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usedcarmania · 1 year

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Protect Yourself When Buying Used - 6 Easy Steps

These tips will prevent frustration down the road and save you money when buying a used car - whether you’re buying from a private seller or a dealer in Kuils River or further afield.

It's important to thoroughly check out any vehicle you intend to buy: Even a vehicle with a good reliability record can be a problem if it hasn't been properly maintained.

Perhaps even worse is buying a used car with hidden damage from an accident, flood, or other incidents that might affect safety and performance. Shoppers don't want to pay thousands of dollars for someone else's problems.

With the overheated used-car market of 2021, prices for used cars have never been higher. This means buying a problematic used car can be an even more expensive problem than ever before.

Consumer Reports Auto and Finance experts have come up with these savvy tips to ensure that you're getting a good used car. Remember that when buying a new or used car from a dealership, you should carefully double-check the agreement and all the numbers.

1. Don't Skip the Test Drive

Why you shouldn't: This is where you first determine whether the vehicle is worth your consideration.

What you should do: Note unusual squeaks and rattles, or any items that need to be repaired. A car that pulls to one side might be showing signs of previous damage. Paint overspray on the backs of body panels and doorjambs can signal body work from an accident. The smell of mildew or mould could indicate water damage, which you definitely want to avoid. CR chief mechanic John Ibbotson says to avoid vehicles with signs of deep water exposure. "Even if a vehicle looks acceptable, and may be working when you inspect it," Ibbotson says, "water damage could lead to many electrical problems down the road."

2. Check the Car's Title

Why you should: This will help you avoid surprises that could pop up when you go to register the car.

What you should do: First, make sure the seller has the actual title for the vehicle on hand. Examine the title document for signs that the vehicle has been wrecked, repurchased under a state lemon law program, suffered flood damage, or had another problem. Many state title documents will have that information disclosed on them. Some state titles do not have that information; in those states, you should check the vehicle history report (see below). Verify that the odometer statement on the title agrees with the number in the car and that the vehicle doesn't have any outstanding liens. If the dealer doesn't have the title or won't show it to you, consider a different car or a different dealer.

3. Expect to Get a Free Vehicle History Report

Why you should: Savvy dealers and private sellers will pay for these reports—from Carfax or AutoCheck—as a way to make their cars stand out to shoppers. These reports often detail whether a vehicle has ever been in a crash, its maintenance records, and how many owners the vehicle has had.

What you should do: Even though the seller may give you the report, you should still verify the information with the service. Along with total-loss details, the reports might provide warnings about odometer tampering, non-total-loss collisions, and any outstanding recalls.

As an extra precaution, you can get a VinCheck report.

4. But Don't Rely Solely on That Report

Why you shouldn't: Though helpful, vehicle history reports aren't perfect. There are many reasons that they can miss accidents, flood damage, vehicle theft, and other events that can seriously affect a used car's value as well as your decision about whether to buy it.

What you should do: Remain vigilant. Among the reasons these reports might be missing information is: The services rely on information from insurance companies and police departments. But the owner might not have reported an accident or other incident to an insurer or police if the vehicle didn't have collision coverage or if the owner decided to pay for repairs himself. In addition, damage to rental cars may never be reported because rental car companies often self-insure. Last, after an incident occurs it can take months for the event to show up on a history report. By that time, the vehicle may have been repaired and resold. So make sure you get your own inspection.

5. Check for Recalls

Why you should: Check whether any safety recalls apply to the vehicle you are considering.

You'll need the vehicle's 17-digit vehicle identification number. Recall-related repairs are made free of charge, but the work must be done by a new-car dealer that sells that brand of vehicle. If you find any recalls for the VIN, ask the seller to provide receipts showing that the fixes have all been performed. You can also take the vehicle's VIN to a dealer for that brand and ask them to check whether the car has had the recall work done.

Consumer Reports recommends that shoppers not buy any vehicle with an open recall. With any vehicle you buy, make sure all of the recalls have been completed before you take possession.

6. Get a Mechanic's Inspection

Why you should: Even if the car looks super-clean and the seller promises it was driven gently, you should get an expert opinion on its roadworthiness.

What you should do: Given today's scorching used-car market, it can be a challenge to have the vehicle inspected by a reliable mechanic. With so many people looking for cars, sellers don't need to accommodate requests like this. Still, it's worth asking whether you can do so.

"If you can, have a mechanic experienced in auto bodywork and accident repair give the vehicle a detailed inspection," says Ibbotson. The results of this inspection give you ammunition to negotiate a final price: Either you can get a lower price because you're going to fix the problems, or you could offer to pay their price if they fix the problems. Of course, you could ask that the problems be fixed and continue to haggle over the price.

If the seller doesn't let you take the car for an inspection, you will have to decide whether you are okay with making an offer. If the owner lacks sufficient maintenance history documentation, you may want to skip the offer and find another car.

Info reshared from https://www.consumerreports.org/

#used cars #cars for sale #secondhand

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x-carrotcake · 3 years

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Being Vegan in Italy: Turin, Milan, Bergamo, Crema.

I spent 9 beautiful delightful days in northern Italy. This country stole my heart and soul and I will definitely come back once again. Italy is heaven. I am still in the ecstatic mood and hence I am not able to perceive all details rationally. I idealize the country. However, it’s impossible to idealize Italian food as it’s perfect on its own.

Even if you’re a picky eater with very specific preferences, Italy will not disappoint. I am going to share my food journey in some Italian cities I was lucky to visit: Turin, Milan, Bergamo, and Crema.

I will uncover if it’s easy to find something vegan in Italian restaurants and how much I spent for one day.

!!! the disclaimer in the very beginning. Mostly, I ate in a restaurant, canteen, or cafeteria once a day. I bought snacks, cookies, cans, fruits (peaches are very cheap there) and vegetables in stores and had them for breakfast and lunch or dinner depending when I was about to eat out. Nevertheless, I did not starve and tried a lot of tasty Italian meals. I did not intend to splurge like crazy. On average, I spent ~ 27 EUR (or ~32 USD) for food daily. For comparison:

So, I believe I did a very good job 🙃

OK, let’s start with food, the main star, and my recommendations. In the end, I will tell what I stocked up on for my hotel meals.

I. Turin

a) 1 July. I went to Flower Burger (https://www.flowerburger.it/) serving vegan burgers. It is not Italian national meal 😅 but I was tired after the flight and I wanted to go somewhere nearby my hotel. This place does not let you down. It offers colourful burgers with different fillings: tofu, seitan, beans. You also can take it with fries and beverage as a set.

Pluses: it is cheap and it’s almost everywhere. I am not kidding. I ate there only once bc I wanted to try many places but I saw several “Flower Burger”s in Turin, Milan, and Bergamo. It’s good to have a decent vegan chain in many cities.

I spent 6.50 EUR on that burger. It costs 9.50 EUR with fries and beverage.

b) 2 July. Cake and Shakerato in a vegan canteen.

On that day, I walked a lots and randomly chose a nice canteen. Fortunately, they have vegan options. Unfortunately, I do not remember the place 😕I checked in my history that I spent 6.5 EUR on ⬇️

This canteen is not specifically 100% vegan like Flower Burger. It has various cheap options: vegan and non-vegan. I’d recommend to check different canteens in Italy. They might have salads, starters, or cakes suitable for vegans, and they are very affordable.

c) 3 July. Beyond Burger with amazing cocktail in XO Club (address: Via Po, 46 10124 Torino TO). I still remember the taste of this cocktail (probably the best one I’ve ever tried).

d) Additionally, I ate so many gelato - ice creams. It’s everywhere in Italy. It is between 2-2.50 EUR for 2 flavours in a cup or cone.

Mostly, I ate fresh gelato in cone but I also tried this Pepipo from Turin.

Surely, the majority of gelato is not vegan. Sorbets are usually vegan. If you want creamy gelato, ask for vegan options.

OK, enough with Italian-American burgers. Let’s move to Italian food 🚅

II. Milan

a) 4 July. Iconic: pizza and wine in Flash SRL (address: via Bergamini 1). I payed 13 EUR.

+: The place is close to Duomo 😉

A very nice waitress packed the rest 1/2 pizza and I had it even in the evening.

Surely, I had my daily dose of gelato. I could not resist vegan pistachio, my favourite flavour, and strawberry.

III. Bergamo

a) 5 July. If you are in Bergamo, you must try gelato in Carmen! There are at least two gelaterias ‘Carmen’ there. I am in love with sorbets but sometimes I think it’s because I am vegan and mostly the only one vegan option among ice creams is sorbet. However, from time to time, you want a real vegan ice cream. Not sorbet, not fruit/berry and water combo. I want ice cream! And gosh, Carmen has many real vegan options. Go there!

Addresses: Via G. Tiraboschi, 60, 24122 Bergamo BG or Via Bartolomeo Colleoni, 20C, 24129 Bergamo BG.

Same day but a bit later: Poke Bowl in Poke House (Via G. Tiraboschi, 65, 24122 Bergamo BG). I payed 11.95 EUR for the bowl. In my opinion, it’s a fair price as it comprised fake ‘chicken’, avo, sweet potatoes, brown rice, crispy baked carrots, sesame seeds, and chickpeas. Finally, some decent protein in my stomach.

b) 6 July. I’ve already shared this picture. I wanted some diversity on my plate and hence went to Punto Natura (address: Via Giacomo Quarenghi, 36, 24122 Bergamo BG). The price of the plate with the soup which is invisible in the picture (who knows why) was 14 EUR.

The last meal in Bergamo was the cheapest though the tastiest one 🙃which proves once again sometimes the price and the taste are not equal to each other.

If you want fast cheap yet delicious food, go to CAPATOAST (address: Via G. Tiraboschi, 63, 24122 Bergamo BG). They have both vegan salads and vegan sandwiches.

I ordered delicious salad with vegan mozzarella and grilled vegetables. It was only 5.90 EUR.

IV. CREMA aka the best place on the earth for me

a) 7 July. Capri Cocktail and Focaccia Sandwich with grilled aubergine and zucchini.

Honestly, I chose that restaurant because of its location - Piazza Duomo. Here is the explanation why.

There are many small restaurants and bars there. Just pick whatever you like. Prices are pretty much the same. The set’s price was 10 EUR.

b) 8 July. The last day in Crema.

I had a vegan croissant and coffee for breakfast (< 5 EUR) in BLOOM 33 Botanic Bar (address: Via Giuseppe Mazzini, 33, 26013 Crema CR).

and very Italian Piadina, 5 EUR, for lunch at La Piadineria (address: Piazza Garibaldi, 74, 26013 Crema CR.

still 8 July but Milan. I came back to Turin through Milan. I was in Milan twice and two times it was raining cats and dogs there. This city either has weather problems or finds me kinda problematic 🙃I got absolutely soaked.

At least, I ate well 👌I found “California Bakery” (https://californiabakery.it) on my way to the rail station. It costed 13 EUR but I finally got my tofu 🥳

Summary

9 July is missing as I ate in the airport. I forgot to take a picture and anyway no one expected airport food to be worth its price.

I better tell what I ate in Italy apart from restaurant meals. I bought a lot of canned items: corn, beans, peas. There are many sets with 3 small cans which is very convenient for someone what travels alone. I bought peaches, tomatoes, crackers, cookies, juice, and water.

It was my typical purchase. It is not the best healthiest option but it’s ok for 9 days.

OK so that’s it! It is probably the longest post on my blog. I tried my best to include almost everything here. Ofc, I didn’t post every single ice cream I ate in Italy. Otherwise, the post would be twice longer.

If you have any question, as usual comment and asks are welcome. Let me know, if you need specific details about the trip: hotel, transport, quarantine restrictions, etc.

💜 & 🤟

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galaxina-the-pyro · 3 years

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What are your favorite Phineas and Ferb songs?

I have like...a bunch of those, honestly? And number one spot varies from song to song, though it’s consistently been “Summer Belongs to You”.

Buuuuuuttttt, let’s talk about my OTHER favorite songs that will never leave my brain even if they DON’T pay their stinking rent and decide to haunt me even when I’m contemplate the fabric of our existence - in no particular order of course (and in twenty words or less, if possible).

Gordian Knot (“Knot My Problem” Season 4, Episode 16): A catchy song that admittedly triggers my claustrophobia like no tomorrow, but SOOOOOO worth it!

There’s A Platypus Controlling Me (“Brain Drain” Season 2, Episode 62): My gosh, Doof can rap...and Perry’s there too, I guess.

I Need My Letter Back (“Operation Crumb Cake” Season 4, Episode 26): An underrated masterpiece from an underrated episode - also, #relatable.

Fabulous (“Dude, We’re Getting the Band Back Together” Season 1, Episode 22): In which a little boy straight up plays a grown-ass man by stroking his inflated ego.

I’m Me (“Vanessassary Roughness” Season 2, Episode 22): Vanessa is a Queen - she is the ruler of this country. Bow to her.

F-Games (“Got Game?” Season 1, Episode 34): Na-na na-na na Na-na na-na na Na-na na-na na, na na na na-na!

The Moments When We Didn’t Get Along ( “It’s About Time!” Season 1, Episode 21):

Only Trying to Help (“Mission Marvel”, Season 4, Episode 22): The ONLY good thing about this episode beside the Phinabella moments.

The Waggle Dance (“Bee Story” Season 4, Episode 12): It’s catchy and cute, sue me.

Jump Right To It (“Night of the Living Pharmacists” Season 4, Episode 44): Even catchier and even cuter than the last song mentioned, I love the Fireside Girls, I would die for them.

Drusselstien Driving Test Waltz (“The Doonkleberry Imperative” Season 3, Episode 40): Otherwise known as “How to Give Your Nemesis PTSD”.

In The City of Love (“Summer Belongs to You” Season 2, Episode 54): This is the song that made all the Phinabella shippers want to kill Phineas in his sleep.

In the Empire (“Phineas and Ferb: Star Wars” Season 4, Episode 41): This is my favorite Candace Song ever, it bops so hard.

Adulting (“Candace Against the Universe”): I REALLY wanted the Doof vs Isabella song to be a rap battle, but this was a worthy compromise.

What Might Have Been (“Act Your Age” Season 4, Episode 47): Even if you hated the episode and even Phinabella, chances are you love this song.

With These Blueprints (“Phineas and Ferb Interrupted” Season 3, Episode 14): All my children singing together and it makes me so happy, dangit.

When Tomorrow Is This Morning Again (“Last Day of Summer” Season 4, Episode 48): Loved it, now where’s my Phineas and Doofenshmirtz duet?

Busted (“I Scream, You Scream” Season 1, Episode 15): I’m serious about that Phineas and Doofenshmirtz duet.

Robot Riot (“Across the 2nd Dimension”): If you didn’t like this song, you have no taste (JK, you’re entitled to your opinion).

Summer All Over the World (“Phineas and Ferb: Save Summer” Season 4, Episode 33): It grew on me, I’m not gonna lie.

Step Into the Great Unknown (“Candace Against the Universe”): WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY CUT THIS OUT OF THE MOVIE?!

Mysterious Force (“Across the 2nd Dimension”): THIS ONE TOO?! OH MY GOSH, WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT?! THAT’S A LOAD OF CR-

Isabella’s Birthday Song (“Happy Birthday, Isabella!” Season 4, Episode 19): This song (and episode) always gives me butterflies.

Where Did We Go Wrong? (“Phineas and Ferb Christmas Vacation” Season 2, Episode 22):

I have more songs and I’m definitely gonna write down more later, but to keep it short - I mostly love ALL the PnF songs. Like. A lot. They’re all moods, they all make me happy, they’re all just GREAT

#phineas and ferb #pnf #question #question answered #i got an ask!#pnf songs #in twenty words or less #it is late and i am sleepy

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fightevilandthengetblownup · 3 years

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FIC: 'Tis The Damn Season V

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"Do you know what she's like?" "Huh?" "Well… do you have an idea what to expect?" "Hmm?"

"Are you even paying attention to me right now?" The younger girl asked abruptly, doe-eyes wide and blue as she looked balefully back at her companion. The confused look she got in return made her cheeks flush a soft shade of pink that didn't quite match up to her hair. "I was asking if you knew what the woman was like. The...the hunter. Like.. I've never met a hunter before, and aren't they supposed to be dangerous?"

Tems brows creased for a second, blue-grey eyes catching the light as the darker haired woman gave a short, sharp laugh. Bela tossed her hair back, brown waves tucking over her shoulder in a way that managed to look effortlessly chic like she'd never been able to do herself. "Hunters? Pssh. They talk a big game, but those I've dealt with? Rarely worth worrying about, and that was when I was a human."

"Yeah, but...but now wouldn't they...you know...be happy to kill you?" "Most would've been before, now I've got extra tricks up my sleeves though. Just like you."

"Well...I don't know about that," Tems mumbled quietly to herself as she fiddled with the edge of her choker impatiently. "I don't know if...that is, uh...I don't think I could hurt someone- someone who's a person and alive and-"

"Human. I get it." Bela's smile was comforting, and Tems found herself smiling shyly back under the other woman's supportive look. This was why she was so glad that the other demon had come along. Alone, she would've been terrified. "So, what was the question again?"

"Do you know what she's like?" Tems asked again, voice firmer and feeling more in control as she shifted her weight after a second of hesitation again, looking across at her friend as they waited at the edge of the parking lot. "I mean, whoever she is must be important if Cr- the King is sending her messages."

"Like I said, the hunters I used to run into weren't all that. Pretty much they're balding, middle aged men that are barely functioning alcoholics with too much flannel and death wishes," The other demon said thoughtfully, pulling a nail file from the air and starting to work on her already immaculate fingers. "There's only three that were worth any consideration, and I know two of them are already on fairly positive talking chit-chat levels with the good ol' boss man."

"Oh?" "You don't scheme to take down Lucifer together without getting some sort of working relationship sorted, right?" "I...I suppose not."

The other demon smiled at her gently, and Tems let out a small huff as she blushed again at the realisation she was being teased all over again. Just because her drive for ambition hadn't kicked in yet despite how long and just how spotless her record was, didn't mean she should always be getting teased about it. Kicking at the loose pebbles at the edge of the tarred parking lot as she fiddled with the edge of her choker, the redhead forced herself not to pout or sound too upset as she added sulkily, "You still didn't answer my question. Do you know what she's like?"

"Not personally," Bela replied quietly, picking at her pinky nail with renewed focus. "And I'd also never dealt with a female hunter. Didn't think there were that many around really, it's more of a dick-swinging contest."

"Oh, it definitely is." The unexpected voice made both demons jump, Bela dropping her nail file and Tems almost tripping on the uneven surface as she jerked her head over from looking at her friend to the short woman in front of her. "I mean, I'm still waitin' for my eight inch strap to arrive in the mail so I can participate, but I should match up or exceed the other guys' expectations then."

If the typical hunter was an older man reeking of cheap booze and dirty flannels like Bela's description had conjured for the younger demon, the person speaking to them was the complete opposite. Pretty and petite, but with clearly defined muscle under a casual mix of a floral print top and cut off jean shorts, the blonde was not like the other's answer to what hunters were like - even ignoring that she was a woman. The only things that set off any warning bells as Tems righted herself and tugged carefully at the wrist hems of her plain blue dress were the innocuous charm bracelet on one wrist and the sharp as a blade smile.

"Depending who you're competing with it probably would be-" "I thought it was a safe starting point. I don't need to beat them all, just some." "Seems like you likely would. Unless you know some giants."

"Only one." The blonde and Bela's banter took a few moments to sink through Tems shock to resonate and catch her attention again. There was a beat as the two others shared a common look before the shorter of the two added as sharply as her smile. "Can I help you loiterers?"

The demon pair shared an exchange of looks - Bela’s brow curved upwards for a long moment as Tems’ eyes darted between her companion and the staring blonde - before the older of the two gave a huff. “Well, the princess here’s been sent with a message for someone. I’m just here for some fresh air.”

“The what now?” There was a second as the shorter hunter’s eyes widened in confusion before she tilted her head the other direction. “Nevermind. Who’re you two after?”

“Joanna Harvelle.” “Ah, so me then.” “I kind of already worked that out, darling.” “Aren’t you clever. Now who the Hell, and while you’re at it what the Hell, are you two? And who’s sent you to find me?”

Tems shuffled awkwardly at the others’ exchange, biting on her lip for a moment as she considered just how scary such a small woman must be to not only be a hunter, but a hunter at that diminutive a size, and a hunter that had caused enough issues for the King to have sent a messenger to her. She closed her eyes for a moment, clinging to the thought that Crowley was fond of her and cared about her and wouldn’t risk her on some dangerous mission if this huntress was that scary. He had to be sure she’d be okay to send her and not someone else, right? Or maybe he just didn’t trust anyone else with the information - not that she understood that point much of her message at all.

“Um, we’re- well, you got it kind of right. Uh, my name is Tempest, and this is Bela-” Tems finally found her voice, shaky though it was, as she opened her eyes and looked back down towards the shorter woman. She jerked a hand up, gesturing towards her friend and chanced a look to see the older demon giving a slightly haughty look at the other, before returning to fiddling at her sleeve cuffs. “We were sent by the King- um, by Crowley the King of the Crossroads?” Her voice trailed off as she hoped for any sign of recognition from the woman, and prepared herself to smoke away at the first sign of violence.

While it wasn’t violence, she definitely saw the flash of awareness followed immediately by a twist and pursing of the hunter’s lips, something that seemed so innocuous but sent a slight shiver down her back at noticing it.

“Oh, that fuckin’ bastard, huh?” Joanna’s voice was harsh and rough as she shifted her weight and even took a full step back from the pair, eyes running over them as if sizing them up before pulling herself back up into her fullest height and a cocky smirk crossed her face. “What’s that asshole want? He finally want’ta accept his defeat gracefully? Want to know if I’ma send his drunken ass somewhere other than Hell next time I see him?”

Tems’ cheeks flushed hotly at the other’s words - the crassness catching her off guard from a sweet looking woman, as well as the obvious hatred setting through her tone - before dropping her eyes down to her shoes rather than dare to stare the other down. “N- no, that’s not what he, uh, said.”

“Oh? Well now I am curious what the fuck he wants.” “He, um, wanted to confirm if we- that is, like, crossroads demons - could go back to operating in the area if called.”

“Huh?”

“Something was taking us out, hunter,” Bela cut over the top of Tems’ trying to work out what to say to that question. She’d not been privy to the exact issue, Crowley’s keeping her usually from a lot of the other demons as his favorite but also not sharing the issues that the other redeyes whispered about to each other, but the dark haired demon definitely knew more about it than Tems did. “Whenever we came in this state pretty much. Crowley’d negotiated a, shall we say, cease-fire but it also left an entire area of crossroads with little deals popping up being not serviced or only serviced with those...disposable demons.”

“So you mean all of you?” “Oh, like you hunters are any less so. Bunch of sociopathic, blood-thirsty vicious-”

The blonde shook her head at Bela’s hissed outburst, throwing her head back with a harsh laugh before shaking it again and giving a quiet sigh. “So, you’re here cause Crowley wants me to do him a favor, huh?”

She could feel the heat rising in her cheeks again at the realisation that was the truth, and even further - her skin glowing redder still that she was sure it would match her hair if she looked in the mirror - to realise that that’s why he’d sent her for this. Crowley chose his best negotiator, he trusted her to be the one to be able to deliver not only the message but deliver on it. That was pressure. A lot of pressure. And pressure that left her tugging at her sleeves as she shrugged a shoulder at the question and dropped her eyes rather than look at the curious look she was being given by her friend. Bela was a good demon, there was a reason Tems enjoyed her company, but this was her task.

“He does.” The redhead said gently, sucking in a breath sharply as she gave a final nervous tug at her sleeves before looking up towards the sneering huntress. “I, uh, look I don’t know what the situation might be between yourself and the King, but, like, he had hoped that we’d be able to come to an agreement of sorts.”

The blonde paused as if considering the words, before her sneer shifted into a wide smirk that screamed danger towards Tems. “Oh, I’d sure love to hear what he might have to even try to organise. Ya know what?”

“Hmm?”

“You tell that asshole, and in these words exactly-” Joanna’s eyes had a shine to them that unsettled her. It was like the fleeting times she had spotted some of the older, more vicious and powerful demons around, that exuded power and cruelty in their looks only, that would send little redeyes like them scurrying away within moments. But she couldn’t drop her eyes as she looked back at the blonde even if she wanted to. She needed to deliver this message, she needed to succeed or at least ensure the best negotiation she could for Crowley, she couldn’t fail the man that put his trust in her. The hunter smirked wider, teeth white and sharp. “-That if he wants to work out some details, he can come talk to me himself at a very specific blade point. Then maybe I might be so nice as to consider considerin’ helping him. For I am a benevolent God. ...You got that?”

Tems could see her friend nodding from her peripheral as she nodded her head too, something about how simple the words were making her feel like they held far more meaning to them for the blonde and likely for Crowley than they sounded like. Glancing to the side, she saw Bela’s brows creasing as well, before she darted a look back to the blonde.

The hunter’s smirk had slowly shifted at their nods, her mouth pulled into a slight frown instead and those eyes that flashed with that dangerous edge had softened as she seemed to look between the two demons for a moment before shrugging. “If he has an issue with that, tell him I said he could stick it up his own ass rather than takin’ it out on your two too, okay?” Joanna’s words didn’t sound particularly nice or caring, but at the same time, Tems thought it sounded like an apology as well. “Can’t help what ya’s have become, so don’t let him hold what I’ve got to say ‘gainst you.”

Frowning slightly, Tems felt her head nodding again before her mind had even had a chance to catch up to what she was saying. It was something Tems wasn’t sure she felt was fair either - she knew she’d made a deal as a child before she knew right from wrong really but she could have helped from condemning herself, and the same could be said for her friend even if her situation had been all the worse.

“Say,” The hunter’s voice cut through Tems’ morose thoughts then, brown eyes wide and curious instead as she glanced between the pair of demons. “Why’d he send you two anyways?”

“I’m just here to stretch my legs, actually.” Bela quipped back, a faint smirk tugging at her lips as she looked back at the other. “I don’t suppose you know what it’s like down there-”

“More like Dante’s or like Paradise Lost?” “Depends where you are, actually.” “Given Mr Would-Be-King sent you, I’m guessin’ you’re both redders?” “So the areas a lot less… screaming than the rest, yes.”

The back and forth had shifted somewhere from aggressively judging into a swift pattern of give and take, before the hunter gave a shrug of her shoulders - a peek of sun-kissed tan skin that spoke volumes of the difference between a sun filled life to the dank of a cold afterlife. “Hmm, I don’t suppose Dean or Sammy could confirm that then - not that anyone wants to ever talk ‘bout it.”

“Oh, you know those two?” There was an edge in Bela’s tone as she spoke, and Tems tilted her head curiously before reaching out and taking her friend’s hand. “Don’t suppose they’ve grown any hearts since I knew them, hmm?”

“When was that?” “Dean was on his count-down clock, and can’t say I’m not a little sad that I missed out on seein’ him downstairs.”

“Hmm? Ouch, that’s harsh.” “Well, if they wouldn’t help out a girl in need - they deserve harsh.”

Tems squeezed her friend’s hand tighter then, trying to send through what kind of support she could to the other. Dying and knowing it was coming for you was not something that could be understood other than by those who’d experienced it first hand, and the desperation in those last few months, weeks, days and hours couldn’t be faulted. Sharing a supportive look with her friend, the younger demon shifted a little closer unconsciously as if it would help any.

“Can’t say they’re fans of it still, I’ve had to beg them a few times before they’ll pull on up. But perhaps I just get their softer side than others do.” The hunter’s voice was soft, and Tems could see that her face was equally soft as she looked between the two demons before tilting her head curiously. “That wasn’t all that long ago, surprised you’re already...high enough… to be on any sort of terms with the fuckin’ dumbass.” There was a blink where both demons’ looked back at her in confusion before the blonde clarified, “I mean Crowley. Being what - King of the Crossroads? Heh, bet he hated that little downgrade. He makin’ the most of holding any sort of power then, huh?”

“He has been, uh, more attentive to us, that’s true.” The redhead replied this time, noting that her friend was still clearly stuck digesting the information regarding the other hunters she’d known in life. That they were both alive seemingly was causing some confusion for her, and Tems would have to talk to Bela later about it. “He’s a very good King.”

“And a very good sort of asshole too.” Joanna chirped back with a smirk, rolling her eyes, before fixing them onto Tems. “So, she’s new and you’re the messenger. That makes you older, right?”

“Oh, oh no.” Tems felt herself flushing at that misunderstanding. “I… that is, Bela has been around longer than myself but I, uh, I’m good at my job.”

“Oh, so you’re useful. Hmm.” “Crowley is very complimentary to me.” “Best watch yourself or he’ll be more than complimentary.” “He’d never!”

Tems had not been that shocked before than at hearing the implication from the hunter before her. It was one thing for other demons - those who knew Crowley and the way he was - to assume things, and another for someone she’d never met before make the suggestion that that could happen. That she seemed to know it wasn’t already though - the warning in those brown eyes and that gentle tone - was almost as shocking.

“No?” Joanna’s brows creased for a second as she seemed to be thinking before fixing her with another look instead. Eyes fixated on the black necklace around her neck. “She called you ‘princess’ before, right? Crowley dotin’ on you like a daddy, and not the sugar type, huh?”

Her cheeks felt all warm again, and she tugged her hand from her friend’s now comforting grip to tug awkwardly at the collar of her dress with a quiet cough, as if to cover her choker. It wasn’t exactly right but it was also not wrong either - Crowley protected her and clearly cared about her as more than just for her successes; but that wasn’t exactly how it felt for her. “I- He’s- It’s not totally like that.”

“Don’t worry, he’ll fuck up sometime soon enough.” The blonde’s words sounded sharper for a moment then, and looking up from her shoes, Tems was surprised to see something else to the woman’s eyes all over again. Not the hatred and fire from before, the dangerous thread of a threat earlier, or even the detached sympathy towards Bela when they’d discussed some mutual acquaintances. It confused her to see something more akin to compassion and actual empathy directed towards her from someone who should for all intents be pointing a gun in her face or reciting some exorcism to send her back where she came from. “Perhaps he’ll be better with you and learn from his previous mistakes, loosen up that stick from his ass to let you have your own life. Seems you’re allowed other friends at least, so maybe…” There was a pause, and Tems felt herself frowning in confusion as the words seemed to seep into her mind and bounce about confusingly as the blonde’s eyes flickered between the demonic pair and then back to meet her own gaze steadily. “Maybe you’ll be better off, and he ain’t all that bad. He's not always an asshole, not entirely...”

By the time she finished chewing the thought over though, the blonde woman was halfway across the parking lot back towards the rough looking building as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

“Thanks!” She heard herself calling out, and jerked all over again in surprise to see the blonde spin about and wave a friendly hand towards them as she called back as well “No problem! Next time, just knock.” before the sound of laughter cut through the air again.

It was something Tems realised, as she turned back to her friend and then tugged on that part of herself that was that intrinsic part that let her disappear from one place and appear in another, that had been missing. The sound of carefree laughter and the loss of it was ringing in her head as she found herself returning to the figurative darkness of the underworld, pondering if maybe she would get another chance to head back up and maybe negotiate again, maybe even get to make the sound herself next time.

---

#cc #ca #temspov

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orphanmaker · 3 years

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Hey! I follow you on Twitter (big fan lol) and saw you say you got demonetized. Have you thought about creating a patreon account or something like that where people could support you that way? I know I love all your videos and would be willing to help you out if you wanted to do that! Keep up what you're doing in whatever way works best for you. I know I'll still support and be a fan from afar loving whatever you post no matter what though!

Ride on fellow beauyasha lover 💪🏻

i’ve thought about patreon in the past, but i don’t know that i’m a big fan of the idea of asking/letting people pay me money for what is, when it really comes down to it, content that is not mine, and i also don’t now the legality of that. i honestly felt kinda bad even making money off of it from youtube, but only because it was possibly taking some amount of money from cr (i don’t care that i was profiting from youtube itself lol).

i know better than anyone the work that goes into these videos. a typical highlights video takes me from the moment i finish my day job on a friday afternoon, until around 8-10 pm on a sunday night. obviously i still sleep and eat in between, but besides that i am working on the video the entire time. i often put off errands and regular household tasks like cleaning and cooking real meals just to have more time to finish the videos. not to mention i really haven’t had the time or energy to do any of my normal hobbies in months now. not to complain about stress that i put on myself lol, but it’s tiring.

i like making the videos but the past few weeks have honestly been getting to be a lot, and i’ve kind of thought about taking a break anyways. when i first saw that i was demonetized, i was obviously disappointed (but not surprised lol) but i think in the end it’s ok, because i don’t think i could have kept up this schedule much longer without losing my mind.

going forward, i’m not sure what will happen. i still want to make videos, but if i’m not monetized there’s no way it can be on this schedule. it’s just not worth it sadly. i don’t know if people still would want to watch episode specific highlight videos if they’re not being released before the next episode airs. and i don’t know if eventually youtube will just straight up axe my channel for reuploading content in general -- there was another cr channel that recently got completely taken down despite the fact that they weren’t monetized to begin with and weren’t even violating the terms of service as much as i probably am lol.

ANYWAYS, i’m just rambling now because i have a lot of thoughts on the matter but i guess what it boils down to is... i’m still thinking about everything. i don’t know enough about patreon to really consider it as a serious option right now, and i am worried about the legality of that as well.

but thank you for the message and the support! it’s wild to me how much nice feedback i receive and it’s really the only thing that has kept me going lately, so thanks. i will definitely be continuing to make content in some way or another!

#asks

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your-turn-to-role · 4 years

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for the cr asks: 1, 7, 19, 29

hey, thanks!

1) How did you first discover Critical Role?

uh, friends, mostly. i was one of the later people in my friend group to get into it, though i’m definitely the one who’s gotten the most obsessed with it now 😂

i have one friend who’s been following it since the really early days, like early 2016 or something? and was very into taliesin’s characters (they have a very similar aesthetic), but stopped after molly died

another friend who’s more into dnd shows just bc she really likes dnd rather than particularly for the story has also been into it for ages, and was pestering me to watch for at least a year before i actually did

(not that i didn’t think i’d like it, it just takes me forever to get into stuff bc when i get into a fandom i get super into it and then am resistant to leave it, and there’s a limit to how many characters i can hold in my brain at once, also because starting a new thing that has literally thousands of hours of content is intimidating as fuck)

but it was also just, fanart of jester on tumblr? she didn’t even end up being my fave of the m9 (though i definitely love her), but she’s 100% my aesthetic to the core, and seeing a lot of art of her around i was like “okay i wanna know who this girl is bc she seems cool”

and then about, idk, 9-10 months ago i started cr2? and fell in love with nott within about two seconds of her speaking, which made me listen long enough to fall in love with the other characters as well, and then after i caught up (which was just before ep 73 aired, i was watching it with more or less all of my free time) i watched campaign 1 in a similar fashion and here we are

7) Do you have any official CR merch?

does explorer’s guide to wildemount count? or the vox machina origins comics? bc if so, i have those (digitally anyway)

but in terms of most actual merch, no, not yet, i’m not 100% ruling it out, but i live in new zealand so shipping is a huge pain and i haven’t come across anything yet that is both within my price range and that i care enough about to pay a shit ton for shipping

(honestly, would have bought any of the dice sets, but the only one that’s been out while i’ve been in the fandom was the whitestone opalite dice and those were suuuper expensive)

(real pretty though)

19) Who’s your favorite CR cast member (Matt, Laura, etc.)?

ohhhhhh that’s so hard to choose. every time i think of any one person at least four others show up in my head like “hey what about us!”

i think i’ll just answer this by saying my favourite things about each of them

matt - really cool person. really fun storyteller. so much more of a dork when not being a DM, it’s not a side of him we get to see often but it’s one i’d love to see more of! i’m still amazed he does this every week when he’s said a couple times he hates being on camera, like... matt, how do you do that. i am a little in awe of you

travis - i love his whole approach to rping? like the whole “you have to take risks at every possible opportunity because whether it succeeds or fails, it’s always worth the chance you’ll make something amazing”. he’s highly relatable as an adhd player. also he’s said he doesn’t want to put romance stories in his dnd characters and i get very attached to characters that could be headcanoned as aro so i really appreciate that

marisha - she’s fucking badass. i am constantly in awe of her bravery to continue to play her characters really well when she gets so much hate with them. also, she’s a really good actor? i feel like no one says it enough but she really is. love all her liveshow outfits.

liam - now, i’ve been that one theatre kid who was way too obsessed with hamlet at like age 15? so like... i feel you, liam. love the places he goes with his characters. love everything about vax. love the language he uses while rping and the small little gestures he comes up with that add so much to a character, i’ve written a couple posts on it

sam - now, on one hand, sam is the cast member i relate the least to. on the other, he did make nott who i love with all my heart. i’m also just really impressed by everything he comes up with as scanlan, especially the super long ode to vax which had to be at least partially improvised/written during that episode

laura - continually dedicated to proving you can make female characters that are super detailed and full of depth while also always being down to make stupid dick jokes. really good actor. very cute and very ridiculous. also, [harp music] ~laura bailey~

taliesin - i love his dedication to being goth, queer, and colourful all at once? bc big fucking mood. love his characters, love his weirdness, love his random pockets of obscure knowledge that occasionally come up on the show and everyone’s like “how the fuck do you even know that”

ashley - is it not enough to be gay and in love with ashley johnson? but no seriously she’s super cool and also a dork and i adore her

29) What’s the most devastating CR PC defeat/death?

i mean..... it’s gotta be molly, right?

like percy’s first death and vax in the finale were both heartwrenching as fuck, but both kinda felt like they were meant to happen? percy, while he came back and i’m glad he did (which also helps make it not the most devastating), taliesin had kinda planned for that to be the end of percy, and it did tie things up in that tragic way his character archetype often goes. had that been permanent, it would have hurt, but it would have felt fitting. and vax, god, i will never be over dalen’s closet, but he had a lot of time to come to grips with his own death and that made it, more cathartic rather than just painful

but molly was just, i mean i knew it was coming before i even started watching, i tried my best not to get attached and then got attached anyway

and i really love what it did to the plot and the characters and i wouldn’t trade away caduceus now we’ve really gotten to know him

but goddamn did that have an impact

#cr thoughts #cr1 #cr2 #ask #crit role cast #mollymauk tealeaf #percy de rolo #vax'ildan #text #kaetor

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cyberkevvideo · 4 years

Text

Throne of Night Theory Builds Part 16: The Mist Creature

Imagine my surprise when I learned the Canadian dollar dropped considerably. I’m so glad this AP was done when it was and not now. I don’t know I could have handled paying 1.5x the value we were originally quoted. That said, with so much “free time”, I can’t help but daydream that Gary’s working on the AP to kill time. During this time trying time, it’d be a nice pick-me-up.

Today’s entry isn’t a new picture, but it’s definitely cool to look at. A creature made of mist awaits our heroes and is about to ambush them. It took me a fair while to look up all the different kinds of fog and mist-like creatures in Pathfinder 1st Edition. I finally settled on today’s base creature because of the very descriptive eyes both in the picture, and in the lore write up that I discovered. They seemed to match, so that’s what I went with.

For the CR, I looked up sample encounters in the beginning of Book 5 of “Way of the Wicked”, and one of them was a CR 15. Given how difficult the creature would be to advance and make a worthwhile threat, that’s what I went with.

For space reasons, I’ll be cropping the encounter build.

All images shared here were done by the forever fantastic and amazingly talented Michael D. Clarke, aka SpiralMagus

EDIT: All stats are cleaned up and look pretty.

BTW, it suggested I make one because there are those who’ve expressed they want to reward my efforts, so I made a Ko-Fi page. No pressure in supporting it though. I know we’re all experiencing financially trying times right now. I hope everyone’s staying safe right now.

The creature I went with, due to his piercing blue glowing eyes, is the fogwarden. It’s from way back during AD&D days, and was converted by Frog God Games for their Tome of Horrors Complete. I took a few liberties and combined the 3.5, Pathfinder, and 5e versions. Yeah, all three are different from one another. This is what the “unique” aspect of it is. But this way, it’s an actual threat at CR 15. Also, I made it a psychic. While the fogwarden can still use its lightning abilities, it can’t cast any spells in its constant gaseous form. However, it can use psychic spells since you only need emotions.

For this, I advanced the HD to 8 from 4, gave it the Mighty Template, and the Mist creature template. Redundant, I know, but those extra abilities and hp from changing it to an outsider definitely round out the creature more. Despite all the overlap, it still ended up being a CR 15. It’s technically a CR 16, given the templates and HD, but it just does not have the AC nor deal the damage a typical CR 16 should, so I dropped it down to 15. If used to its fullest potential, and it can bottleneck PCs with the fog abilities, then it might actually be worth more XP, but on paper it’s only worth this amount. GMs are free to reward their players more if the encounter ends up being far more difficult than anticipated. At this level though, the PCs shouldn’t find 4th level psychic spells or obscuring fog spells that overwhelming.

I will point out that this is a 3PP monster, so it doesn’t really follow the rules too well. All monsters are supposed to have three odds stats and three even. This creature had two odd and four even. It’s not even in the original 3.5 stats. In fact, the Wisdom is 2 lower. The 5e stats are exactly the same as a the 3.5 ones, so that didn’t help me any. I needed one more odd number so I threw in a magic tome for good measure. This gave me the numbers I needed.

If you’re wondering where I got some of the damage numbers from, I was looking at the original fogwarden stats from AD&D, and what they suggested for their 8 HD advancement. Best part is even stronger ones are large size and have a less globe of invulnerability. On top of that, they’re a mystic theurge of CL 17/CL 13th (arcane/divine). It’s too bad old stats didn’t have ability scores.

VLINAUNDRA (CR 15; 51,200 XP) Unique advanced mighty mist fogwarden psychic 8 NE Medium outsider (air, elemental, water) Init +11; Senses cloud sight, darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +29 Aura fear (60 ft., W-DC 25) DEFENSE AC 26, touch 26, flat-footed 14 (+4 deflection, +6 Dex, +6 dodge) hp 256 (16 HD; 8d10+8d6+184) Fort +12; Ref +15; Will +20 Defensive Abilities air mastery, electricity discharge (R-DC 25, 6d6+5 electricity), fortification (100%), morphic form; DR 10/magic, DR 2/—; Immune cloud/fog/gas-based attacks and spells, cold, combat maneuvers, electricity, inhaled poisons and gases, mind-affecting effects, paralysis, poison, sleep; Resist fire 10; SR 27 Weakness vulnerability to sunlight OFFENSE Speed fly 70 ft. (good) Special Attacks animate dead, dark half (+1 spell DC, +2 Will, 2 bleed; 11 rounds), lightning bolt (60 ft. line, DC 27, 7d6+5 electricity, useable every other round), mighty damage. phrenic amplifications (focused force, intense focus, overpowering mind), phrenic pool (10) Melee shocking touch +26 (5d6+5 electricity) Spell-like Abilities (CL 8th, concentration +17) At will—animate dead 3/day—fog cloud, obscuring mist, stinking cloud (F-DC 24) 1/day—cloudkill (F-DC 26), solid fog Psychic Spell-like Abilities (CL 8th; concentration +18) 1/day—detect thoughts (W-DC 22) Psychic Spells Known (CL 8th; concentration +18) 4th (4/day)—black tentaclesB (CMB +18), shout (F/R-DC 25) 3rd (6/day)—excruciating deformationB (F-DC 24), id insinuation II (W-DC 24), slow (W-DC 24) 2nd (7/day)—alter selfB, fox’s cunning, mind thrust II (W-DC 23), sonic scream (R-DC 23) 1st (8/day)—comprehend languages, ill omen, magic missile, murderous command (W-DC 22), ray of enfeeblementB (F-DC 22), shield 0 (at will)—dancing lights, detect magic, ghost sound (W-DC 21), know direction, mage hand, resistance, telekinetic projectile, virtue Psychic Discipline abomination STATISTICS Str 10, Dex 22, Con 12, Int 20, Wis 16, Cha 18 Base Atk +10; CMB —; CMD — Feats Ability Focus (lightning bolt), AlertnessB, Dodge, Expanded Phrenic Pool, Great Fortitude, Greater Spell Penetration, Spell Penetration, Weapon Finesse Skills Acrobatics +22, Bluff +20, Fly +26, Intimidate +20, Knowledge (arcana) +20, Knowledge (dungeoneering) +21, Knowledge (geography) +17, Knowledge (local) +19, Knowledge (nature) +19, Knowledge (planes) +18, Linguistics +21, Perception +29, Sense Motive +27, Spellcraft +23, Survival +19, Stealth +22 (+26 to move silently, +37 in areas of fog, cloud, mist, or smoke); Racial Modifiers +4 Fly, +4 to Stealth to move silently, +15 to Stealth in areas of fog, cloud, mist, or smoke; +5 to all ability and skill checks Languages Aquan, Auran, Common, Draconic, Dwarven, Elven, Terran, Undercommon SQ air breather, detect thoughts, gaseous form (constant) Gear tome of clear thought +1 (read) SPECIAL ABILITIES Air Mastery (Ex) Any airborne creature takes a –1 penalty on attack and damage rolls against a mist creature. Animate Dead (Su) The electrical aura of the fogwarden can animate dead creatures within 20 feet. This is otherwise identical to an animate dead (caster level 8th). The animated creatures resemble zombies (and use their stats) and are under the control of the fogwarden that animated them. They are not undead however, and cannot be turned or rebuked. If the fogwarden is slain or moves more than 20 feet from a zombie, the animated creature collapses dead and cannot be animated again. Cloud Sight (Ex) A mist creature can see through clouds, gases, fogs, mists, and smoke as though they didn’t inhibit vision. Creatures and objects do not gain concealment from a mist creature due to such conditions. A mist creature may use this ability while gaseous. Electricity Discharge (Su) Electricity constantly plays across a fogwarden’s form. Any metal object (including metal weapons) that contacts a fogwarden’s body takes 6d6 points of electricity damage. Magic items receive a DC 25 Reflex saving throw to reduce the damage by half. Nonmagical items and objects receive no save and automatically take full damage. A creature holding the object or weapon at the time of contact takes 6d6 points of electricity damage as well (DC 25 Reflex save for half). Gaseous Form (Ex) The fogwarden’s natural form is that of fog or mist. This ability is similar to the gaseous form spell (caster level 8th), except that a fogwarden does not lose its supernatural abilities or its lightning bolt ability, and has a fly speed of 40 feet. It is immune to and cannot perform combat maneuvers. Mighty Damage (Ex) A mighty creature adds +5 damage to all of their attacks, spells, and supernatural abilities. If a spell or ability targets multiple creatures (ie. magic missile), the bonus damage is only applied once to a single target of the mighty creature’s choice. Vulnerability to Sunlight (Ex) Fogwardens shun sunlight. A fogwarden exposed to sunlight is staggered for as long as it remains in the sunlight, and is destroyed utterly after 1 hour of exposure if it cannot escape.

--name means “mist” in dwarven.

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sailor-cresselia · 5 years

Text

Domesticity

Intended to be part of the ‘Press Start to Continue” continuity, but I felt like I should post it now. :)

After they all move in together, even weeks later, it all still seems a little too good to be true.

Some nights he actually tries to sleep just because he feels like it, just because he wants to, and can have that luxury. It never seemed like a luxury before – after all, he didn’t usually need to sleep, so why bother? It was just a waste of time. but now…

Now it’s kinda cool that he has the freedom to just… chill out, and not be all conniving and plotting against people and stuff.

It definitely helps that Lazer – that Kiriya gets it. He still sleeps more often than he needs to, so it’s not like there’s anyone who’s going to look at him like he’s being weird. Although, in his case it’s a way to feel ‘normal.’

…Not that Parad doesn’t understand where he’s coming from with that, either.

The first year of not being M anymore was hard.

Having graphite around actually did help with that a lot, since he was a regular bugster, not the beta test that Parad is. Not still hooked to his host like Parad is.

After a year of only knowing Kuroto, not being the only non-human around made Parad feel… well, somewhat normal. So, yeah. In the same way that Kiriya and Emu are helping him with civilian life, he’s helping Kiriya get with the bugster program.

Heh. Program. Because they’re part digital.

…Damnit, Lazer. Looks like making puns in hindsight is contagious.

But… Yeah. It’s going… weirdly well. He hadn’t had any expectations for the apartment – the last one he lived in in any way was Emu’s ‘home’ when they were 18 – but the guys were kinda surprised at how big it was. It’s partially paid for by the Ministry of Health, because Parad’s technically a ward or on parole or something, but the rent is mostly covered by Emu and Kiriya. apparently they make pretty good money.

(Emu’s mentioned that he thinks it’s because of the superhero gig. They can’t afford for him to go work at a different hospital, so his pay got… boosted, a little, instead of what his ‘recent hire’ pediatrician pay would usually be. Not that he has any way to actually prove that, and his being the department lead for CR definitely plays a part, too, but… Well. He’s definitely making more than he might otherwise.)

There’s also the matter of just having a chore roster. Actually, just having more than one person doing said chores is an adjustment for all of them, since Parad was living in a literal office, and both Emu and Kiriya were bachelors without roommates, the whole not ‘doing an entire apartments work by themselves’ is a new thing.

Surprising everyone, including himself, Parad has discovered that he actually really likes cooking. He’s not great at it. Good, but not great. But holy shit, once he gets the basics of a recipe down, and can reliably make it? That’s when the fun begins.

Of course, not that he started off intending to pick it up as a second hobby. It mostly started because they were all sick of takeout.

“Curry?”

Kiriya shudders. “Nah, I gotta be in the right mindset for spicy stuff.”

“Then…” Emu turns back to the restaurant listings. “I hear there's a new okonomiyaki place that opened recently.”

Parad shakes his head. “Isn’t that, like, three wards over? It’s way too late to be bothered going out. We could always just heat up a pizza.”

“We did that two nights ago, though…”

Emu sighs. “Well, we have to figure out something.”

That was how it went just about every night. Technically speaking, bugsters don’t actually need to eat, but they’re able to, and it’d just be awkward if Emu were the only one having meals and stuff. But after a few weeks, Parad had enough, and went next door for advice.

“Niiiicoooo? Poppyyyy?”

Nico rolls her eyes as she answers the door. “‘Sup, nerd?”

“Do either of the two of you know how to cook? Because no one in our place does, and we’re all getting really sick of ordering in and having frozen stuff all the time.” There’s a distinct whine in Parad’s voice, and she isn’t sure what to make of it.

“We’re not your moms, dude, we aren’t gonna cook for ya.”

He pouts. It looks absurd on a guy his height. “That’s not what I was asking. I wanna learn how, you guys are closer than anyone else, and my only other options would be Brave and Snipe. Brave still doesn’t like me, and I have my doubts about Snipe giving enough of a shit to know how to cook either.”

‘Men.’ Groaning, Nico buries her head in her hands. “Alright, come on in. My mom grilled some stuff into my head so I could fend for myself when I started going all over for tournaments. So I can give you a rundown on some basics for right now, and we can see from there.”

“But I’d heal really fast from it, so-”

“Weird bugster healing times or no, you’d still have to recover, and ya wouldn’t be able to so much as hold a controller during it.”

“…True.”

“‘Sides, I know I wouldn’t wanna explain it to Emu, and I don’t even live with him. Do you want to be the one to tell him you burned your hands because you’re too damned stubborn?”

Parad pales. “Alright, alright, I get it already! I’ll use the damn potholders!”

“So, I know this is my first time out, but this can’t be right…” Parad wrinkles his nose at his attempt at chopping carrots.

“It’ll do, and we can salvage these, but going forward-” Nico picks up the knife and sets another carrot on the cutting board. “You want to do each slice in a single movement, and it’s easier to move the thing that you’re cutting than it is to move the knife. Just push it along, like this-” she chops the carrot about halfway, her slices coming far neater and more evenly sized than Parad’s large hunks and thin wedges. “Then you can get them all even. If all of your pieces are different shapes and sizes, they won’t cook in the same amount of time – that goes for everything, actually, but this is an easy example for now.”

He nods, with a serious expression. “Can I try again?”

“No problem!” Grinning, Nico steps aside, and he does a much neater job at the remaining half of the second carrot. His slices are still a little uneven – mostly owing to him not being used to how much pressure to use – but overall they match her demonstration way closer than they do his first attempt. “Not bad!”

A few weeks into Parad’s cooking lessons, the two of them are waiting for the stock to come to a boil, and get to talking.

“Hey, why’d you come to me and poppy, anyway? Why not just, like, look this all up online?”

Leaning back in the chair, he laughs. “You think I didn’t try that first? Nah, I couldn’t make heads or tails of it all, and most of the sites said that you needed to see all this in person, which didn't help one little bit. And…” he hesitates. “And I wanted to surprise them. Emu and Kiriya are paying for the place, and they’re. You know, they're used to all of this…” he waves his hand in the air. “All of this domestic stuff. I… wanted to show that I can get there, too. I want to pull my own weight, at least in some way.”

Nico almost doesn’t hear his next sentence.

“I want to make sure their choice is worth it.”

“So, you wanted to spring this on the guys, and it’s hard to do that at your place, so you looked for help from me ‘n Poppy? Makes sense to me.” Nico grins, before looking at the timer. “Aaa! We’ve gotta get the cutlets ready!”

Both of them set into motion. “Grab the flour, would ya? I’ll get the pan.” Rummaging through her cabinets, Nico starts growing a little more frantic. “Where the hell did it go?!”

“Hang on, hang on, I remember where it got to last week-” Parad sets the flour and breadcrumbs on the table, going to a different cabinet. “I think I had to put it over here, because you were busy around the right one, and I just forgot to put it back- yeah, here we go.”

Glaring, she smacks him with a dishtowel. “Don’t! Put! My! Stuff! On! The! Top! Shelf! You! Lanky! Asshole!” Each word is punctuated by another bap. It’s not hard, she doesn’t really mean it, but seriously. He is way too tall to be allowed to put stuff away in this apartment, not when the people who live here are at least a foot shorter than him.

It’s Taiga taking her handheld and putting it on top of the supply closet all over again.

“Okay, okay, I get it already! Come on, N, cut it out!” He’s trying to fend off her attacks by using the frying pan as a shield.

“Nope!” She glares sarcastically. “The beatings will continue until morals improve.”

“…I think it’s supposed to be morale, isn’t it?”

She picks up the pace, and he responds by using one of his magic bugster power shields to block her. “That is cheating, Parad!”

“Hey, Nico, the broth!”

“Shit!”

Eventually, everyone’s schedules have finally lined up. All three of them – Emu, Parad, and Kiriya – are going to be at the hospital for once. Admittedly, Kiriya’s only going to be at CR because all four of the bugsters – and Emu, because of his whole ‘technically infected but also not quite human’ deal – are being examined and analyzed and all that tedious research and check-up stuff, but! this is perfect timing!

Okay, mostly perfect timing. Yes, everyone is going to be there today – and he does mean everyone, since Taiga and Nico are helping out due to a lack of overall manpower – but… well, he’s supposed to be sleeping. Same as the others, so that they’re all ‘bright eyed and bushy tailed’ for the tests.

(Those were Kiriya’s very sarcastic terms, not anyone else’s, although Parad kinda agrees.)

Still, he’s supposed to be sleeping, as opposed to getting up at three AM for a few hours to sneak over to Nico’s. He’s going to go back to sleep, really, but he has a few things to make, first.

A lot of things, actually. And he has to assemble them all into a bunch of different things.

“Thank you for letting me use the kitchen, I know that it's a hassle, but-”

“But ya don’t have the equipment, and Emu’d notice you sneaking around. Whereas Poppy has an inkling of what’s going on, but is okay with keeping the unusual number of groceries I’ve been buying for the past month a secret.” Nico giggles. “It’s definitely no problem. Let me know what I can do to help, okay?”

He frowns as he considers this. “I wanna do the cooking and assembly by myself, to prove I can, and it’ll mean way more that way, but if you could, like, get things out when I need them, and help keep up with dishes?”

He gets a thumbs up in reply. “I got ya. I’ll get the boxes out when you’re at that step for you, too, hows that sound?”

“Thanks!”

Parad glances at the clock. It’s almost five, he’s supposed to be getting up around seven – and he’s almost done, he really, really is, but he’s not actually done putting the boxes together yet…

He feels a hand on his arm. “Hey.”

Jumping, he turns. “Don’t do that!”

Smiling apologetically, Nico nods toward the assorted lunch boxes. “I’ll wrap this up. If you don’t head back soon, you’re gonna get caught.”

“No, I have to-”

“Dude, go home. I’ll bring ‘em in for ya, to keep the surprise. Besides.” She grins. “We don’t know who’s going when tomorrow, so who knows if you’d be allowed to teleport back by lunch.”

His shoulders slumping in defeat, Parad sighs. “Alright, yeah, you’ve got a point. A couple points. Good ones. Stupid 24-hour power ban… Alright. See you later, and uh, thanks again.”

“Don’t mention it.” Nico smirks. “I mean it, you don’t want you spilling the beans on your own surprise.”

He grins cheekily as he walks out.

Once he’s entering his own room, another door cracks open. “Kid? What’re you doing?”

‘Whoops.’ Parad flinches from Kiriya’s scrutinizing look. “Hey. Got kinda wired up. Had to go get some air. No, I didn’t use my powers, I used my key, I’m not dumb.”

“Heh.” Sleepily – looks like he really needed this – Kiriya scoffs. “Nah, if there’s one thing I could never call you, it’s dumb. Reckless, yes. An asshole sometimes, definitely, but Emu and Poppy are the only ones around here who aren’t, and Emu can toe the line when he’s pissed.” His smile dies down. “You okay?”

Parad nods. “Yeah. Really, I just went outside for a little. I’m headed back t’ bed. See ya in a few hours.”

“…Yeah. In a few. Too few.” Kiriya groans. “I hate mornings.”

“Is that why you always have that abomination that you call coffee?”

“Coffee’s perfectly normal, kid.”

“Not the way you drink it. Can I even say that you drink it? Does it still count as a liquid once you pour all that sugar in, or is it more of a syrup at that point?”

“Go to bed, you twerp.”

“Am I wrong though?”

Pointedly ignoring Kiriya’s mostly-pretend glare, Parad waves, heads into his room, and passes the hell out on his bed.

“What I can’t believe is that we’re letting Genm just. Wait around out here. I’d’ve thought we’d get him out of the way, and then back in he goes.”

“Yes, yes, very funny, Kujo.”

“The guy is a flight risk, and known terrorist, and a grade-A douche canoe, so, really, it doesn’t make sense for his exam to be one of the last.” Kiriya continues his diatribe, pointedly pretending to not hear anything Kuroto says.

“Yeah, well.” Parad scoffs. “I think it was something about how he’s virtual so much, he needs the extra time in the ‘real’ world to ‘realign’ or whatever.”

“I’m right here, you know. I can hear everything you are saying.”

Kiriya looks at the ceiling, acting confused. “Huh, that’s weird. I thought I heard some sort of weird droning, for a minute there…”

“Kujo, I swear-”

“…Ace? you okay?”

Emu grits his teeth. “I’m fine. Just… tense.” Seeming to realize he’s been pacing for the last ten minutes, he pulls out a chair and sits down, resting his head on his crossed arms. “Just… didn’t sleep well. That’s all.”

Kiriya and Parad look at him, then at each other, and then back at Emu. ““Bullshit.””

“Language.”

Parad frowns. “Sorry you got pulled into this whole testing thing, too.”

His head still down, Emu shrugs. “It’s partly because technically speaking, you’re still infecting me, and I feel I need to repeat for the record that, no, I don’t blame you for. But this way, we can also get more information on how this ‘stage’ of the game disease works. Well, kind of, anyway. The length of time kinda distorts the data, if you ask me.”

“And you’ve been in this situation so long, we may as well call you an honorary bugster.” Kiriya tries to joke. “I mean, you’re the one who wanted your DNA checked out, Ace. Not your fault it confirmed that you’re a hybrid.”

“Yeah, but I don’t even get the extra mileage out of it!” He sounds exasperated, but his grin shows that Emu’s cheering up – or at least doing a good job of distracting himself. “Suuuure, I get to transform without the surgery, and I’m a little stronger than most people, but not even by that much, and I don’t get to teleport!”

Parad shakes his head. “I’m telling you, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen you do little mini forcefields.”

“Those hurt when you use them to shove someone away, you know.”

Emu glares. “Shut it, you were trying to choke me and you had it coming.”

“So you acknowledge that you have some extra powers?” Everyone turns away from the former CEO. “You all just don’t appreci-”

“Boys?” Poppy comes up the stairs. “How’s it going?”

Everyone brightens, Kiriya leaning forward. “Hey, welcome back! So that’s you ‘n me down, and these three to go.”

Whining, Parad drapes himself over a chair. “Are you sure you guys can’t tell anyone what’s coming?”

“Pfeh.” Kiriya snorts. “They wouldn’t even let me ‘n ‘God’ design the tests for you three, let alone ourselves, and we’re the ones who do most of the research. That’s how out of the loop we’re all being kept. The only one’s who’ll probably have the same tests are me and him, anyway, since you and Poppy are in different situations, and Emu, well, is Emu.”

“Funny.”

“Okay, okay, that’s enough, you guys.” Her hands on her hips, Poppy gives them a serious look, then almost immediately beams when all four of the men straighten up.

Parad blinks. “Oh no. She knows everyone’s terrified of letting her down. She’s weaponizing it.”

Emu glances over. “Well, it’s been nice knowing us all.”

“A-hem. Weren’t you two supposed to keep the psychic chatter to a minimum?”

““Sorry.””

“A-ny-way…” With a singsong tone, Poppy drops down onto the couch. “Nico was helping out, but she took off a little while ago, saying something about grabbing lunch.” Frowning, she crosses her arms in a pout. “Except we were all supposed to be here today. Everyone. As a group.”

“What were the plans for lunch, anyway?” Emu slumps back down. “Does anyone actually know? The three of us were told ‘it was taken care of’, but…”

“Yeah, that doesn’t really explain anything, does it?” His arms crossed, Kiriya huffs. “Because explaining anything would just be too difficult, wouldn’t it?”

“Pot, meet kettle.” Taiga’s voice carries from the stairs.

“Oh, right, like you’re one to talk, mister ‘only rider we need around here’!”

“You’re all insufferable.” Hiiro’s voice comes from behind the emerging Taiga.

“And yet you still work with us.”

There’s an amount of light banter as everyone converges into the office, and some facts become clear.

Absolutely none of them brought lunches.

And absolutely none of them were told why they weren’t supposed to.

Parad’s phone goes off, a victory sound effect playing to signal a text. “Hang on, I’ll be back up in a sec.”

Emu gets up as he darts off. “Hey, we’re supposed to be staying in here!”

“I’m not going far!”

True to his word, he comes back up less than five minutes later, Nico right behind him. The both of them are carrying decently sized picnic baskets. Looking quickly around, Parad nods to a spot near the table, where they both set them down, and begin distributing bento boxes to everyone seated around the table.

Each one is personalized, too – a lot of thought was put into this.

Emu: Pink with mighty on it, and a cyan chopstick case – the same as his half of Mighty Brothers.

Hiiro: Metallic blue with a picture of a shortcake, and a silver chopstick case (and it was really hard to find a blue version of that – most of them were pastel pinks or purples)

Taiga: Yellow with a pen-and-ink calligraphy of a tiger, and a black and yellow case.

Kiriya: Dark red with a yellow Hawaiian floral pattern, and a dark yellow case with a similar red pattern

Poppy: Pale yellow with pink and green music notes, and a pink case with yellow and green notes

Kuroto: Dark purple with a grey chopstick case. (Parad sets that one down while glaring)

Nico: Purple, pink, and blue tie-dye, and a dark pink case with a pattern of game controller buttons all over.

Parad: Purple with red, blue, and yellow squares, and an orange case the same color as his half of Mighty Brothers.

Everyone starts off reluctant to try – the meals all look good, but… well, they’ve never known Nico to cook at all. Sighing, she takes a big bite out of hers. “Come on, it’s not poison, guys.”

After seeing that she doesn’t drop, the others start eating as well – and one by one, light up.

There’s no conversation at this point – everyone’s too distracted, up until Taiga looks at her. “If you can make this, why the hell are you always bringing in all that junk food?!”

She grins deviously. “I said I was going to grab lunch. Never said I was the one who made it.” She turns her grin to the bugster sitting across from her. “Right?”

Fidgeting nervously with the corner of the cloth his box was wrapped in, Parad nods, apparently trying to avoid shrinking into his collar. “I made them. Nico’s been helping me learn, and. Well. I wanted to show how I’ve been doing. Since everyone was going to be here, this seemed like a good enough time as any to do it.”

Kiriya looks at him, a smirk on his face. “Oh, ya mean that’s where you were? Getting some air my ass!”

Poppy beams. “So this is what you two have been up to! I didn’t want to ask, but I knew something was going on!”

Parad nods again, averting his eyes. “Yeah. I thought – if I could at least partly pull my weight, that’d be one thing, but I also realized that cooking is honestly really fun to do. I… was kinda surprised, but… it’s something, and it’s a way I can help, so…” He casts a nervous glance up at Emu, before looking back down. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything. I know we’ve got the ‘no secrets’ rule in the apartment, but I figured you would tell me ‘not to worry about it’ and not bother, and this is something I really wanted to do, so I can be useful-”

He’s silenced by a hand on his shoulder, and a small wave of reassurance being pushed his way.

Emu smiles. “Why would I say that? I mean, you don’t need to worry about ‘not being useful’, because that's kind of silly. You don’t need a purpose for us to like each other, you know.”

“I know, but… I still-”

“This one is the good type of secret, Parad.” Emu squeezes his shoulder for good measure, and turns back to his lunch. “So, how long have you two been at this?”

Nico chuckles. “Told ya not to worry. We’ve been practicing for about a month – and as you can see, the lanky jerk’s gotten pretty damned good at this.”

Kiriya – half done with his – wheels his chair behind Emu in order to clap Parad on the shoulder. “I’ll say! This is good, kid.” He smirks. “And now we don’t have to get take out almost every night!”

Parad blushes at the complements. “Thanks. The take out thing was a big part of why I started, too.” He gestures toward the boxes themselves. “I, uh, took the liberty of getting these, too – there’s two each, actually. The boxes and cases belong to different sets, and I tried to get ones that fit each person.” With a slight chuckle, he continues. “Yes, I included Genm, because while he may be an unrepentant dick, I’m trying to move on from my assholery… and the site I found had a deal if you ordered a certain number of sets, but it required a lot of sets, and I didn’t quite make it with just everyone else’s, so I figured I might as well round out the whole thing.”

#kamen rider ex aid #i will ride this inspiration train until it runs out of track #riders reunited #press start to continue

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thegreenfairy13 · 5 years

Text

Dog Sitter Part 6 - A Safe Place

A Gobblepot fanfic. When Oswald loses his dog Ed, Jim Gordon finds it and does an excellent job when it comes to taking care of the mobster’s furry friend. Read it on Ao3 here.

The sedan stops not far from the Penguin’s residence. The moment a young man emerges from the car, the mobster is certain something is wrong. At first glance, he can’t exactly pinpoint why he’s so unsettled, yet he is.

The man is in his early thirties, white. He’s got short brown hair. His haircut is elegant, tasteful, as is his gray, tight-fitting suit. Maybe it’s the car itself, the mobster muses. It’s a car for an elderly gentleman. It seems to be too big, too pompous for him.

Also, there’s something off about his clothes. Given, they are of immaculate quality, but they seem to be wearing him. A man in such a suit should be brimming with self-confidence, yet it seems he’s wearing a disguise. He doesn’t look like a wealthy, successful businessman but rather like a high-school graduate applying for his first job.

When first sporting a tailored suit, Oswald was still lacking the arrogance that is implicitly necessary when showing off such an exclusive piece of garment. Men growing up surrounded by wealth wear such clothing as if it was their birthright and armor - and in a sense it is. But when coming from poverty, one has to shed his insecurities and grow into the suit and shoes you are now able to afford - literally. And there was a time even the Penguin used to be intimidated by luxury.

The man on the street lights a cigarette. His eyes flicker up and down the road as if he was looking for something particular. He’s definitely nervous and the Penguin already considers getting his shotgun when a young woman walks up to him and kisses him passionately. She then pulls a slightly disgusted face and swats the hand holding the cigarette before pulling him into her house.

Oswald should probably be relieved, yet he isn’t. This car, this suit, the jittery demeanor… Of course, the man could have only been nervous because of his date but men driving such cars don’t get nervous because of a pretty woman, do they?

Bringing the cigar back to his lips, he takes a pull. Rolling it between his fingers, his thoughts wander to Edward and his pathetic love for him. How devoted he had been back then! For Edward, he would have given up his empire willingly, would have moved to India if demanded, or crossed the Himalayas hobbling on one leg. Around Edward, he had always been unable to see what was right in front of him. This insincere promise of friendship, of having a true connection, had made him blind to the cunning, devious nature of the other man.

Where the Penguin knows boundaries, the Riddler doesn’t. Edward had taken everything Oswald had achieved or loved at the time and smashed it to pieces. Each secret they had ever shared had been exploited to cause the maximum amount of pain. He had thrown him from his throne and humiliated him in public. And if that hadn’t been enough, he had taken Oswald’s faith, his belief in ghosts and belittled him for it. He didn’t stop there, though. Even then, Oswald had begged the other man to love him. Just a bit. How desperate he had been, how weak.

And then he had ripped out his heart as if it was worth nothing and stomped on it. His revenge had been complete, perfect - a masterpiece, truly. Oswald almost admired Ed for it.

Once he had thought Edward would be the other part of his soul. Now he realizes Ed doesn’t have one. Figures.

He would have never gone that far - not when it comes to the ones he deems worthy of his affection. And maybe not even when it comes to the ones he doesn’t deem worthy. This complete and utter destruction of his soul had been cruel in ways beyond imagination. Sure, he still wants revenge for his mother’s death but he doesn’t wish to destroy every piece of Tabitha’s being. Even if she’s the only person who probably deserves that amount of pain.

In front of Edward, he had been reduced to a shadow of his true self. Had that been love or dependency? If that had been love, should he not now more than ever feel the urge to leave Gotham?

Oswald scoffs. He’s really one to wonder how a wealthy, young man can be reduced to a jittery mess in front of a beautiful woman. Not when he’s being ruled by his heart time and time again. Not if Edward’s promise of love brought him to his knees.

And he hasn’t learned a thing. In front of Jim Gordon, he’s not acting a tad bit better. His desire to befriend with the cop had been his downfall before. And maybe their new arrangement will lead to great losses on his part again.

At least Jim had always been sincere in his disdain for him. Jim had promised to take him down, didn’t he? And, boy oh boy, did he deliver on his promise! But did Oswald ever listen? No. Like a moth is drawn to the inevitably deadly light, he is drawn to Jim Gordon - the last honest man in Gotham.

For some, life is a romantic comedy. For Oswald, it’s rather a Shakespearian tragedy and that’s ultimately another part of what defines him, of what he is. Or maybe it’s karma. He is aware of having his wealth gained by horrible deeds. And maybe the universe demands a price to be paid for all this power. Well, if that’s the case, he’s paying dearly.

Straightening out his shoulders, he puts out his cigar and retreats to bed. Tomorrow evening, Martin will be brought back to the relative safety of his school. And on Monday, he’ll try to find out everything about this stranger driving the sedan. Should he mean the tiniest threat to his child, he’ll be dealt with accordingly.

Sleep doesn’t come easy that night. Knowing a possible danger could be lurking close by, renders the mobster unable to do anything besides tossing and turning restlessly between his sheets.

He’s grateful for the rain the other day that forces him and Martin to stay inside. With a bowl of cereals in their hands, they marathon through old Disney movies and a crappy series on ghost stories for kids.

At one point, his little one decides his dad reminds him of a vampire and Oswald ends up chasing a laughing, squealing kid around the dining table, teeth bared and growling menacingly. Hands extended, he snatches up his boy.

“I’ll suck your last droplet of blood!” he roars, spinning Martin around gleefully, for once not caring about his aching leg.

Having learned from the best when it comes to playing dirty, the kid twists in his grasp and starts tickling his father’s sensitive tummy.

“Mercy!” the Penguin wheezes when his son doubles his efforts. Like a true Cobblepot, he only gives up when his dad vows to surrender to the decidedly greatest vampire-hunter of all time.

This day doesn’t last either. Martin’s nanny arrives way too soon to take him back to his school and prepare him for the following day. Parting is never easy and it doesn’t get easier even if they both know the drill. As always, Oswald considers simply taking his son with him. There’s an entire army at his disposal so Martin should be safe, shouldn’t he? Even if knowing the boy would never be safe as long as his father rules the underworld.

The Penguin still does the sensible thing and gets into his car before his little prince’s pleading eyes can change his mind. It’s torture, turning his back onto what’s most precious to him each and every week, knowing Martin’s absence will leave a gaping hole in his chest the moment the engine roars to life.

He should just take everything. The crown and his heir and stop worrying. It’s a preposterous thought of course. Whatever he loved had been burnt to ashes before and if he’d ever lost Martin...Well, he would never recover from that loss. If anything ever happened to his child, he’d go to Arkham willingly and stay there for the rest of his life.

Not daring to look into the rear mirror again, he speeds away, back to Gotham, to his dog Ed, Jim Gordon, his enemies and allies and this other part of his soul, to this city that defines him and is embedded into his DNA.

He gets stuck in horrendous traffic. Which isn’t only an ordeal because of his physical condition. Putting on the brakes and accelerating, again and again, is straining for his bad leg. By the time he reaches Gotham’s city limit, he’s already sweating profusely and holding on by sheer determination. On top of his pain, he’ll have to deal with the permanent curmudgeonly Captain, too. Jim won’t be pleased when the Penguin arrives late. He can already hear the man’s displeased snarl.

On days like this, it’s difficult to deal with Jim’s temper. When Oswald doesn’t want to do anything else except for wrapping himself up in his sadness as if it was a comforting blanket and wallow in self-pity, the Captain would never hesitate to force him to be the Penguin. Jim never cared for Oswald’s pain. Except for one night maybe. The night he indulged him and allowed him his revenge on Galavan. Besides that, Jim expects him to be someone who soldiers through his pain and shoves it aside.

Maybe he admires the cop for that trait too. Jim never pitied him. He underestimated him, he loathed him, but he never pitied him. Despite his feeble appearance, the Captain never mistook him for weak or ever regarded him as pathetic.

He might not respect him, that’s definitely the wrong term, but to some extent, Jim values him and that’s at least something. In a time, when his life wasn’t worth more than the one of a cockroach, Jim regarded him worth saving. And even after all these years, Oswald is fairly certain he would never end his life.

So not only is Jim the last honest man in Gotham, but he’s also the only man he feels safe being around. There’s literally no one else he trusts enough in this wicked city not to snuff his lights out if given half a chance except for this cop.

So yes, he’s looking forward to seeing Jim and dreading it all the same. He’s too exhausted for their games tonight, too tired, and in decidedly too much pain. Oswald simply wants his dog back, crawl into bed and send his kid a message he arrived back home.

Of course, it’s not that easy. Jim greets him with his usual, pissy expression. The man is already done up for his next shift. Holding up Ed’s already packed bag, he growls at the mobster coming through his door. It’s an almost hilarious contrast to the excitedly barking pet.

“Next time, you can fetch Ed at the precinct.”

Rolling his eyes in exasperation, the gangster limps closer and yanks the bag from Jim’s hands. “Thank you, kind Captain,” he drawls, false cheerfulness dripping off his tongue. “I am sorry to inform you I got stuck in a traffic jam.”

“Could have texted,” Jim grumbles while following Oswald to his car. When the cop hands the dog over without making much of a fuss, he almost hopes Jim might let him go quickly.

He doesn’t.

Before Oswald has a chance to vanish in his car, Jim halts him in his tracks. “I have something for Ed,” he announces and the mobster almost groans.

His affection for the dog might be sweet, but honestly, enough is enough. And the favor Jim will one day for sure demand for taking such good care of his furry baby, already strikes fear into Oswald’s heart.

For a second he considers pulling Ed into his vehicle and speeding away as if the hounds of hell were after him. Unfortunately, he’ll need his dog sitter next week again.

Jim reemerges from his flat with a very big box. No, not a box. He’s actually holding a rectangular cage in his hands. Yet cage isn’t the right word either. The thing Jim is dragging up the stairs looks like a cell at Arkham Asylum. It’s a little cell, made of carbon, complete with a padded floor.

The Captain is holding up his latest purchase proudly. Opening the car door, he places the cage on the rear bench seat and fixes it with the seatbelt.

The mobster cringes. “What is this abomination?” he demands to know, appalled, and Jim’s face falls. The whole man tenses up before turning towards the mobster.

“I thought it was rather obvious,” he replies, drawing his eyebrows together and moving closer. And honestly, Jim shouldn’t be that handsome, clad in his usual black attire and wearing his shabby, worn-out shoes, and shooting Oswald a stern glare that makes him feel like a kid caught with his hands in the cookie-jar.

There’s a natural authority to Jim, an undeniable power disguised by a veneer of false mediocrity. And sometimes, especially when he’s looking at Oswald as if he was a naughty kid, the mobster simply wants to beg the cop to bend him over the next table and show him his strength in a more favorable way.

“It’s a transport-box,” Jim elaborates, oblivious to the gangster getting carried away by his impure thoughts. “Ed is safe in there in case of an accident. He’s able to look out while enjoying the snug feeling of a cave. I noticed you didn’t have one,” he finishes haughtily.

Snapping out of his haze, Oswald blurts out, “it looks like a prison cell. I’m not going to put my Ed into that hideous cage!”

Not intimidated in the slightest, Jim steps closer. Backing the gangster up against his car, he insists, “I made it to Gotham bay with Ed in this box without him vomiting once. We practiced driving, Ed and I. We made good progress. The box stays,” he decides and all of a sudden, the fight leaves Oswald’s body.

He’s too tired for that and too confused. On the one hand, he hates how that darn thing looks, on the other hand, it looks terribly expensive and Jim meant well. Did he really say they made it to the bay without Ed feeling sick once?

Oswald leans back against the car, exhausted. He’s got no idea how he’ll make it home with the throbbing in his leg, and he for sure won’t make it if Jim drags him into this ridiculous fight. He should probably just thank him and leave. Or sit down on the hood and rest for a minute.

“Okay,” he simply replies. Drawing a deep breath, he allows for his leg to dangle in mid-air.

Closing his eyes, he waits for the pain to cease. Ed shuffles closer, nudges him with his tiny, black nose and the mobster wishes he wouldn’t be so weak. And then he wishes he could be weak for once without consequences.

“Another cramp?” Jim asks, in his cordial, warm way.

Oswald mutely shakes his head. “This stop-and-go-traffic took its toll on me,” he admits reluctantly. “I just need a moment.”

He doesn’t expect Jim to invite him to his flat or to wait with him until his driver arrives. Actually, he only expects the cop to leave him standing on the street and go to work. Instead, Jim tilts his head thoughtfully before barking out his command.

“Keys!”

The gangster’s head snaps up in confusion. His bafflement must be written on his face, cause Jim actually cares to explain.

“I’m gonna drive you. Gimme the keys,” he grumbles, holding out his hand expectantly.

Oswald’s first impulse is to retort with an imprudent remark yet he stops himself in time. Instead of pointing out how Jim all of a sudden degraded himself to one of his lackeys, he hands over the keys and gets in the car while the cop places Ed into his cage.

Closing his eyes, he waits for the engine to start. “Thanks for trying to get Ed accustomed to driving,” he says softly when noticing his pet doesn’t start shaking the moment the car begins to move.

Jim mumbles something unintelligible in response. Shooting Oswald a sideways glance, the cop grips the steering wheel tightly. He’s probably content to drive them both to the Van Dahl manor in utter silence, the mobster muses while taking the opportunity to admire Jim’s profile.

It’s no use denying: he’s beautiful with his strong jaw-line, those well-defined cheekbones, his prominent nose, and those sideburns accentuating his face. When focused on the road, the ever-present frown between his eyebrows ceases and after a while, he starts to relax slightly.

“Well, I can’t be your dog sitter for the next twenty years or something,” Jim thinks out loud, a hint of sadness to his voice.

Oswald snorts. “Dog’s don’t even live that long. Don’t worry, Detective.”

“Well, this one will,” Jim protests vehemently and the Penguin doesn’t have it in him to protest. “Besides,” he adds in a softer voice, “your kid might want to play with him once in a while.”

The Penguin stiffens beside him. Slowly, the dread washes over him, setting his heart racing. His silver-tongue is paralyzed, unwilling to cooperate for a moment. He tries to utter out words. Maybe he tries saying “how” or “why” but ends up making only a desperate sound.

“If it’s any consolidation, I don’t think anyone besides me suspects anything,” Jim adds hastily when noticing the other man’s distress.

“How?” Oswald sputters, at last, gripping the handle of his cane tightly because frankly, he needs something to hold onto.

The Captain of the GCPD rolls his eyes and focuses back on driving. Jim never takes his eyes off the road for more than a few seconds, sticks almost religiously to the speed-limit and hardly ever overtakes other cars. It almost seems as if Jim is slightly scared of driving when not chasing a criminal. Well, the gangster he loves to chase the most is sitting beside him, so maybe he’s simply uneasy.

“You only ever leave Gotham at the weekend and during school vacation. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out whom you’re visiting,” the cop deduces then, pleased with his train of thought.

“I could simply be having an affair,” Oswald protests defiantly, and Jim snorts.

“What? Do you think I’m incapable of having a relationship,” the mobster argues, angry that the cop might think so. How is it for anyone unthinkable someone might love the Penguin?

“No, I don’t think that,” Jim relents. “But who has only time on the weekend? A kid. And you leave Gotham each weekend precisely at the same time, like a clockwork. Never thought I’d say that, but maybe you should consider some unpredictability,” he finishes, expression unreadable.

“Martin’s dead,” he insists, stomach twisting when saying those words out loud, even if they are merely a lie to protect his son.

Jim shakes his head. “We both know he’s alive and well.” Eyes trained firmly on the road he keeps driving as if that task was anything that exists in the world.

Once again, silence stretches between the two of them, the tension is thick enough to cut it with a knife. When Jim speaks again, he’s barely audible. Yet in the limited space of the car, he still startles the mobster. “I saw you once with the kid. Heard how far you went to protect him when Pyg attacked…”

His voice trails off as they are riding down the freeway. “You seemed to love him very much.” The Captain shifts the gear, accelerating slightly. “I think he’s lucky to have you as his father,” he whispers, not once looking at the Penguin while he speaks.

Oswald’s chest constricts. He would have never deemed it possible Jim would tolerate or even accept his decision to adopt an orphan. Not when he always regarded him as some kind of bloodthirsty demon. And now he even considers him being a good father. He wants to press further, ask what brought on this change of mind. He doesn’t.

Instead, he turns around. Ed is sitting in his little cage quietly, not drooling nervously all over the seats for once. Jim had been right with the ugly thing. It becomes again painfully clear how much love the cop must have to offer. Buried beneath the surface of this grim, hardened man, there’s a gentle, kind soul. Oswald is sorry Gotham took this side away from him. He sees it, though. Always saw it.

“Thank you for taking care of Ed,” he says quietly in response. “Jim?” he continues hesitantly and the cop nods in acknowledgment. “I’m sorry. About what I said at the precinct,” he clarifies, squirming uncomfortably in his seat.

“Don’t be,” Jim cuts him off sharply. “You were absolutely right then.”

Not knowing how to reply, he stares out of the window, taking in the pitch black heaven. He’s sitting beside the last good, honest man in Gotham. He doesn’t fear for his life here. This car, right here, right now, is the safest place he’s ever been, with Jim Gordon’s steady presence right beside him.

Oswald falls asleep to sound of the car engine’s soft rushing.

#Gobblepot #fanfiction

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joannalannister · 6 years

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Hi Lauren, you tend to be insightful about the Lannisters and their dynamics; what do you think it is about Jaime (despite his flaws) that means he was able to do what Tywin and Cersei can't/won't and just love Tyrion? Maybe it's Tywin and Cersei that are the anomalies, but it's almost surprising that Jaime managed to avoid absorbing their hateful attitudes to be able to have such a positive (until recently) bond with his brother, and wonder if it's like an unappreciated virtue of his.

What a good question!

I was going to type “I don’t think it’s about Jaime being a better person than Cersei.”

But the thought that immediately followed was, “No, Lauren, that statement gives the wrong impression of your views, because Jaime is a better person than Cersei in your opinion. Jaime has a dash more empathy and compassion than Cersei, and that gives him more potential. He is still horrible, but he is a marginally better person than Cersei, and the narrative suggests there might (might!) be hope for Jaime, when … there probably isn’t any hope for Cersei, unfortunately. That’s what GRRM is playing with throughout: Jaime’s potential, Jaime’s hope to be better than he is - will he end as the True Knight, or the Smiling one, or somewhere in between? GRRM isn’t playing with Cersei’s potential because, well, he cast her as the Evil Queen from the beginning. She’s a complex Evil Queen that we can empathize with, to be sure, but still definitely doomed.”

“But Brain, being marginally better than Cersei is a pretty low bar to set. If the shoe were on the other foot and Jaime were in Cersei’s place, do you think he would still avoid Cersei’s hateful attitude? Would he still have that sprinkling of empathy?”

“Nah, Tywin would make sure he adopted that hateful attitude.”

“Then what is it about Jaime?”

“Jaime is a marginally better person than Cersei, but I don’t think this is about Jaime being (or at least having the potential to be) a better person than Cersei. It’s not about Jaime’s inner conflict between the True Knight and the Smiling Knight, and it’s not about Cersei as the doomed Evil Queen.”

So let me explain what I do think it’s about – I think it’s about how much Tywin’s children have been affected by his abuse.

Jaime’s always had Tywin’s open (yes open!) (albeit limited!!) affection**. Meanwhile, Cersei lived for those secret smiles that were occasionally thrown her way.

**One might argue that we don’t see Tywin showing Jaime affection in the books, but I would argue that we do. I think Tywin is an ESTJ personality type, and one of the ways that ESTJs show love and affection is by giving you their time, which is very valuable to them. Less verbal, more action. Early on in the books, we learn that Tywin traveled across the continent to attend Joff’s (pre-series) nameday tourney and watch Jaime compete (and lose).

ESTJs make you a priority if they love you: “They have my son.” Tywin makes his priorities very, very clear in the War of the Five Kings.

Tywin is also a very concrete person; he gives elaborate gifts, because these gifts are tangible love to him imo. Hence the sword Oathkeeper.

Jaime and Cersei aren’t treated equitably. Jaime gets more imo. Jaime had more even in the very beginning (“alike as two peas in a pod … well, except between the legs”). So Jaime can afford luxuries like kindness and empathy and honor. They’re luxuries that Cersei can’t afford, or at least ones she doesn’t think she can afford, because Tywin basically threw her and Tyrion into the fucking Hunger Games with his abusive parenting.

(I have said it before that there is a terrible poverty in House Lannister.)

Cersei has to perceive Tyrion as a threat, and vice versa. It’s the win-or-die, zero-sum mentality she was raised with. Cersei didn’t gain the same distance from Tywin that Jaime did. While Jaime was off allegedly learning about honor and stuff with his Kingsguard parental figures, Tywin always kept Cersei close, first in the Tower of the Hand and then at CR, until she was handed off to Robert. So Cersei got a lot of exposure to Tywin’s horrible philosophies, and she was desperate to please her father, to gain his approval and earn his stupid smiles. I think a lot of Cersei’s reactions to Tyrion are behaviors learned from Tywin. Meanwhile Jaime’s off trying to establish his identity as a knight, independent of House Lannister.

And remember, Tywin kept Tyrion close too. Tyrion wasn’t allowed to go to the CItadel or anything to establish his own identity. Eventually he would forbid Tyrion a grand tour of Essos to keep him and continue abusing him.

It’s as if Tywin instigated a cage match between Cersei and Tyrion, to fight to the death, to see who could win the #2 spot. (And Cersei does indeed like to murder the competition; she takes after her father that way. (See: Melara)) Cersei has to compete with Tyrion for scraps of Tywin’s affection and approval.

Also, Jaime has never been forced to compete with Tyrion. Jaime was always going to be Tywin’s firstborn son and heir, if he wanted it, and he’s always been very secure in that position. (Too secure. Almost prison-level security that Tywin was forcing on him.) If Tyrion had been born able-bodied, it wouldn’t have changed Jaime’s life very much. Jaime never perceived Tyrion as a threat. (Until recently.)

And think about it. Think about how Tyrion never asked for Casterly Rock until ASOS, even though Jaime had been in the Kingsguard since Tyrion was, like, a first grader or thereabouts. When Tyrion finally asks in ASOS, he chides himself, telling himself he had known Tywin’s answer all along: “I never once raised the issue. I must have known. I must always have known.”

But loyalty plays a part too. Tyrion feels an intense loyalty to the “big, strong brother” who brought him “toys, barrel hoops and blocks and a carved wooden lion. He gave me my first pony and taught me how to ride him.” Jaime bought quite a lot of loyalty with a few trinkets, a pony, and a lie. (As I said: dividends.)

“You can’t be the Lord of Casterly Rock, he heard Jaime say again. And the stone kings were growling at him with granite tongues. You do not belong here. This is not your place.“

Obviously Jaime never said that to Tyrion, but I’m sure that Tyrion felt the same feelings as Jon Snow about his brother’s birthright. Remember, all dwarfs are bastards in their father’s eyes. I’m sure Tyrion, for a very long time, had this feeling that “Casterly Rock belongs to my brother, Jaime.” It’s only when Jaime is lost in the war that Tyrion finally asks for it.

(And tbh Tywin probably said that through the Casterly Rock PA system every morning with the day’s announcements, like, “And don’t forget … Casterly Rock belongs to my son, Jaime” the way Mr. Burns tells Homer Simpson “And don’t forget … You’re here forever.”)

But unlike Jaime, Cersei is in constant competition. If Tyrion had been born able-bodied, Cersei would have been pushed further down the line of succession, displaced by her second younger brother in both inheritance and her father’s affections. I think there’s a part of Cersei that glories in Tyrion’s dwarfism, because it feeds her own feelings of superiority. If Cersei never lets Tyrion (or anyone else) forget that he’s a dwarf, that makes her own position more secure. Tyrion must be cast down for her to be held up - zero sum. And Tyrion “killed” Cersei’s mother, in her eyes (and Tywin’s too, certainly). Cersei losing her mother puts her at a disadvantage, so Tyrion has to pay for that - again, it’s a zero sum game.

So I don’t really think there is some innate quality that Jaime has that Cersei lacks. Think about some of Jaime’s qualities. Like Cersei, Jaime is competitive, he gets violently jealous, he deals with threats swiftly and decisively, he can be ruthless. He’s still playing the zero-sum game that House Lannister must win or die. It’s just that, unlike Cersei, Jaime’s qualities haven’t been “activated” to target his siblings. Until recently perhaps. (If you’re thinking about, like, the Terminator or s/t right about now, my job here is done.)

I think that distance from Tywin (or the lack of it) is the characteristic we’re looking for.

It comes back to that kindness and empathy and love and all that jazz. Kindness and empathy and love are the basis of our humanity, which is obviously something that Tywin is lacking. (Cersei too.)

From his position of privilege, from the identity that he’s (in the process of) establishing in the Kingsguard independent of Tywin, Jaime can afford some glimmers of humanity. Jaime can do things like jump into a bear pit to save an innocent person, because he had other parental figures who tried to teach him about doing the right thing, instead of just Tywin preaching about Lannister glory.

Cersei never could afford those glimmers of humanity, not under Tywin’s Hunger Games parenting, always kept close by his side. tbh I don’t think Cersei would even think of humanity as something worth having, what with Tywin telling her stuff like ~love is useless~. Tywin stripped Cersei of her humanity long before the septas stripped her of her clothes, and Tywin warped her into something monstrous.***

And that’s what I find so … so remarkable about Tyrion. Tyrion still finds a way to afford moments of kindness, even when Tywin’s zero sum game says he shouldn’t be able to afford them. Remember, Tyrion was kept close too. Tyrion wasn’t allowed to establish his own identity. Tyrion too is eager for his father’s approval, eager to learn all the lessons Tywin might teach.

Tywin tried to take the humanity from Tyrion, but Tyrion is still fighting for it. He’s on the ropes in ADWD, but definitely still in the fight between man and monstrosity.

(I love all of my Lannister children with my whole heart, but this is why Tyrion is my baby, and this is why I think Tyrion is George’s favorite.)

***(Don’t get me wrong, Cersei is obviously still responsible for her own choices, and she is still to blame for the murders she committed and everything else. But I think Tywin is also a guilty party here.)

So. No, I personally don’t think there’s some unappreciated virtue about Jaime that allowed him to have a good relationship with Tyrion. It was his good circumstances from the beginning, that allowed him more freedom away from Tywin.

And something to consider: Jaime thought no one could love Tyrion. Jaime thought Tysha was lying about loving Tyrion, and he followed Tywin’s orders, and he still doesn’t feel remorse for Tysha. I said “glimmers” and I meant glimmers only. “I am loved by [Tyrion] for a kindness I never did.” How much does Jaime love Tyrion, truly? Like Cersei, Jaime too was eager to please Tywin and gain his approval, enough that Jaime was willing to lie and let this horrible thing happen. How much does Jaime love Tyrion, truly?

To me, the person with the unappreciated virtue is Tyrion. Where do these wells of kindness and humanity come from, amidst the parched desert of Tywin’s philosophies? What made Tyrion give the saddle plans to House Stark when House Stark met him with bared steel? Tyrion elevated his opponent, when he was already in a position of weakness. Why? That is the virtue to look for, because the fate of the world rests on Tyrion finding it, I’m quite certain.

***

Fortunately for all of us, I can express Tywin’s dynamic with Tyrion much more succinctly. (Although I could go on for days.)

“Tyrion hated weakness, especially his own. It shamed him, and shame made him angry.”

When Tywin looks at Tyrion, he is looking in a mirror, the only mirror in Westeros that shows him as he truly is: small. Weak. “an ill-made, devious, disobedient, spiteful little creature full of envy, lust, and low cunning.”

Tywin hates weakness, especially his own. He hates Tyrion, for cloaking all of Tywin’s weaknesses in Lannister crimson and “waddling” them about for all the world to see.

(Whenever I see people in the tags angry-ranting about quoteswapping, I laugh maniacally because I am the queen of quoteswapping. The parallels GRRM made between so many characters are too delicious to ignore.)

#mzyraj #replies #i dont think i answered this quite as well as i would like to sorry #but i have to stop now #lannister thoughts #tywin lannister #tywin meta #tyrion lannister #tyrion meta #jaime lannister #jaime meta #cersei lannister #cersei meta

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dndplus · 6 years

Text

Getting Started: Combat

Ah yes, combat, because what is a game about sword and sorcery without a reason to use the swords and sorcery? For this post, we’re going to delve into the most basic details of designing an encounter that fits your campaign and power level.

For now, we’re going to start with those staple first encounters that seem to go well. Now, some people will be wondering what to do if they’re starting things at a higher level (like at level 3, 5, or 7), and to this I have to say: this post isn’t for you. If you are a new DM, ask your players to come down to level 1 with you. Seeing your players grow through their levels will teach you so much about how to design encounters, and will also allow you to take things slow.

If you’re here, you’ve probably already put together a setting/setup for your campaign. If you haven’t, go ahead and pop over to this post and come back when you’re ready. (Hint: If you haven’t done that part yet, you’re not ready. Step 1 will make this very clear). Attached to this guide will be “quick start” notes that outline very simple ways to use the lessons you’ve learned along the way.

Step 1: Understand your locale.

So, you’ve got a setting, you’ve got interesting places to put your players, and you probably have an idea of where they’ll all be starting. Odds are, this place isn’t going to be terribly dangerous, and if you’re new and wanted to go for dangerous, I’d suggest rethinking something so flashy. You’re far beyond a “Getting Started” post if you’re really ready for that anyways.

The two best ways to start a campaign (in my opinion) are in a town, or in a prison. A town works well enough, so long as you can orchestrate a way for all of your players come together. A prison is much less complicated, as you typically give/discuss a reason for your players to be in that sort of setting. A more detailed post on how to form adventures will come later, but for now, it’s more important you know how to challenge your players appropriately.

We’re going to use these possible starts as a way to analyze the way a locale affects things...

Step 1a: Prison

Now, in the event of a “prison” start, you have guards to worry about. These could be bandits they were captured by while walking the road, cultists of to some evil deity that wish not to be discovered, or if your campaign isn’t afraid to go full criminal, just plain guardsmen.

The theme here is what’s important, and knowing bandits, cultists, or guards gives you more precise options down the line. They’re all also perfectly viable, as bandits, cultists, and guards have the 1/8th challenge rating (Referred to as CR from here on out). This makes them very easy to dispatch, but most importantly, they come with natural points of progression for harder enemies. At level 1, a fantastic first encounter is matching a 1/8th CR enemy against your players 1-1, which is to say, if you have 4 players, you have them fight 4 bandits/cultists/guards.

Prison Quick Start, Part 1:

The details of how you get to this point are up to you, at least until I get around to posting an adventure-building guide, but if you’re desperate and need a suggestion now, I recommend giving your players some time in their ‘cell’ to introduce themselves, before pointing out an obvious method of escape as whomever is watching them leaves the room to go to the bathroom.

The room in question should contain their means of imprisonment, a place for the person watching them to sit, and for simplicity’s sake an obvious chest with their equipment. Once the players have let themselves out and fetched their things, have the guard who stepped out earlier return, and then call for help. Have however many bandits/cultists/guards you need storm the the chamber to create that 1-1 fight, and enjoy the show as your players test their abilities for the first time.

Step 1b: Town

The ‘town’ start. There is no simpler way to begin a campaign than this, as small towns tend to have no shortage of small problems. The best part about the town start is, bar none, the variety of things you can throw at your players.

Here’s a short list of possible first jobs to get the brain going:

Rat Infested Cellar (the ultimate classic)

Disturbance at the graveyard (skeletons + zombies are some of the absolute best early enemies)

Highwaymen terrorizing the roads (goblins, bandits, and whatever else makes sport of robbing poor townsfolk)

Something Unfriendly Taking up residence in a nearby cave (Giant Wolf Spiders! Giant Beasts! Madmen! A fledgling necromancer! Anything is fair game when a cave is involved!)

Aggressive Bullywugs in a Nearby Swamp (frog people, anyone?)

Less short would be a list of starts to some greater narratives to throw at a player. This takes quite a bit more preparation, and understanding how to build encounters to match your players power level, which comes in Step 2.

Town Quick Start, Part 1:

This couldn’t be simpler. Have your players meet in the tavern, preferably one with a simple name and easily remembered name (The Full Flagon, The Drunken Fool, something maybe including the owner’s name, etc). Let them introduce themselves to one another, and nudge them with the fact that fresh characters start with very little money if they don’t seem to know what to do.

The moment one of them brings up needing work, have the bartender tip them off to whatever job you’ve decided to throw their way. Then, all you need is a person willing to pay to get it done (a guard captain who can’t spare any men, a group of local farmers living near the danger, the mayor, a local wizard who needs something procured; whatever works). And then your players are on their way! There’s not a lot you can safely ‘expect’ your players to do, but going to kill something they’ll get paid for is definitely one of them.

When your players get there, have them fight their first encounter. Below is a simple list of how to keep it easy enough for a first fight based on Challenge Rating (referred to as CR from now on):

CR 1/8 - 1 for each player

CR 1/4 - 1 for each player, minus 1

CR 1/2 - This is trickier. 1 for 2 players. 1 + a CR 1/8 enemy for 3 players. 1 + a CR 1/4 for 4 players. 1 + 2 CR 1/8 enemies for 5 players, adding an additional CR 1/8 enemy for each player after that.

Step 1 Conclusion:

At this point you’ve probably noticed that everything talked about here has something in common: it explains how a locale influences the foes your players will face.

What I haven’t talked about yet is how it all comes together - the influence of your setting. Certain places are going to have different problems, problems you’ve probably already thought about when making your setting. A kingdom at war with a necromancer is going to deal with more undead, a unsafe chain of islands is going to feature pirates, sahuagin, kuo-toa, and sea creatures more prominently, and a more pious kingdom might deal with demon-worshipping cultists carrying out the bidding of their dark masters.

This might not seem important, but I can assure you that it is. Fitting enemies to their locale sets a mood; spiders live in caves, rats live in cellars, and goblins ambush traveling merchants outside of town. If you have the spiders ambush people like highwaymen, you need to realize you’ve just created a very interest scenario that the players will demand an explanation for, and if you’ve got one, more power to you, but that’s really just another way the locale is important in how you set up your combat scenarios.

Step 2: Balance and Kobold Fight Club.

That’s right, i said Kobold Fight Club.

http://kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder

THAT kobold fight club, every 5e Dungeon Master’s best friend. This extraordinarily useful tool helps you “budget” out encounters for your party. There’s more to it than that, though, and it’s what Step 2 is all about. Unfortunately for other editions, this is a 5e blog, and that’s what I’ll be focusing on. I’d love to get into the nuances of what came before, but as this is a blog for beginners, and 5e is the most beginner-friendly edition to ever exist, I’m going to keep it 5e for now.

So, how does it work? Simple - you input the number of players you have, and their levels, and you look at what the adventure (and its locale) calls for in terms of potential enemies. As an example, we’re going to use 4 level 1 characters to explore possible encounters.

Now, one of the very first things I did was recommend certain encounters to you in Step 1. Here’s how they ration out by KFC’s calculations (assuming 4 players).

4 CR 1/8 Enemies - Medium Difficulty (200xp)

3 CR 1/4 Enemies - Hard Difficulty (300xp)

1 CR 1/2 Enemy +1 CR 1/4 Enemy - Medium Difficulty (225xp)

As you can see, they’re all in the 200-300 xp range, and are between hard and medium difficulty. Believe it or not, “hard” is not very hard in this situation, as your players will be at full HP and have all of their spells/abilities ready to go.

In fact, don’t think of Easy, Medium, Hard, and Deadly as difficulties at all! What you should do is think of them ‘resource sinks��. Combat takes a toll, and your players will have to use spells to either keep their hitpoints high, or knock their enemies down fast. Regardless, 4 CR 1/8 Enemies become far, far more menacing.

Quick Note: DMs managing new players should mention “Short Rests” after their first combat. These short rests take only an hour, and let them roll their Hit Die (HD) to regain HP naturally. They have one of these HD for every level acquired, so level 1 characters can only do it once, and adventures should be built with that in mind.

Now, KFC also includes what’s known as a ‘daily budget’. Daily budgets are great, but at level 1, it’s a little misleading. Not every party can handle 1200xp worth of fighting in one day right off the bat, after all! That’s why it’s important to take things slow, and throw them into combat with what they can handle.

We’re gonna get back in the ‘Prison’ and ‘Town’ starts now, and use what know about KFC and building encounters to build a ‘Deadly’ final encounter for the players!

Prison Quick Start, Part 2:

So, your players have met, introduced themselves, broken out, and now have a pile of corpses around them. Great! But why, if your players could do that, were they captured in the first place? Well clearly, there must be more bandits/cultists/guards around, and possibly even a leader among them!

Using KFC, your Monster Manual, and perhaps (THIS) extremely useful link, find a suitable ‘boss’ for your bumbling prison guards. If you went bandits/cultists/guards, here’s a suggestion to make it even easier:

Guards - Knight (CR 3!?)

Cultists - Cult Fanatic (CR 2)

Bandits - Bandit Captain (CR 2)

Wait a minute, one of these things isn’t like the other. A Knight has a CR of 3, making it worth 700xp! Clearly it needs to be toned down, so tone it down we will! How does one ‘tone down’ a creature, though? Simply put, we look at its competition.

Knight - 52 Average Hit Points, Armor Class 18, +5 to hit, x2 Attacks, 20 Total Average Damage, Leadership

Cult Fanatic - 33 Average Hit Points, Armor Class 13, +4 to hit, x2 Attacks, 8 Total Average Damage, !SPELLS!

Bandit Captain - 65 Average Hit Points, Armor Class 15, +5 to hit, x3 Attacks, 17 Total Average Damage, Parry

Hmm... Well, the Cult Fanatic is a spellcaster, making it very difficult to compare to the knight. It’s best if we disregard that. Looking further, the Knight is significantly more difficult to kill with it’s whopping 18 Armor Class than the Bandit Captain’s much more manageable 15. In addition to this, the Knight’s leadership ability makes everyone around him much more dangerous.

In this instance, I would rename the knight to ‘Guard Captain’, and cut the Leadership ability altogether. Next, I’d downgrade the armor class to 16. This makes him a higher damage, slightly less durable variant of the Bandit Captain. In addition to this, you can also just use the Bandit Captain’s stat block for a Guard Captain altogether, as nothing about his toolkit is completely unbelievable for a guard.

Next, we have to put it altogether in a proper, final showdown. With a CR 2 creature commanding a 450 xp bounty, we have to be mindful of how it’s already in the ‘Deadly’ category of encounters. What’s important to understand, though, is that quantity often beats quality, and a single enemy worth 450xp is much easier to beat than several enemies totaling 450xp. Also, this is the finale! A fight is allowed to get a little dicey in these situations.

I recommend going one of two routes - Adding a single CR 1/8 minion to support the big bad boss, (Giving us an adjusted bounty of 712xp! Yikes!), or having a couple CR 1/8 minions fight the players alone, and then have the boss ambush the players just after they’ve dispatched the first wave of weaker guards. Doing these two fights one after another, but separately, gives a 100xp fight followed by a 450xp fight with no time to rest, for a total of 600xp and plenty of breathing room for the players. Either way, there’s a decent possibility that one player is knocked unconscious by this combat, and that’s really all you want to threaten so early on in the campaign.

Town Quick Start, Part 2

Alright, everyone knows each other, they’ve found their job, and they just dealt with a group of skeletons/highwaymen/rats/spiders. Why were they there, though? What force (factoring in the setting and locale) made all of this happen? Here’s a few examples below, based on the first scenario:

The rats in the cellar were chased up from below.

The local priest has turned to a darker master, and now defiles the graveyard they’re meant to tend.

The highwaymen you fought have a camp nearby, as show by a map found on one of their corpses.

The cave you’re in goes much deeper, and you’ve not yet cleared it of all dangers...

The Bullywug’s camp can be seen just up ahead! It looks like there’s more of them...

Yeah, some of those were a little too self-explanatory and merely lent to a ‘what’s next?’, but it’s not always so complicated. Using KFC, the Monster Manual, and THIS extremely useful link, let’s find appropriate enemies for a finale!

An ankheg burrows through the ground beneath the town, and is responsible for the rats! (CR 2)

The local priest is evil, and lucky for you, a standard priest fits the bill (CR 2)

Bandit Captains are CR 2, Goblin Bosses are CR 1 (with stronger minions to compensate). All good stuff.

Those Giant Wolf Spiders are shacking up with a proper Giant Spider (CR 1), or perhaps you found wolves, and a Dire Wolf (CR 1) leads the pack!

Oh dear... those Bullywugs have tamed a man-eating Giant Toad! (CR 1)

These can all be worked with, and for a big final showdown, we want an adjusted XP of 600-750. That puts us well into Deadly territory, and lets us explore with just what ‘adjusted’ XP is. Basically, many smaller enemies totaling 100xp are much more dangerous than one enemy worth 100xp, so when fighting a group, the xp is adjusted upwards to compensate. KFC does this automatically, so let’s look at how adjusted XP rates influence the final round of combat:

An Ankheg is pretty nasty all on its own, but have a fifth Giant Rat emerge alongside it and things just might get crazy (Adjusted XP 712)

The priest was corrupted, and the cultist (CR 1/8) who brought the words of a new, dark master to him is present. Together, they make for a much more daunting fight (Adjusted XP 712)

The Bandit Captain and one of his bandits are more than enough for 4 level 1 characters (Adjusted XP 712). Goblins, however, can be much meaner. 2 Goblins and a boss give us an Adjusted XP of 600, and a 3rd goblin brings us to 700. Let’s not forget how dicey things can get when you add more enemies though and keep it at 2 goblins and their boss until we know more about the party’s capabilities.

Giant Wolf Spiders and Giant Spiders match the Goblin and Goblin Boss dynamic. 2 Giant Wolf Spiders and 1 Giant Spider give us a 600 Adjusted XP, which just barely gets us to the mark.

Like the goblins and the spiders, Bullywugs and their Giant Toad follow the 1/4 and 1 CR statline. 2 Bullywugs, 1 Giant Toad, 600 Adjusted XP, and probably 1 player scarred for life after they’re swallowed whole by the toad. Perfect.

Step 2 Conclusion:

Now, at this point, you’ve got what you need to start a campaign, but what about going forward? Well, it’s different for every party. What’s important is that you know how to build fights and adjust the values to suit your party’s needs. Here are some extra notes to think about before we finish up:

Are enemies I’m using especially good against the party? Dragons are famous for flying up and out of reach, turning that DPS machine barbarian into a rage-less, terrible archer. On the other end, that cleric with tons of Wisdom that LOVES Hold Person might be a little too good against certain humanoids...

What advantages do I or the players have? A group of archers shooting at the players from a point they can’t reach makes the players fight back with their own ranged attacks, which they might be lacking. Underbudget encounters like this until you understand more about how they drain the party’s resources.

Am I giving the party too much time to rest and prepare? Any fight seems easy if the party has ample time to rest up, so make plans to take that away from them! Ambushing the players while they’re resting can be a great way of reminding them that Short Rests aren’t always free, and can up the difficulty when you find the content too easy to be engaging.

One Big Enemy. These can be fun, especially as a finale, but can come off as too easy if the players have a knack for killing things quick. Consider giving a single, larger enemy ‘Legendary Actions’. These can happen at the end of any players’ turn, and a creature usually has 2-3 of them. The Big Enemy gets those 2-3 actions refreshed at the end of one of its turns, and can use 1 to make a single attack, move, or even use 2-3 at a time to activate a signature ability on the fly! More about this in a later post...

#d&d #d&d 5e #D&D&EE #dungeons and dragons #dungeon master #combat #creating an encounter #difficulty #dm #gm #dm tutorial #dungeon master tutorial #dungeon master guide #tutorial #kobold fight club

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writingpaperghost · 3 years

Text

There is a Me Who Can Become Strong (Chapter 22)

Chapter 22: Chasing the Mystery!

While their patient is looking into Zero Day, the CR learn about the game that's being made.

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32857183/chapters/84645748

Emu was… sore. He was sore and just a little groggy. He’d only just awoken but… he was pretty sure he’d been out for a couple days. At least, that’s what usually happened. There’s a tightness around both his lower arms and around his left shoulder that he recognizes as bandages – Graphite’s doing, most likely (Masamune wouldn’t and the scientists just put in stitches that would always break too soon). Pulling down the blanket, he immediately sees the bandages on his arms, not hidden by his sleeves as he was wearing only his t-shirt, probably so Graphite could bandage him. Peeking down at the collar of his shirt, he can see where the bandages on his shoulder are.

He… he hadn’t wanted to go back to the scientists. It had been several months since he last went and he’d thought that he’d be free of them, assuming the game was completed as planned. But then Masamune insisted that in order to upgrade Dangerous Zombie, Emu needed to go back to the scientists.

Pleading, Emu had insisted that he didn’t need a stronger Gashat and that he’d be fine with Mighty Brothers XX. That whatever was planned to make Dangerous Zombie stronger wasn’t necessary, but Masamune wouldn’t hear it. He’d left the room while Emu was still trying to break free from the scientists.

They’d developed a way to keep themselves from getting infected by him, for the most part, so they just waited as he kicked and screamed. Eventually, he’d tired himself out and he’d been dragged off, defeated.

By now, he should probably be used to it.

Sliding off his bed, a mattress with some blankets and pillows in a server room in Gemn Corp that no one ever went in, he sighed. At least he was only sore. Though, Masamune would probably have something for him to go do. Some Bugster to keep an eye on and collect the data of, as the CR Riders fought it. He… really didn’t want to fight them, not while he was still sore and a bit tired. But it wasn’t like he had a choice. He supposed fighting them would be better than being punished for resisting the scientists, not that it was entirely ruled out either.

Maybe Masamune was just waiting until after he fought the Riders, so his punishment wouldn’t interfere with his ability to fight.

---

Elsewhere in Gemn Corp, up at Masamune’s office, a detective named Heiji Uesugi, is attempting to speak with Masamune. Masamune barely pays him much mind, his eyes switching between looking at his computer screen and the detective. “How could you have not known that your son had tampered with the games on Zero Day?”

“Kuroto was often too sneaky and sly for his own good,” Was all Masamune answered, “I think there’s nothing more here for you to learn.”

When Detective Uesugi was forced to leave, he collapsed, his body glitching.

---

“You know, Poppy,” Saki begins, “Haima mentioned that you’d been dead set on finding Genius Gamer M, but why?”

Parad looks up from where he was sitting, game in hand as the pause menu music for Gekitotsu Robots plays. “You were looking for me?”

Poppy hums, “It was the President’s idea, actually,” She explained with cheer, “He thought that someone so skilled at games would be perfect for the CR. Director Hinata agreed, probably in part because he knew you.”

Masamune had suggested that he be a Rider? That probably shouldn’t surprise Parad much, but he still couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something odd about him. Not to mention, somehow his own assistant had avoided being found out while helping Kuroto. Not to mention, Masamune had the real Emu working as his assistant and never seemed to realize it.

Something about him still rubbed Parad the wrong way, he just wasn’t sure what, exactly. Maybe it was all the coincidences? Assuming, of course, they were actually coincidences.

“He… told you to look for Genius Gamer M?” Saki inquired, “But… he’d seemed so surprised when I’d told him about Emu.”

“Well,” Parad began, “It’s not like a lot of people knew who Genius Gamer M was in reality. Sure, Nico figured it out and with enough digging, anyone could've, but I imagine that he hadn’t expected Poppy to find me so quickly.” Parad couldn’t really believe that he was saying it. But there was plenty of reason that Masamune might be surprised at the employment of “Emu Hojo” at the CR.

At that moment, they get a call, Poppy switching to her Asuna persona and answering. Once finished she tells them, “A case, at Gemn Corp.”

When the three arrived at Gemn Corp, they quickly find their patient, not too far from Masamune’s office. He’s on the ground, glitching, though attempting to stand. “I… I need to speak with Masamune.”

Parad scans him while Saki responds, “We need to get you to the hospital, first.” The scan brings up one infection, Giri Giri Chambara. Before they can even try to move him, their patient’s infection flairs, resulting in the appearance of Kaiden.

Saki and Parad quickly pull out their Gashats, with Saki using Drago Knight Hunter Z. Nico still had the other Gashat Gear Dual and had been showing no signs of handing it over.

Knockout Fighter!

Taddle Quest!

Drago Knight Hunter Z!

Dual Up! Explosion hit! Knockout Fighter!

Do-Do-Drago Kni-Kni-Kni-Knight! Dra! Dra! Drago Knight Hunter! Z!

Saki Stage Selects them to a forest and the two begin to fight Kaiden. Only for Kaiden to stare directly at Saki and challenge her to a sword fight. Parad would join, but he happens to lack a sword. He still tries to help, but Kaiden doesn’t really care about the fact he was there.

The telltale sound of a Gashat is heard and Parad assumes that Nico will soon be joining him in a battle of being ignored. The jingle was definitely Bang Bang Simulations, which is why he was quickly surprised by another.

Dangerous Zombie!

Buggle Up! Danger! Danger! (Genocide!) Death the crisis! Dangerous Zombie!

That was the Dangerous Zombie Gashat, but Kuroto was dead… then again, Emu had the Gashat, but why would he use a Gashat that’s weaker than Mighty Brothers XX?

---

Emu really didn’t want to be using this Gashat. Firstly, this was Kuroto’s Gashat, it felt wrong and insulting to use it, – insulting to who it’s hard to say – secondly, he’d used Dangerous Zombie once before, and killing Lazer aside, it had still been a terrible experience. He could deal with the aching pain, even on top of the soreness he was already experiencing. But the way that it felt like the very Gashat itself was wrapping around him, in a cold and isolating embrace, ringed wrong in every way.

But Masamune wanted data, both of Kaiden’s and for the Gashat, and of course it required Emu actually using the Gashat.

Facing Snipe, a Level 50, with a Level 10, was a terrible idea. It didn’t matter what Masamune said, regardless of what Level X may become in the future, at present, it was only strong enough to outmatch Hunter Gamer.

“I can’t let you keep that Gashat, Snipe,” Emu begins, well aware that he’d have little hope of retrieving the Gashat, not this time. Really, he should have taken it from Brave the day before, but he’d felt too bad about the way she’d been suffering. “That would be… incredibly stupid of me.”

“You didn’t steal it after beating Saki,” Snipe counters with the obvious response. She’s not wrong, he knows that. “Anyway, M – Emu, whatever you want to be called… While I’m down for a good fight, I don’t think this is really worth it.”

“Not worth it?” That upset him just a bit. She really thought that he wasn’t worth the fight?

Snipe seems to be unaware of his annoyance, or just didn’t care. “I mean, you’re only using Level 10, yeah? I’ve got Level 50, there’s no way you stand a chance. Besides, I really don’t want to fight you anyway.”

Normally, Emu was pretty decent at staying calm. He had to be, getting upset could be dangerous for anyone around him who wasn’t a Bugster. But he had to admit, he was tired to some extent and Snipe’s words were really getting to him. “Why not?” He asked, his voice raising, “Why don’t you want to fight me?”

“Because a fight isn’t what you need, Emu.”

With a growl, Emu summons the Gashacon Sparrow, doing his best to ignore how his mind immediately flashed to the dying Lazer. He inserts the Giri Giri Chambara Gashat and once more tries to ignore the sight of Lazer, moments from death. Then, he aims at Snipe.

Taking out the Gashat Gear Dual, Snipe inserts it into the Gashacon Magnum.

Giri Giri Critical Finish!

Bang Bang Critical Fire!

Each attack hits it’s intended target. Though Emu had been trying more to defeat Snipe, Snipe was overall stronger. Snipe shrugged off the attack, while Emu stumbled, feeling so much pain. It hurt, every part of him felt like it was coming apart and coming back together and-

He stumbles, then removes the Dangerous Zombie Gashat from the Buggle Driver. “This is fine enough,” He says, then quickly leaves.

When he arrives back at Gemn Corp, he’s greeted with Masamune, who quickly asks, “Did you retrieve the data for Dangerous Zombie?” Emu stumbles in and hands the Gashat to him. “Good, we’ll only need one more data sample. I’m sure you can handle that, Emu.”

Emu doesn’t respond, instead sliding down the wall into a sitting position. He needs a moment, then he’ll worry about what’s next.

---

Their patient, Uesugi, is stubborn, after he came to, back at the CR, he immediately tried to leave, wanting to speak with Masamune. Unfortunately for him, he couldn’t really stand.

After, he explained why he so desperately wanted to speak with Masamune, “Kuroto Dan may be the one who’s been blamed for Zero Day, but it’s still unclear where and when Game Disease was created. Or how.” Parad know when, at least, Game Disease came into existence, at least vaguely, but he wasn’t about to say that. “I want to find that out.”

“But why?” Asuna wondered,

“I had a son, he died on Zero Day,” Uesugi admitted, “I want to get to the bottom of this.”

Which was how Asuna, Parad, and Saki found themselves making their way to Masamune’s office. Besides, as Saki had noted on the way there, they needed to make sure that Masamune was aware of the recent developments with Parad, Emu, and Kuroto. Obviously, he’d been informed of Kuroto’s death and Mu’s identity as Emu, as well as Parad’s identity as a Bugster – something that didn’t quite sit right with Parad – but they need to make sure that he’s been properly informed.

“With Kuroto’s death,” Saki explains, “It seems that Emu may be acting on his own, though we have reason to believe it’s possible that there is someone else in charge.”

Masamune listens and nods slightly, “While Kuroto was never the kind to let others take the lead, it could be that someone took over in his absence,” Not that they had any leads as to who that person may be, “I must ask that you stop Mu – Emu. I had always been under the impression that he was a good person, but it’s clear that he was far better an actor than I’d have ever expected.”

“Of course,” Saki nods, “Whatever is going on, we don’t want it to continue.”

“Is there anything else you need from me?” They knew they weren’t going to hear anything more about how Game Disease came about from Masamune. That was assuming he even knew anything. He was keeping his stance that it was all Kuroto and he knew nothing.

Saki thinks for a moment, before saying, “There is… one thing I’m curious about,” She continued, “After the Pac-Man incident, you mentioned that the Proto Drago Knight Hunter Z Gashat wouldn’t be usable the same way as the complete version is. But Emu was able to use the Prototype Gashat alongside Proto Mighty Action X.”

Considering that for a moment, Masamune answers, “I’m not sure how he did that, perhaps it has to do with him being Patient Zero?”

“Possibly…”

---

Yuko’s in Nico’s room, having taken over the desk and was clicking away at her laptop. Nico’s still trying to understand why Emu was using Dangerous Zombie earlier, “I mean, it’s not even the strongest form he has access to!”

“Maybe he’s just using it because Level X always revives?” Yuko idly offers, not taking her eyes away from her laptop.

Nico groans, “Ugh, maybe.” She crosses her arms, “That damn revive skill’s a pain. I wish we could get rid of it.”

“If only you could make a Gashat or something to cancel it out.”

At that, Nico’s face lights up, “That’s it!” She rushes out of the room, yelling, “Taiga!”

Once she arrives at the room that Taiga uses as an office, Taiga is irritated, looking up from his computer. He looks thoroughly unimpressed. “What?”

She grabs at his arm, “We need to head to Gemn Corp.”

“What? Why?” He’s pulled from the chair and Nico begins to drag him out of his clinic.

Rolling her eyes, Nico answers, “I need to ask Tsukuru for some help.”

When they arrive at Gemn Corp, Nico finds where Tsukuru is with little time wasted. Taiga still didn’t really get why they were there, but Nico figured she could explain to him while she explained to Tsukuru.

“Tsukuru,” She said, “I need you to make a Gashat that can kill zombies.”

Tsukuru just looked at her, hesitantly, “Why… Why do you want me to do it?” He asked, “Why not ask the president?”

“Yeah,” Taiga comments, “That would make more sense.”

Once more, Nico rolls her eyes, “Yeah, no, he doesn’t need to know about this,” She wags her finger at Taiga, “I trust Masamune Dan exactly half a centimeter.”

Tilting his head, Tsukuru asked, “Why don’t you trust him?”

Taiga crosses his arms, “Yeah, I’ve got to agree, why not?”

“Because-” Nico began, then realized she’d never mentioned that detail to anyone other than Kiriya. And probably Yuko at some point, but definitely at least Kiriya. She points at Taiga, “I’ll explain later.”

---

Saki had headed back to the CR before Asuna and Parad, wanting to check on Uesugi. The only reason that Parad and Asuna didn’t get back so quickly was because they saw Nico and Taiga leaving. So Parad catches their attention.

“What are you two doing here?” Parad asked, walking over to them with Asuna close behind.

Nico shrugs, “Reasons,” She glances at Taiga then looks back at Parad, “Let’s head back to the CR, I’ll explain there, but I want Saki to hear.”

Before they could make it back to the CR, though, they’re stopped by Emu, who appears from behind a wall. He seems a bit worse for wear, looking a bit like he’s swaying on his feet a little. But he stands in front of them.

“Para-DX,” He says, “I… I have to ask. Why fight your fellow Bugsters?”

Looking at Emu, Parad counters, “Why do you fight your fellow humans?” He takes a step towards Emu, “We don’t have to fight, Emu.”

Emu shakes his head, “You’ll understand, Para-DX. You don’t want people getting hurt because of Game Disease either.” He doesn’t smile, but his lips twerk upwards, slightly, “Once all the players are here, I’ll tell you all about the game. I think you’ll like it.”

He pulls out the Dangerous Zombie Gashat and the Buggle Driver, activating them. This prompts Parad to pull out his own Gashat, activating Perfect Puzzle. Nico stage selects them to a quarry and activates Bang Bang Simulations. In the distance, Parad can see that Saki is fighting Kaiden once more.

Parad and Nico begin their fight against Emu, though quickly find it’s rather one sided. While Emu’s capable of dodging, many of his attacks land weakly. Both Parad and Nico were too high of a level for it to do much good.

Bang Bang Critical Fire!

Perfect Critical Combo!

The two attacks, probably overkill, land on Emu, activating Dangerous Zombies strange revival feature. Despite the fact he was still able to be transformed, Emu removes the Gashat. He looks worse for wear, underneath, his hair even more of a mess and his clothing singed and torn. He stumbles slightly, catching himself before he fully falls.

Saki’s fight against Kaiden had moved closer, meaning she wasn’t that far away when she defeated the Bugster. Emu holds the Bugvisor and absorbs the data from Kaiden.

He clasps his hands together and smiles at the three Riders plus Asuna and Taiga. “Now,” He says, “I can tell you about the game!”

“Kamen Rider Chronicles!” Emu declared, the Bugvisor displaying a start menu behind him. On the menu, there were twelve portraits, seven of which were filled with the appearance of the Bugsters they’ve previously fought, Salty, Alhambra, Revol, Motors, Charlie, Vernier, and now, Kaiden. The other five were silhouetted. “A game that will cure Game Disease!”

Taiga scoffed, “Cure Game Disease?”

Emu frowns at him, “Yes! By compiling the data of the Bugsters of the various strains of Game Disease, we’re able to create a game, that, when cleared, will cure Game Disease.” He gestures to himself, “I, of course, will be the one to clear the game.”

Such a game sounded too good to be true. And hadn’t Kuroto said that Emu didn’t know the truth about the game? While Parad wasn’t sure that he was willing to trust Kuroto, it would explain why Emu would be willing to do all this.

Holding up Dangerous Zombie, Emu continued, “And now, I’ll show you the true strength of Dangerous Zombie.”

When he transforms, a purple cloud emerges as Emu lets out what sounds like a cry of pain. After a moment, he recovers, though he doesn’t look that much different to Level X previously.

But Saki seems to realize it, “Level X…? Like… a variable.”

After that, Emu leaves, resulting in everyone returning to the real world. They head back to the CR, where Uesugi is now cured. Parad sighed.

“I promise,” He says quietly, not thinking anyone could hear him, “That I’ll solve this. For not just our patients, but for the former patients, For Uesugi’s son, for Hiro, for Kiriya, hell, even Kuroto.”

Asuna blinks, “That’s very admirable,”

“Huh?” Parad startled, “You- you heard that?”

“Yes,” Saki nods, “And I agree. It always amazes me how you set your mind to things the way you do.”

Wrong things, right things

Who decides what’s true?

#kamen rider exaid #kamen rider ex aid #kamen rider #there is a me who can become strong #my writing

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sunshineweb · 4 years

Text

An open letter to Mr.Market Regulator SEBI -From an RIA

Dear my blog readers, clients, and the common public, this time I am writing an open letter to market regulator SEBI through this blog. The reason is to bring into your notice also that what are the changes happening in the advisory field and how even it can impact to you also.

Dear Mr.Market Regulator SEBI,

This open letter is with respect to the recent consultation paper which you published it on 15th January 2020. I am really shocked by the way it was articulated. Hence, I thought to write an open letter to you.

# Working Group

You mentioned in the consultation paper that you constituted the working group to bring in the changes to the existing RIA Regulations Act 2013.

I have a few concerns with respect to the working group itself. Can you please clarify if you have time?

When a regulator or land of the law formulate the rules or regulations, then it is obvious that the regulator needs certain inputs from an expert committee.

However, as per my commonsense, such a working group should be INDEPENDENT and must not be in the same business of for which you are forming the regulations or laws. It is the basic and fundamental commonsense to avoid any CONFLICT-FREE suggestion.

However, I think this is not the case with respect to this working committee. I came to know from few that few BIG and CORPORATE RIAs were involved in this working group.

In such a situation, how you assumed that they will give you their expert opinion without any conflict involved?

It seems to be as if a politician who has his own educational institute and ruling the land as an education minister.

What I heard may be wrong. But for the sake of clarity, can you disclose the names of the members of the working group?

# How you have the same regulation for a direct stock adviser to a fee-only planner (who not recommend direct stocks)?

Again I may be wrong in my assumption. If so, then please correct me Mr.Regulator. When you first introduced the RIA Regulations, then how you assumed that the business module of an adviser who provides the direct stock suggestion is the same as that of an advisor who practices the fee-only financial planning service (where he will not provide any direct stock advice)?

Whether you assumed the advisory risk of an adviser who provides the direct stocks recommendation is the same as that of an adviser who only suggests Mutual Funds and other Debt instruments for his clients?

As far as my knowledge is concerned, the risk, business module and the thought process of an adviser who recommends the direct stocks is entirely different than an adviser who completely recommends Mutual Funds or other Debt instruments to his clients.

Or I assumed it wrong and jumped into this advisory business by registering myself as RIA?

When you have a different set of regulations for DIRECT and REGULAR Mutual Funds (even though the risk is same if someone buys it BLINDLY), then how you assumed that both the modules can be regulated under one set of rules?

# You FORGOT the basic idea itself of bringing in of this Regulation in 2013

When the regulation first time introduced in 2013, there was a clear idea of segregating the advisory module to the distributor module. So that those who wish to adopt an advisory module, they have to give up their distributor module and stick to the fee-charging.

Even during 2013 itself, you bring in the new definition calling ARMS LENGTH between our advisory and distributor business, which you and I also know how many managed this ARMS LENGTH in reality.

However, with this new consultation paper, indirectly you are offering an RIA to run both the modules of advisory and distributorship (with certain distance management).

Hence, is it a complete U-TURN of for what purpose the SEBI RIA Regulations initially introduced 2013.

# Educational Qualification for Non-Individual IA

In your consultation paper, you mentioned that Non-Individual IA has a qualification of Post Graduation along with other statutory examinations or certifications.

I just wish to ask you one question, as far as my dumb knowledge goes, to be eligible for selling mutual funds, one must have the minimum qualification of HSC (12th) or 10th + 3 yrs diploma holder. Also, he or she must pass NISM exam prescribed by AMFI.

With such basic education, one can easily become Mutual Fund Adviser and run his business to any extent and earn the commission from Rs.1 to Rs.100 Cr. His educational qualification will not change just because he turned from small mutual fund distributor to a big distributor of Rs.100 Cr commission earnings.

In that case, you felt it not necessary to increase his educational limit just because his business is increased.

However, in the case of IA, if I am a Graduate and turning to be NOT ELIGIBLE to run as an individual RIA, then I have to complete Post Graduate. How come my Post Graduation will suddenly impact my knowledge of advisory? Assuming I am a BCom graduate and to be eligible for Non-Individual RIA, I may choose the PG which is easy for me to complete and move on to register myself for Non-Individual RIA. But in what sense such Post Graduation brings in the value to my advisory and my compliance? ONLY GOD CAN ANSWER.

# Net Worth Requirements

It is proposed in your consultancy paper that Individual RIA must have a net worth of Rs.10 lakh and Non-Individual must have a net worth of Rs.50 lakh.

Also, if an individual RIA at any point of time crossed the number of clients numbers to 150 or AUM exceeds to Rs.40 Cr, then he must re-register as Non-Individual RIA.

Mr.Market Regulator SEBI, I am desperate to know on what basis the working group arrived at these figures of 150 clients, Rs.40 Cr AUM.

Let me give an example of fee-only planner. Assume that he is charging a flat fee of Rs.15,000 per client. Now we also assume that he has 150 clients. In such a scenario, the total fee he earned by charging to all his 150 Clients is Rs.22,50,000. In that, if we include his personal or family expenses and the cost of running the business, then I think one can end up with savings of around Rs.10 Lakhs to Rs.15 Lakhs.

In such a situation, how you arrived that if an RIA serving more than 150 clients is ELIGIBLE to garner the net worth of Rs.50 lakh and register himself as Non-Individual RIA?

You mean to say either YOU SHUT YOUR SHOP to allow ONLY BIG PLAYERS TO RUN RIA or go for BEGGING for funding of Rs.50 lakh for Non-Individual RIA?

Let us assume that I am a new individual RIA and I know well in advance that there is a fee cap of Rs.75,000 for each client and once I reach the 150 client numbers, then I have to register myself as Non-Individual RIA with accumulating Rs.50 lakh net worth.

In such a scenario, I have to charge a fee of Rs.33,333 (Rs.50,00,000/150) to make sure that I accumulate Rs.50 lakh to register myself in the future as Non-Individual RIA. This fee of Rs.33,333 is only to make sure that if my business grows in the future (beyond 150 clients and Rs.40 Cr AUM) then I must easily move to Non-Individual RIA.

Now, if I include my expenses to survive my business cost and run my family, then I MUST charge beyond Rs.33,333.

Mr.Regulator, how many Indian investors as per you are eligible or wish to pay the Fee beyond Rs.33,333 and avail my service? You and I are well aware that fee-only advisory is still at a nascent stage in India.

Hence, by bringing in such regulation, do you not feel that you are killing once for all the beautiful non-conflict fee advisory module of fee-only financial planning?

# Maintenance of Record

You proposed that RIA should maintain the records of below types of interactions with clients

a) Physical record written & signed by the client,

b. Telephone recording,

c. Email from registered email id,

d. Record of SMS messages,

e. Any other legally verifiable record.

I feel surprised that to run my business of RIA, I must from now onward (I mean when this consultancy paper implemented as an act) I must go for technology or software set up where I have to record my telephone interaction or SMS interaction with client.

Do you feel how many investors are comfortable if I say them that your each phone call discussion or SMS interactions will be RECORDED because my Mr.Regualtor forced me to record it as per the act?

I know, why you proposed this in this consultancy paper. There are many FAMOUS direct stock advisory scams happening across India from few RIAs (especially from the infamous INDORE). Hence, you proposed this. However, to my business module, where I work under the flat fee module and not recommending any direct stock recommendations, how much practical it is to convince my clients that each call will be recorded??

Conclusion:-Dear readers and my clients, now you may come to know how impractical are these suggestions by a working group of SEBI with respect to RIA regulations. SEBI failed at first instance of differentiating the business module of an adviser who is into direct stock advisory to an advisory who run the fee-only financial planning service by recommending without any direct stock advice.

I, you and regulator know that there are lot misuse happened in case of direct stock recommendations by few RIAs (especially from Indore). Hence, to bring such RIAs into strict regulatory ambit, SEBI may be thinking of such regulations. However, it kills the basic concept of the fee-only financial module where we the few (Fee-Only India Group) practicing this conflict-free module ethically to the best of our knowledge and in the interest of the clients are finding it hard to digest such impractical regulations.

I don’t have a choice in adopting if this consultancy paper turned to regulation. However, it is an uphill task for the new entrant to abide by these regulations and practice the fee-only module. Hence, the only option for them is to shut their shop once for a while.

Such impractical suggestions will kill the basic idea of bringing in the SEBI RIA Regulation 2013. It completely dilutes the idea of separation of advisory to the distributor module.

May be few of my words looks harsh and apologize for the same. However, my intention is not to target anyone but to bring in the hardship in running the business under this new consultancy paper.

Request:- If my blog readers, clients or the general public feel it is unfair, then you can directly write to SEBI [email protected] before 30th January 2020. The format is available in the consultancy paper. Please find the LINK of the Consultancy paper for Investment Advisers.

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