#also playing with formatting cause mobile makes it tough

[tacticalvalor]

«────── « HEADCANON » ──────»

TAGGED BY: @vendettavalor

TAGGING: @sadistpet , @mayxthexforce (your choice of character ♡), and anybody else who feels like doin this!

[ QUIZ LINK ] || apologies for any formatting issues on this post, I'm on mobile so it's probably ugly 😔

MUSE: Artyom Chechyotikov

50% — THE ADVOCATE

The Advocate is the one everyone wants on their side. In the name of justice, they are not afraid to challenge authority or speak up for others.

31% — THE ATHLETE

The Athlete's focus and drive are unparalleled. Staying healthy and being fit are paramount to them (as for winning, that doesn't hurt, either).

19% — THE ROYAL

When the Royal walks into a room, they command attention. They are the one in charge, and they enjoy reaping the rewards of their hard work.

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After getting over my initial surprise at Artyom being considered an advocate, I can see why it makes sense for him. These results are pretty accurate to how I want to portray him!

While the justice part of his advocacy is... questionable, given his allegiances, he is very much a team player. There's a reason Makarov chose him to be a commander over Konni's infantry. Why Makarov chose him to be one of his closest guards. Artyom is dutiful to Makarov's cause, and fully believes that they're doing the right thing. Well... mostly. He has his questions, but does well to address those in his own time.

As for athleticism, that's just a given. To be a juggernaut of his stature, he has to be tough. His armor is 150 pounds (minimum), his minigun is roughlu 80 pounds, and he not only has to continually carry it all... He has to be able to move fast. To run and jump in that shit. He's very proud of the fat he's put on while strength changing.

And that sense of royalty almost entirely comes from Makarov. From him being selected and promoted. To becoming a trusted confidante. He gained a good sense of confidence while working for Spetsnaz, but it really flourished under Konni's banner.

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BONUS MUSE: Marina Chechyotikov

38% — THE VISIONARY

Leave it to others to live by the status quo. The Visionary is interested in new ways of seeing, solutions not yet imagined, products not yet built.

33% — THE INTELLECTUAL

The Intellectual is the ultimate dinner-party guest. Engaging questions and thoughtful debate are their trademarks.

29% — THE ROYAL

When the Royal walks into a room, they command attention. They are the one in charge, and they enjoy reaping the rewards of their hard work.

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Also accurate to how I'm envisioning her whilst creating her and Artyom. The two of them are very similar, but they like... it's kinda shown with their results, but they fall into that "brains versus brawn; two sides of the same coin" dynamic. Their personalities are just, like that. There's also the traditionalist values of the society and environments that come into play, and the difference in expectation between Marina and Artyom that have led to accentuating those differences between them. Anyway—

Marina being considered a visionary is... the best way to summarize her. She sees the world around her as a collection of puzzle pieces, or maybe building blocks. She wants to twist and turn everything to fully understand it. To see what can change, what can't, and what needs to be cast aside or torn down in order to build the "better picture". It's what inspired her work for the government, and then for Makarov.

And a lot of that plays into her intellectualism. Like Artyom, she isn't shy to challenging authority or putting her foot down. She's just more willing to stab at every angle of the problem and dig to uncomfortable depths. That passion for it is why she's become the "master interrogator", and earned a bit of a reputation outside of Konni for being something to fear id one is captured alive.

Naturally, like with Artyom, this led to a high sense of self-confidence. Marina knows what she wants and what she doesn't. She knows her worth, and she fought for her place at the table. Damned be anybody who dares question it or try to take it away.

#(headcanon) #(m: artyom chechyotikov) #(m: marina chechyotikov) #(long post) #vendettavalor

[avtechnologysworld]

The Rise of Virtual Events and the Importance of Audio Visual Support

With the advent of remote working and lockdowns during the pandemic, virtual events have rapidly grown in popularity as a replacement for in-person events. However, a successful virtual event requires careful planning especially with regards to audio visual support to capture viewers attention on screen. In this blog post, we will discuss the rise of virtual events, some key challenges of virtual events and screen dimensions and how audio visual support plays a crucial role in overcoming these challenges.

The Rise of Virtual Events

Prior to the pandemic, most conferences, trade shows, meetings and workshops were conducted in-person. However, lockdowns and social distancing norms made in-person gatherings difficult. This gave rise to virtual events as an alternative medium to engage audiences without physical proximity. Some key factors that contributed to the rise of virtual events include:

Flexibility and Convenience: Virtual events do not require travel or accommodations. Participants can join from anywhere using an internet connection on their laptops or mobile devices. This makes virtual events more flexible and convenient than in-person ones.

Wider Reach: Unlike in-person events with limited seating capacity, virtual events have no limits on the number of participants. This allows organizers to reach a global audience and significantly increase participation.

Cost Savings: Virtual events are more affordable for both organizers and participants compared to in-person events which involve venue rentals, catering, travel costs etc. This makes virtual events an attractive cost-saving option.

Engaging Content: Advancements in video conferencing platforms and live streaming technologies enable organizers to provide highly engaging and interactive content through features like polling, Q&As, breakout rooms etc to keep remote audiences engaged.

Challenges of Virtual Events

While virtual events have many advantages, they also pose some unique challenges compared to in-person events:

Loss of In-Person Interactions: One of the biggest shortcomings of virtual events is the lack of in-person networking and casual conversations that often help strengthen relationships and spur new connections at live events.

Technical Glitches: Reliable high-speed internet and compatibility of devices are prerequisites for smooth virtual events. However, technical issues like bad internet connections, software crashes can disrupt the participant experience.

Declining Attention Spans: It is challenging to keep remote audiences engaged through their computer/mobile screens for long durations, especially without the excitement of a live on-ground event. Attention spans tend to be shorter in virtual environments.

Difficulty Reading non-Verbal Cues: In virtual meetings, it is tough for presenters to read subtle non-verbal cues like facial expressions, body language from remote viewers to gauge effectiveness of the content being delivered.

Participant Fatigue: Sitting for long hours staring at computer screens can cause fatigue among remote participants much faster than live events. Maintaining energy and enthusiasm becomes difficult.

The Importance of Audio Visual Support

Addressing the challenges of virtual events, especially those around maintaining engagement and delivering impactful content requires robust audio visual support. Some ways audio visual aids can bolster the virtual event experience include:

High Definition Recording and Streaming

Use of high-quality cameras, microphones, and streaming servers is necessary to deliver presentations, speeches and other content in crystal clear HD quality to remote viewers. Otherwise, low screen dimension and audio can hamper participation.

Interactive and Engaging Content Design

Experienced audio visual teams help curate and design discussions, presentations, demonstrations and other content in a format that efficiently captures and retains viewer attention through the virtual medium. Formats like polling, surveys keep participants invested.

Professional Moderation

Live moderation of Q&As and group discussions keeps the flow moving smoothly even with scattered participants. On-screen moderators ensure all voices are heard and keep technical and engagement glitches at bay.

Customized Layouts

Advanced video mixing capabilities and screen layout tools allow creating customized multi-screen experiences like simultaneous presenter views, slides, and polls to replicate impact of in-person setups virtually.

Data Analytics

Post-event analytics about viewer demographics, content consumption, engagement levels provides valuable insights to organizers for optimizing future virtual programming.

Importance of Rehearsals

Thorough rehearsals involving audio visual, technical and content teams are necessary to iron out tech and presentation creases, familiarize presenters with virtual tools and ensure a polished experience.

Thus, with carefully crafted engaging content delivered through high-quality audio visual systems, virtual events have the power to effectively replicate core functions of in-person events despite physical distances between participants. However, this calls for sound planning and execution with support of experienced AV professionals.

Key Audio Visual Considerations for Virtual Events

When planning virtual events, some key aspects event organizers must consider with respect to audio visual requirements include:

Presentation Equipment

Video conferencing solutions, cameras, microphones, laptops/desktops, lighting, backdrops etc required by presenters and moderators.

Live Streaming Infrastructure

Servers, encoders, bandwidth, stabilization and delivery platforms to broadcast sessions in high quality.

Participant Viewing Options

Support desktop, mobile and other devices participants may use for accessing the virtual event.

Recording and Archival

Solutions for recording all sessions and speaker content for on-demand viewing later.

Interactivity Tools

Interactive elements like polls, surveys, Q&As, chat, breakouts to boost engagement.

Technical Rehearsals

Allow time for full technical rehearsals before the event to test connectivity, equipment functionality, display arrangements.

Backup Contingency Plan

Have alternate arrangements and equipment in case of technical glitches to ensure smooth continuity.

Post-Event Analytics

Gather data on registrations, viewership, content consumption for analytics.

Budgeting the AV Requirements

Allocate proper funding and resources towards production, equipment rental and technical management.

Hiring Experienced Vendors

Outsource key areas like streaming, moderation, technical support to ensure flawless execution. Thus in summary, specialized audio visual support tailored to the specific needs of a virtual event is key to facilitating engagement and interactive experience needed to keep remote audiences invested through their screens. Proper planning and partnering with seasoned AV professionals can go a long way in optimizing virtual events.

Building an Audio Visual Strategy

To build an effective audio visual strategy for virtual events, organizers must:

Define Goals and Objectives

Identified goals like increasing reach, engagement levels etc. will help prioritize AV requirements.

Map Out the Experience

Create a flowchart detailing elements like presentations, discussions, resources for reference materials.

Choose the Platform

Research video conferencing tools and live streaming platforms suited for requirements.

Design for Screens

Optimize content, layouts for viewing across devices with varying screen dimensions.

Evaluate Resources Required

Make inventory of technical equipment, team skills, bandwidth, budgets required.

Outsource Strategically

Identify areas requiring specialized skills to outsource - like live production.

Test Technical Requirements

Conduct trial runs to test connectivity, functionality of displays, interactivity tools.

Create Production Timeline

Schedule pre, live and post activities like rehearsals, go/no-go decisions.

Train All Stakeholders

Familiarize speakers, moderators with tools and virtual event etiquette.

Have Contingency Plans

Anticipate potential glitches and create fallback measures.

Obtain Venue Support

Leverage services partners can provide, like technical assistance.

Review Event Goals

Analyze post-event success based on objectives and implement learnings. With a methodical approach informed by goal-setting, assessment of needs and strategic execution through trials - event organizers can craft immersive virtual experiences by augmenting creativity with the right audio visual solutions. Ultimately it is this synergy that drives seamless and impactful participant engagement.

Conclusion

To sum up, the pandemic accelerated virtual events as a viable alternative to physical gatherings. While flexibility and cost advantages are huge draws, maintaining participant focus and energy over online platforms requires optimized audio visual presentation and robust technical infrastructure. Experienced AV partners play a pivotal support function in overcoming engagement challenges unique to virtual spaces. With careful upfront assessment and budgeting of audio visual needs based on desired outcomes, event organizers can successfully replicate core functions of in-person events through a compelling virtual experience keeping attendees hooked through their screens. As remote and hybrid models gain further ground even in the post pandemic world - optimizing virtual executions will remain crucial through continuous enhancement of immersive audio visual storytelling.

[gamecrag]

Mordor is a fun faction to play in Middle Earth: Strategy Battle Game because it offers a unique playstyle and a diverse range of units that can be used in various ways. With such a wide variety of units available, this allows for a horde-style army that can overwhelm opponents. Mordor armies can field a wide range of units, including Orcs, Trolls, and Nazgul, each with their unique strengths and abilities. For example, Orcs are cheap and plentiful, making them ideal for swarming opponents, while Trolls are tough and hard-hitting, able to take on enemy heroes and elites. Nazgul, on the other hand, are powerful spellcasters and can disrupt enemy formations with their terrifying aura. If you're looking for the best units, I'll be going through the 10 best models available to the Mordor faction! These models are all beautifully sculpted and expertly crafted, and are sure to add an extra level of excitement and immersion to your STB games. 10) Mordor Orc Shaman The Mordor Orc Shaman is a fantastic model for a number of reasons. It is intricately sculpted, with a range of different poses and equipment. This means that you can create a unique and interesting character for your army, with a look and feel that's all your own. In terms of gameplay, the Mordor Orc Shaman is a powerful spellcaster that can wreak havoc on enemy troops. It has a range of different spells that it can cast, including curses, buffs, and damaging spells. This means that it's a versatile addition to any army, and can be used in a variety of different ways depending on your strategy. The Mordor Orc Shaman is also a great model for converting and customizing. Because it comes with a range of different poses and equipment, you can easily swap out parts and create your own unique look for the model. This means that you can really make it your own, and create a character that's truly unique and interesting! 9) Mordor Orc Drummer The Mordor Orc Drummer adds a unique and thematic element to any Mordor army. The drums were used by the Orcs to rally their troops and instill fear in their enemies, making the drummer an important part of any Mordor force. In terms of gameplay, the Mordor Orc Drummer has a special rule that allows it to give nearby units a bonus to their movement speed, making it a valuable addition to any army that relies on speed and mobility. You'll always want your hordes moving as fast as possible. Mordor doesn't care much for tactics and ranged firepower. They just want to fight in gruelling combat. 8) Mordor Catapult The catapults of Mordor are Sauron's first port of call for when his armies need to breach enemy fortifications. Crafted from the strongest woods plundered from the forests of Middle-earth and bound together by great iron plates, it's a fearsome sight to those within a stronghold's walls. Used as a powerful siege weapon that can fling huge boulders at the enemy, causing significant damage to enemy fortifications or units. It has a long range and a high strength, making it a valuable asset to any army that needs to breach enemy defenses. Used as a versatile model that can be used in a variety of different ways depending on your strategy. It can be used to take out enemy heroes or monsters, or to soften up enemy units before a charge. 7) Mordor Siege Bow The Mordor Siege Bow is a simple but effective war machine that hurls massive spears towards the ranks of their enemies, which are capable of piercing even the thickest armor. In addition to its destructive power, the Mordor Siege Bow is also relatively cheap compared to other siege weapons, making it an attractive option for Mordor players looking to field a large number of them. This can be especially effective in siege battles, where multiple Mordor Siege Bows can be used to target different areas of an enemy fortress simultaneously. 6) Great Beast of Gorgoroth

The Great Beast of Gorgoroth is a massive, horned creature that is native to the dark lands of Mordor. It is known for its incredible strength and durability, which make it a formidable opponent on the battlefield. Firstly, the Great Beast of Gorgoroth is incredibly large and powerful, standing over 30 feet tall and possessing immense strength and durability (in-universe, not on the tabletop of course). This makes it a formidable opponent in combat, capable of charging through enemy lines and crushing enemy soldiers with ease. Secondly, the Great Beast of Gorgoroth is highly resistant to magic, making it immune to the effects of most magical powers that would prevent it from moving or acting normally. This makes it a particularly effective tool for breaking through enemy defenses, as it can charge through magical barriers and fortifications without being hindered. Finally, the Great Beast of Gorgoroth is often used as a siege weapon, capable of breaking down enemy fortifications and structures with its immense strength and durability. This makes it a valuable asset in siege battles, where it can be used to breach enemy defenses and allow Mordor armies to advance. In summary, the Great Beast of Gorgoroth is a powerful Mordor creature due to its immense size, strength, and durability, as well as its resistance to magic and its effectiveness as a siege weapon. 5) Nazgul on Fell Beast The Nazgul on Fell Beast consists of a Ringwraith mounted on a large, winged creature known as a Fell Beast. This combination of a powerful hero and a fast, mobile mount makes the Nazgul on Fell Beast an intimidating unit to behold. The gameplay of Nazgul on Fell Beast is centered around their mobility and their ability to disrupt enemy formations. The Fell Beast allows the Nazgul to move quickly across the battlefield, allowing them to quickly engage enemy units and heroes. Asll as this, the Nazgul on Fell Beast has the "Terrifying Presence" special rule, which causes enemy models within 6 inches to take a Courage test or suffer a penalty to their Fight value. This ability can be particularly effective against low-Courage armies or units, as it can cause them to become disordered and easier to defeat. In addition to their mobility and disruptive abilities, Nazgul on Fell Beasts are also powerful spellcasters, capable of casting a range of spells that can debuff enemy units or buff their own forces. For example, the Black Dart spell can instantly kill an enemy model, while the Transfix spell can immobilize an enemy unit, making them easier to attack and defeat. 4) Mordor Troll The Trolls of Mordor are bred by Sauron to withstand the light of the sun, making them even bigger and stronger than other trolls. The box comes with a multipart plastic kit that allows players to assemble and customize their own Mordor Troll. Described as a powerful monster that can deal massive damage to enemy units. It has a ton of health and can shrug off many light weapon attacks. As well as this, its large base size allows it to control a lot of space on the battlefield. Every front line should be bolstered by a monstrous troll that can exert its dominance and soak up pressure! 3) Mordor Orcs The Mordor Orcs are the primary foot-soldiers of the Dark Lord Sauron within the Black Land of Mordor, forming the core of his military during the wars of the Second and Third Ages. Classed as a versatile and cost-effective unit that can be used to overwhelm enemy forces with their sheer numbers. They can be outfitted with a number of weapons, or armor options. 2) The Witch-King of Angmar The Witch-King of Angmar, also known as the Lord of the Nazgul, was the leader of the Ringwraiths and Sauron's second-in-command during the Second and Third Ages of Middle-earth. As well as incredible stats for fighting in combat, the Lord of the Nazgul has amazing abilities.

An example is the ability to summon Morgul Knights, which can turn the tide of an entire battle! Painting this model would be super easy, too. All you need is a few colors and some basic highlighting skills. 1) The Dark Lord Sauron Sauron is the primary antagonist of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, where he rules the land of Mordor and has the ambition of ruling the whole of Middle-earth. One reason why The Dark Lord Sauron is a great model is its gameplay benefits. Sauron is a powerful hero that can lead armies and deal massive damage to enemy units. It has high strength and toughness, making it difficult to kill, and its special abilities, such as the ability to cast spells and summon minions, make it a formidable opponent on the battlefield. Sauron played a major role in the events of the War of the Ring, serving as the primary antagonist of the story. Its appearance on the battlefield is a striking image that has been featured in various adaptations of Tolkien's works, including Peter Jackson's film adaptations. I mean, come on...who wouldn't want to use Sauron in battle?! For both immersion, awesomeness, and competitive viability, you won't find a better Morder unit!

[sarkarvibes007]

The benefits of having a good sleep and its impact on work

While you work or you study — you all feel tired at some point in a day, there are many factors behind this and one of them is not getting an enough sleep.

A good sleep-in night ensures you feel refreshed and stay alert when you wake up early in the morning. You must be able to fall asleep easily and then wake up after 7–8 hours of sleep without feeling uneasiness. However, if you are not getting enough sleep, it can affect your — mood, concentration at work, energy levels and ability to focus.

We will discuss here about the reason of not getting good sleep, it’s factors and what can we do from our side for a good sleep.

Why do we need a good sleep?

Physical Health:

Sleep plays an important role in supporting physical health. While you sleep, the body repairs and rejuvenates tissues, gives strength to your immune system, and regulates many physiological processes. It is importance for maintaining a healthy cardiovascular system, metabolism, hormone balance, and optimal functioning of main organs.

Mental and Cognitive Function:

Sleep is closely connected to brain function and cognitive processes. A good night’s sleep ensures concentration, attention, and memory formation, learning and problem-solving abilities. It also supports creativity and emotional regulation, improving overall mental well-being.

Energy and Productivity:

Quality sleep gives the necessary rest and energy to tackle daily activities and with focus. Good sleep ensures productivity, alertness, and decision-making abilities, allowing individuals to perform their best in both professional and personal life.

Emotional Well-being:

Sufficient sleep promotes emotional stability, and a positive mind, contributing to overall mental health and emotional well-being.

Physical Performance and Exercise Recovery:

Athletes and individuals in physical activities require sleep for good performance and recovery. Sleep helps repair muscle tissue, regulate their hormones involved in the muscle growth and repair, and consolidate motor skills and coordination.

Disease Prevention:

A good sleep can reduce the risk of developing various health conditions, that includes obesity, diabetes, certain mental health issues and cardiovascular diseases.

Immune System Function:

Sleep plays an important role for strengthening immune system. Sufficient and quality sleep helps the body fight off infections, viruses, and diseases more effectively, reducing the likelihood of falling ill and promoting faster recovery.

Reasons for not getting enough sleep:

Stress and Anxiety:

High levels of stress or tension can make it tough to relax and fall asleep. Random thoughts and overthinking can keep the mind active, thereby preventing a restful sleep.

Poor Sleep Habits:

Not maintaining sleep schedules, bedtime routines and not following proper sleep hygiene guidelines can affect body’s natural sleep and quality.

Electronic Devices and Screen Time:

This is one of the most common causes of not getting a good sleep. Use of mobile phones, computers or tablets may result in getting a poor sleep. Those blue lights emitted by devices, suppresses melatonin production, and stimulates the brain, thereby making it harder to sleep.

Environmental Factors:

Noise from traffic, high volume tv sounds from neighbours, or snoring partners can disturb your sleep, while bright lights or an uncomfortable mattress along with pillows could make harder for a good sleep.

Medical Conditions:

Sleep disorders like insomnia, restless legs syndrome, or chronic pain conditions can disrupt sleep patterns and prevent good sleep.

Medications and Substances:

Certain medicines or tablets, such as those for allergies, asthma, hypertension, or depression, can affect sleep. Additionally, substances like caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol can disrupt sleep patterns and impair sleep quality.

Hormonal Changes:

Hormonal fluctuations, such as during pregnancy, menopause, puberty, or menstrual cycles, can disturb sleep patterns and make it harder to stay asleep.

Mental Health Disorders:

If you are having Stress, anxiety, hypertension, post-traumatic stress disorder or if you are having bipolar disorder, they can impact sleep quality and may lead to insomnia or extra sleepiness.

Lifestyle Factors:

Unhealthy lifestyle habits, such as excessive caffeine intake, irregular eating patterns, lack of physical activity, or irregular work shifts, can disrupt sleep and negatively affect sleep quality.

Age:

Sleep patterns change with age. Older adults may experience more frequent awakenings during the night and find it hard to fall asleep. Hormonal changes, medical conditions, and certain medications associated with aging may also affect sleep quality.

Consult a doctor if you have problem in sleeping:

Talk to your doctor. There could be a medical condition that is intervening with your sleep.

Identifying and addressing these factors can help improve sleep quality. It may involve practicing stress management techniques, establishing a consistent sleep routine, creating a sleep-friendly environment, managing underlying medical conditions, adjusting medication regimens (under medical supervision), and adopting healthy lifestyle habits. If sleep problems persist, it’s advisable to consult a healthcare professional for further evaluation and guidance.

Best practices for getting a good sleep:

Stick to a regular sleep schedule:

Go to bed and wake up between 6.30–7.30 am, even on weekends. This will help to control your body’s natural sleep-wake cycle.

Create a relaxing bedtime routine:

Have a bath with warm water, read books, or listen peaceful songs. Avoid watching TV or using devices an hour before bed, as these devices can interfere with sleep.

Ensure your bedroom is dark and soundproof:

Darkness helps to promote the production of melatonin, a hormone that helps to get sleep. Make the bedroom as dark and noise free as possible. A cool temperature is also a good idea for getting a good sleep.

Avoid caffeine and alcohol before bed:

Caffeine and alcohol can both interfere with sleep. Caffeine is a stimulant that can make it difficult to fall asleep, while alcoholic drinks could disturb sleep later in the night.

Get regular exercise:

Regular Exercise can help to improve sleep quality although you should avoid exercising too close before bedtime.

Extra tips for getting good sleep:

· Make sure your mattress and pillows are having enough comfort.

· Avoid napping during the day. Napping at daytime will make difficult for you having a good sleep at night. However, if you need a nap keep it short of just 30 minutes only.

· Sunlight helps to control your body’s natural sleep-wake cycle. Make sure to get some sunlight exposure during the day, especially in early morning.

· Complete your task before bed. Avoid doing anything an hour before bed. This includes watching TV, working, or using electronic devices.

· If you can’t fall asleep after 20 minutes, get out of bed and do something relaxing until you feel tired. Sources

Effects on our body if we don’t get enough sleep:

Good sleep becomes priority for your physical as well as your mental health. It helps your body repair itself, consolidate your memories, and regulate your emotions. When you don’t get required sleep, you’re more likely to have:

· Irritability,

· Mood swing,

· Trouble concentrating,

· Increased appetite,

· Weight gain,

· Weakened immune system,

· Increased risk of accident

Long term effects can develop more issues, such as:

· Heart disease,

· Stroke,

· Diabetes,

· Depression,

· Alzheimer’s disease.

Conclusion:

Sleep is essential for both — physical and mental health. It allows our body to rest and repair themselves and also to keep our body healthy. If we don’t get enough sleep, we face a lot of health-related issues. In the long term, chronic sleep deprivation can increase our risk of developing serious health problems, such as obesity, heart disease, and diabetes.

Written by Aranya Sarkar

#Sleep #Sleeping #sleepover #sleep deprivation #nap #napping #Facts

[vagabond-sol]

Tidbits about Cazhim:

Part 1:

Cazhim’s first name is meant to be a bastardized version of Qasim/Cassim, which already has a LOT of different spellings. Originally it would have been Cazzim or Cazim but I thought that was too lazy a change but I always wanted it to be shortened to Caz.

Cazhim has ancestral roots in the Steppe’s Malaguld clan. He is aware of this but knows very little.

Cazhim is naturally right handed but, through training he has become decently ambidextrous. He is also capable of performing very simple acts with his tail though he dislikes doing so in the company of others

Cazhim did not do any of the crafting quests besides the Leatherworker’s. His metal working skills come from Albina “Snow” lux Pollux.

As The WoL/Main Character, Cazhim gets stronger faster but is put under more mental stress, going so far as to temporarily take up the rifle again despite abandoning firearms upon arriving in Eorzea. He always bounces back but the strain is there.

As a NPC/Scion Agent, Cazhim doesn’t quite reach the same heights of power as his WoL version but he is mentally much healthier and is notably cheerier. He will almost fully match his WoL version in Endwalker but always remain a bit behind.

WoL Cazhim, lacking the same free time as NPC Cazhim, does not focus as much on his crafters and as a result dedicates much of his post Endwalker break to brushing up on his trades.

Cazhim fights the dirtiest when he’s using a weapon. Stabbing a foot or twisting the blade to keep someone still for a punch or point blank blast is a common trick. As such he favors swords with small cross guards so he can maneuver the blade freely.

Cazhim takes more pride in his crafting work than his martial accomplishments which he often deflects as a group effort of the Scions most times. This is not to say he doesn’t take pride in his combat skills, he just values the more tangible good he leaves behind more.

Cazhim can read and write in both Dalmascan and Eorzean Common without the aid of the Echo. He is making strides to keep learning materials for other languages since he kind of considers the Echo cheating. He is still somewhat slow at reading even though he reads clearly and never fails to understand even complicated topics with just a little context.

Cazhim makes a passive income from his leather designs made during the Heavensward Leatherworking quest line. On occasion he takes commissions but as WoL he only accepts Elde’s requests.

Cazhim was/is incredibly difficult to romance. Not because he’s oblivious or aromantic, it is simply because he is not seeking it and most that seek him have fleeting interest (something he doesn’t always decline). He likes keeping to himself and may even entertain a fling but a genuine relationship with him takes time.

Cazhim values his space and does not like his PTSD being discussed. He would only ever speak on the matter to a romantic partner or a close confidant.

Cazhim spends his down time with Tataru most often due to her distance from combat and her superb crafting wisdom. Post Shadowbringers he offers Feo Ul the permission to enter his dreams on occasion.

Part 2:

Cazhim’s custom title as WoL are potentially “The Primal Fist”, “God Hand”, “Devil Hand”, or “Battle

Cazhim does his best to adopt moves from other martial artist and warriors. This includes Ran’jit, whose unique fighting style aided him greatly in beating Cazhim in their first fight. However his base style takes its roots in boxing.

Companion Cazhim’s power level is on par with Estinien. Even if he is not the WoL he is an exceedingly capable warrior in his own right. In Endwalker he has closed the gap significantly and is notably able to contend with Zenos and the WoL though his eventual defeat would become apparent.

NPC Caz would disapprove of a WoL who had no interest in being a “hero” or were overly self interested. He understands and even greatly respects a WoL that complains, but ultimately has no regrets about being a force for good even if it’s painful at times. He will like a WoL who is really into their role but tell them that they’re kind of weird to be so giddy about it.

NPC Caz stays in Idyllshire during Heavensward because he finds Ishgardians too uptight and Idyllshire is closer to the “fun” parts. This is his polite way of avoiding unnecessary conflict with Ishgardians who still harbor misguided prejudices against the Au ra. He has no problem dispatching harassers but he knows leaving a trail of bodies in the city would not aid the cause, be they breathing bodies or not.

Part 3:

Part 4

End:

Hey! If ya got this far: Thanks for reading this string of random thoughts I have for Cazhim. This will surely happen again at another time…or I’ll just add to it and reblog it sometimes.

I added “Parts” to divide up the big edits I do to this post in case people come by later.

#tidbits about Cazhim #cazhim delrune #ffxiv oc #au ra raen #ffxiv #also playing with formatting cause mobile makes it tough

[hobi-gang]

silver sequins | jhs

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 – Jung Hoseok has been in a bit of a bad mood ever since his girlfriend broke up with him. He’s been in a bad mood for precisely four months.

Jimin and Taehyung hatch a plan to take his mind off of things.

𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞 – angst, fluff, crack

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 – jhs x reader

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 – 16.2k

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 – mentions of alcohol, more angst in this than anticipated oops

𝐚/𝐧 – wrote this for someone special uwu. enjoy!

Jung Hoseok has been an idol for a while now. As an idol, he knew that it was difficult getting into a relationship. There were several steps to getting and keeping a girlfriend as an idol. It involved meeting that person, loving that person, introducing that person to your friends and inevitably to your company, and signing legally binding contracts with that person. 

The process was admittedly stressful but in the end, Hoseok was just happy to have someone that loved him. He loved that person too. He gave them everything he could. He tried so hard and poured a lot of love and energy into the relationship he had with them only to break-up with them after five months.

"It's just too hard, Hobi. There are so many rules."

"Hobi, I want the world to know about us."

"Am I just a dirty secret to you?"

He wanted all the things she did too, he really did. He wanted to show them off to the world and publically declare his love for them but he just wasn't able to. It was in the contracts they signed. They both went into it knowing that but it turned out to be more difficult than they thought it would be.

He missed going to her apartment after work and cuddling up to her while watching movies. He missed the sneaky glances. He missed falling asleep with her in his arms. He missed it all. 

If they were still together, today would've been their nine-month anniversary. It had been four months of trying to get over his relationship with her but without her, everything felt so hard. His mood had been soured, it seemed, permanently. And it was evident to each and every one of his fellow group members.

"Again!" Hoseok yelled over the music.

Jimin exhaled noisily, flopping down onto the floor with a frown. "Hyung, please," the smaller boy whined, falling to his back on the floor, spreading out all his limbs, trying desperately to steady his breathing.

"Take five, hyung. We're tired," Taehyung groaned, rubbing his neck tiredly. Yoongi stalked over to the stereo and paused the music, catching Hoseok's glaring attention in the midst of it all.

"What are you doing?" Hoseok asked him with an annoyed look on his face, stalking over to the stereo where Yoongi stood. 

Yoongi narrowed his eyes at his younger friend, "That's enough. We were supposed to be finished an hour ago. We're tired and you need to pace yourself otherwise you're going to get sick, man. Look, we know you're going through a tough time, okay? It's affecting all of us but I refuse to enable this behavior any longer. We're going home. You're going home. You're gonna rest and then we'll reconvene tomorrow, okay?"

Hoseok looked over to Namjoon and Jin who gestured their agreements from the corner, leaning against the walls of the studio, drinking from their water bottles. He turned his attention Jungkook who was already helping Jimin and Taehyung with their cooldowns. Taehyung smiled up at him sheepishly as he stretched his legs which caused Hoseok to rolls his eyes.

"So what, this is pity? The only thing you should pity right now is our formation at the bridge–"

"Hoseok, stop it!" Yoongi shouted, his words echoing off the walls. The members looked on in astonishment, not expecting their lead rapper to raise his voice like that. "The formation is fine and you know it," his eyes bore into Hoseok's and the older member could see the anger and the pain in his eyes.

"Everyone, get up and go home," Yoongi said aloud to them all and he didn't need to look away from Hoseok's narrowed eyes to know that they were already gathering their belongings, ready to leave the practice studio that they'd been stuck in for hours.

"Hoseok," he told him softly, placing his hand on the younger boy's sweaty shoulder, "Go home. Rest."

If resting meant looking at photo albums of him and his ex then Hoseok would proudly tell his hyung that he rested very well indeed.

He swiped through each and every photo, reminiscing about all the good times they had together. As he went further into the album, he felt the longing in his chest grow immensely. He sighed, putting his glass of wine down on his bedside table. A ping resonated from his phone with a notification header sliding down over the screen.

Calendar: 9 Month Anniversary with Babygirl Moon. Would you like to share?

"Shit," he murmured to himself, swiping the notification away. Seeing her nickname on the screen made him crinkle his nose. He should've removed that reoccurring event from his calendar a long time ago but he just wasn't able to bring himself to do it. It'd been four months since they've been separated, he should have moved on at least by a little bit but he continued to cling onto the memories of her with that heavy ache in his chest, the longing... The hope.

With a few more swipes, he found his thumb hovering over the red button on his screen.

Delete 349 images from 'Babygirl Moon and Big Sun' album?

YES    |    NO

349 images including the picture he was using for his lock screen. It was from a date they'd had a while ago at a sushi bar in town. She'd begged him to take a photo and he'd refused simply because of the clauses in their contract. In fact, it was rare that they'd take pictures with both of their faces fully revealed. She compromised that night, taking his hand and lifting it into the bottom of the frame of her camera. She encouraged him to smile in a goofy voice, capturing his earnest reaction at the same time. She showed him the photo afterward and he liked the lighting and the composition of her hands in his, so he changed his lock screen.

His thumbing began to quiver over the red 'NO' on the screen and a dejected sigh escaped his lips, his thumb moving away from the 'NO', instead opting to press the power off button on his phone. Staring at the dark screen with a scrunched nose, he gently threw the mobile device across his bed and laid his head on the pillows, staring up at the ceiling. He understood that his emotions were a little... All over the place since the break-up, and he knew that it was affecting the other members.

Even before he signed the contract with his now ex-girlfriend, the boys warned him that it might affect his activity within the group and that it could prove detrimental in the long run. They also voiced their dislike about her in private, not that Hoseok really minded.

He knew that his ex-girlfriend could be outspoken and that she might've been a little aggressive, impatient, and rude at times, but he loved her all the same. Granted, they fought. A lot. She'd inadvertently let some insensitive words slip out about his appearance or his attitude every week or so but they'd always make up after their fights. After she'd grovel and kiss his jaw, nuzzling into his neck with a sigh, he'd forgive her, not wanting to hold a grudge against her for a minute longer.

Yes, he found someone. Yes, he loved what he had with that someone. Yes, that someone happened to make things messy at times but it was the other things that he liked to focus on more. The candid photos she'd take of him whenever she had the chance, sneaking a risky kiss in public, having fun at the local playgrounds at night time. Hoseok fell asleep that night with an ache in his chest, the continuous throb now a familiarity, and he wondered if he would ever find love again. 

"Okay, what about this one?" Hwasa asked you, thrusting a coat hanger with a red spaghetti strap dress into your hands. 

Wheein cooed, leaning forward from the edge of the bed and brushing her hands over the soft fabric. "Ooh, that'll look so cute on you," she grinned at you.

"Hm, I don't know," you pursed your lips, lifting the dress higher and spinning it around. "I don't think red's my color."

Hwasa rolled her eyes, "So if red, blue, and yellow aren't your colors then what is?" she asked you, taking the coat hanger from your hands. You shrugged, rubbing the back of your neck and sighing. 

"Eonnie, you know I don't wear dresses. Can't I just wear something like some pants–"

Solar squealed, "Y/N, you gotta at least try it on! You have an amazing figure and you'd look incredible, trust me," she gave you a reassuring look, rubbing your arm comfortingly. With their encouragement, you sighed and retook the dress from Hwasa's hands. 

"This is peer pressuring, you know that right?" you told her with a playful glare.

"Peer pressure your butt into that bathroom, Y/N," Solar said to you, pushing you towards the bathroom. 

While your sister Hwasa was rummaging through her closet for another possible outfit for tonight's party, you emerged from the bathroom wearing the red spaghetti strap dress. "Woah," Moonbyul quipped, throwing her phone on to the bed, giving you her full attention. "Holy shit, that looks amazing," she told you, her jaw hanging low.

"I told you it'd look cute on you," Wheein added, putting her hands on your hips to spin you around.

"Do you think it'll work?" You asked them, stepping in front of the floor-length mirror, looking at yourself at different angles. "I mean, even if he just looks at me, that'd be enough," you laughed, putting your hands on your hips.

"Oh, he'll be looking at you alright. I think everyone will be," Moonbyul quipped.

You sighed longingly, "Well, what if he doesn't come?" You said aloud, playing with your hair. 

"Well," Hwasa huffed with her head in the closet, "I texted Namjoon about the party so we should be expecting all of them to come."

Moonbyul hummed and picked her phone back up to take a picture of you. 

"Oh, damn," Hwasa whistled upon seeing you in the red dress. There was a bunch of clothes pooled around her feet after she'd rummaged through her closet. "I mean, that dress looks amazing on you and all but I think I may have found something better," she winked, handing you another coat hanger.

You lifted the long-sleeved silver sequin dress into view. You were in awe, "I didn't even know you had this," you told your sister, turning the hanger around to examine the dress from all sides.

"If I remember correctly, I bought it last year but I haven't really found the time or place to wear it. Try it on, I think it'll look better on you anyway," she urged you, pushing you back into the bathroom.

After the door had closed behind you, Solar sighed. "I think we might have to get her some floaties for the party. She'll be drowning in drool before she even steps in the venue," she giggled, earning amused looks from her bandmates.

 Yoongi was busy texting Hoseok, the two of them throwing lyric ideas back and forth between one another for the song they were writing together. It'd been almost a month since the incident in the practice studio. They both had a private conversation with each other the next day where Hoseok finally confessed to Yoongi that he was struggling to let go of the past.

It was clear to all of the members that Hoseok was dealing with some issues but the fact that he had actually admitted it out loud, Yoongi felt that he was taking a step in the right direction and he was proud of him for having the strength to do so. Hoseok had since apologized to the members for taking his anger out on them and for being so upset and while they accepted his apology, it was evident to them that things with him were not nearly as normal as they used to be.

"Ah, hyung!" Jimin shouted, running down the corridor. Both Jin and Yoongi looked up to see the younger boy hurtling towards them, jumping next to them on the couch excitedly.

"Joonie-hyung told me that Mamamoo is hosting a private party after the awards ceremony tonight, we should go!" Jimin grinned widely, grabbing Jin's bicep and tugging on it.

"Aish, calm down, I'm eating," Jin responded with a tight-lipped smile, slapping the younger member on the thigh in an attempt to stop him from hopping up and down on the spot.

Yoongi gave Jimin a disappointed look, "And stop yelling. Why on earth are you so energetic?" Yoongi asked him, raising a brow in suspicion at the younger member.

"Uhhh, because it's a Mamamoo party? Doesn't Hobi-hyung like Moonbyul? Maybe he'd be in a better mood if he sees her there," Jimin suggested, bumping Jin's elbow with his own, bobbing his brows up and down. 

Jin gave the younger boy a quirked eyebrow, "They're just friends," he told him, shrugging the younger boy's hands off his arm.

Jimin rolled his eyes, "Well it's still a party, parties are notorious for their good vibes, hyung."

"Fine, whatever. But don't be surprised if he says he doesn't wanna go," Jin huffed, returning his attention back to his noodles.

Jimin patted his head and grinned, "I'll figure something out."

Yoongi rolled his eyes, leaving the room to find a more quiet space.

Taehyung and Jimin shared a knowing look with each other before bounding into Hoseok's apartment. Jimin's plan was to utilize Taehyung's signature puppy eyes to get his hyung to agree to go to the party with them which shouldn't be too hard seeing that Hoseok had a soft spot for Taehyung.

"Hyung! Where are you?" Taehyung shouted out as soon as he crossed the threshold.

"In here!" Hoseok yelled in response, his voice coming from his studio.

The young pair wandered through the apartment and found that the door to his studio was open. They both spotted their older friend leaning back in his chair, his attention focused on his computer screen.

"I thought we were meeting up at work, what's up?" Hoseok asked them, turning his chair to face them both.

Jimin pushed Taehyung forward, urging him to tell Hoseok the news instead of himself. Taehyung looked back at Jimin with a betrayed look in his eyes before turning back to his hyung, clearing his throat. "Um, so the Mamamoo girls are hosting a party tonight after the awards ceremony, we're all going..."

Hoseok looked at them expectantly, "Okay, and?" he questioned, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Uh, well... Do you want to go with us? It could be fun," Taehyung asked him nervously, his hands fidgeting behind his back. "It's supposed to be idols only, so no managers and whatever. We could let loose, y'know?" Taehyung squeaked out, looking to Jimin for back-up.

"I don't know, guys..." Hoseok sighed, slumping down into his chair.

Jimin stepped forward, knowing that his plan to use Taehyung's puppy eyes was failing. He quickly threw an arm around Taehyung's shoulder, "Come on, hyung. How about we make a deal?" Jimin suggested, earning a considerate look from his elder.

"Go on..." Hoseok egged on.

Taehyung looked at Jimin with a smirk, "If we win an award tonight, you have to go with us to their party," Jimin said, smiling at the boy sitting in the chair.

Hoseok knew their win was guaranteed, a lot of their wins had been that way for the past few years. They'd worked hard for each and every one of them, their passion and their dedication to their craft garnering fruitful results almost every single time. Hoseok knew they were eager for him to join them at a fun event for the first time in a while so he caved in and said, "Fine. It's a deal."

Taehyung jumped and clapped his hands while hugging Jimin who was cheering loudly. Hoseok smiled at their reactions, chuckling at their outward displays of happiness. "Okay, okay, I'll see you guys at work later," he waved them off, turning his chair back to face his computer.

The pair of them walked out of his studio, bidding their farewells to him. "This is gonna be so much fun, man," Taehyung squealed once he was sure they were out of earshot, throwing a playful punch to Jimin's arm. 

"This is gonna be so great," Jimin grinned, laughing with him and leaving Hoseok's apartment.

"This is not... Going great," Jimin sighed, nursing his glass of champagne. Jin chuckled and nudged Jimin's arm, "What'd I tell you?"

"You told me he wouldn't wanna come but he's here. He's just not being the social butterfly he usually is," Jimin rolled his eyes, turning away from his older friend. 

Jin shrugged, "Eh. Same thing," he said to his younger friend with a victorious grin, gulping down his glass of champagne and placing it on the bar top before leaving to join Jungkook and Yoongi on the dancefloor.

The party was thriving and everyone was enjoying themselves in their respective groups, dancing under the flashing lights, and sharing drinks around their tables on all sides of the room. The music was good too, Jimin noted to himself, nodding his head to the beat. Namjoon, Taehyung, and Hoseok were sitting beside him at the bar, talking amongst each other, discussing their win for album of the year. Jimin looked away from them and spotted the hosts of the party, Mamamoo, on the dancefloor. 

That's where Hoseok would usually be in events like this, dancing in the center of the room like his life depended on it. He usually thrived in this kind of environment, catching everyone's attention and their applause but all he could do right now was nurse the same bottle of beer at the bar.

There was a girl in a long-sleeved silver sequin cocktail dress and she was awkwardly bobbing on the spot at the center of the dancefloor, trying to sway her shoulders to the beat. Jimin hadn't seen her before. Everyone at the party was an idol and being in the industry for as long as he had, he was able to name every person in the room except for her. She stuck out like a sore thumb with her shiny dress and that expression that screamed 'this is not my type of scene, please don't judge me'.

"Who's that?" Jimin said aloud, hoping that at least one of his bandmates could give him an answer.

"Oh, her? That's Hyejin's younger sister," Namjoon said to him loud enough so that he could hear over the throbbing music. 

"How do you know that? Also, you call Hwasa by her real name now?" Jimin snorted, turning to his hyung and finding the older boy's cheeks growing red, even in the darkness that swallowed their side of the room. 

Namjoon stuttered, "What? Uh, I mean Hwasa posted a picture of her on her Instagram page, didn't you see it? You saw it, right?" Namjoon nudged Taehyung's arm. 

"No," Taehyung laughed, "Don't drag me into your embarrassing conversation, hyung."

The older member groaned and told them to shut up, murmuring something about 'All I do is breathe and I get attacked', turning away from them and going back to his drink.

Jimin examined her from across the room, watching how Hwasa, Wheein, and Moonbyul were encasing the young girl in a circle and jumping around her, trying to include her in their dancing festivities. He saw her shy, sheepish smile under the flashing lights of the room and concluded that she looked rather cute. In fact, he saw the similarities between her and her older sister. Their tan skin, dark flowing shoulder-length hair, round faces, and gleaming smiles were practically the same. Though, somehow, she managed to be just a little bit shorter, which he found rather cute.

Taehyung found himself getting dragged away from the bar by the arm, clumsily trying to balance his glass in his hand to prevent it from being spilled, "Yah! What are you doing?" he questioned Jimin, straightening out his clothes.

"Dude, we gotta set Hobi-hyung up with Hwasa's sister!" Jimin leaned into Taehyung, nodding towards the young girl on the dance floor surrounded by the girls of Mamamoo. 

Taehyung raised his brows upon seeing her for the first time, "Oh damn, she's... She's actually pretty cute, bro."

"The plan was to get Hobi-hyung here so he could have fun but he still looks pretty damn miserable, I mean look at him," Jimin huffed, turning his attention back to his older group member. Hoseok sat at the bar with Namjoon by his side and Jimin noticed that Hoseok wasn't really talking at that point, only nodding along to what Namjoon was saying.

"We have to set him up with that girl," Jimin urged. Taehyung was putting the pieces together in his mind and he nodded along to Jimin's plan.

"Okay, um," Taehyung rubbed the back of his neck. "How do we do this?"

"You've got the answer in the palm of your hand, bro," Jimin pointed at Taehyung's drink.

Taehyung slumped his shoulders, "Really, bro?"

Jimin grinned widely and nodded enthusiastically.

"Eonnie, can we go home soon?" you shouted to your sister over the music, somehow managing to step on your own feet, making you wince at your own clumsiness. "I love this dress and all but it is... incredibly uncomfortable," you continued to rant to her.

"You still haven't talked to J-Hope. That was your plan, wasn't it?" Hwasa bumped her eyebrows up and down at you suggestively, a smirk adorning her face.

Your cheeks grew hot and you found yourself hitting her gently on the arm. "Oh my god, stop!" you hissed at her, mortified that she was talking about it in such an open space. "I've been watching him all night but he doesn't look like he's in the mood and I don't wanna burden him... Also, I just really wanna go home and eat my ramen."

Hwasa smiled and rolled her eyes at you, taking your hands into hers. "Just ten more minutes, and then we can go back home and eat all the ramen and chocolates we want. Please?" she begged you, putting on her puppy eyes and jutting out her bottom lip. You groaned at her desperate display and caved in, "Okay, fine! Just ten more minutes."

She smiled widely, bringing you in for a hug. "It's a party, sis! Come on, we're celebrating!" Hwasa cheered, grabbing your hand and raising it to bring you into a spin. You laughed with joy, letting her spin you around.

In a blur, you felt someone bump into you and you quickly felt something wet spreading all over your front. With a gasp, you turned to see Kim Taehyung looking down at you with an apologetic look. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry!" he yelled, taking your hands into his. They were big and warm, completely encompassing yours with his sheer size.

You saw Yoongi and Jin coming from behind Taehyung, "Nice one, idiot," Jin snorted, punching Taehyung on the arm. "Shut up," he told his older friend, shrugging him off.

"It's fine, it's fine," you told him. "My sister–"

"Your sister's fine, come with me, let me clean you up," he told you apologetically, pleading to you with his eyes. "Please?"

You felt a hitch in your throat, his expression managing to take your breath away so easily. It was no wonder everyone described him as charming, it was all in his nature.

"O-okay," you said to him, allowing him to guide you away from the dancefloor. You looked back at your sister but she was engaged in a conversation with Solar and Jimin. Your sister was right there and... this was her party anyway so you should be fine.

"Again, I'm so sorry about that," Taehyung said to you once you'd both reached the bar. He was grabbing a bunch of napkins from the bar top and you saw him visibly contemplate whether or not to pat your front down. You took the napkins out of his hand with a sheepish smile, cleaning the front of your dress down on your own. 

You laughed nervously, "It's okay, really, I wasn't watching where I was going."

"Stop apologizing, it was my fault for being a klutz," he chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck with a rueful look on his face. He stilled, patting his back pocket, retrieving his phone. "Oh– I really have to take this, do you mind?" he asked you, gesturing to his phone.

"Yeah, of course!" you stuttered, waving him off.

"Hyung," Taehyung looked behind you, "Can you keep her some company? I'll be back in a minute," he gently nudged you backward. You felt the backs of your thighs bumping into someone's knees, your heart beating wildly in your chest.

"Hm, what?" you heard a familiar voice behind you say aloud.

"Thanks!" Taehyung grinned, turning on his heel and leaving you with his friend.

You gasped upon feeling a hand on your hip, turning around and choking upon seeing who Taehyung had pushed you into. "Careful there," he said to you, his hand dropping from your hip.

It was– "J-Hope," you murmured, eyes wide at the mere proximity to him. Three things popped into your mind upon seeing him up close for the first time. 

1. Big. Broad. Man... Just, man

2. Hot... Like, holy shit, hot. Does his hair feel as soft as it looks? And why the hell does he smell so good?

3. J-Hope

"You're J-Hope," you said to him stupidly, pointing right at his face. 

He looked at you with a quirked brow, "Um, yes?"

You cringed at yourself and stepped away from him, "Oh my god, I'm so sorry, that was really dumb of me. I'm just... I'm gonna leave you alone now," you told him regretfully, internally punching yourself for being so embarrassing to the one guy that you wanted to impress tonight. You collected a pile of napkins from the bar top and bowed to him, attempting to go back to your sister on the dancefloor.

He looked at you from head to toe, your curled dark hair sweeping against your shoulders, silver sequin dress reflecting all the colorful lights from around the room almost blinding him. He noticed how you looked so out of your element, the nervous look on your face, and your fidgeting hands catching his attention. When you turned away from him, his heart jumped in his chest, his instincts telling him to reach out to you.

Looking back, you saw that his arm was extended towards you, his hand wrapped around your wrist. The contact alone was enough to make you sweat.

"Don't worry about it. Take a seat, Taehyung should be back soon," he gave you a kind smile, letting go of your wrist. 

You let out a sigh of relief, but you were still reeling from your humiliating display from just moments ago. "A-are you sure? I can wait somewhere else if you want," you asked him unsurely, slowly stepping backward. 

Under the flashing lights, you could see his chest rumbling with a chuckle, "Come with me," he told you, hopping out of his stool. He took your hand in his and began to weave you through the crowd, earning a cluster of looks along the way. You felt your body begin to grow hotter the longer he had your hand in his, taking you through the masses and to the balcony. He slid the door open and a cool, relieving breeze washed over your bare legs. He gestured for you to step out first. With a surprised look on your face, you stepped past his open arm and out onto the balcony. 

You heard the door slide close behind you and you felt him take a stand beside you. Below you, the city was spread out in a beautiful exhibit of concrete jungles entwined with vines of brilliant lights. Looking up at him, you saw how it illuminated his features and the forlorn look on his face. You quickly looked away, not wanting to be caught staring and suffering from even more embarrassment.

He pulled out his phone and was avidly tapping away, "I hope you don't mind. It's just really noisy and hot in there. I'm texting Tae to let him know that you're out here with me." After a minute, he tucked his phone away into his pocket and leaned against the balcony.

One of your hands was grasping on to the edge of the balcony, the other still occupied with a handful of napkins, an awkward silence falling over the both of you. Finding the words to start a half-way decent conversation with him was proving to be harder than you thought it would be, the potential topics just whizzing past you in your mind.

This was not the kind of circumstance you thought you would meet your crush under. You pictured something more natural like casually bumping into him on the dancefloor or sitting next to him at the bar and ordering the same drink as him. Maybe then you would've been able to strike up a conversation like 'Oh, you like that drink too?' but now, you just couldn't find the words to speak to him.

First off, you were mortified for having acted like some lovesick fan right to his face, and second of all, you had basically been pushed upon him and that was not exactly the natural meeting that you had envisioned. If one thing was for sure, you've never felt like more of a burden than you do right now.

"So–"

"So–"

You both spoke at the same time. You glanced up at him, catching the stunned look on his face and laughing anxiously.

"Are you... enjoying the party?" you asked him quietly, tilting your head up to observe him.

He hummed warmly, "Yeah, it's... It's nice," he told you, looking down at you with a soft smile.

"That's good," you nodded dumbly, scratching the back of your head. You decided to busy yourself by putting the napkins to use, patting the front of your dress and thighs down.

"So," Hoseok asked, "What'd my good friend do to you?"

His bubbly cheeks were pushed up into a kind smile, his brown eyes shining with the lights of the city below him. You noted the way the light breeze swept his dark ash-blond hair along his forehead, making you bite your cheek at how effortlessly handsome he looked in this environment.

"Oh he, uh, spilled his drink on me," you laughed lightheartedly, abandoning the napkins on a nearby table once you'd sufficiently dried yourself.

"That's a shame," Hoseok murmured. "It's a pretty dress. It's a pity he had to go and do that," he eyed the front of your dress where the threads that tied your sequin dress together were stained a light brown. It wasn't very noticeable and you were silently thanking yourself for not wearing something that would've made it more obvious. The idea of wearing a white dress to tonight's event made you shiver in horror.

Under the intensity of his gaze, you looked away, silently praying that your cheeks weren't beet red. "It's my sister's dress," you informed him, "she's busy hosting the party right now."

"Ah, so you're Hwasa's sister?" he asked you, evidently observing your face and piecing the genetic puzzle pieces together, "It's just, you guys look pretty similar."

"Yeah, she's my sister," you hummed, bracing your arms against the balcony.

You cleared your throat, "Uh, congratulations on your win for album of the year, by the way! You must be pretty happy," you told him, sparing him a thumbs up and a shy grin. Really? A thumbs up?

He quietly chuckled, "Thanks. Congratulations to your sister as well. Best female group, that's big."

"Yeah, I'm so proud of them," you silently squealed, your feet lightly hopping on the ground. "They worked so hard," you boasted, "Not to say that the other groups didn't work hard as well, I mean–"

"No, no, I get you," Hoseok interrupted you, giving you a look like he understood what you meant. "I didn't catch your name by the way," he told you, looking at you expectantly.

"Oh," you laughed. "My name's Y/N," you extended a hand to him which he completely encompassed with his own, giving your hand a gentle shake.

"Nice to meet you, Y/N, I'm Hoseok. But I've got a feeling you already knew that," he said to you with a cheeky smile on his face.

You inwardly groaned and crossed your arms over your chest, "I was hoping you'd forget about that," you giggled nervously.

"How could I possibly forget the girl in the silver dress? You must've been so embarrassed," he told you, his tone dripping with sarcasm, his eyes glittering with mischief.

You whined, "Oh my god, please stop," you pleaded, slapping his arm playfully. His chest rumbled with laughter and you leaned down to rest your head against your arms on the balcony.

"I'm just kidding," he grinned widely, nudging his knee against your thigh and softly patting your back with his hand.

With the warmth of his hand on your body, you stilled. Lifting your head to look up at him from your braced position, you saw the way he was looking at you. His half-lidded eyes and the intense look that held them made your breath hitch in your throat. He opened his mouth but then closed it, removing his hand from your back.

He cleared his throat and turned to lean his back against the balcony, turning his attention to the party, observing the thrums of people through the glass door. "Your sister really knows how to throw a party," he said aloud, crossing his arms over his chest. "I hope you were having a good time in there before Tae spilled his drink on you," he chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck.

You straightened yourself up, following his position and leaning your back against the balcony. "A little bit," you told him. "I was actually planning on leaving anyway, I have some delicious packets of ramen and chocolate waiting at home for me. I'd hate to leave them waiting," you joked, rubbing your sequin-covered arms for warmth.

He looked at you and saw the way you shivered from the breeze. He shrugged off his black embroidered blazer, leaving himself in his tight fitted white button-up shirt. He placed his hand on the small of your back to gently push you away from the balcony, wordlessly placing his warm piece of clothing over your shoulders.

Your eyes widened in surprise, "Oh, you don't have to–"

"No, it's okay," he assured you, smiling down at you and shoving his hands into his pockets.

You looked down at your feet, pinching the fabric of his blazer with your hands, shrouding it closer to you. The smell of his cologne invaded your senses, almost taking your breath away. It was nice, and it totally matched him. It was a flowery, oaky scent with hints of some sort of spice that you couldn't quite put your finger on at the moment, his shy smile and well-fitting button-up being far too distracting for your liking. "Thanks," you told him shyly, moving to brush a sliver of hair away from your face.

Hoseok was going to say something to you again until he stilled, bringing his phone out of his pocket. He brought it up to his ear and his brows were knit together in confusion.

"Woah, slow down. Are you okay? Yeah, it's fine. No, really. Just get Jungkook to take you home, take some medicine, and hydrate yourself. Mhm, yup. Yeah, I'll tell her. Okay, I'll see you tomorrow. Bye," he brought his phone down from his ear, ending the call and shoving his phone back into his pocket.

He sighed, running a hand through his hair, "Do you need to go?" you asked him, getting ready to return his blazer.

"No, no. It's just Taehyung. He said he's feeling a little sick so he's gonna go home with Jungkook, he should be fine," he told you, looking down at his feet. 

"Oh, no," you frowned, saddened to hear about Taehyung's sudden illness. It was strange. He didn't seem sick at all when you saw him earlier.

"He also wants me to tell you that he's sorry for spilling his drink on you and that he'll pay to get your dress cleaned," Hoseok added. 

You shook your head, "Tell him not to worry about it, I can clean it at home," you insisted, playing with the hem of your dress. You looked down at your front, examining it. It shouldn't be too hard to clean a sequin dress, right? There was no need for all that fuss.

He smiled at you, "Um, do you wanna come to my place?" he asked you suddenly, causing you to whip your head around to look up at him. Did he really just say what you think he said?

His brows were pushed together, a wince becoming apparent on his face. "N-not like that, of course! I just mean... You look like you could take a break away from this party, and to be honest, so can I," he reiterated. Now it was his turn to be nervous. "I actually don't live that far away and I've got some ramen and chocolate. We could have something to eat and then, uh, come back later if it's... cool with you. You don't have to–"

"I'd love to," you responded, the eagerness evident in your voice. You'd hoped that you didn't sound extremely desperate, not wanting to scare him off but the look on his face assured you that you had nothing to worry about.

His eyes gleamed with relief, his mouth wide open in disbelief. "O-okay, cool. Yeah, cool, um... Let's get out of here," he chuckled, extending his hand out to you. You looked at his hand, bewildered. After pointing at his face and acting like some crazy fan, you hadn't imagined that you'd find yourself in this position. You internally tried to slow down your heart rate, afraid that he might hear just how loud it was even over the booming music. Taking in a deep breath, your hand slipped into his awaiting one.

After texting your sister saying that you were with Hoseok and she'd sent you a series of keyboard smashed texts and emojis, both you and Hoseok found yourselves walking side by side down the street. Since he lived close by, he suggested that you both walked and you agreed, finding the silence in the street to be comforting.

Looking up to the sky, you saw the way the tiny but brilliant lights were twinkling across the wide expanse of the night sky. Hoseok was doing the same thing, though he'd sneak a glance at you and note how ethereal you looked under the light of the moon. When you thought he wasn't looking, you'd do the same thing, looking up at him like he was your world.

"So, what do you do?" Hoseok asked, turning to look at you with a curious expression.

You were brought out of your daze. "I'm a chef," you hummed quietly, kicking your feet in front of you, hands buried in the pockets of his blazer.

"A chef that eats ramen packets, I like it," he teased you, bumping your arm with his elbow. 

"Ramen packets are a cultural staple for a reason, Hoseok," you retorted, returning his bump with your own elbow. He snorted, his head hanging low with a wide grin.

You talked about your job with him, discussing your favorite cuisines and ranting about your least favorite food combinations, he nodded along, listening to you intently. "There's this anime show, 'Shokugeki No Soma', it's about this elite culinary school and one of the main character's loves to experiment with all these different kinds of food and this dude really loves experimenting with squid. It's like a staple failure for him, particularly the peanut butter squid. So one day, I tried to make this grilled squid with a peanut butter sauce and I have to say that it is probably one of the worst things I've ever made," you laughed wholeheartedly, slapping your thigh in jest. He chuckled after hearing your story, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Yeah, squid is a pretty hard ingredient to work with, and I can't imagine peanut butter being the door to it's brightest future," he added, laughing along with you.

You giggled, "Right?"

After sharing a few more stories about hilarious food failures with him, you both ended up at his apartment. It was big, the tall ceilings only managing to emphasize that. You drank in the neutral tones and simplistic design, jaw hanging wide at just how clean and amazing his place looked. As soon as you stepped through the door, the first thing you noticed was the large living room area with floor-to-ceiling windows displaying the lively city below the hills. Beside the living room was the kitchen and on the opposite side of the room was a hallway leading to a bunch of other doors.

The next thing to catch your eye was a large Murakami mural on one of the walls of his living room just behind his sofa, the signature flowers all smiling at you with its boldly colored petals paired with its simple lines and dots. It was undeniably gorgeous and something you kind of expected before you even got there, but that didn't prepare you for its beauty at all.

"Wow," you murmured to yourself, taking it all in with an astonished look on your face. "Make yourself comfortable," Hoseok encouraged you, gesturing towards the sofa in the living room.

Upon sitting down, you quietly groaned, stretching your arms out. The relief on your legs was a true blessing. You'd practically been standing all night, doing your best to satiate your energetic's sisters partying needs though your lack of rhythm and naturally awkward state which must've made you quite the sight on the dancefloor. And you wanted to do it anyway, you were proud of your sister's work and you wanted to show her just how happy you were for her but if you knew you were gonna be standing for so long, you would've tried to figure a way out of there much sooner.

Hoseok returned with two bottles of water in his hands, passing one to you. "What kind of ramen do you like?" he asked you, taking a sip from his water.

"I'm gonna say pork," you nodded to him, taking a gulp from your water bottle.

He snickered, "Pork, huh? A girl after my own heart," he grinned, putting his bottle down on the coffee table in front of the sofa. You quickly stopped yourself from screaming into your hands at his playful words, was this boy ever gonna stop being so charming? You were going to be in trouble soon if you didn't find something to busy yourself with.

"May I raid your kitchen?" you asked him, a brazen look in your eyes. 

He laughed and gestured for you to follow him to the kitchen, which you quickly did. Once you stepped into it, you weren't surprised to find that it was just like the rest of his apartment. It was big, tall, clean, embracing the neutral tones. It was almost twice the size of yours and Hwasa's kitchen. Shrugging off his blazer and hanging it on the back of the kitchen counter stool, you watched as he opened one of his tall cupboards, stepping on his tippy toes to reach for the ramen at the top shelf. "What– Why is the ramen all the way at the top?" you asked him, mouth hanging open in shock. "That's so height-ist of you."

"No, it's because Jimin keeps coming here and eating all of it before I even get to open the packaging," Hoseok snickered, placing two packets of pork flavored ramen on the kitchen island.

You hummed quietly to yourself, "Still sounds height-ist to me."

He smirked to himself, picking a medium-sized pot from the pot rack above the kitchen island. "So what do you put with your ramen noodles?" you asked him, leaning your arms on the countertop, propping your chin up in the palm of your hand.

"What do you mean?" he asked you, breaking the noodles out of their packets and placing them in the pot.

Your brows were scrunched in confusion, "What do you mean what do I mean? You put additional ingredients in your ramen, right?" you asked him, looking at him expectantly.

Hoseok shrugged carelessly, filling the pot with water. "Hoseok, please say sike," you pleaded with him but he continued to go about his business, not bothering to answer your question.

"Oh my god– Permission to raid your refrigerator?" you asked him, already hopping out of your seat. 

"Permission granted," Hoseok bowed to you jokingly. "Man, I should've known that letting a chef into my kitchen was gonna make me feel inadequate in the cooking department," he snorted, placing the pot onto the stove and igniting the flames.

"Don't think about it like that, you gotta be more positive!" you suggested cheerfully. "Think of it as though you're learning something new and exciting and life-changing," you grinned at him, opening the refrigerator. He looked at you with perplexity but agreed nonetheless, watching you rummage through his fridge. He was skeptical. At the party, he noted that you really seemed out of your element but as soon as you'd stepped into his kitchen, he watched as you quickly evolved from your timid, polite self to the confident, polite chef that you were right now.

"Aha!" you grinned triumphantly. Spotting the ingredients you wanted in the fridge, you went back and forth taking them out of their compartments and placing them on to the countertop.

Hoseok watched on with an amused expression, leaning back against the bench with his arms crossed over his chest, observing how you meticulously laid the ingredients out neatly in front of you. The bottle of soy sauce, mung bean sprouts, the wrapped package labeled 'pork belly', carrots, scallions, eggs, and capsicums looked extremely inviting to you. You glanced at Hoseok to gauge his reaction which was a mixture of impressed and humored.

"Salt and pepper?" you asked him, bringing him out of his daze. "The what? Oh, salt and pepper? Um," he opened the cupboard and summoned the salt and pepper grinders, placing them next to your neatly laid out rows of ingredients. 

"Oh, wait," you said to him, biting your lip nervously. "Uh, can you roll my sleeves up for me? I think my hand is sticky from the soy sauce," you asked him shyly, extending your arms out to him.

He smiled and wordlessly reached his hands out, the tips of his fingers softly working to neatly fold your sleeves. You held your breath while he worked on the fabric, his warm fingers brushing over your forearms which was definitely making the neurons in your system spontaneously combust.

"Okay, let's get to work," you smirked at him, eagerly anticipating the awaiting cooking session. "Let's get to work," Hoseok echoed your words with a smile, fetching some aprons from a nearby drawer. He pulled out his phone and started playing some music as the two of you got to work.

Cooking with him was fun, you thought to yourself. He showed off his impressive knife collection which made your jaw drop. They looked custom made and... really sharp, which made you squeal on the inside. A good, sharp knife set was enough to make any good chef drop to their knees and swoon. 

After he put the eggs in a separate pot and began boiling them, he washed the vegetables and watched how you diced and sliced away at the ingredients with ease, the knife dragging through the flesh of the vegetables like butter. As you went along, you explained to him why you chose this ingredient and that ingredient, continuing to guide your knife along the face of the chopping board.

You let him take over, handing him the knife. His hand glided over yours, taking the handle from beneath your palm, the contact causing your heart to skip a beat. You placed the cut of pork belly on the chopping board and suggested he trim off the excess fat and cut the pork into neat strips. He took your suggestion and followed through beautifully. Watching him work attentively with food was something you could get used to.

While he cut the pork, you took a turn at the eggs and the noodles. You strained the water into a bowl and quickly mixed in the seasoning packets and a few dashes of the soy sauce, leaving the noodles in the strainer. It took you less than a minute to peel both the eggs, gently pressing them and getting that gut feeling that they were cooked just right. 

Hoseok took the initiative to put the pork cutlet slices into a frying pan. He caught you looking at him and he gave you a proud smile, turning his attention back to the slices, flipping them over with his chopsticks. You bit your cheek and put your focus towards cutting the eggs in half, preparing them for presentation.

With a ladle, you evenly divided the soup mixture into two awaiting bowls, gently placing the noodles into the broth.

Atop the noodles, you placed the julienned carrots and capsicums, scallion slices, and mung bean sprouts. Hoseok warned you that he was coming up from behind you with the frying pan and he did you the courtesy of layering a couple of slices of the pork belly on one side of each of the noodle bowls. You placed the egg halves on the opposite side of the bowl and grabbed the salt and pepper grinders, speedily cracking the seasonings over the completed dish.

"Voila!" you cheered, handing him a clean pair of chopsticks. "God, I've been craving this all night," you murmured, tucking into your food with fervor.

Hoseok looked at the bowls in awe, a low whistle escaping his lips, "I had this in my kitchen the whole time?" he picked up the chopsticks, sliding his bowl closer to him.

He collected the sliced vegetables and the noodles between the utensils, bringing it to his mouth, closely followed by a slice of the pork belly and a portion of the soft-boiled egg. His eyes closed and he moaned at the flavors that developed in his mouth. The soft texture of the noodles paired with the sweet, fresh crunch of the vegetables was enough to make his knees weak. The pork and the egg complimented the dish perfectly.

While he ate, Hoseok was quietly watching you from the corner of his eye, slurping his noodles in silence. He saw the way you visibly savored each and every bite of your food, finding himself entranced with the way you licked your lips to collect the delicious dew that was the noodle broth. You glanced his way, smiling with strands of noodles trapped between your lips when you caught him looking at you. 

He chuckled at your humorous display, shaking his head at you and finishing off the remainder of his meal.

Hoseok admittedly felt a little foreign in the kitchen at first. He hadn't cooked a proper meal like that in a while. Since his ex preferred to order in or go to a restaurant, his kitchen had basically lost its purpose over the course of his relationship with her and consequentially, after the relationship. He'd gotten so used to just cooking ready-made meals or ordering food that he'd forgotten how good it felt to actually make something so fulfilling.

"Well, damn," he said to you, patting his stomach with a satisfied look on his face. "That was probably the best home-cooked ramen I've ever had," he confessed, earning him the sight of your blushed cheeks which he secretly relished. "But don't tell my mom I said that, she might kill me," he added.

"I promise," you assured him with a lighthearted giggle. "I could probably show you how to make the noodles from scratch, that's what I usually do if I have the time, otherwise I just use ramen packets."

Color him impressed. He looked at you with a wide grin and he was flushed at the prospect of seeing you again in the future, no matter the context. "If you teach me how to make noodles, I think it's only fair I give you something in return."

Your cheeks turned red, "Maybe you could teach me how to dance. Unlike my sister, I was born without rhythm," you laughed, pressing your hands to your face to try and hide the redness.

He struggled to suppress his smiling, his cheeks beginning to ache. "It's a deal."

The pair of you collected the dishes and you helped him to clean up the kitchen. As you wiped down the countertops and discarded the scraps, he washed the dishes and placed them on the drying rack. 

When you were both finished, you removed the apron and let out a sigh of relief. He eyed you curiously and asked, "Do you want a change of clothes? I can grab something more comfortable if you'd like."

"Ah, I think I've imposed on you enough–" you began to say before he raised his hand. 

"Just say yes," he smiled down at you kindly, waiting for your response.

"Y... Yes," you finally said to him, fidgeting with your hands.

Your feet silently padded against the floor, following him as he turned down the corridor. When he stepped into what you assumed was his room, you waited patiently at the door for him. He returned with a sweatshirt in one hand and sweatpants in the other, he pushed the clothes into your hands and he showed you where the bathroom was.

"W-wait!" you called out to him before he left. He turned around, looking at you expectantly.

"My, uh," your murmured, "Dress... Can you unzip it for me?"

Hoseok paused and he went to say something but thought against it, speechlessly returning to the bathroom door where you were waiting. You turned around for him and moved your hair away from your neck, exposing the tab to the zipper. You felt his warm breath fan out against your skin, undoubtedly making you shiver in his wake. You were silently hoping that he didn't see.

Behind you, you could hear him exhale a shaky breath as he gripped the tab and slowly pulled it down. As he pulled, the fabric spread over the width of your back, revealing your soft, tan skin to him. He let go of the zipper once it'd reached the small of your back, quickly looking up to the ceiling to avoid your gaze. 

Turning around, you saw him looking away from you which made you snort in laughter. Deliberately trying to fluster him wasn't your intention but you'd do it again if it meant you got to see him like this again. You gently pressed your hand against his chest so he was out of the way of the door. You closed it in front of his face and tried your best to suppress your giggles.

On the other side of the door, Hoseok was yet to remove his gaze from the ceiling. He felt trapped in this position, the only thing he could feel was the remaining warmth of your hand on his chest. He had not been in such an intimate position since... Her.

This wasn't the time to be thinking about her.

He shook himself out of his paralysis, moving swiftly to a more appropriate location. He didn't want to imagine the look on your face if you'd open the door to find him still standing outside waiting for you.

Hoseok waited patiently on the sofa, fiddling with the remote and turning on his Netflix.

Wow. If the ramen wasn't suggestive enough, then the Netflix one was gonna be the nail to his unintentionally suggestive coffin. Maybe he should change it to YouTube, he thought to himself before you stepped out of the shadows of the corridor.

As soon as he saw you, his breath hitched in his throat. The black sweatshirt he had lent to you was far too big, almost dwarfing your small form entirely. It ended just above your knees and you'd rolled the sleeves up to your wrists. The cuffs of his grey sweatpants were also rolled up, wrapped thickly against your shins. On the one hand, you felt that you looked a little silly but you were thankful for the drastic change in comfort. On the other hand, the only word on Hoseok's mind upon seeing his clothes on you was 'adorable'.

"Thanks for this," you quipped, spreading your arms out and doing a spin for him. Hoseok smirked and quietly laughed at your display, running a hand through his hair.

He cleared his throat and motioned you over to the sofa, "Does the chef have any recommendations?" he asked you in jest, looking at you in suspense. You giggled at his mention of 'chef', tucking a hair behind your ear shyly. 

"So ramen was the main course, and for desert... I think maybe a nature documentary is on the menu," you quirked an eyebrow at him, eager for his reaction to your suggestion. He smiled, leaning back into the soft cushioning of his sofa.

"Nature documentary it is," he echoed your words with a soft smirk. You smiled up at him gently, shifting further back and situating yourself into the cushions. He dimmed down the lights and grabbed a neatly folded pile of fluffy blankets from the opposite end of the couch, placing one of the fluffy fabrics over you before wrapping himself in his own blanket.

When the nature series had begun, you were less than a foot away from him, snuggling your warm blanket and animatedly sharing your thoughts on what you thought the best qualities were of each and every animal that came across the screen. He'd turn to look at you every time you started one of your mini speeches, listening intently to what you had to say.

After three episodes, Hoseok had managed to inch closer to you by jumping every time there was a particularly alarming cutscene of some predator in their natural habitat. It wasn't on purpose. In fact, he was contemplating changing the show but hearing your stifled giggles at the expense of his masculinity was totally worth it.

Another episode had passed and with his adrenaline coursing through his veins, anticipating the next frightening cutscene, Hoseok was nowhere near being sleepy but you had other ideas. You had unexpectedly slumped your head against his shoulder, softly snoring away. He almost jumped when you'd made contact, his survival instincts kicking in once a snake had appeared on the screen. 

He contemplated waking you up but decided against it, softening at the sight of how peaceful you looked. His head tilted to get a better look at your face, his eyes roving over each light freckle gracing your nose and cheeks, their parallel shapes being burned into his memory. The lights from the television screen danced across your sleeping form, the loose strands of hair on your face casting shadows upon your skin. You shifted in your sleep, subconsciously wetting your pouty lips before returning to your motionless state. He was amazed that the booming sound effects from the documentary went by you completely unfazed.

Hoseok took this opportunity to sweep back a strand of your hair, tucking it behind your ear. He hadn't done something like that in a while and he was sure that the simple action alone had just discombobulated everything inside his chest. It wasn't because he was in such an intimate space with just some girl, it was because he was in an intimate space with you. Granted, you weren't exactly awake so he stopped himself from staring at you any longer, knowing he'd live with the guilt of being some sort of pervert when his whole purpose of the night was to be a gentleman.

Resist the urge, damn it!

He couldn't exactly help himself though. Over the short course of the night, you had managed to make an impact on him. You'd been thrust upon him so abruptly after Taehyung had spilled his drink on you, and though the scale of the action was so small, it had felt so life-changing. So far you'd displayed your talent for cooking, your love for nature and you'd proved to him that you could match his wit when you were in a comfortable space.

Plus she's the Hwasa's sister, Hoseok thought to himself, she's already used to the lifestyle of being in the proximity of an idol. That is definitely a plus.

He decided that when morning comes, he would ask if you would like to join him for coffee or lunch, excited at the prospect of getting to see you again in the future.

Silently grabbing the remote beside him, he changed the program to something more sleep-friendly. Hoseok flipped through the suggestions and finally decided to change it to Frozen. He clicked on it and nodded off to sleep with a kind, talented, pretty girl on his shoulder. Hoseok felt like he was on top of the world.

You woke up to a loud pinging noise, squinting at the white lights that attacked your vision when you'd fully gained your consciousness. You'd quickly come to realize that you were not in your own room. In fact, the reason for that uncomfortable ache in your neck was because you'd been using Hoseok's thigh as a pillow. With widened eyes, you suddenly felt the weight of his arm on your side, his hand resting comfortably on your waist. 

He looked so tranquil in his sleep, his mouth slightly agape and quiet snores escaping in sync with the rise and fall of his chest. You couldn't believe that you'd fallen asleep on him. He was still in his clothes from the night before, his button-up and black slacks creased all the way to hell, which meant he probably felt too awkward to try and shift you off of him and stayed there so he wouldn't wake you.

Gosh, I'm such an idiot, you groaned to yourself, lifting your head off of his lap. The source of the ping was coming from a phone on the coffee table in front of the sofa. When you picked it up you realized that while it was the same model, it was definitely not your phone. You were about to put it back down until the screen flashed back to life, revealing a notification that made your heart stop.

Calendar: 10 Month Anniversary with Babygirl Moon. Would you like to share?

Holy shit. Jung Hoseok has a girlfriend?

You were mortified beyond belief. You'd just fallen asleep on top of some girl's boyfriend. To make matters worse, his lock screen image was of himself but at the bottom of the image, you could clearly see him holding someone's smaller, feminine hand. If you were in that person's position, you definitely would've been pissed to find how close you and Hoseok had become over the course of the night. But, surely Hoseok would've told you if he was in a relationship... Right? You should've at least spotted some of the signs but there were no physical indications anywhere in the apartment. Where were the spare slippers at the front door? Where was the spare toothbrush in the bathroom? Where was the feminine touch?

The lack of signs didn't exactly eliminate the idea that he had a whole ass girlfriend out there just vibing. That girl was probably 100% oblivious to the fact that some practical stranger was trying to cozy up to her boyfriend, being all intimate and flirtatious with him. The thought of it alone made you cringe with guilt. He was just being a gentleman the whole night. Did he feel sorry for you because you'd humiliated yourself when you saw him for the first time? That must've been it...

Trying to withhold the tears that were threatening to spill over, you moved quietly to avoid waking him up. Moving silently around the apartment, you collected your belongings. The last thing to do was grab your dress which you'd left neatly folded in the bathroom. When you got there, you considered putting it back on so you could take off Hoseok's incredibly comfortable clothes but you'd never be able to zip the dress up on your own.

You didn't want to wake him up to do it for you, no, you wanted to leave without a trace. It was embarrassing for you to think that you could've had something special with him when it was now clear that he had something special with someone else.

Looking at yourself in the mirror, you saw just how idiotic you looked. There were dried dribble marks on the corners of your mouth and one of the tails of your winged liner was smudged away from sleep. Your hair was neat for the most part, save for the back part which had hair sticking out in every direction. Gosh, you didn't know what you would have done if he'd woken up first to see you like this. Quickly cleaning yourself up with the help of some water and the grace of God, you determined that you looked semi-presentable.

You sent a text to Hwasa to pick you up at Hoseok's apartment, in return you received an excess of all kinds of emojis, they appeared to mostly be winky faces and different colored hearts which helped to lift your spirits a little bit. The only thing to do now was to get ready to escape this nightmare you'd found yourself in. You couldn't bear to be there a second longer. The longer you thought about it, the more it made your heart sink. You could've sworn that you felt a connection with him but after knowing he had a girlfriend, you saw your memories of the previous night through a different lens.

Maybe he was just doing everything for you out of kindness, you could see now that you were just some obligation for him.

Shaking away the tear-jerking thoughts, you stepped into the foyer. Pressing your hand to the front door, you struggled to tug your heels back on in silence, dropping your dress and your phone from its weak grip in your underarm, making the items land on the floor with a sharp thwack. 

It seemed that the noise was loud enough to wake up the host, your eyes spotting his fluffy hair emerging over the arm of the sofa. He sat up slightly, reaching out his arms and stretching his neck with a loud yawn. If you weren't so preoccupied, you would've felt compelled to giggle at how cute he looked.

He turned to the source of the noise that woke him up, eyeing you in your awkward position. With one leg raised in the air and one of your fingers tugging on the heel loop of your difficult heels, you just knew you looked silly. As soon as he saw you, he spared you a lazy chuckle and a soft wave of his hand. "Good morning," he said to you, his raspy morning voice sending shivers down your spine. 

"Gosh, what time is it? Do you have somewhere to be? I can take you there if you want–" he rubbed his eyes tiredly, but you decided that you wouldn't let him finish his sentence, his kindness only managing to inadvertently humiliate you further.

"Hoseok, my sister's coming to pick me up," you told him abruptly, lifting your head up high.

He raised his eyebrows at you, surprised at your tone. "Oh, o-okay," he responded lightly, his shoulders drooping a little.

"Thank you for taking care of me last night, I really enjoyed your company. I'll have your clothes cleaned and sent back to you," you pointed at the sweatshirt and sweatpants that he'd lent to you, "And I would like to reimburse you for the food that I ate. I also hope that you and your girlfriend have a wonderful 10 month anniversary," you bowed to him, using all your strength tug on your heel. You bent down and picked up your sequin dress and phone.

"Wait!" Hoseok called out to you, stumbling off of the sofa and tripping up over his own feet, almost smacking his face on the floor. He was trying to absorb all the information that you'd just laid on him, his mind crossing over every detail. Enjoyed his company? Clean and return his clothes? Reimburse him for his food? He couldn't believe it. Before he could speak, he was interrupted by the ping of his phone. He quickly grabbed the device to silence it and his heart sank in his chest upon seeing the calendar reminder flashing on his screen, accentuated by his lock screen image which was of him holding his ex-girlfriend's hand.

He just knew right then and there that you'd seen it. 

I also hope that you and your girlfriend have a wonderful 10 month anniversary.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

"Y/N, this isn't what it looks like!" he implored, rushing to get to his feet but he ended up slipping again, the culprit being the blanket you were sleeping with last night.

You ignored his pleading, giving him one final bow. "Goodbye, Hoseok."

You slipped past his front door, closing it behind you.

"No," he murmured, kicking the blanket away and running to the front door. "No, no, no," he repeated to himself, his heart thumping loudly in his ears. Ripping his door open, he saw the doors to the elevator closing. Running out, he reached it just in time for the barricades to close right in front of his face. He repeatedly pressed the button but to no avail. Looking to the top of the elevator entrance, he saw the numbers above it declining, indicating that you were already descending to the ground floor.

"Shit!" Hoseok said to himself, sprinting for the stairs. He'd hadn't run this fast since the relays at the ISAC's, his lungs burning by the time he'd reached the bottom. He spotted you at the gateway to the apartment complex, sliding into a black car with a saddened look on your face. By the time he'd reached the outside gates, it was too late. He watched pathetically as the car sped away along with you in it.

Hoseok stopped himself from trying to chase after the car down the narrow street, his hands angrily fisting in his hair, the burn of his scalp doing nothing to ebb the thumping in his chest. Right now, the only thing he felt like doing was bang his head against a brick wall. How could he be so dense?

If anything was gonna motivate him to do delete those stupid calendar reminders and those images of him and his ex, watching you drive away was gonna do it. Fixing his mistake was of the utmost paramount right now. 

"Hyung!" Jimin cheered upon seeing Hoseok enter their room.

"Ah, I hope you had fun last night, hyung," Taehyung winked, nudging Jimin with his elbow.

"What?" Hoseok furrowed his brows, looking at the pair of mischievous boys sitting before him in speculation.

Jimin smiled proudly, shuffling on the sofa to make space for Hoseok to sit down between him and Taehyung. "Hyung! We're the ones who set you up with that pretty girl up."

Hoseok sat down between them, surprised at hearing that the events of last night were the result of Jimin and Taehyung's plan.

"Mhm, I spilled my drink on her on purpose then left her with you," Taehyung said, waggling his eyebrows at his hyung. "We heard you left the party with her. What was she like and what'd you guys do? Come on, tell us!" 

Hoseok stayed silent, wringing his hands in his lap. He was happy to know that the boys were trying their best for him but his recent loss was still reeling in his mind, the dismayed expression evident on his face.

"Hyung?" Jimin asked, his tone laced with worry, his gentle eyes roving over his older friend's face. "What's wrong? Did something happen?"

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he sighed and let out a shaky breath. "I had a great time with her, like an amazing time but... I fucked it up because I'm such an idiot."

Taehyung frowned at his disconcerting words. "What happened?"

He explained the events of last night. 

Taking you out to the balcony and having that pleasant conversation with you.

Asking you to come to his place.

Cooking ramen together.

Lending you his clothes, noting how adorable you looked.

Falling asleep together while watching the nature documentary together. Hoseok purposefully left out the part where he changed the program to a Disney movie.

"I don't see what's wrong," Jimin commented, scratching the back of his head. "Yeah, me too," Taehyung added, sharing a confused look.

Hoseok hesitated to tell them what initially went wrong but decided that if he told them, maybe they could offer up a solution to his problem.

"I think you guys know that I've been struggling to get over my relationship with my ex," Hoseok began, clearing his throat. "It's been five months since we've been separated and it's been hard for me to move on from her, y'know? I put a lot of love and energy into my relationship with her so for it to end so suddenly, it hasn't exactly been easy for me to just 'get over it'. Because of that, I haven't had the heart change my lock screen, which is a photo of me holding her hand and I still had a monthly reminder of my anniversary on my phone's calendar," he admitted to them, hanging his head down low.

"When I woke up this morning, she had all of her things and she was getting ready to leave. She told me that she 'hoped I'd have a wonderful 10 month anniversary with my girlfriend'. That's when I knew she saw the anniversary reminder on my phone," he sniffled, swiping his fingers under his eyes to remove the tears that were sliding down his cheeks. "It just really sucks because I had a really good time with her. It was the best I'd felt in a long time and I feel like we had a connection last night but I think she might hate me now. So, yeah, I'm an idiot."

Jimin and Taehyung looked at each other, sharing a look of sorrow and shock.

"I don't know what to do," Hoseok told them, a dejected sigh escaping his lips. He buried his head in his hands, groaning pathetically.

"Hyung, it's gonna be fine," Taehyung rubbed his back reassuringly. 

Jimin hummed quietly, "You should go and find Joonie-hyung. If anyone has some sort of connection with her, it's gotta be him. Dude is so whipped for her big sister it's almost embarrassing."

Hwasa. That's right. Hoseok lifted his head out of his hands, feeling like a light bulb was hovering above his head. He pulled Jimin and Taehyung into a hug, thanking them both for their help.

When he left the room, the pair of them sighed in content, feeling a little closer to their hyung for the first time in a long time. "He'll be fine," Taehyung said to Jimin, bringing his feet up to rest in the smaller boy's lap. "Yeah," Jimin concurred, excited at the prospect of their hyung getting back to his old self. 

As soon as Hoseok opened the door to the living room, he felt Jungkook whizzing right past him, slamming the door shut behind him to barricade himself in Tae and Jimin's room. "Come here you little brat!" Seokjin shouted, chasing after the maknae with a scowl on his face. Ignoring their loud tirade and the sleeping Yoongi on the living room sofa, Hoseok made a beeline to Namjoon's room.

He opened the door quietly and found that his bandmate was having a hushed conversation on the phone. Stepping forward, he could hear him clearly. "Baby, you don't understand! Yes, I'll talk to him... I know you're upset, but you have to hear me out," he heard Namjoon sighing into his phone.

"Is that Hwasa?" Hoseok asked him, not really caring for the nature of his call.

Namjoon turned around and looked at him with a bewildered expression, "What? Dude, how long have you been standing there?" he asked him. 

"Long enough," Hoseok mumbled, stepping forward and snatching the phone out of Namjoon's hands. Before he was able to protest, Hoseok was already turning his back to him, bringing the phone to his ears.

"Ooh, when I see him I'm gonna kill him. You know that, right? I can't believe he would make my sister cry like that. It broke my damn heart seeing that, Joonie."

After hearing that he'd made Y/N cry, Hoseok winced, feeling a tinge of pain flourishing in his chest. Putting her threats to the side, he spoke up. "Hwasa?"

There was a pause. "Is this you, Hoseok?"

"... Yeah."

Upon hearing that it was the subject of her call with Namjoon, she really jumped off. "What the hell is wrong with you, Jung Hoseok? Huh? Why on earth would you take my sister home with you if had a girlfriend? You have a lot of nerve doing that to my sister. When I see you–"

"It was a misunderstanding!"

"Interrupt me again and I'll become your worst nightmare, do you understand me?" Baffled by her dark choice of words, Hoseok was going to respond with a 'Yes' until she cut him off again. "Don't answer that. Now, as I was saying, when I see you again, I'm gonna rip you a new one and choke slam you so hard that your ancestors will feel it."

"Hwasa, I can explain everything."

"She really liked you, you know that right?"

Hoseok choked upon hearing the abrupt news and her usage of the past tense. 'Liked'. "W-well–"

"God, she's baking up a damn storm in there, I feel like the atmosphere is gonna be 20% flour by the time she's done,"

He was confused that she'd add such a strange detail to her argument.

"She bakes when she's sad, Hoseok."

Oh.

"And by the looks of the triple-tiered cakes and the muffins taking over our apartment, it wouldn't take a genius to know that, yeah, she's pretty bummed out."

Hoseok had never felt so bad in his entire life. He was scolding himself internally. If only he just had the strength to just delete those stupid reminders earlier, this all could've been avoided.

"Hwasa, could you send me your address? I'd really like to talk to her in person."

He could hear her scoffing on the other side of the line. "Ha! Yeah, as if I'd do that. You probably just wanna make sure she doesn't blab to the public about your girlfriend. Well, guess what? She's actually a considerate human being so rest assured, you have nothing to worry about."

She had ended the call with him, the monotonous tone filling his ears. "Hello? Hwasa?"

Hoseok cursed, looking at the end call screen on the phone. He looked to Namjoon who'd been watching him the whole time, his arms crossed over his chest.

"Joon, you have to help me," Hoseok pleaded, his whole appearance screaming desperation. Namjoon softened at the sight of him, stepping forward to swing an arm around his shoulder.

"I heard about what happened, I tried to explain it to her but she was too busy ranting about you," Namjoon told him, patting his back comfortingly.

"I messed up big time and I really need to explain myself to her in person. I really like her, man," Hoseok murmured quietly. "I've never felt this way about someone before."

Namjoon sighed, rubbing the back of his neck anxiously. "I'll help you out, don't worry."

Despite his bandmate's encouraging words, Hoseok was worried as hell. He double-checked the apartment number in his note's app. His knuckles rapped against the door and he waited nervously for a few seconds for the door to open, which it did, revealing a shocked Hwasa. She slammed the door in his face and he winced, hanging his head down low.

A few more seconds passed and he could hear her screaming from the other side of the door.

"You gave him my address!? Damn it, Joonie!"

The shouting continued for another minute, Hoseok awkwardly dawdling in the hallway outside her apartment.

Suddenly, the door opened. Hwasa stepped forward, grabbing him by the ear and dragging him inside. Hoseok was about to protest but was cut off by the slam of the door behind him. He only had a second to observe their apartment before Hwasa started hitting him on the arm.

"Yah!" Hoseok cried out, rubbing his arm to soothe the pain. 

"I can't believe you," Hwasa seethed, glaring at him.

Hoseok stuttered, asking her, "I-is she here?" 

"No. Now explain yourself, Jung Hoseok," she demanded of him, crossing her arms over her chest with an enraged look in her eyes.

And so he did. He spent five minutes explaining to her how he genuinely enjoyed his time with her sister, talking about how you saw the evidence of his struggles in getting over his ex-girlfriend, mistakenly believing it to be something that it wasn't. He finished off his explanation, looking at her expectantly.

While she silently to take in all of his information, he took the opportunity to look all around their apartment. It was very homely and warm. The living room, where Hoseok and Hwasa sat, was amazing. He saw the family photos scattered around the walls, the vibrant flowers on the coffee table giving the monotone room a pop of color. Hoseok turned his head to see the kitchen which was littered with baked goods of all kinds. Though the sight of the colorful tiered cakes, muffins, and cupcakes was mouthwatering, knowing the reason behind their creation was crushing his soul. 

"It smells amazing in here." Hoseok quipped in an attempt to fill the silence.

"It's the cinnamon," she murmured, narrowing her eyes at him.

"Okay, fine. I see what the issue was but I see another one here," she told him. "I simply refuse to let my sister be some kind rebound for you."

Hoseok launched out of his seat, "Rebound? Of course, she's not a rebound!" he insisted, his face flushed.

"You must've broken up with that girl recently to still have those calendar reminders on your phone," she rolled her eyes at him. Hoseok sat back down slowly, anxiously running a hand through his hair.

"Actually," he began saying, "We broke up five months ago."

Hwasa's jaw dropped. "FIVE MONTHS!?" she shouted. She took off one of her slippers and threw at him, outraged at his confession. 

"You know that makes it worse, right?" she told him, leaning back in her chair with that disapproving look seemingly stuck on her face.

Hoseok exhaled noisily, burying his head in his hands. "I know how it sounds," he told her. "I really do, I know I was stupid. But Hwasa, please. I just need a second chance."

He looked at her expectantly, his eyes wide and glossy with sadness. She softened at his desperate display, sighing and rubbing her temples. 

"Let me tell you something about my sister, Jung Hoseok. My sister is a kind, sweet, and intelligent woman. She's passionate beyond belief and she'll talk your ear off if you let her. I love her more than anything in the world, do you understand?"

Hoseok nodded rapidly, his soft hair bouncing around his head.

"Okay, good. She's on the roof," Hwasa said to him, keeping a trained eye on him. Hoseok shot out of his chair, bowing to her. "Thank you," he told her earnestly, turning to go to the door but she grabbed him by the shoulder, making him face her. 

Hwasa tugged on his shirt so he was leaning forward enough so her mouth was at height with his ear. "If you do some stupid shit that makes my sister cry again, I will shatter your world. M'kay?" she told him, patting his shoulder softly with a confident smirk. He gulped, standing back to his full height. Even though Hwasa was substantially shorter than him and had the face of an angel, she managed to shake him to the core, effectively making him frightened of her.

"Erm, understood," Hoseok gulped, bowing one last time before stepping out the door.

Hwasa flopped back onto the sofa with a groan, "Ugh, men."

His journey to the roof of the apartment building took longer than he expected. Hoseok opted to take the stairs so he had time to think of how he wanted to word out his apology, wanting it to be nothing short of mind-bending and spectacular, or at least good enough that you'd want to share some more ramen with him in the future.

Meanwhile, you were busy tending to the communal garden, pruning the fruits and vegetables diligently. The sun was beating down on you in all your denim overall glory, your sunhat doing a great job of protecting your face from the harsh rays. You were collecting some ripe vegetables from the garden, brushing the dirt and debris away with your gloved hands, placing them gently into the woven basket next to your feet.

You felt your phone vibrate in your pocket. Taking off your gloves, you took out your phone and saw three notifications. Two of them were texts and the other was from the Weverse app.

[BTS Weverse] j-hope shared a moment with you!

Message from Queen Wheein: Good afternoon babe, did I leave my tweezers in your room yesterday? lemme know asap, thx ^_^

Message from Hyejin-eonnieee: good luck xxx

While your sister's text was quite strange and vague and Wheein's inquiry managing to make you chuckle, your curiosity got the better of you, your thumb opting to tap on the Weverse notification. The app sprung to life and the screen loaded for a second before showing you a picture from Hoseok's story. To your surprise, it was a photo of the ramen you'd both cooked the night before, captioned with a small 'best ramen I've had in a long time' at the top right in bold text.

You couldn't recall seeing him take a photo of the meal the night before, making you scratch your head. What was equally confusing was why he even posted the photo. Was he just trying to rub salt in the wound?

With a scowl, you turned your phone off and went back to the task at hand, shoving your phone back into your pocket.

Picking up a small spool of twine and scissors from your basket, you pulled on the string, cutting it off when it was about the length of your hand. You wrapped the string around the mung bean sprouts, tying it off and pulling the sprouts from the roots leaving you with a neat little bundle.

"Hey," someone spoke up behind you, alarming you. You shrieked and fell back onto your butt, groaning at the suddenness, accidentally knocking over your basket at the same time. "Oh, shit– I'm so sorry, are you okay?" the voice said again, the familiarity making your stomach sink. Suddenly, Hwasa's text made sense.

You pushed back the brim of your sun hat to see Hoseok kneeling beside you, his hand on your back. 

"Oh my god, why– what are you doing here?" you asked him, rushing to take a stand, brushing the dust off of your backside.

Hoseok dropped his hand away from your back, visibly hesitating to speak. "I... Uh, shit," he scrunched his nose, running his hand through his hand. "I wanted to apologize to you," he blurted out.

"Apologize for what? I was the one that was overstepping the boundaries," you told him. "But, it would've been nice, y'know, if you told me that you had a girlfriend," you shrugged, turning your back to him, bending down to place your vegetables back into your basket. 

"Y/N, I don't have a girlfriend," he told you, kneeling back down to help you gather the vegetables. Hoseok realized that they all looked familiar. In the basket were the exact same vegetables you'd both eaten the night before with your ramen noodles. The carrots, capsicum, scallions, and the bundle of mung bean sprouts looking ridiculously tempting. 

You paused your movements, hand hovering over the red capsicum on the ground. "B-but..." you murmured, eyes connecting with his. 

"I know you saw the picture and the anniversary reminder," Hoseok said to you, his hand grabbing hold of the handle of the basket. "And, yes, I did have a girlfriend but we broke up five months ago," he bit his lip, looking slightly abashed. "I've been in a pretty low place ever since the relationship so I haven't exactly had the strength to update a lot of basic things in my life, like my calendar..."

"And your lock screen?" You asked him quietly, looking up at him sympathetically.

"And my lock screen," he added, a sad smile on his face. "It's been rough. I haven't been putting as much effort into my work as I should've been and I could feel myself growing tired with the things that usually made me happy," he said, that little voice in the back of his mind scolding him for sharing more details than he ought to.

"I was a little reluctant to go to that party last night but then I met you and you flipped my world inside out. A-and I don't know if it was you that made things seem brighter or if it was the sparkly dress of yours," he chuckled to himself, "But if it's all the same to you, I'd really, really, like to see you again in the near future. I'm hoping that I'm not the only one that felt that connection last night, but if I am then I completely understand if this is making you uncomfortable and... I'll leave if you want me to–"

"No!" you shouted, grabbing his arm, effectively anchoring him to the spot. "Wait, don't go please, I'm sorry," you apologized to him, dropping your hand from his arm. 

"Sorry for what?" he asked you quietly, his brows knit together. He slowly reached towards you, taking your hand in his. "Don't be sorry. I was the idiot and I can't believe it took me this long to realize that much better things existed in the world," he said to you, his eyes boring into yours.

The words you wanted to say were stuck in your mouth, his intense gaze making your knees weak. And to think that he had a girlfriend this whole time... You couldn't believe that the man you had liked for so long was saying all these breathtaking words. If two things were for sure, it was that Jung Hoseok was single and you were embarrassed yet again for being so quick to your judgment.

"It was wrong of me to be so presumptuous," you bit your lip anxiously. 

A lighthearted scoff escaped his lips, "Trust me, it wasn't. I know what it looked like and I can tell you that I would've done the same thing," he said to you, his thumbs lightly running over your knuckles, his gentle gestures making your heart flutter. His reassurance made you melt into his touch, your head tilting to look up to gaze at him warmingly.

He cleared his throat, "But, um, just for future reference, I would never flirt with another girl if I was in a relationship... Just saying," he grinned widely at your giggles, gripping your hand just a little tighter.

"So that really was flirting," you said to him, eyeing the way his thumb gently caressed the skin on the back of your hand. "I thought I was just imagining that."

"So was I, to be honest," he told you, "But then your sister told me you had a crush on me, it was all the reassurance I needed. It also makes my day, like, a thousand times better," he grinned, his other hand coming up to rub your arm.

Your eyes widened, jaw hanging low. Son of a... "Oh my god," you cringed, grabbing the brim of your sun hat to bring it over your face. "Please just let me die," you groaned pathetically, letting go of his hand and squatting down so he couldn't see you.

You could hear his laughter from above. He knelt down beside you, rubbing your back softly. "If it makes it you feel any better, I think I have a crush on you too."

While it made your heart jump in your chest, you were still upset. "You're just saying that so I don't kill my sister," you frowned, distracting yourself by fidgeting the handle of the woven basket.

"Maybe," he grinned mischievously. 

"I, uh, noticed that the vegetables in this little basket of yours has the same ingredients we used last night," he told you, gesturing to the basket in your hands.

"Yeah, I was gonna wash them and send them to you," you told him, eyes roving over the colorful vegetables in the basket.

He snickered, "Wow, you really weren't kidding when you said you were gonna reimburse me," His hand was still roving in soft circles on your denim-clad back.

"I was gonna do it after the clothes finished drying," you gestured towards the clothing line that was on the opposite side of the large roof. Clipped to the rope were his sweatshirt, sweatpants, and your silver sequin dress.

Hoseok's eyes widened upon spotting the clothes. "Oh, damn," he murmured. "Um, well you can keep them if you want. They look better on you anyway," he smiled down at you, the wind making his hair flutter against his forehead. You stared at him in amazement, his smooth words clenching your heart. 

"I wasn't kidding when I said I'd really like to see you again, by the way," he went back to the subject at hand, chuckling nervously and averting his gaze. 

"I'd like that too," you smiled up at him.

"Oh, thank god," he murmured quietly, looking back at you, his face beaming with joy. He stood up, extending his hand out to you for the taking. He pulled you up and smiled at you, his bubbly cheeks shining from the bright sun. 

"Yah!"

The both of you looked to the entrance of the roof, spotting an angry looking Hwasa.

"Clean up the kitchen, dummy. Those cupcakes are everywhere," she told you with an infuriated tone, hands on her hips, and her foot tapping on the ground.

"You be quiet, you lost your scolding privileges when you told Hoseok that I liked him," you narrowed your eyes at her, letting go of Hoseok's hand to point an accusing finger at your sister.

She rolled her eyes at you, crossing her arms over her chest defensively. "Wha– well, someone had to say it!" she argued.

"Um, no they didn't!" you bit back.

"Clean up your cupcakes or I'm telling dad," Hwasa concluded, turning on her heel and retreating back into the building. You gasped, upset that you didn't have a chance to voice your distaste for her use of the parent card. 

You looked back to Hoseok who had an amused look on his face. "Sorry about that," you apologized to him, looking down at your feet.

"Don't worry about it, I've got an older sister too so I know how it feels... She clowns me whenever she gets the chance," he confessed to you, making you laugh in the process.

"Do you wanna get out of here?" he looked to you with an optimistic look in his eyes. You saw that his fingers by his side were reaching out to you. You smiled to yourself, taking his hand in yours.

"Yeah," you grinned at him, pulling him to the entrance of the building.

His grip on your hand tightened, stepping forward to be by your side. "What does the chef recommend?" he chuckled.

"Hmm, coffee with a side of foolishness," you suggested, doubling over with laughter.

"And maybe some hand-holding for dessert?" he raised his eyebrows at you, looking hopeful as ever.

You hummed thoughtfully, "That can be the main course. For dessert, maybe you can teach me how to dance?"

Hoseok was smiling ear to ear, swinging your hand in tandem with his. "It's a deal."

Fin.

#hoseok x reader #jung hoseok #hoseok angst #hoseok fluff #jung hoseok x reader #hoseok one shot #jhope x reader #bts jhope x reader #bts x reader #bts one shot

[fuse2dx]

November ‘20

Cross Code

Cross Code is a game that is trying so very, very hard. The story is based around your character being an avatar within an MMORPG, and its this kind of game-within-a-game setup that is used as a cheeky way to skirt the fourth wall and have its characters make snide remarks at certain design decisions, while also going full steam ahead with them regardless of the fact. Don’t think we didn’t notice, dev team! It plays out as a 2D top-down action RPG, but clearly has aspirations that extend far beyond this framework. Each of its environments is thoroughly layered with subtle verticality, with parkour-esque platforming having you constantly working backwards from your intended destination, and requiring meticulous attention to detail in order to find where it is you’re able to begin your elaborate series of jumps from. There’s a huge array of materials to gather and channel through traders and to craft into gear, and the combat they benefit is both precise and complex, requiring plenty of on-the-fly thinking as well as tight execution. As well as these set-piece battles, the game’s dungeons are full of puzzles that though smart in construction, are tough enough in isolation, and frankly brutal in their relentless frequency. One particularly ill-advised chapter has a series of three such dungeons in quick succession, and perfectly illustrates that just because you can, does not mean that you should. 

On a more positive note, one thing the game does have in spades is charm. The sprite work is admirable; even though characters are a touch on the tiny side to be too effective on their own, their portraits and dialogue provide a solid emotive connection to them and the story that builds up around them. In all, it is a game that can be a lot of fun, and plenty rewarding - but the entire thing is overly long and far too regularly punishing. It’s tapped into a number of 16-bit action-RPG ideas well, but has perhaps unintentionally also managed to become the most masochistic presentation of these ideas to date.

Crimzon Clover: World Explosion

A game I’ve technically owned for years now, however the lack of a Windows PC has held me back from playing it - with this debut on the Switch finally granting me the opportunity though to get hands on. Although I’d gleaned plenty from watching super players decimate it before now, even my feeble credit feeding through the game’s five stages has given me plenty of additional appreciation for just how good it is. 

It looks brilliant, with chunky, detailed enemies animated beautifully as they move about the screen. The music pounds along to an energetic beat, and the game keeps a solid pace all while plenty of bullets swarm around you in creative and considered patterns. Turning the tides with Break Mode is an incredibly satisfying way to take control of hairier moments, and while I can’t speak for every intricacy of its scoring system, I know that it’s developed by a team that demonstrably understands the value of these. What I can more reliably add to that discussion is that you’re unlikely to find yourself reliant on any one hook to find your fun though; even the most pedestrian appreciator of the genre should find plenty to enjoy. Thoroughly deserving of its regular appearance alongside the biggest names in the genre.

Holovista

There’s often a reasonable amount of scepticism that comes from some folks when you talk of gaming on a mobile phone. Flipping the conversation though, and instead to talk of one of my favourite advantages of the format, it’s great that a developer can lean on the familiarity and the personal connection that you have to the device you’re playing on. As a device that lives by your side 24/7 and increasingly encroaches further into every aspect of your being, Holovista leverages this connection amazingly, spinning its story in a series of interfaces that mimic how your phone acts when you use it yourself. Taking pictures and interacting with people in particular are key interfaces, and that are done in a way that neatly puts you right into the shoes of their character. 

It begins with said character taking an interview for a new job that is hoped to herald a new tide of good fortune, and promptly introduces the circle of friends that are there to help with this and that celebrate alongside. As you learn more about the job, things slowly begin to get a bit weird, and then take a turn that is something akin to Black Mirror meets nightmarish introspection. Though not overtly unpleasant, there are some memorably unsettling moments along the way. Sensibly, it does have content warnings that offer some sound advice for those it might not sit so well with, but self-care does end up being a central takeaway from the game as a whole as well as for its cast. On the back of circumstances we’ll generically chalk up to this year’s being what it is, this ended up feeling like a lovely little palate cleanser -  a considered refresh, thoroughly original, and a very worthy afternoon’s entertainment. 

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening

One thing that’s always been great about Link’s Awakening came as a result of the technical limitations imposed by the Gameboy - that the Zelda format needed all the fat trimmed, while the mixture of puzzles and action were to be distilled down into their most potent and compact form. Even with the (entirely optional) extras they’ve slipped in with this remake, this still shines through in its design now, where it couldn’t be any further removed from the risks of overly long, dragged out pacing. A small overworld it may be, but it’s full of variety, secrets, and memorable moments. Dungeons are similarly economical with its good ideas - giving you new tools, laying out smart ways to break you into their use, and then letting you get on with things. 

While the remastered music is also utterly charming, the real upsell here is the total visual do-over; its tilt-shifted cartoon aesthetic pushing each and every scene to look like a shiny, hyper-cute diorama. For all of the different visual styles that the series has dabbled with in the past, this one definitely feels like the right match for the light-hearted whimsy that comes through from the story and the characters. That’s not to say that it’s flawless either - the blurring at the screen’s edges can be overly intense at times, and the overall presentation does cause the performance to stutter and feel a little sluggish at times. I point at these things only given the bar is raised so - something unavoidable when you already know a game is a stone-cold classic from the off. 

Astro’s Playroom

Coming pre-installed on your shiny new (and hopefully not scalped) Playstation 5 console, Playroom begins as a humble introduction to the capabilities of the Dual Sense controller. Touch control, haptic feedback, adaptive triggers and the like are introduced and may well generate some cooing and low-key positivity, however this enthusiasm is elevated by a mighty factor when the game truly begins and everything is put so deftly into practice.

It’s not a complex or particularly challenging title as far as 3D platformers go, with frequent checkpoints and no life counter in sight. Any mould-breaking to be done comes instead from the diversity in how you control various sideshows, with the entire kitchen sink’s worth of interface options being showcased as you climb into a monkey suit, blast off a rocket ship, bounce around as a pinball, and so on. All of these demonstrate ingenuity that could’ve easily gone awry, yet are quickly understood, and grounded in a level of both tactile and in-game feedback that maintains a natural feeling. The game’s worlds serve as virtual tours through colourful, fantasy depictions of hardware components that demonstrates an excellent level of both pride and playfulness, with fellow bots littering both the through-fare and the unbeaten paths, dressed up and enacting smart homage to generations of games and their characters, all while Playstation-themed collectables are doled out in tandem alongside smart, well-natured puns. It arguably borders on propaganda at times, such is the intense positivity. That said, the more extensive your tenure is with Sony’s platforms, the more likely it’ll dull your better judgement to this, instead letting slip a grin at what is essentially the grandest love letter to all things Playstation, and the warmest, most celebratory pack-in for a new console Sony could have ever hoped for. 

The showcasing of new features and hardware aside, it’s also a subtle and unofficial coronation of Astrobot as Sony’s newest (and best) mascot. There’s been plenty of candidates in the past who’ve half-heartedly assumed to own the position, but it’s the silent, cheerful charm which makes Astro that much more of an endearing figurehead. G'wan the little guy.

No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle

For someone that loves Suda51 and adored No More Heroes, my reaction to No More Heroes 2 on its original release was comparatively tepid. With a third game due next year, this re-release felt like the right time to revisit it and see it through, and although I found some things to enjoy, I certainly found plenty to remind me why I had bounced off it previously.

Roaming about in Santa Destroy between missions is gone, instead replaced with a short check list of destinations. While not a fan of the change myself, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing - though it does give a misleading impression of tightened focus that is very quickly lost as it lays out a spread of half-baked, and frankly clumsy mini-games. As well as being your prime source for money and upgrades, these do a lot to artificially increase the length of the game, and put simply, they’re just not fun enough to warrant this level of prominence. Even the main story has frequent moments where it veers away from the core 3D hack and slash gameplay, and again, these do more harm than good to the game’s flow.

The fighting underpinning it all has undoubtably been done better since by any number of titles, and though imperfect, it is still serviceable and enjoyable for the most part. Boss battles definitely hold the lion’s share of the game’s highlights, but there’s a few that also stick out with some poorly executed designs that tars its lasting impression. Shades do remain of the ridiculous, irreverent charm of the first game, although they are certainly more infrequent, and a more modern lens also brings into question just how sincerely we should take the sending up of Travis, when cast upon a backdrop of frequent fanservice. Not the best sequel then, but let’s hope 3 gets things back on track.  

#cross code #crimzon clover #holovista #links awakening #astros playroom #no more heroes 2

[blackfreethinkers]

Ten years have passed since my book, “The New Jim Crow,” was published. I wrote it to challenge our nation to reckon with the recurring cycles of racial reform, retrenchment and rebirth of caste-like systems that have defined our racial history since slavery. It has been an astonishing decade. Everything and nothing has changed.

When I was researching and writing the book, Barack Obama had not yet been elected president of the United States. I was in disbelief that our country would actually elect a black man to be the leader of the so-called free world. As the election approached, I felt an odd sense of hope and dread. I hoped against all reason that we would actually do it. But I also knew that, if we did, there would be a price to pay.

Everything I knew through experience and study told me that we as a nation did not fully understand the nature of the moment we were in. We had recently birthed another caste system — a system of mass incarceration — that locked millions of poor people and people of color in literal and virtual cages.

Our nation’s prison and jail population had quintupled in 30 years, leaving us with the highest incarceration rate in the world. A third of black men had felony records — due in large part to a racially biased, brutal drug war — and were relegated to a permanent second-class status. Tens of millions of people in the United States had been stripped of basic civil and human rights, including the right to vote, the right to serve on juries and the right to be free of legal discrimination in employment, housing, education and basic public benefits.

Nevertheless, our nation remained in deep denial that a new caste system even existed, and most of us — even those who cared deeply about racial justice — did not seem to understand that powerful racial dynamics and political forces were at play that made much of our racial progress illusory. We had not faced our racial history and could not tell the truth about our racial present, yet growing numbers of Americans wanted to elect a black president and leap into a “colorblind” future.

I was right to worry about the aftermath of Obama’s election. After he was inaugurated, our nation was awash in “post-racialism.” Black History Month events revolved around “how far we’ve come.” Many in the black community and beyond felt that, if Obama could win the presidency, anything was possible. Few people wanted to hear the message I felt desperate to convey: Despite appearances, our nation remains trapped in a cycle of racial reform, backlash and re-formation of systems of racial and social control.

Things have changed since then. Donald Trump is president of the United States. For many, this feels like whiplash. After eight years of Barack Obama — a man who embraced the rhetoric (though not the politics) of the civil rights movement — we now have a president who embraces the rhetoric and the politics of white nationalism. This is a president who openly stokes racial animosity and even racial violence, who praises dictators (and likely aspires to be one), who behaves like a petulant toddler on Twitter, and who has a passionate, devoted following of millions of people who proudly say they want to “make America great again” by taking us back to a time that we’ve left behind.

We are now living in an era not of post-racialism but of unabashed racialism, a time when many white Americans feel free to speak openly of their nostalgia for an age when their cultural, political and economic dominance could be taken for granted — no apologies required. Racial bigotry, fearmongering and scapegoating are no longer subterranean in our political discourse; the dog whistles have been replaced by bullhorns. White nationalist movements are operating openly online and in many of our communities; they’re celebrating mass killings and recruiting thousands into their ranks.

White nationalism has been emboldened by our president, who routinely unleashes hostile tirades against black and brown people — calling Mexican migrants criminals, “rapists” and “bad people,” referring to developing African nations as “shithole countries” and smearing a district of the majority-black city of Baltimore as a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.” Millions of Americans are cheering, or at least tolerating, these racial hostilities.

Contrary to what many people would have us believe, what our nation is experiencing is not an “aberration.” The politics of “Trumpism” and “fake news” are not new; they are as old as the nation itself. The very same playbook has been used over and over in this country by those who seek to preserve racial hierarchy, or to exploit racial resentments and anxieties for political gain, each time with similar results.

Back in the 1980s and ’90s, Democratic and Republican politicians leaned heavily on the racial stereotypes of “crack heads,” “crack babies,” “superpredators” and “welfare queens” to mobilize public support for the War on Drugs, a get-tough movement and a prison-building boom — a political strategy that was traceable in large part to the desire to appeal to poor and working-class white voters who had defected from the Democratic Party in the wake of the civil rights movement.

Today, the rhetoric has changed, but the game remains the same. Public enemy No. 1 in the 2016 election was a brown-skinned immigrant, an “illegal,” a “terrorist” or an influx of people who want to take your job or rape your daughter. As Trump put it: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. … They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems. … They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

He promised to solve this imaginary crisis through mass deportation and building a wall between the United States and Mexico. He also insisted that his political opponent, Hillary Clinton, wanted “millions of illegal immigrants to come in and take everybody’s jobs.” And he blamed domestic terroristic attacks in New Jersey and New York on “our extremely open immigration system,” which, he argued, allows Muslim terrorists into our country.

The fact that Trump’s claims were demonstrably false did not impede his rise, just as facts were largely irrelevant at the outset of the War on Drugs. It didn’t matter back then that studies consistently found that whites were equally likely, if not more likely, than people of color to use and sell illegal drugs. Black people were still labeled the enemy. Nor did it matter, when the drug war was taking off, that nearly all of the sensationalized claims that crack cocaine was some kind of “demon drug,” drastically more harmful than powder cocaine, were false or misleading. Black people charged with possession of crack in inner cities were still punished far more harshly than white people in possession of powder cocaine in the suburbs. And it didn’t matter that African-Americans weren’t actually taking white people’s jobs or college educations in significant numbers through affirmative action programs.

Getting tough on “them” — the racially defined “others” who could easily be used as scapegoats and cast as the enemy — was all that mattered. Facts were treated as largely irrelevant then. As they are now.

Fortunately, a growing number of scholars and activists have begun to connect the dots between mass incarceration and mass deportation in our nation’s history and current politics. The historian Kelly Lytle Hernández, in her essay “Amnesty or Abolition: Felons, Illegals, and the Case for a New Abolition Movement,” chronicles how these systems have emerged as interlocking forms of social control that relegate “aliens” and “felons” to a racialized caste of outsiders. In recent decades, the system of mass incarceration has stripped away from millions of U.S. citizens basic civil and human rights until their status mirrors (or dips below) that of noncitizen immigrants within the United States. This development has coincided with the criminalization of immigration in the United States, resulting in a new class of “illegal immigrants” and “aliens” who are viewed and treated like “felons” or “criminals.” Immigration violations that were once treated as minor civil infractions are now crimes. And minor legal infractions, ranging from shoplifting to marijuana possession to traffic violations, now routinely prompt one of the nation’s most devastating sanctions — deportation.

The story of how our “nation of immigrants” came to deport and incarcerate so many for so little, Hernández explains, is a story of race and unfreedom reaching back to the era of emancipation. If we fail to understand the historical relationship between these systems, especially the racial politics that enabled them, we will be unable to build a truly united front that will prevent the continual re-formation of systems of racial and social control.

In my experience, those who argue that the systems of mass incarceration and mass deportation simply reflect sincere (but misguided) efforts to address the real harms caused by crime, or the real challenges created by surges in immigration, tend to underestimate the corrupting influence of white supremacy whenever black and brown people are perceived to be the problem. “Between me and the other world, there is ever an unasked question,” W.E.B. Du Bois famously said back in 1897: “How does it feel to be a problem?” White people are generally allowed to have problems, and they’ve historically been granted the power to define and respond to them. But people of color — in this “land of the free” forged through slavery and genocide — are regularly viewed and treated as the problem.

White nationalism, at its core, reflects a belief that our nation’s problems would be solved if only people of color could somehow be gotten rid of, or at least better controlled. In short, mass incarceration and mass deportation have less to do with crime and immigration than the ways we’ve chosen to respond to those issues when black and brown people are framed as the problem.

As Khalil Gibran Muhammad points out in “The Condemnation of Blackness,” throughout our nation’s history, when crime and immigration have been perceived as white, our nation’s response has been radically different from when those phenomena have been defined as black or brown. The systems of mass incarceration and mass deportation may seem entirely unrelated at first glance, but they are both deeply rooted in our racial history, and they both have expanded in part because of the enormous profits to be made in controlling, exploiting and eliminating vulnerable human beings.

It is tempting to imagine that electing a Democratic president or more Democratic politicians will fix the crises in our justice systems and our democracy. To be clear, removing Trump from office is necessary and urgent; but simply electing more Democrats to office is no guarantee that our nation will break its habit of birthing enormous systems of racial and social control. Indeed, one of the lessons of recent decades is these systems can grow and thrive even when our elected leaders claim to be progressive and espouse the rhetoric of equality, inclusion and civil rights.

President Bill Clinton, who publicly aligned himself with the black community and black leaders, escalated a racially discriminatory drug war in part to avoid being cast by conservatives as “soft on crime.” Similarly, President Obama publicly preached values of inclusion and compassion toward immigrants, yet he escalated the mass detention and deportation of noncitizens.

Obama claimed that his administration was focused on deporting: “Felons, not families. Criminals, not children. Gang members, not a mom who’s working hard to provide for her kids.” However, reports by The New York Times and the Marshall Project revealed that, despite Obama’s rhetoric, a clear majority of immigrants detained and deported during his administration had no criminal records, except minor infractions, including traffic violations, and posed no threat.

Equally important is the reality that “felons” have families. And “criminals” are often children or teenagers. The notion that, if you’ve ever committed a crime, you’re permanently disposable is the very idea that has rationalized mass incarceration in the United States.

None of this is to minimize the real progress that has occurred on many issues of race and criminal justice during the past decade. Today, there is bipartisan support for some prison downsizing, and hundreds of millions of philanthropic dollars have begun to flow toward criminal justice reform. A vibrant movement led by formerly incarcerated and convicted people is on the rise — a movement that has challenged or repealed disenfranchisement laws in several states, mobilized support of sentencing reform and successfully organized to “ban the box” on employment applications that discriminate against those with criminal records by asking the dreaded question: “Have you ever been convicted of a felony?”

Activism challenging police violence has swept the nation — inspired by the courageous uprisings in Ferguson, Mo., the viral videos of police killings of unarmed black people, and #BlackLivesMatter. Promising movements for restorative and transformative justice have taken hold in numerous cities. Campaigns against cash bail have gained steam. Marijuana legalization has sped across the nation, with more than 25 states having partly or fully decriminalized cannabis since 2012.

And “The New Jim Crow,” which some predicted would never get an audience, wound up spending nearly 250 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list and has been used widely by faith groups, activists, educators and people directly affected by mass incarceration inside and outside prisons. Over the past 10 years, I’ve received thousands of letters — and tens of thousands of emails — from people in all walks of life who have written to share how the book changed their lives or how they have used it to support consciousness-raising or activism in countless ways.

Everything has changed. And yet nothing has.

The politics of white supremacy, which defined our original constitution, have continued unabated — repeatedly and predictably engendering new systems of racial and social control. Just a few decades ago, politicians vowed to build more prison walls. Today, they promise border walls.

The political strategy of divide, demonize and conquer has worked for centuries in the United States — since the days of slavery — to keep poor and working people angry at (and fearful of) one another rather than uniting to challenge unjust political and economic systems. At times, the tactics of white supremacy have led to open warfare. Other times, the divisions and conflicts are less visible, lurking beneath the surface.

The stakes now are as high as they’ve ever been. Nearly everyone seems aware that our democracy is in crisis, yet few seem prepared to reckon with the reality that removing Trump from office will not rid our nation of the social and political dynamics that made his election possible. No issue has proved more vexing to this nation than the issue of race, and yet no question is more pressing than how to overcome the politics of white supremacy — a form of politics that not only led to an actual civil war but that threatens our ability ever to create a truly fair, just and inclusive democracy.

We find ourselves in this dangerous place not because something radically different has occurred in our nation’s politics, but because so much has remained the same.

The inconvenient truth is that racial progress in this country is always more complex and frequently more illusory than it appears at first glance. The past 10 years has been a case in point. Our nation has swung sharply from what Marc Mauer memorably termed “a race to incarcerate” — propelled by bipartisan wars on “drugs” and “crime” — to a bipartisan commitment to criminal justice reform, particularly in the area of drug policy. And yet, it must be acknowledged that much of the progress occurred not because of newfound concern for people of color who have been the primary targets of the drug war, but because drug addiction, due to the opioid crisis, became perceived as a white problem, and wealthy white investors became interested in profiting from the emerging legal cannabis industry.

Some of the reversals in political opinion have been striking. For example, John Boehner, a former Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, stated in 2011 that he was “unalterably opposed to decriminalizing marijuana,” but by the spring of 2018 he had joined the board of a cannabis company.

Growing sympathy for illegal drug users among whites and conservatives, and concern regarding the expense of mass imprisonment, helped to make possible a bipartisan consensus in support of the Trump administration’s First Step Act — leading to the early release of more than 3,000 people from federal prisons for drug offenses. This development, which benefits people of color subject to harsh and biased drug sentencing laws, is difficult to characterize as major progress toward ending mass incarceration, given that Trump continued to unleash racially hostile tirades against communities of color and his administration vowed to reinstate the federal death penalty. He also rescinded a number of significant reforms adopted by Obama and expanded the use of private prisons.

Obama also has a complicated legacy with respect to criminal justice reform. Obama was the first sitting president to visit a federal correctional facility, the first to oversee a drop in the federal prison population in more than 30 years, and he granted clemency to nearly 2,000 people behind bars — the highest total for any president since Harry Truman. His administration enacted significant policy changes, including legislation reducing sentencing disparities involving crack and powder cocaine, a phasing out of federal contracts with private prisons, and limitations on the transfer of military equipment to local police departments.

And yet it sometimes appeared that Obama was reluctant to acknowledge the depth and breadth of the structural changes required to address police violence and the prevailing systems of racial and social control.

For example, when black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested in his own home for no reason, Obama responded to the national furor and media frenzy by inviting Gates and the arresting officer to a “beer summit” at the White House to work things out over drinks and peanuts, as though racial profiling is little more than an interpersonal dispute that can be resolved through friendly dialogue.

Most troubling, the modest criminal justice reforms that were achieved during the Obama administration coincided with the expansion of the system of mass deportation. Although the administration agreed to phase out federal contracts for private prisons, it made enormous investments in private detention centers for immigrants, including the granting of a $1 billion contract to Corrections Corporation of America, the nation’s largest prison company, to build a detention facility for women and children asylum seekers from Central America.

Immigrant detention centers were exempted from the phaseout plan for private prisons, which meant that only about a quarter of the population held in private facilities in the United States was affected by the plan. The caging of immigrants for profit was allowed to continue without restraint.

The reality is that, during both the Obama and Clinton years, highly racialized and punitive systems thrived under liberal presidents who were given the benefit of the doubt by those who might otherwise have been critics. Obama and Clinton’s public displays of affection for communities of color, the egalitarian values they preached and their liberal or progressive stances on other issues helped to shield these vast systems of control from close scrutiny.

Many of us saw these presidents as “good people” with our best interests at heart, doing what they could to navigate a political environment in which only limited justice is possible. All of these factors played a role, but one was key: These systems grew with relatively little political resistance because people of all colors were willing to tolerate the disposal of millions of individuals once they had been labeled criminals in the media and political discourse. This painful reality suggests that ending our nation’s habit of creating enormous systems of racial and social control requires us to expand our sphere of moral concern so widely that none of us, not even those branded criminals, can be viewed or treated as disposable.

If there is any silver lining to be found in the election of Donald Trump to the presidency, it is that millions of people have been inspired to demonstrate solidarity on a large scale across the lines of gender, race, religion and class in defense of those who have been demonized and targeted for elimination. Trump’s blatant racial demagogy has awakened many from their “colorblind” slumber and spurred collective action to oppose the Muslim ban and the border wall, and to create sanctuaries for immigrants in their places of worship and local communities.

Many who are engaged in this work are also deeply involved in, or supportive of, movements to end police violence and mass incarceration. Growing numbers of people are beginning to see how the politics of white supremacy have resurfaced again and again, leading to the creation and maintenance of new systems of racial and social control. A politics of deep solidarity is beginning to emerge — the only form of politics that holds any hope for our collective liberation.

The centuries-long struggle to birth a truly inclusive, egalitarian democracy — a nation in which every voice and every life truly matters — did not begin with us, and it will not end with us. The struggle is as old as the nation itself and the birth process has been painful, to say the least. My greatest hope and prayer is that we will serve as faithful midwives in our lifetimes and do what we can to make America, finally, what it must become.

#united states politics and government

[dailycharacteroption]

Siegebreaker (Fighter Archetype)

 Before the invention of gunpowder and various other ballistic weaponry since then, siege warfare was the primary basis for military tactics, with defenders entrenched in fortifications, surrounded by the attackers, who block all access routes while delivering constant pressure with siege weapons and various tactics to try to either break in or slay the defenders through starvation or poisoning.

Believe it or not, however, sieges typically favored the defenders, since their fortifications allowed them to reduce the efforts to defend it to countering the various tactics the attackers used to get inside, while attackers had to not only try to get inside, but also  build fortifications of their own to avoid counter-assaults from outside. Also, the poorer conditions and additional workload of the atttacker’s siege camp tended to make maintaining the siege more expensive.

But enough about that. Today, we’re focusing on a specialized warrior, one specifically meant to break through lines of soldiers. It is they who are the first to rush out onto the walls from a siege tower, barreling into the defenders. Conversely, they might also play on the defender’s side, trying to punch a hole in the attacker’s ring to get people in and out.

Such siegebreakers have to not only be powerful enough to break through defensive formations, but also tough enough to survive the immediate counterassault. A soldier impaled on a set of braced pikes is not an effective siegebreaker.

 Siegebreakers are trained to use their bodies as living battering rams, pushing back or running over foes with great force. Furthermore, they also learn how to direct the force of their impact to even cause damage with such maneuvers, even adding the magic of their armor to the impact.

It takes more than a powerful blow to break through formations. One must follow through, and that means enduring enemy blows. Through a combination of adrenaline and careful minimization of injury, these warriors can briefly gain a surge of vitality.

As they grow in might, they also learn to push back and overrun a foe all in the same action, breaking through to the back of enemy lines.

A disrupted formation is a broken formation, and these fighters fight to disorient, leaving foes befuddled and ineffective.

The most powerful such warriors can hit where it hurts the most, or otherwise leave foes unable to act with their strikes, only able to stumble and crawl for cover.

Like a spike through wood, this archetype is perfect for piercing large groups of foes. However, that alone is not enough. You should build to help reduce the number of attacks of opportunity that foes can take against them by moving and using their maneuvers, as well as keeping them mobile so they don’t get surrounded and flanked.

 Even among other soldiers, members of this archetype put themselves at great risk when performing the duties they were trained for. With that in mind, one can imagine either an inordinate amount of recklessness or devotion that drives them,

  Whisked away by a teleportation spell, the party has been sent on a quest to recruit help to break the siege surrounding Aunhold. Specifically, they have been tasked with seeking out a reclusive village of nephelim who, according to legend, once served to break through the hordes of demons during the last War in Heaven.

 It is not all that uncommon for unscrupulous armies to hire on ogres as shock troops and siegebreakers, paying them in gold and spoils of war. However, the truly dangerous ones are those that choose not to retire, training in the art of scattering defenses.

 Having beaten them back to their own borders, it is time for the forces of the Genmurd Alliance to force the invaders from Volgred to surrender. However, beleaguered by enduring sieges of their own, the Alliance tasks the party with finding a way to break the siege on the border fortress early.

#pathfinder #archetype #fighter #siegebreaker #nephilim #ogre #Heroes of the Street

[ocehans]

9 Essential WEB SITE DESIGN Methods for DIY Beginners

Let’s get right down to it, shall we? Below are a few of the very most useful styles and guidelines to learn when building your first website:

1. SET ASIDE the Mouse, GRAB a Pencil

Your site may already exist as a lovely, complete entity in your mind which is the reason why you immediately leap into Photoshop (or worse, an internet browser and HTML) to plan it out. Whoa, whoa-cool your jets for another! Don’t place the cart before the equine. First, get out a pencil and pad of paper and start putting your ideas into something easily tangible. That is an important stage to map out the framework of your site using only rectangles, doodles and influenced ideas (categorized as wireframing). Things can be very tough at this time; no one’s heading to view it nevertheless, you.

It is more easily at this time to alter designs you originally thought works however now discover are cluttered and confusing in writing. This can save you many hours of disappointment instead of making the same finding after the site is coded and in a web browser. Plus, it can help significantly to create a web page when you have research at hand to seek advice from rather than moving in blind.

2. Follow a Hierarchy

It’s an undeniable fact that a lot of web surfers tend to only check out webpages rather than take time to read everything. You should be ready because of this by placing the most crucial content first. This means that a consumer can break down the most essential information on a full page all in a single screen on preliminary load, and never have to focus or scroll. That is, of course, easier said than done. Here are some tips to help you better understand the significance of the design theory:

Keep Content “Above the Collapse”

We call that preliminary display of loaded content “the fold”-and everything below it that must be scrolled to be observed is considered supplementary. Generally, your most significant information rests “above the collapse”. The crucial thing to perform within this area is to entice a consumer to do this or generate the motivation to scroll down further.

Utilizing a “Hero” Image

A common trend in web site design nowadays is to fill this “above the fold” area using what is named a “hero” image or banner. They are full-screen history images with very succinct and to-the-point overlaid text messages, usually combined with a call-to-action button. Feasibly the whole purpose of the net web page could be included within this banner area, although it also acts as a great primer for this content to follow.

“The Collapse” May Change With regards to the Device

Here’s where things become complicated-and why you shouldn’t overburden yourself attempting to match everything above this marvelous line. Concerning the user’s device, the display screen sizes could differ greatly. A jaw-dropping 5K screen has a vertical quality of 2880 pixels, whereas an iPhone 5 has not even half of this. This means that mobile users just aren’t heading to have the ability to fit as much content to their display real property. (More upon this later.)

3. Typography Is Your Design

Unless you’re owning a photography business, the text is the solitary most important component of any website, so it’s important to get this done part right. Your web page’s hierarchy is greatly reliant on the typography you select: how your headings, subheadings, and body text message follow an all-natural circulation and stay aesthetically distinctive in one another

Make sure the written text is legible (avoid flowery fonts!) and large enough (usually around 16px for your body).

Stick to only two fonts-and make sure they set well together!

Give your paragraphs some room to inhale between one another, and arranged enough top cushioning or margin on your headings to symbolize clear breaks in content.

Avoid long lines of text. It’s easier on the eye for paragraph lines to be approximately only 15 words long-and a little significantly less than that for mobile displays.

Serif fonts are usually best only in print-unless they may be found in large headlines on the net

4. Colors & Comparison Are Crucial

We’ve discussed color mindset at length, however, the idea bears duplicating. The colors you select for your website play a massive role in how users understand your brand, as well as how motivated they could feel in taking action (i.e.: buying things) through your website. Why? Well, every color evokes certain feelings, and either for their natural character or by social fitness, these colors have grown to be associated with certain types of businesses. If a children’s toy company or a financial consultant painted their whole website in the stark dark, it could send the incorrect indicators with their meant viewers. Around the flipside, a shiny orange or an enjoyable blue, respectively, would catch the perfect firmness and consciousness for his or her customers.

If you’ve already established the colors of your brand, use those on your website then. It’s best, however, to keep it at only three colors for your site; like fonts, you don’t want to overdo it here or your site could finish up with multiple personality disorder. Also, be skeptical of way too many splashes of color across your website; our eye is attracted to them like honey traps, plus they could interrupt the natural movement of your articles. Use color only once it is most needed, such as links or control keys.

In contrast, your text message must stick out from the backdrop. Using light greys, yellows or greens for your fonts will likely render them unseen on the web page. Black on the white background is the foremost combination of comparison and is normally what you ought to stick to.

Additionally, you want your text message to pop against background images. Using very occupied photos can distract from the written text, to avoid this issue either use less comprehensive photos or use an overlay of, say, rgba(51,51,51,0.5)to help soften the image within the text.

Contrast also is important in how users are attracted to certain important elements of your site. Your most significant call-to-action control keys must get attention through the use of contrasting colors. A blue “Buy Now!” button manages to lose its urgency and well worth it when it's swallowed by a niche site that uses blue everywhere-but a red button on that same web page grabs a user’s attention by shouting “Hey! Click me!”

5. Using Pictures

Deciding on the best images to use on your website partly boils down to your artistic aptitude, but there are also intellectual considerations to consider that should assist with your selection process. First of all, avoid embellishing your site with extraneous photos because they could look nice. Instead, think of how each image you utilize serves its purpose, and how it functions as content. A well-chosen picture can convey your brand, service, product, or audience a lot more effectively than words. Use photos to help your users understand something, to evoke feelings, or even to inspire trust and self-confidence; with them solely for visual reasons should be supplementary.

Understanding Document Types & Compression

There can be an extra step that must be taken for using images on the net. Those elegant photos you have from sites like Shutterstock and iStock could be very substantial (5,000+ horizontal pixels and 10+ megabytes in proportions) which is okay for printing, but they’re unfit for websites. Not everyone has superfast Dietary fiber Internet, and that means you must decrease the size of your images to support for launching times (not forgetting 40% of site visitors will leave if the website takes much longer than 3 mere seconds to weight!). Typically, you want to keep each of your images at no more than 500 kilobytes in proportions, though your average quality should of times be around 100 kilobytes.

JPEG is the typical format for photos. It is a lossy format, this means its image quality is reduced when compressed. If you’re utilizing a JPEG for a full-width history image I quickly recommend keeping its horizontal quality at a minimum of 1200px. For general purposes, stay away from any image with significantly less than 600px horizontal quality, as it'll likely show up blurry on modern displays.

PNG is the most well-liked choice for images or for images that want transparency. It is a lossless format, which is ideal for keeping image quality but may also greatly increase document sizes. Generally, you’ll use PNG images for illustrations, symbols, or smaller images that may be stacked together with other elements for their transparency. You’ll hardly ever need a PNG to be bigger than 1000px.

SVG (Scalable Vector Image) is a more recent format that is changing GIF and even PNG in some instances. SVG wonders that it could be as large or as small onscreen as you will need it to be, all while keeping perfect clearness and crispness (but still be a little quality). You should think about using SVG for just about any logo design, icon, or vector visual on your website; as high DPI shows are becoming commonplace, the sharpness of SVG provides the best image quality.

6. Mobile-First Design

We’ve now reached a period where most people consume online quite happy with their cell phones rather than on the desktop computer. As a total result, there is much larger precedence in web site design to tailor specifically to the mobile experience, which has resulted in the “mobile-first” design viewpoint.

This means that essentially, throughout your initial sketching and planning phase in some recoverable format, it is best to focus on the site’s mobile layout first. Only the most crucial content necessary for the functioning of your site will be displayed on smaller screens. This causes you to simplify your design and slice out any distracting elements immediately. Think back again to your “above the flip” content: if you first ensure that the important info can fit on the original screen of the phone, then you’ll know for several it'll fit on bigger displays. Once you’ve nailed the fundamental mobile layout, you'll be able to start adding in embellishments or bigger images for desktop displays.

Your mobile layout assumes a far more vertical design that inspires scrolling, as opposed to the wide landscape of the desktop. If, say, your product web page displays entries in a grid of 3 across on desktops, then usually your mobile layout will display them as only a single column.

Yes, which means that you essentially need to produce several layouts for every web page of your website. Fortunately, a worthwhile website contractor should provide reactive templates that change these designs automatically so you’ll then just need to fine-tune them.

7. Keep Things Aligned

When elements appear sporadically laid across your site it is often due to an alignment issue. Imagine your website on the sheet of graph paper. Individual it into even columns by sketching, for example, six right lines. You now want to ensure that the remaining sides of your elements are distributed and aligned to only these six vertical lines.

8. Keep It Simple

It is said that the best web site design moves unnoticed; it is a poor design that phone calls focus on itself. As stated earlier, the main facet of any website is merely its text message. If you can offer outstanding typography that is a joy to learn, you won’t do much more. Wanting to overdesign your site will just mess and complicate things.

Are the package shadows necessary? The crazy, ornate patterns? A large number of colors? Not probably.

9. Big Open up Spaces

Your articles need room to breathe. White space is the prevailing design choice for modern websites: wide, open up areas of nothingness to pad areas between content. It’s a far more pleasant way to process information, looked after stimulates you to eliminate superfluous text messages and images to keep carefully the site clean.

Get more advice Thought Media is a leading Chicago web design providing professional website development services, and one of the top SEO companies. The agency has worked with hundreds of clients all over the world! Creating high converting website designs, providing reliable website hosting, and successful Search Engine Optimization Marketing campaigns!

Conclusion

Web site design can be considered a sprawling field of technology to learn, ideas to practice, dialects to review, and artistry to understand. Only with experience will all of these components start to make sense, however, you already are well on the way simply by grasping the basics of why is a good website work. I am hoping that guide acts as your launching-off point, which offers you the self-confidence to consider your website into the own hands and build it just how that only a business proprietor knows best.

[kleeboy]

okay im deleting and reposting this because i put a swear word in the tags and it wasnt even showing up in searches for my personal, and i don’t trust the mobile editor to fix my problems but its time 4 me to make a post

Here's what I’ve got for a Thunderbirds D&D AU! I'm not gonna get into numbers and stats and levels because I do that enough when I play normal d&d and I'm gay and tired. Also, there’s probably gonna be a touch of rule bending not only to reconcile d&d with the Thunderbirds canon but just to boost the fun factor a bit. It’s not like we’re setting up a playable campaign so it doesn’t really matter as long as we’re not making it unrecognisable as part of the d&dverse. At that point, you might as well just call it a fantasy AU (still lit tho lmao). This is mostly TOS based but I’ll add some notes on TAG stuff now and then in italics because I’m here to provide. It’s hefty, so everything's under the cut. Hopefully comprehensible.

IR (presumably going by some other name but we’ll just stick with that for sake of ease) is still a rescue organisation - it operates on a somewhat smaller scale but access to magic means it’s got a pretty big reach for typical d&d technology. It’s centred around an ancient deity that few people have heard of and even fewer worship. There’s only one known temple dedicated to said deity and it had been abandoned for a long time before they found it, so it’s currently being restored - if rather agonizingly slowly. Anyway, IR is deity-based because nothing screams “fight for a cause” like paladins! They’re paladins, mostly, is what I’m saying.

Jeff is likely an ex-adventurer, probably a paladin but I’m seriously considering cleric just for interest’s sake so sue me, I love clerics. His party did some pretty cool stuff back in the day, and adventuring pays well as long as you don’t die, so he’s pretty well off. He left the party and settled down in one place when Scott was born, and the rest of them presumably disbanded and went about their own lives eventually. Or maybe they’re still out there causing a ruckus. Who knows. Pretty easy to just say “and he’s not there anymore” for TAG, rationalise his disappearance as you please. Either way, at some point he decided to start an organisation that would make saving lives a bit more structured than the usual “Let's hope a squad of adventurers stumbles on our predicament” that people have been relying on.

Scott is a Battle Master archetype fighter who multiclassed into paladin. Battle Master provides the most appropriate mechanics for a field leader, and also seems like the sort of thing Scott would have been doing previous to IR. He’s the least proficient spellcaster of the group if only by virtue of his class, but access to paladin magic gives his fighting an extra kick which, along with the Battle Master maneuvers, makes him pretty damn dangerous with a sword. It also means he can cast Find Steed, and because said steed’s form can go beyond normal when permitted by the DM and we’re making the rules here I’m giving him a pegasus, which is about the fastest flying mount you could get as far as the monster manual goes. A roc would just be too much. Very VERY cool. But too much.

Virgil is a College of Lore bard into paladin. When it comes to support classes, nothing beats a College of Lore bard for versatility. He’s got the range, darling. Slap an arsenal of magic items on that and you’re well on your way to the d&d equivalent of Thunderbird 2. He has some good offensive spells and weapon training but mostly works to keep others from getting hurt. With a high constitution, the Tough feat, good armour and a shield he pretty much becomes a mobile wall to be put between danger and anyone who can’t take too many hits. Find Steed again lets me give him something interesting to ride, and what better than an owlbear. A big one. Not quite as appropriate stat-wise as the pegasus for Scott but when it comes to aesthetics I’m yet to find something as good as a bear-shaped and -sized owl.

John is predominantly a Divination wizard, with a low paladin level - two maximum - giving him access to a lot of powerful magic but leaving him, how do you say, squishy. Divination is gameplay-wise pretty underwhelming, with not many spells to its name, but for someone whose job is centred around keeping an eye on things, the ability to see very far away and receive premonitions is gonna be useful. The system by which distress calls are sent is giving me some concept trouble but when it comes to receiving it’s as easy as a focus with some capability to project images and sound, gear already necessary to cast Scrying. So, as in canon, rather than going out on missions (at least for the most part), it’s John’s job to keep tabs on incoming signals and active operations. This is all based in the previously mentioned temple - out of the way enough to let me call it a T5 equivalent. He also has the secondary job of making sure nothing else tries to take up residence in the decrepit building. They had to clear it of goblins the first time. As far as Eos goes I don’t have room for all my thoughts (so many) but let’s call her a sentient magic item. Additionally, TAG John probs gets a level or two in cleric.

Gordon is a paladin into druid, Circle of the Land (Coast). He and Alan didn't have any previous class levels before becoming paladins. Neither of his classes give any bonuses for it beyond proficiency for paladins but nobody can stop me from making his primary weapon a longbow, plus the Sharpshooter feat is helpful. Coast druid is the only subclass of any d&d class that has a specific focus on water and what could go wrong if we let him turn into animals? It also has some good circle spells, when he gets to that point. He’d probably have a lot of fun with Mirror Image. There was probably an incident that catalysed his becoming a druid, I'd like to think it's the equivalent of the boat crash just placed on a different point in the timeline. Might get into it at a later date.

Alan is just pure paladin, it's all he's really had time to do with his life so far beyond being a kid and growing up, y'know? I’ll get a little into the subclass here, all of IR’s 3rd level or higher paladins take Oath of Devotion. From the PHB: “These paladins meet the ideal of the knight in shining armor, acting with honor in pursuit of justice and the greater good.” Devotion’s core tenets are honesty, courage, compassion, honor, and duty. Also their Channel Divinity: Sacred Weapon is just really cool. Who doesn’t like glowing stuff, man. Alan's got some more powerful paladin abilities than any of his brothers but probably has the lowest total level regardless. Giving him the Athlete feat, which lets him jump and climb a lot easier, feels appropriate. He snuck a griffon home when it was a baby, and is trying to train it. It's not very well behaved and causes a ruckus when it gets bored but he adores it. One day it’ll make a phenomenal companion. For now, it will continue to attempt to eat his fingers.

Brains is an artificer! Love that class. Artificers, rather than casting spells (though they can do that), make magic items. The artificer class is from Unearthed Arcana and a lot of the mechanics can be hit or miss, it’s been revised many times by lots of different people. But when it comes to the basic idea, it’s the obvious choice for Brains. The less common a magic item, the longer it takes and harder it is to make. The higher level an artificer the more, and more powerful, their creations are. Pretty simple. Also pretty much every version of artificer you come across has some sort of option for a mechanical companion so there’s MAX for you.

Tin-Tin is also an artificer, with a few levels in paladin for good measure. Her time is split between making and repairing gear and going out on missions, and when on call is incredibly useful for lightning fixes and is incredibly creative when it comes to the ways magic items (and nonmagic items) can be used to get out of predicaments. This is the character who constantly has Inspiration. Kayo is an Assassin archetype rogue into paladin. Assassins do… a lot of damage. If you know much about d&d rules (I don’t expect you to), the only thing scarier than a bard, stat wise, is a rogue. +10 to stealth is pretty easy to get by 5th level, combine that with Sneak Attack and Assassinate and you can deal up to 26 damage in one hit with a dagger alone. I said I wouldn’t do any maths but I lied.

Penny doesn’t necessarily have any class levels, though rogue would be appropriate. She falls more under the NPC umbrella, somewhere between Noble and Spy, perhaps? NPCs have a lot less restrictions when it comes to what they can and can’t do laterally, but it’s harder to make them powerful without assigning a class. I also think it’d be really neat to use the fantasy setting to make her nonhuman. High elf would be fitting and cool, but she’d also make a fantastic tiefling. Though, like, call me biased, everyone would make a fantastic tiefling.

I think that’s all I’ve got to say on the matter right now. I have a lot more specific details that I’ll get to eventually but this post is more of a jumping off point listing some options for anyone else who might want to mess around with a d&d AU but doesn’t know where to start. Pick out things you like, ditch things you don’t, add whatever sounds cool, and honestly? Congratulations on getting through this whole thing. This post is kind of in shambles. And thanks! I love taking any excuse to pore over these books.

Shoot me an ask or something if anything’s too incomprehensible or there’s something up with the formatting. Later, skaters.

#thunderbirds #thunderbirds are go #dungeons and dragons #long post #kleeboy talk #no commentary in here because last time i said the f word and got put in the naughty corner

[rxbodybuilding]

By Will Brink "Joint Troubles" One of the most common problems faced by strength training athletes is joint pain. "Oh my shoulder is killing me" or "my knee has been bothering me for months" or "I have been living on pain killers to get rid of this ache in my elbow" are common complaints that can be heard in any gym at any time. Oddly enough however, this topic is not covered very often in most bodybuilding/fitness magazines. Maybe the topic is just not all that "sexy" or "cutting edge," but if you're one of the thousands of people whose gains in muscle are being side tracked by joint troubles, then you don't give a damn about sexy or cutting edge-you just want relief! In the past few years I have noticed an increase in letters and e-mail from people complaining about their joints. In all honesty, I would estimate 80% or more of most bodybuilders joint pain is totally avoidable. If you look at people who have chronic joint pain, nine out of ten times you can see why they would have an aching appendage that causes them pain. More often that not, they (1) rarely warm up adequately, (2) they train too long and/or too often, (3) they use overly heavy weights/low reps more often than they should, (4) they don't take time off to allow their joints, tendons, muscles, etc., to recuperate from heavy workouts, (5) they use less than perfect form during heavy lifts, (6) they don't take in adequate nutrients, or (7) all of the above! Now of course we have all had an ache or pain in a knee, elbow , or other joint at times, but chronic long term pain is another story. This article is going to assume that the reader has joint pain NOT because he (or she) is doing any one of the above seven common mistakes, but has joint pain due to some other factor out of their control. If you warm up and stretch thoroughly, train for no longer than an hour three-four days per week, cycle your weights and reps, take time off when you need it, have good form, take in adequate nutrients, and still have joint problems... then this might be the article for you. Types of joint problems There are of course different types of problems that cause common joint pain in athletes and "normal" people alike. Bursitis, tendinitis, various types of arthritis, and other afflictions, can be the cause of a person's aching joints. Briefly, here is a description of the most common types and causes of joint pain that afflict athletes: Arthritis: There are many different forms of arthritis. The two most common are osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. Of the two, osteoarthritis is by far the most common to bodybuilders and other athletes. Caused by wear and tear on the joints, osteoarthritis is characterized by a deterioration of the cartilage at the ends of the bones. The once smooth cartilage becomes rough thus causing more and more friction and pain. Left untreated and unchecked, this can become very debilitating for the hard training athlete. Chronic osteoarthritis has ended the career of numerous athletes. Bursitis: In our joints there are small fluid filled sacks called bursae. The bursae's job is to assist in the muscle/joints movement by cushioning the joints and bones against friction. If these sacks become inflamed and/or injured due to various causes (see above training mistakes), a chronic pain called "bursitis" can result. It's most often found in the shoulder or elbow (A.K.A tennis elbow) but can also be found in other joints of the body. It hurts like hell and can ruin a workout quickly if left untreated. Tendonitis: Tendonitis is probably the most common cause of pain to bodybuilders and other athletes and is (luckily) the easiest to treat. However, if left untreated and the person just "works through the pain," it can become a real problem that will put a quick end to your gains in muscle. Basically, tendinitis just means the tendon(s) around a joint have become severely inflamed from overuse, micro injury, etc. Though it might sound simple enough, for people who suffer from chronic tendinitis it's no joke and a real pain in the...joint! Treatment options Again, this article is going to assume that the reader warms up properly before working out, does not severely overtrain, yada, yada, yada, as mentioned in the beginning of this article. If the reader (you?) is in the gym all day, thinks one set on the bench press is a warm up, and feels anything over 3 reps is high rep training, than you need go no further to find the answers to what's bothering your joints! The treatment options we are going to look at relate to natural compounds, or mixtures of natural compounds, that could save a person with aching joints years of pain and possibly even more. Unfortunately, the treatments offered by traditional medicine at this time are generally of little use to highly active people. Most of the treatments for joint problems address the symptoms (pain, swelling, etc) rather than the cause and can often make the problem worse in the long run. Non-steroidal anti- inflammatories, cortical steroid injections, joint replacement, and the always useful "stay off it" advice does not tend to yield the results most athletes want. If you look at the names of the aforementioned types of joint problems, you will notice they all end with the term "itis," as in tendin-itis, arthr-itis, and burs-itis. The suffix "-itis" means "inflammation of " according to The American Medical Association Encyclopedia of Medicine. Knowing this, you can see that bursitis means inflammation of the bursea sack, tendinitis means inflammation of the tendons, and arthritis means....well you get the point. Medical terms for afflictions that end in "-itis" tell us that though the causes and manifestations are different, the final problems is one of inflammation. Inflammation is characterized by pain, swelling, redness, and less obvious symptoms. This leads us finally to our list of natural compounds/products that might just save the joints of the person reading this article who thought their workouts would never be the same because their joints are giving them so much trouble. These products tend to address not only the symptoms of the problem-that is the inflammation-but the underlying causes as well. Jello Anyone? As strange as it might seem, the main ingredient (gelatin) in good old Jello might be just what the doctor ordered for painful joints. Gelatin has been market world wide for many years as a food and as a supplement. Gelatin is made from animal collagen. In all animals-including man- collagen is an essential structural protein that forms an important part of bones, tendons, and connective tissues. It is a tough insoluble protein that is essential for keeping the many cells and tissues of the body together. Gelatin contains an exceptionally high content of two amino acids which play an important part in collagen formation, namely proline and glycine. In fact, it takes 43 grams of dried egg whites or 35 grams of dried non fat milk or 89 grams of lean beef to equal the amount of proline in just 10 grams of hydrolyzed gelatin. Though the body can form these two amino acids on its own, it has been suggested that under certain conditions the rate of synthesis may be insufficient to provide essential body requirements and degradation can exceed synthetic processes (i.e. there is a steady loss of body collagen). The intake of hydrolyzed gelatin appears to be an alternative route to getting chondrocytes (cartilage producing cells) and osteoblasts (bone forming cells) of the body sufficient amounts of these important amino acids for making structural proteins. Although chondrocytes are critical for collagen formation, their number is limited and their ability to form this much needed protein is influenced by heredity, age, physical activity (too little or too much), injury, and availability of nutrients. Although bone metabolism is quite complex and not fully understood, there is a growing number of studies showing the intake of just ten grams per day of hydrolyzed gelatin is effective in greatly reducing pain, improving mobility and overall bone/cartilage health. Several randomized, double-blinded, crossover trials have shown improvements in symptoms related to joint pain (Adem et. al. Therapiewoche, 1991). The people at Knox (the Jello people) have made a product specifically for bone health and joints called NutraJoint. It contains hydrolyzed gelatin, calcium , and vitamin C. Calcium is of obvious importance to bone health and vitamin C is an essential and limiting nutrient for connective tissue formation. NutraJoint is cheap, has no side effects, and tastes good. I recommend one packet mixed with OJ with breakfast for people suffering from joint pain. Cetyl Myrist..what? A fatty acid with the long and hard to pronounce name of Cetyl Myristoleate has been receiving a good deal of attention by researchers concerned with joint pain and health. Being it's difficult for the reader to pronounce-or for me to write for that matter-I will just call it CMT for the remainder of this article, OK? Discovered by a researcher at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), CMT looks very promising as a compound that greatly reduces joint pain due to a variety of causes. In animals CMT was found to be very protective of joints from different chemicals that would normally cause arthritis in these animals. Though the human research at this time is not as solid as we would like, CMT has already developed a following with some alternative medical practitioners and by those who suffer from joint pain. Several bodybuilders I work with swear by the stuff though I cant vouch for it at this time as I have had no personal experience with this product. Also, its effects seem to work rather quickly and relatively small amounts can be used. 12-15 grams spread out over an entire month appear to be effective. Exactly how CMT works is unclear but it might have something to do with a reduction in pro-inflammatory prostaglandins (see below) or some other mechanism. EHP Products Inc. makes a CMT product that is endorsed by the researcher who discovered it. They can be reached at 888-EHP-0100. A company called G nS Marketing also sells CMT (they call it CMO) and can be contacted by calling 800-829-1514. Flax oil for everything! Many bodybuilders and other athletes are starting to see the many benefits of flax oil for all sorts of uses. One obvious use of flax oil is a reduction in pain due to any type of inflammatory condition, including joint troubles. To understand why this is so, the reader must now endure a crash course in the topic of essential fatty acids and the many products made by these fatty acids found in the body. If you already know all this stuff you can skip over this material, but if you don't know it, you will need this information for the rest of the article. The definition of an essential nutrient is anything the body cannot make itself and therefore must be obtained from the diet. We need to eat an assortment of vitamins and minerals, approximately nine to eleven amino acids, and two fatty acids to stay alive and healthy. The two essential fatty acids (EFAS) are called linoleic acid and alpha-linolenic acid. The first being an Omega-6 fatty acid and the latter being an Omega-3 fatty acid. If the term "Omega-3 fatty acid" rings a bell for you it should. Fish oils are also well publicized and researched Omega-3 fatty acids (see below) that have been shown to have many benefits. "So what does all this have to do with my aching joints?" you are thinking. Ok, here is the skinny on why you had to endure that previous section. Flax oil is exceptionally high in Omega-3 fatty acids (alpha-linolenic acid). Omega-3 fatty acids, from fish, flax, etc., have been shown in the scientific/medical literature to reduce inflammation of any kind. Remember the "-itis" part of the word relating to joint problems? How do you think non- steroidal anti- inflammatories work? They reduce inflammation, but they also come with potential side effects and health problems. So how does flax oil do this wonderful thing? From both of the essential fatty acids the body makes something called prostaglandins. Prostaglandins are very short lived hormone-like substances that regulate cellular activity on a moment to moment basis. Prostaglandins are directly involved with regulating blood pressure,inflammatory responses, insulin sensitivity, immune responses, anabolic/catabolic processes, and hundreds of other functions known and yet unknown. The long and the short of all this, without going into a long and boring biochemical explanation, is: Omega 3 fatty acids are responsible for forming the anti -inflammatory prostaglandins and the Omega 6 prostaglandins are responsible for making many of the pro-inflammatory prostaglandins, and other products derived from EFAS. A high intake of Omega 3 oils reduces inflammation (and pain) by this mechanism. Obviously, it's a lot more complicated than that, but hey, I only have so much space to write. People who add in 1-3 tablespoons a day of flax oil to a protein drink, or over a salad, often notice a reduction in pain in their joints, not to mention all the other great things EFAS can do for the hard training bodybuilder. Flax oil can be found in any large health food store under such brands as Flora, Omega, Barleans, and several other names (Even better than flax perhaps, Udo's Choice oil is a great blend of different oils. More info can be found at Udo's site connected to the links section of this web page). High quality kitchen sink formulas I call these products "kitchen sink formulas" because they add in just about everything you could want in a formula for painful joints. Two high quality product of this type that come to mind are the Natural Pain Relief products by Inholtra and The Life Extension Foundation. These products contain Glucosamine(s), Chondroitin Sulphate, the fish oils EPA/DHA, Gamma-linoleic acid (GLA), vitamin E, fat soluble vitamin C (ascorbyl palmitate), and Manganese aspartate. "So what does all this stuff do?" you are asking yourself. Briefly: Glucosamine is considered by many as one of the best natural products for the treatment and prevention of cartilage degeneration. It is in essential part of cartilage, synovial fluid, and other components of joints. Chondroitin sulphate is related to glucosamine and is part of a family of modified sugars that form structural molecules in cartilage. As mentioned previously, the Omega 3 fish oils (EPA/DHA) are renowned for improving pain and inflammation in joints and other areas of the body. GLA is a fatty acid derived from the Omega-6 class of fatty acids but has been shown to have many properties similar to that of the fish oils/flax oil in its ability to reduce inflammation through the production of the favorable anti-inflammatory/anti-auto immune prostaglandins. The anti - oxidants vitamin E and C are added because it is well known that free radical pathology is part of the damage that takes place in the joints. Finally, the trace element manganese is needed as a co- factor in many enzymatic processes related to cartilage synthesis and cartilage integrity. Now you know why I call them kitchen sink formulas! Taken singularly, the above ingredients appear to have marginal effectiveness. Taken as a complex, they appear to be very synergistic. These are very well rounded and complete-though slightly different-formulas for people looking for some relief to their joint troubles, or any chronic inflammatory condition for that matter. However, I have found most people will need to take more than the manufacturer recommends to see real results, though this is not true 100% of the time. Conclusion and Recommendations If you are one of the millions of people who suffer from chronic joint pain when you hit the gym, first make sure you are not making any of the most common mistakes outlined in the beginning of this article. Secondly, get an opinion from a good sports medicine doctor as to exactly what your problem is. You don't want to self diagnose what could be a serious problem. Finally, start with one of the above products and see if it improves your condition. Wait at least a few months before you make your assessment. Add in a second or third product if you don't think you are getting the results you want, which would be of course less pain and greater mobility through the joint in question.

#growxxl #forum

[goldenrainstorm]

Ask-meme/about tag

Tagged by poor @cinnamon-bi forever ago darl I’m so sorry this took me years to get around to!! Thank you for tagging me and sorry I’m a forgetful procrastinator haha

(I’m on mobile so this is probably going to be formatted so funky and not good funky)

Star sign: Sagittarius

Gender: Meh what even is gender (I’m female but like)

Height: I honestly don’t know I haven’t checked in forever, I’m not very tall though, I’m average sized (“what a sad brag” @ gina linetti)

Sexuality: Bi bi bi

What image do you have as your wallpaper?

Nicole from panic at the disco

Where do you see yourself in ten years?

The future scares me so I haven’t thought about it

If you could be anywhere else right now where would you be?

In my friends room playing video games. (Even though I’ve never been there or done that haha I just really want that right now). Or Rome, I really like Rome.

What was your coolest Halloween costume?

I don’t think I have done this on Halloween but I’ve cosplayed as Clary Fray multiple times and even if I do say so myself I can pull it off (naturally red hair helps). I met Catherine Mcnamara while dressed as Clary and she told me I looked amazing😍

What was your favourite 90’s tv show?

Haven’t watched any (not old enough and don’t have access lol). I do like Arrested Development though

Last kiss?

With my man who’s not really my man months ago before we stopped talking to focus on finishing school. We spent a few hours at his apartment and I braided his hair and we just lay on the couch pretending to watch The Good Place while actually just lazily kissing. It was just this lovely quiet afternoon of nice kisses, and we also opened up a bit about our mutual feelings. (Well was a nice afternoon until he forgot to take me home and ditched me and it took me two hours to make my own way home, there’s a reason I haven’t seen him since lol (well there’s more than that but yeah) Ah men, what can you do with them¿)

This was too much information but oh well

Have you ever been stood up?

I got accidentally stood up by a friend once when he agreed to a morning coffee with me. I arrived at the right time and waited two hours for him but couldn’t get through to his phone and he didn’t turn up, he just slept in cause he wasn’t feeling well and forgot he had anything on, he paid for everything the next time we met up haha

But romantically nope, all the dates I’ve been on are because it’s a mutual crush developed from a friendship, they all wanted to be with me too

Have you ever been to Vegas?

Nope, been to LA and New York though

Favourite pair of shoes?

My new pair of black heels I just got from Japan, I love heels but they’re tough to walk in but I found these platform heels and they’re so comfy and easy to spend a whole day in!

Favourite fruit?

Strawberries or apples. I’ve also liked peach flavoured things recently but I’m just back from Japan and there I had soo much peach flavoured stuff that I’m kinda over it now haha

Favourite book? (This turned into an essay sorry)

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. It literally took me on such a journey and I just fell in love with it immediately, and I finished my first read of it in two days (during school too, I read it every spare second I had). My favourite thing is that there is no sort of fetishising the gay aspect of it, (to quickly explain, I tend to see a lot of people with fictional gay couples (and even, ugh, real gay couples) go either to ‘my sweet innocent gay babies’ and don’t want them to be sexual at all but stay their ‘pure children’, or go the way of ‘ugh my hot sinful gays yeah have hot $&@‘ that brand of stuff (which both of those ways of thinking are gross and harmful)), so there’s none of that, there isn’t even really a focus on sexuality at all. It’s purely just the interconnected story of two boys growing up and learning about the world (discovering the secrets of the universe hahaha) and the love between them develops through friendship and normal teen angst and it’s so real and beautiful. It’s innocent love while still being mature, a good balance between being not this version of ‘oh my sweet innocent children’ and not being overly sexual considering their ages but still including normal teenage sexual experiences and well as gay realisation moments. But sexuality is only one part of the story and I like that. The storyline of family is done so well and delicately, and I think that trying to figure out your parents and family dynamics is a very relatable story. I just connected to this book and fell in love with it like I haven’t with any other book. Now when will the movie be out?!?! Come on guys quicken the pace

Favourite gif?

I don’t have one and I’m also on mobile haha sorry

I don’t really have anyone to tag sorry cause I don’t really know anyone on here but if you want to do it, consider yourself tagged!

#wow i wrote essays hahaha sorry #tag #liv speaks