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JUST MAKING CHILI posted:How much did Julie pay attention to the prison economy? I assume it’s similar to the touristville economy, as both are largely barter based. I'm not sure how much Julie would have known about the prison economy. I imagine her largely as someone so brutalized by her dad trying to kill her and then the repeated abuse of prison that she'd checked out. Ironically you're literally looking at someone from a racist, murdering, outlaw motorcycle club who helped her get through prison because she was feeling maternal. Also we'll be seeing Big Rita really soon because the thread invited her to her house! Personally, I think that prison economies are fascinating. In the US they largely depend on the stability of where you're at. So somewhere like a county lockup is extremely chaotic and if there's an economy, it shifts and morphs depending on who's inside. If the area has gangs, the gangs probably runs that economy, but people don't tend to spend a lot of time in county. Federal is different. It's more orderly and better run. State prisons are what people are most familiar with from literature. Federal doesn't really put people in prison for say, murder or rape for example. You're often looking at stuff like financial crimes. So in prison, your car, or who you hang out with (almost always based on race) is often the center of this economy. Normally the gangs are who runs the prison both in a literal sense and a figurative sense, because actual order imposed by guards costs too much money. So your car has a hustle and each gang jealously protects their hustle. So let's say you're in Cali. The Mexican gangs like the Mexican Mafia may have the hustle for shooting dice, basically gambling. Your black gangs like bloods and crips (on the decline because of the Mexican mafia btw, Mexican Mafia actively targets black people in Cali for murder which is why a lot of black people are returning to the South) may run drugs, but they don't work together. At least not the last time I checked. Aryan Brotherhood does murder for hire. There are even hustles for stuff like books or porno mags which are extremely jealously guarded and lent out only to trusted people. Think about prostitution, but for books. Also actual prostitution in prison is a thing too. Female prison guards will make a lot of money having sex in prison as prison guards often don't make much money, especially in private prisons where they're basically making just above minimum wage. These are all examples, hustles can change and often the changing of that hustle is violent. There's just a ton of money that runs through prison. Like crazy amounts of money. Also you could have an individual hustle. If your prison doesn't allow for coffee or makes poo poo coffee and you can whip up some awesome coffee, people will pay to drink your coffee if it's passable or even good. Not all hustles are illegal and/or immoral. Julie's hustle in prison and what largely kept her out of trouble was a legal hustle. The average educational level of a prisoner in the US last time I checked was about fourth grade. So doing paralegal work is looked upon as an extremely valuable skill because you can read and write and understand the law and you know how to navigate the bureaucracy. Helping people get their paper together is looked upon as an extremely valuable skill. And if you get someone out early, hooboy you are going to get a lot of business. Everyone wants to get out. Debt and obligation are big deals in prison. Someone will definitely give you credit or ask for favors in prison because they like debt and credit. It gives them power over you. At the same time, I've heard stories of people who just grow crazier and crazier over time because they're in debt or owe a favor and will eventually attack the person who owns their debt for not discharging it fast enough. Contrary to popular belief, being forced to have sex against your will is pretty rare. You do earn a bad reputation for someone having sex with you just to get by. It earns you a bad reputation. On the other hand, a rapist or would be rapist is very hated in prison. Few people will engage with them and if someone tries to mess with you, you're basically obligated to and encouraged to beat the hell out of them or worse. The prison economy might have someone who keeps a tally of debts and obligations, but prison economies have no real forms of set currency now that cigs are gone. Some prisons may have portable items that someone can keep that could be used as currently, but if there it varies from prison to prison. What I'm saying is that there's no one set exchange rate. So while the gangs do thrive in this economy as well as some talented individuals, the people who often do the best in prison both in terms of attitude and temperament and resources are former hard drug addicts. I'm talking meth and crack. The kind of stuff where at some point you're looking to score and the world looks less and less like a place to live and more and more like a place to loot. Where you've devolved to the point where robbing someone and maybe splitting their head open is just how you get by. In prison, these people are detoxed, but ironically their situation has improved. They have a solid place to sleep, they have clean water, they have three square meals a day and they are used to using violence to get what they want. Because what are they going to do? Put them in prison? You can't really do much to someone who has an attitude of "I don't care if I live or die" except isolate, banish or kill them. And these people are not only absolutely loving ruthless, not only will they often give you no tell before attacking you but they're rarely who you expect. It might not be that guy who benches 400 pounds in the yard. Sure the muscle helps with intimidation and raw strength, but that muscle is him putting on armor too. Just an armor of muscle. Also you get swole really drat fast in prison when it's all you have to do fyi. No, the former hard addicts with their live or die I don't care attitude can go from zero to kill in the blink of an eye and even a lot of the biggest dudes in prison are afraid of this one 5'5, 145 pound dude because he'll try to cave your head in or stab you for even the smallest sleight. So the prison economy works on a mixed black market. A black market is basically an underground economy of both legal and illegal services, but they happen without government regulation. There are also some darker dabblings in the red market which basically deals with the buying and selling of human beings: Intact or dead, blood, bone, organs, human trafficking, etc. That's the really dark poo poo and I'm fairly sure it goes on, but it's not exactly the kind of market that takes well to study by prison scholars. Prison economies basically run on debt, obligation, gangs or cars controlling hustles, supply, demand, legal and illegal. I'm not very familiar with women's prisons though. All that I know from my time as a sociologist and then study beyond that is fairly recent, but it's specific to a few sources.
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Apr 10, 2019 23:41
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Big Rita's going to run into Krupa isn't she
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Apr 11, 2019 00:12
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Julie asks Julian for help in managing and helping Big Rita
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Apr 11, 2019 01:16
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"Why the gently caress do you need a bunch of elves propping you up all the time? What the gently caress is wrong with you?" Julie has an unusual number of elves invested in her socially.
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Apr 11, 2019 07:30
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The Krupa/Big Rita oncoming trainwreck is going to be fascinating to read. I can't wait.
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Apr 11, 2019 20:30
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Ice Phisherman posted:Krupa feels terrible and wants to apologize, but doesn't know how. How do we deal with this? I'd like to see some personal growth with Krupa here; if she's here to learn, then let's learn her something good. Instead of reaching for her trusted 'I have resources, have an expensive gift' apology, I'd like for her to apologize in the T-Ville way. Perhaps Dolphin has a suggestion, or we can ask Devin, or, just offer her a favor akin to the T-Ville economy? Ice Phisherman posted:Is Julie interested in those letters and numbers that Shauna showed her or does it slip her mind again? Yes, Julie Effing Freeman asks about her social credit score. Because if nothing else, I want to see more of the World Building.
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Apr 11, 2019 22:07
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Marista Wolfswift, Blur Wolfswift, Ton-Vad Wolfswift, a spirit wolf, Chauncey, Chagin Swordcursed and the Fireblood Bandits – Saturday, August 17th, 2075 – Afternoon - Seattle Metroplex, Bellevue, Saint Edward Park The intrepid adventurers of clan Wolfswift and their stalwart companion, Chauncey, stalked through the Fellwoods. It was rumored that the Fireblood bandits and their leader, Chagin Swordcursed of the fallen nobility laired here. Recently, an entire trading caravan had been slaughtered save for a single soul who stumbled into town to report the foul deed. For not only had those in the caravan been slain, but their souls had been harvested by the cursed blade of Chagin Swordcursed which was so utterly foul that only one of the Eternal Heroes of Eternia ™ would dare challenge him. Marista Wolfswift, swiftest of the Wolfswift clan, wore the traditional leathers of her people. Her blonde hair was medium-length, but held in place by decorative bones. She was small in stature, but stout of heart and had heeded the call to capture or kill Chagin Swordcursed and release the souls of the caravaneers before their souls were devoured by the cursed blade forever. This she knew was a mission of mercy, a mission of justice, and because she was still sensible, a mission of profit. In her hands she held her bow, spirit arrow nocked, eyes wary for her quarry. Her hide shield and club were strapped to her back and side, ready to be deployed in a moment’s notice in case the bandits or any foul beast of the Fellwoods entered into close combat. Her little brother, Blur Wolfswift had also heeded the call. Second swiftest of the Wolfswift clan, perhaps swifter than her someday he’d tease her in their lighter moments. However, most of the teasing lately had come from the fact that he was almost taller than his elder sister. Like her, he wore matching leathers as a proper Wolfswift should, though he did not wear the bones in his hair like she did as he’d recently cut his red hair short. Also his parents told him he couldn’t wear deer bones in his hair which really bummed him out. Like his sister, he too clutched a bow in his hands, but unlike her, he did not hide behind a shield, but used two knives. Once he’d lost his arm in combat, but through magic, he’d had it restored and that’s why he used two knives. This was very important in his official backstory that he uses two knives because that means he has two hands. Ton-Vad, druid of the Wolfswift clan was not the swiftest, but he was the wisest. His leathers were lighter than his two cousins as he wore only a heart guard over his druid’s robes. The blond haired druid was of average height and a little pudgy, which detracted from his swiftness, but the elaborate bone headdress that sat upon his head was magnificent. In his hands he carried his spear and round shield, preferring to strike at enemies from a distance with druidic magic and spear alike. However, all of his skin not covered by his robe or leather heart guard was covered in druidic paint, for he’d splurged on a blue augmented druid paint skin from the Eternity LARP matrix site. If you asked him what it did, he’d speak about how the sacred mud and ink that stained his skin would enhance his magic, though in reality it was just the cosmetic skin he was wearing this week. Ton-Vad’s druidic companion, the spirit wolf, was the same color as think mud mixed with ink and slightly translucent. It padded silently, staying next to him, but would occasionally stray towards Marista as she was the leader of the Wolfswift clan. The spirit wolf stayed ever vigilant for who knew what a wolf could find with its keen senses? Finally, though he was a new companion, and his long hair was grey, and he was far pudgier than Ton-Vad, and they’d had to stop more than once on their trek for him to rest and have snacks, Chauncey the fighter rounded out their group. He spoke in a strange dialect of the common tongue which he’d referred to as “British”, whatever that was. He’d elected to wear spirit armor over his colorful, swirl patterned shirt which all Eternal Heroes of Eternia ™ were allowed to wear over their normal clothing. Not everyone chose to wear physical armor, but spirit armor was treated as just the same. On his shoulder he carried his enormous great sword, his only weapon, and he was surprisingly good with it, having dispatched a dire bear on their way. A man of the sword and storyteller both, Chauncey was an excellent companion to round out the hunting pack of the Wolfswift clan until they found more of their lost clan. It was late in the day. The shadows waned in the Fellwood, but in the distance were the remains of the massacred caravan. Marista held up a hand as she heard a snap of a twig. “Who goes there?!” she called out. “Aha, I see that you are too clever to have fallen into my trap,” said a haughty man. He slow clapped as he emerged from behind a tree. He was tall, black clad, heavily armored and had a long, slender sword at his side. Other bandits began to emerge from the tree line as well, mostly armed with axes and shields, though one had a bow. All wore ratty look gambesons and the woven cloth armor looked as if it had not seen repair in some time. Marista’s instincts were to shoot first, but she remembered that any attempt at banter was roleplay, and roleplay earned extra experience. So she’d allow Chagin to monologue for a bit, but not without speaking her piece. “Far too clever for you,” she said dismissively, “And soon you’ll know that we are swift as well.” “Awoo!” howled the other members of clan Wolfswift and their spirit wolf. Chauncey hadn't yet understood the right cues to howl and didn't. “Mayhaps not swift enough,” drawled Chagin, “For it is I, Chagin Swordcursed, leader of the Fireblood bandits and your lord and master as one of the nobility.” “Fallen nobility,” spat Marista. “Only for a time, for we rise again. If you surrender now I will spare your miserable lives,” he said, with a dainty sniff, “On my honor as one of the nobility, I shall allow you to be ransomed.” “Give up now and I’ll make sure your death is quick and clean,” countered Marista. “I say there, knave,” drawled Chauncey in his “British” accent, “Fallen nobility have no honour!” “By the spirits, I vow that I shall destroy you, and you shall feed the earth,” intoned Ton-Vad. “We’re going to mess you up!” shouted Blur. “Grrr,” growled the spirit wolf. Chagin Swordcursed placed his hands on his hips and shook his head dramatically, affecting a dismissive pose. “I see that there is no reasoning with the rabble," sighed Chagin, "And here to think I was ready to give mercy." Marista briefly paused as she thought of what to say next. “Uhh…Umm…Right, I see the kind of mercy you give behind you!” shouted Marista, “You’ll get the same!” “Yeah!” shouted Blur, “Let’s get them!” Marista noticed that some of the bandits were looking at her intently and whispering among one another. She stretched her ears and caught a piece of their conversation. “That’s the girl from the news, I told you she was here. She’s the one who aced that toxic spirit,” one bandit whispered to another, “We definitely need to take her down.” “Hell yeah, bragging rights dude,” the other whispered back. In fact, they were all looking at her. One even pointed. Marista knew that she could mop the floor with them with her magic, but she didn’t want to use it. She was a barbarian and barbarians didn't cast magic, though they did prize magic items. Magic used from the outside world was against the spirit of this place and kept it from being fun. Besides, she didn’t need her magic to win. She could be swift and clever and she had friends to help her. “They’re going to come after me,” whispered Marista to her party, “Let them, flank them and we can take them down quick. It’s seven on four…” “Grrr…” growled the spirit wolf. “Oh yeah, five, sorry,” corrected Marista, bashfully, “Anyway, I’m good at dealing with multiple opponents from my martial arts class over the summer. So don’t worry about me. Just whittle them down. Only the bandit leader is really dangerous.” “I wish he had a cursed spear instead. That would’ve been cool. No one here has the katana specialty,” complained Ton-Vad, “Everyone uses a katana lately since the new patch.” “Well?” asked Chagin Swordcursed, as he raised his voice higher “I may be fallen nobility, but that is temporary. I do understand honor, for how else shall I rule you again? A second time I offer you mercy. What say you?” “The only thing you rule is the dirt!” exclaimed Blur. They all laughed, had a final group howl which Chauncey added his voice as well as they all howled. “A third time I offer mercy, what say you?” he asked. “No!” they all shouted as one. “Very well, said Chagin Swordcrused, “If you shall not listen to reason then you shall have blood and steel. Then I shall harvest your souls for my evil machinations. Get them my minions.” He dismissively waived the bandits forward. Fallen nobles never entered battle unless they had to, or unless the opportunity to strike presented itself. And so battle was joined. Charging wasn’t allowed because that might actually hurt someone and it gave debuffs that doubled incoming damage and halved outgoing damage for ten seconds. So normally no one ran forward, but people did hustle. So as they spread out with Marista in the middle, bow still in her hands to draw the bandits in, but ready to switch to melee in an instant. Ton-Vad lifted his spear. “Curse of withering!” he shouted. The tip of his spear flared to life in augmented reality and bolts of druidic magic struck each and every one of the bandits, rendering their strikes useless. So Marista allowed herself to be thoroughly bopped by one of their axes and lazily dodged a few more in contempt. There was no sign of blood and so her HP bar didn’t go down. She smiled as she casually stowed her bow and drew her club and shield. Marista looked to Blur and then to one of the bandits who’d been too eager to get her and was suffering the weakness buff and the charging debuff both. Without needing to be told twice, he nocked his “spirit arrow”, for foam arrows weren’t shot anymore after that one lawsuit from a few years back, and shot him in the chest. High pressure blood fountained from the man’s chest in an enormous spray. Marista had been uncomfortable with the standard real blood from wounds that came standard with the augmented reality overlay. Not because she was uncomfortable with blood, she’d been covered in the stuff while hunting this past week, but because she’d seen people actually bleed like that before and it brought up ugly memories. She could have turned it off, but it was nice to know when she or someone else had scored a hit. The health bars over their heads were only in sight only when you looked directly at them and they weren’t enough to know if you scored a hit or not. The high pressure blood was comical enough for her to be at ease and tell her what she wanted to know. The bandit “died”, but not immediately from the heart shot. He almost struck her again, but noticed, lightly swore and began to walk away to sit down. He’d be out of the way and outlined in augmented reality so no one would accidentally step on him. So of the three bandits who immediately focused on her to try and overwhelm her, one had been dispatched in the first three seconds. Seeing this, two of the slower bandits locked their shields together seeing that there was an experienced ranger on the field and that they’d been briefly cursed. They also advanced on Marista, axes and shields raised. Though they didn’t notice the spirit wolf as it grew even more insubstantial and circled wide to flank them. Meanwhile, Chauncey stepped in from the side and his great sword came down in an overhand swing. It mercilessly bopped one of the attacking bandits that tried to hit Marista and the sword appeared to travel through the bandit’s body in augmented reality from his head to the bottom of his leg. “Haha!” called Chauncey, “Have at you I say!” There was even more high pressure blood as the bandit “died” and he left to go sit down next to the other dead bandit, leaving only one left in close combat with the swiftest of the Wolfswift clan. Chagin Swordcursed sighed as he drew his katana. “Must I do everything myself?” he groaned. He advanced into the fray. Meanwhile, Ton-Vad the druid and the spirit wolf worked together. It attempted to bite at their legs and while it missed, their wild strikes could not touch the spirit wolf either. This harrying allowed Ton-Vad to strike at one of them with his spear and score a hit. He smiled wickedly in delight. “Your blood is mine, foul bandit,” he said, in a voice that attempted to be booming. Blur nocked another arrow and shot the fallen noble, dealing glancing damage. He barely seemed to acknowledge the hit save to look at the youngest of the Wolfswifts. “Ah, I see the lesser Wolfswift is interested in a fight. He shall have a taste of my blade,” said Chagin. “Lesser? I’ll show you lesser,” said Blur, hotly. He shouldered his bow and grabbed his two knives from his belt. They began to circle one another. “I suppose you’ll do for a warmup,” mocked Chagin. “I’m going to make you eat that sword,” snapped Blur. The volunteer playing Chagin kept it professional. He mocked Blur, but not the person playing him, all while putting up a passable display of swordsmanship. Whether he was distracted or Blur was too fast for him, after a few feints the katana came down for a quick strike. It was shaped like a katana, but really it was made of safety foam. To his surprise, Blur didn’t dodge to the side, but parried instead by crossing his knives and catching the blade midair. Chagin was genuinely surprised at how quick Blur was, who danced backwards for another strike. Meanwhile, Marista narrowly avoided an arrow shot from the solitary archer on the bandit’s side by an inch as the last remaining bandit went toe to toe with her now that the momentary curse was over. Her foam club bounced off a shield made primarily of safety foam and framed with PVC piping covered in even more foam. Marista’s shield was made from patches of devil rat hide stretched over a wooden frame, light and tough, though foam covered the edges of the wooden frame to keep it from bashing anyone by accident. Slightly off balance from the archer who was firing at her despite being in melee, she and the remaining bandit of the original three thoroughly traded the mightiest of bops from their foam club and foam axe, respectfully. Ton-Vad struck his target again with his superior reach from his spear. The shield wall wasn’t holding up now that it was being harassed by him in the front and the spirit wolf in back, the wolf snapping and harrying, but far too quick for the bandits. Ton-Vad slipped the spear through their guard as it broke apart and one of the bandits caught his foot on a rock. A moment later he teetered and fell awkwardly to the ground. “Time out!” called the game master in their ear. Everyone froze except for Blur, but the knife blows that hit Chagin Swordcursed didn’t count. “It’s a time out,” said Chagin, “Just a minute.” “Aw man,” said Blur, “I was just about to get you.” “We’ll see about that,” he teased, but then he looked to the volunteer bandit who’d taken a fall, “You okay, Gary?” Gary, one of the volunteer bandits, pudgier than everyone else, but not truly fat, but a kind of strong-fat, got to feet, his hands brown, red and green from the scraping, grass stains and dirt. “Hit my knee kind of hard,” he said, “I’m okay though. Give me a second to get out of the way.” “Fuzzy,” said the GM in her ear, the earbud discreetly hidden, “Would you mind healing him when we’re done? We’ve got an hour more of this and at least half dozen more groups for Saturday’s boss fight before we’re done for the day. We’re running a few different instances of this elsewhere and our volunteer pool is a bit stretched.” “No problem,” said Marista. “Thanks,” he said, “I appreciate it. I’ll get you something cool after this, but I’m still talking to people. Got to go.” The GM was basically the referee and storyteller who was in a tent a quarter mile away managing half a dozen adventuring parties with help from other GM’s who rotated duties and would handle disputes. Meanwhile, one of the “dead” bandits got up and helped Gary towards where they all sat and then helped him down to the ground. In augmented reality, Gary’s silhouette lit up like the other “dead” and defeated bandits so no one would go near them. “Sorry about that, man,” said Ton-Vad. “It happens,” said Gary, through gritted teeth, “If I wasn’t ready to take the pain, I’d do VR instead of AR. Scrapes, bumps and grass stains is just how it goes out here.” “I hear that,” said Ton-Vad. He got patted on the back a few times by the “dead” bandits as they all wanted to watch the fight wrap up. “All right, it looks like everyone is ready. Resume play on go,” said the GM, “Three, two, one, go.” Marista howled and attacked, but the remaining bandit of the three who’d initially focused on her was remarkably good with his shield and her club bounced harmlessly off it instead of harmlessly off him. Blur was on the defensive as the katana wielding bandit leader and fallen noble lashed out with his sword. Again Blur parried with astonishing speed. “Found your…Huff…Match in a young…Huff…Child I see,” mocked Chauncey, breathlessly, “So much for being…Hoo…Lesser. Have at you! Ha…Ha!” Chauncey was huffing and puffing though, so having at him would take a little while. Meanwhile, the bandits sandwiched between Ton-Vad the druid and the spirit wolf decided to be clever. With a backhanded swing, the axe lashed through the spirit wolf and took half its health. With a yipe of pain, it bounded away. Chauncey finally closed the distance to swing his great foam sword in another overhand chop, but Chagin nimbly stepped to the side. Blur stepped in with his two knives and didn’t attack so much as ineffectively flail and the odd attacks made Chagin flail in return as he expected a more competent attack after those two perfect parries. The young Wolfswift still wasn’t completely used to his new cybernetic arm yet. Again Marista dodged a spirit arrow. None could touch her, and the arrow startled her attacker, allowing her to whack him in the side as his shield was momentarily out of position. She bared her teeth in a fighting smile and took another blow on her shield from a retaliatory strike. In that moment, Ton-Vad took another axe-bonk to his shield and with a clever move he shifted his stance, let his hand slide from the center of his spear to the end and from several feet away he stabbed Marista’s opponent in the back, slaying him before going right back to his original opponent. His historical European martial arts or HEMA training, had paid off. “Hey!” shouted Marista, “Kill stealer!” “Why cousin, I was just helping you deal with him a little more swiftly,” he quipped. Marista ground her teeth. If Ton-Vad stole the only kill then she’d be mad. The spirit wolf, having run away from the bandit that Ton-Vad fought turned back advanced on the archer whose eyes went wide. He tried firing at it, but it nimbly dodged and his repeated shots were no longer a threat as the wolf entered melee. He fumbled with his short sword as the wolf attempted to bring him down. As Chauncey stepped in to deal with Chagin, Blur lived up to his namesake and quickly stepped behind Chauncey, briefly back to back with someone over forty years older than him. Due to Blur’s short stature, the overhead sweeping strike missed Chagin, but accidentally whirled over Blur and bonked the of Ton-Vad’s prey, the final axe wielding bandit, in the back of the head, accidentally instakilling him. Blood fountained from the general area a full ten feet into the air. He did not immediately fall, but upon realized what was done to him, he threw up his hands in frustration. “Really?!” he exclaimed, as blood continued to spray. “Oh, cooooool!” shouted Blur. Marista noticed that he was looking into the air and she’d spoken to his new adoptive parents about the violence settings of Eternity LARP. He wasn’t supposed to have the blood option on, much less the high pressure spray. What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them though. She smirked as she charged in, but not before Blur whirled under Chauncey to go low to attack. However, Chagin Swordcursed brought down his katana onto Blur’s shoulder. Blood fountained up from his neck and high into the air, but then the blood seemed to coalesce and coil before moving into the sword, turning it a bright, blood red. “Soulstealer deathblow,” he intoned. Marista…Fuzzy, stared at one of the few people she could possibly consider family have realistic blood shooting out of his neck. Yes the amount was unreal and comical, but it also struck a chord of worry in her. The violence, no matter how simulated and cartoony, felt a lot more real when Manny got hurt, even if it was just pretend hurt. She shook it off as the fight between Chauncey and Chagin intensified, the katana now glowing as well with after trails behind it. It was just a game, she reminded herself. Just a game. “Man…Er, Blur, no! I must save your soul!” she shouted. She made sure not to charge, only to move swiftly as Blur went to sit down with the “dead”. All the enemies that were left on the field were Chagin Swordcrused and the archer, now reduced to wild slashes with the sword in melee with the spirit wolf. Ton-Vad lifted his spear and the tip glowed a sickly orange as he cast a spell. “Brittle as autumn leaves!” he shouted. The debuff affixed itself to the fallen noble turned bandit, Chagin Swordcursed. Above him near his HP bar when Marista looked above his head she could read, “Defense halved” along with the small, but still significant amount of HP the shot from his arrow had taken from him. The spirit wolf suddenly broke away and sank its “jaws” into Chagin’s arm, causing even more damage and the HP bar to sink further into the red. “Foul beast, begone!” he bellowed, “Do you not know the power of this cursed blade?!” He was a class act, still roleplaying while fighting and being surrounded. Marista wasn’t there yet, the wolf was readying another attack, Ton-Vad readied another spell, but it was Chauncey of all people, now wheezing, but still smiling, who bonked him in the side with his great sword, dispatching this bandit leader, this fallen noble, this killer of caravaneers, this excellent roleplayer and decent fencer. Black blood fountained from the wound in AR before he staggered, dying, but not yet dead before he uttered his last few words. “We shall rule you all once again,” he whispered, hoarsely. “Not a chance,” said Marista, “The fallen nobility will forever remain fallen so long as there are eternal heroes to oppose them.” Chagin Swordcursed and his cursed sword both fell to the ground and the light of his sword dimmed. In augmented reality, all could see souls escape from the sword, shouting for their freedom. They went towards the massacred caravan which also only existed in AR, but did not enter the bodies, but fled upwards towards the heavens instead. Blur’s “soul” entered back into his body though and Ton-Vad quickly rushed over to heal him. “Cousin, I think he’s still alive,” he said, injecting concern into his voice. Everyone but Chauncey came over, who had to sit down, his long, grey hair now stringy with sweat as he caught his breath. Ton-Vad cast his “healing spell” on Blur and whispered to him. “Hey Manny, since this is a story event you didn’t actually die. You’re in critical right now, which means you move really slowly. I don’t want to do a slow walk all the way back, so I’ve got a spell so you can move faster until my regeneration aura works on your HP,” he explained, “You might want to speak with a raspy voice though. You know, to sell that you’re hurt.” “Okay, thanks John,” he rasped, “That was really fun. I think more blood came out of me than I have in me.” “Probably,” he said, and cleared his throat, “Okay, back in character. Revive!” In augmented reality, Blur was bathed in a soft, white light before he stood up. “You’ll be good as new in a short time,” said Ton-Vad, “That was a close call.” “Hey Fuzzy,” said the GM, “Can you take a look at Jim?” “Who’s Jim?” she asked. She looked around and spotted Chauncey struggling to catch his breath as he sat. “You’re looking at him,” he said, “He’s new. Hey Jim, are you okay?” “Oh, you know,” he said, and wheezed, “Too much fun. Lost my inhaler. Didn’t know that I needed it anymore.” “Do you want Fuzzy to heal you?” asked the GM. “I don’t think your kind of healing spell would work,” he gasped. “No, I mean she’s a real shaman,” he said, “If you’re in medical distress she can heal you if you agree. I’m having one of our first aid staff rush over, but she might help ease your symptoms.” “Oh, well, if she can actually do something…Kaff…Then sure,” he said, haltingly. Fuzzy put down her foam club and hide shield and jogged over. She knew what to do. After concentrating, her hands lit up with a soft, white light from actual magic and she pressed her hands to his shoulder. Then Chuancey, or Jim as he was known, was healed over the space of about ten seconds. The older man could breathe more easily again, though the spell wasn’t meant for asthma and only alleviated some symptoms, not the cause. After five minutes of people milling about while watching, a medical volunteer and a young woman showed up. The young woman, who looked a lot like him, possibly his daughter, gave him his inhaler and he breathed in deep. After another minute his symptoms finally began to subside. “Thanks everyone,” he said, as he was finally able to catch his breath, “I guess I left my inhaler in my other pants. I didn’t know it was gone until I just checked. I haven’t had an asthma attack in years.” “Okay, the show is over,” said the GM, in everyone’s ears, “Good job, everyone. I’m being informed from our volunteer that Jim is going to be able to move in a few minutes and she’ll escort him to a place to sit down. A big thanks to Fuzzy for helping Jim until help arrived. Everyone gets double experience and can go get a free drink at the tavern on me.” “Huzzah!” shouted a few people. “Wait, does that include volunteers?” asked one of the bandits. “You already get free soft drinks,” said the GM. “Can I get snacks then?” he asked. “We’re having a big barbecue,” said Fuzzy, “Some of my friends are barbecuing an entire pig. We’re going to have way more than we need. Come by later.” “Wait, a real pig?” asked the GM. Yeah, fifty pounds of real meat,” said Fuzzy. “Huzzah!” shouted absolutely everyone, including the GM. Ton-Vad, John from Fuzzy’s martial arts class, nudged her in the side and pointed at the “cursed sword”. He mouthed “spear” to her and her eyes glittered with avarice. “Oh hey, none of us use katanas, since I healed Jim and I’m pulling out real meat for a barbecue, could we get that cursed sword to be a cursed spear?” she whispered. “Sure, just one though. That’s boss loot,” he said, “Sorry about that. I can only bend the rules so much.” She looked to John and he looked to her. Fuzzy had been using that club since the damage it dealt was better than her old spear, but she wanted a spear. So did John though. “Hey GM, can we get a loot roll?” she asked. An AR coin flipped up in the air between Marista and Ton-Vad, now Fuzzy and John. “Heads,” called Fuzzy. “Hea…drat it,” muttered John. She smirked as it turned up heads and she took the data for the cursed katana, now cursed spear. She wouldn’t be able to keep the physical sword as that was a prop. That meant she could remove the tag and pay to have a spear of her choosing 3D printed for her. Of course the shape wouldn’t exactly be a spear though. It would be thick and blunt at the end with extra foam padding to keep the poking from being too rough. “Hey, could you heal my knee too?” asked Gary, the volunteer bandit. “Yeah, sure,” said Fuzzy. Minutes later, the group minus Jim, who was taking it easy all walked together. Fuzzy, Manny, her sort of little brother that Marco had found a new family and a new arm in his corporation, John, her friend from martial arts class and Gateway drug to further AR gaming, and the spirit wolf, Sasha, though she still sat in her room on Blake Island. “Good job,” said the wolf, “This is really fun.” “You know you were moving a little weird for being a druid pet,” said John, “You were dodging way too often. I was hoping for an upgrade with the next patch, but if you act OP that’s never going to happen.” “You’re lucky I’m overpowered. They would have messed you up without me,” she said. “You wish,” he said. It was pretty normal AR gamer trash talk. In virtual reality gaming, you basically do anything and be anybody and you could be that person anywhere, but augmented reality meant that you got to be outside and get a workout too. Fuzzy didn’t care for VR gaming like Sasha did, but AR gaming meant she got to go outside, get a workout and hang out with friends. “That was really fun,” said Manny, “We should do that again.” “Not today, it’s getting late,” said Fuzzy. “Aww,” sighed Manny. “It lasts all weekend every two weeks,” said John, “Maybe you can come back next time.” “Yeah!” shouted Manny. “Well I’m hungry,” said Fuzzy, “I say we go find everybody and see if the barbecue is ready. Maybe we can go to the shops and grab a few things for next time we come. I still have to get a present for Sasha for the ritual and I don’t want her to know what it is or want her to look.” John was here, but he didn’t know that Sasha was Sasha Oliver, the daughter of perhaps the most hated figure in the Seattle metroplex- Matt Oliver, who the mainstream media was still trying to pin all the blame for the drug epidemic on. Fuzzy didn’t know John that well. So to him, she was just Sasha and she’d hacked with wolf software to be here. As far as he knew, she was just some decker. The wolf disappeared as John unsummoned it. “I wouldn’t look,” said Sasha. “I know you,” said Fuzzy. There was a pause and a grunt into her earpiece. “Okay, maybe I’d look just a little,” she amended, “That just means you need to be better at hiding stuff. Anyway, come on Manny, I need to buy a present for Julie and I need hands to do that.” “Can’t you just get it delivered?” asked John. “It’s complicated,” responded Sasha. “But barbecue,” he whined, “I can smell it from here and it smells really good.” They were nearing the small site that Jayvon had rented out. It did indeed smell good. “He shouldn’t be going alone anyway,” said Fuzzy, “His parents were really strict about that.” “Man,” he grumped. “He’d be with me,” said Sasha, “But yeah, I get it. I don’t want to cause problems with the new parents. Hey John, is there any chance that I can get you to do it?” “Sure…If I can get that spear,” he said, smugly. Fuzzy shot him a dark look and he grinned. “I’ll trade you,” he said, “I’ve been coming here for years. I’ll let you into my secret vault of of magic items. I know a guy who does the coolest custom printed weapons too. That’s a one of a kind item. GM’s around here are stingier than they used to be.” “I want three new things since it’s one of a kind. And one for Manny too since it’s his first time,” said Fuzzy. They turned down a side trail heading northeast. “I’ll give you five if you only take duplicates,” said John. Fuzzy thought about it and reluctantly forwarded the tag, which was just a small data packet, to his commlink. “And the collection expands,” he said, happily, “Nice. All right Sasha, let’s go find a gift.” John walked away from the smell and turned north towards the pop-up market to the north that sold various crafts and foods to the gamers. Fuzzy and Manny continued towards the barbecue. As they moved away from the outdoor gaming area, they continued east to where people either lounged or roleplayed or both in that piece of Saint Edward’s State Park. A lot of it was hilly trails, but a good section of it was flat enough land that the nearly two-thousand players of the bi-weekly game could relax when not fighting and hiking. “What’s a ritual?” asked Manny. “Magic spell,” said Fuzzy, “We’re doing a big one next week.” “Neat. Why do you need gifts?” asked Manny. “We’re making a magic society,” said Fuzzy. “Oh neat, can I join?” he asked. “Maybe when you’re older,” she said, “We want to keep it small right now. Everyone gets one person a present and we’ll switch it up the next time we hold a meeting.” “Maaaan,” said Manny, who kicked an imaginary rock, “I want to be in a super cool magic club.” “Who knows? You might get magic too,” said Fuzzy, “It can happen to anyone.” This seemed to cheer him up a little and he nodded. “What are you getting for Sasha?” he asked. “Not sure yet,” said Fuzzy, her voice tinged with nervousness, “I don’t think it should just be any present. I want it to be special. I mean the ritual isn’t for another week, but I don’t know what to get Sasha.” “I can help you pick something out,” said Manny, “We could go to that market.” “I don’t think she wants foam swords or bread bowls,” said Fuzzy. “We could go look anyway. Maybe we’ll find something,” he said. Fuzzy thought about it, shrugged and nodded. "Yeah, I guess. After the barbecue," she said. Manny nodded seriously. Food was important. CYOA Time What does Fuzzy get Sasha for the ritual? Please be aware that the gift will change her in a significant way. -- Normally I keep the influence on Sasha indirect, but I'm interested in doing some character development for the ritual. So there are five gifts that are going to be given and each gift is going to spark an interest in someone. So each of the five founding members is going to give a gift and this gift will become significant to them in some way. Their worldview is going to be expanding or they're going to develop hobbies or talents or new ideas. Whatever Fuzzy gives Sasha, she will develop an interest in so long as it makes sense for her character. The magic for creating the ritual is going to be particularly powerful and whatever Fuzzy gives Sasha, she will develop some sort of interest in it. So for example, if Fuzzy gives Sasha flowers, she will develop an interest in growing them. If Fuzzy gives her a necklace, she will begin to enjoy jewelry whether that means collecting it or making it as a hobby. If Fuzzy gives Sasha a drone, even a small one, she will gain an interest in them. If Fuzzy gives Sasha a book, she will gain interest in the subject matter. And I'll say in case of the book that the subject of said book could be hidden and that Fuzzy, or someone else, could literally just like the cover and the title and the subject matter, but it may have subtext. This is to reflect that ritual magic is some incredibly powerful stuff. A normal spell takes about three seconds to fling. A ritual takes hours and is a multi-step process that Kenji leading and everyone else is helping to put together is literally about forming a group and reinforcing it with friendship. So since change is the theme of year two and friendship is the theme of the ritual, that's what I'm going with. I'm attempting to make the ritual personal. Each character will affect another as only one gift will be given after I chose at random, save for Julie and Chip, which I rolled again and came up with Kenji, because Julie already directly changes Chip as a part of her magic whenever she upgrades him and so I didn't find that narratively interesting. What I did find interesting was Kenji influencing Chip in a direct way. The current gift giving chain is Fuzzy> Sasha > Julie > Kenji > Chip > Back to Fuzzy. They'll exchange more gifts later with other members chosen at random, but the first gift is going to be the significant one. So Fuzzy influences Sasha, who influences Julie, who influences Kenji, who influences Chip, who influences Fuzzy all through the giving of this initial gift. So the gifts are a sort of proxy for "what does the thread want to inject as an interest?" into the existing characters. I do feel like they're changing over time and getting fleshed out, but people do develop new interests. Please be aware that I will accept stuff like "Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism", but I'll be reluctant to accept it five times.  Anyway, we'll be injecting new interests into the characters through this process in the lead-up to the ritual. Also you may not get exactly what you want because I like getting creative. Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 05:00 on Apr 5, 2020 |
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Apr 12, 2019 22:45
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So let’s do simple combat. Fuzzy has 14 dice in archery, 9 dice in melee (no spearknife, but she does have a club and a shield) and 1d6+ 8 initiative and 8 dice to dodge as she’s not supposed to use her magic as that would be unfair. As a barbarian, she gets 5 hits before she goes down. Manny the ranger has 10 dice in archery and 7 in melee, but he does 2 damage in melee because he has 2 knives because he has 2 hands! 1d6 + 8 initiative and 8 dice to dodge. He has 3 hits before he goes down as a ranger. John the druid has 8 dice to debuff and heal, and a 10 in spear and shield. He also has an AR “animal companion” which is a “spirit wolf” of course as this is clan Wolfswift we’re talking about. He and the wolf have 8 dice to dodge and 2 HP each. He has 1d6 + 8 initiative and the “spirit wolf” goes on his turn. Lastly, Chauncey is sort of slow but hits hard. He gets 8 dice with his sword to hit, but does a flat 2 damage and has 6 hits before he goes down. He only has a 6 to dodge though and 1d6+6 initiative as he’s in his fifties. The “bandits” are hamming it up for the “bandit leader”, who’s actually a pretty good roleplayer. The bandits all do 1 damage, but they have 7 dice to hit and dodge, so this is pretty tough because there are six of them and they have 3 HP each. One has a bow and the others have “axes” which are basically a sturdy kind of foam. Even if you hit someone hard it won’t hurt much. Some people go for taps, some people go all out, but you just need to score a hit to do damage. The “bandit leader”, Chagin, has a magic sword that does 2 damage, but he’ll hang back (to make things fair) and since he’s a veteran Eternity Larp player, he’s actually pretty good at hitting and dodging with 10 dice to hit, 9 dice to dodge and 9 dice for initiative and 6 HP. I roll for initiative. Bandit leader: 14 (10 to hit, 9 to dodge, 5/6 HP) John: 13 (8 to heal and debuff, 10 to hit with spear and shield and he has a wolf buddy with 8 to hit and 8 to dodge, 3 and 2 HP each, -2 dice for enemies to dodge due to reach with his spear) Bandit 1: 13 (7 to hit and 7 to dodge) Bandit 3: 13 (7 to hit and dodge, 3 HP) Bandit 5: 9/13 (7 to hit and dodge, 3 HP) Fuzzy: 12 (14 with bows, 9 in melee, 8 to dodge, 1d6 + 8 initiative, 5 HP) Manny: 11 (10 with bows, 7 in melee, 8 to dodge, 1d6+ 8 initiative, 3 HP, daggers do 2 damage.) Bandit 2: 11 (7 to hit and dodge, 2/3 HP) Bandit 4: 11 (7 to hit and dodge, 3 HP) Chauncey: 10 (8 to hit with his sword, but it does 3 damage, 6 dodge, 6 HP, -2 to dodge for enemies due to reach) Bandit 6 (archer): 8 (7 to hit and dodge, 3 HP) Bandit leader goes first. He of course doesn’t ambush them, but for good villain banter he gets extra XP and gold. So he does his 10 dice in performance. 3 hits is pretty good. “Aha, Clan Wolfswift and some other do-gooder dare to come into the Fellwoods to attack the Fireblood Bandits. All of you are foolish indeed, for it is I, Chagin Swordcused, leader of these bandits! If you lay down your weapons and surrender as hostages we shall spare your miserable lives until you can be ransomed. Otherwise you shall taste my accursed blade!” Fuzzy has 4 in charisma and a 1 in performance. I roll 2 dice to see if she’s known as she’s been here before and she’s been on the news a few times. Crit glitch. Not only is she known, but all of the larpers want to down her to see if they can beat the girl who beat a toxic spirit for bragging rights. All of them are going to charge for her. But she does get her bonus for street cred minus notoriety. 2 hits. “No, it Clan Wolfswift who shall defeat you! You shall have no hostages and we shall take none! Instead we’ll show you the same kind of mercy that you showed that merchant caravan you attacked!” Battle is joined. The bandit leader stays behind and uses leadership to try and give extra initiative to bandit 5. He has 8 dice. That’s 4 hits, his initiative goes up to 13. “What are you waiting for? Go get her!” John casts a debuff with 8 dice to make that many hits of bandits do 1 less damage for one round, so none if he’s lucky. 6 hits, wow. Okay, none of them do damage this round. I’ll say that he has 1 damage dubuff and 1 rooting debuff. His wolf circles around to threaten as that’s what it’s programmed to do- Harass and harry. Bandits 1, 3 and 5 roll 6 dice to see if they understand that they do no damage. Glitch, yes, no. So two run forward and try to hit with 7 to attack. 0 and 3. Fuzzy has 8 dice to dodge, gets 2 hits, but no damage is done. Fuzzy can’t shoot in melee, gets hit, but no HP damage. Shooting in melee is against the rules because she doesn’t have the right “perk” yet even though irl she could do that. So she shoulders her bow and gets out her shield and club. If she were in her magic “slowtime” she could mop the floor with these guys, but that’s against the spirit of the game. End turn. Manny rolls. His adoptive big sister is being attacked, so he shoots into melee for a -2. 4 hits to 1, but this was on the guy who glitched. It’s a heart shot and he gets “instakilled” due to his glitch as 1 HP goes to 3 HP damage. There are no vital shots on “Eternal Heroes”, but vital shots on mooks and some villains are possible. Bandit 1 goes down. Bandit 2 and 4 roll 6 dice to understand if they’re debuffed. Yes and yes, so they lock shields and go in slow, giving them a +1 attack and defense bonus each. They’ve worked together before. Recycle round, Chauncey is not in the best shape since he’s in his fifties and he’s got grey hair, but he’s also got a big rear end sword that will instakill any mook. He gets a +1 to hit since Fuzzy is in melee with one guy now. 2 v 1, the guy gets “split in half” by his “greatsword” which looks fairly cool in AR if you have the blood splatter on, which of course Manny does. “Have at you, I say!” The bandit archer, who fumbled with his bow for a minute, fires at Fuzzy with 7 to hit and she has 8 to dodge since she has no powers. 3 v 3, she barely dodges. Chagin Swordcursed sighed as he drew his katana. “Must I do everything myself?” He wades into melee, but that’s his turn. The heroes are usually supposed to win after all. Unlike life, Eternity LARP was level balanced. It’s John’s turn. He gets out his spear and shield and takes a poke at the shield wall while getting his wolf to come in from behind for a quick attack. So the wolf attacks first, negating the +1 bonus to hit and defense as their shield wall falls apart. The wolf misses, but John drains 1 point of dodge and gets 5 hits v 2. He scores a hit for 1 HP damage on bandit 2. Fuzzy decides not to pull out her bow again, but instead rushes in (not too fast, no charging as that could hurt people) and attacks bandit 2 who suffers a -2 bonus to defense. 3 hits to 2, he takes 1 HP damage. He fires at the boss. 10 to 9 and scores a hit! The boss takes 1 HP damage. “Ah, my quarry has revealed itself, I shall eliminate you first, lesser Wolfswift”. And I roll Manny’s charisma of 5 -1 for performance, since this is his first time. 0 hits, no snappy comebacks. “I’m just gonna cut you now!” And he drops his bow despite it probably being smarter not to and draws his two knives because he has two arms now even if one is cybernetic so of course he’s going to use two knives. He needs to do his part. Bandit leader: 15 (10 to hit, 9 to dodge, 5/6 HP, -1 to defense on attacks due to reach) John: 14 (8 to heal and debuff, 10 to hit with spear and shield and he has a wolf buddy with 8 to hit and 8 to dodge, 3 and 2 HP each, -2 dice for enemies to dodge due to reach with his spear) Bandit 14 (archer): 8 (7 to hit and dodge, 3 HP) Fuzzy: 11 (14 with bows, 9 in melee, 8 to dodge, 1d6 + 8 initiative, 5 HP) Manny: 11 (10 with bows, 7 in melee, 8 to dodge, 1d6+ 8 initiative, 3 HP, daggers do 2 damage.) Bandit 2: 11 (7 to hit and dodge, 1/3 HP) Bandit 5: 10 (7 to hit and dodge, 3 HP) Bandit 4: 10 (7 to hit and dodge, 3 HP) Chauncey: 8 (8 to hit with his sword, but it does 3 damage, 6 dodge, 6 HP, -2 to dodge for enemies due to reach) The bandit leader attacks Manny, who raises his two knives to block for a +4 defense bonus for the rest of the round, dropping his initiative to 1. 4 hits will do it, he “catches” the blade of the katana with his crossed daggers and pushes it away. John and his wolf attack bandit 2 again. John pokes him again 4 to 1 for 1 HP damage and the guy glitches and falls down hard onto the grass. The GM watching through AR calls for “Time out” and everyone freezes, but Fuzzy is in an advantageous position to strike the remaining bandit. “You okay, Gary?” asks the GM, “Yeah, I’m okay,” said Gary, the bandit. And during the hold everyone on the ground clears off the field. “Resume in 3, 2, 1, begin”. Fuzzy attacks bandit 5 with her club, but he has a -3 to defense since he moved too slow (from the other guy’s glitch, they work as a pair you see). But he deflects with his shield 2 to 3, surprisingly, and there’s a “clash” of her steel club on steel shield, even though the sound only comes through AR as the sound was more like sturdy foam slapping wood. Bandit 5 retaliates on Fuzzy 7 to 8 and she takes the hit with her own shield and howls at him “Aroooo!” Bandit 4 finally gets stuck in and decides to after the “spirit wolf” and scores a hit. The wolf shrieks in pain and takes 1 HP damage. John points at him with his spear, “You’re next!” Bandit leader’s turn. He tries to attack Manny again with his blade 10 to 11. 4 hits to 5, go Manny. He deflects the blade with his knives again. As it turns out, a 11 year old from the Puyallup barrens who used to hunt bush meat and dodge gangers until that one time he didn’t is actually pretty darn with a bow and a blade. The archer fires at the spirit wolf, which is at the edge of combat as it was programmed to move away after being hit in order to be healed. It dodges the shot 3 to 4. Chauncey gets in there and he has his greatsword and decides to lend aid to Manny. “Found your match in a small child, have you? Well take this!” So he rolls 8 versus 7 due to reach. The bandit leader barely steps away in time. Manny attacks with his two knives! Two! 7 v 7. That’s 0 v 0. There’s some fumbling as they sort of ineffectually wave their foam blades around. Manny isn’t used to two knives yet, just one. Fuzzy attacks and they’re just swapping blows on shields 3 v 3. Recycle round. Fuzzy: 14 (14 with bows, 9 in melee, 8 to dodge, 1d6 + 8 initiative, 5 HP) John: 13 (8 to heal and debuff, 10 to hit with spear and shield and he has a wolf buddy with 8 to hit and 8 to dodge, 3 and 2 HP each, -2 dice for enemies to dodge due to reach with his spear) Bandit 6 (archer): 13 (7 to hit and dodge, 3 HP) Bandit 2: 13 (7 to hit and dodge, 2/3 HP) Bandit 5: 13 (7 to hit and dodge, 3 HP) Bandit leader: 12 (10 to hit, 9 to dodge, 2/6 HP) Chauncey: 11 (8 to hit with his sword, but it does 3 damage, 6 dodge, 6 HP, -2 to dodge for enemies due to reach) Manny: 11 (10 with bows, 7 in melee, 8 to dodge, 1d6+ 8 initiative, 3 HP, daggers do 2 damage.) Bandit 4: 8 (7 to hit and dodge, 3 HP) Fuzzy attacks again after that whack with a second whack! She hits! 1 HP left! John follows up with 8 v 5 (due to multiple attacks and reach). That’s 0 v 1, but the 1 is a glitch. The guy stumbles into the stab. “Killstealer!” shouts Fuzzy. “He stabbed my wolf, he’s totally mine.” “Yeah, okay.” While he’s distracted, the archer fires at the wolf 7 to 8 and the wolf dodges and goes after the archer, but the archer gets out of the way of the bite. The final bandit with an axe, the one who’d went slowly at first decides to flank Chauncey, but Chauncey gets just far enough out of the way for Manny to step in. So now Manny is back to back with this old guy he’s known only for about an hour. Chauncey whips his sword around in an overheard arc to try and tries to take out the bandit leader, but accidentally clips the last axe bandit in the shoulder without even looking. And the guy shouts, “Really?!” before laying down to the ground in disgust. The bandit leader attacks Manny, but he barely dodges and stumbles as he tries to attack. So now there’s just the archer, one axebandit (missed him, he must have tripped) and the bandit leader left. So what he does is use his special power and stabs one of his dead comrades with his blade, giving the curseblade +1 damage for 4 damage if hit! “Ahahaha, my curseblade shall drink up all of your souls!” One of the bandits try to go for the wolf because it’s weak, but nothing doing, 3 to 3. There will surely be endless complaining in the Eternity LARP forums about how wolf AI needs a nerf. Fuzzy decides to charge (not too quickly, rules) the boss to end this and rolls 9 to 8 since Manny attacked. She hits! 1 damage! John calls his spirit wolf away to dogpile (fofofo) the boss. He debuffs with “weakness!” which of course he shouts it because it’s his special attack. 2 v 1, he takes an extra point of damage for the round when attacked. The wolf attacks 8 v 6 due to multiple attacks and hits him! 2 damage! Bandit 6 tries to attack the wolf, but 3 v 4, NERF WOLVES, HAXX. The bandit leader tries to cut Manny as the smallest since he’s getting swarmed and Manny finally gets hit 6 to 4. Manny goes into the negatives from a cursed blade with -1 HP. He needs to get to a cleric to heal from cursed wounds, but hasn’t died. Manny isn’t sure what to do, but the GM says into his ear, “Move a few feet away and sit down so no one steps on you. You got downed, but your character isn’t dead. You’ll be fine.” And so everyone the melee continues. Next pass. Chauncey tries to hit him with 8 dice to his 7 (from reach). “Manny, er, Blur, noooo!” shouts Fuzzy. “Strike a child would you! Die, knave, I say!” shouts Chauncey. 0 v 2, no hits, he’s getting out of breath. “I’m Chagin Curseblade! I strike two children every day before breakfast!” shouts the bandit leader. Recycle round. John: 11 (8 to heal and debuff, 10 to hit with spear and shield and he has a wolf buddy with 8 to hit and 8 to dodge, 3 and 2 HP each, -2 dice for enemies to dodge due to reach with his spear) Chauncey: 11 (8 to hit with his sword, but it does 3 damage, 6 dodge, 6 HP, -2 to dodge for enemies due to reach) Bandit leader: 11 (10 to hit, 9 to dodge, 2/6 HP) Fuzzy: 10 (14 with bows, 9 in melee, 8 to dodge, 1d6 + 8 initiative, 5 HP) Bandit 6 (archer): 10 (7 to hit and dodge, 3 HP) Bandit 4: 8 (7 to hit and dodge, 3 HP) The wolf acts without being told and it’s so surprising to the Bandit leader (an eternity LARP veteran) that he loses 3 dice. 2 v 2, that was a weird attack pattern, but he dodges anyway. John attempts to curse him again while he’s off balance. 2 v 1. He takes 2 extra damage from attacks. And Chauncey steps in, wheezing and puffing hard from the short skirmish, and AR blood just goes everywhere like Ninja Scroll high pressure blood. Manny thought it sucked that he was “out”, but then he saw the blood spray twenty feet into the air as the boss got whacked with a greatsword and he thought that was super cool. Fuzzy groans a bit, wishing that she got the kill and the other bandits run away. She rolls performance and gets a 2, which is adequate. Finally, Jim is having an asthma attack. Fuzzy has 7 dice for a heal spell. She gets 3 hits, which alleviates the symptoms. Also, Fuzzy is growing a bit in renown. Her street cred is the same, but now more people know of her due to her being on the news.
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Apr 13, 2019 05:27
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Getting Sasha a physical book might be good. It mirrors the first gift Sasha gave Fuzzy. As for how it influences her, I kind of want to get Sasha into dancing? Maybe it's just because it's the least bad idea I've had. But it is something she and Fuzzy could share, and maybe it gives Fuzzy an excuse to wear a tux again some time in the future.
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Apr 13, 2019 14:45
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Fuzzy gives Sasha new running shoes. Chip definitely gives Fuzzy food, maybe magic cooked food but Chip and Fuzzy love food so it seems natural.
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Apr 13, 2019 14:56
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Fuzzy gets Sasha some hard boiled black and white pulp noir detective movies. They were filmed by orcs in touristville who chose that genre because their trid-recorder is broken and can’t record in color. Unbeknownst to the creators, there is a small cult following on the matrix because its: 1: not corporate made media, has a charming amateur feel 2: hard to get because they only distribute peer-to-peer 3: is actually decent, orcs can nail the depressing tone of the genre pretty well 
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Apr 13, 2019 15:14
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Toughy posted:Fuzzy gives Sasha new running shoes. This seems like what Fuzzy would actually get Sasha, even it i doesn't awake some new passion - not like Fuzzy knows it will, anyways.
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Apr 13, 2019 15:28
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I love the suggestion of a drone, it's super practical due to Sasha's 'exile' allowing her to have her drone go places in meatspace that she doesn't feel comfortable, and adding rigging to her skillset would seem very in character especially after her recent discussion with 'Stork'. It's also cliche as gently caress and steers her down the "my body is totally useless" decker path but eh I guess I like the idea of Sasha being able to spend more time with Fuzzy through various avatars much like how she's present in this scene through the spirit wolf.
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Apr 13, 2019 15:34
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I like the idea of running shoes. That seems more like the kind of gift that Fuzzy would get for her. Kenji would be more the type to get her a drone, if anyone.
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Apr 13, 2019 18:14
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quote:Chagin Swordcursed sighed as he drew his katana. 
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Apr 13, 2019 18:27
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Thank you. I was trying hard to write something so bad that it wrapped around to good. And like normal I'm trying to show character development. Fuzzy has an interest in the outdoors, history and martial arts. Sasha has an interest in the outdoors and gaming. So this fits pretty well for them to both hang out while engaging in their interests even if it's pseudo-historical. Not a date, but just having fun together. Also I reintroduce Manny, who is Fuzzy's sort of little brother, who we haven't seen since book four. The cast is getting a little big and I can't have everyone in every book. There's also John, who is one of Fuzzy's friends from martial arts class. I don't really expect to do anything with him, but I do want to show that people are making their own friends outside of the core group. Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Apr 13, 2019 |
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Apr 13, 2019 18:49
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Goddamn I miss larping
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Apr 14, 2019 21:24
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Toughy posted:Fuzzy gives Sasha new running shoes. Vote: +1 I like this idea. Sasha, this past year, was out there running and doing push-ups and ugly crying the whole way. This is Fuzzy encouraging her to get strong, for herself, and for those around her.
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Apr 16, 2019 21:31
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I like the running shoes idea too. Fuzzy would probably pick a durable pair, or failing that, she would be sold into getting some hi-tech shoes which somehow interact with the matrix or something. I like the idea of Chip giving food to Fuzzy, it's pretty cute. Maybe he could try cooking something he likes. 
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Apr 17, 2019 01:40
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Chatrapati posted:I like the running shoes idea too. Fuzzy would probably pick a durable pair, or failing that, she would be sold into getting some hi-tech shoes which somehow interact with the matrix or something. Maybe they can funnel the waste heat to a little drawer in the soles, heat up some meat or other snacks perhaps.
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Apr 17, 2019 01:55
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paper bag with a face posted:Maybe they can funnel the waste heat to a little drawer in the soles, heat up some meat or other snacks perhaps.  Failing that, I'm thinking something like Reebok pumps with the little basketball that you squeeze.
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Apr 17, 2019 02:56
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If we want to do shoes, I feel like Fuzzy would try to handmake something first and then give up and buy something (unless she rolls the hard 6s on the defaulted craft roll), but Sasha senses her embarassment and gets both things anyway when she presses Fuzzy E: I still think Sasha should get detective books/trids and embrace that knack for investigation she showed earlier 
Fellis fucked around with this message at 03:26 on Apr 17, 2019 |
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Apr 17, 2019 03:23
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Hexenritter posted:Goddamn I miss larping Nerd.
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Apr 17, 2019 11:43
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I think shoes are good. I think Fuzzy goes for durable and practical over flashy.
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Apr 17, 2019 12:32
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Deadmeat5150 posted:Nerd. Definitely.
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Apr 17, 2019 20:42
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In the meantime, I talked very briefly about the future of gaming in the discord and I wanted to expand on where I think the future of that will go and why that matters. So I see gaming splitting into four main branches in the future: Virtual reality, augmented reality, mobile/console/PC (I see these merging at some point as computers grow more powerful) and traditional gaming such as tabletop and board games. Also there being a lot of crossover, mixing and matching as methods of consumption morph and change over time. I'm talking about how the medium gets to the consumer and how they play the game, not the genres. So an action game could be VR, AR or mobile/console/PC, probably not a board game, but definitely a LARP during simulated battle. An MMO again could be VR, AR or mobile/console/PC, but if a LARP is big enough, is it an MMO? A tabletop game with just books may be played with no tech at all, or maybe minimal tech, or could be a full AR/VR experience and there are existing games you can use on the PC like Tabletop Simulator. And I see games like LARPing where people enjoy being social and outside being distilled into AR and also staying without tech, viewed as one of the futures of retro gaming. Also what's important is money made. Gaming is almost twice as profitable as music and box office movies both. As of 2018, digital sales of music come in at about 17 billion (this doesn't include touring, merch, and I think licensing, etc), box office films come in at about 41 billion, television is at 105 billion and falling by 8% as of last year and gaming is at 116 billion and up 10.7% as of last year. Now I could talk about how well or poorly movies do versus games, but what I'm more interested in is time spent consuming and how that shapes identity. So if you watch the highest grossing movies of all time when adjusted for inflation, you have Gone with the Wind (ugh), Avatar (The one from James Cameron, not the cursed one from M. Night), Titanic, Star Wars and the Sound of Music. The highest grossing is just over 3.7 billion dollars when adjusted for inflation and it falls from there. The highest grossing game of all time? Space Invaders. This single game has grossed 13 billion dollars since 1978 and it is perhaps one of the simplest games ever made which is just fantastic amounts of revenue when you account for how much it cost to make. The Pokemon series (I'm talking all properties) has raked in 70 billion dollars and it's only growing stronger. Dungeon Fighter Online which is a beat 'em up 2D sidescroller MMO beats out World of Warcraft with 10.3 billion compared to 9.7 billion. Grand Theft Auto Five rakes in 6 billion. The movie and music industry just can't compare. Also until corporations figure out how to create fewer aggregators, basically aggregating the aggregators, instead of fragmenting into more and more pay to watch platforms, piracy is only going up because people don't want to deal with tons of streaming services and the old style of TV is rapidly dying. So to put time into perspective for you, movies have a set amount of time to get you to watch them. If you're there for over ninety minutes, you better have a drat good reason because people are busy. And the limit seems to be about two and a half hours these days. The longest running show (that's not soap operas, which are its own animal) is the Simpsons. If you watch every episode of the Simpsons it will run you 202 hours and 24 minutes, which breaks down to just under eight-and-a-half days without sleep. Personally, I have played over a thousand hours of Crusader Kings 2. And I have hundreds and dozens of hours logged into other games through Steam. And I probably played several hundred hours of Shining Force Two and Shadowrun (on Sega) when I was a kid in my Sega Genesis days. I guess I'm dating myself a little. Now I want you to imagine watching a thousand hours of The Godfather. Or watch all thirty seasons of The Simpsons five times. The first is basically never happening. The second is possible, but most likely you'll watch your favorites these days instead of the bad episodes since we're no longer shackled to whatever is on cable. Or you'll just have it on as background noise and kind of sort of consume it. Games just destroy any other medium in terms of not only money made, but time invested. To the point where people form their identity around gaming in general or even specific games. Now you don't have to spend thousands of hours to consider yourself a gamer. For example, you can consider yourself a tabletop gamer and maybe put two to four hours a week into the game over a kitchen table. Games like Chess and Go are so very much their own culture that while they're games, you would have a hard time calling yourself a gamer. And if you're serious into board gaming beyond Monopoly, Sorry, Life, Jenga, etc, you've probably heard about the gateway drug that is Settlers of Catan and from there you're getting into games that can cost in the hundreds of dollars, though often it's less. Plus there's war gaming and...Well, I hope you get what I'm saying. I think it would be extremely difficult to build your identity around a single movie. Now it has happened, Avatar had a few furry-like communities that popped up around it back in the day, but without extra reinforcement it petered out. The Harry Potter movies were their own thing and the fandom still persists to this day, but it was signal boosted by the books. I don't think that the movies would have endured like they did without the books, and I'm not even talking about books though they are extremely important for shaping identity. Go to television shows and the fandoms become more common. There are standouts like Supernatural where there are enormous fandoms around it and there are legacy shows like say Star Wars and Star Trek, where existing fandoms remain fairly strong and are occasionally reinforced by new content. I'm looking at you, Caravan of Courage. But gaming? Man, there's just no real comparison. And that has to do with time spent playing. If you've ever played an MMO, you know that some of them will just suck you in like a second job. You need to schedule your life around getting high end gear. And it can even ruin your life with addiction. Thousands, even tens of thousands of hours can be racked up on Steam. People make jobs of playing games on Twitch and youtube. There are personalities who have millions of people listening and watching them, and are incredibly influential. Your identity can definitely be a gamer even if I don't particularly like it because it says more about what you consume than who you are. Personally the idea won't last much longer in its current state. It's fragmenting, because the genres are wildly divergent. Someone who plays MMO's probably has little in common with a skinner box style mobile gamer who has little in common with RTS who has little in common with simulation style games who has little in common with visual novel games. And so on. So the thing about "gamers" as an identity is that beyond consumption, that identity is about time. There can be long sections during a shooter where basically nothing happens narratively but you shooting dudes or moving from one place to another. People can consider themselves gamers, bu can they consider themselves a movier? Someone who really likes movies? I mean, you can, film school exists, but few people watch a thousand hours of one movie. Fandoms are more common around shows. But gaming is king of identity and only growing. http://www.theesa.com/about-esa/industry-facts/ More than 150 million Americans play video games, and 64 percent of American households are home to at least one person who plays video games regularly, or at least three hours per week. 60 percent of Americans play video games daily. The average gamer is 34 years old and 72 percent are age 18 or older. Women age 18 and older represent a significantly greater portion of the video game-playing population (33 percent) than boys under age 18 (17 percent). Most parents (70 percent) say video games are a positive part of their child’s life. Most parents (67 percent) also play video games with their child at least once weekly and 94 percent say they pay attention to the video games played by their child. -- So what I'm saying is that they're basically huge cultural drivers and money makers. Which makes what I have to say next pretty weird. The culture that makes video games is primarily a mono-culture. You're talking about white dudes. Non-whites and women are rare in the industry, though they are carving out a space for themselves bit by bit. And in the business world, people have known for a long time that diversity in the workplace isn't about affirmative action where you need to push non-white men into the workplace because it's some moral issue. It is to an extent, but companies allow for and even push for it for a different reason. Diversity creates prosperity. Mono-cultures mean that people tend to think in pretty similar ways as they tend to have a far narrower cultural experience. It stifles innovation and innovation is what allows people to make even more money. And these mostly white dudes are creating media that often doesn't represent their consumers. Their cultural attitudes don't reflect the culture at large. And when you're consuming hundreds or thousands of hours of a certain type of genre or even one game created by what's primarily a mono-culture, their cultural attitudes filter downwards and are reinforced in a way that movies and even television just can't compare to. Recently I blew through the latest season of Star Trek in two days. I enjoyed it, but I'm done with it now. Maybe I'll watch it again in five or ten years. An older game can stay relevant for years with updates and mods and you can sink hundreds of hours into a new flavor of experience or even a new experience altogether. Suddenly you're playing it for weeks or months before finally putting it down. And its writing is something of a time capsule. You may not notice it now, but imagine playing games like Fallout: New Vegas or Skyrim or Halflife mods through the Source engine or Baldur's Gate through the Infinity engine twenty years or thirty years from now and that writing is basically forever preserved. It will not change. It will not update itself for the times. People nostalgic for their childhoods will go back and play those games and reinforce the cultural attitudes that existed back then in a way that movies and shows just can't compare to the time spent and time spent in these games really does bring you back to a different time. Unlike books and movies and most shows, the consumption can be potentially endless. I'm happy in a way that the writing from this time is mostly bland and bad with rare exceptions and at the same time, dismayed. In terms of video gaming, we're pretty early into its history. Think about emerging from the silent film era for context. Gaming is nothing like it was when I grew up and if trends continue to grow and evolve, it'll look like nothing you will have grown up with in ten to twenty years. Cultural attitudes change, our media does not. And I feel like there's this serious cultural stagnation on the horizon and one of the drivers of this stagnation is going to be games. Sure people will always be interested in the new hotness...Until we have another video game crash like in 1983 that is, which I see coming as companies continue to monetize games and keep forgetting to create games that are actually interesting and fun instead of frustrating, buggy and full of microtransactions. And I see it as increasingly likely where someone ruins cash cow franchises like Mass Effect where they put in minimal effort for maximum game. Or how Diablo went mobile and during the reveal you could just hear a pin drop, because it's a mobile game, not Diablo 4, and they felt totally betrayed because it was a reskin of a Chinese game named "Crusaders of Light". And as games try to please absolutely everyone in order to grab the most cash, or worse, slapping together something substandard, they often end up pleasing no one, or even angering everyone. So a while back, I talked about how Revenge of the Nerds was a horrible movie and super creepy and rapey, but showed the nerds as plucky underdogs. Imagine games coming out today or ten or even twenty years ago. Fast forward to when they're five bucks on steam or whatever future steam is in ten or twenty years and just run someone through these increasingly ancient cultural attitudes made by a mono-culture of mostly white dudes with their mono-culture ideas. And just pump a hundred hours into it, and it transports you back to a different time not just in terms of nostalgia, but in terms of culture attitudes. If I go into a house in the South the odds of me running into some older woman who adores Gone with the Wind is fairly high. Not as high as it used to be, but still significant. Now imagine someone making some highly successful, racist or sexist or just straight up fascist propaganda game. Imagine The Birth of a Nation of gaming. Or maybe something not blatantly racist, but revisionist racist like Song of the South. And if you've never heard of that, it used to be one of the most successful Disney movies ever before it was deemed too regressive and racist for Disney despite raking in tons of money for decades and being among the top 100 movies of all time for decades. Something so culturally powerful in terms of messaging that it's Gone with the Wind or Birth of a Nation on steroids, because someone has played it for hundreds or thousands or even tens of thousands of hours, reinforcing increasingly ancient, regressive norms. Something just so good in terms of gameplay that people will suffer through the story. And then as they continue to suffer through it, this normalizes it. And this is how cultural progress regresses. Even now, if you play a Paradox game like Hearts of Iron you can no poo poo play the Nazi war machine in the leadup to and after World War Two with no context and if you so choose, you can play thousands of hours of being a no-poo poo fascist with basically no cultural context. If you play Crusader Kings, legitimately one of my favorite games in a very specific way, you can do some really despicable and evil poo poo in what's essentially a dynastic family simulator. I enjoy Paradox games because of the history and what if scenarios and how they make me think, but they're a serious gateway drug for chuds. I'm worried is what I'm saying. What happens when you put these powerful cultural drivers, time capsules really, and make them so cheap that you can buy the AAA titles of yesteryear for less than a cup of coffee? What we accept as normal today is probably not going to be socially acceptable in ten or twenty years. Not to mention that they shape what people think is socially acceptable now. And because of this mono-culture, you have alt-right people in the industry shaping it and consuming it both. There is a culture of toxic creators writing to toxic consumers and they radicalize one another. Normally I'm not one to delve into moral panic. I think most shooters are fine. Doom and Quake and all of that poo poo can be good fun. Literally playing the Nazis and going through the historical steps of conquering and extermination, but this time you win, is extremely unhealthy. You're shifting the violence from cartoonish to real world events with zero context. And toxic communities form to exult this new, edgy, gross thing they've done in this or that simulation game. As far as the future goes, I see a crash on the Horizon as game publishers force developers to abandon art for cash. To crank out increasingly terrible games and ruin legacy titles. Maybe not a near total crash like in 1983 in which video games may not have survived, but in which investors flee from the industry. You'll still have indy developers and I adore indy games. Especially where you have one or maybe a small number of people creating a game, so you get a single, coherent, creative vision instead of the mess that is narrative writing in gaming along with the ludonarrative, which is a fancy word for the interplay and often conflict/dissonance between gameplay and writing. I also see fascists trying to develop a hit game that takes that violence that you see in Hearts of Iron the WW2 simulator to the street. These sorts of games already exist, but I'm talking about one that has good gameplay and could be considered popular. At some point I may talk about where I see VR, AR, console/PC/mobile and traditional gaming becoming in the future. And I think that there something more than a moral panic here. Before the violence tended to be cartoonish and absurd. Now violence is growing simulationist, gleeful, cruel and disconnected. Where you can play a game where you can choose to exterminate simulated people based on real people with the click of a button based on real events. And I believe that it is unhealthy and irresponsible in the extreme to allow people to engage in these actions because they prime the pump for a time where they may have power over someone, maybe many someones, and be able to choose their fate. And if they have lived a life of simulated cruelty, the odds of them engaging in real cruelty are enhanced. What protected us was that the violence was cartoonish and absurd. In some cases, it no longer is. And giving an outlet for historical, simulated, gleeful cruelty with no historical context is concerning in the extreme. Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 20:24 on Apr 22, 2019 |
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Apr 20, 2019 03:16
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Ice Phisherman posted:For example, you can consider yourself a tabletop gamer and maybe put two to four hours a week into the game over a kitchen table. Games like Chess and Go are so very much their own culture that while they're games, you would have a hard time calling yourself a gamer. And if you're serious into board gaming beyond Monopoly, Sorry, Life, Jenga, etc, you've probably heard about the gateway drug that is Settlers of Catan and from there you're getting into games that can cost in the hundreds of dollars, though often it's less. Look at this scrub who doesn't even give a shout out to Cones of Dunshire. quote:So the thing about "gamers" as an identity is that beyond consumption, that identity is about time. There can be long sections during a shooter where basically nothing happens narratively but you shooting dudes or moving from one place to another. People can consider themselves gamers, bu can they consider themselves a movier? Someone who really likes movies? I mean, you can, film school exists, but few people watch a thousand hours of one movie. Fandoms are more common around shows. But gaming is king of identity and only growing. TV junkies and Cinemaphiles are absolutely a thing, and I can tell you that I'm a lot more comfortable asking a stranger at a party what TV shows they're watching than what video games they're playing. TV is universally accessible while video games still have the childish stigma attached. A friend of mine discussed dating with me, most men were just shocked, in disbelief, and weirdly apparently turned off that she (*gasp*) played video games, and not farmville-esque casual stuff but actual FPS games etc quote:At some point I may talk about where I see VR, AR, console/PC/mobile and traditional gaming becoming in the future. And I think that there something more than a moral panic here. Before the violence tended to be cartoonish and absurd. Now violence is growing simulationist, gleeful, cruel and disconnected. Where you can play a game where you can choose to exterminate simulated people based on real people with the click of a button based on real events. And I believe that it is unhealthy and irresponsible in the extreme to allow people to engage in these actions because they prime the pump for a time where they may have power over someone, maybe many someones, and be able to choose their fate. And if they have lived a life of simulated cruelty, the odds of them engaging in real cruelty are enhanced. What protected us was that the violence was cartoonish and absurd. In some cases, it no longer is. And giving an outlet for historical, simulated, gleeful cruelty with no historical context is concerning in the extreme. Jack Thompson, is that you? I'm sorry, I promise I'll stop picking up prostitutes and then running them down for my money when I'm done with them I swear, I'll give up the Murder Simulators for good this time!
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Apr 20, 2019 17:10
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I remember in middle school when a girl told me she liked video games. I thought she was loving with me, and I brushed her off. I still feel bad about that , since now my reaction would basically be the opposite: "Oh, cool!"
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Apr 20, 2019 17:45
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All of my friends played tf2 a ton in highschool somehow we all turned out to be lesbians
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Apr 20, 2019 17:55
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Apologies. Been stressed lately. Any point that I tried to make was probably blunted by the fact that I took my mom to the ER and that I've been studying math ten hours a day to pass the GRE.
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Apr 22, 2019 20:25
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Ice Phisherman posted:Apologies. Been stressed lately. Any point that I tried to make was probably blunted by the fact that I took my mom to the ER and that I've been studying math ten hours a day to pass the GRE.  Feel Better, Friend. Hope everything is okay at home, and, hope you had a good Easter.
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Apr 22, 2019 20:55
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Ice Phisherman posted:Apologies. Been stressed lately. Any point that I tried to make was probably blunted by the fact that I took my mom to the ER and that I've been studying math ten hours a day to pass the GRE. Hope your mom is/going to be ok!! Good luck with the math studying, it's the one subject I can't sit and read for hours. history, Sciences, English no problem trying to read math text books my brain fizzles in less than hour.
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Apr 22, 2019 21:12
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Ice Phisherman posted:Apologies. Been stressed lately. Any point that I tried to make was probably blunted by the fact that I took my mom to the ER and that I've been studying math ten hours a day to pass the GRE. Is there anything I can do to help with the studying? I'm in the UK so I never took the GRE, but I'm still a computer scientist with a maths PhD, so if there's anything in particular you're having trouble with then I can probably give you a decent explanation.
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Apr 22, 2019 23:06
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pumpinglemma posted:That sucks. Right now I'm going through the Khan Academy program for pre-algebra, algebra, geometry and data analysis. Most of this I learned in middle school and high school. So I'm burning through it pretty quickly as a lot of it is so basic that it's intuitive. It's just how much I need to know is the problem and even though it's going to be easier in some ways than the SAT, it's going to be far less straightforward. The GRE is looking for analytical and logic skills and so I either have or I'm reacquiring these skills incredibly quickly, I need to cut through their language. Luckily I only need to take the quantitative and verbal portions, so I can skip writing. And my vocabulary is fairly large and the rest of the verbal is reading comprehension. But I'm slogging through mastering mathematical skills that I last had over a decade ago. So I'm mostly putting in about eight to ten hours a day on math and reviewing what I already know. Luckily I'm usually pretty decent on tests. I'm shooting for mastery over all of the math skills that are in the book I bought for GRE prep. And I'm using what I know about learning to help review what I already know. I'm hoping it'll take about a week before I've finished and after that it's just about review. I'm fairly sure I can crush the verbal portion of the test, but my math skills are fairly basic and so I'm working on that. I've got to say that Khan Academy is awesome and if I pass the test I'm going to dump some cash on Sal Khan for being an excellent resource. I wish I'd had his lectures back in middle and high school because it would've saved me a lot of suffering going through math class. Since I only did math for one semester out of the year, a lot of my problem was that the teachers had to go back and reteach us necessary skills unless they wanted us to fail every time we needed those skills we learned last year. On top of that, I often seemed to grab 8 AM math classes my classmates and I were a total waste. I appreciate the offer though! My dad and brother are both pretty deep into mathematics related fields and so I'm good. So far I've only run into section that resisted my attempts to learn it for more than half an hour and one section that was insufficient. It's just going to be eight or ten hours days until I'm done with the sections and then review, review, review until test day with me writing and rewriting notes and plugging gaps in my knowledge. I hate putting in the minimum because that passing grade can turn into a failing grade pretty easily if I only put in the minimum. So I suppose I could have only put in ten hours instead of the fifty that I plan, but ten gets me in on a razor thin margin that relies heavily on me acing the verbal portion of the test. Also failing the test means I can't take it again for 21 days and that's a serious problem. I'll see if I can work on a smaller update for the next few nights in order to wind down from what seems like endless math. Mostly after I'm done I've been catching up on HBO stuff since I ordered it to watch Game of Thrones, so I'm also planning to go through Generation Kill and all I want to do after that much math is to do something interesting.
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Apr 23, 2019 00:33
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Paul's Online math notes are a great second resource if you ever want someone to cross-check with Khan. Only regular notes, but it was an invaluable reference for getting through all my undergrad math courses. Also Wolframalpha.
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Apr 23, 2019 16:19
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jagadaishio posted:It occurs to me that if Fuzzy ever gets a mentor sprit it will obviously be Dragonslayer - but not because she's super rad and is more than willing to square off against a street-level dragon. It's because she already had Dragonslayer's flaw - the same thing that attracted Dog to Kenji. Dragonslayer's influence forces its shamans to always keep their promises. This is an old post, but I've been thinking about this recently and it seems like Fuzzy is just one big, Dragonslayer-aligned promise away from really catching its attention.
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Apr 27, 2019 13:54
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Julie and Krupa - Saturday, August 17th, 2075 – Afternoon - Touristville, Seattle Metroplex Julie and Krupa waited for Devin to finish up the check-up. So instead of letting Krupa agonize over a small mistake for the rest of the night, she spoke up. “Devin said he was going to smooth things over,” said Julie, “It’ll be okay.” “But what if it’s not?” she fretted. “He’s good at it. Don’t worry,” she soothed, “If anything is really wrong, we’ll ask him what to do.” Krupa sat down in a chair and squirmed in her seat. The receptionist had just left for the day, but the nurses were back to staring at Krupa. Julie only had to look their way and suddenly they suddenly found other things to look at. “I know what to do,” said Krupa, suddenly, “I can just buy her those strawberries. A whole bunch of them.” Julie shook her head. “Uh, no,” said Julie, as she turned her attention back on Krupa, “I don’t think that’ll work.” Krupa cocked her head at Julie in confusion. “Why not?” she asked. Julie grabbed a rolling chair and sat down. “If you give too much, it’ll be embarrassing,” she explained, “It’ll be a reminder that you’re wealthy and she’s not. People don’t know what to do about gifts that big.” Krupa frowned heavily in confusion. “They're just strawberries,” said Krupa, “They’re not that expensive.” Julie drummed her fingers on the counter as she thought of what to say. “Hey, you remember when we got that frozen pizza?” asked Julie, “And you said it was your first time in a grocery store?” “Uh, yeah,” said Krupa, “I mean I’ve seen them before. Grocery stores I mean. I’d just never been in one.” “Right,” said Julie, “Well in that grocery store, did you see any fruit or vegetables?” Krupa’s brown furrowed slightly in thought. Then she smiled shyly and shrugged. “Not really. I was mostly hungry,” she admitted, “I looked around, but I didn’t know where anything was.” "How to explain..." she mused, "All right, in that shop, you’re not going to find any real fruit. You might find some veggies, but they’re mostly potatoes unless they’re frozen. Real food is out of the price range of most people. I’d barely had real food until coming to school.” “Really?” asked Krupa, "That's so strange." Julie briefly relived a memory of being around a table with her family, just chatting. Her mom, dad, brothers and sisters were all there, the memory nothing special save that it was about her family. Not all of her siblings were there though. The oldest of them had moved out long before she’d been old enough to remember them in the house as she’d been the youngest of nine children. Instead of recoiling, she allowed herself to continue experiencing the memory. It was just kitchen table conversation with the best food that her parents could provide, which admittedly wasn’t much. Just some tacos, which was a staple in the Freeman household. It struck her then that there had always been something to eat and she'd never had to ask to eat if she was hungry. Some of her old friends from the days when she'd been human hadn’t always had food. Occasionally her family would invite her friends over to eat. They'd always been warmly received. Of course her friends were always humans. Her family wouldn’t have allowed for non-human friends, not that Julie had gone out of her way to make any. For almost two years she’d shoved memories like these to the furthest reaches of her mind. Now after therapy she was surprised that she could handle them again without recoiling in horror or drowning in sorrow. The memories were still sharp, even painful, but like picking up broken glass, if she handled them with care she could keep from hurting herself on their jagged edges. “Yeah,” said Julie, a little roughly, but she cleared her throat, “Before Blake Island and prison, my family basically ate rice, soy, potatoes, reconstituted krill, processed sugar and maybe something real when times were good. You know, Christmas and birthdays. Since you can make soy into anything, we basically ate a lot of tacos since mom could stuff them with rice. Oh, sometimes we had to eat mycoprotein though. I could always tell when times were lean because that's when we’d see it on the table. Everyone hated it.” “Mycoprotein?” asked Krupa. “It’s a kind of single celled fungus protein,” said Julie, “It’s kind of…” There was a pause as Julie considered the food. “Kind of…Bland,” she finished, “Imagine if meat had basically no taste.” Krupa wrinkled her nose and made a face. “I don’t really like meat,” she said. “It's not meat or soy meat,” said Julie, “Some of the myco gets flavored like chicken, others get flavored like pork or beef or fish or whatever. It’s not terrible with enough sauce. One of my sisters got really sick from eating it though. You know, since it’s made from fungus and some people have bad reactions. She never ate anything made from it after that, but if you’re really, really poor, that tends to be what you eat; lots of fungus protein and rice if you eat at all.” “It sounds gross,” said Krupa. “Yep, sure is,” said Julie, “The diet in Touristville is better than that though, thankfully. There’s lots of soy which is basically used for just about everything. Sometimes when I want to work over lunch I buy one of the Grande Mesquite Soyrriotos from the grocery store since we’re close.” “Are they any good?” asked Krupa. Julie nodded happily. “Good and cheap,” she said, “Just two nuyen. Maybe we can get some later. Anyway, Touristville's diet: Soy products, potatoes, processed krill and rice. No mycoprotein at all. Plus I had some um…Some money drop into my lap recently, so I decided to get some real meat and vegetables for the soup kitchen. Now that Touristville’s economy is doing better, the soup kitchen is turning more into a Sunday community meal. We’re finally getting away from charity for the community, though some people from topside are probably going to show up this week after getting the real stuff last week. Word gets around. I'm hoping its not too many people.” It was odd to think that Julie had further funded Devin’s soup kitchen by helping to capture a toxic Feng Shui practitioner. Julian had been more than pleased to allow her to spend her money on her soup kitchen, but even after buying frozen vegetables and real meat in bulk, none of it felt real. When she tried to remember combat with Pinchface and his spirits, it all had a kind of dreamlike quality to it. Kenji had brought scary looking firearms, armor and backup, which didn't shock her as much as she thought it might have. The only thing that had shocked her was that she'd her killing spell, her mana bolt, for the first time since she’d killed her father in self-defense. Looking into that blue-white ball of death as it hovered above her hand in the battle had been quietly terrifying. She lingered for a moment as that memory came back to her. That orb of coruscating light spun like a storm in miniature just above her palm in her mind's eye. Part of her wanted to summon it again to look into its depths. She wasn't sure why and she wouldn't. Julie had taken her magical safety class to heart. To banish the thought she thought back to the soup kitchen. Half a dozen ancient chest freezers now resided in one of her unused bedrooms, all stuffed with real food that she'd bought in bulk. Devin had run out of room in his home and she had plenty of space as her apartment was meant for more people than just one person. “That’s so weird,” said Krupa, “Almost everyone in Tir eats fruits and vegetables. Even the poor eat real food.” Krupa speaking startled Julie out of her reverie. Julie raised an eyebrow, hoping that she hadn’t noticed. “Really?” asked Julie, “No one I know outside of school can afford fruit and veggies. Even the stuff for the community meal is going to be a little thin. We’ll be using soy for seconds.” “Oh yeah,” said Krupa, “Tir Tairngire has tons of land that it can farm. We’ve been working on soil remediation for decades. Water too. Land is precious and people are very interested in taking out all of the old toxins from back when people used too many pesticides. It took decades, but now you can eat food from basically anywhere in Tir. Eating soy is a choice. Real food is everywhere.” “Wow,” said Julie, “I can’t imagine just eating real food before I came to Blake Island, at least not outside of special occasions like Christmas or birthdays. I remember eating a lot of buttered rice and butter sandwiches, especially at the end of the month when things got tight. Prison food was way worse. If you couldn’t afford the commissary, which was basically where you bought stuff, and you didn’t work, you got the loaf.” “What’s the loaf?” asked Krupa. Julie thought about how to describe it. She didn’t really want to. The bland, meatloaf-like substance didn’t turn her stomach. It might have been better if it had. The loaf was perhaps the worst thing she’d never tasted. Not that she hadn’t eaten it, she had, but it was filling without having a taste. “Have you ever seen a fruitcake?” asked Julie. “You mean like at Christmas?” asked Krupa. “Yeah, with the colorful insides and sort of brown outside,” said Julie, “It looks like that. Except instead of brown, the fleshy part of it was sort of grey and instead of fruit inside, it’s um…Basically pureed food. Really whatever the prison staff could get their hands on. There was never fruit or meat. Sometimes there would be vegetables. But it was never spiced. So it was just this bland puree that was pressed into a loaf that would keep you fed, but it was basically just solid gruel. Since I went to prison for a place with people with magic, they used whatever they could to keep us under control. The loaf was one of those things. It had the same bland taste and when you ate it, it just sat in your stomach. No joy at being good, no anger at it being bad. Just bland.” “You really ate that?” asked Krupa, automatically. Then she seemed to realize how dismissive she’d been and her eyes widened in alarm. “I didn’t mean,” she sputtered, “I mean I’m really sorry. I’m not trying to be rude.” “You’re not. It’s not your fault,” soothed Julie, “It should be shocking. It’s why a lot of people worked or had hustles. It’s so they could get real food with real taste to it from the commissary.” “Hustles?” asked Krupa. “Yeah, hustles,” said Julie, “I mean you could do work for the prison, but they only paid you about one nuyen a day. I hear that in most places it’s mandatory, but they don’t want to force a bunch of awakened with access to spells and adept powers to work. Even with the shock collars they’d risk riots.” “Shock collars?!” exclaimed Krupa. A few of the nurses looked their way. Krupa winced at how loud she'd been. Part of Julie felt embarrassed, but this was the first time she’d been this open about prison to almost anyone outside of short snippets and it felt good to talk. What made her push forward beyond her embarrassment was how her blood began to boil when she remembered the collars. “Yeah, they can’t disarm people of their magic in prison. Spells are forever. That means almost everyone is armed at all times. So they put shock collars on us,” she explained, “If someone acted out, they’d threaten to shock them and if they didn’t stop, then they’d do it. Casting magic meant you got shocked unconscious and thrown into solitary.” "That's horrible," whispered Krupa. Julie gently swiveled on her rolling chair before she continued. “Yeah, it was. What's more horrible is that you got used to it. The screws…Uh…Guards I guess, that was our name for them,” she said, “They had guns and cybernetics and sometimes magic and there were security spirits and pop turrets and bars of course...Well the prison didn’t mess around for security. There was zero tolerance for magic. The new guards, sometimes they’d go on power trips and shock people for small stuff or just because they could which was probably the same thing. That didn’t tend to last though. Collar or not, if a guard shocked someone too many times or over something petty or just because, things tended to happen to them and then they’d stop or find a new job.” “Did you…” began Krupa, but she bit off the rest of her sentence. Julie nodded grimly and patted Krupa’s arm to show it was all right. “A couple times,” said Julie, “When you’re new, the guards try to break your spirit so you’re less likely to stir up trouble or fight back. I was in a really bad way and they were trying to…Is this too much?” “No, you should talk if you want to,” said Krupa, “It’s just…This is really awful. You’re such a nice person. You shouldn’t have gone through any of that.” Krupa laced her long, delicate fingers over Julie’s still long, but thicker fingers and smiled. The contact felt good and so Julie found herself able to continue, though she looked down at Krupa’s fingers instead of up. Krupa's words about how Julie was a nice person struck a chord in her. She didn't feel like a nice person sometimes, like she was just posing as one. Her therapist had worked with her on this, but it was an ongoing process. Perhaps the process had been working or maybe she just felt good enough to receive it, but she felt a happy stirring inside of her at the praise. “Thank you, that's very nice of you to say,” said Julie, a little rougher this time. "Of course," said Krupa, "You're a very nice person, Julie." That stirring inside of her grew warm and spread out from her stomach. It was pleasant and it made speaking easier. “Anyway...Early on I was in a bad way. I’d just been sentenced and it was my choice really," she explained, "I didn’t defend myself in court even though I probably could’ve gotten off. I'd just come into my magic and I hadn't learned the spell. I got asked a few times if I wanted to defend myself by the judge, but it didn’t matter to me because I didn’t want to go home. I couldn’t face my mom or brothers or my sisters. I thought I deserved prison after my dad died.” “You defended yourself,” she soothed. “I know that now,” said Julie, “But part of me wonders why I manifested a killing spell instead of a stunning spell. I keep coming back to it and I don't know why. If I'd stunned him, he would've stopped." Krupa didn't have an answer, but neither did Julie. Therapy helped her deal with her problems, but it didn't answer questions that she didn't have the answers to. "I thought I deserved it," sighed Julie, "Maybe I wouldn’t have pleaded guilty if any of my family members came to talk to me, but they didn’t. I thought it would’ve been better if I just went to prison forever. I wouldn’t hurt anyone else, but what happened was that I started to get hurt instead. The guards, they want control. Most know the limits about what people will take, but they’re still cruel. They try to break you when you come in: Thin blankets in the cold, getting the loaf whether you’re working or not, getting shocked, the occasional baton on the back, ignoring other prisoners when they try to abuse you…” Julie left out the cavity searches, especially the early ones at gunpoint. She’d actually talked about them before, but maybe not with Krupa, she decided. “But my cellmate, well she was pretty awesome,” said Julie, with a small smile, “Big Rita. She’s this big troll lady. She kind of became my mom for a year and helped put me back together. I mean she was no saint. Definitely not, but she was there for me.” “Then she was the right person at the right time,” said Krupa. Julie shrugged a little without looking up. “I didn’t complain about it when I got shocked and got thin blankets, but she saw it happen and she eventually asked me if it bothered me,” said Julie, “The thing is, it didn’t really. I was cold and hurting but numb. Well, she told me that it should bother me. If I wanted it to stop, all I had to do was ask her. I didn't know then that asking for help puts you in debt, which is bad, but it turned out that Rita never collected. Small mercies. So a few days later I did ask when I got shocked awake in the night and couldn't fall back asleep and she said she'd help. She told me to make a big show out of acting like they'd broke me. Then I did, but it didn’t stop immediately and she got mad and said she’d take care of it. Nothing happened after that. I don’t know what she did.” All Julie could hear was her own breathing for a few seconds as her mind cast back to those old, horrible memories. She could handle them again. As each ugly memory came, she could let them go. “So yeah,” said Julie, with a nervous laugh, “I ate a lot of loaf for a while. Big Rita asked me if I liked it and I said it’s just so tasteless that I can’t like or dislike it. It’s just nutraloaf. Well she just nods and asks me if I want to work to get off the loaf and I don’t really care. If I get my hands cut up I get my hands cut up. That’s where I was at that point.” “Why cut up?” whispered Krupa. “What?” asked Julie. She was suddenly pulled out of another memory when she looked into Krupa’s eyes. There was kindness there. Maybe not understanding, but kindness, and that was enough for Julie. Again she lowered her eyes. “Oh, right,” said Julie, “Sorry, I’m making assumptions about what you know. See, there was a recycling center in the prison. It turns out that it’s cheaper to pay prisoners one nuyen a day over automation. Rita said they used to put their magic to work but that caused problems so they didn’t allow it. Anyway, people had to handle a lot of broken glass when they were separating stuff and you only got one pair of gloves, or so I hear. I never did it.” She looked down again. There were no scars on her hands. “The glass would cut above the gloves since they were short or sometimes go through it because the conveyor belt moved pretty fast and the glass could be sharp,” she explained, “A lot of people got cut up at work. What made it worse is that about half of the people who could cast spells could heal. If you healed yourself or others with a spell you got shocked, beat down by guards and chucked into solitary confinement. The temptation was always there, because the prison nurses…Well, people running medical programs on their skillwires. You know, like Devin does. We didn’t rate real doctors I guess. Anyway, they wouldn’t patch you up unless you were really hurt, so a lot of people just got cut up and had to deal.” “That’s horrible,” said Krupa. She squeezed Julie’s fingers. Julie squeezed Krupa’s back. “That’s prison,” sighed Julie, “Work in the recycling center, make a nuyen a day and get food that tastes like something foul, but at least it's something. Or do nothing and get the loaf. So yeah, eventually I told Big Rita that I was tired of the loaf and she made pizza.” “Wait, you had pizza in prison?” asked Krupa. “Oh yeah,” said Julie, with a smile, “I mean not like pizza out here. After a couple weeks of the loaf, anything tastes good. Even bad tasting food is something and something is better than nothing. It turns out that Big Rita is a serious prison chef. Technically you could buy dough from the commissary, but you had a hard time cooking it and it would take forever when you wanted that food sooner rather than later. So she made the dough out of saltine crackers, some butter crackers to give the crust a kind of brown coloring and some soups to hold it all together.” There was a pause as Krupa considered. “What are soups?” asked Krupa. “Oh, those are ramen noodle packets,” explained Julie, “They’re tasty and you can use them for basically anything food related. Everyone just calls them soups.” “Not soup?” she asked. “Nope, soups,” said Julie, “I don’t know why, but it was soups, not soup. You could trade soups for basically anything if you had enough. People always wanted stacks of soups. But yeah, that’s the dough because it would cook faster in the microwave. People would get pissy if you used the microwave too much since there were only two for the entire block. Let’s see…For sauce we used this squeezable bottle of salsa from the commissary. The hot stuff, because it had the most flavor and I was starving for flavor. On top she used soy pepperoni, soy jerky, pickles because those were the only veggies you could get from the commissary, a real onion because she knew the people on the kitchen crew, spreadable pimento cheese, again, kitchen crew and garlic powder.” Julie let go of Krupa’s hands and started pantomiming cooking. “We stuffed the dough into a bag of chips,” she continued, “Big bags of chips are just all over prisons. There are always plenty of empty ones. You’d pour hot water into the bag with the dough. Then you’d cut it open…” “How did you cut it open?” asked Krupa. Julie was momentarily caught off guard. Onions, soy jerky and bags didn’t exactly cut themselves. After thinking about it, Julie decided to tell the truth. “She uh…She used a knife,” said Julie. “They let you have knives in prison?” asked Krupa. “No,” stated Juliem frankly, “They don’t.” This had been the same question that Julie had asked Big Rita over a year ago when she made pizza. It wasn't a particularly smart question, but it made Julie feel better that Krupa had asked it too. Her old cellmate had cut up the onion and soy jerky with a prison shiv. The blade had been real and long, but the handle had been completely made out of duct tape. “Oh,” said Krupa. Then her eyes widened as she realized the implications. “Oh!” she exclaimed, “Oh wow.” “Yep, cutting stuff with a shiv. Pizza shiv," continued Julie, quickly, with a nervous laugh, “Anyway then she rolled the dough with a soda can. After that she rolled out a little foil on the bottom and then used a board game as a cooking tray. She also used it to measure to make sure the pizza would fit. And we ended up with maybe the oddest, but tastiest pizza I’ve ever had. The salsa and the pimento cheese really made it.” “I’ll uh…Take your word for it,” said Krupa, “Though maybe anything would taste good after eating that loaf for so long.” Julie nodded her head vigorously. “Anything was good after the loaf,” said Julie, seriously, “But yeah, Rita would cook a lot. She’d make tamales, orange chicken, pad thai, ramen burritos, Fizzychug salad, pizza, no bake cheesecake, lattes…She even tried to make horchata this one time and I've got to say, it was close. It got harder to cook after they banned microwaves and hot water after uh...Well, anyway, she kept finding ways to cook. Remind me to tell you about electric noodles sometime.” “That sounds interesting,” said Krupa, brightly, “So she was…A cook? That was…Her hustle? Am I getting this right?” Julie nodded, but then shook her head. “You're getting it, but that wasn't her hustle,” said Julie, “She just cooked for herself and me. Not all the time, but a lot in the early days before I learned my own hustle and then just as a sometimes thing. I’m not really sure what she did come to think of it.” “What did you do?” asked “Oh, I was a paralegal,” said Julie, “A lot of the inmates couldn’t read or read very well, so I helped people with their paperwork. That meant I spent a lot of time in the prison library, or at least what passed for a library. It kept me out of trouble.” “That sounds good,” said Krupa. “Yeah, it was,” said Julie, “I got pretty good with paperwork and the law. I helped get people out of prison faster and they’d give me stuff or favors. After a month of learning from this one girl that Rita set me up with, I started buying my own food. I never ate the loaf again and I didn’t cut up my hands doing it. I was a mess and the place wasn't good for me, but Rita...She made it okay." Julie nodded to herself. "Definitely okay." Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 17:24 on May 2, 2019 |
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May 2, 2019 06:42
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Some rolls! Non-opposed etiquette roll. Julie gets 2 on 11 dice (charisma 5 + etiquette 1 + street cred 6 - notoriety 3 + loyalty 2) and Krupa gets 4 on 6 dice (charisma 5 + etiquette 1). This is just to establish how everyone does. Julie is able to speak, though she's not doing the greatest as she starts drudging up old memories. I roll composure and she gets a 3. So she's able to deal. The fact that she can deal with memories of her family and prison is pretty positive. She's not burying her problems anymore. Instead she's processing them. It's taking time and therapy, and she's nowhere close to done, but the emergency therapy is over. Krupa is able to tease something out of Julie with a 4, so I decided to look up how to make prison pizza. So I get to talk about food, but that is how you make a prison pizza which I found to be very interesting. Also Krupa doesn't mess up too much when Julie talks about stuff that's very, VERY out of Krupa's life experience. Also Krupa gets a 4 on composure. The part of her that believes in justice and fair play and hates bullying is extremely unhappy, but Krupa doesn't make it about her feelings. She sticks with Julie and helps her talk instead of ruining the moment. All around a positive scene. -- So after a hiatus in which I prepared for the GRE, I'm back and writing again after studying math for weeks. I am mathed out. I crunched the numbers and it turns out that I passed since I didn't need the analytical writing part, which is scored later, just the verbal and quantitative parts, which are scored immediately. If everything goes well, I'll be enrolling to get my masters come this fall. So that's where I've been. I'm still eager to write. I didn't forget about you fine folks. We're on the path to Julie's story and me talking about Charlottesville! Horay! Remember that unlike Kenji, she is pretty crap at talking to people. Her skillset is that she casts magic well, she can heal, she knows things and she has an absolutely loyal spirit ally in Chip. Otherwise she's not particularly competent at anything else. In fact her skillset is pretty bad when compared to Fuzzy and Kenji. Julie is finally ready to do something other than sponge up information, heal people and work on her magic, but how she adapts to wildly changing situations are going to be up to the thread. I have such plans for this book. -- Just so I don't forget, Julie is going to ask Devin about the economy. Fuzzy needs to show off her Maximum Mad Max truck. The Quixote, which is a fairly speedy truck. Gotta go fast. Sasha is still learning from Stork who is Kendra who is also Octo. And Sasha is going to learn how to legally hide her identity both in the physical sense (through disguise) and in the legal sense. Fuzzy and Sasha are going to head to Council Island for a double date with Kenji and Saanvi. Kenji is going to learn some martial arts with Saanvi and Saanvi is going to learn some gunplay with Kenji. The goodest boy ever to run the shadows still feels like he's losing his edge after being out of the ACHE for a year and he's interested in spending time with Saanvi and preserving his martial edge. We'll also be picking Fuzzy's first shapeshifted form in the next update. Basically what animal form she's been learning how to move around with. We'll be sticking to land animals for the moment, but anything from as big to a black bear or wolf or big cat like a lion or tiger is on the table. Or she could be smaller, like a fox. Don't ask me about conservation of mass please. I don't know. Also the big ritual is coming up. As I recall, Dog, Monkey, Dragonslayer and I think either Oracle or Whale will be invited. So we'll get to meet the not-gods of Shadowrun's not-pantheon! And you can just contact them! And if you do it in the right way, you can talk to them at length! The ease of access amuses me like one might easily access a hot stove with one's unprotected fingers. -- Since it's near the third of the month and I haven't posted the patreon link in a while, here it is. Patreon https://www.patreon.com/icewrites As always, I must restate that this is free to enjoy. I don't expect money from any of you. The computer problem has been resolved, so now it's just beer and more recently, barbecue money. If you want to donate, that's great and I really appreciate it. But if you're here and reading, I appreciate you too. No walls, no gates, just words. And that's been intensely satisfying for my creative side. Back on track, hope to have more updates out soon. Weeks of math make me yearn to create. The Topps Company, Inc. has sole ownership of the names, logo, artwork, marks, photographs, sounds, audio, video and/or any proprietary material used in connection with the game Shadowrun. The Topps Company, Inc. has granted permission to blakeisland.wordpress.com to use such names, logos, artwork, marks and/or any proprietary materials for promotional and informational purposes on its website but does not endorse, and is not affiliated with blakeisland.wordpress.com in any official capacity whatsoever. Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 06:58 on May 15, 2019 |
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May 2, 2019 07:09
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Welcome back, chummer.
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May 2, 2019 14:01
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Oh Krupa. I'm surprised she put the "you can have knives!" bit together, based on how goddamn clueless she is constantly.
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May 2, 2019 19:26
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