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starpirateee · 14 days

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could you write a fic where curt gets captured and owen goes absolutely feral trying to get him back? i need angst :D

I will absolutely write that, I think both of us need Owen to go a little apeshit for a while 👀 remember the movie Taken? "I will hunt you down. And I will kill you." ?? Yeah...

Oh yeah, and I 100% used the same case that was referenced in the panic attack prompt because I fell short of ideas, so essentially I'm creating one large cinematic universe worth of ficlets (/j) and this is set about five months before that panic attack

Cynthia Houston called. Cynthia Houston— head supervisor of the American Secret Service— had personally called Owen Carvour— very much not American operative of the British Military Intelligence— with three words on her mind that changed the state of his mental state immediately.

Curt's been compromised.

That was all she'd said before Owen's heart started pounding in his ears.

"What do you mean, he's compromised?" Owen had asked, but he knew. There were a limited number of ways that this could go. One of them compromised him too, and forced his hand. He wasn't so afraid of that option anymore. He'd spent that long preparing for it that he knew the exact reaction to it, and exactly what he was supposed to do.

The other one was dangerous, and meant that Curt's life was in jeopardy. That wouldn't be a matter of concern for another agency under any other circumstance, but Cynthia was able to pull strings, to get him involved in matters that he had no right to even know about. If she wanted him for a particular mission, then there was a very good chance that he was going to be on that mission.

He braced himself subtly, waiting for Cynthia to tell him to start making preparations to run for a long time, or for her to tell him where she needed him in the next few hours.

"Captured. For once, he didn't expose himself, but all the same, he got caught… I think you might be familiar with the case load?"

Owen's jaw clenched tight. Part of him was relieved, but this was the dangerous option, and that meant he didn't have the space to be relieved. "Tell me."

"There's a group of arms dealers led by a man they call Jenner, you know him?"

"Yes. Yes, I know of him and his little organisation. Do you have anything on where he's based?" He knew that Cynthia had more sense than to tell him information like that over a telephone line, but he also knew that he didn't care when he got the information, so long as he got it. It was more than clear that she wanted him on the ground to help them find him, or bring him back, so he knew he was going to get what he needed at some point. She'd likely pass him off to someone else with the intel, and he'd have to fill in the gaps from whichever debrief he was given.

"Always so efficient… you know I'm not gonna tell you that. Not here."

"I thought as much."

"But, make it to Manhattan, Agent, and there will be someone dockside to meet you… Say, tomorrow morning?"

Owen wrote that down on the notepad next to the phone. Tomorrow morning. January 7th. He was expected at the Manhattan harbour, presumably by someone who was supposed to blend in with the crowd. "Tomorrow morning. I'll be there."

Cynthia sighed, then. Owen had a one track mind, it was notoriously hard to pull from focus. Knowing him, he wouldn't stop until Curt was on safe ground once again, no matter how long he worked or what it took out of him. That likely included whatever journey was going to happen that night. He knew about the stakes now, there was truly going to be no stopping him. "Oh, and Owen?"

Owen stopped, briefly taken off guard by hearing Cynthia call him by anything other than a formal title. Of course, she knew his name, she just never used it. What was with the sudden drop in formality? Was this her way of going off the record? If it was, what the hell else should he be expecting out of this mission?

"… Yes?"

"We need you at your best. And I know you have a tendency to… Overthink. Take it as easy as you can tonight… We need you prepared for tomorrow… Curt has a habit of being fine. You know that as well as I do."

"Michael Jenner is a dangerous man, Miss Houston. There's no telling what he could do in an hour, let alone overnight!"

"I'm not telling you not to think about it, I'm just saying, we're gathering intel as we speak, so… Try not to do anything stupid before you get here."

"I understand…" He resigned, drawing in a breath. "Tomorrow, then."

Needless to say, with the stress of everything currently piled in his mind, and the long journey to New York, he didn't sleep all that well. Cynthia had said she wanted to see him at his best, but all things considered, she wasn't exactly going to get him at his worst... By the time he reached New York, he was tired, and he'd managed to think about the scenario enough to really piss himself off, so Cynthia's informant found him in a state so far beyond riled that he was almost serene, and wired on the first cup of coffee he could get his hands on.

"So, you're Agent Owen Carvour... I've heard a lot about you."

"Is that so?" Owen raised an eyebrow, finishing off his coffee. That was strong enough to get him by, he supposed he'd be a little more in control of himself now that he felt less like his mind was trying to betray him for being too slow. If Curt turns up dead, this is on you. The Americans made sure the blood was on your hands, no getting out of it now.

"Mhm. Word is that you're quite the operative... If what they're saying is right, then I dare say I should be impressed."

Owen just hummed in response, having only caught about half of what had just been said on the grounds that he simply could not focus on anything that wasn't the outcome of this mission, or the the crushing weight on the inside of his chest that demanded he get on with it. He was both eager to get to the point, and eager not to find out what the Americans were saying about him. Thanks to Curt, most of it was probably complimentary, but either way, he didn't want to take his chances. "You know why I'm here, don't you?"

"Sure, you're here to help us with Mega... Cynthia tells me you already know the guy at fault?" The informant watched Owen nod, then produce a well broken in notebook from his pocket and lean back against the harbour wall. They'd told him to expect a man who was spectacularly prepared for any eventuality, and judging by the notes written on the page he could see, Owen fit that description down to the letter.

"Jenner, yes. I've been on a case of his before. I didn't fully intend on making him my business again, but what can you do?" To tell the truth, Owen was nervous, but desperate not to let it show. The longer he stayed here, the less time he had before things reached a critical point with Curt. But, the last thing he was going to admit was that he was afraid of the outcome of the mission. He was a professional, and professionals didn't so much as think of the word fear, least of all not on the job.

"He's gotten himself a full team, by the sounds of things. Mega reported at least half a dozen bruisers. Real heavyweights, not to mention the number of specialists he's likely got under his belt."

"Specialists as in..?"

"Arms, explosives... You name it, really."

That seemed to ring some bells. Owen could recall Jenner being the mastermind behind some millions of dollars in transactions involving something of that caliber. And since then, he had grown something of a small empire, which seemed to only be growing by the second. "Where are the likes of him based without anyone noticing the massive transactions passing from hand to hand?"

"That's the thing, isn't it, Agent? Not to be based in one place..."

"In an arms race of this size, it's only logical..." Owen answered automatically, tapping his pen against the notebook spirals. This state of serenity beyond the rage was starting to beome dangerous in itself. He felt like a badly fused explosive, programmed to explode at an entirely random interval between now and the foreseeable.

"Alright then, I'll specify. Where was Curt? And where is he now?"

"Mega's assignment was in Stamford, Conneticut. We don't have any reason to believe he's anywhere different now..."

Owen nodded, making a note of that, and reminding himself that Manhattan was suddenly a very convenient place because Conneticut wasn't actually that far away. He hadn't been told of anyone who was going to be joining him, and that led him to the all too fair assumption that Cynthia had sent him and him alone. Part of him wondered why; his business wasn't in American affairs. He was a British operative, and he'd turned down the offer of working for the American Secret Service before, on the grounds that it may well border on treasonous. He was still sure of that fact, knowing that he betrayed his country for the sake of taking up what may have frankly been a better and more convenient offer was not worth his life, that much he was sure of.

But, the other part of him realised that Cynthia probably had him on such a direct line of contact for a good reason, and it may not have had so much to do with the fact that he was talented enough to catch her eye. At the end of the day, she could near enough do whatever she wanted, and that may have included protecting the secrets of one of her best agents for the sake of not letting him go on a technicallity like that.

Did she know? He had to wonder… Did it make sense for her to know and to still trust the pair of them as much as she did? What they were doing could cost them way more than just their jobs if they were found out by the right people, and yet she seemed to be aware of their closeness. If she wasn't, he was convinced that he would've never known that Curt got captured, not unless he saw him in person and had to work through the mess inside his mind to get to what really happened.

No matter whether Cynthia knew and was actively protecting his secret by proxy of Curt, she had called him in for a job, and it was a job that he was going to do.

Just as he suspected, the journey to Conneticut didn't take him long. Manhattan was the most convenient location because apparently, there was a substation in the harbour that few people actually knew about, where a small team of field scientists were waiting to kit him with a communications wire and walk him through a map of the block they'd managed to narrow it down to. When Curt's signal was corrupted, they had no way of telling which way he went, but they were confident that, should he have stayed in the facility, that block would be within the margin of error.

One of the scientists had promised to keep him updated through the wire, to let him know when he was in range, and he in turn had promised to make this as swift a job as he could manage.

It was the least he could do. Especially since his nerves wouldn't leave him alone, and especially since he was practically being dragged towards saving Curt as fast as possible, on the grounds that he didn't know how his fragile, ticking bomb state of mind would react if he saw him even vaguely injured.

"I've reached the block, I believe. Just off Third, at the intersection." He looked around. There wasn't an awful lot going on that wasn't perfectly within the norm. for a while, he was going to be going about some kind of life too, looking like he didn't have the full intention to flip the kill switch.

"The crossroads?"

"I'm at a crossroads, yes."

"Which way are you facing?"

"I'm on the corner of Mayberry and Third, that's what's in front of me, at least…"

He could feel the fuse on the locked box of his half-suppressed rage fizzling to a dangerous point. He was getting closer, and that meant that he was getting closer to being able to take this storm of righteous anger out on whoever dared to get in the way. It wasn't called a license to kill for no reason, and it came equipped with all of the repercussions already taken care of. All that meant for him was that he could get away with giving Curt a little bit of justice. It would look like they got in the way of his mission, or that he was pursued… Depending on how well organised it was, and how he executed his arrival.

As the scientist started giving him directions, he took a breath. Not yet. Not yet… Prevalent justice would have to wait for a few minutes, until he was no longer public facing. There was a pistol in the inner pocket of his jacket, he could feel it against his side, with the spare clips sitting on the other side, the exact same reach away from his seemingly eager grasp.

That fuse blew when he was alone, when he was wandering the corridors of the facility, looking for anything that might class as a sign or some kind of pointer towards Curt. Instinct told him to get lower, to find sub-floors and basements that facilities like this wouldn't want exposing to the public eye. Upon descending the sirst flight of stairs, he heard a scream that was clearly a long time in the making. The way it echoed through the corridor made him stop in his tracks, and it was in that exact moment that the box blew open and everything exploded onto the outside.

Red tinged rage flooded his senses. He knew that tone well, though it wasn't so often that he heard him so distressed. Curt was good at keeping face under pressure or interrogation, it was one of the things he definitely gave himself credit for, and one of the things that he definitely deserved to do so for. Owen knew that he was more than capable of giving his adversaries as much shit as they gave to him, and also being so cosmically annoying that they have no choice but to make things harder for him…. It was really one of those situations that could go either way…

Curt— if he was right in trusting his instincts and believing that he'd found him— had broken. That meant that he was injured beyond comprehension, and part of that thought was what tipped him over to the side of unfiltered rage. After that, it was a flash of knowing what needed to be done, and knowing how to do it. His pace quickened, his breath sturdy, his mind focused… Owen was unshakable, and definitely no cause for competition. Those who were unfortunate enough to get in his way found themselves gravely injured at the hands of his aim, even those who thought themselves lucky enough to have escaped him by running down the corridor.

He stopped at nothing and nobody; there was not one obstacle that could get in the way of a man like him, on a mission like this.

It took an apparent maze of corridors before he managed to break open a door that led him directly to the one thing that made this whole thing worth it. Heaving a breath as he scanned the room, he finally— finally— laid eyes on the man who had been inadvertently guiding him towards his location the longer he was in pain.

Curt.

And he was a mess. Blood poured from his temple down the side of his face, and there was a sizeable gash running his shoulder and tearing the fabric of his shirt. He looked up when the door was thrown open, and his eyes went wide. He tried to fight showing how relieved he was, but it was hard to do that when his face was such an open book, when he was so relieved to see his partner.

Owen made a signal— a sign that all of this would be over in a matter of minutes— and levelled his pistol. One breath, and the man closest to Curt had fallen, a crimson river pouring from his forehead. Another, and the man advancing on him had fallen victim to a couple of sizeable holes to the chest in quick succession. A third, and Owen had stolen a knife from one of the fallen, and he was looking for the best angle to break Curt's ties so they could leave as fast as possible.

The knife didn't make easy work of the thick cord keeping Curt in place, but Owen found a good angle as he crouched closer to the ground, and managed to get Curt free before anyone else found out he was there.

His breath came out shallow, he was clawing at the last scraps of the rage, fighting not to let it subside into concern too early. But, on the other hand, the concern was justified too, because every time his gaze darted over Curt, he saw something else worth noting. Now was not the time to think about that, not until there was a solid guarantee that they could both get out of there safe, and there was a clear window for curt to get back to his agency.

"Can you stand?" He asked, as softly as he could manage it.

Curt nodded initially, but then realised how much he had been overestimating his own abilities, when he actually tried to stand and Owen had to rush to his side to stop him collapsing. Tear tracks stained his cheeks, Owen could see them from this close. It gave just enough of a spark to that slight of fury that he had left, just enough to seep in a deep desire to see this place— and by extension, Michael Jenner— crumble until there was nothing left of it.

"How'd you… How'd you know?" Curt asked, looking up at him as they trailed the corridor Owen had come in through backwards.

"You wouldn't believe this, but Cynthia called me."

"Wait, seriously?"

Owen nodded. "Apparently I can be useful when I want to be."

#spies are forever #saf #curtwen #agent curt mega #owen carvour #tw blood #tw injury #void offering #star mail #nova's tags →#injured ass curt and feral ass owen #a combination made for the gods #i cannot wait for you guys to see owen lose his absolute shit #you ever get tired of being polite 👀 don't you wanna go apeshit 👀

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x-digitaldollhouse-x · 23 days

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🦋Digital Dollhouse Makeover Challenge: A 12 Day CAS challenge all about makeovers!🦋

Hello Simblr! Since joining the community like a month ago I've been really interested in CAS Challenges, and while participating in other people's challenges, I got inspired to make my own.

This challenge mostly focuses on dressing up or reworking existing sims rather than creating new ones, so it's good for players who have a lot of sims they're already attached to. I also largely wanted to avoid the typical "nerd girl takes off her glasses" type of movie makeover and instead tried to come up with prompts that involve a different type of transformation than just "'''''ugly'''''' to '''''pretty''''''".

RULES: not many tbh. Do all 12 or pick and choose, do them out of order, just have fun! However, make sure to include Before and After photos for each makeover!

Take one of your favorite sims and make them over into the complete opposite of their usual aesthetic!

Humanize an occult sim, or occult-ify a human sim!

Imagine that a "What Not To Wear"/"Queer Eye"-type show exists in your Sim universe-- make a before-and-after of a sim that got made over on that show! (It's up to you whether the makeover is actually any good— you remember those old 2000s makeover shows that made everyone dress so boring, right?).

Download an "ugly to beauty challenge" sim from the gallery, but give them a makeover that embraces their existing features instead of completely changing them.

Take a randomly-generated townie in a wacky outfit and try to make them over in a way that maintains their general appearance and vibe! Refine their outfit, make them more cohesive, adapt them into your own style-- but keep them recognizable as the sim you started with.

Put a sim in drag!

Imagine what would happen if two of your sims gave each other makeovers.

Make over one of your LEAST favorite premade townie's original EA version without changing any genetics! Skin details, hair, clothing, defaults, etc. are fair game, but you can't change any sliders on their face or body.

Take one of your earliest Sims you have saved (a sim you made years ago, or whenever you were just getting started with TS4) and update them into your current style! If you don't have any of your old sims to update, remake and update a sim from a previous Sims game!

Show a sim who's had a physical change that mirrors some sort of development they've had as a person/character. I.E. they started dressing different after a major life event, made a change reflecting a change in personality, etc. Use an existing storyline from one of your saves or make up a hypothetical plotline/backstory!

Give a sim a fairytale transformation like Cinderella.

Dress one of your sims in a randomly generated aesthetic. (Generator 1 / Generator 2 / Generator 3 )

If you do any part of this challenge, PLEASE tag me and/or use the tag #DDCasMakeovers so I can check them out! I'd also love to just find new blogs to follow through this :)

#sims 4 #ts4 #cas challenge #ts4 cas challenge #ts4 challenge #the sims 4 #ts4 simblr #sims community #simblr #sims challenge #the sims 4 challenge #sims 4 challenge #sims makeover #ts4 makeover #DDCasMakeovers

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l-1-z-a · 1 year

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Emergent narrative in The Sims 2

Matt Brown at AIIDE 2006

Notes from Matt Brown's (EA/Maxis) invited talk at AIIDE 2006, entitled "The Power of Projection and Mass Hallucination (Practical AI in The Sims 2 and Beyond)".

The general gist of it is that The Sims 2 is a sandbox world that provides some small bits of narrative-promotion to try to encourage emergent narrative sequences to actually emerge, by matching them against pre-authored snippets that seem desirable. In general, Matt Brown has a very AI-minimalist style of AI design.

Some points and claims:

Perception is key: how to seem intelligent, not how to be intelligent ("Big A, little i")

Complicated behind-the-scenes computation is usually interpreted as random behavior by the player, so don't bother

Players have short memories and quickly move on, so your AI should too

Correlary to the above: Local intelligence is good enough, at least for something like The Sims. Just focus on making sure everything makes sense in relation to what comes immediately before and immediately after, and players will fill in appropriate long-term stories themselves.

Consistency leads to player storytelling and ascription of personality

Some randomness helps avoid brittleness; keeps you from getting stuck in repeated or easily exploitable weird behaviors

The Sims/NPCs react to player-driven momentum, rather than initiating much of anything

Much of the local behavior is organized around story trees

Story trees are explicitly authored bits of story, very short

In their experience, the important thing here was the authoring tools, not the AI: given good tools, a few human authors can quickly create and maintain lots and lots of story trees. Important features were sorting of story trees by roles, easy searching/comparison/etc., batch creation/edits, and variable bindings.

He was pretty adamant that it's much easier to write authoring tools to make writing extensional definitions of "good story" feasible than it is to build a generative system with an internal notion of good story, since you'd have to do a lot of manual fiddling on the latter anyway.

Events are matched against all tree prefixes simultaneously, and of high-matching trees, the events that that tree says would come next in its story snipped is scored against a model of player interest ("player likes [x] events") and personality of the NPC, etc.

Players find it easier to give specific outcomes rather than traits — answering "likes hiking (y/n)?" is easy, while "x/10 for extrovert?" isn't.

Focus the player on the details you will actually use; in character design and personalities, don't try to faithfully model things that don't matter very much to your game

Anecdote: They had a complicated model for which urinals Sims would use: if there's 3, and someone's at the leftmost one, the Sim is supposed to use the rightmost one, not the middle one, unless they have some sort of weird personality. It wasn't reliably getting the responses they wanted, so they ripped it out and replaced it with a random-number generator, which people were just as happy to make up stories about and ascribe personality to.

A bit of an admission in the conclusion: As a sort of aimless "sandbox game", The Sims only really needs to make sure something interesting happens, but it hardly matters what. The player is responsible for making up stories (this is their sandbox after all), so the story-AI part of The Sims is only intended to provide some prompts and play off what the player does. That might not be the case in other types of games.

Follow-up: Maxis ended up deviating significantly from this view of Sims narrative with The Sims 3, bringing in Richard Evans to do a less AI-lite version of the AI, which included longer-term planning rather than purely emergent narrative. Evans has given a number of talks on that, which I unfortunately don't have good notes on, but here (archived) is a brief writeup someone else did of his AIIDE 2007 talk.

Mark J. Nelson, 2006-06-21.

Comments welcome: [email protected]

Many thanks to @andrevasims for searching in this post:

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thesims4blogger · 1 year

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The Sims 4: New Game Patch (January 17th, 2023)

There’s a new Sims 4 update available for PC/Mac and Consoles. If you have auto updates enabled in Origin’s “Application Settings”, the game will auto-update once you open Origin. If you have auto-updates disabled, you will need to manually update by clicking the game in your library.

To ensure your game is up to date, check the game version found in Documents > EA > The Sims 4 > GameVersion.txt. Your game should now read: PC: 1.94.147.1030 / Mac: 1.94.147.1230 / Console: Version 1.68

If you’ve updated on PC/Mac but it’s not showing the correct version, delete the GameVersion.txt file, restart, and all will be corrected.

Update 01/17/2023 PC: 1.94.147.1030 / Mac: 1.94.147.1230 Console: Version: 1.68

Sul Sul, Simmers!

Happy New Year! We’ve taken care of all kinds of issues in this patch. Thank you all for your patience, and for staying vigilant in your reporting. We have a full year of The Sims 4 ahead of us, and we can’t wait to hear what you think. Happy Simming!

The Sims Team

Bug Fixes

Base Game

Toddlers were all looking a little too similar to each other. Now, they’ll reflect their parents and account for genetics.

Sims will no longer break the space-time continuum by moving when the game is paused.

The Mint Green Belted Cardigan (yfTop_CardiganBelted_SolidGreenMintBlack) no longer makes your Sim look like human spaghetti.

The Open Blazer (yfTop_BlazerOpenCollarTucked) now covers your Sim’s midriff properly.

A Juice Party will now count towards Throw 3 parties in the Party Aspiration.

Objects mounted on walls will no longer be removed when a different wall texture is applied in Build mode.

The Check for Pen Pal Replies option will now display as intended.

The Return from Daycare notification will now only appear once.

Fixed a crash that could happen when entering Live Mode.

The Promise to Help interaction will now trigger in the appropriate situations.

It’s now possible to enable the free build cheat (bb.enablefreebuild) while in the Making Money Scenario. This cheat doesn’t even disable Achievements/Trophies on consoles either.

Removed duplicate Clean up prompts when around two Activity Tables.

When using the Off the Grid filter, objects will display the proper information about what skill they may impact.

Disabling Wants & Fears will now function as intended.

Fixed missing Comfort stats from many Comfort objects and items.

Fixed Public Bathrooms description information stating they’re for Hygiene instead of Bladder.

Sims will be able to use public bathroom stalls. No more holding it until you get home!

Consoles

Adjusting the UI Scale from Game Options > Accessibility while in Create a Sim (CAS) should be more responsive so you can see your adjustments without waiting.

The Show: All Households list in the Manage Households menu can be scrolled meaning you can now see all Households as well.

Bust The Dust

*Sniff Sniff* Sims will perform the smelling animation the appropriate amount when their environment is dirty. No one likes a dirty litter box!

Get to Work

When your Sim grows up; Alien nose, chin, and eye width will carry over.

A respectful introduction will now fulfill the Greet Co-workers/Patients task as a part of the Doctor Career.

Seasons

Sims won’t freeze to death in the Summer when interacting with sprinklers. Someone must’ve forgotten to turn the air conditioner off… we’ll be sure to hand out blankets next time!

Sims are now able to properly schedule holidays when they have a teen in the house. Scheduling family trips is already hard enough!

Snowy Escape

Work Withdrawals are now removed when working during their off hours.

My Wedding Stories

Your Sims will no longer talk about planning their wedding ceremony after they are married.

Werewolves

Werewolves are now able to change their fur in CAS mode. Furtastic!

#news #the sims 4 #ts4 #sims 4

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eurofox · 10 months

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The latest emilie autumn drama has prompted return for me. Like say what you will but she really hit the spot for teenage aaaangst.

Really thought she was the shit when I was a 14 year old and Opheliac, alongside Lungs, was my first album. I had an obsession with Victorian England at the time (was also watching black butler) and she even inspired me to get a violin. Which I played once and my family slagged me so much for being shit I put it away to never touch again.

Her forum, again alongside Florence's, was were I spent most of my time online before Tumblr. I never actually got to see her live as I don't think she ever toured Ireland and I didn't know anyone else who liked her (despite trying to force her on people)

Listening to Opheliac now, it definitely comes across a bit cringe and tryhard edgy but it's still fun. And she was pretty much doing her own thing, maybe Rasputina would be closest but they focused more on America and has cellos instead of violin. I also really wanted her book but grew out of that desire by the time I could afford it.

I only liked bits and pieces of enchant. And I would buy tracks separately off of the EPS when I had an itunes giftcard to spend.

Fight like a girl was a letdown, it felt rushed and I only liked a handful of tracks. The more theatrical stuff didn't appeal to me at all. And was a bad sign as she shortly after stopped touring to spend the rest of her life writing a Broadway musical that no one wants anymore since she seems determined to drive away what fans she has left with this latest AI nonsense.

Some personal EA moments:

Getting the violin

Having to do a song analysis for school and choosing Gothic Lolita, which raised a lot of eyebrows. (So cringe)

The 'Fucking patronising Fucking ' catchphrase in the forum. Immortalised after she went apeshit at a fan.

Dying my hair as red as I dared get away with

My mum listening to liar and after some thought coming out with ' you'd probably make more friends if you listened to something normal instead of this shite'

Reading arguments on the forum about her made up personal life, like the infamous fire and the nonsense of being related to Alice Liddel. I personally thought she did to create a persona but weird she kept it up.

Joining the Reform forum to see what was going on.

The way the forum had one of those weird 'resident trolls'. Who'd come out with weird shit and nazi jokes but everyone seemed to like them anyway.

There's my history with her. God it all feels so long ago now I'm nearly 30. If she ever did get her shit together and release another album instead of overpriced tat I'd buy it.

#man she was so cool to me back then #probably even more than Florence #but Florence stayed cool as fuck #can't say the same for poor emilie #emilie autumn #on the forum i was ribbonedrat

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felassan · 1 year

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Article: 'Aaryn Flynn interview – Nightingale, tree chopping, and magic'

We chat to former BioWare GM Aaryn Flynn about Mass Effect: Andromeda and his upcoming survival game

Flynn gave a talk at Reboot Develop Blue about how video games still have so much potential to do things in new and interesting ways.

“One of my heroes in all of the creative field, Orson Welles, had this amazing interview at the BBC,” Flynn explained during his talk. “And what he says is that the only reason he was successful with Citizen Kane was because he was ignorant of all the things you couldn't do in filmmaking at the time.”

"It's fair to say that if you read what Starfield is about, Andromeda had similar ambitions" - Aaryn Flynn

He likened this to his time at BioWare when it had ambitions to create the Mass Effect trilogy – a series of games where your choices in one title would impact the world of the next entry. It had never been done before. BioWare did it.

Originally, publisher EA didn’t even want BioWare to announce a trilogy. Again, BioWare did it, even though it wasn’t the done thing to commit to a series of games when you don’t even know if the first one will be popular.

Eventually, even EA started to believe the hype (once it saw those sales numbers), prompting the publisher to coin the term “BioWare magic” – a reference for how the studio’s games would come together, as if by magic, in the final stretch.

Of course, that’s just how video game development is. Games are usually a hot mess while they’re being cobbled together from dust, dreams, and surgical tape, right up until the point that they’re not. BioWare wasn’t magic. It couldn’t just click its fingers at the end of a long project to ensure it made a good game.

Flynn physically grimaces when I bring up the term.

“To my recollection, I think EA offered the term out of respect and appreciation for some of the quality that was made there,” he says. “My understanding of it was just a lot of hard work, and Ray [Muzyka] and Greg [Zeschuk] being excellent at continuing to get us more time on the development until we got it exactly right.”

It also came down to vision. Flynn says the best games at BioWare were the ones that stuck to the objectives on their design documents, and the ones that suffered were the games that strayed too far from their original goals.

The issues with Mass Effect: Andromeda and BioWare’s switch to the Frostbite engine have been widely reported, but Flynn gives some insight into how that switch impacted the vision.

“The vision did get modified,” he says. “And that was largely out of pressure to ship and to get things out there. One of the biggest challenges we had with Frostbite on that game – and we had this issue relatively late in development, with a year to go – is we were waiting on some technical improvements to come in for the last elements of our game. And then the Frostbite team ended up having to support [the] sports [teams] much more because sports teams went through that [change] as well. So we lost that support and had to cut some of those things.

And honestly, it's fair to say that if you read what Starfield is about, Andromeda had similar ambitions – plans to explore and actually travel in a spaceship. We just couldn't pull it all off, and so the vision ended up being less than what we were hoping to do. We should have been more conservative.”

[source and full article]

#bioware #mass effect #mass effect: andromeda #video games #longpost #tried to make this post a link one as usual but it didnt work for some reason?#so its a text post with the link in it instead sry #long post

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sugareey-makes-stuff · 2 years

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Today is not only September 1st and time to head back to Hogwarts, but it’s @greenmegsnoham‘s birthday! Megs is a fellow snek who is a master of many trades, so here’s a custom nameplate and a mix of recs of all her fandomy things! I first started seeing Megs around in the Rare Pairs and Drarry servers, but I didn’t get to know her until fests! She participated in a few fests I signed up for too, and then I claimed her Flintwood prompt for Quidditch Fest 2021 (aka this is what had us gushing about this ship to begin with). She was also one of the first folks to join the Wizarding Creators Den server when I first started it almost a year ago (wow, time flies!). When I heard Megs’ had a HP podcast, I was naturally intrigued, and started listening to episodes since late last summer. I joined the @careofmagicalshippers server, and well, the rest is history! If you don’t know what Care of Magical Shippers is, it’s a Harry Potter ship culture podcast where Megs and co-host Nathan dive into the when, why, and how for various ships! From OTPs to the rarest of the rare, they’ve got you covered. They’re full of giggles, but they also go into some interesting and in-depth ideas and dynamics for all the ships they discuss. Each episode I’ve listened to so far has given me something new to think about. The server community Megs has cultivated for the podcast has been a great place to meet like-minded folk too. It’s inclusive and 1000% embraces fandom etiquette to allow readers and creators to like what they like, feel safe and be their authentic selves. There’s a monthly fic club, as well as a few bingos, Ministry Mayhem (aka crack and chaos) and other creative activities for people to take part in if they fancy it. I’ve never seen a community or a podcast like CoMs before, so it’s really refreshing that Megs has taken the reigns to carve out a space that gives love to pretty much any ship you can think of (yay for all of the rare pairs, tropes and spicy things! 🌶️). It’s obvious Megs is passionate about what she does, and she genuinely appreciates all the people who make up fandom (readers, mods, reccers and creators alike). It shows in the way she screams about a lot people’s creations, shares all of the creator events she knows about, and just the general hype she creates about so many different ships is something you want to join in on. Not to mention, she’s not afraid to be goofy or geeky. We absolutely need more of that humour, especially during such a weird time right now. If you’re looking for new ships to explore or want to see what the CoMs podcast is all about, here are some episodes to dive into: 🎙️ >>> Hey, Linny! You’re so fine! (Luna Lovegood/Ginny Weasley)

Summary: This week we are diving into some femslash! It’s Linny week!! Ginny and Luna make SUCH a beautiful couple and so much in canon supports this ship. Join us as we take a look at the ins and outs of this lovely pairing! (and there may be more singing and definitely excess giggles) This was my first episode I listened to! I really loved how deep Megs and Nathan get when it comes to how their families and general pasts would affect who Ginny and Luna become as people. Also after surviving a war, these two have such a potential to balance each other out because of the genuine trust and honesty they already have as friends, which is wonderful for something more. 🎤 >>> We Fancy Fleurmione 🌸📚 w/ Danni (Hermione Granger/Fleur Delacour)

Summary: This week is all about the Lady Things™ with our special guest, Danni (@danpuff-ao3!) What if Hermione went to the ball with Fleur instead of Krum? Or they do both become advocates post-war for magical creatures, including Veela rights? What better duo than two strong, underestimated women? Sorry, Bill. Sorry, Ron. These ladies were made for each other, and we’re here to tell you why and how!

What a hilarious episode! But also, Megs, Nathan and Danni shine an amazing light on how Hermione and Fleur can bring the best out of each other with their determination and their strengths. They are more than just women. They’re capable women who strive for what they want, who come from different backgrounds where they can learn and benefit from each other, and they’re more than what people stereotype them as (ie. beauty or brains, or whatever else). 🎙️ >>> Flintwood: 🪨 + 🪵 = 🔥 (Marcus Flint/Oliver Wood)

Summary: What happens when Flint meets Wood?? You get FIRE!!! This episode is all about Megs and Nathan’s BestieTP, Flintwood! The ultimate Rivals to Lovers!!

This episode is here, not just because Megs and I have screamed bonded over Flintwood so much, but because there is some good emotional and deep content discussed that we normally wouldn’t pick up right away when we see these two together...until folks dig into all the fic, characterisations and possible backstories that exist. Yes, Marcus and Oliver can get physical, rough and rowdy, and there is so much tension between them, but there are so many reasons why (aka denial of feelings). They may have different personalities, but they’re two sides of the same coin. One of my fav episodes so far. 🎤 >>> Versy Weasley, Lover of Wood 👓🪵 w/ Geoff (Percy Weasley/Oliver Wood)

Summary: Perciver is the ship of choice the week, and the perfect Nerd x Jock pairing! Megs and Nathan are joined again in this episode by Geoff (aka DreamQuaffle)! Fantastic Percy-centric discussion to be had, lots of giggles (obviously), and features ANOTHER fire of a fic by Geoff! Get ready for the SPICE!

I loved how silly this episode was! Yes, I am a Perciver shipper, but what I really appreciate about this episode is how Megs, Nathan and Geoff go more into Percy’s characterisation, how Oliver complements him (and vice versa), and the potential of both of them being on the neurodivergent spectrum. It really does make sense when it comes they’re fanatical and sometimes over-zealous tendencies about anything they’re super passionate about (like each other). If Megs wasn’t already busy enough with the podcast, she’s also a fest mod! She ran @hpshipuary, a daily ship challenge, this past February and she is currently modding @hpcestfest (claiming is still open until Sept. 9th) and @hpfacultyfest (which is still open for claiming, and works start posting today). She does all the graphic design work for everything listed above, she’s an artist (check out her art) AND she writes fic! I have no idea how she has time to do all of these things, but gods, I am so impressed. Honestly, I think Megs must have some ridiculous superpowers to juggle everything. Amazzzing.

If you want new fic reading, make sure to check out these Megs’ fics (especially if you like smut and/or ships that include Harry): 💞 >>> Scarred (Harry/Bill, E, 13.6k, mind the tags)

Summary: Harry can't escape the press, the fans. His dreams as an Auror shattered, relationships near impossible, Harry finds himself trapped in a life he cannot live. If only someone could set him free.

I had no idea I needed this ship until I read this?! Gosh, soulmates and the amount of feelings this fic has is pretty mind-blowing. So I’m usually not one for infidelity fics, but this one just worked. It reminded me of my uni days where many people (myself included) were told to find someone ASAP to live happily ever after, and sometimes, that’s not how life works. Sometimes, you do need to go with your gut feeling, and this is what this story embraces. Also, Bill is just hot in this. I gotcha, Harry. I see what you see. ❤️ >>> I’m not broken (Drarry, T, 455)

Summary: Draco should want to have sex with his boyfriend...shouldn't he?

Oh, this is gorgeous. This fic captures such a vulnerable and important moment for Draco, and anyone else who identifies as ace. We’re always told about love and sex and how they need to be linked together, but that’s not the case! You can love someone like Draco loves Harry, and sex doesn’t need to part of it. Also, there’s more than relationships than sex (as well as a whole spectrum of attraction and other things in between). 🧹 >>> Yes, Daddy (Scorpius/Harry, E, 11.5k, mind the tags)

Summary: Scorpius loves his Daddy. But no one knows. Not even Harry. Especially not his father.

OKAY. I usually don’t seek out fic with age difference, breeding or daddy kinks much, but I have to say, this was smokin’, and it’s a fic that’s hard not to re-read or think about. There’s humour, and I adore Al and Scorpius’ friendship. Not onlt that, but damn, the smut makes you sweat 🥵 and goes to a whole new level. Megs worked some magic with this one, since you know, I’m cool with reading more fics with these kinks now. But also, Harry and Scorpius are actually just so tender with each other. And Draco is dramatic as usual, what else is new? 🤣 💼 >>> It’s Yours (Neville/Percy, E, 3k, mind the tags)

Summary: Neville's interview for Percy's secretary takes a very interesting turn...

Sooo, this one doesn’t have Harry in it, but if you like Top!Percy, praise kink, power play and boss/employee dynamics, this is the fic for you. Also, Megs pointed out there needs to stories where Percy’s taking the lead. I agree, and she’s making it happen. I don’t know what the hell it is, but Percy not only being in control in the office but when it comes to sex is very appealing. And seeing this from his perspective, which shows what motivates him to do the things he does and to get what he wants, and Neville just handing all of that over...yes. There 10000% needs to be more of these two! You can find more of Megs’ work on AO3. Make sure to leave kudos and comments to show appreciation for all of her fandom contributions. Megs, thanks for being you, for making CoMs exist, and for sharing all the love for all the ships. Things would not be the same without you around. Have a fantastic day!

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gunthermunch · 2 years

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hiii ai!!! first of all, i love the munches very dearly with all of my heart, i re-read the whole story last night, and i genuinely think it's one of the best storytelling pieces i've ever read. and i was just wondering - if it isn't too much to ask - how do you create such in-depth characters and stories? like what's your magic you superhuman

smiling at my phone like an idiot rn tysm😭😭 also i have a different creative process when it comes to premade characters because I'm using an ea employee's base, like, im sure they had a small glimpse of what they wanted gunther to be like and believe it or not, i think ea did a good job at providing a nice base for us to work with (at least in the munches' case) because you can clearly see what kind of archetype each of them represent just by looking at their traits, walkstyle and clothing choice, so i enhanced that. i didn't go through the first process of character design with them like i do when creating a character from scratch. i didnt need to come up with a prompt and creating concepts i directly jumped on developing their already stated personalities and enhancing what we were provided with.

but i have to say, the characters that are at least 85% my own mind doing its job on them are lucas and max. their prompts were "outdoorsy, bright, sweet" and "mean, negative, force of nature" respectively. both extremely different and dare i say opposites but since no one no matter how good or evil they are is truly #ffffff white or #000000 black, i gave them grey tones. i think this is a basic rule on what makes a character tridimensional/ gives them depth.

#sorry this got too long i really love this topic #giving characters that are so far from each other on the black/white spectrum like lumax grey tones even helps on them being compatiblewith #each other. i think every character should be able to travel every tone of gray and meet all of them from whiter to darkest #because we all have that depth and no one lands on just good and bad #ask #gm reply #munch ask #*whitest ahaa

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badgraph1csghost · 1 year

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How to Use a Computer, Part 5-B: Really How to Install Games from Disc Media

Last time, I explained about Microsoft refusing to recognise Safedisc and SecuROM games. I accidentally made it sound like ALL game software that was ever released on discs wouldn't work anymore. That was my error. SecuROM was already an antique by the time Microsoft got round to ending support for it, so there's actually quite a lot of games on disc that weren't affected by that. Let's quit talking about arcane technical issues and get down to the practical stuff, shall we?

There really isn't much to say about running games from disc. Like all software, it needs to install onto your computer first; the only difference is that the game uses a disc, either CD-ROM or DVD-ROM, to install the software, rather than an internet-based download service.

To begin, open your optical drive (OD) and put Disc 1 of the software you wish to install into the drive. If there is only one disc, that'll save you the step of changing out discs. Close the OD and wait for Windows to ask you what you want to do with the disc. Select "Run". It might say "Run Setup.exe", "Run AutoPlay.exe", or something else germane to running the installer contained on the disc. Whatever the "Run" option is, select it.

The Installer prompt will ask you to choose a file directory to install the software into. It will already have a selection made, so you won't have to worry about it. Really, there's no need to install software to a location other than the one given by the installer, unless you have a special hard drive or disk partition specifically for games. You probably don't so just let the installer put it where it wants to.

Let's look at the directory for second, though; because you'll probably use that to install mods. Let's take The Sims Complete Collection (EA, 2005) as an example. The directory the installer will put the game in is this...

C:/Program Files (x86)/Maxis/The Sims Complete Collection

This means the game will install on your main hard drive (drive C), into the root program files directory for 32-bit software (x86 and derivative CPUs were 32-bit processors, hence Program Files x86). In the 32-bit program files directory, it will use the folder for Maxis games (the game's original developer) and create a subfolder specifically for The Sims Complete Collection. It does this in order to prevent conflicts with any other games that might be in the Maxis folder, either now or in the future; say, if you were to install SimCity 4. Every file that TSCC's install discs put onto your computer will end up in this file directory only, with the exception of a desktop shortcut and a shortcut in your Start menu.

Some games, especially newer ones (2009-present) will also create user data folders in your Documents or User folders, apart from installing the game to C:/Program Files. In this case, mods will typically go in this user data folder instead of the root directory.

Getting back to the disc. When the installer prompts you for the next disc in the series, re-open your OD, remove the first disc and insert the second one; then shut the OD and click "OK" on the prompt. Repeat this process for disc 3, disc 4, and onwards. Once all the discs have been used, the installer will request Disc 1 again, at which point the install finalises and you can run the game.

It should be noted that REALLY OLD software-- basically, anything designed for Windows 98 or below-- will not run on modern computers. At all. But, if you're really, REALLY interested in playing something like SimHealth or Jane's Combat Simulator, you might try running those on a virtual machine with Windows 98. That's a little complicated to go into right now, but if you're interested in that, look into Virtual Box, a freeware VM from Oracle. If the game you want to play is from MS-DOS-- like Wolfenstein 3D or Jazz Jackrabbit-- Dosbox has you covered.

That's all we have for disc-based software. Next time, we'll talk about how to make your PC better through custom hardware.

#how to use a computer #instructions #disc media #actual information instead of just tech jargon this time

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leejafythe · 2 years

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Dear Diary

FFXIV Write 2022 Entry Prompt: Veracity Word Count: 1773 CW: None AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/42166449

Dear Diary

Growing up, I had been told repeatedly to tell the truth. “The truth will set you free” I had been told. It was something that I believed and I stuck to those words.

Then I left for Eorzea.

My time in Eorzea showed me that the statement the truth shall set you free was nothing but a lie. I had been lied to by various people, those I thought I could trust, those who were apparently doing it for my benefit. Though it wasn’t his own fault or his own doing Thancred had lied to me about being fine, though it was Lahabrea.

Then there was the Bloody Banquet. When Ilberd and the corrupted Crystal Braves had framed me for regicide and told the realm lies about the Scions. I never forgave him or those who followed his lead. The anger still simmered away.

Urianger had lied to all the Scions regarding Minfilia. He was doing it for the all the right reasons, sure, I understood but I couldn’t stop being angry. When they returned to the Rising Stones from Thanalan, I walked away and went to my room in silence. I struggled to regain my trust in him again.

When I was in the First the Exarch was he next to lie to me. Directly to my face about his true identity and his true plans for me, the star and himself. He had roped Urianger into his plans and as a result, I nearly became a Light Warden because everything was hidden and the truth had been shrouded in darkness. When G’raha revealed himself, I struggled to forgive both him and Urianger.

Now, I was stood at the edge of creation with the two men who had both nearly caused my demise. For what though?

“Aye, this place should serve.”

“ Is it the spring that you wished to investigate?” G’raha looked at Urianger while Leeja swallowed hard. She was already struggling with the loss of Thancred and Estinien.

“Pray forgive me, my friends...but there is naught to investigate. 'Twas but a pretense to speak in private” she felt the air leave her lungs.

“Don’t do this, Urianger. You’ve both lied to me many times, I can’t do this to Alphinaud and Alisaie” her hands closed into fists as tears stung at her eyes. “It’s bad enough I’ve lost two people I love dearly, I refuse to be part of a lie to those I have left” she began to tremble from head to toe. G’raha hugged her tightly.

“You have our undivided attention” G’raha wasn’t happy about what would come next, yet they both stood and listened. She’d probably hate herself later but she had no choice.

“As we have established, here in Ultima Thule, those denizens of ruined stars are recreated in their twilight days. Yet one question doth arise in my mind. So faithfully formed are the simulacra, they believe themselves yet amongst the living. How dost thou suppose this is possible?” They both thought for a moment and Leeja was the first to speak up.

“Oh… Meteion made contact with them while they still lived” she clung to G’raha, feeling exhausted.

“Of course! She must have visited the stars of the dragons and the Ea before either race perished in their entirety. Thus could she make their emotions her own, and with them create more faithful simulacra than had she relied on any historical account” G’raha looked at them both. Urianger nodded before continuing. Leeja listened but didn’t respond, allowing them to continue theorising.

“Therefore, should you struggle to find the way forward, pray ask yourselves this: in the place where you stand, whose is the soul that yearneth most desperately for oblivion?” G’raha tensed a little and Leeja could feel it.

“Why do you tell us this now?” G’raha could feel her trembling worsen and tried to reassure her.

“Keep in mind, Urianger that if it is a secret you wish to keep… I don’t think I can. Not from the twins. I love them too much to lie and I won’t have them question the veracity of anything I tell them. I have never lied to them and I never will” Leeja hiccupped a little and looked at the elezen who gave her a gentle smile.

“Ne'er again would I betray your trust. This pledge I did make to my comrades. In bringing thee into my confidence, I would remain true to my word” he gave her a gentle smile and she let go of G’raha and hugged Urianger tightly.

“Please don’t go… Not you. Not you as well” she sniffled and gripped onto him in a desperate hope not to lose anyone else. He froze for a moment before finally hugging her back and looking at G’raha.

“As for thee... Let us consider it my fitting reward for the secrets I harboured for the Crystal Exarch. I once placed my faith in thy chosen path, walking at thy side full knowing that we were bound for thy demise. I ask now that thou returnest the favour, and abide in faith as I fulfil mine own destiny”. G’raha’s hands tensed and he finally looked up.

“If you say my debt has come due, how am I to refuse?” He sounded defeated. This wasn’t something either of them wanted to hear. Yet, Urianger continued.

“'Tis indelicate of me, I know full well, and I can but beg thy forgiveness. Yet even if I must needs go to such lengths, I cannot well feign ignorance of the answer I have found within… The answer to the question: in what moment might I stand strongest?”

It was the painful truth and both miqo’te hated it. G’raha struggled to speak his words and Leeja had none as she clung onto Urianger for dear life “After all that we've been through, I will say only this. Do what you must. Do what you must, and see your conviction through.”

“I shall, my friend. I shall. Without further ado, then, let us go to join our comrades” Leeja stepped back and turned her back to them, unable to encourage him.

“Leeja?” they both approached her carefully.

“Don’t… just… I’ll catch up…” G’raha stepped back and walked away. Meanwhile, Urianger stayed and listened as she cried quietly to herself.

“Leeja?” she wiped her eyes quickly and turned to look at him.

“Why must you do this? Without sounding selfish but I’m losing everyone. If you go…” she swallowed hard. He just hugged her tightly as she cried quietly. “‘M sorry… Let’s go and catch up everyone” they walked off and caught up with everyone.

The Ea were mid-conversation with Y’shtola when they returned. It was regarding the state of the universe, a truth they had discovered. They didn’t bother with all the scientific details, claiming it was too complex for them to grasp and went on with the story of what happened to their kind and their star. Meteion had visited and it changed everything, but it just before that when their tale began, claiming the same phenomenon that was affecting Etheirys had also affected their star, Deneb III. Yet they continued on, telling them that the universe is destined to fall into an eternal ice age. “Why strive for anything when decimation is assured? When our wealth of wisdom, accumulated since the dawning of our kind, would be forever lost?”

The Ea weren’t lying. Leeja couldn’t sense a hint of lies in their words. Yet she noticed Y’shtola’s body language change, ever so slightly. “No…” her voice was ever so quiet and barely picked up by G’raha. She closed her eyes and looked down, not wanting to see what was next as Y’shtola sighed and began her answer to the Ea. The same wind that took Estinien away picked up around her and Leeja’s ears and her tail lay flat against her. “Keep calm, and listen well. Though my body will soon dissipate, there may be a way to restore it” that made Leeja look up. Y’shtola had a plan? Why did she not say a word? “Azem’s magick. So long as our souls remain, you can use it to summon us back.”

“Why did you not tell me this sooner?!” she went to pull the stone from her pocket.

“But you mustn't, for it would mean losing our way forward. This, I only reveal so that you can promise not to invoke the magick.”

“Y’shtola–”

“Promise me you will not use it!” she snapped back. Leeja flinched and pulled her hand away.

“I-I won’t use it…” she felt the familiar burning sensation as the tears built up once again. She was losing her family and it hurt .

“We came here knowing what victory may cost, so press on. Press on, and do not look back.”

Every word felt like a dagger in her chest. She wished she hadn’t been told, that for once Y’shtola would lie about the fact she could bring them back. Every part of her mine screamed to invoke the magick, yet she made a promise. A promise that she loathed. A promise made worse when Urianger left with Y’shtola. A promise made worse when she lost G’raha, when she lost Alphinaud and Alisaie.

A promise made worse when she was alone.

So you see, Diary, sometimes it’s kinder to lie to the ones you love. So they don’t feel the heartache of knowing you can save them when it’s better not to do so. Though I got them back, the pain of losing them and knowing I could lose them all over again is a pain that is going to sit there for a while. I’m not angry, just hurt. Hurt that they could find it so easy to just… sacrifice themselves. I’ve nearly lost them all before after the banquet. I lost Minfilia completely to Hydaelyn, Papalymo gave his life to bind Shinryu. Gosestu gave his life so we could escape Doma castle - even if he did survive. On the First Thancred gave Ryne and I a means of escape when he took on Ran’jit alone and he nearly succumbed to his injuries. G’raha was going to sacrifice himself to save the First and my life until Emet stepped in. Then, well you know what happened in Ultima Thule. I suppose I’ve gotten my revenge on them, given that I never followed Meteion back to the ship and stayed behind to fight Zenos. I nearly died for it and I nearly never made it back to them.

There’s a time and a place for lying, you just need to know when it is.

#FFXIV Write 2022 #final fantasy xiv #ffxiv #my writing #leeja fythe #6.0 spoilers #endwalker spoilers #ffxiv write 2022 #diary entry #dear diary #y'shtola rhul #urianger augurelt #g'raha tia #alisaie leveilleur #alphinaud leveilleur

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transcendentcacophony · 3 years

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Thinking about Posts and Tumblr

So I responded to an earlier post from @kalesims in the comments. I probably should have reblogged it so I didn't have to break up my response which may have made it less than useful (and potentially read to mean the opposite of what I meant), but I also wanted to move a bit beyond the initial prompt with this longer one. I have not posted much Sims stuff in awhile. Part of this is because school and work demands are eating so much of my time right now1, part of this that ongoing pursuit of perfection we all seem to have to some extent on social media, and part of it is because I may have dumped my entire CC folder into my game without sorting it properly and now it runs like rubbish and I have to fix it. Regardless, I'm going to focus on issue #2 the ongoing pursuit of perfection, because I think this is the most relevant bit and the one I've been thinking a lot about lately. Tumblr is a social media platform. (This bit is a little academic, sorry.) I think we all know that, but do we ever really think about what that means? It's ultimately a company that provides a public-facing platform with the explicit intent of marketing ourselves to each other. More likes and followers for you=more ads and money for Tumblr, but they have to incentivize that for any of us to care. How do they do that? Make it a popularity contest. How often do you look at your likes or followers count? What emotional response do you have when they're low? How many creators incentivize new followers or more likes by releasing content to correlate with milestones in those areas? This is all part of feeding that beast2. It also draws on something referred to academically as the "hedonic treadmill," which is basically the keeping up with the Joneses mentality where we constantly compare our success to our peers and find ourselves wanting, even if we aren't. This is going somewhere, I promise.

When I first started Tumblr, I had one blog: transcendentcacophony. I started it explicitly to follow sims blogs I liked and keep track of the cc I downloaded or things that caught my attention, and my initial posts all reflected that. After I was on for a while, I realized most blogs compartmentalized to a certain degree: you have a blog for gameplay, a blog for cc finds, a blog for interest x, etc., so, not being particularly versed in these things, I thought "This is how you tumble!" and immediately set about creating sideblogs like transcendentcacophonyinspire, transcendentcacophonys3cc, or transcendentcacophonystudyblr. I went through my entire archive, moved everything over to its new home, and deleted the original posts and reblogs from this page. Does that mean I think having all the sideblogs is wrong? Nope. The organization of having sideblogs is sometimes helpful, but they they make me feel kind of fractured on some level. None of these provide an image of a whole person, just brief glimpses of an aspect. Sometimes I regret having split the off, other times I find it more convenient. Mileage may vary, but the obvious winner for the sideblog model is arguably Tumblr. None of my blogs have many followers, but there isn't as much overlap in audience as you might think and if they were all still one blog, I doubt there'd be as many as there are.

This raises the question of who you intend your blog to be for. Is it for Tumblr, so they can keep making that sweet sweet ad revenue? Is it for the online audience? Or is it for you? Who do you see as your primary audience? The structure of social media clearly wants us to say everyone else. "You're here for the likes! The followers! The popularity!" Other companies lean in to this as well. How many followers do you have to have to qualify as an EA Game Changer?

I would argue that it's this pressure to have all likes, followers, etc., that prohibit us from posting what we really want to post. Are you posting the things that actually make you happy? Or are you posting the things that you think an audience wants to see?

Learning anything takes a lot of practice. How many times did you fall off before you learned to ride a bike? How many broken and malformed pots do you make before you get a perfect one? We learn by doing. Waiting for that perfect screenshot or getting reshade just right or having the perfect city in CAW keeps us from posting our broken pots. Maybe we need to post more broken pots.

If something makes us happy, does it need to be perfect, or do we love it anyway? "This is my first pot! It sucks, but I made it! Finishing it alone is an accomplishment! It's mine and I'm learning and I want to show that process so we can all get better together!" Shouldn't our screenshots or gameplay or worldbuilding be the same?

I am building a world in CAW. I've been doing it for quite awhile, and I have an entire folder full of broken pots as a result, but I learned something every time I broke one. When I read CAW forums, I learn more from the ones where things don't work than from ones where they do. I post some of my broken pots, and simmers like @nilxis or @murfeelee are so supportive and helpful and give me tips on how to better and fix issues I'm having. I value that part of this community. I don't learn to do better by not showing off my broken pots.

I know some of my interests are pretty niche. I'm building an alien scifi world, I have conversion projects from games that support that but probably won't be useful to mainstream simmers. I made a series of alien moons in conjunction with simblu, who is now deactivated. These are arguably not things that will get a lot of likes, reblogs, or followers, but they are things that make me happy. Kurt Vonnegut once said when he wrote books, he always wrote with only 2 people in mind: himself and his sister. His goal was that at the very least he would like what he wrote, and a few of the books were written with her in mind, and if anyone else liked it, it was just gravy. I can’t say I’m a fan of the man’s writing, but I kind of like the idea of this mentality.

To that end, I think I'm going to change up how I use this blog moving forward, with the express goal of posting more often and with more emphasis on things that make me happy or show off more of my broken pots. Maybe it will cost me followers, maybe it won't, but it will help me carve this little niche out of the internet that is mine, that makes me happy, and that seeks to support the simmers and other community members3 that have been so supportive of me in the past. If just one or two people get something from it, or are entertained, isn’t that still just as valid?

I don't mean to imply in any way that posting what makes you happy can't make you popular, or gain likes and followers. It's very much possible. Vonnegut wrote his books for himself and he published 14 novels, three short story collections, five plays, and five nonfiction works, complete with film adaptations of several, literary prizes, etc. You can be successful doing what you love.

But I don't know that I need to be successful at it. I want to be happy doing it first, and anything outside of that is gravy. I'm going to post more broken pots and worry less about perfection or "doing it right." I'm going to fall off the bike and get back up and keep going. And maybe, by falling and failing, I'll get better or at least good enough or comfortable enough I'm not worried so much about that quest for perfection that is currently prohibiting me from trying.

Anyways, @kalesims, I don't know if that answers the original question you had. But I'd love to see what you post, be it gameplay, screenshots, cc, etc., really whatever floats your boat, moving forward. And, if you're willing, I'd love to learn by doing together. Let's go break some pots.

1 Whoever decided the best way to avoid outbreaks on campus was to just cancel all breaks and holidays over the last year clearly doesn't understand college students (who very much are still having parties and making up their own breaks) or that the reason we have those breaks is for mental health. Fall break was specifically added to reduce suicide rates among graduate students. And admin wonders why everyone hates them... 2 There's a researcher who looks at social media as a neoliberal marketplace that forces us to monetize ourselves without necessarily allowing us to realize that's what we're doing. She's got a book coming out about it next month if anyone is interested: Pain Generation: Social Media, Feminist Activism, and the Neoliberal Self(ie)

3I have in no way forgotten you, @piyotan, and you are definitely part of my online community, this was just targeted largely at simming.

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imagining-supernatural · 4 years

Text

The Airport

Part 24 of Seventy Percent

Series Summary: When you left on your trip to Vegas, you’d planned on letting loose for one last weekend before heading back to reality and getting your affairs in order so your best friend wouldn’t be left cleaning up your mess when your cancer finally ended your life. What you hadn’t counted on was waking up married to a celebrity who has a knight-in-shining-armor complex, connections with an oncologist, and amazing insurance…

Chapter Summary: You surprise Seb at the airport, eager to celebrate the good news from earlier. The next day, your demons rear up and send you spiraling again.

Word Count: 2,425

The crowd was making you nervous, but you tamped it down. It would all be worth it in a few minutes.

Sitting on the hard chair, you glanced up at the flight board, checking the plane arriving from Atlanta. It had arrived fifteen minutes ago and passengers were just now debarking. You tapped your fingers on the poster board Josselin insisted that you make. As soon as she heard you were going to surprise Sebastian at the airport, she ran out to buy supplies and the two of you (along with Brenda when she didn’t have patients) got covered in glitter and marker as you created your masterpiece.

Glitter now fell to the floor of the airport as you tap-tap-tapped the sign.

You knew there would be pictures. Your flashy sign with Sebastian Stan’s name on it was sure to draw attention. But somehow, you didn’t give a damn. You’d gotten good news this week and he wasn’t there to hold your hand. You weren’t about to waste another second without celebrating it with him.

Passengers started filtering out towards the bag carousel and you stood, waiting to see the short, dark hair you’d grown to love. As soon as you spotted him, you held the sign just below your face, not quite ready to hold it higher and draw even more attention.

Before he spotted you, he drew his phone to his ear and, a second later, yours started ringing. It was slightly awkward to hold the large poster board and grab your phone, but you managed it quickly enough.

“Hey honey,” you greeted.

“Hey. I just landed. I’m headed out to grab a cab. Should be home soon.”

“Cabs?” you asked, infusing your tone with disgust. “Aren’t those dirty? I bet you’d rather have Sean drive you, huh? Don’t wanna get that stylish tan leather jacket you have on dirty, do ya?”

His gait slowed and, even from this distance, you noticed his brow furl in confusion. It was a brief moment, then he started looking around. “You think this jacket looks good, huh?”

“I think the guy inside looks even better.”

You could see the exact moment he saw you. God, you wish you could have captured that smile on his face on film. Then his eyes slipped down to your sign and he let out a full-bodied laugh. Just the sound of it brought your own laughter and god it felt good.

The crowd between you was nothing as he pushed his way to you. A few feet in front of you, he stopped to study the sign. “Baby, how much glitter did you use on that Christmas tree?”

“Josselin,” you said, “Went a bit overboard. And pulled me and Brenda in with her. ‘Sides, I’m from Utah. You can’t go to the airport without seeing signs like these ones welcoming missionaries home. I drew on my memories of those. Glitter’s a staple in Mormon households and I had plenty of friends in the church.”

He chuckled, grabbed the sign from you to hold it to the side, and wrapped his other arm around you. “I love it.”

“I’m glad.” Pulling back just enough to look up at him, your smile took over your face. “I’ve been waiting to celebrate the good news Dr. Chowdhury gave us on Tuesday with you. Couldn’t wait for you to get home.”

“Can’t wait ‘til we get home either,” he murmured, dropping the thick poster board to the ground. It hit the floor and leaned against your legs with a wobble. Within the next moment, his hands were on your face, drawing it up to his.

There was a slight moment where you saw his eyes asking if you were okay with this, but you really didn’t give a damn about the paparazzi. You’d gotten good news and you were finally with the one person you wanted to celebrate it with. So you gripped his shirt in your fingers and raised up on your toes to press your lips to his.

You were never one for PDA, but you sure as hell weren’t one to break a kiss with Sebastian either. The entire would could go to hell for all you cared. You had a great shot at being cancer free in a month, a fuckin’ amazing husband to celebrate with, and life couldn’t get any better for you.

“Sean’s waiting outside,” you mumbled against his lips.

“Mmm… mentioning another guy… kinda kills the mood, sweetheart.”

With a giggle, you stepped out of his arms just long enough to direct him in the right direction. He wrapped an arm around your waist and grabbed your sign with his other hand. Your own arm found its place around his waist and you let him support most of your weight. Sure, you were still buzzing with excitement, but that didn’t negate the exhaustion your treatment was still causing.

“How’re you feeling? Feel up to grabbing dinner somewhere?”

“Mmm.” You considered for a moment. “Yeah. Long as I can get some decent pasta.”

He grinned down at your upturned face and pressed a quick kiss to your brow. “Anything for you.”

“Okay, girl, how are you and that sexy husband of yours so fuckin’ cute?”

Jasmin’s question made you laugh. “Did pictures from yesterday get posted?”

“I just sent you links. Seriously. You guys at the Met? At Thanksgiving? Now at the fuckin’ airport?” You put your phone on speaker and set it beside you. Maybe it was the exertion of surprising Seb at the airport yesterday, but you were so exhausted. Your entire body was pudding. Holding your phone up to your ear was hard enough. “Seriously, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you two got married for real. For, like, true love or some shit like that. Cause that’s what the pictures online make it look like.”

“True love. Like in Enchanted? Seb would be Giselle, and I’d be… whoever McDreamy plays. I forgot his name. Obviously I’m far too logical to be Giselle.”

“And Seb brought you into his wonderful, magical life of hope and optimism.”

“Oh, fuckin’ shut up. Don’t make this cheesy analogy worse than I intended it to be.”

“Since when are you two kissing, huh? Little Miss Independent? Little Miss I-Can’t-Let-Anyone-Into-My-Life-Because-I’ll-Ruin-Their-Lives? Little Miss I-Don’t-Need-Love—”

“Okay, okay, you can stop it right there.”

“Stop it right where?” She asked petulantly. “Right at looooove? Huh? Now why would you be touchy about that word? Gee, I wonder…”

“Okay stop this little bit you goin’ on. It’s not cute.”

You could just see her shit-eating grin from thousands of miles away. “Babe.”

“Babe,” you returned, glancing towards the door. Sebastian was working out. He wouldn’t join you at the hospital for another fifteen minutes at least. There was no way he would overhear this conversation. “I know what you’re getting at.”

“And?”

“And stop it. Look, I—” you cut off and took a deep breath to collect your thoughts and feelings. “I’m not stupid. I-I-I know this isn’t just… just a fake marriage anymore. Not really. There’s… there are feelings. And I’m not the best at feelings, but even I know that this isn’t really the best situation to, you know, develop actual feelings for people.”

“Shut up. Just shut up, Y/N.”

Geez. You’d never heard her so sharp.

“Look, Y/N. I love you. You know that. You’re my best friend—hell you’re practically my sister. And I know that the logical part of your brain has been analyzing every interaction you’ve been having with Sebastian and looking for any reason to yeet the fuck right out of his life as soon as you can to minimize damage, but take a fucking step back, babe.”

“To take a step back, I’d have to know where I’m actually standing.”

“Look at those pictures people posted from the airport, Y/N. Look at how Seb looks at you. How you look at him. He’s an amazing actor, but no one could fake that look.” She paused, probably for dramatic effect. “You know where you stand. Neither of you have the balls to say it yet, but you both know.”

You stared at the bag of chemicals being pumped into your body. What did it say about you that the only way to stay alive was to have chemicals pumped into your body that literally made your own cells attack each other?

“Babe?” Jaz’s voice broke through your thoughts. “You’re real quiet over there.”

“I’m just thinkin’.”

“Think out loud. I can’t help you if you’re silent.”

I think that’s the point. “I just guess I never really thought about what would happen when this is all over, you know? I let Seb con me into hoping it’d end well and that I’d have the surgery and I’d live… but I don’t think I ever really believed. Not until this week.”

“And? What do you want to happen?”

“I don’t k—”

“You do know. Y/N. You know. It’s just you and me here. What do you want to happen?”

“Jaz, it’s not that eas—”

“It is that easy, Y/N. After your surgery, what do you want to do?”

“I don’t kn—”

“Y/N!”

“I wanna stay here!” You gasped as soon as the words were out of your mouth.

“And?” Jasmin prompted quietly.

“I wanna stay with Seb,” you said, more quietly. “Holy shit.”

The silence was far too loud and, for the first time in this conversation, you were glad when Jasmin spoke. “Feels good to say it out loud, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” you breathed, closing your eyes against the sudden head rush. “Yeah it does. Fuck. Shit, I think I’m gonna puke.”

Jasmin had the gall to laugh at you. “I’ve been waiting for you to fall in love with someone forever. You’ll never make fun of me for eating ice cream and watching Criminal Minds for two weeks after a breakup again.”

Breakup?

“Though,” she continued, “I sincerely believe that you won’t go through a heartbreak with Sebastian.”

“I need you to shut up right the fuck now, Jaz.”

“Look, babe, you know I’m your guide to self-realization. You can’t—”

“No, seriously Jaz. Shut up. I-I-I don’t know if it’s the conversation or the tumor, but my head is swimming right now. I’m…” You took in a deep breath, hoping it would help. It didn’t. “I think I need to… take a nap, maybe. Eat some food. Forget about all this emotional shit for a hot minute.”

“You’re not gonna forget.”

“I’m gonna sure as hell try.” You considered how long that would last and rolled your eyes. The motion caused the pain in your head to spike and you immediately regretted it. “Until I see his stupid face, I guess. Then it’ll all come right back.”

“Mmhmm. Well, take it easy, okay? All joking aside, I’m super happy for you and you know that my number one priority is seeing that cancer eat its own ass, right? Whatever else happens in your life, we can handle. Good or bad.”

“Yeah, I know. You’re the reason I stayed alive long enough to actually get out of Wyoming. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.”

“You’re makin’ me blush, Y/N/N. Take a nap, okay? When you wake up, you’ll be back to your anti-emotional, super-logical self and the world will be right again.”

Her words forced a soft laugh from you, even as your eyes stayed closed. “Yeah, okay. Hey, I’m sure we’ll talk before then, but if we don’t… I’ll see you on the twenty-seventh.”

“Celebrating New Years in New York, bitch!” She crowed, punctuating her statement with a loud Wooo!

“New Years in New York,” you agreed, lips pulling up into a smile. “Just like we’ve dreamt of.”

Jasmin was quiet for a minute before she laughed. “Dreams do come true. You just got my dream of marrying a celebrity.”

And your dream of…

“I’ve never really had a dream.”

“We both got out of that shitty town. That was your dream. You got away from your family’s chains.”

“Did I?” You asked bitterly. “Fuckin’ reporters brought up that drama as soon as they figured out who I was. ‘Sides, Jaz… I have blood on my hands.”

“You didn’t have a choice”

“We always have a choice.”

“Your father had a choice. And he made the wrong choice every damn day.”

“I still took that choice away from him. Just like he did to me and my sister.”

“No, no, no, no. Babe, you are not going down this road again. Not now. You got amazing news earlier this week. Stop letting your dead dad ruin it.”

“My dead dad is dead because of me, Jaz.”

“It was self-defense, Y/N. Self-fucking-defense.”

This was definitely not the way you wanted your mood to go today, but you had years of practice going into this hole and your few months trying a healthier way with Sebastian just faded away. There was no crying baby to draw you from your thoughts. “There was no imminent threat. Self-defense wouldn’t hold up in court, Jaz. He was asleep. I should have just run away.”

“And leave your mom with him?”

This was an argument you and Jasmin had many times. She was the only person who knew the truth. Well, her and your sister.

You huffed heavily, ready to repeat your lines in the scene. “Well, she killed herself a few years later, so what does it fucking matter.”

You killed your abusive father, your emotionally distant mother killed herself, and your sister, who abused her own sons, killed her own abusive boyfriend.

God, why did you ever think you would end up any different?

A brittle, bitter laugh escaped your lips, sending a spark of pain from your head down to your chest. “I’m gonna take that nap now, Jaz. See you in a week.”

“Y/N, we are not ending this conversation like—”

You hung up your phone and immediately set it on silent.

It was just your luck to find an amazing guy, a guy who actually made you fall in love with him, and then realize at the last moment that you would never be able to deserve him. You would always be walking on glass, waiting for some latent gene to spark and turn you into a monster.

Yes, you wanted to stay with Seb after the surgery… but you couldn’t.

The original deal was to get a divorce after this was all over.

You had to make sure that’s what happened.

You guys didn’t really think I’d keep everyone happy forever, did you? And what about that bombshell about her killing her dad? Anyone see that coming?? Where will they go from here?

CHAPTER 25: THE COLLAPSE

#sebastian stan x you #sebastian stan x reader #sebastian x reader #sebastian x you #sebastianxyou #sebastianxreader #marvel fanfic #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader

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jackdawyt · 4 years

Video

youtube

Since my last news update in March, today I’m dissecting everything that has come out of the woodwork in April and May regarding Dragon Age 4. So, get some tea and let’s get this show on the road, because we’ve got over 4,000 words of news to delve into!

Reveal? (game shows/new hire/remaster):

Following the cancellation of E3, EA Play 2020 Live has been officially confirmed as a digital show, taking place on June 11th, at 4:00 pm PST / 7:00 pm EST.

Before the outbreak cancelled E3 2020, we knew Mike Gamble, the Project Lead on the next Mass Effect game had plans to make a physical appearance at E3/EA Play. So, the question remains, will BioWare still have a presence at EA Play this year?

Mike Gamble is one of the key members of the Mass Effect team, I highly doubt he’s talking about revealing the next Mass Effect game which is currently in very early stages of development, and won’t release until after Dragon Age 4. Perhaps, Mike back in 2019 was hinting at revealing the heavily rumoured Mass Effect Remaster this EA Play?

Earlier in May, EA had a quarterly conference call and it revealed some fascinating information regarding future unannounced titles. Currently, EA have “one more EA HD title, Four EA Partner titles and two mobiles games still unannounced”. Also, EA said "multiple titles" are set to launch on Nintendo Switch this year.

The EA HD title refers to a remaster of an EA game, hence why most people are speculating at the Mass Effect Trilogy. Venturebeat went on to officially state that this title was indeed the Mass Effect Trilogy.

So, there’s one rumoured possibility for the Mass Effect Trilogy Remaster to be revealed this EA Play, which is cool! BioWare may have a presence this year after all! But I know you all didn’t come for Mass Effect; you came for Dragon Age. So, what do we know about that franchise and a potential reveal?

Jo Berry, a Writer at EA retweeted EA Play Live’s announcement with a party emoji! 👀

This could be absolutely nothing, but at a whim, perhaps a reference to a Dragon Age 4 teaser, or EA Motive’s new I.P since she has worked within both teams....

On top of that, Brianne Battye, Writer at BioWare tweeted about her 8-year journey at BioWare. She’s very grateful for sharing her work, and the awesome people she’s worked with along the way.

Patrick Weekes replied saying they: “Cannot wait for everyone else to see what you've been working on recently. :)”

Then, Brianne said: “Right back at you :)”

Two HUGE witters on the Dragon Age team are excited for everyone else to see what they’ve all been working on recently! 👀 When I saw this tweet, I was trying to stay calm and keep my expectations low, but come on when you see a tweet like this, you just get so excited! The question is, when will we see what they’ve been working on, and is it anytime soon? Please?

Well, there is something else we need to talk about that may relate to a potential tease.

Hilary Heskett, who used to be EA’s Global Product Manager has returned to work at EA and BioWare. Put simply, she’s a Digital Marketer for BioWare.

Hilary; particularly, was heavily involved in Dragon Age: Inquisition’s marketing! In fact, the majority of her work at EA involved representing BioWare as a brand online creating trailers, key art, screenshots, packaging, and advertisements. So, it’s a fair assumption that she’ll be fulfilling the exact same role for future BioWare titles like Dragon Age 4.

With Hilary joining the team at this point in development, could the marketing stages of Dragon Age 4 soon begin, perhaps at EA Play? Or later on in 2020? Or is she going to be marketing the Mass Effect Remaster?

I sound impatient, but, in the past BioWare have a habit of starting the marketing stages of their products at least two years before an initial release.

With that, we’ve got to ask ourselves, is hiring a marketer at this point in time a mere coincidence? or is it preparation for when marketing does start? Are we on the verge of seeing Dragon Age 4 official content soon?

Not to waffle on, because we’ve got a lot to talk about in this video, but I was hired as a Digital Marketer for an app company in the UK. As I understand it, you normally enter projects, mid-to-end of production, because what would a marketer do in the early stages logically? Your role is to be there for the advertising of the product.

So, in BioWare’s case, it's my understanding that Hilary has joined the team with one year full-swing production, is she about to begin the marketing stages of the next Dragon Age game? Is the game ready for that stage? If anything, I think with Hilary’s background, she’s the perfect person to market Dragon Age 4.

On top of EA Play, Geoff Keighley announced Summer Game Fest, a new industry-wide celebration of video games. Showcasing digital news, In-game events, & playable content. EA are headlining the event with EA Play, but there are many other world premieres spread throughout the summer. So, there’s a potential for other trailer reveals later on in the year, not to mention The Game Awards.

And, there’s also this leak that shows Dragon Age 4 on a list of PS5 games from the newest issue of PlayStation magazine UK. PlayStation are having an event on June 4th, so we’ll find out if this leak is true soon enough.

If we’re going to see anything Dragon Age 4 related this year, EA Play is the biggest contender for a reveal. I know the whole world could do with that right now! At this current moment, there is no schedule for the show. However, Saria, myself, Fusselkorn and maybe other content creators will be streaming EA Play, no matter what, so turn those reminders on and come join us in our clown suits.

Development (teases/production):

Moving on to teases and development updates. Currently, BioWare are hiring a ‘Senior Outsource Producer.’

This is a pretty big deal, to those who don’t know what a ‘Senior Outsource Producer’ would do...

“Outsourcing development means to hire out any process of a business to third party. The process helps your company or organization to grow.”

To grant more perspective, during Mass Effect: Andromeda’s development, major aspects of the game's animations were outsourced to other EA studios.

However, this isn’t going to be the same for Dragon Age 4, this role is for one Producer to help the outsourcing team into a robust and comprehensive department that supports BioWare projects in all aspects of development.

I have friend in triple AAA games, and they had something to say about outsourcing regarding Dragon Age 4: “To be honest, I'd say (outsourcing is) different per studio due to scope. But with something big like Dragon Age I'd probably say outsourcing would start early to mid-production as they have a hell of a lot to do. Some studios outsource from the get go though so that's also possible. And It's rare that outsourcing starts in the final leg of development.”

What I understand from the job posting is that BioWare are looking to hire a producer who will be dedicated to outsourcing so they can establish a pipeline and maintain proper standards for outsourcing. This hiring was posted in May, so the studio might be a few months early from when they actually have to outsource. However, this process will be coming up soon in major development.

Moving on. In early April, Mark Darrah went on a twitter rampage sharing many tweets relating to Dragon Age 4. One tweet stated: “Is tweeting more going to make you all speculate more or less?”. Followed by a poll with the answers “more”, “less” & “Dragon Age 4!?”

The following week, Mark Darrah teased his three Wolf-Rook books he has placed on a shelf at home.

Later on, in the month, he decided to stack each of them, prompted with the caption: “Spoiler: these are a terrible building material…”

Just last week, Mark tweeted the Wolf-Rook book once more, with the following meme: “Dear men, what is preventing you from looking like this?”

This cheeky tease encouraged Melissa Janowicz (Gameplay Designer) to join the fun and share her own Wolf-Rook book! She said: “It's an absolutely gorgeous book. I'll treasure it for life.”

Ahhh. The secrets these books could hold about Dragon Age 4’s core concepts.... And Mark Darrah is just staking them together, making book forts out of them, as you do! 😂 Maybe one day, we’ll uncover the secrets held within every page, but that day is not yet upon on.

On the same memey day, Chris Anderson, (Application Development/Publishing Support at BioWare) tweeted: “Other people are teasing things, so what the hell, here's an image that I used in something I was working on today.” With a pink image shown.

Chris and Melissa followed a Twitter conversation about pink being the “perfect colour for when you need something that screams temp.”

Basically, this pink actually has some context for the development of Dragon Age 4. ‘Temp’ means temporary textures, the first blocked out layer of a texture before actual detailed textures are added.

This can refer to many scenes or models in the early texturing phases, as art assets are still in the approval stages. On a wild, out-there whim, perhaps the team are wrapping up a trailer for a reveal? Maybe?... please?

John Epler (Narrative Director) shared his most controversial opinion of all time:

I loved the Hinterlands, but as a fan of the previous Dragon Age game’s ‘linear with freedom' approach, I appreciate John’s take on open world’s since Dragon Age: Inquisition, perhaps this will shape the way forward for future BioWare titles?

Alix Wilton Regan, voice actress of the Female British Inquisitor retweeted Autumn Witch’s poll asking if people believe the Inquisitor will return as a voiced appearance in Dragon Age 4. Alix tweeted: “C’mon #DAI Fans, you know what to do ;)”

Patrick Weekes replied to Alix’s post with an eye's emoji 👀.... I think I speak for everyone when I say, in some capacity, the Inquisitor has got to return in the next game!

In another tweet, Patrick Weekes teased potential new companions when a Twitter trend placed 5 Dragon Age characters in 6 different camps went around the platform.

When choosing their preferred camp, Patrick Weekes tweeted: “Finally, in Camp 7, it's turned into a bit of a mess, with coffee grounds spilled everywhere and the couch inexplicably on fire after a drinking game gone wrong. But that's another story.”

Of course, there’s not much to tear apart here, but we have acknowledgement of the next party members! It sounds like they’re a wild bunch already!

In early April, Mark Darrah answered a few current development tweets:

So, that’s...Splendid.

Karin Weekes (Editor) tweeted that they “got to sort/catalog/document updates to made-up languages at work today.”

Following that tweet, @ladyiolanthe asked Karin: “Do you think BioWare might ever be able to release Qunari, Dwarvish, and Elvhen lexicons in a World of Thedas Volume 3 sort of book? Or is that unlikely since they're ciphers and maybe there isn't a standardized grammatical structure, etc?”

Karin replied with: “That’s an interesting idea - I, for one, would find it a hoot! I might send out some feelers…” Any books of made-up languages I can get my hands on would be greatly appreciated!

Alain Baxter, (‘Production guy’) tweeted: “BioWare review of content today. All I can say is “Scriplet”. 😎

Apparently a ‘Scriptlet’ is an action verb. Alain is teasing premature scripts as they ‘perform their function’ So, something exciting is going down in the scripts, to be worked on in-engine. Or maybe it’s just an inside joke?

John Epler tweeted a great design message about “how 90% of ‘bad’ decisions are, in fact, the best decision at the time. For John, that will always be the camera zoomed conversations in DA: I. People didn’t like it, and asked why not just make them full scenes. But that’s not the decision they make in-house. It was 'make them simple conversations or else cut them'. Game dev is all about making the best decision you can at the time, with the resources you have .A lot of stuff you thought was weird or awkward came down to a gut call of 'this is the best I can make this and I trust it's good enough'. Sometimes we're right, sometimes not.”

Awesome words to think on, Dragon Age 4 will be amazing, I’m sure, but just remember to set your expectations right and realise everything design-wise, happens for a reason.

Shifting to other design aspects. Jos Hendricks (Senior Level Designer) tweeted:

Mike Jungbluth (Animation Director) tweeted: “Just reviewed something in game that hit THIS LEVEL! Hot damn, moments like this are what I live for.”

Both tweets are incredibly excited and telling of development for Dragon Age 4, it sounds like they’re building and prototyping an epic scene equivalent in scale to the attack at Haven scene? Perhaps, Solas destroying the Veil? Who knows, but it sounds epic, and I’m living for both dev.'s enthusiasm!

For the final tweet regarding the development side is from Åsa Roos (Principle UX Designer)

A UX designer writing about Solas? That must be for codex entries? Right? More lore on our Rebel God!

Unannounced Dragon Age Game:

In my previous March news update, I discussed brashly about the developers on Dragon Age 4 still claiming that this project has not officially been announced yet, however, The Dread Wolf Rises teaser in 2018 certainly alluded to an announcement regarding the next Dragon Age title. Following this story, we have many sources providing clarity on Dragon Age 4’s current ‘unannounced’ situation.

Patrick Weekes confirmed that they are “working on an unannounced game in the Dragon Age universe.”

Patrick said: “We would LOVE to be able to say more. We are really excited about what we’re working on. But we can’t share anything right now. Sorry!”

In April 2019, I painted this unannounced situation rather conspiratorial, I said that perhaps the Dragon Age dev’s can’t share anymore on the next game because Anthem was the next project, and EA are forcing them to not speak on Dragon Age. In an attempt to maintain the crowd by not letting BioWare developers regard Dragon Age 4 as the next working project in the works.

However, I don’t think it’s that deep. I think the developers are just under an NDA, and literally can’t speak about the game.

In Episode 121 of the Anthem-based ‘Freelancer Codex’ Podcast - as a guest, Melissa Janowicz shared that the developers on the secret Dragon Age team cannot talk about the next game, in fact, they can barely talk about the contents of The Dread Wolf Rises teaser trailer.

Chris Anderson also emphasised this same point in a tweet:

As a side not, someone asked Chris why not lie and come up with fake answers to fool the fans, and Chris said: “That can, unfortunately, get me in nearly as much trouble!”

Which shows the validity and value in BioWare developer tweets. The developers can’t just lie about the project either. Which honestly helps someone like me out.

As we know, a game is coming, yet it’s still is very much unannounced, probably because as Jason Schreier reported in 2018, Dragon Age 4 is going to change at least 5 times in the next two years, perhaps BioWare don’t want to show us anything because they don’t want to set anything in stone, or show gameplay that is not representative of the final game.

But that doesn’t extend to a CGI trailer, or a full title drop, Maker knows that would be amazing, and is within the realm of possibility.

New Lore/Fun:

We have some new lore, and other fun things I wanted to share.

Dragon Age Comic Writer, Nunzio DeFillipis talked HUGELY about the red lyrium idol and what was originally planned for their comics.

Nunzio recently mentioned in the Unofficial Bioware Forums that the comic characters from Deception were originally chasing the red lyrium idol.

Nunzio stated that the original plan for the comics would've had the characters retrieve the red lyrium idol. Only to have Solas take it back. Eluding to the idol's planned whereabouts before the plot changed since Joplin's cancellation and BioWare's shift regarding this idol in the comics.

Does this still mean that the location of the red lyrium idol is most likely in the hands of Solas and might only be discovered in Dragon Age 4? Or does the next protagonist have a shot at retrieving the idol before Solas finds it?

It seems like a bummer that the original comic idea was scrapped and the writers were forced to change narrative direction regarding this particular idol.

As a funny tweet I saw. Emily (Domino) Talyor tweeted using her overheard in the office hashtag:

BioWare dev’s can’t even tell their kids, folks.

And, regarding the Fuzzy Freaks livestream. Patrick Weekes’s response to my question, asking how does Solas kill dwarves in their sleep if they have no connection to the Fade, was “very effectively.” This will be a mystery I will personally be investigating when we have our hands on the game.

Considering it was really fun for those who watched the Fuzzy Freaks livestream, I’m going to share other silly takeaways:

Patrick Weekes doing a New York accent for the Carta Dwarf is amazing!

“DREAD DUMBASS” - is a jokey dialogue option that Karen Weekes scribbled notes for future reference.

Patrick likes soft romances and happy endings! IRONICALLY.

Patrick’s style of writing is less high fantasy and more modern.

@DrunkDalish, Co-founder of Dragon Age Day interviewed both Karen and Patrick Weekes. As a lover of Dragon Age lore, these interviews reveal so many loving tidbits that you should read for yourself. However, something I noted that was very significant regarding the future is based on Masked Empire’s ending. So, spoilers for that, but Felassan’s fate isn’t what it seems. Perhaps this elf could come back in the future if needed.

Wellbeing:

And, we come to the last topic, this one is centred on the BioWare staff’s wellbeing. Last year, there was a Kotaku article revealing the crunch and working conditions at BW, there was a lot of worry and confusion in the air that the people working on these games were struggling mentally because of senior management and many other reasons. With that in mind, I’m dedicating a section in these news updates to the wellbeing of the developers, any signs/tweets of positivity and hope will be shared in an effort to see if there has been any change in the BioWare offices since Anthem’s release.

It seems like things are going pretty well and people seem happy and optimistic about the next Dragon Age.

If there are any major updates to a Dragon Age 4 tease at EA Play, I'll be sure to make an update video, but otherwise, be sure to join our livestream as see for ourselves what waits us this EA Play.

Let me know your thoughts down below, what do you think about a potential EA Play teaser, where are your expectations at?

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felassan · 3 years

Photo

Article: ‘The Most Powerful Woman in Gaming Wants to Make EA Loved Again’

Laura Miele is helping direct the company toward a future where it’s more attuned with consumers.

One of the first things Laura Miele did when she became chief studios officer of Electronic Arts Inc. three years ago was to gather 19 video game influencers in a conference room. “What do you want me to hear? Lay it on me,” she recalls asking them. “One guy sitting at the corner of the table, he just said, ‘I don’t understand why you don’t give players what they’re asking for.’ ”

[rest of article under cut for length, pasted as Bloomberg has an article read limit]

It’s something many gamers have wondered about EA for years. The $40 billion company, one of the biggest in gaming, is responsible for Battlefield, Madden NFL, and other megahit franchises. But many gamers have long seen EA as a necessary evil, resenting the direction in which it took some games and bristling at its aggressive attempts to extract money by charging extra for digital items in games that cost as much as $70 upfront. This dissatisfaction was no secret in 2018: Gamers spent their days filling up Reddit and other message boards with free advice for EA—but many felt its decision-makers weren’t listening.

EA’s leadership knows it has to improve that relationship, and Miele is a key player in its efforts to do so. Her focus group asked for new content for Star Wars Battlefront II and requested new types of games. Miele quickly assigned 70 people to the Battlefront development project, which dramatically improved its net promoter score, a measure of how likely people are to recommend the game. She also prompted EA to create a skateboarding game and committed to reintroducing its college football franchise, the two genres at the top of the influencers’ list.

In a sense, the guy at the meeting became a stand-in for all of EA’s long-suffering customers in Miele’s eyes. “I wanted to do right by this player,” she says.

As chief studios officer, Miele manages 6,000 staffers and thousands of contractors globally. She oversees EA’s 24 studios, where she makes personnel decisions and sets strategy, and she’s reshaped how the company uses analytics to create and market its games.

In the process she may have become the most powerful woman in gaming. In a 2019 International Game Developers Association survey, fewer than 30% of the more than 1,100 respondents were women, and few if any hold a more central role at such an important company. “It’s a tough place for a woman,” says Peter Moore, who was Miele’s boss when he was EA’s chief operating officer. “It wasn’t always smooth sailing, but she battled her way through.”

Proving good intentions is more important for EA than ever, as the business model of gaming continues to shift in ways that have the potential to alienate customers. Like its rivals, the company is increasing its focus on free-to-play games, making money through sales of digital products such as outfits and weapons for characters.

There are signs it’s succeeding. Apex Legends, EA’s free-to-play hero shooter game, has posted more than $1 billion in sales since it was first published in 2019, and it continues to grow. “The way to succeed with free-to-play games like that is to listen to and engage your customer base and earn their loyalty through incremental purchases,” says Doug Clinton, managing partner of the venture capital firm Loup Ventures, who says Miele deserves much of the credit for Apex Legends. “It feels like a proof point for her that the company is adapting well beyond traditional disk sales.”

Miele, 51, was born in San Francisco but grew up on the north shore of Lake Tahoe. She got her start in games—the kind that require a board—during family nights, when she pitted herself against her brother in Monopoly, Clue, Yahtzee, and backgammon. While attending the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, she worked at architectural companies. By the time she dropped out she’d moved on from receptionist positions to more senior roles, while gaining a reputation for organizing lunch-hour card games with her co-workers.

Miele landed a job as a project manager at Westwood Studios, a video game developer best known for Command and Conquer, in 1996. She eventually took over all marketing for its parent company, Virgin Interactive.

It wasn’t always a hospitable atmosphere: Miele remembers her colleagues expecting her to take notes at meetings, then clean up afterward. “That is just not something I would do today,” she says. “I adapted a lot because I was so passionate about what I was doing. I found my voice along the way.”

When EA acquired Westwood in 1998, she stayed on. At the time, the company did revenue forecasting by looking at sales data once a month and putting together spreadsheets by hand. Miele was tasked with developing more advanced analytics. She hired a group of data analysts, nicknamed “the Jedi,” and had them build EA’s first statistical regression models to examine sales trends, seasonality, and preorders. It took almost two years to put the system in place, but it overhauled the company’s business processes, and executives were soon using it to determine how to invest in advertising and promotions. “I loved how data and analytics can inform your judgment and your gut instinct,” Miele says.

Miele also decided to make one major break with EA’s existing business practices. In 2011 about 80% of game advertising budgets were spent on TV ads. But she saw how much time gamers spent online and decided to spend the bulk of the ad budget for Battlefield 3 on digital, downplaying other types of ads and cutting the TV ad budget to only 30%.

Messing around with the plan for Battlefield 3 was a good way to make people nervous. Miele remembers two executives calling her in for a meeting and demanding to know why they weren’t seeing billboards for the game as they drove in to the office. “It was scary for me, too, and I don’t blame our executives questioning me on that,” she says. But the game ended up being EA’s fastest-selling, moving more than 5 million copies in its first week. From that point, Miele’s marketing strategy became the standard for the company.

When EA signed a 10-year deal with Walt Disney Co. in 2013, Miele became Star Wars general manager. In 2014 she took over publishing operations, marketing, and other key areas, first in the North American region, then globally in 2016. At the time, the game industry was moving from physical disks to digital downloads, transforming its relationship with retail partners such as Walmart Inc. and Best Buy Co.

Miele was in charge of smoothing things over, explaining that EA would start competing with them for customers even as the retailers accounted for the largest portion of the revenue. “I never said to them, ‘Hey, see you later, we are moving on,’ ” she says. “It was, ‘How can we move forward together?’ ” EA began making physical cards with digital credits that its retail partners could sell at their stores, allowing them to share in the revenue from digital sales.

EA’s studios are spread around the globe, and Covid-19 altered Miele’s routine radically. “It was a very difficult year, and I’m really proud about how our company showed up,” she says. “I considered myself a wartime leader last year. You had to get in a bunker with everybody.”

Days became an endless progression of Zoom calls. To keep up with gamers, Miele started spending evenings listening to Clubhouse chats while answering work emails. Because she hasn’t been on the road, she’s also had more time to dine at home and play board games or Apex Legends and The Sims with her 16-year-old twins. As the pandemic retreats in the U.S., her schedule might change, but she still envisions providing more flexibility to her employees to work from home and office. “I do think we’re going to have a different work environment as we go forward,” she says.

Miele is itching to get back to the studio visits. She’s helping steer EA further toward smartphones. The company plans to release mobile versions of Apex Legends globally this year and spent $2.1 billion in April for Glu Mobile Inc., a mobile game publisher, while also preparing the next releases in its existing franchises. “I think the next Battlefield and the mobile shooter games, along with how successful the M&As come out will be key litmus tests of her management this year,” says Matt Kanterman, an analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence. “Her scope is clearly rising.”

— With Dina Bass and Jason Schreier

[source]

#video games #interesting..#long post #longpost

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wordynerdygurl · 4 years

Text

Happy Endings

Author's Note: A little Loki one shot based on a friend's suggestion! It's carnal but fun!

Summary: You broke your word. Loki has an idea for a just punishment...

Pairing: Loki x Female Reader

Warnings: Dom/sub dynamics, masterbation, SMUT

You knew it was wrong. Loki had told you not to, had made you promise, in fact. And yet… when he had left on a mission, you couldn't help yourself.

It was the missing him, you see. When Loki was around he was an unending source of distraction. Practical jokes, silly pranks, little goofy games that filled your days with fun.

But, oh, the nights you spent together. When he would use those godly hands to twist and tweak, tease and torment, tickle and tangle you to more orgasms than you'd ever considered possible. Leaving you weak and whimpering in his strong arms, curled over his chest panting, whispering words like "love" and "forever".

It wasn't as if these feelings were one-sided. Far from it. Loki offered himself freely, when no one else could see, giving into the gentleness of shared affection behind closed doors.

And Loki's skill at living life to its mischievous best really shone brightest in the dark of night. You had learned to watch for the subtle change of his person. A stiffer posture. A lifted brow. A lip, turned up on one side, not a smile but not a frown. All signs that your God was up to something.

Gripping your hand just a hair tighter than normal. Tugging you to him a touch firmer than needed. Wandering fingers trailing over your bare arm, exposed shoulder, the swell of your hip. Loki found a way to express his deeper needs before you ever found the bedroom.

When Loki kissed you, forget it. Time did this funny thing where it slowed down. His thinner top lip, grounding the force of his intentions, that full bottom lip coaxing your mouth to part. Sweeping his tongue over yours, invading you, inviting you to attack him in return.

Every shared breath stretched outward, reaching towards the end of eternity, even as your heart thumped wildly to a rhythm no drum could hope to match. As your kiss dragged on your body sped up. Finding his shoulders shirt covered, you worked his buttons free furiously, flinging the fabric off of him to fall on the floor.

Pressing into you with a languid lounge, Loki deepened your lip lock, licking the roof of your mouth, sucking your bottom lip. You scrambled to unsnap his slacks, sliding them over his trim hips in seconds, showing his stiffening skin some serious study. "Hmm… careful kitten."

Knowing that guttural groan was created by you for you, made your own center clench. The power of bringing your God such pleasure was so arousing, it flooded your senses… and your under clothes.

"Undress for me. Go slow. I want to see you, pet."

Shivering from sheer sensual overload, you took a shaky step back, watching as Loki settled himself on the edge of your bed. Elbows resting on knees, hands clasped, hair tumbling over his face, Loki is a rapt, if naked, audience.

Drawing yourself up tall, you cheekily cock a shoulder higher, as if you were a simpering Hollywood Silver Screen starlet. The smile slowly falls from your face as you see Loki's. He's hungry, but patient. A panther after prey.

You can't break away from his eyes. Looking only at Loki you start to open your blouse. One button at a time, taking as much time as possible, per Loki's request.

When you've finished there, you don't remove your shell, instead you keep it on as you play with your skirt. You twirl. The move lifts your hem, exposing a slice of thigh, and Loki shifts for a closer look. Bringing your hands down in mock bashfulness, you turn away from your dark God, as you unzip and open the fastener. With a woosh it pools at your feet exposing your floral printed panties to a searing gaze.

Risking a look over your shoulder, you spy Loki, sitting up straight. His hands roam over his thick thighs in gentle caresses. Long and hard, the towering power of his erection is begging for attention.

"Turn around."

You do. You want to. And when he asks in that shredded sigh, how could you possibly deny him?

So here you are, in ivory knee high socks, your combat boots still laced tight. The flowers on your drawers matching the lacy designs on your bra. Barely covered by your shirt, the hunter green a lovely compliment to your flushed skin, you felt exposed.

Loki extended his hand. "Shirt."

Shimmying out of your shirt sleeves, you slid the silken top off your shoulders, catching it by the cuffs. You handed it to Loki wordlessly. Without his prompting, your hands brushed over your breasts, slipping the satin straps free one at a time, adding it to Loki's collection.

Growling at the sight of your bare breasts, "Come to me."

It's just two steps, but Loki stands, meeting you halfway. His hands circle your hips, tilting you back, your cloth covered core grinding against his shameless length. Loki raises one of your legs, hooking it over his hip, in an effort to touch more of you.

His kisses, hard and hot, pepper your jaw line. One hand cradles your neck, preventing your breaking away, forcing you to accept his talented tongue's carnal caresses. The other, oh that magnificent bastard, is palming your ass cheek driving Loki's firmness against your fabric covered folds.

Husking into your ear, "Were you good while I was away, little one? Did you keep your hands off of my pretty pussy, like you promised?"

"I… I…" You were over stimulated and stuttering. Your mind shouted, TRUTH! Your body screamed, LIE! Your mouth stammered as Loki licked the shell of your ear before nipping the lobe.

"It's alright, pet. I already know the sad truth." His hand fisted in your hair, yanking you back, until Loki's pure flame blue eyes burned into your own.

Gulping hard, "You… you do?"

Sinking into a sinful smile, nodding, "Oh yes. I know how you touched yourself in the dark of night."

"But! Loki…"

"How you came, hard and fast, with my name on your lips and my cock on your mind.”

Your cheeks flamed. Tingling, your scalp burned in Loki's tightening grip. "Isn't that right, little dove? You are insatiable and inconstant…" Licking the column of your throat, biting your exposed tendon, "But you are mine. So… I will be merciful."

"Thank you… thank you…" Tears of gratitude welled in your eyes.

"Sit down on the bed, pet. Open your legs… wide."

Loki stood between your thighs, towering over you, his steel strength bobbing close to your hungry mouth. You opened up, eager to accept him, "No. Not tonight little one. You have to atone for breaking your promise."

That voice was velvet. Soft and sensual, a luxury of accented language, even when ordering you to lewdness. "No hands either. Eyes on me, pet. I'll know if you look away."

And so you watched as Loki's long fingers traced a line down his taut abdominals. Lingering languidly on his muscular thighs before taking his heavy heat into his own hand. Drops of precum, liquid crystals, adorned his swollen skin, crowning him your king. With his thick thumb, brushing the natural lubricant across the rose red of his head, Loki stroked down his shaft.

"If only you had behaved. Then your little hand would be wrapped around me. They are so small, your wonderous hands. I never feel more godly than when your petite palm is petting me."

Your mouth is watering. Loki's hand is rising and falling over his marbled manhood in smooth motions. A whimper escapes you.

Smirking at your wantonly whine, "Oh… did you want a taste?"

Breathless, "Yes… please!"

Speeding up his self assault, Loki shakes his head, dark tendrils tossed from his shoulders. "Too bad. You've been wicked."

But he can't stop his own moan at the sight of you. Leaning off the bed, the gusset of your underwear dark from damp, still in your knee high socks and boots. You're a pornographic pixie, looking up at him from under the hood of your sooty lashes, eyes more pupil than iris. Part girl, part grown, all worked up by the man handling himself in front of you.

"Open your mouth, pet!" It's a strained order as Loki's grip on his flesh fortifies. Of course you comply willingly, waiting for his body's brand, almost drooling over Loki's silken steel.

Pumping himself, pushing into his palm the way he so often pummels you, he's moments from release. You're ready, greedy even, hungering for Loki's just punishment. His free hand grasps your chin, steadying you, "I'm cumming, kitten… It is all for you. Everything is for you!"

With that intense whisper, Loki reaches his climax, your tongue collecting as much as possible. He strokes himself once more, milking the last of his cum into your waiting mouth. "No. Don't swallow. Not yet."

Loki holds your mouth wide for a beat, adoration in his eyes, his delicious discharge dripping over your lips. With a pouty whine from you, Loki frees your jaw, "Go on, then."

You swallow thickly. Without waiting for his direction your hands cup Loki's peachy bottom. Pulling him and his still hard cock to your mouth, licking along his length you keen happily when you hear, "Gods!"

He lets you go a few minutes more before stepping away from you with an audible pop. "It's punishment, pet… remember?"

Poking out your bottom lip, huffing at him, "I didn't want to be bad."

"Oh? So I suppose it was the fault of your fidgeting fingers? Or maybe your silky slit is to blame?" He was teasing you now, laying down on the bed, taking you with him.

"No. Not that… it's just… I missed you so much. The bed… it's so big when you're not here to fill it! And… Everything is so boring without you messing around and pulling pranks! I guess I just felt closer to you when I was…"

"Breaking your promise?" Loki had gathered you to his chest, his fingers tracing symbols you could never hope to understand on your rib cage.

Sighing, "Yes. I broke my promise… I said I wouldn't touch myself while you were gone but I did. So… I'm sorry."

"That's all that ever needs to be said about it, little one." Loki tucked a strand of hair behind your ear, "Besides, I rather enjoyed your punishment!"

Rising up on your elbow, you smile at Loki. "Of course you did… but what about me?"

"I already told you kitten. It's all for you." With a growl Loki rolled on top of you, pining you beneath his heavenly body.

You squealed in happiness. How could you not? Loki was yours, he was home, and he was hard. Again. So, you lived happily ever after.

Tags: @archy3001 @iamverity @jessiejunebug @nonsensicalobsessions @jamielea81 @brokenthelovely @thefallenbibliophilequote @mizfit2 @alexakeyloveloki

#loki smut #hot loki #loki x reader #loki fanfiction #loki x you #mcu smut #mcu fic #mcu x reader

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