#and they also tend to crowd and follow the bandwagon | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

delightfullygrace · 4 years

Text

The Enneatypes Playing Among Us

Type 1 — As a crew member, they’re the first to finish their tasks and will get upset if they’re interrupted by an emergency meeting. Will avoid voting anyone without reason. As an imposter, they only kill when they’re 100% certain no one will see them; mainly stay quiet in chat and avoid outright lying, but will point out when others are “acting sus.” Won’t support theories that say their fellow imposter should be voted off and may skip to avoid throwing them under the bus.

Type 2 — As a crew member, they pick someone and follow them around, both for safety in numbers and so they can vouch for them when they see them complete a visual task. They try to make sure everyone has a chance to speak in emergency meetings. As an imposter, they overthink every decision because they’re afraid they’ll get caught, so they mostly end up sabotaging. They use vents sparingly. They’re great with double kills, especially if their fellow imposter takes the initiative. They naturally end up flocking in crowds, so they avoid suspicion there.

Type 3 — As a crew member, they’re both completing their tasks as quickly as possible and watching everyone to see who’s sus. When in a meeting, they’re the first to accuse anyone and will wholeheartedly fight for them to be voted off. Probably won’t say much if they were wrong about it; they just immediately move on to try and find who the imposter actually is. As an imposter, they’re very quick. They use venting and sabotaging to their advantage and will work while walking. When in a meeting, they’ll pick someone to actively accuse and will avoid any suspicion being put on them by throwing someone else under the bus every time (including fellow imposters, if people seem to be catching on). People usually believe them.

Type 4 — As a crew member, they’re disappointed that they don’t get to be the imposter. They have a balance of watching other people, completing tasks, and running around. They may call an emergency meeting if they’re being chased or they believe they know who the imposter is, but they’re not the type to abuse the button. They’ll share their own opinions during meetings, but don’t usually actively accuse others nor demand everyone listen to them. They just want to be sure their thoughts are heard. As an imposter, they may jokingly call people sus, but won’t outright demand someone be voted off. They’ll just share that they’re going to vote for someone (with hopes that you’ll follow suit.) They enjoy having a unique role, so they may not always fake tasks; they may just run around from room to room, killing people when the mood hits and jumping into the vent to get away. They don’t take their fellow imposter into account too much; they won’t throw them under the bus, but they won’t defend them either. Very much of an independent killer.

Type 5 — As a crew member, they’re pretty quiet, usually connecting the dots right off the bat and trying to find the imposter. They don’t speak up immediately, usually waiting until they’ve acquired enough evidence to accuse someone. If they’re really sure someone is imposter, they will probably call their teammates dumb for not listening to them. They do their tasks as they pass them, but mostly focus on watching the cams and the map. As an imposter, they try to frame people as solidly as possible. Like to turn out the lights often. They rely on vent kills when two people are standing near each other, both completing a task so they can’t see the room around them; whichever one didn’t die looks sus af. They will point that out during an emergency meeting as well. Won’t try to defend their fellow imposter, but won’t try to accuse them either. If fellow imposter looks suspicious, they’ll play that to their advantage to get eyes off themselves.

Type 6 — As a crew member, they find inconsistencies with people’s stories during meetings and point them out. They’re highly suspicious of everyone, so they actively look for people to trust rather than the imposter specifically. They look for opportunities to watch someone complete a visual task and immediately let everyone know “[insert color here] is safe.” They also point out when someone would’ve had the perfect opportunity to kill them, but didn’t, “so they must be crew.” Of course, they complete their tasks diligently as well. As an imposter, they try to form a band of people who trust them by using the same aforementioned tactics, letting people know who’s safe. Being protected by them makes people want to protect them in return, so they’ll be actively defended for most of the game. When it’s down to the last few people, they’ll throw their defenders under the bus and act betrayed, “I don’t want to believe it, but it has to be [this color.] That was just way too sus. Dang, I really trusted you.” Their killing method is to off their allies and frame people who suspected them. They use sabotaging to their advantage, but not overly so. They don’t vent too often; it doesn’t make for good alibies.

Type 7 — As a crew member, they switch between running around aimlessly, actually completing tasks, and just watching other people. If they get bored and no one’s died yet, they may hit the panic button just to tell the imposters to “make something happen.” They may have some fun with chat during emergency meetings; calling people sus for no reason, asking how everyone’s doing, etc. Don’t like to actively accuse anyone, but if someone convinces them, they’ll be like “Ohhhh tru. Guys, vote [this color.]” 5s and 6s may easily take advantage of the trusting 7. As an imposter, they try to do a good job with framing people, shifting blame, and killing properly, but if the game’s going too slow or there aren’t enough opportunities to kill, then they may pull off some riskier moves. That is, killing someone right in front of someone else, then reporting the body and saying that person did it, or jumping into a big cluster of people (like at cams) and killing one so they know it has to be someone in that cluster, but who? Everyone definitely forgets who was in that group, so suspicion is eventually shaken. They just like interesting games. Regardless of role, they may go to lights and flick off the switches as people try to fix them.

Type 8 — As a crew member, they may occasionally forget to actually do their tasks, instead running around trying to find anyone who’s acting sus. Will absolutely call an emergency meeting if someone seems to be following someone else or is standing still when a sabotage happens. Will accuse that person actively until they’re voted off. They just wanna keep their crew safe; if they don’t believe you’re a crew member, you’re screwed. As an imposter, they can be kinda reckless. They actively sabotage and run around killing as many people as possible. The game maybe over by the time you realize anyone even died; they’re quick, especially if they have a fellow imposter they feel can rely on. They will not throw them under the bus as long as they can help it. They’d pair well with Type 2s, as they’re the type to take the initiative for a double kill and they give Type 2 the opportunity to kill while they’re sabotaging. Very attentive to what their fellow imposter is doing.

Type 9 — As a crew member, they tend to be pretty relaxed; they complete their tasks as needed then go watch cams or sit in waiting for the imposter to see them. If someone comes close, they’ll run away and point out the sus behavior when given opportunity. During emergency meetings, they don’t say much unless they’re called on by someone else or they believe they know who the imposter is. As an imposter, they act similarly to when they’re crew, but will slip in a kill when they see an opportunity. Don’t really try to frame people, but definitely hop on the bandwagon when someone else is accused. Not big on sabotaging, but may turn out the lights or shut the doors from time to time. May hang out in the vents for awhile.

34 notes · View notes

tu-mint · 3 years

Text

“The Lemonade” Guy Pt. 1

When Jade realizes her feelings for a certain schoolmate go beyond a friendship, she makes a tremendous effort to rid herself of it.

Song Inspo(s): Wicked Games - Kiana Lede; I Won’t Say I’m In Love - Hercules

International AU!

Word Count: 4k+

There was rarely ever something Jade tried to avoid other than the topic of Manu. The reactions that came upon his death were much too triggering to her anger, and she refused to allow that level of rage to overcome her again; thankfully this was not the case. Now while that was a relief, the actual issue being avoided proved to be almost as troubling, and the foreign girl did not realize the matter until recently.

UA High was bustling with noise and movement, people curious about the UA students from different parts of the world. Jade was blessed to have been shown secret entrances and passageways by Ren as to avoid news reporters. While it wasn’t anything she wasn’t unfamiliar with, the second year student knew uncomfortable and personal questions would turn up if given the chance, so she decided staying in the shadows would be safe for now. Stepping onto school grounds, Jade found Maeda, Kubo and Ren chatting with two students she could not recognize. One was a girl with long cyan hair and a bright expression, and the other a boy with his head turned away from the trio. Hm...maybe they're new kids? It was difficult to tell whether or not they were around the same age as her, but Jade concluded they were older looking at their height. The girl craned her neck to look over her shoulder then gasped loudly.

"Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshisthisher?!" She sped towards the international student and stretched a hand outward, grinning widely. "Nejire Hado, third year here at the original UA! You must be Jade, I was just asking your friends about you, and I heard you were from Los Angeles! Tell me what it's like! Is the food really good? What about the school? Is it different from the UA here? Ooh, what about your father? Is it true about him being a Pro Hero? What's his quirk? Is it like yours? Wha--"

"Easy Hado, she just got here," Ren intervened with a light chuckle. "Well, she already introduced herself, so that leaves the guy hiding behind her, Tamaki Amajiki, also a third year student. He's a bit shy as you can see." Jade leaned on her side to find the indigo haired male from earlier, head hung low and arms crossed tightly. She gave a small smile when he peeked up from the locks curtaining his face, pleased when he gave a single nod.

"It's nice to meet you both," chirped the foreign girl with a bow to which Hado squealed.

"And she's respectful! Ah, such an intriguing new person to meet--oh! I have to introduce you to Mirio, you'll love him, most girls do. Now where is he--" She scampered away with Tamaki in tow, slipping into the sea of students and staff members. Jade watched on with a scowl on her face. Most girls do? What is she trynna say, that I'm gonna be part of some bandwagon? She felt a hand on her shoulder pulling her out of her thoughts.

"She didn't mean it like that," came Ren's voice again. "Hado has a very blunt and unconventional way of speech, don’t mind her."

"It's something she can work on considering she wants to pursue becoming a Pro Hero," Maeda interjected, her tone flat but firm. Jade hummed in agreement and looked amongst the other pupils. Upon seeing the many faces, her eyes became fixed on one that stood out.

In a large crowd of females stood a tall and bulky male, his smile gleaming and proud. He appeared to be speaking to them, a round of giggles following soon after whatever he’d said. There were a few international students Jade recognized taking pictures with him and handing him slips of paper, presumably with some kind of social contact on it. That must be who the girl was talking about seeing he has an entire--wait a minute! It wasn’t until he looked up that she realized why the male seemed familiar. That’s the guy who I ran into at the entrance! The one who gave me that stupid nickna--

“Gemstone!”

Jade cursed inwardly as he advanced in her direction. She glanced at the entourage behind him, their faces surprised or annoyed, and it didn’t help that some of them were now moving closer too. Her feet were glued in place as the male stood before her, a cheeky grin evident on his face. Blonde hair, blue eyes, nice body...definitely the same guy from the first day.

”Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten my name already,” he chuckled, crossing his arms. Jade noted how the gesture made his already defined muscles tighten. An odd tension arose in her abdomen, but she quickly dismissed it and cleared her throat.

”Togata if I remember correctly.” The foreign girl bowed, remembering her manners. It was best to keep a respectful image considering the person before her was not only older, but one of the most skilled students attending the original UA. “It's good to s—“

”Togata, I need some help getting to my classes," a voice suddenly cut in. It came as a realization to Jade that a majority of the girls from earlier were now surrounding them. The person who had spoken was an international student herself, but she didn't look too pleased that all the attention was on someone else. Her hand crawled up Togata's arm in a suggestive manner before resting at his shoulder. "I'm not too familiar with UA Japan's complex," she continued, "so it would help a lot."

"Ooh wait, I think I need help too!" someone else from the crowd piped.

"I do as well!"

"Me too!"

Soon numerous hands were tugging at the tall male with pleads and demands of showing them around the school. Jade watched as Togata weakly smiled and tried to talk amongst the bunch with reason; it proved useless as they continued to grab at him from every direction. An unusual feeling rushed to her torso again, but something felt much different from earlier. In place was a strong stinging sensation, not enough to hurt but enough to generate irritation. What in the hell--

"Something wrong, Lofota?" Maeda's voice snapped Jade back into reality. Ren and Kubo were before her, curiosity etched on their features. From her peripheral line of vision she could see the bulky third year being dragged away with a familiar cyan and indigo haired duo following close behind.

"We saw Togata and his groupies approach you, but you looked as if you were ready to jump at one of them," Kubo remarked. "I personally don't mind, just give me a heads up next time so I can record it for memories." Maeda rolled her eyes at this.

Jade chuckled and shook her head. "It wasn't anything like that, guys, I think my mind was just occupied with something else. Let's try and get to class before news reporters start breaking through the gates." She walked alongside the trio and listened to them explain UA Japan's school system and the events that were set throughout the year. Despite her nonchalant attitude, the sting remained in Jade's stomach; she figured it would go away after some medication and rest.

It took a little over a month for the second year to realize that the peculiar feelings in her system were not an overnight situation. Jade took matters into her own hands and recorded when her stomach fell into any eccentric sensation, noting what, when and how much she ate and any possible patterns. When food appeared to be free of guilt, she tried looking at her sleep patterns and clothing for clues but was met with the same result. Her concern had caught Ren's attention when the medic pupil found her seated on a hospital bed speaking to Recovery Girl.

"Hon, I've ran multiple scans and checkups and found nothing," sighed the elder. "Your health is in great shape and according to your own data, it seems like you're doing just fine. Maybe try laying down, it seems this issue with your tummy is stressing you out." Jade complied wordlessly, but Ren could see that she was still in heavy thought. When Recovery Girl exited the office, she took a seat beside the bed and peered up. "Thinkin' real hard over there, aren't you?"

Jade turned on her side with a groan. "I just wanna figure out what the hell is wrong with me, it's starting to piss me off."

"What've you been doing?"

"School, hero training, eating, sleeping, the usual."

"Any foods you can think of that caused that pain?"

"No, but that's the weird part!" The foreign student sat up and pulled a leg to her chest. "This feeling I keep getting, it doesn't hurt. It just--it doesn't...I never had this before, but I'm not sure if that means I'm doing something wrong that's causing my body to react the way it does."

Ren arched her brows in search of an answer. "Can you maybe describe this 'feeling' by comparing it to something? Or perhaps using a metaphor? Just so I can understand this better."

"It...well, there's usually two kinds of reactions. At one point, my abdomen feels light but constricted, like it can't take anything in because everything is squeezed out. When that happens, I also feel my heart rate pick up, and my body feels overheated." The medic nodded and gestured to continue. "The second feeling is more like a stinging one, or like a burn--yeah, burning would be a more accurate comparison. When my stomach gets like that, I get really annoyed, but there's only so much I can do when the problem is internal. I tend to get more of the first reaction than I do the second, if that helps."

It was an interesting explanation given, and Ren understood why Recovery Girl struggled a bit providing help. She was quiet for a long time, but just as her friend was about to speak, she asked another question: "Does this ever happen around a specific time? Specific person? Maybe a certain group of people or things?"

Jade blinked before lying down again, her attention focused on the ceiling. Is there somebody or something always near me when this happens? She reeled through all the faces and names she'd ever interacted with, staff members, students, strangers, but no exact nouns came to mind that she could recall triggering this reaction. The foreign student shook her head.

"Huh, well...what's the earliest you recall first feeling these sensations?"

"I think the earliest I felt it was when I was talking to Togata and--" Almost immediately the rest of Jade's sentence died on her tongue. Ren quickly caught the abrupt end and tried to make understanding of what had just happened. The memory was clear as day in her mind, meeting Hado and Amajiki, Togata walking up to her with immaculate bulging muscles, the crowd of female students hauling him away and the indefinable feelings in her abdomen, it all began to click. However, looking over the details of that time, Jade realized that the sensations ultimately activated when she was around--

"Togata."

She whipped her head in surprise.

"Togata is the cause behind your odd abdominal feelings," Ren smiled, "which tells me this is definitely not a medical issue." She bit back a laugh at the disbelief on Jade's face. It seemed she understood what was being implied as she began shaking her head feverently.

"No no no and no, you better not say what I think you're about to say, Ishikawa."

"Aw, c'mon now Jade, you can't be upset at me! I was just trying to help you understand the cause of your stomach issues, looks like it was just butterflies the whole time."

The foreign student grimaced. "Ren, please don't."

"But it's actually cute! I personally think that you both--"

"REN I GET IT, STOP."

Jade sat in irritation until her friend ceased laughing, then hopped off the bed and brushed off her uniform. The medic pupil stood up immediately and pulled her into a hug, chuckling lightly. "Well, now that we found the root of the issue, what are you gonna do? Am I helping you plan a confession?"

"I'm gonna get rid of it.” Ren's snickering stopped. Jade's face and tone was enough to say she wasn't kidding.

"Heh, I uh...I don't think I heard you correctly?"

"Get rid of it. I'll just distance myself from Togata so that my mind can adjust it's thoughts towards him." She hurried after her friend down the hallway. Students buzzed around them, lively chatter and activity surrounding the pair.

"Wait a minute Jade, I'm not understanding how this is being helpful."

"Ren, the more time I am not near him or able to visibly see him, I'm more than a hundred percent sure that whatever these annoying feelings are will dissipate. When that happens, I can go back to being in the guy's presence without any weird aura surrounding me, but until then, I'm following a strict 'No Togata' routine."

The medic student scoffed in amusement. "Routine? Jade, that's the most ridiculous thing I've heard a UA student say. I say just let it happen and see where it goes from there. Who knows, maybe he possibly could return--"

"Ah--" Jade stopped and held a hand up. "I'm gonna stop you there for two reasons. One, the sole reason anyone should attend this school is to pursue some kind of a career, and this applies especially to me. I was sent here as a representative because UA Los Angeles trusts me to execute and display my skills as a potential Pro Hero, not to go messin' around with Japan's kids, let alone the top students. I have an entire city depending on me, Ren, I can't mess this up." She sighed and took in another breath. "Two, if anything, I am far from his type."

"His type? How can you even know that if you only ever said hi to the guy like, three times?"

"Context clues. If it isn't directly in front of you, look at everything around to find your answer."

Ren deadpanned. "And what exactly did you look at to find your answer?"

"Upbeat, lively girls," Jade replied as if it should've been an obvious answer. The pair entered the cafeteria which was more cramped than usual. Staff members were present, most likely by Nezu's word to have travelling students feel more welcomed. All Might stood among the teachers with a countless number of admirers already circled around him, all different years, sizes and appearances. A certain green haired boy appeared to be of his utmost interest as he practically shouted in the student's face. Ren chuckled at the sight, but she noticed her friend's attention was focused elsewhere.

Her gaze was closed in on a table swallowed by a swarm of students. Some were people from earlier that were practically throwing themselves at Togata, and it seemed no different as he sat at the center of the table enjoying his lunch. Hado was seated across from him, her expression as bright as ever, and beside them was a shaking Amajiki, his head rested against the structure’s surface. His nervous movements ceased, however, and Ren smiled seeing the cyan haired girl had slipped her hand into his, returning to her conversation with ease. Jade also noticed the subtle gesture, but she wouldn't help feeling a pang of annoyance at the audience surrounding the blonde boy. She didn't realize she was watching so intensely until his eyes crossed the room to meet hers. Crap! Immediately Jade looked away, unsure if she was more embarrassed about getting caught or feeling irked over a guy. You're here to represent your school, show your worth of an upcoming Pro Hero. Stop getting distracted! Distance! "Ren, let's get some lunch. I'm sure Tokoyami and the others are awaiting your presence."

"Our presence." Jade smiled as they strode across the cafeteria. The medic always made sure she felt included no matter what the situation was; it eased her thoughts greatly, which was something she needed.

Another month passed and Jade had almost become like a second Maeda, so intently focused during school hours and hero training. Even on off days, the international student went about her own activities, only ever seen for meals or rest. Her bond remained close with Ren, Maeda and Kubo in various ways, however, and she was present whenever a hangout commenced, so it seemed like everything was completely fine. Ren's teasing had become more discreet (much to Jade's relief) and she created a codename for the blonde third year.

"'The lemonade'?" Jade cringed. The two met up for a walk through town one day, and it seemed safe enough to discuss the matter since they weren't near school grounds.

"I think it's pretty subtle, and keeping the word 'the' in the codename would have people assuming we're actually talking about a beverage. Plus," the medic eyed her friend, "the guy is a tall glass of lemonade if I do say so myself, heh."

"Ren don't--"

"Lemonade sounds good right about now." She froze. It took everything in the foreign girl to not begin speed walking as soon as she heard the familiar upbeat voice behind her. From the look on her friend's face, Jade's assumption of Togata's presence was true. Unfortunately true. She slowly turned around, a faux smile in place until her eyes fell upon something hiding behind the male.

It was a little girl, she could tell that much, with long snowy locks spilling from behind Togata's calf. The child peeked up from her spot, red irises meeting Jade's indigo ones. The foreign girl was locked in place as she suddenly recalled her family. She thought of her parents' cooking and singing, her brothers' livelihood for sports, but she was especially reminded of her sister. Youngest and the only other girl in the line of siblings, they did a lot together. From shopping together to painting to singing to sightseeing, Jade realized how much she'd missed them. The exchange of words between Ren and Togata were a muffed noise as she crouched down, entrapped by the little stranger.

"I'm Jade, it's nice to meet you." The words slipped out like butter, and thankfully it didn't seem to frighten or discomfort the child. She looked up to the male for approval, then stepped forward and let his hand go.

"My name is Eri, it's nice to meet you too," she squeaked with a bow. Jade was awestruck by her politeness and shifted onto her knees to bow in return. When they both straightened up, Eri bore a wide smile and returned to Togata's side.

"Gosh, Gemstone, thought you were ignoring me for a sec." Reality hit the foreign girl immediately when she met the blonde's gaze, and her stomach felt tight again. Damn it, not now! Calm down, breathe, breathe, don't overreact. She stumbled getting back on her feet and managed a sheepish expression.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" she apologized more aggressively than she meant to. "I was just so surprised seeing you with a kid, and she just--"

"Oh? Do you think I'm not good with kids?" He raised a brow.

Crap, why does he have to look cute doing that. "I never said that," Jade rolled her eyes. "I was just surprised seeing you outside of your whole entourage, that's all." She cursed at her choice of words. Now I just sound like I'm hating on him.

"My entourage? Sounds like someone's a bit jealous."

"Ha! Boy, ain't nothin' to be jealous of." The second year held her ground as the bulky male challenged her with a smirk. Ren cleared her throat, acknowledging her presence and causing Jade to force herself back. She didn't realize how close she'd gotten to him during their small banter, but it was definitely closer than what she was comfortable with. "Ren, uh, I believe you were talking about something, yes?"

The medic peered over in amusement. "Yeah, I was talking about lemonade, which since you're here Togata with little Eri, I believe we can all get some together." Damn you, Ren!

Eri gasped before tugging on the male's sleeve. "Can we please, Mirio?" The sight made Jade's heart swell, and she couldn't be upset if it was an adorable child asking to accompany them. He beamed down at her and nodded his head.

"Ladies, you may lead the way." During the walk to a mini cafe Ren knew of (thanks to Tokoyami), Jade observed how attentive and caring Togata was with Eri, playing games or cracking jokes that made her laugh. Citizens passing commented on their closeness in adoration, many praising the third year for looking after the child with such passion. Even when there were those who tried to flirt with him, the boy paid them no mind and brushed off their efforts. Jade didn't know him too well, but she knew it would be difficult to want to be away from the guy, especially after seeing this side of him, away from the crowds, away from the hero limelight. Togata truly was someone to admire. A familiar tightness returned to her torso, but for now, she was okay with it.

She was pleased being able spend time with Eri herself, learning more about her likes and hobbies. A lot of what the young girl enjoyed Jade discovered was also liked by her sister. "What's her name?" the child asked, munching on a pastry. The horn atop her head glimmered in the sun while she finished up coloring a drawing.

"Her name is Carolei," the international student smiled, "but my family and I just call her Lei."

Eri dropped her coloring utensil on the table and leaned forward. "Can I call her Lei, too?" Jade looked around as though someone was listening to their conversation, then nodded with a wink, much to the child’s delight. They giggled and chatted, forgetting about time and enjoying getting to know one another. The second year felt as though she wasn't in Japan, but back in America with the people she'd cared about and loved; it felt good to bathe in the comfort and reminisce of home. Someone had gripped the back of Jade’s chair; she turned assuming it was Ren until she was face to face with a broad chest and the strong aroma of musk. Her heartbeat boomed in her head and she slowly turned back to Eri, allowing her nerves to calm. Ren bit back a laugh, but a tug on Jade’s hand distracted her from making a slick comment.

"Jade," said Eri in a small voice, "I have to leave now, but...do you think we can hang out another time?"

A sudden idea popped into the second year's mind at the young girl’s request. With a kind smile, she squeezed Eri's hand reassuringly. "We'll have plenty more days to hang out, hon, just me and you."

"Ouch, and what about me, Gemstone?" Togata whined, a hand on his chest in offense.

"Ah, I'd rather not be attacked by your fangirls. Besides, you have Amajiki and Hado to hang out with, and I know you see Eri almost every day." Both parties waved goodbye before continuing on their own paths. Ren and Jade were in a comfortable silence until the medic let out a sigh.

"You literally just missed your opportunity."

"Girl, what? If anything, I'd say I just opened the door for an opportunity."

"Opportunity for what? You literally shut the guy down."

"With good reason," the foreign student argued. She wasn't rude in her response to the older boy, and it was honest! The last thing Jade needed was rumors tainting her name simply for the fact that she hung out with one of the big three alone, especially if they were of the opposite sex. "Anyways, back to the opportunity I was talking about. I think Eri can help me out with this."

Happy New Years everyone! Thought I would just drop by with this little piece since I have been lagging quite a bit lol, anywho, just a little bit of love for our favorite blonde boy since I don’t see too much on him. Be safe everyone! Like, comment & share!

OC Creds to: @gureii (Ren, Maeda, Kubo

#anime oc #bnha oc #mha oc #jade lofota #mha dome #oc #my hero academia #mha #bnha #mirio togata #lemillion #mirio x oc #togata x oc #original female character #fluff #lots of fluff

5 notes · View notes

blankdblank · 4 years

Text

Anaticula Pt 57

October Wk 3 Tutshill Tornados vs Kenmare Kestrals in England

The Tutshill Tornados founded in 1520, the team colours and their playing robes are sky blue with a dark blue Double-T on the chest.

The Tornados led the league in the autumn of 1995, but also saw success in the early part of the 1900s, during which time the Tornados won the League Cup five times in a row, which is a British and Irish Quidditch League record.

In 1921, the Tornadoes recorded the fastest ever win in a League match against the Caerphilly Catapults. Seeker Roderick Plumpton caught the Golden Snitch after three and a half seconds, using a move that became known as the Plumpton Pass.

The Tornados led the league in the autumn of 1995. According to The Quibbler, the Tornados had used a combination of torture, blackmail, and illegal broom tampering to win their matches.

Cho Chang has been a supporter of the Tornados since she was six years old and regularly wears a Tornados badge in a show of support. However, according to Ron Weasley, many people became fans only when the team started to win, and thus resented them for jumping on the bandwagon. Her apology came as she passed you in the halls after lunch and you giggled shaking your head saying you and Cedric didn’t mind and that you’d happily bring her along if she wished only to have her turn you down, wishing to be supportive of Cedric, not getting over excited when the Tornados took over the game.

The trip out went lovely enough, another train ride, though in the station your body went rigid feeling a familiar presence around you. Lowly Cedric leaned in asking, “Vision?”

You shook your head, “No, Fenrir’s here.” At that Fred and George flanked you crossing their arms over your back in their guiding you to the waiting car as Troy and Moran were filled in that Fenrir was a Death Eater/Werewolf that had been stalking you making them hurry after you too wishing to keep you safe in the bustling crowds you held a wide smile on your face for the cameras and people you signed autographs for.

Inside the car however the curtains over the windows were drawn and you slunk down in your seat feeling fifty degrees colder and you glanced at the Veterans saying, “I’m ok. I’ll be fine for the match.”

Oliver, “Least our families were busy, so we can just head back to the hotel after.”

Moran, “When he follows you, anything bad happen?”

“Other than spoiling my day? Not really. Snatching not involved, just an eerie shadow really.” You flinched out another grin withholding your shiver feeling his nails in your hair again as his growling comments replayed in your mind.

True to their word and reputations the match went hard and fast, just under three hours leaving you bruised and too sore to care who was outside the hotel you had collapsed onto your bed inside waiting on your food surrounded by your teammates in equal and varying levels of pain. Turning your head you glanced at Troy asking, “So is this the usual then? Collapsing after each match?”

He chuckled and Moran said, “Mullet used to say ‘It’s not Quidditch if you ain’t bleeding.’ So, fairly usual. Just wait for some of our later matches. Those teams are just brutal. Won’t be able to stand at all.”

Again you sighed and missed the closing of your eyes, but a knock broke your mini nap and brought your dinner straight to you, through which K appeared sharing that a team of Aurors were sweeping the streets after being warned by Fred that Fenrir was there after you.

Dreamlessly you managed through the night in your exhaustion and trudged with the others back to the train, after which you popped back to school in time for lunch. Afterwards however a grinning approach of Luna had you using your door again to let the Quibbler get an exclusive with the team. All with time enough to spare to return a bit more dressed up for the dinner party.

An emerald plaid dress with ¾ sleeves hugged you perfectly helping to hide the bruises on your biceps you had, thick black tights with silver etchings of constellations were added to hide the bruises on your legs and your usual booties were slid on over. Through the hall you strolled and grinned catching up with Hermione in her sweater over her warm skirt and tights. “Hello Hermione.”

She grinned up at you saying, “You seem cheerful.”

A sigh came from you and your façade dropped a moment concerning her, “Oh really? Good. I am a walking bruise or I would hug you. Numbing cream is how I’m here, so don’t mind me if I miss my chair and end up on the floor.” Making her chuckle as you let out an exhausted giggle, “I never thought it would hurt this much. And Troy and Moran says it only gets harder going on. I can’t imagine a full Cup year. Regular season plus those Cup matches.”

“Well maybe if you weren’t teaching it might be easier.”

Your head tilted shifting your curls into your face making you lift your arm with a wince to brush it out again. “Maybe. Who knows how next year will play out.”

“Hopefully better.”

“Hopefully.”

Harry came up next in a tie and blazer your father had picked out for him and Ginny, in a maroon shiny dress over her tights with her arm tucked under Harry’s saying, “720-250 Kestrals, well done, we saw the match on the Quidditch boards. That blow in the third quarter,” You winced again remembering the impact, “Still stings?”

Letting out a weak chuckle you replied, “You have no idea.”

Harry, “Wanderers, how do you reckon you’ll fare?”

You shook your head, “Not a clue. Just know if they’re using the Parkin’s Pincer I’ll have to keep my eyes open everywhere so they can’t ambush me.”

Neville popped up saying, “All you have to do is just team up with Fred and George. Use your overlapping moves, keep spinning round your broom to avoid blows and pass often. Can’t ambush ya if you don’t have the Quaffle.”

You nodded and grinned at him, “That is actually brilliant. Thank you.”

He chuckled and said, “No matter, you would have thought of it I’m certain.”

Ginny, “Oh yes, the whole school is buzzing still about our little Black Bird.” Making you roll your eyes, “I think it’s fitting.”

You let out a weak giggle heading up the last hall after the final bit of stairs, “I suppose they could have done worse.”

Harry, “I thought Quidditch Weekly had you down as Jaq-Rabbit?”

You giggled again, “Like that, yes, they did. They’ll pick one eventually.” Knocking on the door for you Neville grinned at you then to Professor Slughorn.

“Come in! Come in! Out of the chill, we are just missing a few more and then we can begin, but, butterbeers first, if you’re able?” He looked you over saying, “Good on you, right foul slam you received, so calming to see you up and around.” He patted you on the shoulder in your weak giggling turn to walk with him to the seats around the fire filled with random students, including Draco, who inched aside from the middle of his loveseat so you could sit by him and Neville.

“Thank you, yes, bit stiff, but up none the less.” Making him chuckle and collect a pint glass for you and hand it over bringing out your grin after an accepting sip. Between the boys you lowered and crossed your ankles chatting with the pair of them as Slughorn led the conversation with the twin girls across from you until more knocks sounded and the full party was there.

Slughorn, “So tell me, Cormac, do you see anything of your Uncle Tiberius these days?”

Cormac answered cockily with a wink to Hermione, “Yes, sir. In fact, I'm meant to go hunting with him and the Minister for Magic over the holidays.”

Slughorn, “Well, be sure to give them both my best. What about your uncle, Belby? For those who don't know, Marcus' uncle invented the Wolfsbane Potion. Is he working on anything new?”

Belby replied with his mouth half full in slicing off another bite, “Don't know. Him and Dad don't get on. Probably because me dad says potions are rubbish. Says the only potion worth having is a stiff one at the end of the day.”

Slughorn, “What about you, Miss Granger? What exactly does your family do in the Muggle world?”

She grinned answering, “My parents are dentists. They tend to people's teeth.”

“Fascinating. And is that considered a dangerous profession?”

“No. Although, one boy, Robbie Fenwick, did bite my father once. He needed 10 stitches.”

Slughorn replied, “Ah, fascinating, now, stitches,” his eyes wandered to you, “I received a letter from your uncle Regulus, something about stitches?”

You nodded, “Yes, I got that note too, something about a Wompas Cat when he was off searching for a Bonarroo he was sent after in a Muggle town in South America. It’s mended now according to dad.”

Cormac looked you over, “You speak with your father? I know the Minister has mentioned a wish to talk to him.”

You nodded, “Yes, we talk often. And you can tell the Minister we’ve heard what he’s been saying about my dad, if he’s going to play Fudge then he’s going to have to find my dad on his own if he’s meaning to toss him in prison for something.”

Cormac shook his head, “Not at all. Simply a talk to finally give him his trial.”

You set your fork down and asked, “Trial, for what? Halloween 15 years ago when our family was destroyed and he was framed?”

Cormac wet his lips feeling the tension he’d triggered, “Said something about he could finally be cleared by having the trial he didn’t have, put it to rest.”

You nodded then said, “We did put it to rest, under twin headstones in Godric’s Hollow. He can keep his trial. Tell him to find another smoke screen for hiding his failure in defending people.”

You lifted your fork again and Slughorn added, “That is just madness! I will be writing a letter to him, how absurd! Even Fudge wrote that he was cleared of all charges!”

That changed the mood of the dinner for a few moments until you asked the twin girls asking about their mother’s new murder mystery novel in a series set building buzz of its own having you all sharing your favorite parts of the series.

Lingering behind you slipped into the bathroom as Slughorn said goodnight to everyone else, “Goodbye. Bye-bye.” Turning around he saw Harry at his desk eyeing the hourglass on his desk, “Potter.”

“I'm sorry, sir. I was just admiring your hourglass.”

“Oh, yes. A most intriguing object. The sand runs in accordance with the quality of the conversation. If it is stimulating, the sand runs slowly. If it is not...”

“I think I'll be going.” He joked at the next to empty top glass.

“Nonsense. You have nothing to fear, dear boy. As to some of your classmates...well, let's just say they're unlikely to make the shelf.”

“The shelf, sir?”

Slughorn showed him to the open cabinet and table coated in various photographs, “Anyone who aspires to be anyone hopes to end up here. But then again, you already are someone, aren't you, Harry?” Seeing him eyeing the picture of you standing on your broom hurling the Quaffle off into a hoop as one of your best selling team photos you had signed for him.

“Did Voldemort ever make the shelf, sir? You knew him, didn't you, sir, Tom Riddle? You were his teacher.”

Slughorn’s fingers tapped on his stomach, “Mr Riddle had a number of teachers whilst here at Hogwarts.”

“What was he like? I'm sorry, sir. Forgive me. He killed my parents.”

“Of course. It's only natural you should want to know more. But I'm afraid I must disappoint you, Harry. When I first met Mr Riddle, he was a quiet, albeit brilliant, boy committed to becoming a first-rate wizard. Not unlike others I've known. Not unlike yourself, in fact.”

The opening of the bathroom door brought their eyes to you and your quick grin, “If the monster existed...it was buried deep within.” Slughorn murmured. As you drew closer he asked, “Feeling well?”

You nodded, “Yes, thank you, sorry, one of my buttons got stuck.” You giggled out then glanced between them saying, “Well, I’ll escort Harry back, and let you enjoy your evening. Thank you for the invitation, and I am sorry if I soured the mood. I do try not to be so thin skinned about it.”

He shook his head, “Not at all. It is pure nonsense. He shall be receiving a scathing letter from myself, perhaps that might set him straight. But yes, you both are in need of rest.” He said leading you both to the door freeing you both out to the hall.

Harry glanced up at you, “Are you alright?”

You nodded saying, “I have a heating pack on my thigh, took some doing to get it back into place when I shifted my tights.”

“You are enjoying the team?”

You nodded, “Yes, when men twice my size aren’t trying to knock me off my broom by falling into my lap.” Making him chuckle at your pained giggle in starting on the first steps, “Off to bed now,”

He nodded, “You too.” Making you giggle again in his turn to head up to the Gryffindor tower trotting to catch up with Hermione and Neville.

…

Nov Wk 1 Wigtown Wanderers Home Ireland

The Wigtown Wanderers are a Quidditch team that plays in the British and Irish Quidditch League. The team is based in Wigtown, which is located in southwest Scotland. Founded in 1422, their playing robes are blood red with a silver meat cleaver emblazoned on the chest.

The original Wanderers were the seven children (four sons, three daughters) of local butcher Walter Parkin. They are remembered as a formidable team who won most of their matches, perhaps partly because Walter himself used to attend every game holding his wand in one hand and a meat cleaver in the other. A Parkin descendent has often been found on the team throughout the centuries.

The original Chasers also invented their own signature move, known as the Parkin's Pincer, where three Chasers fly from different directions at an opposing Chaser.

Kennilworthy Whisp, author of Quidditch Through the Ages, is a supporter of this team

470-600 This game was the most painful and as the irritation hit you an ‘accidental’ miss throw after a slam from one of the Beaters took their Thief out when you broke his nose heavily damaging their plays. That single penalty you had been given gave them their last chance at scoring when your efforts amped up until Cedric stole away the Snitch in a hard dive nearly crashing into the ground ending your ordeal.

…

Wk 3 Wimbourne Wasps vs Kenmare Kestrals in England

The Wimbourne Wasps founded in 1312, their robes are horizontal yellow and black stripes with a wasp on the chest. The team has won the League Cup at least eighteen times, and have twice been semi-finalists in the European Cup.

The team adopted the wasp as their emblem after a game against the Appleby Arrows in the mid-seventeenth century, in which one of their Beaters batted a wasps' nest towards the opposing Seeker, who was so badly stung he had to retire. Their fans are known as Stingers, and they make loud buzzing sounds to distract opposing Chasers taking penalties.

Ludo Bagman was originally a member of this team, and was congratulated by a juror during his trial for his performance in one of his matches for England against Turkey, but eventually left and became the Head of Department of Magical Games and Sports. The Wasps won the League Cup three times in a row when Bagman played for them.

Again Fenrir had been spotted, and a hard week of prepping for exams coming up had filled up your weeks. None of the Aurors managed to find him, but they did find the flowers he left outside with a note reading just your name in a heart tucked inside. Shaking off the irritation of it all you looked back to your tv watching the movie you had chosen to watch in your sleepless night. Your guest however, Barty, upon sensing your pause in heading off to another game in England that eased Fenrir’s task of stealing a glimpse of you jumped on the chance. And in one of the usual press sessions after he got a bit distracted himself by a woman who came up to him and eventually took him up to her own hotel room. A knock sounded and you answered accepting your dinner for the night, another helping of Chinese takeaway you set out across the bed.

In opening the first box you glanced up at the opening door seeing Barty walking through shaking his head making you smirk, “That was fast.”

He let out a weak chuckle, “Well,” smirking in his trot over to sit by you, “Her boyfriend rang,” your brow inched up, “She picked up, right in the middle of it, and um, she said something about him coming up and, well,” he clicked his tongue, “Not my finest hour, she seemed a bit miffed when I hopped out of bed to get dressed.”

“What? She wanted you to stay?”

He nodded making you giggle in his chuckle, “Apparently she wanted their first time to be his dream night. Only has threesomes it seems.”

“Ah, threesome, very, wow. Seems pretty trying on relationships, can’t get frisky unless there’s company.” Making him chuckle again.

“Exactly. How’s the film?”

“Not bad. Missed the opening though, Alastor came up.” His brow inched up when you caught his eyes, “He left me flowers.” Deeply Barty sighed, “Well, I’ll see what I can do about that.”

You shook your head saying, “Don’t you worry about it. We should worry about finding you a nice girl,” Making him laugh in your fit of giggles continuing, “Preferably one without a boyfriend.” When you finished off the food he pulled you back against the pillows and helped you drape across his chest to fall asleep in his arms calming himself at the stop to your trembling you had been trying to hide knowing who might be lingering around outside.

Returning home again however on one of your nights after classes Barty brought Snape along with him to speak with your father and uncles. Since the last game the twins had decided to spend the week with you to help you calm down in their company, though they stayed up to find out what the meeting was all about.

At the table the men all sat down as Barty sighed and lowered his mug of tea, “We have to do something about Fenrir.”

Regulus broke the silence saying, “I have a plan.”

Snape, “It has to be something permanent. We cannot risk him popping up again.”

Regulus, “It’s not pretty, but I know where we can kill him.”

…

December Wk 1 Appleby Arrows vs Kenmare Kestrals in Home Ireland

"Arrows fans will agree that their team's most glorious hour was their 1932 defeat of the team who were then the European champions, the Vratsa Vultures, in a match that lasted sixteen days in conditions of dense fog and rain."

—Kennilworthy Whisp, Quidditch Through the Ages

The Appleby Arrows are a Quidditch team from the village of Appleby in North Lincolnshire, England. The Arrows play in the British and Irish Quidditch League. Founded in 1612, the Arrows play in robes of pale blue, emblazoned with a silver arrow. There is traditionally fierce rivalry between the Arrows and the Wimbourne Wasps.

475 – 165. 7 games in with 5 more to go still broadened hopes that your streak would continue, and for a third time the team could reach the League Cup. This one was far less brutal and relied more on your stealing skills to keep the Arrows from even getting the Quaffle into the scoring zone.

…

Snow flurries between another round of snake themed lessons on your tundra dwelling breeds led up to the much awaited lessons on Tulip for the first through third years who had missed the lessons due to Ministry involvement in the school in the past few years.

…

Wk 3 Ballycastle Bats vs Kenmare Kestrals in Northern Ireland

The Ballycastle Bats are the second most successful team in the British and Irish Quidditch League, having won the title twenty-seven times nearing the end of the 20th century. Their robes are black with scarlet bat logos. Their mascot is the Barny the Fruitbat, who is also featured in Butterbeer advertisements.

Fellow Irish team and one of the most successful teams had the build up for this match and it truly met up to their standards as it was the longest of the season so far. Seven hours you battled back and forth around the two allowed meal breaks when crossing the three hour marks. A late penalty from Cedric’s taking a blow to the shoulder in a swoop for the Snitch their battle continued while Troy took the score and bumped up the final score on top of the 150 pt boost from Cedric’s capture of the Snitch.

The roar of the crowd at the match they never wished to end sounded and forward you slumped slowing your broom to rest your forehead on your locked hands to calm the sting you felt at the clearly broken ribs you had received that turned your hair black an hour into the match. Around you Troy and Moran floated up to your sides asking, “Alright there Birdie?”

Giggling weakly you shifted your feet on the rests under your broom and pushed yourself upright saying in a half chuckle, “Just peachy. Only a rib, I’ll just grow another one.” Making the pair laugh and look to the other team’s Beater flying over with camera in hand.

Awkwardly he grinned saying, “Hi,”

You nodded in return to his, “Hi.”

“I, um, my little girl’s a fan of yours, would you mind?” He held up the camera and you shook your head as Moran took hold of the camera and moved to capture another signature moment in your first season, you and the man who had broke your ribs beaming brightly in exhaustion after your massive battle of a game. That picture flooded through the papers, usually monster games ended with both teams as rivals for another year only continuing the pattern you had set it was all left in the game and on the field with no hard feelings after. 520 - 750

Ron, “Look, I can't help it if she's got her knickers in a twist. What Lav and I have, well, let's just say, there's no stopping it. It's chemical. Will it last? Who knows? Point is, I'm a free agent.”

Harry glanced up at his friend who was sitting down on the bed beside him after their showering after practice. The whole time he had been talking about Lavender while Harry was more focused on Ginny being taken to the Hospital Wing by you after her starting to get sick at the start of practice. When Ron went to go and find Lavender for their promised lunch date Harry went in search of Hermione to keep from having to watch them making out once again. And he found her in her second home, the library.

“He's at perfect liberty to kiss whoever he likes. I really couldn't care less. Just, some up for air sometime! Was I under the impression he and I would be attending Slughorn's Christmas party together? Yes. Now, given the circumstances, I've had to make other arrangements.”

Harry, “Have you?

She glanced at him with a raised brow, “Yes. Why?”

Harry shrugged, “I just thought, seeing as neither of us can go with who we'd really like to, we should go together, as friends.”

A huff left her, “Why didn't I think of that?”

“Who are you going with?”

“It's a surprise. Anyway, it's you we've got to worry about. You can't just take anyone. See that girl over there? That's Romilda Vane. Apparently she's trying to smuggle you a love potion.”

Harry couldn’t help but smirk, “Really?”

“Hey! She's only interested in you because she thinks you're the Chosen One.”

“But I am the Chosen One.” He playfully quipped back only to be whacked in the arm with a bundle of parchment in her hand making him chuckle, “Okay, sorry. Kidding. I'll ask someone I like. Someone cool.”

Luna eyed the hall Harry led her through with an easy grin on her face, “I've never been to this part of the castle. At least not while awake. I sleepwalk, you see. That's why I wear shoes to bed.”

Once inside the party Harry was asked, “Drink?”

Harry, “Neville.”

Luna, “Hello,” leaning in to kiss his cheek and pull back to Harry’s side.

Neville smirked looking Luna over in her dress she gave a spin for him to get the full look, then he answered looking to Harry again, “I didn't get into the Slug Club. It's okay, though. He's got Belby handing out towels in the loo.”

Harry chuckled saying, “Oh, well, I'm fine, mate. Thanks.”

Neville replied, “Okay.” Moving on with Luna joining him in his hushed conversation with her widening her grin up at him.

Peering around Harry took in all the faces in the room catching you in a shimmering green dress speaking with Draco in a midnight green dress robe coated in dark grey reindeer along the wall over mugs of cider and floating plates of treats, but Hermione darting behind a curtain had him following after, “Hermione. What are you doing? And what happened to you?”

Hermione, “No, I've just escaped. I mean, left Cormac under the mistletoe.”

Harry, “Cormac? That's who you invited?”

Hermione, “I thought it would annoy Ron the most.”

A student passing said, “Thank you. I'll catch up with you later.”

Hermione, “He's got more tentacles than a Snarfalump plant.”

Justin ducked behind the curtain offering a tray, “Dragon tartare?”

Harry shook his head, “No, I'm fine. Thank you.”

Justin nodded, “Just as well. They give one horribly bad breath.”

Hermione grabbed three off the tray she began to scarf down, “On second thoughts… Might keep Cormac at bay. Oh, God, here he comes.” Sneaking out around the other side of the column Harry took hold of the tray and Justin slipped out to go snatch away a tray of something else.

Harry flashed Cormac a grin, “I think she just went to powder her nose.”

Cormac took one of the tartare balls from the tray, “Slippery little minx, your friend. Likes to work her mouth too, doesn't she? What is this I'm eating, by the way?”

Snape dramatically flung back the curtain looking the pair over right as Harry said, “Dragon balls.”

The term had Cormac’s stomach lurching and at Snape’s feet he vomited making the Professor say, “You've just bought yourself a month's detention, McLaggen.” Cormac nodded and hurried off to the toilet and Snape said, “Not so quick, Potter.”

“Sir, I really think I should rejoin the party. My date...”

“Can surely survive your absence for another minute or two. Besides, I only wish to convey a message.”

“A message?”

“From Professor Dumbledore. He asked me to give you his best, and he hopes you enjoy your holiday. You see, he's traveling, and he won't return until term resumes.”

“Traveling where?”

Crabbe being drug into the room by Filch shouted, “Take your hands off me, you filthy Squib!”

Filch, “Professor Slughorn, sir. I just discovered this boy lurking in an upstairs corridor. He claims to have been invited to your party.”

Crabbe, “Okay, okay. I was gate crashing. Happy?” his eyes scanning over you and Harry angrily making Draco subtly take your hand as Barty returned to your side offering a refill on your drink he had gone to get.

Snape crossed the room, “I'll escort him out.”

Filch nodded his head and smirked at the teen, “Certainly, Professor.”

Slughorn motioned for the students to start mingling again, “All right, everyone, carry on, carry on.” Harry curiously glanced from you back to them and he snuck out after them with Hermione curiously chasing behind him.

Shoved against a wall Hermione ducked under Harry’s head to see Crabbe say, “Maybe I did hex that Bell girl. Maybe I didn't. What's it to you?”

Snape, “What are you doing? Do you have any idea how dangerous-,”

“I don't need protection. I was chosen for this. Out of all others. Me. And I won't fail her!”

“You're afraid, Vincent. You attempt to conceal it, but it's obvious. You are interfering! I made an Unbreakable Vow-,”

“No! I was chosen. This is my moment.”

He said shoving out of Snape’s grasp to storm back to the Slytherin dorm leaving Snape rolling his eyes muttering, “Idiots, I am surrounded by idiots!” Heading back to the party to speak to you.

In their silence Hermione asked, “Her? Who could that be?”

Harry wet his lips, “Has to be someone high up. Someone wanting to hurt Dumbledore.”

Hermione walked with him back to the party, “But, Riddle wants him dead…”

Harry glanced at her with lips parted in realization and said, “Bella, Jaqi mentioned she’s trying to win him over still since she attacked Jaqi.”

Hermione nodded looking ahead again, “Makes sense. And Crabbe certainly could be a link inside the castle.”

Harry watched Snape entering the party, “Looks like he’s telling Jaqi right off.”

By the storm delayed sunrise again on the train back home again Harry shared what Ron had missed during the party.

Ron, “’Unbreakable Vow.’ You're sure that's what Snape said?”

“Positive. Why?”

“Well, it's just you can't break an Unbreakable Vow.”

“I'd worked that much out for myself, funnily enough.”

“You don't understand.” A knock on the door had the pair staring up at Lavender, “Oh, bloody hell.”

Silently she mouthed after writing their initials inside a heart on the window she fogged up with her breath, “I miss you.”

Harry nodded in her trot away, “Lovely.” And looked to Ron again.

“All she wants to do is snog me. My lips are getting chapped. Look.”

“I'll take your word for it. So, what happens to you? What happens if you break an Unbreakable Vow?”

“You die. We have to tell Jaqi.”

“Snape told her about Crabbe. At the party, right after.”

Ron wet his lips, “But, what about the vow? What’s that about?”

Harry shook his head, “Not sure, but no doubt she knows about that too.”

Pt 58

#Barty Crouch Jr x oc #HP Crossover

6 notes · View notes

ariadnelives · 5 years

Text

Chapter 1 -- The Train Robbery

[Welcome to the first chapter of Ariadne Lives! If you’re new to the series or you’ve just fallen a little behind, go catch up here! Otherwise, welcome back! Oh, and make sure to join our discord server! Chapter can also be found @ ao3]

Prologue - The Cult

“Rejoice!” the young girl in white robes shouted to a silent crowd from an ornate red and gold podium. Families, bored teenagers, and a few homeless people looking for a warm seat and some complimentary snacks had filed into a small banquet hall. Everybody had seen the pamphlets recently. Thousands had been handed out by the red-robed acolytes standing in a line behind the girl with the knowledge that if even one percent of the people who'd seen them decided to follow up, they'd have a substantial audience.

The young girl continued her sermon. “I have come to bring salvation to the Martian people! For too long we've lived in poverty, strife, and squalor! My entire life, I believed we were simply being suppressed and subjugated by the jackboot of the Homeworld Empire, but now I know that's not true! That was never the case! It's been precisely four years since we made our alliance with the Homeworld, and we're still suffering! Many of you in the audience tonight are struggling to feed your children, feed yourselves, just to stay alive, and why? This isn't a problem on Earth!”

Shouts of “hear, hear!” and “yeah!” rang out from the assembled audience.

“On Earth, all of the children are cared for. On Earth, everyone has enough to eat and a place to sleep. On Earth, no one ever has to suffer as we Martians have suffered!”

The crowd cheered again and many of them raised their drinks, although the symbolic gesture was somewhat undercut by the fact that everyone was drinking iced tea out of plastic cups.

“And who's to blame for this inequality?” she asked.

Of course, the real answer was “the rich.” Mars had been carefully cultivated over hundreds of years so that each bio-dome would be able to support the population of a mid-sized Earth city. There should be enough resources that a household could have as many as ten people, and all of them would have a room of their own, three substantial meals a day, and enough water both for all of their drinking, bathing, and cleaning needs.

However, unfortunately, one of the many things imported from Earth in the migration to Mars was greed.

There had been the pioneers, mostly scientists and laborers who had agreed to establish the new societies on Mars in exchange for a place in that society. Then, there had been the Wagoners.

In Martian slang, a Wagoner was an incredibly rich person who had “jumped on the bandwagon,” or simply waited until all the heavy lifting had been done, and then had used their fabulous wealth to buy a large plot of land and set up a lavish mansion in a Martian bio-dome to prove how hip and cutting-edge they were. The people who could afford to do this tended to become even richer, since their mansions were built on what was supposed to be farmland for cultivating and growing crops. This drove down the food supply and made the demand skyrocket, and who was left to meet that demand? The people who were already rich enough to have products imported from off-world. With their profits, they'd buy up more of the farmland and convert it into commercial developments where they could sell their imported goods until everyone in the bio-dome was totally dependent on them for food. Since they held all the wealth, anyone who wanted to buy their supplies would have to work for them to get it.

This was all irrelevant on Earth, where food replicators, universal housing, healthcare, and education had almost completely eradicated poverty. Of course, they could have given these resources to the Martian governments and allowed them to do the same for their people, but centuries of animosity and war generally take more than four years and an ceasefire treaty to overcome.

This was the real answer to “who's to blame for this inequality.” It was not, however, the answer the young girl gave.

“We suffer for one reason and one reason alone! The wickedness in our own backyards! Our forefathers claimed this land, they worked hard to turn it from a lifeless hellscape into a verdant paradise, and what do we give them in return? Laziness! Irreverence! A lack of regard for what makes a Martian!”

A few people in the audience seemed slightly confused, but there were a few people saying “amen” as well.

“We suffer because we have not devoted ourselves to the betterment of our home! I've devoted myself to helping each and every one of you. I've made it my duty to feed the homeless, take in the orphaned, and strike at the powerful taking advantage of the disenfranchised. Some have called my followers 'angels,' and I appreciate the comparison, but we are just doing our Godly duty. We've been put on Mars for a reason. We honor the Red God and we do his bidding every day. This is why we and we alone have found prosperity!”

A few people in the crowd moved to leave, but were gently encouraged to stay by the red-robed acolytes. Others seemed genuinely intrigued.

“So,” the young girl continued, “if you're pure of soul, if you want to do good by your Martian brothers and sisters, then join us, and through the Red God we will lead our planet to prosperity!!”

There was some genuine applause from the audience.

“Now, if we may, I'd like our acolytes, my angels, to lead us in a short prayer.”

The acolytes raised their hands in unison, palms facing the young girl, to reveal they each had the image of a spider drawn on their hands in a paint made from Mars' red clay.

“All hail our prophet. May the Red God bless his people and the one true vessel of his voice. Blessings be upon our planet and upon our savior. Hail Ariadne.”

***

“This footage was taken earlier today by NewMo News 7's own investigative reporter Solomon Cho,” a news reporter who was almost too attractive to be remarkable read out from a small television screen, pushing the still frame of the young girl into the corner of the display, “and appears to show a young girl identifying herself as local folk hero Ariadne recruiting members to a new cult. We lost contact with Cho shortly after receiving the footage, and he has not been heard from since. Whether this figure is the real Ariadne or simply an opportunist attempting to capitalize on the folk legend is unclear, but one thing we can—”

The television screen fractured as it was hit with an unopened soda can, freezing the image of the cult leader behind the cracks.

“That TV was an antique,” Pilar sighed, slinking down into the beanbag chair she was sitting on.

Her wife, the real Ariadne had knocked her own chair over out of rage when she stood to throw the can at the screen. “I want her dead, Spacebreather,” Ariadne growled, glaring at the image of the pale young girl with bleached hair who grinned as she was venerated by her followers. “Do you hear me?”

“I do,” Pilar sighed. She was usually the hothead in their relationship, but after a few years, she'd learned to keep a cool temper on the rare occasion Ariadne was the one to fly off the handle.

“Mátala,” Ariadne hissed, “I want her head.”

“Anything you say, querida,” Pilar said, “but for now, we've got work to do.”

Chapter 1-- The Train Robbery

***

“It's just, I've worked hard to build this identity for myself as Ariadne, you know?” Ariadne said into the radio in her pressurized helmet.

“I know,” Pilar said, floating behind her. They approached the freighter with a team of their stealthiest crew members, known around the ship as “the Whiptails,” though right now only Pilar could hear what Ariadne was saying.

“I mean, we're supposed to be like the old stories about outlaws who stick up for the little guys! Robin Hood never asked for anything in return!”

“Robin Hood also wasn't a real—I can't have this debate with you again right now.”

Pilar and Ariadne placed a small triangular device on the airlock of the freighter, and a moment later, the door hissed open. The Whiptails circled around towards the thrusters on the back of the freighter as Ariadne and Pilar slipped quietly through the hatch and sealed it back up behind them.

“Do you get what I'm saying, though? We worked for years to build up all that good will, and some fifteen-year-old white girl with too much time on her hands just steals it to feed her own ego?” Ariadne ranted on as the ship jerked to a halt.

“Good, the Whiptails are done with the thrusters,” Pilar mumbled, placing the triangular device on the inner seal of the airlock. “And do you really think she's the brains behind this operation?”

Ariadne shrugged. “How do you mean?”

“I mean, how many fifteen-year-olds do you know who can successfully create and lead a cult by themselves?”

They moved through the corridor, slipped into the back of the passenger hold as quietly as possible, and concealed themselves behind a row of seats.

“How many fifteen-year-olds do you know who can successfully create and run a piracy ring?” Ariadne whispered.

“Fair point,” Pilar whispered back. “You ready?”

Ariadne nodded. “Yeah. Te amo, azúcar.”

“Te amo, mi tesora.”

They both drew their pistols and stood up.

“ALL RIGHT, NOBODY MOVE!” Ariadne shouted, startling just about all of the passengers in the freighter. “BE COOL, THIS IS A ROBBERY. OUR OPERATIVES HAVE DISABLED THE THRUSTERS, SO THIS SHIP ISN'T GOING ANYWHERE UNTIL WE GET WHAT WE WANT.”

“WE DON'T NEED ANYBODY TO GET HURT,” Pilar added. “BUT DON'T TEST US. IF ANYONE TRIES ANYTHING, THEY'LL BE DEAD BEFORE THEY HIT THE GROUND. DON'T EVEN SAY A WORD. ¿ESTÁ CLARO?”

Of course, this was a bluff. Both women knew it was sometimes necessary to shed blood, but the authorities were much more likely to prioritize murderers over thieves, so the crew had been trained not to kill when knocking someone unconscious would get the job done. Their pistols were actually devices called soul-stealers, which sent out a psychic pulse triggering the part of the human brain that makes a person fall asleep. Bystanders would think they were dead, but by the time they roused, Ariadne's Angels would be long gone.

“We want you to know why you've been targeted,” Ariadne announced. “The fall of the Homeworld Empire has triggered a new wave of wagoners—that's you folks—coming from Earth trying to make a quick buck off the 'untapped market' on Mars. You want to put a Shop-n-Go Grocery or a Carmine's Caffeination Station or a LazLabs TechStop on every corner, because you can afford to undercut the prices of Martian vendors.”

Pilar continued the speech they'd rehearsed six times the day before. “We Martians have to grow the food we sell, craft the clothes in our stores ourselves, make our tech durable because we don't have the resources to simply replace it when it breaks. The companies you run have replicators; your sales are pure profit. We have actual expenses for our businesses.”

Ariadne picked up the speech again. “See, the Martian people don't want you on their planet. That's why they've blocked your attempts to teleport to the surface. So you corporate fatcats all get together, load everything you need to set up shop onto a big freighter, and figure you'll just fly right to the surface and move into the city like a bunch of hermit crabs!”

“You dummies shouldn't have all gotten onto one freighter, is what she's saying,” Pilar said, “because now we only have to make one trip to steal all your shit.”

“So, fast as you like, get into the escape pods,” Ariadne ordered. “You'll be heading back to Earth, and we'll be taking this freighter with us. Please leave your wallets, purses, and any jewelry or accessories so expensive that you need insurance for it on your seat before you leave.”

“Form an orderly line and nobody needs to get shot,” Pilar called back to the passenger hold. “Whiptails, show our guests to their ride.”

Six girls, all in their mid-teens and holding guns like Pilar and Ariadne's, emerged from the shadows, causing several of the terrified business executives to jump in their seats. All three dozen execs had guns shoved in their backs, and filed towards the escape pods.

Once they were all in a pod, Ariadne turned to the oldest of the Whiptails, a Chinese girl with a gelled pompadour who'd earned the name “Sweettalk” because her incredible charisma allowed her to charm just about anyone. “Is the crew taken care of?”

“Yeah Cap,” Sweettalk replied. “Two pilots, a chef, and a bartender. They volunteered to be tied up so they don't get fired for cooperating with us. Smart group. They're in the pods. I took down their addresses. They'll be receiving an anonymous monetary gift taken from the profits of today's job.”

“You rock my socks, sugar.” Ariadne smiled. “Oh! I almost forgot! Is there an intercom that lets us talk to the people in the pods?”

Pilar rolled her eyes and sighed.

“Yeah, why?” Sweettalk asked, gesturing at a small microphone next to the hatch.

“She's going to tell them that—”

Ariadne interrupted her by shouting directly into the microphone. “TELL PEOPLE IT WAS ARIADNE'S ANGELS WHO ROBBED YOU!”

“Strange thing to do in a robbery,” Sweettalk muttered.

“Let her have it,” Pilar sighed and muttered back.

“THE REAL ARIADNE. NOT THAT FAKER FROM THE NEWS,” Ariadne shouted into the mic.

“Oh,” one of the younger Whiptails, a 13-year-old black girl named Taryn, said to Sweettalk. “I was hoping she wouldn't hear about that until after the mission.”

“You and me both,” Sweettalk replied. “I'm willing to bet that's why the TV in the lounge is broken.”

“That TV was an antique,” Taryn sighed. Another of the Whiptails, a quiet girl named Ghostrunner whose face was so regularly obscured by her black hoodie that most of the crew didn’t actually know what she looked like, laughed quietly at this.

The escape pods began to detach from the ship and drift back towards Earth.

Ariadne kept yelling, “YOU TELL THEM THAT GIRL IS AN IMPOSTOR, DO YOU HEAR ME?”

“I'm sure Ariadne and Fastwing can fix it up good as new,” Pilar said flatly. “Oh, for Christ's—Ariadne. They're gone. They left. They’re way out of range. They can't hear you anymore.”

“Ugh,” said Ariadne, “I guess you're right. Come on, let's take this ugly freighter home. This is a big score. Maybe finding something useful in the cargo hold will help me shake this lousy mood.”

“Like a new TV?” Sweettalk muttered. Taryn laughed.

“Please don't instigate,” Pilar sighed again. Ariadne was perhaps the one person she knew who was more stubborn than her, and she would undoubtedly be the one tasked with improving Ariadne's bad mood.

“Bring us back to the station, Spacebreather,” Ariadne snapped. “Sweettalk, Taryn, I want you to scour this ship, find me whatever snack foods have the words 'cheese' or 'blast' anywhere on the package, and bring them to me for the ride home.”

#core story

76 notes · View notes

leftwriteb · 5 years

Text

Industry Trend: Battle Royale Can't Battle It Out

It was with the explosive popularity of the likes of Fortnite, PUBG and The Culling that the battle royale genre was catapulted to the forefront of videogames. Whether its the boggling numbers of players that were playing such titles, the desperate scrambles by developers and publishers to cash in on the trend or the sheer volume of indistinguishable titles that began to surface, battle royale games have to battle amongst themselves and, ultimately, that is a fight that’s doomed to fail.

The genre itself isn’t new, of course. Going back a number of years, the growing success of the genre can be seen within mods for ARMA 2 and Minecraft, experiences that allowed players to duke it out amongst themselves before the genre had taken off as it has now. What really brought such games to the forefront of player, developer and publisher conscience was the marriage of intense multiplayer action and the spectacle of personalities and streaming, with Twitch growing in popularity just as rapidly as the genre and associated games were themselves.

While the focus seemed to shift, the idea was the same. DayZ came and went. The Culling came and went. The Culling 2 came and went even quicker. PUBG had a larger foothold, especially so as it made the jump to Xbox One. It was a situation that began to grow and showed no sign of slowing down. What came next though was unprecedented. Fortnite, a free to play experience, became a behemoth. Over the course of several months, the game exploded in popularity. Streamers like” Ninja” began pulling in ginormous numbers of viewers while they played and special in game events, including a crossover event with Avengers: Infinity War, kept things fresh and changing. It became integral to kid culture and the in-game purchases became a must have. It’s worth noting that the aforementioned was something that drew publishers from miles around like vultures too.

Other popular series then began introducing their own take on the genre, with Call of Duty, Battlefield and Red Dead Redemption 2 each promising their own unique spin on a gameplay style people were becoming perhaps too familiar with. Over the course of just a few years, battle royale games have become a staple in the videogames industry across the board and seem to show no signs of slowing down, especially so as Respawn Entertainment watches their new title, Apex Legends, drawing in a playerbase from scratch way quicker than anybody likely thought possible. Only 3 days in, 10 million players had given the game a whirl so another large free-to-play game enters the fray.

But it’s important to remember that what goes up must come down. And just like a player skydiving to the map below, the popularity of battle royale will surely come down. The industry obsession with trying to stake a claim in the royale riches is an unsustainable one.

Imagine, if you will, that each gamer that’s interested in battle royale games is represented by a small counter. With the genre having been in the public eye for some time now, it’s safe to say at this point that those who are at all interested in the genre are already within this huge stack of counters. Sure, there’s a small handful of new counters added to the stack here and there, but the amount is so few that we already have a ginormous stack of counters that doesn’t seem to really change in volume. Now imagine that these counters have to be distributed out to each title that wants their attention.

So, we begin dishing out these counters. A chunk of them goes to PUBG. Another chunk of counters goes to Fortnite. Another stack to Apex Legends and another stack to Call of Duty’s Blackout mode. This distribution goes on and on until we have dished out the counters. It’s after this that you begin to see the issue: there’s only so many counters to hand out and it’s rare that these counters move from their original pile to another. The genre has been around long enough that it’s not really drawing in new players because those who are excited by the prospect of battle royale are already involved. There’s only so many players to go around when there’s so many various playerbases.

As new games release and as time goes on, these counters begin to move away and shift at a rate that isn’t replenished. More and more battle royale games surface without there being enough players to sustain them. We’ve already seen small rumblings from games like Realm Royale, The Darwin Project and H1Z1 as they try to maintain themselves in such a crowded market. There simply isn’t enough to go around. This isn’t exactly a new phenomenon, with “games as a service” already having been hit by the exact same issue. A little before battle royale was a publishers favourite phrase, the likes of Ubisoft and Activision were desperate to get us hooked on “games as a service”; experiences that never really let us go and change over time to try and keep us constantly playing and, more often than not, always reaching into our wallet too. Just like battle royale, these games each carved out their own pool of dedicated players: Destiny fans, The Division fans, Overwatch fans, Sea of Thieves fans, Fallout 76 fans. Really, battle royale games are no different as evident by Fortnite using an ever changing landscape and challenges to keep players engaged. Each one tried to become your main gaming priority. The problem was that if you played one, you very much tended to stick to just the one and there was little overlap.

With The Division 2 and Anthem on the way, the issue is only going to get worse. Developers and publishers want more and more of our time (and, ultimately, money) but we only have so much to give. The shared problem with “games as a service” and battle royale games is that their approach and content is always shifting and in order to stay relevant and this means you have to truly pay attention. If you’re doing that and you’re attempting to stay within or ahead of the meta, you haven’t got the time to learn the details of multiple massive games at a time.

As more and more titles surface, this issue gets worse and worse and the many piles of counters under each banner begin to thin out. As they do so, this array of titles begin to become unsustainable and then disappear.

There are two avenues that you can go down to get aboard the bandwagon: either get your game out fast and get ahead of the competition or take your time and hope that your game speaks for itself upon launch. We’ve seen how well the former pans out already.

Boss Key Productions, the studio behind the now deceased battle royale game Radical Heights, jumped aboard the battle royale hypetrain following the rather disastrous launch of their previous title, Lawbreakers. The aforementioned shooter failed to find an audience within such a saturated market so they aimed to turn things around by, unfortunately, jumping into yet another saturated market. The studio, co-founded by Cliff Bleszinski, did at least attempt to offer a new twist on the genre but the game was dubbed by the studio itself as “extreme early access” and wound up being too broken and buggy to get a solid foothold. It was only a month before it was deemed a failure and the last ditch attempt by the studio to stay afloat failed.

The same thing happened with the launch of The Culling 2, a game that shut down after an even smaller window. A sequel to the first The Culling game, The Culling 2 fell far short of the generally positive reception of the first game and was quickly deemed a disaster. The royale game that needed 50 players per match managed to dwindle to a concurrent player count of single digits within 48 hours of release. Fans of the original believed that the developers had jumped into a sequel far too soon and was chasing money. It was a gamble that didn’t pay off.

At the other end of the spectrum however is the idea that you can release something later on so long as it is polished and has something fresh to offer. Perhaps the weirdest way of battling things out with other players is to do so using your skills with Tetriminoes, an experience offered for free with Tetris 99 on the Switch. While the surprise announcement and release of the game seems hasty, it offers a fresh take on a popular game that appeals to so many.

Meanwhile, established series are eager to be part of the conversation, with Call of Duty becoming home to its own Blackout Mode, a PUBG-esque experience that was developed instead of an explosive campaign like every CoD game before it. The beta for the mode drew many players in and, once again, a new spin on something so many people are familiar with seemed to catch peoples attention. These established series provide solid foundations for newer styles, ideally meaning these experiences are more polished from the get go.

Other series are weighing in too. Red Dead Redemption may well have an online mode that is still growing and developing but an element of that experience is their Most Wanted mode, a survival of the fittest. With the critical and commercial success of the game, players already looked at the game favourably so an online mode that is actively in beta didn’t seem to phase as many as you would think. It’s not the only game that is adding in royale elements after the launch though, as Battlefield V is slated to be getting a battle royale experience of its own later this year.

It’s an understandable move by EA: battle royale is where the players are and is also where the money is so why not chase that with a series that’s already made a name for itself. The issue is that many Battlefield players consider the game to be a little half-baked. The game itself sits at a user rating on Metacritic of around 3… and that’s if you round up too. The prospect that another large chunk of the game is not only unfinished but not even available until months after release is telling of just how desperately this trend will be chased. It’s almost undeniable that the game was release way before it should have been but the risk was taken in an attempt to cash in on winter sales numbers and the shifting focus of gamers at large. EA has their sights fixed on royale but it’s even worse than you think.

Why? Because not only are they competing with larger adversaries but they will soon be actively competing against themselves. Under the publishing arm of EA, Respawn Entertainment has just launched their own battle yoyale experience as we’ve discussed; Apex Legends, a shooter that takes elements of their previous Titanfall series and layers them with a lick of battle royale and hero-shooter paint. While the new title is doing well for itself so far, no doubt partially because it is also free to download, when Battlefield finally launches its own royale mode, there will be two similar experiences competing against each other that have both surfaced from the very same publishing branch. That’s a bizarre scenario in itself, especially when there is so much other competition in the field as it is.

It’s a little ironic really as it was over saturation and competition that led EA to kill off Respawn’s last series, Titanfall. Having launched Battlefield 1 and Titanfall 2 within a week of each other, and positioned Titanfall only a week before the release of 2016’s Call of Duty entry. Rather than delivering a 1-2-punch to CoD, it just meant that Titanfall had to go up against two other better established series of similar genre and caused it to ultimately fail. Now Respawn is choosing to once again get involved in a very busy area of the games industry. It’s doing well for itself so far but that may not last long and it may well find itself struggling once again down the line.

The carpet will be pulled out from under royale eventually. It’s only a matter of time before we see these games begin to wane. Rest assured though that something else will take the limelight and and some other craze will pop up.

Ultimately, battle royale is just the latest genre to become the favourite. We’ve seen first-person shooters flood the industry. We’ve seen unnecessary multiplayer modes tacked on to singleplayer experiences be all the rage once upon a time too. We have seen lord knows how many open-world third-person action games surface that offer very vast worlds with little in them (something I’ve touched upon before) and now we see everyone jump aboard a new ship. Eventually, that ship is going to sink. Battle royale games have begun battling it out but I’m not so sure there’ll be any winners in the end.

What do you think of the battle royale craze as it continues to grow? Are you enjoying any of the big hitters in the field or would you be glad to see the back of them? Let us know below.

1 note · View note

riyuyami · 6 years

Note

🔥YGO fandom

It’s better now than it was when I was younger.

Like, the shit we see now in fandoms, I was seeing that back on deviantart in 2006 and 2007. People would get so violent about ships and character portrayals, and it was just... a mess. It was a fucking mess. Sure, it’s not as creepy and awful like it is now, what with calling people out and wanting to hurt the content creators, but... fuck dude, the shit people use to say to each other online over a fucking character or a ship... hell! I remember seeing someone being mad at someone for drawing a character in a style they didn’t like! And I even was told to set my art on fire cause it was bad. Wow.

Nowadays, I do see some fandom issues, but it’s nothing like what I use to see. And, as usual, I tend to just stick to my own bubble, my own little circle in the fandom. I like a lot of the content I see now, how people present the characters (not always, but I like how a lot of my friends shows how their view the characters but still keeping very close to canon).

I also feel much better about presenting my ideas, cause a long time ago, I use to produce content that I thought people wanted, that wouldn’t get me in trouble. I followed the crowd, the bandwagon of ideas and such. Wow, what a dumbass I use to be!

I still like some of my old ideas and such, but most of them were garbage, and most of the fanfics and such I use to read make me cringe because they were based around some really bad concepts (like the Anzu hate).

There are still some bad fandom things that I see, more often than not, I tend to see it with the other series, not just DM, but as I said, I try to avoid it. I don’t wanna get involved with that shit storm. And if it keeps coming up? Blacklisting and blocking posts really helps.

#John's commentary #pleasinglytherandom

9 notes · View notes

payment-providers · 5 years

Text

New Post has been published on Payment-Providers.com

New Post has been published on https://payment-providers.com/burger-king-to-launch-impossible-whopper/

Burger King To Launch Impossible Whopper

In the year 2000, if one had stood on a street corner and predicted that in two decades, the biggest craze to sweep through fast food since the drive-thru window would be artificial meat – well, let’s just say there would be a lot of disbelievers in the crowd.

Twenty years ago, the veggie burger was not the kind of thing that would take the world by storm, because they were not, as burgers went, very good. Which isn’t to say they were uniformly terrible or even that they tasted bad. Some of them even tasted pretty good, mostly when smothered with ketchup and other burger toppings.

But what they didn’t at all taste like, however, was an actual hamburger. As the 21st century was getting off the ground, if one came across another human being eating some kind of veggie burger to satisfy their craving for an actual burger, it was safe to say they were a very committed vegetarian or vegan.

Fast-forward a couple of decades, and the world is waiting with bated breath for the nationwide launch of the Impossible Whopper at Burger King. A veggie burger so well-made, so delicious and so entirely perfected by science that the fast-food chain claims diners will not be able to tell the difference between an ersatz Whopper and the real deal.

Burger King may be making the biggest leap forward in the QSR meatless race, but it is far from a solitary play. Many known names in the fast-food game are investigating their own version of riding the trend; there are even rumors that McDonald’s is considering joining the fray with a meatless option of its own.

As we ponder the burger giants pondering burgers that really aren’t burgers, it’s fair to ask whether meatless meat is a new way of eating for a new era of consumers – or the latest in a long line of food fads that seem like the next big dietary shift, and then fizzle out quietly as consumers’ tastes, quite literally, change.

The March of Meatless Everywhere

Burger King’s experiments with artificial meat began in April of 2019, when it rolled out the Impossible Whopper in St. Louis area restaurants. The Impossible Whopper was a standard Whopper made with a grilled Impossible Burger patty – along with a claim that the meatless burger would offer the same mouth-watering sensation of its beef counterpart.

The magic of the Impossible Burger, according to Impossible Foods, is a mixture of ground wheat and potato protein mixed with “flecks” of coconut fat. The burgers also “bleed” like a proper burger, due to the inclusion of a compound called heme, found in animals and plants. The net result, according to Impossible Burger and Burger King, is a totally vegetarian (but not vegan, since the Whopper has mayonnaise on it) that has 15 percent less fat and 90 percent less cholesterol than a regular Whopper, but tastes exactly the same.

Seems almost impossible.

But Burger King says it is so confident that the Impossible Whopper could fool a fan that they are launching a taste test of their own. Customers who order via DoorDash or the BK app can use the “IMPOSSIBLE” promotion code to buy both a regular Whopper and an Impossible Whopper for $7. That promo will run through Sept. 12.

The Impossible Whopper pilot was so popular in St. Louis that there were lines out the door to buy them, with reports of some locations running out early on – even though a burger with no meat costs a dollar more than one with it. Neither BK nor Impossible have released sales figures as of yet, but the test was clearly a big enough hit to warrant a full-blown rollout to Burger King’s 7,000 or so nationwide locations a few months later – the biggest exposure the product type has gotten so far.

That said, meatless meat has been gobbling up fast food real estate all year.

White Castle, a fast-food chain with a much smaller regional footprint, has already rolled out a different Impossible Burger recipe for its signature slider burgers. Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s both sell a vegetarian burger option made by an Impossible Foods competitor, Beyond Meat.

Dunkin’ doesn’t do burgers, but they have introduced a Beyond Sausage patty to their breakfast sandwiches at select locations. Del Taco has been selling the Beyond Taco for the last six months. And while Taco Bell in the U.S. has not yet introduced fake meat to its taco products, it has rolled out vegan “meat” chainwide in Spain for its tacos and burritos.

Meatless meat has also inspired other food product extensions. Chains like Tim Hortons, New York’s Gregorys Coffee and Bareburger have all embraced a veggie-based “egg” scramble product.

“As we continue to test and get feedback, we will consider expanding plant-based options into other menu items,” a spokeswoman for Tim Hortons told MarketWatch in an email.

It bears mentioning that thus far, the year’s most successful IPO was Beyond Meat’s in April – and it seems the drumbeat of places signing up to include some variation of a meatless product on their menus has magnified since that point. Given the explosion, and the seemingly genuine enthusiasm for the product, one might wonder if there is a big shift underway in our national eating habits.

Then again…

The Shifting World of Food

Creating a long-standing classic that stands the test of time in the world of food is, well, not easy. Food is a trendy, fad-laden place where things are everywhere and then – very quickly – nowhere.

In the 1950s and 60s, one might have feared that for the rest of time, all fruit would be served with marshmallows inside a gelatin mold. For 10 years, the cupcake reigned supreme in the United States as the nation’s most beloved confection – only to suddenly crash one day in 2013, when everyone realized what they really wanted was a cronut. Two years ago, people were writing think pieces about how avocado toast was destroying both American society and the planet’s ecological balance – these days, the artisanal toast makers have all moved on, as the price of avocados has suddenly spiked.

That’s not to say that nothing holds on – spaghetti and meatballs has been on 90 percent of humanity’s top-five list for the last 500 or so years. But more often, things can be delicious and beloved one day and entirely forgotten – or, worse, widely mocked – the next.

Which way will the meatless craze go? At this phase of the game, it is hard to say. Still, three interesting points of unrelated data seem to be worth keeping in mind.

The first is that meatless meat costs more than the real McCoy. Not hugely more – a buck or so over the cost of a burger made of beef. But considering these are $1.50-$5.00 items, the meatless upgrade can add 20 to 60 percent to the cost of the product. Given that the meatless meat’s claim to fame is that it tastes exactly like meat, one might wonder if customers would prefer to pay a dollar less and eat something that tastes exactly like meat, because it is meat.

Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat also say they are providing a burger-like taste in a way that is healthier and more environmentally friendly. Yet both of those claims have been questioned, according to Wall Street Journal reports. The patties themselves, experts note, could be somewhat healthier than a meat burger (although still quite high in fat), but the fast-food versions are still loaded with toppings and other unhealthy preservative ingredients, which means any potential health benefit is marginal. Meat or meatless, it’s still lettuce, onion, cheese, pickles, tomatoes and special sauce on a sesame seed bun.

And while animal husbandry is very land- and water-intensive, so is soybean farming and wheat farming – and the production process for high-tech meat products tends to be on the heavy side when it comes to power use and waste generation. It still might be cleaner than industrial meat production, but it is a bit of a stretch to call it a wholly green process. As meatless meat products become more common, it remains to be seen whether those facts will influence consumers’ decisions to consume them – and, in many cases, to pay more for them.

Finally, there is the interesting data point that the majority of people who eat meatless burgers are meat-eaters. A new report from market research firm NPD Group finds that 95 percent of plant-based burger buyers have also purchased a beef burger within the past year. Committed vegetarians or vegans are not the main drivers of this market – in fact, many people in these groups complain that the products are too much like meat for them to enjoy. According to NPD, the main buyers here are “flexitarians” – consumers who hope to lower their overall meat consumption but are not looking to give it up entirely.

“Although vegetarians and vegans are certainly contributing to the growth in plant-based [foods], they still represent a small (single-digit) percentage of the U.S. population and aren’t the primary contributors,” NPD notes.

The good news is that meatless burgers are pulling from a larger base: There are many more consumers who would like to eat less meat than those who are willing to give it up entirely. But the bad news is that they have to compete against an already ingrained habit: eating actual hamburgers. And they have to be willing to pay more to do it.

Habits, as PYMNTS has noted in the past, are hard things to overcome. Novelty can do a lot of the early heavy lifting – and we imagine all kinds of people will be taking the Impossible challenge to see if they can tell a real Whopper from its vegetarian doppelganger. But once that enthusiasm wears off, will consumers stick with the meatless bandwagon? Or will they follow their stomachs to the next neat new idea in eating?

——————————–

Latest Insights:

Our data and analytics team has developed a number of creative methodologies and frameworks that measure and benchmark the innovation that’s reshaping the payments and commerce ecosystem. The July 2019 Pay Advances: The Gig Economy’s New Normal, a PYMNTS and Mastercard collaboration, examines pay advances – full or partial payments received before an ad hoc job is completed – including how gig workers currently use them and their potential for future adoption.

Beyond Meat, Burger King, fast food, Impossible Foods, Innovation, Main Feature, meatless, News, QSRs, Retail, Saturday Feature, vegan, vegetarian

Source link

0 notes

suraj-singh1 · 5 years

Text

How to overcome Financial Problems

How to tackle financial Problems We have all been there. Financial woes and challenges happen to everyone at some point, and the stress and worry can be overwhelming. The most common financial problems and difficulties are:

Cash Flow Economic Cycles Funding Unforeseen expenses Poor financial management

Let's look at each in turn.

Cash Flow.

Keeping track of what money is coming in and going out of your business is essential. Remember, profit isn’t the same as cash flow. Your business may generate a large profit margin and you may experience strong growth, but if your money is all tied up in stock you may not be able to pay your suppliers.

Send out invoices promptly and be quick to chase overdue bills. Set out clear payment terms with suppliers. Get to know your customer payment dates and don’t ignore irregularities or delays — a poor paying customer might be about to go bust.

Efficient stock management. This is just as important as managing cash flow. Regularly reconcile your stock records. An efficiently managed stock control system will have a positive impact on your cash flow because you will never be holding too much stock, or have all your money tied up in it.

Stay on good terms with your lenders and keep them informed of any unforeseen outgoings or changes in forecasts. By developing a good relationship, based on trust, with banks and lenders, they’ll be more likely to treat you favorably should your business need future financial assistance.

Economic Cycles

Planning for cycles is largely a matter of recognizing that they exist. This may mean not assuming that the current good times will go on forever.

Plan for tougher times by limiting the costs you add to your business. In particular, be wary of paying higher recurring expenses such as rent.

Entrepreneurs tend to take on unnecessary expenses when times are good, but this can sink you if a recession strikes. Look out for overly lavish expense accounts, over-reliance on high-priced professional advisors, products that don’t carry their weight, and even marginal customers you’d be better off without. Trimming these costs when times are good will help your profits now and may make the difference between success and failure when the cycle turns the other way.

Also think twice before adding expenses that may be hard to cut, or even cost more to cut than they do to keep. Chief among these costs are people. It can be emotionally as well as financially painful to lay off workers in the event of an economic downturn. And the costs for severance pay, unemployment insurance, outplacement, and retraining may also be steep.

Remember: Even if your income statement and balance sheet are strong now, you have to practice cost containment to be ready for the next recession.

Funding

Firstly I need to point out that “The best finance is no finance” however few of us have the luxury of no Finance.

Bank Loans Normally this is the first place the young entrepreneur thinks of. Since the Financial Crisis in 2008, Banks lending standards have got a whole lot tougher. However, some Banks have set aside funds for Small Business Lending. It is always worth contacting them and compare their Terms and Conditions with other forms of finance.

Equity Funding Is the process of raising capital through the sale of shares in an enterprise? It can be anything from a few thousand pounds from Mum and Dad to billions from giant “initial public offerings”. The concept is the same. You give up a part of your company in return for cash. Giving up part of your company may be a big ask but being too possessive can kill an idea before it has taken off.

Venture Capital Is a type of private equity, provided by firms or funds to small, early-stage emerging firms that are deemed to have high growth potential in return for Equity or a stake in the ownership?

Friends and relatives Can be a controversial method. Always consider that you are risking their financial future and jeopardizing important personal relationships. Offer up a strong business plan. This will show them that you are taking their money seriously, and always make them aware that they could lose everything!

Angel Funding Or seed investor is an affluent individual who provides capital for a business start-up, usually in exchange for convertible debt or ownership equity.

Crowd Funding Is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising monetary contributions from a large number of people. Debt-based crowdfunding, also known as peer to peer “P2P” is where borrowers apply online, generally for free, and their application is reviewed and verified by an automated system. Investors buy securities in a fund that makes the loans to individual borrowers. Investors make money from interest on the unsecured loan, the system operators make money from taking a percentage of the loan and a loan servicing fee.

In the years that I have grown my own business ZZap - Money Counters | Cash Counting & Sorting Machines I have learned that in order to attract other peoples hard earned cash make sure you can tick each of these boxes:

http://1.Be an expert in your product and the market you are attempting to enter. 2. Don’t just follow the latest Fad. You need to show passion for the idea \ product, rather than just jumping on a bandwagon. 3. Keep the investors up to date. This is often overlooked. 4. Add experience. Surround yourself with people you trust who can fill in the gaps. No one knows it all.

There are many ways to raise capital but they all come at a price. Taking calculated risks is part of being a businessman. Be truthful with yourself, do your homework, know your market. Before anyone will invest in you they have to be convinced that you are a good bet. You will only convince them if you truly believe in yourself. You may be interested in my article “Learn your own way. The most underrated key to success.

Unforeseen expenses

Office Space Before renting office space or purchasing property, think about how much space you need now and what you’ll need once your business starts to grow. Does your business require more than a home office can provide? Will temporary office space work?

Equipment & Maintenance Don’t buy the latest model if you don’t need it. Remember to include basic office equipment in your budget, items like computers, copier, paper, scanner, desks, and chairs. Use second-hand and discount sites such as eBay, Freecycle, Gumtree and surplus sales.

Employee benefits Provide perks. It’s more cost-effective to retain good employees than recruit new ones. These perks don’t have to be pricey; benefits such as flexible schedules, telecommuting, and casual dress codes can do a lot to boost retention.

Insurance At a minimum, you need both employer liability and public liability coverage. It’s also a good idea to carry insurance for negligence, property, illnesses, and injuries. Negotiate with your insurance providers. Periodically review your coverage to see if it still meets your business needs. Talk to your provider and other insurers to get the best rates and the best coverage.

Poor Financial management

Specialists can save you money and time. Legal professionals can untangle red tape and advise on legal challenges. Accounting specialists can translate tax codes, help maintain accurate payment and inventory records, and find grants to help fund your endeavors. Although expensive they can make that all important difference.

In conclusion

If you want to run a successful business then there are times when you will take calculated risks. This can lead to success or ruin. But it doesn’t have to be that way. You must realize that there is almost always a way out, and before you sink into deep depression you must explore every avenue. I hope I have shown you how to overcome some of the financial problems and difficulties and hopefully ease your stress. One size does not fit all. But, by taking a positive approach there is every chance you will succeed.

0 notes

kendrixtermina · 7 years

Text

Extra Typology Vol #3 - Part 4, A: The Self-Confident Style (Basics)

Self-Confident individuals aren’t hard to spot, for they stand out, seeming to naturally possess the often touted “can do” attitude so prized in modern society (at least/especially the American & american-influenced ones - though like the conscientious style it can be over-valued and over-tolerated at times)

Still: It is often said that many things in life (sucess, social skill, leadership, romance etc.) can be highly influenced by the right attitude, and in that regard, people of the self-confident style have a powerful natural advantage - These people know what they want and what they’re worth, which can result in a natural “star quality” born out of self-respect, self-regard and self-certainty - and the ambition to match.

The Self-Confident style is one of the most goal-oriented styles out there (the Agressive style being another one), one of the most go-getting and one of the moast capable of turning idle dreams into real sucesses. It helps that they tend to be charming, socially smooth extroverts with a natural sense for politics - know how to work and motivate crowds and get others to jump on their bandwagons.

The Six Domains

Self

The central domain of this style and the one that imbues all others with their sense of power & importance - even when trying to describe this style’s characteristics, one finds that many of the relevant words refer back to the self: self-made, self-possessed, self-respect, self-reliance, self-fulfillment, self-enrinchment, self-asserting, self-starter etc. (Of course, on the negative side there’s also a host of similar, less flattering words, at least when it comes to less functional individuals: selfish, self-obsessed, self-agrandizing, self-important etc... )

Basically, these folks look out for number one, believe in themselves & approach life with the belief that they deserve their share of life - where other, perhaps equally qualified people might be led astray by doubt & setbacks, this type tends to mantain their optimism, and is prepared to work hard & endure hardship to get what they feel they deserve, & this belief provides structure, order & meaning to all other areas of their lives: If they want a luxurious house, they’ll do what is necessary to get it; If a partner treats them shitty, they won’t put up with it or hesitate to leave for greener pastures.

Work

People with a pronounced Self-Confident trait are outgoing, high-energy, competitive & absorb data easily - they are good at seeing the big picture, making decisions, planning, setting priorities and delegating - if there’s something tha holds less interest to them, they are good at making use of other people’s strenghts - In other words, they are high-archievers and often good leaders.

It helps that they have a natural instincs for politics in all areas of life, including the workplace - they tend to quickly recognize the power structure within any organization and are good at forming fruitful aliances. That said, another consequence of this is that they can get envious about those in power and, like their Aggressive brothers, may not be too sqeamish about attempting to ‘unseat’ them & making enemies- they’re the sort to get promotions through connections while hard-working but less self-promoting types (such as the Conscientious) get passed up as they keep their head too cloose to the grindstone to notice the power plays that could propel them up the ladder.

More often than not, Self-Confident types tend to work confidently & efficiently with other people, approaching work connections as another means to get ahead - if they have something to gain from a superior or authority figure, they will be deferientian and cooperative, and loyal subordinates will receive generosity, money, support and the occasional perk in return - even those they compete against might be valued as a yardstick against which to measure their own importance.

Relationships

Self-Confident folks tend to be popular & attractive (as they’ll tend to value & work towards these traits) and besides, their sense of certainty in themselves & their project can draw others in - they’re good at being loved, take compliments and won’t get shy or embarassed if others show them attention & admiration.

Besides, they need to be needed and will work hard to get & mantain the loving admiration & validation of a person they are interested in - they know what to do to get your attention & “win you over” and are not above big romantic gestures. If your attention is something they want, they’ll pursue it much like all their other goals & whip out their charme.

There, however, also lies the difficulty: As they tend to value their ambitions & pursuits so highly they cannot be relied upon to sacrifice them & may lose interest in & turn away from a partner once the “conquest” in complete - as they’re so strongly ruled by the domain of the self they might be unable to get an objective distance from their own thoughts & feelings and end up assuming that their loved ones feel & think the same as they do, & fail to notice relationship troubles or spousal unhappiness sneaking up on the - Although they appreciate what others do for them & thrive on their relationships, they are not naturally attuned to their partner’s needs.

Despite this, they can take breakups & divorces rather hard and are actually very sensitive to rejection, though they’ll typically hide it beneath distractions and a charming facade. Once hurt, it can take them a long time to start something really serious again.

They do best with a partner who is fairly independent, can take care of their own needs & continues to challenge, stimulate & impress them intellectually & physically.

Emotions

Self-Confident individuals can have a temper, and when they’re crossed or slighted, they’ll most certainly show it. In addition, they can be envious of others whom they perceive as more sucessful than themselves. Usually, their success-orientation, political savyness & strong sense o self protect them from letting their less “admirable” feelings get the best of them, at least in public.

Depending on the degree to which they are dominated by this trait, they may have some or much difficulty experiencing strong love in the unconditional, devoted sense, at least when they’re young & immature, they may go through a couple of divorces before they find something mutually satisfactory.

That said, they can and do feel powerful attractions and emotional/sexual fulfillment. Their moods are characteristically optimistic, energetic & hyped unless they’re very far on the dysfunctional side.

Self-Control

In general, self-control is strong in this style - their strenght in archieving goals reflects their self-discipline & ability to keep conflicted impulses at bay - when they slip up, it’s more from overconfidence than poor impulse-control - eg, they may do things like cheating, bribery & temper-tantrums only if and because they think they can get away with it.

Worldview

In strongly self-confident types, there can be a tendency to se the world overly as their personal stage or only as it’s relevant to them, loing sight of their faults, vulnerabilities & their relative place in the sheme of things - which then bites them in the ass.

In moderate quantities this can lead to a positive attitude toward the world as something they can “work with” & awareness of their importance in it.

Life Choices

Leadership

Self-Confident inviduals are often gifted natural leaders who happily delegate not just the “dirty work” but responsible undertakings - unlike Conscientious Individuals, they are happy to allow their subordinates a lot of leeway as long as the job gets done. They’re quite effective at building an effective, highly motivated team with themselves at the center, though unlikethe Agressive style, they don’t necessarily insist on strict hierarchies as long as everyone acknowledges who’s boss.

Such a team, however, will be geared toward archieving the goals of the Self-Confident leader, not the individual team members - start to criticize or compete with the Self-Confident leader, or encroach on their share of the credit and/or glory, and you’ll find yourself at the bottom of the heap - or out! - before you know what you did to derserve it. They thrive on competition & appreciate the same trait in others, but it’s very important to them to stay ahead of everyone else.

If you get on their good side, however, they can make excellent mentors & pull strings on your behalf.

Job Recomendations

If this is your dominant style, you would profit from following ambitions that lead toward leadership & the limelight. This style is common in entertainers, broadcasters, celebrities and politicians.

In all cases, choose careers that involve working with and/or influencing others - this will make good use of your image-related instincts and besides, Self-Confident folks need to have people around them.

(A/N: This even holds true for mbti introverts who are high in the self-confident style, at least if they’re not soc blind - I know one individual who, despite being an IN, occasionally feels a tad under-peopled on his working-from-home programmer’s job (otherwise a classic IN profession that makes good use of his skills & inclinations). That said, he grew up in a noisy asian megacity the likes of which Germany doesn’t really have. He’s trying to compensate this in his private life, but if you’re a full-blown ExxJ you should probably doing exclusively avoid isolated/autonomous work long-term )

Stress Sources

An often devastating stress source for Self-Confident people can be to be severely criticized, or worse, rejected. Despite the epinomous confidence & self-focus, they’re social creatures. - as mentioned above they can be too busy being upset or resentful to actually course-correct & take measures to fix flaws or relationships.

Parenting

In the best case, a Self-Confident parent can confer their “Star Quality” onto their children - they teach them to aim high & expect the best for themselves, offering a model of ambition, self-esteem, self-discipline and social sucess.

However, extremly Self-Confident parents may not recognize or credit their children’s individual differences, or step out of the spotlight long enough to let the children experience what it feels like to be the center of the universe on their own merits. Some children of extremly Self-Confident parents grow up to be good at giving love but feel unworthy of receiving it.

Of course, a non-self-confident parent or strenghts in some more other-directed styles (conscientious, devoted, self-sacrifing, dramatic etc.) may lead the parent to see things from the child’s point of view and steer clear of their predisposition toward a certain insensitivity to other’s emotional needs.

Romantic Compatibility

Self-Confident individuals can make good, attractive & devoted mates, but a presequite for that is that their partner have a strong self-esteem and not require freqent assurances or understanding from their partner.

Some personality styles that match up well with the Self-Confident personality style are those who get satisfaction out of taking the ‘giving’ part in a relationship, such as Devoted or Self-Sacrificing, but only when they aren’t too domineering & the individuals are healthy - otherwise, their individuality & needs might end up getting the shaft

Self-Confident people need to be needed & Sensitive folks can benefit from a strong & outgoing mate to provide navigate the social arena for them, so those styles cn be complimentary

The life-of-the-party, other-directed Dramatic style ight make for an exciting, mutually flattering match as long as the Dramatic’s need for reassurance isn’t too high

When two Self-Confident types powerfully attract each other, they may be headed for dramatic competition & either fly apart or end as one of those couples who fight a lot, but in mature, balanced individuals, it can also settle into a dynamic of mutual respect where everyone has their own ambitions & social circles to satisfy their needs.

On the other end, styles that are highly likely to clash with the Self-Confident include Vigilant, Leisurely, Adventurous & Agressive - these styles will not be satisfied subordinating their desires & needs to another’s.

While they tend to get involved in deep relationships, Mercurial individuals tend to prove too emotionally demanding for the Self-Confident’s patience in the long run

Although a highly Serious person could bring the necessary steadiness to the relationship, the usually pessimistic outlook of this style tends to throw cold water on the Self-Confident’s inherent optimism, so this cobination hardly ever gets together in the first place

Specific Issues

Status, Image & Power

While their goals will vary from person to personand they’re just as likely to dream of becoming sucessful enterpreneurs as to own a fancy suburban house with a perfect family, their goals often tend to involve attaining high status: They want to be and/or have the best & can be materialistic - they want to be department heads of the best universities, to belong to the best clubs, live in the classiest neighborhoods, send their kids to the most renowned schools etc. - Some may mantain perfect bodies & buy fabulous clothing, others may desire political or academic renown & sit on the best & most renowned commitees, but whatever they aspire to, they want to be involved in the best, cuttting-edge version of it.

This image-orientation isn’t necessarily insincere and can indeed be quite genuine in the sense that the status itself if what they want & enjoy, for its own sake. They seek to be, and often suceed in becoming what they believe they are to begin with: Important, deserving people.

Soft Spots

By nature, Self-Confident individuals tend to be quite cognizant of & comfortable with their strenghts, however, the same isn’t necessarily true for their weaknesses - indeed, for people in which this style is very prominent, even the most constructive criticism can sometimes feel like barbed wire.

While they usually remain cooperative & keep working to get good grades etc, there’s a tendency to resent & try to avoid criticism rather than processing, analyzing & understanding it, which may hinder the person’s ability to learn from it.

#oldham #oldham personality #personality #typology #extraTypology #self-Confident

1 note · View note

williamprince101990-blog · 4 years

Text

Colored Contact Lenses- What Works Best For You

Colored contacts can be safely put in the category of highly trendy accessory. From models doing catwalks on ramps to ordinary people walking on sidewalks, everyone can embrace this fashion. Many of us have already tried our hand at it and others are more than willing to join the bandwagon. You must have come across amazing looks on Halloween, carnivals and prom nights that made you wonder about the x-factor that made those looks standout from the crowd. Well, 90% of them must have worn colored contact lenses to accentuate their eyes that gives them the advantage over others competitors.

Colored contact lenses are a daily ritual for many people who love to enhance their original eye color; others opt to do it once in a while on special occasions and take a complete detour to give themselves a whole new look. Whatever way you go, you must select the tint and color best suited for you. Contacts are gaining popularity among the masses and it’s like a household item now, cheap colored contacts are easily available in stores and online in an assortment of tints, colors and materials. Give them a shot and you will get hooked on this accessory.

There are two types of colored contact lenses:

Prescription colored contact lenses

These types of lenses are for vision correction which also becomes a fashion add-on as they are colored. You need to have a proper eye examination for these from an eye care professional. They help to correct farsightedness, nearsightedness, astigmatism, dual focal points or disfigured corneas.

Plano colored contact lenses

Zero power lenses with no vision correction properties, purely used for cosmetic and fashion purposes. They tend to mimic the eyes by having fine lines and dots just like irises have. The center part is left unblemished to aid in a crisp and clear view of the world.

What colored contacts work best for you comes down to one question, what is your style and how much do you want to experiment with your eye color? There are many factors that can affect your choice and one must take them into consideration for the best possible result, which will boost your confidence and make you stand tall.

Tints

Visibility tint has the softest of sheen that has no impact on the eyes, it is there to make them more visible while cleaning and if you drop them they are easier to find due to the colored tint on them.

Enhancement tint has a more prominent color coat than the visibility tint has. It is perfect for those who love to draw attention to their eyes in the most subtle manner. A match made in heaven for those paler irises that just need little oomph and they are good to go.

Opaque tint is what ordinary people know as colored contacts. These are the ones that have the power to completely transform you and change the color of your eyes. You have dark eyes? No worries this tint can make your browns turn into sapphires or emeralds.

With so many options to choose from, the decision making is an unnerving and intimidating chore. Your hair color, complexion, personal preferences all have to be taken into account before making the ultimate choice. Whether you want a subdued change or you want a complete metamorphosis, is your vibe bold or elegant- it’s your choice at the end. Here I have tried to line up some simple guidelines for you to follow and I’m sure you will have the outcome that will be satisfactory and adequate to your needs.

What works best for brown eyes?

With over 50% of people in the world having brown eyes it’s only fair to address the options for this color first, right? Good news is that most colored contacts are designed for your brown eyes. The best result will be achieved by the opaque tint as the enhancement tint will not show up and will get muddled by the dark background. But that doesn’t mean that going all out with a high drama effect is your only option. Try going for a couple of shades lighter than your original like honey brown or light hazel, for those perfect night outs to steal all the limelight. Personally I feel that greens perfectly substitute the brown eyes. Jade, emerald, dark green and olive colors all are suited for brown eyes. Hazel colored contacts are my top recommendation but no one is stopping you to go for blue, violet or grey if you are confident in carrying them.

What works best for blue eyes?

The best course of action is to retain your original color and have fun with enhancing it. Enhancement tint is your go to if you have blue colored eyes. It will bring out the natural color with intensity and give a touch of refinement and sophistication. But if you are looking for a complete change then your options are greens or light brown. The former will set you apart and people will notice you from 5 feet apart but with the latter, people will sit up and notice you. Now you have to decide how much attention you want to draw.

What works best for green eyes?

Perhaps the only color that compliments all skin tones, naturally. Again it depends on your choice of how bold or muted look you aim to accomplish. Enhancement tint works best for light green or hazel color eyes but if your color is more toward olive tone then opaque tint gives you limitless options to play from. I recommend going for either grey or blue lenses.

Every eye color is beautiful naturally but we all want to revamp our looks every now and then to break the monotony and perk up our appearance. Sometimes we crave for what others have, or what we don’t have. So don’t be too hard on yourself, indulge in self-love with no guilt. The only thing to keep in mind is not to experiment too much; it should be cohesive with your personality.

0 notes

faizrashis1995 · 4 years

Text

LXC vs Docker: Why Docker is Better

So what, one may ask, is the difference between these VE’s and a traditional VM? Well, the main difference is that in a VE there is no preloaded emulation manager software as in a VM. In a VE, the application (or OS) is spawned in a container and runs with no added overhead, except for a usually minuscule VE initialization process. There is no hardware emulation, which means that aside from the small memory software penalty, LXC will boast bare metal performance characteristics because it only packages the needed applications. Oh, and the OS is also just another application that can be packaged too. Contrast this to a VM, which packages the entire OS and machine setup, including hard drive, virtual processors and network interfaces. The resulting bloated mass usually takes a long time to boot and consumes a lot of CPU and RAM.

Advantage: VE. So why haven’t VM’s already have gone the way of the dinosaur? The problem with VE’s is that, up to now at least, they cannot be neatly packaged into ready-made and quickly deployable machines – think of the flexibility and time saving offered by Amazon’s myriad AWS machine configs. Also, this means they cannot be easily managed via neat GUI management consoles and they don’t offer some other neat features of VM’s such as IaaS setups and live migration.

So the VE crowd is not unlike the overclockers and modders of the CPU and computer hardware universe – they extract more utility from the standard machine in the market. But doing so calls for advanced technical skills, and results in a highly customized machine that’s not necessarily guaranteed to be interoperable with others. Also, if you don’t know what you’re doing, you will royally mess up your machine.

What They Do

Think of LXC as supercharged chroot on Linux. It allows you to not only isolate applications, but even the entire OS. Its helper scripts focus on creating containers as lightweight machines - basically servers that boot faster and need less RAM. There are two user-space implementations of containers, each exploiting the same kernel features:

Libvirt, which allows the use of containers through the LXC driver by connecting to 'lxc:///'. This can be very convenient as it supports the same usage as its other drivers.

Another implementation, called simply 'LXC', is not compatible with libvirt, but is more flexible with more userspace tools. It is possible to switch between the two, though there are peculiarities which can cause confusion.

Docker, on the other hand, can do much more than this. Docker can offer the following capabilities:

Portable deployment across machines: you can use Docker to create a single object containing all your bundled applications. This object can then be transferred and quickly installed onto any other Docker-enabled Linux host.

Versioning: Docker includes git-like capabilities for tracking successive versions of a container, inspecting the diff between versions, committing new versions, rolling back etc.

Component reuse: Docker allows building or stacking of already created packages. For instance, if you need to create several machines that all require Apache and MySQL database, you can create a ‘base image’ containing these two items, then build and create new machines using these already installed.

Shared libraries: There is already a public registry (http://index.docker.io/ ) where thousands have already uploaded the useful containers they have created. Again, think of the AWS common pool of different configs and distros – this is very similar.

For a great list of Docker’s capabilities, see this thread on Stackoverflow: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17989306/what-does-docker-add-to-just-plain-lxc

Popularity

If popularity were the only criteria for deciding between these two containerization technologies, then Docker would handily beat LXC and its REST tool, LXD. It’s easy to see why, with Docker taking the devops world by storm since its launch back in 2013. Docker’s popularity, however, is not an event in isolation, rather, the application containerization that Docker champions just happens to be a model that tech giants, among them Google, Netflix, Twitter, and other web-scale companies, have gravitated to for its scaling advantages.

LXC, while older, has not been as popular with developers as Docker has proven to be. This is partly due to the difference in use cases that these two technologies focus on, with LXC having a focus on sys admins that’s similar to what solutions like the Solaris operating system, with its Solaris Zones, Linux OpenVZ, and FreeBSD, with its BSD Jails virtualization system. These solutions provide OS containers for a whole system, which is achieved, typically, by providing a different root for the filesystem, and creating environments that are isolated from each other and can’t share state.

Docker went after a different target market, developers, and sought to take containers beyond the OS level to the more granular world of the application itself. While it started out being built on top of LXC, Docker later moved beyond LXC containers to its own execution environment called libcontainer. Unlike LXC, which launches an operating system init for each container, Docker provides one OS environment, supplied by the Docker Engine, and enables developers to easily run applications that reside in their own application environment which is specified by a docker image. Just like with LXC, these images can be shared among developers, with a dockerfile, in the case of Docker, automating the sequence of commands for building an image.

The Docker user base is large and continues to grow, with ZDNet estimating the number of containerized applications at more than 3.5 million and billions of containerized applications downloaded using Docker. Linux powerhouses such as Red Hat and Canonical, the backers of Ubuntu, are firmly on the Docker bandwagon, as are even bigger tech companies like Oracle and Microsoft. With such adoption, it’s likely Docker will continue to outstrip LXC in popularity, though system containers like LXC have their place in virtualization of traditional applications that are difficult to port to the microservice architecture that’s popular these days.

Tooling and CLI

LXC tooling sticks close to what system administrators running bare metal servers are used to, with direct SSH access allowing the use of automation scripts your team might have used on bare metal or VMs running on VirtualBox and other virtualized production environments. This portability makes migrating any application from a Linux server to running on LXC containers rather seamless, but only if you are not using containerization solutions already. The LXC command line provides essential commands that cover routine management tasks, including the creation, launch, and deletion of LXC containers. LXD images can be obtained from the built in image remotes, supplying an LXD remote, or manually importing a Linux image from a tarball. Once you’ve created and launched a container from an image, you can then run Linux commands in the container.

Docker’s tooling is centered around the Docker CLI, with commands for listing, fetching, and managing Docker images. A public image registry, Docker Hub, provides access to a variety of images for commonly used applications. Notably, you can also download OS images, which lets you run, say, a Linux system in a Docker container. This is functionality that you would typically associate with LXC containers, which allow you to run OS systems without needing a VM. However, Docker containers aim to be even lighter weight in order to support the fast, highly scalable, deployment of applications with microservice architecture.

Ecosystem and Cloud Support

With backing from Canonical, LXC and LXD have an ecosystem tightly bound to the rest of the open source Linux community. The entire range of tools that work on VMs and Linux systems tend to work for LXC as well, after all, the containers on a LXC host system have Linux OS instances running within them. This means that your team won’t need to find an additional vendor for LXC specific tooling, since the tools you already use on Linux will work when your applications run on LXC containers. For managing your LXC containers, which may live on a single server or potentially thousands of nodes, the LXD hypervisor provides a clean REST API that you can use. LXD is implemented in Go, to ensure high performance and networking concurrency, with excellent integration with OpenStack and other Linux server systems.

In contrast, Docker requires much more specialized support and has spawned off a sizable ecosystem, since the application container deployment model that it seeks to achieve is such a novel concept in the timeline of software deployments. The application container space is younger than the VM scene, and this results in a lot more fluidity. Docker now runs on Windows, and is supported by major cloud providers such as AWS, IBM, Google, and Microsoft Azure.

Docker’s ecosystem includes the following set of tools:

Docker Swarm - An orchestration tool to manage clusters of Docker containers

Docker Trusted Registry - A private registry for trusted Docker images

Docker Compose - A tool for launching applications with numerous containers that need to exchange data.

Docker Machine - A tool for creating Docker-enabled virtual machines.

There are more tools that help to fill out the entire stack, providing specialized functionality to support your Docker deployments. Docker Hub, Docker’s official open image registry, contains over 100,000 container images from open source contributors, vendors, and the Docker community.

Ease Of Use

Docker and LXC both provide ample documentation, with helpful guides for creating and deploying containers. Bindings and libraries exist for languages such as Python and Java, making it even easier for developer teams to use. When comparing the two technologies, however, Docker’s ever-growing ecosystem will take much more to manage. Docker might have become the standard for running containerized applications, with tools like Kubernetes and Docker Swarm providing the orchestration, however, the ecosystem comes with additional complexity.

Part of this has to do with Docker’s key innovation of single-process containers, over and above the standard multiprocess containers that LXC provided. When Docker introduced this innovation, it inevitably led to downstream complexity for teams porting over traditional applications to a non-standard operating system environment. A lot more planning, architecture decisions and scripting to support applications has to be done.

With LXC, a large part of this complexity is avoided since LXC runs a standard OS init for each container, providing a standard Linux operating system for your apps to live in. As a result, migrating from a VM or bare metal server is often easier to do if you are moving to LXC containers, unlike if you want to move to Docker containers. On the other hand, Docker’s approach makes working with containers easier for developer since they don’t have to use raw, low-level LXC themselves. This split between a systems admin and developer focus continues to characterize adoption of these tools.

Related Container Technology

As alluded to above, the world of containers is particularly dynamic, and involves a lot of innovation both around LXC, Docker, as well as alternative containerization technologies. What’s considered standard practice today can become old and substandard fairly fast. This is why you want to be aware of the bigger world of virtualization and containerization. These are some of the container technologies to watch:

Kubernetes - Drawing from Google’s experience of running containers in production over the years, Kubernetes facilitates the deployment of containers in your data center by representing a cluster of servers as a single system.

Docker Swarm - Swarm is Docker’s clustering, scheduling and orchestration tool for managing a cluster of Docker hosts.

rkt - Part of the CoreOS ecosystem of containerization tools, rkt is a security minded container engine that uses KVM for VM-based isolation and packs other enhanced security features.

Apache Mesos - An open source kernel for distributed systems, Apache Mesos can run different kinds of distributed jobs, including containers.

Amazon ECS - Elastic Container Service is Amazon’s service for running and orchestrating containerized applications on AWS, with support for Docker containers.

Conclusion

LXC offers the advantages of a VE on Linux, mainly the ability to isolate your own private workloads from one another. It is a cheaper and faster solution to implement than a VM, but doing so requires a bit of extra learning and expertise.

Docker is a significant improvement of LXC’s capabilities. Its obvious advantages are gaining Docker a growing following of adherents. In fact, it starts getting dangerously close to negating the advantage of VM’s over VE’s because of its ability to quickly and easily transfer and replicate any Docker-created packages. Indeed, it is not a stretch to imagine that VM providers such as Cisco and VMware may already be glancing nervously at Docker – an open source startup that could seriously erode their VM profit margins. If so, we may soon see such providers also develop their own commercial VE offerings, perhaps targeted at large organizations as VM-lite solutions. As they say, if you can’t beat ‘em, commercially join ‘em.[Source]-https://www.upguard.com/articles/docker-vs-lxc

Beginners & Advanced level Docker Training in Mumbai. Asterix Solution's 25 Hour Docker Training gives broad hands-on practicals.

0 notes

kathleenseiber · 4 years

Text

Social media haters can ruin your enjoyment of TV shows

The presence of a large audience boosts enjoyment, but it takes just a few haters to ruin a TV show or movie, a new study of social television shows.

Social television is the practice of simultaneously watching television programs while seeing the social media messages of other viewers displayed on the same screen.

Participants who perceived that other people disliked a movie were less likely to enjoy the movie, says S. Shyam Sundar, professor of media effects in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications and co-director of the Media Effects Research Laboratory at Penn State.

People were more likely to enjoy the content when they saw cues that suggested the viewing audience was large, Sundar says. However, the participants’ perception of the crowd’s opinion—good or bad—tended to affect them more.

Social television and what other people think

“Social television users, in general, are more influenced by the opinions scrolling on their screens rather than how many people are watching the program with them,” says Sundar, who is also an affiliate of Penn State’s Institute for Computational and Data Sciences (ICDS).

Sundar says that social television is becoming more popular. Facebook watch parties and Twitter-based television conversations are popular ways to watch television. Television companies are also actively promoting social television and adding features to facilitate this type of experience, according to Sundar.

“Social media affect viewers because they speak to our natural tendency to follow the crowd—a phenomenon that scholars describe as the ‘bandwagon effect,'” explains lead author T. Franklin Waddell, assistant professor of journalism and communications at the University of Florida.

Waddell adds that “the findings go beyond traditional bandwagon effects because we are showing that the bandwagon effect is triggered not just by the large size of an audience, but even by the comments of a few viewers.”

The findings may help content providers, such as television stations and movie makers, provide ways for people to both share content and encourage enjoyment.

“The whole point of the entertainment industry is to provide enjoyment,” says Sundar. “If you provide avenues for people to share their opinions—either by giving a thumbs up or thumbs down, or by showing a counter with the number of people watching—those things can have psychological effects on enjoyment. By providing people the ability to concurrently indicate that they are viewing a program and also giving them the ability to make comments, this can have influence on other viewers.

“With the competition among so many well-produced shows out there, the industry should consider providing features that encourage the bandwagon effect. If you have a huge bandwagon supporting the show, for example, it’s to the television company’s benefit to advertise that.”

However, because comments can shift opinions of the audience, Sundar advises companies to keep a close eye on social media commentary around their shows.

“Having some way to monitor social media reaction won’t just help understand how viewers feel about the show, but will also help predict the enjoyment for other people who watch the show,” he says.

A global phenomenon?

The researchers recruited 410 participants for the study. The participants watched an action movie video clip that was accompanied by three different cues—opinion, audience size, and distance of audience members. Those cues were randomly assigned to the experimental conditions.

Because cues that indicated audience members were either close to—within 10 miles—the viewer, or far away—within 1,000 miles—had little effect on enjoyment, the researchers suggest that the bandwagon effect may be a global, rather than local, phenomenon. However, they caution that further research is necessary.

“We weren’t able to detect that the location of the audience mattered, but it might be a subtle effect,” says Waddell. “At this point, we still don’t know.”

Exploring possible effects of similarity of other audience members to oneself may be one possible direction for future research, he says.

“Location of the audience is just one factor, among many others, that might shape our mental image of who the audience for media actually is,” Waddell explains. “More direct markers of identity, such as a profile picture or a list of shared interests, might do more to shape how other viewers affect our enjoyment of social media.”

The research will appear in Computers in Human Behaviors.

Source: Penn State

The post Social media haters can ruin your enjoyment of TV shows appeared first on Futurity.

Social media haters can ruin your enjoyment of TV shows published first on https://triviaqaweb.weebly.com/

0 notes

mattsammonsez · 5 years

Text

Wax Pack Wednesday: Where There’s Luster, There’s Often Bluster

In broadcasting and content creation, just standing out from the crowd is half the battle. Consumers have thousands of options at their fingertips, and it’s tempting to simply dress it up and push it out there as something that’s greater than what it actually is. But remember-- there has to be substance with the style.

In 1991, the hobby of baseball cards was becoming more of a business, and the major card manufacturers were looking to expand their footprint beyond the standard card. Companies started creating premium sets-- sets featuring shinier cards that highlighted state-of-the-art photography as well as premium inserts such as autographed cards or limited edition subsets. The premium sets were instantly a hit in the collecting community, and very lucrative to all who invested. The companies raked in money from this new class of card sets, retailers sold packs for $3 - $4 each, a good six times the retail price of a standard pack, and collectors hoarded or sold back star and rookie cards that were valued at $10 - $20 each as soon as they came out of the pack. Understandably, this was a sector everyone wanted to get in on.

The Fleer corporation was a major player in taking the hobby to a business with their landmark U.S. Supreme Court case in 1980, which successfully challenged the Topps Chewing Gum Company’s 25 year monopoly on the hobby. Fleer started producing officially licensed cards in 1981, and had some nice sets throughout the 1980s. But if there was ever a “safe” and “generic” standard baseball card set, year after year it was Fleer. If there was one company that stood to gain the most from the new premium set craze, Fleer was definitely that company. So in 1991 they rolled out the Fleer Ultra set.

The set was heavily marketed for its smaller size of 400 cards, and allegedly smaller print run than the millions of standard cards they produced. The cards came in shiny tamper-resistant foil wrappers, featured shiny team logo stickers, and the hook (as advertised on the box) was the randomly inserted “Ultra Team” cards. Fleer Ultra promised what many of the other premium sets promised-- a classier look, better card quality, and insert cards that would garner a premium price upon resale. But in reality, Fleer Ultra was just a slightly button-downed version of the standard set, and some could argue it was a conservative twin of the company’s 1985 base set. Even the exclusive “Ultra Team” cards were just slightly more impressive looking all-star player cards. Fleer Ultra flopped right out of the gate, and despite some major upgrades in 1992 and 1993, it was lapped by the competition and quickly reduced to the bargain bins of hobby shops.

The lasting legacy of the premium attempt for Fleer is that these packs are still relegated to bargain bin status, part of the “junk wax” era of baseball cards from the early 1990s. In fact, the picture at the top of the article was taken from an EBay auction selling 100 of these packs for a mere $39.99 before shipping. What used to sell for $3 - $4 a pack 28 years ago, now sells for 10% of that. In broadcasting and content creation, many content creators tend to fall in to the same traps that Fleer (and to be honest other companies in 1991) fell in to.

The best example of this is being unraveled right now-- as websites and broadcast companies are seeing their ill-fated “pivot to video” often drove smart content creation off the tracks. The online video itself was the shiny packaging. The promise of exclusive and edgy video content was the Ultra Team inserts. And the idea that every card and every pack was going to be much more valuable than what was already out there was the smokescreen often setup by platforms like Facebook overselling the actual audience consumption. Much like the baseball card companies diving head-first in to premium sets in the early 90s created long-lasting effects in that business, the pain from the frantic dive in to online video from the past few years will also be felt for a long time. After many qualified writers were pushed aside from platforms in 2016 and 2017 during the “pivot to video” movement, the multi-media journalists who replaced them are getting the pink slips now, as companies realize the major investment of equipment and personnel for video production often doesn’t produce the over-promised audience or revenue stream in a medium that is over-saturated. Simply put, very few content creators asked themselves (or provided an answer to the question of), “How will my video content be better than everyone else’s?”

The mistakes made in putting style over substance also happen on a more granular level, in minor leagues and small markets, as well as individual efforts as opposed to industry-wide flings with what’s hot at the time. Keep the following in mind when you’re tempted to “pivot” to whatever is the craze of the day:

Know your audience: You always want to expand your audience, but with whatever data you have access to, know what your audience is consuming. Is the new craze that’s being heavily promoted really worth a major shift in anything? Is adding X number of people in demographic Y worth losing as many people in your core demographic?

Don’t change for the sake of changing: This is often a fatal flaw in content creation, and can really drive the progress of any organization backwards. Often someone high up in the chain of command gets an itchy trigger finger looking for new content. Rather than take stock of what is working, and what the audience is already consuming, a command comes down from high to scrap it all and try this new thing. Whatever foundation was previously laid with hard work and great content from before, is now wiped clean. In a push to get on the bandwagon, the trusty horse that got you there is put out to pasture. It’s a terrible way to direct content, and one that is sadly done too often.

Is the demand really there, and do you have the means to meet it?: Are thousands of people clamoring for this particular content? Do you have the proper amount of staff and equipment to pull off the task? Are they competent and qualified to do what you’re looking for? Often when there’s a quick shift in content strategy, none of this is actually taken in to consideration. Once the shift is made, it’s only then that organizations realize they don’t have the best people doing the work, or nearly enough people with enough equipment to satisfy the change. The result is often average content floating in a sea of similar content, like a plastic bag drifting in a sea of stagnant trash.

Ask yourself what this content is going to look like in 3-5 years: Again this is often never considered with a major content strategy shift. If there is no plan for how this content grows and evolves beyond the “buzzworthy” stage, it’s not worth doing. Too often a content shift happens with thoughts of only how it benefits the here and now, and not how it becomes the standard bearer for that new strategy.

Don’t make those content strategy decisions that end up in the bargain bin of content strategies, valued at only 10% of the initial investment many years from now. Visit SammonSez.com to see how we can help you make those choices on small and larger platforms.

0 notes