#i know it's not even signups yet so i don't need to worry

[tgrailwar-zero]

... leaving aside the fact that some Servants have categorically, measurably better luck than others... do we even have enough cash to blow on gambling?

... is there a signup fee for the Flaming Bout or can we just put out hat in the ring?

.... Caster, Caster, dear beloved empress, why did you make me think about gambling- now I wanna test my luck... the slot machines are calling to me... the poker tables are calling to me... the roulette wheels- well maybe not the roulette wheels, but...

Rider, please be a voice of reason on this...

NERO: "I cannot relate to those urges that you and Saber seem to have. I only like games of chance if I win. Who wishes to lose money? Money is to be spent, not wasted."

CONSTANTINE: "I get the feeling there's no stopping you all. I'll watch the little one and wait in the lobby, maybe ask around. Don't spend too much in one place, like you said we don't know if there's an entrance fee yet. Just… be careful."

CONSTANTINE: "Not a bad idea. I'll see what I can find related to our Pharaoh, and keep the little one with me. I'd rather the child not get caught up in the gambling."

MUSASHI: "I'll keep them safe, okay?"

CONSTANTINE: "Oh, like it's just them I'm worried about? You stay out of trouble too, Saber."

With that, he stepped off on his own, taking the little guy by the hands.

(CONSTANTINE has temporarily left the party!)

She feigned a deep gasp, as if gravely offended.

MUSASHI: "I don't cheat, I strategize. And I'm better at swordfighting. Playing cards would be fun, but I probably couldn't pull a ton off without a plan first. Or... what's it they say in modern movies? 'Casing the joint'?"

That was about right. The voice matched up.

Your Assassin, OKADA IZOU...

ASSASSIN... he was surly, loyal to a fault, and had horrible gambling luck. Far from the most heroic of individuals, but he wasn't an unpleasant person to be around-- when he was in a good mood at least.

He was also notoriously bad at gambling, and yet notoriously obsessed with it, if your memory served you right.

Outside of the 'black box' prison, he had also died at the hands of KARNA after killing ASCLEPIUS, but considering those memories were much less clear, it was best to remember the good times like 'Grail Force'.

IZOU was a blade, coated with blood and grime, but as effective as even the most luxurious of swords.

Approaching the table, you could see that he wasn't in the best of moods or situations.

IZOU: "Hey… mind loaning me a few bucks? Not a lot, just enough so I can afford this blind..."

GAUDY MAN: "Wahahaha! Why? What's the fun in winning my own cash back?"

GAUDY MAN: "However, if you really think you can pay me back… I'll loan it, with interest."

IZOU: "You're downright criminal, you know that?"

GAUDY MAN: "Come on, what if you win this time? And win big too, so that you actually turn a profit."

IZOU: "Bastard…"

Despite his cursing, you could already see him rummaging around in his wallet.

GAUDY MAN: "Attaboy. You need to spend money to make money, my friend. And see? Your goodwill has been rewarded by a couple of beautiful women and their pet ominous shadow gracing our presence."

They seemed to have noticed your arrival, looking up from the table as you, NERO, and MUSASHI approached.

OKADA IZOU, abruptly stood up, pointing in your direction. Or, more specifically, in MUSASHI's direction.

IZOU: "Saber? Saber, if that ain't you! Long time no see! I could never forget a pretty face like yours!"

It seems like he didn't pay much attention to you at the moment. You weren't exactly sure what you looked like previously, so there was a solid chance he just didn't recognize you.

MUSASHI: "I didn't think you'd be here, Assassin. How are things?"

IZOU: "Ah, the summonin' is a new deal. But... Say, do you and your rich-looking friend have some PPT you can loan an old pal? I swear I'm good for it."

MUSASHI: "Straight to asking for money? Assassin… take the war out of the picture and you're just sort of a slimeball, huh?"

IZOU: "C'mon, you're breakin' my heart here."

NERO: "As far as men go, I'd opt to call them both unsavory in very different ways."

GAUDY MAN: "Well, 'Assassin', don't just start up a conversation without introducing me. Especially in the company of such lovely ladies and their... well, dark and looming bodyguard, I presume?"

The man by IZOU spoke up, lightly clapping the Assassin on the back. He had a roguishly charismatic air about him, and seemed as slick as he was strong. He had the eyes of a schemer, similarly to CASTER.

DURYODHANA: "My name is Duryodhana, a pleasure. Though, when I grace the battlefield, the crowds have taken to calling me 'Jishnu'. It means 'Triumphant', where I hail from. I know, I know, it's a lot, but what can I say? The people call it as they see it."

MUSASHI: "Nice to meet you. You can just call me 'Saber', for now."

NERO: "I am Emperor Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. Though Emperor Nero will suffice."

DURYODHANA: "An Emperor? Well, how about that? I'm royalty myself! How about some drinks for our new friends? I've come into quite a windfall recently thanks to my swordsman friend here, you see. Hahahahaha!"

DURYODHANA flagged down some of the waitstaff as he cackled heartily, as IZOU placed a hand on his blade, smiling wickedly.

IZOU: "Oh, fuck off… I'll kill you, you know? Stab you right through that exposed gut."

DURYODHANA: "I'd love to see you try."

The two men, the former with the eyes of a killer and the latter with the glare of a demon, stared at one another.

There was a moment of tension where you really thought they actually would slaughter each other in the middle of this casino, before they both laughed and clinked their drinks together.

#thgw story #thgw: chapter 6 #main post

[calypsid]

do people still do exchange letters? god, I hope so.

dear spec-recs author:

hi! thank you so much for writing for me. I really, really appreciate it. :) I have a few vague things I like that work for all three requests, and then I'll go into some more detailed ideas intended to help if you can't think of something to write. they're completely optional, I promise! and last, at the end of the post I'll talk about NSFW stuff.

(please don't worry about NSFW stuff if you don't want to write it; I'm just being thorough.)

so in general I like: cute people being cute, egregious fluff, slice of life, angst with a happy ending, angst with a hopeful ending*, smart and strong women and their men who know they lucked out, smart mysteries, action, pining, falling in love, banter, AUs of any flavor but especially making scifi fantasy and vice versa, magic.

(*seriously, hurt me as much as you want as long as you fix it in the end.)

I prefer female Shep if Shep shows up.

specific ideas for each pairing:

Feron/Liara: I like the idea of them having feelings before the SB stole Feron, because then the way that Liara pushes so hard during LotSB makes so much more sense; reunion and healing and bittersweet love confessions after Shep leaves? or, the AU where they're assassins/archaeologist and guide-slash-local-thief/the witch that lives in the woods and the man who needs a cure for a curse? (for this pairing, previous F!Shep/Liara is fine if you want it)

Kal/Tali: I'd really rather they were close in age, which is probably not something I have to mention, but I do anyway because Baldwin comes off as old to my ears. I don't know why. anyway I feel like the whole "high-school" sweethearts thing could be fun here? like they were the same age, went off on pilgrimage at the same time, but Tali got mixed up with the SB and Shepard and Kal was more traditional and did his rumspringa and went home, and he's simultaneously sad and misses her and so proud of her. or fix-it for 3, of course - maybe Tali rescues him, maybe even without knowing (sends fighters to his area/geth data/something with her Admiral duties) and he owes her a life debt of some sort?

Solana/James: I feel like after the games makes the most sense with these two. I don't mind whatever ending you end up using. maybe James comes home with Garrus afterward on leave? or Sol takes the first opportunity she can to see the universe after taking care of her mom for so long? whatever you do, I'd love Garrus sputtering in the background/over email or comm/etc because I think it'd be hilarious. (for this, I'd prefer either background Garrus/F!Shep or both of them alone if Shep's still around.)

(I have now copied the above into the signup. I'm not used to ao3 exchanges yet.)

porn preferences: seriously, stop here if you're not interested, which is fine.

I like femdom or equal give and take, gentle to medium rough sex, size kink, consensual sex pollen or at least the dubcon version (feroncough), cunnilingus, scifi sex toys and stim programs, the kind of exhibitionism where no one knows it's happening but the risk is there, and specifically for Kal/Tali the quarian process of becoming fluid-bonded (maybe STD testing over time, progressive suit exposures over the same period of time, all the while with dirty talk/letters/stim programs).

I do not like: male dom, noncon, gore/guro, bestiality, bodily fluids except comeplay which is fine, pain play, cheating, pregnancy.

If you get down here, thank you so much, you're amazing. <3

[topicprinter]

Background: about 8 months ago I launched codefree.co, an education platform teaching non-technical people how to build MVPs without coding - http://ift.tt/2k6Ddo2 forward to today, and it's been a wild ride. I always thought if I hit $10k a month I'd have everything figured out, and from a lot of "what I've learned" posts I get that feeling that anyone with a 6-figure business must be just way smarter than me. So it's kinda refreshing that there's still a lot I don't know about:“When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.” ― Kurt VonnegutMarketing: change the crayon to a laptop, and this is how I feel. I've probably wasted the most time on marketing, trying to figure things out that have little to no ROI. Most of my traffic today comes from Google. I think the reason I'm ranked so high for searches like "code a startup" or "startup coding" is because 1) the name of the site is Code-Free Startup and 2) I launched on Product Hunt and Google seems to like them. Through free signups on the site, my email list is probably the thing I spend the most time worrying about. Once you get a few thousand people on a Mailchimp list, there's this weird pressure that comes out of nowhere. "oh my god it's been 2 weeks and I haven't sent an email to them, they all must hate me." I've been working on fixing this by creating automated email campaigns with Drip + leadpages. Also, paid advertising scares me, so I dont do that yet.Product: this has been the most fun for me. I have a section on the site where students can submit + upvote what kind of startups they want to build (ex. I want to build a marketplace like Airbnb, dating app like Tinder, etc). Once an idea gets a few hundred upvotes, I go to work trying to build that app and then once it's figured out, record the learning process. In 8 months I've released 7 courses and recorded around 102 videos, each around 15-20 minutes long. That number blows my mind, and I think it's an undervalued benefit of starting a company: writer's block/creative block just disappears once you have paid customers. And it didn't matter whether I had 2 or 200 paying customers, I still felt the need to deliver on the promise of the company. So I guess a takeaway is to get one paid customer, build for them and you'll end up building a lot more.What to do now: it's a weird spot to be in where you're comfortable running a business and the urgency isn't what it was when my bank account was hitting embarrassingly low numbers. There's still that subconscious feeling of "oh no what happens if this business explodes tomorrow" but for the most part, things are good. My goal this year is to continue to grow the business at a comfortable pace. I find myself constantly referencing Paul Jarvis' article on growth (http://ift.tt/2koFNn8) to keep myself balanced. Especially living in San Francisco, there's a crazy energy around growth at all costs, even if it means deferring your happiness for 4-6 years until you get acquired by Google. A lot of people pop out on the other side of that trade-off and life isn't exactly as rosy as they expected. There are a lot of unhappy people driving Teslas in Silicon Valley. On the other extreme is the 4HWW crowd. They automate their business, head off to a beach somewhere in South America and expect all their problems to melt away. Then the loneliness and lack of purpose kick in. So instead of either path, I'm just going to keep shuffling along trying to build things that I enjoy building and learning the stuff I don't know yet. Let's just hope I'm not back here at $25k/m and completely miserable.

#/r/entrepreneur #reddit