin then said that the ref beat him, not Rollins, and demanded a rematch with a ref of his choosing. It was booked that way, but then Rollins went on a damn warpath. Anyone who even considered being Corbin’s referee was viciously beaten down by Rollins, with a chair no less. So going into this match, we do not know who the ref will be. I figure that I will make that part of the prediction, because why not? Part of me thinks that it will be Lesnar, but I don’t think that they will write Corbin that stupid, because Brock would cash in on either of them at the end of the match. So maybe, instead of Brock himself, it’ll just be Paul Heyman. That would make sense, because while Corbin isn’t so stupid to put Brock as the ref, he is booked just stupid enough to put Heyman in that role. Because heels are all friends. Anyway, it doesn’t matter who the ref is, Rollins is winning. Corbin isn’t on Rollin’s level, and while he is a believable challenger, he is not a believable champion. Again, this could be good. Like, Corbin is capable of having good matches. But he hasn’t had a good match in months, so I don’t think it will be. That’s just the truth.

So, these are my predictions. I don’t think this will be the best show in the world, but it isn’t supposed to be. It’s a B-Show. So lets hope that it is good, but lets not get our hopes up.

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vohskyfire · 6 years

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Top Ten 2017 Games

That time of the year again, the end of the year is upon us. And as such, this will be my last post for this year on this website.

2017 has been a year of a LOT of good games. In fact, it’s argubly been the year of some of the best games ever made being released. Nintendo dominated this year with the Switch, several games have been said to be the best games of all time, and Microsoft shot themselves in the foot, again, with the Xbox One X. So odds are there’s a lot of great games out there that people love.

Keep in mind, these are just my personal picks for the top ten. If your favorites aren’t here, don’t worry, they’re still great too! Just one rule though.

No ports. Aka no Skyrim, no Doom, no Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Pokken Tournament, etc. Let’s get this started!

10: CupHead (Xbox One)

I’ll be honest, the first time I saw CupHead I wasn’t exactly sure what to think of it. It looked like it was a tribute to the old cartoons from the 50s and that gave it a bit of a nice feel to it. But I didn’t expect the game to be anything fantastic. Especially given Microsoft’s recent track records with exclusives (Looking at YOU, Halo Wars 2). However, come to my surprise, CupHead is a great game! In fact, it’s so good it’s the only Microsoft title to be on this list. So what exactly keeps it from being in the top 5? Well....

It’s hard. Like, brutally hard. Make no mistake people, this game will kick you in the teeth if you try to go into it acting like you aren’t going to die. In CupHead, expect to die. A LOT. And yes, just because it’s difficult doesn’t mean the game sucks. No one ever says that unless it’s someone who absolutely hates challenges. But sometimes, you gotta give the player a chance to BREATHE. And while boss fights are doable once you learn the patterns, people who AREN’T patient are going to break their controllers. A lot.

Overall, Cuphead is a good game. But goddamn does it make you fight to survive.

9: Crash Bandicoot: Insane Trilogy (PS4)

Crash is back baby. Crash is back. Okay, he’s SORTA back, but hey, it’s nice to see that Sony wanted to have their mascot back! Last year when they showed this off at E3, I went “Welp. There goes Microsoft’s chances to getting back into first place.” (At the time of this post, there is no Xbone Port yet) Seriously I was hyped, if Crash was coming back, then there was a huge chance that Spyro could come back as well. Now Insane Trilogy is an HD remake of the original 3 games, updated to modern times. And damn. Just DAMN. These games looks absolutely stunning. Gameplay wise they are just like they should have been from the past as well. That’s a good thing....aaaaaaaaaaaaaand a bad thing.

Crash 1 is still the hardest of the trilogy, mostly because the game was not MEANT for speed run purposes, and some of the hitboxes in Crash 1 are still as bad as they were back in the day. And while having Coco being playable is a nice touch, she doesn’t really change that much in the games. She’s basically just an alt skin for Crash, and most of the death animations that Crash goes through she’s spared. It’s still a wonderful remake of the original three games, and I am very happy to see that it sold incredibly well. Maybe Activision and Sony might work together from now on to do MORE Crash games? Or at least, you know...give us a Spyro trilogy remake too? That’d be nice. Anyone? Please? ...No? Skylanders still? O-Okay.

8: ARMS (Nintendo)

Oh yes. Now we’re getting into some Nintendo titles. (Be prepared, there’s a LOT of them here.) ARMS is basically what I would like to call the ‘Splatoon of fighting games.’ When they did the full presentation of ARMS back in January this year, I was one of the view that didn’t seem to out right hate the concept of ARMS. I thought it looked like a blast to play, plus fighting games are awesome. ARMS thankfully to me, did not disappoint. In the months of waiting for Splatoon 2 and other Switch titles to come out, ARMS was there. And for what it’s worth? The game is a blast to play. Simple controls that one can get use to, wonderfully designed characters, beautiful music, intense hype as hell battles, and being able to combine different arms with one another based on your fighting style is a great thing. Many hours were put into ARMS trying to get more unique ARMS to use in battle.

That’s...kinda where some of the good stops. The game’s great, don’t get me wrong, but there were some things I feel ARMS needed to be more active on launch. For one, a better story mode. Arcade mode is basically what you get. Info on your fighter, what they’re fighting style is like, and that’s pretty much it. There’s no story building, no interactions between characters, and that can KINDA hurt a fighting game this year when you have Injustice 2 showing how to do a story in a fighting game. Mind you, this is just a MINOR flaw to me.

Overall, ARMS is a lovable experience. And I’m glad to see that it got all the support they said they were going to give it. Maybe the comics will be just as good, or at least have more stuff for ARMS 2. (If they make it.)

7: Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle (Nintendo)

If you would have told me that this game, this game, would be on this list this year or that I would find it to be one of my favorite games this year at the start of January? I would have smacked you in the mouth. I should make this clear to everyone.

I. Hate. The Rabbids.

When I first heard about this game from that huge leak from Ubisoft, I first thought “What? Are you shitting me? Mario and Rabbids crossover? And they have GUNS? What the hell is this? Is this gonna be MARIO OF WAR 4 where it’s a third person shooter? Come on Nintendo.”

Then E3 happened. Oh boy, did I get proved wrong by Ubisoft.

Kingdom Battle isn’t ANYWHERE close to the over done third person shooter area. It’s bright, colorful, charming, actually kinda funny in moments (that’s saying something given the Rabbids’ history) and believe it or not...

Actually...a LOT of fun.

No, seriously. This is one of the most fun games I’ve played this year. Bar none. It’s hard to believe I’m saying that about a Rabbids game that’s crossed over with Mario of all franchises, but it’s true. The game is the first huge strategic game on the Switch and I’m happy to report that the game plays damn well. Think of it like Xcom. Where you actually have to think out your strategies and make certain you know the map well enough.

The only kind of flaws I could give the game is that well...it’s kinda short. Four worlds, each with large maps to do battle, and the story is just kinda...there. Like they explain how the two series meet and everything, but it’s just...there. Not like I expected a huge story from a Mario + Rabbids game, but it would have been interesting to see them go a BIT more into it. Ah well, the DLC will probably cover that.

6: Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia (Nintendo)

And here we have the first Fire Emblem game on this list (Someone’s gonna get upset somewhere). Shadows of Valentia is the first game that uses the classic gameplay the series has been known for that I’ve played since Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (Which we’ll get into why THAT game sucks another time...) and to be honest? This game really really contends with Awakening as my favorite FE title.

I love a lot of things about Shadows of Valentia. The storyline is enjoyable, the art style is absolutely beautiful, the music is GODLY, the battles are intense and force you to be on your toes, the character models look absolutely gorgeous for a 3DS game, and the characters are wonderfully written. No joke, Alm and Celica, as ‘bland’ as they can be, are some of my favorite FE characters now.

The only thing I can really say that is sort of a draw back to this game is that...well, how it will test your patience. No joke, the maps are fantastic and the gameplay is a joy to go through, but GOD in heaven above, do some maps want to test your will to continue. Especially maps that have the annoying spell known as UPHEAVAL which damages everyone in your army on sight AND...ahem, let’s save that rant for another time.

Over all, Shadows of Valentia is a great remake of the second game in the series. If you have a 3DS, which is going to be put to rest soon, I would recommend getting this game. It’s fantastic.

5: Fire Emblem Warriors (Nintendo)

Annnnnnnnnnd there goes some of the older FE fans booing at me liking this game. Yes, the game is only Shadow Dragon, Awakening, and Fates. Yes, some of the other characters (Celica and Lyn) are the only representatives of their games, yes some characters have the same moves as others. But you know what? I don’t care.

I. LOVE. THIS. GAME.

It’s fun, it’s stupid mindless fun, and enjoyable. I know most fans may not like the fact that it’s three games over the many others, but to me? I am happy with the choices they’ve made.

Combat is smooth and stylish, like Warriors games tend to be, the animations are wonderful, the controls respond perfectly, and just seeing the way that characters interact with one another is fantastic. I love hearing them call each other’s names when they do a dual strike together. I love how over the top some attacks can get, and I love the ability to switch between units on the fly.

Yes the story’s a lil stupid, and yes they should have included other games in the franchise too, but I like it. If you want to turn your brain off, this is the game for you. It got into my list because I’m a fan who doesn’t hold favoritism over others. Just don’t be rude to people who don’t like the game, and vice versa and you might find a gem.

4: Metroid: Samus Returns (Nintendo)

Yeaaaaah, there’s a lot of Nintendo games.

If you would have told me that Nintendo was going to show off not only Metroid Prime 4 and a new classic Metriod game this year at E3, I would have called you a liar. And to my surprise, they did it. They actually did it. Prime 4 during the new stuff for Nintendo Switch, AND during the after presentation, a new Metroid title to be released this year.

Samus Returns is what I would like to call one of the best looking, and best playable, games on the 3DS. This game I could even consider it to be a swan song. Everything from classic Metroid is here. Charge shots, wall jumps, bombs, beam upgrades, etc. It’s all there. As an official remake of Metroid 2, people were happy to see that Nintendo not only DID care for Metroid, but it shed some light as to why AM2R was taken down. There’s really not much to complain about when it comes to this game. It plays well, responds well, and really teases at more future Metroid games down the line. To which I say...please give us more.

I wanna see Metroid Dread. Do it Nintendo.

TOP THREE.

Oh boy...these three were hard to decide their order. I’ll give short paragraphs for them as I feel I’ve dragged this list out long enough. That and really, I don’t have complaints for these three. These three are the best of the best. Hands down. The best games this year easily.

3: Persona 5 (PS4)

This. Game. Holy shit this game. RPGs live. And Persona 5 has shown the world, and more importantly Square Enix, that turn based RPGS still live. And goddamn, is this game amazing. Fantastic story, fantastic characters, fantastic music, spot on battle system, wonderful dialogue, wonderful artstyle, wonderful EVERYTHING. GET THIS GAME.

2: Super Mario Odyssey (Nintendo)

Easily the best 3D Mario game ever made. No seriously, it’s fantastic. If you own a Switch, you need to get this game. It’s beautiful and is just a charm to play through. Also god DAMN does it play so smooth.

1: Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Nintendo)

I know. Predictable. But you know what? I don’t care. This game, this game is my favorite game this year. From exploring Hyrule, fighting enemies, discovering what meals to cook, the wonderful story, and just how much of a riveting experience it has been, I can NOT put this game at number 1. It was the first huge game this year, and I feel it deserves the praise that it’s been getting. I spent many hours playing this game, and I am glad to say that it’s my number one game this year.

And that’s how we send off 2017. Let’s hope 2018 is a good year for games as well!

PS: Also Splatoon 2 is a huge honorary mention.

#Games of the Year #Top Ten List #So long 2017 #So long

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andromedahawking · 6 years

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NaNoWriMo, Day 1

1,667 words, done! Take a looksie if you’d like. (Warning: this is unedited, first-draft quality writing. Don’t expect AO3-level stuff here.)

Today was Tuesday, and that meant one of three things was going to happen:

Maria was going to have a very bad time, because American History would be devoted purely to working on the group project due at the end of the term, and she would have to do all the work, again.

Maria was going to have a normal bad time, because History would be divided between lecture and the project.

Maria was going to have a good time, because History would be 100% lecture, and the group project would wait until Thursday.

Needless to say, she really really hoped that possibility #3 was going to come through for her today.

She walked onto campus at 9, still bleary-eyed from the night before. She sworn she was going to stop getting so drunk, what happened? It was amazing how quickly she'd ditched that resolution.

“Yo, Taylor, wait up!”

She looked back. There was Adrien. “How’s it going today?”

“Awful,” she groaned. “You remember how I said last night was going to be nice and quiet and I’d go to bed early?”

“Yeah. Didn’t go very well?”

“No, it didn’t…”

He smiled crookedly. “That’s always how it goes, isn’t it? You say it, but then when it’s time to do it, it all just sorta falls apart.”

“Pretty much,” she said. “I ended up getting absolutely smashed and fell asleep at the kitchen table.”

“Oof. That sounds rough.”

“It was fun up until about 2, then I tanked, hard.”

“Well, at least you had fun?”

“I guess.” She opened the door to the History building. “I at least got my stuff for today done before I started knocking back shots.”

“That’s good,” he said. “I know Monaca’s gonna be doing stuff that we won’t understand if we didn’t do it.”

“Does that mean there’s no group project stuff today?”

He made an uncertain noise in his throat. “Mayyybe. Maybe not. I dunno. It’s gonna be something, but I don’t know what exactly.”

“It’s gonna be ‘something’? That’s specific. Very specific.”

He smacked her arm playfully. “Don’t knock me for not knowing. It’s not like she’ll follow the syllabus to the letter.”

“If she does, today is gonna suck.”

“I hear you, sister.”

They entered the classroom. The seats were empty, but Monaca was there at her desk, feet up, book in one hand, bottle of Snapple in the other. “Mornin’,” she greeted, not looking up from the book. “How was your weekend?”

“Saturday was okay, Sunday and Monday… ick," Maria said, sitting down. “I’ve had better days than those.”

“I didn’t really have much going on this weekend, so it was pretty meh,” Adrien said.

“Anything worth going into detail about, Maria?” Monaka asked.

“Not really. Sibling rivalry, too much to drink, the usual.”

“That’s a shame. Hope today goes better.”

“Me too.”

—

The rest of the class trickled in, looking various levels of tired and/or hungover. Apparently there had been some sort of party in one of the dorms or something. Whatever it was, it made her feel a bit better knowing she wasn’t the only one who’s head felt ready to explode.

When 9:30 hit, Monaca put down her book. “Okay, is everyone here?”

“No, we’re missing Jackson and Hannah.”

She let out a sigh. “Okay, well, we’re gonna have to start without them, I’ve got a full class’ work for you today.” She stood up. “So, let’s start with a question: I say 2050s, what comes to your brains?”

“Mazer!”

“Mazer.”

“Energy grid.”

“Mazer.”

“Teller City.”

“Energy revolution.”

Monaca smiled. “That’s what I figured. We had two presidents in the 2050s and a bunch of history happened, but most of us really only remember a few of the big things: President Mazer, Teller City, or the energy grid. I know you guys all had US History in high school, but the first half of the 21st century is a bit, ah, fuzzier in terms of analysis than the rest of the timeline. Then, of course, anything past ’64 is just too fresh off the presses to touch quite yet, and I don’t think I need to tell you why. How many of you were born before or during 2064?”

About half the class raised their hand, Maria included.

“Yup. Thought so. In general, if the people being taught about it were alive then, it’s better to avoid teaching it.” Monaca turned on the smartboard behind her. “2050s, however, are fair game, which makes me a very happy person, because that’s what I focused on when I was in college. So, this unit will be devoted entirely to going through the 2050s, with special focus on the details of what made the big changes possible. If you guys want to know what got the energy grid started, or why Mazer was so popular, or when Teller City became a hub, this is a good time to pay extra attention in class.”

“2050s 101?” someone quipped.

“2050s 202, thank you very much,” she said, grinning. “And, don’t think I forgot, anyone—”

Oh, no. No, no no no no.

Oh, and there was the rest of the class, groaning with her.

“—the group project is due on December 1st, last day of the semester. I’m going to be very generous, and give you the second hour of all the Thursday classes to work on it.”

“The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,” Maria said through her hands.

“You’ll be fine, guys, don’t be so dramatic,” Monaca said. “And besides, you got to pick your partners, so really, you should be thanking me.”

“Thank you?” Adrien said.

“You’re welcome. Now, 2050! Let’s get started with 2050.”

—

“So basically, 2050 was 2049, except somehow even more devoid of anything important,” Maria said to Adrien as they left.

“Yeah, pretty much,” he nodded. “But it sounds like things start getting interesting in 2051.”

“I really hope so, ‘cause I’ve been a good girl and not fallen asleep in this class yet, and I don’t wanna break my streak.”

“You’re a freakin’ nerd, Maria.”

“I’m a cool nerd, you jerk, and don’t forget it.”

“Mm-hm. Whatever you say.”

“See you in English tomorrow.”

“No, German, remember?”

“Same difference!”

She waved goodbye to him, and made her way back to the parking lot. Her phone buzzed in her pocket.

Thalia: hey loser before you come back you need to go grocery shopping

Oh, so that’s how it was gonna be today?

Maria: Hey loser, when you get out of bed, you need to get in the fucking shower like I told you before I left.

Thalia: I *did*. *Gawd*

Maria: Keep up the attitude and I will kick your ass into next Wednesday. Get in the shower, now.

Thalia: I already showered! jfc

Maria: Thalia, I will not hesitate. Get. In. The. Shower.

Thalia: I. ALREADY. DID.

Maria: If you’re lying I’m taking away your computer again.

Thalia: Im so fuckin scared

Thalia: it isnt like I *showered* or anything

Thalia: unlike what my sister thinks

Maria: Keep it up, Thalia. Keep it up.

Thalia: we need cheddar and we need ketchup and we need burger patties

Maria: I hate you.

Thalia: mwah

Maria growled, shoving her phone back into her pocket. Why did little sisters have to be the most infuriating creatures on Earth?

She got in her car. “Tesla, I need to go to the grocery store before heading home today, remind me.”

“When would you like to go?” the car asked.

“No later than 15:00.”

“I will remind you at 14:00.”

“Thanks. Take me into the city, I have to meet up with John today.”

“Where are you meeting?”

“Down at that ritzy place on Columbus.”

“Giove?”

“Yeah, Giove.”

“We’ll be there in 15 minutes, with traffic.”

“Sweet.”

—

Giove was a nice Italian restaurant in San Francisco’s Little Italy. Maria saved going there for important meetings or special occasions. Today, with John… it was sort of both.

Thinking about it, it hadn’t been all that long since she saw him last. It was November 1st today, and she’d seen him in July. So that was, what, a few months? Not that long, in the grand scheme of things. John lived in New York, anyway, so getting out to see him wasn’t something they’d planned on happening frequently. When he’d called last week to suggest meeting up, she had offered to let him stay the night, but he'd declined. “Church stuff,” he’d said. Whatever that meant.

The fog was starting to burn off when she arrived, the sun shining through a small hole in the blanket of gray. It was still plenty cold for her taste, so she hurried inside and got to their table.

John showed up a few minutes later. He looked a bit better than last time: he’d gotten a neater haircut, and his facial hair was less unruly. He was wearing a button-up shirt this time, which was an interesting change. She wondered what he would look like in a three-piece suit.

“Hey there, Maria,” he said, sliding into his chair. “How are you?”

“Hoping to get rid of the last of my hangover with this lunch,” she said. “How about you?”

“The Hyperloop gives me anxiety, but less so than other modes of transport,” he said. “Other than that, nothing incredible is happening in my life.”

“That so?”

“Well, besides the obvious.”

“Right…” she said. “…I’ll get it out of the way, you and I are both thinking about election day, right?”

“Yeah,” he admitted. “I’m not looking forward to it. It’s going to be one of the closest in recent history.”

“Closer than ’64, do you think?”

He frowned as he thought about it. “On an electoral level, probably not, but popularly, it’s going to be very tight. It could go either way.”

“I’ve been trying not to think about it, but… it’s hard,” she said. “I turned off my WiFi in October.”

“Same here,” he said, laughing weakly.

#NaNoWriMo #My work #My OCs

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youre-on-a-starship · 7 years

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11 Questions (Now with 22 Bonus Questions)

Rules

1. Always post these rules

2. Answer the questions given by the person who tagged you

3. Write 11 questions of your own

4. Tag 11 people

I was tagged by @outside-the-government, @kaitymccoy123, AND @enterprisewriting I’m doing all of their sets of questions in one post because I’m just that great (I also don’t want to come up with 33 new questions)

Jules’ 11 Questions

If you had the power to eliminate any one single form of discrimination (such as racism, sexism, etc), which would it be and why? Oh god... um... this is a really tough question because I feel like I have to choose who stays marginalized. God... I think I’d go with racism because... well it’s a problem. I can’t really explain this one better than that.

If you could live in any one make-believe land or universe, which would it be and why? I’d live in the Star Trek universe, hands down. I feel so at home there, it would be just so comfortable for me.

If you were an animal, what animal would you be and why? I am basically a cat. I just want sleep, occasional snuggles, and lots of sun.

Which of your teachers (in any level of education) had the greatest impact on you - how and why? Oh God... It’s somewhere between my 7th grade English Language Arts teacher and my creative writing professor from 4th year. On one hand, my 7th grade ELA teacher taught me how to read effectively and how to record what I read so that I could learn from it (and she was also one of the only ones who could be arsed to teach us grammar). But Aritha van Herk... she elevated my writing and taught me how to really be critical of my work. That is so valuable to me.

If your closest loved one came down with some awful, painful, incurable illness and you could save them in one of two ways, which of these would you pick and why: 1) you can cure them instantly, but the second you do they forget you ever existed and you must live your lives apart, or 2) you can cure them instantly, but you die in their place and they have to live forever without you. I’d pick option 1 because either way they’re going to have to live without me, and least it won’t hurt them if they think they never knew me to begin with.

What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done to impress someone? *sigh* I don’t know. I spent so many years embarrassing myself trying to impress people (read: boys) that I just... I repress those memories because the person doing that wasn’t really me. I suppose the craziest thing that *stuck* with me was my love of hockey. I tried to get into it to impress this guy and if I hadn’t been a moody teenager... well. Anyway, I really like hockey now, anyway. I actually went into the competitive stream in jr high gym for floor hockey (note: that was super dangerous for someone with my condition) just so I could play with him and show off.

How good are you at facing your fears? Honest to God, I keep sticking myself in situations where I have to deal with that a lot. I just give it a good push because I have to, and I make it work.

What characteristic do you value the most in friends and why? I value honesty. When a friend tells me that they don’t want to hang out because they’re having a bad mental health day, that means I know we’ve really made it as friends because they don’t feel the need to impress me or make excuses. And that means I’m allowed to do the same thing, which is super relaxing.

If you could wake up tomorrow and suddenly be the world’s best at something, what would it be and why? I’d be the world’s best writer so I could get all my stories picked up by peeps in Hollywood and have them made into movies so I could meet all these amazing people I want to meet.

What’s the worst injury you’ve ever gotten and how? Er... how do I pick the *worst*? THIS IS GOING TO BE GRAPHIC! I think... when I was 7 I jumped off a wall unit and broke my tib/fib just below the knee. I was in hospital for 3 days because they needed to do something fancy to get it back in line and I had a cast nearly up to my crotch to keep everything still while it healed. The alternative is when I broke my own arm kinda-sorta-not-really on purpose when I was 12. I lashed out at my brother because he was being annoying and I ended up twisting my arm while we were fighting (please note I am having horrible flashbacks while I’m writing this and I’m literally gagging at the memory), and I snapped my ulna right in two, twisting it completely out of place. I was given local anesthesia so that they could set my arm, but they gave me the wrong kind of meds and I had something akin to an LSD trip during which I verbally abused my entire family and became super afraid of narcotics. They fixed my arm, though. I’ve got 13 other stories where those came from, hit me up, I dare you.

Name one random fact that you know that people are always surprised to learn when you tell them. I’m a bellydancer. Not professionally or anything, but I’m actually really good at it and it makes me happy that I can do something beautiful with my body even during times when I don’t like my body that much.

Kaity’s 11 Questions:

What person do you most look up to in the world and why? Does Kathryn Janeway count? I honestly can never think of anyone else when I’m asked a question like this. I just aspire to be as badass as her.

What book really spoke to you, maybe even changed your view on things, and how did it do that? I want to talk about a book by Aritha van Herk for a moment. Restlessness. This book is set in my home city, for one, and it was written by my creative writing teacher. It’s about a woman who is so tired of being busy that she hires an assassin to kill her. Then they spend the evening together just talking before she makes the final call. It’s an amazing exploration of good writing, my wonderful city, the nature of being a woman, the nature of being a working woman, work interspersed with pleasure, and how to find balance. It’s amazing, please go read it.

If you could spend the afternoon snuggled on a couch watching a movie with a fictional character, who would it be? Holy... this is a really specific instance. I think my answer would be... probably Jim Kirk, actually. He just looks like a really nice guy to cuddle with, you know? It’s the strong arms. And he just looks like he’d be warm?

If you are in a bad mood, do you prefer to be left alone or have someone to cheer you up? I wanna be left the hell alone. I wanna listen to music and write and brood.

Do you judge a book by it’s cover (literally or figuratively)? It often influences whether or not I pick it up off the shelf, yeah. I ultimately *judge* a book by its contents.

What’s the one thing that people always misunderstand about you? I’m not horrendously awkward, I just don’t get my words right the first time sometimes.

What is your Harry Potter house and do you feel you were sorted correctly? Ravenclaw and fuck yes.

Do you consider yourself an introvert or an extrovert? It depends, but on the whole I’m an introvert.

What is your favourite colour? Why? I like navy because it’s less harsh than black (says the girl who owns a metric fuckload of black), and it looks great with almost everything. It feels like a really mature colour.

What’s your most listened to song? Right now? That’s a really good question; I’ve had “Rhinestone Eyes” by the Gorillaz on repeat lately.

What celebrity would you trade lives with? Trade lives with? Oh hell, I don’t know. I wouldn’t want to saddle anyone with my life, I guess. Maybe... you know what, Margaret Atwood. She’s bomb, her work is bomb, and I want to be her someday.

Taal’s 11 questions

1. if you could travel anywhere in the world, where would it be and why? I really want to go to Germany and just live amongst my people and practice my language for a while. 2. what would you want your tombstone to say and why? Literally anything BUT “RIP.” 3. how do you feel about astrology? I take it into account, but I don’t let it govern my actions. For instance, Aries and Virgo aren’t supposed to go well together apparently but most of my friends and my partner are Virgos and here we are. 4. what is the most irritating, borderline trash ass fashion trend you’ve ever encountered? Crocs? 5. how long do you think you would last as a vegan? Maybe 45 minutes? 6. if you were to own an airline company, what would you name it and what would the slogan be? This is the coolest question. I’d call it HobbitAir and the slogan would be “There and back again.” I’m not that creative. 7. which fictional character would you like to switch lives with and why? Can I be Lieutenant Romaine so that Scotty will look at me the way he does in TOS? 8. what subject did you despise the most throughout your education? Fucking Chemistry. Fuck. Chemistry. I just... I don’t... how can I understand something so well and still fucking fail, like I don’t even. (I didn’t actually fail chem, but I came damn close) 9. are you a smoothie person or a milkshake person? Depends on the day. In Calgary we’ve got a place called Peter’s Drive-in and there’s nothing quite like a Peter’s shake. Coffee-oreo-marshmallow, baby. 10. are you able to tell when someone is flirting with you or are you of the oblivious type? I think everyone’s flirting with me, but literally only one person has ever bothered to act on it and I had to break the ice first. So I guess it’s just wishful thinking. 11. name 11 things about yourself that you love and/or want to learn to love. N’awww I love this question ^^ I love: 1. my smile 2. my eyes 3. my crazy hips 4. my capacity for love and compassion 5. my ability to come alive in crisis 6. my intelligence and I want to learn to love 7. my creativity 8. my overactive imagination 9. my impulsiveness 10. my voice (that’s probably on everyone’s list XD) and 11. my disability.

Alex’s Questions

If you could go on a week-long camping trip with three people, real, fictional, or both, who would you go with?

If you could instantly master one physical skill, what would it be?

You’ve got a half hour to kill before your appointment and your phone’s dead. What do you do?

What’s your alignment in DnD terms (Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic Good/Neutral/Evil)? What do you wish it was?

What’s that one weird film you watched on repeat when you were a kid?

What’s your go-to style?

Do it for the vine. What’s the craziest thing you’ve done just to do it?

What never fails to put a smile on your face?

Who’s you’re favourite author and why?

What book actually changed your life?

What’s the last fanfic you read? Link it maybe?

And now I gotta tag 11 of you fine folks. @fandomheadrush, @starshiphufflebadger, @star-trekkin-across-theuniverse, @trekken81, @spacethewritingfrontier, @rae723 (hey, gurl), @schatten88 (do it, I dare you), @fanscribbling, @imaginestartrek, @imaginenterprise, aaaaaaaand @distinguishedqueenofbooks

Can’t wait to see what y’all say!!

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transcriptroopers · 7 years

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Officer Ranks: Army

Not to be outdone, finally: the officer ranks! Everyone is fascinated by officer ranks for some reason. Somehow that little birdie or star seems like just the glamour and shine your character needs. But how DO officer ranks stack up? Is lieutenant colonel or colonel the higher rank? How do you address a group of officers? There are FOUR fucking types of generals?! Military ranks are different across the branches and internationally, but if your story features the U.S. Army, here’s a breakdown of officer ranks and rank etiquette. Reminder: Ranks in the army follow a numerical pattern, so if you’re ever not quite sure what the name of the higher rank is, you can reference them by nomenclature. E-series: E stands for enlisted. This refers to soldiers from private to sergeant major. Read the E-series post here! O-series: O stands for officer. This refers to soldiers from second lieutenant to general. W-series: W stands for warrant officer. This refers to soldiers from warrant officer 1 to chief warrant officer 5. W-series post coming soon! In ACUs, (army combat uniform) the rank is worn in the center of the chest via a velcro patch. In class-A uniforms, the rank is worn on the shoulder. Please keep in mind that I won’t be having a “titles” section for this post because officers are all addressed the same way: sir or ma’am, sir or ma’am. From the lowest to the highest officer. Nice and easy. Please also keep in mind that I was enlisted, so inevitably I view officers differently than others. I encourage folks who were officers to add their experiences to the post. O-1: Second lieutenant This and the next rank always trips everyone up. They think that FIRST lieutenant would be, you know, first. But you’re wrong. Sorry the army isn’t logical. Second lieutenants are brand spanking new officers. They’re fresh out of school and ready to hit the ground running. Or tripping. They’re often the butt of jokes because they’re relatively new to the real army, but they’re are put in a position of power right away, and that can cause some mischief. Second lieutenants usually hold a platoon leader position, meaning they help running a platoon alongside the platoon sergeant. O-1s are technically a higher rank than even a thirty-years enlisted sergeant major, but because they’re the officer equivalent of privates, they’re usually humble enough to realize they don’t know everything and to ask for help if they need it. If you need an officer rank to be chill and who’ll be hanging out with your lower enlisted, use an O-1, maybe an O-2. They’re expected to be near lower enlisted anyway since they’re your platoon leader, so it makes more sense than to have your privates hanging out with him rather than like, a colonel. joke titles: butter bar O-2: First lieutenant How to remember that first lieutenant is the higher rank: because second lieutenant is a second place lieutenant and first lieutenant is a first place lieutenant. In other words

He was number one. First lieutenants usually hold the same role as a second lieutenant, aka a platoon leader. They’re promoted automatically from second lieutenants after eighteen months. There’s really no significant difference between the two LTs other than pay, but a first lieutenant might be a company’s XO, which I will explain in the intermission. O-3: Captain People are often surprised to learn that captain is actually fairly low on the officer hierarchy. This is the last in the line of “company grade officers,” or officers you’re likely to find around a company. First lieutenants reach captain automatically after four years of enlistment. Captains are usually company commanders, making them in charge of three to five platoons. They run the company alongside the first sergeant. In the medical corps, people who enlist with completed medical degrees who go in to be doctors or surgeons enter automatically at O-3. This is usually the highest officer rank you interact with on a daily basis as a regular enlisted soldier, and how captains act can vary drastically. Your captain might’ve been in for five years and he might’ve been in for twelve years. He might be really chill or have a stick up his ass. It’s completely unique to your commander. Either way, an enlisted soldier would almost never fuck around with a captain like they might with an O-1. There’s just like...that line of professionalism you don’t want to cross. joke titles: First lieutenant, second class (their rank is essentially just two first lieutenant ranks combined)

O-4: Major This is the rank where you stop ranking up automatically, (majors require at least ten years time in service) and it’s also a sort of weird rank. They usually act as either a staff officer or as an XO in a battalion. Honestly, this rank is kinda...forgettable to me? As far as enlisted are concerned, the battalion commander outshines them in importance, and the company commander outshines them in relevance. I’ve never personally really interacted with majors that much except when they need me to provide information for their XO duties or they’re filling in for the battalion commander in his absence. it doesn’t help that O-4 is usually the rank where officers officially lose their chill. If you want your enlisted soldiers to have an officer around they don’t particularly care about, make them a major. A note: Major is when officers start being seen as “field grade” officers, at least until you reach General. also known as: gold leaf, light leaf ---- Intermission! Officer ranks aren’t that much more fun than enlisted ranks, so here’s a little rank etiquette to tide you over. • In a lot of these descriptions I say things like “___ are usually ___.” That’s because while most ranks are usually associated with a position, there’s exceptions to everything. Captains are usually company commanders, unless they’re in medical. Majors are usually battalion XOs, unless they’re a staff officer. If you aren’t sure what you want your officer to be doing, your best bet is to 1) choose their MOS, and 2) google that rank and MOS and see what comes up. If you’re really stuck, just stick with what I wrote here.

• I can see you referring to officers by their rank if you’re in a room that’s full of officers. This is one reason I specifically call lieutenants LT; I worked with a lot of LTs but we were often in close quarters with higher ranked officers and I wanted them to know I was addressing them instead of having every officer turn their head toward me because I said “sir” and there’s like six sirs in the room. I say L-T as in the letters; LT when written is usually just pronounced lieutenant, the same as SPC is just pronounced specialist, etc. • Officers do go through basic training when they first sign their contract. After that they go to OCS, or Officer Candidate School, for twelve weeks. • XO means “executive officer.” They’re basically like an administrator for the unit; XOs wind up sorta picking up the slack wherever it’s needed. They take care of the unit’s paperwork and supply stuff and maintenance stuff and basically just a lot of paper pushing nonsense gets shoved off onto the XO. They’re pretty important to keeping things running smoothly, but they often wind up falling wayside because on the outside they look extraneous. • Tip to remembering the order of the general ranks: Be (Brigadier) My (Major) Little (Lieutenant) General. • Addressing officers in groups: Mixed gender: ladies and gentlemen Only men: gentlemen Only women: ladies This is the only context in which it’s acceptable to say “ladies” in the military these days. Just referring to a group of female soldiers as ladies may result in you getting chewed out. I know this is a very binarist way of looking at officers, but in the modern army the binary is all they know. Feel free to invent another title in your military if necessary! Alright, shake it up; let’s get back to it!

---- O-5: Lieutenant Colonel Lieutenant colonels are usually the highest ranking officer most soldiers are going to see. You’re usually going to see them serving as battalion commanders, usually making them in charge of between four and six companies. They run the battalion alongside their sergeant major. It takes about fifteen years of service to reach this rank, and only about 70% of majors are even eligible. As a result, lieutenant colonel is a rank that most people probably won’t see until their mid thirties, if not early forties. Company commanders report directly to their battalion commander, so it’s not uncommon to see a lieutenant colonel surrounded by a bunch of captains, especially during a brief. Battalion commanders are typically the ones making the decisions for the whole battalion, so if you ever have some privates complaining about orders coming down from high, it’s safe to have them blame the lieutenant colonel. It’s acceptable to call a lieutenant colonel “colonel” or when talking about him by saying “the colonel,” but for the sake of clarity it’s probably better to say the “BC,” or “battalion commander.” joke title: colonel light (as in, a light version of a colonel) O-6: Colonel This is where my knowledge of officers gets a little shaky because even working at battalion, I didn’t interact that frequently with O-6 and above. Colonels are usually brigade commanders, meaning they manage between three to six battalions. They need at least twenty years of service under their belt before they can even be promoted to this rank. That’s because colonels are in charge of literally thousands of soldiers, and they don’t have time to be busying themselves with the little people. Usually when a battalion is getting worked up about a higher up’s visit, it’s going to be from the brigade colonel, as he’ll make the rounds in the companies in his battalions to make sure everything is up to snuff. Colonels work with a command sergeant major, but they also will often be surrounded by battalion commanders, aka lieutenant colonels, and majors, as majors will often be staff officers for the brigade level as well. Colonels themselves can also work as division-level staff officers. A note: Colonel and above is usually what enlisted are referring to when they say “the brass,” meaning, “the really high-ranking officers who are really important.” joke title: full bird (due to their rank being a spread eagle) O-7 Brigadier General Behold: the start of the generals. Brigadiers are also called “one stars” because their rank is...get ready for it...a star. Despite their rank title they’re basically the XO of a division, although they’re called “deputy commanders” instead. There can only be 150 one stars for the entire army. It’s an extremely competitive position and achieving it is very difficult. Something like one percent of all officers can make this rank. The president of the united states has to recommend you, if that’s not enough pressure. I don’t believe there’s a minimum time in service/time in grade, (although you’ve already been in at least twenty years to become a colonel, so what’ve you to lose at this point?) and because there’s such a strict limit, you can basically only even become a one star if someone else in a one star position retires or is promoted while you happen to be qualified. So even if you’ve done everything right your entire career, you might not reach this rank before the army forcibly retires you. O-7 and above is where you start referring to officers as “flag officers.” Flag officers are often referred to by their actual rank or as “general,” although “sir/ma’am” is still acceptable. Flag officers are often the ones who work at the pentagon and similar jobs. joke titles: one star, Baby General O-8 Major General The “two star” general. These guys are usually division commanders, making them in charge of about 10,000 to 15,000 soldiers, and something like four to six brigades. As far as the modern military goes, I think “division” is about as high as most people bother learning. Tbh most don’t even bother learning brigade level, but it’s not uncommon at all to find a soldier who has no idea who his division commander is, which can make for a great scene if you have some two star yelling into some poor private’s face and he’s just like “DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!” and the private’s just wide eyed like, “Uh...no???” (yes we are SUPPOSED to know who these people are...do we? Nah...) There’s only 99 major general slots for the entire army, and it gets even worse from here. joke titles: two star, Mini General. O-9 Lieutenant General The “three star” general. These guys command a corps, (pronounced “core”) which is between like two and five divisions, so anywhere between like 20,000 to 60,000 soldiers. This is basically the highest level of, for lack of a better term, the “actual army.” Beyond the corps you’ve got mostly a bunch of officials who aren’t really involved in combat or deployment and they just work sorta on running the army itself. Barring an exceptional circumstance, this is probably the highest ranking officer any given soldier will ever meet, and even then it probably wouldn’t be in person. There’s only 43 lieutenant general slots for the entire army. joke titles: three star, Lil’ General O-10 General The toppest dog that ever topped: the grand four-star general. O-10s are a big damn deal, and yet, I have almost nothing to tell you about them. I have never met one. I’ve never even SEEN one. I have no idea what generals even DO tbh. Can you blame me? There are NINE of them in the entire army! I do know they’re appointed by the president, (although the appointment has to be approved by the senate) and they’re only allowed to retain the position up until 40 years of service or at age 62, although with multiple waivers they can remain a general until age 68. I know they work in the pentagon and do other government work. I know they interact with the president and have a hand in discussing tactics and handling strategical geographic placement of troops. Obviously they’re consulted more when war is on the table, when there’s a real-time need to sort out where you’re going to put boots on the ground in other countries. I know they’re the ones overseeing deployed divisions and figuring out where they should be going and what they should be doing. I know they usually hold the position of the chief of staff, (which is a position all soldiers are expected to know and i will do an original post on one day) but that’s a purely administration position and has no realistic pull over the army itself. I guess generally (get it? generally?) they’re just a very old, very important dude. joke titles: four star, full general, O.G. (As in O-General)

Now, what everyone REALLY wants to know... What about five star generals?? What about the general of the army??

Fun fact: four star generals are pretty much where the ranks realistically end. Guess who’s going to copy and paste this section from a previous ask? This guuuuyyyyy. Now, what most people know of as a general in the military has a rank of four stars, and that’s typically your highest rank. There have been ceremonial ranks bestowed upon generals in special circumstances and/or for outstanding service, and they’ve been crowned “five star general” or “General of the Army.” There hasn’t been one in literally decades because its purpose is almost completely ceremonial. So promotion from four star general to five star general would be a very tremendous ceremony indeed, partly because it hasn’t happened in ages and partly because it only happens for the purpose of it being a tremendous ceremony. There have only ever been five generals of the army The story us lower enlisted were always told is that the U.S. had an inferiority complex about sending a four star to meet with other world powers, so they created the five star rank and the title “general of the army” for the sole purpose of impressing other nations. But that’s just from the PNN, or Private News Network, and I don’t encourage you to recite it as fact (but it would be nice flavor text for a story amongst soldiers shooting the shit). There is TECHNICALLY a rank above General of the Army, which is General of the ArmIES, (informally a “six star general”) but it is practically not a real rank and has only ever been held by General Pershing (who is a big damn deal in the army btw look into that dude) and George Fucking Washington, and posthumously at that. Basically, as far as modern military is concerned, a four star general is the highest rank. This post freaking kicked my ass today so I really hope it’s got some info in it you guys can use. Look forward to my warrant officer post in the near future, and in the mean time get writing those officers!

-Spc. Kingsley

#writing advice #military advice #officers #ranks #masterpost #long post

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jouissezduprintemps · 7 years

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Lack of Credibility

Rating: T Word Count: 2,069 Summary: "Breda stood up from his desk and walked over to the coffee pot. 'You've gotta work on your believability. I mean, you started the whole story by saying you and Hawkeye went to a bar together. Alone. No way we're supposed to believe that.’” A/N: This is sort of a sequel to A Night Out, but I didn’t think it would fit well into that document, so I’m publishing it as a standalone. This one shot takes place the Monday after.

A Night Out

“So I see this picture on her table, right? It’s her and the chief. Pretty sure they were at that Madame Christmas’ bar. The chief had to be, I don’t know, eighteen? He still had fat baby cheeks, so it’s hard to tell. I wish i’d’ve grabbed it so I could show you guys. He looks younger than Ed!” Havoc grinned mischievously at his captive audience. Roy and Riza had yet to arrive at the office. As usual, the betting pool had been established, with his own money on ‘the chief lost the car keys again.’ They had time to kill, and plenty of it. “Anyway, she starts telling me how the chief spun this story about saving some family who was about to get into a wreck, turning it into some act of heroism. Then she tells me it was all bullshit, and he almost got in trouble with the cops! Yeah, he saved some drunk guy who crashed at the wheel, but he made it a massive traffic hazard. I wish I remembered how she put it. It’s way funnier coming from her. But anyway, that’s when she told me the chief has a tell. So, we made a bet. I drank her under the table, but she never told me!”

“Man, you’re so full of crap.” Breda stood up from his desk and walked over to the coffee pot. “You’ve gotta work on your believability. I mean, you started the whole story by saying you and Hawkeye went to a bar together. Alone. No way we’re supposed to believe that.”

“I have to agree,” Fuery piped up. “That doesn’t seem like the first lieutenant. I watch Black Hayate all the time, and she never lets me in her apartment when I come to get him. I wait outside until she brings everything to me.”

Havoc wrinkled his face in annoyance. “Whatever, man. Don’t believe me. I won’t tell you the rest of the story.”

“Fine,” Breda retorted as he emptied the last of the creamer into his cup. “Let’s pretend that you’re telling the truth. If, and that’s a very strong if, you saw that photo, and Mustang’s as young as you say, that’d put Hawkeye at what, sixteen?”

“That’s correct,” Falman confirmed. “First Lieutenant Hawkeye is two years younger than both Colonel Mustang and Second Lieutenant Havoc.”

“Right.” Breda nodded his thanks. “So it’s not like Hawkeye would have just wandered into the bar. Christmas doesn’t let anyone under twenty-one through the door.”

Fuery’s interest was piqued. “That means she would have had to be there as a guest, right? Do you think she could have been related to one of the girls?”

“First Lieutenant Hawkeye is an only child.” Falman was deep in thought, pulling out what little he knew about his commanding officer. “I believe that the general is her only relative. At least, he’s the only one she has contact with. I’ve never heard her mention anyone else.”

“Do you think she was there to visit the Colonel?” Fuery asked.

“Had to be. Havoc said that the colonel got in trouble with the cops, which means that she would have been there long enough to have him stop the car, lie about it, be found out, and for the cops to call him on it.” Breda sat at his desk and took a long sip of his coffee. It was too early to use this much brainpower. “Assuming that Havoc is telling the truth.”

“Why does everything I say have to be analyzed by you people?!” Havoc glared accusitorally at his colleagues. “Why would I lie about something this stupid?”

The room fell silent as each soldier tried to think of a reason. After a minute, Fuery was the first to speak. “So, how long have the Colonel and First Lieutenant known each other, then?”

“Well, that picture proves for a fact that they knew each other as teenagers.” Breda determined. “Maybe Hawkeye’s parents used to live in Central or something.”

“I’m pretty sure that she grew up in the East,” Falman mused. “She doesn’t talk about it much, but I’ve heard the general mention it in one of his stories.”

“Maybe her parents sent her to school here?” Fuery wondered out loud. “There are some boarding academies in the city.”

Havoc snorted involuntarily, drawing the attention of everyone else in the room. “What?” he asked when he noticed that he was being looked at.

“What was that?” Breda asked.

“What was what?”

“You snorted.”

“Yeah,” Havoc was forced to admit. Covering his tracks, he suddenly asked, “If Hawkeye went to one of those schools, they would’ve turned her into some sort of proper lady, wouldn’t they?”

Breda looked at him skeptically, searching for a crack in his facade. Finding none, he continued, “I guess so. But where’s the link? You’re from the East, right, Havoc? Is there something that could have brought the Colonel out there?”

Havoc shrugged, thinking that a nonverbal response was safer. Feeling eyes on him once more, he decided to pull out a cigarette. Maybe if he occupied his mouth he would talk less. It took two tries to get his lighter going, which drew Breda’s curiosity.

“You know something.”

“I know that we’re not getting anywhere by blowing smoke like this,” Havoc tried to add punctuation to his words by exhaling as he leaned his chair back on two legs.

“No. You know.”

“How the hell would I know?”

“Well, seeing as you’re all buddy-buddy with Hawkeye and all.” Breda suddenly stood. “Hold on. None of us have seen the inside of her apartment. And you say that she just told you that story out of the blue. Hawkeye doesn’t do stuff like that. She doesn’t go out drinking with us, but she not only went with you, but got wasted on a drinking bet? After you just showed up at her place unannounced? Oh my God, you’re sleeping together, aren’t you?!”

Havoc lost his balance and hit the floor with a heavy thud, taking his chair with him. He hissed when he touched the back of his head; that was gonna hurt for a while. “Are you out of your damned mind?!” Havoc demanded as he set his chair upright. He dropped himself onto it and tossed his broken cigarette into the ashtray on his desk.

“Lieutenant Breda, you need to be quiet,” Fuery implored. “If you shout like that, who knows who might hear? Lieutenant Hawkeye is his Commanding Officer; they could be court martialed if someone found out.”

“I am not sleeping with Hawkeye!” Havoc hissed, trying to keep his voice quiet.

“It’s okay, man, we aren’t gonna tell anybody,” Breda insisted. “I mean, all those stolen girlfriend stories were starting to sound a little suspicious. You gotta work on your cover if you don’t want get caught.”

“Don’t you think I would have said something if I was getting some of that?” Havoc demanded of his best friend. “That’s not something I could keep my mouth shut about! Come on! We’ve all seen her.”

Breda met his friend’s eyes with skepticism. He took a moment to think Havoc’s claims through. “I guess so. Besides, you’re a boob man. Everyone knows Hawkeye’s got hips.”

“I am very uncomfortable with this conversation,” Fuery protested, almost to himself. To his relief, Breda moved the conversation forward, with or without hearing him.

“But if you aren’t sleeping together, why would she be so open with you?”

Havoc hesitated before deciding that it might be best to come clean. “Before my old man opened the shop, he was a traveling trader. Each year, he’d make sure to stop in Giribaz before he made it home to Aszamem. He’d tell me about this little girl who’d haggle with him in Cretan over his spices. He’d mess with her, starting at a high price but always making sure to give her a bargain. He still has that thick Cretan accent, and I didn’t have a damned clue who 'Tay-ray-za’ was. We met when my dad started dragging me along with him, to 'broaden my horizons’ or some shit.”

“Wait, so you’ve been friends since you were kids?” Fuery asked, hanging on his every word.

“Not really. I saw her once, maybe twice a year. Hell, because of my dad, I thought her name was 'Ree-za’ for longer than I want to admit.” Once he started calling her 'Ree’, he never really stopped. “Then she was gone.” He shrugged.

“What do you mean?” Breda pressed.

“Musta been '05, '06. She just sorta disappeared. No one knew where she went or if she would come back. It was '07 when the store was finished, so my old man stopped traveling. That was that.” Havoc leaned back in his chair again. “I had no idea it was Hawkeye until a couple months ago. Go figure. My dad heard her in the background when he called the office, of all things. Weird how stuff works out.”

“Wait a sec,” Breda interrupted. “That picture had to have been taken before '05. There’s no way in hell you don’t know!”

“Why are you so obsessed with this?” Havoc eyed his friend warily.

“It’s been bugging me since I joined the unit. I haven’t been able to figure it out, and it’s driving me crazy!” Fuery and Falman nodded their agreement.

Havoc took a second to weigh his options. Everything Riza had told him in the woods during the training exercise needed to remain confidential. But if he gave them nothing, they would never stop bugging him. He decided that saying what he knew on his own wouldn’t hurt anyone. Mustang and Hawkeye couldn’t get pissed about that, right? “All I know is that sometimes there’d be a black haired guy with her. He didn’t say much, because Ree and my old man always spoke in Cretan. I didn’t think a whole lot of it. Sure, we’d hang out sometimes, like when dad dragged me to a festival in Risembool, but, like I said, it was twice a year at most. After my dad told me he recognized Ree over the phone, I started to wonder. That photo sealed it. It was the chief, no doubt about it.”

“But what would the Colonel have been doing all the way in Giribaz?” Fuery mused, asking no one in particular.

“No idea,” Havoc lied. “Like I said, I met them in Risembool when I was, what, fourteen? I didn’t care. How was I supposed to know I’d be getting the third degree from you guys?”

“Fourteen? Forget the photo. That means the lieutenant and colonel go back to when they were at least fourteen and twelve,” Breda surmised, thumping his palms on his desk.

“Like I said, that’s all I know.”

The four men sat in silence, three of them processing this new information. Havoc knew that they wouldn’t rat him out for telling them so little. Roy and Riza wouldn’t care, anyway. Well, he hoped not.

“So,” Fuery broke the silence. “Are you going to tell us the rest of your story, Lieutenant Havoc?”

Grateful for the chance to change the topic, Havoc enthusiastically continued his tale. “Right. So, the next thing I know, I wake up half-naked on Hawkeye’s bathroom floor. I’m scratched to shit and I feel like I’m about to puke. Actually, I think I did. So I’m laying on the floor, and when I open my eyes, the freaking chief is standing in the doorway! I swear to god, I don’t know if it was a hallucination or what, but I almost had a friggin’ heart attack!”

#fanfic #fanfiction #royai #royai fanfiction #riza hawkeye #jean havoc #roy mustang #fma #fullmetal alchemist #fmab #fullmetal alchemist brotherhood

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murasaki-murasame · 5 years

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Lots of stuff’s been happening lately in Dragalia Lost lately, and I’ve also been trying to get into other gacha games on the side, so I suppose it’s time for another round of gacha game liveblogging, lol.

I ended up spending way too many resources on the second summer banner and the Valentines rerun, considering how little interest I had for the units in either of them aside from Summer Luca, but at least it all paid off with me getting some absurd luck on the current wind banner. I somehow managed to get all three of the new banner units in a single tenfold summon after raising my pity rate once, so that’s neat. I ended up pushing my luck and spending another tenfold voucher which got be absolutely nothing though, so I guess that was just the universe’s way of telling me not to get cocky. So now I’m just saving for the anniversary. I’m really tempted by Lin You being on rate-up at the moment since I really want her, but at this point I’ll just dream summon her for the anniversary so I’m just gonna skip this banner now that I have the new units on it.

I did manage to at least get Summer Luca, Summer Cleo, Pop-Star Siren, Valentines Orion, and Valentines Ezelith across the two previous banners, but in hindsight I really should have just quit after getting Luca. Oh well, lol. Funnily enough I ended up entirely skipping the dragon showcase [outside of free daily summons], since even though it was way better value than the Valentines rerun, I just have no real interest in pulling dupes of 5-star dragons I already have.

It also turned out I was totally right about us getting a Su Fang event rerun to start off September, so now I have my incredibly good wind dagger boi promoted to 5 stars with 45 mana nodes. The fact that I managed to get Vayu, and that we got a dagger skill damage wyrmprint, make me feel even better about investing in him. I’m also happy to get Peng Lai since he’s at least somewhat of an upgrade over Mercury who’s currently the only good water HP dragon I have.

Once the next MG treasure trove reward batch comes in, I’m probably gonna promote Noelle since she seems really good for Water MG. Which is good since my wind team is kinda lacking in terms of DPS, although the fact that I also have Victor now helps that a lot. I’m really curious to see if we get more support units like this that buff teammates of a certain element type. It’s a cool way to have support units that are really strong without being the absolute best unit to use for every single team.

I thought we were gonna get a Wu Kong banner here to go with the Su Fang rerun, but I at least ended up being right about it being a wind banner in general, and we got a 5-star wind blade and 4-star wind wand, which were the other unit types I was expecting to go with Wu Kong since they were some of the biggest gaps in the wind roster. At this point I can only assume that they might be planning a raid event or something where Wu Kong’s the welfare unit. But who even knows. Maybe they’ll do a banner for him at some random point down the road.

We’re also getting closer and closer to the anniversary, and we’re slowly starting to get news about what to expect from this month in general. I really wish we had more specific info about what the anniversary will bring so that I know what I’m saving for in the first place, but oh well. At the very least the gala’s always a good thing to save for, so that’s my fallback option if nothing between now and then interests me.

Thankfully we at least know now that we’re getting Chapter 10, HZD, and Void Nidhogg this month, so that’s neat. After how we didn’t get Void Nidhogg last week I thought we wouldn’t be getting HZD this month, but I guess this isn’t gonna be like HJP where we got the respective void battle before it came out. I did always think it’d make the most sense to release HZD for the anniversary to cap off the game’s first year, though, so this makes sense.

I’m really curious to see what Chapter 10 brings, with how much they’re hyping it up. Plus they dropped a not so subtle hint at the fact that they’re going to be ‘adding new summonable adventurers’ in the same timeframe as Chapter 10′s release. They typically don’t just randomly go ‘we’re gonna have another summon banner soon’ without giving some details about what it’ll be, so I think they’re intentionally keeping it a bit of a secret, but the timing makes it seem like it’ll be related to Chapter 10. And since they mentioned the chapter will involve the siblings coming into contact with each other, I guess it’ll probably be a banner with some of them on it. Which would [thankfully] be an easy skip for me since I’m not really interested in any of them as characters, and I’m not really in dire need to chase after new units just because they might be really powerful. Either way, if we get a banner like that next, I think the most likely candidates would probably be Chelle, Zethia, and maybe Emile or Valyx. They’re at least the ones that are more aligned with Euden so it’d make sense for them to be the first ones of the batch we can summon. Though I could see Zethia being the gala unit.

I wonder if they’d make a banner like that limited or not, especially when the anniversary events haven’t even kicked off yet. I feel like it’d end up just being massive bait if they make it limited, lol. But it also might be weird in it’s own way to make them regularly summonable units.

Since the anniversary is on the 27th, and that’ll probably be when the gala starts, I guess this might end up being the only banner between now and then, if it starts right after this banner ends and goes for about two weeks, but there might be another banner after it before the gala. I think it’d make sense if we get a banner associated with an upcoming anniversary event, which might not start until about a week or so after Chapter 10 comes out. They mentioned that there’ll be a pre-anniversary log-in bonus/limited endeavor campaign starting on the 19th, so I think that might be when the hypothetical ‘anniversary event’ starts, so I could see the next banner maybe running until then, with there also being a bit of a downtime week between the Su Fang rerun and the anniversary event. Though for all we know they might do a void endeavor week then and spend the entire second half of September on anniversary stuff. At least that way we’d get Void Nidhogg before HZD, which would be convenient. And it’d be better than getting no new events aside from Chapter 10 from between the current event ending and the anniversary stuff starting.

We’re also getting HZD on the same day that the pre-anniversary stuff starts, so that’s interesting. I don’t think we’d get any limited endeavors related to that, though, since I don’t think they’ve done that sorta thing with the previous high dragon trials.

I think the pre-anniversary campaign will be along the lines of the half-year anniversary one, and so we might get like 2k+ wyrmite from it, but I also have a feeling that we’ll get daily free tenfold summons. A week seems like a fitting length for that sort of thing to run for, and it seems like it’s a pretty common thing for gachas to do for their anniversaries. Who knows what else we might get. I think it’d be neat if they finally update the 5-star voucher pool and give us one for free, though. Something like a free dream summon is possible, but I think a free 5-star voucher would be more realistic.

It’s worth noting that they specifically laid out the fact that we’re getting astral raid battles for the entire month after the current raid event ends, which should mean that there won’t be any other raid events this month. So if we get some sort of special anniversary event, I think it’ll probably be the same type of event as the FEH one, since a facility event would be kinda . . . boring at this point. I also never actually played the FEH event even though I started playing during it, so it’d be fun to try out that whole gamemode for the first time.

My main bet for the anniversary event and it’s associated banner is that it’ll be either a collab event with something like Granblue Fantasy, or they might focus more on DL itself and have a banner with characters like Leif and Patia. Or we might finally get DAOKO as a unit. Who knows. I feel like a GBF collab of some sort is basically inevitable, but they might not do it for the anniversary. I think the only other collab event that’d make sense for the anniversary at this point would be Fire Emblem Three Houses, since we’ve already gotten one FE collab event. And Three Houses’ whole set-up works nicely with the idea of having a banner with three featured units on it.

One way or another I think we’ll get some sort of special limited banner to go along with the anniversary event, and on top of that we’d probably get a welfare unit like we did for the FEH event. Which would probably be the GBF/Three Houses protagonist if it’s a collab with one of those games, or it might be Leif if it’s a non-collab event.

I’m also hoping that we get a new story unit from Chapter 10, but that might be pushing it a bit. But if we do, I assume it’d probably be Leif, Zethia, or some sort of Euden alt.

Anyway, aside from all the DL stuff, I’ve also been trying over the last few weeks to get into some other gacha games. Not because I’m getting bored of DL or anything, but just because I feel like it. But it’s been a bit of a rocky experience, lol.

I’m probably going to eventually get into GBF, but I’m at least waiting until some sort of gala event since those seem to be the best times to start a new account. I’m a little put off by how grind-y it apparently is, but I don’t care too much about PVP competitiveness so it might be fine.

I was thinking about maybe checking out GrandChase, but that doesn’t work on my phone apparently, and DL’s taking up all the space on my tablet, so unless I wanna emulate it [which I don’t], I’m just gonna put that one off for the foreseeable future. But at this point there’s other options that interest me more.

I really like the sound of Another Eden, since it seems to basically just be a traditional JRPG that happens to have a gacha attached to it, and it seems to have very limited micro-transactions, but I’ve heard it’s getting a Switch port Eventually [tm] so I’m just gonna sit back and wait for that to come out. It does sound like my sorta thing, though.

But the first gacha game out of the whole list I tried to get into, and the one that ended up disappointing me the most, was Food Fantasy. Oh boy, that sure is a gacha game alright. It’s the sort of game that I WANT to love, since it has really great character designs, art, and music, but oh boy it definitely seems like an example of aggressively-monetized Chinese gacha games. Basically every single gameplay mechanic can be sped up and made more convenient with premium currency [which is pretty slow to grind out for F2P players], and it feels like basically everything is designed around the assumption that you’re pretty much a whale who’s always gonna have the premium currency to spend on stuff like event items and stamina refreshes.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been doing research into the game’s history and getting more and more put off by seeing how many events it has that basically boil down to ‘spend real-life money to get stuff’, which is probably my most hated type of event to have in a gacha game. But it seems to happen super often in this game. I think the final straw that’s gonna make me delete the game entirely is how a new summon banner event started where the only way to pull on it is to spend real-life money on event items from the store. Of which there’s ten bundles that are each worth about $10 USD. Which adds up pretty quickly, lol.

Then there’s the fact that the version of the game I’m playing had apparently already gone through most of the limited banner units I would have been interested in pulling for, and since we’re like 1-2 full years behind the Chinese server, I have a very good idea of what to expect for the distant future of the game, and basically none of it interests me, and it seems to actually get more and more aggressive with it’s monetized events as it goes on. So that sucks.

I know that there’s apparently a whole cultural divide going on here and that basically every Chinese-made gacha game is SUPER heavily P2W, but oh boy it sure is off-putting to try and play one if you’re not interested in spending money. Which is a shame since I think if the game had been made by, well, a completely different company with a completely different design philosophy, I could have really liked it. But alas.

Also the main gameplay loop related to the restaurant sim is neat in theory, but oh boy it sure is a whole bunch of tedious micro-management in practice where you’re expected to play the game at fairly specific time intervals to be properly efficient.

This is definitely the sorta situation where I only feel this negatively toward it because there’s parts of it that I really like, and it could have been really fun if it was just designed differently. If it was something I entirely disliked I’d just ignore it and not care, lol. But it always hurts a bit when it’s something that you think has potential, and which actually appeals to you in a lot of ways. But then it does everything in it’s power to drive you away.

I’d totally be all over an anime adaptation if they make one of it, though. The character designs and music would make it entirely worth it. And even though the story is incredibly barebones, apparently there’s gonna be some sort of complete revamp to it eventually so maybe that’ll make it interesting.

I can’t remember if I talked about this previously, but I also tried Crash Fever twice and ended up deleting it both times, and I don’t think I’m gonna try it a third time. The core gameplay is fun enough, but there’s like no real story to feel immersed in, and the game’s visual aesthetic is so garish and intense that it’s actually kinda painful to look at for more than like ten minutes at a time. I actually like the character designs, but most of them are so overdesigned that you can barely tell what the heck’s going on with them, and overall the game is just filled with bright flashing lights and screen transition effects. On paper it sounds appealing enough that the game’s aesthetic is ‘Alice in Wonderland-themed virtual space with lots of neon colours’, but in practice it’s just Too Much.

Then there’s a whole list of gacha games that I’m aware of but which either aren’t released in my region or aren’t available on any of my devices, like F/GO, Magia Record, etc. But none of them really interest me much so it’s not a big deal. There’s also Pokemon Masters which I think is globally available but isn’t available on any of my devices [which I’ve heard is more a matter of your devices’s technical specs than your region], but from what I’ve heard that’s not really a big loss. It sounds like a bit of a shallow cash-grab all around.

Oh and there’s also Fire Emblem Heroes but I’m not really interested in that since I can just get Three Houses once I get my Switch soon.

Thankfully I ended up finding King’s Raid, which I might actually stick with for now, which is a relief. It’ll be nice when I get an upgraded phone since my current one feels like it’s screen is a little too small to comfortably play it, and it’s kinda laggy, but it’s not unplayable or anything.

Mostly I just really like the character designs, and how F2P-friendly the hero collection system is, since the gacha mechanics are only for items, and you can just directly buy heroes with in-game currency you can slowly grind up, and you can slowly work at befriending and recruiting units from an inn. Which is a neat system for a game like this. I also like that basically all of the main NPCs in the story are all characters you can eventually obtain one way or another. I really wish more games like this did that, since they tend to have such cool designs that are wasted on characters you’ll never be able to play as.

I might be in the minority on this one, but I also really like gacha games like this and Dragalia Lost that use 3D character models in-game, although DL’s art-style in general is more bright and cartoonish, while King’s Raid is closer to something like a modern Tales game, in terms of being more realistic in terms of colour schemes and body proportions, but still anime-y all around. I like both of them for different reasons. Though I also really like how KR has lots of aesthetic customization options, with how you can buy accessories and costumes for your characters with in-game currency that you can mix and match [which also reminds me of modern Tales games, lol], and each unit gets an upgraded outfit as you ascend them.

Also it’s one of the relatively few gacha games I’ve seen that has a fairly even balance between attractive male and female character designs. Which is always appreciated.

Finally, I think I might also try out Epic Seven since I’ve heard good things about it, at least now that I’m way beyond my limit of patience with Food Fantasy and I’m probably gonna delete it soon once and for all. But I don’t know if I’d want to bother playing it in addition to King’s Raid, honestly. And tbh I’m a lot less interested in the character designs and animation style as a lot of people are. It’s fine, but it leans too much toward the bland mid-ground of anime-y character designs that don’t really stand out from the crowd, and also the animation style for the character sprites, which clearly well-made, feel kinda creepy and robotic to me. But that’s kinda just how I feel about Live2D sprites in general. I also don’t like how they look in games like Magia Record. But who knows, I might still end up playing it. It at least sounds like the sorta gacha game that’s continually growing and improving and changing itself, so that’s always a good thing.

Anyway the bottom line is that gacha games are a bottomless pit of hellfire that nobody should get into in the first place :)

#murasaki rambles #this is a lot of words that just boil down to 'Dragalia Lost is Good and most other gachas games are Not As Good'#gacha games are a blight upon humanity but also I like the thrill of summoning so really who can say if they're truly bad or not

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dividedwerisetogetherwefall · 6 years

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Chapter 9: Thaecrisis

Thae grabbed his warm bowl of oatmeal and sat down at his usual spot on the couch. He watched Pandu approach him as he slowly shoveled spoonfuls of warm oats into his mouth. In Pandu’s hands was a bowl, filled with colorful cereal floating inside a liquid that Thae presumed was milk, which was a disgustingly unappetizing shade of purple. The liquid spilled all over the carpet as he fast walked his way to the couch. Pandu waved to Thae as he reached the couch. “Hey Thae!” He said with an energetic tone.

Thae took a break from his boring bowl of oats to wave back. “Hi Pandu.” Thae replied. He quickly returned to his bland oatmeal. He listened to Pandu ravenously shove cereal into his mouth as he continued to eat. After another few mouthfuls of oatmeal Thae turned to Pandu and watched him chug the strange colored milk from the bowl in both astonishment and terror, before asking, “So, how’d you sleep?”

Pandu downed the last few drops of milk, licked his lips, and smiled. “Ah! Pretty good! How ‘bout you?” Pandu replied energetically.

“Pretty good too.” Thae replied.

Pandu plopped his empty, China bowl onto the wooden coffee table, which stood at ankle height in front of them, then immediately refocused his gaze on Thae. “So! You excited for today? What d’ ya think we’re gonna do today! Group training! Are we gonna fight in the real tournament! Hmmm?” Pandu asked with an unstable, deranged tone.

Thae replied nervously, “I mean uh, I think we’re probably gonna do some group training? Probably? Maybe? I mean, uh, it seems like everyone’s here, right? It would be logical if we all did some group training before the real deal.” After finishing speaking, Thae quickly looked away from Pandu, and stared at the carpet floor as he played with his hooves.

Pandu exclaimed loudly, “Group training ey? Yea! That sounds ‘bout right!”

“Ah!” Thae looked up, startled by Pandu. He looked at Pandu and quickly replied, “Yea.”

“You excited?”

“Uh, Not really.”

Pandu shrieked with a wild look in his eyes, “Man, I’m excited! I just feel so alive! Ya know what I’m sayin?”

“Yea, I do.” Thae chuckled nervously, as he gave Pandu a concerned stare. Before leaving, he said, “Anyways, nice talking with you, I’ll see ya later, alright friend?”

Pandu was licking the bottom of his empty bowl to make sure he didn’t miss a single drop of purple sugar-milk. He put his bowl down so he could look at Thae and curtly replied, “Yea, yea, yea see ya later mate.” He proceeded to laugh hysterically in glee as he tried to collect the last drops of purple milk with his tongue. Thae got up and walked over to the kitchen. On the way there he waved to a couple of the other members. He spotted Yolk, who was sitting on his bed, not too far away from his seat on the couch, dining on a hot bowl of chinese noodle and egg soup, as he vigorously wrote on a paper.

Thae waved to him. “Hey Yolk.” Thae said.

Startled by Thae’s presence, he quickly hid the paper and pencil behind his back and picked up his bowl and chopsticks. “Um, hey Thae! What’s up!” His cheeks turned red as a tomato as he played with his glasses. He stuffed his face with noodles quickly.

“Not much, are you ready for group training?”

Yolk quickly chewed and swallowed his noodles. “Yea, um. Of course I am! Hehe.” He cleared his throat. “So, um. Yea. Guess I’ll see you later then?”

“Sure.” Thae replied with a warm smile. He continued to make his way to the kitchen, and waved to the strange boy with the large helmet named Onett, who was sitting on the ground in the corner of the room, snacking on a blueberry bagel with cream cheese spread atop it with his left hand, as his right hand moved energetically from left to right across his paper.

Realizing Thae was approaching, he looked up and waved. “Hey Thae, what’s up.” He said with a somewhat deep voice, tinted by a nasally tone.

“Hey Onett.” Thae replied.

He stood by Onett and watched him move his pen up and down, and left to right with immense speed.

“So what’re you doing?” Asked Thae. After a few seconds of no reply, he quickly added, “You don’t have to tell me about it if you don’t want to.”

“Uh, sorry for not responding right away, I was sorta invested in this thing.” He pointed at the notepad that he was writing on, with his pen. “I’m trying to write a story, but I really don’t have a plan for it so far. Its called Tale of Two Teams.” He said with an urgency in his voice.

“That’s cool.” Thae replied.

“Thanks man.” Onett quickly replied.

Onett immediately got back to work, and Thae stood there awkwardly, and stared at him for a few more seconds before leaving and saying, “Well, I guess I’ll see you later then.”

Thae began to walk away after a few seconds without response and quickly turned around at the sound of Onett’s voice. “Yup, see you later man, bye.” Onett said with his eyes still locked on his paper. He quickly dropped his pen to wave Thae goodbye, then immediately got back to work.

Thae passed more people as he inched his way closer and closer to the kitchen. He waved to people as he passed them.

He waved to Patrick, who was sitting in a comfy leather chair, staring at the ground blankly, with a glum look on his face. His eyes were bloodshot and half shut. It was quite obvious; he was as high as a kite.

“Hi Patrick.” Thae said as he strolled by.

Patrick kept staring at the ground gloomily, but waved his paw weakly at Thae. He murmured weakly, “Hello.”

Some more people waved to Thae as he walked passed them. Thae spotted Ultra, who was sitting at a coffee table by the kitchen, which was covered with empty mugs.

As Thae passes by him, Ultra energetically greeted him.“Ay! Thae! Nice to see ya, how ya doin’ this mornin?!’” Ultra said with a cheerful, yet deep and gravelly voice as he emptied the contents of multiple mugs of coffee and laundry soap into his mouth.

“I’m doing just fine Ultra. See ya later today during training!” Thae replied, a bit grossed out by the fact that Ultra was drinking soap as if it were a milkshake.

Ultra quickly chugged another cup of joe, closed his mouth door, then quickly waved Thae goodbye and said, “A’ight! See ya later mate!”

Thae waved back. “Goodbye.” He said.

Thae had almost reached the kitchen, but encountered Noodles, who was leaning on the kitchen counter, feasting on multiple bowls of instant ramen. After noticing Thae, Noodles quickly put down his bowl for a second and saluted Thae. Thae put his plate down on the gray, marble, countertop for a second, saluted back, then walked the homestretch to the sink, where he placed his empty bowl. He delicately placed his bowl in the sink, rinsed it out with water, and waved hello to a couple more people as he made his way to a cozy leather arm chair.

And so, Thae sat alone with his thoughts, fantasizing about the tournament. He yawned and his eyelids grew heavy, and began to close his eyes to rest. A few seconds later, he found himself lost in the land of dreams.

Thae opened his eyes, and was bombarded by harsh white stadium lights. He blinked quickly to adjust himself to the brightness, then began to look around. Screams and cheers of people flooded the arena, as Thae curiously looked around. He spotted the members of Team NP, and he even saw himself amongst their ranks. They stood in attention stance, head held up high and hands by their sides; each of them, armed with a unique combination of tools and weaponry.

They stood completely still in a sturdy, and somewhat large wooden fort. It was mostly open, with both a cave entrance, and a built-in wooden entrance as well. A large, red package of explosives labeled “TNT” sat atop a natural cliff, which was built into the fort. A few ladders and stairs lead up to the level which contained the bomb, as well wooden platforms leading to 2 towers.

Before Thae could finish his analysis, a booming voice came down from above. “Laaadies, and gentlemen. Are you ready for the annual Red Warfare tournament?!”

The announcer’s question was met with an orchestra of cheers, screams and approval.

“Yeah!”

“Woo!”

“Let’s go!”

“I’ve been waiting for this all year!”

Their voices quickly died down, and all was silent.

The announcer continued to hype up the audience. “Get yourselves cozy ‘cause things are gonna get messy! There will be bloodshed! There will be violence! There will be intensity! Now! Ladies and germs, on the red team, we have… Team NP!”

The mention of the name was met with few cheers and claps. Thae tried to clap, but only at this moment realized that his body was not there, and he was nothing but an invisible, harmless spectator.

Slightly embarrassed by the fact he did not know he was invisible the entire time, he set his gaze back to the ceiling, where the large booming voice came from. Harsh white light stung his eyes, so he used a hoof so he could see better.

Thae took a second to appreciate the architecture and the design of the stadium. The arena that the two teams occupied was realistic, and well designed. Two symmetrical wooden forts, containing a cave, three tall wooden towers, a tall, old, oak tree, along with a river at the center of it all, with three small bridges to cross from.

Stained, armored glass lined the perimeter of the arena, 20 feet above the ground floor of the arena, which Thae assumed contained the live audience.

Above the glass, was a steel stadium ceiling, alongside multiple racks containing lights and speakers, and a large, armored box with stained glass windows, which most likely contained the commentators.

Thae had not realized he had failed to listen to the commentator’s commentary, and was surprised when he heard a loud, and audible, “Go!”

He watched the members of Team NP rollout, and prepare for battle. They all charged as a unit. Noodles, Carson, and Pony acted as frontlines, armed with heavy armor and automatic plasma rifles with built in bayonets. Behind them were the rest of the members, each of which wielded a strange array of weapons and gadgets, which Thae couldn’t exactly understand the purpose of.

Thae followed behind the team, watching them charge from the fort to the river, where the battle would take place. To Thae’s dismay, the team decided to split their ranks, and Thae cringed as he watched them march into an unwinnable battle.

Thae was barely able to watch the members get mutilated, one by one, as the enemy ripped team NP to shreds.

A well placed RPG blew Carson to smithereens.

An explosive arrow ripped through Yolk’s body.

A silver bullet with the name Onett written on it found its target.

The list goes on.

Even though he wasn’t part of the battle, Thae could still feel the excruciating pain his team members were feeling. He watched his friends die at the mercy of every single weapon known to mankind, until there was only one survivor left. And his name was Thaecrasis.

Everything seemed to move in slow motion as Thae watched himself attempt to reach cover. He spotted the man atop the enemy tower, notching an arrow, and letting it fly.

“Such a beautiful motion.” Thae said to himself as he watched the silver arrow spiral through the air, as graceful as a ballerina. He watched it spiral and spiral and spiral, until it hit his flesh, and made a satisfying thunk noise. He watched himself drop on the ground dead, blood pouring out the impact site of the arrow. Within minutes, their team had been defeated.

As the enemy team jumped with joy and celebrated, and the commentators were going wild in the booth, screaming at top of their lungs, the entire arena shook violently and Thae could faintly hear a voice yelling at him. He began to try to focus in on the voice, trying to interpret what the mysterious voice was saying.

Pandu vigorously shook Thae with his large panda arms. He screamed repeatedly, “Wake up Thae! Wake up Thae! Wake up!”

Thae remained asleep, but Pandu persisted. He continued to scream and shake Thae until he finally woke up after a couple dozen repetitions.

Thae finally awoke after Pandu’s 48th attempt. He rubbed his eyes, yawned grandly, and stretched, then scratched the back of his neck as he blinked repeatedly to adjust his eyes to the light.

Before Thae could fully wake up, Pandu grabbed his hoof, practically threw him off the chair and onto the ground, then proceeded to let go of his grasp on him.

Thae groaned, and Pandu lightly kicked Thae’s side and repeatedly said, “Come on Thae, you gotta wake up.”

After getting kicked in the ribs a couple of times, Thae groaned then finally mustered the energy to get up. Pandu grabbed Thae’s hoof once more, and began to drag him towards the metal door which lead to the exercise room.

Yet Thae already knew today would not be a regular old training day. He knew. It was the start of their group training. It was the end of the beginning. The beginning of the end.

#story #short story #redwarfare

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type2diabetestreatments-blog · 7 years

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Ask D'Mine: What to Do When You've Got No Insurance, No Money

New Post has been published on http://type2diabetestreatment.net/diabetes-mellitus/ask-dmine-what-to-do-when-youve-got-no-insurance-no-money/

Ask D'Mine: What to Do When You've Got No Insurance, No Money

Got diabetes and need some help? You've come to the right place.

Every week, we take reader questions and do our very best to be informative and helpful (and make you smile a little) here at our diabetes advice column, Ask D'Mine, hosted by veteran type 1, diabetes author and community educator Wil Dubois.

Send us your queries related to life with diabetes — nothing is off-limits here! (except of course specific medical instructions for your own care; that's what doctors are for)

Need help navigating life with diabetes? Email us at [email protected]

It's tough times out there, and for proof, here's a pair of questions from the trenches that'll make you reach for the Kleenex box:

Steve from Minnesota, type 2, writes: I had my diabetes well under control a couple of years ago with an A1C under 6 once, and in the low 6 range typically. Then I lost my insurance and can no longer afford medical care. The critical drug that helped me achieve good numbers was Actos, but it's so expensive I had to stop taking it. Now my blood sugars are screaming high. I finally just quit checking because there's no point in knowing if it's 450 or 500. What to do?

Wil@Ask D'Mine answers: First and foremost, let's all sit down and have a good cry.

There. Anybody feeling better? No? Yeah... it didn't help me as much as I thought it would either. Next time, we'll all try Primal Scream Therapy.

So you're absolutely right: you can't afford your Actos. I checked with Epocrates and they show the "approximate retail price" ranges from a low of $193.48 per month for the 15mg tabs, up to a high of $239.99 for a month's worth of the 45mg tabs. Not exactly chump change. I'd also bet even though this was your "critical" diabetes drug, it probably wasn't your only one.

So what to do?

Naturally, I have a plan.

First, I want you to go on the Akins Diet. (Hey, I said I have a plan, I didn't say you were going to like it.) Don't worry, this won't be forever. But in your case, an as-close-to-zero-carb-as-possible diet is good medicine. For God's sake, your blood sugars were running in the 500s last time you checked! You're at risk for glucose toxicity at this point. Cutting the carbs to the bone is an emergency measure to try and save your kidneys from extinction until we can get your diabetes medicated into submission again.

Second, go here to find the closest Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC). These are non-profit clinics that are subsidized by the feds and will see you on a "sliding fee" basis. You don't need health insurance. How much you pay depends on how much you earn. You may be able to see one of their docs for free, or for a very small co-pay. Get the next appointment available.

Third, and here's where it gets really good, most FQHCs are really well plugged into Patient Assistance Programs, called PAP in the biz. This is all you need to know about PAP: you can probably get your Actos for exactly zero dollars and zero cents per month. PAP programs are run by the Pharma companies and are actually pretty generous when it comes to helping out those who are uninsured and sorta broke. For instance, Actos is made by Takeda, which uses an annual income of at or below 300% of Federal Poverty Level (around $32K for a single person) to qualify patients for assistance.

Oh... but there's one other little thing I forgot to mention. There's... umm... ah... a dark cloud of sorts over Actos at the moment. Actos may, or may not, be the smoking gun in an increased risk of bladder cancer. The FDA issued heads-up warning about the drug in June of this year and within 5 hours the water was filled with sharks in suits. There're now dozens of law firms licking their lips and trying to line folks up for class action suits against Takeda. Late night TV is full of call us if you took Actos ads and there are gazillions of websites launched by law firms trolling for clients.

So... I dunno. The jury is still out on Actos—literally and figuratively. You'll need to talk to your new doc at the FQHC about whether the Actos is still the best bet for you at this point or not. But if so, remember that it'll take about six weeks to spool up to maximum effectiveness in your body, so keep on the Akins thing until the med is working again.

Bottom line, you'll need to take something for your diabetes, given how high your blood sugar is, and in your circumstances, the FQHC and PAP is the best way to get from where you are back to an A1C in the sixes. Whether you re-start Actos, or start something entirely new really doesn't matter.

So let's reserve the screaming for Primal Therapy and our politicians, rather than your blood sugar altitude.

Note: a fact often missed in the media is that not having insurance is only one problem facing PWDs in our country. Sometimes you can have insurance and still be in the same I-don't-make-enough-f*ing-money-to-pay-the-bills-and-keep-myself-healthy boat. Consider, for instance:

Janet from California, type 1, writes: I am a single mother of three kids in college. I have diabetes, I have insurance, however I can't afford the test strips, needles, and now 4 diabetic medications along with depression, high cholesterol, high triglycerides, and low vitamin D medications. I need to take care of myself but I cannot afford the co-pays. Do you have any suggestions? My A1C is 10. Now the doctor has added more testing and increased my units on Lantus & Apidra. I am ready to give up and just stop taking all medications. HELP!!!

Wil@Ask D'Mine answers: So I looked into it, and the cost of an average funeral in the United States is between $7K and $10K. According the Federal Trade Commission funerals "rank among the most expensive purchase many consumers will ever make." How's that for depressing?

My point?

Oh sorry. I wasn't being clear. I was just letting Janet know that she actually can't afford to "just stop taking all medications." She's a type 1. If she stops her insulin she'll die. And dying is expensive. And her three kids will have to drop out of college and spend the rest of their lives flipping burgers at McDonalds.

Believe it or not, Janet is actually in a worse situation than Steve is. If you have insurance, you can't get PAP. So that route is closed. Being underinsured, or being well-insured with an empty bank account is a special kind of hell.

But not to worry. Again, I have a plan. And again, it's not a great one, but it will do for now. So there are two approaches here, and we can mix and match them. The first is medical triage. Triage is just a way of prioritizing the most urgent needs. Remember in the old M*A*S*H TV show when the helicopters would bring in the wounded soldiers and the docs would dash out and figure out who needed to go into surgery right now and who could wait an hour or two? (Oh crap, now I've got the M*A*S*H theme music stuck in my head where it will haunt me for the next three weeks.)

Well, when times are tough, you can do the same thing with your health care—and I like to say "blood sugar first." Hey, at an A1C of 10 your blood sugar is cytotoxic. You're killing yourself in slow motion and the folks at the dialysis center are getting excited thinking of all the money they'll make off you (at more than $70K per year, that's better than seven funerals!). So in my mind, nothing else really matters if your blood sugar is a train wreck. That means insulin and test strips are the top priority. I wasn't clear if you were on anything other than the two insulins for your diabetes, but in a crunch, you could drop any other diabetes meds because it's more than possible to control your diabetes with the Lantus and Apidra alone. Ya just gotta take enough.

So using triage, you might choose to just take care of your diabetes for a while until you get it on track. Ignore everything else for a time. Will high cholesterol kill you? Yeah. Probably so. But it will take a long time to do it. Eat smart for a while to minimize your risk, but if push comes to shove you could back-burner the cholesterol issue for a year, or until your oldest kid graduates and frees up some cash flow.

Stopping your depression meds cold turkey can be dangerous, so talk to your doc about how to safely get off them if you need to. And so on and so forth. Only treating your most urgent needs during a financial emergency is a valid form of medical treatment called harm reduction. It's not the "standard of care," but desperate times call for desperate measures.

But, wait, maybe you don't need to ignore your other health challenges. Do I hear the thundering hooves of charging horses and the sound of bugles? I do believe the cavalry is coming over the hill to rescue you and it's... it's... Wal-Mart?!

OK, not quite the boys in blue that I was expecting.

Here's the deal. Open your medicine cabinet and look at your cholesterol med. Is it a fancy brand-name drug or an older generic? Rather than stop your cholesterol med altogether, talk to your doc about getting a prescription for a generic that you can get on the $4 formulary at Wal-Mart, or one of the other big-box stores. Meds for your depression and trigs are also available as generics. You can also get vitamin D supplements over-the-counter in bottles that are the size of rain barrels. And even if the generics aren't quite as effective as the fancy-pants name brand ones (and many are much closer than we've been lead to believe), it's still better to have some control over your cholesterol than none at all.

Now, on to diabetes penny pinching: One thing to check is whether your insurance has a preferred insulin brand. On the fast-acting front we have Apidra, Humalog, and Novolog. Frankly, it's the same as Tide, Cheer, and Gain. Hey, they really all work pretty much the same, and if one insulin brand carries a lower co-pay, so much the better for your wallet. Similarly, the basal insulins Lantus and Levemir are more-or-less interchangeable (there's more of a difference between them than there is with the fast-acting juice, but if you can save a bundle of money, then you can adjust).

Next, let's look at delivery devices. We all love pens, but many insurance companies will give you a lower co-pay on vials and syringes. If you're out-and-about a lot, it's hard to beat a pen of fast-acting to cover meals in public, but most of us take our basal in the privacy of our homes anyway, so using a syringe once or twice a day really isn't that big of a deal if it will help you keep the lights on, food on the table, gas in the car, and the kids in college.

And if push really comes to shove, depending on how high your insulin co-pays are, you can buy old fashioned Humulin-R, 70/30 mix, and NPH insulins at Wal-Mart under the ReliOn label for $24.88 per vial. That may be less than your co-pay. Speaking of ReliOn, I've been playing with their Micro meter recently and have found it to be remarkably accurate. The strips run twenty bucks for 50. Again, if this beats your co-pay, switch over. You should also Google your favorite test stip. You might be surprised. I saw Presto strips online at Amazon for only $14. Crazy!

Bottom line: just because you have insurance doesn't mean you always have to use it. Sometimes just getting out your wallet is cheaper than going through your insurance.

So shop smart. Stop (some meds) smart, if you must.

But don't stop all your meds. Oh, and my apologies to the funeral industry. I know times are tough for you guys, too.

This is not a medical advice column. We are PWDs freely and openly sharing the wisdom of our collected experiences — our been-there-done-that knowledge from the trenches. But we are not MDs, RNs, NPs, PAs, CDEs, or partridges in pear trees. Bottom line: we are only a small part of your total prescription. You still need the professional advice, treatment, and care of a licensed medical professional.

Disclaimer: Content created by the Diabetes Mine team. For more details click here.

Disclaimer

This content is created for Diabetes Mine, a consumer health blog focused on the diabetes community. The content is not medically reviewed and doesn't adhere to Healthline's editorial guidelines. For more information about Healthline's partnership with Diabetes Mine, please click here.

Type 2 Diabetes Treatment Type 2 Diabetes Diet Diabetes Destroyer Reviews Original Article

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