#finally looked at my draft and EESH

[avid-idiot]

Why do I do this to myself?

[nickmakura]

VA-11 HALL-A - Mar 10

This is transcript for the scrapped extra day for the Nintendo Switch release of Sukeban Games' Va-11 Hall-A. Unfortunately, due to some disagreements between Sukeban and Nintendo for the following interpretations the deal fell through. All that was written here is still technically unfinished, only in the sense that Kiririn51 only wrote this draft of the script into the code before the failure of the deal. So, there are no alternate routes depending on drinks sold.

Jill: G'Evening.

Dana: Hey! Jill, how'd the date go?

Jill: Uh... good? I guess.

Dana: I guess? What's that supposed to mean?

Jill: No no no, it was a good date boss, she was just strange.

Dana: Define strange, Jill. We meet a lot of strange.

Jill: Well, she was like a... racist republican trans trucker.

Dana: That a euphemism for somethin'?

Jill: No, she was a racist republican trans trucker.

Dana: Eesh. That's like meeting a homophobic vegan.

Jill: Ughh... she was pretty too.

Dana: Had to have been to go out with you.

Jill: I-- sorry?

Dana: I said what I said. If you need me, I'll be in my office.

Jill: (... I'm gonna go setup the jukebox.)

Jill: Time to mix drinks and change lives.

Jill: Welcome to Va-11 Hall-A.

Samus Aran's design, found in the files of the switch release.

???: ... Hey.

Jill: ... Hello?

???: ...

Jill: You gonna order something, miss?

???: ... You'll have to forgive me; I don't spend a lot of time around other people. What do you recommend?

Jill: Well, that depends on what are you looking for. Do you want something sweet. something bitter?

???: ... Hmm. Something sweet sounds fine.

Jill: Got it.

(Something sweet... she looks like she could go for a Moonblast.)

Jill: Here you go, miss...?

???: Sam.

Jill: Sam?

Sam: Just Sam.

Jill: (Huh. Weird. The registry doesn't say anything here for name. The money is still being sent over though...)

Jill: Well, "Just Sam" what brings you in here today?

Sam: Drinking.

Jill: Yeah, no I got that part. I was asking what your day was.

Sam: ... Who wants to know?

Jill: I don't mean to pry. I'm just... striking up a conversation.

Sam: I see. Well, I just finished a hunt.

Jill: A bounty hunt?

Sam: Yeah.

Jill: Y'know we got a bounty hunter who comes in here from time to time.

Sam: Do you know his name?

Jill: Jamie, he's a nice guy. Y'know him?

Sam: No. I do know a couple of bounty hunters, but... to be frank I tend to keep my circle small. I can't let feelings get in the way of my job.

Jill: Surely you make some time for yourself?

Sam: What do you think I'm doing?

Jill: Fair point. Despite that, you seem quite somber.

Sam: ... I do?

Jill: At least, I think it is. You've hardly changed expression during this conversation.

Sam: ... Yes, I am in a fairly bad mood yes. I just... something about this last job was different.

Jill: How so?

Sam: I'm afraid I can't share too much. But a... kid saved me today.

Jill: A kid?

Sam: Yeah. We were deep into a fight. It was me and this other person. I was nearly on my death bed. The final shot was coming and... this kid I spared jumped in there. I got to my feet, I took out the bounty. But, there was just this dread in me. This unspeakable feeling in my stomach.

Jill: Wow. That's...

Sam: There's nothing you can say about it Bartender.

Jill: ... I didn't think there could be. Do you want another drink?

Sam: ... Do you have something bitter as hell?

Jill: Yeah, I got something like that.

(Sam wants something bitter as hell, huh.)

Jill: Here you go.

Sam: What's this one called?

Jill: That is a suplex.

Sam: Hmm... did you pick the music?

Jill: Hmm? Yeah, I did. We got an old jukebox that plays all day, but I gotta pick the tunes before it starts.

Sam: There's a lot of synthwave in this selection. Do you know the artist of some of these?

Jill Uh... Garoad, I think, did some of these. I know Kira*Miki did "Your Love is a Drug." Do you like synthwave, miss?

Sam: It's all I listen to when I'm alone on a planet.

Jill: Oh? You're not local?

Sam: No. I am a galactic bounty hunter.

Jill: Oh, what's that like?

Sam: Lonely. Music like this though fills the time. I think my favorite artist is probably Hip Tanaka.

Jill: Oh, I'm aware of that guy. Didn't he say he started making music because he was tired of the more poppy happy type music?

Sam: He said he wanted to write more atmospheric music yes. I love his work. It feels simultaneously triumphant and desolate at the same time. It really fits any mood when I'm out there in some sort of hell.

Jill: I'd sure hope so. Do you want another drink?

Sam: Hmm... no, I don't think so... I'll be out soon. Thank you Jill, I hope you have a nice day.

Jill: Mhm. You too. Please come back soon.

Sam: I'll do my best.

Jill: (I think she was built up stronger than boss is...)

???: --Look Luigi, alls I'm sayin' is dat there's no way Daisy doesn't like youse.

???: AND I'm saying it's my business whether I go for her or not Mario! Granted she's a nice ragazza, but fratello, I don't even know if I wanna be with anybody right now anyways.

???: Gah, Cazzo de mierda...

Jill: Hello, welcome to Va-11 Hall-A.

Mario & Luigi in the files. Curiously, they take after the 1993 Mario Movie designs.

???: Hey how youse doin' bartender. Can youse just get us a couple-a-beers.

Jill: Coming right up.

Jill: (Two beers. I wonder what's with the matching outfits.)

Jill: Here you are. Now what's this about relationship problems?

???: Just that my brother here is so fuckin' blind he doesn't see romance when it slaps him in da face.

???: He thinks this friend of mine, who is frankly very attractive, is interested in me.

Mario: Oh yeah, sorry. I totally forgot, uh... My name is Mario Mario, this here's my brother Luigi Mario.

Jill: Nice to meet you two. I'm Jill.

Mario: Nice to me youse Jill, but uh... youse ain't gonna comment on da last name thing?

Jill: Eh, it's not that interesting.

Mario: Ayy, whaddya know Luigi? First time for everything!

Jill: So anyway relationships?

Luigi: So, there's this completely platonic friend of mine, Daisy, she's a paleontologist. We talk a lot when we're at the gym, and we hang out a lot.

Mario: Youse was goin' out on dates man.

Luigi: Those weren't dates!

Mario: Whaddya call goin' out for dinner at a fancy restaurant and not inviting your big brother, huh?

Luigi: Okay, #1. Hoskin's is not a fancy restaurant. #2. We were just hanging out and talking.

Mario: Mhm. Yeah, sure, bro. We'll go with dat. Whaddya think Jill?

Jill: I think it's none of business, and it's none of yours.

Luigi: Ah-HAH!

Jill: BUT. Aren't you at least interested in pursuing a relationship?

Luigi: Well... I mean I've thought about it maybe sure. But I'm just a plumber and a technician, and she's... amazing. She's a freakin' paleontologist for christ's sake! Like that's dats amazing! She's going places I can't even dream of.

Mario: Basta! She respects ya just as much as youse respect her Luigi.

Luigi: Eh, maybe. What's your situation with relationships Jill?

Mario: Nice subject change.

Jill: Eh... well... I did just go out on a really strange date.

Mario: What was so strange about it?

Jill: Well, it wasn't what was so strange about the date, it was moreso the person.

Mario & Luigi: Ah...

Luigi: So, what was the deal?

Jill: Well, she was this lovely trans lady. She was incredibly attractive, and she seemed funny. She had this like... tattoo of one of the bad guys in Model Warrior Julliane.

Luigi: Oh, yeah, I remember seeing that on air.

Mario: It was aight.

Jill: ... Anyway. She was one of those bad guys that connected with a lot of the audience for having a tragic backstory or something, and that got me interested in her, so I asked her out.

Luigi: So, how'd it go?

Jill: Well, we went out for some coffee, and we're sitting down and chatting, and it turns out over the course of the conversation, it turned out she was racist and a republican. Also, she had no time for a relationship anyway. Chick was signing up to be one of those space truckers.

Mario: Eh? Why even go out on da fuckin' date den?

Jill: I forgot to ask. I did ask why they liked Lazula. Because she was quote "patriotic."

Mario: Dat... wow. Yeah, no dat bites. That's special.

Jill: Then she brought her gun out halfway through the date.

Mario: WHAT!? Ay, if youse being tracked by some chick with a gun, youse better go home safe or somethin'.

Jill: No, they weren't gonna USE it on me. They had just been sitting on it for the last minute or so. They wanted to put it in their purse.

Mario: Well, first of all, youse conceal your gun someplace safe on your side. The back is just uncomfortable.

Jill: But then they just kept bringing it up into the conversation. Like the gun was just so integral to who they were as a person.

Luigi: Do youse not like guns Jill?

Jill: Um... It's a bit mixed for me. I can't deny they have purpose in certain situations, and it's good to have if shit goes down. But it's also not good to have if shit goes down. There's also the whole fiasco with gun laws and how it affects minorities. It's a complex issue.

Mario: Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. But what was so upsetting 'bout this chick ownin' one den?

Jill: It seemed like it consumed her whole personality the fact that she owned a gun.

Luigi: Dat'll do it.

Jill: You two want anything else to drink? Mario: Nah, we gotta get back. There's a couple of things we gotta get to. Thanks for asking though. Youse have a nice day Jill, aight? Jill: Will do. Come back soon. Jill: Boss, I'm gonna go and take my break, lemme know if anybody walks in! Dana: Got it!

Unfortunately, this was all that was written for the day. The second half is not present in the files. What do you think? Would you have liked more cameo characters in Va-11 Hall-A?

[thebibliomancer]

Song of the Dark Crystal liveblog pt 24

Song of the Dark Crystal by J.M. Lee because time to go back into a claustrophobic tunnel, oh boy!

Last times on book: On the way to Ha’rar after failing to retrieve the firca of Gyr the Song Teller from the Tomb of Relics (because it was broken), Kylan discovered that Tavra was a spider-imposter. He, Naia, and Amri managed to outsmart and trap angry Spider-Tavra and in the confrontation Kylan accidentally saved Tavra’s life by dream-stitching her mind into the spider’s body. So she’s a spider now but she’s being very chill about it. On her advice, the group returns to the Caves of Grot to try to save the Grottan from MILLIONS OF ANGRY SPIDERS and to try to create a new magical firca. Slight complication, the only way to get there in time is through a mostly flooded tunnel.

Chapter 24

The group travels through the harrowing Tide Pass, Kylan meets a Satirist

Amri finds the Tide Pass right as the morning sky is beginning to lighten. Kylan is sad because he wanted to be above ground to see a sunrise. Alas poor Kylan. When’s the last time these poor goobers got any sleep anyway?

Actually I feel like the sunrise/sets are pretty well documented. You could figure out exactly how much time this has all taken so far. I’d bet less than it has felt for the characters.

The group makes a decision to leave all their supplies and excess clothes outside the tunnel rather than make traveling in an underwater tunnel more difficult by adding in the possibility of getting tangled on something. He’s hesitant to leave Tavra’s pearl amulet or Raunip’s book but better safe than drowned.

Amri sniffs the tunnel draft to deduce some tunnel things. I guess he can do that.

“The tide will stay low for a few more days, and there are no currents here, so as long as we keep calm, there’s no danger of being washed away. I’ll lead. Naia should be at the rear in case of… Well, just in case. If we could walk it, the path would not take long, but crawling it will take longer. Remain calm, and your body will thank you for it.”

“Ready?” Naia asked. It was to the group, but specifically for Kylan. He took what he hoped would not be his last breath of open air.

“After you, Amri.”

The Tide Pass…. Is one of those places that drunk college students would keep drowning in until they had to put a metal fence over the entrance. There’s no bioluminescent plants or cave fish here so its so dark that Kylan might as well be blindfolded. The tunnel floor drops away so instead of walking, they have to propel themselves by handholds on the cave wall. The water is so high and ceiling so low at points that Kylan has to tilt his head up to breath, dunking his ears in the water. And also, Tavra makes matters worse by riding on his head and tickling him with her spider feets.

Hashtag, my friend turned into a spider problems.

Even with Naia occasionally touching his back to let him know she’s there, its really rough going.

AND GETTING ROUGHER!

They reach a section that’s entirely underwater!

Amri and Naia have to go ahead to scout to make sure there’s a clear way through, leaving Kylan alone in the dark with only a Tavra-spider for company. And he has to lie and says that's fine because there’s no real alternative!

Kylan is having a bad time.

But at least he has a Tavra-spider sitting on his head to talk to. That’s something.

“We are close. I can hear the voices of the other spiders. When Naia and Amri return, we will pass through this tunnel and enter the Sanctuary… but I fear we are too late to warn the Grottan that fled Domrak.”

=(

Oh and Tavra-spider’s voice is so small that Kylan feels like he’s basically just talking to his own conscience.

Tavra, ever the spider pragmatist, says that even if its too late to save the Grottan, they can still get a bell-bird bone and make a firca to warn everyone. That’d be a victory too. 

“This is the beginning of war with the Skeksis… Lives will be lost, and sacrifices made. To endure, we must focus on the greatest good.”

It’s an interesting take on the pragmatist, really. Tavra was the one that first brought up that they should return to help the Grottan so she’s not like ‘sometimes sacrifices have to be made’ type pragmatist. She’s just a realist. She’ll do whatever she can (which is less now) to save lives but will focus on the bigger picture. ‘We have to focus on the ends’ not ‘the ends justify the means.’

Probably why she’s just rolled with being a spider now. ‘Well this sucks but I gotta focus on the greatest good.’

Kylan couldn’t help but think Tavra was speaking to herself. Her brand of optimism was that of a seasoned soldier, a sort of bitter take on the constant bright hope Kylan had tried to commit himself to for so long. Even Naia’s optimism came from a place of wishing for the best; Tavra’s words, though not exactly comforting, were nonetheless realistic.

But she is optimistic about the firca, even while Kylan doubts. Since she’s a spider now she has spider-sense and she senses her spider senses are sensitive to sound. And since the spiders are close to the heart of Thra, if the bell-bird’s song can’t make them submit, she can’t think of anything that would.

SO! Good premise for the quest. Find the bone, toot on a flute, save the Grottan.

Kylan realizes that its been a while and Naia and Amri haven’t returned yet. He’s not sure whether they should have or not but the absence makes him nervous and he decides that if they got into  trouble, he has to go ahead through the terrifying underwater passage without their guidance. 

Because, I mean, if they did get into trouble, they’re never going to return to let him know that they did and he can’t backtrack out of the tunnel on his own. 

“Can you see in this dark?” he asked.

“Yes. Are you going after them?”

Her question was mostly neutral, though it had a hint of what Kylan hoped was pride, or respect, or something like that. He didn’t want to. Every nerve in his body was ringing in alarm and fear, but it didn’t matter. He was here, and if he was going to get out of this place, there was only one way to do it.

“Try to tell me if I’m about to die,” he said.

Tavra gave a very dry chuckle.

“I will do my best.”

Aww, frens.

Also, AAHHHHH UNDERWATER TUNNEL

Pros: there’s no branching paths so no chance of losing his way. And Tavra can stab him with her stabby spider feets to warn him when he’s nearing sharp rocks or sudden turns.

Cons: Its so dark that he can’t tell whether his eyes are open or shut. He bangs into rocks with his head a lot despite Tavra’s help. HE HAS TO DO IT IN ONE BREATH.

But he does do.

His lungs are burning by the end but Tavra spider pokes him to tell him to swim up toward a light and he finally finds air again.

Eesh tense tense tense. Do not like. Lets use another exit when its time to leave again. Surely there’s a tunnel that isn’t underwater or where you have to squeeze through a cave-in. Surely.

“Be careful,” Tavra hissed into his ear, in an even tinier voice than usual. “The enemy is all around us.”

Kylan can’t be careful initially because all he can do is gasp for breath.

But when he recovers… Ooof. I am once again warning arachnophobes.

... all around him, the rocks, walls, nooks, and crannies were coated in spiderwebs. Some of the webs were elegant, glistening like silver thread, while some were so thick and gauzy, they looked like fleece laid upon the rocks. Crawling on every surface of the cave and along every web were spiders of every shape, every size, and every color. Some had long thin legs like Tavra. Some were large, squat, and furry. Some were small, like blast dust, and others much larger. One spider, reclining on its hammock of netted webbing, had legs the size of Kylan’s arms.

=T

Well, that’s like. Out of one phobia frying pan and into the phobia fire.

But, hey, I was wrong. THERE ARE GIANT SPIDERS.

Although, I have to wonder if there’s even enough crawlies in these caves to support this kind of spider population. There were crawlies in the caves by previous descriptions but not like so many that they can support this kind of spider mass. I think the bats were eating them all. I guess the bigger spiders can eat the hollerbats and then the bug population will jump up.

Kylan is fretting about how he’ll get to the Sanctuary and where Naia and Amri are when he has to duck down into the water because a Skeksis in a black and red cloak and carrying a crystal topped staff comes striding into the room.

… skekSil?

“skekLi,” Tavra whispered in Kylan’s ear. “The Satirist… The Skeksis’ entertainer. Krychk’s master. Be careful!”

Oh. I guess the Chamberlain wouldn’t come out to a cave if he could help it.

And I guess a Satirist could be the opposite of a Storyteller?? Weird that the Skeksis’ favorite form of entertainment is speaking truth to power although maybe its more like the ‘don’t you get satire’ / ‘it was a joke’ style of “satire.”

I sort of imagine insult comedy is the Skeksis’ style.

Hm. I know that probably most people didn’t read the books vs the show and that all the Original Skeksis buzz was taken up by skekSa FOR GOOD REASON but I feel like I haven’t seen a lot of fanstuff about skekLi.

I mean, part of it could be that he’s showing up in person on page 212 out of 261. That’s not nothing but that’s not a lot of time to make a lasting impression. skekMal showed up pretty late in the book too but his menace was built up. He was Kylan’s motivation, he showed up in that story, Naia mistook the Archer for the Hunter. They have two separate encounters with skekMal in the woods AND one in the castle. Also, to be fair, he could lean on his show appearances too, at least for me. But skekLi is showing up as the man behind the man style villainy when it already felt like Spider-Tavra was the final boss. I hope he gets to do something memorable because I like having more interesting characters. And also something satire-based. You can’t just call a guy the Satirist and have him be a generic Skeksis.

Said Satirist spots Kylan hiding in the water, plunks a hand in the drink and just fishes him up.

“You!” he crowed again. “So you took the Spriton after all! We thought you would fail us. Yes, we did. But here we are.”

What was he saying? Took the Spriton?

He thinks you are the spider, Kylan answered himself.

What a hilarious mixup! What a hilarious, exploitable mixup!

For reasons of ‘no duh’ Kylan plays along and hopes Tavra-spider does too. In-character as Krychk, Kylan tries to subtly find out where Naia and Amri are.

The Skeksis set him down with surprising care, though the carnivorous sneer still cut beneath his pointed beak. He was thinner than the other Skeksis that Kylan had seen, with a long neck and sinewy fingers. On each finger he wore a ring, and each ring was connected with a web of silver chain, decorated with dangling charms. The same chain-and-charm decorations cascaded from a three-pointed fascinator, pinned to the Skeksis’ head with a pair of long narrow feathers.

OKAY whatever else, skekLi knows how to Aesthetic. Shame the illustrator didn’t include this rad hat on the picture a couple pages later. Or his finger bling.

skekLi tells Kylan-pretending-to-be-Krychk that the Grottan and the Drenchen are being kept in the Sanctuary, commenting that two Drenchen would have been better. Not naming any names, of course, but that was Krychk’s fault.

The Skeksis whirled, flourishing with his staff, and strutted out of the cavern.

Aesthetic.

Kylan immediately becomes spider paranoid because all of the spiders seem to be watching him and he frets that they know that he’s not Krychk.

He didn’t want to wait to find out, and pulled his chin up as he had seen Krychk do when in control of Tavra’s body. With a forced sense of self-importance, he marched after the Skeksis toward the Sanctuary, heart fluttering with worry at what he might find there.

My wild guess is that its going to be just a ruinous amount of spiders. I think its going to be an excess of spiders for the rest of the book. This is Kylan’s life now. Spiders.

[mindfulwrathwrites]

Sunny in the Golden Grave (Excerpt): What’s Missing In Richmond?

Admittedly I haven’t been giving this story the attention it deserves in my mad rush to finish a draft of Powered before I have surgery in January, but I still want to share!

Words: 1,052 Warnings: None

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...

Inside of an hour, the constant pressure of the saloon had gotten unbearable, so Sunny retreated upstairs to an empty room. Casey came with him, yawning and stretching until they were behind closed doors. Once there, he gangled across the room and peered out of the curtains.

"Oy vey, there's our bags out there," he said. "Left to lie in the dirt like dead dogs, tsch. And nobody's gonna let us go get them, either. Until they're kicking us out, maybe. You got a plan yet?"

Sunny's composure snapped like a camel's back. "What the ever-loving hell is wrong with you?"

"Hey, what?"

"Ghost hunters?"

"Goofy, sure, but it got us in the door, eh?"

"And now they're gonna be expecting us to do something about it!"

"Ya, and we're gonna do something about it. What's the problem?"

"I didn't sign on to do nothing, Casey, I didn't even wanna stay here. Whatever's going on in this place, it is so goddamn far above our pay-grade, it—I can't—we don't know the first thing about hunting ghosts!"

"That's fine, that Fisk guy said they weren't ghosts anyway."

Sunny grabbed the nearest fist-sized object and threw it at him. Casey ducked it. Whatever it was bounced off the wall and rolled under the bed. Casey glared.

"Hey, enough with the throwing things," he said.

"I'll stop throwing shit when you stop digging holes underneath of us. What were you thinking?"

"Sunny, I'm not gonna have a fight with you. You wanna talk, OK, we can talk, but this tantrum thing—no."

"Fuck you," Sunny spat. "You don't get to run roughshod all over me and then tell me I don't get to be upset about it."

"It's fine you're upset, the upset isn't the problem."

Sunny kicked the chest of drawers. Pain shot through his foot. He hopped backwards, cussing and holding his throbbing toe. Casey didn't comment—for once—but the told-you-so energy came off him like heat off a stove. The shock of pain unseated Sunny's anger, and embarrassment came up to replace it. He sat down on the floor, rubbing his toe through his shoe.

"Ow," he said.

"You OK?" Casey asked. "Nothing broken?"

"I don't think so. Just hurts like a bitch."

"Eh, good it's not broken. Sorry it hurts."

"Whatever," Sunny grumbled. He kept his eyes and head down, hoping Casey couldn't see the flush creeping onto his cheeks. When he didn't say anything more, Casey shrugged and turned back to the window.

"You uh . . . you see anything out there?" Sunny asked.

"Not much," said Casey. "Just a lot of dirt and some buildings and our poor bags."

"No people? Animals?"

"Nobody."

The noise of the saloon below didn't fill the silence that opened up in the room, a trickle of sand into a sinkhole. Sunny sat and rubbed his foot. Casey stood and stared out the window. The quiet burrowed into Sunny's ears and started ringing. He stuck a finger in his ear and wiggled it around, but the quiet was in too deep. There was nothing for it but to drown it out.

"Why do you wanna stay?" he asked.

"Hm?" said Casey, a tilt of the head.

"I know why I wanna stay, but you wanted to stay before I did. So what is it? You just curious, too?"

Casey continued to stare out the window for a good three seconds. He tugged the curtains closed and half-turned, speaking more to the wall than to Sunny. The smile was gone from his face, and his bright eyes were darkened.

"The schoolhouse was empty," he said.

"The schoolhouse?"

"Ya."

"What's that got to do with—" Sunny cut himself off. The pieces came together. The marrow of his bones turned cold. "Come to think of it, I ain't seen or heard a child all day."

"No," said Casey. "And of the elderly, maybe—what, four or five? And nobody's sick. Sure, a few missing a couple pieces, but sick? Bleeding? Nobody."

"I expect they'd be at the doctor's, instead of shut up in a saloon. And the kids, they could be holed up someplace else, too. We ain't hardly seen any of this place, it's a little too soon to be making judgements about who's here and who ain't."

Casey tipped his head. "Sure. But the wolves, when they hunt, they take the young, the old, and the sick. I think something is hunting these people."

"Jesus," said Sunny, shuddering. "If you was trying to convince me to stay, you ain't doing a good job."

"Sunny, bubbeleh, you asked."

Sunny hung his head and rubbed his eyes. There was a dull pain between his eyebrows that swelled in time with the throbbing in his toe. His shoulders were so stiff that he couldn't relax them.

"I guess I did," he sighed. "But what makes you think there's anything we can do about it, if someone is—hunting these folks? Ain't we just gonna get hunted, too?"

Casey shrugged. "Sure, but I gotta try."

"What if it's just a—an illness? The 'flu does that same thing, it hits the old folks and the kids and that. Could be consumption, too, or something."

"Could be," Casey allowed. "But you don't shoot at the 'flu."

"Well—so what're we gonna do about it?"

"Eesh, I don't know, Sunny. You're the guy with the ideas."

"Yeah, and my idea is to get the hell outta here."

"Hey, you wanna go, I'm not gonna ask you to stay. You got places to be. I get it."

"Hold your horses, now, I didn't say—getting to San Fran ain't gonna do me much good if I'm broke when I get there. This place is a literal gold mine, so I could . . . take a day or two to scope out the prospects."

Casey finally looked at him then, silhouetted against the window, the sunlight streaming so bright through the threadbare curtains that it picked out every stitch and left his face in shadow, blurred out. The light was back on in Casey's eyes, though, bright enough to illuminate his smile.

"Sure," he said generously. "But first we gotta not get kicked out."

"Well, we got some hours 'til nightfall," said Sunny. "Let's figure it out."

[varnikawrites]

10/10/10 Game

Thank you so much @jess---writes for tagging me! Here are the rules: answer 10 questions, ask 10 questions, tag 10 people :) Here are the ten questions I was given: 

What’s surprised you most about your current project(s)? I think how dark it was getting as I was writing it? Like I guess I knew it logically, but I realized the problem with writing something I was passionate about meant that I had to have bad things happen to characters that I empathized with, it wasn’t just a fun time beating on evil Britishers all the time. I definitely had to write a lot of sass and fluff to make up for it but still. 

Do your characters serve your plot or create it? How? Definitely create. I’m really character focused, I love releasing them into a world and letting them have fun. 

What piece of writing advice always stays with you? Ever since I read it, I’ve been trying to follow Anne Lammot’s advice about shitty first drafts, and there’s this one line that’s so ridiculous and forceful that it always sticks in my head: “If one of the characters wants to say, ‘Well, so what, Mr. Poopy Pants?,’ you let her. No one is going to see it.”    

(eesh this one’s a bit of an essay… but I can’t stop thinking about it now!) Maggie Stiefvater wrote about the fact her characters were questions she asked. For example, Gansey was questions of privilege and what you owe the world when you have it. (click here to read the article) What questions would some of your characters be? Oh, damn this is a good question. The question I ask for Adhira is probably “how can you be tied to your culture and love it while still rejecting some of the prejudices that people attach to it?” Mikael is probably “to what extent is the desi culture’s level of respect and indebtedness towards elders rational?” Raman is actually a fight against stereotypes that have been assigned toward me, and so is a question of “how can you be a pacifist and still be strong and brave and do the right thing?” And Emma is a question of “can people who are raised to believe in harmful perspectives be changed for the better?” And Tiny is “what drives a person to go so far as to die for the sake of their country, forsaking all else?”   

Have you ever cut scenes you love for the sake of your project? How did you come to that decision? I’m really REALLY bad at this. So far I haven’t had to do this, because in my second draft I just write nearly a whole new thing, no cutting necessary. But I usually like the feel of the first draft better so in that sense, I struggle with cutting it all off. 

What do you struggle with as a writer? How do you try to overcome that struggle? Well I guess is the same thing I said above, but yeah, I generally struggle with the second draft because the first draft is usually an incomprehensible mess that actually captures the feel of what the story is, while the second has to actually make sense, so I feel like it loses some of the heart by necessity. Also, I’m really bad with endings because they usually are high emotion so I usually have to take a break and hype myself up to write them, and have to force myself not to rush them and allow myself to feel the emotions necessary to write it, even if they might be a bit overwhelming. (WOW, that sounds pretentious. But hey, finishing a draft makes me emotional okay? Please don’t @ me)

Do names of characters and places come to you out of nowhere, or are they a conscious decision? If they’re a conscious decision, how do you come to that decision? I’m definitely a touchy feel-y writer, I honestly scroll through names and say them out loud to see which one gives me the feel of my character. Sometimes they’re based off of similarly named characters because I liked the name when I heard it, other times it just comes to me, and other times I look for the meaning of them to see whether it matches what I’m going for with the character. For example, Adhira means impatient, or lightning from what I saw. 

What’s the deepest rabbit hole of research you’ve fallen down for any of your WIPs? My mother told me Adhira meant not courageous. (my mom’s side of the family knows passable Sanskrit) This comes from the sanskrit prefix A- meaning not, and dheera (ending in a short a) means a warrior, or courageous person. It took me three hours of panic to find out that due to romanized writing of sanskrit, people didn’t know that dhiraa was supposed to be ending in two as, which changed the meaning. (I THINK) Especially because Sanskrit and other Indian languages with etymology and all that aren’t well documented on the internet. Another thing that’s not well documented is also military tactics that Indians used that got them victory over the British, and I have trawled literally every dark crevice of the internet trying to find it. If someone knows of any stories of that please hit me up, I’m begging you. Reading about all these murders of Indian forces is starting to get disheartening and I need ideas for the final boss battle. 

What sort of scenes do you look forward to writing? Definitely sassy scenes. I love dialogue heavy scenes where the characters are just giving each other shit. I also like scenes where characters look at their love interest and notice the small things that make them amazing because I think that says a lot about them and I’m bi so it’s a great self insert about all the attractive things I notice about people all the time.   

What are your favourite things about writing? (This is unrelated to the question but I love how my filthy traitor of a computer marked favourite as incorrect spelling, because that’s how I learned how to spell it, and my teachers gave me so much shit for not spelling it the american way. I see you shaming me autocorrect, I won’t stand for it!)  Ahem. Back to the question. I guess... the thing I love about writing the most is I never feel bored when I’m stuck in my own head. Even when there’s nothing else to do, I can go into my head, I’m not alone, I’m surrounded by a vast infinity of characters and worlds to play with. 

As for the questions and tags, I have multiple people that tagged me in something similar, so I will do a post with my question and tags for both seperately :) 

@lottieiswriting @emdop @pennedin @kaatiba @thunderbooks @the-clockwork-anything @sarahcamillabarr @luciandra-scrolling @wordlegacy 

[fakesurprise]

Bends in the Road: the writer’s epilogue

Bends in the road (the finished version) can be found here (starting at the sept 11th entry). It began as a short story, but once I fleshed out the town of Oscars Bend a bit - to the tune of over 800 words - I realized it was going to be longer and a bit more than that. This summation is going to be chalk full of spoilers, and a fun exercise on my part I think. Overall goal: I wanted to do a longer form piece with Anya, Noah and Wilbur. The first draft switched POVs every section/chapter but I realized that wasn’t working as well so scrapped it at the 15K mark. The second draft was about 18K long since giving it one POV - Anya’s - helped focus it more. That, and the characters splitting up initially made no sense, there were several scenes in the first draft I knew needed more in order to be less bland.  What follows is the outline I had originally (including the poorest town map ever made) and my notes in italics after each entry.  Bends in Roads – INFO STUFF TOWN LAYOUT: OSCARS BEND             to Appleford                            |                    __________1_|_2_____3 (STORE) (CEMETERY)     4 |  5                                      |                             |   6 (MOTEL)

          to Rivercomb First off: there is no plot listed. I had some bits in my head, but not enough actually worked out. One reason why it took over 2 months to write such a short story. I tend to write novellas far more off the cuff, and the lesson here is to do less of that :) Gerry and Edith Truman  (#1)  (‘95)Gerry and Edith are perhaps the heart of the town, given they’ve been here the longest. They’ve been married over fifty years, Gerry – 82 – is a retired logger and Edith – 81 – worked for the Wakefield Fire Commission in accounts. They settled here officially in ‘95 because the house was very cheap, it was quiet and Edith wanted a large garden. Gerry, for his part, wanted a space for his private life to remain private. That being that he’s a lumberjack who likes to dress in women’s clothing. Almost no one knows this, because the jokes would be unbearable. Edith does, and doesn’t judge. Her ability to accept without judgement is the closest thing Oscars Bend has to a Talent, and she is the main reason the Outsider has not taken over. It can’t find a hold over her and has no desire what to make of that. (Of course, her husband and the town are a hold but the Outsider only thinks in terms of Secrets.) 

The importance of Edith is emphasized, though not to the extent it became in the actual story when she is closer to being a Fisher King than anything else, bound to the land to protect the town. This is, of course, not done often because the price she paid (or chose to pay) was extremely high. One major limitation of the magician series is that it set a specific limit to magicians and the places they generally exist in, so the series tends to explore the other ways places protect themselves.  The McTavishes (#2)  Scott, Amy, Peter (+Jenny), Kris, Susan, Paul, Mark, Becky  (‘01)Scott and Amy McTavish moved to Oscars Bend in 2001. Because the world didn’t end, and they’d sold everything in the name of the Church of the Final Truth, believing angels would come down. And the world just went on. Their children went with them, Peter and Kris growing up in the middle of nowhere. Peter got a bride online – Jenny – and they’ve had three children of their own (Susan, Paul and Mark). Kris moved away, got married and moved back after his wife died with his daughter, Becky.  They all live in the same large, sprawling house because Scott and Peter are both carpenters and keep it  in better shape than the rest of the town. Additionally, they have a YouTube channel run mostly by Peter about living off the land that brings in a nice bit of income. Susan, Paul, Mark and Becky all go to school in the town of Appleford an hours north of Oscars Bend. It’s a bit further than Rivercomb, but no one talks about why they avoided the larger town. 

The McTavishes had no Deep Secret, nor were ever meant to. I had hints toward it - why their grandparents moved there, why everyone moved back - and something is clearly going on, but it’s left as more an exercise to the reader since the length of the story didn’t permit most of them to actually be involved in it. That Edith wanted more people in the town is definitely a major part of it however. but the extent to which they were aware of what she was is probably not much at all.    Greg Sutcliffe and Daniel Wray (#3) – Store. (~4)Daniel runs the local store while his boyfriend Greg works online as part of Anonymous. They don’t care what everyone else thinks of them, but neither do their advertise their relationship. It helps that Greg pretty much never leaves the apartment above the shop and Daniel used to run with some nastier gangs; he is why they’re hiding out in the middle of nowhere, or as close to it as they could find. 

I never planned to do much with them; they were here somewhat to shake up the view the characters would have of an ultra-small town being very conservative and a fun exploration of how the shop - and town - actually made enough income to survive, The story took it into darker places than I’d intended, but I left it open-ended if the PCs would ever do anything about the situation. Using food banks to stock a convenience store struck me as an interesting form of opportunism that highlighted the extent the town would go to in order to survive.     Bob Plint (+Alvin) (#4) (10 years) Bob Plint made money in the banking industry, and accepted retirement when it was accept early retirement at 35 without any package or end up in prison. He and his common-law wife Tina moved to Oscars Bend since no one would know about Robert Plint here. Their son, Alvin, is severely disabled and kept at home. Tina died 5 years ago – 5 years after the move to Oscars Bend – and Bob keeps Alvin at home. He believes his son is just punishment for his crimes, and keeps him out of school because he doesn’t want Alvin to be a drain on the system. Bob is, also, immune to the influence of the Outsider because there is nothing in him for it to effect.

Bob and Alvin didn’t change; it was intended to be the darkest part of the story where you could understand what Robert Plint did even if you couldn’t sympathize with him at all.  Jennifer (nee John) Smith. (#5) (4 years)John Smith was a psychic. The kind who did tarot readings, tea leaves, cold reading. He ran into a magician, was terrified out of his mind and fled with the ghosts of those whose lived he had ruined on his tail. With several living people he’d tricked after him as well, he’s been lying low as Jennifer in Oscars Bend for 3 years now, repairing the last viable house (#5) and using the fact that people know Jennifer as a man to alleviate questions and suspicions. Even now, John is a conman at heart. As a con man, John Smith dressed as a woman - badly - to make people not ask too many questions about who he was, and everyone in town figured he was transitioning. Which was part of his con. Like Bob, he is hiding from crimes. Unlike Bob, he is doing even more crimes (essentially) in the process of hiding.  Bend in the Road Motel (#6): Hogan Baxter and Petunia Graves  (7 years)The bend in the Road Motel isn’t much to look at. It’s even less to own. It was, however, the only thing left to Hogan and Petunia by their father, Arthur, when he died seven years ago. Unable to find a buyer, they’ve ended up running it. Petunia’s ex-husband Ray won’t find her here, and Hogan – well, he’d never found a job or girlfriend or anything that fit him. They get along, mostly, and Petunia’s gift for accounting means they sometimes turn a profit. This was just notes for me, since I had no plans for them to be in the story beyond Noah renting the room from them. I was going to have them questioned in the first draft, but it ended before I got to that point and I mostly ignored them in the second one.  Eesh An entity from Outside the universe, Eesh appears to to be a shadow wreathed in fog, often as large as 8’ tall with a cartoonish body and wide white eye. The form is entirely a convenience as the real Eesh is the creepy cold fog about the projection. Eesh gets sustenance and enjoyment from pushing people to mental breaking points and joy from testing them. Mr. Pickles knows this, and Eesh is a test of the MCs as much as anything else. Eesh never shows up. Or exists. I was ¾ done the second draft, still trying to figure the Outsider out at all, and then realized the story worked even better if there was no Outsider at all. Accomplishing this just involved altering a couple of lines when the characters first probe Oscars Bend. At that point, the last of the story came together in a single day of writing. 

I don’t subscribe to the idea that characters tell the story or do what they want to, but it does come from the fact that writing a story is the easy part: you’ve subconsciously done the leg work already, and the trick tends to discovering that, and merging it all together and trusting you know what you are doing when it feels like you don’t at all.  I once did a novel for nanowrimo where things went off-rails and I was left going ‘Why ARE the characters going to Mars? That wasn’t in my outline … oh well. I can write it and take it out if it doesn’t work.’ It turned out to be a major and important part of the resolution near the end. Plot should always be in the service of story, and it was a  good example of that for me. 

[junker-town]

Who won Week 2 of the NFL preseason?

Photo by Will Newton/Getty Images

The Bears D-line, Warren Sapp, and Lamar Jackson all had very good weeks.

The first true week of the 2019 NFL preseason offered up an acceptable football substitute with a handful of uplifting stories. Patrick Mahomes was perfect over the course of seven plays before getting taken off the field and rolled in bubble wrap. The Patriots got their long-awaited revenge over the Lions. Damon Sheehy-Guiseppi lied his way onto the Browns roster and then returned a punt for a touchdown in his first game with the team.

This week was similarly uplifting as coaches broke out some of their good china and threw even more starters into the mix. Weeks 2 of the preseason saw a few more high-profile starters take the field as stars like Deshaun Watson and Russell Wilson joined Week 1 veterans like Alvin Kamara and Kirk Cousins in the mix — for no more than a few series of playing time.

Of course, the real action during the preseason comes off the gridiron. With that in mind, who won Week 2 of the NFL preseason, barring a furious finish from the 49ers and Broncos on Monday night?

Not considered: The Arizona Cardinals, who looked baaaaaad

First-year head coach Kliff Kingsbury’s offensive revolution has yet to take flight with his first-string quarterback. Kyler Murray, the reigning Heisman Trophy winner and top pick in April’s NFL Draft, looked every bit an overwhelmed rookie Thursday night. Murray completed only one of his five pass attempts against the Raiders’ blitz and was sacked twice — one of which resulted in an entirely avoidable safety.

He finished his day with eight total pass attempts and a very un-air raid 12 passing yards. By the time Murray headed to the bench for the night — after four series — the Cardinals trailed 26-0.

That deficit wasn’t just Murray’s fault. Arizona will have to fix major holes in its passing defense, which will be without Patrick Peterson for the first six weeks of the season due to a PED suspension. Offseason addition Robert Alford, who signed the second-largest contract of the Kingsbury era in hopes of offsetting Peterson’s absence, will also miss a “significant” chunk of the regular season due to injury.

How is the unit holding up behind them? Let’s just see how they did against the Raideeeeauughgggh oh my god.

That’s two perfect passer ratings from Derek Carr and Mike Glennon, and a technically perfect performance from interception god Nathan Peterman — even though only three of Peterman’s completions traveled more than five yards downfield. Peterman’s career regular season passer rating, for reference, is a robust 32.5.

It’s only the preseason, but geez.

Now on to this week’s winners

Starting with:

10. Josh McCown’s jersey room, which just got 10 percent more decoration

McCown will soon find his picture listed under the Webster’s Dictionary entry for “journeyman,” (should my letter to the editor find its way to the right hands). The 40-year-old broke his brief retirement to join the Eagles as Carson Wentz’s backup, making Philadelphia the 11th stop in a 17-year NFL career.

The veteran has alternated good and bad seasons since 2013. Fortunately (?) for the Eagles, 2018 was decidedly “bad” for the former Jet — his 55.8 passer rating was his lowest ever in a season where he’s thrown at least 20 passes. He’ll supplement a quarterback room that’s been ravaged by injury this preseason, as both Nate Sudfeld (broken wrist) and Cody Kessler (possible concussion) are slated to cede snaps. If McCown snaps back to form, he could carve out a spot as the No. 1 option behind Wentz this season — which, if history is any indication, will lead to an eventual Super Bowl MVP award.

9. The Cowboys, who appear to have a decent Plan B if Ezekiel Elliott’s holdout persists

Tailback/receiver Tony Pollard was exceedingly versatile at Memphis. The 2019 fourth-round pick earned only 139 career carries, but he also made 104 catches in three active seasons with the Tigers. He made the most of his touches, too — the explosive runner averaged nearly seven yards per rush and more than 12 yards per reception for a program that went to the postseason every year he was on the roster.

On Saturday, the rookie proved he can translate those skills to the NFL, at least in the preseason.

The NFL really let the Dallas Cowboys draft Tony Pollard in the fourth round. (via @nflnetwork) pic.twitter.com/Hqkd6e4YuE

— RJ Ochoa (@rjochoa) August 18, 2019

Pollard isn’t going to replace a player who led the league in rushing in two of his first three pro seasons, but the rookie is capable of making life a lot easier if Elliott fails to report to Dallas before the regular season. He finished his night with 42 rushing yards on only five carries, all of which came in a 97-yard opening drive against a smattering of Rams starters.

8. The Bears defensive line

It’s been good enough to make veteran guard Kyle Long completely lose his shit in practice.

Quite a practice for Bears RG Kyle Long tonight. Got into a scrap with rookie DE Jalen Dalton. Took Dalton’s helmet and starting hitting him with it. Then chucked it down the field. Was pulled from practice. Oh, and then Long barfed a couple times on the sideline.

— Jason Lieser (@JasonLieser) August 15, 2019

7. Underdog WRs battling for Bill Belichick’s attention

The Patriots came into 2019 needing targets for Tom Brady. This got so bad Bill Belichick spent a first-round draft pick on a wide receiver for the first time in his 19-year tenure with the club.

That pick, Arizona State standout N’Keal Harry, returned to Foxborough to rehab an injury suffered in Week 1 of the preseason. The rest of his team spent its week in Nashville prepping for Saturday’s exhibition against the Titans.

He wasn’t the only New England wideout to swap the practice field with a spot on the trainer’s table. On Saturday, the Pats were without:

Julian Edelman (non-football injury list)

Josh Gordon (not eligible to return to the team until Sunday)

Phillip Dorsett (thumb injury)

Demaryius Thomas (placed on the physically unable to play list)

Cameron Meredith (also PUP), and

Maurice Harris (undisclosed injury)

That left Brian Hoyer and Jarrett Stidham to sling passes at undrafted free agent Jakobi Meyers, 2018 sixth-round pick Braxton Berrios, 2018 undrafted free agent Damoun Patterson, and Bemidji State defensive back Gunner Olszewski. And that group shined.

Meyers continued his meteoric rise with a six-catch, 82-yard performance that likely cements his place on the regular season roster. Patterson, who spent last fall on the club’s practice squad, hauled in the game-winning touchdown in the fourth quarter.

That throw though.@Jarrett_Stidham ➡️ @chasing_8#NEvsTEN | #GoPats pic.twitter.com/NtLD4iXFR6

— New England Patriots (@Patriots) August 18, 2019

Gordon’s return to the lineup will make it even tougher for these guys to make the roster in 2019, even if the timing of his eventual activation still raises questions. That aside, these wideouts got a solid chance to contribute Saturday night.

6. The Falcons, who finally have their answer to Taysom Hill

What’s that, New Orleans? You thought you’d be the only NFC South team to rely on trick play gadgetry from a former college-QB-turned-Swiss-Army-Knife-wideout? Nuh uh.

We have claimed QB Danny Etling off of waivers from New England. https://t.co/hvRhyuo1eB

— Atlanta Falcons (@AtlantaFalcons) August 14, 2019

And the rich get richer. Julio Jones and Calvin Ridley combined for 2,498 yards and 18 touchdowns last season. With Ridley in the mix, that aerial Cerberus could even go for 2,500 and 19. Dream big, Falcons.

Hill, on the other hand, spent his weekend proving he can push Teddy Bridgewater for the main understudy role with the Saints. The former BYU QB showed out against the Chargers second- and third-team defense, completing 11 of his 15 passes for 136 yards and a pair of touchdowns. He also ran for 53 yards in a performance that should make the rest of the NFC South all the more uncomfortable.

5. Jamie Gillan, who got into this whole football thing sort of by accident

The Inverness, Scotland native only played in five total high school football games before earning a scholarship to Arkansas-Pine Bluff — an offer he accepted sight unseen thanks to a Facebook post, some fortutious luck, and the most laidback attitude in football. That crooked path brought him to the Browns as an undrafted rookie free agent. If he can keep uncorking kicks like this he very well may unseat Britton Colquitt for a spot on Cleveland’s roster.

A casual 74-yard punt from the @ScottishHammer7 pic.twitter.com/hXsnIVj18e

— Cleveland Browns (@Browns) August 17, 2019

Like you needed more of a reason to root for a guy nicknamed the Scottish Hammer.

4. Warren Sapp, who is an ass about Gerald McCoy but is not wrong

Sapp cropped up in the news this week for calling out former Buccaneer Gerald McCoy in an appearance on the Pewter Nation Podcast. McCoy, he explained, doesn’t have the resume to qualify as a Tampa Bay legend. And that means McCoy shouldn’t be upset the team gave away his No. 93 jersey to Ndamukong Suh this offseason. Sapp even suggested McCoy owes back some of the $110 million he made in his nine years with the club.

As a headline, these comments seem like petty sniping from a player whose best days are behind him and whose post-football career has been turbulent. He was roasting a six-time Pro Bowler whose oversized salary made him a poor fit on a rebuilding team, but who still had plenty to offer as a player. Sapp also referred to himself in the third person so, eesh.

In context, however, Sapp makes a pretty good argument.

“The way I look at it, the thing that kind of threw me sideways was Gerald talking about now that this organization doesn’t have a right [to give away his 93 jersey]. And then he wanted to say that Sapp, [Derrick] Brooks, Lee Roy [Selmon], [John] Lynch, Ronde [Barber], nobody wore their numbers. Last time I checked, those were Hall of Famers and champions. We didn’t go to one playoff game with him (McCoy) and not one damn divisional title, so, I think he owes some of those hundred million dollars back in that sense.”

The Bucs’ Ring of Honor features nine players, five of which were on the team’s lone Super Bowl squad. All but one of those men, offensive lineman Paul Gruber, has won a playoff game for Tampa. Only three of the team’s jersey numbers have been retired — NFL Hall of Famers Sapp, Brooks, and Selmon. McCoy might wind up honored back in Florida sometime in the future, but Sapp’s right about the fact McCoy can’t quite match up with the rest of the Buccaneers’ hallowed brethren.

t-2. The Los Angeles Chargers, who play the Colts in Week 1

At this point, questions about Andrew Luck’s health are the familiar chorus to a depressing song for Colts fans. Unfortunately for Indianapolis, the second verse is coming to an end right as the preseason has kicked into gear.

Colts aren't ready to determine whether Andrew Luck will or won't be ready for a Week 1 start; plan right now is to calm the ankle pain down.

— Zak Keefer (@zkeefer) August 13, 2019

Luck’s “little bone” problem (team owner Jim Irsay’s words) will shut him down for the preseason, though he looked mobile in pregame warmups this weekend. There’s a chance this roaming lower leg affliction could keep him off the practice field and leave him at less than 100 percent to start the 2019 regular season.

This is welcome news for the Chargers, who face Indianapolis to start the year. If Luck sits out Week 1, Los Angeles would go from facing a quarterback who has led his team to the postseason in each of the four seasons he’s started 16 games to facing Jacoby Brissett, who went 4-11 in 2017.

Brissett is better than that record suggests. The presence of banshee offensive lineman Quenton Nelson and rock-solid young tackle Braden Smith mean he’s unlikely to get sacked on 10 percent of his dropbacks like he did in ‘17. Even so, he’s a significant step down from Luck. Los Angeles needs all the help it can get against a loaded schedule. Taking flight against a hobbled Indy team would an excellent start to the Chargers’ haggard quest to win Philip Rivers a title.

t-2. The Indianapolis Colts, who play the Chargers in Week 1

Here’s who Los Angeles could be without for the season opener:

Notable Chargers: * RB Melvin Gordon: holding out, willing to miss games * S Derwin James: fractured 5th metatarsal, no timetable to return * LT Russell Okung: on non-football illness list after a pulmonary embolism * WR Keenan Allen: ankle surgery, likely to miss preseason

— Field Yates (@FieldYates) August 16, 2019

Eep. James opted for surgery on his broken foot this week and will likely miss two to three months while he rehabs. Bad luck and injury problems are wrecking the Chargers.

That is an extremely Chargers sentence to write.

1. Lamar Jackson, who looks very much like Lamar Jackson

It’s fair to be worried about a running quarterback and the damage he takes over the course of a season. Jackson, who ran the ball 17 times per start, has mitigated that risk my making sure no one touches him, ever.

That touchdown run didn’t count thanks to an illegal blindside block, but it was still showcased the “why?” behind Baltimore’s furious finish in 2018. It wasn’t all running on Thursday, either. Drops prevented what should have been an 8-10 performance in a pair of Week 2 drives that ended in field goals for the Ravens.

The Browns have a great opportunity to climb up the AFC North this fall, but Jackson has the chops to make sure their division title-less streak reaches 30 years in 2019.

[water-u-talking-about]

Not cool man, pt 2

Okay, so I ended up going a little lot longer than I mean to on my last post, and I still have some more to cover before I actually fully delve into climate change. I still want to talk about scientific jargon. 

Like I said, I think that a lot of misconceptions about climate change come from language barriers. And I feel like that is definitely the scientist’s fault. I think (and this is a theory, but not a scientific theory, just a hunch theory) that a lot of scientists are really jazzed about their subjects so that 

a) they tend to not have a life outside of it. And I think this is partially due to the cutthroat academic environment we have here

b) they want to prove how much they know so they talk in a very high level

c) they feel like simplifying their words makes what the are saying lose meaning and accuracy

but what I want to tell my peers sometimes is 

a) everyone needs a life outside of their job, and if you can’t talk about anything else besides science, you really need to take a step back

b) you’re being a jerk

c) the minuscule details are actually rarely necessary to talk to people about outside your field

and really, if we can’t translate our results, our knowledge, what’s the point of all this????? So I really want to make sure we all understand what each other is saying. Time to dissect some more words/phrases. Cue Bill Nye!

Wow, this is already a long post! I’m bad at planning my post sizes, guys. 

Okay, “further research is needed”. Like uncertainty, this tends to make people think that we’re not sure of what we’re saying. And there are definitely some scientists that would smack me on the head for saying that we’re ever sure of anything, but really, we’re as sure as can be. When we say further research is needed, it’s because further research is ALWAYS needed. When doing an experiment, you should know what you would do if you had more time, more funding, more manpower. A couple of summers ago, I was collecting ticks in the Czech Republic (it’s called Czechia now, apparently) to test for lyme disease distribution and even though I got a pretty good sample size, I definitely could have gone further. I would have been more comfortable if I had doubled that. And more so if I tripled it. Looked in more places. Compared summer distributions to winter. Point is, that doesn’t mean my analysis wasn’t good, but just that further research is our way of saying that we could always do more.

Finally, peer reviewed. Scholarly articles are peer reviewed. A lot of times in middle and high school, we’d review each others rough drafts in English class and call that peer review. We’d check their grammar, see if the other person was missing something they should have, and then hand it back to them. Scientific peer review is not like that. Scientists get dirty, y’all. You have to play devil’s advocate ALL THE TIME. Pick apart every single bit of their paper. Ask them why they made every little decision they did. If you are writing the paper, you have to be able to defend every choice you made. The peer review is meant to blow holes in the paper, make sure that everything in there is accounted for. It’s a really rigorous process. It’s not just “hmm...hmm...add a comma there...okay looks good”. We have to make sure each paper is vetted thoroughly and that the scientific process is held to, so you know what comes out is generally pretty thoroughly reviewed, not just passed along to be printed out. WE. GET. NASTY.

Okay, now this is REALLY REALLY REALLY long! Eesh. Judging post length is not my strong point, y’all. So I’ll sign off now. Next post, I’ll be talking about the disinformation campaign/merchants of doubt. I’m pretty excited to write that.