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Holy poo poo we're totally coming back for that spear at some point  
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Sep 28, 2017 00:52
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Ice Phisherman posted:After some careful explaining Sasha explained that as a young woman . . . Double use of explaining/explain? Ice Phisherman posted:The man threw the knife at a target and buried it in said target all the way up to the hilt. Nevermind, you fixed it already.  Ice Phisherman posted:Fuzzy was desperate for the spear that was a knife. She would do terrible, shameful things for that weapon. Ewwwww. Also, brings up an interesting point, what is morality to Fuzzy? What's her sense of right and wrong? What are 'shameful' acts for her? Maybe Kenji wasn't that far off with his comment about looking like her pimp? Still, good to know beneath it all she's still a teenage girl. Ice Phisherman posted:SPEAR THAT'S A KNIFE! So, about that; who's the target demo for that weapons store? I get why Fuzzy wants it, and, who else living inside this Ares building would have a need for such things? Unless its just more impulse or hobbit 'stuff' that people buy because they can?
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Sep 28, 2017 01:17
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Crazycryodude posted:Holy poo poo we're totally coming back for that spear at some point The neat thing about it is that that spear is actually in one of the books. Not an Ares model, but I cheated a little. CourValant posted:Ewwwww. I think I'm going to go back and rephrase that. I wasn't trying to evoke that sort of feeling. Edit: Fixed it. I'm walking a sort of tightrope here. I don't want to creep myself or others out. After all, Fuzzy is still a young girl. I won't avoid these topics, but they're going to get a super light hand and I'll try to keep them both respectful and either G or PG. On the other hand they're in a dystopian, exploitative world that's filled with adults that would not treat them kindly. I imagine Fuzzy as never having killed a person before though. She's a hunter not a fighter and would evade whenever possible. quote:So, about that; who's the target demo for that weapons store? I get why Fuzzy wants it, and, who else living inside this Ares building would have a need for such things? In Shadowrun pre-firearms weapons have come back into style. They're easier to stuff full of magic and a small caliber firearm may not take down a troll like it would a human. Also a troll with crazy strength can pull a bow that essentially shoots javelins at several hundred pounds of draw strength. The conceit of Shadowrun is high technology, low lives, nuyen and old weapons. Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Sep 28, 2017 |
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Sep 28, 2017 01:18
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Spear that's a 🔪!!!!! Julian..... Please please Get Kenji ton negotiate a new deal with Julian to get us SpearKnife
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Sep 28, 2017 01:18
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Ice Phisherman posted:Edit: Fixed it. I'm walking a sort of tightrope here. I don't want to creep myself or others out. After all, Fuzzy is still a young girl. I won't avoid these topics, but they're going to get a super light hand and I'll try to keep them both respectful and either G or PG. On the other hand they're in a dystopian, exploitative world that's filled with adults that would not treat them kindly. Sounds good, and agreed; Fuzzy isn't stupid, and having grown up in the Barrens, she knows all about exploitation and what that means in all its depraved, degenerate, forms. Depending on how you want to address the issue, it could just be another 'commodity' that she's willing to trade. Yes, that's creepy and wrong, and, that's also how the world works. Heck, that's how the world works now; I trust you to use your best judgement. Ice Phisherman posted:The conceit of Shadowrun is high technology, low lives, nuyen and old weapons. Thanks, while I'm familiar with Shadowrun, I'm not fully versed in it.
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Sep 28, 2017 01:46
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WE MUST ABSOLUTELY HAVE THAT SPEAR THAT IS A KNIFE! You're skirting uncomfortable topics well, btw, don't worry. Fuzzy is probably too naive to understand sex as a weapon anyway so it's no big deal. Besides, as I said, you've treated the subject matter gingerly enough it's obvious you're not being exploitative or raunchy.
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Sep 28, 2017 02:39
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Fuzzy, Sasha, Matt Oliver, Anita Oliver, Kenji and Marco - Saturday, August 11th 2074 - Evening - Ares Macrotechnology Arcology "So my daughter won't stop talking about you...Fuzzy...Is it?" asked Mr. Oliver. Fuzzy swallowed her food, nodded and smiled. "Daaaad..." complained Sasha. Fuzzy was in heaven. Tonight they were having porks. So juicy, slightly salty, slightly sweet with a heavy fat content that the Oliver family all cut off, but Fuzzy kept on despite the fact that it was a little chewy. Mr. Oliver was a brick of a man with salt and pepper hair, a square jaw, brown skin, discerning brown eyes and a heavily muscled frame. One hand was cyberware, though Fuzzy almost missed this as it was skinned to look his normal color and the other was real. He wore his uniform along with a shiny badge. Those discerning eyes were trained on Fuzzy which made her feel nervous, but not nervous enough to kill her appetite for porks. Mrs. Oliver was willowy like Sasha. Not beautiful, but pretty with dark hair and brown skin. Her features were delicate and she had the same color eyes as Sasha had. Fuzzy wondered which parent she got her ability to dress someone down from. Probably her dad, the cop, who was definitely not a gang leader as Sasha had explicitly told her. If there was a difference she didn't fully understand yet. "We're just happy that Sasha found a friend," said her mother. "Moooom..." she groaned. "My best friend," said Fuzzy, simply. She knew about napkins now and so used. Unlike earlier at breakfast, Fuzzy did not wipe her mouth with her sleeve like she normally did. Sasha smiled happily. Her parents looked from their daughter to Fuzzy and didn't know exactly what to make of the young girl. Short, blonde hair, blue eyes, small of stature, but with muscle compacted within it, pretty though she'd chosen to forgo any makeup. Normally her older, conservative parents would have judged her harshly from her looks to her lack of a SIN just two weeks ago and the security alert that was tripped. They approved of Fuzzy despite her shortcomings because they were happy that their normally friendless daughter finally had a friend that she would not only bring home, but lasted more than a few weeks. They were also impressed by Sasha's boasting that Fuzzy was in the top 10% of her class in terms of innate magical talent, which mollified them. Upper management of one of the largest corporations in the world made them nearly nobles in the eyes of their corporation after all and they approved of their daughter making friends with an awakened with so much potential. "I think it's good that you're going hunting together. I haven't been in years. Maybe you and I can go sometime, Fuzzy,” said Mr. Oliver. Sasha's father always wanted a son to go hunting with. He'd never invited Sasha because he never thought she'd be interested. He invited Fuzzy without a second thought and didn't realize how he'd treated Sasha in that moment. Instead his cop brain was 100% engaged and he was thinking of ways to do a soft interrogation of Fuzzy in a private setting. Fuzzy was completely oblivious due to the food, or she would have noticed. "That sounds great. I use a bow though. I’m not a big fan of guns," said Fuzzy. "You're welcome here anytime, hunting or not," said Sasha's mother. Sasha's mother saw Fuzzy's pixie cut hair, leather clothing and lack of makeup and assumed she was a lesbian. She said nothing and privately worried about not having grandchildren one day. Fuzzy thought the dinner went well. Any dinner with free food and porks was great. She didn't talk much which was aided by the fact that she went back for seconds which kept her mouth mostly full. So Sasha did most of the talking between her and Fuzzy, which was minimal. Instead the night was consumed with pleasantries. Neither of her parents asked her about what a teenager who'd spent her entire life as a SINless barrens dweller was doing this high in the Ares Macrotechnology arcology. That would be rude. They had other people to be rude for them. There was an entire police force of trained professionals in her father's case not to mention internal corporate security. It was late though and her father, Matt, was going to enjoy his single day off a week in the morning. So he bid them all good night, kissed Sasha on the cheek and Sasha’s mother, Anita, on her lips. Her mother made hot chocolate for the girls with marshmallows and made small talk which Fuzzy had become passable at due to mealtime talk with Sasha for two weeks now. Fuzzy was pleased that her diet had expanded so broadly from soy, a few withered vegetables she traded for and whatever meat she hunted. Now she had nearly infinite choices and every day brought new, exciting and most of all, tasty types of food. Having showered earlier, she slipped into the night clothing Sasha bought for her scant hours before and went to Sasha's room. It was conspicuously clean for the room of a teenager, but Fuzzy had no idea that was abnormal. Her bed looked soft, but she'd pulled out an air mattress for Fuzzy with her very own blanket and pillow, which made her happy. There were some posters on the walls. Sasha explained they were favorite trideo shows of hers, and waved her hand at the trideo tank at the wall. "Three dimensional television," she said by way of explanation, "It accepts comm calls too." Fuzzy had seen trideo before, but she’d never taken the time to watch. So when explanation failed about her shows she turned it on. A man was in the tank and singing against a well-lit stage. Not a real man though. She knew that much. She nodded and Sasha turned it back off as Fuzzy didn’t seem particularly interested. Her room was full of other pictures both moving and still. A picture of her family was placed on her desk. There was a second commlink, a few personal knickknacks, a video game system and a mirror. Everything was so pretty. She smiled at Sasha and noticed that Sasha looked away from her quite suddenly and cleared her throat. Fuzzy wondered why she was staring. "So I don't think we can ignore it anymore," said Sasha, "We have to talk about what happens to you, Kenji and Julie." "Yeah..." sighed Fuzzy. Fuzzy lay back heavily on the air mattress and looked up at Sasha as she rested on her elbows near the edge of her bed and looked down at her. "We should call Kenji. He's good at that this stuff," said Fuzzy. "Fuzzy, I can't really state this enough, but he's a pervert who grabbed your butt the first day he met you," said Sasha. "Actually he didn't if I'm being honest," she said, sheepishly. Sasha raised an eyebrow. "What?" asked Sasha. Fuzzy fidgeted uncomfortably. "When I got here I knew less than nothing. Julian recruited me and the next day I was here. When I went to the bonfire I was resigned to getting beat down or burned,” said Fuzzy, anxiously. "What?! Why?" exclaimed Sasha, bewildered. "I didn't know what a school was. Barrens kid. No schooling. I...Can't even read," said Fuzzy, who blushed. Sasha reached down and put a hand on Fuzzy's shoulder. After a time she felt good enough to continue. "Almost of the people in groups that that I know are gangs, and when you get initiated you get beat down or worse. I've seen it happen before. I never joined one because I was too small to get noticed and Rat Man could give me some protection, but I thought since I have magic now that I was going to get beat in,” explained Fuzzy, “Kenji knew a little about me, explained things fast and gave me an out once I told him what I expected. He never hurt me. In fact he asked me to hurt him to make people believe it. Otherwise I might have outed just how clueless I was on the very first day. Maybe...I wouldn't have gotten to know you without him- Without that time." Sasha squeezed her shoulder. Fuzzy looked away. "Okay, let's call Kenji," she said. Sasha didn't have Kenji's number and neither did Fuzzy. After all he'd handed her his burner commlink and they chatted on that and as far as she could figure out she never used hers to speak to him, but Fuzzy was clueless when it came to this stuff after all. Technically Fuzzy could have called Julian, but she didn’t really know him that well and so she didn’t want to rely on him. Sasha did know Marco though, and Marco had been hanging out with both Kenji and Julie. Crossing her fingers she called Marco. "Gonna get a snack," said Fuzzy. "Mkay, hurry up though,” said Sasha, distractedly. Sasha’s eyes lit up from her smart contacts as Fuzzy left. Some minutes later, Fuzzy came back with a sandwich and some juice. It seemed like it had taken Sasha some minutes to get in contact with Marco, because she’d just started to speak to him when she got back. "Yeah, it's Sasha. I was wondering if you had Kenji or Julie's comm number," said Sasha, who huffed out a breath of annoyance to what she heard, “Oh, come on. Don't be cagey. I'm with Fuzzy and want to help." Fuzzy heard a few muffled words, the tones low as Sasha held her thin, silvery, rectangular shaped commlink against her ear instead of using earbuds. "Your mom is weird," said Fuzzy, “She kept staring at me.” "Shhh...No, she didn’t mean you, Marco,” continued Sasha, “Wait, you're with both of them? Great! Can we do a conference call?" There was more muffled talk. Fuzzy still couldn’t hear Marco, but the cadence of his voice sounded hesitant. There was a pause, a little more speech and then a single word. Sasha flashed Fuzzy a thumb’s up. "Okay, can you at get Kenji on the line?” asked Sasha, “My trideo tank has comm access." She looked to Fuzzy in her night clothes and then remembered she was in hers as well. "Uhhh...Audio only though. Uh…Camera is on the fritz,” said Sasha, unconvincingly. Sasha put her hand up to the phone to muffle it peered over the edge of the bed to the air mattress where Fuzzy sat. "We're in our night clothes,” she whispered, “I don't want them peeking." Fuzzy ate her sandwich and shrugged. "Yeah, hey," said the voice of Kenji. He and Marco's 3d avatars were displayed on the monitor. "This is Marco. Sorry about Julie. She's in the bathroom right now,” he said, sadly. “She is not having a good day. I can't get her to come out." Kenji sighed audibly. "So...Strategy meeting?" asked Kenji. "Strategy meeting," agreed Marco. "Strategy meeting," echoed Sasha. "Strrrgy meephing," said Fuzzy, around a mouthful of sandwich. CYOA Time What do we ask? What's the strategy? What are we fearing and expecting? Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 09:29 on Aug 12, 2018 |
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Sep 28, 2017 03:05
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Hexenritter posted:Besides, as I said, you've treated the subject matter gingerly enough it's obvious you're not being exploitative or raunchy. I'm having a hard time with it. Without sounding too stuck up, I like to think what I'm making is art and art is transgression by nature. I'm used to transgressing and purposefully not doing so for any reason is a new one on me, though I've never handled this particular subject matter before. I really tried to play up a comedy angle here with the mother and tried to do a light touch about her mother basically discovering that her daughter likes girls which is becoming an increasingly standard teenage experience. However I can cut things if they go over the line. I think it's funny, but I've never let that stop me from taking poo poo to the cutting room floor if it feels wrong. So if I even get one person who's offended I'll do a rewrite. Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Sep 28, 2017 |
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Sep 28, 2017 03:07
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Oh yeah, I don't mind it, I thought it was pretty funny. Honestly nothing's struck me as creepy or over the line or anything, as long as you keep it PG-13 or so it should be fine. All the characters are like, 16, raging hormones and sexual awakening is kinda just a fact of life. On that note, what the hell, Sasha? I'm not gonna go so far as to call it sexual assault or anything, but buying a skimpy outfit for the barrens urchin you've got a crush on and having them wear it when they don't know any better feels kinda... exploitative, I guess? Whatever, teenagers do dumb poo poo, perfectly in character. Wouldn't be high school if people weren't doing incredibly cringey things. I like Sasha's dad, we should definitely go hunting together sometime, even if it is a blatant attempt to interrogate us. Hopefully we can make a good impression. Crazycryodude fucked around with this message at 03:25 on Sep 28, 2017 |
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Sep 28, 2017 03:14
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Okay, after reading your comment I'm going to cut it. Just because something is in character and makes sense in the narrative doesn't mean I have to keep it. As a tabletop gamer I've heard that way too many times. The "My character would do it" line. I don't want that to be me. I also want to keep the tone of their friendship light and sweet and I want Sasha to stay a sympathetic character, not exploitative. When you say, "What the hell, Sasha" I have to be aware that Sasha is a character that I am creating and not entirely external to me. So I didn't do a full cut of the humor and kept a little in. I just turned down the volume a bit with the second part of the joke and kept the first part. Edit: Forgot to add the CYOA choice at the end. Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 03:59 on Sep 28, 2017 |
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Sep 28, 2017 03:35
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Alright, yeah, fair enough. I mean, it's something I can totally see a dumbass teenager doing, but on the other hand it is kinda squicky. And you're right, the "oh but it's in-character" types can be insufferable, I totally get wanting to keep it light in here. E: Oh, edited in the CYOA choice at the end. Lemme think on that. E2: I think priority 1 is just sorting out what exactly the rumors are, and judging how hard they'll hit us all on Monday. Then start triage and run damage control where we can. Try and get Julie to come out of the bathroom. Maybe start a counter-offensive to try and dilute the one against us? I dunno, Kenji's the expert. Crazycryodude fucked around with this message at 03:43 on Sep 28, 2017 |
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Sep 28, 2017 03:40
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Crazycryodude posted:Alright, yeah, fair enough. I mean, it's something I can totally see a dumbass teenager doing, but on the other hand it is kinda squicky. And you're right, the "oh but it's in-character" types can be insufferable, I totally get wanting to keep it light in here. Oh totally. I was a pretty stupid teenager and did crazy stupid teenager poo poo. Cringey poo poo too. I didn't start shedding bad habits until my early twenties. Start. Not finish. Start. I want Sasha to stay a likable character, but painfully awkward. Painfully awkward and unlikable means I'll stop being interested in writing her. Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 03:51 on Sep 28, 2017 |
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Sep 28, 2017 03:49
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I'm in my late thirties and I still haven't unlearned how to be a rambunctious teenager  Re CYOA question: Yeah I definitely think finding out what the rumours are and judging how bad their impact is going to be is job one. Job two is *not advocating violence against young women, approaching this from a "what would a half-feral survivor from the Barrens think and do" angle.
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Sep 28, 2017 04:52
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Just caught up and want to say this is cool as hell. I can't get enough of your way of making the Shadowrun world come alive. I love how skillfully you make the characters distinct and believable while simultaneously doing the same for the world they inhabit. Everything feels very balanced.
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Sep 28, 2017 05:34
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Ice Phisherman posted:Fuzzy was in heaven. Tonight they were having porks. So juicy, slightly salty, slightly sweet with a heavy fat content that the Oliver family all cut off, but Fuzzy kept on despite the fact that it was a little chewy. Please don't let Fuzzy get fat; High School is tough enough for her without body image issues brought on by Mean Girls. Ice Phisherman posted:Sasha's mother saw Fuzzy's pixie cut hair, leather clothing and lack of makeup and assumed she was a lesbian. She said nothing and privately worried about not having grandchildren one day. Is adoption not a thing in the Shadowrun world? Or, artificial insemination? Ice Phisherman posted:"Strrrgy meephing," said Fuzzy, around a mouthful of sandwich. Dear Me. You're making me like this character in-spite of myself; I normally do not root for the underdog. Ice Phisherman posted:I like to think what I'm making is art and art is transgression by nature. I'm used to transgressing and purposefully not doing so for any reason is a new one on me, though I've never handled this particular subject matter before. Why would you think your writing isn't art? I makes us think, it challenges us, it exists solely to gives us enjoyment and entertainment; checks all the boxes to me Chief. Ice Phisherman posted:So if I even get one person who's offended I'll do a rewrite. Not sure how I feel about this statement, although its your creation and you have much more experience in this realm than I do, clearly. My point is, something which is completely inoffensive and innocuous to EVERYONE seems bland and boring. Its a fine line to be sure, and, you're doing wonderfully so far. Just, continue to challenge us, make us think, without being gross about it? Ice Phisherman posted:I didn't start shedding bad habits until my early twenties. Hexenritter posted:I'm in my late thirties and I still haven't unlearned how to be a rambunctious teenager Agreed; at this point in life, I'm pretty much the sum total of my bad habits.  Ice Phisherman posted:CYOA Time 1) What exactly are the accusations leveled against us? (per the other comments already) 2) How exactly are these accusations bad? 3) Find a way to turn the mirror back against the majority of the student body, i.e., 'let he who is without sin cast the first stone'. If Sasha is any indication, all of the students who goes to Blake Island is a 'freak' to a certain degree (think Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters). So, while I get that these are privileged kids who are outright brats, perhaps we can yet appeal to their sense of decency, i.e., shame them: a) "Yay, you're picking on a sin-less Barrens Feral child, good for you, does it make you feel better about yourself?" b) "Yay, you're picking on a kid who survived the horrors of that archology, good for you, does it make you feel better about yourself?" c) "Yay, you're picking on a girl who's Father almost murdered her for turning goblinoid, good for you, does it make you feel better about yourself?" 4) Offer Christina a 'Billy Martin'; their secret was always going to come out anyways, so, first one's free. However, make it clear to her that these three are not the people you want to take on, especially all at once. Yes, Christina can make their time unpleasant at school. These three can make her dead, consequences be damned, because Fuzzy can just go back to the Barrens, Julie can just go back to jail, and Kenji was always going to be a Shadowrunner. To be perfectly honest, the worst that could happen is everyone finds out about their backgrounds, nobody likes them at school anymore, and they live at the bottom of the social ladder. Its not like they can be bullied any harsher than they already have. Maybe I'm looking at this too much from an adult's eyes; after all, I'm not a moody adolescent who might do something I might regret because someone posted something on twitter about me. Maybe I don't have the right perspective on this.
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Sep 28, 2017 06:04
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Althair posted:Just caught up and want to say this is cool as hell. I can't get enough of your way of making the Shadowrun world come alive. I love how skillfully you make the characters distinct and believable while simultaneously doing the same for the world they inhabit. Everything feels very balanced. Yeah. I especially enjoyed the way he described the ACHE. You could really taste the funk in the air. CourValant posted:[stuff] I agree with all of this.
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Sep 28, 2017 06:23
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Althair posted:Just caught up and want to say this is cool as hell. I can't get enough of your way of making the Shadowrun world come alive. I love how skillfully you make the characters distinct and believable while simultaneously doing the same for the world they inhabit. Everything feels very balanced. I'm glad you enjoy it. I'm trying hard to write a fresh and interesting take on Shadowrun. The lore is so rich that you don't really even have to focus on shadowrunners and instead sprinkle them in, or have a character dip in a toe to see if he or she likes the nuyen or having their soul in tact more. I look back on my time playing shadowrun in the past and then I compare it to this story and think to myself why I like the story so far. Then I'm like, "Yeah, this is a Shadowrun story where not all of the characters are sociopaths." It feels surprisingly good. When playing with a group the episodic nature of Shadowrun, lack of consequences and lack of engagement with the story (if there even is one) means you have pink mohawk trolls rolling down the street and firing miniguns into security forces GTA style. There's definitely a place for that in gaming, but it bleeds into storytelling and it just becomes a GTA simulator and harms telling interesting stories. I'm trying to move away from pink mohawking. CourValant posted:Is adoption not a thing in the Shadowrun world? Or, artificial insemination? Everything is possible with Shadowrun splatbooks. quote:Why would you think your writing isn't art? I makes us think, it challenges us, it exists solely to gives us enjoyment and entertainment; checks all the boxes to me Chief. It's not that it isn't art. I would just prefer to call it art when I finish. quote:Not sure how I feel about this statement, although its your creation and you have much more experience in this realm than I do, clearly. My point is, something which is completely inoffensive and innocuous to EVERYONE seems bland and boring. Its a fine line to be sure, and, you're doing wonderfully so far. Just, continue to challenge us, make us think, without being gross about it? Before I say this I'm not leveling a finger at anyone. Just recounting my experiences and explaining why I'm acting like I am. Part of tabletop gaming for a big part of my life was that I'd occasionally stumble across people who weren't playing characters. They were playing themselves as power fantasies and those fantasies would occasionally involve abusing characters I'd create (me essentially) or other players at the table in which case I'd tell them to cut it out and if they didn't then kick them out. There's something about tabletop gaming that attracts creeps who openly want to be creeps and I'm being extra super careful to treat the topic delicately. I'd rather finish this without feeling gross and I want this to be completed without some mod sticking it in the gas chamber. At the same time I came from writing romance. One of the reasons, though not that main reason I left was occasionally I'd get people wanting to pay me for super illicit stories with a "character" that is obviously themselves and someone else, and I'd say about 75% of the time what they were asking for was intensely creepy, illegal or both. Usually both. The money was tempting, but my stories are never just fired off into the ether and I have a responsibility to others not to feed the addictions of predators. That's not what I'm doing here, rest assured, however it's made me intensely skittish when it comes to said topic. It's a reaction that's been baked into me by years of writing. Fiction has a profound effect on people and I don't want to project awfulness out into the world, because if I was less ethical I'd probably be much wealthier. (Going to meander a bit off topic now, but getting back to you talking about challenging you and making you think) However for pretty much any other topic I value experimental and bold prose. I value failure and I learn from my failures, and trust me when I say I've failed a lot. I value intense feelings and emotions over logic without ignoring logic. When I watched the old Bond movies the actions scenes were all flash. He'd fire his Walther PPK and murder the gently caress out of extras dressed in silly costumes. It looked cool but it likely never stuck with you for more than a few seconds. So when we have a fight scene in the story it's not going to be people hitting people with swords or shooting bullets. You're not going to remember that and so while those should happen the main thrust should be on creating tension. If not facing down an interesting villain (and making interesting villains is hard) it'll be pushing characters into extremes and seeing what they do, how they perform, what do they value when they're forced to make hard choices. To me conflict is a dialogue: Emotional, mental or even physical altercations should say something so I'm not wasting the reader's time talking about how cool Fuzzy is when she's 360 noscoping ghouls. Not just criticizing the male power fantasy though. When I did romance there were a ton of female power fantasies too and holy poo poo were they toxic as well. There's something fun and easy about indulging in the power fantasy. However a lot of ink has already been spilled in Shadowrun about the power fantasy and I don't have anything new or interesting to say about it. I think rather intensely about...Not sure what to call it. Disempowerment fantasy? The character gets stronger, sure, but the stakes are real because everyone is potentially on the chopping block. There's almost always someone better as well. I just hope that whenever I write a new conflict that I'm setting stakes high enough that they grab the reader and shake the poo poo out of them, and the harder they feel shaken the better I'm doing. Then after I'm done I calm things down so they don't get used to riding that emotional plateau so much that they get numb to feeling shook. This sounds counter-intuitive, but being a former romance author made me better at fight scenes in a way. I can describe the mechanics of a fight, but that doesn't really stick with you unless something truly unique or clever happened. By looking at fights like a dialogue I can raise the emotional stakes and create tension, then force characters to clash and respond in intensely interesting ways because I've hopefully crafted reasons for people to care about these characters. And not just one, the Bond character shooting mooks. That's like shouting into the wind. I want to push together two or more people you give a poo poo about having a heated discussion with knives that turn into spears is my goal. Possibly not even with one another. The mooks can facilitate that just fine so long as the dialogue happens. I might be a little passionate about writing. Just a bit. Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 07:14 on Sep 28, 2017 |
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Sep 28, 2017 06:49
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Ice Phisherman posted:I might be a little passionate about writing. Just a bit. And we're all fortunate to have you share your passion with us in this here sandbox! Thanks for communicating your thoughts and your past experiences with both writing and gaming, explains quite a lot actually, and I think we all feel we're in very capable hands. Don't think its a surprise or a coincidence that those of us who are following this story aren't in the 360 noscope crowd; I am at the same time looking forward to and dreading that first real, big, consequential fight. I say this often, and, you are making me care about these characters in-spite of myself. I don't want to get attached to them (Julie especially), because of all the horrible, terrible, things coming their way. And yet, I care (Julie especially, because she is most tragic one of them all). I swear though, you leave that poor girl Sasha alone. If one hair on her head gets messed up, I'm going to hold my breath until I turn blue; let that sit on your soul, Mister!
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Sep 28, 2017 07:29
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Ice Phisherman posted:"Yeah, this is a Shadowrun story where not all of the characters are sociopaths."
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Sep 28, 2017 16:06
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Fuzzy, Sasha, Kenji and Marco - Saturday, August 11th 2074 - Evening - Ares Macrotechnology Arcology "So you're the expert, what do you think, Kenji?" asked Sasha. Fuzzy chewed her sandwich and thought about Julie crying in the bathroom. She wasn't sure if she was glad she asked Kenji to talk to her, but she was glad she had someone right now. She didn't know anything about Marco, but he seemed okay. "Me? I'm going to do what I was doing before like I promised. Instead of prevention I do damage control and keep working on getting Julie hooked up into a community outside of Blake Island as a refuge for when things get bad,” he explained, “I can only do so much about perception. I'm not self-absorbed enough to think of myself as some puppet master. Nothing about what I'm doing right now has changed overmuch save for what I'm planning to say.” There was a slight pause before Marco interjected. "I was introducing her to the ork underground. Kenji asked me for my help in hooking her up with the ork and troll community and there are some support groups I can link her up with,” said Marco, “I think it's smart because most of these corp kids can be especially vicious to anyone perceived as weak.” Fuzzy looked to Sasha. Sasha looked angry for a moment before she loudly cleared her throat. "Except for you, Sasha," said Kenji. "Right. Sorry," said Marco, ashamed. "Anyway, you know my plan. I'm just going to keep going along with it. I'll see if I can coax Julie out of the bathroom," said Kenji, “Maybe I can get her to go see a movie or something.” Kenji's avatar cut out and now it was just Marco, Fuzzy and Sasha. "So either of you two think it's messed up that Kenji is some sort of social mercenary?" asked Marco, "I have to keep reminding myself that he's not being nice to her because he likes her, but because he's getting paid to be nice." "Yes," said Fuzzy, "He did it to me, though I got the better of him." "What?" asked Sasha. "He talks to people for favors and nuyen," said Fuzzy. Sasha's mouth made a thin line, but she stayed quiet. "Anyway, I asked to take on Julie's debt and he was happy to take it so long as it gets paid. I’ll try to keep him from talking Julie into anything more. I don't think she's in the right state of mind to be making these sorts of choices," said Marco. "That's really noble of you, Marco," said Sasha. "Yeah, well, I don't think he'll forgive my debt, but I can forgive my debtors. He bumped up the debt because I told him I wouldn't do anything immoral or illegal, so I definitely owe him," he said, and sighed. "I mean, why bargain with him?" asked Fuzzy, “He doesn’t really sound like a great person.” "Fuzzy, I took on Julie’s debt. That means something to me. Those aren't just words I said. I believe that debts should be paid so I'm going to pay up. Let's move on," said Marco, tersely. "Okay,” said Fuzzy, undisturbed. "So...Revenge?" asked Sasha. "I like revenge," said Fuzzy, "I can beat up Christina. It wouldn’t be hard. She looks fat and slow." "We're not going to beat people up," said Marco, "Not only is it not right, she's also a corporate princess and that is just begging for trouble. I thought you hitting Kenji was one of the gutsiest things I've ever seen until I realized you didn't have money and influence enough to ruin one another. You can talk trash and hurt them with secrets and gamesmanship, but if it gets physical it gets bad really quickly. I know this from experience. Me being huge means something in the moment, but that moment passes once they run to safety. The shame pole isn't just there to publicly shame the students. It's not just there to curb the behavior of the worst of them. It's to make sure an altercation doesn't spiral into a private war between corporate kids. It's there to protect us. It's a social release and a good one." Fuzzy really didn’t understand. She just sighed. "Okay, so I don't beat her up," groused Fuzzy. Kenji's avatar reappeared as Fuzzy finished off her food. Seconds later Julie's avatar appeared and the sniffling started immediately. "C'mere Julie. Bring it in," said Marco. "Yeah, so how about a response?" asked Sasha. "My rates are very reasonable," said Kenji. "Yeah...That's just going to be a big no," said Sasha. "Suit yourself. Consulting is free though. Go dig up what you can on her. If you find anything juicy then hold it over her head. Or don't. Whatever," he said. "I hate her..." said Julie. "Shhh..." said Marco. "So which gang is she with?" asked Fuzzy. "Corporation," said Sasha, and then with venom in her voice, "She's with Lone Star." "The Star?" asked Marco. "I thought they lost the Seattle police contract." "Oh yeah, in a big way,” explained Sasha, “They lose hundreds of millions of nuyen each year to Knight-Errant. This was a huge blow to them. They still guard the prisons and they’re supposed to patrol the barrens, but they barely do that. They mostly work corporate security and still try to wrestle the contract back from Knight-Errant every chance they get. We're on a yearly contract with the city. I think the government likes the threat of competition. Low costs and high performance. It looks great come budget review. They lost it after they screwed up with the Mayan Cutter serial killer and when they couldn't stop that new street drug from spreading that killed a lot of people and addicted more. I think it was called Tempo." "You know a lot about this," said Marco. "My dad is a cop. This is dinner table talk. Mom doesn't like it, but she doesn't stop it. It might take me some time but I can maybe sweet talk my dad into handing me some files on Christina. Corp kids are supposed to mess with rival corps after all,” said Sasha. "You're a real Samaritan," snarked Marco. Julie managed a half chuckle half hiccup beyond the sniffles. "Whatever it takes, I want to get her back," said Julie, angrily. "Yeah. I nearly lost Sasha as a friend. I want payback," growled Fuzzy. Sasha leaned over her bed, squeezed Fuzzy's shoulder again and gently shook her head. Fuzzy felt warm inside, the sight of which made Sasha smile. Fuzzy thought that maybe Sasha seeing her emotions wasn’t that bad. "I'll...See all of you on Monday...I hope," said Julie. Her avatar disappeared. "I’m going to head out. See you two later," said Marco. There was the hollow sound of headphones bumping against something. He hadn't immediately switched his commlink off and so they caught a snippet of conversation with Kenji. "You know, you didn't have to take us both out to the Big Rhino, Kenji. I know it was only brunch, but..." said Marco, muffled voice. Marco's avatar disappeared. Sasha quirked an eyebrow and smiled knowingly. Kenji muted his microphone for a few seconds before he came back. "The Big Rhino? Really? You're really trying to win some big points, aren't you?" asked Sasha. "Maybe I'm in the mood for soul food," he said, "Plus I'm an elf and getting access to the ork underground isn't exactly safe for me outside of the tourist spots. It's an access point and I could go down with them so long as Marco and Julie are there and so long as I don't go too deep. They got a whole ork city down there in the old Seattle underground. It's pretty cool. Take the tour sometime." "I have, but I might again," said Sasha. "You two doing the whole sleepover thing?" asked Kenji. "Yeah," said Fuzzy, "I had dinner with her mom and dad. We had porks." "Oh yeah? Soooo...Sasha, what're you wearing?" asked Kenji teasingly. "Goodnight Kenji," said Sasha, annoyed. Kenji's snickers ended as she made a gesture with her hand which cut the comm call. The trideo tank that sustained it cut off seconds later. Sasha rolled her eyes before she looked back down at Fuzzy. Her hand never left Fuzzy's shoulder once it was there and Fuzzy felt comforted by her touch. "Okay, so he didn't grab your butt, but he's still a pervert," said Sasha, "It’s nice to see that I don't have to revise my opinion of him too much." "Ummm..." said Fuzzy, uncertainly. "What?" asked Sasha. "What does pervert mean?” asked Fuzzy, “I don’t know that word. Fuzzy and Sasha - Sunday August 12th, 2074 – Early morning – Ares Macrotechnology Arcology The girls woke up early again. This was the day that Fuzzy would make her first kill in the woods with her best friend. She'd only taught one other person how to hunt before and that excited her to share in something she enjoyed so much. They had a cold breakfast so as not to wake everyone up in the high rise corporate apartment with the smell of cooking food. She had some fruit, the last of the porks and Dale's juice. Sasha found her own food and ordered snacks to be picked up at the park. Everything was dark save for a well-lit picture of a man which was the only source of light in the living room save when they opened the fridge in the adjacent kitchen. In fact it was a painting- A real, honest to goodness painting. Older, human, Caucasian, bearded, suited, handsome and strong, he seemed to be gazing at something outside of the picture with a steely eyes as if he owned it. 'Is that your...Grandspas?" asked Fuzzy. People tended not to live long in Puyallup, but she was passingly familiar with the word. "Grandpa. And no. That's the current CEO of the company, Damien Knight,” said Sasha, “He owns a lot of it and runs Ares from the top." "He must be clever to be so old," said Fuzzy. "Actually the rumor is that he's looking to go through Leónization again. If he does the stock prices are projected to go way up,” whispered Sasha. "What's that?" asked Fuzzy. "It's where they make you younger. It screws up your essence though so an awakened wouldn't want to do it unless they were desperate. It makes our magic weaker. I hear that can be fixed too, but it takes a long time and it's really expensive to fix. For most people once it's gone, it's gone, and any magic you used to have gets cut away," she said, and put a hand over her heart. "Essence is the connection your body has to your soul. If you do drugs too much or implant cyberware or bioware you damage your connection to your soul. It's why I'll never do any of that. Plus it's not like I have a ton of magic to burn. Too much and it might screw me up permanently. Some awakened do it though. Just a little bit to give them an edge. Magic can’t do everything. It’s mostly security and military that mix technology and magic." She frowned and let her hand fall. "Also saboteurs and murderers like shadowrunners. We had a total security lockdown a month ago when a team came in. I spent four hours in a panic room with mom. One of my dad's friends nearly died when he got shot full of holes. He's still in the hospital. Another person got kidnapped...I didn't know them but...They hurt Ares. Made our family smaller...Made us bleed," she said, and trailed off sadly. Fuzzy squeezed her shoulder. "Let's go hunting," said Fuzzy. "Right," said Sasha, quickly, “Sorry.” Fuzzy and Sasha - Sunday August 12th, 2074 – Early morning – Ares Macrotechnology Arcology, hunting grounds Hours later the girls were quietly talking in a deer stand. Sasha bought subvocal microphones so they wouldn't scare off any game. They were tiny things that adhered to the neck. Fuzzy adored them, because she could talk nearly silently but hear Sasha clearly though through some earbuds that Sasha leant her as well, though her voice was a little weird. However, some time into the conversation, Fuzzy held up a hand, pointed to her eyes and then pointed down. It was a deer. Quietly as they could, both girls rose in the stand. They took aim together and both girls loosed their arrows at once. Surprisingly they both hit, but their aim was sloppy. The deer was hit high on the back with one arrows and in the flank with another, but there was no heart shot to immediately kill it and so it bellowed in pain and bounded away. The shots wouldn't be immediately lethal, but they'd bleed the animal to death as its heart raced. "Should we chase after it?" asked Sasha. "The instructor said we should walk after it," said Fuzzy, "If we make it run it could run for miles before it bleeds out and getting it back on our own would be a lot of trouble." "Well...We could just follow the tags in the arrows in AR," she said, anxiously, "We can have it shipped back so we don't have to drag it." "That's not hunting. We'll track it. We'll kill it if it’s not dead. We'll drag it back on our own. Let's go,” said Fuzzy. Sasha shuddered when Fuzzy turned away. She'd broken through to Fuzzy, and there was so much warmth now, pain too, but that made the warmth all the brighter. However now when she looked at Fuzzy's aura it was filled with the detached intent to kill. She swallowed her feelings, followed her and tried not to look at her. She felt sick and didn't pay attention at all when Fuzzy tried to teach her about how to follow wounded prey. Almost twenty minutes later they found the creature still alive. It panted shallowly on its side with two arrows sticking out of it. They were huge broadheads so they'd be impossible to shake loose and would have to be ripped out which would cause even more damage. It groaned gently among the leaves. Blood matted its fur. There was so much blood. Fuzzy pulled Kenji's knife from its sheath and stalked towards the creature. "Wait..." said Sasha. Fuzzy turned to find her friend who stared at the creature. "It's in so much pain," she whispered, "It's dying. I can feel it dying." She looked on the brink of tears. "Which is why I should end it,” explained Fuzzy, “There's no point to making it suffer. I'll make it quick." Sasha saw something alien in Fuzzy. She saw kindness towards something she was about to kill. Sasha was no longer at the brink of tears. That moment had passed. Her tears merely fell down her face. Her face showed anxiety, fear, confusion and nausea. "We could heal it," said Sasha, uncertainly. "Sasha, where did you think that porks comes from?" Fuzzy asked, quietly. Sasha looked up and Fuzzy and was suddenly even more nauseous. She'd never considered where her food came from. She'd always taken it for granted. Meat was meat. She knew where it came from and if she peered closely at her food, she could see death upon it, but that was why she made a point of never looking to closely. Seeing this animal dying in front of her put that into a perspective she'd never had before. Knowing Fuzzy was about to kill and butcher this animal made her truly think about where her food came from. Meat that came to her was so processed that it barely registered on the astral at all. "Our dinner last night. It comes from people like me. I kill. You eat. This is life. People like me cut the pork's throat and take its flesh so you can eat it. I don't think you appreciate what we're doing here. This is the point. This is life. It dies so we live. This is the way of things," Fuzzy said, and tried her best to be firm, but gentle with her friend. "Pig, not porks," whispered Sasha, absently. Fuzzy closed her eyes and found the will not to snap at her only friend. "Correct me later," she finally said. "It's suffering needlessly. This is wrong. It needs to die." Fuzzy turned around with her knife in hand, but Sasha ran forwards and stepped in front of her while the deer continued to groan in pain. "No," said Sasha, who found stubbornness inside of her, "I can heal it. This is what I trained to do last year. I'm not strong enough to do it all on my own, but I can if you help me." "I can't cast magic," said Fuzzy, "I can't cast magic at all. I don't know any spells." "I can. Follow my lead. Add your strength to mine. We can do it together...Don't you want to know what it feels like?" she asked. "Sasha..." began Fuzzy, and this time her voice betrayed hesitation. The animal continued to suffer while the girls argued. "Please?" Sasha asked, almost begged, "We don't need it for food. I don't want to wear its leather. We're not hungry. We're killing it because it's there, not because we need to. This is wrong. I don't want to do it. I don't want you to want to do it. I feel sick. Please." CYOA time You think I'm going to ask you who is right, don't you? Nope. Going to dodge the political debate and plunge towards the heart of an emotional one between the girls. Does Fuzzy try and convince Sasha to toughen up and convince her that this is the way of things? Or does Sasha soften Fuzzy's heart and convince her to use her magic to save a creature she thinks of as food? If we fail an etiquette roll we'll damage our relationship with Sasha if we decide to kill it or strengthen it as we toughen her up. If we fail a magic roll the deer will die anyway and Fuzzy will butcher the animal anyway not wanting to waste the meat. It's injured badly and just stabilizing it isn't enough. You can't heal the same wound multiple times. One and done and they fail there's no retry. There is also a certain degree of risk in casting magic. Not a lot, but some. Remember that I'll be rolling dice either way and the girls are not guaranteed to agree. Also I'm sort of surprised that Sasha hit the deer. She has pretty low dice. Sneak attacks are king. Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 10:12 on Aug 12, 2018 |
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Sep 28, 2017 17:41
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Aw hell. What does our magical safety course say about trying to do stuff you haven't been taught yet? I'm guessing it's "loving DON'T" in flashing neon letters 10 feet high.
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Sep 28, 2017 17:54
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Crazycryodude posted:Aw hell. What does our magical safety course say about trying to do stuff you haven't been taught yet? I'm guessing it's "loving DON'T" in flashing neon letters 10 feet high. Yeah, not giving you that easy out. Fuzzy is basically trained, but Sasha is better trained the Fuzzy. Fuzzy will be aiding Sasha under her supervision. I will say it's ambiguous. I will say that the risk is low. It falls out of the realm of ethics and is strictly a moral choice. Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 18:27 on Sep 28, 2017 |
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Sep 28, 2017 18:18
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Sasha wins out, but just barely.
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Sep 28, 2017 18:21
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UnwiseTrout posted:Sasha wins out, but just barely. I agree. Fuzzy knows the way of the world, and knows that the big wheel keeps on turnin', and she also knows that if she wanted to push this, she could make Sasha agree. However, pushing too hard too fast is exactly what gets people killed over cups of noodles or dragged behind motorcycles over rough ground, and she's not willing to damage her friendship with Sasha over this. If Sasha will feel better healing the deer, then this time, we'll let her heal the deer.
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Sep 28, 2017 18:53
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Ice Phisherman posted:Looks like it's about damage control, targeting and talking to Julie to make sure she doesn't do it again. Ostracize her socially for picking on people. You mean Christina? Ice Phisherman posted:"My rates are very reasonable," said Kenji. Still waiting to hear those rates Kenji; although, seems like Fuzzy finally learned the word nuyen, so we don't have to keep writing new ends. Ice Phisherman posted:"Corporation," said Sasha, and then with venom in her voice. "She's with Lone Star." Nicely done, good way to ratchet up the stakes. Can Sasha become the Princess of Cats? Ice Phisherman posted:"So either of you two think it's hosed up that Kenji is some sort of social mercenary?" asked Marco. "I have to keep reminding myself that he's not being nice to her because he likes her, but because he's getting paid to be nice." So, he's a 'Rich House Wife', I can dig it. Ice Phisherman posted:"Sasha, where did you think that porks comes from?" Fuzzy asked. Bravo. This is actually a topic near and dear to my heart; people's connection, or lack thereof, to the land. All of our food comes from somewhere, and most people don't have to acknowledge that anymore due to the convenience of modern day life. And this extends beyond food to encompass all of our consumables; there is a price to be paid, by someone, for everything that we do. People want $9.99 T-Shirts, well, then accept how these t-shirts were made, what went into gathering the raw materials, and how it got to your local Old Navy. Ice Phisherman posted:CYOA time Sasha convinces Fuzzy to help heal the animal (I hope this doesn't lock us into the health specialization though, unless the votes have already made that choice in). I know, weird right? I'm arguing against type for Fuzzy. In this instance, I do believe that Fuzzy sees the logic of it; she's been in hunting auto-pilot mode because that was the whole point of this weekend. However, I also think Barrens life has taught her to not take anything she doesn't need, and they don't need this kill. Now, I realize life in the Barrens is harsh, so in the past she needed 'everything'. The situation has changed, and for the first time in her life, she doesn't need to make a kill. Could be a good place to generate some character growth, and start getting her out of her 'barbarian' archetype. Also because I don't want her buying that stupid dagger staff; there are far better ways to spend her money.
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Sep 28, 2017 19:10
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Yeah she very much strikes me as a pragmatic "killing for necessity, not for sport" type. So she can let this one go.
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Sep 28, 2017 19:14
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CourValant posted:You mean Christina? Thanks. Edited. quote:Still waiting to hear those rates Kenji; although, seems like Fuzzy finally learned the word nuyen, so we don't have to keep writing new ends. I'll post them when Fuzzy asks Kenji for a favor. They're already written out. quote:So, he's a 'Rich House Wife', I can dig it. Sort of. Fixers are a thing in real life after all. The rich housewife is one example of this. Another example for be a lawyer. Even an actor. Kenji is compounded by the fact that for some reason he won't lie, but will encourage other people to lie for him. quote:Bravo. This is actually a topic near and dear to my heart; people's connection, or lack thereof, to the land. All of our food comes from somewhere, and most people don't have to acknowledge that anymore due to the convenience of modern day life. And this extends beyond food to encompass all of our consumables; there is a price to be paid, by someone, for everything that we do. I think of it at an even more basic level that we're disconnected from our food. I think everyone should have to kill and butcher an animal at least once. I've never killed an animal, but an ex friend of mine's friend killed a rabbit in his garden. I was curious so I came home, gutted, skinned and cleaned it under his supervision. I brought the meat home to cook and when I told my mom what it was she was incredibly upset that I'd "killed a bunny" despite the fact that I didn't, and didn't want it to go to waste. quote:Sasha convinces Fuzzy to help heal the animal (I hope this doesn't lock us into the health specialization though, unless the votes have already made that choice in). Health specialization will be a choice we make. It won't just happen. However when I read the votes I saw that people wanted a health spell so that's what we'll be going for first. No specialization though.
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Sep 28, 2017 19:21
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Looks like they're going to heal it, though Fuzzy is not particularly pleased. Writing now. Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Sep 28, 2017 |
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Sep 28, 2017 19:21
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Ice Phisherman posted:Kenji is compounded by the fact that for some reason he won't lie, but will encourage other people to lie for him. That's mob boss material right there; never get your own hands dirty, just have others do it for you. "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?" Ice Phisherman posted:I've never killed an animal, but an ex friend of mine's friend killed a rabbit in his garden. I was curious so I came home, gutted, skinned and cleaned it under his supervision. I brought the meat home to cook and when I told my mom what it was she was incredibly upset that I'd "killed a bunny" despite the fact that I didn't, and didn't want it to go to waste. Think I see where your Kenji 'I don't lie' motivations come from. Its funny you mention rabbits; I live on a ridge-line, and there is a lot of wildlife about, both predators and prey. The community message board is always going on and on about how best to get rid of rabbits, because they chew up grass and dig up gardens. So last weekend, I walked out to my grill, heard a rustling sound, and a rabbit ran out from the bushes. He didn't run far, he was just chilling. He eyeballed me, and I eyeballed him, for awhile. And it was cool; I rather enjoy the idea of my backyard being a rabbit sanctuary. If I can tell him/her to bring their buddies, start a family, raise some kids, I would. Because Its. Their. Home. Too. They live on that ridge-line, just like I do.
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Sep 28, 2017 19:43
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CourValant posted:"Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?"  Turbulent  Living on a farm we get all kinds of critters. Possums and raccoons digging through trash and gnawing on wires, groundhogs tearing up the yard and making foot-sized sinkholes designed to break your ankle, skunks ready and willing to assblast you, and coyotes yipping and howling all night long. Then there's the weirder poo poo I've heard at night a couple of times when the moon's been particularly bright, like a pissed off bull, only larger and angrier....  
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Sep 28, 2017 20:53
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Fuzzy and Sasha - Sunday August 12th, 2074 - Morning - Ares Macrotechnology Arcology, Hunting grounds Fuzzy weighed the options. There were her friend's pleas, the suffering of the animal and her own instincts to kill. If she hadn't bonded with Sasha she might've been mad at having her time wasted. After all this was the moment. This was what she was here for: To hunt, to stalk, to skin, to clean, to cook, to eat and to bring the rest home. This made sense to her. However it was Sasha's last statement that made her pause. Fuzzy was patient. She wouldn't be lured with the draw of doing magic. Magic would come when it came and not before. In fact if everything worked out she would pick her first spell tomorrow and learn it over a number of days. Ironically she was leaning towards what Sasha wanted her to do right now. No, what made her change her mind was that she didn't need this. This was wasteful. She could sell the meat as she always had, but somehow she thought Sasha would never forgive her for callously selling this animal. After all, Sasha didn't understand what it was not to have money. A heartbeat before Fuzzy put the knife away, Sasha breathed a sigh of relief. Fuzzy's killing intent had vanished. "Go get ready,” said Fuzzy, “I'll have to pull out the broad heads beforehand. If they heal with them in there it'll just die slowly when it runs away.” Sasha nodded once and looked sick. Fuzzy noticed this and lifted her chin towards a few trees. "You should go throw up before I do this," said Fuzzy, coolly, "I don’t think you’ll like looking at its pain either. Do what you need to prepare. Distractions harm spellcasting.” Those were Mother Bear's words from her magical safety class. She’d learned her lessons well over the last two weeks. Fuzzy knelt down by the deer in its blood among the grass, the dirt and the leaves while Sasha fled behind a tree to be noisily sick. He inspected the wounds and it weakly struggled at her touch. She didn't know where the organs were off hand save for the heart. Sasha's and Fuzzy's arrow both looked of a similar depth. She could attempt to yank them clean out and hope that was enough. However if they got stuck on bone she'd need to cut them out. She wasn't sure if the deer would survive even if she tried that. Done throwing up Sasha came back and knelt beside her. "It's going to take time," said Sasha, 'We're going to have to hold it down." "How long?" asked Fuzzy. Sasha paused, thought about and gulped. "Forty seconds tops,” she said, quietly, “Probably not more than fifteen though. I'm not very powerful. The more powerful the spell the longer it takes for a healing spell. It doesn't all happen at once." "You expect us to hold down a struggling deer while we're casting?" balked Fuzzy. "Maybe we could knock it out?" asked Sasha. "And probably kill it,” said Fuzzy, dismissively, “No. I'm committed. Tell me what to do to help you. Make it fast. It's almost dead." Sasha nodded and began to explain. She would cast and use Fuzzy's casting like a water skin. Fuzzy would pour out her power and Sasha would use it. Fuzzy did know how to move energy. That was in the lessons. However, the beast had stopped struggling as its breathing was so very shallow now. "I’m going to yank them out. It’s going to get really messy. Get ready," said Fuzzy, seriously. Sasha nodded. Fuzzy yanked and the first one came free with a sick, squelching noise and a rush of blud. The beast groaned and struggled weakly. It hadn’t been too deep. "There's so much blood," whispered Sasha. The other was embedded in bone. Fuzzy yanked but it didn't budge. "Help me," Fuzzy ordered Sasha. With the help of Sasha they pulled together. There was a telltale celery snap of bone that signified a break. The beast mewled weakly and didn't even struggle this time. Both bloody arrows were thrown away and the girls began to cast together. This time, Sasha took the lead and Fuzzy followed her directions. She moved the energy to where her friend directed. Formless, shapeless, she could only feel and not see it. Sasha poured in her own magic as she thought of the formula for the healing spell and pushed both Fuzzy’s and her own magic through it. She strained, bit her lip and her eyes rolled back in her head before she closed her eyes. They both held their breath as the spell began to take effect. There was that celery snapping sound again. She looked into the wound and saw the bone snap back into place and knit together before her eyes. Skin sealed and deer stirred. It struggled, first weakly and then more strongly, but before they were done. On a whim, Fuzzy did not pile on it with all of her strength, but stroked its head. The deer’s eyes, which had been full of fear as strength returned to it, became calm. The single eye looked up at Fuzzy as she stroked it as the wounds knit together. The sounds of its flesh sounded like wet paper being stitched and slapped. There was blood everywhere and when Sasha was done she backed away. However Fuzzy continued to stroke the deer's fur. Even though Sasha did the healing she gaped at Fuzzy's power over animals. After all, that's why she was allowed to keep Puppy. This was her power at play. She didn't speak to it, but made cooing noises to it. The deer closed its eyes and allowed itself to be stroked. Then Fuzzy was done. She rose to her feet and so did the deer. She patted it on its flank and stepped away before it bounded off into a stand of trees. The hands of the two girls were covered in blood and their clothes were stained as well from close contact in the still warm pool of it at their feet. It was a quiet moment. For the second time in Fuzzy’s life, she’d decided to spare an animal. Only Puppy had received such kindness from her, though this time she’d stayed her hand at Sasha’s request. The two girls stood together and looked at the mess they’d made of themselves. Then Sasha broke into a big smile. "We did it!" yelled Sasha. Fuzzy couldn't help herself. She laughed. "We did!" shouted Fuzzy. Sasha hopped around like a little kid. Fuzzy raised her arms and danced like a goof. The girls hugged one another hard and smeared the blood of a still living creature all over one another that they’d attempted to kill and then saved. In her excitement, Sasha cupped Fuzzy’s cheeks with her bloody hands and kissed Fuzzy full on the mouth. Suddenly wildly confused, Fuzzy froze. Sasha looked back at her friend as she broke the kiss. Her smile fell. She'd been too eager. The moment had been too happy and pure. She expressed her joy as she wanted to, unrestrained, and had potentially screwed up her friendship with Fuzzy in a moment of unrestrained joy. "Oh...Uh..." began Sasha, nervously. Sasha released Fuzzy’s face and saw the handprints she left on her cheeks. Fuzzy looked down. Sasha looked away lest she see Fuzzy's reaction in her aura. She chided herself silently. "We should get back," said Sasha, “You’re…We’re covered in…” "Yeah," said Fuzzy, quietly, "We should..." An awkward two hours later the girls showered off all of that deer blood, dirt and sweat. They sat quietly in the living room and did not acknowledge the kiss. Until they did Sasha felt like her room was strictly off limits. Fuzzy had no idea how to parse her own emotions. Her emotional and physical vocabulary was not big enough. So all of those confusing emotions simply swirled around inside of her, too knew and too scary to understand. "Hey..." started Sasha. Fuzzy looked up and then away, and a blush tinged her pale cheeks. "I have a present for you. I was going to...Give it to you before we left," said Sasha, awkwardly and haltingly. "Okay," said Fuzzy, quietly. "Right. I'll just...I'll go get it," whispered Sasha. She stood up and disappeared into her room. Minutes later she came back with a wrapped box. It was red and white with a pink bow. Fuzzy looked at it curiously. "It's a present. Go on. Open it," said Sasha. Fuzzy looked at the box for a time trying to figure out how to open it. It was too pretty to destroy. She treated the materials reverently as she may way to use them for herself. So she carefully undid the knot of the ribbon, took off the bow, carefully pulled apart the tape that held the paper together and then opened the box. Inside was a rectangular thing. It had words on it. "Is this a book?" asked Fuzzy. "Yeah. I bought it for you before I knew you were…Um…Couldn’t read. Sorry," said Sasha, apologetically. "It's okay. Thank you. What is the book?" she asked. "It's a spell book. Books are kind of rare. People mostly use electronic documents, not paper. Well, anyway, what's important is what's inside. I know I gave it to you, but I want you to keep it a secret, okay?" asked Sasha. "I promise,” said Fuzzy, who smiled shyly. Sasha rocked back and forward a few times with nervous anticipation. "Most of it is just a how to book for magical safety, but if you use a special bookmark there's the spell formula for a stun bolt in there. I know you like your arrows, but I think you'd like to be able to make a choice in the future about if you want to kill or not...Like today,” said Sasha, seriously, “It basically puts living creatures to sleep. We're technically not supposed to have it, but half the sophomore class already knows it. The teachers look the other way at non-lethal stuff. I got it my freshman year from dad. He didn't want to teach me anything lethal, but he did want me to be able to defend myself. It can put anything living to sleep if you hit your target enough times. Even spirits can be put to sleep, but not machines." Fuzzy put the pretty wrapping paper aside and looked into Sasha’s eyes. Sasha immediately looked away. "I didn't expect what happened to happen today," murmured Fuzzy. "I'm so...So sorry," whispered Sasha, "I was caught up in the moment. It just happened. Can you forgive me?" CYOA Time How do we feel? What do we do? Due to the circumstances Sasha will probably be willing to shove her feelings back into a box seeing as Fuzzy softened her stance on the deer and did something she normally wouldn't do. After this there will be a time skip to Monday. Spell learning time!  Spells are free as I allocated karma for them at character generation. I think the thread wanted heal as a first spell which I will go with unless someone else has an idea. This means time with Mother Bear.Dice explanations. Lots of dice rolls. Easy success on the first roll to pull out the first arrow. Failed on the second but succeeded with Sasha's help on a retry. Sasha took a wild risk and didn't risk mental drain like normal spells where you can just sleep off a headache or even go unconscious, but physical drain which could seriously injure her. However she resisted all of the physical drain and so blood doesn't start pouring out of herself. Fuzzy is unaware that she did this and Sasha was elated that she cheated injury which can't be healed by anything but rest. The deer can now get six of its ten hit physical points back which is enough to get it running again. Fuzzy has extra dice for handling animals due to her adept magic. It's not a spell, and it's what got her noticed by Rat Man WAAAAAY in the beginning. So she's using it to keep the beast calm so it doesn't knock them down or interrupt the spell. Everything was successful. The wild gamble worked. That could have went way, way worse. Physically. Emotionally? Ehhhh.  Experience and loot time!Fuzzy has a book! She can learn spells on her own now...If she could read, which she can't. However, she can be taught these by someone, though she can't be taught stun bolt by a teacher. The fact that she knows it won't be obvious until she actually casts it. This is a reward for completing the "shadowrun". There's a karma payout too. 2 karma for surviving (or not getting chucked out of the arcology and losing Sasha as a friend) 2 karma for completing all objectives (successful hunt, meeting the parents, getting past corporate security, dealing with Christina's bullshit). 2 karma for difficulty. Corporate security and Christina both spiked Fuzzy's wheel after all. Fuzzy technically could've gotten past both if the rolls were different. 1 karma for healing the deer. 1 karma for treating our friend well. 8 Karma total earned bringing us to 12 karma total. We can spend them on skills we don't have. Since we've been learning how not to "be a barbarian" I'll allow four of those to be spent right now to give us another point in etiquette. We could spend 10 to upgrade our bow skill by one point (we got training on the weekend). You can "work for the man" and get 1000 nuyen per karma spent with 2000 total we can earn this way. It'll take a weekend, though we'll have to find a job that values our talents first. Or we can buy off illiterate completely with ten (this will take time and we'll need a teacher, but they're everywhere, or we could ask a friend to help). However, we'll still have the trait uneducated, so she won't be able to read at more than a fourth grade level until we buy that off too which will cost more karma. There's more, but those are the skills we've been using the most. As always, magic skills are free, but they come with classes we're going to take. Or we could just sit on the karma. Let me know what you want to do with it in the thread, if anything. Sasha's loyalty to Fuzzy increases. We get street cred! +1 to all charisma skills except intimidate for people that have heard of us. Sasha got the full hunt on film after all. Though she'll probably edit out kissing Fuzzy. We also get notoriety from being exposed. -1 to all charisma skills except intimidation for people who have heard of us, where we get a +1. The formula for the combat spell: Stun Ball (mildly resricted) has been acquired. It does stun damage and in the narrative puts a target to sleep at range. It may take two or three shots as we're sort of weak. We missed the Ares Pilum. AKA the spear that's a knife. That would've been Sasha's present had we convinced her to kill the deer and toughen up with a successful etiquette roll. However we would've missed out on one of the karma as well. Karma rewards are for doing good. If you're a jerk you get better physical rewards. Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 10:44 on Aug 12, 2018 |
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Sep 28, 2017 21:04
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Hexenritter posted:
Meddlesome is not wrong, Englishman. You need to get yourself a gopher gun. And some silver bullets.
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Sep 28, 2017 21:06
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I think we should use all our karma to learn how to read, that's kinda critical in a school of all places. Also, then we can read the book ourselves instead of having to get someone else teach us. As for who can teach us to read, Mother Bear? Julian? Sasha? Marco? Not Kenji, because as much as I love him he's gonna charge us for it. I'd rather find someone more sympathetic to do it for free. As to how we feel about the kiss.... conflicted. We've never really had to think about relationships and our sexuality before (apart from the real horrible poo poo like knowing how not to get raped in the Barrens), so this is all super new and confusing. We definitely like Sasha as a close friend no matter what. Anything more, we'll have to think on.
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Sep 28, 2017 21:30
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CourValant posted:Meddlesome is not wrong, Englishman. I always remember reading it as "Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?" but I'm sure, given it's a verbal quote written down after the fact, that there are plenty of variations all cited as the definitive version of "dem words wot he sed" Besides, a little good-natured joshing never hurt anyone.  My gopher gun is a 7.62x39mm Simonov SKS called Svetlana that i only feed Russian ammo. If necessary, I can also deliver The Emperor's Peace with the .40 calibre Glock G32. If I could afford silver ammo I'd probably own a lot more guns. quote:Sasha kissed Fuzzy full on the mouth. Cue :o face and a blush so furious it could be seen from Bremerton. quote:[adorable and extremely thoughtful (and slightly against-the-rules) gift-giving.] "Does this mean you're going to help me learn how to read it?" quote:"I'm so...So sorry," whispered Sasha. "I was caught up in the moment. It just happened. Can you forgive me?" "Why are you sorry? Rat Man always taught me if you want to do something, do it and don't regret it. Do you regret it?" quote:We missed the Ares Pilum. NOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo curse my feels and trying not to votelean toward hardass. edit: Trying to think of potentially beneficial buys. We're being exposed to Corp culture but I don't know if it's enough to warrant a point of Etiquette (Corporate, Ares). Same goes for Etiquette (Street, Seattle). Stealth (Wilderness, Forest), Special (Fashion), Special (Cosmetics), trying to think of more Hexenritter fucked around with this message at 21:57 on Sep 28, 2017 |
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Sep 28, 2017 21:39
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I think our big priority right now is getting literate. People know that we're a weird barbarian kid now--if they're going to make fun of us (and they will) it's going to be making us look stupid. Being able to read is going to head off the worst of that, especially if we're able to wrap our head around the basics of technology. Plus, we'll be free of that stupid talking salmon. Regarding Sasha... I think we like her a lot--she's our best friend after all. But just the whole idea of relationships and intimacy is just so far out of our comfort zone right now. We forgive her without any reservations, and try to explain where we're coming from on this. Given time, who knows what could happen. But we're just not emotionally ready for that right now.
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Sep 28, 2017 21:41
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Hexenritter posted:NOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo curse my feels and trying not to votelean toward hardass. We can still buy it. Fuzzy comes with a license to buy the spear. It costs 1500 nuyen. She can save up, get it on a plan (200 a month for twelve months, basically reducing her income per month to 300 nuyen) or burn some of that karma for a weekend working for the man. People who can magically heal are a rare commodity after all.
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Sep 28, 2017 21:49
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Oh yeah we're totally coming back for the spear. We can make money anywhere, hell the school is literally paying us to attend. Friendship and karma are harder to come by, I'm happy with our choice.
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Sep 28, 2017 21:55
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Ice Phisherman posted:We can still buy it. Fuzzy comes with a license to buy the spear. It costs 1500 nuyen. She can save up, get it on a plan (200 a month for twelve months, basically reducing her income per month to 300 nuyen) or burn some of that karma for a weekend working for the man. People who can magically heal are a rare commodity after all. in my headcanon, Fuzzy doesn't want that spear, she needs that spear in her life because IT'S A SPEAR THAT TURNS INTO A KNIFE OMG AND AND AND 200 new ends a month is doable, after all: 1: the school is paying us to attend 2: we get free porks 3: Dale doesn't seem to mind us drinking his pomegranate juice. Fuzzy is definitely going back and getting that thing. New ends are apparently easier to come by than she thought. Karma and friendship are far more precious.
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Sep 28, 2017 22:01
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Oh, yeah, we don't want the spear we need the spear. Come back and set up the payment plan next weekend or something.
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Sep 28, 2017 22:07
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So becoming literate is a big help plus it'd be easier for our friends to help us develop a higher reading lvl. Sasha should be able to help us with that headstart. Also if I knew spearKnife was an option for reward I would have been all over taking the etiquette roll, drat
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Sep 28, 2017 22:09
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