The XJ220 is the best Jaguar and craziest 90’s supercar ever made.
The Jaguar XJ220 might not be the most celebrated supercar ever made, but it’s most certainly one of the most special. Following the hum-drum oil crisis-restricted ’80s, the ’90s saw a proper renaissance of supercars. Many of which landed on our walls in poster form, catching our eye every day and helping us dream of 200+ mile-per-hour blasts as youngsters. But while cars like the Porsche 959 and Ferrari F40 get most of the press, let’s not forget about the most insane car of the decade – the Jaguar_XJ_220
In fact, the most popular YouTube car guy on the planet, Doug DeMuro, thinks that this swoopy Jaguar is the absolute craziest car sold in the ’90s. And who are we to argue with a guy that has over three million loyal followers? “It’s one of my all-time favorite cars,” DeMuro says. “That’s because it isn’t just a supercar. Cars like the Ferrari F40 and Aventador and Bugatti Veyron, everybody knows about them. They get all the press. But this car is just as special. And yet, it isn’t as celebrated or as well known.”
XJ220
And that’s a real shame, but one that DeMuro seeks to rectify with this video. Even though the Jaguar XJ220 suffered from several “undelivered promises,” as DeMuro points out. That includes the car’s failure to reach a claimed 220 mph top speed, even after Jag removed the rev limiter and cats. The production version also lost the concept’s rear-wheel steering, all-wheel-drive, scissor doors, and mid-mounted V12 engine. But none of that really mattered in the end.
XJ220
“Even with all the changes, the XJ220 still performed,” DeMuro says. “This was the fastest production car in the world for one year until the McLaren F1 came along and beat it.” Even then, Jaguar didn’t have people lining up to buy the XJ220. They ended production early after having sold 280 units. But today, people are finally starting to realize how great the XJ220 is, and prices have been going up steadily.

Late last summer, we did a DIY replacement of our outdoor water spigot. Although we started it DIY, we actually ended up calling a guy out from the Thumbtack app. To be honest, he didn't bring much more to the table. As soon as we were done, we noticed a drop in water pressure in the house. Toilet tanks take twice as long to fill. The lawn sprinkler only shoots out about 6 feet nor is there enough pressure to make the unit agitate. And you can forget about doing two things at once like dishes and showering. This was never a problem before that day. The only reason we replaced the old spigot was due to a years long leak at the faucet. We dealt with it throughout the winter, but now it's getting real old and bothersome. Any idea what we could have possible done wrong outside that's causing such an issue inside? Thanks!

I had a friend who I met in the first day of college he seems to be nice and i got along with him so well because he has the same attitude as one of my friend who I met in first day of my kinder garden. I am person who don't trust a lot of people i see so i usually don't keep more contacts but he seems to be trustworthy to me. Our first semester was online and even the exams was online and he scored the highest rank in the class among the computer engineering and electrical engineering students and I scored second i was so happy for him and also happy about my grades as i was an average student in school and it was a lot for me. And from second semester the classes were offline and i scored 1st among the two departments and he scored second and the next time I met him he wasn't happy for me as i was happy for him he said my mom I mad on me because he got 2nd rank and then i said it's just 2% it isn't a huge decrease. Ranks apart we got to know each other more and i used to share everything with him. During my 3rd semester I was getting use to the new environment and i also was performing better i academically slowly my classmates started to know about my background I studied in the most prestigious school in the town and i was better in coding and working with computers because They used to teach most of the concepts in school. I got first among all the computer engineering students and I got 2nd place in a technical symposium conducted at a state level in which i participated with my friend. I was proud of myself. Later that evening one of the staffs wanted to meet me and my friend to congratulate for securing 2nd in the technical symposium. The staff didn't care much about my friend he was giving more attention to me than him i saw a sudden change of expression on his face when the staff started to appreciate me it lasted only a fraction of a second I knew he didn't like it so after we left the staff room I changed the topic to something else. Things went pretty normal for some days and one day he wanted to know a lot of things about me he asked about how much money my dad makes and how big my house is i also asked what his dad does. He replied my parents are divorced i don't know where my dad is and his mom is a government officer and she was the one raising him and his younger sister he had a elder brother who went with his father. I felt guilty asking that question and said sorry i didn't know he was ok with it. I felt bad for the rest of my day. After a long time i got into a fight with a person in my class. The issue got bigger and bigger and he wanted to beat me in a forest on the way to my house. One of the neighbour saw me and helped me out of the situation the next day my neighbour and my parents came to the college to talk to the staff in the college about this issue those guys got suspended from college. My friend started acting weird the next day he was mad at me and acting passive aggressive. This kind of behaviour was new to me from his side the people in my class started asking me about the issue and i explained the situation everyone understood the situation and said don't worry we are on your side the college administration was also supportive to me except my friend who I trusted. In the fourth comming days he was speaking to me on a ruder way he was listening to what I say and he was sharing information to the people who were involved in a fight with me one day the college administration called me and asked why did you ask your friends to call the person who got into a fight with me and fight with him the college administration said we did all the things to protect you and the guy's parents ( the one who got into the fight ) are saying that you threatened him during his detention period. I didn't know what was going on and i was totally unaware of this situation the administration said you asked your friend to call the guy and threaten him but i didn't ask him to do so he was acting weird to me for the past week. Also the administration warned me to stay away from my friend later that day i confronted my friend he didn't accept the he did it and then i said the college administration said what you did we got into an argument with him and asked why did you do that he didn't accept his mistake I didn't want to take the argument even further. After the detention period of the guys who fought me was over my friend joined those people i didn't know why he wasn't close to those people but now he is with them I was not able to process the things that was going on. A few days later i gifted my friend a pen he refused to accept the gift and then kept the gift in his table he threw it away i was so sad to see that and i gave it to another person he accepted it. He started distancing me and i needed to teach him a lesson i didn't speak to him the next day and then he joined the people who fought me i wanted him to know more about those people and he did. He started hanging out with them and I made new friends. He was constantly stamped on by the people and got beaten up by them but he had no way to get out his mother started to know about his new friends and his mother knew about those people his mother said don't ever enter the house if you are going to hang out with them he had no option other than hanging out with them because he had no other friends and everyone knew about his behaviour. A semester passed by my life was down a bit my mother was sick and i didn't go to college for a month due to my mothers illness. And when I started going to college my friend's asked to talk to him and i did game a second chance as i depressed i shared some things to him thinking that he has changed but he wasn't he wanted to know about my families financial situation because my mother hospital bill was a lot he wanted to know how we manage it i didn't share anything in detail. He was raised by a single mother and she was terrible at financial management his mother went into a lot of debt as we wear on our last semester we were planning for our higher education. I was trying to get into to top colleges he also has an ambition to get into top colleges like me but since his mother was in a lot of debt and she has to pay for 2 children's college fees so she said i won't be able to pay the fees in the top universities. My parents was also has less money after my mothers treatment but the situation got better and my parents are able to afford to fees in top universities. But day by day his mothers debt grew bigger and his mother is in a situation to sell their house to pay oftge debt. Since my family was doing well he was very suspicious about how my dad makes so much money. He started asking things to me like " your mothers was in the hospital for a long time and the bill should be a lot" i said yes it has been a rough time. Then he said does your dad even make enough money to feed your family. No one has ever asked me this he said to other friends that I am poor and his dad doesn't even make enough money for them to eat but he just hides everything. One of my other friends said he is talking bad about you behind your back. I didn't talk about my families financial situation until he started asking it to me every day. Only then he came to know my dad has a finance company and several other businesses. I saw a sudden change in his facial expression. Only then he started to truly know about my family. He was still not convinced he started to say that same things to others that I am poor just to put me in a lower position than him but others know who I am so they didn't care about what he speaks. His envy got bigger when he saw my cousin dropped me in college in a Porsche he started asking me things like his he really your cousin and I said yes he asked does your cousin know you and one of my friend said " he literally dropped him off didn't you see him how does someone drop him if he doesn't know him " and then he asked me is the people you are living with your real parents he said" no way that they are your real parents you should have been adopted go asked people who adopted you. I said just because I have things that you don't have dosint mean that I am adopted. He even went to an extent to fight me just because I a financially better than him. And i stopped talking to him. Now i just taught about it And was thinking how people change when I met him at the first day of college he was a completely different person who was scared to talk to others by the time we are about to leave the college he has changed into a completely different person from them i started to share less things to the people i meet. I maintain a safe distance between other people and me. Don't trust the people who are near to you they are your friends and they are also your enemy

Everything in my inventory is up for trade. The most valuable items are listed here, the rest you can find in My Inventory

Feel free to Add Me or even better send a Trade Offer. Open for any suggestions: upgrades, downgrades / knives, gloves, skins / stickers, patterns, floats.

All Buyouts are listed in cash value.

KNIVES

★ Butterfly Knife Freehand FN #1, B/O: $2500

★ Butterfly Knife Ultraviolet FT, B/O: $822

★ Butterfly Knife Scorched FT, B/O: $616

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★ Bayonet Tiger Tooth MW #1, B/O: $1300

★ Bayonet Autotronic FN, B/O: $1050

★ Bayonet Tiger Tooth MW, B/O: $629

★ Bayonet Bright Water FT, B/O: $326

★ Bayonet Safari Mesh BS, B/O: $233

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★ Karambit Lore FT, B/O: $1110

★ Karambit Damascus Steel FT, B/O: $840

★ Karambit Freehand MW, B/O: $784

★ Karambit Bright Water MW, B/O: $759

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★ M9 Bayonet Fade FN, B/O: $1801

★ M9 Bayonet Fade FN, B/O: $1801

★ M9 Bayonet Damascus Steel FN, B/O: $751

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★ Nomad Knife Fade FN, B/O: $1156

★ Nomad Knife Slaughter MW, B/O: $544

★ Nomad Knife Blue Steel WW, B/O: $318

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★ Flip Knife Marble Fade FN, B/O: $646

★ Flip Knife Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $574

★ Flip Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 1) MW, B/O: $552

★ Flip Knife Case Hardened FT, B/O: $257

★ Flip Knife Freehand FT, B/O: $255

★ StatTrak™ Flip Knife Bright Water FN, B/O: $287

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★ Huntsman Knife Lore FN, B/O: $461

★ Huntsman Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $436

★ Huntsman Knife Doppler (Phase 3) FN, B/O: $353

★ Huntsman Knife Autotronic FT, B/O: $212

★ Huntsman Knife Bright Water FT, B/O: $129

★ Huntsman Knife Forest DDPAT MW, B/O: $129

★ Huntsman Knife Forest DDPAT BS, B/O: $123

★ StatTrak™ Huntsman Knife Rust Coat BS, B/O: $127

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★ Bowie Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 2) FN, B/O: $375

★ Bowie Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 1) FN, B/O: $363

★ Bowie Knife Tiger Tooth FN, B/O: $269

★ Bowie Knife Crimson Web WW, B/O: $192

★ Bowie Knife Bright Water FN, B/O: $159

★ Bowie Knife Ultraviolet FT, B/O: $126

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★ Stiletto Knife Slaughter FN, B/O: $616

★ Stiletto Knife Crimson Web FT, B/O: $412

★ StatTrak™ Stiletto Knife Night Stripe FT, B/O: $227

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★ Falchion Knife Lore FT, B/O: $214

★ Falchion Knife Autotronic FT, B/O: $192

★ Falchion Knife Scorched WW, B/O: $105

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★ Survival Knife Crimson Web BS, B/O: $216

★ Survival Knife Case Hardened FT, B/O: $198

★ Survival Knife Scorched FT, B/O: $111

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★ Shadow Daggers Fade FN, B/O: $368

★ Shadow Daggers Doppler (Phase 3) FN, B/O: $228

★ Shadow Daggers, B/O: $201

★ Shadow Daggers Damascus Steel FT, B/O: $108

★ Shadow Daggers Ultraviolet FT, B/O: $105

★ Shadow Daggers Black Laminate FT, B/O: $99

★ Shadow Daggers Forest DDPAT FT, B/O: $85

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★ Gut Knife Doppler (Sapphire) MW #1, B/O: $1700

★ Gut Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 1) FN, B/O: $223

★ Gut Knife Marble Fade FN, B/O: $203

★ Gut Knife Doppler (Phase 2) FN, B/O: $191

★ Gut Knife Case Hardened BS, B/O: $127

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★ Navaja Knife Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $199

★ Navaja Knife Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $199

★ Navaja Knife, B/O: $138

★ Navaja Knife Damascus Steel FN, B/O: $111

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★ Classic Knife Urban Masked FT, B/O: $146

★ StatTrak™ Classic Knife Stained BS, B/O: $168

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★ Ursus Knife Doppler (Phase 3) FN, B/O: $476

★ Ursus Knife, B/O: $375

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★ Skeleton Knife, B/O: $1137

★ Talon Knife, B/O: $608

★ Paracord Knife, B/O: $305

★ Survival Knife Forest DDPAT FT, B/O: $97

GLOVES

★ Moto Gloves Transport MW, B/O: $204

★ Moto Gloves Polygon BS, B/O: $142

★ Moto Gloves Blood Pressure BS, B/O: $84

★ Moto Gloves Blood Pressure BS, B/O: $84

★ Moto Gloves 3rd Commando Company BS, B/O: $63

★ Moto Gloves 3rd Commando Company BS, B/O: $63

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★ Specialist Gloves Crimson Kimono WW, B/O: $1215

★ Specialist Gloves Tiger Strike FT, B/O: $672

★ Specialist Gloves Lt. Commander FT, B/O: $305

★ Specialist Gloves Lt. Commander BS, B/O: $140

★ Specialist Gloves Crimson Web BS, B/O: $137

★ Specialist Gloves Buckshot FT, B/O: $75

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★ Driver Gloves Crimson Weave FT, B/O: $359

★ Driver Gloves Imperial Plaid BS, B/O: $229

★ Driver Gloves Overtake BS, B/O: $77

★ Driver Gloves Racing Green FT, B/O: $48

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★ Sport Gloves Omega FT, B/O: $739

★ Sport Gloves Amphibious BS #2, B/O: $733

★ Sport Gloves Arid BS, B/O: $292

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★ Hand Wraps Giraffe MW, B/O: $212

★ Hand Wraps Leather FT, B/O: $160

★ Hand Wraps Desert Shamagh MW, B/O: $101

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★ Broken Fang Gloves Yellow-banded MW, B/O: $185

★ Broken Fang Gloves Needle Point FT, B/O: $67

★ Broken Fang Gloves Needle Point WW, B/O: $59

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★ Hydra Gloves Case Hardened BS, B/O: $65

★ Hydra Gloves Emerald FT, B/O: $65

★ Hydra Gloves Emerald BS, B/O: $62

WEAPONS

AK-47 Case Hardened BS, B/O: $130

AK-47 Bloodsport MW, B/O: $79

AK-47 Fuel Injector BS, B/O: $76

AK-47 Fuel Injector BS, B/O: $76

AK-47 Bloodsport FT, B/O: $70

AK-47 Neon Rider MW, B/O: $60

StatTrak™ AK-47 Aquamarine Revenge FT, B/O: $72

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AWP Fade FN, B/O: $1039

AWP Asiimov FT, B/O: $139

AWP Asiimov FT, B/O: $139

AWP Wildfire MW, B/O: $95

AWP BOOM MW, B/O: $93

AWP BOOM MW, B/O: $93

AWP Duality FN, B/O: $81

AWP Asiimov BS, B/O: $79

AWP Asiimov BS, B/O: $79

AWP Chromatic Aberration FN, B/O: $60

StatTrak™ AWP Hyper Beast FT, B/O: $68

StatTrak™ AWP Hyper Beast FT, B/O: $68

StatTrak™ AWP Electric Hive FT, B/O: $55

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Desert Eagle Blaze FN, B/O: $623

Desert Eagle Emerald Jörmungandr FN, B/O: $241

Desert Eagle Cobalt Disruption FN, B/O: $81

Desert Eagle Cobalt Disruption FN, B/O: $81

Desert Eagle Cobalt Disruption FN, B/O: $81

Desert Eagle Printstream FT, B/O: $54

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M4A1-S Blue Phosphor FN, B/O: $434

StatTrak™ M4A1-S Bright Water MW, B/O: $55

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M4A4 Poseidon FN, B/O: $1465

M4A4 Asiimov BS, B/O: $55

M4A4 Hellfire MW, B/O: $50

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USP-S Kill Confirmed MW, B/O: $72

USP-S Printstream FT, B/O: $69

StatTrak™ USP-S Kill Confirmed FT, B/O: $139

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AUG Flame Jörmungandr FN, B/O: $234

P90 Run and Hide FT, B/O: $147

Five-SeveN Candy Apple FN, B/O: $61

Trade Offer Link - Steam Profile Link - My Inventory

Knives - Bowie Knife, Butterfly Knife, Falchion Knife, Flip Knife, Gut Knife, Huntsman Knife, M9 Bayonet, Bayonet, Karambit, Shadow Daggers, Stiletto Knife, Ursus Knife, Navaja Knife, Talon Knife, Classic Knife, Paracord Knife, Survival Knife, Nomad Knife, Skeleton Knife, Patterns - Gamma Doppler, Doppler (Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3, Phase 4, Black Pearl, Sapphire, Ruby, Emerald), Crimson Web, Lore, Fade, Ultraviolet, Night, Marble Fade (Fire & Ice, Fake FI), Case Hardened (Blue Gem), Autotronic, Slaughter, Black Laminate, Tiger Tooth, Boreal Forest, Scorched, Blue Steel, Vanilla, Damascus Steel, Forest DDPAT, Urban Masked, Freehand, Stained, Bright Water, Safari Mesh, Rust Coat, Gloves - Bloodhound Gloves (Charred, Snakebite, Guerrilla, Bronzed), Driver Gloves (Snow Leopard, King Snake, Crimson Weave, Imperial Plaid, Black Tie, Lunar Weave, Diamondback, Rezan the Red, Overtake, Queen Jaguar, Convoy, Racing Green), Hand Wraps (Cobalt Skulls, CAUTION!, Overprint, Slaughter, Leather, Giraffe, Badlands, Spruce DDPAT, Arboreal, Constrictor, Desert Shamagh, Duct Tape), Moto Gloves (Spearmint, POW!, Cool Mint, Smoke Out, Finish Line, Polygon, Blood Pressure, Turtle, Boom!, Eclipse, 3rd Commando Company, Transport), Specialist Gloves (Crimson Kimono, Tiger Strike, Emerald Web, Field Agent, Marble Fade, Fade, Foundation, Lt. Commander, Crimson Web, Mogul, Forest DDPAT, Buckshot), Sport Gloves (Pandora's Box, Superconductor, Hedge Maze, Vice, Amphibious, Slingshot, Omega, Arid, Big Game, Nocts, Scarlet Shamagh, Bronze Morph), Hydra Gloves (Case Hardened, Emerald, Rattler, Mangrove), Broken Fang Gloves (Jade, Yellow-banded, Unhinged, Needle Point), Pistols - P2000 (Wicked Sick, Ocean Foam, Fire Element, Amber Fade, Corticera, Chainmail, Imperial Dragon, Obsidian, Scorpion, Handgun, Acid Etched), USP-S (Printstream, Kill Confirmed, Whiteout, Road Rash, Owergrowth, The Traitor, Neo-Noir, Dark Water, Orion, Blueprint, Stainless, Caiman, Serum, Monster Mashup, Royal Blue, Ancient Visions, Cortex, Orange Anolis, Ticket To Hell, Black Lotus, Cyrex, Check Engine, Guardian, Purple DDPAT, Torque, Blood Tiger, Flashback, Business Class, Pathfinder, Para Green), Lead Conduit, Glock-18 (Umbral Rabbit, Fade, Candy Apple, Bullet Queen, Synth Leaf, Neo-Noir, Nuclear Garden, Dragon Tatto, Reactor, Pink DDPAT, Twilight Galaxy, Sand Dune, Groundwater, Blue Fissure, Snack Attack, Water Elemental, Brass, Wasteland Rebel, Vogue, Franklin, Royal Legion, Gamma Doppler, Weasel, Steel Disruption, Ironwork, Grinder, High Beam, Moonrise, Oxide Blaze, Bunsen Burner, Clear Polymer, Bunsen Burner, Night), P250 (Re.built, Nuclear Threat, Modern Hunter, Splash, Whiteout, Vino Primo, Mehndi, Asiimov, Visions, Undertow, Cartel, See Ya Later, Gunsmoke, Splash, Digital Architect, Muertos, Red Rock, Bengal Tiger, Crimson Kimono, Wingshot, Metallic DDPAT, Hive, Dark Filigree, Mint Kimono), Five-Seven (Neon Kimono, Berries And Cherries, Fall Hazard, Crimson Blossom, Hyper Beast, Nitro, Fairy Tale, Case Hardened, Copper Galaxy, Angry Mob, Monkey Business, Fowl Play, Anodized Gunmetal, Hot Shot, Retrobution, Boost Protocol), CZ75-Auto (Chalice, Crimson Web, Emerald Quartz, The Fuschia is Now, Nitro, Xiangliu, Yellow Jacket, Victoria, Poison Dart, Syndicate, Eco, Hexane, Pole, Tigris), Tec-9 (Rebel, Terrace, Nuclear Threat, Hades, Rust Leaf, Decimator, Blast From, Orange Murano, Toxic, Fuel Injector, Remote Control, Bamboo Forest, Isaac, Avalanche, Brother, Re-Entry, Blue Titanium, Bamboozle), R8 Revolver (Banana Cannon, Fade, Blaze, Crimson Web, Liama Cannon, Crazy 8, Reboot, Canal Spray, Night, Amber Fade), Desert Eagle (Blaze, Hand Cannon, Fennec Fox, Sunset Storm, Emerald Jörmungandr, Pilot, Hypnotic, Golden Koi, Printstream, Cobalt Disruption, Code Red, Ocean Drive, Midnight Storm, Kumicho Dragon, Crimson Web, Heirloom, Night Heist, Mecha Industries, Night, Conspiracy, Trigger Discipline, Naga, Directive, Light Rail), Dual Berettas (Flora Carnivora, Duelist, Cobra Strike, Black Limba, Emerald, Hemoglobin, Twin Turbo, Marina, Melondrama, Pyre, Retribution, Briar, Dezastre, Royal Consorts, Urban Shock, Dualing Dragons, Panther, Balance), Rifles - Galil (Aqua Terrace, Winter Forest, Chatterbox, Sugar Rush, Pheonix Blacklight, CAUTION!, Orange DDPAT, Cerberus, Dusk Ruins, Eco, Chromatic Aberration, Stone Cold, Tuxedo, Sandstorm, Shattered, Urban Rubble, Rocket Pop, Kami, Crimson Tsunami, Connexion), SCAR-20 (Fragments, Brass, Cyrex, Palm, Splash Jam, Cardiac, Emerald, Crimson Web, Magna Carta, Stone Mosaico, Bloodsport, Enforcer), AWP (Duality, Gungnir, Dragon Lore, Prince, Medusa, Desert Hydra, Fade, Lightning Strike, Oni Taiji, Silk Tiger, Graphite, Chromatic Aberration, Asiimov, Snake Camo, Boom, Containment Breach, Wildfire, Redline, Electric Hive, Hyper Beast, Neo-Noir, Man-o'-war, Pink DDPAT, Corticera, Sun in Leo, Elite Build, Fever Dream, Atheris, Mortis, PAW, Exoskeleton, Worm God, POP AWP, Phobos, Acheron, Pit Viper, Capillary, Safari Mesh), AK-47 (Head Shot, Wild Lotus, Gold Arabesque, X-Ray, Fire Serpent, Hydroponic, Panthera Onca, Case Hardened, Vulcan, Jet Set, Fuel Injector, Bloodsport, Nightwish, First Class, Neon Rider, Asiimov, Red Laminate, Aquamarine Revenge, The Empress, Wasteland Rebel, Jaguar, Black Laminate, Leet Museo, Neon Revolution, Redline, Frontside Misty, Predator, Legion of Anubis, Point Disarray, Orbit Mk01, Blue Laminate, Green Laminate, Emerald Pinstripe, Cartel, Phantom Disruptor, Jungle Spray, Safety Net, Rat Rod, Baroque Purple, Slate, Elite Build, Uncharted, Safari Mesh), FAMAS (Sundown, Prime Conspiracy, Afterimage, Commemoration, Dark Water, Spitfire, Pulse, Eye of Athena, Meltdown, Rapid Eye Move, Roll Cage, Styx, Mecha Industrie, Djinn, ZX Spectron, Valence, Neural Net, Night Borre, Hexne), M4A4 (Temukau, Howl, Poseidon, Asiimov, Daybreak, Hellfire, Zirka, Red DDPAT, Radiation Hazard, Modern Hunter, The Emperor, The Coalition, Bullet Rain, Cyber Security, X-Ray, Dark Blossom, Buzz Kill, In Living Color, Neo-Noir, Desolate Space, 龍王 (Dragon King), Royal Paladin, The Battlestar, Global Offensive, Tooth Fairy, Desert-Strike, Griffin, Evil Daimyo, Spider Lily, Converter), M4A1-S (Emphorosaur-S, Welcome to the Jungle, Imminent Danger, Knight, Hot Rod, Icarus Fell, Blue Phosphor, Printstream, Master Piece, Dark Water, Golden Coil, Bright Water, Player Two, Atomic Alloy, Guardian, Chantico's Fire, Hyper Beast, Mecha Industries, Cyrex, Control Panel, Moss Quartz, Nightmare, Decimator, Leaded Glass, Basilisk, Blood Tiger, Briefing, Night Terror, Nitro, VariCamo, Flashback), SG 553 (Cyberforce, Hazard Pay, Bulldozer, Integrale, Dragon Tech, Ultraviolet, Colony IV, Hypnotic, Cyrex, Candy Apple, Barricade, Pulse), SSG 08 (Death Strike, Sea Calico, Blood in the Water, Orange Filigree, Dragonfire, Big Iron, Bloodshot, Detour, Turbo Peek, Red Stone), AUG (Akihabara Accept, Flame Jörmungandr, Hot Rod, Midnight Lily, Sand Storm, Carved Jade, Wings, Anodized Navy, Death by Puppy, Torque, Bengal Tiger, Chameleon, Fleet Flock, Random Access, Momentum, Syd Mead, Stymphalian, Arctic Wolf, Aristocrat, Navy Murano), G3SG1 (Chronos, Violet Murano, Flux, Demeter, Orange Kimono, The Executioner, Green Apple, Arctic Polar Camo, Contractor), SMGs - P90 (Neoqueen, Astral Jörmungandr, Run and Hide, Emerald Dragon, Cold Blooded, Death by Kitty, Baroque Red, Vent Rush, Blind Spot, Asiimov, Trigon, Sunset Lily, Death Grip, Leather, Nostalgia, Fallout Warning, Tiger Pit, Schermatic, Virus, Shapewood, Glacier Mesh, Shallow Grave, Chopper, Desert Warfare), MAC-10 (Sakkaku, Hot Snakes, Copper Borre, Red Filigree, Gold Brick, Graven, Case Hardened, Stalker, Amber Fade, Neon Rider, Tatter, Curse, Propaganda, Nuclear Garden, Disco Tech, Toybox, Heat, Indigo), UMP-45 (Wild Child, Fade, Blaze, Day Lily, Minotaur's Labyrinth, Crime Scene, Caramel, Bone Pile, Momentum, Primal Saber), MP7 (Teal Blossom, Fade, Nemesis, Whiteout, Asterion, Bloosport, Abyssal Apparition, Full Stop, Special Delivery, Neon Ply, Asterion, Ocean Foam, Powercore, Scorched, Impire), PP-Bizon (Modern Hunter, Rust Coat, Forest Leaves, Antique, High Roller, Blue Streak, Seabird, Judgement of Anubis, Bamboo Print, Embargo, Chemical Green, Coblat Halftone, Fuel Rod, Photic Zone, Irradiated Alert, Carbon Fiber), MP9 (Featherweight, Wild Lily, Pandora's Box, Stained Glass, Bulldozer, Dark Age, Hot Rod, Hypnotic, Hydra, Rose Iron, Music Box, Setting Sun, Food Chain, Airlock, Mount Fuji, Starlight Protector, Ruby Poison Dart, Deadly Poison), MP5-SD (Liquidation, Oxide Oasis, Phosphor, Nitro, Agent, Autumn Twilly), Shotguns, Machineguns - 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Opal stood up with a sigh, grimacing at the pain along her back and arm. She looked down on the man crumpled on the floor. “Sorry Devona. But life’s a bitch.”
“...fuck you,” he mumbled.
Opal’s eyes widened slightly. “Man, he’s one tough cookie. Not much he can do now though.” She pulled the documents out from her bag to verify that they were still there, and then slid them into her jacket. She turned to leave before pausing. Something felt… off. Her eyes scanned the area and she tensed herself. Even with Opal being as alert as she could, she didn’t see the fist coming at her face until it was too late. Her vision spun as her head snapped back, feeling her feet leave the ground as someone slept her legs out from under her. She pushed herself off and jumped to her feet, only to be met with a swift kick waist. She tried to swing her crowbar but a hand wrenched her wrist to the side and a knee slammed into her stomach. She doubled over and felt her lunch struggle to the surface before she was promptly slammed face-first into the wall. She slid down like wet spaghetti onto the floor.
She turned her head to the side to watch the retreating footsteps as she waited for her entire body to stop aching. Devona, if that was his name, was already sitting up, wincing but very much functional despite the blood dribbling down his face. She could see the figure now crouching beside him, doing something with their hands. It took Opal a few seconds to realise that they were signing something.
-you alright?
Devona nodded, rubbing his bruised cheek. “Yeah, I’m fine, Harlow. Don’t worry about me.”
Opal would have sworn out loud, but the pain in her face was making it hard to speak. “Are you kidding me? They sent the damn wolf after these documents too?” Speaking of the documents, why was she after them again? She frowned and rooted around her memories like a child digging in the sand. Right, to sell the information within. Wow, she was scatter-brained. Probably to do with the ringing headache she had.
She had to get away. But with her current situation, a foot race would be a pointless endeavour. All she needed to do was get to her motorcycle parked a few metres away, and she’d be able to depart. She looked over the side of the roof and studied the area. Then she rolled over the side. She grabbed onto the railings by the side and yanked them off, managing to swing herself into a window after skidding down several metres. If she couldn’t outpace Harlow, then she could at least slow them down. She shoved herself to her feet and started to run, the sound of someone scaling the wall already behind her. She shoved desks and cabinets in front of doors as she ran, the only sound she could hear being her own footsteps and bated breath. If she got caught once, if she slowed down for a single second, she’d be headed for the rocks.
She turned the corner and felt that same shiver of anticipation run up her spine. They’d caught up to her, somehow. She readied herself and ducked under but still caught the edge of the hit as Harlow appeared from behind her. She grabbed an oil can and crushed it behind her back, spilling it down onto the floor. They rushed forward anyway, using the momentum to slam into Opal and throw her across the floor. This time it was her scrambling upon the oil to get up, grabbing onto the wall to try to pull herself up. She was instead hoisted up and thrown through the door and onto the clean floor of the corridor where she pushed herself up and began to run again. Something nagged at her but she ignored it, electing to get to the exit as fast as possible.
She finally shoved the door open and ran upon the gravel, finding where her motorcycle was parked. She kicked back the stand and revved the engine, tearing off as fast as she could while weaving for good measure. She relaxed her body once she reached the empty fields of high grass, shooting a final peace sign towards the dwindling buildings. She reached into her jacket and then realised that the documents were not there.
“God. Fucking. Dammit.” That conniving bastard. They’d probably stolen the documents during that final tussle, and the nagging feeling she’d so carelessly discarded was how strange it was that they didn’t continue to chase her. There was enough time to go back, perhaps she could -
There was a massive explosion from one of the buildings, loud enough for the windows on the neighbouring structures to shatter. On second thought, perhaps she’d let this one go.
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Claren soared through the air and slammed against the ground and wall, bouncing around like a handball. He pressed a hand to his head with a groan as he stopped, barely managing to dodge the glaive that slammed into the ground and sent a blast of lightning into the earth. As he looked, he could see that metal had been infused into the bone and flesh that comprised the glaive. Laurel came at him again, swinging her glaive again and again as lightning coursed through her body. Claren blocked her attacks, but he was forced to the defensive, the lightning preventing him from getting close.
He pushed forward nevertheless, grabbing onto the end of Laurel’s glaive as she tried to drive it into his chest. He didn’t know how much longer his shield could keep up, but there was no chance for him to take a moment to recover. He could feel the heat from the electricity scouring the air, not hot enough to injure but hot enough to hurt. His fist connected with Laurel’s face and sent her flying backwards before she launched herself forward with a burst of electricity, sending him slamming through the door and into a hallway. He didn’t have time to test if his bones were broken before she was launching herself into the air, electricity worming around her like a writhing cocoon. Claren rolled to the side to avoid her slamming into the ground, sending shards of concrete everywhere. His thoughts rushed around his head as he jumped to his feet and started the process again.
Claren didn’t have time to consider the ramifications of why her magic was so different to what it had been before. All he had was to try and hold her off for long enough to… what, exactly? Figure out a way to beat her? For backup to arrive? Have the crime lords escape? He almost laughed at that one - internally, of course. He barely laughed out loud. He’d dedicated most of his life to law and order, and here he was: potentially throwing his life away for a bunch of high-end criminals. The thought of it casted a bitter taste in his mouth and he could feel his teeth grit together. The sudden, uncontrollable action startled Claren enough to make him almost freeze up. He’d trained himself for years to hold in anything of that ike, and here he was, in the midst of battle yet unable to compose himself. He smoothed his expression again and hit Laurel across the head with a hook.
“You know,” Laurel managed between breaths while dodging and weaving, “this would be a lot easier if you just stood aside.” Her glaive gave her the advantage in reach, but Claren’s bubble provided him with enough manoeuvrability to get in and out.
“I mean,” she continued, “why bother trying to save people like that? They’re scum, or lower than scum. Just the greedy pigs of the world that managed to get enough money to stay on the top of the bottom.”
It was such a mirror of his own thoughts that he almost, for a second, considered it. He tried his hardest to push her words from his mind and levelled his gaze at her. “I don’t make deals with people like you. Not to mention, you already murdered the English council, so don’t pretend like you’re above them.”
Laurel scoffed. “Please, they were politicians. Barely even people.”
She stomped her feet and a wave of electricity radiated off of her, scorching the ground and furniture around her. She raised her hands and a scent of ash filled the air. Fire suddenly flared into existence all around her, bright and blindingly hot. Claren had to jump forward as he felt himself cooking alive from the fire that rose just a few inches away from him. Laurel opened her palm and a wave of flame erupted from her hand right towards Claren. He expanded his bubble just before it washed over him, keeping the scorching heat away. He rolled to the side and outstretched his hand into a finger gun. His shield was sucked around his hand and onto the tip of his finger, hanging there like a dew drop. It fired off and slammed into Laurel, sending her flying backwards. It shot back and wrapped around Claren just as another wave of fire rushed at him.
He dodged to the side as she swung wildly with her glaive, the blade lit by flame. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his yo-yo. Laurel guffawed as she saw it, her voice revealing the emotion that her mask was hiding.
“A yo-yo? Seriously?”
Claren’s shield flowed over the yo-yo and he lashed out with it, wrapping around Laurel faster than she could register. He swung the yo-yo around and Laurel followed, being slammed all around the wall and floor like a ball attached to a ping-pong paddle. He pulled and she spun like a top as the yo-yo retracted to his hand before crumping to the floor.
“That’s Captain yo-yo to you,” Claren said dryly. The bubble from the yo-yo started to wash over him. It wavered for a second, and then shattered. That was not good. But with Laurel out for the count, he should be able to wait out for his shield to form again.
Laurel stood up. Claren was momentarily taken aback. Someone who was without any physical enhancements should have been taken out by that assault. She stretched her neck and arms.
“Nice trick. Wanna see me do it?” She lashed out with a strand of lightning, faster than Claren could dodge and wrapped it around him. While it was much faster, it barely tickled his skin as it pressed against him. Then the strand of lightning erupted into flames, and Claren could feel his flesh start to bubble. She slammed him all around the room and the world began to blur, his vision flashing white intermittently from the agony of the experience. She brought him in close, spinning him around like a ribbon dancer would, and punched him in the face. He collapsed to the ground as the last of the fiery electricity stopped holding him up, body still steaming as his wounds hissed.
Laurel picked him up by the collar and dangled him in the air.
“Like I said. This would have been a lot easier if you just stood aside.” She was tall, tall enough that with the two of them at eye-height Claren’s feet couldn’t find the floor at all. She started to carry him towards the window and Claren thought about how high the mansion was from the ground as she threw him through it.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cirius had taken a quick break when he felt his eyes start to slide from their sockets. He excused himself to the bathroom, died, and then came back out as fresh as a daisy. Ignoring the incredibly confused and alarmed expressions of the crime lords, he continued to lead them out until they were in the front yard.
“Welp,” he said, “you can all go home now.” He heard some commotion from the mansion, and turned around. The noises stopped.
“Huh. Must have been the wind.”
The window shattered and Claren hurtled through. Cirius scrambled around the lawn and managed to catch Claren, taking the brunt of the fall as the man slammed into him. He was burnt heavily all over, and a hiss of pain escaped his lips as Cirius set him gently upon the ground. He looked up as a figure jumped down, landing on top of a car as electricity coursed around her. It was the woman from before, still brandishing her glaive and with her mask covering her face. Bauble, was it?
“Hey,” said Cirius, because he didn’t know what else to say.
“Hey,” she returned casually, leaning against her glaive onto the ruined wreck. She seemed to be trying to appear flippant, but too much of her weight was put on the glaive for that to be true.
“Did you do this?” he asked, gesturing towards Claren.
“Yep.”
Cirius nodded. “Not going to lie, Bauble, you suck. I kinda have to fight you now.”
Even with the mask Cirius could feel her glare. “First off, it’s Laurel. Second off, I don’t have time to waste on you.” She directed her gaze towards the crowd and waved her finger around. The crowd surged as if trying to disperse before she slammed her foot and sent a wave of fire soaring up to block them.
“Not you, not you, not you,” she muttered. “Ah, there you are!” The flames dispersed and the crowd backed away from the man she was pointing to. He looked around, as if for anyone to help. Everyone turned and ran towards their cars, getting in and driving away within seconds.
Laurel twirled her glaive and jumped down. “I’m going to kill you now, okay?” She dodged leisurely to the side as Cirius tried to tackle her, sending volts of electricity through his body with a casual backhand. She grabbed Cirius by the collar and threw him with a blast of lightning, hurtling him several metres away. The man turned to run and she shot out a small bolt of lightning, seizing him up and collapsing him to the ground. She stepped forward, scraping the glaive across the scorched grass before being slammed in the back. She whipped around to see Claren pointing his index finger, his face screwed up in pain yet eyes forced open.
“You really don’t know when to quit, so you?” she snarled. She hoisted her glaive into the air but was interrupted once again as Cirius popped out and managed to grasp onto Laurel’s leg. Before she could kick him off, he clambered up onto her back and clung to her.
“What the fUCKKK” she yelled, the yell turning into a screech as Cirius bit down as hard as he could on her shoulder. She wheeled around wildly, shouting curses to the sky as she tried her hardest to shake Cirius off. He continued to hang on, his fingers gripping tightly and only the gloves preventing his nails from sinking into her skin. Fire and lightning roiled off of her yet Cirius continued to cling on. She slammed her back against the mansion again and again. Cirius heard something crunch from within his body. Still holding on with one hand, he grabbed a disk from his pocket and tossed it into the air. Dropping down, he kicked at Laurel’s feet before running away as the disk exploded and sent debris tumbling down onto her. He ran to Claren and hauled him up, trying his best not to touch the deep burns. He turned his attention to the man who was still lying on the ground as if pretending to be dead. Cirius walked over while holding up Claren and kicked him in the side.
“Ah! Just kill me quickly!” he screamed before seeing that it was just Cirius. Cirius stared down at him.
“Just get up and help me support Claren.”
They managed to get into a building and barricade the door. Cirius propped Claren up against the wall as the man started to pace the halls.
“God, where are the guards! They should have stopped her!” he yelled. Cirius grabbed a pen and threw it at his head.
“Shut up. She’s going to hear us.”
“Hear us! Who cares if she hears us! She’ll find us anyway! We’re doomed!”
Claren slitted his eyes open. “Keep it down. I have a headache and it’s…”
“Killing you?” Cirius interjected.
Claren raised an eyebrow. “No. My wounds are killing me. My headache is simply a pain to deal with.”
Cirius chewed his lip. He needed a plan. Devona and Harlow were both off somewhere else, and he didn’t have time to wait for them to come around.
“Think, think,” he muttered to himself. An idea sparked in his head. It wasn’t very good, but it was all he had.
“You there,” he said, pointing at the man who he had thrown the pen at. “Uh, what’s your name?”
“Winston Haxter,” supplied Claren with a pained voice. “He’s the one I was supposed to be negotiating with.”
“I see, I see. What’s your discipline?”
“I, uh, can run well.”
Cirius hummed. “Super-speed, eh? Yeah, I can work with that.”
“No, I run at normal speed. But like, I don’t get tired. I can just keep running.”
“Huh. So you have infinite stamina?”
“Yeah. But like… just for running.”
Cirius hummed again. “Well, I can probably still work with that.” He stepped towards Winston and pointed towards a long hallway. “Alright, when she gets here, you’re going to start running down there.”
“What! She’ll kill me!”
“Come on man. Your magic is literally just running. You can outpace her. ‘Sides, I have a plan. Claren’s going to be at the end of the hallway, and he’ll bubble the two of you up. I’ll distract her and lead her far away where I’ll… I don’t know. I’ll figure it out.”
Winston stared at him. “You’ll die.”
“Oh, most definitely. In fact, probably several times! But hey, that’s just how it is.”
Winston’s face dropped even more, if that was even possible. “You’re absolutely insane. We’re all going to die.”
“Nope! Just me! Anyways, go wait by the hallway. Don’t want to lose any ground.” He walked over to Claren before Winston could protest. He sat down next to him.
“Hey.”
Claren titled his head down. “Mr. Walker.”
“You up for the plan?”
He shifted his body and winced. “I am. I don’t think it’s an especially good plan, but I don’t see a better way.” A strange expression settled over his face. It took a while for Cirius to discern it. It was discontentment, irritation, bitterness. Claren seemed to recognise this and swallowed the expression.
“You know, it’s not too late to toss Winston at her and walk away.”
“What did you say?” Winston called out.
“Nothing!”
Claren sighed and his shoulders sagged. “No. That’s not for me to decide. I have a job, and I need to do it.”
“Why? I mean, you clearly don’t want to protect him.”
Claren looked away. The two of them sat in silence before Clarne spoke up again. “I need to do my job because it’s… it’s not a good job. It doesn’t feel good to look people you know have done horrible, horrible things in the eye and shake their hand. To watch them walk away and know that you could have stopped them but… couldn’t. Or just didn’t. I won’t - I can’t let anyone else do that.” His hand reached up to the two rings on his fingers and twisted them - a golden band with a bright yellow gem and a silver band with a cool blue one.
Cirius stared at the ground. “Wow. That kinda sucks.”
Claren huffed a laugh. “That it does.” He shook his head. “Look at me, talking about my feelings while on the job. How unprofessional.” He staggered to his feet. “You should go and get prepared. Won’t be long until she finds us.”
Claren was right. The door was thrown off its hinges and a figure ducked down. The light glinted off the white mask as Laurel stood in the frame. She stared down across the room at Winston, who was doing a very good job looking like a deer in headlights. She cocked her head to the side. Winston bolted down the hallway, his breaths sharp and panicked. She blasted forward with a bolt of lightning, each step energised as she leisurely followed him.
Laurel ran down the hallway, every step bringing her closer to Winston. Cirius let out a silent exhale. It was time. All the doors along the hallway were open, and a short figure jumped out of one only to be met with an immediate blast of lightning so strong it sent the figure slamming back immediately. Laurel had anticipated a trap being laid. Unfortunately for her, Cirius had anticipated her anticipation. The makeshift, stuffed, humanoid doll wearing Cirius clothes smouldered, the string that attached it to the tripwire carefully hidden across the floor snapped from the sudden force of the lightning. At the same moment as she turned to unleash her magic, Cirius leapt from the opposing side and tackled Laurel, sending the two of them crashing to the ground.
Laurel grabbed him by the arm and slammed him into the wall, fire roiling off of her and washing over him. Cirius kicked at Laurel until he felt it connect with something hard and her grip loosened. He dropped down as he realised that his eyeballs had been burnt off. He scrambled around blindly for several seconds before a glaive tore through his chest and ripped him in half. A foot stomped on his head again and again until his skull cracked open and his brains were mushed upon the floor. Laurel stomped on the desecrated body again and again until blood and gore started to coat the cuffs of her pants.
“You know, I’m starting to feel a little insulted.” She whipped her head around and stared at Cirius, standing there perfectly fine.
“Wha- you-” she looked back at the corpse, then at Cirius. “I killed you!”
“You missed.”
She looked back at the corpse. “No I fucking didn’t!” She grabbed her glaive and threw it at him, slicing his face wide open along with the rest of his head. The top half of his head slid cleanly off and onto the floor.
“Missed again,” said Cirius from behind her. She gathered lightning in her hand and sent a bolt right through him.
“You should really aim better.”
“What the fuck!” Laurel screamed. “I killed you! I killed you several times!” “Yeah, I get that a lot.” He dodged the glaive being thrown at him again and turned to run. Laurel charged after him, each charged step leaving cracks within the floor. He ducked down as she ripped through the air, fire and lightning trailing behind her. She brought down a wave of flame with a kick, following it up by swinging her glaive as it crackled with lightning. Cirius ducked under, rushing forward through the flame and punching Laurel in the stomach. His gloves glowed for a second, a frosty cyan that pierced the air, and a blast of energy ripped out that slammed Laurel into the wall.
Cirius was hit with a wave of exhaustion. He’d died thrice in a row, and although there didn’t seem to be any limit on how many times he could die and revive, it certainly wore on him after a while. He needed to think of something to do. Laurel was already drawing herself back to her feet, her mask shifted to the side and revealing her cold, hard eyes that blazed with fury. His mind scoured all of what he knew of buildings like this.
“The boiler room! Of course! If I can get there, I can blow this place sky high and take her down with it.” He forced himself up and started to run, turning around briefly to wave at Laurel. As expected, she gave chase, her movements more akin to a rabid animal than a hunter. He ran through winding corridors and locked doors, barely dodging the stray bolt of lightning or fireball. He could already feel the exhaustion from dying and reviving thrice in a row; he’d be too tired to outpace Laurel if he had to die again.
He reached the door to the boiler just as Laurel caught up, tackling Cirius and sending him crashing through the old, rotten wood. She kicked him in the face as he slid across the floor, preventing him from righting himself. She stepped forward and pressed her foot down on his back.
“I wonder,” she said, “how many times can you die until it becomes too much? Is there even a limit for you?” Her voice was sing-songy and slightly manic, like glass about to shatter into thousands of sharp, sharp fibres. Cirius rooted around his pocket. He didn’t feel any explosives. He clicked his fingers and a spark flicked to life, the cyan light barely visible before fizzling out.
“I mean, if there is, I certainly haven’t reached it yet.” He clicked again and a bigger spark emerged. He managed to shoot it out of his index finger right towards one of the thermal tanks. The tiny spark travelled through the air, hit the tank and did absolutely nothing.
“Well. We’re screwed.” As Cirius started to lament his poor planning skills, Laurel’s head snapped up.
“What was that?”
“Uh. Nothing,” Cirius replied like the excellent liar he was. Laurel cocked her head. “Oh, so that sound from behind that thermal tank over there was nothing?” She lifted her arm and her hand flared with electricity. “Hope you won’t mind this, then.” She shot a bolt of lightning and hit the thermal dead centre. There was a beat of silence. “Oh, fuck.” A moment later, absolutely nothing happened.
“Oh. I really thought those were going to explode. Like, as soon as I realised I had blasted lightning at a thermal tank, I was all ‘that’s going to explode’.” She laughed. “Wow. That’s pretty funny.”
Cirius felt something brush up against the hand that was still in his pocket. He pulled it out.
“Oh hey! I still have an explosive disk!” He activated it, threw it at the thermal tank and the world exploded.
“-ey. Wake up.” Cirius blearily opened up his eyes. He was laid out across the floor next to what presumably had been the building. Claren was crouched next to him, snapping his fingers in front of his face.
“Oh, good. You’re awake.”
Cirius nodded and got up. He was so incredibly tired, but a sense of accomplishment filled his chest. “We did it.”
Claren nodded. “Indeed we did.”
There was a small silence before Cirius broke it. “Hey, about what you said before. I know it probably isn’t much, coming from me, but,” Cirius hovered his hand above Claren’s shoulder. “I think you’re really awesome.”
Claren bowed his head. “Thank you, Cirius.” He stared at the hand. “I’m sorry, what is this?”
“Well, I heard from bossman that you don’t like physical touch. So I’m doing this to show reassurance while still respecting your boundaries.”
Claren blinked. “That’s… pretty thoughtful, actually.”
“Hey, uh, am I safe to go now?” Winston asked, standing a few feet away and ruining the moment.
“Yeah, it should be all good,” Cirius responded before a bolt of lightning ripped through Winston’s head.
Claren immediately flared up his shield around the two of them, blocking the next bolt of lightning. Laurel, her mask half-shattered to show her furious eye, tuxedo torn with skin scraped raw underneath, and arm clearly broken staggered towards them.
“You clever, clever little fucker. You led me on quite the wild goose chase.” Her mouth twisted into a manic grin. “Typically, I’d just leave you be. But now? I think I’m going to kill the shield guy first and string out his body across the buildings here. Then I’m going to throw the little one in a box and toss him into the deepest, darkest part of the ocean.” She hoisted her glaive as lightning crackled around her, larger and more volatile than before.
Claren narrowed his eyes. “Cirius. Are you in any condition to fight?”
Cirius shook his head. “Going to be honest, this feels like a running situation.” As if on cue, a wall of flames erupted to life around them.
Something silent flew through the air. A thin, red line appeared over Laurel’s cheek. The crossbow bolt embedded into a wall. Laurel turned around and Harlow faced her, holding a crossbow aimed straight at her. There was a beat of silence as Harlow stared her down, their message held clearly in their hands. Laurel stamped her foot and a circle of flame enveloped her. When it cleared, she was gone. Harlow stared off towards the air, as if contemplating pursuing her, but turned to Claren and Cirius instead.
“I must admit, it would have been very useful having you here earlier.”
I was busy, they replied as they poured a blue vial over Claren’s wounds.
“Where’s bossman?” “Right here.” Devona popped into existence behind them and his eyes scanned the area. He looked down at the two of them. “Claren. You don’t look so good.”
“I could say the same about you. Broken hip?”
“Certainly feels like it. Cirius, you alright?”
Cirius flashed him a thumbs up. “You know it.”
“I’ll inform you of the details after I get these wounds treated,” Claren told Harlow. “I think I’ll be fine to walk on my own for now. I’ll let you know if I require any assistance.”
They made it all the way back to the original drop-off point and called Axon. After Claren explained a basic overview of why they were so late and Harlow was forced to promise to describe everything that happened, the portals opened up. Claren waved Harlow and Cirius through but held Devona back.
“Yeah? What’s up?”
Claren hummed. “Cirius was… the only reason that I survived. If it wasn’t for him, then I wouldn’t be here right now. He may seem strange and irrational, but-”
“When push comes to shove, you can count on him.”
Claren nodded. “It took me a while to realise that. But from what I’ve heard from Axon, you seem to be able to put up with Cirius’s less serious side very well. How is that?”
Devona scratched the back of his head. “I don’t know. Guess I’m just used to it.”
“I see.” Claren bowed his head. “Goodbye, Mr. Verdant. And do get that hip checked.”
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“Jamie, no! That’s a terrible idea!”
“Come on, Vivian. It’ll be great! I’ve constructed the perfect plan!”
Vivian folded his arms. “Oh yeah? And what is that, pray tell?”
“Alright, so, in order to make our own water-slide, we steal all the blankets from all the houses and wet them. We tie them together, and then we attach it all around the town and slide around! It’d be amazing!”
Vivian stared at his twin sister with a mix of disbelief and amazement. “And how are we going to attach it all around the town?”
She faltered. “I’ll… I don’t know. I’ll think of something.” She clasped her hands together. “Come onnnnn Vivi, please!”
Vivian sighed. “Fine. Just this once,” he replied, perhaps for the fifteenth time.
“Yay!” Jamie slung her arm over his shoulder. “I promise you, this is going to be awesome.”
“I’m sure,” he responded dryly, but he couldn’t hide the small grin on his fsce.
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Laurel Pariah was pissed. She winced as she jolted her broken arm, and she felt how her entire body radiated with pain from every movement she took. The wind was howling, so she didn’t hear the footsteps approaching until they were right behind her.
“You’ve returned,” the figure said brightly.
“That I have.”
The Dreamer hummed, and Laurel shifted her gaze to see him picking at his nails. “Did you achieve your mission?”
“I did. I just ran into some… complications.”
The Dreamer chuckled unkindly. “I can see that.” He cocked his head to the side, his expression hidden behind a mask decorated with white stars. “You broke your mask again. They’re not going to be pleased if you keep doing that, you know?”
“They collapsed a fucking building on me. What do you exp-”
The Dreamer put his hands up. “Hey now, hold your horses. Yes, yes, opponents were tough yadda yadda. I get it, I really do. Sucks to get your ass beaten so often, doesn’t it, poor little baby? I mean, I wouldn’t know, but still.”
Laurel grit her teeth. “Go fuck yourself.”
The Dreamer laughed. “Well then, I’ll see you later, Demon of Babel. Toodles!” He walked away, deep into the thicket of trees until he vanished from sight. Laurel kicked at the dirt before turning to walk away too, leaving only the wind to howl to an empty sky.

Apologies to anyone who has been unwillingly overdosed with ChatGPT posts lately.
I entered the first paragraph of Master and Commander, and asked the bot to write a short story of this scene. Then I asked 'What if these two went on a long voyage?''
While obviously no replacement for POB, or anyone else, this could be an excellent tool for anyone suffering from writer's block.
Can you write me a story if I prompt you with a scene? ChatGPT Of course! I'd be delighted to write a story based on a scene you provide. Please go ahead and give me the scene you have in mind, and I'll weave a story around it.
User The Music-room in the Governor's House at Port Mahon, a tall, handsome, pillared octagon, was filled with the triumphant first movement of Locatelli's C major quartet. The players, Italians pinned against the far wall be rows and rows of little round gilt chairs, were playing with passionate conviction as they mounted towards the penultimate crescendo, towards the deep, liberating final chord. And on the little gilt chairs at least some of the audience were following the rise with equal intensity: there were two in the third row, on the left-hand side; and they happened to be sitting next to one another. The listener farther on the left was a man between twenty and thirty whose big for overflowed his seat, leaving one a streak of gilt wood to be seen here and there. He was wearing his best uniform - the white lapelled blue coat, white waistcoat, breeches and stockings of a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, with the silver medal of the Nile in his buttonhole - and the deep white cuff of his gold-buttoned sleeve to beat the time, whole his bright blue eyes, staring from what would have been a pink-and-white face if it had not been so deeply tanned, gazed fixedly at the bow of the first violin. The high note came, the pause, the resolution; and with the resolution the sailor's fist swept firmly down upon his knee. He lent back in his chair, extinguishing it entirely, sighed happily and turned towards his neighbor with a smile. The words 'Very finely played, sir, I believe' were formed in his gullet if not quite in his mouth when he caught the cold and indeed inimical look and heard the whisper, 'If you really must beat the measure, sir, let me entreat you to do so in time, and not half a beat ahead.' ChatGPT In the vibrant music-room of the Governor's House at Port Mahon, a symphony of passion and triumph filled the air. The grand octagonal chamber, adorned with tall pillars, resonated with the enchanting melodies of Locatelli's C major quartet. The Italian musicians, positioned against the far wall, poured their hearts into each note, their conviction carrying them towards the crescendo that promised an exhilarating climax. Among the audience, perched upon rows of elegant gilt chairs, two individuals captivated by the music sat side by side. The listener to the left, a young man in his twenties or thirties, occupied more space than his seat could contain. His impressive stature, emphasized by his naval uniform—a resplendent white-lapelled blue coat, a pristine white waistcoat, breeches, and stockings—exuded an air of authority. The silver medal of the Nile, proudly displayed in his buttonhole, hinted at his naval exploits. His sun-kissed complexion adorned with bright blue eyes fixated unwaveringly on the bow of the first violin. As the composition reached its zenith, building up to the final chord, the sailor's anticipation surged within him. His gold-buttoned sleeve, cuff extended, beat in perfect rhythm against his knee. With bated breath, he awaited the climactic high note, the transformative pause, and the ensuing resolution. And when that glorious resolution resounded, carrying the room to the pinnacle of musical ecstasy, the sailor's fist came down upon his knee with resolute conviction. Satisfied, he leaned back in his chair, extinguishing its golden sheen, and released a contented sigh. Turning towards his neighboring listener, a smile played upon his lips, ready to express his admiration for the sublime performance. However, before the words could find their voice, he caught a frigid and unwelcoming gaze from his companion, accompanied by a whispered reprimand. "If you really must beat the measure, sir," the rebuke slipped through pursed lips, laced with disapproval, "let me entreat you to do so in time, and not half a beat ahead." The sailor's smile faltered momentarily, struck by the unexpected iciness of the response. He blinked, taking in the critical tone and the stranger's stern countenance. Realizing his misstep, he mustered an apologetic expression, tempered with humility. "My sincerest apologies, sir," he replied softly, contrition evident in his voice. "I allowed my enthusiasm to carry me away. Your admonishment is duly noted, and I assure you, I shall be more mindful in the future." The neighboring listener, seemingly appeased by the sailor's apology, softened his gaze, recognizing the earnestness in the young man's eyes. A flicker of understanding passed between them, bridging the gap that had momentarily divided them. "Very well," he responded, a trace of reluctant admiration blending with the lingering aloofness. "Let us enjoy the remainder of this exquisite performance together, in harmony, and with a shared appreciation for the music." The sailor nodded, gratitude and eagerness intertwining within him. The barriers that had briefly risen between them dissolved, allowing the enchanting melodies to carry them both on a harmonious journey. From that moment onward, their appreciation for the music transcended their differences, weaving an unspoken bond between them within the captivating confines of the Governor's House at Port Mahon. And as the quartet's final notes faded into the air, their applause, united and fervent, joined the chorus of appreciation that filled the music-room, harmonizing the souls of all who were fortunate enough to witness that unforgettable performance. User What if the two characters went together on a long voyage next? ChatGPT Embarking on an unforeseen adventure, the two characters found themselves drawn together by their shared love for music and the uncharted allure of the open sea. The sailor, Lieutenant William Harrington, and his unlikely companion, a refined gentleman named Edward Sinclair, discovered a profound connection amidst the enchantment of the Music-room in the Governor's House at Port Mahon. As fate would have it, Lieutenant Harrington's naval duties presented an opportunity for an extended voyage aboard the HMS Seraph, a majestic vessel scheduled for an expedition to unexplored territories. Unbeknownst to both men, their paths were destined to intertwine once more on this remarkable journey. Intrigued by the prospect of exploration and the allure of distant shores, Edward, a man of scholarly disposition, harbored a deep yearning for adventure that resonated with the naval officer. The echoes of Locatelli's quartet continued to linger in their hearts, serving as a testament to the profound connection they had established in that Port Mahon music-room. Lieutenant Harrington, upon learning of Edward's shared passion for discovery, extended an invitation to accompany him on the voyage. Edward, captivated by the idea of traversing uncharted waters and the possibility of uncovering hidden treasures, accepted the offer with an eagerness that matched the sailor's own. Months of preparation ensued as the HMS Seraph underwent meticulous provisioning for the journey. The day of departure finally arrived, and the ship set sail, leaving behind the familiar shores of Port Mahon. Lieutenant Harrington, assuming his role as an experienced officer, guided Edward through the intricacies of life aboard a naval vessel, teaching him the ropes, both literally and metaphorically. As the ship ventured into the vast expanse of the ocean, the two newfound companions found solace in the shared experiences of life at sea. They faced tempestuous storms that lashed against the ship's sturdy hull, their camaraderie growing stronger amidst the chaos. They stood side by side on the deck, gazing at breathtaking sunsets that painted the horizon with vivid hues, finding beauty in the ever-changing tableau of nature. During long nights beneath a star-studded sky, Lieutenant Harrington regaled Edward with tales of his past adventures—his daring exploits, encounters with distant cultures, and the triumphs and tribulations that accompanied a life at sea. Edward, in turn, imparted his intellectual insights, engaging the sailor in discussions on literature, philosophy, and the power of art to transcend boundaries. Together, they navigated uncharted waters, mapping unknown territories, and unearthing the treasures of knowledge and friendship. In their shared cabin, notes of music flowed freely, as Lieutenant Harrington would strum a guitar, and Edward would join him with melodies on a humble flute. Their impromptu performances carried the spirit of Locatelli's quartet, evoking memories of the music-room that had initially brought them together. Months turned into years, and the long voyage evolved into a transformative odyssey for both men. The sailor and the scholar discovered the profound depths of their shared humanity and the vastness of the world that lay before them. They encountered foreign cultures, witnessed breathtaking landscapes, and forged bonds with diverse peoples they encountered along their maritime path. When the HMS Seraph eventually returned to Port Mahon, its sails tattered but hearts emboldened, Lieutenant Harrington and Edward Sinclair disembarked as inseparable friends. Their transformative voyage had not only broadened their horizons but had solidified their connection, intertwining their lives in a tapestry woven by the threads of music, adventure, and camaraderie. And as they bid farewell to the ship that had been their floating sanctuary, their journey continued, a testament to the enduring power of unlikely friendships forged against the backdrop of unexplored horizons, echoing the symphony of life's unexpected harmonies.

There’d been another shooting today, in some dainty little cafe downtown, in the places tucked so neatly away only people who had visited there their whole lives went. Pete Cordell sighed to himself as he stepped past the shattered glass. Once, the scene inside the cafe would have made his stomach turn. These days, the sight of eviscerated bodies and rooms painted with blood barely fazed him. The entire cafe was ruined, bullet holes riddling every surface imaginable. He whistled, low.
“They must have used up ten mags to do this much damage,” he observed out loud.
“Hey, you’re finally here!”
Pete looked up at the new voice - a man he’d worked with for a bit under four years now but still barely knew anything about - Wesley Smith. “Crazy shit, isn’t it? You’d think it was an action movie in here with the amount of bullets they dumped.”
“I’ll say,” Pete grumbled.
“That ain’t the weirdest shit though. Come over here.” Dividing the cafe in half was a massive sheet, and Wesley brushed past it as Pete followed. He stared.
On the ground was a gun - which wasn’t the first thing to draw his attention. What did draw his attention was the pool of blood on the ground, way too large for any normal injury to have caused. He moved his gaze around and his jaw slackened. Slumped against the wall were the remains of a black-robed man - although remains were generous, considering all that remained was a single arm, a head, and blood-soaked garments. The wall behind the remains was cracked and severely dented, as if something great and powerful had rammed into it. A few feet away, a body had its head entirely gone, nowhere to be seen, with only a spray of blood, a stain of flesh and the same deep impact on the wall where the head should have been.
“Pretty freaky, right?” Wesley’s facade of bravado wouldn’t have fooled even a child. “Makes you feel like you’re in one of them horror stories, you know?”
“I’ll say,” Pete repeated, coughing to get rid of his shaky voice. A buzz from his radio drew his attention, and he held it up to his ear.
“All officers to the station now. I repeat, all officers to the station now.” The voice on the other end was… strange, but Pete chalked that up to his wracked nerves.
He nodded to Wesley and ignored the strange feeling in his stomach. “Alright. Let’s go.”
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A few days later, Pete was flipping pancakes in the kitchen. His wife came up behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist as the kids squabbled around the table.
“Had a good sleep?” He asked as she rested her chin on his shoulder.
She hummed in affirmation. “How was the latest case?” she asked.
He frowned. It’d been another shooting, in some dainty cafe downtown, and he’d… hang on, what had he done? Before he could strain himself too much, a memory slotted into place and he relaxed.
“Oh, nothing special. Nothing special at all.”
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It was just a few minutes into the breaking of dawn that a massive clanging woke Devona up. He shot out of the bed, not falling out of the bed but instead scrambling for the lightswitch as he got to his feet. His brain pushed past the fight or flight instinct that had shattered his sleep and he relaxed again as his memories came back. A few months into WICCA’s formation, during the time that they had been starting to talk to each other for purposes other than business, they’d headed over to Cirius’s abode.
“And here is my bed!”
They all stared at the bare mattress lying upon a metal frame, only a thin scrap of fabric and something that was barely a pillow upon it. The rest of the apartment wasn’t faring much better, with only a mini-fridge in the kitchen and one of each bathroom item. The walls were a murky grey with the wallpaper peeling, and there was a stench of alcohol in the air.
Axon let out a whistle. “Damn, you live like this?” Her expression turned solemn. “Seriously, though, these conditions are pretty rough.”
Cirius shrugged. “Eh. Could be worse. I used to just find a dumpster that wasn’t full and sleep in there.”
Devona sucked in a breath. “That’s… really bad.”
Cirius gave another shrug. “Some dumpsters aren’t that bad actually. Getting chased away with a broom for being an intruder or like, getting shot, is worse.”
“Well, moving on from that depressing bit of background, you could for sure get a better apartment with how much you’re being paid,” Axon interjected.
Cirius’s eyes widened. “I could?”
“Yeah, man. You know how much money you have. It’s all in your bank account.”
His eyes widened further. I have a bank account?”
“What do you mean? I sent the details to you through your email…” Understanding dawned across her face. “Goddamn it.”
There was a crash outside of the apartment, drawing their attention towards it. Devona walked open to the door and gingerly opened it to reveal two men tussling upon the ground, swearing angrily at each other.
“Hey John!” exclaimed Cirius cheerfully as the man on top lifted his fist and slammed it on the other’s face.
Devona stepped forward with his hands held out placatingly in front of himself.
“Alright, now, let’s calm-”
Devona was interrupted as he was talking by a fist swinging straight towards his face. As he reeled back, another hand was already closing over it and forcing the assailant down. Harlow stared down at the man they were forcing down with a singular hand, watching as his expression strained to continue to look defiant through the pain.
They pressed down further, causing the man’s expression to shift into pain as he hammered onto the floor with his free hand, hollering to let him go.
Devona gingerly placed his hand on their shoulder. “Hey, I think that’s enough now.”
Harlow raised an eyebrow at them. He tried to punch you.
“Well, he didn’t punch me.”
Harlow tilted their head but let go of the person, allowing him to run off with a bruised ego and most likely a bruised wrist. The other man got up and staggered away, the smell of alcohol fresh in the air. Devona let his hand drop as Harlow watched them go, wiping their hand upon their cloak.
After that, Cirius had thankfully used the money to get a proper apartment. Or rather, several proper apartments since he kept getting kicked out. And now he had found himself inside Devona’s new house. Devona sighed and rubbed his eyes to get rid of the tiredness, heading down the stairs to see what the commotion was all about. Cirius was sprawled upon the floor, his pillow several feet away, the couch he was staying on half tipped over and his blanket looking like it had been attacked by a savage animal.
He waved. “Hey bossman.”
Devona stared. “How.”
“Well, you see, I kinda woke up. And stuff was like this.”
Devona sighed and picked Cirius up. He held him like a cat, with his hands underneath the arms as Cirius’s legs dangled, and plopped him down onto the couch after pushing it down with his feet. He began to clean up the rest of the mess. Cirius shot to his feet instantly.
“I could-”
Devona waved him off. “It’s fine. It’s early, just try to get some more rest in. I’ll get another blanket.” He continued to clean up in silence, blinking the sleep from his eyes. He turned and Cirius was still sitting up, shuffling his feet awkwardly.
“Well, if we’re not going to sleep again, why don’t we eat breakfast? I’ll get the cereal.”
They ate together in silence, letting the sound of chewing fill the air. As Devona was thinking about setting up a garden outside, Cirius spoke up.
“Sorry for the blanket. And for waking you up. And-“
Devona raised a hand. “I told you, it’s fine.” Internally, he frowned.
“Was Cirius still hung up about that?” He had noticed an uncanny silence, but he had drawn that up to tiredness. Speaking of, was Cirius even tired? Cirius had been wide awake every time Devona had gone to bed, and wide awake when Devona awoke. One time, Devona had walked blearily down the stairs to get a glass of water in the dead of night, and almost got a heart attack from Cirius suddenly talking.
“So, what’s the mission for today, bossman?” Cirius interrupted his train of thought, rocking on his chair and back to his usual bounciness.
“Well, if you read your email, you’d know,” Devona deadpanned before relenting. “It’s just an attendance to some event that acts as a cover for underground dealings. While Claren deals with negotiations, we mingle with the crowd unless Harlow needs some backup. They’ll be off stealing some documents.” He polished off the last of the cereal. “We should get some more rest before the mission. Don’t want to be too tired.”
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Claren and Harlow were already there when Cirius and Devona arrived. They were all dressed in suits again, like they had been at that party months back. Claren took a few seconds to assess their outfits. Before the mission, Claren had talked with Devona, telling him that he would stand out too much. His height was the most obvious, but according to Claren his posture was ‘too subdued and open to pass as a crime lord’. Instead, Devona would be with Harlow, finding the documents, while Cirius would be a possible back-up to Claren. Really, it was because it was doubtful that he would be able to carry out a stealth mission.
Devona went over to greet Harlow. After exchanging conversation, he grabbed Harlow by the shoulder and the two of them vanished. Claren adjusted his suit, the light glinting off of the two rings on his fingers. “Well, you can go and mingle with the party. If I’m in trouble, try to cause a distraction.”
Cirius nodded thoughtfully. “Explosions?”
“Try to keep those to a minimum.”
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Cirius was mingling, but he was not mingling happily. The people really did hold themselves in a different way than Devona did, with pushed up chests and little hand waves. Everyone who talked to him seemed to need to suddenly leave, so Cirius was currently standing by the food table chomping on dishes.
“Real boring party,” a voice drawled.
Cirius turned. He tilted his head and stopped biting down on the plate. Leaning up against the table with an easy casualness, dressed in a full tuxedo with bowtie and tailed coat, the speaker plucked a grape from the stem and popped it into her mouth. Her rainbow scarf swished as she swivelled her head to look down at him, and her mismatched eyes were lit with amusement. She seemed familiar, but Cirius couldn’t put his finger on why. “Wouldn’t you say so?”
Cirius thought about this. “Eh, it’s alright. I remember one time I blacked out at a party like this and woke up in a bathtub filled with ice.”
She threw her head back and laughed. “You’re a pretty funny guy,” she snickered, waving a fork at him.
Her smile tapered into a grin, and her eyes narrowed. “But in my opinion, this party could really use some better entertainment.” She pulled a mask over her face - one of a white demon with small, pointed horns, and drew a glaive from her back. She threw it. The glaive soared through the air, and Cirius watched as it trailed dried intestines through the air before embedding itself deep inside the chest of one of the guests. Screams tore through the air and Cirius remembered that murder was not good.
“Claren, there’s been a murder! That’s not good!” he yelled, his voice drowned out by the din of panic and magic. The woman dodged past beams of energy and fire, grabbing onto the handle of the glaive and swinging it in a wide arc around her, carving into anyone unfortunate enough to be nearby. Claren burst out from the room, his eyes narrowing and shield wrapping around him as soon as he realised the situation. He pressed up against the wall and then shot forward, like a rubber ball that had suddenly been decompressed. The woman’s cackling was interrupted as he slammed into her full force, sending the both of them crashing across the floor.
“Laurel Pariah. I didn’t expect you to show your face again so soon.” Cirius was close enough to hear them, and it helped that everybody had either ran away or died.
“So, my reputation precedes me,” Laurel responded brightly, kicking Claren off and swinging her glaive right at him. He raised his arm and it glanced off the glimmering shield, giving him an opportunity to land a blow at her gut. She stumbled back and he struck her across the head as she was darting backwards. Her glaive sliced through the air but ricocheted off of Claren’s shield, and he grabbed the bladed end to bring Laurel in closer. She kicked at him, causing her leg to bounce back and almost knock her over, only being held above ground by an uppercut directly into her stomach. She managed to stagger backwards, coughing.
“Wow, you really don’t play around do you?” she wheezed. “I didn’t expect to use my magic so soon, but I guess it can’t be helped.”
Claren moved back, tilting his head towards Cirius. “Go herd the people outside to safety. I’ll deal with her.” Cirius flashed him a thumbs up and headed in the direction of panicked shouts. Claren’s eyes scoured the room, as if looking for whatever Laurel may use against him. Speaking of Laurel, something strange appeared to be happening to her. Her skin seemed pale, almost bright. No, definitely bright - glowing, in fact. Before Claren could register it fully however, Laurel pivoted with a kick and sent a bolt of lightning slamming into him.
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The two of them had gotten past security with ease, Devona stealing documents from right under noses and Harlow repeating the pattern of fingerprints upon keyboards. The two of them were currently sitting upon beams, dangling their legs high above the ground.
Just a few more, and we’ll be out of here soon.
Devona tilted his head to the side. “These people really love to party, huh.”
Harlow chewed their cheek. Well, it’s sort of a coping mechanism. Unlike the more recent sorcerers like you and I, these people grew up in a society wholly made from those who possess magic. There’s a certain sense of… superiority within those places. To them, death was less of a constant presence. That was until the Scourges came. Suddenly humans, magic or not, were all pushed down a level on the food chain. That sudden shock of mortality, paired with the changing landscape of the world, is certain to cause some stress. They leaned backwards on their hands. Not to mention, it’s a pretty good cover for criminal activity.
Devona hummed. “Yeah, the world's a chaotic place.” He bowed his head slightly. “Do you think we can win? Against the Scourges, that is.”
Their tongue traced the inside of their mouth as they mulled, an action mirrored from others despite their mouth never being used to talk. It’s unclear. We don’t even know where the Scourges are coming from or what they are. There could be only a small handful left in the world, or there could be legions waiting to invade. We manage to push them back, but not without loss. The Scourge at Scotland was one of the weaker ones. The teleporting Scourge was one of the less destructive ones. And yet they managed to cause so much devastation. They tilted their head to meet his gaze. But I think we’ll win.
Devona smiled. “I hope so.”
How’s it going with Cirius at your place, by the way?
Devona scrunched up his forehead as memories came flooding in. “Well, he doesn’t eat unless I make him. Or really visit the bathroom since he doesn’t eat. I don’t even think he sleeps, at least not most of the time. I’ve also never seen him change his clothes. He seems weirdly nervous at times though. He’s probably destroyed like five of my blankets by now. He keeps giving me heart attacks at night by scurrying around the house. He tried to cook once and blew up the entire kitchen. I’m not even exaggerating, he had third degree burns all over his skin. Took me ages to patch him up, especially with him refusing to remove his clothing.” Devona sighed and noticed Harlow’s expression. They had a bemused expression on their face. “What is it?” You’re quite an attentive person, that’s all. They turned their gaze elsewhere. The last of the physical documents should be three doors down on the rightmost corridor.
“What will you be doing?”
Attending to my own business. I’ll meet you afterwards.
Devona nodded and vanished, leaving Harlow alone underneath the clouded sky.
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The hierarchy of the world was simple. At the bottom were the plants, the insects, the ones who barely fed themselves and were gorged upon or crushed by a wayward hand. On top, edging them out were the small predators, the mice and shrews of the world. And above them this and this and that until up on top the world, the pinnacle of power, was humanity. Of course, there was division within humanity. Some believed it to be race, or gender, or sexuality, or any other sort of arbitrary difference they’d use to hold a sense of superiority over others. But the true division, the fissure that stretched across like the mouth of a god, was magic.
Opal Pact was currently walking upon the tightrope across that fissure. To live in a world of magic without any of your own was common, given how billions of people did it, but to know about magic and to live in its world was less so. Of course, it was a lot less dramatic than her mini-monologues in her head, like the one about hierarchies, had made it seem. Most would expect fabulous displays of power, magic that could bend and buckle nations. Instead, they got people who could throw fancy balls that were basically slower, less effective bullets, or throw fireballs which were once again slower, less effective bullets, or become pinnacles of physical brawn who were immune to bullets and who were as susceptible to chemical warfare as anybody else. Even the ones who held incredible power weren’t immune to a knife in their neck in the dead of night. The point was, Opal was less of walking upon a tightrope and more of peering into a secret party and inviting herself in. Besides, if those unedited videos of cities’ destruction were anything to go buy, humans weren’t the top of the food-chain anymore, magic or not.
She whistled to herself, the tune of some forgotten song as she twirled a crowbar between her fingers. She knocked on the door to the security room and then smashed it open, interrupting the guard who was in the middle of trying to figure out why several of the cameras had stopped working. The smashing of the crowbar into his face sent several of his teeth scattering, and he collapsed onto his desk. He’d be fine, probably. Opal mentally shrugged with that thought and pushed him off the wheely chair, letting him flop onto the floor as she took a seat. She grabbed a can of oil from her bag and poured it out the door, letting it run down across the hallway. The tinted plastic she’d stuck to the lights before she’d made her entrance were just yellow enough that anyone who came rushing in wouldn’t have time to notice the oil until it was too late.
Opal slammed the door as shut as she could, kicking her feet onto the table and popping a piece of gum into her mouth. She chewed, letting the sugar flare upon her tongue as her fingers ran across the keyboard. There was a sound of people yelling, then the sound of bodies slamming against the wall and floor. She stretched her arms behind her head, kicking off of the desk to avoid the blast of energy that ripped right through the door. It was shoved open and Opal pushed off the wall towards the attacker, pulling out her taser and jabbing it into his stomach. He staggered and then slipped, falling chin-first onto the floor. She stepped off of the chair and kicked it, sending it bouncing around and knocking down the few guards who managed to remain standing. She slid across the floor, using the slickness to her advantage to weave past grasping hands and past the oil. Grabbing a matchbox from her hand, she struck a match and held it loftily between the fingers. The effect was immediate, with all the guards scrambling across the floors on either all fours or trying their best to stand up. She tossed the match to the oil-slicken ground and slid into the next room. The oil wasn’t flammable.
The oil eventually rubbed off from the friction, leaving Opal to walk along the floor. She eventually found what she came for. She smashed the lock off of the door, the alarm already having been disabled by her in the security room. She popped her bubble of gum and pushed the door open. Standing in the room, looking incredibly confused, was an incredibly tall man. He stared at her, the documents on the desk in front of him. She stared at him. He stared at her. She grabbed the tablecloth and threw it over his head, snatching up the documents as he stumbled back.
Opal dove out the door before the man could get his bearings, skidding across the floor and breaking into a sprint. She pulled out a bag of marbles and tossed it behind her, spilling the contents all across the floor. She used the crowbar to jam the door behind her shut, running past the winding hallways. The exit wasn’t far, and soon she’d be able to hop on her motorcycle and be scot free.
She wheeled around the corner and almost collided into a group of sorcerers. She could tell they were sorcerers since they immediately threw blasts of energy her way as she ducked behind the wall. One of them charged forward and punched the wall where her head had been. He lifted his arm to strike again and then vanished.
“Huh?” The other sorcerers seemed equally confused. Something appeared from nowhere and smacked into the face of one, leaving the last to look around panickedly before the frying pan knocked him out. The man from before appeared out of thin air, looking much more annoyed than he had before. He waved his pan at her face.
“Alright, who the hell are you?”
“Invisibility, probably. Strong as well if he managed to bypass the crowbar so easily, or crafty if he found another way to track me,” her mind supplied.
Opal rooted around for her spray-can. “Who am I? Oh, no-one really. Just a gal trying to make her way in the world.”
The man narrowed his eyes. “Would you be willing to hand over the documents?”
Opal pressed her thumb and index to her chin. “Eh, probably not.”
He sighed. He vanished right as Opal lifted her spray can and sent a blast of black into his face. She broke into a sprint, shoving the documents into her pocket as she continued to dash.
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Being short certainly had its shortcomings. Cirius couldn’t shout louder than the clamour, so he climbed onto whatever surface he could find and grabbed onto a plate and a fork. He scraped the prongs along the ceramic and the screech was loud enough to catch everyone’s attention.
“Alright, alright, listen up! I’ve been told to get you guys out of here, so that’s what I’m going to do.”
The people still seemed panicked and extremely suspicious. One of them aimed a hand full of fire at him. “Who the hell are you? And why should we listen to you?”
“You guys are running around too much! Look, that guy has other people standing on top of him!”
“Help.”
“In an emergency situation, it’s always good to have someone to direct everyone else. People tend to panic and move erratically, so having a leader allows the people to calm themselves down and move in a controlled manner, minimising the risk to themselves and each other,” Cirius recited. He felt a dash of smugness for remembering the entire thing.
The people did not seem very impressed. They stared up at him with confused and vaguely disgusted expressions.
“Anyways, the point is, we’re going to leave now.”
“What about the people back there!” one person exclaimed. “I have a husband who’s possibly dying right now!”
Cirius frowned. “What did he look like?” “He had- he has blonde hair, is wearing a suit with a blue tie-”
“Oh, I think I saw who you’re talking about!”
“Really? Was he alright?”
Cirius scratched his head. “Uh, well, if he can survive without his head on then he should be good.”
“What the hell is wrong with you!”
“Come on, man!” “Why would you say that?”
Exclamations and cries of dismay rose up from the crowd and suddenly everyone was yelling at him.They started to throw plates and utensils at him, throwing insults along with them.
“Alright, alright, let’s just calm down,” he tried to say over the clamour. A plate smacked onto his head and dazed him for a second. Frustration bubbled in his chest as the people kept on yelling and yelling and the noise built up and up until the frustration melded into anger and burst from him.
“Shut up! Shut up, all of you!” he yelled, his own voice barely rising above the chaos. He grabbed a plate of his own and threw it into the crowd. “I’m trying to save your goddamn lives you idiots!”
Something bright came flying at him and he felt his body light ablaze, the fire rapidly spreading over his clothes and flesh. A silence fell over the crowd, their expressions now of shock and bewilderment rather than outrage. He moved his head towards the one who threw the fireball, the slight movement drawing gasps from the people around him. He jumped down from the table and walked towards the attacker, everyone else clearing a wide berth around him. He dug his fingernails into his bubbling flesh, tearing deep and causing blood to spill out, dampening the flames with a hiss. Blood dripped onto the floor as he flexed his hand before pulling his arm back and punching the elemental in the face. His hand practically exploded, spraying gore and viscera all over the man’s features. He fell to the floor with a horrified scream, too distracted to notice Cirius lifting a chair until it was already coming down on his head. Cirius patted down his body, ripping away at skin where the fire refused to die out. He turned to the crowd - or at least, the blurry outline of the crowd.
“So, are we ready to go now?” he asked brightly. He lifted his hand to scratch at his face and felt bone. The crowd nodded, subdued. “Pick that guy up, by the way.” He turned to the exit and they all followed suit.
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Devona was not having a good time. He’d managed to avoid most of the spray, but he’d needed to wipe away at his eyes before they stung too much. He floated past the groaning guards on the oil-slick floor, up the stairs to the upper floors. Marbles were strewn across the ground, and one man was rolling around while clutching his spray-painted eyes. The window on the far end was smashed open despite the latch being unlocked. Peeking his head around, he could see the perpetrator running along the rooftop, sticking her tongue out at the people on the ground. She grabbed an egg from her pocket and slung it at the head of one, exploding it all over his face as he tried to grab his gun.
She ducked down and slid along the tiles as bullets fired above her head, grabbing the side and swinging down into the window. A few seconds later, a chair was flung out and slammed into the remaining guards. A guard rushed up to the window next to Devona, pulling out a machine gun. Devona wasn’t a fan of excessive violence against his enemies, so he introduced his face to a frying pan. At the same time, the thief, as Devona had dubbed her, was thrown from the window. She managed to grab onto the curtain and ripped it as she slid down the wall, landing with a thud onto the ground. Standing there in the doorframe, holding onto ruffled documents as air swirled was a guard, more filing around her with magic swirling in the air.
Devona felt movement behind him and phased out, dodging the blast of energy that would have taken off his head. He grabbed the guard and phased them out with him, using their newfound weightlessness to throw them as hard. All eyes snapped to the man as he flew through the air, giving Devona enough time to swoop down and phase out the thief.
He dropped the two of them on the roof of the building overlooking the guards as they looked around in surprise. The thief immediately got to talking.
“So, you can phase out, huh? I thought you might have been a Neoteric, seeing as you look less out-of-touch than a lot of other sorcerers. Do you have a cool name for your discipline?”
Devona glanced at her. “It’s incorporealism.”
She rolled her eyes. “Bo-ring. You develop a whole branch of magic and you give it some lame name like that?”
“It’s not- whatever.”
She sighed and rolled her shoulders. “Why don’t we make a truce?” she said suddenly. “Just until we get the documents. Especially since they see us now.”
Devona looked down just in time to weave to the side and let the lightning pass by him. There was a woosh of air and all the guards were upon the roof, one of them still holding the documents in her hand.
A gust of air, a blast, and several bullets connected with nothing as Devona vanished. He grabbed one guard and threw them off, lashing out with only his foot physical and kicked another guard right in the stomach. Weave, dodge, strike, move back, more forward. The movements weren’t as fluid as they could have been, and he winced from a graze across his arm, but it wasn’t long before he and the thief were the only people still standing upon the roof.
She raised an eyebrow at him. “Wow. Not bad. You’re quite the combatant.”
Devona started looking around for where the documents had fallen, turning his back to her. “Thanks.”
“What’s your name by the way?”
He lifted up one of the unconscious bodies. “It’s Devona. Yours?”
“Bergeron.” A strange name, but Devona wasn’t one to judge. “Say, I’ve just to ask, why did you save me back there?”
Devona frowned. “Is it not enough to not want to see another person die?”
She hummed. There was a bit of movement from behind him, and Devona phased out as a taser struck where he had just been. He phased back in, lashing out with a pivot and kick that slammed into her gut. He grabbed his pan and swung it at her head, clipping only her hair as she ducked down and he withdrew his body as she jabbed with her taser again. He slammed his pan onto her arm before she could reel it back in. Her taser dropped and Devona managed to strike her across the head, sending her stumbling back. She clutched his arm as if it was broken and Devona faltered slightly, just long enough for her to lash out with another hidden taser and hit him right in the gut. She grabbed onto her crowbar and smashed it against his head, with him managing to only slightly dodge the impact. He phased out again and grabbed her by the arm, throwing her against the wall. He stumbled, his vision turning white as rivulets of blood ran down his nose. Before he could recover he felt the crowbar slam into his hip and his legs buckled. The cool metal of the taser pressed into his back and jolts ran through his body.

After seeing a post about crime in Portland, I went and looked at the Portland Police Bureau's Monthly Portland Neighborhood Offense Statistics and compared the first quarter of the year from 2019 to 2023 on a per 100k of population basis.
​
Summary

• Crime is likely dropping.
• Reported crime in 2022 increased ~30% when compared to 2019. In 2023 we're now only ~20% above 2019.
• By next year, with the same kinds of improvements we're seeing, we'll be in line with 2019 numbers.

​
Summary Data
These are per on a per 100k of population basis. For details on what each category means, please see Portland Police Bureau links provided above and below. The numbers may not exactly add up as these are rounded vs the underlying calculations not using rounding.

Year	Total	Total vs 2019	Person	Person vs 2019	Property	Property vs 2019	Society	Society vs 2019
2019	2856	100%	410	100%	2307	100%	139	100%
2020	3024	106%	471	115%	2425	105%	128	92%
2021	2884	101%	473	115%	2341	101%	70	51%
2022	3775	132%	501	122%	3184	138%	89	64%
2023	3432	120%	467	114%	2882	125%	83	60%

​
Why I Chose

• Per capita numbers used to reduce the effect of population changes in knowing if crime is trending up or down.
• Year over year, Q1 numbers were used to increase the "apples to apples" comparability and because that is all we have for this year so far. Maybe every year there are spikes in crime in July and thus comparing January 2023 with July 2022 to look for increases or decreases would be faulty.
• Portland Police Bureau data was easily found from 2019 to 2023. National reporting doesn't seem to have this full set.
• The PSU population estimate was easily found and was easier to use without worrying about different revisions of the data year to year. I only care about if things are improving or getting worse, so as long as the population estimates are of the same revision/set, it should be fine.
• For 2023, the 2022 population value was used. We don't have 2023 data yet, that won't be until next year that the estimate is released. The 2022 value will have to be close enough.
• No other cities data was used as a comparison or to give context. I'm too lazy to try and find other similar sized cities with similar easily found data sets. From basic Googling, it looks like other cities had similar kinds of changes.
• Some columns from the source table(s) were left off to make the table easier to read on Reddit.

​
References

• https://www.pdx.edu/population-research/population-estimate-reports
• https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/portlandpolicebureau/viz/New_Monthly_Neighborhood/MonthlyOffenseTotals
• https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/portlandpolicebureau/viz/New_Monthly_Neighborhood/MonthlyOffenseTotals

Fifth Year Festival: Chicago
February 24, 2007
Chicago, IL
Windy City Fieldhouse
The fourth out of six events in ROH's Fifth Year Festival sees a tag team main event with ROH World Champion Takeshi Morishima and Nigel McGuinness versus Samoa Joe and Homicide. As Joe was headed off for TNA full-time, this would be his final appearance stateside for ROH. He gets a standing ovation during his ring introductions and is more emotional than I've seen him on prior stops in the tour. McGuinness has a weird alliance thing going on with Morishima, one that would end in flames as 2007 went on. After a long match that felt like all four guys were holding a bit back, McGuinness gets a stunning win over Joe with the rebound lariat. The crowd did not like that finish. I felt like this match could have been better. There was a deliberate pace that didn't work for me.
Chicago's own Colt Cabana fought Jimmy Jacobs in a Windy City Death Match. This was the culmination of Jimmy Jacobs being completely hypnotized by Lacey and willing to do whatever it took to keep her attention. This is a bloody, vicious brawl, with scissors, spikes, and broken flagpoles making both Cabana and Jacobs a bloody mess. Brent Albright interferes on Jacobs' behalf, only to be met by BJ Whitmer. Lacey gets involved, steadying a ladder while Jacobs leaps to the outside through Cabana on a table. That comes back to bite her as Cabana hits both Lacey and Jacobs with his Colt 45 finish, stacks them on top of each other and gets the pin.
ROH World Tag Team Champions Christopher Daniels and Matt Sydal defended the titles against the promotion's constant threat, the Briscoe Brothers. (Jay and Mark). The Briscoe brothers have held the titles twice before, but at this point, haven't had a reign in three years. This match would be the beginning of the Briscoes as we came to know them -- the aces of the ROH tag team division. I've said on a couple of occasions that Daniels and Sydal don't seem to have any chemistry, but the presence of a well-oiled machine like the Briscoes elevates the work of the champions. This is a long match, and the weapons that served Daniels and Sydal in previous matches, like the shooting star press and the assisted Angel's Wings, fail here. The Briscoes finish the job on Sydal with a leg drop/SSP combo to begin their third tag title reign.
Roderick Strong and Davey Richards of the No Remorse Corps took on Austin Aries and Matt Cross. This is the first time Aries and Strong were on opposing sides in Ring of Honor and the first match between the two since Strong betrayed Aries earlier in the tour. Aries, in his search for allies to start his new faction (that would eventually be known as The Resilience) picked Matt Cross. Aries starts the match by going right at Strong as soon as he enters the ring, something that would be the theme of the match. Strong and Richards have added a few dirty tricks to their repertoire of hard strikes. Cross hits Strong with a moonsault to the outside and takes a very painful landing right on the edge of the guardrail. Aries finished off Richards with the 450 splash and goes outside to help Cross, but Strong and Richards decide to give Aries' new ally a second helping of guardrail pain.
If you hear whistles blowing throughout this show, that's because ROH is sharing a building with a volleyball meet.
Other matches on this show:

• Jimmy Rave vs. BJ Whitmer
  
• Shingo vs. Matt Cross vs. CJ Otis vs. Trik Davis in a four-corner survival match
  
• Sara Del Rey & Allison Danger vs. MsChif & Serena Deeb
  
• Brent Albright vs. Claudio Castagnoli
  

You can find the B-Show Stories archive here.

Hello, I have some concerns about my basement wall being very soft and crumbly, and I’m trying to assess what to do.
I have already addressed a yard grading problem. It’s likely this wall has weathered poor grading for years. My grading and drainage has recently been professionally addressed.
https://imgur.io/a/VInIMXe
Located in Michigan Original poured concrete wall from 1920. Wall was resurfaced by DIYers around 1990.
My wall today seems to be comprised of the white sealant, on top of a surface masonry coat (light gray, 1/4 inch thick, hollow sounding), on top of the poorly mixed original wall.
The gray masonry coating is coming unattached from the wall. The old wall underneath is very sandy, it feels like rocks resting in damp sand in many places. I can crumble it with my fingers.
My primary desired outcome is to make sure my wall will last decades to come, planning to be here 20+ years. I think I would also like to resurface the walls so that they’re not dropping debris everywhere, at least just to make the space more convenient.
I’m planning to contact a structural engineer to get his opinion on wall integrity. Anyone here done any similar work and have thoughts? What would you do? Is it a reasonable objective that this wall will not be crumbly to the touch or is that just how it is?

Its roughtly 1am and I decided this would be a good thing to do at 1am. And of course at 1am I am thinking.. I want to hear some stories about peoples experiences as a player or as a DM.
So lets start an 'ask me anything post train'. Basically when you ask your first question in this post about someone elses experience you should do the following:

• Introduce yourself
• Include a bit of information about the characters you have made/played or the campaigns you have been in.
• And the line 'Ask me anything' or 'AMA'.

You only need to do this once. Then you can ask as many questions as you want.
And that way everyone can have some cool stories to read, fun ideas for characters or even campaigns.
So as the post creator I shall start:
A bit about me: Hello I am Sparkle and I am a professional DM who is trying to become a better DM than Matt Mercer (which is a really high benchmark, he's a really good DM). I like drawing art and making animated maps for D&D.
I am currently playing in six D&D campaigns a week. And I am dming 3 of them. The highest amount of players I have DMed for at once was around 15 and the longest I have dmed for at once is 11 hours.
These are the six campaigns I am in currently.
Astral Antics: As a DM (My fav campaign to DM) This campaign is a homebrew campaign which is focused on portals, gods and ancient magic (Blood magic, Ethereal Magic, and the Zenith) The whole group has custom classes and races which may be an interesting discussion for some. They are currently infiltrating the vampires kings, aka Venerzar Dunbars, castle (who happens to be one of the players father) and Ketsu has just discovered a card from the deck of many things. (Its not the first card to have been found)
Endless Vernandia and Endless Vernandia Tarvea: As a DM
This group is my largest group. Their campaign is split into two sections currently.
Endless Vernandia (EV) was based in a spirit world after the players died in their own worlds. They learnt to survive in the wilderness, build bases and just sorta mess around. The group has an interest in door hinges (don't get me started on this), one of the players was accidently turned into a lich (even I am not sure how this happened). We also had a merchant who stole everyones hearts, no wait that was Granny num nums... (My players never forgave me for killing her off). And eventually they got reincarnated into a new world. Oh and lets not forget this worlds gimmick of corruption.
EV Tarvea: The group now has new characters (reminiscent of the old) and spirit animals. (Bonus points if anyone can figure out the series this world is based off). The characters are busy solving mysteries whilst trying to avoid the corruption they have discovered is seaping into this world from Vernandia.
The Multitude of Magnus: As a DM This one on one campaign is set in a world where the player Magnus has been besett with a strange illness. He also happens to be a prince. Starting as a skeleton he wakes up finding the world no longer accepts him. He makes a tonne of friends as he time travels through the past versing an ancient black drahon called Neskur who keeps killing his family who he left behind. Eventually he manages to escape the time loop he is in and ends up in Magnus the 1sts body. He also discovers along the way a missing soul god and an enemy called Vane.
The Ruins of Senpitrial. As a player This campaign has been going on for quite a while now and its my favourite campaign as a player. In this campaign there is a lich called Ur Kad who is attempting to cause another ruining, there is also a god called the lord of blood who myself, Fane and Kat are aiming to kill. In this campaign I am playing a 'human' wizard detective called Liburua Batekin who fully believes he is a human. Except his disguise self spell is a bit weird, now that you mention it. He eventually meets a god called Grey Jacket (god of change) whos true name is unknown and eventually learns about his true nature. He is in fact a changling, who is honestly a bit weird for a changling as the only other two changlings he has met have mentioned it. Currently we are in the under dark trying to find Fanes family.
Chaos Corner: As a player. We have only just started yesterday and I am playing a very interesting character with super low stats. I cannot say more as I know some of the campaign members frequent reddit but I will happily tell anyone in direct messages about the character.
Generals Campaign: As a player General is a new DM and hes running a mostly combat campaign as we try to stop an evil king from bringing back a pretty evil god. I am playing a Revenant Asimar Mystic/Phoenix Sorcerer who died in one of the kings attacks on the town. Tempest one of the players in the party killed me as I killed him bring us both back as Revenents looking for revenge on each other. He is hiding his looks and eventually decided he wanted revenge on the king for sending him to his doom as I hunt him down. Except we are both immortal undead. Yea this is going to be a blast later on
Campaigns that have finished, so I am no longer in them.
Not all campaigns go well, and thats ok. Here are two that didnt work.
(Fake name) Jhins campaign: We were playing a group looking for some magic items. Jhin despite being a very new dm is very good at characters... At combat not so much. The main reason the campaign failed was due to restricting player abilities and just sort of giving up. The group was VERY chaotic and I mean very. In this campaign I played a Raven and a Kalashtar called Harbringer and Watcher. Their classes were rogue/Raven Queen Warlock. Basically Watcher is super nice, Harbringer is evil. Watcher shows himself to the party and Harbringer never really does. These two have a tonne of lore and are pretty fun to play.
After Jhin gave up I tried taking the group on. Yea even I failed. Basically the new game was about two dimensions, one called the mirror world where players played characters the other players designed (they didnt know their stats) and then you had the material where it was normal dnd. Anyway there were wizards on dragons and the group didnt get anywhere through the story anywhere fast. They spent a session talking about things outside of the game (they were all friends) and after a few more sessions after a talk to see if they would improve I dropped the campaign.
However we have some that did work, except people got too busy.
The Chaos Crew as a DM This campaign lasted ages and its the campaign that truely got me into dming. One day my friends told me when we were playing another game that they were trying to learn how to play dnd but didnt know where to start. Nobody had played before. I said I could try dming for them. They agreed and we promptly began a campaign. The campaign was a time travel campaign where the party slowly ran out of time to stop neskur from taking over their minds. And yes this is the origin of the infamous villian Neskur. And Senshin his nice brother. The group had a lot of fun as they stole a hippogriff egg, Yasuo killed the entire party in an epic betrayal (pvp was commonplace, fun and normal). Tbanger died 7x, sometimes on purpose, other times not so much. P.S: you still hold the record. The players also came up with the pelvis ghost..... Trust me you do not want to steal any pelvises in my games, it never ends up well. And the players drew the fates card and got revenge on Yasuo. Then we had exams and never played another game together. Currently I might be trying to gather them up for a reunion.
And last but not least... The original campaign. Based on the Taldora books (the one with the belt and 7 gems), we had a game where the terrifie were first introduced. A player died in session one after jumping purposely off a 30ft tall wall and getting poked with a stick. We had a sword incident where it glanced off a wall and impaled a dwarf (who rolled a nat 1) and an epic battle over a river. Five or so sessions in we had scheduling issues and didnt play again. However one of the three from the campaign later joined Astral Antics and Endless Vernandia. I kind of got them addicted to D&D... they thanked me for it lol.
And anyway that is it in terms of my campaigns. So......
AMA: Ask me anything, even specific questions like why my players are scared of birds or even about bagpipes. I will attempt to answer them all. Though I would love to see some questions that may led to some interesting tales. Go wild.
DMs I am happy to share any of my resources I have created for my campaigns if anyone wants them.

Hi everyone. We're in the process of building a home and we have arrived at an open concept for the kitchen/dining/living room area. Due to some restrictions on the land, we have pretty limited space. This is the floorplan for that combined area.
https://imgur.com/a/V3zK2C5
My question is about the 4ft space between the island and the dining room table, and the 4ft space between the dining room table and the upper wall. 4ft seems like a small amount of space, but our architect assures us it is fine. Just looking for some second opinions - Given that the room is big and open, will 4ft around the dining room table be sufficient or will it feel tight?
My main concern is the 4ft between the dining room table and the upper wall. That's the walkway and main thoroughfare from the front door to the back of the house where the bedrooms are.
Thanks!

All credit for the world goes to u/spacepaladin15. As always, any feedback/critique is appreciated. I hope you enjoy!
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Memory Transcript Subject: Tressa, Venlil civilian Date [Standardized Human Time]: February 28th, 2177 Location: Lower sprawl of City 23, Venlil Prime 

Tipped Quill was a fairly small bar nestled in a sad corner of the lower sprawl. On a normal night, a trickle of customers shuffled through the doors, a light hum of activity which brightened the otherwise dismal street. An arm of the old city, torn to shreds during the Federation’s invasion of Venlil Prime; the Tipped Quill operated out of one of the only unburned buildings.
The whole area was slated to be reclaimed and rebuilt, but funding never seemed to reach it. The upper layer of City 23 soaked up that money like a sponge, leaving the largely impoverished citizens of the sprawl to their fate. Even with locally-funded reconstruction making the buildings habitable, the toxic ash meant cancer and respiratory issues ravaged their inhabitants. In some ways, however, the lack of oversight was a blessing. Anyone seeking some respite from the Federation’s suffocating pressure could carve out a home in the ruins of the old world.
​
As Tressa approached the Tipped Quill, his long-winded internal monologue gave way to a rising tension across his chest. The building seemed to loom over him, an imposing wall of half-crumbling plaster which reminded him how long he’d spent away. With a steadying breath, he took the final few steps up to the entrance.
A sign on the front insisted the bar was closed for “repairs”, but no matter. He knocked five times, with a pause after the third. One of the double doors opened just enough for Tressa to slip through, and the rustic-looking Gojid proprietor ushered him in.
While the exterior of the Tipped Quill looked barely more notable than the reconstructed ruins surrounding it, the inside was an unexpected delight. Warm and welcoming, filled with older-style furniture and illuminated by an honest-to-god hearth, the establishment could almost be mistaken for a historical recreation. The only thing setting it apart visually was the variety of stool heights, meant to accommodate human customers.
“Tressa!” the Gojid began, rushing back to the door and relocking it. “How’s it been? Haven’t seen you around here in a while, not since the last meeting. Everything good out there?”
Tressa suppressed a wince. “Yeah. Just… buried in work, you know how it gets.”
It didn’t really matter how believable his excuse was. Burai would see right through it. The old Gojid seemingly existed only to socialize, and could spot a lie as easily as he could sell one. That he used his silver tongue for good was nothing short of a blessing from the stars above.
“Right, sure. You know if anything happens, we have a bed here for you! And I’m sure James would appreciate the company.” Burai chuckled, and Tressa failed to cover up a second twitch of emotional soreness. He shot Burai a glare.
“Oh, come one! You get all quiet every time he’s in the room, and your tail keeps—”
The glare became a silent plea, prompting Burai to turn his back on the now mildly orange-tinted Venlil and cut himself off with another quiet chuckle. He sauntered over to the counter, long claw reaching past a row of low-proof alcohol and pressing a hidden switch embedded in the shelf.
On the opposite wall, a metallic print poster for a half-century old movie split in two and slid apart, revealing the main entrance to the Den. The layer of security was completely extraneous; no exterminators made their rounds out here. The only real function it served was to look neat, a purpose which it solemnly fulfilled night after night.
“The others are already waiting down there,” started Burai, leading Tressa down the poorly-lit stairwell. “Even Trish. In person.”
“In person? You don’t say. So what’s she got for us this time?”
“She didn’t tell me. She wanted us all to be there for the big reveal. Probably more weaponry, if you made me guess.”
The barrier to the Den proper was marked by a wooden door at the bottom of the stairs. Burai typed a code into the digital lock on the front; one final line of pointless-but-neat security. With that final flourish complete, he opened the door and stepped aside to invite Tressa through.
—
The Den used to be a small subterranean apartment, back before the Federation’s invasion. When exterminators began systematically burning Venlil Prime to the ground, several human families took desperate shelter in the abandoned building. Miraculously, the structure survived the fires which ravaged the surface.
Since that fateful day, little had changed in the building’s appearance. Unlike the interior of the Tipped Quill above which had been so painstakingly reconstructed to appear antique, the Den was an actual time capsule. A sanctuary. A place where all of them could feel at home. For Tressa, being back after such a long absence felt like sunlight on his ragged fur.
“Finally decided to show your face.” Sasha’s voice boomed from the couch. She turned to face Tressa, though her eyes remained focused on a sketchbook. “Was beginning to worry me. All of us, actually. Don’t do that again.” She cast a meaningful glance at the Venlil, before returning to her sketch.
Sasha was “rumored” to be ex-UN. They all knew it was obviously true. Even sitting on the couch, she towered over the rest of them, a wall of muscle hidden behind a thick plastic jacket and long graying hair tied back in a ponytail. Every once in a while, she’d get even more quiet and withdrawn than usual, eyes darting around the room wildly as though expecting the walls to close in. But the company she found here was doing her good; those episodes were a distant rarity rather than a norm. The majority of her time was now filled by learning about art, a subject which she attacked with fearsome vigor.
James was hunched over a stovetop, keeping an eye on a simmering pot of something which filled the air with a heavenly taste. “Hey, Tressa. It’s good to see you again. Gets lonely down here without you, y’know?” Unable to speak from a sudden pang of shame, Tressa waved a tail in a greeting gesture and tried not to make eye contact.
While the rest of them might call the Den home on any given night, James was here to stay. Booted from his job and apartment due to some Kolshian official complaining about “flesh-eating scum serving him food”, he didn’t have anywhere else to live. After a near-miss with an extermination officer, he didn’t even go outside anymore.
Rather than comforting him when he needed it most, Tressa had fled. At first, it was because he was simply overwhelmed and didn’t want to make things worse for James by misspeaking and messing things up further. But a couple days of avoidance turned into a couple weeks, as each passing day only made it more difficult to explain why he hadn’t been by the Den in so long. The shadow of guilt for abandoning his friend only added to his apprehension about coming back without a damn good reason.
​
As it happened, being called in for an all-hands meeting qualified as a damn good reason. Although, one hand was curiously absent from the otherwise crowded living room.
“Wait, what about Trish? Was told she’d shown up in the fur.”
James nodded, sending waves through a mess of tall rust-brown hair. “She’s in the shower now. You know how long that dye takes to set, so might as well settle in and make yourself comfy. Stew’s gonna be ready in a moment.”
“We aren’t going to wait for her?”
“She doesn’t like squash. Something about the texture of it, I think… she never liked eating with other people anyway, hates the noise. She’s probably got something lined up for herself to enjoy alone.”
“Right, right. She’s got that… What did you call it, Sasha?”
Sasha shot him a look. “Term you’re fishing for is autism. But I never called it that. I don’t think xenopsychology is so simple that those terms carry over one-to-one.”
“Having any terms at all, other than ‘predator disease’, puts you ahead of modern psychologists by a wide margin.”
Burai spoke up. “Come now, Tressa. Everyone knows that a black and white classification is the best way of understanding the world. I mean, look how well the categories of ‘predator’ and ‘prey’ hold up! Need I even say more? You people these days with your ‘spectrums’ and your ‘nuance’ just don’t get the elegance of a nice, simple system of pure good and pure evil. No appreciation for the classics, I’m telling ya!”
James was next, talking as he ferried bowls of stew from the stove to the table. “Burai, you could hold a lucrative career as a Fed propagandist, y’know that? Don’t see what you’re fooling around with this whole bar business for.”
“I’m a man of the people. I mean, who else are they gonna go to? That place on central?” Burai scoffed with exaggerated derision, bristling his spines for good measure. “Rocket fuel and drain cleaner. A human couldn’t even survive a drink there, much less enjoy it.”
Sasha interjected at the remark, something about how she’d be fine, but Tressa was too busy enjoying the best cooking on the twilight edge of Venlil Prime to really notice her words. The warm buzz of chatter complemented the warmth of the stew, a combination which heated him body and soul. The frigid air and cold isolation of the world outside the Den began to feel like nothing more than a distant nightmare.
---
[First] [Previous] [Next]

It all started with the new student.
Aoki Hana was pretty; one could almost say that she was enchanting. With long black hair, large doe eyes, and bubbly smile on her innocent-looking face, she instantly captured the attention from the whole class. Even Masao, my childhood friend, was charmed. He pretended to look outside the window, but I saw him blush after making eye contact with her. I could still remember that day very clearly; it was a warm spring day, with clear blue sky and faint smell of cherry blossom in the air.
The day that my nightmare began.
I paid Hana no mind. She immediately made friends with some other girls, and I thought there was no reason for me to interact with her. We were just classmates, after all. I continued scrolling on my phone, looking at makeup and latest celebrity gossip, you know, the usual girly stuff. That was when I got a text message.
It was weird. In this day and age of messaging apps, no one really texted through SMS anymore.
First!
Umm… What the heck? I was about to exit the app, when several more texts started coming through.
I’m so excited for this! The ML is so cute!
AHHHHH it’s finally here!!!
Get ready everyone! It’s going to be a wild ride!!
They were all from different unknown numbers and seemed to be expressing excitement at something. I was spooked by the amount and the speed at which these weird scam messages were flooding in. I was deleting them one by one when one of the messages caught my eyes.
Just the first chapter but I know that girl Akane is bad news!
That was my name, Akane. I glanced around the classroom, expecting to see one of my friends holding in laughter as they saw my reaction to their little prank. To my surprise, they were all minding their own business, except for one person.
I was not close with Fukuda-san. We barely interacted at all.
But there she was, staring at me from the opposite side of the room, smiling, unblinking.
I got goosebumps. I wanted to confront her right then, but the teacher told everyone to quiet down and started his lesson. During lunch break, I showed the texts to Masao and told him about my suspicion of Fukuda-san, but he just laughed.
“How could it be Fukuda-san? You guys don’t even know each other that well.”
“I don’t know. Why was she staring at me…”
My sentence was cut short as someone bumped into me with full force, somehow knocking the box of juice I was holding out of my hand. As I stabilised myself, I saw Hana fall to the floor with juice poured all over her head.
I was shocked. How did the juice end up on her head of all places? It shouldn’t have been physically possible. The box should have been knocked to the floor, with only a little bit of content spilling, but somehow it looked like the box had completely exploded. Hana looked terrified; her face was flushed red and she looked like she was about to cry.
I bent over to help her up. I was going to apologise.
But for some reason, I just… laughed?
I didn’t know why I did that. The giggles came out of my throat before I could catch them. I covered my mouth with my hands as soon as I realised this, but the damage was done. Masao looked like he had seen a ghost as he helped Hana up.
“Why did you do that, Akane?” He asked.
That was something I wanted to know too. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, Aoki-san.”
“It’s okay.” Hana sniffled. “I-I’ll just change into my gym uniform.”
Hana was the one who got juice spilled all over her, but somehow, I felt so humiliated. Everyone in the canteen was looking at the scene I caused in shock, but I noticed that one of the students was smiling, as if the whole thing was entertaining to her. I didn’t even know that person, but her smile sent a shiver down my spine.
All the while, the notification on my phone kept going off in my pocket.
Masao took Hana to the classroom to get her gym uniform. I hid in the bathroom and checked my phone. Surely, there were more mysterious messages coming in.
And so it starts… Pouring juice is so cliché…
If I were the MC, I would have slapped that little fox when she giggled! GAHH SO FRUSTRATING!
I tried to reply to the text, asking who they were, but it wouldn’t let me send. I also tried to search what MC meant, but nothing relevant came up. Who would prank me like this? It must have been someone in my class who was in the canteen, right?
I got out of the toilet stall and washed my hands. Feeling like being watched, I turned around to see a girl standing near the corner of the bathroom, staring at me.
She was smiling.
“What are you looking at?” I snapped. My heart skipped a beat.
“Sorry, Okamura-san.” The girl said.
I gulped. “How do you know my name?”
“Everyone knows who you are, Okamura-san.” The girl answered without blinking.
I couldn’t concentrate for the rest of the day. No matter what I did, there was always someone, somewhere, watching me. Be it a classmate, other student, or even a teacher, they were always there. By that point, I was really freaking out and was counting down the time until this horrible day ended. After school, I told Masao that I would skip club activities and went straight home.
Mom and dad were still at work. As always, it was just me in this unnecessarily big house. Finally feeling truly alone, I locked myself inside my bedroom and tried to make sense of what just happened. The notifications had subsided. I hesitated for a bit, and turned off my phone.
I was trying to do homework when there were knocks on the door.
“Come in!”
“Hey, Akane!” Masao was there in his casual clothes, it looked like he had gone home to change. “Are you busy? Inoue-san let me in…”
I looked past him to Inoue-san, she was the housemaid and also my nanny since I was little. I had known this woman all my life, I even just said hi to her when I came home twenty minutes ago. But as she stood there in silence, just smiling at me, I felt like I was standing in front of a complete stranger.
Masao was clueless as I pulled him inside and locked the door.
“Masao, Did you see that? Why was everyone so weird today?” I gestured to the door, but Masao just sat down on my bed and started to fumble with my stuffed toy.
“So after you left, Akane, I actually ran into Hana again…” He said excitedly.
“Hana? You’ve only known Aoki-san for one day.”
“I know right! But I feel like I have known her for a long, long time!” Masao squeezed my teddy bear. “She’s so kind and interesting. As it turns out, we also like the same manga!”
I had known Masao since we were children. His house was literally next to mine. I could confirm, with the utmost certainty, that Masao was never into any form of manga. I had been inside his bedroom countless times, but never once did I ever find a single manga there. There were only video games and sports equipment.
“What do you mean? You never read any manga.”
“No, I’ve always loved manga.” Masao insisted.
Weird, I thought to myself, but nevermind that, I had more important stuff to focus on.
“Okay. Good luck with that. Can we focus on what I said earlier, please? Don’t you feel like everyone was staring at us today? First, Fukuda-san, then there was the girl in the bathroom, and Tanaka-sensei too. They are all creeping me out!”
“It’s probably just your imagination.” Masao rolled his eyes.
“I didn’t imagine it! Even Inoue-san was staring at me just now!”
“I didn’t notice that.” Masao shrugged.
Masao was clearly not interested in my concern. Some kind of best friend he was. He just went on and on about his little crush. I was annoyed, but I let him stay because I was too scared to be in the same house as Inoue-san alone. When Masao said he really should go home for dinner, I just grabbed his arm without thinking.
“Can’t you stay? Have dinner at my place tonight.”
“I really can’t. Mom’s going to be mad.” He said.
Disappointed, I walked him home. When I was back at my own home again, Inoue-san was done preparing dinner. She was no longer smiling like a menace; she was back to being the kind middle-aged woman I had always known. The dinner was almost normal, but for some reason, Inoue-san refused to sit and eat with me unlike everyday. She just stood there timidly on the side like a servant waiting for the next order from her master.
When I asked why she was behaving weird, Inoue-san said that this was always how it had been. There was definitely something wrong about Masao and Inoue-san. They kept insisting that they had always been doing something I had never seen them done before.
I turned on the phone again before bed. There were some new messages.
Akane you snake! Did you just regret friendzoning him for all these years, just when he’s about to fall for Hana? Too late girl!
I’m glad Masao left her like that lol. From the way she treats her maid, it’s obvious she’s a spoiled little brat.
HANDS. OFF. MASAO.
That idiot Masao! My hands were trembling with anger as I thought to myself. He was the only one who knew about this interaction. Why would he prank me like this? This was way too cruel. Calling me a snake and accusing me of friendzoning him? He must have lost his mind. I was fuming all night and could barely get any sleep. All I could think about was how I would confront Masao the next day.
As expected, Masao and I had a huge fight.
He firmly denied having anything to do with the mysterious texts, so I called him a liar. He then accused me of being unsupportive as a friend and that I was “making up stories and ignoring him.” In the end, I pushed him away and as I was making my way back, I crossed paths with Hana. Judging from how I startled her, she must have heard the whole thing.
I never felt so alone before. Nobody in my classroom could be trusted. I didn’t know who else was in on the prank, but by now I had caught almost half of them staring and smiling at me on different occasions. Masao also gave me the cold shoulder. He only hung out with Hana now, which seemed to slow down the rate at which I was receiving those nasty texts.
Despite me trying to reason with them, or even yelling at them, none of the pranksters would admit to their cruel joke. They just apologised and continued to smile at me. Outside of school was a little better, but not by much. Sometimes, strangers would stare and smile at me as I walked to school. I went to the police, but they were no help. When one of them stopped talking and started to smile, I just bolted out of there.
There was only one explanation for this: if people seemed crazy everywhere you go, that meant it was you who was losing your mind.
I should have taken myself to the psychiatrist, or at least told mom and dad about what I was seeing. But I was too scared that they would start smiling, too. I avoided my parents like a plague and tried to focus on my studies as a way of distraction, promising myself that I would do something about this terrifying hallucination after mid-term.
Weeks passed, and so did the mid-term exams. I was anxious the whole time. I didn’t want the mid-term to be over as I would have to acknowledge my problem just as I promised myself. But I needed to do something about it, and I needed to talk it out with Masao.
I tried to catch him in the classroom, but I was distracted by some commotion by the announcement board. Apparently, the mid-term results were out, although we literally just had the last test yesterday. My school had never publicly announced the score rank of each class like this, as they feared it might bring embarrassment to those students who didn’t do so well. But somehow, they decided to go with it this time.
My name was in second place, which was weird. I never was a studious person and had never even made the top ten in my class. Above me was Hana, she got the highest score…
“Please calm down, Okamura-san!”
Someone touched my shoulder and I jolted. I turned around to see a student smiling at me, and the rest of my classmates were staring at me in horror as I felt a piece of paper crumpled in my hands. The score announcement had been ripped from the board, and I was the one who did that…?
When did I do that? It was like I blacked out for a bit there.
“W-what?” I dropped the crumpled up paper. “I didn’t do that!”
Hana looked concerned. “Akane-chan, please don’t be too upset by the test result. I’m sure you’re still much smarter than I am.”
Huh?
I swore that the moment Hana started talking, the smiling student turned to look at her instead of me. It was the first time I noticed that. I grabbed Hana’s shoulder.
“Aoki-san, no, Hana, I need to talk to you, please!”
The other students started murmuring nervously, but I could tell they were entertained by all this. Masao stepped up as if he was about to intervene, but Hana just gave him her signature sweet smile. “It’s okay, Masao-kun. Akane-chan and I won’t take long.”
Hana followed me to the courtyard while I tried to formulate in my head how I was going to break all of this to her. How come I never thought of this before? It all started on the day Hana was transferred here; surely this whole bizarre occurrence must have something to do with her. I decided to be blunt.
“Hana, have you noticed people staring at you while smiling lately? I mean, Ishida-san was doing that just now when we were at the announcement board.”
Hana tilted her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about Akane-chan.”
“Come on. You must have noticed it right? They… You think you could just walk in and steal Masao from me?” I screamed.
Wait, no. That was not what I was trying to say. Why-why couldn’t I control myself?
“Akane-chan! It’s not like that! I just wanted all of us to be friends.”
“How dare you! You don’t know Masao like I do! He and I were… Urgh… gahh… STOP TALKING!” I grabbed my own throat in a futile attempt to regain control of my own action. Panic swept over me as I struggled. Hana stared at me with horror; she was on the verge of tears.
That was when I felt a familiar sensation which I had learned to endure so well. Someone was watching us. I looked around the empty courtyard and there it was: a student was hiding behind a tree. She was not moving or blinking, she was just staring at me and Hana, as if she were an inanimate object of sorts.
“There’s one of them right there, Hana. Look!” I pulled Hana towards the tree.
“Please, Akane-chan, you’re scaring me. Stop it!” Hana’s voice was trembling. She tried to stop me with her strength, which was never powerful to begin with.
“I said look at her! Can’t you see it? Are you blind?”
I broke free and pushed Hana to the ground. It wasn’t a hard push, but somehow it sent Hana all the way down into the flowerbed. Hana shrieked and covered her cheek as if I just slapped her, when suddenly her demeanour changed completely.
She started to smile.
No. Not you too.
“Hana?”
“Just play your part. Accept your role.” She said, but it was not in her own voice. It was the voice of an older woman, emotionless, like a robot.
“Who are you? What do you want from me?” I grabbed her collar.
“The Spectators want a happy ending.”
“Stop it, Akane!” Masao yanked me away from Hana. I was in too much shock to be able to defend myself. Almost instantly, Hana stopped smiling and she went back to being who she had always been, a delicate fragile girl who never did anything wrong. She sobbed quietly as Masao helped her stand up.
“You’ve really crossed the line this time.” Masao glared at me. Other students heard the commotion and they started to come out of the building to see what was going on. “What did Hana ever do to you? This is not like you at all.”
“No, YOU were the one who was acting strange. Every single one of you!” I screamed, tears rolling down my face. “How could you pretend that everything was normal? Screw you!”
I got up and ran away as fast as I could. I caught a glimpse of students and strangers staring at me as I sprinted home. It has been four hours now but I refused to unlock my door for anyone, not even Inoue-san. Somehow I felt like I was still being watched, so I closed all the curtains and plucked out the eyes from all my stuffed toys.
The class chatroom was exploding with people talking nasty things about me, as they all witnessed me pushing Hana and grabbing her by the collar. They called me possessed which was truly ironic given what they had done to me.
Of course, the SMS messages flooded in.
You’re done f up girl. You showed the whole class your true colour!!
I’m annoyed with the MC, she should have stood up for herself and beat up Akane
Masao so pretty as always! \swoons**
Akane is the very definition of a narcissistic asshole. She always kept Masao by her side and friendzoned him, then acted like she was entitled to him when Hana came along. Very selfish. I hate a person like this the most.
All these stupid texts made me extremely upset. I couldn’t stop crying at first, but the distress turned into anger very quickly as I realised how absurd these accusations were. I had never had a crush on Masao. I had never been competitive during exams. And I sure as hell, never wanted anything to do with Hana.
As I furiously scrolled through a bunch of texts looking for clues to explain what the heck was going on, one text stood out.
This webcomic is sooooo cliché but I can’t stop reading it! Lol. Akane is a really fun character to hate.
Webcomic? Character? What was this person babbling about?
It took me a split second to realise it, then it hit me like a truck.
I was a character in a webcomic?
Even the idea of it was so absurd, it was almost laughable. But the more I thought about it, the more things started to fall into place. It was a perfect fit. All the pieces of the puzzle came together and formed into a ridiculous, unbelievable revelation.
Yes, all the weird texts I got were very similar to how the comment section of a webcomic might look like. The “story” so far also fitted with typical high school romance plotlines; a charming new girl, a boy having a crush, and a jealous childhood friend. Ever since Hana set her foot into my school, the irresistable power was held over me, forcing me to dance to the rhythm that had been composed by a merciless God.
And as it turned out, God was just some shitty wannabe writer.
The realisation that my entire life was laid in some amateur author’s hand made me so mad in a way I could not describe. I could feel my entire body tense up. Without thinking, I threw my phone at the wall and punched the vanity mirror until it broke. My hand was shaking as blood dripped down into the carpet. As I stared into the broken mirror, my reflection was of a truly unhinged person.
If one of those smiling creeps was here, I guess they would have been satisfied with what they were seeing. After all, I was playing into the character of a crazy villainess pretty well.
You guys wanted me to play my part, to accept my role?
Fine.
Let me show you what a villainess could do then.

Hello Cutie pies! I finally sat down to open all my lovely mail. I wanted to give enough time for the mail to arrive, so I could do a one big post ❤️ I dated the mail, so here is how it goes ❤️
4/21:
u/SNERDBOFF - What a lovely card! I am glad I was the lucky one you used this card for ❤️ the unpacking is not even done yet lmao. You know how that goes ❤️ thanks for writing to me <3.
u/melhen16 - thanks for the doggo card ❤️ there are still a couple things we have not found, but we are all here and that is all that matters ❤️ we are settling nicely tho. Thanks for thinking of us .
4/24
u/stephkempf - thanks for the lovely "HOME" postcard and for warming up my new mailbox and home once again ❤️ much love . u/BATTLE_METAL - hai! thanks so much for the lovely card. I enjoyed the birds on it, lately I have been bird watching in my backyard and this card just reminded me of mah birds. Thanks for thinking of me.
u/truthfulsnack - I loved the story behind your username! Thanks for the housewarming thoughts and for the lovely postcard.
u/ghostchild25 - Thanks so much for the postcard and the Hufflepuff sticker 😄 I loved it very much (tho I am a Ravenclaw...Husband says I would be a better fit as a Hufflepuff...who knows). Sending hugs!
4/25
u/thecaledonianrose - Hi sweetie ❤️ what a beautiful card you sent! Those butterflies sure made me happy. Thanks so much for the wonderful wishes, and for warming up my new mailbox. My mail person isn't that friendly, he also doesn't like dogs, so I am guessing I am not going to get that friendly with him, his loss though. Thanks for the cup'otea - I love spearmint
u/sable__ - Thanks so so much for the Mickey Mouse Postcard my backyard is much more inviting now, I have two very comfy chairs, my plants and a small table to have coffee in the mornings. I also got a Hammock to enjoy the weather. Thanks again!
u/littlemermaidxx - Thanks for the Postcard lil one ❤️ My new place and neighborhood are sure treating us pretty well. I love the community we have moved to, they are very welcoming and friendly. Sending hugs!
u/aepeyc - hi there! I loved the houses on the card you sent 😄 very cute painting. I hate seeing boxes when I move as well, but it doesn't all depend on me this time, so I have had to be a little more patient than usual. The place is looking better though, and I am starting to get used to it. Thanks for writing to me ❤️
u/PinkPengin - You are always making my days better. Just reading about you, or knowing you thought about me when you saw something close to a camper, makes me so so happy! Love you friend!!
u/Jdoodle7 - Dear sweet Jdoodle7 Ill be writing back because I would love to share w you about my animals and much more than that. Thanks for the lovely card. Thankfully, I am blessed to be a Stay At Home Wife 😄 so I take care of our home, and our animals. I will tell you all about them in my next correspondence ❤️ Thanks for warming up my mailbox ❤️
4/26
u/TigerLady13 - Hey sweeheart! Thanks for the lovely recipe 😄 wow so awesome of you to send me a recipe, I love cooking! My neighborhood is pretty awesome. People know me as the girl with the 2 big dogs haha, I walk them daily and most of my neighbors have smaller pets, so they know who I am 😄 sending hugs!
u/allthe_angels x2 - Hi lovely one! You made me 2 cards, I love homemade cards, nothing wrong with store bought, but I treasure homemade ones because I also make cards and I know they take time to make. I loved learning about your landlord, and the 20 labs. I have a lab myself, I cant imagine 20 babies all running around!! That is much like heaven! I Also saw the playlist card, Ill be sure to check out the songs pretty soon. Thanks for writing to me, I am always home and most of the time by myself, and reading you made my day ❤️
u/iheartcitrus - Thanks so much for your postcard! How was your move? Are you all done and unpacked? I hope it went smoother than my move. You never know how much stuff you have until you have to load it in a truck and it fills up faster than expect, lmao. Sending hugs!
u/FollowingTheBeat - Hi there! I loved the card you picked to send me, those flowers are very very pretty! You are right, I have set new habits in my new place. I cook much more than before, and I like coming down to the basement where all my crafts are 😄 organizing has made this area pretty neat, thanks so much for the stickers too!
4/28
u/MumbaGoesPainting - MUMBAAAA ❤️ hi lovely Mumba ❤️ I loved the card you made for me 😄 you painted a lovely penguin. Your mail always makes me happy. I hope you know you are not forgotten ❤️ Ill try to send something back very soon ❤️ thanks for brightening my mailbox
4/29
u/RosesareBLUEtoo - Thanks so much for your card 😄 I have moved at least 15 times that I can remember, I do not like feeling like I never settle, I am sure this isnt my last time moving, but I hope soon we can really set roots somewhere. Thanks for the wishes ❤️
u/lunarknight22 - Once again welcome to the sub ❤️ thanks for thinking of me and sending that lovely card. The gold accents on the birds are stunning. Thanks again!
u/primaryloon - Thanks for the lovely postcard! The first few days were totally rough, I do not do well with change in my life, so it was a little meh. However, like you said, the first pieces of mail help to make it feel like home. I am still organizing things, but it feels much better now. Thanks again 😄
5/1
u/birdiebennett x2 - Hey there lovely human ❤️ thanks for the card and the extra blank postcard ❤️ I love getting items to send to others ❤️ I am too a homebody, but I do enjoy being outside with a cup of coffee and my doggos, I have settled in well (or so i think), but still getting used to stuff. Thanks again for the lovely mail.
u/chibi_haiku - I love love love your handwriting !! its lovely, neat, and small!! Thanks for the lovely ice cream postcard 😄 its been not too hot, so I am happy to keep it cool for longer 😄 my backyard is looking cozier nowadays, so Ill enjoy it for you ❤️
u/unseenbowl - OH MY GOD..... I FREAKING LOOOOOOOOVEEEEEE THIS CARD! Thanks so much for picking such a lovely card for me! I do enjoy my backyard, lately I have been trying to grow some seeds, but I am known to kill plants 😦 so far my 2 little peppers I had at my previous place made it, they suffered but they are recovering nicely one is almost like ghost pepper and the other one is NuMex Suave Orange 😄 they are starting to show little flowers, so I am excited for that. Thanks again!
5/3
u/56Thorns - hey sweetie! Thanks so much for the card 😄 it is super cool! Are you coming for the pizza party? The koala you sent seems to be ready for it! Thanks for the wonderful wishes ❤️
u/KimKimMRW - I LOVED THE POSTCARD! I agree, it may feel a little creepy, but I loved it 😄 thanks for the wishes and love sent my way ❤️
u/VivereMomento - Thanks so so so much for the lovely letter, it was awesome to read about your goth wall of curiosities. I love goth architecture, so yay! 😄 Also, I am so happy you feel like you can do that now on your own place 🙂 . Your room sounds amazing to be honest, we have pitch back curtains, bedding and the furniture, but the walls are still white. Ill take my time to figure that out, this is an older home, so Ill see what needs to be done first. Thanks for the lovely advice, there are a bunch of Facebook Groups for the community where we give away things, and check for events. I am not sure of being part of the board or neighbors thingy. I don't even know if there's one to be honest, is a neighborhood mostly directed to live harmoniously and happily. Anywho, I loved your letter ❤️ thanks again!
5/5
u/BlacksmithEquivalent - I love seeing mail from you! I loved all the wishes and message you sent in that lovely card 😄 I must agree, it feels nice to just go and come as you please and have a space that's your own ❤️ thanks again for sending love my way!
u/omggallout - I loved that you shared with me TV shows that are fun and entertaining. I wish I could do extreme couponing like the show, but it is so hard to find coupons for me, and this area is even harder (more money wise/another income type bracket from where I lived before). I agree with you, If I ever did that, I wouldn't just keep it for myself, I would share and donate, and keep one or two things as back ups. Thanks for writing to me ❤️ I don't mind AT ALL about what you talked about, it gets pretty lonely here, so I enjoyed reading you ❤️
5/8
u/shipping_addict - Hi there! Thanks for your postcard 😄 I will be sure to look up the plant 😄 it seems like they last. Are they strong/resistant? I tend to kill plants, LMAO. Take care
u/Monetmonkey - Hi lovely one ❤️ I did find all my supplies finally! And i finally had a chance to sit down and read all the lovely mail and respond properly 😄 so here I am 😄 thanks for the stickers and washi tape 😄 I loved it all, and thanks so much for thinking of me and sending me sweet wishes and a beautiful card ❤️
5/15
u/CanaMeow x3 - Dear Lovely Cana, I have always been grateful for you ❤️ you always come to my rescue when I do not post the right thing/username. I enjoyed your mail so so much! Thanks for sharing with me your recent trip, the things you loved doing, and things you ate ❤️ I loved reading everything about you, I hope you know I enjoyed every bit of it. Your postcards are so lovely! I am definitely a cat person 😄 teehee 😄 so yes! Write more whenever you want! I wish I had a return address for you, to send you some mail, but I understand if you dont want to share it. Thanks for the love, the postcards, the stickers ❤️ they are all lovely!
5/20
u/GizmoDOS x2 - Thanks so much for the bookmark, your card, the note card, and the stickers! Thank you for the reminder to take a time to listen to my birds, I have many now, there are around 7 crows, 4 blue jays, and like 6 cardinals, there's other ones that I do not know the names, but I know they made a nest by my backyard door 😄 thanks for writing to me ❤️
u/rosiealeo1 x2 - aren't you the loveliest? OMG I loved your photo, the postcard, and the stamps 😄 thanks so much for picking that one for me ❤️ I love gothic architecture, so you nailed this one ❤️ I'll come over to jump in the pool with you, our community pool is a little too expensive teehee. Take care ❤️
As always, remember to stay awesome!
Love you all, and thanks for thinking of me ❤️ this made my months!
ok byeee ❤️

Timestamp and pictures
Hi there, I'm open to offers so feel free to send me a message!
The majority of these items are brand new and have either never been used or were only mounted once for photographs. Please comment before PMing. Thanks.
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Thera75 v1 E-White + Rainbow PVD weight - Comes with extra gaskets and the Xmas badge. Everything is unbuilt, unused and just the way it came - in perfect condition. Consider bundling with the Monokei Kaban case.	340$

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Keysets:
Drop MT3 Susuwatari	70$ - sealed
Drop MT3 White on Black	70$ - mounted once
RAMA Grid - Set B Noct	45$ - used briefly
MilkyWay CMM PBT BoW + 4 Accents: Green, Yellow, Blue, Pink	115$ - sealed
GMK Striker R2 + Spacebars	155$ - sealed
SA Espresso: Alphas, TKL, Novelties, Spacebars, Numpad	225$ - sealed

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Artisans:	Most come with original packaging and authentication cards, etc.
RAMA Bento Waves	60$
RAMA Bento Ō	60$
RAMA GMK Sumi Torii	60$
Systematik Chesire	40$
Systematik Key Fu	40$
Archetype Pharaoh Xiro Cleo - SA Ramses	75$
Archetype Kolkrabba - Ocelot Hunt	125$
Archetype Kolkrabba - Kohaku Sterling	120$
Archetype Kolkrabba - Retrowave Radical	110$
Archetype Kolkrabba - Evolution Origin	100$
Archetype Kolkrabba - SA Bliss	100$
Archetype Syn Ignite	120$
Phangkey OG Fukubo Tuffy	70$
Hello Caps Bongo Cat - Murph n' Turf	240$ (comes with 2 skull pieces)
Balloondog Neon 90s R2 - Flappy	75$
Navacaps CorrBlood O.O	50$
Coconut Precious Stones Melvi - Ruby	110$
FRUMPZKEYS Ink Splash	65$
BadHabitCaps Shade - Sterling Silver	35$
BadHabitCaps Shade - Iced	35$

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Misc:
Drop Holy Pandas x89, Lubed 205g0 + 105 on springs	65$
Monokei Kaban - Suave Blue - TKL Size	90$ Shipped - Brand new. (Most of it is due to shipping costs, sorry)
Hiney H60 PCB - Solder	50$ - Brand new
Monstargear Lube Station S + Switch Opener + Switch Puller + Brush set	45$ - Brand new
UHMWPE+ Linear Stems x110	15$ - Brand new
Kailh Box Red x89	25$

Some things you can add for retail prices:

C3 Screw-In Kit - Tiffany Blue: PVD Wires TKL: Gold, Rose Gold
Durock\Everglide Screw In, 104, Transparent Black
Durock Everglide Panda V3 Plate Mount, 104, Transparent Black
Owlab Owlstabs, TKL, Clear

It all started with the new student.
Aoki Hana was pretty; one could almost say that she was enchanting. With long black hair, large doe eyes, and bubbly smile on her innocent-looking face, she instantly captured the attention from the whole class. Even Masao, my childhood friend, was charmed. He pretended to look outside the window, but I saw him blush after making eye contact with her. I could still remember that day very clearly; it was a warm spring day, with clear blue sky and faint smell of cherry blossom in the air.
The day that my nightmare began.
I paid Hana no mind. She immediately made friends with some other girls, and I thought there was no reason for me to interact with her. We were just classmates, after all. I continued scrolling on my phone, looking at makeup and latest celebrity gossip, you know, the usual girly stuff. That was when I got a text message.
It was weird. In this day and age of messaging apps, no one really texted through SMS anymore.
First!
Umm… What the heck? I was about to exit the app, when several more texts started coming through.
I’m so excited for this! The ML is so cute!
AHHHHH it’s finally here!!!
Get ready everyone! It’s going to be a wild ride!!
They were all from different unknown numbers and seemed to be expressing excitement at something. I was spooked by the amount and the speed at which these weird scam messages were flooding in. I was deleting them one by one when one of the messages caught my eyes.
Just the first chapter but I know that girl Akane is bad news!
That was my name, Akane. I glanced around the classroom, expecting to see one of my friends holding in laughter as they saw my reaction to their little prank. To my surprise, they were all minding their own business, except for one person.
I was not close with Fukuda-san. We barely interacted at all.
But there she was, staring at me from the opposite side of the room, smiling, unblinking.
I got goosebumps. I wanted to confront her right then, but the teacher told everyone to quiet down and started his lesson. During lunch break, I showed the texts to Masao and told him about my suspicion of Fukuda-san, but he just laughed.
“How could it be Fukuda-san? You guys don’t even know each other that well.”
“I don’t know. Why was she staring at me…”
My sentence was cut short as someone bumped into me with full force, somehow knocking the box of juice I was holding out of my hand. As I stabilised myself, I saw Hana fall to the floor with juice poured all over her head.
I was shocked. How did the juice end up on her head of all places? It shouldn’t have been physically possible. The box should have been knocked to the floor, with only a little bit of content spilling, but somehow it looked like the box had completely exploded. Hana looked terrified; her face was flushed red and she looked like she was about to cry.
I bent over to help her up. I was going to apologise.
But for some reason, I just… laughed?
I didn’t know why I did that. The giggles came out of my throat before I could catch them. I covered my mouth with my hands as soon as I realised this, but the damage was done. Masao looked like he had seen a ghost as he helped Hana up.
“Why did you do that, Akane?” He asked.
That was something I wanted to know too. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, Aoki-san.”
“It’s okay.” Hana sniffled. “I-I’ll just change into my gym uniform.”
Hana was the one who got juice spilled all over her, but somehow, I felt so humiliated. Everyone in the canteen was looking at the scene I caused in shock, but I noticed that one of the students was smiling, as if the whole thing was entertaining to her. I didn’t even know that person, but her smile sent a shiver down my spine.
All the while, the notification on my phone kept going off in my pocket.
Masao took Hana to the classroom to get her gym uniform. I hid in the bathroom and checked my phone. Surely, there were more mysterious messages coming in.
And so it starts… Pouring juice is so cliché…
If I were the MC, I would have slapped that little fox when she giggled! GAHH SO FRUSTRATING!
I tried to reply to the text, asking who they were, but it wouldn’t let me send. I also tried to search what MC meant, but nothing relevant came up. Who would prank me like this? It must have been someone in my class who was in the canteen, right?
I got out of the toilet stall and washed my hands. Feeling like being watched, I turned around to see a girl standing near the corner of the bathroom, staring at me.
She was smiling.
“What are you looking at?” I snapped. My heart skipped a beat.
“Sorry, Okamura-san.” The girl said.
I gulped. “How do you know my name?”
“Everyone knows who you are, Okamura-san.” The girl answered without blinking.
I couldn’t concentrate for the rest of the day. No matter what I did, there was always someone, somewhere, watching me. Be it a classmate, other student, or even a teacher, they were always there. By that point, I was really freaking out and was counting down the time until this horrible day ended. After school, I told Masao that I would skip club activities and went straight home.
Mom and dad were still at work. As always, it was just me in this unnecessarily big house. Finally feeling truly alone, I locked myself inside my bedroom and tried to make sense of what just happened. The notifications had subsided. I hesitated for a bit, and turned off my phone.
I was trying to do homework when there were knocks on the door.
“Come in!”
“Hey, Akane!” Masao was there in his casual clothes, it looked like he had gone home to change. “Are you busy? Inoue-san let me in…”
I looked past him to Inoue-san, she was the housemaid and also my nanny since I was little. I had known this woman all my life, I even just said hi to her when I came home twenty minutes ago. But as she stood there in silence, just smiling at me, I felt like I was standing in front of a complete stranger.
Masao was clueless as I pulled him inside and locked the door.
“Masao, Did you see that? Why was everyone so weird today?” I gestured to the door, but Masao just sat down on my bed and started to fumble with my stuffed toy.
“So after you left, Akane, I actually ran into Hana again…” He said excitedly.
“Hana? You’ve only known Aoki-san for one day.”
“I know right! But I feel like I have known her for a long, long time!” Masao squeezed my teddy bear. “She’s so kind and interesting. As it turns out, we also like the same manga!”
I had known Masao since we were children. His house was literally next to mine. I could confirm, with the utmost certainty, that Masao was never into any form of manga. I had been inside his bedroom countless times, but never once did I ever find a single manga there. There were only video games and sports equipment.
“What do you mean? You never read any manga.”
“No, I’ve always loved manga.” Masao insisted.
Weird, I thought to myself, but nevermind that, I had more important stuff to focus on.
“Okay. Good luck with that. Can we focus on what I said earlier, please? Don’t you feel like everyone was staring at us today? First, Fukuda-san, then there was the girl in the bathroom, and Tanaka-sensei too. They are all creeping me out!”
“It’s probably just your imagination.” Masao rolled his eyes.
“I didn’t imagine it! Even Inoue-san was staring at me just now!”
“I didn’t notice that.” Masao shrugged.
Masao was clearly not interested in my concern. Some kind of best friend he was. He just went on and on about his little crush. I was annoyed, but I let him stay because I was too scared to be in the same house as Inoue-san alone. When Masao said he really should go home for dinner, I just grabbed his arm without thinking.
“Can’t you stay? Have dinner at my place tonight.”
“I really can’t. Mom’s going to be mad.” He said.
Disappointed, I walked him home. When I was back at my own home again, Inoue-san was done preparing dinner. She was no longer smiling like a menace; she was back to being the kind middle-aged woman I had always known. The dinner was almost normal, but for some reason, Inoue-san refused to sit and eat with me unlike everyday. She just stood there timidly on the side like a servant waiting for the next order from her master.
When I asked why she was behaving weird, Inoue-san said that this was always how it had been. There was definitely something wrong about Masao and Inoue-san. They kept insisting that they had always been doing something I had never seen them done before.
I turned on the phone again before bed. There were some new messages.
Akane you snake! Did you just regret friendzoning him for all these years, just when he’s about to fall for Hana? Too late girl!
I’m glad Masao left her like that lol. From the way she treats her maid, it’s obvious she’s a spoiled little brat.
HANDS. OFF. MASAO.
That idiot Masao! My hands were trembling with anger as I thought to myself. He was the only one who knew about this interaction. Why would he prank me like this? This was way too cruel. Calling me a snake and accusing me of friendzoning him? He must have lost his mind. I was fuming all night and could barely get any sleep. All I could think about was how I would confront Masao the next day.
As expected, Masao and I had a huge fight.
He firmly denied having anything to do with the mysterious texts, so I called him a liar. He then accused me of being unsupportive as a friend and that I was “making up stories and ignoring him.” In the end, I pushed him away and as I was making my way back, I crossed paths with Hana. Judging from how I startled her, she must have heard the whole thing.
I never felt so alone before. Nobody in my classroom could be trusted. I didn’t know who else was in on the prank, but by now I had caught almost half of them staring and smiling at me on different occasions. Masao also gave me the cold shoulder. He only hung out with Hana now, which seemed to slow down the rate at which I was receiving those nasty texts.
Despite me trying to reason with them, or even yelling at them, none of the pranksters would admit to their cruel joke. They just apologised and continued to smile at me. Outside of school was a little better, but not by much. Sometimes, strangers would stare and smile at me as I walked to school. I went to the police, but they were no help. When one of them stopped talking and started to smile, I just bolted out of there.
There was only one explanation for this: if people seemed crazy everywhere you go, that meant it was you who was losing your mind.
I should have taken myself to the psychiatrist, or at least told mom and dad about what I was seeing. But I was too scared that they would start smiling, too. I avoided my parents like a plague and tried to focus on my studies as a way of distraction, promising myself that I would do something about this terrifying hallucination after mid-term.
Weeks passed, and so did the mid-term exams. I was anxious the whole time. I didn’t want the mid-term to be over as I would have to acknowledge my problem just as I promised myself. But I needed to do something about it, and I needed to talk it out with Masao.
I tried to catch him in the classroom, but I was distracted by some commotion by the announcement board. Apparently, the mid-term results were out, although we literally just had the last test yesterday. My school had never publicly announced the score rank of each class like this, as they feared it might bring embarrassment to those students who didn’t do so well. But somehow, they decided to go with it this time.
My name was in second place, which was weird. I never was a studious person and had never even made the top ten in my class. Above me was Hana, she got the highest score…
“Please calm down, Okamura-san!”
Someone touched my shoulder and I jolted. I turned around to see a student smiling at me, and the rest of my classmates were staring at me in horror as I felt a piece of paper crumpled in my hands. The score announcement had been ripped from the board, and I was the one who did that…?
When did I do that? It was like I blacked out for a bit there.
“W-what?” I dropped the crumpled up paper. “I didn’t do that!”
Hana looked concerned. “Akane-chan, please don’t be too upset by the test result. I’m sure you’re still much smarter than I am.”
Huh?
I swore that the moment Hana started talking, the smiling student turned to look at her instead of me. It was the first time I noticed that. I grabbed Hana’s shoulder.
“Aoki-san, no, Hana, I need to talk to you, please!”
The other students started murmuring nervously, but I could tell they were entertained by all this. Masao stepped up as if he was about to intervene, but Hana just gave him her signature sweet smile. “It’s okay, Masao-kun. Akane-chan and I won’t take long.”
Hana followed me to the courtyard while I tried to formulate in my head how I was going to break all of this to her. How come I never thought of this before? It all started on the day Hana was transferred here; surely this whole bizarre occurrence must have something to do with her. I decided to be blunt.
“Hana, have you noticed people staring at you while smiling lately? I mean, Ishida-san was doing that just now when we were at the announcement board.”
Hana tilted her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about Akane-chan.”
“Come on. You must have noticed it right? They… You think you could just walk in and steal Masao from me?” I screamed.
Wait, no. That was not what I was trying to say. Why-why couldn’t I control myself?
“Akane-chan! It’s not like that! I just wanted all of us to be friends.”
“How dare you! You don’t know Masao like I do! He and I were… Urgh… gahh… STOP TALKING!” I grabbed my own throat in a futile attempt to regain control of my own action. Panic swept over me as I struggled. Hana stared at me with horror; she was on the verge of tears.
That was when I felt a familiar sensation which I had learned to endure so well. Someone was watching us. I looked around the empty courtyard and there it was: a student was hiding behind a tree. She was not moving or blinking, she was just staring at me and Hana, as if she were an inanimate object of sorts.
“There’s one of them right there, Hana. Look!” I pulled Hana towards the tree.
“Please, Akane-chan, you’re scaring me. Stop it!” Hana’s voice was trembling. She tried to stop me with her strength, which was never powerful to begin with.
“I said look at her! Can’t you see it? Are you blind?”
I broke free and pushed Hana to the ground. It wasn’t a hard push, but somehow it sent Hana all the way down into the flowerbed. Hana shrieked and covered her cheek as if I just slapped her, when suddenly her demeanour changed completely.
She started to smile.
No. Not you too.
“Hana?”
“Just play your part. Accept your role.” She said, but it was not in her own voice. It was the voice of an older woman, emotionless, like a robot.
“Who are you? What do you want from me?” I grabbed her collar.
“The Spectators want a happy ending.”
“Stop it, Akane!” Masao yanked me away from Hana. I was in too much shock to be able to defend myself. Almost instantly, Hana stopped smiling and she went back to being who she had always been, a delicate fragile girl who never did anything wrong. She sobbed quietly as Masao helped her stand up.
“You’ve really crossed the line this time.” Masao glared at me. Other students heard the commotion and they started to come out of the building to see what was going on. “What did Hana ever do to you? This is not like you at all.”
“No, YOU were the one who was acting strange. Every single one of you!” I screamed, tears rolling down my face. “How could you pretend that everything was normal? Screw you!”
I got up and ran away as fast as I could. I caught a glimpse of students and strangers staring at me as I sprinted home. It has been four hours now but I refused to unlock my door for anyone, not even Inoue-san. Somehow I felt like I was still being watched, so I closed all the curtains and plucked out the eyes from all my stuffed toys.
The class chatroom was exploding with people talking nasty things about me, as they all witnessed me pushing Hana and grabbing her by the collar. They called me possessed which was truly ironic given what they had done to me.
Of course, the SMS messages flooded in.
You’re done f up girl. You showed the whole class your true colour!!
I’m annoyed with the MC, she should have stood up for herself and beat up Akane
Masao so pretty as always! *swoons*
Akane is the very definition of a narcissistic asshole. She always kept Masao by her side and friendzoned him, then acted like she was entitled to him when Hana came along. Very selfish. I hate a person like this the most.
All these stupid texts made me extremely upset. I couldn’t stop crying at first, but the distress turned into anger very quickly as I realised how absurd these accusations were. I had never had a crush on Masao. I had never been competitive during exams. And I sure as hell, never wanted anything to do with Hana.
As I furiously scrolled through a bunch of texts looking for clues to explain what the heck was going on, one text stood out.
This webcomic is sooooo cliché but I can’t stop reading it! Lol. Akane is a really fun character to hate.
Webcomic? Character? What was this person babbling about?
It took me a split second to realise it, then it hit me like a truck.
I was a character in a webcomic?
Even the idea of it was so absurd, it was almost laughable. But the more I thought about it, the more things started to fall into place. It was a perfect fit. All the pieces of the puzzle came together and formed into a ridiculous, unbelievable revelation.
Yes, all the weird texts I got were very similar to how the comment section of a webcomic might look like. The “story” so far also fitted with typical high school romance plotlines; a charming new girl, a boy having a crush, and a jealous childhood friend. Ever since Hana set her foot into my school, the irresistable power was held over me, forcing me to dance to the rhythm that had been composed by a merciless God.
And as it turned out, God was just some shitty wannabe writer.
The realisation that my entire life was laid in some amateur author’s hand made me so mad in a way I could not describe. I could feel my entire body tense up. Without thinking, I threw my phone at the wall and punched the vanity mirror until it broke. My hand was shaking as blood dripped down into the carpet. As I stared into the broken mirror, my reflection was of a truly unhinged person.
If one of those smiling creeps was here, I guess they would have been satisfied with what they were seeing. After all, I was playing into the character of a crazy villainess pretty well.
You guys wanted me to play my part, to accept my role?
Fine.
Let me show you what a villainess could do then.

Hi! I have found myself in a situation that I am just not sure how best to proceed.
My boyfriend and I have three dogs (10y/o Dane, 7 y/o pitbull, 4 y/o boxer) we recently (Friday) acquired a 2 y/o Dane. His previous owner said he was little anxious and had anxiety medication (trazadone and alprazolam) one they give at least every other day and the other they only give to him on occasion. We also learned that he got neutered a week and a half ago, got medication for inflammation and that they got medication due to a yeast infection in his ears.
Since coming home he has been obsessed with our boxer Diesel. He is mounting diesel every chance he gets, won't stop licking/chewing him, herds him, stands next to him whining and heavy panting if he's not licking, and if he's not allowed near him whines and gets himself amped up to the point of throwing up. He doesn't do this to our other two, presumably because when he tried they snapped at him which our boxer hasn't done.
He isn't showing much interest in food/ treats either which I'd worrying because he's practically skin and bones.
I took him on a 4 mile walk yesterday due to my frustration at his constant mounting and to give Diesel a break, but literally the second we got back he went straight back to obsessing over Diesel.
We have a leash on him and when he starts licking/mounting/chewing we pull him away but then he's right back at it as though nothing happened.
I understand that he just got here, so his anxiety through the roof, and this is his way of trying to relax himself but I am just so frustrated and have no idea what to do, and diesel hasnt had a moment of peace he acts like he's aged 10 years overnight.
Since he doesn't show interest in treats or toys and doesn't seem to know any commands i have no clue how to redirect him other than pulling him away from diesel. Separating them for for a few moments is only making him get more anxious and increasing the behavior once they're reunited, and causing him to throw up.
Do we just need to wait this out? I know if we send him back to his previous owner they're just going to drop him on different people. I feel like if we can just get him past this obsessive behavior and I can work with him on basic obedience training he'll be a good dog.