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thecreaturecodex · 4 years ago

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Devil, Bulugon

Image © Green Ronin Press, by Torin Macbin

[Commissioned by @justicegundam82. Unlike many of the creatures from The Book of Fiends, I’ve actually used the bulugon in a game, many years ago. Bulugons are among the many monsters that feel fat-shamy, especially in 3rd party products, and so I wanted to stress why this was fat and evil, not evil because it’s fat or fat because it’s evil. As such, I ended up turning them into caricatures of celebrity chefs. Name them after your least favorite Food Network personality!]

Devil, Bulugon CR 5 LE Outsider (extraplanar)

This scaly humanoid has the head of a horned crocodile, the hands and feet of a frog, and leathery wings. It is nearly spherical, and a stream of drool oozes from its mouth. It clutches a trident in its hands.

Bulugons, or glutton devils, are creatures of physical pleasure. They work hard to create situations that indulge others. They are pushers of idleness and sloth, encouraging mortals to ignore their responsibilities and duties, and causing them to slide into evil through spiritual inertia. A bulugon in the Material Plane may be found providing encouragement to a contract devil’s marks, using victuals to tempt creatures towards evil, or accepting and devouring live sacrifices to devilish powers.

A typical bulugon would rather be in a court or kitchen than on the front lines, but they are sometimes called upon to fight for their lords. If their personal domains are intruded upon, they fight gleefully. They serve well as artillery and magical support, strafing formations and spraying them with acid or spells. A bulugon usually enters melee with a dive—they are not agile flyers, but they have enough inertia to make such attacks devastating. A bulugon can and will swallow man-sized targets whole.

Many bulugons apply their minds to culinary matters, serving in the staffs of infernal courts and diabolists. As neither they nor higher ranking devils truly require food, this allows them a huge amount of freedom in what they prepare and how. Such feasts may be used to impress mortal guests, poison them, or both. They are fond of extravagant waste, spending hundreds of gold pieces to create the “perfect” dish if allowed to. A bulugon is obsequious towards superior devils, but a tyrant to lesser creatures, and most of them have a staff of imps and mephits that they browbeat and humiliate at all times. When a bulugon’s temper or hunger gets the better of it, they are known to eat their underlings. They prefer warm climes, and their kitchens can be stiflingly, deadly hot to mortal intruders.

Bulugon CR 5 XP 1,600 LE Large outsider (devil, evil, extraplanar, lawful) Init -1; Senses darkvision 60 ft., Perception +10, see in darkness, scent Defense AC 18, touch 8, flat-footed 18 (-1 size, -1 Dex, +10 natural) hp 57 (6d10+24) Fort +6, Ref +4, Will +7 DR 5/good or silver; Immune fire, poison; Resist acid 10, cold 10; SR 16 Offense Speed 30 ft., swim 30 ft., fly 50 ft. (poor) Melee masterwork trident +10/+5 (2d6+6), bite +4 (1d8+2 plus grab), gore +4 (1d6+2) or bite +9 (1d8+4 plus grab), gore +9 (1d6+4) Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft. Special Attacks breath weapon (5d4 acid, 15 foot cone, Ref DC 18 half, 1d4 rounds), dive bomb +2d6, swallow whole (AC 15, hp 5, 5d4 acid) Spell-like Abilities CL 6th, concentration +8 At will—darkness, delusional pride (DC 13), greater teleport (self plus 50 lbs only) 3/day—create food and water, fear (DC 16, single target only), suggestion (DC 15) 1/day—fireball (DC 15), poison (DC 16), summon (3 imps, 50%, 3rd level), unholy blight (DC 16) Statistics Str 18, Dex 9, Con 18, Int 13, Wis 14, Cha 15 Base Atk +6; CMB +11 (+15 grapple); CMD 20 Feats Death From Above (B), Hover, Persuasive, Power Attack Skills Bluff +10, Diplomacy +12, Fly +2, Intimidate +12, Perception +10, Profession (chef) +10, Sense Motive +10, Swim +17 Languages Celestial, Common, Draconic, Infernal, telepathy 100 ft. SQ create feast Ecology Environment any land or underground (Hell) Organization solitary, pair, troupe (3-6) or staff (1-3 plus 2-9 imps and mephits) Treasure standard (masterwork trident, other treasure) Special Abilities Create Feast (Su) When a bulugon casts create food and water, it can choose to make fine food and wine instead of gruel and water. Dive Bomb (Ex) Whenever a bulugon makes a charge from higher ground, it deals an additional 2d6 points of damage.

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pestopascal · 6 years ago

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Sometime late into the Ronin line. Judith in @saintsrow1‘s canon with Mickey

It takes at least five flicks of her phone, before she presses number one. Speed dial, specific number. Eyes still shut in the dark, but habit drew Jude to finding some comfort in hearing the other line ring out. Like there was still family on the other side, somewhere far from here.

Thirteen rings. New record. Straight to voicemail, and Jude hears the cheery voice of her sister filter through. Her nieces and nephews, chipper and bubbly and she smiles despite herself. Makes her feel just that little heavier, like her mattress was going to swallow her whole. Did Adele even have her number anymore? It’d been nearly five years this September, she figured. Give or take a few good weeks.

Snaps her phone shut when the line dies, no message left. Never did anyway. Better to let Adele live her life with Michael, or Steve, or Bob. Whoever that guy was. The one who bought her flowers everyday and got them that fancy house, lots of land. Dogs and shrubs and the white picket fence. Photos had long since stopped rolling in, but that didn’t mean Jude didn’t stop looking. Double checking. Look her up on social media, and watch her family age.

One day she’d just roll up at Adele’s door. When she wasn’t skinny and bruised and her hair was brushed. Not like the last time. A few more hundred in the bank, and Jude was sure she could just leave this place behind.

There’s a knock at the door. One that echoes through the empty apartment. With an eye cracking open, almost immediately closing at seeing the sunlight that had managed to get through her curtain, Jude realised it was getting on. Creeping into the afternoon. Appointment soon, probably? Right? Had to get her face on. Had to answer the door.

Jude drags the blankets with her, as she approaches the knocker once more. Someone was impatient. She had half a mind to consider that if she opened the door, she might get blasted right in the face. Be it Ronin, or Brotherhood, or even stragglers of Los Carnales out for some payback. Jude thinks of her phone, and how the call rang out. She didn’t really give a fuck, anyway.

Pulling the door open until the chain stops it, she peers around. Nothing remotely shiny or dangerous appears in her line of sight, just a shirt pulled a little too tight over a chest.

“I didn’t think it was my birthday today.”

The delivery wasn’t quite there. Even she could tell. Mickey at least gives her something in the way of a disapproving sigh, sidestepping any sort of emotional confrontation at two in the afternoon. Too early for her to be sobbing over a bottle of wine, surely.

“May I come in?”

And Mickey? He’s too polite. Too careful. Even as she shrugs as best as she could under her blankets, popping the chain and letting the door just swing open, he gives her space. More than she was used to. Jude was used to the ones who sidle up, try to touch, try to speak. Weird being treated as a person, and not a service. She hadn’t quite decided if she liked it so much.

It all boiled down to money, in the end, anyway. Only reason she was still on the Saints’ payroll was because the income wasn’t awful, and it meant more in the safety deposit box, while the Ronin kept topping her off — at least until that ended, whenever that would be. More than once, Jude had begrudgingly asked the Saints to give her a timeline. Los Carnales closed up shop a little too early last time, when she was still coasting the business. Apparently they still existed in some capacity, but it wasn’t the same.

At least the Ronin gave her business class seats when flying her out whenever she was needed.

“Who’s the guy?” Was it wrong to consider this some form of being pimped out? Jude had long since done this sort of shit, or at least, thought she had. Mickey claimed it was private contracts through him, but sometimes she still had to take her bra off. Flopping on the couch, she can barely see the clock. She might be able to fit in an assassination around dinner, if need be.

On the coffee table, covered in magazines, and magazines, varying handhelds and other things, does Mickey place a paper bag. The smell hits her first, inciting her whole body to yell food! at the face of the red haired mascot.

Carefully, she opens the top of it. “You brought me food?” Like the smell hadn’t told her anything else, but it was still. Weird. So weird. Like the last few weeks had been a gradual chain of weird events, that just seemed to take another corner whenever it was time.

Jude wasn’t sure if she was failing upwards. But the burger smelt good, and the fries were salty, and Mickey just flicked through tv stations while she licked sauce off her thumb.

More news, about buildings going up in flames and people dying in the streets. A regular Thursday in Stilwater. Jude spills a pickle on her blanket, flicks it away, and tucks her feet underneath herself. Like Mickey had unlocked the secret to getting her more active so early in the day: greasy food.

“So, what’s the job? Been a couple of days since I last saw you.” Which was true. Last she’d seen Mickey, it was a rush job. Some cop turned politician turned whatever the fuck he was spouting, just before his brains had ended up on the pillows.

Mickey shifts from his position in the armchair. Crosses and uncrosses his legs, like he was uncomfortable. Jude did have to spare a quick look to check that yes, she was wearing clothes under the blankets, so it wasn’t on her. Just him, and his politeness, and his weirdness.

It’s the first time he didn’t look her in the eye when he spoke. “I just wanted to make sure you were alright. And that you had eaten, ma’am.”

Almost habit to roll her eyes at the name, by this point. “How sweet.”

“You did kill a man.” And had she been any other kind of gal, Jude would’ve understood.

Except she wasn’t. “You say that like it’s never occurred to you that I’ve killed lots of men before.”

For the first time, she manages to get Mickey to look surprised. Sure, he’d always been the one to take the shot. Before things got too heavy, stepping out of the bathroom or the closet, silencer on. Jude just figured it was some professionalism on his behalf. The dots just had never connected that he had been trying to prevent her from bloodying her hands. That was adorable to consider.

“I hadn’t—”

“It’s fine. Not like I introduce myself that way… you wouldn’t have known.”

Something sits on his face. An emotion Jude couldn’t place. One that took the air out of the room, and there wasn’t enough bun left for her meat to distract her anyway. She settles for draining the remaining part of her cola, far too noisy (something to fill the quiet).

Almost like. Almost like he cared on some retrospective level she didn’t have time for. Jude didn’t chase that sort of thing, because it didn’t mean much in the end, anyway. Like Mickey was the first guy to come along, hand her a bunch of papers, a few photos, set her out to work. How did he think she got her apartment, for starters. If that was sympathy, directed towards her, Jude wanted it gone. Leave feelings at the front door.

Clearing her throat and throwing the wrappers in the bag, Jude wipes her hands on the couch. Kicks her feet up on the table, and looks at Mickey expectantly. Move on, she thinks. Move on. “Anyway. Back to my question: do you have a job for me?”

#saints row #saintsrow1 #mickey derosa #oc: judith blossom #my fic #SHRUGS

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academiablogs · 7 years ago

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Interview with David Gowey - on Science Fiction and Fantasy Tropes, Aesthetics, and World Building

(Image source) This week on Academia we discussed the trope of the “hero of prophecy” so common in fantasy and even science fiction literature, and whether or not it still has currency in the genre. To discuss this and related issues, we now invite David Gowey, author of fantasy and science-fiction novels such as Kaschar’s Quarter, Jire, and First Instance, and a regular contributor to our Academia community. As a PhD candidate in Sociocultural Anthropology, David’s world building skills draw from many lands and cultures, and always examine what makes his characters—and their respective societies—tick. The wide-ranging conversation that follows will give you a hint as to why his books are so rich and easy to get lost in.

Joshua: Welcome, David! You write both science fiction and fantasy, so for you, what is the biggest difference between the two genres besides one is set in a hypothetical past and the other in a could-be future? What unique challenges does each genre offer you as a writer?

David: I’d say the biggest challenge is that the distinction between the two isn’t very clearcut, at least when it comes to the types of messages each type of story can send. While there’s certainly an element of prediction in sci-fi because verisimilitude goes a long way in deepening the reader’s immersion, the author ultimately has to construct the world of the story around the message they want to send rather than purely what is scientifically possible or even plausible. Predicting a dystopian nightmare future of government oppression can play out as a fictional case study for authoritarianism and why it should be defeated, but that’s not the only story sci-fi can tell. More utopian visions like Star Trek’s Federation also exist to show us what humanity could accomplish if it truly embraced the idea that “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one”. But again, utopias aren’t the only story to tell and they’re inherently constructed as unrealistic literary teaching moments (to paraphrase a past Academia post).

Personally, the most interesting stories come in between these two extremes because they contain a mixture of recognizability, utopian aspiration, and dystopian warning. Something like The Expanse comes to mind, where government increasingly falls behind human progress in space exploration, leaving corporations and tribalism to fill in the blanks. This is what I try to approach in my sci-fi stories, with one human corporation (a joint Chinese-German venture called Interplanetery Resources Incorporated) appearing in many of them as a sort of Easter egg and also prediction about the future of space exploration. Interestingly enough, I’m 1-for-2 in my future predictions so far: Brexit happened and put a kink in my worldbuilding about its role in a joint EU space fleet, while Germany and China have taken what they perceive to be a US withdrawal from global leadership to signal a brighter future as partners. That’s not a bad track record.

As for fantasy, the problem is that the hypothetical past is mired in an awful lot of assumptions that then get turned into an awful lot of lazy worldbuilding. Here’s one example that’s stood out to me recently. I think we’ve all heard plenty about controversial casting decisions regarding characters whose presence in a given story is considered anachronistic based on ethnicity, whether it’s Matt Damon in The Great Wall (which I never saw so maybe it’s internally justified but I really can’t say) or black characters in media depicting medieval Europe. The problem for fantasy is that when we internalize assumptions about who was where in which time periods on Earth, we miss out on opportunities to reflect on diversity that was already there as opposed to merely going with the status quo or else insisting that our creation is entirely unique for its diversity. In reality, history is full of migrations and the concept of pure ethnicity divided into neat little ethnostates starts to collapse once it’s analyzed in those terms. Persian coins found their way to Britain; Africans and Native Americans lived in Western Europe; Japanese ronin fought in Mexico; Indian stories were indigenized in the Philippines; the predominant language in Madagascar is originally from Taiwan; and Polynesians ate South American sweet potatoes with mainland SE Asian chickens. The point is that relying on tired old reconstructions of our past and perpetuating them in fantasy is still a case of the author showing readers the world they want to see, whether that’s subconscious influence or conscious selection of the history they want to tell. Granted, I’m sure the vast majority of authors aren’t malicious about this at all but it’s something else to look out for if we want to conceive of fantasy as a reconstruction of the real world.

Joshua: Speaking of what authors do consciously or subconsciously, many fantasy novels tend to be variations on the “hero’s journey,” where a young, naive hero or heroine learns of an epic quest which they must undertake with the help of a wiser guide, who leads them through numerous perils, all to the tune of an ancient prophecy that foretells his or her triumph or doom, etc. How do you avoid re-writing the same story over and over again while staying true to the elements most readers appreciate from the genre?

David: My first book started about seven years ago as part of a character monologue that didn’t even have a name or a setting, but began with the words “I never wanted to be king”. As I continued to flesh it out, I kept making notes of things that this character could do that eventually turned into a sort of Candide or Guliver’s Travels scenario, where the “hero” found himself in a series of episodes that were basically glorified morality plays and then escaped them through a mixture of cunning and dumb luck. Later research clarified that the form I wanted was the picaresque novel, which the two books I mentioned were satirizing. Another earlier example would be Don Quixote and its deconstruction of medieval chivalric tales. While my inner editor killed off a lot of the more obviously moralizing episodes over time, the core of the story remained: I wanted my main character to be the sole point-of-view and to use those episodes as catalysts for him to change over time.

There’s no prophecy hanging over his head, but he does continually ask himself why he’s still alive. Is it God and if so, why? If not, is he surviving because of any particular skill or just because he’s lucky? He makes a number of choices along the way, many of which are purely for survival, but even that isn’t enough to answer why he manages to live through wars and other events that have killed so many others. In the end, it’s about him finding his agency and living with the consequences of exercising it on increasingly larger stages, from the ruins of his home city after an attack by religious extremists to eventually the capital city of a great empire. That last part isn’t a spoiler because it’s in the prologue but you’ll have to read the books to find out how he gets there.

Joshua: Yes, perhaps the important thing is that the character has to seem to have his or her own agency, or as you say, “is he surviving because of any particularly skill or just because he’s lucky.” That’s a great point. How else, as a writer, are you able to establish a sense of reality (or believability) when writing novels that take place in worlds that have never existed? What does it mean to make the fantastic sound feasible?

David: One of the big things I’ve come away with from reading sci-fi and reading about sci-fi is that a lot of that sense of reality lies in what the characters take for granted. For instance, the FTL drive may have a very convoluted but plausible way of working but it still gets you from point A to point B, at least until the plot demands that it break down for reasons to be explained later. That isn’t to say that everything complex should simply be handwaved away if readers ask too many questions, since that would defeat the purpose of shooting for believability in the first place. What it does mean for me is that I try to write the characters as if they don’t know they’re in a story (as opposed to Deadpool, who knows that he’s in a comic book). Organizations, people, events, and locations that exist in the character’s world will be just as obviously real (again, until the plot demands them to be otherwise) to them as anything in our world is to us. These characters will make pop culture references to things they know: the classic holo movie that everyone can quote, how the Mets in the year 2145 lack bullpen depth, or the famous composers whose music will be heard in the new opera house.

And speaking of opera houses, one thing I’ve noticed in a lot of fantasy is that all the buildings are ancient. Where’s the scaffolding on that “new” cathedral that was begun a hundred years ago but could take thirty more years to complete using only wooden construction equipment and hand tools? When does the king of this stereotypical Western European fantasy kingdom knock down the old castle and build a star fort, or even a new palace out in the country where he can house all the rowdy nobles in an effort to further centralize his power, as was done with Versailles? And for some ultra history nitpicking, why are medieval knights running around in full plate armor from the 17th century but cannons, handgonnes, and arquebuses from the 15th century are nowhere to be found? Making the fantastic sound feasible can and should include research that extends beyond our assumptions of what the past was like or what the future might be, all seen through the lens of characters who’ve lived their entire lives as themselves in that particular setting. When it works, we see a fully formed world through their eyes in much the same way as we see our world through our eyes. It also bears mentioning that this is really, really difficult and always subject to a learning process on my part.

Joshua: That’s a great and hilarious point—where are all the new cathedrals in fantasy? Everything can’t be old, after all, particularly in the ancient world. This relates to science fiction as well, since we can’t just be in a world with warp drives and parallel universes—we sometimes need to see where these come from and who discovered them. So I wonder, how much science should be in science fiction? Or is the emphasis on fiction, meaning that it can stretch scientific possibility to serve the story? How do you approach this balance in your own writing?

David: To paraphrase Asimov’s submission guidelines, I generally shoot for stories that use science to facilitate human experiences. Technology provides either the premise or the background for the premise but is very rarely a character in its own right. Even a recent story I did about a sentient AI tasked with carrying out a terraforming operation on a planet to make it suitable for human habitation is ultimately a human story, since this AI is specifically programmed to act as a mother for her future children. While it could be productive to argue the pros and cons of engineering gendered AI consciousness or the morality of terraforming alien planets, often destroying any chance for native life to survive on the surface, these concerns are secondary to making a main character that the reader can approach as if they’re reading about not just a person, but an authentic one.

Personally, aiming for hard sci-fi is all well and good, but if the story ends up reading like a lecture acted out by cardboard cut-outs instead of human beings, like Asimov himself was sometimes accused of doing, then I’m willing to flub a little science for the sake of a better story. Are humanoid robots fighting in space highly impractical and more likely to end with the pilot reduced to a puddle of goo by gee-forces than appear in a real battlefield of the future? Probably, but I want humanoid robots in my story because they’re cool and I may as well put interesting people in the cockpit while I’m at it.

Joshua: We’re getting a great sense of your personal philosophy and aesthetics as a writer. Of course, not everyone can appreciate the result of our craft. Related to this, what is the most painful feedback you’ve received from a reader? How did you deal with it?

David: Oh boy. The most painful is also one of the most recent, wherein an anonymous user on reddit gave my latest chapter draft for an unpublished story a little over a paragraph before finally quitting in anger and leaving a lot of negative comments all over it. Now I’m naturally biased toward my own work and while I do try to take criticism for what it is, a lot of their comments came off as nitpicking for nitpicking’s sake, as if they thought they could take my chapter through the Cinema Sins or Nostalgia Critic treatment and call it a constructive review. The complaint that stuck out the most was “don’t mention God in your story unless there really is one” and my first thought was that the objective existence of God in the story was irrelevant because that particular POV character believed that there was one. Admittedly, I didn’t respond in the best way and got a little snarky with them because of how angry they got without giving my work what I thought to be a fair reading.

This was not the ideal response on my part. What I should’ve done was shrugged it off instead of getting snarky, no matter how tempting it was (and it was very tempting). Instead, I learned some lessons about how to take critiques that can hopefully be of some use to other writers as they were to me.

Joshua: Perhaps, but I’m just as guilty of the same responses—and the same wounded ego. Readers can’t always be our validation, of course, and ultimately a writer has to decide whether or not his or her work “works” as an artistic whole. So how do you know if a work is successful when you’ve finished it? What are the signs you look for during the writing process and afterward? Is external validation the only true way to measure a book’s success?

David: Personally, the sign that a story is successful isn’t just when it has a clear beginning, middle, and end (though this is also important for obvious reasons) but rather when I no longer think about it. What this means for the novel and novelette I’ve published (Kaschar’s Quarter and Jire respectively) is that I don’t sit around anymore with lingering doubts about whether that story accomplished what I wanted it to or if it could’ve used something more. The same goes for many of my short stories. In all honesty, I can’t quite say the same for my novella First Instance; my lone Amazon review for that one was a roundabout way of asking for that “something more” and after further reflection and distance between the narrative and myself, I’ve come to agree. I wouldn’t use that to deter someone from reading it but the fact that I think the story has more to say leads me to believe that it’s not quite finished yet. I wouldn’t consider this a defect, though. Composers often rearranged arlier pieces later in their careers because they felt the music had more to say (or simply because they wanted to extend their copyright, like Stravinsky did with The Firebird). Not to say I’m Stravinsky or anything. Of course, other people liking my stories and/or giving me money for them is always appreciated.

Joshua: Ha…though Stravinsky is a great example, since he continually tinkered with his works, as much as to extend copyright as to discover new possibilities in them—often new orchestrations (and the original Firebird of 1910 had an enormous orchestra—not financially feasible for most modern orchestras to pull off!). Speaking of the classics, one final question to round out a fascinating discussion: if you could write the Preface to one classic novel of science fiction or fantasy, what would it be? In general, what would you want people to appreciate about this book that you would single out in your Preface?

David: I’d have to go with Frank Herbert’s Dune. Picking a single topic to focus on would be pretty difficult, given that there are so many sequels (and spin-offs if you’re inclined to count those) and even the first book has so many threads that it’s hard to keep track of what’s really going on the first time through. On the surface, it hits many of the same notes as other sci-fi/adventure stories: retaking a throne, acts of vengeance and betrayal, a love interest, and the white newcomer saving the brown indigenes from their oppressors but really from themselves. We’ve seen variations on these themes in John Carter of Mars, Avatar (the James Cameron movie), Dances with Wolves, The Last Samurai, etc. What Dune does that’s special, especially considering it predates all but one of those aforementioned stories, is that it flips the entire familiar narrative on its head, all while telling you exactly what it’s doing and why. The chosen one prophecy was nothing but cynical propaganda, prescience is a very double-edged sword, and the cost of achieving his final goal leaves Paul an emotional and physical wreck.

Ultimately, the entire series is one big deconstruction of the societal craving for messianic leaders that produces the chosen one narrative in the first place. It’s definitely the single most influential thing I’ve read in terms of how I try to write; constructing setting and characters with compelling, individual motivations.

Joshua: Wonderful response…you write the Preface, I’ll write the Epilogue! :) Thanks so much for exploring these topics with me, and as usual, offering so much passionate insight into what makes these genres exciting for modern readers. For more information on David’s novels, check out his Amazon author page, where you can buy copies of all his novels and story collections here . He can be found on Facebook, Twitter, and his blog!

#amwriting #interview #author #fantasy #scifi #David gowey #jire #reading #booklr

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lesedacondyvidi · 8 years ago

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My TF|2 characters/OCs/loadouts/whatever

So ever since my buddy james bought me Titanfall 2, all the loadouts I’ve played with have always been named characters who’ve had themes, and specific ways I’ve played them. Over the 100 or so hours I’ve dumped into this game thus far, these characters have sort of started to solidify and be their own thing, and so this post is basically me canonizing that and laying out the cores of who these people are and what they do in the titanfall universe.(They mostly do the same thing at the end of the day, but its the details of how thats interesting.)

If you’re interested, it’s all under the cut.(if it weren’t this post would be stretching your dash SO much. it gon b long)

I’m gonna go in order of their creation, starting with:

Sheila!

This is Sheila. She was the first pilot I ever made in TF|2, and she’s still around to this day. The core idea when I conceived Shelia was a single sentence: “She’s big, likes the color pink, and really enjoys making things explode.” And she’s still all of those things. Big. Sheila is built like a brick shithouse. She stands at a only mildly intimidating 6 feet 4 inches tall, and weighs in at 210lbs. And thats when she’s not geared out for combat. Sheila is, far and away the beefiest human character I’ve played in TF|2. How else could she carry the LSTAR, the Archer, fifteen rockets for it, and still be flying all over the place like you do in game? She benches fully loaded riflemen for shits n giggles. You might be wondering, why does she use cloak then? Invisibility seems out of place for her, you might be thinking. Well you’d be wrong. Being invisible is the best way for her to get up onto the backs of enemy titans, steal their batteries and blow them the fuck up. That is how harcore she is. If the archer isn’t cutting it, she’ll just turn invisible and do the work by hand.

Sheila has 7 confirmed titan kills in the 4 years of her service with the 6-4, the frontier faction she’s sided with the most often. She pilots a semi-custom stryder class titan, A northstar; outfitted for out of atmosphere maneuvering. When sheila isn’t working with some group of people or other, she lives inside her northstar, flying from place to place, warping with a jury-rigged jump drive a friend threw together for her. She keeps her northstar in very good condition, but the cockpit always smells like sweat, no matter what vain attempts anyone makes in cleaning it out.

Now we’re onto my first and so far only phase shift pilot:

KZ-7413

This is KZ-7413 (”You may call me Kaz.”) KZ-7413, as you may have guessed by the scheme of their name, is a ex-titan. They were a stryder class titan, a Ronin, to be specific. But one really bad day, and the better part of an enemy ion’s laser core later, the old ronin’s data core was heavily damaged, and their former pilot, killed in action. Thats when a 6-4 engineer who was leading a scavenging/clean-up operation stumbled upon Kaz’s short-circuiting remains, and had an idea. After many months of research and work, the 6-4 finally had a functional human surrogate test platform for what was very experiential technology at the time, the phase shift drive. Originally this is all Kaz was ever meant for, but at the behest of Kaz themselves, they were outfitted with a more suitible for combat HFI-m style chassis, and began basic training. One of the first decisions Kaz made as an independent entity, was the style of chassis they were installed into, and what weapons they began training with.

Last but not least, we have me.

Literally it’s just me personified in the titanfall universe.

Yep. If I were I pilot in TF|2, this is what I’d be running. Save the helmet. and the shaggy neck thing. Either way, I began my military service as a sniper for the militia, and I like to think I preformed decently well in that regard! but the higher-ups realized that my spatial intelligence wasn’t so good for doing the complex calculations that precision rifelry requires, and was much better suited to flinging myself between buildings like a monkey on steroids. And boy were they right! Of course my personal choice of sidearm is a remnant of my sniper days. My B3-E can drop a man sized target from a hundred meters in the right hands, and my hands are correct quite a bit if I do say so myself. The Sidewinder SMR (pictured,) is my general “make these big ass robots go away” tool. And you know what? it works pretty well! I’m not gonna lie to you though, I get the most mileage out of my data knife. I have a squad of at least 7 former IMC specters following me around and doing my bidding at any given time, and I have at least 20 of them stashed away in my hideout, keeping the place running while I’m gone. I’m pretty much an honorary member of our fleet’s acquisitions team. Half the reason the 6-4 keeps me around is because I’m so good at getting behind the enemy and turning their robotics against them.

In all my days of service for the 6-4, I’ve earned exactly one measly titan kill. But I’ve destroyed or effectively disabled, at least, 350 specters, 149 Stalkers, and 7 reapers. Also I have 15 confirmed pilot kills, only 7 of witch were not earned with my knife.

What can I say, I like to stab things.

Oh! and, my titan:

Northstar

I call her North for short, but her designation is AG-5791. She’s how I do most of my robot smashing, other titans included. I’m not the best Northstar pilot, but damn does that plasma railgun know how to put the fear a god into just about any motherfucker out there. Shot the left arm clean off of an enemy ronin in just the last mission I was on. That was a fun time.

Alright so thats it! These are all the characters who I haven’t dropped entirely or not played recently. there is one honorable mention I’d like to make though, and that is _ (literally his name is underscore, but it’s just the symbol and nothing else on all official documentation, of witch there is very little.) The 300 year old russian man who uses his space AK with parts originally made in 1947. Is he actually 300 years old? No one knows. but he does have shockingly clear recollection of events that took place 300 years ago. anyway, that’s all the TF|2 I didn’t have the time for. hope you liked it!

#bne thinks and then typoes #tf|2 #titanfall 2

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jackstamper · 6 years ago

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Avengers Endgame-Spoilers after the Cut!

So, I saw Avengers Endgame yesterday, and found it amazing. But, while seeing it so early means Freedom from Spoilers...it also means having no one to talk about it.

So I’m doing the next best thing. Writing about my thoughts here on Tumblr and hoping, someone finds it and argues with me.

So, last warning, behind this here cut are two Top 5 rankings with PLENTY of Spoilers. If you have seen the movies, please read and tell me your thoughts! If you haven’t and want to be spoiled: Be my guest, and I gladly answer any question you may have about it. But if you want to stay unspoiled before going into the movie: Just don’t click on read more.

...all okay? Good. LEt’s start with some criticism

Top 5 underdevelopped plotlines in Endgame

5. The Aftermath of the Resnap

So yes, first big Spoiler: The dusted people ALL come back. To be fully precise: Five years elapse from Thanos Snap to the main action of Endgame. The world lived on, which, for the heroes, is most prominent in Tony Stark fathering a child. This makes a Reset-Button very tricky to use...Stark made it clear from the beginning, that his daughter is a priority, she should not vanish. So? They make the next logical wish on the Gauntlet.

Bring everyone back. Into the now. Everyone that snaps comes back into existence, but in this very minute.

The movie then STARTS to look into it, as Hawkeyes formally dusted wife calls him, and Cap notices a few more birds than normal in the trees. But before we can look into this some more...Thanos attacks and almost kills them all again. I mean...I expected at least Hawkeye to die from being bombed by an intergalactic spaceship, but seems his Ronin-Armor is tougher than I thought.

Anyway, this tragically cuts this plotpoint back a lot. Think about it: Everyone is back in the now. Families, that moved on, suddenly have their members appear among them. If they are lucky: Dozens of buildings are abandoned, and now suddenly people appear in them, confused, as to what happened. And remember that Post-Credits scene with Fury? People dusted while driving cars or Helicopters...do they materialize on the streets? In the air? What about aliens in space, who flew in Spaceships? Is it dependent, on where their dust lies? How will they react? Chances are, this results in a major panic. So many questions are unanswered, but...well, the movie didn’t seem to have quite the time for that.

4. Captain Marvel...who?

Here’s a thing about the whole movie: It gets a hundred times better, if you say the other 20+ movies before it. Heck, they basically visit several of the old movies. But Captain Marvel, in particular, is important...or, rather: The Post-Credits Scene. Because without it, you’d be completely confused, who this glowing woman at the start was.

Captain Marvel was...an oddity in this movie. From what we can tell, she’s clearly the strongest fighter of the group (Yes, even more so than Thor and Hulk), yet she basically disappears early in the movie, and only reappears halfway through the climax. Maybe they wanted her strength to not intervene with the plot? Her in-universe explanation of needing to help all the other planets after the Snap certainly wouldn’t have prevented her from going to the past with them and...saving all those other people from the snap.

But what might be the biggest dropped ball about her is her introduction. In that: She has none. Her intro was that Post-Credits scene from her movie. The Avengers are trying to keep the Pager alive, and she’s suddenly among them, asking for Fury. First thing we see here is her dragging Iron Man and Nebula back to earth and then hang around, as if she always was a part of the group. I’m not even sure they say her name once...and I think it would have been real easy to at least have Tony ask about her or something.

3. Rescue

Many people, even before the movie came out, started talking about Rescue and her being in the movie, and...that might cause some confusion for others. Rescue was not mentioned in the movie, and she comes out of nowhere...some foreshadowing notwithstanding.

To clear the confusion up: Rescue is Pepper Potts in her own set of armor. Early in the movie, Tony makes an armor (well, we only see the helmet) for her for their anniversary, but he says, she never wears something he made. And...that’s it. That’s all we get, until the final battle scene, where Pepper suddenly appears, wearing the armor. Not much is said about this, because basically everyone else appears as well, which...further undercuts the impact this has.

She has a few scenes in the movie, a corrdinated battle with Tony, rescuing Peter Parker and the Gauntlet, supporting Captain Marvel, and of course, telling Tony he can rest after the Final Snap. But as to why she donned the armor so quickly, how Dr. Strange knew he could throw her in, how SHE knew, she can fight here...no clue, no idea. Certainly could have benefitted a bit of an explanation...how about right after the Resnap, when Tony, after starting to think, everything worked, calls Pepper and tries to say, what’s up...only for everything to explode. This would give Pepper the immediate motivation to suit up herself...and heck, who cares about magic to bring her there, she just flew, and happened to arrive at the same time. But...yeah, the movie was already mroe than 3 hours, so...

2. Loki...kinda lives?

So, Loki gets his own Netflix-Series, which kinda means, he has to survive, right? Eh...well, Vision and Black Widow both get further content as well, and...they are kinda dead, or still dead at the end of the movie. Loki as well, but...wait, is he? No, he didn’t trick his death again...during time travel shenanigans, Tony accidentally gets knocked aside by Past Hulk, and looses the Tessarect, which lands to Past-Lokis feet. Loki, confused, but quick on his feet, grabs it and escapes. In the movie, the main setback was loosing the Space Stone and needing another timeline to get it. But...that kinda glances over a lot, doesn’t it?

First of all, the obvious: Loki is freed in a timeline, and has the Space Stone to go where he wants. Which...could be the perfect segway to his show, but said show is meant to be him reacting to different time periods...does he get the Time Stone as well? No? So...does Loki exist in the main timeline now? Or only this other time line?

For a moment I also thought, him disappearing with the stone means, now one of the Infinity Stones is actually gone from the Timeline, and the Ancient One has every reason to be upset with Bruce for lying, but...I guess he stayed in the same timeline, so, at least that is clear. But what exactly happened to Loki, and what it means to our timeline has not been answered at all.

1. Professor Hulk

This...is the big one for me. And it might not be, if there wouldn’t have been so much setup, and if it wasn’t such a big plotpoint in Infinity War.

So...the Hulk and Bruce Banner...kinda merged. In what is known as Professor Hulk. When we first see Bruce Banner, he is in Hulk-Form, but...retains his full intellect. And he explains, he basically made peace with the Hulk and merged Brains and Brawn.

And...it stays like that until the end.

There is one interesting insight, when the Ancient One seperates his consciousnes from his body, because suddenly, it’s the human body of Bruce Banner floating around, arguing with her...not the merged form. This might be a clue, that the persona of the Hulk is actually really gone...though personally, I hoped, that this was setting up a big reveal: At some point, I hoped, Bruce would give up arguing, and just say: “Get her”. And the Hulk suddenly tackles her. She kicked Bruce Banners Persona out, but the Hulks was still in the body, waiting for his partner to give the signal.

Sadly, this didn’t happen. Instead, the conclusion of the big “Why doesn’t the Hulk want to fight”-plot of the last movie is...completely off-screen. And all the conflict of the Hulk is gone. He even works as an actual professor...wait what? I...guess he’s not a wanted man anymore, but...that /is/ a big step. Would have been nice to see more development there, or a less wholesome state.

These things bothered me in the movie, because there were interesting points present...but they apprarently didn’t have the time to develop them properly. Which isn’t surprising, when the rest of the movie already takes 3 hours. Do they ruin the movie for me? Heck no, I love that movie! And it did take a surprising number of things and gave it the proper development and conclusion it deserved. I love this movie, and I will probably make more lists or talk more like this, and hope some people interact with me about this!

Bonus Point, that bothered me: Limited Pym Particle-Plotpoint. According to Ant-Man, they only have enough Pym Particles for each of them to take two Time Trips, after all the testing is done. One trip to the past, and one trip back. First obvious point: Get the Timestone, and you have all the Time Travel options in the world. Have Tony and Bruce take a look at the particles, get Pyms Formulas and try to synthesize more, just in case. But no, the main Problem I have with that, is: Pym Particles were not the stuff that made them time travel, it only made them shrink enough TO time travel. So...everyone can only shrink and regrow twice...really? Someone better tell Scott Lang this, since he shrinks during the Caper, and changed his size multiple times.

#MCU Endgame Avengers AvengersEndgame

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kayawagner · 6 years ago

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Gnome Stew Notables – Donna Prior

Donna “Danicia” Prior is the Sparkly Princess of Social Media & Community Management. She is currently the Organized Play Manager for Catan Studio and the Executive Director of OrcaCon, the inclusive tabletop games convention. She has worked in both video games and tabletop games. In short, gamer, geek, and future wife of Wedge Antilles. Lives on Twitter as @Danicia. Find Donna on about.me/Danicia and Twitch.tv/Danicia

What projects have you worked on?

I’ve been working in the games industry now since 2007, starting with the video game industry. I got my start on Pirates of the Burning Sea, Guild Wars 2, Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising, TERA Online, and numerous properties for SOE (Sony Online Entertainment). I met Chris Pramas, CEO of Green Ronin Publishing, while working on PotBS, as we both worked at Flying Lab. I started contracting with Green Ronin a few years ago as the Events Manager, handling the Gen Con volunteer GM presence and outlining a Volunteer GM Program aka the Green Ronin Freebooters. After my last video game layoff, I was forwarded the Organized Play gig with Catan by a friend and that’s where I am today.

You work in areas of gaming that are often overlooked in favor of the creators and designers, but the industry relies on hundreds, if not thousands, of people who are not in the limelight. What does your job entail, and how did you get into that area of games?

My role as the Catan Organized Play Manager involves a lot of spreadsheets. Hah! I schedule regional Qualifier tournaments for the Catan National Championships where Catan is published in the English language. My largest amount of work is the US program, but I’ve also restructured the Canadian, UK, and Australia programs, plus created new programs for Ireland and Vietnam. I’ve still got so many more to put into place. I also coordinate and facilitate the Catan Masters Invitational, which a special tournament for the top tier US players. Plus, I coordinate with our team and Asmodee for a presence at shows such as Origins, Gen Con, UK Games Expo, and more.

Whilst Organized Play Management is different from what I’ve been doing (Community Management), it still involves community outreach, communication, coordination of people and events. There’s an aspect of content creation, social media interactions, and more. My plan is to also build out some typical community gathering spaces, to help grow said community of both competitive and casual Catan players.

As far as Community Management as a career? I was actually hired right out of a game community to work on PotBS’ Community Team. I was naturally already doing outreach, working with fansites, moderating and running communities on forums, LiveJournal, and more. It was a natural progression to actually start doing it for a living. Left the IT field behind without looking back!

For the future, I’d love to do some more writing and freelance work.

You spend a ton of time traveling to conventions and events. What are your secrets for survival?

Alone time! No, seriously! I avoid parties. I make sure to take extra care to eat and drink plenty of water. I will meet with friends for dinner sometimes, but otherwise, I am back in my room in the quiet, watching Netflix or reading. It helps, when you’re running a 64-person event with all the chaos that it entails. I tend to bring along protein snacks with me when doing shows, or pick some up when I arrive. Nuts, cheese, trail mix, that sort of thing. Carbs might get you a big energy rush at first, but then you crash right on down. I also don’t drink sodas, eat candy, or chug coffee. I sit whenever I can, as the standing in one place thing is super hard on one’s body.

For the travel part of it, I tend to pay for slight upgrades on flights. As example, if it’s not too expensive, I’ll upgrade to first class for the relaxation of it. Doesn’t always work, but I go for creature comforts whenever possible.

There’s a lot of discussion of community and community responsibility lately. How can we build a better, stronger gaming community that welcomes everyone?

Gosh, there’s so much to unpack with this one. Really, it has to start from the top down. Geeks & gamers are not an oppressed group. Gaming and geek things are mainstream, and we should welcome the chance to play with everyone.

First, companies and community leaders should actually listen to people who aren’t already gamers. You’ll get a very different response on what people want in games and game communities. Listen to why people don’t feel welcome in game stores. Why people have a hard time finding D&D groups, tabletop groups. Find ways of making people feel welcome, instead of excluding. As an example, I was visiting a local game store. I talked with the owner at some length. He’s got a heavy Magic & Warhammer clientele. That’s not bad at all, a lot of those stores are very successful. But he wants to create a hub where everyone feels welcome to play games. Where women and families feel welcome. I asked him, “Do you have tampons and pads in your restroom?” and he looked at me like I was speaking a different language. It’s not that he was excluding people intentionally; I felt he was truly baffled why he couldn’t generate a good board game meetup hangout establishment. He’s got LOTS of potential in his store, but he just doesn’t know how to fix it.

I am experienced with games for years and years, so you have to do something super jerky for me to feel unwelcome. But, your average consumer will totally feel unwelcome if your store looks like someone’s extended basement. Clutter, posters on the wall with masking tape. Dust, unpainted concrete floors. Broken furniture (or cheap Costco folding tables and chairs) and the like. If you want to become a destination for communities, you need to clean the place up and make it friendly. It’s a hard thing, too, because that all costs money, which is something not a lot of FLGS (friendly local game stores) have, with the margins on games being so tight. That’s where it starts. If you create a welcome and safe environment, don’t tolerate harassment and grossness, you start creating a healthy community.

If you wanna have grognard shop, that’s fine, too. Some folks like that and that’s okay for them. For me, it’s sad, because it means there are heaps of people who will never feel welcome to play games, but folks can run their business how they want.

You’re also an avid gamer. Which properties and settings do you most love?

I am an unabashed lover of Forgotten Realms. One of my hobbies is actually just making characters and developing backstories, in hopes of playing them in a game someday. Hell, I hope to play in a game where people love the Realms as much as I do, and will have a super RPG heavy campaign. (HINT HINT IF ANYONE IS LOOKING FOR PLAYERS). I’m a huge fan of the Shadowrun lore, but HATE the system(s). I hate math. There, I said it (I’ve got Dyscalculia). I’ve always been a big Classic Deadlands fan, but it’s super hard to find compatible players. I love love love the Dragon Age setting and hope to kick off a Roll20 campaign after con season. I don’t know Blue Rose as much as some, but I love the setting and nope to get into a campaign (or run one). And I AM SO VERY EXCITED ABOUT THE EXPANSE RPG.

What is your dream game? (Either to make, or play.)

Sense8. I would LOVE to play in the Sense8 world, or run a campaign. Once Modern AGE comes out, I may try to pull together a mini convention game if Joe Carriker will help me. We have been chatting about working on this for fun ever since the series came out. Of course, I started brainstorming characters to be in different Clusters.

What upcoming projects or events are you excited about?

I DID MENTION THE EXPANSE, RIGHT? I am also excited about REVOLUTIONARIES — American War of Independence RPG, Good Society: A Jane Austen Roleplaying Game, Sigil & Sign — Cthulhu Mythos RPG where you play the cultist, Satanic Panic, Mysteries of the Yōkai: An RPG Inspired by Japanese Folklore, A Delve in the Cave: 5th Edition Adventure, Overlight RPG: A roleplaying game of kaleidoscopic fantasy, and and and…well… a lot of other things.

Gnome Stew Notables – Donna Prior published first on https://supergalaxyrom.tumblr.com

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kayawagner · 6 years ago

Text

Gnome Stew Notables – Donna Prior

What projects have you worked on?

For the future, I’d love to do some more writing and freelance work.

You spend a ton of time traveling to conventions and events. What are your secrets for survival?

There’s a lot of discussion of community and community responsibility lately. How can we build a better, stronger gaming community that welcomes everyone?

You’re also an avid gamer. Which properties and settings do you most love?

What is your dream game? (Either to make, or play.)

What upcoming projects or events are you excited about?

Gnome Stew Notables – Donna Prior published first on https://supergalaxyrom.tumblr.com

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