“Yeah. Protanopia for me.”
“Me too!” Marlon said. She beamed at the chance to commiserate. “I finally have someone to back me up on this!”
“Well, I actually thought salmon looked fine. But now I can actually stand to eat cooked spinach.”
“Oh my god, yes! It always looked like cow shit, right?”
“Yeah, and finding out that peanut butter and applesauce-”
“Are brown, exactly! God!” She bounced in her seat. “Well, he’s got my vote to join.”
Dominic smiled to himself. He hadn’t imagined he’d hit it off so quickly with any of them. Samantha gave him an encouraging tap on his shoe with her own.
“I don’t know,” Alan said, “I don’t think we need any more reasons to get Marlon going off on any more color-blind jags.”
“Well sorry I talk a lot about a massive aspect of my life that was upended suddenly,” Marlon said.
“Yes, what a unique thing to happened to you this year,” Hess said.
“Listen,” Marlon said and pointed a finger at them. She obviously didn’t have a follow up.
“So what has Samantha told you about the group?” Alan asked.
“Just a little bit of history, I guess. I know it was just her and you to start out with. You started dating basically when Samantha started Grad School at Occidental, right?”
“We did,” Alan confirmed.
“And then you two were roommates with Marlon at the time, or something? I know it started being a group thing right after New Year’s. And then I started hearing about Hess only in the last few months.”
“That’s basically it,” Marlon said, “Alan finally admitted he had a crush on me after The Shift and we started going steady.” She batted her eyes at Alan who sneered.
“Ah fuck off,” he said and shoved her to the side, “Samantha was the one who roped you into this whole mess.”
“Oh please, Alan,” Samantha said, “You two were like sitcom-level will-they-or-won’t-they for the first two months of the year.”
“It’s not my fault she turned out so cute,” Alan protested.
“Aw, how sweet of you,” Marlon said and kissed Alan’s grimacing cheek. Hess just folded their arms.
“And I joined this horror show three months ago after knowing Marlon through work for years. I’d be out of here in a second if the house wasn’t as nice and the sex wasn’t so good.”
“Ah c’mon Hess, you love us,” Samantha said and made a kissy face at them. She was soon joined by Marlon and Alan. Hess recoiled back and swatted at them.
“Back, you harpies!”
They all laughed. Dominic smiled but didn’t join in. He’d been holding his breath for the last thirty seconds. He didn’t handle “banter” well. Four times during that conversation his throat tightened, sure an argument was about to break out. He attempted few covert deep breaths as he settled back down.
“Hess is just hard on us cuz they’ve been poly for years,” Alan said, “Thinks we’re a pack of amateurs.”
“Well, you are,” Hess said, “You set up this deposition so we could grill this poor kid.”
“No, it’s really okay,” Dominic hurried to say, “I spend so much time in the lab I kind of miss a lot of chances to socialize. Samantha tried inviting me to things where I would have met you all earlier but I never end up making it.”
“Dominic is by far the most diligent person in the program,” Samantha said, “He’s in the lab hours after everybody’s gone out drinking.”
“That’s just because I screw up and have to redo everything,” he said.
“Everybody screws up, you’re just the only person who bothers to fix stuff,” Samantha countered.
He decided another denial would be poor manners.
“Whatever the reason, I kinda tend to neglect stuff outside work and that’s how I got in trouble with my landlord. I sorta forgot a payment and he’s kicking me out. He’s been looking for an excuse to evict me for a while now. My rent’s a lot lower than what he could get out of it.”
He lowered his eyes, embarrassed.
“Yeah, Samantha told us about your situation,” Hess said, “Sucks pretty bad, dude.”
“Thanks. I feel kinda bad coming to you with this big sob story and expecting you to crash your big existing relationship though.”
“Dominic, please stop talking about it like that,” Samantha said and put a hand on his, “I really do want you to be part of this relationship with everyone’s blessing. This apartment thing kind of accelerated things, but I don’t want you to feel guilty.”
“Yeah Dominic,” Marlon said, “I’d love to get to know you better.”
“Honestly Samantha’s recommendation means more than anything else I can think of,” Hess said, “And we’ve honestly got the room. If it ends up being more of a roommate thing, that’s fine with me. Besides, I think I could warm up to a cute guy like you.”
Dominic blushed a little.
Everyone’s eyes turned to Alan who had his armed folded. He shrugged.
“Well, it looks like everyone else is on board,” he said and uncrossed his arms. He pointed at Dominic with a jocular jab, “Just don’t expect me to take you home tonight and fuck you on the first date.”
Alan laughed and Dominic finally felt comfortable enough to join him.
“Don’t worry, I wasn’t planning on using mine tonight or anything.”
Alan’s laugh ran headfirst into a brick wall. Hess and Marlon performed nearly inaudible gasps.
“What was that?” Alan asked in the flattest monotone.
“I, uh, wasn’t planning on having sex or anything tonight.”
“No, did you just say you’re packing right now?”
Alan stared dead into Dominic’s eyes. He was too scared to look away.
“Oh, uh, yeah. I’m a lefty. Um, waning crescent that is, you know. On the late side…”
The words fell out of his mouth and crumbled on the table. Alan stared him down a few more seconds before turning to Samantha.
“Samantha, can I talk with you for a moment?”
He threw his napkin on his seat and turned to walk away without waiting for her response.
“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of this,” Samantha said with a sigh and followed him out of earshot down the sidewalk.
Dominic turned to look at the pitying faces of Hess and Marlon.
“What’s wrong?”
“Alan’s a lefty too,” Marlon said, “He’s, uh, pretty protective about it.”
“He is?” Dominic squeezed out of his constricted throat.
“Yeah,” Hess said, “He kinda hoards Samantha to himself those three days.”
Dominic turned to see Alan and Samantha argue unintelligibly thirty yards away. Alan turned to look back and him and he ducked his head down.
“Sh-should I go?” he stuttered, his heart racing. Hess and Marlon looked back and forth between each other.
“Fuck man, I dunno, maybe,” Hess said, “We’ll try and help Samantha smooth this out, okay?”
“Yeah, we’ll try and take care of this. Sorry,” Marlon added.
He nodded and hunched out of his seat, thankful the bus stop was in the opposite direction from the argument. The decision to eat before also seemed like the right one.
Message Board Thread
Warline Main Discussion
Unofficial Warline Forums
Wednesday May 9, 128 days after
TOPIC: Poseidon reveals Post-Shift content plans and new Matchstick and Percival designs
#1 – 2018-05-09 14:25
Yung_Grasshoppa
Senior Member
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http://www.poseidon-games.com/warline/news/20938082/post-shift_content_plans
Poseidon FINALLY revealed what the hell they’re doing for all the male characters of the game.
tl;dr if you don’t click through
● All the male characters are getting a redesign which will be the n
ew default skin
● They all get one new paid DLC skin
● Players can still select the old designs if they want and can still use any skins they’ve bought
● Update will go out June 9
● All female characters will get a new skin too so nobody whines
● New designs for Matchstick and Percival were shown, with three or four new designs to be released each week
I’m definitely glad that all my DLC will carry over. I spent way too much money on those. The two designs they showed are okay. Matchstick still looks like he’s nuts and Percy hardly changed at all. He was always a pretty fancy lad anyway.
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#2 – 2018-05-09 14:27
Marmaduchess
Senior Member
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My beautiful, precious, sweet, perfect fire boy! You’re all grown up!
( T_T )
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#3 – 2018-05-09 14:27
Swan2John
Member
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Took em long enough.
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#4 – 2018-05-09 14:28
Ruckus
Member
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These designs are lame. They basically got rid of facial hair and game them each B-cups. At least we get some sideboob with Matchstick through the suspenders.
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#5 – 2018-05-09 14:29
Made of Chemicals
Senior Member
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OMG are you seriously complaining about the size of the boobs on the male characters?
Fucking gamers ( —_—)
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#6 – 2018-05-09 14:30
ICEDragon
Senior Member
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I’m kinda surprised they bothered making these new original designs with all the gender-swap fan art there is out there. Most of the characters have a fan-canon version that’s pretty much standardized at this point. I don’t know why they just don’t use those versions. Some fans would probably eat that shit up.
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#7 – 2018-05-09 14:32
10essee Grl
Senior Member
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lmao it’s going to be hilarious when all the dudes have regular-sized boobs and all the ladies still have stripper tits
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#8 – 2018-05-09 14:33
ShadTheGreat
Senior Member
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C’mon, you know Finster and Leontii are gonna bring the goods. Those dudes are gonna turn out thicc as hell.
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#9 – 2018-05-09 14:34
Billlllllllllll02
Senior Member
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Leontii’s still gonna be fat, but you just know Finster’s gonna have baps and like maybe hips and that’s it.
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#10 – 2018-05-09 14:37
Overdoze
Senior Member
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> ICEDragon said:
I don’t know why they just don’t use those versions.
I bet the real reason is they’d get in copyright trouble. Whoever the first fan artist it was that drew the first “canonical” girl version of Musashi or whoever could sue Poseidon for copying their character. Even though their work was derivative of their own character they would probably still want to avoid any legal hassle.
Also these aren’t gender swaps they’re post-shift guys.
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#11 – 2018-05-09 14:39
Arcane92
Senior Member
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This is bullshit, why don’t the ladies get a redesign?
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#12 – 2018-05-09 14:40
Yung_Grasshoppa
Senior Member
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What, so they can make them all 8cm taller?
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#13 – 2018-05-09 14:41
Malorkus
Senior Member
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They could have them sporting some chest hair.
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#14 – 2018-05-09 14:41
Nate_or_Die
Member
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None of them would keep that. All the girls I know shave their chest now.
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#15 – 2018-05-09 14:43
Marmaduchess
Senior Member
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You need to meet some more interesting women. And Warline takes place in the future when we’ve alL OVERTHROWN THE TYRANY OF THE RAZOR.
( ^o^ )/
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#16 – 2018-05-09 14:44
Brosuke
Administrator
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*imagines Bellavesta in her nurse outfit with a little scruff on there*
Hmmmm, sort of want…
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#17 – 2018-05-09 14:45
Phineas Q. Butterfat
Senior Member
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I bet a lot of the female characters would shave but maybe some of them would keep it natural. Maybe not ones like Nightingale but maybe one like, oh, I dunno…
Harrier.
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#18 – 2018-05-09 14:46
Mattress Disco
Senior Member
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> Phineas Q. Butterfat said:
Harrier.
Hello, police? I’d like to report a crime.
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#19 – 2018-05-09 14:48
[BB]Pullman
Senior Member
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Chest hair or no I wanna see the design for Tar. I want full-blown country girl. I want daisy dukes and a tied off plaid shirt holding back bolted-on tits. I want ten pounds of makeup and a trucker hat with hair down to his ass. I want his semi-truck to have mudflaps with self-portraits on them.
Poseidon, I beg you, give me this and I will by season passes for me and everyone in my family. Please.
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#20 – 2018-05-09 14:50
Malorkus
Senior Member
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……
Well at least you know your type.
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#21 – 2018-05-09 14:51
getsmoked
Member
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Oh fuck I just realized that with Panther’s cat theme they’re probably make him into some goddamn anime cat girl. Please Poseidon, let my main keep some dignity…
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#22 – 2018-05-09 14:53
Us Chickens
Senior Member
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I noticed they didn’t say anything in the press release about any kind of story justification for the redesigns. Do you think they’re going to put out any sort of trailers explaining the change or on June 9th are they just gonna put up a notice after the update that just says “lol retcon”?
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#23 – 2018-05-09 14:55
ShadTheGreat
Senior Member
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I mean, the game takes place in the future. The Shift already happened decades ago in their timeline. There’d be no reason to rehash it.
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#24 – 2018-05-09 14:56
Us Chickens
Senior Member
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Yeah, but I mean are we just supposed to pretend all the trailers and cut-scenes that used the previous designs never happened? Are they just going to release them all again shot-for-shot with the new character designs?
I dunno it’s just a weird way to do it.
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#25 – 2018-05-09 14:58
Overdoze
Senior Member
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Honestly, I prefer this version where it’s just a clean break. Have you seen what some of the superhero comics are doing? They’re doing these huge, companywide storylines about it. It’s horrible and it’s screwing up with everyone’s publishing schedule.
&n
bsp; The worst thing is they’re trying to come up with these stupid fictional, in-universe explanations for The Shift and it’s the goddamn dumbest shit imaginable. It’s frankly insulting.
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#26 – 2018-05-09 15:00
Brosuke
Administrator
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Seriously though, insultingly stupid fictional in-universe explanations for historical events are kinda par for the course for comics.
The Shift: Scenes from the Year Humanity Lost Sex Page 9
