#I’m trying to get some art stamina back >:0!!!!

[transmascfrankiero]

all of mcr’s songs ranked out of ten based on whether or not you can strip to them:

romance: could work if you were going for a Super Melancholy smiths-esque vibe but overall too slow and pretty. 1/10

honey: headbanger soundtrack to showcase your revenge body to ur ex. bonus points for underlying ‘gonna murder shitty boyfriend’ context thanks to audition-inspired video. but slightly too angry to be seductive. 5/10

vampires: too goth, too many feelings. reminds me of pot dreads frank. would not work. 0/10

drowning lessons: this song is cursed and cannot be listened to in public unfortunately 0/10

sorrows: if u were going to do a strip routine while beating the shit out of someone for trying to stealing ur tip money this would be a gr8 choice 6/10

halos: it’s about blowing your own head off and taking too many pills to cope w/ wanting to die all the time. 0/10

turnstiles: please do not!!! strip!!! to a song!!! about 9/11!!!! what is wrong w/ you!!! -100000000/10

monroeville: if u were doing a private lil strip dance for your george a. romero-obsessed s.o. where u both cry over the idea of having to kill the other person b/c they turned into a zombie then sure??? but other than that no. .5/10

best day ever: ehhhhhh. too fast. kinda weird to get sexy to unless u have a hospital kink. 0/10

cubicles: wow the thought of doing a strip routine to a song about pining for ur coworker who doesn’t know u exist is too sad to even joke about -20/10

demolition lovers: it’s a long song but it’s got cool tempo changes for variety and if u got the stamina then go for it. 4/10

helena: so, like, i get it. it’s a bop. u could dance to this beat for sure. the costumes and color scheme from the video make for gr8 stage pictures and the dancing corpse lady is v pretty. i could understand why if u were doing an emo strip routine u would want to use helena. but please for the love of all that is holy do NOT strip to a song gerard way wrote about his dead grandmother okay i am BEGGING you -∞/10

give ‘em hell kid: FUCK YEAH YOU LOOK PRETTY WALKIN DOWN THE STREET IN THE BEST DAMN DRESS U OWN. 10/10

to the end: this would be a hilarious choice for a bachelor party ngl 7/10 for that alone

prison: absolutely you could strip to this song but u gotta COMMIT okay u gotta light something on fire onstage and challenge gender norms while screaming your head off 8/10 but only if ur not a coward

i’m not okay: it’s a bop, but can u strip to it? no. 0/10

ghost of you: mikey way did not die on a beach in fake normandy for u to strip to ghost of you. seek help -5/10

jetset life: dude this song like. actually works??? for a strip routine??? so long as you don’t actually listen to the words, from a musical perspective, u could totally strip to this 10/10

interlude: what kinda weird catholic shame kink do u need to have to strip to this song. also it’s too short and too pretty. -5/10 (unless ur into catholic shame idk)

venom: this would require such a high energy routine but if u can make being sweaty work then this is a gr8 choice 7/10

hang ‘em high: this is a BATSHIT INSANE choice for a strip routine but if u want to do it then PLEASE do. i like ur style. 8/10

deathwish: u can strip to this only if u introduce ur routine by dedicating it to everyone who ever said eyeliner on dudes was gay. 5/10

cemetery drive: i think not. 0/10

never told you: if u are a highly theatrical highly murderous stripper then yes definitely 7/10

desert song: this song is Way Too Beautiful to strip to sorry you can’t have it -300/10

the end.: the only sexy thing about this song is how good gerard’s voice sounds so no. 0/10

dead!: this is a bold fucking choice but u have to play your cards just right. high risk high reward but SO much to potentially get wrong 6/10

how i disappear: u could. but why. 2/10

sharpest lives: holy SHIT yes ABSOLUTELY u should strip to sharpest lives. the drama. the beat. the spy rock guitar that frank accidentally nailed. this is one of THE choicest options from their catalog. why aren’t u stripping to this right now 50000000/10

wttbp: cute idea but don’t actually 0/10

i don’t love you: again, a bold fucking choice. u could strip to this in an edgy, meta sort of way but it’s missing the trashy factor so it’d have to be part performance art and part strip routine. if ur into that then totally 5/10

house of wolves: i mean i would pay money to see someone strip to this song so 7/10

cancer: LMAO YIKES -2000000/10

mama: this would be GLORIOUS if u fully embraced the sheer insanity and went Bonkers in Fuckin Zonkers burlesque-show-in-hell w/ it. 100/10 but u gotta pound the floor wailing at some point

sleep: i’m conflicted on this one like on the one hand it’s a good tempo for stripping but on the other hand it’s a song about being cruel to ur loved ones in order to force distance between u and them b/c you’re terrified of them getting hurt and it being all your fault. so maybe don’t strip to this one actually 0/10

teenagers: a bop w/ a great beat and fun costume ideas from the video but two major drawbacks being 1. ur getting naked to a song about teenagers which is uhhhh sort of Inappropriate and 2. it’s kind of also about school shooters which is also Inappropriate to get naked to. 0/10

disenchanted: why would u want this. you sad fuck. idek what to say except if you want to strip to this song i’m crying on your behalf -100000000/10

famous last words: don’t????? don’t. Do Not. stop that. -12/10

blood: this is HILARIOUS omg please strip to blood 10/10

kill all your friends: sure?? no objections but it’s an odd choice. this goes for the demo too. 2/10

heaven help us: if u want to strip to this then you definitely just read unholyverse for the first time and while u are valid, Don’t 0/10

my way home is through you: not an especially sexy song but it’s fun!! you do you 3/10

astro zombies (cover): uhhhhhh it’s a no from me dawg. i’d be thinking about danzig, like, the whole time. 0/10

desolation row: sure but u gotta be willing to get punched in the face by the riot squad for maximum effect 4/10

common people (cover): just b/c gerard would strip to britpop doesn’t mean u can. 0/10

emily: NO!!!! -50000/10

party at the end of the world: nah. 0/10

not that kind of girl: literally please consider the subject matter of this song and rethink ur life choices. -10/10

all the angels: it’s a cool song but don’t strip to it that’s weird -2/10

jack the ripper: you and the person who wants to strip to astro zombies can go sit in the suicidegirls corner together how about that. 0/10

na na na: a banger!! strip away my friend 9/10

bulletproof heart: a good song but not a strip song 1/10

sing: sorry this song is [REDACTED] it gets no score

planetary (go!): you could try to strip to this but it’s such a classic four-on-the-floor that i think you’d end up just regular dancing to it and forget to be sexy so 4/10

the only hope for me is you: are you doing a strip tease for michael bay. stop. put ur shirt back on shia lebeouf 0/10

party poison: like this is a hilarious option and i support you but realistically it’s pretty fast for a strip song 3/10

save yourself, i’ll hold them back: this is a safe option. Too Safe. almost soulless. a person who’d strip to this would avoid eye contact the entire time and never smile and later when you went out for a smoke break you’d overhear them on the phone with their ex arguing over child support payments. 4/10

s/c/a/r/e/c/r/o/w: the more i think about it the more fun the idea of stripping to this becomes so i say go for it 6/10

summertime: i’m Certain that gerard would prefer if you didn’t -5/10

destroya: is this objectively the best mcr song to strip to? Absolutely. it’s got everything you could possibly want right down to built-in moans and fever dream drums. but the only person in the universe who Can Must and Should strip to this song is gerard. sorry them’s the breaks. ∞/10 but only if you’re gerard way

kids from yesterday: don’t. 0/10

vampire money: 100% yes you should strip to this. bonus points for stealth twilight references 1000000/10

we don’t need another song about california: do i like this song? yes. is it sexy? no. 0/10

black dragon fighting society: i can’t understand what the FUCK gerard is saying in this song AT ALL so i can’t recommend that u strip to it b/c i have no fucking idea what it’s ABOUT 0/10

f.t.w.w.w.: i mean. this song is about eating pussy. and robots that are built specifically to fuck. so yes you can strip to this but you gotta dress up like a pornbot 100/10

mastas of ravencroft: again i cannot understand most of the fucking words and the ones i do understand are something something RICKETY BONES RICKETY HANDS so like. probably not the one 0/10

boy division: i could go either way on this one like it’s really fast but it’s also about cocaine so??? 3/10

tomorrow’s money: while this song slaps overall violent nihilism does not a strip song make 1/10

ambulance: no. 0/10

gun.: antiwar messages are sexy but not the right kind for stripping 1/10

the world is ugly: PLEASE no. 0/10

the light behind your eyes: oh my god this is so DEPRESSING why would you want to strip to this who hurt you -2000000/10

kiss the ring: yes yes yes it’s got built-in audience participation conceit factor if u let ur audience kiss ur ring, totally works 10/10

make room!!!: again, slaps, but not a strip song 1/10

surrender the night: dude we talked about this!!! dying violently w/ ur loved ones is Not Sexy!!! 0/10

burn bright: i guess you could strip to this but again it’s Too Safe tread carefully 3/10

fake your death: i want frank iero to strip to this song so i can throw tomatoes at him for being a LYING SACK OF SHIT FOR TWO YEARS i’m not gonna rate this one but frank if ur out there i have a basket of slightly squishy heirloom tomatoes and i am COMING FOR YOU

#mcr #this is the dumb post idea #i spent like an hour on this lmao

[minccinoocappuccino]

Beyblade: Evolution Review

Finally got around to writing this review for the person who asked for it

I’m going to break this review into sections so I don’t forget anything.  

◉ Mechanics ◉ Graphics ◉ Gameplay ◉ story/Plot

⚠️ I’m not a game reviewer and these opinions are just that opinions ⚠️

Mechanics 

Ok so the big thing about this particular game is that you launch the beys through gyro and motion sensors using the Nintendo 3DS’s camera...or at least that’s how it’s supposed to be done. I’ve found all you really have to do is flick your 3DS towards or away from you and it counts as a launch. You do have to launch it at the right time however as you get spirit bursts that “ make your bey stronger for a short time”. If you do launch it off it really doesn't matter much you just start off with less spirit burst which I’ll explain later why it’s fine. There's really not much else to this gimmick though you only use it to launch beys and that's it so it's only about 2 secs of a beybattle despite being one of it’s biggest selling points.

Another mechanic is changing the bey parts to make your own, which is one of the best parts in the game. You can even try and recreate character beys or just come up with your own! They draw back to this though is if you want to win you really can’t use some of the beys at all. The game has the 4 types of beys in it Attack, Defense, Stamina, and Balance but it might as well just be Defense, and Stamina only. The Attack beys are so useless using them is an instant loss unless you get a lucky knock out really fast. They have no stamina at all so once you launch them they run out faster than the ps5 did, you have seconds to knock out the longer lasting beys with no help from your spirit bursts since you won’t have time to gain them. Balance beys suffer from the jack of all master of none curse, even if you build it with mostly stamina , you might as well instead make a full Stamina instead. Side note: Orion is one of the best beys to use its really OP though it’s only able to be bought late game Sagittarius is a good early game one to pick up. 

Now let's talk about spirit bursts, they suck. There's not really a gain to using them, yes your beyblade gets stronger by spinning fast but it goes so fast it usually misses the other bey and if they other hits you while your going so fast you have a higher chance of just flying out the ring. After 35 hours of playing this mechanic has helped me exactly zero times but has caused me to lose 7 times that I remember.

Graphics

There's not actually much to talk about with its graphics seeing as how it’s almost identically to other beyblade games. They did put a lot of effort into trying to make the beyblades look realistic, but there's only so much early 2000s graphics can do. The sprites look like they were drawn and then squished down to look pixelated; they still look good however, resembling the show's art while the pixelated effect gives it a more game feel. The text boxes however are really bad imo...There are solid blue boxes that go across the entire bottom of the screen with plain white letters over it for the dialogue. The worst part about them is the characters' names are in the same front, size, and colour of the dialogue so it all just blends together. 

The backgrounds are all neat and nice nothing to complain about….except the “special backgrounds”. These are for Battles and some Mini games and they're just real life pictures of parks or buildings. There so blurry and pixelated they look like they were taken from google earth. I know they wanted to give this game the feel of playing an actual bey battle in real life but starting at a clearly modeled and textured bey and area with real grass and buildings behind it is strange and out of place. This is just a nitpick since you really don't notice it much and again I know it’s early 2000s graphics so I can't complain much I still feel just putting in backgrounds from the show or just drawn ones would have looked better.

Gameplay

So the game is like a RNG where you go to different places on the map, meet characters from the show, battle them and enter tournaments and shop for parts. It’s very simple and easy to get the hang of and progress. You have 50 turns to do all this and become the champion™. On your 10th turn you enter tournaments to win beypoints to buy new parts. There are two stadiums for tournaments and you can go to each to do this, they have different rules so pay attention to this before entering. One you can use 3 beys and the other only one, if you can only afford one good bey you need to enter the one bey only one or else you will get crushed. On your turns you progress by going to random places on the map and meeting and talking to the characters to earn points, and their friendship. By befriending a character you get to unlock their mini game plus they will give you parts of their beys as gifts which is great if you befriend Kenta but Ginga might as well be giving you trash. Each talk/battle with a character takes up one turn and it takes a couple of times fighting and beating them to get to a high friendship level enough for them to fork over there bey. Since you only have 50 turns if you want a certain bey from a character focus on them only until you get it. Fully befriending a character will also unlock more characters that show up on the map as well.

You can buy beyparts at the two stores in game the B-pit and WBBA store with Madoka and Hikaru running them. The WBBA has better choices and higher ranking beyparts but the B-pit is cheaper so starting out with the B-pit is usually the best option and then switching over after earning good parts from characters. Going to the shop does use up a turn so buy what you need in one go.

The actual battling is boring and not fun at all. Like I said earlier they really wanted this game to give you the feel of real life beybattling so after you launch your bey you just sit there and watch it spin you can’t control it all so when you get knocked out or win it feels less like skill and more like luck. I get the skill is supposed to come from customizing the best bey but unless you're using the meta beys you kinda lose so you're forced to use beys you might not like to win there's really no room for innovation. The spirit burst was supposed to cover this by giving you a sense of doing something in the battle but it’s so useless most of the time it feels like you wasted it. It’s not even an auto thing you can’t just press the spirit button and your beys instantly get its power you have to aim it and hit your bey with it while its spinning and if you hit your opponent they get it or its just gone.

The minigames aren't a big thing in the game once you befriend a character you unlock his/hers game, which two characters can have the same one, to play and earn points from it. So far I’ve only played 5 different minigames: Balloon pop: you shoot a bey at balloons rising upwards different coloured balloons will give you different number of points the faster balloons give the most Track: you tilt your DS side to side to keep you bey on the track the faster you get to the end without falling off the more points you get Ring: You shoot your bey threw moving rings the more rings you shoot threw in a row the more points you get What part is it: parts of the bey will show up on screen and you have to guess if it's a Facebolt, Energy ring, Wheel, spin track, or tip. The more you guess right the faster they fly across your screen and the wheel and energy rings can look so close together since they are zooming so fast Guess: It gives you a Facebolt, Energy ring, Wheel, spin track, or tip and you have to guess what beyblade it's from.

Story/Plot

The game was marketed as the bridge between Fury and Shogun but there is nothing about it that does that. It’s clearly set after Fury but you don’t know when. It plays out with you battling character after character shopping and mini gaming in between and then on turn 50 battling in a tournament and hoping you win and become the champion. There’s no story to it other than that no underlying plot or an evil villain you need to stop. Just battling and becoming champ.  

Talking to the character is fun but you don’t get anything else, no new secrets or facts about them. Also after you become champion the game just starts you over. You start back at turn 0 and have to do it all again and unlock everything again. The game does let you keep 25% of your beypoints the first time you beat it and 100% of them the 4th time if I remember correctly.  

Overall: It’s a good game if you prefer talking to characters over battling and story. You can still have fun with the battling system since strange things can happen with beys getting shot out or just spinning out. And the wonky gyro system can cause you to shoot your bey right out the ring which makes for some laughs. It’s a very repetitive game which isn't a bad thing inself just depends on what you like. The Metal Masters game was way better with a decent storyline and fun battle mechanics which I’ll review at a later time, and this game just fails to compete with the other beyblade games.  Of course you are allowed to like the game. I enjoyed it a fair bit, and there are really good parts in it. I just think it has so much more room to be better.

Another notes: Some characters that are mentioned to be in the game I have not seen at all such as Nile, and Zero from Shogun. There is a battle area where you just battle for fun that's not a part of the story. I have only done it once though. You are allowed to have two save files on it.

If you want to see more of it you can look through my blog I have it tagged as I play beyblade  also again I do not have gameplay footage of it but if it’s something that is requested or wanted I don’t mind recording it 

#beyblade #Metal Fight Beyblade #beyblade evolution #i play beyblade #mfb #beyblade review

[pocket-void]

Hi Mock!

I wish you a good morning! (It's currently 8:30 am here and I hope you are asleep wherever you are because healthy sleep schedules and all that!) 🌻

I just found out that you write, too, and I've read "A cup of coffee" and honestly, is there something you can't do? Because that was really great! I enjoyed reading it so much!! And I love your Logan in it!

And can I ask: where so you get the motivation to do all this great stuff? Drawing, writing, school? Like, I have like 5 different writing projects screaming at me because I don't work on them and yesterday I outlined yet another fic that I'll probably never write because I just don't have the motivation and - how do you do it? Because I want to write. It's the best thing in the world to me. But I just can't get myself to do it, and when I do, everything I make feels kinda... not good. Ugly, if you will.

So I guess I just want to know what I can do to get myself away from that? Because I really need to write, I'll go insane otherwise O_o

Anyway, have a wonderful day and eat a cookie!! 🌼

Y’all who can format stuff in asks will never cease to bamboozle me. O///o

But hello!! I believe it’s the afternoon where you are now! ^\\\^ (Not to worry, if there’s one thing I try to get enough of it’s sleep!)

Heidhwkfns Yes I write too but it’s incredibly on and off since I’m not as confident with it and it takes much longer than art! >\\\< I 100% want to write more often tho, but my need to accomplish stuff just finds art less time consuming. I’m really glad you like “A Cup of Coffee” because I’m quite happy with how that one turned out! ^\\\^ (And also just genuinely surprised at how many people enjoyed it) So thank you!! ;///;✨💖

So, here’s the thing. I’m just a normal person, just like anybody else! There are days where I have 0 motivation to do anything, and days where I’m way too motivated but still do absolutely nothing anyways lmao- I can’t say that my experience will work for everybody of course, but I can try to explain how I feel or how I work things out when I don’t feel like doing things. u///u

The first step is to forgive myself, because it’s going to be ok. There’s nothing wrong with having an off day, and nothing wrong with not accomplishing anything for now. There should be no guilt involved in not touching something for ages, god knows I’ve got so much in the “maybe later” idea box that I will never get to. But that’s ok! My creations will never blame me for not working on them, so in turn I promised to never blame myself for it either. And if I ever go back to complete one of them, great! But if not, that still doesn’t mean that it was a waste. Everything you make has value, finished or not.

The second is to remember that I love them. I love them a lot. I love creating, I love art, I love writing, and I love the process behind them! What you write and create will never complain if they are “not the best” or “ugly”. Their value comes from how you feel about them. Nobody else’s imput matters. So what if it’s not great? So what if it’s a mess? My terrible crayon drawing from when I was 4? Love it. Still has my whole heart. They’re on my bedroom wall to this day! (Neatly framed and hung, courtesy of my dad) I ask myself why I sat down to do something in the first place, and the answer is always going to be because I love doing it! Everything I make means something to me, no matter how bad or how small. Because at the end of the day, I made something. And it’s all the reason I need to love it.

It doesn’t matter if this doodle looks bad or this draft makes literally no sense because even if it’s not good, I did it. Even if I feel like I’m going nowhere, I know that each creation is a small step in my long long journey of improvement. It might not seem like that sometimes, like everything we do doesn’t really seem like it’s getting better any time soon, but we can never tell unless we keep doing it right? Instead of being upset that I’m not very good now, I decided to try and look forward to how good I eventually will be. I find that prospect exciting! We never know how much we grow until we get there, it’s like a happy surprise! ^\\\^✨And in the meantime, I am allowed to be perfectly happy with what I already can do. How far I’ve already come. Even if other people tell me otherwise, even if it’s true that it’s not very great, who’s to say that I will always be? Not me, that’s for sure.

I am willing to be patient for the sake of what I do, because I am willing to do it for an eternity.

There is no race in doing what I love, because I am the only one on this path. I can see other people on their own paths too! And sometimes they’re faster and have way better stamina than me, but their final destination is ultimately going to be much much different than mine, even if we’re going in a similar direction. So there is no point in trying to match them; I decide to walk at my own pace. It’s much easier for me this way. Take breaks! Drink some water. We’ve all got our places to go. ^\\\^

Third thing about getting things done is, well, getting it done! Do you know how I wrote “A Cup of Coffee”? I pain stakingly stared at it all day with frequent breaks in between, read it a ridiculous amount of times until it didn’t sound like english, and had text to speech read it back to me a couple more times just so I could make sure, because I really really really wanted to finish it. And it probably was kind of messy, hahaha. >\\\<

I’m not suggesting you do what I did btw, because it’s not even how I always write things! My other story “Table for Two” was written under a much different context. For that one, I wrote parts of it on different days. I took walks thinking about how I’d word things, how I’d imagine the scene going, and how I should pace sentences. I actually deleted the entire first paragraph and started over a few times because it didn’t sound right. Then one afternoon I decided that I wanted this story done. So I sat down and did what I could, edited a few things afterwards, and tentatively showed it to a friend. I didn’t edit it much after that, but it was done!

If I learned anything from highschool, it’s that doing something imperfectly is better than not doing it at all. I’m still a pretty picky perfectionist and a terrible procrastinator, and it’s not easy! But I would much prefer something I make to be “messy but complete”, rather than “pretty good so far but not finished”. Personally for me, getting started is the hardest part of doing anything. I have yet to find an easier way to do it, but I know that sometimes I just need to sit down and do what I can to start writing. If a sentence sounds weird, I keep going, because I can come back to it later! But if a sentence doesn’t exist, I can’t fix that without, well, writing it. o///o So I consider that a start!

I definitely understand you when you say that you can’t get yourself to write because I currently kind of can’t either. >\\\< I have outlines that I won’t ever write, I have ideas that I’m not gonna get to, and I’ve got fics that I worry won’t be as good when I write them. But maybe today I’ll sit myself down and just write one sentence. Give it a title, make a document, and stare for a lil bit. Give it a beginning. Because for me, sometimes drawing the starting line somewhere helps. Maybe it can show me what direction I need to go in just a little bit clearer. u///u

At the end of the day, the thing I say all the time is enjoy what you do. It’s just genuinely the most important part of doing anything to me. Yes it can be hard and sometimes we worry about how it’s gonna be, but we still do it don’t we? We come back and try again because we love it. Because we really can’t live without it. So what’s wrong with just...doing it?

That’s how it is to be a creator for me, I suppose. And from one to another, I genuinely wish you the best of luck on your journey!!

After all, there will be no other quite like it. u///u💖✨

#have a wonderful rest of the day as well! #i can only give advice from my own experience #I hope this helps in some way #oh and school is a different can of worms unfortunately >\\\< #but since thats already a hassle I try my best to enjoy the stuff I love doing y’know? o///o #fairy! #mock talks #ask #mock #long post #art tip

[lilyxareum-blog]

( bae joohyun (irene), cisfemale, she / her ) — Welcome back, HAN AREUM. I’m surprised you’re still ( a ) Costume Specialist ! Congrats ! You’re TWENTY-EIGHT years old ? Our agents usually don’t last that long ! :O I see you’ve been given a BORDER COLLIE. Funny how it seems they work harder than you ! Can’t wait for another lovely day of you being KIND. Though, if we’re being honest, we really know you’re more ANXIOUS. Welp, have a good at work, Agent LILY. I really don’t care ! I’m a robot, I have no feelings.

Hello, hello everyone!! Its Lina, your, classic, anxious and panicky mun of Areum that’s always active on discord and never got her pages done (*sobs* I’m sorry, Areum–) I don’t have a plots page nor a bio page for now (Which I SWEAR I’M WORKING ON), as well as a plots page, but I do have her profile up! Here’s some plot ideas, as well as information about Areum that you’d need to know!!

History:

Areum was born Han Areum on 29th March 1991

Born to Seo Youngjin and Han Kang Hwan. She was born a few days early, and surprised her parents by being a girl, so they didn’t have a name ready for her.

A nurse named her–because the newborn was such a pretty baby, and so, lacking sorely in ideas for a great name that would fit their kid, they named her Areum (creative i know lmao–sorry my brain LACKED that creativity)

Han Kang Hwan was a Korean diplomat, and Seo Youngjin was a retired agent from Hwarang. The two had a classic love life that started after a shoulder throw, and Areum was the catalyst that caused her parents to get married.

She has a younger brother who’s 1 year younger than her and they were very close.

On the year she was 16, the family was tracked down and killed in the dead of night– the assassin was an old enemy of her mother’s employed by on of the disgruntled rivals of her father, whom disagreed with Han Kang Hwan upon certain political reforms.

Areum’s brother had grabbed her and shoved her under the bed to protect her, and so she watched the man that killed her family stab her younger brother to death.

Areum was then stabbed severely in the stomach and shoved out of the second storey and onto the lawn below. She ended up almost bleeding out, suffered a severe concussion from where the man had knocked her head into the wall, followed by a broken right arm and a broken left leg. The house was then burned down and she was left to die on the lawn of the mansion.

Because of the incident, Areum has a bumpy scar on her stomach from where the scarred tissue from the stab remains. 

Had to go through physical therapy for a year to regain her muscle strength, another year was spent working on her stamina and muscles to make her up to par with the recruitment test.

She was too old for adoption, and so Areum chose to follow the Hwarang agents that had rescued her and applied for Hwarang as a recruit.

Entered as a recruit aged 18, Spent 4 years as a recruit, graduated aged 22 as a field agent, worked as a field agent for 2 years before specialising in the costumes department and working there from then on.

Areum is highly talented in art and music, and has been drawing since she was 5. 

Areum debuted as an artist (painting) when she was 11, selling her art pieces under the pseudonym Raye Licht. She thought of making her handle “A Ray of Light” at first, but found it far too much of a mouthful to say easily

 Areum still sells paintings under that pseudonym, and hence is rich enough to purchase a mansion + live comfortably and luxuriously for the rest of her life. But she wanted to continue her work in Hwarang. 

Can play the piano, violin, flute, and is also great at singing

Technically if she was born in the Joseon era, she’d be a perfect wife + perfect daughter to marry off from a noble family

Areum’s ideal type is someone who’s not afraid to express himself, and is a little aggressive in confessing his feelings, because she’s more passive as well.

Areum has a minimalist tattoo on the middle of her lower back of a lily, which she got right after being given her agent name.

Areum also usually uses money out of her own budget to pay for pple’s expenses, or the expenses inflicted by the costume production, just give her the right reason and she’d fund you (because she’s hella nice)

personality:

Areum is sweet, generous and kind, apart from being lovely. 

Was class president and popular in her school back when she had a normal family.

A little naive, and airheaded, gentle, and a soft talker.

When with friends she’s slightly childish, more naive and exuberant

Usually the mood bringer, hypes people up as well as brightens up the room

But alone Areum is silent and melancholic, reflective and understanding.

A lot of people don’t she the dual side of her, because she only shows her bright and happy side to others, because she feels that its her responsibility to liven up the atmosphere since they’re doing such emotionally heavy and taxing work.

Thinks everyone, even grouches are adorable and that each have their own worth.

Is socially anxious and a bit of an overthinker

Highly romantic, swoons easily, easily manipulated esp if she trusts someone

Serial watcher of netflix, and cries as hard as possible when it comes to heartbreaking stories

Areum also doesn’t think that she’s pretty–in her mind, she believes that she’s just average,or less than average.

Areum is also physically affectionate with others, hugs are kind of her thing– she aims to make people feel welcome, so that they wouldn’t find it necessary to be interested to know more about herself.

Career History:

Because her mother was a retired Hwarang agent, she had an agreement with her old comrades that if anything happened to her and her husband, the children would be taken in, so Areum was taken in by Hwarang agents, but had to train herself up to the standards to a recruitment agent to pass.

Had to train really hard for the entire year that she recuperated and just barely made the cut for the team of recruits.

Entered recruitment at aged 18, her physicals were low, but Areum made up to the mark with her intelligence.

Areum holds an IQ of 143, is more of an observant person–and a practiced user of being able to put on a happy go lucky facade so that no one has a clue to what she really feels inside.

No one really knows about Areum’s background or heritage, except that she’s rich,  she paints, and that she’s hella good at costume disguise.

Graduated from recruitment at 22, and became a field agent, but unfortunately Areum was GREAT at disguising others, but not great at disguising herself. (Areum: hat, no lense glasses, fluffy sweaters, slippers)

After 2 years of field agent work, and more than one trip ups in disguises because Areum got recognised, Areum decided she was more cut out for costume specialisation rather than field work.

Areum became costume specialist at age 24, and has been working in that spot for 4 years.

Plot Ideas!!

[For her other costume specialist] You cannot believe the naivety of Areum thinking that she’s fine with disguising herself with just fluffy sweaters and a no lense glasses to not be recognised.

All physical, not emotional – Areum has needs just like everyone else, and you’re one of the special people who has seen the more solemn, contemplative side of her, which she doesn’t usually use outside of the bedroom or her own room [fwb connection ; 0/3 filled]

Classic Annoyance – You’re one of the colder friends of Areum. You can’t fathom why she’s so physically affectionate with people, but you’d comfortably say that you two are close with each other. [ friends ; 0/3 filled]

Walk my Dog – Areum has a habit of offering help to others even though she sucks at it, and with her small stature, its hilarious to see a 158cm tall tiny person trying to drag more than two large dogs away from their wayward tracks. You’re one of those individuals that take advantage of that and always ends up walking your dogs with her, because its just adorable watching Areum frazzle up over a bunch of too big dogs that she can’t control

You remind me of him – Areum’s connection and relationship with her younger brother has always been more than extraordinary, even in his death she feels somewhat connected to him. You are the one that reminds Areum of her deceased brother, and Areum does everything she can to protect you from what she perceives to be harm, even if sometimes its rather over the top. 

Why Are You Doing This To Me? – Being the overly romantic and sweet, naive person that Areum is, its no doubt to say that she’s been used and manipulated by people before. You’re the person that she has a crush on, and knowing that she has a crush on you, you’re intent on using her for your own needs. Its purely unemotional for you, but entirely emotional for Areum, and she just doesn’t know that you’re using her just yet. [ crush, fwb, angst angst heavy angst in the future]

Again? – One of Areum’s responsibilities is to patch up the costumes that have either been destroyed or ruined in the field work, and you’re one of the more reckless field agents/ recruits that always seem to mangle up your clothes to the point of nearly beyond repair. Its perplexing for Areum, and she’s up to the challenge to make a new piece that you can’t possibly rip, but you always seem to outdo yourself in ripping yourself a new piece of clothing. 

Exes, Crushes on Areum/ Romance – this can be plotted however you like it! Areum is pretty open and free when it comes to having either slept together with another agent, or dated another agent before, she’s mostly clueless when it comes to someone crushing on her, or perhaps the idea of something between them that blurs the lines of friendship but they never acted upon it etc. Feel free to hit me up!

#hwarangintro #||☽**OOC: the woman in the moon

[exemplarybehaviour]

Akatsuki but ranked by your willingness to accept a lift from them

I started to answer this as if everyone had a car, but then I decided. No. Boring. CANON COMPATIBLE RIDES ONLY. 

(from most willing to least)

1. Konan. Konan can craft wings from paper and fucking FLY. This is the only way to travel. Bonus: Konan cradling you in her arms as she flies you somewhere. I don’t care if she crushes me.

2. Kisame. Kisame’s ride is probably a boat. I like boats. He’s easy to get along with and relatively unlikely to do something reckless like drive straight into a storm or trying to ram his boat into another boat. Captain Hoshigaki. Christ. Let’s toss chum in the water and see if sharks come. I’ve forgotten where we’re going.

3. Zetsu. Zetsu grabs your arm and teleports you through the ground or whatever the hell his technique is. It’s disorienting but providing Zetsu doesn’t cannibalize you, not the worst way to travel. A solid 5/10.

4. Nagato. Nagato has multiple means of transportation at his finger tips, including giant animal summons and turning into a robot. I don’t know what you’d have to do to get the leader of Akatsuki to agree to give you a ride, but I assume if he agreed, he’d be at least somewhat invested in your well-being. Imagine showing up at your doctor’s appointment on the back of a giant man-eating bird. 

5. Kakuzu. Kakuzu flings you over his shoulder and zooms off into the trees. Either he’s recognized you as having a bounty on your head or you’ve bribed him into taking you somewhere. Either way, he is not gentle. You WILL arrive at your destination with bruises. If you tip him, you can take a bathroom and water break. This is true if he’s taking you in for your bounty or you’re paying him for transport. :)

6. Itachi. Itachi is ranked low because he doesn’t have his own ride. You have to walk with him until you find someone else with a horse or a cart and then Itachi will commit highway robbery for you and genjutsu them into escorting you. It is very inefficient. For very short distances, he can carry you, but his stamina isn’t very good so you might as well pay Kakuzu for worse company but a more reliable service. 

7. Hidan. You’re walking along the road, thumb out, hoping a caravan will stop. A man pulls up on a mule-drawn cart. He is shirtless. HAVE YOU HEARD THE GOOD NEWS, he asks. GET IN AND I’LL TELL YOU ABOUT GOD. You’re hesitant but your feet hurt. You climb on. There’s an awful smell like piss from the bundle in the cart. The mule trundles along. The shirtless man tells you fervently about god. The bundle in the cart is moving. The man screams profanities at it and then goes back to earnestly lecturing you on the divinity of suffering. You smile and nod along. You stop for lunch and you offer the shirtless man some of your food in payment. I KNEW YOU WERE DIFFERENT, he says, shoves your food in his mouth, and then drags an old man out from the cart and ritualistically sacrifices him. You arrive at your destination five hours behind schedule and having pledged your soul to a pagan god. 

8. Sasori. Sasori probably has an entire array of puppets that could comfortably take you anywhere, but unfortunately Sasori is not moved by anything but his own art. It doesn’t matter where he agreed to take you-- you inevitably end up in a cave being skinned alive while Sasori murmurs to you about eternal beauty. 

10. Deidara. Remember how I was impressed with Konan crafting her own wings form paper? I’m equally impressed with Deidara making a bird capable of carrying passengers out of CLAY. It’s a real feat of engineering and you should absolutely not get on this bird. You will fall off and die and Deidara will laugh at you. Even if you’ve coaxed him into actively avoiding letting you fall, there’s a 100% chance of explosions. There is a 0% chance you end up at your actual destination. You get to where Deidara wants to leave you and it’s not even the right day. Your eyebrows have been burnt off, two fingers are missing, your possessions went missing, and that’s the good scenario. Don’t ask Deidara for a lift. 

#fascinationex #akatsuki ranked

[tsukiprotranslations]

[Translation] VAZZROCK bi-color Series Vol. 10 Drama Track 1 - Part 1

Ayumu’s drama track is only one but like the other ROCK DOWN members, it’s over 25 minutes long so it’s cut into two or maybe three parts again~! ww The first part runs from minute 0 to minute 10:15~! 

Thank you to @ryuukia for the files~! Please don’t ask her as per her request, thank you!

※ Please don’t re-post these translations without permission. Instead of reposting, please just like/reblog instead ^^

Under the cut, enjoy~!

Track 1: [雨過天晴] “Rain after rain”

[0:00]

  (Gaku takes a sip of coffee)

GAKU: Let’s see… Ruu will be at Nagoya tomorrow, huh.

GAKU: Ah, so that’s why he has golden nails. He said he wanted something 3D so…

GAKU: Don’t tell me, he’s planning on Shachihoko (1)… Well, in Ruu’s case, he just might do it.

GAKU: Though, if he had 3D art on his nails during the handshake event, it might just make it more difficult…

GAKU: His partner tomorrow is… Ah, it’s Takaaki-san!

GAKU: If that’s the case then, it might go well… I hope it does. Takaaki-san, I’m counting on you.

(door opens)

AYUMU: Gaku, great work today.

GAKU: Same to you.

AYUMU: Sorry I’m so late.

GAKU: Nah, you called ahead so it’s fine. Did you finish work safely?

AYUMU: Somehow.

(Ayumu sits down)

GAKU: But, it’s kinda unusual for you to have a sudden filming. It’s usually scheduled, isn’t it?

AYUMU: It was originally supposed to be next month. But, since it was connected with Reiji’s filming, we shot mine in a hurry.

GAKU: So that’s what Reiji meant when he said his pay schedule was bumped up.

AYUMU: The site’s conditions were getting concerning so we had to adjust.

GAKU: That must be troublesome.

AYUMU: I think the staff have it much harder than I do.

AYUMU: But, I think we made something great.

GAKU: (smiles) That’s great.

AYUMU: Yeah. Normally when Reiji moves something happens but, I’m glad it ended safely.

AYUMU: Weren’t you at filming until noon, too, Gaku? How did your work with VAZZY go?

GAKU: It felt fresh. Ouka really has a different atmosphere, huh? I guess you could say he has a certain aura.

AYUMU: Well, he has been in the industry longer than Reiji after all.

AYUMU: Do you still have some coffee?

GAKU: There’s still some left over there.

AYUMU: Then, I’ll have some. Gaku, what about you? Want some more?

GAKU: Hm, let me think… Yeah sure, I’ll have some.

[02:05]

  (Gaku finishes his cup)

GAKU: Please put it here.

AYUMU: You don’t want a new cup?

GAKU: You’ll have more to wash then, won’t you?

AYUMU: If it’s just washing dishes it’s fine but…

AYUMU: Well, never mind.

(Ayumu gets the cup and stands up)

AYUMU: Wait here a bit.

(Ayumu walks over to the coffee maker)

GAKU: Ayumu, all your handshake events in Tokyo are done, right?

AYUMU: All of mine in Tokyo ended last week. You still have more, Gaku?

GAKU: After the one with Sho, it’ll be all done.

AYUMU: With Sho, huh…

GAKU: Something wrong?

(Ayumu walks back and hands Gaku the coffee)

GAKU: Thank you.

AYUMU: I’ll restrain myself from saying something about a handshake event with Sho.

AYUMU: That’s all I’ll say.

GAKU: You mean, it might get extended?

AYUMU: You’ve noticed that the given schedule is different when it’s with Sho, right?

GAKU: Yeah, I thought it was a printing mistake so I was gonna confirm it with the manager.

AYUMU: Well, that’s right in a way.

AYUMU: The announcement during the actual event shouldn’t reveal anything about the members so it would be the same.

AYUMU: I think it’d be better if we stick to our schedule for our activities.

GAKU: Is that what’s written on the venue?

AYUMU: Naturally.

GAKU: Then, why does it get extended? There’s a time-keeper, right?

AYUMU: There was. There was but…

AYUMU: When he’s in front of Sho, he finds it difficult to say, ‘please hurry’.

GAKU: Ah… I can kinda understand why.

AYUMU: Of course, since it was his job, he did so eventually but…

AYUMU: The one he’s telling was Sho after all so…

GAKU: Now that you mention it, I haven’t seen Sho rushing to finish something.

AYUMU: Me, too. I think they’re just trying to be polite so…

AYUMU: Um… I think it’s because of the difference in generations or… that his (Sho) atmosphere is too different that might be the reason…

AYUMU: That’s what I think.

GAKU: That’s because Sho’s elegant, huh?

AYUMU: It seems like it was only during Sho and Haruto’s event that the schedule was followed properly.

GAKU: I think the question would be, how did Haruto tell Sho?

AYUMU: I wonder now. In any case, I think it would be better to prepare yourself for a longer than usual time.

GAKU: Roger that. I’ll at least prepare myself.

AYUMU: Well, I think you won’t have any problems with stamina anyway.

AYUMU: Now then… Let’s leave the gossip at that. Let’s go over our handshake event.

GAKU: You’re right. This is my first time doing an event in a local area so I don’t know how it’d go.

GAKU: I’m glad that you’re my first partner.

AYUMU: I agree.

GAKU: Woah there~! I’m happy but that was an unexpected answer.

GAKU: I thought that you would find working with Reiji easier.

AYUMU: (sighs) Why does everyone always put Reiji and I together as a set?

GAKU: It’s ‘cause Sho can only move when Haruto’s around, and when Ruu’s being reckless, I’m the one who’s there for him.

AYUMU: I know that. B-but, in next week’s event, the manager will be going with the other members, right?

GAKU: That’s what I heard.

AYUMU: The airline tickets are all taken care of but, after that, it looks like we’re to take care of ourselves.

AYUMU: If we’re going to coordinate our time, we should think along the same lines or…

AYUMU: Anyway, I’m glad to have a partner that can cooperate well.

AYUMU: That’s why I thought I’m glad it was you.

GAKU: (laughs) I see now. You were just thinking ahead.

GAKU: I’ll do my best not to hold you back~

AYUMU: That’s my line. I’ll be in your care.

GAKU: Same here. I’m in your care, too.

AYUMU: Now then, you know the flow of the event day already, right?

GAKU: Yeah. I already confirmed the new schedule.

GAKU: It’s pretty much the same flow as from the one in Tokyo, isn’t it?

AYUMU: In general, I don’t think there’s that much difference.

AYUMU: I haven’t seen the venue yet so I don’t know what to expect but… I think it should be fine.

[06:14]

  GAKU: Have there been changes on how we get to the venue?

AYUMU: I haven’t gotten info on any changes.

AYUMU: We’ll be riding a plane to get to the site and then another short trip from there.

GAKU: (sighs) I’m kinda curious about that airplane…

AYUMU: Why? You can’t handle airplanes, Gaku?

GAKU: Nah. I kinda like that thrilling feeling when taking off. My problem is not the plane itself but…

GAKU: Wait a sec… (Gaku searches something on his phone)

AYUMU: Hm?

GAKU: Here.

AYUMU: Eh?! It’s gonna be stormy?!

GAKU: It would’ve been good if the event was in Tokyo but, it seems like the weather’s gonna be bad on the day we’re supposed to leave.

AYUMU: Gaku…! You…! You’re not a man who brings good weather!? (2)

GAKU: Hm?

AYUMU: You said that your hobby was hiking, right? I just concluded that you’re the type who brings good weather from just that but…

GAKU: Let me see… When I go hiking, it’s usually sunny.

AYUMU: Oh… So you really do bring good weather…

GAKU: But, that’s only when I’m with Ruu. When I’m alone, for some reason, the ‘winds start getting stronger’ even when it’s supposed to be sunny out.

AYUMU: Eh…?!

GAKU: It’s not unusual for strong winds to occur.

AYUMU: Ah… I remember now.

AYUMU: The other day, Ruka asked, ‘How’s the guy who summons the wind?’ so I just thought that he was talking about a play but…

AYUMU: He was talking about Gaku, huh…

GAKU: He calls me ‘Fuujin’ sometimes, too.

AYUMU: He’s at god-level…!

AYUMU: Isn’t that kind of extreme?

GAKU: (laughs) If the winds are strong the day we leave, it’d be my fault. Sorry in advance.

AYUMU: You don’t have to apologize. If you do, it kinda… makes my heart hurt.

GAKU: What do you mean…?

AYUMU: I-it’s not like I’m admitting it but… S-somehow I’m… a guy who summons rain.

GAKU: A guy who summons rain…

AYUMU: Yeah… When an event’s going to happen, it’s sure to rain.

AYUMU: When I’m paired with someone, they experience the same thing.

GAKU: …

GAKU: Wind and…

AYUMU: Rain…

GAKU: Judging by the state of things, it’s the end.

AYUMU: If only one happened, it’d be good but…

AYUMU: A synergy, huh…

GAKU: Wasn’t the stage indoors?

AYUMU: It is but, it’s by the next neighbourhood.

AYUMU: If the weather’s so bad that we can’t go out even with an umbrella, the audience would have a hard time getting there.

GAKU: That’s true.

AYUMU: In the event’s guidelines, it was written that in the case of bad weather, it might get suspended.

GAKU: Can’t it just be postponed?

AYUMU: It would be good if they would have compensation for it but… the staff’s schedule is already packed, too.

AYUMU: It would be difficult to do it simply, I think.

GAKU: I see…

(phone vibrates)

AYUMU: Hm? It’s from the manager.

GAKU: I got one, too.

AYUMU: “Since there’s a high chance that next week’s handshake event will coincide with bad weather, there’s been talk of postponing it for now.”

GAKU: “At the very least, it’s only a proposal for now but…” This is…

AYUMU: Gaku, do you think that postponing it is a good idea given the situation?

GAKU: No, I don’t want to think of postponement until the very end if possible.

AYUMU: I’m glad that we think the same. Then, should we share each other’s burdens?

GAKU: Yeah.

AYUMU: I’ll tell the manager that.

GAKU: I’m counting on you.

==TO BE CONTINUED==

※ Please don’t re-post the kanji/romaji and English translations without permission. Instead of reposting, please just like/reblog instead ^^

If you like this, please consider buying me a ko-fi here to support my work. (o^▽^o)Thank you!!

#vazzrock #rock down #tachibana ayumu #tsukipro #drama cd #vazzrock translations #my translations

[theonyxpath]

Small update and preview on Night Horrors: Tormented from Steffie. First (if you’ve been following the Monday Meeting Notes you know this already) the proofs are back with me. The art is AMAZING, Mike Chaney’s crew really knocked it out of the park. So many beautiful wretched creatures in there. Some of the chapter pieces legit made me tear up, because they so perfectly walk that line between hope and despair. I’m proofing it now, and hopefully we’ll get the book to you (and the amazing authors!) soon. (Depending on when this blog goes live, we may be there already—in which case, go team!)

Night Horrors is an antagonist series, and we ran into a little conundrum deciding which antagonists this one should have. Because what’s Promethean without Clones and Zeky? Except we didn’t have room to properly cover those in the Core, and we couldn’t exactly throw antagonists at you without mechanics for them. So Tormented fixes that: you get rules, narrative guidance, and amazing history on creating Clones (for your game—please don’t try to grow people in vats at home) and Zeky (also don’t try to create irradiated people at home; there are other ways to achieve multiplicatio).

Zeky are like ‘regular’ Prometheans in that they have a Pilgrimage, Azothic Memory, Refinements, and transhuman potential. They are not like other Prometheans in that everything they do is radioactive, and, boy, does that fuck things up. Even their Alembics work differently, the effects warped and channeled through a radioactive core. Every Zeka is unique, so Vulcanus for this Zeka works differently than for that Zeka. That means players get to customize their Zeka exactly, which is very cool. (Don’t worry if you’re the Storyteller just looking for a quick NPC—Tormented has three full Zeky and enough sample Alembics to tide you over.)

For the preview, here’s the wonderfully creepy and tragic Tumor Fairy written by Paolo Iantorno. Leave Paolo a note in the comments if you love it!

The Tumor Fairy: Dawn

What’s so special about you? Why do you get to check out?

Background

Dawn is sick. She woke up in her first hospital’s basement in time to see her parents run away. They left a note: “We’re so sorry, we love you very much. Stay in the hospital. Stay out of sight. You’re sick.”

They wrote it on a get-well-soon card.

So, Dawn waited, but they never came back. Days became weeks, weeks became months before Dawn decided they hadn’t been clear on which hospital she had to stay in. She’d learned all of this hospital’s secrets — she’d even met another Promethean on the graveyard shift. He told her what she was and a little more, but he’d been horrified when she showed him her trick.

Dawn went to another hospital. She’d learned a lot about hospitals: People went there when they were sick, and got to leave if they were better. Despite all her poking and prodding and an amateur imitation of the thing the doctor did with that little knife on a sleeping patient, Dawn had no idea what was wrong with her. She knew she was different, that she had to become human, but nobody else had what she had, not even the other Prometheans she encountered.

Dawn’s third hospital had a cancer ward. Biopsy waste containers might as well have been mirrors. The overworked doctor she asked said there was no cure for cancer, which made Dawn angry. She made his insides go bad. Let him be sick forever.

Dawn moves between hospitals every week or so, hiding from baffled doctors and concerned nurses, poking at patients and flipping through charts. She’s figured out the violent outbreaks spread if she stays too long, to say nothing of the first cancer ward she ruined. She’s gleaned a lot more about the Pilgrimage than one might expect from a Zeka, but she is young, unguided, and too powerful for anyone’s good.

Sometimes, Dawn gets angry when a patient recovers too well and gets to go home, especially if they’ve been mean. The parents’ smiles are what really pushes her buttons. Dawn makes those patients sick again. She might even cut them open to see if they get sick like her. She’s not sure why she cries every time they do.

Description

Dawn is a skinny girl with long, greasy blond hair and crooked teeth. She smiles big and often, and asks a ton of questions. Dawn puts on a carefree front. She knows where to find just about everything in hospitals, and how to get around without being seen. She’s even picked up medical procedures from nurses. If you need food, medicine, a place to lay low, or an escape route, Dawn is an invaluable friend. She’ll trade any of these for information with other Prometheans. Dawn is jealous of anyone with loving parents, though she takes most of her anger out on the children. Dawn wears a pale blue hospital gown, scrub pants, and a dark hoodie with plenty of pockets sewn inside. Dawn’s disfigurements are what she thinks her parents meant by “sick,” and it’s hard to blame her. Tumors bulge beneath her skin and break the surface at every node. Her features are distorted and swollen. Dawn’s eyes glow a sickly yellow. When she’s stressed, some of her extremities leak viscous neoplasm studded with blobs of pus and tumorous tissue.

Secrets

Once, Dawn met a nasty doctor on call in a cancer ward’s night shift. He gave her disgusted looks; she could feel the revulsion oozing between his teeth. Dawn felt shame for the first time. The night doctor later screamed at her, and hit a patient. Dawn heard some other doctors talking about “liability,” so she sat herself in the vents above his desk without moving for an entire week. She didn’t know everyone would get so violent. She didn’t know they’d die.

Rumors

“Stay away from the hospital downtown. It belongs to a Zeka. She looks so small, but she will kill anyone who isn’t of her Lineage.”

Dawn has scared away a few Prometheans by accident. She doesn’t mean to hurt them, but whenever they start using Transmutations, she gets excited and tries to copy them. That’s usually when they run.

“She’s Princess Nuke. Her genitor is the granddaddy of all granddaddies, the Tsar himself. He left her there to grow, and one day, he’ll come back to collect.”

Dawn’s parents were an Osiran and an Ulgan. They thought using the x-ray machines and other hazardous equipment stored in the hospital basement would unify their humours; they thought they were ready to be genitors, that they would never abandon their child the way they were abandoned. They were wrong. The radiation was too powerful. They blame it for corrupting their progeny. Dawn, for her part, would give anything to see her parents again.

“If you’re bad, the Tumor Fairy will come and give your cancer teeth so it’ll crawl through your guts and eat you inside out.”

Dawn has been a fixture at local hospitals long enough for younger patients to mythologize the glimpses they’ve caught. One of them pointed at her one night and screamed that at her. The girl wouldn’t stop screaming. She wouldn’t stop tearing at the life-support devices either. Dawn was hurt — she got so angry only the security guard’s presence deterred her from vengeance. She came back the next night to find out the girl had died. The name “Tumor Fairy” makes Dawn’s mouth taste like ashes. She’ll slink away to cry if she hears it.

Story Hooks

The characters needs a hospital, and find themselves caught in the crosshairs of a doctor-turned-hunter. The hunter may be missing a few organs and a leg, but he’s determined to kill “the monster preying on these patients.” Does he mean the young Zeka whose Disquiet caused a lockdown, or the sublimatus stalking the morgue? Between the staff, the patients, the hunter, the Pandoran, and the Tumor Fairy, the throng is in for a wild night.

A friendly Promethean couple shares their refuge with the throng, and tell stories about a Nuclear Promethean holed up in a hospital in the city. The characters find a young Zeka who has done terrible things, but wants to get better — she doesn’t want to be “sick.” Can they teach Dawn? Does the Promethean couple match Dawn’s stories about her genitors, and will the throng attempt to stage a reunion?

The characters know someone who works at the local hospital, who has described what sounds like a Promethean being held under quarantine there. They find a Wasteland threatening to enter advanced stages by the time they arrive, but it’s unlike anything they’ve ever seen. Can they free Dawn from a hospital floor packed by human medical authorities, with more on the way? How will they react when she reveals what she is during their escape?

Dawn

Elpis: Recovery Torment: Jealous Lineage: Zeky Refinement: Cuprum Mental Attributes: Intelligence 2, Wits 3, Resolve 3 Physical Attributes: Strength 2, Dexterity 3, Stamina 1 Social Attributes: Presence 2, Manipulation 2, Composure 3 Mental Skills: Computer 2, Investigation 3, Medicine (Surgery) 2, Occult (Prometheans) 3 Physical Skills: Larceny 2, Stealth 2 Social Skills: Persuasion 2, Socialize (Medical Professionals) 2, Subterfuge 3 Merits: Anonymity 1, Danger Sense, Small-Framed Health: 5 Azoth: 1 Pyros/per turn: 10/1 Transmutations: Metamorphosis — Tegere (Metastasize); Sensorium — Vitreous Humour Willpower: 6 Pilgrimage: 2 Size: 4 Speed: 10 Defense: 3 Initiative: 6 Armor: 0

Unique Distillation: Metastasize

This unique Distillation of Tegere is the Tumor Fairy’s curse.

Dawn focuses the radiation running through her to warp healthy cells into cancerous ones, creating a tumor in the body of the person she’s touching.

Cost: 1 Pyros Dice Pool: Resolve + Medicine + Azoth vs. target’s Stamina + Supernatural Tolerance Action: Instant

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: Dawn’s body reacts adversely. She gains the grave Sick Tilt for two turns. Failure: Dawn’s tumors writhe and leak. She gains the moderate Sick Tilt for one turn. Success: The target gains the grave Sick Tilt. Exceptional Success: The target gains the grave Sick Tilt. If they attack Dawn, they take a further point of lethal damage per turn they do so, as the tumors she implanted attack their insides.

#Onyx Path Publishing

[omegasisgamedesign-blog]

A new year, new content.

If you are reading this, welcome to a new blog I’m trying to start to sort of keep everyone updated on my progress on some of the work I do, most notably game design and mod development with maybe a sprinkling of some streaming thrown in. I’m going to try not to get ahead of myself just yet though.

First let me begin a incredibly short explanation for my absence in mod development for 2017. It was a hard year. Lots of personal events between moving twice, two very hard school terms, a passing of my grandmother, and trying to take care of myself since I believe self care to be important.

On the flip note though 2017 had plenty of opportunities. I made friends, traveled to Spain, and learned more about myself as a person. All of this in combined with spending adequate time with friends and family really got me remotivated to get back into what I love to do, game design and modding.

While I started this endeavor almost two years ago Most of my work was done in the first year and not much progress has been made on the neverending list of ideas I wish to develop/am developing/have developed but not released. 

I suppose I’ll talk about a bit of my work since that’s what is going to be the main focus going forward

Stardew Valley Mods:

This is the bread and butter for this blog for the time being, the main thing I’ve done and what I plan to mainly work on for some time. I’ve already released a slew of mods on nexus under the name of Omegasis with the help of Pathoschild in teaching me new things and maintaining my mods in the large year of absence. I’ve done great things like Happy Birthday, Stardew Symphony, and Auto Speed just to name a few. However this could be greatly improved upon. Here’s some of the upcoming ideas that I probably want to work on in this order.

Note* Some of these names are subject to change.

0. Stardust Core: Status: WIP

     This is the main core mod I’ve been working on for about the last year now. It’s gone through many different iterations, but the main focus is to provide a modding core for a bunch of shared functions and things I want all of my future dependent mods to work off of. This includes a generic template object that all my modded objects will inherit from, a serialization system for saving a loading all of these custom objects, and the Illumination Framework, which I’ve decided to integrate as opposed to having it be its own stand alone mod since I can use a lot of the code in the core. Also one notable feature is an animation manager where users can add in animations to their custom objects and have them run at specific triggers when combined with a code based mod. This could allow for things like fountains, spinning tops, and more! 

0.1 Illuminate/Chromatica Framework: Status: WIP Planned: Summer 2018

    This is already a really basic implementation of lots of colors that I’ve added into code to basically just make things look well...colorful! It’s in a very basic alpha stage and doesn’t do too much since it really only includes the Chromatica side of things, but in the future I hope to be able to add a lot more customizable light sources with different light shapes, interpolation, and configurations to be able to have lots of controls to add multiple light sources to an object. An example would be having multiple light sources on something like a christmas tree or a lamp that gives off multiple colors!

This crystal for example would be colored differently and give off a colored light. Stuff like that mostly.

1. Additional Crops Framework: Status: WIP Planned Winter/Spring 2018

     This is one that I’m currently developing right now. I recently learned that a similar mod called JsonAssets exists that covers some of the same features but what this one does differently is

     1.Allows the user to purchase planter boxes that can be placed down. More of these can be added in by modders for different aesthetic designs. These planter boxes will be used to plant crops anywhere in the world and allow for more features such as greenhouse effects where crops don’t die and self-watering planter boxes. No more having to have crops planted just on your farm!

      2. More kinds of fertilizer that can speed up crop growth and increase quality. This will basically expand upon the fertilizer that is already included in the vanilla base game.

Also shoutout to Spacechase0 for JsonAssets. Definitely a big fan of the work and very impressive.

1.1. Rune Factory Crops Mod: Status: WIP :  Planned Winter/Spring 2018

        This mod is being co-developed alongside Additional Crops Framework as a way to make sure it has a good set of features so that mod authors can make their own mods based off of the Additional Crops Framework. All it would take is a super simple 5 lines of code or so in a code based mod to simply tell the framework where to find the new assets. Of course I would include a tutorial of how to do so full of documentation, but the point is to make a crops mod with lots of new features and customization without having users struggle with the code side of it.

Here is some examples for my art so far, I’m a programmer so programmer art is more of my style but some of this doesn’t look to bad.

     Sorry about the size. I’ll have to find a better way to include images without destroying the quality. Also yes, the turnip crop is just a recolored parsnip right now. I’ve made custom art for the object, but there is still quite a bit more work to be done on this one in terms of art.

2.Stardew Symphony Reboot/Stardew Music Displayer: Planned for Winter/Spring 2018

     One of my personal favorites that I wrote a long time ago with not much programming experience behind me. While the mod works, it’s not terribly user friendly and the tutorials that I made for it well.... frankly put need lots of work. I wasn’t very confident streaming back then and my old house echoed terribly so my voice just doesn’t sound very great on these videos. Also what does one typically say during these things anyways? Well the point is that this mod is going to get a user-friendly upgrade. While a sister mod for it exists which is the simple sound manager and allows for simple mod sound effects for modders to use, Stardew Symphony is aimed at the general populace with no coding experience. 

     Some of my plans for it include:

     1.Making an interface to listen to music included in music packs. That way users can determine what music they do and don’t like. This will probably take form of a music box that you can purchase from Robin to keep keyboard keys clean from a million menus. This menu would also be able to customize what music would play when in terms of location and season instead of having to fudge around with text files.

     2.The Music Displayer portion is a part I already integrated that automatically parses the names of songs from the music files included in a music file. Using some nice hex parsing techniques this allows exposing all the sound files associated with any one given music pack without mod authors having to include a file saying which songs are included.

     3. Finally some better tutorials on the process from how to install the mod, to making music packs, to working the interface. This one is huge since it’s almost stupid that the ability to add custom music to Stardew has existed for so long and I just haven’t made some good tutorials for this yet. So this time it’s happening.

3.Additional Fruit Trees Framework: Status: Planned for Spring 2018

     This is the same as Modular Crops Framework and very well might be integrated into Additional Crops Framework at a later date. This essentially does what you think it does. Adds in different types of trees that will be able to produce different things for the farmer such as more fruit or different kinds of trees that maybe produce modded items. That would be fun!

4. Unnamed Cooking Mod Framework/Overhaul: Status:Planned

     Because what’s the point of having more crops if you can’t cook with them? This essentially will make cooked dishes have different/better effects or at least have a more reasonable logic when it comes to healing stamina and health.This mod would also add in the ability for new cooking recipes that can be learned in different ways. How this would all work is still undetermined. Maybe the same or maybe you research them? Also maybe include a cooking skill??? Who knows.

5. Unnamed Alchemy/Magic mod/Framework: Status Planned for Summer 2018

      This is a big one. It’s to hopefully expand on the fact that there is magic in the world of stardew but finally add on things like spell books, potion brewing, and other small magical machines and artifacts that would be able to add a bit of variety to Stardew. I’ve already prototyped a bag of holding which can be expanded with upgrades, some crystals that do different things like healing or cause it to rain, etc. Like I said, there is a lot that will be done with this one, and is going to be the big content adder.

6. Additional Animals Framework: Status: Planned for later 2018.

     This mod essentially will expand on the potential to have different types of animals that can live on your farm. Of course content mods will be made off of this and I already have an idea of one. It’ll sadly be awhile before I get to this one since I know the other mods will take me a ton of time to get around to completing, but I’m determined to add this one in too.

7.Modular Furniture Framework: Status: Planned: ????

     This is a HUGE mod that I’ve been trying to properly tackle since my early days of Stardew modding and I think I finally found a working solution to how to go about this one, but understand the amount of time it will take is going to be a task within itself. This will finally allow modders to add in custom furniture and place it anywhere. This will also allow ways to include more interactable types of furniture as well that could allow for some fun potential. 

8.Unnamed paint mod:Status: Hiatused

     This is a mod I made back in the spring and it technically works but needs some more tweaking. It essentially allows you to paint on a canvas object with different colors and place that painted tile anywhere in the world. This is pretty much the same way Animal Crossing does it with their designs from the Able Sisters. While I could probably get this mod up and running pretty quick it’s a bit lower on the priority list right now.

9. Additional Buildings Framework: Status Hiatised/Planned to resume LATE 2018

This is a mod that I’ve already made a variant through XNB content modding, but I need to update it to be more compatible to SMAPI since this mod was made on a patched version of Stardew Valley I made as an experiment in the early days of modding. This would allow for different buildings to be placed on the farm such as a bathhouse, warp hubs like subways to go to new custom maps, different aesthetic barns/coops etc. I want to get back to this one but it’ll take a ton of time before I can get here.

Anyways that’s what I have PLANNED for 2018 but the scope of some of these might even flow over into 2019 depending on a ton of factors such as multiplayer, code complexity, and the amount of art I would need to do. Not to mention I have a life where I go to school, am social with friends and family, and like to do other hobbies to. If I can complete even half this list though that would be amazing!

Unnamed Story that actually has a name:

Now this is a story I’ve worked on a long time ago for a game I was making in good ol’ RPG maker VX Ace and while I might not get around to making the game anytime soon, I really want to get back around to writing this story.

Game/Code Streaming:

Since I already play games in my free time and I spend so much time coding  figured I might as well try my hand at streaming again. It could be a fun way to pass time and maybe bounce around ideas from streamers about things I could do with my mods. We shall see where this all goes.

And that’s the very first and VERY long update.

I’ll try to see if I can stick to a bi-monthly update schedule where I’ll update every two weeks or so with my progress that I’ve been making and hopefully next time I’ll have more graphics to show on the specific mod I’m working on. 

Util next time.

#stardew mods #blog update #game development #Omegasis

[acradaunt]

Thought I should write up my own thoughts on the MHWorld demo for a certain particular XBox owner.

Thoughts are quite positive, but I don't think that's a huge surprise. Definitely the biggest downer is that female armour still completely suuucks. 0/6 sets contain actual pants. Male Anjanath is basically male Pink Rathian armour (full plate, helm and all), while female Anjanath is basically Dalamadur's G-Rank armour (worn by the GS in the 4U demo). Basically a metal bikini with a big furry/spiky cape-thing. Great for a barbarian look, absolutely, and perhaps fits Anjanath's personality better. But, uh, it's a drastic design difference from the simple and understated male version. And if you wanna be a tankgirl, it's kind of a big ol' middle finger.

The new way skills work is about 40000x better and more intuitive. Every part gives a level in a skill, and every level has some value. I seriously wonder why it took this long to come up with such a simple and elegant solution. I believe that random charms, sockets, and decorations are all gone. I honestly wouldn't mind one bit.

Jagras (and most of the non-critical wandering monsters; Kulu Ya-Ku, not-Chameleos, and not-Lavasioth) were complete jokes. Like, less threatening than Great Jaggi. Barroth was a bit easy, but all-in-all, felt the most fun to fight. He certainly wasn't the towering, mud-spamming titanic jackass he was in Tri. Anjanath takes like 12-15 minutes to kill, and varies between hitting for like 20-30 damage and 110 damage (of 150, in case that wasn't clear). Rathalos likewise does 25-40 on basic nicks, but taking that fireball or homing claws to the face does 135 damage, and is basically instant death. It reminds me of the Hypers and Deviants having certain random attacks do absolutely ridiculous amounts of damage. It doesn't feel all that great, but it's probably more honest. It puts emphasis back on the big, flashy attacks, and them bumping you to death isn't as big a deal. Roars and Stuns aren't as impactful, but annoying as ever. I kinda feel like 'hey, why can't I move?' and don't really feel like what's causing it. Probably because Gen really kicked up the roar's effect, and with Earplugs, I used that all the time as my golden opportunity to fire out a big Hunter Art.

Noooow, weapon changes. I'm feeling pretty smug about the changes to the GS; it basically confirmed for me that my GS playstyle, and Guild Style for the GS, was the 'correct' method to use it, and all the people who called me a dumb c*** for not running away after every draw were wrong. ANd assholes. You can charge even more than ever, and Tackle you can do can stop you from getting ragdolled every four seconds.

I was pretty sure I'd be back to feeling rather lukewarm about the Lance, after losing Absolute Evade and Shield Assault for quick-sheathes and/or 'get-out-of-bullshit-free', but I think I like it more than ever. The decreased loss of Stamina completely makes up for its losses. Dashing for days and getting loads of free pot-shots on fleeing monsters is hilarious. Blocking also seems to be worth a damn, as not EVERY. SINGLE. attack causes kickback, nullifying your counter-attack, or does multi-hit, causing you to get murdered during your counterattack frames (Astalos notably did this on every attack). Or maybe it's just that most guys in the demo aren't that big of dudes. Getting joust & jump back is also great, and seriously might put Lance in the running for best mounting weapon. That said, mounting itself doesn't feel as good as it did in 4U/Gen. Maybe it's just the less clear interface.

I like to think that for Maces they took the Striker-combo (the version without a golf-swing) and made that the Circle attack, rather than a wholly useless side slap. I felt like I totally devastated Anjanath with it (who, unlike every other Brute Wyvern, is graceful enough to have his head low enough to reach with the Mace), but still timed out. Maybe I spent too much time wandering first (probable), or maybe the demo Mace is exceptionally weak, as it has Paralysis on it, and Gen's Para/Sleep weapons were remarkably bad in raw offense.

Easily the 'most improved' award goes to the Bowguns. Maybe not surprising, but having a decent second stick makes a lot of difference. More than that, though, is you can move and shoot; you're not a total sitting duck when multi-shotting bullets. I fought Barroth with a LBG, and got hit exactly once, and Barroth did pretty unimpressive damage, instead of the insta-kill it woulda been in the past. Thinking on it, I have LITERALLY never not seen a bowgunner NOT triple cart. Or at least double cart. The non-dedication of armour and defense boost involved alone makes them actually usable. The new bonus fire stuff is wacky. LBG's mines are hilarious; dump 'em on a downed monster, and you can get multiple melee punches in for 100+ damage. HGB has long-range mortars (they might not be new, though, TBH) and the machine-gun thing from the first trailer. It also has a sniping thing, but that seemed astoundingly unimpressive.

Switch Axe's explosive discharge now just freaking grabs you onto the monster, and between that very distinct confirmation and the numbers, actually feels great, and not the 'oh, did I miss? It didn't even react to my huge explosion' of the past. Previously, you could enter Sword Mode at 50%, and reloading it gave a full 50%. Add on Gen's Demon Riot and Energy Charge, and the Switch Axe half might as well not have existed. Now, while you can enter at about 33% charge, reloading only gives 33%, too, and it can drain kinda fast, so there's reason to use it in Switch Axe mode. It's weaker than Gen's SA, sure, but it feels like a far better weapon. It helps that the transformations now include attacks themselves, making Switch Axing mid-fight an actual thing.

Hunting Horn is improved enough just be seeing the notes like XX would've added, but the fact you can chain songs into each other means you always have ALL your songs active, all the time. It kinda feels less interesting, weirdly. You're like, 'oh, now what should I do' during the fight, instead of desperately going into the menu repeatedly mid-fight because you have the memory of a knat while doing sick flips off everything's back so you can play the notes in relative peace in midair.

Sword and Shield is more like Shield and Sword, having even better Shield attacks added again. The reverse-shoryuken after the leaping attack is kinda spotty and inaccurate, but the leaping attack itself isn't as important for re-positioning, either. The loss of Whirlwind Slash and Oils ultimately results in me liking World SnS less than the Gen version of it.

Katana has a couple more moves than just 'try to spam out Spirit, uh, whatsitcalled', but is still mostly the same. If you're not a fan of the Spirit Gauge, not caring via Sakura Slash is still probably the more fun version of the weapon. Bow is the same, but with one special attack that takes forever and a day to charge. It's still the best the Bow's been, but I'm still not 100% sold on it. Charge Blade has a weird slidey-thing and can charge the blade itself, too. Nifty, but feels like it'd be impossible to do within actual combat. Dual Blades are almost identical. I still don't give a damn about Insect Glaive and Gunlance.

Mantles and such are pretty much better, global, Hunter Arts with a more honest recharge time. Challenger is Mace's Taunt and the Healing spike is one of the generic HAs nobody ever uses. It's hard to get a feel for a Palico's value and options from the demo, but the fact you can personally tell it to heal/flash/taunt, rather than having to hope they don't do something stupid is a huuuge step up.

I saw you can save 140+ armour sets, so I can most certainly redo the 'save a set for every monster' thing that I did in Gen. Couldn't set items, but I imagine it's also an unreasonably high number. You lose out on that 4th excess item pouch that Gen/4U had, but instead, all ore and monster parts have a whole separate, even bigger bag they get dumped into. Mining is stupidly fast, and you get a whole whack of 2-5 mushrooms/honey in a single pick. Gathering for supplies in the middle of a rough fight absolutely seems viable. Potion drinking-and-moving is great, but all-in-all, it feels like other things even it out. Changing sets at camp could be stellar for multi-monster fights, or even just 'oh, face is busted, time to put away the gun, and stab it in the face directly'.

I'm sure there's other things I have to say buuuut somehow I've taken like an hour and a half to write what I meant to do in like ten minutes sooo that's probably a good reason to stop blabbing.

#Monster Hunter World #Monster Hunter

[defunctblogtobedeleted]

10/26/19 3:40 am - Inventing A New Ranking System For People

Alright I don’t know if it’s sexist since I’m bi (LOL Andi would hate when I called shit gay and say that it’s okay because I’m half-gay).

But I did a lot of brainstorming and wanted to show off my new rating scale.

1-10 is trash. We used to parody it by saying it was more efficient to just do Binary where 0 is you wouldn’t smash and 1 is you would.

There’s just no depth there.

The crazy-hot chart is at least a little better because it’s got two factors you’re assessing.

So Here’s what I’ve got for you today.

I spent that one night at Darlin’s watching her stream and drawing this picture because I kept imagining what it would be like to write down all my feelings and have her read about how much I loved her and how highly I thought about her and maybe she’d take me back. I came up with this scale, but didn’t draw that part of this page out until just now.

I’m glad I’m writing the official scale part and all the numbers now that I don’t really want Andi back. It all feels more honest, though the opinions haven’t really changed. One of the things I said to Andi when I was breaking off our friendship was that I felt shitty like I was manipulating her back into a relationship and not being real friends with her.

Honestly I don’t know if I could control myself to try to be platonic friends with her now. Probably not, I’m tryna fuck like everyone I hang out with LMAO.

But anyway, Andi and I loved DnD and so that was the inspiration for this scale. Forreal here it is:

So here’s the rundown. You’ve got your normal 6 stats on the left, Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. 

It helps to fill these out as well, because then you have 12 points of assessment.

For example, Andi’s digestive issues means that there is no fucking WAY she’d be able to pass a constitution check on poison, since she can barely eat most regular foods; hence she has a -2 in that stat. It also helps to remember that when you’re doing real stats that 18 is like supergenius and 20 is literally unachievable naturally so there’s no way you ought to give a real person much higher than like a 16 or 17 intellect.

Okay now here’s the fun part. My made up stats are Hobbies, Spontaneity, Mental Health, Sex, Beauty, and Status/Refinement. 

Hobbies are what I consider to be the strength of a relationship. It’s how much you guys have in common with the things you like to do. On these stats I think it’s more natural to fill them out to a max score of 20. Andi gets two points off for not liking drugs and not liking fucked up shit from 4chan or videos where she gets grossed out like Me!Me!Me! but she was damn near perfect in terms of wanting to do stuff I wanted to do. Drinking, video games, sex? Yeah. got it.

Spontaneity is a subjective stat. One person’s SPO 20 is probably another person’s SPO 1, after all. You’d want someone in your life to be as crazy and willing to go out and do wild shit as you are, I’d presume. Or at least I do, which is why in terms of having Andi ready to go on road trip adventures across the country with me she didn’t quite hold up. I’d give her a -2 but she did fuck me in a parking lot the first night I met her. Really thought about giving her a flat stat just for that, but overall I think it’s negative.

Mental Health isn’t just a category for me to take a jab at Andi for having depressive issues, I fucking swear I’m not that much of a dick. Mental Health, or MHP, is a throwback to that Crazy-Hotness chart/meme/adage. You really do have to take into account if someone isn’t going to slice your ass with razor blades when they fuck you lmfao, or if they’re going to fight with you or fuck your friends any chance they get. Some people are just crazy and now here’s a stat for that. But alright yes, I am an asshole and took off points because Andi was depressed so much lmfao.

Sex + Beauty  I like these stats being their own categories for the same reason that INT and WIS are different stats. Raw beauty is your natural 1-10 scale of hotness. Of course, it’s more accurate because it includes .5 decimals by going 1-20. I’d give Andi a 7.5 on my hotness scale, where 10s are like Natalie Portman, Britney Spears ~Toxic era, and Kimberly from the Power Rangers. So in DnD Beauty she gets a 15. She had perfect tits, a great ass, a tight stomach, a pretty smile, and legs for fucking days, man. Pretty fucking hot.  For sex, I’d say you should rate someone on a scale from 1-18 normally, just because an 18 is the highest stat you can roll naturally before increasing your stats with feats. But then you can continue to add 1 or 2 if they actually have some mindblowing skills. Like if they give the best head you’ve ever gotten or something they can break into that best-in-the-world territory that a 19/20 stat in DnD is supposed to represent.  That being said, Andi was one of my favorite fucks. She didn’t have unbelievable stamina on top and didn’t give a legendary blowjob. But she was ALWAYS ready to fuck. And so enthusiastic. And so sexy. And kinky. The only area she loses points from rolling the nat 18 is for kissing and for whatever was causing the puss flavor.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I really honestly think it was just because we were too lazy to shower most of the weekend though so I didn’t want to take a whole second point off for that.

And so that leaves us with Status (/Refinement) Status is a somewhat more nebulous stat, but I wanted to add a stat in for how classy someone is. Does she come from a rich family? Does she have money? Does she make more money than you? How is her taste in music and culture and art? Would you feel shitty not taking her out to a fancy restaurant? Like sometimes you have to acknowledge that you’re tryna fuck a hot piece of trailer trash. It’s fine, man. Like Mungo Jerry said In The Summertime, “If her daddy’s rich, take her out for a meal / If her daddy’s poor, just do what you feel.” It’s not a bad thing to not be classy.  For starters I liked that Andi made a little more money than me, but she wasn’t rich enough to take me in and be my sugar momma 😂 I also didn’t think she had Great taste in anime and music, so she ends up in an above-average-but-still-kinda-middling stat. 

And that covers it!

I hope this doesn’t make me the worst person ever. But I might start reviewing all the people I sleep with like this. I think it really demonstrates their appeal a lot more than anything else I’ve heard of. 

Let me know if I’m the biggest piece of shit ever for this so I know not to do it though lmfao.

Also Andi, if you ever read this for some reason I hope you’re... flattered? I guess? I really hope you meant what you said when you told me I could write about you because... this is probably a lot. I really don’t think I was out of your league though, and when you looked at your porn pics of us and said you couldn’t believe your ass looked so good I hope you know you always looked great. 

💕 It really was fun. Unblock me so we can be friends again. It’d be cool to chill now that I’m in a better headspace I think. 

I was thinking about calling you when I finally got to this part in my catching up, but I want to give you your space. Forever, I guess. You always said you were the bad bitch Ex’s And Oh’s girl who would have your exes chasing you to the end of the Earth and I’m not about that chase lmao.  But you were worth it. You were worth a lot more, to be honest lol, I wish I had gotten my shit together before we broke up instead of after. But you really convinced me to treat myself right, and take better care of myself in a way that nobody outside of my family has and you mean a lot to me for that. So I hope you’re doing well and I don’t want to do anything to fuck that up if you are, so I’m not gonna be that ex that calls you out of the blue that says “oh are you ready to be friends again, sorry for that shit I said.” Also because I’m not. But if you wanted to be friends anyway that’d be rad.  💕 💕

[samtheflamingomain]

this is the police 2: 2 this 2 police

I had a love/hate relationship with This is The Police, a strategy game from 2016. It was hard, long, unforgiving, and at points downright infuriating. But it was worth it for the story.

I can't say the same for the sequel, cleverly named "This is The Police 2" instead of "This is Still The Police", or if they wanted to be accurate, "This is Barely The Police".

Because as hard, long and unforgiving as the first game was, it was all that to a point. I can't recall just how many millions of posts I came across during my playthrough that basically said, "It's supposed to be grueling and difficult and punishing," and they were largely right. The point of the game was, at times, to feel defeated. It SHOULD be really hard to run a cop shop while trying not to be the Mafia's bitch. Makes sense.

But there's always a line where you get diminishing returns. A game that must be played nearly perfectly to complete is a hard sell to me. I got through the first game with minimal help, but this one, for some missions I was following step-by-step from a Youtuber and it still took me 50 tries.

That's just the intro. I have a lot to say about this game, mostly bad. So let's get to it. Plot/Story, then gameplay, then miscellaneous thoughts.

In TITP 1, you are Jack Boyd, respected and well-liked Police Chief of Freeburg. By the end of the game, you're a loathed piece of corrupt garbage on the run from the FBI. I criticized the "choices" in the game because both endings, no matter your choice, were ultimately the same. You either end a corrupt cop, or a really corrupt cop.

I start with the first game's story because in TITP 2, the story is so wildly terrible that it hit me like the Harry Potter spinoffs, in that it almost ruined the original for me because it was so bad.

You still play as Jack Boyd, who gets arrested for reasons that I either missed because the subtitles fly by faster than any human can possibly read, or because they sent their writer on a cruise instead of making them come up with a reason.

There's very little reason for anything that happens in this game, which I will demonstrate by telling you what happens next: you, Boyd, someone extremely well-known, whose face has no doubt been on many a new channel in the time since the last game because you're on the run from the FBI, you are put in a drunk tank. When you come to, you are in a cell directly in front of the desk of the Police Chief of Sharpwood.

You manage to convince her that you're Jack Boyd, former Chief of Freeburg, on the run from the law (and why would you be telling her this? Unclear! Fuck you!) and she decides it'd be a swell idea if, y'know, she gave her entire damn job to a criminal who hasn't even made an effort to disguise himself in his flee from the feds. Surely none of the hundreds of cops that work there would recognize him. A former cop. A former Chief. Of. Police. On the run. From the FBI.

I'm not kidding. She lets you out, you go home, and come back the next day and start the game as the First Deputy of Sharpwood. I kind of feel like an insane person because I read nearly a dozen reviews of this game and not a single one addressed how absolutely batshit absurd this opening is. Let alone the rest of the "story"

I'm not even going to bother with the rest of the story because I literally could not suspend my disbelief enough to get past the first goddamn day on the job. To wrap up the shittiness of the plot, I'll just say it was boring, too long, and completely linear. No choices, no multiple endings. Jack Boyd is a shell of his character in the first game, I didn't care about him, and I could barely follow what was happening half the time. Characters just go ON AND ON about ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for SEVERAL MINUTES at a time. A 5-minute cutscene could easily have been written as a 30-second cutscene, but hey, the game's 1/3 the length of the first, gotta pad it out somehow.

Onto the gameplay. This time round we have four kinds of gameplay. There's the regular dispatching of officers to crimes like in the first game, investigations like in the first game, turn-based assaults (like XCOM), new to this game, and finally, what I like to call the "HR" gameplay. Let's start there.

There's quite a few elements and mechanics that to me, seem like they'd fall under the jurisdiction of a Human Resource manager rather than the goddamn Chief of Police. This includes remembering things like how Officer Mustard refuses to work with women. Nothing you can do but fire him and be short-staffed! Or, since he has a lot of skills, you just put up with it. Just a whim you have to kowtow to! Spolick won't work with anyone ranked lower than her, and Bradhi won't work with those out of uniform. Those are 3 of about 12 fucking examples, out of 25-30 officers. Sounds like they need a team-building exercise so the Chief of Police doesn't need to have a goddamn Excel spreadsheet open to remember which assholes won't work with whom.

But it doesn't stop there! Not only get to be Chief and Head of HR, you also get to be a chef! On Day 12-ish, the precinct's kitchen staff just leaves, so now you have to plan fucking menus for 5-course meals for your officers. And as if that was tedious enough, all 30 of them have bullshit allergies or whiney shit like "I can't drink coffee because it reminds me of my dead aunt" (Not kidding). The one up-side to this annoying bit of gameplay is just seeing what the meal looks like after literally catering to your officers' every whim. Nothing like a nice bowl of Cajun chili to start, then sushi, a side of enchilladas, orange juice, and for desert, a donut. Or 15 servings of Bananas Foster. Only like $5 more.

The main game, sending officers on calls, seems a lot more complicated than it actually is, which is probably the only positive thing about it. In TITP 1, each officer had 2 stats: their "professionalism" (basically how experienced they are) and, literally, whether or not they're an alcoholic. That's all you need to know or ever will know. Send good cops to the calls? Good results, usually.

In 2 they beefed it up. Now each officer has 7 more stats: intelligence, negotiation (those two should be the fuckin same), shooting, speed, stealth (we do not need all 3 of these) and strength, as well as a stamina bar. Someone learned how to program in RPG stats and got too excited.

Now, I've read in most reviews that people don't like how "random" the calls seem to be. Now, unlike the last game, every single call requires action that you will dictate to the officers at the scene. You get 3 options on how to proceed. Say a robbery - shoot the perp, run after them, or taze them. Well, it's not random what happens. If you pick "run after them", and pick an officer with high speed skill to do this, success. The skills translate directly with these actions. I don't think I ever lost a single call because of something "random".

The same cannot be said of the tactical missions. To be kind... it functions. Barely. There's too many perks, many don't do much of anything, or are used once and never again. Also, adding in equipment was a mistake. Last thing you need is a surprise tactical mission at the end of the day and the only officer you can send that has a tazer is fuckin Persy with his 15 prof score and zero skills. Too many variables spoiled the pot that could've been a decent part of the soup of gameplay. Sorry, that analogy got away from me.

A lot of people will shit on how 90% of these missions need to be done with complete stealth, but aside from the one really, really hard one near the end, total stealth isn't too hard to do.

In TITP 1, I used a walkthrough for every single "investigation" where you have to put the images in order to recreate a crime, because the art style was too minimal to even tell what was happening in each frame. They heard that and put a label on each frame saying what it's depicting, so that's an upgrade. Overall, though, I'd say it's the only one done well.

Finally, stray thoughts. I mentioned how shitty the plot was, but also, so are the characters. Spoilers for the ending now, but let's be real, 90% of players won't bother playing through. Lilly is just a fucking doormat with no character development. Lana goes insane in 0 seconds flat and somehow keeps Boyd prisoner in his house while still letting him go to work? So then Boyd shoots her after a few days of that. Then what the hell, also strap a bomb to Lilly's snowmobile and kill her. Why? Very unclear! Fuck you!

Then, in the final scene, despite having literally shot someone in his house, Boyd's chillin in his chair while his courrier brings him groceries. It mirrors the opening scene in which a courrier brings him shittier groceries. What a development.

Jack did questionable things in TITP 1. And I played a "clean" game - I was as uncorrupt as the game allowed you to be. But in this game, he's just a pathetic drunk who goes through absolutely nothing, no character development, and STILL gives a shitty ending. Because, in the last game, the ending was shitty because it was kinda sad. Boyd wasn't a bad person. But in 2, he is. He's a dick for no reason and ends up on top, all enemies defeated, he's Chief of Police despite still being a wanted man. (Again, have I mentioned how stupid that is? He's not fucking Clark Kent.)

That's about all I got. 2/10, do not recommend. Even the highlights are hard to recall. Play the first game, though. That one, especially compared to this hot garbge, is worth the struggle.

Stay Greater, Flamingos.

#this is the police #this is the police 2 #game review #sam

[thosequestions-blog1]

Part 1- TKD

aSo since the NYP Friendly which was 2 months ago, I have went through 2/4 competitions that I have to fight in this year! The first being the PA-STF competition and the second being the SNG (Singapore National Games) Competition. Both ended really badly but apart from that, I managed to get selected for POLITE so that’s a good thing, I guess. There is also an issue that is going for quite a while now and that’s my lack of passion.

So this whole thing started right after my PA Competition, I was up against this guy called Sheikh. I completely didn’t know anything about him until post-match where I found out that he is a current National Squad player. Ok so where to begin? I would have to start with saying that 2 weeks prior to the competition was National Poomsae and so after that competition, I started counting down the days till my match. Now I was fighting in the -74Kg weight range and I specifically chose to fight above the 60kg+ weight range because why? It is highly competitive and also everybody there is fast and pro so......sue me for being a coward ok? 

SO I started counting the days till the competition and when the fight day came, I was really focused up till when my bout number was called. Now when I was on the mat, it was a whole new story. As far as I could remember, the mat was really bright because it was yellow and also there were a lot of lights. I couldn’t focus and totally looked like a joke on the mat. Meanwhile, I didn’t know how to approach him and when he came, all my training just flew out the window. I ended up losing 23-0 on that day and though I won a Bronze medal because it was a default medal. I just felt so disappointed at myself. I mean sure I fought till the end which was a 20 point gap but I was so nervous that I blanked out like when he did a Crescent kick on me, I couldn’t see anything and I could react at all. Yeah so that was my PA experience.

So post PA, it was subtle at first but I really started to question what was the whole point of me being TKD? I mean yeah originally, it was to gain sparring experience so that I could impart knowledge to my Juniors back at my old club but does that really count as sparring experience? I mean during the match, I barely kicked at all and it was as if it was like him fighting with a Punching Bag if you will. 

OK so now I’m going to talk about SNG, so about 2 weeks before, I found out who I will be fighting with and its not Sheikh luckily but its the guy that lost to Sheikh, Bernard. So back at PA, Bernard lost to Sheikh because due to the fact that Sheikh had less penalty points than him. But even then, they fought to a standstill, guarding and attacking even during the Golden Point round. After PA, I just wanted to fight somebody that is just a little better than I am you know? Cos I noticed about the whole TKD community, if A is not fighting B at this competition, they would be fighting at the next one in a nutshell. Thus, everybody is just fighting everybody else except that its the the same people and also that they let the National Squad players to fight. That was something that I realised after the SNG, I think its useless that they do because since they are already the best of the best, why let them fight with the locals anyway? I mean sure they can fight in one competition just to maintain their standard but other than that, if they keep fighting, other people can’t grow basically and it would just be an endless cycle of A being the top in this competition but B is the top in the next one and then so on and so forth. 

Sorry for digressing but back to the SNG, it was pretty brutal, I heard that they were 3 concussions per 5 matches and so going in, I was pretty scared and didn’t want to fight at all cos I was in the Medic Room and saw some pretty serious cases like this guy who was knocked out by a National Player had Short-Term memory loss and had to be taken to a Hospital while another guy who fought another National Player I think had his jaw fractured and was bleeding quite badly so yeah....I pretty much lost the will to fight which meant half the battle has already been lost. But unlike the PA, I didn’t think count down the days till the match day. Instead, I spent the 2 weeks till the Fight Day NOT thinking about the competition, instead focusing on everything and anything else like School, Youtube, etc. During Trainings, I don’t think about the upcoming competition but instead, focused on trying to improve some of my skills and looking back at it now, I fought way better. On match day, I was really relaxed and wasn’t too tense or nervous, heck I was kinda carefree up till when my bout number was called. I went in, didn’t let the yellow mat get to me and just started off by bouncing on the spot. The weirdest thing was that in the mat, I could actually think, like I was thinking of a way to come into contact and initiate the fight by closing the distance. Though I had to lower the intensity of the match, I was kinda having fun there. So I started by throwing some short turning kicks to check my range and also to see if he would try anything. And by the fourth time I did, he threw a Jumping Backthrust which I saw it coming but couldn’t react in time cos I just froze there. I had to withdraw cos I didn’t manage to recover in time and so just as quickly as it takes for me to make a Ham and Cheese sandwich, my fight ended in less than 30 seconds but on the mat, it felt like 1min though.

By the way if you’re still reading, give yourself a pat on the back for powering through while I pat myself on the back for writing my experiences off the top of my head that actually manages to somehow makes you read through haha.

OK SO PART 2! All that was in the span of 2 months but here is where the battle is not on the mat but of the mind. After the SNG match, I was pretty satisfied with myself that I had managed to overcome a major goal which was the fear of being nervous and then blacking out on the field because during the match, I was thinking straight and was really relaxed. But then I suddenly thought, what if I had just decided to power through the match and fight through that pain? Would I have managed to at least score a point on my opponent? How could I have just ended my match with just one hard kick? Am I really that weak? All these kinda thoughts just came crashing down on me and over the next few weeks, I begin to think of why I even wanted to do TKD in the first place. I guess if I were to describe it right now, it would be like Cancer or a Terminal Illness in my head that makes parasites which just stops me from thinking clearly. It got worse cos I think I might have made my depression worse. I then proceeded on to think bigger than my passion for TKD, to the hard stuff like why am I even living in the first place? I mean if I really think about it. I have no ambition, my School life isn’t exactly great either cos if anything, my GPA might drop. I lack discipline because I’m always late for everything and anything and in my head, I’m constantly berating and fighting with myself. I seem to have this voice in my head that constantly tells me how much better my Sec School self was, how much more agile and faster I was, how I could think straight and how I have this moral code and also how I have this voice in my head that was constantly guiding me and advising me on everything. I began to beat myself up, basically I hit Rock Bottom first when I started to think about how I don’t find TKD fun and how I lack the basic passion for it. And then somehow, I managed to make it even worse by going beyond Rock Bottom right to the core of my being. 

It didn’t just end there, I was worse physically to the core too. My stamina dropped really badly, I would pant heavily after going through a bit of Target Sparring. When I stretch, I can’t feel anything good at all as if there weren’t any tension and my skills were fluctuating in that little gray area between Improvement and Deprovement. Internally, I felt like there wasn’t even a purpose in doing TKD. Heck, there wasn’t even any purpose in life. I know that early on in the year, I wanted to do all that I can to improve myself in the Art of TKD but right now, its as if I just can’t seem to love it. I lost the reason as to why I had that passion for TKD and why I wanted to do all that I can to prove myself and Sir wrong that I’m not just some guy who is tall. During training, its hard for me to even focus and perform even at my basic standard at all. I lost some of my basics and right now, I’m just lost. I’m just really really lost, I don’t know what to do and there is no one that I trust to talk about these kinda issues with so thus I am writing it down here, in the sanctity of my Tumblr Blog. 

There was a certain period of time where I started to read this book called Train your mind and for a period of time, I was starting to see improvements psychologically. This was really evident in my POLITE Selections, my mind was clear and I find myself only focusing on my opponent and how to engage him. Though some things that I can improve on are to be more daring and confident and to not hesitate and follow up on my kicks, overall, it was a good experience, even better than the NYP Friendly. However, now all that mental conditioning is gone when my Senior reminded me yesterday that there are 6 more days till the Nationals. So now I’m having a Nervous Breakdown and I couldn’t focus at all during training yesterday which was really really bad. But now, I think I have calmed down a bit just by writing my thoughts right here. Just being honest, it was kind of a last resort because I really don’t know what else to do anymore. 

Anyways, stay tuned for part 2 tomorrow night!

Signed,

-Z-

[flauntpage]

McGregor In Reverse: Boxer Heather Hardy Ready for MMA Debut

Heather Hardy is synonymous with New York's boxing scene.

The 20-0 WBC international featherweight champion is from Brooklyn's Gerritsen Beach, she trains aspiring boxers at the legendary Gleason's Gym in DUMBO, and as a professional boxer, she's built a reputation for selling tickets at nearly all of the city's venues: Coney Island's Ford Amphitheater, B.B. King Blues Club in Times Square, the Roseland Ballroom, and the massive Barclays Center, just to name a few.

Until now, the only notable exception was arguably the world's most famous arena and boxing's Mecca: Madison Square Garden.

The good news is that Hardy will cross MSG off her "to-do" list on Saturday night. The catch is that at 35, the single mother and veteran pugilist will do so by making her mixed martial arts debut in a flyweight match against Alice Yauger (4-5) at Bellator 180.

In moving from boxing to MMA, Hardy didn't exactly become the Neil Armstrong of combat sport crossovers. Holly Holm was famously the first athlete to win titles in both sports. And at the opposite end of the spectrum, UFC superstar Conor McGregor is preparing to make his boxing debut on Aug. 26 against Floyd Mayweather, an undefeated legend and heavy, heavy favorite.

And like McGregor, who's under contract with the UFC and needed president Dana White's go-ahead before finalizing any deal with Mayweather, Hardy had her own red tape and needed approval from notorious boxing promoter Lou DiBella.

DiBella was reluctant at first, but politics helped to force his hand.

When New York became the last state to legalize professional MMA in 2016, the new law came with a major caveat: For every athlete competing in a combat sport, promoters were required to provide $1 million of insurance covering any potential life-threatening brain injury. (In 2013, Russian boxer Magomed Abdusalamov suffered a significant brain injury during a fight at MSG, and his subsequent lawsuit is believed by many to be the impetus for the steep insurance requirement in New York's MMA Law).

Not only did the new law effectively make boxing cost prohibitive at the club level, but such an insurance policy did not exist for boxing. That put New York's boxing industry on hiatus for four-and-a-half months before the proper policies were approved.

Without her usual boxing purses, Hardy signed with Invicta FC and planned on making her MMA debut in January before her opponent pulled out because of injury.

Since then, Hardy won a pair of boxing matches against Edina Kiss, including one at LIU's Paramount Theater, which was the first club-level fight card since last September. Following that unanimous decision, Hardy announced that she would fight Yauger at Bellator 180 with the blessing of DiBella and help from her new trainer, jiu-jitsu black belt and MMA fighter Daniel Gracie.

The following is an interview with Hardy in which she discusses boxing, MMA, the business of both sports, and Conor McGregor's (non-existent) chances against Floyd Mayweather.

Fightland: How did you first get the idea to try MMA in your 30s? Heather Hardy: Last year [June 25, 2016], I was 15-0 and I was boxing on the undercard of [Keith Thurman-Shawn Porter's fight on CBS]. I was boxing the girl that was ranked No. 2 [Kirstie Simmons]. I had the perfect argument to be put on TV. I lobbied and lobbied and did all the things. At the time, I was being sponsored by Dove, I was in the commercial campaign; so much stuff was happening; 15-0. And they wouldn't do it. I was passed over by a guy who was like 2-0. And I just felt so defeated. I was doing all the things I was supposed to do and it still wasn't enough. So I thought I needed a backup plan. That summer I started wrestling. Soon after I started wrestling and posting on my social media, [Premiere Boxing Champions] did my fight [against Shelly Vincent] on NBC Sports.

So boxing was starting to take a good turn, but at the same time, I was already doing the jiu-jitsu and thinking, 'man, I'm OK at this.' And then we had the insurance issues in New York, where there were no boxing for six months, so it was the perfect time to get Lou [DiBella] to say that I can do a fight. Then that Invicta fight fell through and I was so disappointed. The girl pulled out the day before the way in. It sucked.

DiBella didn't have to say 'yes' to you? Yeah, I'm really grateful for that. I had to kind of go up to him like when you're asking your dad for money when you know he has none. I was like, 'Please, please,' and I know he's not a big fan of MMA. And why in the world would he want to let me go into another combat sport, where I could potentially get injured? So it was a big thing for him to allow me to do this.

So you went from wrestling to jiu-jitsu. I started American wrestling. I had kick boxed before I boxed, so I'm kinda familiar with kickboxing. And getting back into that hasn't been so difficult. I transitioned from wrestling into jiu-jitsu, and now training I'm with Daniel Gracie.

What's the biggest challenge of this transition? They can pick me up and throw me on the floor. That's really not OK with boxing (laughs).

The biggest challenge is that the tricks you can use in boxing don't work in MMA because people can pick you up and throw you on the floor. You could do a little shoulder bump or lean on your opponent if you're tired or tuck a little on the inside to bully them.

Too many punches at once and you wind up on your back.

In MMA, you're not doing such complicated combinations, right? My MMA coaches are telling me that, "Don't think more than two punches at a time," and if you stand still, someone is gonna look to tie you up.

In boxing, if someone ties you up, the ref breaks it up. In MMA, so much can happen: elbows can get thrown, knee kicks can get thrown. It's dangerous when you get close. They tell you, "Strike and get out; strike and get out."

Is your MMA strategy similar to your boxing strategy? I wish I could say that it is, but my boxing style is being more of a volume puncher. I'm an aggressive puncher. The challenge for me has been to try and add movement to stick and move instead of just stick and stick and stick.

Without any corners in the Octagon, does your footwork have to change? There's no corners, but there's also no gives. With the ropes [in boxing] you can push back on the ropes, you can get a couple of extra inches to move out of the way of a punch. You can work off the ropes.

The cage hurts. You don't want your back on the cage ever. And so many different things, like takedowns in jiu-jitsu and strikes can happen up against that cage. It's not where you wanna be.

But an official MMA cage is almost twice the size of a boxing ring, so I almost feel like I'm fighting someone in my back yard.

With that much space, is it easier to evade an opponent? No, because in boxing, when you get away, you only have to get away from two hands. In this, you're getting away from throws, kicks, knees, elbows, fists. Getting away really entails a lot.

Some see boxing as being more of a skill and MMA being more like a street fight. Is that what you've found? There are very few things you can't do in MMA. You can't poke someone in the eye; you can't bite anybody. It's not a vicious street fight. What I've been telling people for years—and as a boxing fan, you know—you tell people that boxing is a skilled sport. When you watch two people box, it can be like watching two people dance when they're doing it right. It's a beautiful art.

The same can be said for jiu-jitsu, for wrestling, and for all those things that the common, untrained eye may see as just people rolling around on the floor trying to maul each other. Actual beautiful transitions are happening if you know what to look for.

Is it like a street fight? Much more like a street fight than boxing. You can crack your elbow on someone's face after you knock them on the floor. But there's certainly skill involved.

Was jiu-jitsu a good way to transition into MMA? I think that it's important to know what I'm allowed to do, but what my opponent is capable of doing. So I felt like I needed try all of the martial arts just to see what's out there. My coaches might say, "We're gonna work on this drill; you'll never do this in a fight and I never want to see you do this in a fight." But I need to be aware of what can be done to me.

How does the length of the fight compare? Three five-minute rounds.

Does it feel shorter? Longer? Usually I do 10 rounds, but I'd do 10 two-minute rounds. This is a tremendous difference.

Is this more like a marathon? It's like sprinting a marathon is more like it.

How have you responded physically? Getting the grappling stamina that's required and the muscles used has been challenging. But I've been sparring five-minute rounds. We did all the work to prepare.

Did anyone warn you against doing MMA? Well, we had a little of that from Lou in the beginning. Outside of him being a scared dad, no. My team and I are always on the same page. Some of my boxing coaches, some of the old-school guys at Gleason's [Gym in Brooklyn] were like, "What are you doing? What's wrong with you?"

You've said you're not leaving boxing. If you immediately have MMA success, would you turn your attention to that? I don't know that I won't turn my attention to it anyway. I plan on having a lot of success in this field. I'm hooked now. I had my training camp, and about halfway through training camp, something clicked. The green light went on and I was like, "Oh my God, I love this now." I'm really enjoying this.

What clicked? One day I was training and I was trying so hard to do something with the jiu-jitsu and one of my coaches said, "Stop thinking so much; just do what you would naturally do." All of the sudden, everything got easier.

It was just a common takedown defense drill. Someone slams you up against the cage: how do you stay on your feet? I was trying to do all the technical steps: You hit your overhook or your underhook; your hips have to turn; drop your waste.

I'd be like, "Oh, I forgot to do this! Oh, I forgot to do this!"

The coach was just like, "Stop it. Don't let her get you on the floor. How about we think about that instead of the ten things you're supposed to do?"

Once I started thinking like that, it was like, "Oh duh, it's like a fight." It's not a recipe. I'm not baking a cake.

You have to defend more of your body now besides your head and torso. Is that a problem? There are two ways to think about it: More body to defend, or more opportunities to strike.

If you go into boxing and think, "She can do this; she can do that; this can happen to me," that changes your game. My focus is just to stay out of the way and do as much damage as I can when I'm in the zone.

Were you an MMA fan before this? No, but in all fairness, I wasn't a boxing fan either. I grew to appreciate it through doing the sport.

How are you finding the business side of this? It's just different. The business side of anything is just difficult. People keep asking me, "Are you so nervous; it's fight week?" And fight week is fight week. It's business week as a fighter. I gotta close out tickets; I gotta finish making my weight; I gotta see who didn't get T-shirts. I have so much stuff to do, and that doesn't change. This is the same kind of business.

If anything, Bellator is more corporate then boxing. Boxing isn't very corporate. So now I'm finding I'm dealing with lots of different departments to get stuff done and figuring out who to direct questions to. The fundamentals are the same.

Were it not for the insurance issue, would you have just stayed in boxing full time? No, my coach is a three-time world champion. The transition to MMA was always something that was hanging there. He always told me you have to get great at something first. We can't come out of the Golden Gloves and just go into MMA. You have to get great at your boxing.

Not to say that I'm great at boxing, but I'm certainly above skill level against most of the [MMA] competition in terms of boxing. I feel really comfortable making the transition now because of the level I go to in boxing.

Did you scout your opponent? I don't watch video. I leave that to the coaches and let them tell me how to train. You can get so preoccupied with what you see on tape. You don't know how someone is gonna react to you. So I don't like to overplan as much as just being prepared.

You're a boxing expert and you're becoming an MMA fighter: Does McGregor stand a chance against Mayweather? No way does McGregor beat Mayweather in a boxing ring. No way does Mayweather beat McGregor in a cage… Anyone on the planet who thinks that McGregor has a chance does not appreciate the science of boxing.

I don't know that [McGregor will] land one [punch]. I've done sparring sessions where no one hit me, and I'm nowhere near Floyd Mayweather.

McGregor In Reverse: Boxer Heather Hardy Ready for MMA Debut published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv