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Philip K. Dick, For Dummies.

I’ve been researching PK.D for a few years now, as he’s my father’s favourite author and I’ve been watching movie and show adaptations of his work for the longest time. I have personally only read the books listed, here’s the order (I think) you should read them in, based on difficulty level and the knowledge you need of the PKD canon to understand the books that follow. This is purely my opinion based on knowledge of the author. by philip-k’s-dick (lol)

Beginner. (These books and stories allow readers to explore Dick’s pet themes and stylistic quirks without falling too far down the rabbit hole)

The Short Stories: Over the course of his life, PKD wrote somewhere in the range of 150 short stories. Naturally, it would be silly of me to dump all of them on you at once, but undeniably, the shorter format allows the big ideas of Dick’s work to come through more clearly, and even the screwier stories conform to relatively coherent shape, making them an excellent jumping off point, especially for an author who wrote almost nonstop throughout his life.

My Favourites:

In The Days of Perky Pat - In this novel, survivors of a global thermonuclear war live in isolated enclaves in California, surviving off what they can scrounge from the wastes and supplies delivered from Mars. The older generation spend their leisure time playing with the eponymous doll in an escapist role-playing game that recalls life before the apocalypse — a way of life that is being quickly forgotten. At the story's climax, a couple from one isolated outpost of humanity plays a game against the dwellers of another outpost (who play the game with a doll similar to Perky Pat dubbed "Connie Companion") in deadly earnest. The survivors' shared enthusiasm for the Perky Pat doll and the creation of her accessories from vital supplies is a sort of mass delusion that prevents meaningful re-building of the shattered society. In stark contrast, the children of the survivors show absolutely no interest in the delusion and have begun adapting to their new life.

(Elements of the story were later incorporated into Dick's novel The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, written in 1964 and published in 1965, in which a Perky Pat simulation game is induced by drugs and miniature models instead. Palmer Eldritch is not a continuation or sequel however.)

What the Dead Men Say - Death is followed by a period of 'half-life', a short amount of time which can be rationed out over long periods in which the dead can be revived—so that, potentially, they can 'live' on for a long time. When attempts to bring back important businessman Louis Sarapis fail, it's clearly more than mere negligence. Sure enough, Sarapis starts speaking from beyond the grave. From outer space, in fact. Yet no-one seems terribly bothered, other than those directly concerned in the plot mechanics. Eventually entire communications networks (phones, TV, radio) are blocked by Sarapis' broadcasts

(Philip's later novel Ubik is a continuation of What the Dead Men Say)

Autofac - Three men wait outside their settlement for an automated delivery truck. Five years earlier, during the Total Global Conflict, a network of hardened automatic factories ("autofacs") had been set up with cybernetic controls that determine what food and consumer goods to manufacture and deliver. Human input had been lost, and the men planned disruption to try to establish communication and take over control. They destroy the delivery, but the truck radios the autofac and unloads an identical replacement, then prevents them from reloading items. They act out being disgusted with the milk delivery and are given a complaints checklist. In a blank space, they write improvised semantic garble—"the product is thoroughly pizzled". The autofac sends a humanoid data collector that communicates on an oral basis, but is not capable of conceptual thought, and they are unable to persuade the network to shut down before it consumes all resources. Their next strategy sets neighbouring autofacs in competition with each other for rare resources and seemingly succeeds, but there is a hidden level

Beyond Lies The Wub - Peterson, a crew member of a spaceship loading up with food animals on Mars, buys an enormous pig-like creature known as a "wub" from a native just before departure. Franco, his captain, is worried about the extra weight but seems more concerned about its taste, as his ship is short of food. However, after takeoff, the crew realizes that the wub is a very intelligent creature, capable of telepathy and maybe even mind control.

Peterson and the wub spend time discussing mythological figures and the travels of Odysseus. Captain Franco, paranoid after an earlier confrontation with the Wub which left him temporarily paralyzed, bursts in and insists on killing and eating the wub. The crew becomes very much opposed to killing the sensitive creature after it makes a plea for understanding, but Franco still makes a meal out of him. At the dinner table, Captain Franco apologises for the "interruption" and resumes the earlier conversation between Peterson and the Wub - which now has apparently taken over the Captain's body

Human Is - Jill Herrick and her husband Lester are in the middle of an argument. Lester deflects his wife’s claim that he is “hideous” with cold indifference. He tells her that he will not allow their child in the house and will have him removed to government custody because he is interfering with his research. Before the distraught Jill can pass this onto their son Gus, Lester gets news that he will be taking a trip to Rexor IV. Despite Jill’s desire to go there and see the planet, Lester insists that he will go alone.

Later Jill tells her brother Frank and she is going to leave Lester. She explains how happy she has been with Lester gone and how he seems to be getting worse every year of their marriage. More cold and more “ruthless,” not to mention the incessant working.

Lester comes home a very different man. He praises Jill’s cooking and expresses disgust with his work on Rexor IV studying toxins. He says he prefers Terra and being home with his wife.

Jill reports these changes to Frank, while Lester is playing in the room with Gus. Frank has Lester brought to a lab for more studies under the guidance of the Federal Clearance agency. Before long they realize that Lester has had his body taken over by a Rexorian.

The Hanging Stranger - The protagonist, Ed Loyce, is a store owner who is disturbed when he sees a stranger hanging from a lamppost, but finds that other people consider the apparent lynching unremarkable.

He finds evidence that alien insects have taken over, manages to get out of town, talks to the police commissioner, who believes him, and after getting all the information about what Ed knows, explains that the body was hung to see if anyone reacted to it, anyone they didn't have control over. He then takes Ed outside and hangs him from a lamppost.

The Commuter - Ed Jacobson is a railway worker at Woking station. His life takes a turn for the worse when his son, Sam, begins experiencing psychotic episodes. When he is selling rail tickets at work, a young woman named Linda asks for a ticket to a destination called Macon Heights that is not listed on any map.

The Minority Report - In a future society, three mutants foresee all crime before it occurs. Plugged into a great machine, these "precogs" allow a division of the police called Precrime to arrest suspects before they can commit any actual crimes. When the head of Precrime, John Anderton, is himself predicted to murder a man whom he has never met, Anderton is convinced a great conspiracy is afoot

Full Books:

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? - Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter for the San Francisco Police Department, is assigned to "retire" (kill) six androids of the new and highly intelligent Nexus-6 model which have recently escaped from Mars and traveled to Earth. These androids are made of organic matter so similar to a human's that only a posthumous "bone marrow analysis" can independently prove the difference, making them almost impossible to distinguish from real people. Deckard hopes this mission will earn him enough bounty money to buy a live animal to replace his lone electric sheep to comfort his depressed wife Iran. Deckard visits the Rosen Association's headquarters in Seattle to confirm the accuracy of the latest empathy test meant to identify incognito androids. Deckard suspects the test may not be capable of distinguishing the latest Nexus-6 models from genuine human beings, and it appears to give a false positive on his host in Seattle, Rachael Rosen, meaning the police have potentially been executing human beings. The Rosen Association attempts to blackmail Deckard to get him to drop the case, but Deckard retests Rachael and determines that Rachael is, indeed, an android, which she ultimately admits.

Clans of the Alphane Moon - War between Earth and insectoid-dominated Alpha III ended over a decade ago. (According to the novel, "Alphane" refers to the nearest star to our own system, Alpha Centauri). Some years after the end of hostilities, Earth intends to secure its now independent colony in the Alphane system, Alpha III M2. As a former satellite-based global psychiatric institution for colonists on other Alphane system worlds unable to cope with the stresses of colonisation, the inhabitants of Alpha III M2 have lived peacefully for years. But, under the pretence of a medical mission, Earth intends to take their colony back.

Against this background, Chuck Rittersdorf and his wife Mary are separating. Although they think they are going their separate ways, they soon find themselves together again on Alpha III M2. Mary travels there through government work, Chuck sees it as a chance to kill Mary using his remote control simulacrum. Along the way he is guided by his Ganymedean slime mould neighbour Lord Running Clam and Mary finds herself manipulated by the Alphane sympathiser, comedian Bunny Hentman.

The Man in the High Castle - In 1962, 15 years after Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany have won World War II, Robert "Bob" Childan owns an Americana antique shop in San Francisco, California (located in the Japanese-occupied Pacific States of America), which is most commonly frequented by the Japanese, who make a fetish of romanticized American cultural artifacts. Childan is contacted by Nobusuke Tagomi, a high-ranking Japanese trade official, who is seeking a gift to impress a visiting Swedish industrialist named Baynes. Childan's store is stocked in part with counterfeit antiques from the Wyndam-Matson Corporation, a metalworking company. Frank Frink (formerly Fink), a secretly Jewish-American veteran of World War II, has just been fired from the Wyndam-Matson factory, when he agrees to join a former co-worker to begin a handcrafted jewellery business. Meanwhile, Frink's ex-wife, Juliana, works as a judo instructor in Canon City, Colorado (in the neutral buffer zone of Mountain States), where she begins a sexual relationship with an Italian truck driver and ex-soldier, Joe Cinnadella. Throughout the book, many of these characters frequently make important decisions using prophetic messages they interpret from the I Ching, a Chinese cultural import. Many characters are also reading a widely banned yet extremely popular new novel, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, which depicts an alternate history in which the Allies won World War II in 1945, a concept that amazes and intrigues its readers.

Frink reveals that the Wyndam-Matson Corporation has been supplying Childan with counterfeit antiques, which works to blackmail Wyndam-Matson for money to finance Frink's new jewelry venture. Tagomi and Baynes meet, but Baynes repeatedly delays any real business as they await an expected third party from Japan. Suddenly, the public receives news of the death of the Chancellor of Germany, Martin Bormann, after a short illness. Childan tentatively, on consignment, takes some of Frink's "authentic" new metalwork and attempts to curry favour with a Japanese client, who surprisingly considers Frink's jewelry immensely spiritually alive. Juliana and Joe take a road trip to Denver, Colorado and Joe impulsively decides they should go on a side-trip to meet the mysterious Hawthorne Abendsen, author of The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, who supposedly lives in a guarded fortress-like estate called the "High Castle" in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Soon, Joseph Goebbels is announced as the new German Chancellor.

Intermediate. (These are the books to pick up once you have the basics of what makes a PKD novel down. They’re obtuse enough to hit a little heavier, but don’t provide the full dose of surrealism Dick was capable of serving up. This is also good spot to jump in if you’ve experienced weird fiction before.)

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said - The novel is set in a dystopian version of 1988, following a Second Civil War which led to the collapse of the United States' democratic institutions. The National Guard ("nats") and US police force ("pols") reestablished social order through instituting a dictatorship, with a "Director" at the apex, and police marshals and generals as operational commanders in the field. Resistance to the regime is largely confined to university campuses, where radicalized former university students eke out a desperate existence in subterranean kibbutzim. Recreational drug use is widespread, and the age of consent has been lowered to twelve. The black population has almost been rendered extinct. Most commuting is undertaken by personal aircraft, allowing great distances to be covered in little time.

The novel begins with the protagonist, Jason Taverner, a singer, hosting his weekly TV show which has an audience of 30 million viewers. His special guest is his girlfriend Heather Hart, also a singer. Both Hart and Taverner are "Sixes", members of an elite class of genetically engineered humans. While leaving the studio, Taverner is telephoned by a former lover, who asks him to pay her a visit. When Taverner arrives at her apartment, the former lover attacks him by throwing a parasitic life-form at him. Although he manages to remove most of the life-form, parts of it are left inside him. After being rescued by Hart, he is taken to a medical facility.

Waking up the following day in a seedy hotel with no identification, Taverner becomes worried, as failure to produce identification at one of the numerous police checkpoints would lead to imprisonment in a forced labor camp. Through a succession of phone calls made from the hotel to colleagues and friends who now claim not to know him, Taverner establishes that he is no longer recognized by the outside world. He soon manages to bribe the hotel's clerk into taking him to Kathy Nelson, a forger of government documents. However, Kathy reveals that both she and the clerk are police informants, and that the lobby clerk has placed a microscopic tracking device on him. She promises not to turn Taverner over to the police on the condition that he spend the night with her. Although he attempts to escape, Kathy confronts him again after he has successfully passed a police checkpoint using the forged identity cards. Feeling in her debt, he accompanies Kathy to her apartment block, where Inspector McNulty, Kathy's police handler, is waiting. McNulty has located Taverner via the tracking device the hotel lobby clerk placed on him, and instructs Taverner to come with him to the 469th Precinct police station so that further biometric identity checks can be performed.

Time out of Joint - Ragle Gumm lives in the year 1959 in a quiet American suburb. His unusual profession consists of repeatedly winning the cash prize in a local newspaper contest called "Where Will The Little Green Man Be Next?". Gumm's 1959 has some differences from ours: the Tucker car is in production, AM/FM radios are scarce to non-existent, and Marilyn Monroe is a complete unknown. As the novel opens, strange things begin to happen to Gumm. A soft-drink stand disappears, replaced by a small slip of paper with the words "SOFT-DRINK STAND" printed on it in block letters. Intriguing little pieces of the real 1959 turn up: a magazine article on Marilyn Monroe, a telephone book with non-operational exchanges listed and radios hidden away in someone else's house. People with no apparent connection to Gumm, including military pilots using aircraft transceivers, refer to him by name. Few other characters notice these or experience similar anomalies; the sole exception is Gumm's supposed brother-in-law, Victor "Vic" Nielson, in whom he confides. A neighborhood woman, Mrs. Keitelbein, invites him to a civil defense class where he sees a model of a futuristic underground military factory. He has the unshakeable feeling he's been inside that building many times before.

Confusion gradually mounts for Gumm. His neighbor Bill Black knows far more about these events than he admits, and, observing this, begins worrying: "Suppose Ragle [Gumm] is becoming sane again?" In fact, Gumm does become sane, and the deception surrounding him (erected to protect and exploit him) begins to unravel

Ubik - By the year 1992, humanity has colonized the Moon and psychic powers are common. The protagonist, Joe Chip, is a debt-ridden technician working for Runciter Associates, a "prudence organization" employing "inertials"—people with the ability to negate the powers of telepaths and "precogs"—to enforce the privacy of clients. The company is run by Glen Runciter, assisted by his deceased wife Ella who is kept in a state of "half-life", a form of cryonic suspension that allows the deceased limited consciousness and ability to communicate. While consulting with Ella, Runciter discovers that her consciousness is being invaded by another half-lifer named Jory Miller

Difficult. (This section comes with a caveat: within these novels you will encounter numerous hallucinations, drug trips, an entire trilogy about gnostic spirituality and mental illness, and more than a little unabashed nightmare fuel. It’s normal to get tangled up in what goes on in these books. It’s also normal to be weirded out. But with proper grounding, you’ll make it though with your faculties intact. Probably.)

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch - The story begins in a future world where global temperatures have risen so high that in most of the world it is unsafe to be outside without special cooling gear during daylight hours. In a desperate bid to preserve humanity and ease population burdens on Earth, the UN has initiated a "draft" for colonizing the nearby planets, where conditions are so horrific and primitive that the unwilling colonists have fallen prey to a form of escapism involving the use of an illegal drug (Can-D) in concert with "layouts." Layouts are physical props intended to simulate a sort of alternative reality where life is easier than either the grim existence of the colonists in their marginal off-world colonies, or even Earth, where global warming has progressed to the point that Antarctica is prime vacation resort territory. The illegal drug Can-D allows people to "share" their experience of the "Perky Pat" (the name of the main female character in the simulated world) layouts. This "sharing" has caused a pseudo-religious cult or series of cults to grow up around the layouts and the use of the drug.

Up to the point where the novel begins, New York City-based Perky Pat (or P.P.) Layouts, Inc., has held a monopoly on this product, as well as on the illegal trade in the drug Can-D which makes the shared hallucinations possible.

The novel opens shortly after Barney Mayerson, P.P. Layouts' top precog, has received a "draft notice" from the UN for involuntary resettlement as a colonist on Mars. Mayerson is sleeping with his assistant, Roni Fugate, but remains conflicted about the divorce, which he himself initiated, from his first wife Emily, a ceramic pot artist. Meanwhile, Emily's second husband tries to sell her pot designs to P.P. Layouts as possible accessories for the Perky Pat virtual worlds—but Barney, recognizing them as Emily's, rejects them out of spite.

A Scanner Darkly - When performing his work as an undercover agent, Arctor goes by the name "Fred" and wears a "scramble suit" that conceals his identity from other officers. Then he is able to sit in a police facility and observe his housemates through "holo-scanners", audio-visual surveillance devices that are placed throughout the house. Arctor's use of the drug causes the two hemispheres of his brain to function independently or "compete". When Arctor sees himself in the videos saved by the scanners, he does not realize that it is him. Through a series of drug and psychological tests, Arctor's superiors at work discover that his addiction has made him incapable of performing his job as a narcotics agent. They do not know his identity because he wears the scramble suit, but when his police supervisor suggests to him that he might be Bob Arctor, he is confused and thinks it cannot be possible.

Donna takes Arctor to "New-Path", a rehabilitation clinic, just as Arctor begins to experience the symptoms of Substance D withdrawal. It is revealed that Donna has been a narcotics agent all along, working as part of a police operation to infiltrate New-Path and determine its funding source. Without his knowledge, Arctor has been selected to penetrate the organization. As part of the rehab program, Arctor is renamed "Bruce" and forced to participate in cruel group-dynamic games, intended to break the will of the patients

(If this one seems difficult to wrap your mind around, that's because its a fictionalized account of real events, and you may need to read about Philip's life at the time to understand the autobiographical nature of the book.)

The VALIS Trilogy

(Fictionalized account of religious experiences in PKD’s life.)

VALIS - In March, 1974, Horselover Fat (the alter-personality of Philip K. Dick) experiences visions of a pink beam of light that he calls Zebra and interprets as a theophany exposing hidden facts about the reality of our universe, and a group of others join him in researching these matters. One of their theories is that there is some kind of alien space probe in orbit around Earth, and that it is aiding them in their quest; it also aided the United States in disclosing the Watergate scandal and the resignation of Richard Nixon in August, 1974. Kevin turns his friends onto a film called Valis that contains obvious references to revelations identical to those that Horselover Fat has experienced, including what appears to be time dysfunction. The film is itself a fictional account of an alternative-universe version of Nixon ("Ferris F. Fremount") and his fall, engineered by a satellite called valis. (The plot of the fictitious film Valis was that of Dick's then-unpublished novel Radio Free Albemuth.) In seeking the film's makers, Kevin, Phil, Fat, and David—now calling themselves the Rhipidon Society—head to an estate owned by popular musician Eric Lampton and his wife Linda. They decide the goal that they have been led toward is Sophia Lampton, who is two-years old and the Messiah or incarnation of Holy Wisdom (Pistis Sophia) anticipated by some variants of Gnostic Christianity. In addition to healing Phil's schizophrenic personality split, she tells them that their conclusions about valis (which Fat had previously termed "Zebra") and reality are correct, and more importantly, that we should worship, not gods, but humanity. She dies two days later due to a laser accident caused by Brent Mini. Undeterred, Fat (who has now resurged) goes on a global search for the next incarnation of Sophia.

Dick also offers a rationalist explanation of his apparent theophany, acknowledging that it might have been visual and auditory hallucinations from either schizophrenia or drug addiction sequelae.

Characters:

Phil (Philip K. Dick): Narrator (first person), science fiction writer, author of Man in the High Castle, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and Three Stigmata.

Horselover Fat: Narrator (third person), a schizophrenic modality of Phil himself. (Philip in Greek means "fond of horses"; dick is German for "fat".)

Gloria Knudson: Suicidal friend of Fat's who Fat is unable to save.

Kevin: Cynical friend of Fat's whose cat died running across the street, based on K. W. Jeter.

Sherri Solvig: Church-going friend of Fat's, eventually dies from lymphatic cancer.

David: Catholic friend of Fat's, based on Tim Powers.

Eric Lampton: Rock star, screenwriter, actor, a. k. a. "Mother Goose"; a fictionalised version of David Bowie.

Linda Lampton: Actress, wife of Eric Lampton.

Brent Mini: Electronic composer, a fictionalised version of Brian Eno.

Sophia Lampton: Two-year-old child (personalised incarnation of Holy Wisdom within some variants of Gnosticism), said to be the daughter of Linda Lampton and valis and the "Fifth Savior".

The Divine Invasion - After a fatal car accident on Earth, Herb Asher is placed into cryonic suspension as he waits for a spleen replacement. Clinically dead, Herb experiences lucid dreams while in suspended animation and relives the last six years of his life.

In the past, Herb lived as a recluse in an isolated dome on a remote planet in the binary star system, CY30-CY30B. Yah, a local divinity of the planet in exile from Earth, appears to Herb in a vision as a burning flame, and forces him to contact his sick female neighbor, Rybys Rommey, who happens to be terminally ill with multiple sclerosis and pregnant with Yah's child.

With the help of the immortal soul of Elijah, who takes the form of a wild beggar named Elias Tate, Herb agrees to become Rybys's legal husband and father of the unborn "savior". Together they plan to smuggle the six-month pregnant Rybys back to Earth, under the pretext of seeking help for Rybys' medical condition at a medical research facility. After being born in human form, Yah plans to confront the fallen angel Belial, who has ruled the Earth for 2000 years since the fall of Masada in the first century CE. Yah's powers, however, are limited by Belial's dominion on Earth, and the four of them must take extra precautions to avoid being detected by the forces of darkness.

Things do not go as planned. "Big Noodle", Earth's A.I. system, warns the ecclesiastical authorities in the Christian-Islamic church and Scientific Legate about the divine "invasion" and countermeasures are prepared. A number of failed attempts are made to destroy the unborn child, all of them thwarted by Elijah and Yah. After successfully making the interstellar journey back to Earth and narrowly avoiding a forced abortion, Rybys and Herb escape in the nick of time, only to be involved in a fatal taxi crash, probably due to the machinations of Belial. Rybys dies from her injuries sustained in the crash, and her unborn son Emmanuel (Yah in human form) suffers brain damage from the trauma but survives. Herb is critically injured and put into cryonic suspension until a spleen replacement can be found. Baby Emmanuel is placed into a synthetic womb, but Elias Tate manages to sneak Emmanuel out of the hospital before the church is able to kill him.

Six years pass. In a school for special children, Emmanuel meets Zina, a girl who also seems to have similar skills and talents, but acts as a surrogate teacher to Emmanuel. For four years, Zina helps Emmanuel regain his memory (the brain damage caused amnesia) and discover his true identity as Yah, creator of the universe.

When he's ready, Zina shows Emmanuel her own parallel universe. In this peaceful world, organized religion has little influence, Rybys Rommey is still alive and married to Herb Asher, and Belial is only a goat kid living in a petting zoo.

In an act of kindness, Zina and Emmanuel liberate the goat-creature from his cage, momentarily forgetting that the animal is Belial. The goat-creature finds Herb Asher and attempts to retain control of the world by possessing him and convincing him that Yahweh's creation is an ugly thing that should be shown for what it really is. Eventually Herb is saved by Linda Fox, a young singer whom he loves and who is his own personal Savior; she and the goat-creature meet and she kills it, defeating Belial. He finally discovers that this meeting happens over again for everyone in the world, and whether they choose Belial or their Savior decides if they find salvation.

Characters:

Herb Asher: audio engineer

Rybys Rommey: mother of Emmanuel, sick with MS

Yah: Yahweh

Elias Tate: Incarnation of Elijah

Emmanuel (Manny): Yah incarnated in human form

Zina Pallas: Shekhinah

Linda Fox: singer, songwriter, Yetzer Hatov

Belial: Yetzer Hara

Fulton Statler Harms: Chief prelate of the Christian-Islamic Church (C.I.C), Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church

Nicholas Bulkowsky: Communist Party Chairman, Procurator maximus of the Scientific Legate

VALIS: agent of Yahweh, disinhibiting stimulus

The Transmigration of Timothy Archer - Set in the late 1960s and 1970s, the story describes the efforts of Episcopal Bishop Timothy Archer, who must cope with the theological and philosophical implications of the newly discovered Gnostic Zadokite scroll fragments. The character of Bishop Archer is loosely based on the controversial, iconoclastic Episcopal Bishop James Pike, who in 1969 died of exposure while exploring the Judean Desert near the Dead Sea in the West Bank.

As the novel opens, it is 1980. On the day that John Lennon is shot and killed, Angel Archer visits the houseboat of Edgar Barefoot, (a guru based on Alan Watts), and reflects on the lives of her deceased relatives. During the sixties, she was married to Jeff Archer, son of the Episcopal Bishop of California Timothy Archer. She introduced Kirsten Lundborg, a friend, to her father-in law, and the two began an affair. Kirsten has a son, Bill, from a previous relationship, who has schizophrenia, although he is knowledgeable as an automobile mechanic. Tim is already being investigated for his allegedly heretical views about the Holy Ghost.

Jeff commits suicide due to his romantic obsession with Kirsten. However, after poltergeist activity, he manifests to Tim and Kirsten at a seance, also attended by Angel. Angel is skeptical about the efficacy of astrology, and believes that the unfolding existential situation of Tim and Kirsten is akin to Friedrich Schiller's German Romanticism era masterpiece, the Wallenstein trilogy (insofar as their credulity reflects the loss of rational belief in contemporary consensual reality).

The three are told that Kirsten and Tim will die. As predicted, Kirsten loses her remission from cancer, and also commits suicide after a barbiturate overdose. Tim travels to Israel to investigate whether or not a psychotropic mushroom was associated with the resurrection, but his car stalls, he becomes disoriented, falls from a cliff, and dies in the desert.

On the houseboat, Angel is reunited with Bill, Kirsten's son who has schizophrenia. He claims to have Tim's reincarnated spirit within him, but is soon institutionalized. Angel agrees to care for Bill, in return for a rare record (Koto Music by Kimio Eto) that Edgar offers her.

The Transmigration of Timothy Archer is one of Dick's most overtly philosophical and intellectual works. While Dick's novels usually employ multiple narrators or an omniscient perspective, this story is told in the first person by a single narrator: Angel Archer, Bishop Archer's daughter-in-law.

Characters:

Angel Archer: Narrator, manager of a Berkeley record store, widow of Jeff Archer.

Timothy Archer: Bishop of California; father of the late Jeff Archer and father-in-law of Angel. Dies in Israel, searching for psychotropic mushroom connected with Zadokite sect. Based on James Albert Pike, Dick's personal friend, who was an American Episcopalian bishop.

Kirsten Lundborg: Timothy Archer's secretary and lover. Dies from barbiturate overdose after loss of remission from cancer.

Bill Lundborg: Kirsten's son who has schizophrenia, and who is obsessed with cars.

Edgar Barefoot: Houseboat guru, radio personality, lecturer. Based on Alan Watts.

Jeff Archer: Son of Timothy Archer, and deceased husband of Angel. A professional student who was romantically obsessed with Kirsten.

Thank you, if you read all of this. it took me six hours today to write this all 

Tom x You

Summery: Tom and his brothers have a pub. You, trying to avoid working on your new album, spend most of your time in there. Lots of flirting and bickering ensues.

Themes: Sort of frienemies to lovers, slow burn, mutual attraction but they are both to dumb to realise. General dumbness all around. Idiots in love.

Word count: 4k

Warnings: Drinking and swearing. Smut in future chapters.

PART I of IV

***

At 8 years of age your father hands you a worn guitar and with the patience of a saint teaches you how to make it play the holiest of sounds. Every day you practise, until your fingertips has hardened and they move effortlessly over the strings.  

At 10 years of age you write your first song. It’s a puerile little tune about a sweet boy with hair like honey and an opportunity lost. It’s repetitive and nonsensical but your mother hums the chorus for weeks after hearing it.

At 14 years of age you meet up with a record label and when signing the dotted line on the contract you feel a chill down your spine and your grandmother’s stories about the crossroad demon comes back to you verbatim. With determination you still put your name on the paper in a signature you’ve spent hours practising. Only days later you hear your voice on the radio for the very first time.

At 17 years of age there are headlines in magazines about you, photos of men they claim you’ve dated and interviews with people who claim to be a ‘close source’ to you, even though you’ve never met them, spilling lies on every page. You find out your closest friend has sold information about you to the tabloids for over a year.

At 19 years of age you go on a world tour, though the only parts of the world you see are airports, hotels and playing venues and then later at night: nightclubs. You travel the world, but you learn nothing about it.

At 22 years of age and your boyfriend breaks up with you for an actress. There isn’t a day that year that tabloids don’t ‘report’ on it. He spends most of the time telling the world how much happier he is in his new relationship, and you spend most of your time staring down into a bottle.  

At 24 years of age you feel drained, dog-tired and worn out. On a regular basis there’s photos of you stumbling out of pubs, bars and restaurants all over the internet. Your record label is threatening a lawsuit and you haven’t talked to your manager in weeks. You have no friends and your family doesn’t know what to do with you.  

Okay, so maybe being a successful singer isn’t all that it’s cut out to be. Especially not when the entirety of the internet is making fun of you.  

And yes, maybe you’re in a flunk and haven’t written anything decent in months. And okay, maybe you haven’t even picked up a guitar in weeks. And maybe throwing away your phone in order not to have to face the record label was a bad idea. And maybe, hand on heart, the right solution to your problems is not to waste your days away in a well-hidden pub in a backstreet in London with the cutest pub owner you’ve ever seen, with biceps that makes you want to drool. A pub owner who has no interest in you and finds you annoying beyond belief.  

Yet here you are,  

again.

***

“It’s Tuesday” Tom informs you as he hands you cherry coke and a straw.

So, it goes like this. Tom is obsessed with time. He’s always informing you of either what day of the week it is, or the time of day. As if he’s trying to shame you into realising that 10 am on a Tuesday is not an acceptable time to order a dry martini.  

“So?” You ask, feigning ignorance as you open the can. “And don’t think I haven’t noticed that this is a coke and in fact completely free of alcohol. I mean in the good ol’ day they at least had the cutesy to put cocaine in there.”.

“Don’t worry” he says, scrubbing the surface of the already clean counter-top “there’s a shit load of other stuff that’ll destroy your insides in there”.

You try not to roll your eyes, honestly you do. You fail. “Oh no, is it sugar? Please, doctor say it isn’t sugar!” you wail dramatically.

“No, not just sugar” and you can tell he’s also trying not to roll his eyes at your exaggerated play acting. “You know, I saw this documentary once about what they put in coca cola and –”

“No, nope, no, no. Absolutely not” You shake your head vehemently as if that will stop his words. "I would literally rather hear you talk about goddamn golf for an hour than put me of one of life’s few great pleasures”.

This time he doesn’t manage to stop himself from rolling his eyes at you. “Oh, I think we both know you find more pleasures in life than coca cola”.

Before you can answer him something insanely witty the door to the office behind the bar opens and an anxious looking Harrison step out. “Tom, Sam says the fish delivery didn’t show up again so we’re out of cod and therefore fish ‘n chips.”  

Tom rubs his face, looking worried. “Alright, I’ll call him up and see what happened.”  

But Harrison still looks tense. “Also…” he trails off, losing courage.  

“Also, what?” And Tom too sounds tense now.  

“Well, Downey from the bank called, he says the invoice is way over due and he wants a meeting. I told him you’d call today”.  

Tom keeps rubbing his forehead, as if to literally fight of a migraine, and his shoulders tense. “Yeah, yeah I’ll call him this afternoon”. Harrison nods and walks back into the kitchen

“You know, I cou –” but you don’t get to finish your sentence before he interrupts you. “Don’t” he says, voice sharp as a whip.

“But, it would just be a loan, honestly I – ”

“No, and I mean it.” And you judging by the tone of voice he uses and the stern look he gives you you’re well aware that he isn’t joking. It’s like his usually warm and kind eyes are nailing you down into your seat. “I’m not gonna borrow money from a customer, as you well know.”  

The problem is that really wouldn’t be a big deal for you to offer him a loan or give it as a gift really. You love this pub. You love the people working here and the patrons and coming in for a drink or a meal or simply a chat and a laugh. It’s your safe haven. No one ever hardly ever bothers you here. No one asks you for a selfie or asks you about when more music is coming out. No one tugs at your sleeve or try to sneakily take a photo of you. Here, you are normal. And it would devastate you to see the Holland boys lose it all when you know you can help. You have more money than you know what to do with.  

However, you know there’s no arguing with him when he’s got that look on his face so you don’t, just keep sipping on your cherry coke as your foot taps along to the song on the radio. From inside the kitchen you can hear the faint sound of the Holland twin's laughter.  

Tom turns away from you to sort out the whiskey glasses on the counter behind him. But when picking up a glass he fumbles, and it falls out of his hand and lands right on his foot, though it fortunately doesn’t break.

“Ah, fucking bastard!” he shouts, grabbing hold of his injured foot.

“You shouldn’t swear in church, you know” ¨you say, as you finish your coke.

He looks at you indignantly, pouting like a child, “well, lucky for me, this is a pub.”

“You say potato, I say tomato, now make me a real drink.”

“For fucks sake, darlin’, you gotta eat something.”

***

So, it’s either late or early, depending how you look on it. On tube stations all across London early worker are already gathering on the platforms to take their commute to work. Not you. Not Tom either.  

Now, Tom is an early riser and has been since childhood. His nanna used to say that he had energy enough for three children. Despite regular closing shifts at the pub he likes to be up at dawn. Says he likes to get an hour at the gym and a walk with Tessa in before he heads to the pub to make sure everything is in order. After having checked with Sam that everything is stocked for the day, he has his protein loaded breakfast while ordering supplies or read through whatever paper work he need to be on top off before opening up the pub for the day.  

Tom hates having this routine disturbed.

So, it goes like this. Harry had been the bartender most of that night, since Tom had ‘other business to take care of’. Whenever Harry was bartender he’d usually spent more time drinking with you than he did serving up the other costumers. When Tom came back and saw the state of you, he’d sent you home, telling you that you’d had enough for one night and asking Harrison to walk you home. Then he’d giving Harry a proper telling off. You had dutifully walked with Harrison to your apartment, thanked him sweetly, and then as soon as you saw that he had passed the corner walked into another pub just across the street for more. It wasn’t as charming a place as The Hollands and their bartender sure wasn’t as handsome or as fun to annoy as the regular one at Hollands. But in a pinch, anything will do.  

Upon closing hour however, as you made your way home, you’d discovered that your keys were missing. Being absolutely wasted this did not worry you in the slightest. You just strolled back on unsteady legs to The Hollands to see if you’d dropped them there. Tom, who had closed the pub for the night, was still in. From the windows you could see him going through stacks of paperwork in front of him, a frown on his face. Upon hearing you knocking on the window at 2 am he’d jumped out his chair to see what was going on. When seeing you three sheets to the wind, dressed in a thin dress on a cold summer’s night the frown on his face had gotten worse.

Now here you are, in his apartment, in the dead of the night, and he’s offering you a plate of tortellini. Tessa had been overjoyed to see you and after having been allowed to greet you she had then been sent to her place and out of the way of your drunk, stumbling feet.

“But I hate tortellini” you whine.

“Christ sake, Popstar, just eat the damn food”

“No, I hate it, Tom, I hate it so much, it makes me think of- of- ” you hiccup.

“Are you actually crying right now?”

“It makes me think of- of - cheese sauce and -”

“Sorry, but what now?”

“And – I – I – I hate cheese sauce”. You’re full on sobbing and he just stares at you in disbelief.  

Then, somehow the world seems fall the wrong way around. It takes you a second to realize that you’ve slid down on the floor and that you’re staring up at the ceiling. Tom’s strong arm take a hold of you and he guides you to a sitting position, leaned up against the wall. With your face in his hands he stares at you in indignation but there’s something else there too. You’re drunk enough to dare to call it tenderness.  

Suddenly you’re aware that you’re sobbing, but you can’t remember why that is.

“Fuck who knows” he responds and when you give out a sound that’s something halfway between a sob and a laugh he starts laughing too. “If I make you something else to eat, will you eat it then? You’ll feel better in the morning if you do”.

Your head feels heavy, so you lean it against his hand and nod. “No cheese sauce, please”.

He rolls his eyes, but he’s laughing too. “Sure, no cheese sauce for Pop Princess.”

“Oi!” You call out “You promised to never to call me that!” Pop Princess was the title the tabloids had given you early on in your career. He keeps smiling, but it’s a gentle smile, and trace the frown between your eyebrows with his finger, as if he’s trying to erase it.

“Will you please just sit here while I cook?”

You nod again, too tired to say anything. He gets up, and you can hear some pouring water and then he places a glass of water in your hand. “Drink” he orders, then he’s gone again, and you can hear the clattering of pots and pans as he starts cooking. You’re just staring into the wall, trying to make it stop spinning; limbs heavy with sleep and whiskey, a nice buzzing numbness in your head.

Then he’s in front of you again, looking at you with a frown “I thought I told you to drink that” and you look at the full glass clasped in your hands. “Seriously, you’ll feel better if you do”.

You roll your eyes “oh, please, Tommy. Remember who you’re speaking to. I’m the local drunk, there’s no need to lecture me in hangovers”. But you do as you’re told and chug down your drink and hand him the empty glass. “Good girl” he says and gets back to his cooking. Before long the delicious scent of food is spreading through the tiny, cramped kitchen.

You start humming a song you wrote years ago but never released, low enough so you think Tom won’t hear you over the sizzling pan. But he does.  

“What’s that?” he asks, curiosity in his voice.

“Oh” you say, leaning your head back against the wall as you close your eyes in the hope that the world will stop spinning. “Just a song.”

Everything goes quiet for a while and you find yourself wondering if you’ve fallen asleep. But then you hear his voice. “Keep singing, please”.  

It surprises you, the amount of tenderness in his words; such a gentle bequest. So, you do as you’re told. In a voice raspy from the whiskey but sweet from his kindness you sing.

“I’ve been holding my breath, I’ve been counting to ten, 

Over something you said, I’ve been holding back tears 

 While you’re throwing back beers, I’m alone in bed

You know I, I’m afraid of change, Guess that’s why we stay the same, 

So tell me to leave, I’ll pack my bags, get on the road, 

Find someone that loves you better than I do, darling, I know, 

'Cause you remind me every day, I’m not enough, but I still stay”

You trial off and he keeps quiet too and goes silent again. Then he slides down beside you, a plate of pasta carbonara in his hands which he offers you along with a fork. “Eat” he orders gently. You do, and it tastes delicious.

“God, Tom, you could rival Sam in the kitchen”.

He snorts but you persist. “Seriously Tommy, I’d hire you as a private chef if I didn’t know you’d be an insufferable employee”.

He snorts again, but you can tell he’s amused. “Wow, thanks a lot”

“Seriously, you’d always complain about my lack of organization, or the fact that I keep all of my face masks in the refrigerator, or that I never have any food at home or that I don’t eat at regular hours or that I sometimes just forget to eat and just have a Red bull for dinner instead or that I – ”

“Jesus Christ” he interrupts you “who the fuck let you be an adult? What’s wrong with you!?”

You’re wolfing down your food, so it takes you a moment to answer. “Someone said my problem was ‘a mind-boggling lack of general discipline and a staggeringly low ability to organise’” you finally say.

“Who said that? I mean they’re not wrong”.

“You said that” you point out as you finish your plate of carbonara. “Also, this was scrumptious, and also, may I sleep here tonight?”

He looks at you in disbelief “Yeah, duh, I’m not kicking you out? I mean, I thought that was the general idea of this”.

He grabs a hold of your plate and takes your hand in his other as he guides you both up to a standing position. He places the plate among the other dirty pans in the sink and then lead you to his bathroom. Giving you a new toothbrush, he orders you to brush your teeth while he changes his sheets. He hands you a shirt to sleep in and when you’ve changed you argue for a good 10 minutes while about who’s to sleep on the couch before he puts his foot down and say he’ll ban you from his pub unless you take the bed instead of him. So, you do.  

His bed soft and comfortable and smell of his detergent. From the living room you can hear Tessa’s deep breaths and the sound of Tom tossing around on the sofa. You wonder how uncomfortable he is.

“Tommy just come in here instead” you call out, voice drowsy.

“No, I told you, you take the bed”

You snort. As if you were going to give this bed up, no chance. Not now that you know how comfortable it is.  

“Yeah, duh” you answer. “Wasn’t planning on taking the sofa, but the bed’s big enough for the two of us, innit?”

Dead silence from the living room. Even Tessa seems to have been struck silent.

“You sure?”

You sigh. “Yeah, I'm sure, for fuck’s sake Tommy, just come in here”.

You hear the sound of footsteps slowly making their way across the floor, then he’s in the doorway. Clad in a pair of black boxers and a black t-shirt, awkwardly scratching the back of his head as he avoids looking at you.

You pull down the covers and he lay down beside you, keeping his distance in the bed. You have your backs against each other, staring into separate walls and even through the whiskey you can tell this is awkward. You want to ask him to hold you, but you’re scared he doesn’t want it. Scared he doesn’t even want to lay beside you. You are after all just a costumer in his bar. A costumer you know he can’t afford to lose.

You don’t know how long you lay there in silence, his scent surrounding you, the soft sound of his breath lulling you into further relaxation but eventually you drift off to sleep.  

When you wake, he’s gone. A note on his pillow tells you he’s gone to the gym, telling you to take anything you want for breakfast and just leave the keys at the pub later.  

When you close the door behind you you can’t help but feel that something tender happened in there, something important; but you know he doesn’t feel the same.

***

It’s Monday night, as Tom has been so kind to remind you off, and you’re plastered.  

Earlier the pub had been full to rim of football supporters shouting and singing and sharing pints before a big game, filling the entire place with an excited buzz. Now they’ve all gone off to cheer for their heroes on the field and only the patrons remain.  

Harry is bartender tonight, and Tom has placed himself in the back of the pub, a stack of paper in front of him that he keeps leering at. With a drink in your hand and a happy-go-lucky attitude you seat yourself on the opposite side of his table, determent to cheer him up.

“’m gonna write a song about you.” You inform him, voice only somewhat slurry.

“Go on then.” He doesn’t look up at you, just jots something down on the form in front of him. He’s wearing glasses tonight and they make him look so handsome you want to scream in frustration.

“Well, what rhymes with Tom? Rum!”

“Oh, Christ, no. No, I’ve changed my mind.”

“Tom, he serves rum and tequila.” You sing. “Wait, what rhymes with tequila?”

“Please don’t”

“Heliophilia!”

“Okay, ’m literally begging you not to do this.” He’s looking at you now, his caramel eyes filled with both amusement and genuine dread. You don’t listen, no, you sing.

“Tom, he serves Rum and tequila,

he loves the sun, it’s called heliophilia

his pub needs fundin’, he lives in London”

“Wow. That is a hell of a forced rhyme, pop princess.”

“No, no wait!”

“Wait? I will literally pay you to stop”.

But then you start singing for real, in a voice so sultry that it makes him freeze mid motion, hand just about to turn the page over.

“Have you’ve seen my bartender

he’ll serve you whiskey, he’ll pour you rum

so sweet it’ll make you tender

but all the whiskey in Tennessee

couldn’t have that man agree

to ever share a drink with thee

no, all that sweetness’s just for me

cause babe, he’s my bartender

Yes, have you’ve seen my bartender

He’ll hand you wine, he’ll sell you gin

I think it’s a sign when he hands me my wine

When hand’s touching hand, skin touches skin”

Tom seem to be frozen in place when you stop, and over at the bar you hear Harry give a loud whistle. “Fucking hell, popstar” he cheers.

Tom still doesn’t say anything, just observes you, seemingly speechless. And maybe you’re imagining it, but he’s cheeks seem pinker than usual.

"Well, at least I didn’t rhyme rum with cum” you say, trying to get a reaction out of him. And then “I did think about doing it though” and you lift your glass to him as if in a toast before you down it.

He snorts, back to his normal self and stare down at the paper again.

“Now, honestly, Tom. What did that piece of paper ever do to you?”

“Huh?”

“You’re staring at it like you want to set fire to it. You’d like me to do it for you?”

“No thanks, reckon he’d sue”.

“Who is he?” you lean over the table and closer to him and you swear you can practically see him ordering himself not to look down at your cleavage. “Is he god?” you whisper in mock horror. “Cause, I wouldn’t worry too much, Tommy. You see, God can’t sue. Well, someone in America tried to sue Satan once and they couldn’t cause they couldn’t hand him the papers. Turns out Satan hasn’t got an address. Reckon the same goes with God”

He rolls his eyes “oh, this guy definitely has got an address. He lives in Knightsbridge.” And then, in a voice unusually bitter he adds “posh twat”.

“Oy” you warn, jokingly, “those are my neighbourhoods'”.  

A sound somewhere between a scoff and a laugh escapes him “Oh please” he laughs “please, you might live in Primrose Hill now, but you’re not Knightsbridge posh. Sorry to disappoint, Pop Princess”.

You glare, but it’s all in good humour. “So, who is this not-God-but-rich-as-God man sending you paper?”

The humour disappears from his face. “Downey, from the bank”.  Then he turns to the bar and shouts, “Harry, hand me a pint, ye?”

“And a whiskey for me, please” you request sweetly.

“No way, Harry, she’s cut off for the night. Tell Sam to make her something to eat” he orders his younger brother who rolls his eyes but obediently begin to head into to the kitchen.

“Not tort -” you begin shouting as an instruction.

“Not tortellini” he shouts at the same time. “And no cheese sauce either” he then adds.

You smile at him and this time you swear he’s blushing.

“Who’s Downey? You ask. And you know you’re prying, but you also know that Tom needs help with something and if there’s anything you can do to help, you will.  

“A bank man who wants me to pay my loans back”. He answers eventually after a long silence, when he figures you’re not going to give up and talk about something else. Harry comes back and hands Tom a pint and then leaves to take care of a costumer at the bar.

“A bank man, who lives in Knightsbridge?” You ask, bemused.

Tom smiles “oh, believe you me, Downey’s not your average bank clerk.” Then, in a serious tone, “look, I know you want to help, but there’s nothing you can do, ye? So drop it”.

“But I-”

“Drop it. Seriously, pop princess, there’s nothing you can do, I’ll figure something out”. He doesn’t sound harsh and the way he looks at you is positively adoring. Then he does something unexcepted. He reaches over the table and pulls a loose string of hair behind your ear. It’s a soft and sweet gesture and you want to reach over and kiss him but before you can he removes his hand and seconds later Harry places a dish of steaming pasta carbonara in front of you. You smile and thank him and he makes his way back to the bar.  

You eat in silence for a while as he continues to read through stashes of papers. You decide to leave the subject, for now at least.

“Yours is better, by the way”. He looks up at you, confused. “Your carbonara” you clarify. “I mean, Sam is an incredible chef and you’re lucky to have him, but yours is my favourite”.  

His cheeks heat up, again.

***

R E A D    P A R T   T W O     H E R E

Bakudeku canon divergent, vampire quirk AU

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24

“How are you holding up son, are you eating enough food? You need to keep up your strength.” Mitsuki Bakugou questioned through the phone when her son called to give her an update.

“Yeah, yeah, of course I am! And, um, thanks for the money you put in my account,” Bakugou mumbled his appreciation.

“It’s from us, Inko, and All Might— actually he’s been putting up the bulk of it. We’re all hoping you find Izuku soon, but until then we’ll make sure you have what you need, just bring him home.”

“I’m working on it. Bastard’s not making it easy, but at least the damn authorities haven’t picked up on the trail yet.” It was a good thing, because Bakugou didn’t need them scaring Midoriya further away.

“You’re like a dog with a bone when you put your mind to something, so I know you’ll find a way.”

“I can’t believe you just equated me to a dog!”

“Oh, bite your tongue boy! It’s an expression!”

“Yeah, yeah. I better go, the train’s here.” He could see it pulling into Kawaji station.

“Are you still not gonna tell us where you are?”

“Nope. He moves around a lot anyways. Just know we haven’t left Honshu.”

“Alright. Good luck son. I’ll pass on your update to Inko and All Might.”

This game of hide and seek was physically wearing on Bakugou, but there was nothing short of a full incapacitation that would keep him from searching. After the Ena incident, Midoriya’s tactics had changed somewhat. The man moved more frequently and, in a zigzag, whereas in the past it had been heading in a straight line towards Shizuoka to the southwest. But there was one thing Midoriya couldn’t hide— victims. It didn’t take a genius to put the pieces together.

There were still times victims were drained, but not all of them. Bakugou surmised in order to not leave them fully incapacitated like before, his friend wasn’t always waiting until he was hungry, or he hadn’t learned to control it yet. He probably fed almost nightly, picking drunkards who wouldn’t remember what happened, and even less likely to report the incident. But less reports made it harder to track, and less blood also forced Midoriya to drink more often. Bakugou hoped that with shorter times between attacks, the man would get sloppy and make a mistake.

There were a lot of small towns all over, including abandoned structures from older times. Plenty of places to hide, not to mention dense forests and the mountainous terrain of central Japan that a person could disappear in. When tracking a lack of victim reports grew frustrating, Bakugou started looking for other clues, and in one town, a perceptive police officer commented about thefts he’d been hearing about from the surrounding areas. Random stores or restaurants, even some homes reporting the theft of food, sometimes clothing, basically survival type supplies but no valuables, which are not the norm of a burglary. It was brilliant.

Bakugou had thanked the officer for the information and immediately began inquiring in towns and watching newspapers where they were having both types of problems. It took almost a month, including a couple of near misses, until Bakugou knew he was closing in.

Local newspapers were reporting about unusual happenings in the smaller towns. In Ieyama city, high up in the mountains north of Shizuoka, Bakugou spoke with a police officer and confirmed a rash of strange incidents reported. Three burglaries of just food, one bath house broken into after closing, and a couple of reported attacks where the victims had marks on their necks. So far, Izuku’s new behaviors included sticking around the same area for about a week before moving on. With these latest cases only 3 days old in total, Bakugou knew they were a fresh lead.

“Yesterday, right?”

“Yes, the last burglary was in the afternoon while the homeowner was at work.” Using a paper map, the police officer showed Bakugou the location of the most recent burglary as well as two others over the last couple of days. It was very telling. The three places were centered around a 4-block radius. “If you are looking for hiding spots, there is an abandoned factory in that area. I’ll give you the address.”

“Thanks. I doubt they’d stay so close to the attack grounds, but I’ll check it out.” He didn’t want any of them following him.

It was still daylight, but Bakugou didn’t want to waste any time and risk his friend moving again after dark, heading straight for the dilapidated warehouse. The place looked like it had been emptied for a longtime. There was a rusted, chain link fence around the property, many broken windows, and weeds growing over the structure. Bakugou crept up to one of the windows, and heard nothing, so he moved slowly, quietly around the exterior paying close attention to any sounds or movements inside. But he heard nothing to indicate anything was there, not even an animal. Maybe it was another dead end, or maybe Midoriya was just sleeping. Un-phased, he moved inside the two-story building to make absolutely sure.

It took a while to search cautiously through the darkness, watching his step so not to step on anything or make a noise. The vastly open bottom floor was almost completely empty aside from a few left behind junk. So, Bakugou moved to the second floor where offices once were. Of all the areas, the top floor would provide the warmest cover, as well as quicker access to the roof. Like a trained tactical soldier, he cleared room after room, moving down the hallway that separated the individual offices, and one by one, eliminating them from the search. Finally, Bakugou reached the last one and heard the soft breathing of a sleeping person. Well, that meant two options, it’s just a homeless person or he’d finally caught his friend off guard.

Bakugou peered cautiously around the door frame. It was dark, but just enough light from a small window allowed his eyes to adjust quickly on a form lying down on the floor. Next to the person was a backpack, empty food containers strewn around, and possibly other items from the burglaries. There was also a make-shift hearth of broken bricks and a metal bowl with dark residue inside. He could even smell the light scent of soot mixed with burnt wood. ‘Gotcha!’ He smirked as he pocketed his flashlight and pulled out a special pair of handcuffs used to dampen quirks. It didn’t completely shut down a person’s quirk, but it kept them from using its full power. He was ready for Midoriya this time.

‘Almost there…’ he crept forward in a crouched manner ready to pounce like a predator stalking its prey in careful movements since he no longer had the flashlight out to see by. ‘Damn minefield,’ Bakugou grumbled as he navigated around the strewn mess of stuff the sleeping man had around him. ‘Almost there—'

*Crunch*

A piece of glass shattered below his boot, the sounds reverberating off the silent cement walls. “Shit!” Bakugou dove forward when Midoriya immediately popped up and tried to dash away. “Not this time nerd!”

“Waaahhhcchan!” Midoriya screamed as he was tackled to the floor. The two men fought, vying for footing, but the blonde kept them on the ground. Bakugou grabbed for and slapped one end of the handcuffs onto one of Midoriya’s wrists. “Nooo!” The man screamed.

“Not this time Deku! You ain’t getting away!”

Weakened by the cuff, Bakugou poured all his strength into jerking the disheveled man, flipping him onto his stomach, and tweaking his arm behind him into a wrist lock for leverage.

Midoriya screamed again from the pain, but nevertheless fought with all he had. Unfortunately, the cuffs were doing their job. “Please, Kacchan! Don’t do this!”

“Tough shit!” Bakugou snapped back and attached the other cuff to his own wrist. The effects would hamper them both, but “I dare you, nerd, you can’t beat me in a contemporary fight.” He was confident of such, having always been the physically stronger of the two regardless of quirk. “I’m taking you home!”

Midoriya wriggled, and tugged, but it was of no use. His friend had planted his feet, dropped his weight, and refused to budge. He didn’t want to risk exhausting himself and triggering a full-blown thirst like last time, so he stopped struggling.

After a few seconds, Bakugou got off the man and turned him over so he could sit up. Midoriya nursed his arm and rubbed at his wrist to soothe the pain. “Of course, I want to go home,” he sighed. “But it’s too dangerous Kacchan, why can’t you understand that?”

“Eri’s getting better every day, one day she’ll be able to control her quirk and fix you.”

“That’s not good enough. What are you gonna do, lock me up hoping she can fix me?! You saw what happened! Just like we eat food every day, I need blood, how are you gonna deal with that?!”

“Fine,” Bakugou shrugged, “we’ll hook you up to an IV and feed you blood when you need it.”

“No,” Midoriya started tugging again as tears flowed down his cheeks. “Please,” he begged, “this is too embarrassing, don’t you understand! I’ll never be able to be a hero again, my reputation will be ruined once everyone finds out! Hero society will look bad! It’s better I stay away!”

Frustrated with having his wrist yanked, Bakugou whipped his friend around and put him in a carotid choke hold. “Well, I’m not fucking leaving,” he spat, “so, we need to come up with a solution. Now stop fucking fighting me and get it through your head, the reality is I’m not going anywhere.”

Midoriya clawed at Bakugou’s arm trying to pull it away from his neck, but the man had it cinched in tight. If he kept struggling, he was bound to pass out. Exhausted, he finally relented and turned into a dead weight, sobbing quietly. “Why are you doing this, Kacchan… why?”

“Because a friend once told me I need to save to win, and right now you need to be saved for me to win.”

“Right? Win, I get it,” Midoriya narrowed his eyes along with tone. “This is an ego thing? You’ll take me back to show how you’re still better than me?” His heart didn’t believe those words, but as a coping mechanism, it did.

Bakugou let go of the man and shoved him so hard Midoriya face planted on the floor, stretching the handcuff chain to its limit. “I ought’a punch your lights out for saying that! I’m trying to win my friend back you asshole! You think I’d spend all this time chasing you if I didn’t care?!”

“Kacchan…” The man sighed and slowly propped himself back up. “There’s nowhere safe for me to go.”

Bakugou ignored the man and looked at his watch, noting the sun would have fully set by now. It might best to stay another night while he came up with a plan. “Tch, I’ll figure something out. In the meantime, behave or I will just knock you unconscious.”

“Fine, I won’t fight. But I do need to feed tonight.” Midoriya lifted his arm to flash the cuff. “Guess you’ll have to help me.”

“Why? You feeling the urge?” Midoriya nodded yes. “How can you tell?”

Midoriya thought about the answer for a minute before responding. “It’s like feeling dehydrated, maybe, at least in the beginning, but then it starts to get painful if I don’t feed it. I guess think of it like if you don’t eat for so long your stomach hurts— that’s what it’s like.”

“Sounds like it sucks.”

Midoriya snorted. “Understatement. It takes control of my mind by that point, almost as if it’s a survival instinct to protect itself.”

“Well, mister know it all. You ever heard of this kind of quirk before?”

“No,” Midoriya shook his head.

“Do the vestiges have anything to say about all this?”

Again, Midoriya shook his head.

Bakugou groaned and ran a hand down his face. “Whatever. Doesn’t matter for the current situation.” He looked up again fixing a stare at his friend. “So, what do you do to get the blood?”

hound - ix. 

summary: As you go around the galaxy collecting your bounties, things are easier between you and Mando, but there’s some kind of uncertainty that swells about the nature of your relationship. Greef Karga calls you out on it as well.

word count: 3, 676

pairing: mandalorian x mandalorian!reader

Warnings: canon-typical violence, 

a/n: This is more of a montage sequence? If that makes sense. a/n at the bottom!

chapters: i | ii | iii | iv | v | vi | vii | viii | ix

Read this on AO3

You don’t know how long it’s been when you wake up, but this is the first time in a while that you’ve let yourself slowly get up from sleep instead of waking up disoriented, so you savor it. You had fallen asleep so fast in all your armor that your neck is sore, but you feel more alert than you have in days. It’s not just your body that feels relieved. Your mind is lighter without having your fears locked up inside you. 

The Razor Crest is no longer up in the air, and the engines are off. You sit up, stretching and groaning when your spine lets out a satisfying series of cracks and pops. 

“Sleep well?” comes Mando’s voice. His head pops up from the top of the ladder leading up to the cockpit. “You woke up just in time. We’ve landed on Atris.” He climbs down the ladder and throws you a packet of pills. You read the label. “I couldn’t find any rations, but I managed to scrounge up some vita-caps and hydration tablets,” he explains. 

“These are expensive,” you say hesitantly. Vita-caps and hydration tablets were usually for emergency situations or last-ditch efforts, not because you were too lazy to find food. He shrugs. 

“And we’re about to get paid.”

--

“I think it’s a crime that vita-caps taste so bad,” you note dryly. 

“You’re still on that?” Mando asks. After you had swallowed down your meager breakfast, you two had made quick work of getting ready and debriefing each other about the bounty. It was some old droid that had gone rogue, but had valuable information that would’ve let some people in very high places know about some behind-the-scenes romping that went on. This one was an easy job that made a decent amount of money. The conversation between you two had flowed smoothly, your good mood uplifting Mando’s. But the muggy, humid air of Atris has started to sour it.

Mando swats at a cloud of insects as he pushes past the brush, and you pull your boot from the sinking mud of the undergrowth.

“Yes, I’m still on that!” you huff. “Could you imagine that you’re starving, desperate for any kind of food, and your only option is a pill that tastes like the way coarse sand feels?” Mando groans, but it’s half-hearted and obviously for show.

“If I’m starving,” he says, “I would be grateful that I won’t die. No matter how bad it tastes.”

You scoff. “I refuse to believe that you would do that. You complain the most! Next to me, of course, but I--”

He shushes you and halts when he hears a rustle. After a moment, it rustles again, this time accompanied by the squeaking of hinges. You look at Mando, and Mando looks at you, and then you both raise your vambraces and shoot out your grappling hooks. A disgruntled, robotic shout scares birds from the treeline, and more complaints start when you two start reeling the protocol droid in. “That was very unnecessary! Honestly, bounty hunters are so rude.”

“Well, that was easy,” Mando says. He nudges the droid with his boot, distaste seeping into his tone. “We didn’t even have to get to town to find it.” 

“You don’t have to do this,” it says mildly. It doesn’t even try to resist you as you haul it up and point you electrostaff at him. 

“You’re right,” Mando responds. “We don’t.” But he slaps a pair of cuffs on him and nudges him back the way you came. You don’t think the cuffs are needed for a droid that was meant for translation and communication, but you have a hatred for droids anyways, and you take some kind of sick pleasure in watching it try to keep balance without the use of its hands as it treks through the soft earth. Mando turns to you and picks up the conversation right where you left off. “But I do agree with you that they aren’t the best tasting.”

“Thank you!”

The protocol droid is confused. 

--

“Good thing that took like, what, two hours max?” you ask him. You go through the main processor of the protocol droid and deactivate it before stuffing it in a random cabinet somewhere. It’s clunky and you hope that hadn’t crushed anything important. There was no use in wasting carbonite on him, and honestly you don’t even know if you could safely do that. “You know where that gang member is? Carluis?” Anxiety starts creeping up on you at the memory of Desdre betraying you, of Pretre drugging you up, but you stamp it down before it can creep up too far. 

“I managed to track him down,” Mando says. He scrapes the mud off his boots with his vibroblade. “Bastard isn’t even trying to lie low. Apparently, he’s taken over a small fishing village in past the asteroid belt in the Aegis Prime system.” 

“A fishing village?” you repeat. “Why? Wasn’t he some big shot spice runner for that little gang he was in?” You take off your cape and finger the frayed and fried hem, but ultimately fold it back up and place it on top of your threadbare blanket. You’ve thought about splurging and buying a cape that was fireproof, but you had decided you liked the burnt look. Made you look roguish. 

“Key word being was,” Mando grunts, switching legs to dig out mud from his other boot. “I think he’s gone crazy from withdrawals. Took it out on the nearest community.” You hum. 

“So when you say ‘taken over’--”

“He’s basically having his own little dictator moment,” he supplies. “So we get in there, cuff him, stick him in carbonite, and hopefully we’ll be on our merry way to the text target. Freeing the village is just a bonus.”

--

Things are never as easy as you wished they were. 

You and Mando had decided to be stealthy and let the village know you were there to help, but it had looked like they had seen your armor and your weapons and started screaming their heads off, ignoring how Mando had hissed reassurances, thinking that you were also coming to kill them. It also looked like Carluis had time to prepare. 

“Kriff off!” Carluis screams, and throws a spear at you that you smoothly step out of the way for, but you have to jump out of the way for the makeshift flamethrower he’s made. And now half of the village is on fire. Because the buildings were made from reeds and wood, the flames leap from hut to hut, eating up a path. Mando has been tasked with evacuating the villagers. He’s ushering people into the treeline, going into burning buildings to try and salvage the most important items, but otherwise yelling at people to leave it behind. That leaves you to deal with the maniac. At this point, he’s screaming incomprehensibly, something about prison and traitor whores.

Most of his body is covered with salvaged metal and some kind of leather, so your medshots are essentially useless unless you can get close enough to exposed skin. With the chaos going around you, you really don’t want to spread the fire any further with your own flamethrower, and people were still running around you, making it too risky to use your blaster. 

It’s been a while since you’ve gotten to use your electrostaff. 

You sling it off your shoulder and into your hands and activate it, the cold crackle of electricity making the air around you tingle as purple light joins the reflection of the fires. Carluis must recognize that you mean business when his lip curls into a snarl and aims his flamethrower at you. Before he can shoot it, you send out your grappling line, and it catches, and you sharply tug, throwing off his aim so that flame licks at the already-burnt grass at his feet. 

“Mando!” he howls, and grabs a stray spear with his free hand to cut the line. 

“Nope!” you call out, flourishing your staff. You aren’t normally one to talk during a fight, to talk at all, really, but you’re having fun. Besides, taunting him would only give you more of an advantage. “I’m the other one.” You lunge forward, the tip of your staff crackling as you sweep his feet from under him. He jabs blindly as he goes down, but it bounces off your vambrace and out of his grip. Carluis rolls away, scrambling to get up and away from you, but you’ve shocked his legs and they’re weak. You stroll after him, adrenaline pumping through your veins. He’s quick to give up, the fight leaving him as all he focuses on is surviving. He bulldozes through the random debris, but fires he’s started trap him in the center of the village.

--

Mando is done with evacuating the village, who are now hiding in a small clearing, and rushes to find you. He knows the village is done for. Whatever fuel Carluis had used wasn’t burning out fast enough, but luckily, the trees are out of their range. He follows the screaming into the village center, where you’re dancing around him as he swipes at you with a small carving blade. He’s wondering if you’re hurt, and he hopes not, but he knows your penchant for getting hurt, but you’re still agile, and if he tunes out the roaring of flames and the cursing of your bounty, he hears you giggle. You’re playing with Carluis, he realizes, and although he’s not the one to waste time and is all for efficiency, this is the first he’s seen you really enjoy yourself. So he stands back and watches. 

Mando wonders if you’ve always been like this. Toying with your prey and poking and prodding to aggravate them instead of keeping up a stoic facade to maintain professionalism as you struggle to survive. But that isn’t to say there’s no method to your game. Carluis is a big man, and that’s not including his defensive gear, all hard muscle and protective fat, and he’s got a good foot on you. Even for Mando, dragging him back to the ship would be a difficult feat. You’re tiring him out, using his size to your advantage as you force him to move to keep up, shocking him once in a while to make sure he doesn’t just give up and start running. Eventually, you dig your staff into his side, shocking him for a good three seconds before he falls, limbs shaking. 

You hold the staff under his chin, dangerously close as a warning, and kick the flamethrower far out of his reach. You scan him for any more weapons. Mando walks up behind you and throws a pair of cuffs at him. 

“Cuff yourself,” he says, and then to you, “Good hunting.” Carluis scowls, but puts on the cuffs anyways, and you haul him to his feet. “But refrain from playing with your food, hm?”

--

Although Carluis had put up a fight again when you forced him into the carbonite chamber, you had tased him just as Mando had pressed the button, willing him into submission for long enough to freeze him. It’s so much easier to work with someone else, especially when you work well with Mando. 

“Next stop?” you ask him. When you turn to look, his hand is halfway in the air like he was grabbing for something or reaching for you. You look behind you to see what he might’ve been aiming for. “What are you--”

“Sorry,” Mando says, “there’s, um, well--” He drops his hand and it swings by his side. He’s flustered and it’s cute how he’s stumbling over his words. “You had, um, ash. On your helmet.” He motions to your head. “Like right, um.” You awkwardly swipe at your helmet. “No, let me- let me just…” You tense up as Mando wipes it off of your helmet.

“Uh. Thanks.” You stare at each for a second before Mando turns away and goes up the ladder. 

“We’re going to Ajan Kloss!” he calls down. 

Ah that’s right. You have four more bounties to get. 

--

It’s almost laughable how easily you and Mando were good at not talking about things. But you are too preoccupied with trying to ignore how the humidity of the jungle moon was making you sweat to ask him what the kriff happened back on the ship.

“I hate the jungle,” Mando finally complains. “It’s too humid, and there are bugs everywhere.”

“So you admit it,” you grunt out. You swear that a fern or something had just moved on its own, but you’re too busy trying to discreetly wipe away the sweat around your neck. This was such a downside to the Mandalorian life. Why did bounties always go somewhere awful? Couldn’t they go somewhere nice and preferably climate-controlled? Is that too much to ask? It’s always too hot or too cold or not enough air or, Maker save you, lava.

“That I hate the heat? Yes.”

“No. That you complain a lot.” Mando swats at you, and you laugh. Conversation flows so easy between you now, the back and forth banter natural and easy. When you go to retaliate, he’s suddenly gone, your hand going through air where had attempted to playfully jab him. “What the--” Mando’s yelling catches your attention. He’s being dragged away, some vines wrapped around his legs as he claws for purchase, branches snapping.  

“Mando!” You immediately chase after him, pulling out your staff as you struggle to keep up. Whatever this plant was, it seemed to have tracked you for a while, the vines slithering back the way you came. You speed up, staff crackling, as you jab it towards the thickest vine. An awful squeal pierces the air, but it lets Mando go and goes up some tree. You catch bend over to catch your breath as Mando groans and flips himself on his back. You stifle a laugh. He’s covered in dirt and grass and what you hope is mud, but you did see a large animal some ways back. 

“I’m okay,” he grumbles. “Thanks for asking.” Mando gets up and tries his best to clean himself up, but he just ends up smearing it around. You tuck your staff away, and use the end of your cape to wipe off his visor so that at least he can see. Before you can think about it, you affectionately pat his helmet before you once again being your trek to the last known location of your bounty.

Luckily the bounty, a female Ootoolan, was half-starved and came without any issue, although the heat ended up being too much for her, so you hauled her over your shoulder back to the Razor Crest. On your way there, however, another figure jumped out of the brush, waving a crude sword and babbling in some alien language and pointing to the figure on your shoulder. When you squint, you recognize him as the Devronian that was also, conveniently, part of your list of bounties. You shoot two medshots at him, accounting for weight and height, and he goes down quickly.

The look you give Mando clearly says that you expect him to carry him. 

Four down, two more to go. 

--

It’s almost suspicious how easy it was to get all of your bounties, even the other pair that was trying to outrun the Razor Crest on foot, that even Mando is a little on guard. But you aren’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth, so you just attribute it to a stroke of good luck and move on. It’s not until Mando lands down on Nevarro that he finally relaxes. They’re quick to start unloading all of the carbonite slabs off of the ship and the singular droid as you and Mando enter the cantina. Greef Karga greets you warmly.

“Mando and his Hound!” he boasts. “You’ve made quick work! I’m impressed.” Your eye twitches when he refers to you as Mando’s, but you stay silent and slide into the booth, throwing the tracking fobs onto the table. Mando sits next to you, and although he sits a respectful distance from you, his knee leans against yours hesitantly, waiting for you to pull away, but instead you press back. People are whispering about you again, glaring at you in distaste. Probably because you two had taken most of the pucks. 

“Easy,” Mando says smoothly. “Almost suspiciously so.” Karga laughs. 

“Of course it was easy!” he says, fake surprise lacing his tone. He leans in close. “Two Mandalorians? Especially of your caliber and reputation? It’s no wonder it was easy.” He slaps the table. 

“Our payment?” Mando asks. Karga digs into his pockets and pulls out credits, counting them out and sliding it over to you. Mando takes them and tucks them into his bag, intent on counting them out later away from Karga’s eyes. You watch with furrowed eyebrows as Mando moves to leave. 

“Aren’t you going to ask for more bounties?” Karga asks, speaking your mind. “I’ve got plenty that I’m sure will catch your eye.” Mando shakes his head. “Don’t tell me you’re leaving the guild?”

“I’m not,” Mando says stiffly. “And before you ask, neither is Dog.” Maybe you’re destined to always be confused whenever you’re in the same room as Greef Karga because Mando definitely did not talk to you about this. As far as you were concerned, you thought that you would continue the same song and dance of chasing bounty after bounty until one of you bit the dust or Mando got tired of keeping you around. Karga stares at Mando, then you, then back at Mando with an unreadable expression. 

“Vacation, Mando?” he asks. Mando tenses. 

“Just a break,” he corrects stiffly. “No questions, remember? C’mon, Dog.” You slide out of the booth with one last look at Greef Karga. 

“Attachments are dangerous, Mando,” Greef Karga warns cooly. “Especially in this line of work. Don’t compromise yourself.” Attachments? What was he talking about? But Mando leaves before you can give him a questioning look, and you have no choice but to follow after him. 

When you get to the ship, you finally speak up, “Why didn’t we take any pucks?” you ask quietly. Mando hands you your share of the credits as he talks. You tuck them away without counting. You trust Mando to give you a fair share.

“I told you, we need to pick up some supplies and get some more stuff before we go out--”

“That’s what you told Karga,” you interrupt. “We aren’t low on anything. Sure, we can refuel and get more supplies, but we usually take pucks anyways.” You cross your arms and stand in his way so that he can’t move past you. “Is it that attachment he mentioned? If you have, like, a secret family that I don’t know about, that’s fine and all, but just don’t lie to me--”

“No, it’s not that. What are you-- Why would I even have a secret family? I don’t--” Mando cuts himself off with a sigh and puts his hands on his belt and leans against the wall of the Razor Crest. “It’s just… We’ve been working non-stop,” he says carefully. He’s thinking about his words. “And while I wouldn’t mind taking on more bounties, I’ve never worked with another hunter this long before.” You tilt your head and motion for him to continue. “So I thought- What I’m trying to say is that I think- Well, actually maybe I should’ve asked you about this--” You spare him. 

“You want to take a vacation,” you say for him. You shrug. “That’s fine.” Mando watches you as you start gathering your stuff and folding it to put into your bag later. “You should’ve just told me.” You start making a list in your head. You’ve been sharing rations with Mando, but you were out, so that means that you need to get more with the money you got from the bounties, you can afford to get some more and maybe catch a ship out of Nevarro back to your usual Guild hideout. Or maybe Mando would be nice enough to drop you off. You hope that the good parts of the rumors that’s been circulating about you have reached there by now. That would help with work. “Would it be possible for you to drop me off on in the Yavin system?” you ask him. 

“What?”

“Yeah, I don’t have a ship, so I was wondering if--”

“Where are you going?” You blink up at him. 

“Um, you said you wanted a break, right? So I’m… leaving?” Mando stays silent, and you start to get flustered. “Um, it’s okay, I’m sure I can get a--”

“No! That’s not what I meant,” Mando says, laughing nervously, but he gathers himself and clears his throat. 

You bristle. “Well if you think I’m just going to wait here for you to get back, you’ve got another thing coming--”

“I want you to come with me,” Mando finally explains, and you nearly drop your bag. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” he starts. “But I was thinking about how, uh, hard you work and, um,” he’s losing steam as he keeps talking. “I guess I forgot to ask if you even wanted to come with, but I actually do need to get some supplies for the ship, and I thought it’d be nice if, you know, uh, came with and, wow okay I did not think this through--”

“Okay.”

“What?” You drop your bag back on your cot. 

“Okay,” you repeated.

“‘Okay’ as in I did not think this through or--”

“‘Okay’,” you stress, “as in I’ll come with you. But also yes, you did not think this through.” You smile, and you know Mando is too. You’ll forgive him this time. Besides, you like it when he rambles. 

Maker knows he rambles on enough for the both of you. 

--

a/n: I know this chapter was a little boring in terms of plot, but I took this chapter as a time to really develop their growing relationship a little further in an almost mundane way because let’s face it, taking care of each other’s wounds? Carrying them through the streets while they’re unconscious? That’s like. Tier 5 in terms of relationships I’m pretty sure, and they skipped all of that so…. 

--

Hound Tag List: @knockbeforeyouspeak​​ @gothtechie​ @killtherandomness​  @cyraris​ @lustriix​ @softspacecowboys 

FRANCESCA ZABINI really is the spitting image of CHINA ANNE MCCLAIN, right? For someone only 20 years old, FRANKIE has been forced to endure so much. Yeah, that PUREBLOOD has been scraping by at the sanctuary since OCTOBER, 2028, working as a SUPPLY/WEAPONS RUNNER in the DIVISION OF FORAGE. SHE is a CIS WOMAN and is known to be SNEAKY and DISHONEST but also INVENTIVE and STRATEGIC. Best of luck surviving through this.

CHARACTER PARALLELS: debbie ocean (ocean’s 8), lou (ocean’s 8), amethyst (steven universe), mundungus fletcher (harry potter), veronica rawlings (widows), anatole kuragin (natasha, pierre, and the great comet of 1812), edmund pevensie (the chronicles of narnia).

i. a comprehensive list of things that frankie zabini is NOT here for: 

your shit

ii. francesca learned pretty early on that she wasn’t like her siblings — not brilliant like nadia, not dependable and “eldest boy” (which she swears is a personality trait) like elijah. amalia zabini, her grandmother, the woman she credits with raising her (because blaise wouldn’t? couldn’t? frankie stopped asking that question a long time ago) once took her by the chin, looked her in the eyes, and said, “despite everything, i think you’ll make a fine slytherin.”

iii. for the most part, she was! she didn’t do too badly in school, but she didn’t wow any professors either. instead, she realized a few things growing up: for one, she’s sneaky. or sly or cunning as the sorting hat terms it — frankie calls it sneaky. this is where being ordinary comes in handy; no one noticed her copying a classmate’s answers, lurking in corridors past curfew, slipping bracelets off of too-thin wrists. francesca knows she shouldn’t do any of those things, but she’s so good at it, and it would make her sad to waste her talents. she never tells her siblings, though. 

iv. the second thing she realizes is this: she doesn’t mind non-slytherins. or muggleborns. she makes friends and enemies across the houses and blood types and quickly becomes frankie rather than francesca zabini -- and she likes that. 

v. frankie quickly went from taking other people’s things to taking money, artifacts -- but she’s smart about it. she knows how to go unnoticed and when not to risk her cover; she’s fleecing first-and-second-years by selling stolen sweets and goods from hogsmede.

vi. the more she steals, the more her family takes notice, especially after she finishes at hogwarts and never seems to have a job. it strains her already difficult relationship with nadia and blaise especially, and she finds herself wanting to leave the uk more and more as time passes. 

vii. after a particularly vicious blowout with blaise in january 2027, frankie turned to international cons and crime to satiate her fix for risky behavior and give her an excuse to not come home. she forges qualifications to work on luxury yachts in the mediterranean in the muggle world as a stewardess, slipping into their rooms, stealing their finery and leaving behind magical duplicates that disappear into nothingness after they’ve been home for a few days already; she makes friends with muggle cons and sells these goods through shady channels. all in all, things are going well. 

viii. until they aren’t. part of the reason frankie doesn’t go home as soon as she learns of the outbreak is reluctance to face her family again, part of it is because being on the ocean off the coast of greece feels so far away from these inferi. there’s time spent in muggle jail after a ‘business partner’ sells her out, a snapped wand — now, frankie has arrived at hogwarts expecting a very angry family...or whatever is left of it. (DEATH TW, note: frankie doesn’t know her brother is dead yet! see nadia’s intro for more on that harrowing tale lmao). 

---

hello! i think in my original app i had frankie arriving at hogwarts in august, but that was back when the RP was set at that time! she has only been there for a few days and still getting the hang of looking out for others; no use in stealing when the economy collapses! frankie is still new to me and i’m working out some ideas, but i’m really excited to develop her! thanks to everyone for their patience in this trying time lmao! her stats are coming soon. 

We Went to Canada to See A Lot of Water

After driving through what seemed an endless route to the north pole, my boyfriend and I were crossing Lake Erie and heading across the border into Canada towards Niagara Falls. 

Traveling there wasn’t as bad as I’m letting it off to be, but being in a car for six hours definitely put a toll on my childlike soul. I spent almost an hour of the ride harassing my boyfriend by wearing his sunglasses and being ridiculous, which I now realize was a lot funnier in person than written out. 

If there’s anything I can tell you about taking a road trip, it’s very simple: Pack Snacks. 

Had my boyfriend’s mother not supplied us with a sandwich bag crammed with two breakfast bars, a nutty butty, and two bags of popcorn, I would have perished. We made the mistake not to stop when we saw food, and when I say food, I mean the shady gas stations along side the highway to nowhere. This was the best option because after so far along when we were actually hungry there was NO WHERE to eat until we got into Buffalo. At that point it made no sense to travel into buffalo when we could just wait until we got into Canada. 

Starving, we hurried along to our hotel and then quickly settled to eat at the Apple Bee’s right down the street from our hotel. Had we not been so hungry, I’m sure we wouldn’t have settled for the most American option. However, as my boyfriend said, it was easier knowing we were going to a place where we knew we would enjoy the food.

BUT.

To my horror upon looking at the menu: Canada’s Apple Bee’s DOES NOT SERVE BONELESS WINGS. I am an expert when it comes to American Apple Bee’s because if there was one close to my house I would eat there every day. The menu at the Canadian one was, to my surprise, much smaller. They didn’t even offer two for $25. 

Another thing I picked up on quickly was how expensive everything was. Even with the conversion I ended up spending double my anticipated amount just from eating and sightseeing. The only free part of the trip was seeing the Falls themselves. My boyfriend even had to pay to park his car for the weekend. 

Anyways, after paying what seemed like a million dollars for a meal at the facade that they called Apple Bee’s, we headed down to the Falls for the first time in the dark. In order to get there you had to walk down this steep hill (which continuously killed me when we hiked back up it) and walk under this bridge that still had been decorated for Christmas. The whole city was still decorated for Christmas which was nice considering our trip was a “Christmas” trip. 

Once you got so far down the hill there was a picture view of what I believed to be the only Falls. You see, there are two waterfalls in this area: The American side and the Canadian side. In my head the two falls were facing their claimed countries, but it turns out they were both facing the Canadian side. 

So I was staring at the American side, lit up by colorful lights, and thinking that this was the big sight to see. To be honest, I hadn’t even realized what I was looking at until my boyfriend said that the Falls were straight ahead. They, especially in the night, looked like projections of water. It was unreal. 

And then I saw the Canadian side, or the Horseshoe Falls. Which, again, looked like a large projections. My eyes could almost not adjust to what I was seeing because it was so unbelievable. 

After the magic of the falls and being showered in positive ions, my boyfriend and I headed back to our hotel. Below is a list of things we discovered about our hotel:

1. You cannot use bath bombs in the hotel tub or else they will charge you $350.00

2. Channel 4 is the fireplace channel

3. The vending machines only take dollar coins, HOWEVER, the dollar coins they have set out for you are a three dollar charge. 

4. The pillows were garbage. 

5. Hotel IHop was delicious but I paid 13.00 dollars for a meal I get at Denny’s for 4 dollars. 

6. The curtains that would make sense to be able to move DO NOT move.

7. The elevator will smell like weed.

8. The hotel gift shops snacks are very pricey. We lucked out after I spotted a general store directly across from our hotel and got snacks for a little bit cheaper. It was a good business, still selling stuff obnoxiously priced but not as pricey as the hotel. 

Our second day we went behind the waterfalls, and climbed over to Clifton Hill in search for something to do. We ended up at a glow in the dark indoor mini-golf course. It was a good way to waste some time and I think was worth the admission price. I was worried it was going to be crowded but everyone was good about waiting their turn which made it a cool experience.

That night, however, my boyfriend took me to the casino.The casino was really dazzling to the eye, but once you looked past the fancy decor and colorful flooring, it was scary how hypnotized some people were. I watched people who looked like their lives had been sucked out of them from hitting a button and betting away a lot more money than one should to a computerized slot machine. I had never been to a casino because in America I’m not old enough, but here all I had to do was show two forms of I.D. and I was stamped and sent on my way.

I ended up not gambling because it was a weird concept to me, but my boyfriend did. He was laughing and carrying on and all the older people were giving us dirty looks. It was fun to watch him, but now I fear he’s hooked (not really, I just like to give him a hard time).

The best part of the casino was the buffet. It was beautiful inside, the food was all very good, and it was one of the cheaper meals we had. We ended up eating there twice because of this, so I strongly recommend that if you are in a touristy area where food is expensive, look for that casino buffet. 

On Sunday, we explored a wax museum. It was the worst idea I’ve ever had. Like, I’m ashamed to admit that I was the one that suggested it. The museum was about the size of a house, but laid out in a way that made it seem larger. In order to appear this way, each room was sectioned off by doors rather than archways. At one point I felt overwhelmingly claustrophobic because we were in a small room with about five different figures. The figures themselves looked to be completely real or like creepy dolls -- there was no in-between. I thought this uneasy feeling of being scared that one of them was going to come to life was just me and my overactive imagination, but once leaving I found out that my boyfriend was also pretty spooked about the whole experience.

So to calm down we went and sampled beers. The servers never carded us or looked at us strangely, which made me uneasy as well but also reassured that I wasn’t being illegal. My boyfriend and I argued for which beer was best, but to be honest I don’t really care for beer at all. 

Speaking of servers and overall employees, they will never be paid enough to deal with rude tourists. I watched numerous encounters where tourists were being unreasonably rude to staff members and if there’s any advice I can give you about traveling: be nice to the workers and they will usually give you a nice experience. It’s the famous “treat others the way you would like to be treated.”

When Monday morning came, we headed back to the States and I took a well needed nap while my boyfriend played Smash Brothers to make up for his lost gaming time.

Overall, Niagara Falls was beautiful. I assumed that because of winter there wouldn’t be as many people, but it was pretty crowded over the weekend. However, we never ate a bad meal or experienced anything negative (other than the spooky wax museum but we have erased that from our memory). My only regret is that we didn’t explore as much as we should have. It was very easy to do things that we were familiar with instead of taking risks. My prime example of this was the Apple Bee’s, and although the buffet was amazing, next time I would enjoy to explore what Canada’s menu has to offer, food and experience wise. The most exploring we did was nearby, and we typically stayed close to what was familiar to us. The farthest we went was to a Hershey Chocolate World only to discover that it didn’t have the Hershey Factory Tour ride that our beloved Hershey Park has. In the long run however, we did a substantial amount of walking around and had a very relaxing trip.

To summarize: pack snacks, have a lot of spending money, and enjoy the view because it was the best part. 

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Cornwall: don't bother

For the first time, this year we went to Cornwall on holiday. Actually, my holiday hasn't even finished yet, but I'm confident that there is nothing that can happen in the remaining few days that could possibly redeem this holiday from hell.

I was never that emanoured about going to this rugged, southwesterly penisula to start with. Mostly because I would have much rather gone abroad. I don't go abroad every year, and I don't expect two, but after a few years, it would have been nice.

However, I had always been told how Cornwall was a beautiful place, and some of its beaches could rival those of the Mediterannean. And so, with some cautious optimism, I loaded into the car with my family at 5am that crisp late July morning, ready to go on what may have possibly been the longest car journey of my life.

And it was one hell of a trip.

We traversed our way through southern England with relative ease. We encountered the expected, inevitable congestion in Wiltshire on the A303 just by Stonehenge, a long known bottleneck. Heading west, we ended up getting directed through some anonymous market town, for reasons I don't quite know. Anyway, back onto the A30, or whatever road it was. It wasn't long before we reached the outskirts of Exeter, and stopped off at the services there, before getting onto the M5. We then got lost (again), being directed in a literal circle for about an hour, before we gave up, and decided to brave the traffic on the A38. 8 hours later, and we had arrived in St Issey, a small village near Wadebridge and Padstow, on the northern coast of cornwall.

Our residence for the week was surprisingly pleasant; the ground floor of a two storey home. It was well equipped with all sorts of amenities, including milk, biscuits, soap, and a very large map of Cornwall. All seemed to be well.

We ended up in a pub not too far away, which was also very pleasant. I had fish and chips (is it really a British coastal holiday if you don't have this culinary delight?). It was nice, but it was severely impeded by the lack of Heinz ketchup. The only restaraunt I have known not to have it. It had Hellmans, which I didn't even bother touching. There's no excuse for no Heinz.

We got back to the accomodation, and it was here where the problems started.

The people upstairs.

The noise was ridiculous.

It wasn't like they were blaring out music or anything like that. It was just constant, constant, noise. Mostly them moving, even jumping, on the floor. They woke my parents up at 3AM, and then woke me up at 7AM. To say I was not amused would be an understatement. This was further reinforced by the fact I had to sleep on the floor of the lounge, because the shared room with my brother was too hot, and the bed was too short. I'm 6 foot 3, and so this isn't really the fault of the owners of the place, as most people do not have my stature.

Anyway, life goes on. We went to Padstow (colloquially known as Padstein, no doubt to the ire of the locals, oweing to the large presence of Rick Stein's restaraunts (a British celebrity chef). I later read that one of these restaraunts had been firebombed a few years back by the so called Cornish Republican Army (CRA), an IRA knock-off, and after the attack they even stated they had a female suicide bomber in their ranks. Nice stuff. Padstow, however, was not nice. It was boring, filled with tourists, and overpriced ice cream and beverages. Most food places were closed, owing to a lack of staff amidst the "pingdemic". So we stayed there for, what, an hour? Before we headed back to the accomodation, got some lunch, and then went to the beach at Harlyn Bay. It was okay. The Cornish Climate, however, is not okay, and it's very misleading when you read that Cornwall is the "warmest place in the UK" and that parts of it have a "subtropical" climate. Despite the palm trees, the tempreatures say otherwise, with highs of 17C-19C when we were there, and to top of it off, cloud, cloud, and rain. So lovely beaches, but no lovely weather that would enable one to actually enjoy them. I've holidayed on the East Anglian coast before, which has much better weather, in the summer anyway.

Back to the house we went. We had dinner there this time, before going to the pub for drinks. Which we got lost on the way too, because Google Maps once again, got us totally fucking lost. Taking us round in circles, miles out of our way, for reasons unknown. We did end up there, and attempted to play poker with my totally inept family, a game I had recently discovered. Back to the house. And it was clear, that when we got back, we would be severely disturbed by the happenings upstairs. Constant banging, crashing, and God know's what. I was angry, probably made worse by the couple of Southern Comforts I had back at the local pub. "WILL THEY SHUT UP?" I fumed. After much persuading, by 11PM, I had managed to convince my dad to have a word with our noisy neighbours. They reassured him that they would be quiet. Not that it did much avail. I was in need of sleep, and was being deprived of it by the morons upstairs. They woke up at six fucking AM the next morning, which is taking the actual piss. Excuse me for these profanities, but I have no other way of expressing my rage at this situation. It turns out they were going to a wedding. I couldn't care if it was the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, you show some respect to the people downstairs! That day, we decided to go to Newquay.

Waste of a day.

It took us a good while to get there, mostly because of traffic approaching the car parks. We eventually found a car park, located at the top of a hill. As someone from flat East Anglia, hills are a foreign concept to me, and I resent the fact that every Cornish settlement seems to have one. We reached the town centre, and bought pasties, and I have to say, it wasn't that nice. I can't see what the fuss is about. A glorified meat pie, and the vegetables and potatoes in it weren't very nice. It was also so hot that it effectively scolded my throat. Anyway, we eventually reached the seafront, and it looked and felt just like every other shitty British seaside town. Run down, full of red faced, size XXXXL tourists from god only knows where, and reeking of greasy, oil soaked chips flooding in ketchup. We ended up in the local Wetherspoons, accustomary of any trip in my family. Given that it had run out of half of its food menu, I ordered a burger, despite planning to have one that evening. After struggling to pay for it owing to the appalling phone signal, I waited patiently fo my meal to arrive.

I waited.

And I waited some more.

And then I waited so long, I decided that something, something had gone wrong, and did the next best thing: go to the bar and complain.

"All orders are a 45 minute wait. Yours will be about 20-25 minutes" the youthful looking bartender told me. Great. Fucking great. Why had no one told me about this? I demanded a refund, resigning myself to the fact that lunch, was no more. She brought over her manager, who then informed me that my order would only be another five minutes, but I had had enough, and just asked kindly for my money back, to which she obliged. The staff then had the cheek to tell me off for eating a rather delicous Chocolate Orange brownie at the table because it had not been purchased on the premises. Forgive me, I was only a little peckish after waiting half a bloody hour for food that never turned up!

We finally made it to the beach, but we didn't stay long. We ended up in Aldi, to buy some more supplies for back home. We reached the checkouts, and made our way through the queue. As we were about to pay for our shopping, the shopping asisstant, declaring that "someone else would take over", brazenly got up from her seat, and defected from her position, leaving a queue of angry and frustrated customers without anyone to process their items, and no one to provide an explanation as to why this had occured. I had worked in a supermarket for a short period of time, and I knew full well you just don't leave a massive queue of customers queuing, even if you do have your break. "Pal, what's going on?" I asked who I presumed to be the manager. Eventually, another woman hurried over to relief her colleague. Finally, we made it out of Aldi. Then we had to trek the absolutely massive hill back to the car park, the steepest hill I have ever climbed in my life, I'll have you know. And as hills go, this one is steep. Really steep. Luckily for me, hours spent in the gym made it look easy, even with lots of shopping. More than can be said for my companions, who appeared to struggle.

We went back home, well, not home home, but our residence for the week. Dinner was good; the burgers I had made a few weeks back were cooked by mum. I had two, and was rather full. I actually managed to get a good night's sleep, oweing to the fact the people upstairs seemed to have quitened down having heeded my dad's complaint, or, were out.

We woke up the next morning, planning to go to St Ives, about an hour's drive west. However, Google Maps then told us it would in fact be an hour and a half, and so a period of confusion and deliberation ensued. Could it be done? Should it be done? Should we just not go to Padstow for a second time? Harlyn Bay (again) anyone? Fuck it, we were going to St Ives. And it took forever to get there. An eternity. 2 hours from home would have got me to Norwich, a city about 80 miles away. 2 hours in Cornwall got you about 45 miles away, at the other end of the county. In the end, it took even longer than 2 hours. Driving in Cornwall is a bit like driving in a third world country. You know. Those winding dirt tracks in India that go up ridiculously steep hills, the kind of hills with dirt tracks on them that you end up reading in the news, because of some godforsaken accident where a bus with about three hundred people ends up falling off, killing everyone in some impoverished Indian state. We ended up on one, and there was a long period of congestion, where a van on the other side of the road could not pass. Some rather hair raising moments on that journey. After a long time, we ended up in St Ives, but our troubles had only just begun, as an electronic sign politely informed us that all the car parks were full. Not that my dad, driving, listened, as he proceedd to queue in a car park, that was a glorified playing field, to no avail. We ended up in another glorified playing field, the local Rugby field, to which we were able to park in, before my mum had to queue twenty minutes for the toilet. I'm pretty sure at least five people were probably infectious with COVID there given the latest figures suggest 1 in 50 have it. We walked down another steep hill, in fact, not just one steep hill, several, as we arrived at the seafront. I can't lie, it did look stunning.

And then we ended up at the next section of seafront, and it was so very, very packed. It looked like half the country were there.

We tried to find somewhere to eat. There was this bar and pizza place, but it said you had to be 18 or over to get in. We decided to chance it with my brother, who is 16, and found a table, but the floor beneath it was covered with water, and it stunk. So we quickly left, and found a sandwich place. Of course, they didn't have what my mum and dad wanted. We sat down at a table, next to some bins, and ate, as hundreds of people passed us, along with cars, vans, trucks and minibuses at 30 second intervals, slowly edging their way through the crowds of tourists, like the parting of the Red Sea.

And that was it.

Our day in St Ives was all but over.

We got the bus back up the hill (which was filled with people, and was driven by a man who had the worst BO I've ever smelt). Then we got in the car, and went home.

We had a few hours before dinner at the local pub which wasn't even a minute away. Mum had washed her hair and dressed up, and dad had also made an effort. I didn't, and neither did my brother, which was just as well, because as we went in to confirm our booking, the waitress gave us a blank stare when we gave the name the order is in. She tried again, looking on her computer - no avail. It turns out, after showing her the booking email, we had booked at another pub of the same name - a 15 minute drive away. As if this day, and holiday, couldn't get any worse! We went back home, and did our best ot research other places, but every pub and restaraunt in the vicinity appeared to be fully booked. So were many of the take-aways. Dad and brother eventually set off for Padstow, where they returned within around half an hour or so with fish and chips, and so for the second time in a week, I found myself tucking into this very British dish, but one that was quickly getting very boring.

To make matters worse, the people upstairs returned from a short self imposed exile, and as of writing, the noise is still there. To say I am frustrated barely begins to cover my feelings towards this holiday. I will update this when I am finished, but I doubt things will improve, in fact I am almost confident things will get worse. My advice: avoid Cornwall at all costs. It's overpriced, the weather is crap, the phone signal is crap, there are too many tourist traps, and it takes ages to get to the Cornish border from just about anywhere in the UK, never mind getting to places within Cornwall! My advice if you can't go abroad this year, you're in the UK and you're considering Cornwall? Think again. Save yourself money, time, and a lot of pain, and just stay at home. You'll thank me later.

AKA Insult The Audience and Characters While Wasting Time

http://delvindeep.tumblr.com/post/164570714739/ive-been-thinking-about-the-world-of-remnant

i’ve been thinking about the world of remnant series and how they could have implemented that worldbuilding into the series proper. here’s a few ideas

Which are all just the same version of “one guy asks another guy for exposition” same as literally every other show in existence which WOR is able to subvert and avoid the pitfalls of the ordinary exposition.

dust: the story literally opens in a dust shop. show ruby buying some, having a chat with the shop owner. “is this for raw use, miss, or ammunition?” “yeah, it’s for my baby.” “your baby?” “the scythe” etc. if you actually need us to know the history of its use and how humanity doesn’t know where it came from, give it to us in one of port’s lectures. we don’t have to hear the whole thing; just a couple of key lines, then it fades into background noise as jaune starts hitting on weiss again or some shit because that’s apparently more important than establishing your lore

Except why would Port or anyone be teaching them such basic elements of dust when they are already in an advanced school for this sort of thing and thus would have already had this drilled into their skulls years ago? That’s insulting to the characters for thinking hey are that stupid and insulting to the audience for believing we wouldn’t catch onto that. Also, i guess you’re fine with a shit ton of flaws in the animation since they had to waste time getting lines for the teachers and the students as well as animating all of that. Unless you want to nix a fight scene or a plot point because RWBY is already stretched for time as it is.

kingdoms: did we even need this one? the show already tells us there are four kingdoms called atlas, mistral, vacuo and vale, that atlas is militaristic, that huntsmen academies train huntsmen (no shit) and that life outside the borders is dangerous. see, they know how to do it already!

Except we don’t know WHY Atlas is built that way, we know nothing about Mistral Vale of Vacuo, we don’t know why their actions of treating Huntsmen like soldiers is so looked down upon and why peopel are so on edge with them. That excludes a lot of the tiny details that really enrich the lore such as Atlas having risen up from the snow to become the new captial of the Kingdom or how Vacuo has a different morality than the other two kingdoms due to the harshness of their area. COngrats, you wasted time and money for a much worse, more boring, more drap version of what we already got.

grimm: instead of starting with the dust shop scene, start with some redshirt nomads. one complains that he doesn’t feel safe travelling at night, another makes fun of him, they start arguing, someone else steps in and tells them to shut up because fear and anger will draw the grimm, which it does. if it’s important to know that they don’t attack animals, show some animals, which the grimm ignore after killing all the humans. the shit about older grimm getting smarter is already in the show, the shit about them evaporating when they die is in the show, and the shit it being impossible to keep them captive is contradicted by the show

Okay then, fork over about a thousand dollars to cover the cost of the voice acting and animation. or better yet, do it yourself so that the CRWBY don’t have to stretch themselves out even further. Oh, and listen as the fans complain on and on about there being no new episodes or anything because there is no WOR to tide them over, thus weakening their suspension of disbelief, thus forcing you to maker more detailed lore, thus more time, more gaps, more annoyance and so on until the show is dead.

aura: this is all in the show already. pyrrha gives jaune a hamfisted exposition dump about aura that he shouldn’t need.

Except what exactly it is, what it does, what Sembelnces are, the types of Sembelnces asd well as build up for Salem.

vytal festival: work the origins of the festival into ozpin’s speech instead of that stupid attempt at explaining the colour names

The listen as people bitch on and on about the color names as well as the info they will inevitably forget about since that means they’ll get it a whole yera before needed. Also, that takes longer so cough up more money or time or have a shitter product.

huntsmen: nothing of substance here that we didn’t already know

Except that Huntsmen aren’t the noible heroes that we see which helps ease people into the tonal shift of Volume 3 as well as humanizing the product.

ccts: look, let’s be honest. the only reason this is here is to explain why cinder’s plan is going to work. like, was there even the slightest question about what was going to happen when they ended the episode with “if one tower goes down then they all do”

the point is, it shouldn’t be so difficult to hint at what the villain is up to that you have to shove it into a side series. just stop having your villain be vague as fuck about everything for the sake of cultivating mystique

Then spend an entire season having the villain detail every single step of their plan with the complexities and all the twists and see if there are still people around. Also, that doesn’t explain why the CCT is so important so you still have to do that so fork over more money or time.

four maidens: this is more of a standalone short than supplemental infodumping, so i dunno if it should count. not that it would matter anyway because the maidens subplot already comes out of fucking nowhere

So9 impliment it into the story which already has fast pace for no reason, kill the pacing and the mood as well as remove the story book element about them. Also, personally work on the series to make up for the week of time they lost because there is nothing there to fill the gap, fork over the money to cover up the removal or personally take responsibility for it.

vale: mostly boring geographical waffle that is unlikely to ever be important. no elegant way to work it into the show, but on the other hand, you don’t need to

Thus the world feels flatter and emptier with no explanation for what happened when teh series gave the tone of doing so, thus losing audience interest and something that made the series unique.

the other kingdoms: we know everyone’s headed to mistral. presumably they’ll be spending some time there. show us the culture when they arrive. are we ever gonna visit the other two? if so, do the same for them. if not, it doesn’t matter much

Wow, you must have some deep pockets or as much free time as possible to be willing to foot the bill for all of this new footage and audio and voice lines and brainstorming and editing that this would all entail. Surely you wouldn’t ask a studio to bankrupt themselves just to do stuff you’d never ask of any other show right?

between kingdoms: it’s in the show! grimm running wild outside the kingdoms is in the show! bandit attacks are in the show! grimm moving in afterwards is in the show! it’s all there already!

Except the specifics of the grimm attacks, why people move outside pof the kingdoms, why there are bandits, how they get supplies and their interactions with the Grimm.

faunus: you know when oobleck is talking about the faunus war? you know when he stops for a minute to ask if any faunus have been discriminated against, and velvet raises her hand, and he’s like “oh, that sucks. anyway, back to what i was talking about”? you know how that part was a total waste of time? cut it. talk some more about the origin of the human-faunus conflict before everyone starts going on about night vision. you could even work some development for blake in there. oobleck asks if anyone knows how and when faunus exploitation began, and blake gives a long, bitter, opinionated answer

Ah yes, because one minute of dialogue to segway into a plotline can  be cut out and around ten minutes of exposition about fanaus history, biology and interactions with the humans can be shoved into that space. Except no, it can’t be so that’s more money and/or time you must be willing to give up to add in what no one asked for. As well as teh all teh angry fans who will yell at you for thinking they were stupid enough to think the characters didn’t know that as well as making all the characters into people with the memory of a fruit fly.

schnee dust company: i feel like this could have been a character moment for weiss. she probably never met nicholas. the only sdc she’s lived with is the one run by jacques. finding out that it was once an honest business run by a good, brave man could be a big turning point for her. “i want to be out there overseeing expeditions like granddad did. i want to change this company back to what it was.” and bam. now being a hunter isn’t just about annoying daddy anymore

Except that why she would even fight against her father in the first place, why she would consider the schhnee name noble at all or how she would miss all this, make the plot hole with her mother even fucking bigger than before, makes Weiss look like an idiot for not looking into her family’s past and, again, kills her motivation so we have a walking contradiction in the show as a main character.

And that’s not even getting into how there are some people who PREFER WOR over ordinary exposition.and thus changing that pisses them off as well as kills the pacing of RWBY. Thus changing something for an, at bets, equal result as before.

Yeah great job on the suggestion.

purplethedragon

buy student quality. good enough to work with, not so shitty as the bargain brands. don't buy any store brands (like, the Michaels brand is artists loft and it's garbo). Grumbacher, liquitex, Windsor and newton, and golden are all brands ive used and recommend

starkrevolution

^^^ Solid advice. Do NOT waste your money. I started out with a nice little Dahler Rowney student set that had an extremely well-rounded base palette for probably $30. Once I decided I liked painting and wanted to stick with it, I slowly replaced my supplies with better ones each time I ran out of something. Any colour theory or blending techniques you need to learn, you can learn on student quality materials. Hence the extremely apt name. Go forth~

starkrevolution

starkrevolution

Also, any Prof that will fail you for not using the expensive stuff is a damn art snob who is focused on status over technique.

--

he says it’s because it has better coverage because there’s more pigment and we’ll be happier with the result and use less paint, which all seems fine to me, except i hate painting and have no desire to buy any paint of any kind. i’m going to see if i can do it digitally. i mean, worst case i think i just won’t do the assignment because i’m taking the classes for fun and i don’t want to spend money on something i’m never going to use again

How To Beat Your Mental Roadblocks And Why It Can Be The Difference Between A Happy, Satisfying Life And A Sad, Fearful Existence

1. Set a specific goal

a. Write this goal down somewhere you can see it every morning when you wake up, and every night before you sleep

i. Train your thoughts to remember this goal daily and keep it in the forefront of your mind

b. Goals must include both of the following:

i. A measurable metric ("10 pounds" or "2 dress sizes")

ii. A deadline or time frame ("June 30th" or "2 weeks", preferably use both)

c. Here are some bad goals

i. "Lose 20 pounds"

ii. "Get lean"

iii. "Look hot for beach season"

d. Here are some good goals:

i. "Lose 50 pounds before beach season (June 30th)"

ii. "Drop 1 dress size in the next 2 weeks (November 25th)"

iii. "Lose 4 inches from my waist in the next 6 weeks (December 25th)"

e. Every 2 weeks or every month, review your goal and adjust it based on your progress so far

2. Understand that everybody needs a "Harajuku Moment"

a. This moment is an "an epiphany that turns a nice-to-have into a must-have." Without this tipping point, you will fail.

b. This was first popularized by Tim Ferriss in the 4 Hour Body, and it has been crucial for all major obstacles I've overcome in my life

c. Until I had the psychic shift which turned "I want to lose weight" to "I must lose weight", I never had lasting success.

3. Relax and ease your mind with meditating

a. Start with just 2 minutes a day and slowly build the habit.

b. Add 1 or 2 minutes each week, until you're up to 10-20 minutes daily.

c. This can come in the form of prayer to, or a mix of both.

4. Write a very short, simple daily journal in which you record "wins", priorities, and gratitude

a. Every evening take just 2-3 minutes and write down 3 "wins"/things that went well today.

i. This can be something major "prepared and packed all meals for the week" or something very simple like "paid my phone bill".

ii. We all deserve great things, yourself included. Let these "wins" serve as a daily reminder of the positive momentum you're making towards your dreams.

b. Also, plan out 3-5 things you want to get done throughout the day.

i. This "priorities" list makes it clear what needs to get done to reach your goals.

ii. By keeping it at a max of 5 things to do, we keep the list manageable and doable in a daily basis.

iii. Imagine how productive you would be in just 1 month if you did anywhere between 3-5 things every day in pursuit of your goals.

c. Lastly, record a very simple daily "gratitude list"

i. Basically, write the names of people you're grateful for today

ii. For me, this usually comes in the form of family, close friends, co-workers, and anybody else you feel has had an impact on you, on a certain day.

iii. Feel free to write things/material possessions or spiritual things also

On certain days, I may even write down how grateful I am for the simple things like having a roof over my head and a warm meal at night.

This is made even more clear to me from walking around lower Manhattan at 9 a.m. and seeing homeless, penniless young people my age (25 y.o) who slept on the street overnight, in a thin sleeping bag, with 30-degree temperatures outside.

iv. This is a daily reminder that whether you have just 1 person or 1 thing, or if you have 20 things to be grateful for, you're doing OK, and no matter what obstacles you're stuck with, you'll be OK.

 5. If you feel out of place in the gym, repeat this simple mantra a few times to remind yourself to work hard and stop thinking that people are watching and judging you:

i. "You look amazing. No one is watching you. Keep up the good work."

6. Every weekend choose 2 meals each for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Write them down in your journal or in a safe place.

a. Then head to the grocery store and buy the ingredients you need

b. Then cook the 1st set of these meals to last you 3-4 days.

c. Once these run out (usually on a Wednesday or Thursday, if you cook on Sunday), cook the 2nd set of the meals to last you til the weekend.

d. As a result, remove all barriers and unnecessary "thinking" attached to food choices.

7. Look at other "little things" in your life that take up big chunks of mental space, and hack away at the unessential. Some of my personal examples:

a. I use Mint.com to track spending, and I use CreditKarma.com to monitor my credit score.

i. Instead of constantly thinking about how much money I "need", I start by identifying weak points/unnecessary spending

b. I never watch the news on TV. I'll occasionally talk to people for a few minutes to hear what's going on in the world, or if I have a few free minutes I'll scroll through the major articles online.

i. As a result, I have much less stress, more positivity, and don't worry myself/build an unhealthy fear around things that are 100% out of my control.

c. I've cut out "binge" TV watching, and instead spend time doing productive things that allow me to help other people (and feel amazing as a result), like writing this book and building up a health business.

i. I'll occasionally watch an episode of something that makes me laugh like Family Guy or The Office if I want to de-stress a bit

ii. I try to never watch TV series and/or dramas since they are very, very easy to get addicted to. (I make a weekly exception when Game of Thrones is on).

iii. Don't be that guy or girl who watches 6 hours of the Walking Dead or one of their 7 other "can't miss" TV series, and gets nothing done for themselves.

d. I have 7 "nice shirts" (5 dress shirts and 2 sweaters) and 8 "nice pants" (5 dress slacks and 3 pairs of jeans/casual pants).

i. These are all well-fitting and comfortable, and I just rotate this week by week.

ii. I no longer worry about what to wear in the morning or how I'll look or anything meaningless like that.

iii. Live is much, much simpler in the morning. (I can actually get ready, from bed to the front door, in less than 7 minutes on any given day. Sure it's a bit rushed, but it works like a charm.)

iv. Also, I used to always worry that "people saw me wear this shirt last Tuesday, I can't wear it again!!". This is crazy. Trust me, no one cares to remember what you've worn on any given day, so stick to a few simple clothing choices and just rotate them every 7-10 days.

Remember: None of these strategies will work for you if you don't do them! So get to it!!

 Interested in losing weight? Then click below to see the exact steps I took to lose weight and keep it off for good...

Read the previous article about "Part 4 of 4: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality"

Read the next article about "Maximum Fat Loss in Minimum Time: The Body Type Solution To Quick, Lasting Results"

Moving forward, there are several other articles/topics I'll share so you can lose weight even faster, and feel great doing it.

Below is a list of these topics and you can use this Table of Contents to jump to the part that interests you the most.

Topic 1: How I Lost 30 Pounds In 90 Days - And How You Can Too

Topic 2: How I Lost Weight By Not Following The Mainstream Media And Health Guru's Advice - Why The Health Industry Is Broken And How We Can Fix It

Topic 3: The #1 Ridiculous Diet Myth Pushed By 95% Of Doctors And "experts" That Is Keeping You From The Body Of Your Dreams

Topic 4: The Dangers of Low-Carb and Other "No Calorie Counting" Diets

Topic 5: Why Red Meat May Be Good For You And Eggs Won't Kill You

Topic 6: Two Critical Hormones That Are Quietly Making Americans Sicker and Heavier Than Ever Before

Topic 7: Everything Popular Is Wrong: The Real Key To Long-Term Weight Loss

Topic 8: Why That New Miracle Diet Isn't So Much of a Miracle After All (And Why You're Guaranteed To Hate Yourself On It Sooner or Later)

Topic 9: A Nutrition Crash Course To Build A Healthy Body and Happy Mind

Topic 10: How Much You Really Need To Eat For Steady Fat Loss (The Truth About Calories and Macronutrients)

Topic 11: The Easy Way To Determining Your Calorie Intake

Topic 12: Calculating A Weight Loss Deficit

Topic 13: How To Determine Your Optimal "Macros" (And How The Skinny On The 3-Phase Extreme Fat Loss Formula)

Topic 14: Two Dangerous "Invisible Thorn" Foods Masquerading as "Heart Healthy Super Nutrients"

Topic 15: The Truth About Whole Grains And Beans: What Traditional Cultures Know About These So-called "Healthy Foods" That Most Americans Don't

Topic 16: The Inflammation-Reducing, Immune-Fortifying Secret of All Long-Living Cultures (This 3-Step Process Can Reduce Chronic Pain and Heal Your Gut in Less Than 24 Hours)

Topic 17: The Foolproof Immune-enhancing Plan That Cleanses And Purifies Your Body, While "patching Up" Holes, Gaps, And Inefficiencies In Your Digestive System (And How To Do It Without Wasting $10+ Per "meal" On Ridiculous Juice Cleanses)

Topic 18: The Great Soy Myth (and The Truth About Soy in Eastern Asia)

Topic 19: How Chemicals In Food Make Us Fat (Plus 10 Banned Chemicals Still in the U.S. Food Supply)

Topic 20: 10 Banned Chemicals Still in the U.S. Food Supply

Topic 21: How To Protect Yourself Against Chronic Inflammation (What Time Magazine Calls A "Secret Killer")

Topic 22: The Truth About Buying Organic: Secrets The Health Food Industry Doesn't Want You To Know

Topic 23: Choosing High Quality Foods

Topic 24: A Recipe For Rapid Aging: The "Hidden" Compounds Stealing Your Youth, Minute by Minute

Topic 25: 7 Steps To Reduce AGEs and Slow Aging

Topic 26: The 10-second Trick That Can Slash Your Risk Of Cardiovascular Mortality By 37% (Most Traditional Cultures Have Done This For Centuries, But The Pharmaceutical Industry Would Be Up In Arms If More Modern-day Americans Knew About It)

Topic 27: How To Clean Up Your Liver and Vital Organs

Topic 28: The Simple Detox 'Cheat Sheet': How To Easily and Properly Cleanse, Nourish, and Rid Your Body of Dangerous Toxins (and Build a Lean Well-Oiled "Machine" in the Process)

Topic 29: How To Deal With the "Stress Hormone" Before It Deals With You

Topic 30: 7 Common Sense Ways to Have Uncommon Peace of Mind (or How To Stop Your "Stress Hormone" In Its Tracks)

Topic 31: How To Sleep Like A Baby (And Wake Up Feeling Like A Boss)

Topic 32: The 8-step Formula That Finally "fixes" Years Of Poor Sleep, Including Trouble Falling Asleep, Staying Asleep, And Waking Up Rested (If You Ever Find Yourself Hitting The Snooze Every Morning Or Dozing Off At Work, These Steps Will Change Your Life Forever)

Topic 33: For Even Better Leg Up And/or See Faster Results In Fixing Years Of Poor Sleep, Including Trouble Falling Asleep, Staying Asleep, And Waking Up Rested, Do The Following:

Topic 34: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 35: Part 1 of 4: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 36: Part 2 of 4: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 37: Part 3 of 4: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 38: Part 4 of 4: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 39: How To Beat Your Mental Roadblocks And Why It Can Be The Difference Between A Happy, Satisfying Life And A Sad, Fearful Existence (These Strategies Will Reduce Stress, Increase Productivity And Show You How To Fulfill All Your Dreams)

Topic 40: Maximum Fat Loss in Minimum Time: The Body Type Solution To Quick, Lasting Results

Topic 41: If You Want Maximum Results In Minimum Time You're Going To Have To Work Out (And Workout Hard, At That)

Topic 42: Food Planning For Maximum Fat Loss In Minimum Time

Topic 43: How To Lose Weight Fast If You're in Chronic Pain

Topic 44: Nutrition Basics for Fast Pain Relief (and Weight Loss)

Topic 45: How To Track Results (And Not Fall Into the Trap That Ruins 95% of Well-Thought Out Diets)

Topic 46: Advanced Fat Loss - Calorie Cycling, Carb Cycling and Intermittent Fasting

Topic 47: Advanced Fat Loss - Part I: Calorie Cycling

Topic 48: Advanced Fat Loss - Part II: Carb Cycling

Topic 49: Advanced Fat Loss - Part III: Intermittent Fasting

Topic 50: Putting It All Together

Learn more by visiting our website here: invigoratenow.com

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GGta 5 On-line Generator

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Darklands: Getting Medieval

The party has gotten strong enough to challenge a demon.

        Darklands introduces a combat system that I find hard to call “good,” and yet it’s perhaps a necessary stopover point to a truly good system. It probably took an RPG outsider like MicroProse to think of it. Every other U.S. title, if it had any complexity to combat at all, showed slavish adherence to a very few precursors: the abstract turn-based system of Wizardry, the action-oriented attack-and-cool-down system of Dungeon Master, and the tactical grid of Ultima IV-V and the Gold Box series.

Still, the Darklands system has a few antecedents. It is perhaps closest to Drakkhen (1989), which had a “studio” perspective. The moment combat began, characters carried out actions as previously set by the player. The player could change actions in the middle of combat, but he had no way to pause and think while doing so. Ultima VI also offers some hints of the Darklands system, with the player able to set computer or manual control, as well as general combat strategies, for each character. We should also note that the British Legend (1992) had characters mostly act on their own. The player could pause to consider new tactics but could not issue commands while paused.

Darklands is the first game to combine all of these elements: a) independent character action in the absence of specific orders; b) combat in which the player sets general strategies and targets but otherwise mostly watches the action; and c) the ability to pause combat to issue new orders. I believe the style would reach its zenith in the Infinity Engine games, although there are so many titles from the post-1990 period that I haven’t played that I’m open to the possibility there are even better ones.          

Assessing my enemy, which in this case is a bear.

         Combat begins paused, with the party grouped in a standard formation and the enemy often off-screen. The player can choose “Enemy Info” to see what types of enemies he faces, but I don’t think there’s really any way to gauge how many there are. It also doesn’t tell you anything about their hit points. At the outset of combat, characters don’t do anything on their own unless an enemy attacks them in melee range.

Once you see the enemy, you can select each character and then issue an order: walk somewhere, flee somewhere, throw a potion, fire a missile weapon, or perform one of three types of melee attacks: a defensive parry, a standard attack, an attack that tries to seek vulnerable areas on the enemy, and an all-out “berserk.” You can cycle through the characters, assigning a different action to each. Hitting the SPACE bar then un-pauses combat and the actions execute.           

Bianca is in the middle of reloading her gun as I switch her to a melee attack. Note the symbols in the lower left of each character. Maximian is executing a regular attack; Lambert a vulnerable attack, and Viridia is walking to her target.

           Characters have minds of their own, both fortunately and unfortunately. On the positive side, they’re smart enough to switch to a melee attack if an enemy comes into melee range, and they usually chose the best one based on their current endurance and strength, their weapon, and the enemy’s armor. For instance, if the character has a short sword, a “berserk” attack would be wasted on an enemy in plate armor. Instead, it makes more sense to restrain yourself and wait for a vulnerable spot. Characters are also smart enough to target a new enemy once the current enemy is dead.

There are times I don’t even need to participate in combat. If I get attacked by thieves in an alleyway at night, I just let them come to me, activate my characters, and my characters’ AI does the rest. Enemies, for their part, never seem to concentrate attacks on a single character the way it would make sense to do. They always try to engage everyone.           

Two groups of witches. Viridia is about to throw a potion on the group to the west (off-screen).

         At any point during combat, you can enter the characters’ sheets, switch equipment, pray for saintly aid, and drink potions. Those don’t even seem to count as actions.

So far, this doesn’t sound too bad, but there are numerous problems with Darklands‘ nascent approach.            

Characters don’t obey. If I want a character leave his current opponent and run across the battlefield to engage a different opponent (for instance, to save a weak character), I’m out of luck. Characters might accept my choice of two targets within melee range but they almost never leave melee range to go fight someone else. Sometimes I have luck getting them to “flee” in a particular direction, then re-engaging, but that’s a lot of micro-managing.

There’s no way to select all or multiple characters at once. This was a major benefit of the Infinity Engine games. If you wanted all six of your characters to fill a particular target full of arrows, you just had to select all of them and then execute a joint command. Here, everyone has to be tasked separately.

Actions unselect characters. Let’s say I want a character to walk to a particular point, then turn around and throw a potion. I can specify the first action, but then hitting SPACE de-selects the character and I have to select him again to perform the second action once he gets where he’s going. Another way to say this is that the very act of selecting a character pauses the action. In the Infinity Engine, pause was separated from selecting and issuing orders.

The game is very literal about vision paths. You can’t toss a potion above the heads of other characters or fire a missile weapon just over a companion’s shoulder. Any use of a ranged weapon has to have an absolutely clear shot to the enemy. This makes missile weapons a lot less useful than they could be. For instance, you can’t have your lead character block a doorway, fighting oncoming enemies one-by-one while your rear characters fill them full of holes. They’ll refuse to shoot with the lead character in the way.

           Viridia can’t target this potion because Winchester is standing in front of her.

         The game is equally literal about movement paths. In the Infinity Engine, characters had no problem nudging each other out of the way. Here, you get tangled up into clumps all the time and you have to carefully pick them apart so everyone can move.

Everything is really slow, especially when there are a lot of enemies on the screen. You can crank up the DOSBox cycles to speed things up but then you run the risk of the game over-reading key inputs and accidentally drinking two potions and such. 

There’s no way to keep a character completely out of combat. Enemies will lock onto him and chase him to the ends of the world. In such cases, you hope that your endurance runs out before your strength. If your endurance runs out, you just collapse and are revived at the end of combat. If your strength runs out, you die.

Potions are not exactly spells. I’ll cover this in more detail in a minute.

              I also don’t particularly like the system by which current strength and endurance serve as your pool of hit points and stamina, respectively. It hardly seems worth micromanaging the characters’ armor to avoid encumbrance when losing a few hit points in combat knocks down their strength and leaves them encumbered anyway. In fact, although encumbrance supposedly hurts weapon speed and skill, I’m beginning to think that it’s worth having encumbered characters (even at maximum strength) just to gain the benefits of the better armor.             

Targeting a demon with a pistol.

         Let’s talk more about magic. It’s a pain in the neck. If I want to mix up a batch of five “Thunderbolt” potions, which act a bit like fireballs, it’s a long process. First, I have to know the formula. If I don’t know it at the start of the game, I have to purchase or trade for it with an alchemist. Alchemists are irritable bastards who frequently tell you to buzz off every time you ask for anything, and if that happens, you can’t visit them again (in the same town) for a couple of days.

Assuming you get the formula, you then have to get the ingredients. Although a lot of places sell them, I always seem to be low on one reagent or another. In particular, “Aqua Regia,” which almost every potion uses, seems to be in short supply.           

I was lucky to find it here.

               Then you have to take the time to mix them. You can mix a couple of potions per day depending on skill, and there’s a chance that the mixture may fail. There’s also a chance that it might blow up and damage you.

But assuming you get past all this, congratulations, you have three “Thunderbolt” potions, which will last only about five minutes in a tough combat (assuming you can even get a clear shot) and will collectively do as much damage as a first-level casting of “Fireball” in a Dungeons and Dragons game. Yes, I know that the potions get more effective as your skill goes up, but training skills is a pain in the neck, too. You have to get a trainer to agree to train you, then take the time each day and pay the fee, and you maybe get a 1 point increase every 4-5 days that you pay, and the trainer disappears after a couple of weeks, forcing you to enlist him again.          

Getting ready to toss a potion at a group of Templars.

          Having used a lot of potions in combat in this last session, my considered opinion is:

1. You’re better off just buying potions instead of buying ingredients and then trying to make potions. Yes, they cost a lot of money. That’s what all the quests are for. Plus, it gives you a reason to keep looting equipment from the battlefield.

2. You’re better of focusing on defensive potions. I’ve found a lot of the buffing potions helpful, such as “Deadly Blade” (improves weapon damage), “Strongedge” (improves penetration), “Great Power” (increases weapon quality), “Hardarmor” (increase armor quality), “Ironarm” (increases strength), “Quickmove” (increases agility), and “New Wind” (increases endurance). Most useful of all is “Essence of Grace,” which restores endurance and strength, and is thus equivalent to the standard “healing potion” of other RPGs.            

“Truesight” is particularly valuable for dungeon exploration.

         I should mention that potions are also often used from menus, as a solution to various puzzles and to get you out of various situations, so it’s good to have a few bottles of just about every potion for that reason. “Thunderbolt,” for instance, works as a kind of demolition spell if you need to destroy a pagan altar or break the wall of a crypt.

I began this long session continuing my movements around the landscape, solving quests and engaging in random combats. Everyone’s “Impact Weapons” skill neared 99. I made fortunes in florins, spent them, and made them again. I’ve learned dozens of saints, but I still can’t find any place to teach me of St. Wenceslaus, which means I still have to deal with the Wild Hunt practically every time I’m outdoors.

I think I got a bead on the main quest when I visited a random hut and found a woman performing satanic rituals. After defeating her pet wolves, the party captured her and had various options, one of which was to “reveal the time and place of the witch cult’s next High Sabbat.” She told me it was on 26 December, south of Salzburg. It was 31 October at the time. I checked the map and saw that Salzburg was pretty far to my southeast, but I figured I could just make it.           

I think I see the loophole in the first one.

           When I got to the area, snow was on the ground. South of Salzburg, the only structure I could see was a castle. When I tried to approach, I got a message that “The First seal is intact. The Castle of the Apocalypse is secure,” and I was unable to approach closer than that. Nothing changed on 26 December itself.             

We’re just here to listen to the music of the night.

           I wasn’t sure if the witches were meeting somewhere else nearby or if I just didn’t have some precursor item to get into the castle. I reloaded to before 26 December and dithered around looking for it for a while, but I have a lot of trouble picking out structures on the overland map even when the ground is clear. Finally, I had my party mess around for three months until the snow cleared, at which point I could see some kind of building or monument to the west of the castle. Reloading, I headed for that area on 26 December.

Pretty soon, I had infiltrated the large gathering of the witch cult. I got there early, and there were a couple of days where I had the option to investigate various witch activities like cannibalism, flying broomsticks, and participating in a mock baptism ceremony. I could participate in these things (for a loss of virtue) or try to sabotage them; for instance, by freeing the captives intended for the evening meal. There were a lot of skill checks during this process, and I confess that I reloaded a few times just because I wanted to see how different options played out.            

Different options for messing around with the witches.

          On Christmas night, the party had a vision in which someone said, “You must find the location of the fortress monastery. This is the next step of your quest.”

The next day, the gathering culminated in the summoning of a demon. We tried to sabotage the altar but it didn’t seem to work. We decided to let the demon appear and then attack it. I fully expected to have to reload, but the demon was actually pretty easy. A lot harder were the waves of witches that followed. We must have killed 50 of them. When the battle was over, we purified the site, found an evil book, and destroyed it to break the first seal.             

Solving the quest came with significant virtue rewards.

           As for the “fortress monastery,” its location was given during the ritual when the high priest made reference to it, and someone else shouted out, “The Great Monastery–isn’t that northwest of Flensburg?” The funny thing is, I had already found it, way back in my first session with the game, when I got attacked and slaughtered by some Templars.          

There it is just to the northwest of the city. It couldn’t be more obvious.

        Flensburg was at this point at the opposite end of the map, so I headed that direction on a round-about route, turning in quests as I went. On the way, I finally solved one of the mine quests, near Breslau. Unlike the one I failed, which involved a demonic gate deep in the mine, this one was much simpler: the kobolds were rebelling against their dwarven slavemasters, and the conflict had boiled up to the upper levels.       Both parties wanted my assistance. I chose to help the kobolds for some reason. Probably because I found the entrance to the dwarven region first. After I killed a bunch of dwarves and subdued the leader, the kobolds gave me a bunch of reagents and my fame went up by about 30.             

The dwarven king had a poetic surrender.

            As I noted in a previous entry, indoor exploration is like being in combat mode permanently, except that when no enemies are on the screen, you are able to move the party as a unit. There are also other exploration-related commands such as open door, pick lock, and disarm trap. The latter only works on chest and door traps; it appears that the floor traps cannot be disarmed and simply have to be avoided.

Such indoor exploration is used in a lot of places in the game, including some of the minor crypt/altar quests where you have to retrieve an item, and the robber knight quests when you decide to just attack the castle rather than sneak in or call the robber knight out.

As I made my way to Flensburg, I started to notice that combats were a lot harder. Battles against enemies that hardly damaged me before were now leaving me laid up for two weeks in the next town. I’m not sure if the game kicks up the difficulty after the witch quest or something.             

Approaching the Templar fortress.

        Whatever the case, I thought I was prepared to take on the Templars, and boy was I wrong. The fortress is very large, with numerous staircases up and down, and I’d barely explored a fraction of it before I exhausted my potions. Even with plate armor and 99 skill with his weapon, my lead character got torn apart by the Templars, and my other three fared even worse. It’s clear that I’m going to have to do a lot more grinding before taking on this fortress. In particular, I need to improve my missile weapon skills; I bought everyone pistols and shot, but they suck with them. I bet if I get those to 99 and fire off a few volleys before the Templars enter melee range, it will make a difference.

I also need to build my finances and buy a lot more potions. I’m thinking that every character is going to need 50 “Essence of Grace” potions or more before I try the temple again, plus lots of other buffing potions. Until now, the game had lured me into thinking that combat was easy, but now it’s clear that I’m going to need to take another review of the tactics.             

Each one of these guys is at least as hard as a robber knight. They all have plate and two-handed swords. And there are multiple rooms full of them.

            Before I go, I have some information for Jakub Majewski, who asked me to visit Thorn and Bromberg on the far east side of the empire. Thorn is ruled by a vogt under the Teutonic Knights. Its political area is called the markt, and there’s a fortress overlooking the city called the Altes Schloss. The Rathaus is the central market, and the inn is the Gasthaus. There is a dom plus a church of St. Jakobi and a monastery called the Deutschherrenhaus (“German men house?”). I didn’t see any other special locations.           

Approaching Thorn.

         Bromberg is “a small city with a population mixture of Poles and Germans.” It is ruled by a burggraf for the Teutonic Knights. The political center is called the stadtplatz and the fortress is just “the burg.” The central market is the markt and the inn is again the Gasthaus. Churches are just a generic kirche and a kloster.           

Main street options in Bromberg.

           That’s all probably disappointing its non-specificity, but at least it’s fun to see your hometown in a game. I never get sick of the “Far Harbor” expansion to Fallout 4.

Time so far: 48 hours

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/darklands-getting-medieval/

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23 Men Reveal The Absolute WORST Sexual Experience Of Their Lives

Found on AskReddit.

1. Her false eye popped out and I felt it on my balls.

Met girl at rave. Went to cemetery. Getting beej, she deep throated, her false eye I was unaware of came out.

Felt it on my balls.

Yes.

2. There was a swamp-green streak in her panties that smelled like a fish’s asshole.

Was back in high school. Things were getting hot and heavy until I tried taking her pants off. There was a swamp-green streak in her panties that smelled like a fish’s asshole. We didn’t even get to the sex part and I still consider it the worst sex I’ve ever had. It still haunts me to this day.

3. My balls got tickled by her fart.

With my now ex-wife. Standard sexy-time up to a point (kissing, boob play, a little oral), then I go to put it in. She farts. I felt it tickle my balls.

It tickled my balls, man. You can’t keep going after that. I’m a nurse and not much grosses me out but…My balls got tickled by her fart.

4. I lay there….unspent and sad.

Does masturbation count? Im going to tell it anyways.

I was having a dry period of about a month. I woke up after a really vivid wet dream and tried to rub it out.

I proceeded to slip in and out of consciousness for a good ten minutes, rubbing it until it is hard, falling half asleep for a minute, waking up again, rubbing it again. After those ten minutes, I just gave up. I lay there….unspent and sad.

5. I was gagging the entire time.

Was quite drunk and in a miserable period in my life where I’d fuck just about anything. Hooked up with a neighbor’s friend. She had dreads. I was gagging the entire time. Barely managed to finish. Showered for what felt like an eternity after.

6. She shit right in my hand.

I pulled out to give myself a break, we were in the doggy position. I started fingering her and she started to orgasm. She shit right in my hand.

7. I threw up on her snatch.

I went down on a girl and it smelled exactly like an Arby’s cheddar melt. I threw up on her snatch, and that wasn’t a deal breaker for her. It just made her want it more. She knew I liked it a little rough, from previous conversations, and so she straight up launched herself, puke beef cootchie and all, right onto my face and starts grinding. I was so caught off be-fucking-wildered that I froze, internally screaming this is a bad dream. This has got to be a bad fucking dream. Meanwhile in grind town, the aroma of Arby’s and half-digested oatmeal smeared my face as I finally screamed in horror and ran out.

You try getting that out of your beard.

8. She insisted on watching while blowing me.

Ended up losing my virginity to my first girlfriend while watching I asked her if we could maybe turn it off, at which point she removed my penis from her mouth and said, But it’s my favorite movie?

9. It was like my penis rolled a sticky tear.

I had a pretty sad jerk off the other night.

I guess my heart wasn’t into it or something but the run up to the orgasm started fine but then it just became a chore. I kept thinking about other stuff. My arm was getting tired. I farted mid-way through and the smell was a distraction.

I start to cum and it immediately got soft and just like seeped out. No energy behind it at all. No happiness or excitement. It was like my penis rolled a sticky tear.

Then my dick was like a sad old drunk slumping into a puddle of his own sick. I just sat there all heavy with shame for a few seconds as this gif looping on my monitor that, with the haze of arousal fizzled, was just awkward and weird. All titties being mashed and slapped around like they owed someone money.

Then I got a sandwich and played Minecraft.

10. I found out in the most painful way that I was in fact too big for her once her teeth shredded my dick and filled her mouth with blood.

Was dating a girl a few years back and after a month of intense make out sessions and heavy petting we decided it was time to take things to the next level. It started off well enough when she pulled out my junk and exclaimed I was the biggest she’d seen, and she was proud of her ability to deep throat and was insistent she could take me on. So without any warm up at all she tries to shove my entire dry dick down her throat and I found out in the most painful way that I was in fact too big for her once her teeth shredded my dick and filled her mouth with blood. We didn’t get to the sex part due to my crying

11. I accidentally told a girl I loved her and proceeded to have awkward coitus.

I was once having sex with a girl I’d been dating for a few weeks. I thought she said I love you so I was like Oh I love you too but she actually just said something completely different. She stopped dead and questioned what I’d said, but I just said never mind and carried on. TL;DR I accidentally told a girl I loved her and proceeded to have awkward coitus.

12. She kindly informs me I wasn’t in and was rubbing between her ass cheeks and sheets the whole time.

First time I ever did it. I was thrusting hard and doing well, so I thought. Then she kindly informs me I wasn’t in and was rubbing between her ass cheeks and sheets the whole time. I almost came from that.

13. I banged a hoarder in the closet of her smelly apartment. Afterwards she fished an old condom out of her pussy.

So, Im at a bar and I start working on a girl. Shes pretty hot. We dance, we drink, we talk. She makes it pretty clear she wants to go back to my place. At one point, she was even joking how its been forever since she’s been laid.

Im only in town visiting a friend and crashing on his couch so I insist on going to her place. Initially she resists the idea but I elaborate on the couch thing, plus he lives super far away, he doesnt have a car so I dont know how she would get home, etc., etc. Eventually she caves.

She lives walking distance away in a pretty nice apartment building. We go up the elevator and when we get to her front door she warns me that she shares a 1 bedroom apartment with a roommate and that, Its a little bit messy.

She opens the door; we go in and Im slapped across the face with the stench of weeks-old garbage and a pile of dishes festering in the sink. I have no idea how someone could live with that smell emanating from their kitchen but perhaps even worse is the whole place looks like an episode of hoarders. Junk is everywhere. It covers every conceivable surface, and is several feet thick in some places with piles of laundry and random items littered across the floor.

At this point, a better man would have called it. Thanked her for the lovely evening and taken a very lonely but far more sanitary cab ride back home. But its been a while for me and shes probably the hottest chick Ive ever landed. So instead her and I waded through the piles of garbage to make our way to her bedroom.

She leads me to a windowless room that I can only describe as a closet. Its barely large enough for a single mattress, which is placed directly on the floor. We are surrounded on all sides by piles of junk and clothes but Im relieved to be away from the chaos and stink that is her kitchen.

We go in and I close the door behind us and we are plunged into blackness. There are no lights in the room. She fumbles around and says Just a second! while she rummages through her purse, takes out her cellphone, activates the flashlight app, and MacGyver’s the worlds saddest desk lamp by propping it up on a pile of dirty clothes.

We get down to business. At this point Im so thoroughly disgusted with myself that Im having trouble getting ready for action. Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately), she sucks dick like a champ and we get things underway. I put on a condom and were off to the races. At this point all I want to do is blow my load and make my escape from this smelly dungeon.

Then she stops me: Wait a second I think the condom broke. My heart immediately seizes up and sinks to the pit of my stomach as I consider the possibility of being connected to this hot mess and her garbage dungeon for 18 years.

I withdraw and she sticks her finger into her pussy, fishes out a broken condom, and flings it at the wall. As shes rummaging through her trash heap looking for another condom I look down and I notice something. Im still wearing a condom And its totally intact.

tl;dr I banged a hoarder in the closet of her smelly apartment. Afterwards she fished an old condom out of her pussy.

14. I projectile-vomited from the realization I had been banging a 15-year-old for a month.

This one is sad and I’m disgusted with myself for a reason that will become clear. I was 21 and had been dating this girl who was 18. I met her mother and they were even talking about how they were planning her 19th birthday party and how she couldn’t believe how fast her little girl was growing up and her mom even said her daughter scored big time landing a handsome 21-year-old man yadda yadda. It was weird and felt like I was missing an inside joke. Fast forward a month and lots of pretty good sex.

We had left party at a beach house to fuck in my car. She gets sick and vomits at one point, super drunk, but thankfully she managed to vomit outside the car. We keep going at it, or trying to; I was drunk myself and drunk me and erections dont work so well, windows had fogged up and the car was rocking.

There’s a sharp knock at the window that I ignored, kept fucking. Then there’s another knock and its insistent. I get angry at this point and yell leave me alone, we are fucking! I thought it was a friend looking for us. Nope. I was met by a blinding light being shown and an obvious cop tone telling us to exit the vehicle.

Two cops were outside and asked if we were at the party because they had a noise complaint. Yup. I’m freaking out because she’s clearly wasted and she was only 18. I was 21 so I just knew I would be hit with a charge for supplying alcohol to an underage person. The dreaded question comes up. How old are you? I responded with Im 21 sir, but I haven’t supplied any alcohol to anyone but myself. Cop smirks but looks at my GF and asks her her age.

She looks around shyly, albeit drunkenly, and says Fifteen. It took me a moment to clock it but the cops looking at me wide-eyed confirmed what I thought must have been a misheard statement. The moment the statement was confirmed was met by a What the fucking fuck!?! scream of disbelief and projectile vomit from the realization I had been banging a 15-year-old for a month. She did not look like she was that young.

I immediately went on a rant about how I met her mom and how the fuck that was even possible. Apparently my reaction was so genuine that the cops believed it. They even had the girl call her mom and her mother confirmed that they had lied to me. All I received that night was being pulled aside by cops and a lecture about checking girls IDs.

15. The smelllike wet garbage in the hot sunhit me.

Back when I was in law school, there was a girl, M. M was a wholesome gal from Wisconsin: blonde hair, blue eyes, a slight gap in her front teeth. A real girl-next-door type (in the traditional, non-porno sense). She grew up on a dairy farm.

M was what we called law school hotlate 20s (and just starting to show it), slightly pudgy, finally trying harder to dress professionally than to dress sexy, generally attractive, but didn’t really stand out in a crowd. Her biggest assetliterallywas her awesome rack. To quote , they hung enormous, the way you’d think of God’s as big. Her daddy would have been lucky to have a milk cow endowed like her.

It was the end of our first semester, which for new 1Ls is a huge deal. (The stress during the initial year in law school is tremendous; if you’ve ever seen the movie Paper Chase, it’s 100% accurate.) The tradition at my law school was for everyone to saunter over to the bar a block away after their last exam and hang out. M and I had a friendly relationship up until that point, so when I saw her walk through the door, I waved her over and she joined our group of about ten or so.

At some pointprompted in part, I’m sure, by large quantities of boozewe of course started talking about sex, and because one of the guys with us was gay, the topic of anal sex came up. After a bit, M admitted that she had never tried anal. I was drunk and feeling saucy, so I said, ‘We should rectify that. Rectum-ify, she giggled back, and at that moment, I decided to put all of my drunken intellect towards coming in her back door before the night was out.

After a few hours our group was dwindling, but some of us were determined to continue celebrating for a while longer and M was looking like she was ready to head out. She needed to eat, she said, and was running out of cash, too. We still had about ¾ of a pizza left, and I was trying to convince her to stay, so I offered to buy her next drink if she’d stick around.

When I came back with her drinksomething with tequila, I believeshe turned to me and said, I shouldn’t be eating this, I’m lactose-intolerant. I hope you’re happy, because I’m doing this for you.

After that round, more people headed out, and M couldn’t be persuaded to stay. But I wasn’t ready to give up, so I offered to walk her home, since our apartments were next to each other, and only a few blocks away. When we got to her place, she invited me in. We went through the standard fooling around routine, ending up naked and horizontal in her bed.

Emboldened by earlier conversation, M’s apparent enthusiasm, and a large dose of alcohol, I eventually suggested that we try anal, and M agreed. After some shuffling, we ended up with her on top so that she could control the depth and speed, and for a few minutes, I was happily watching M’s magnificent mammaries jiggle around while she gingerly bounced on my rod.

After a few minutes, her expression switched from drunken sex stupor to pain and fear. Assuming I had hurt her somehow, I began to push her off of me, but she told me to wait. Sudden pressure and heat on my tool tipped me off to her digestive distress, and I could feel something trickling down my balls. I started to get up again, but she said, No, please. Stay inside. Just for a minute. I protested, but she was panicked, and begged me to help her to the bathroom before I pulled out.

We flailed around for a moment, and awkwardly switched to doggy style. We tried to shuffle to the bathroom, but drunkenness, the physical difficulty of the act, and the sheer ridiculousness of it all meant we didn’t make much progress. In a moment of inebriated genius, I hoisted her up by the hips and suggested she walk on her hands.

It turns out that wheelbarrowing a crying drunk girl across her apartment with your dick stuck in her ass isn’t particularly sexy, and a combination of internal pressure and my rapidly deflating member caused what is probably best referred to as an uncorking.

I watched in slow-mo horror as a fountain of diarrhea blasted out of her butthole, point-blank into my crotch. Spattering my torso. And my arms. And my face. And I dropped her. She hit the ground, hard, sobbing. The smelllike wet garbage in the hot sunhit me. I was painted from waist down with her special brand of brownie batter.

I was in shock. I just stood there, dumbfounded, staring at this poor girl, suffering the world’s worst case of mudbutt, crying on the floor of her shitty apartment, shit oozing out of her ass, shit dripping off of me.

But as horrible as the sight and the smell were, the worst was the sound. That sound will haunt me for the rest of my life. No language on Earth can approximate the cacophony of her crapping everywhere. It was a combination of the most over-the-top whoopee cushion, someone snapping gum through their teeth, and the glug of a water cooler. That sound blared above all, the way classical music plays during the hero’s against-all-odds rush into death in war movies. The sobbing was a distant drone, almost outside my notice, but the burbling of her bowels was deafening, in perfect sonorous clarity.

I must have stood there for maybe 10 seconds, but it felt like an hour. In a daze I pulled my pants on, then ran out the door. I mean ran. I sprinted. I left my shirt, my shoes, my socks, my boxers. All of it was abandoned in my mad dash to get home. People on the street saw me, but I didn’t care. I ran the 100 yards to my apartment door, past everyone, and I threw myself in the shower, and I cried.

16. She yelps like a pup and I spent the next 15 minutes cradling her as she whimpers, calling me an idiot.

Was having sex with my girlfriend at the time shes this cute little thing but really strong (she actually joined the Army later) anyway shes on top, I grab her and pull her to me and flip her onto her back and now I’m on top. She fucking loves it. She decides she wants to put her hands in my hair, small problem her one arm is in between my hand holding me up (This was spontaneous hiking in the woods and on top of a picnic blanket sex and not soft bed sex) and her body. She decides to quickly pull her hand out just as I was thrusting. She knocks out my support and I start to fall so I lift my other hand and throw it to center the balance. Her seeing my fall turns to her side so we dont whack skulls. Now this girl weighs 110 soaking wet, I’m 250lbs. My center balancing position threw my hand down at Mach 1 with 250lbs behind it directly onto her breast. She yelps like a pup and I spent the next 15 minutes cradling her as she whimpers, calling me an idiot.

17. I lasted like 4 pumps max.

tl;dr Couldn’t get it up and repeatedly embarrassed myself night after night for two weeks.

So I met this girl overseas. She was also American and was working in the same area I was. Short, great curves, cute face, overall way hot. Started talking to her on Facebook, and found out she was an awesome conversationalist and that we had a lot of personality traits in common. Unfortunately, things didn’t escalate quickly enough before I ended up going home for a few months.

While I was home, we kept talking of Facebook and really hit it off. Flirting became sex references became overt I want to have sex with you. This went on for like two months. We were Skyping and messaging all day long. We even discussed that we would be making out and banging as soon as I got back.

Finally got back and saw her again, and we immediately went back to my room and got down to it. 0-100mph in the space of about 10 mins, and we hadn’t even had a sip of alcohol.

I really liked this girl. A lot. Too much. So much that my nerves overruled my basic biological functions and I went soft as a bar rag as soon as she was above me about to put it in. Try as we might, there was no getting me stiff again. I’d never had trouble keeping it up (while sober) before and was highly surprised and disappointed with myself. I’d also never had this strong of an affection for someone before ever having sex with them.

Freshly inspired by some illuminating time with a therapist back home, I decided that honesty with her and with myself was the best policy here and just explained that I was nervous as shit and didn’t think I could be performing tonight. She hid her disappointment very well. We cuddled up and went to bed.

I woke up in the middle of the night, hard as a diamond, and decided to try again. Minimum amount of foreplay and I lasted like 4 pumps max. She actually thanked me for waking her up to try again!

I could get plenty hard enough when we tried from there on out, but as soon as the shuttle approached for reentry, all the heat shielding melted away, the structure collapsed, and the crew went down in burning flames. My nerves persisted with no sign of relenting with her over the next few days.

This saint blew me every day and I disappointed this woman who wanted my cock so bad every day for like two weeks. She stuck around enthusiastic and persistent (which blows my mind because she could have left and pulled any slab of hot meat she wanted) for two weeks. Expecting her to give up and leave made me even more nervous, but she never did.

Finally, in a night of just the right amount of tipsy, I pulled it off! Had drunk, short, sloppy sex, but I was mildly reassured that I at least was capable. Over the next few days, I gradually got over my nerves enough to at least keep hard enough to penetrate. When I was finally batting 100 instead of zero, we basically opened the floodgates and fucked at least daily for months. Sex got better and better and she stuck around.

She moved in with me last summer and I can’t imagine a cooler girlfriend.

18. We get 4, maybe 5 thrusts in before the girl’s friend barges into the room and starts screaming bloody murder.

Coincidentally my first go at sex…. Party at a good friends’ house, talk to a girl all night and end up in one of my friend’s bedroom, my friends were siblings, this is important because my friend had gotten in trouble earlier in the week with her mother resulting in her door knob being removed so she couldn’t lock the door. Things are getting hot and heavy, clothes are off, dick is slid in, and we get 4, maybe 5 thrusts in before the girl’s friend barges into the room and starts screaming bloody murder, for no reason beyond being a drunk high school girl encountering an awkward interaction, whole room rushes in as the girl sits, petrified, on top of my softening dick.

19. Girl blew me. Somehow she made it boring.

Girl blew me.

Somehow she made it boring.

Also dry like desert.

Painful, could not convince her to do something else.

Her begging me to cum had opposite effect it should have. Normally wind blows I cum, but not this day.

Finally take matters into my own hands (A, normally wouldn’t want to, B, she stopped me every time before she developed lockjaw an hour in) finish myself in her mouth.

Collapse from exhaustion and sadness.

She tells me she loves me.

This was our first sexual encounter of any kind.

Bizzaro world of future with her as my wife getting blow jobs I somehow don’t want every night flashes before my eyes.

I bolt.

She proclaims as I fade out of sight, that was the best I’ve ever given.

Her roommates were in living room, though I didn’t see them, I’m sure they shook their heads.

Sad.

20. The whole time I was thinking, Im gonna fucking die.

She was drunk, I was drunker, it was like trying to stab someone with a piece of soft rope, so I had some…enhancement pills, not a great combo being drunk, horny and all worked up so I basically ended up at near heart attack levels of strain on my heart, I mean I did it and she seemed happy enough, but the whole time I was thinking Im gonna fucking die, I’m gonna die fucking someone in doggy and pin her down with my body when I do.

Ironically I bet that made me last longer. Also when I woke up I was still erect.

21. And that, ladies and gents, is how I began the year of 2016 by contracting syphilis.

She was 5 foot nothing, perky breasts, and a shapely backside. Cute as a button.

She laid next to me on her single mattress in the dingy apartment room she was forced to rent in order to dance in the local strip joint of my home town. Both of us fairly hung over, though no less frisky for it.

As we lay there dozing in and out of sleep, and mumbling conversation her intentions for my company became clearer the more often her ass made its way to grinding against my groin.

Bedraggled state of affairs I was in, I tried to ignore her silent request for attention. Whether a result of anxiety at being in bed with a real live exotic dancer, the effects of my diet consisting solely of beer and cigarettes for 3 days solid, or a combination of both, junior was not up to the task.

However my companion was determined. Given her increased advances I refused to allow myself to miss the opportunity of bedding a stripper. Reaching a free hand into my boxers, I began to tug one out.

After a brief minute of awakening my member, I felt sufficiently hard enough to see through the task at hand. Rolling over into a spooning position I guided my cock to her awaiting opening, and did my damndest to enter her.

Unfortunately it became obvious that my wedding tackle wasn’t sufficiently warmed up, as I began pushing rope after acquainting myself with the first couple inches of her vulva.

Propping my would-be lover onto her knees, I assumed my position behind her and tried to go to work once more. I attended her vagina with one free hand while stimulating my rod with the other.

It only occurred to me after the first few strokes how long my willy had gone without attention. Before I could rethink my strategy-or convince junior to take any other form besides that of an over cooked pasta noodle-I felt an all too familiar sensation rushing through my vas.

I tried to clamp my trouser snake in a death grip as a last-ditch effort to stop the inevitable, but to no avail. Bat and balls pulsed in unison, erupting a fountain of jism far more enthusiastic than I would have expected given the setting. It was all over.

Kneeling there, unbelieving, I looked brokenly to the web of cum enveloping my hand and the considerable dollop on the sheets. My attempted consort still positioned patiently, eyes closed, anticipating more than the idle digit I had planted in her baby chute.

I did the best to compose myself, wiped the spunk off on a nearby scrap of fabric, and managed to splutter the words I need a cigarette.

And that, ladies and gents, is how I began the year of 2016 by contracting syphilis.

22. I found a long yellow dead piece of grass up my dickhole.

Was young and was having sex in the grass in the backyard, I felt a giant spider skittle across my chest and bucked the bitch off of me. Turned over and got up, later in the house I felt a weird pressure on my dick, went to the bathroom and found a long yellow dead piece of grass up my dickhole. Hurt the whole way out.

If youre going to have sex outside kids, put down a blanket.

23. The story of Vampire Girl.

Oh boy. Let me tell you the story of Vampire Girl.

Many years ago, I had just gotten out of my first relationship. That first relationship included all the other firsts – kiss, grope, sex, etc. Upon its ending, I was a total wreck. A pitiful mass of ridiculously maudlin sentiments. My friends kept telling me I needed to rebound. Get under someone to get over someone. You know the drill.

So a perfectly lovely girl invites me out, then we head to her place. I was not into it. I was and remain pretty much unable to differentiate the act of sex from romantic feelings, and I was still in love with my ex. So things weren’t really working down there.

This lovely girl takes it in stride, and decides that some kink will help turn the cooked noodle back into hard, raw spaghetti. Cue something that I, the veteran of one fairly vanilla sexual partner, was not prepared to hear.

Her: Do you want me to get out my whip?

Me: Uh

Her: We can taste each other’s blood.

Me: can we just go to sleep, please?

She kept stroking my face all night.

Listen, S, I don’t know if you’re reading this, but current me would have been willing to work a bit with the whip. Still no blood play. Sorry for being awkward as all hell about it back then.

Read this: 23 Women Reveal The Absolute WORST Sexual Experience Of Their Lives

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/23-men-reveal-the-absolute-worst-sexual-experience-of-their-lives/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/178460796597