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There's no way all of this sitting still hasn't driven her a little stir crazy. She needs some physical activity to exhaust her body as much as her mind. Then sleep. Running full-tilt around the island with Puppy? He might be able to keep up now, and he needs the endurance training too.
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Sep 29, 2017 05:00
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Ice Phisherman posted:He leaned down. Fuzzy hugged him. She could barely reach her arms around her front. His large and powerful arms encircled her back with ease and care. Awww, Fuzzy's learning to be touchy feely.  Ice Phisherman posted:Fuzzy and Mother Bear August 13th - Monday - Mother Bear's Mana Lodge No time stamp? Ice Phisherman posted:This handed paint to her students along with what looked brushes of some unidentifiable hair. She sat on her log and poked at the fire. She pulled a few herbs from the wall and threw them in. A heavy perfume filled the lodge and Mother Bear began to speak. 'Who' handed paint to her students? Ice Phisherman posted:"You're not drinking enough of it. The tongue goes numb eventually," mused Mother Bear. "Otherwise it sticks to your tongue and distracts you. It's bad for the learning process." What sticks to your tongue? I assume the tongue goes numb because of all the casting, and the tea helps by, being like teflon? Ice Phisherman posted:Fuzzy and Mother Bear August 17th - Monday - Outside Mother Bear's Mana Lodge You mean Friday? And, time stamp? Ice Phisherman posted:CYOA Time Big bonfire down on the beach. With porks, Puppy, and Dale's juice. Try to stab fish with the spear knife, then heal it and let it go. Much dancing around and yelling into the night sky. We fall asleep by the fire, underneath the stars. Ice Phisherman posted:So I got stuck for a while trying to decide how to get Mother Bear to do woo and how to make healing about nature and stuff. I was hung up for nearly an hour on it. Then I had a flash of inspiration. Reject woo. Mother Bear is old and cranky. She rejects woo and simply brute force teaches healing while being an irreverent, bitchy old person. I had a blast writing that once I stopped giving a poo poo about woo. It works. This is her way; I don't think she even has grandchildren. Momma Bear advocates tough love, and teaches you to teach yourself.
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Sep 29, 2017 05:18
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Thanks for the help with editing again. That took me some time to get through and it's a bit late. My writing quality was suffering. I found no less than five editing errors on my first pass. Still getting used to adding more than names to start chapters.
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Sep 29, 2017 05:27
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Ice Phisherman posted:Thanks for the help with editing again. Here to help!  Again, super rad that you don't mind my notes; rare to find an author who actually likes comments from the peanut gallery! Ice Phisherman posted:That took me some time to get through and it's a bit late. My writing quality was suffering. I found no less than five editing errors on my first pass. Still getting used to adding more than names to start chapters. No worries, its only been a few days, and, I think I already have your update cycle down. Morning Update: You seem eager to get it out of the way; writing isn't rushed, just, eager. Afternoon Update: More leisurely, bit more relaxed, longest of the day, and, sometimes wonky in terms of flow. Evening Update: Raw, in a charming, unguarded kind of way. Yeah, we can tell you're tired, and interestingly enough, it makes for very honest work.
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Sep 29, 2017 05:50
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CourValant posted:Here to help! I like comments. The thread is small enough in terms of participation that I can talk to people. If it were say, hundreds of people strong I'd have a harder time of it. quote:No worries, its only been a few days, and, I think I already have your update cycle down. Huh. Maybe? I just move forward. I don't think much about how I do it. I just do it.
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Sep 29, 2017 05:58
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Ice Phisherman posted:Huh. Maybe? I just move forward. I don't think much about how I do it. I just do it. You really are an artist huh? Off to bed with you, its back to the Word Mines in the morning.
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Sep 29, 2017 06:07
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We could relax with some low-intensity training with the fancy spear, perhaps?
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Sep 29, 2017 06:37
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Every hour spent practicing twirling, throwing and striking with our Pilum is an hour well spent.
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Sep 29, 2017 07:12
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Ralith posted:We could relax with some low-intensity training with the fancy spear, perhaps? Hexenritter posted:Every hour spent practicing twirling, throwing and striking with our Pilum is an hour well spent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DADLQUMFwSk
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Sep 29, 2017 07:22
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I'd suggest having Mother Bear adopt Fuzzy, but then she'd be Fuzzy Bear and totally ruin the tone of the story.
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Sep 29, 2017 08:45
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Just piping in to say that I support putting this up on another platform. I'm way too busy to stay abreast of your pace, but I'd like to read it all one day
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Sep 29, 2017 09:29
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Fuzzy, Julian and Puppy - August 17th - Friday – Evening - Blake Island Fuzzy clipped Puppy's leash to his collar. Her mind felt slow, but her body felt primed with the need to stretch and move. However she also desired to feel the comforting weight of her weapons on her person. If she was going to get her exercise she wanted it to be with her weapons. After all it was hard to run without her bow, quiver, and knives. Then with a small squeal of delight she couldn't completely suppress, she wanted to really test her Ares Pilum, the spear that was a knife. So Puppy barked happily as she and her dog both went on the first run either had been on in some time. She ran to Julian's cabin and then as she composed herself, she respectfully knocked to see if she could have her weapons even though it was technically still Friday. When Julian opened the door to him, Fuzzy briefly reminded him of a small child wondering if her best friend could come out to play. "Julian!" she exclaimed. "I learned my first spell!" He beamed at her. Again, if she wasn't careful she could've mistaken the teacher for a human instead of the elf that he was as his face was round instead of the normally telltale high cheekbones of the elves. His eyes unfocused for a brief moment, his smart contacts briefly lit up and then dimmed. "Congratulations. Healing I see. That’s a good choice. Want to sit on the porch and chat? Maybe have some tea?" he asked. She wrinkled her nose and made a face at the mention of tea. Puppy began to bark again. Fuzzy wanted him quiet so she could speak with Julian. She merely looked at him and he looked at her as she gave him silent directions without knowing how she did it. He quieted, licked his chops, sat on his haunches and panted softly in a way that young pups are not easily trained to do. "Juice maybe,” said Fuzzy, “I really want to go on a run though and I want my weapons.” "Why do you need your weapons?" he asked, seriously. "Because I want to go on a run," she said, as if the answer was obvious, "You know, around the island.” Julian searched her expression for something. He almost said no outright, but paused and stroked his chin. “So most of the students are either gone or tired,” he mused, “I wanted to reserve your weapons for the weekends when most everyone is gone. However, security hasn’t been doing much lately. What do you plan on doing?” “I want to practice with my new spear,” she explained, “I want to go through a few drills.” Again he paused and thought about it. The excited smile that Fuzzy sported began to fade. “Normally any weapons practice would be supervised by Coach Bolt,” explained Julian, “However, I’ll have security keep an eye on you. Since you feel like a run you can go to the far side of the island in the southwest. I’ll mark it as off limits to everyone but you. Keep in mind that this is a school. Weapons are normally not permitted outside of controlled environments. In fact it’s seen as alarming. This is a responsibility and a right that I’m allowing you. Since most everyone has turned in for the day or is gone because they finished their spells early I’ll do this for you this once. In the future, please ask on Saturday or Sunday. If you want to do any training with practice weapons on weekdays then you should take Coach Bolt’s physical adept class next semester.” Fuzzy wasn’t thrilled about a lecture, but she was interested in that class. "Do you remember the rules we talked about?” he asked. Fuzzy nodded again and he made her recite them. Much like Mother Bear’s magical safety class, there was a lot of crossover between magic safety and weapon safety. Fuzzy ran through them for him before he nodded in satisfaction. When she was done, he went into his house and disappeared from sight leaving her at the threshold with his door open. Fuzzy couldn't help but look around his cabin from where she stood. It was just the front room and just her view from a single vantage point, but there was an order to it from what she saw. Real books lined the wall on a bookcase. Sadly she couldn't read any of the titles. Many framed paintings lined one wall, almost covered it even. However there were no faces of people like at Sasha's apartment. They were framed, white and were covered in words and there seemed to be half a dozen of them. They didn't look interesting to look at, but perhaps the words meant something or told a story. She thought about one day being able to read them. "Maybe," she thought, and grinned slyly, "Without him even noticing." Julian came back with a large box containing her weapons all neatly stowed away with care. However the spear and bow came separately as they were larger. Julian knew how to handle them and she silently approved of this. He also handed her some juice. The bottle was clear plastic and contained some purple liquid. He handed this juice and her weapons to her. She left her spear with him, but took the Pilum, which was in its sheathed knife form out of the box. "Not taking your spear?" he asked. She touched the all black, metallic knife on her hip that barely reflected the light. "I'm testing a new one today," she said reverently. He raised an eyebrow, his contacts lit up again and he nodded. “I remember now,” he said, “Be careful with it.” She nodded and then with practiced ease she donned her bow, quiver of arrows and spearknife. She felt their comforting weight balance her out. With a happy sigh she felt complete in a way she couldn't fully articulate, though she’d still need to get used to the knife. Though it was the right size for a spear, it was heavier and larger than the blades she was normally used to. "When you're done with your run come back and I'll stow your weapons again. Then we'll talk about how you're coming along in becoming juice," he said, slyly, “Oh, and congratulations again on learning your first spell.” Fuzzy smiled and nodded. She was reminded of the first night she was here two weeks ago on the dock. The lesson he'd imparted to her explaining her place and purpose here with water, juice, and the mixing of the two together. She looked down at Puppy and grabbed his attention. He stood from his seated position at her heel, barked happily and the girl and her dog set out in a warm up run from the cabins towards the setting sun in the west to run a circuit around the island, leaving Julian and his cabin in the distance. The run was harder than she expected. Her stamina hadn't diminished at all, but she was sore from all that sitting on that log in Mother Bear's lodge for the better part of five days. Puppy however was eager and kept up easily. He didn't trip her up with the leash. He didn't tug this way and that to sniff all of the things to see if the smells had changed and what stayed the same. He was still too young to mark his territory and didn't feel the urge. Fuzzy had no idea that his good behavior was strange. Ten minutes later she was on the southern beach. Her muscles ached in a good way and she looked at her spear that was currently a knife. She hadn't found a proper place for it on her person yet. She'd found a place for Kenji's knife on her body, though she didn’t wear that now, but the spear that was a knife was still a mystery and she didn't yet have a sense of how it fit her. It didn’t feel like a part of her yet. She wished to remedy this so she tied Puppy's leash to a bench, watered him, fed him some of her jerky which he ate greedily and let him sit to recover his wind. Puppy was good today and hadn't slowed her down or tripped her up like he did when he was little. Not even once. She began to use the spear knife, but not before pulling her bow and quiver off her body and setting them to the side. This was not some demonstration room. This was the world. Kenji's knife and spear knife were still untested and that made her somewhat nervous. She was sure that Kenji tested his own knife, but she wasn't personally sure. Besides, it was more tool than knife so her priority to blood it was low. However, if she was going to replace her first spear or even one of her knives she needed to understand this weapon not just as a weapon, but as an extension of her own body. For that she needed time to familiarize herself with it. It would be days or weeks before she would be confident enough to test it. As a knife she kept it near her body like Rat Man taught her. A knife held in an outstretched hand is a knife waiting to be taken or knocked away. Her slashes were slow at first, which made her frown. It was more than twice the weight of her normal knife. However, she accessed the program from her commlink and lengthened the blade just a bit before trying again. This time she was satisfied as her cuts and thrusts were effective and businesslike. This wasn’t some light knife. It was heavier and she’d need to train herself in its use. No more than three strikes before she would pull it close to her body again, but never only three. Thrust, flick, turn, back to her body, never repeated. The movements with the blade were not at all graceful, but ruthlessly efficient. With a touch the knife lengthened to spear. She was careful to angle it away from her and it grew outwards as if it was magic. She noticed the way the center of gravity shifted and adjusted her grip as she added her left hand, her non-dominant hand to the front and her dominant to the back. Again, like Rat Man taught her, she began to thrust with the spear. She used her body as a guide and the spear shaft slid along it near noiselessly. She moved the shaft across her stomach as a pivot to strike with the butt end before reversing the motion to strike with the sharper end and her clothing and the wind both softly snapped with each motion. Each time it returned to her hip. Now she imagined an enemy before her. She struck out twice at the imaginary foe’s feet before she thrusted once at the middle before she quickly pulled it back. Finally, and this was important, she made it a staff. She paid close attention to how the weight shifted as the spear tip disappeared. She knew in her bones that the tip didn't simply recess into the tip of the staff to make the tip heavier for striking or simply become longer which would unbalance the weapon in a way she would not like. The spear didn't become thicker, it simply become more compact. Compact like Fuzzy's own body. Solid and like the staff, often underestimated. She appreciated that the weight was evenly distributed. This was important and so she ran through the spear drills again and paid close attention to the distribution of the weapon's weight. She couldn't feel it yet. She didn't notice the different in her strikes yet, but she knew it was important if she was to ever use the staff and therefor use the weapon at all. A weapon that was not fully understood was a weapon that would remain untested in the hunt or even combat. She ran through her staff strikes but wondered idly about the salesman when she was done. He knew his business, and he had a grace she did not. He’d thrown the weapon even though it was heavy for a thrown blade, though Fuzzy was not used to throwing her weapons. From the way his body moved she knew he was better than her with this weapon in all of its forms. She wondered idly if she should find him and talk to him to ask him about his dance-like moves and understanding of the spear knife. Sweating hard, feeling good, she returned her staff to its knife form with a touch. It shrank back into its smaller, compact form and she patted it. She would soon lavish even more attention upon it but for the moment she was satisfied. For a time she considered practicing with her bow, but she eventually decided against it. There were no targets and her arrows, with their fine white fletching, were precious to her. She drank her juice. It was sweet and slightly tart. She liked this purple juice. She reached for the app Mother Bear installed on her commlink and after a full minute of wrangling with it she came back with what it was. "Wow grape juice," she remarked, "Not bad. I wonder what a wow grape is." She made it back to Julian's before dark. Puppy was a little slower this time. Or as she thought about it, perhaps she was faster? Yes, she was faster now that she'd limbered up. She went back to her cabin, washed up, changed into clean clothes and came back to Julian's cabin to reluctantly return her weapons. He stowed them carefully back in their box soon after he opened his door, already ready to accept them and therefore not waste her time which she appreciated. Minutes later he came outside and they sat on a bench together while Puppy lay at her feet and intently watched the odd passerby. "So I noticed you have two new weapons," he said. "Yes,” she said. "I appreciate that you checked them with me," he said, "I've had students try to hide them on the island before. It doesn't work, but I'm glad I didn't have to tell you." She carefully thought if the book of stun bolt was a weapon. It was forbidden to her, but not a weapon. It was like the scrap Rat Man cobbled together to make her first bow. That scrap was like a formula. That book was a weapon in waiting. The formula was made up of parts. Rationalization done, she did not feel guilty. "Yes,” she repeated. "Did you enjoy your run?" he asked. "Very much so. I tried out my new spear," she said. His brow furrowed in concern. "I meant to ask you about that. Fuzzy, where did you get a spear?" he asked, "You didn't make one, did you?" "No,” she said, simply. "I see,” he said, “So you have two spears.” "Yes, two spears,” she agreed, “The first one is the one I brought. It’s old, but tested. I am thinking about replacing it. The second spear is also a knife. It's my spearknife. It's called an Ares Pilum, but it's my spearknife until I can think of a proper name." "Ah. I see. Did Miss Oliver buy it for you?" he asked. "No. I bought it for me," she said. She muttered something in Spanish. She was still sore from being cheated. When is the price ever the price? Who does that? "It must have been expensive," probed Julian. "I don't want to talk about it," grumped Fuzzy. Julian resolved to check her finances to make sure she wasn't getting into any trouble. "After your magical safety course and spell course we're going to become more like a regular school. I didn't bother you with this because your personal safety is paramount while you're here and the spell course can't be rescheduled. However, we have to talk about your schooling. After all, we teach magic here, but you're also normal students too. Your guardian told me he didn’t provide you with much in the way of a formal education, so I’m going to do my best to catch you up in the coming year," he said. Fuzzy looked at him strangely. "Guardian?" she asked. "Mr. Garcia," he clarified. "Who's that?" she asked, confused. "I think you called him Rat Man," he said. "Oh, Rat Man," she said, and pursed her lips, "He guarded me when I was little, but once I was too big he didn't have room for me. He takes people in like me sometimes." "What did he teach you?" he asked. "He taught me hunting, self-defense, survival skills, how to quickly clean a kill and how to spot danger. I learned how to bargain on my own though," she said, proudly. "Ah. No math? Sciences? History? Your letters?" he asked hopefully, “I’d hoped for more than what was on your file.” "I know X," she provided. "X?" he asked. "Yeah. When gangs tag a place they put an X through other gangs' tags to let them know who isn't welcome,” she explained, “It means they'd get shot if they trespass." Julian's heart hurt for the girl who could so casually talk about gangs and people being shot. Fuzzy didn't notice and continued. "I didn't belong to a gang so I just stayed out of the worst places most of the time. I've been running into problems though with..." she said, and trailed off. She eyed someone as they passed by. "I have problems with reading," she whispered, cleared her throat and spoke normally once more, "So I asked Marco to teach me how." Julian beamed at her. "You’re one step ahead of me. You really are juice," he praised. "Yes. I am juice," she said, proudly. "I can help you for a little while. Not every day as I have responsibilities but I can arrange for a tutor to pick up the slack when Marco or I aren't available. Would you mind if I worked with Marco to help schedule days for you to learn?" he asked. "What is tutor?" she asked. "A tutor is a teacher who specializes in small groups or individuals. I can arrange this through the school free of charge," he offered. Fuzzy's business senses tingled and she straightened up. "Julian, my time is valuable to me. I..." Julian chuckled and shook his head, which stopped her cold. "Sorry Fuzzy, you're not going to extort me for more nuyen. Not this way at least. This is a service I would provide to any student here, including you. Keep trying though. You'll get me again one day," said Julian, placidly. "Yes. I will," said Fuzzy, who meant it. CYOA Time Everything's coming up Millhouse. Due to some spectacular rolls by Marco and subsequently the extra dice he gave to from teaching Fuzzy they accorded themselves fantastically. Decide something good that happens while Marco is teaching Fuzzy how to read. In two days of dedicated study she has gotten to a kindergarten reading level. It can really be anything so long as it makes sense in a teaching/social situation. On top of this, Marco is now a free connection 3 loyalty 3 Christian Theurgist healer. To learn from knowing X to a fourth grade level Fuzzy is going to need a task action. She's going to need to generate 50 hits to complete her education with each ten hits being a grade level, K-4. Fuzzy is currently 10 hits in. Marco has been a fantastic teacher and got a critical success on his teaching roll twice. Technically Fuzzy only got eight hits, but I'll say that she got ten due to Marco's diligent teaching. So that's why the thread gets to choose a narrative bonus. They finished up with time to spare and Marco is not only impressed by Fuzzy's appetite for knowledge, but he's intensely happy that he did something so tangibly good and that they finished the kindergarten course in near record time. So they're both happy and happiness brings with it social rewards. I will say to the thread that Marco is not some sneaky way for me to interject Christianity into your shadowrun. That's not my goal. I'm going to use his faith to gently caress with him. Christianity is on the decline in Shadowrun. In the lore the church largely rejected magic and so their traditions are decades behind and they're missing several generations of people who could have been teaching the younger generations which is why Marco is apprenticed to a shaman. Marco is going to advocate for peace and non-violence near constantly and his status as a troll among rich corp teens and a Christian made him a sort of social pariah, because Christians actively persecuted magicians not only going back in history, but also up until about the 2050's, so almost 40 years. Only in the last 20 or so has there been grudging acceptance. In short, he's not a particularly great contact for a shadowrunner to have because he's not willing to participate in immoral acts. Still, he's a drat good healer. Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 17:16 on Aug 13, 2018 |
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Sep 29, 2017 14:02
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Ice Phisherman posted:Her muscled ached Ice Phisherman posted:Now she imagined an enemy before he. Crazycryodude fucked around with this message at 14:26 on Sep 29, 2017 |
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Sep 29, 2017 14:22
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Crazycryodude posted:Just caught a few spelling errors, I assume those are supposed to be "muscles" and "before her." Also, you referred to Marco as Oscar for a couple paragraphs near the end. Haven't figured out a good idea for the CYOA bit yet, just wanted to let you know about those mistakes ASAP. Edit: Got them all. Thanks. I don't know why I keep referring to Marco as Oscar. I caught myself doing that last night too. I have to say that I am incredibly grateful to everyone for the help with editing. I am not a good editor of my own work. Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 14:42 on Sep 29, 2017 |
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Sep 29, 2017 14:38
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Who is Oscar and when did we ask for help? Oscar is Marco?
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Sep 29, 2017 14:51
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Toughy posted:Who is Oscar and when did we ask for help? Yeah, sorry about that. I've been having problems mixing up the two names. I might have once been a better author, but I'm still rusty and again I'm not that great an editor. I'll be more vigilant in the future.
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Sep 29, 2017 15:00
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Maybe the thing happening with Marco and Fuzzy could be related to animal spirits? Not sure what exactly, but maybe fuzzy somehow manages to see one for the first time? I'm not too familiar with SR lore, so I'm just spitballing here.
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Sep 29, 2017 15:17
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Does it have to be a social bonus? Because with those critical successes, I figure Marco may have been able to slip in some basic knowledge of history, society at large, or preschool-level STEM. Nothing quantitative, like a knowledge skill, just basic background-level stuff.
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Sep 29, 2017 15:28
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sheep-dodger posted:Maybe the thing happening with Marco and Fuzzy could be related to animal spirits? Not sure what exactly, but maybe fuzzy somehow manages to see one for the first time? I'm not too familiar with SR lore, so I'm just spitballing here. We could work something with him summoning a spirit at Fuzzy's request or revealing one to her. Christian Theurgists (what Marco is as opposed to Mother Bear being a shaman) can't summon (call, basically) or bind (have them on call) animal spirits, but there would be some as magical security on the island. Bound spirits doing the job of protecting the island. He could probably work a little mojo and make one visible for a short while for her to see. I could make one of those an animal spirit. Shamans are all about animal spirits so the place would be fairly lousy with them. So she could theoretically get her first look at one. jagadaishio posted:Does it have to be a social bonus? Because with those critical successes, I figure Marco may have been able to slip in some basic knowledge of history, society at large, or preschool-level STEM. Nothing quantitative, like a knowledge skill, just basic background-level stuff. If it makes sense in the narrative I'll say yes. Fuzzy is a bargainer and while she can't read, street kids learn about money quickly. They soak that knowledge in early. I could work in any of these topics. History could be neat too. Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Sep 29, 2017 |
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Sep 29, 2017 15:32
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I think Marco should help Fuzzy find Jesus, because that would make for an interesting and hilarious exchange.
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Sep 29, 2017 15:55
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HiHo ChiRho posted:I think Marco should help Fuzzy find Jesus, because that would make for an interesting and hilarious exchange. I don't feel like he'd do that, as using your time helping someone learn, who clearly has no frame of reference for it, to evangelize feels pretty scummy. The impression I've been getting is that he'd probably rather give Fuzzy an introduction to the concept of religion without explicitly trying to convert.
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Sep 29, 2017 16:24
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Ice Phisherman posted:The bottle was clear plastic and contained some purple liquid. Nice to see that 'Purple Stuff' survived into the dystopic future. Ice Phisherman posted:Julian resolved to check her finances to make sure she wasn't getting into any trouble. Thank you Julian! Good to have an adult in the room. Ice Phisherman posted:"Sorry Fuzzy, you're not going to extort me for more nuyen. Not this way at least. This is a service I would provide to any student here, including you. Keep trying though. You'll get me again one day," said Julian, placidly. I see what's going on here, this is a school to train shadowunner! Ice Phisherman posted:CYOA Time I don't know the Shadowrun System, so I don't know what's kosher here; if I could have whatever I want, I'd say Marco imparts some type of etiquette bonus for Fuzzy in social situations. Marco works in 'real life' examples while teaching her The Letters, just simple stories about life at school, in the metroplex, that sort of thing. Ice Phisherman posted:I will say to the thread that Marco is not some sneaky way for me to interject Christianity into your shadowrun. That's not my goal. I'm going to use his faith to gently caress with him. Never thought that it was; I assumed you were going to use every character's traits to gently caress with them somehow, that's life. Ice Phisherman posted:I am not a good editor of my own work. Nobody is. Besides, the 'Talent' should be focused on churning out more pages anyways!
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Sep 29, 2017 18:54
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sheep-dodger posted:I don't feel like he'd do that, as using your time helping someone learn, who clearly has no frame of reference for it, to evangelize feels pretty scummy. The impression I've been getting is that he'd probably rather give Fuzzy an introduction to the concept of religion without explicitly trying to convert. Well I think it wouldn't start as evangelism by Marco but Fuzzy just asking questions. She did already ask who Jesus was.
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Sep 29, 2017 21:14
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Yeah after thinking about it some, I like the idea of Marco being able to slip ancillary topics into the curriculum on account of his crits. Some real basic history, maybe, and stuff like what "corporations" and "police" are. Maybe we started asking because of our recent exposure to that side of life via Sasha and want to better understand what her dad does.
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Sep 29, 2017 21:19
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All right. Got it. Going to slip some lore in and have Marco explain to her how the world works after the reading lesson. Also going to work in showing off a spirit because that sounds neat and will work well with what I'm planning soon. Writing now.
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Sep 29, 2017 21:57
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Ice Phisherman posted:All right. Got it. Going to slip some lore in and have Marco explain to her how the world works after the reading lesson. Also going to work in showing off a spirit because that sounds neat and will work well with what I'm planning soon. The quickness of your updates is unreal!! I appreciate it, even though I don't always get to put some input between them. Thank you!!
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Sep 29, 2017 22:48
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Fuzzy and Marco - August 19th - Sunday Afternoon – Fuzzy’s Cabin Fuzzy learning her letters was a breeze compared to the brute force methods of Mother Bear’s healing. Marco installed a program on Fuzzy’s commlink that was called A through Z, or Azzy as Fuzzy called it. English was still a terribly frustrating, complicated language full of exceptions. However she had a few things going for her. First, penmanship really wasn’t stressed. Cursive went the way of the dinosaur years ago. Now print was the dying art. Most words were typed, so she could focus on learning and repeating rather than penmanship. After all, paper was rare and considered a luxury item. She did learn how to spell her name though which pleased her to no end. Second was that while repetition was necessary it wasn’t brute force. Coming from a religious background, Marco was deeply steeped in a love of music and this reflected his tastes in education. Azzy was a program based heavily on singing to learn to read. Songs were easy to remember when the tune is so simple one can carry it in a bucket. It was meant for children after all and while Fuzzy was in her teens, she wasn’t self-conscious about the way in which she learned which sped the process. Fuzzy learned the ubiquitous alphabet song in a few short hours on her first day. There was a song for the vowels and the sounds they made that was named after animals being clever, but that stalled for a few minutes while she asked what each animal was. The consonant song was about fish in keeping with the theme. Again a pause to explain and though Marco didn’t know about all the fish, he knew some. However once Fuzzy realized the structure of the music she was able to better intuit what vowel or consonant went where and how each sounded. For now at least she was past mindless repetition. Third was that Fuzzy was a hungry pupil. Reading was important. It was something she needed to do every day but previously couldn’t. The commlink could break or stop functioning, but her mind would not. There was a purpose to reading. Marco seemed to have a grasp of what she valued, so he pitched reading as a survival skill. While out in the barrens it wasn’t very useful, in the metroplex it was necessary to get along. Fourth and finally was that Marco was a gentle and patient teacher. The big troll sat in his own chair that he brought from his cabin that he put next to her desk. Fuzzy balked at his strength as he carried in his oversized comfy chair and the floorboards of her cabin complained under Marco and the chair’s combined weight. They had their meals at that desk and really only went outside to walk Puppy or briefly let him run in order to tire him out. Otherwise Marco was hard at work with her. If his patience wasn’t infinite it was surely close. He arrived early on Saturday, a little later on Sunday and stayed until Sunday afternoon. “That’s it,” he said. “That’s what?” asked Fuzzy. “We’re out of songs,” said Marco, who smiled proudly. “I feel like there should be more,” she said. “Oh, there are more. Lots more, but you blazed through a week and a half long course in a weekend. I’ve never taught anyone to read before but I’m pretty sure you did well,” she said, happily, “Also you have a lovely singing voice.” Fuzzy flushed with pride. He’d said it before several times, but it always made her smile. “You even know about a hundred words. That’s impressive even if they’re small. I’m going to leave the A-Z app with you,” said Marco. “Azzy. Yes. Thank you,” she said, “I think I can handle it on my own now.” Fuzzy knew what it was to be polite now. Marco had taught her more than just words, but concepts as well, and one of the children’s songs was about how to be polite. “Well you come to my cabin if you have any problems or call me through the cabin phone,” he said, “It doesn’t make calls outside of the island, but you can call anyone on the island.” “Yeah, I have your number on the front panel thing. I just have to touch your name twice, right?” she asked. Marco nodded and sat up to stretch. Fuzzy did too which caused Puppy to jump off her lap. She clipped a leash to his collar and the two went outside. “So you’ve been here for a long time, right Marco?” she asked. “This will be my fourth year, yeah,” he said. “Know any secrets?” asked Fuzzy, slyly. “Oh, lots,” answered Marco, smugly. Fuzzy asked the question that had been burning in her for the better part of two weeks. “Okay, so with all these super rich peoples’ kids here, how come I don’t see any security?” she asked. Marco raised an eyebrow, pursed his lips in thought and shrugged. “It’s easy to forget. In fact that’s sort of the point. The better off you are the stealthier your security is. There is some physical security here. There are men with guns somewhere on the compound, but I don’t know exactly where they stay,” he said, “They move around nightly so they can’t be easily targeted. I think they’re in bunkers. The matrix doesn’t work well out here if you didn’t notice. I think that’s on purpose though. There’s not much matrix security…” “Matrix?” she asked. “Oh, er, all computers tied together talking to one another, or at least that can talk to one another. Like your commlink. I heard that there was this thing called the internet a long time ago that was like it, but the matrix of today includes augmented reality and virtual reality,” he explained, “Virtual is sort of like what would happen if you had a world made entirely of augmented reality and nothing else. It’s not real, but it looks real, or not if the people don’t want it to be. You can make your own private world if you wanted. I never went in for it though and there are probably people who could describe it better. I prefer the astral. Speaking of which, the third would be spirits. They patrol in the astral invisibly. I’ll show you.” Fuzzy walked with Marco for a few minutes to the forest in relative silence along with Puppy. He then stopped and as she looked up at him as he unfocused his eyes. “I helped Mother Bear bind this one. Normally beast spirits are outside of my ability to bind, but I added power so she could get more services out of it. Like how you healed that deer with Sasha. That was absolutely beautiful by the way,” he said, and smiled toothily at Fuzzy. Fuzzy blushed happily. She wasn’t used to receiving so many compliments. In fact she probably received more compliments from Marco this weekend than in her many years in the barrens and not once did she feel like she was being manipulated or flattered. To her, Marco just seemed to be a legitimately wonderful person. “It shouldn’t mind if I reveal it just for a few seconds,” he said. His eyes rolled back into his head and he waved a hand. He revealed a shape in the woods where there was none before. It was sort of built like a dog, but far larger and bulkier, somewhat brown and somewhat translucent with a stockier muzzle and cute, round ears. That was when Fuzzy realized that this was a bear, which she’d never seen before in person, but it also had antlers. Fuzzy recognized this as odd as the bears from Azzy’s songs didn’t have antlers, but maybe this was just a different kind of bear. It looked towards her and Marco for a few seconds before Marco stopped doing whatever he was doing and the spirit vanished just as easily as it appeared. “They’re big, loyal if you treat them respectfully; almost completely invulnerable to normal weapons and scary if you anger them. Only an awakened can defeat most spirits,” said Marco. “You’ll have a chance to learn about this next week when you choose your classes.” “Okay, so what about the teachers and students?” asked Fuzzy. “What about them?” asked Marco. “You know. Spells and stuff,” she said, “Can’t they defend themselves?” Marco pursed his lips in thought and then shook his head. “Fuzzy, not everyone on the island can fight. They’re students and teachers, not warriors. I’d say two, maybe three of the teachers could fight and we’re not a school that the military or corporate security heavily recruits from. The military funds many of the public magic schools, so that’s where you’d find people with a focus on fighting,” he explained, “You probably have more experience in that department than most of the student body. In a pinch the students and teachers could summon spirits to fight for them, but that can go wrong if you’re hasty and it always tires you out at least a little, often a lot. I’ve even seen people pass out doing it.” “Wait, so you’re telling me that most people can’t defend themselves?” asked Fuzzy, her tone incredulous. Marco nodded seriously. “That’s exactly what I’m telling you, Fuzzy. They could try and maybe twenty or thirty people on the island know the stun bolt spell. Maybe half a dozen not including the teachers know a lethal spell which sadly includes my friend, Julie,” he said with a sigh. “Good luck getting them to hit anyone with those spells though. Most people don’t bother. Most people who are here are going to be doctors, researchers, musicians, artists, salespeople, managers, anything really. People who fight for a living are rare.” This blew Fuzzy’s young mind. Most people didn’t know how to defend themselves? Her mouth gaped. “I thought people just had their weapons put away,” said Fuzzy, quietly. “No. People mostly rely on the police to keep order. They protect people from violence. If I was in trouble I’d call the police. They’d come and make sure people doing any crimes like hurting people or stealing was dealt with. Usually that means they just come, arrest you and put you in jail. I’m actually a pacifist, so I’d call them and get away from violence as best I could,” said Marco. “Pass a fist?” asked Fuzzy. She opened her palm and smacked her fist against it a few times to ask. Marco snorted out a laugh. “It means I don’t use violence,” he said. “Weird,” she said, flatly. Marco explained a number of other strange topics to her. She figured out the cops and police are the same thing, so that explained what Sasha’s dad did, but she had a harder time with corporations. The best she could figure they were just enormous gangs who made money instead of using violence, but Ares was a corporation and they also controlled Knight Errant who were the police which was extremely confusing to her. The gentlemanly act of walking her back to her cabin was lost on Fuzzy, but she hugged him nonetheless and he hugged her back. He patted Puppy a few times, his hand still bigger than the canine and with a mutual wave they both walked away. When she went inside she opened up her Azzy app and began to sing on her own. She hungered to improve. Fuzzy and Sasha - August 20th through the 24th – Monday through Friday Afternoon – Fuzzy’s Cabin There were no classes scheduled next week so she and other students either worked on their own projects or more likely they just goofed off. The adepts didn’t as they had classes that didn’t involve spells, but there were still a few stragglers all the way up to Wednesday who either learned their spells or wasted over a third of a month only not to learn their spells at all. She could see why there were no classes. They wouldn’t have been able to learn anything. They were too tired. Julian came by to teach her. He was patient like Marco. His teaching style felt incredibly polished, but had a sort of tactical flavor to it. Whenever one method failed he cycled through different methods until he found one that Fuzzy not just understand, but understood well. He approved of Azzy and helped her through the songs, but his singing voice was terrible. He couldn’t be there as long as Marco was and one day she even had a tutor who helped her through her commlink. A nice ork lady, though she wasn’t as good as Julian or Marco. Julian was best, but she decided that he wasn’t nearly as good as person as Marco, and she gently pined for his compliments and his reassuring presence. With their help she was able to get nearly all the way through the third grade reading by Friday. She’d by no means mastered reading, but she’d spent twelve hours a week for the past week doing nothing but reading and singing with Azzy and her teachers. Sometimes Sasha would stop by, but Fuzzy wouldn’t talk much about Azzy. She felt shy about singing children’s songs in front of her best friend as she slowly came to realize that they were for children and she was not a child. Instead they’d just catch up and Sasha would do most of the talking. She’d taken Julie out within the Ares arcology after some admittedly heavy security vetting due to Julie’s legal status as a criminal. They were there almost daily now. They were even striking up what she thought was a friendship, though Julie hadn’t opened up to Sasha yet so it was still fairly shallow. Besides the adepts they were the only two who were capable of learning a spell that hadn’t learned a spell and were instead in Mother Bear’s night classes on magical safety. Sasha’s punishment for overcasting on the deer and threatening her health or even her life was thorough, humiliating and set back her education, at least according to her. However she thought that spending time with Julie wouldn’t be so bad. Also, according to Sasha, Kenji spent time going back to the ACHE for some reason. Supposedly it was to visit family. However when he came back his aura seemed sad and somehow sick but it would eventually go away after a few hours. She wasn’t sure what to make of it. She wondered if somehow the ACHE polluted the auras of people for a time, or maybe Kenji or even mundanes couldn’t sense just how evil and nightmarish the astral of the ACHE was, but perhaps that it had an effect on them anyhow. “So what’s been keeping you in here? I miss you at the lunch table you know,” chided Sasha, gently. It was Friday evening. “I’ve been learning to read,” said Fuzzy, “It’s been eating up my days. If I lose focus I have to start all over again. There are so many songs…” “Wait, songs?” she asked. Fuzzy fidgeted and blushed. Sasha looked away and Fuzzy’s respect for her friend soared as she at least attempted to respect her emotional privacy. “Yeah. I’m up to the third grade level. I think I can just learn at my own pace at night now and finish up the last module next week. Julian says the songs are called…Umm…Mnemonic devices,” she said, slowly, with uncharacteristic nervousness, “Which help my brain learn better, but I sort of hum when I read now. “You learned to read in a week? Really?” asked Sasha. “Not on my own. Marco, Julian and this tutor lady helped. Also I was working twelve hours days for all of that. Learning the heal spell was almost as hard, actually, but songs don’t hurt my brain. I’m pretty great though. You can admit it,” said Fuzzy, teasingly. Sasha rolled her eyes. “Thought about what you’re going to do this weekend?” asked Sasha. “Nope. Anything but singing though,” said Fuzzy, tiredly, “I’ve drank so much juice to keep my throat wet. So much. I’m juiced out. My throat gets sore, but I could heal myself so I could keep going as long as I wanted. It’s a small thing to heal tiny wounds like that. Anyway, I’m still thinking about it.” CYOA Time What do we do this weekend? We can invite multiple people out if we want to, but wrangling them altogether will require a harder and harder etiquette check with one hit needed for each additional person we ask. However, I'll give a +1 bonus for having learned from Marco as her friends are hungry to see Fuzzy. The roll says that we can invite three people, but we don't have to. That means meeting up with people too like Clever who don't go to the school. There are definitely places her friends can't go though. Sasha can't go to the ACHE as she gets nauseous even getting close to that place and it gets worse the closer she gets. The ork underground is ork only outside of the tourist areas. Sasha also needs bodyguards for being outside of the Ares compound. Marco goes to church on Sunday in the ork underground. Kenji is mostly confined to the ACHE and the Seattle area proper. We can also work on projects, purposefully try to develop contacts, improve existing contacts (which is easier with fewer people) or try to pick up some work. Mother Bear won't give us a job because we're not trained to her standards yet, but Clever will do almost anything to get a trained magical healer to show up at the ACHE and will pay us a fixed amount of nuyen per hit and get him as a loyalty 1 contact or we can do it for free and his loyalty will go up by half the hits we get healing as well as 2 karma. We know of no other jobs at present unless we want to work at a Stuffer Shack. We've also spent zero time with Julie and she has been having a capital B capital T Bad Time lately and I'll let you all know that ignoring people will have negative consequences. At the same time if you guys are cool with that, I'm cool with that. At present she can go anywhere with us. Ares with Sasha, ork underground tourist area or even the ACHE to assist us in healing. After all she's just as poor as Fuzzy is, or maybe doing good for goodness sake would be good for her beaten up soul. Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 17:46 on Aug 13, 2018 |
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Sep 29, 2017 23:28
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Toughy posted:The quickness of your updates is unreal!! I appreciate it, even though I don't always get to put some input between them. Thank you!! I appreciate the praise. It feels good to be appreciated. It also took me a little longer as I was checking for more errors in editing. I feel like my previous post was chock full of them and that diminished the quality significantly. I'm not sure how to strike the balance yet. Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 23:46 on Sep 29, 2017 |
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Sep 29, 2017 23:29
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We've definitely got to spend time with Julie, and Sasha too. Seeing as Sasha seems to have an in with her, maybe we can make it a girl's day out with the three of us to somewhere in town on Saturday? Or the Ares arcology if Sasha's bodyguards are too much? Then try this whole "church" thing with Marco on Sunday (or is the church in the part of Ork Town that we aren't welcome in)?
Crazycryodude fucked around with this message at 23:58 on Sep 29, 2017 |
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Sep 29, 2017 23:55
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Crazycryodude posted:We've definitely got to spend time with Julie, and Sasha too. Seeing as Sasha seems to have an in with her, maybe we can make it a girl's day out with the three of us to somewhere in town on Saturday? Or the Ares arcology if Sasha's bodyguards are too much? Then try this whole "church" thing with Marco on Sunday (or is the church in the part of Ork Town that we aren't welcome in)? The church is in a part of town that she could go to.
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Sep 30, 2017 00:05
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Yeah I think going to church with Marco on Sunday would be cool. Not that Fuzzy is particularly interested in converting or anything right now, we just like new experiences and want to hang out with Marco some more. And it's obvious he cares about whatever the hell this "church" thing is so it would probably be a good bonding experience? Oh hey, we can invite Julie, too!
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Sep 30, 2017 00:09
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Girls day out in town on Saturday and church with Julie and Marco.
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Sep 30, 2017 00:30
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Ice Phisherman posted:. . . she gently pined for his compliments and strong, reassuring presence. Fuzzy be crushin' on Marco? Ice Phisherman posted:“So what’s been keeping you in here? I miss you at the lunch table you know,” chided Sasha, gently. Yo, stop stressing me girl, I need my space! Ice Phisherman posted:CYOA Time Saturday: Check in with Kenji, see where our marker's at, and see about his latest hustle. DO NOT go to the ACHE. Spend the rest of the day with Sasha, maybe go get more bao. Sunday: Church with Marcos and Julie; find a spot to buy her a smoothie or something, have a chat. Ice Phisherman posted:It also took me a little longer as I was checking for more errors in editing. I feel like my previous post was chock full of them and that diminished the quality significantly. I'm not sure how to strike the balance yet. You do you; the last post definitely read a lot smoother, however, its also very time consuming to go through rounds of editing. We can adapt, either way. Sometimes, if you just want to get pages out quick, let us be your crowd source editors!
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Sep 30, 2017 01:47
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I like the sound of Julie/Sasha on Saturday and Julie/Marco on Sunday, yeah. Also, if we develop a bit more healing magic - especially disease and addiction relief - we should have a chat with Kenji about trying to monetize that in the ACHE (and other slums). After all, Fuzzy's a hard-bargaining entrepreneur, right?
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Sep 30, 2017 01:48
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jagadaishio posted:Also, if we develop a bit more healing magic - especially disease and addiction relief - we should have a chat with Kenji about trying to monetize that in the ACHE (and other slums). After all, Fuzzy's a hard-bargaining entrepreneur, right? Even better, clean up Kenji's Moms. He'll be in our debt, big time, enough to get his premium service for free during the rest of our time at Blake Island. ***** Edit ***** I still advocate we stay out of the ACHE though, too much bad mojo to make it worth our while. Also, the dealers might not take to kindly to us 'curing' their client base. CourValant fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Sep 30, 2017 |
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Sep 30, 2017 03:12
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So I hit two goals tonight. One personal and unrelated, another in that this story will officially become novel length as of the next post. I've got some Halo Top sea salt caramel ice cream and a Newcastle Brown Ale because I suck at beer, but like what I like. Minor celebration in any case. Consequently I'm feeling pretty good and I'll see if I can get in one more post in later tonight. I'm going to provide a link over at the Shadowrun thread in traditional games in a bit directing people to here. Not sure exactly what to say, but I'd love to attract some new people. I've always been hot garbage at blurbs though so if any of you have any suggestions I'd love to hear them. I did a word count. As of the last post I have hit 49,913 words. That's 87 words short of the length of a novel. A small novel to be sure, but a novel. I've always been doing some storyboarding for outcomes near the end and I've been weaving clues for discovery into the story for you guys to pick up with multiple paths to arrive there along with reinforcing those plot seeds in case people want to follow them up along with lamp shading key elements of the story that will be necessary to make everything work together. I'm pleased with my cleverness, but somewhat nervous about tying it all together. I don't want people to find out the big reveal too soon after all. That said the ending is not on rails or set in stone. I've made it so it can pivot and be responsive to the thread. In the meantime having sewn up the ending I need to figure out something else to do near the middle of the school year around Christmas so it doesn't sag. I have some ideas but I'm letting them percolate. My current goal is to have four acts. The first which we're in now and about to wrap up is introducing characters, locations and elements of the story that I need to lampshade. I'll time skip ahead a month and have Fuzzy do a montage where she's allowed to learn some skills at school in relative peace. I would like to stick with her if at all possible as I feel like I'm finally getting a grip on Fuzzy's character, but if the thread wants to switch I understand. Act two would be two months later and coming up after I finish the weekend and I will begin to introduce conflict. We've seen the characters in times of relative peace. I want to see what happens when I apply pressure and reveal what these characters are made of deep down. I'm time skipping because if I continue at the pace I've been going the story would be about a quarter done instead of one ninth done. I don't think I can write 450,000 words no way no how and I don't think I would want to read all of that. 200,000 is doable though. Plus if I like the story and I'm not burnt out I can just continue for another year sometime down the road. I may want to continue this and see how the characters grow over time, as change over time is a favorite theme of mine. If I decide to do another year I'll start a new thread at some point along with taking it off site to make it a proper web serial. If I have the steam in me for year two I might as well commit. However I'm 95% sure I have the steam in me to finish this CYOA and if I continue at the pace I'm going I should finish sometime by late Halloween. Even if I don't I could definitely finish up by Christmas. If I haven't said it enough, you folks are great. I would've quit ages ago without an audience who appreciates my work. Glad you're enjoying it because if you're reading this right here after nearly 50k words I expect you might just like what I'm doing here. Anyway, this beer isn't going to drink itself. It needs help and I'm willing to make the sacrifice. I'll be back later to post something for the night. Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 03:55 on Sep 30, 2017 |
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Sep 30, 2017 03:36
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Ice Phisherman posted:So I hit two goals tonight.  Congrats!!! From all of us who have been following so far, great job! We're all rooting for you and can't wait to see where you take this! Ice Phisherman posted:. . . a Newcastle Brown Ale because I suck at beer, but like what I like. Hey, you do you; I'm a scotch man myself. Ice Phisherman posted:I'm going to provide a link over at the Shadowrun thread in traditional games in a bit directing people to here. Not sure exactly what to say, but I'd love to attract some new people. I've always been hot garbage at blurbs though so if any of you have any suggestions I'd love to hear them. Let us know when you post the link (and where), we can jump over there and advocate for you as well, its the least we can do! Ice Phisherman posted:I'm pleased with my cleverness, but somewhat nervous about tying it all together. I don't want people to find out the big reveal too soon after all. We'll be the judge of that, Mister.  Ice Phisherman posted:I don't think I can write 450,000 words no way no how. 200,000 is doable though. Okay, the other goon was right; Imma be sad when this thing ends.  Ice Phisherman posted:Plus if I like the story and I'm not burnt out I can just continue for another year sometime down the road. I may want to continue this and see how the characters grow over time, as change over time is a favorite theme of mine. Please? Ice Phisherman posted:Anyway, this beer isn't going to drink itself. I'll be back later to post something for the night. Enjoy Forum Friend, you've earned your beer this week!
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Sep 30, 2017 03:53
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I got sleepy last night after some beer so I'm going to write what I decided to last night. I added copiously to my notes which I'll release when I'm done with the story. I'm rather proud of what I've written and I think I've figured out a way to make the middle more interesting. Not sure about the third act yet, but that's a ways away. Writing now.
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Sep 30, 2017 16:15
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Fuzzy, Sasha and Julie – August 24th – Saturday Afternoon – Seattle Metroplex, Downtown Tacoma, The Magician’s Feast Girls and bodyguards both arrived in front of the Magician’s Feast and perfectly parallel parked as the driver of the car, a security rigger that was several miles away on matrix overwatch ran his simple parking program. Like Marco said yesterday, some of the best security is often invisible. The area didn’t look particularly nice though the restaurant looked just fine; newer than what surrounded it. The restaurant was small but did a brisk business squished between old style brick buildings on either side. Gang tags were present, but they weren’t particularly heavy. Fuzzy noticed Human Nation tags, not one she was intimately familiar with as they rarely came into the barrens, but once or twice a year there’d be a tagging spree that would get people tagging off their turf beaten up, maimed or killed. However, Julie definitely noticed though. “I’m not sure if I should be here,” said Julie, nervously, “This is Human Nation territory. They’re a human supremacist gang. They’re really tight with Humanis. This is a bad place.” “What? No, it’s fine,” Sasha reassured, “Duncan and Beef are here with us. Plus you’ve got to try the fish.” Against her better judgement Julie followed Sasha in with Fuzzy bringing up the rear. The bodyguards stayed near the girls and stuck out like sore thumbs in their black suits. The Magician’s Feast was a small restaurant with only a dozen tables. The clientele was small and dressed in eclectic styles which meant Fuzzy’s full leather devil rat clothing fit right in more easily than Julie’s second hand coat and school outfit or Sasha’s understated designer jacket and clothes. To Fuzzy it just looked like a normal building. It even looked plain, just wood floors and blue painted walls. Sasha turned to Julie and tapped the middle of her forehead then did the same to Fuzzy. Julie immediately understood and then gaped. Fuzzy didn’t understand. “There are spirits everywhere,” she whispered. “Hello, welcome to the Magician’s Feast,” said a waitress, “Table for one?” “We have reservations under Lee,” said Sasha. The waitress paused and her glasses lit up as she checked their reservation in augmented reality. Then she smiled politely and nodded. “Hello Miss Lee,” said the waitress, Yes, right this way.” “Lee?” whispered Julie. “I don’t want to broadcast where I am,” whispered Sasha, “Security precautions.” Sasha and Julie both stepped around things which Fuzzy could not see, walked faster at times, both giggling, and looked as if they were trying to evade something or perhaps many somethings, though friendly or at least not hostile. When the girls were all seated along with Sasha’s bodyguards close by they were immediately presented with water. The menus were all available in augmented reality. “It’s beautiful,” whispered Julie, her voice full of awe, “It’s like an aquarium, but I’m in the tank. There are so many fish. What’s that?” Julie pointed out into space. Fuzzy saw nothing. “That’s a manta, but I think it’s got some aspects of a shark too,” said Sasha. Again, Fuzzy saw nothing. It was just a restaurant and some strange looking patrons. “Is that an enormous clam in the corner?” asked Julie. “Yeah, it’s got to be what…Three feet wide? I wonder if it has astral pearls,” said Sasha, thoughtfully. Her friend smiled big and broad and she looked proud of herself. “What do you think, Fuzzy? Isn’t it great?” asked Sasha. “It’s a restaurant,” said Fuzzy. “A restaurant full of spirits,” Sasha said, mysteriously, “I mean, we could go the aquarium, but we’d have to get suited up to be in the tank. You don’t even have to swim or get wet this way. Plus they serve awakened fish here prepared Salish style. Also they have these kelp pickle chips that I absolutely love.” Fuzzy shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t see the astral. Marco did this trick where he revealed a spirit to me, but I can’t see the astral at all,” admitted Fuzzy. The wide, happy smile that Sasha wore faltered at first, but then quickly died and left her devastated. She made a small, high, desperate noise and then lowered her head to the table. Her forehead thumped repeatedly against it. Julie, who sat next to her in the booth, patted her gently on the back and looked vaguely guilty for enjoying something that Fuzzy could not. “I feel so stupid,” sighed Sasha, as she spoke to herself. “I planned this for two weeks. I should have asked.” “It’s lovely,” soothed Julie. “It’s lovely with all of my friends, not some of them,” complained Sasha. Fuzzy felt bad for Sasha. Apparently she’d tried to do something sweet not only for Julie, which had been working. However, Fuzzy couldn’t see any of this. The gesture fell flat on its face because she either forgot or hadn’t been told that Fuzzy could see the astral. Maybe even since she saw it all the time meant she assumed others like her saw it too? Fuzzy wasn’t sure. She was flattered by the attempt but could tell that her presence was going to damage the experience and drag the two into suppressing their enjoyment of the place. She wanted to support Sasha and help Sasha support Julie. She’d never seen Julie smile like she did just now. Not once. Not even half as much. So Fuzzy formulated a plan. “So it’s like reading, right? I can learn?” asked Fuzzy. Julie turned to her and thought. The she nodded to the affirmative. “Yeah, you could learn to do it,” she said, “It wouldn’t even take you very long. A week if you tried hard, two tops.” “Tell you two what. You two have fun, and if I learn to see the astral you’ll just take me out here again, won’t you, Sasha?” asked Fuzzy. Sasha looked up and smiled. Her anxiety began to fade. “You’re just trying to make me feel better,” said Sasha. “Is it working?” asked Fuzzy. Sasha thought about it and then nodded shyly. Fuzzy reached out her hand and Sasha grasped it. They squeezed hands, but before they parted Fuzzy looked at Julie and then down at her hand. As a fellow outcast she wanted to include Julie and knew that Sasha would want to as well. Julie looked vaguely embarrassed and looked away, but Sasha nudged her in the side with her body. “Come on, you know you want to get in on this,” said Sasha, “Girls day out, remember?” Fuzzy and Sasha broke their hand hold and with Julie’s larger, rougher hand added to the mix the girls shared a moment. “I feel dumb,” said Julie, worriedly. “Them I’m dumb too,” added Sasha. Sasha looked hopefully to Fuzzy. “You’re both smarter than me, so I’m the dumbest,” teased Fuzzy. The girls had a laugh and broke the impromptu hand touching. It was corny and a little lame, but sometimes that can work. “I’m going to go out and take a walk. You two have fun,” Fuzzy said, “I’ll be back in a little bit. Get me some of those pickle chips for when I get back.” Fuzzy– August 24th – Saturday Afternoon – Seattle Metroplex, Downtown Tacoma Fuzzy didn’t want them to feel guilty about having fun without her. She could come back in a few minutes when their food was ready because she could at least enjoy that with them. She’d made them promise to get her something good and she left past the bodyguards, Duncan and Beef. She departed through the door and emerged onto the street. She looked up at the building and switched on her AR goggles. The sign, “Magician’s Feast” was there. She didn’t know how the letters made all of those sounds for the first word, but she memorized them, humming a song softly as she tried to make out the first word. She knew feast as she was food motivated, but didn’t know exactly how all those letters spelled “magician” or what the apostrophe was yet. Fuzzy decided to have a walk around the block. She wanted to try out Seattle for a few minutes on her own and decided that if she counted her steps and took only left turns she’d end up back here and if she took right turns when she came back and counted her steps she’d end up back here too. If not she could simply try and give Sasha a call, but her personal pride in her sense of direction would permit that in only the direst of circumstances. The left turns brought new sights and words, some of which she knew. She hummed happily as she reveled in her new skill. Fuzzy could read. Not well, but some, and it opened up possibilities to her which she’d never considered before. This place sold art. That place food. This street was called Kit’s Corner which linked up to…En…Canted? No, there was an H in there. “En-chan-ted,” she sang out, phonetically, “I know that word. That’s a magic vocab word.” She rounded the bend minutes later in a new area on her second left turn when she heard the sounds of a scuffle in an alley. She ducked quickly around the side and took a look. Her instincts kicked in. Someone was being kicked by three men. Bald heads, two wore leather coats and one a simple white t-shirt, all three were human and one was bigger than the other two. She couldn’t see the person being kicked, but the person protected their head with their hands. Boots fell heavily on the person’s stomach, legs, arms and groin. She heard the person’s groans, masculine. Only when he was too beaten to respond one of the smaller of the three men pulled out a knife which glistened in what little light there was in the alley. “gently caress yeah, Rider. Yeah, loving do it,” sneered a man. “Knife this trog and earn your coat like I said,” said the other man, his voice excited, “Blood in, that’s how it works.” “Please…” groaned the man, “Please no…” “What, can’t have some fun first?” ask Rider. “Long as you gut him I don’t give a poo poo,” said the big man, “Human Nation doesn’t take pussies.” Fuzzy's blood ran cold. She knew a gang initiation when she saw it. Some got beat in or burned. That was violence within the gang. This was different. This was a murder initiation. These were the especially bad gangs, the ones that required a kill to join. She looked around the street, saw no one close, looked back and saw Rider slap the man's face with the flat of the knife. The men laughed. She checked her gear. No bow, but she did have her spearknife currently in knife form. It was untested and that made her nervous. Her blood began to course. Time began to slow down. It was fight or flight time. CYOA Time First combat of the game. Here are the stakes and situation: Fuzzy knows how gang initiation rituals work. This is a murder initiation. If she does nothing the man is going to die. Two of those men are likely to have likely killed before. However, the alley is ill lit and the one doing the stabbing is toying with the ork to work up the courage to kill him. This means Fuzzy has a little time. Fuzzy is great at running and sneaking, she's fast and if she gets the drop on them she can attack twice. If we'd bothered to learn stun bolt or another attack spell instead of read this encounter probably would've been easier. However Fuzzy didn't and she doesn't have her bow as it was too bulky and obvious for Seattle's downtown area. She has her spear knife and Kenji's knife though. Fuzzy does know that murdering these people would cause tons of trouble as Marco explained what the police are (invoking that social bonus now), but if the thread chooses we can do that if she wants to suffer the consequences. She's good with a stick though. Not as great as the bow, but it has reach and will add to attack and defense while doing non-lethal damage. She can either sneak and get a surprise attack or run up on them and try to overrun them. The men have no armor, just T-Shirts (two of them human nation) but there are three of them and at least one is armed. She can also try to call the police, but she will have serious problems getting ahold of them in time (needs two hits on logic + intuition) and I'll roll edge to see if he gets stabbed by the time she's done. She doesn't know the response time for the cops. Just that they're supposed to show up. Or she can walk away. On another note, Fuzzy was able to keep Sasha from feeling too bad. Fuzzy's etiquette still isn't great. Fuzzy was not able to make Julie feel better, but Sasha was able to so the girls had a bonding moment. Julie might be available as a contact later. That was also a little more difficult to write, but fun. Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Aug 13, 2018 |
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Sep 30, 2017 19:25
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Seattle Nazis. I hate Seattle Nazis. Well, we don't have a convenient bridge to force them all off of, but we do have a staff and some good sneaky skills. Sneak up on the bastards and whack 'em. Keep the staff in staff mode and the backup knife sheathed unless it's literal life or death (that includes the ork on the ground, if they're about to kill him and the only way to stop them is to use the pointy bits instead, do it). Not that I would lose any sleep over these three biting it, but the legal trouble is preferably avoided. Go for the two true believers first, the new guy is all distraught so he should react slower. Crazycryodude fucked around with this message at 22:34 on Sep 30, 2017 |
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Sep 30, 2017 19:42
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