#semi-automatic weapons

[filosofablogger]

SCOTUS Screwed Up ... AGAIN!

Okay, so you’ve heard a lot of rumbling this week about ‘bump stocks’ and the Supreme Court decision killing the ban on them.  Let’s take a deeper look … First off, what exactly is a ‘bump stock’?  It is a device that can be attached to a semiautomatic firearm in place of a conventional gunstock, enabling it to fire bullets more rapidly.  Essentially, bump stocks assist rapid fire by “bumping”…

[carbone14]

Valentina Safronova armée d'un fusil semi-automatique Tokarev SVT-40 – 1940's

Valentina Safronova est une partisane soviétique et une agente des renseignements qui s'est engagée dans la reconnaissance et le sabotage jusqu'à sa capture et sa mort par la Gestapo le 1er mai 1943.

[tomorrowusa]

This is the Texas of Greg Abbott and Ted "Cancún" Cruz where kids get less consideration than guns.

If police had been told that the school library contained books about slavery or LGBTQ+ acceptance at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde they would have barged in with guns blazing instead of spending over an hour playing with themselves outside the school while kids were being murdered by yet another gun nut.

The long-awaited report detailed systemic failures by both state and local law enforcement surrounding the massacre, one of the worst school shootings in US history, including the events that contributed to the 77-minute delay between the arrival of first responders and when the shooter was killed. “The victims and survivors should’ve never been trapped with that shooter for more than an hour as they waited for their rescue,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said during a Thursday press conference discussing the contents of the report. “The families of the victims deserved more than incomplete, inaccurate, and conflicting communications from officials of their loved ones.” [ ... ] The report, based on a review of more than 14,000 pieces of data and more than 260 interviews, also directly called out Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Department officials, including former police chief Pete Arredondo for instructing officers not to enter some classrooms until keys had been secured. While the police response to the shooting has been heavily criticized, it’s important to note that the Texas GOP has been blocking gun safety legislation that could’ve potentially stopped this shooting from occurring.

Among Texas Republicans, the right to conduct school shootings is revered and is enshrined in the sacred 2nd Amendment. Police in Texas have to be careful not to offend the gun-worshiping GOP establishment.

The Department of Justice report can be read in its entirety below.

Critical Incident Review Active Shooter at Robb Elementary School

We already know what a horrible tragedy this was. Reading about the lack of professionalism, gross incompetence, and outright cowardice of Texas law enforcement will make your blood boil.

Republican governors like Greg Abbott want to force women to have babies by denying them reproductive freedom. But once those kids are born they are of little interest to Republicans.

[l0ser-nicolaz]

one glimpse. that’s it.

[benandstevesposts]

Two Oklahoma County Sheriff's Departments Say They Are Refusing To Enforce A DOJ Rule - One Which Could Save Police Officers Lives And Be Another Hindrance To Those Planning Mass Shootings.

In the announcement, the DOJ said they have put requirements on short-barreled rifles since the 1930s because “they are more easily concealable than long-barreled rifles but have more destructive power than traditional handguns.” 

The announcement was made on January 13. It said when someone uses “stabilizing braces to convert pistols to rifles with a barrel less than 16 inches … they must comply with laws that regulate those rifles, including the national firearms act.”

[slimethought]

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[attila-werther]

so i've figured out the crassus-spartacus issue with the republikang etc au, now I get to tackle the fun part, which is whether or not crasso shows up to a gang fight with a baseball bat or a hammer

[historyofguns]

The article "Japanese Type 100 Submachine Gun — Too Few and Too Late," authored by Tom Laemlein, explores the Japanese Type 100 submachine gun and its delayed production during World War II. The article details Japan's initial lack of interest in submachine guns during the 1930s, and how, despite eventually manufacturing the Type 100 in 1944, they missed the opportunity to effectively compete with other nations' short-range firepower. The article traces the history of submachine guns, highlighting the influence of the .45 caliber Thompson and European models, the development of a simplified Bergmann-type submachine gun by Japan, and the evolution of the Type 100 through various models such as the paratrooper version with a folding stock. Despite efforts to update and improve the gun, it was ultimately limited by production constraints and the underpowered 8x22mm Nambu round. The Type 100 remains a historically interesting weapon but was not on par with other submachine guns of World War II.

[dandelion-idk]

this is a warning if u play with me in the sheldon challenge and i get any type of charger/blaster and u are in my team please say your prayers this won't end well

[mensfrightsactivist]

oh ok now they’re saying the nashville shooter they originally identified as female used he/him pronouns. and there’s no way to verify this because they killed the shooter on-site instead of allowing a court of law to decide the punishment

[handmedownpocketpussy]

You know how white people use being scared as a weapon? All those videos of white women saying, "I called the cops because I felt like I was in danger" and how white guys have tiktoks about, "You need at least one semi automatic weapon close at hand at all times to defend your family" kinda shit?

That's what bothers me so much about watching fellow jews acting like just seeing a Palestinian flag or keffiyeh somehow automatically makes a place unsafe.

I mostly see it in US American jews posting about how they feel threatened by a Palestinian flag, or saying that anything referencing not wanting thousands and thousands of Palestinians to die is 'a call for jewish genocide'

Y'all. No. This tells me you have never interacted with a Palestinian or even the Muslim community at large. We diaspora Jews are not the victims here.

Your assimilation has ended on the path of weaponisation of your fears, which is not a great place to be.

If you honestly believe "The only safe place in the world for Jews is Israel" you've bought into someone fearmongering. I'm begging you to investigate why you bought that lie and who is benefiting from you buying it

[help-itrappedmyself]

Summoning Game Show 3

Masterpost

I got so inspired and had so much fun writing for part 2 I just kept going. I have determined that this 'fic' should be about 7 parts long total. And here's Part 3, because I'm enjoying the nonsense of this so much.

~~~~~

“Congratulations on successfully finishing the first challenge! You can make your way back to the main room to receive your clue.”

The screen changes once Nightwing is on the stage with them. It now shows what looks like a wheel of fortune puzzle. Three words, four letters, four letters, and seven letters.

“For your clue, you can choose a letter for the puzzle!” Danny explains. “Since there are four of you we will give you four letters automatically, and you each have the chance to earn an extra letter. For the freebies! E, the most common vowel in English.”

“Looks like no E’s in this puzzle.” Danny shrugs at the boys with a grin on his face. “For the next three letters, we have the three most common consonants: T, N, and S!”

“Three letters up, two N’s and one T.” Danny turns away from the screen to face Nightwing. “What letter would you like to choose?” Dick turns to look at Red and Jason “This portion is not collaborative.” Danny cuts in with a small frown, making everyone look back at him. “You earned the letter, you choose the letter. They only get to pick a letter after they’ve earned one.”

Nightwing grimaces slightly. “A?” 

“A!” Danny turns back to the screen.

“One A!” Danny turns back. “The next challenge is a sword fight against Fright Knight! Who would like to sword fight?”

Damian very quickly raised his hand. Tim almost wanted to smack him, but as similar as a bo staff can be, and as much as he doesn’t want Damian in danger, Damian does have the most extensive sword training amongst them.

Danny takes Damian to pick out his sword. “I see that you have a sword already, but the fight is to first blood and you can’t harm Fright Knight with that sword, so that’s kind of unfair. We need to get you a weapon that will actually be able to hit your opponent.” They leave through a side door, but they leave it open so everyone can see all the weapon racks and Danny as he shows Damian around.

Tim leans towards Dick and Jason as Dick takes his seat in the middle chair. “Cool, so our weapons can’t actually hurt them, good to know. What exactly are we going to be asking the King at the end of this?”

“What do you mean?” Dick asks.

“I think he means that if we want to get back to our dimension we don’t want to piss off everyone here by wasting their time.” Jason spits out, sitting up and turning towards them. “They didn’t seem to take too kindly to that idea earlier.”

Dick winces and nods. “We could ask him to deal with the cult that brought us here.”

“What if he kills all of them?” 

“Well, you clearly have an idea Red, why don’t you tell us instead of making us guess.” Jason complains.

“Diplomatic relations.” Red states. “New dimension, new culture. We’re here to learn, maybe we could ask to set up a meeting between the King and Batman, or the Justice League.”

“The whole point of this is to get a meeting, what do you think he’s going to do if we use this meeting to ask for a different meeting?”

“Jason has a point. Maybe we could just ask to set up a way to communicate between us?” Dick suggests.

“I have obtained a sufficient weapon.” Damian calls out as he and Danny approach. Danny comes up onto the stage, heading back to the podium, but Damian doesn’t waste his time going back up and instead waits by the short stairs for further instructions. He is holding a katana, similar to the one he is used to, but with a different grip and that is glowing.

“So, since you’re using a semi unfamiliar weapon, Fright Knight is not going to be allowed to use his Soul Shredder, just to make it fair. And just in case he draws first blood, we don’t want to accidentally send anybody to their nightmare dimension!” Danny chirps out cheerfully. “You will be fighting in here, just stay on the main floor and away from bystanders. Fight will immediately end at first blood, no maiming, no killing, no excessive force. No use of powers is permitted.”

Danny gestures to where Fright Knight is exiting the armory with a regular looking broadsword. “This is Fright Knight.” Fright Knight waves as he comes over, stopping next to Damian so they’re both standing beneath the stage.

“Are you both ready?” The two swordsmen take a few steps away from each other and take positions before nodding. “Begin!”

[greenglowinspooks]

(DCxDP) Drowning in formaldehyde (Prologue)

—

Tw: Danny is having a Certified Bad Time™️, dissociation, vivisection mention, suicidal thoughts (kinda?), basically just heavy angst for now

Will be crossposted to AO3 eventually

Note: you don’t need to read this chapter to understand the rest of the story, it’s mostly just to explore Danny’s headspace when he first escapes the GiW

(Pt. 1)

(Subscription post/masterlist)

—

Danny rocked back and forth, trying to soothe himself as the truck he was in continued to speed along.

It had been an eternity since he was captured by the GiW. He didn’t know why they were moving him to a new base after all this time, but he knew it wasn’t a good thing.

Still, he couldn’t find it in himself to feel afraid.

He couldn’t feel much of anything these days. The GiW had a routine and they stuck to it religiously, and that routine had sucked every bit of Danny’s soul out of him.

Something churned in his chest regardless. Anticipation? Excitement, maybe?

Perhaps they were finally going to let Danny fade. Was that a bad thing? Danny couldn’t decide if it was or not.

He wasn’t scared of fading. It seemed inevitable, especially with how he was treated on the daily. He would stop hurting if he faded.

Still, he’d like to see Jazz and Tucker and Sam at least one more time before he does. That would be nice.

The truck continues forward, unmoved by Danny’s thoughts.

The sound is nice, Danny thinks.

The hum of the engine, the crackling of pebbles being crushed under the tires, the electrical buzz of the anti-ghost handcuffs and shield keeping him trapped.

The only sound Danny’s heard the last few years has been the clatter of metal tools, the crunching of bone, the sawing and thunking and squishing of surgery, the murmur of voices.

It’s nice to hear something new, Danny thinks.

Strange, but nice.

The truck stops again. Another red light, probably. Danny continues rocking back and forth, back and forth, like the ticking of a clock.

Seconds pass. Second after second after second.

Danny hears shouting now.

Gunshots crack outside, and Danny sees holes appear in the side of the truck.

That’s definitely new.

Chaos is erupting outside. There’s a lot of screaming, and frantic footsteps, and cars zooming away.

The driver door slams open and shut. The truck speeds off, tires screaming as the driver swerves erratically.

Danny is thrown back and forth in the back of the truck, bumping up against the many weapons and other miscellaneous inventions stored alongside him. Pain blooms in his head and chest, an agonizing heat lining his surgical wounds. Danny licks his lips underneath his muzzle. It would be nice if the driver was a bit better at their job, he thinks.

The truck continues careening wildly.

Danny counts the seconds.

Second after second after second.

After around two thousand, three hundred and seventy four seconds, the truck comes to a stop. Danny didn’t lose count this time. He’s proud of himself.

The driver door opens and closes yet again. There’s chatter outside, excitement clear in the voices that Danny hears. There’s lots of talk of “congratulations,” and “lucky that the Bat didn’t follow you here.”

Then, the back of the truck is opened. Danny hears noises of confusion and shock. He turns his head, looking to see what’s happened.

There’s several men at the door of the truck. They’re wearing black tuxedo suits—Sam was right, black really is such a pretty color—and they’re staring at him.

They begin talking among themselves. Something about them not knowing about a kid, and not knowing what to tell the boss. It’s confusing to him. It’s not what he usually hears spoken.

Then, one of them climbs up into the truck. He approaches Danny slowly, speaking in a calm voice. He’s asking Danny if he can stand, he realizes, asking him if he knows why he’s in the truck.

Danny just stares at the silver glint of the gun at the man’s side.

It’s a nice one, he thinks. Semi-automatic, with a few modifications to make the reloads smoother and the gunshots quieter. His fingers twitch. He’d like to poke at it a little, see if he could improve it any.

The man notices where he’s staring and curses. He takes the gun and lowers it to the floor. Danny just continues to stare.

Silver is an ugly color, he thinks. He much prefers black.

Silver is the color of stainless steel, the color of lab and surgical equipment.

He doesn’t like it much.

The man reaches out a hand and grabs Danny’s shoulder, shaking him gently.

After a moment, he sighs, and hoists Danny up, carrying him effortlessly. He hands him to one of the men outside of the truck, hopping down himself a moment later.

They’re warm, Danny realizes.

He curls further into the new man’s arms, closing his eyes. It’s nice, he thinks, being held like this. He hasn’t been held with such care in a long, long time.

The man sets him down on a crate.

After a moment Danny opens his eyes again, watching as the many black-suited people take things out of the truck. He counts the inventions in his head as they do so, beginning to rock again.

Then, a new man enters the room, and everyone freezes.

He’s congratulating them, asking them about their escape, and then he spots Danny.

Danny would very much like to be invisible right about now.

“Where did you get him?” He asks, tapping his umbrella against the floor.

“He was in the truck,” the man who carried him says, “we don’t know why.”

The stout man looks at him closely.

“How did you get into a government weapon shipment? Did someone put you in there?”

Danny nods his head. He tries to speak, but his voice cracks painfully underneath his muzzle.

“You- someone get that thing off his face,” he says. Several of the other men scurry off, probably looking for something that can break the muzzle, “can you speak?”

Danny shrugs. He tries to talk again, but it seems that his voice doesn’t want to cooperate with him. The only sound he can make is a painful, broken wheeze.

“Hey,” the man says, resting a hand on Danny’s shoulder, “if it hurts to talk, stop trying, alright? We’re gonna get that muzzle and those cuffs off, and then we’ll figure out why you were in there. You know how to write?”

Danny nods.

“Good,” the man responds.

“You two, get something to write with,” he barks to a few of the other suited men. They, too, run off.

A few people come up, carrying a bolt cutter and a few other tools with them. They make quick work of the muzzle and handcuffs, the restraints falling to the floor with a clattering sound.

Danny looks down at his hands. They’re shaking. Slowly, slowly, he brings them up to his face. Thin fingers brush up against cracked, dry lips. He’s fascinated by the sensation.

Someone brought him a mirror, he realizes.

That can’t be right, though. The person looking back at him…isn’t him. That isn’t Danny.

That face is not his face.

Their cheeks are far too thin and sunken, their eyes dull and haunting. They’re far too old as well, they look like a young adult.

Still, they move when he moves. They stare at him with a look of fascinated horror that’s far too familiar.

He brings his hand up to his head, and they follow his movements. He trails his fingers over the stitches in his head, and they do the same.

Danny tries to speak, but is cut off by a painful cough.

One of the men brings up a pencil and notepad. Slowly, shakily, Danny writes down a question.

“What year is it?”

The man who had spoken to him earlier quirked his eyebrow up. He answers, and Danny freezes in place.

“What’s wrong?”

Danny looks down at his hands again. He looks into the mirror. The stranger staring back looks horrified. They look sad. They look…like him.

Danny lets out a mournful keening sound. He curls up into himself, covering his face with his arms. Distantly, he’s aware of someone rubbing circles into his back. He cries harder, his entire body shaking.

Three years.

It’s been three years since he was captured, three years of being cut open and sewn back together. Three years of burns and cuts and chemical damage and electrical shocks.

Three years of torture.

Danny sobs, hands gripping the thin fabric of his medical gown like a lifeline. Three years.

Danny’s being lifted up again. He wraps his arms around the person holding him and wails into their shoulder. Everything is quiet.

“I’ll deal with the kid,” the man holding him says, “the rest of you, finish unpacking the truck and dump it somewhere that the Bat won’t connect to me.”

The man brings Danny through the building, still rubbing his back comfortingly. He’s humming some song that Danny doesn’t recognize, occasionally pausing to bark orders at people.

Danny’s beginning to calm down now. He’s still shaking, but his breathing is beginning to even out.

It’s been a long time since he’s felt alive enough to cry.

He feels exhausted.

Danny tries to hold onto consciousness for as long as possible, but he’s so tired, and so sad, and he’s being held, and he’s warm, and…

Danny’s eyes flutter shut.

—

[mockerycrow]

You’re Alive (Gaz x GN!Reader)

gaz masterlist - gazfest 2023 @glitterypirateduck

PROMPTS: “One-shot” + “Safe House” + “Let Me See You”

SUMMARY: After receiving a facial scar, you have been jumpy—Kyle is here to show you that’s it’s all okay.

A/N: Honestly, I’m not the happiest with this but I decided to stop being picky with it!! So I hope my contribution to gazfest is satisfactory <3

[WARNINGS: Angst, hurt/comfort, fluff, moderate descriptions of gore, allusion to PTSD.]

Your leg kept bouncing like whatever gnawing feeling in your gut wasn’t going to stop unless your leg was going a million miles per minute. The clock on the wall ticked every second oh so quietly, and it was overall silent aside from the ticking and your body squeaking. You felt like a live wire attached to a brick of dynamite, ready to explode at any given time—ready to kill whoever holds the brick. Despite it being an hour or two since you and Kyle arrived at the safehouse, you remain at the only window in the entire building. In your arms rests your rifle with your safety switched to “semi” for semi-automatic, like you’re expecting someone to come barreling in through the door, or come through the tree line.

Kyle doesn’t blame you for the way you have been acting, honestly. He knows you’ve been different since you got your facial scar a few months back—you were required to go through a psychological evaluation to be deemed fit for duty, and it’s moments like this where Kyle—guiltily—wonders how you passed “with flying colors”, so the doctor said. He doesn’t understand how the Captain hasn’t see your behavior either, or if he has, he hasn’t done anything about it. Kyle means well about all of this, too. He’s worried about you. He’s seen the way your eyes scan every room, the way you’re too ready to raise your weapon to kill, the way you snarl at anyone who is casually holding a knife outside of combat.. There’s so many signs pointing to something, a deeper problem, that he is wondering how the psychologist still has a job.

You’ve begun to wear a mask that obscures your face from your nose down.

You offered to take first watch—he notes that you’re like Ghost in that regard, you can’t calm down after a highly intense situation, so you gotta do what you gotta do, right? But the way you’re so.. jumpy, you keep jolting and looking at Kyle every time he shifts, making a slight noise?—that’s concerning. He’s used to Ghost’s incredible alertness, the way he doesn’t like his back faced to the door of the rooms he enters, Kyle is used to when Ghost sits in the far corner so he can see every inch of the room—but he was terrified when you began to do it, too. You’ve always been vigilant, sure, but you’re.. Something is very wrong.

Kyle watches from his spot on the ragged, torn couch that had to be taken from the curb in a nearby neighborhood. His own rifle is propped up against the couch, his pistol resting on the coffee table in front of himself. He watches the way your eyes flicker across the skyline, the puffy eyebags you have almost seem like they’re worsening by the moment. Kyle is also exhausted—you two have been traveling from safehouse to safehouse for about a week, trying to meet up with the rest of the task force.. With no support, of course.

He calls your name, and he makes a mental note of how your finger twitches closer to the trigger than before. “You need to rest.” He grunts out, pushing himself off of the couch. Kyle turns and grabs his rifle, holding the hefty weapon to his chest as he naturally copies your perfectly practiced pose. He looks up and looks at you—and you haven’t moved a muscle. “Hey, y’hear me?” Kyle voice is laced with concern as he takes his steps towards you, and he makes the mistake of tapping your shoulder—because suddenly he’s facing the silencer of your semi-automatic rifle. Cold panic shoots through his veins and his gut, his muscles going rigid as if he’s a deer in headlights. His eyes search for yours, locking eyes; and you’re out of it. He knew something was wrong.

“Oi,” Kyle speaks with the softest tone he can manage with a gun nearly pressing into the bridge of his nose. “Oi, it’s me. Gaz, mate. It’s Kyle.” Your eyes search his face desperately, and he’s silently begging for you to speak. The tension in his stomach is twisting and turning, threatening to snap—you show no signs of any recognization of him, someone who you have trusted for years by this point, someone who was the one to get your guts inside of your abdomen after an ambush, the one who held your face together after the attack—

Kyle does things before he thinks about it sometimes, and it seems to happen a lot more often with you than anyone else, so he’s silently cursing himself out when he slowly raises a hand to your cheek—his heart pounding against his rib cage, like it’s screeching to escape and run away. He has a rifle pressing against his nose, nearly right between his eyes, and what does he do? Kyle holds your covered cheek, his gloved hand cradling it just like how he did when he found you. Your eyebrow muscles punch inwards for a moment, your eyelids fluttering from the touch.

He watches the way your eyes scan his face, the way you’re trying to decipher whether he’s friend or foe—and he sees it when you know it’s him. Your eyes widen every so slightly and your rifle trembles in your grasp, lowering it and you flip the safety back on. “Gaz, I..” You croak for a moment, taking a small step back. Kyle let’s out a breath he didn’t he was holding, along with all of that tension holding up in body. He reaches for you again as you pinch the bridge of your nose, one of his hands swiftly taking the rifle from you, the other gently cradling your cheek again. “Shh, it’s alright,” He murmurs, his stomach tightening with anxiety. Your eyes fall closed for a moment as Kyle lets your rifle drop to the ground next to where both of you stand.

“It’s alright.” Kyle repeats, his other hand coming up to cradle your other cheek. You ever so slightly flinch in his touch, but you don’t pull away. Your hands come up to cover his own, a choked noise leaving your throat. “Breathe, sweetheart. Breathe.” His lips are next to your ear now, voice dripping like honey into your eardrums, trickling down your spine with a warmth only he’s been able to provide for you. You can borderline feel his heat from beneath his gloves, seeping into your skin from on top of your mask, too. It grounds you enough for you to take a wonderfully oxygen filled breath.

“There y’go, yeah..” Kyle praises you softly, the air from between his lips brushing against your ear and causing you get goosebumps. You inhale once again, slower and deeper—and you get the comforting scent of Kyle, mixed in with the sweat and dirt. Nonetheless, it’s something you find extreme comfort in. As Kyle brings you down from your panicked feelings, he’s swaying you ever so slightly. After you let out a soft shuddering breath, he pulls away from your ear. “Let me see you,” He whispers, causing your eyes to shoot open, scanning his face with panic. You begin to shake your head but his hands remain in place. Kyle’s hands don’t move to remove your mask, as he’s always been good with your boundaries—but his eyes are pleading you.

“Please.” You lock eye contact with him as you debate this; you haven’t showed your face willingly since you were in the hospital, right? You began to cover your face as soon as you could without medical repercussions. You keep scanning his eyes, his muscles in his face, and then it hits you—Kyle doesn’t beg you of anything—the last time he saw your face, was when it was split in two, when he was holding your face in place. You know the attack fucked with him, too. Your barracks were next to his, and after the attack, you were hyper-vigilant. You woke up from every noise, and every night—you heard him stumble out of his room, always at night. Panicked.

You take a slow, deep breath—and you nod. You close your eyes, trying to give yourself some comfort. You feel his fingers hook into the soft material of your mask, and he pulls it down to under your chin. You don’t open your eyes just yet, but you can’t help the small flinch when you feel his gloved thumb trace part of your pink scar that’s deep in your lip. Your heart is hammering in your throat as his finger continues to slowly follow the scar’s path, from your bottom lip trailing to your nose, rearing a gory right, a deeper part of the scar scaling through your right cheek, and taking a harsh upwards turn, just narrowly missing your eye, but cutting deep into your eyebrow.

“There you are.” He whispers, his voice barely steady. Your eyes flutter open and you look at Kyle, and your eyebrows raise ever so slightly at the sight of tears brimming in his own eyes, pure relief all over his expression. “Thought I lost you forever, huh?” Kyle tries to laugh, but his voice cracks, causing a rare laugh to be pulled out of your chest. You reach up and your breath hitches as you wipe away a tear that had begun to slide down his cheek. “I’m.. I’m okay, Kyle.” You respond and he shakes his head, sniffling for a moment, his eyes tracing every part of your face, like you’ll disappear again. “You aren’t,” He confirms. “And that’s alright. You’re alive, and here with me, that’s enough for now.”

[cerastes]

Jessica the Liberated's loadout consists of a strong, versatile, reliable handgun, a semi-auto weapon that can land deathblows when properly aimed...

...A customized assault rifle, a fully automatic weapon that she can easily use with both hands, or with one hand while holding her shield...

...And a Raythean anti-ship cannon that she steadies with her mobile shield before firing...

...And, during her S3, Saturation Burst, she fires all of her weapons simultaneously...

...No wonder Jessica's new loadout reminded me of something, they really made her a Ground Type Gundam gijinka with a dash of EZ-8 (itself a Ground Type Gundam jury-rigged with spare parts).

[anim-ttrpgs]

🌤️ Share your favorite mechanic from a game you’re working on.

I have a lot of mechanics in Eureka that I really really really love and have hardly seen anything similar to them anywhere else, but for the purposes of this ask I’m going to be answering with one of the unique ones that we haven’t talked about on here yet: The Woo Roll.

The Woo Roll is a special roll named in honor of director John Woo, well-known for his bombastic and extravagant use of practical effects in shootout scenes. Eureka boasts exciting and realistically dangerous firearms combat, and what better way to make deadly firearms combat more exciting in a theater-of-the-mind or grid-based shootout than by adding flavor and flare that emulates Hardboiled?

Firstly, it should be noted that it’s actually relatively hard to hit a target in Eureka firearm combat, doing so requires a fairly high roll. That means that participants are going to be doing a lot of missing. Besides just having a higher Firearms skill, the best way to increase one’s chance to hit is by firing more bullets in a single turn in the hopes that at least one of those shots will roll high enough to hit, which is why automatic weapons are more powerful than others: It usually only takes one single bullet hitting to disable a human target, so even with a low Firearms skill, firing more bullets at once greatly increases the chance that at least one will hit.

However, realistically, most shootouts in Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy will be done using semi-automatic pistols, which are only capable of firing a maximum of 2 shots per turn. We don’t want to make our combat be just and endless boring montra of “shoot, miss, shoot, miss, shoot, miss”.

So, how do we make missed shots fun?

The answer is the Woo Roll.

The Woo Roll is one of the few rolls in Eureka that doesn’t use 2D6, it only uses 1 D6.

(Quick note for those unaware: While Eureka is NOT a PbtA game, it does use a similar system of “Failure, Partial Success, and Full Success”, three possible outcomes of a dice roll instead of just Success and Failure.)

When firing a gun, all bullets fired that turn are rolled separately (we have a special speed-rolling system for when you’re firing more than 3 bullets in one turn but that’s a different post). A Full Success(10+ on a 2D6 roll) is required to hit the intended target with any given bullet, a Partial Success(7-9) and a Failure(2-6) both miss. But this is where the Woo Roll comes in.

I’ll let the actual Eureka rulebook take it from here.

As you can see here, missed shots in Eureka still have some effect on the environment and situation, even if they do not kill their intended target. This ensures that a roll in firearm combat will always do something even if it is a miss, and reminds the players of one of the fundamental rules of gun safety: Don't just be sure of your target, be sure of what's behind your target! High-velocity lead doesn't stop being destructive just because it flew a little too far to the left!

The fact that a Woo Roll is much more likely to have a negative result if the shoot was a Failure vs a Partial Success means that handing someone a gun who has no idea how to use it can be more of a hazard than a benefit, but it's not impossible for them to get that one lucky shot that makes the difference. Likewise, a Woo Roll made from a Partial Success still has a small chance to cause disaster, so even very skilled shooters have to consider whether it's worth the risk to start firing bullets all over the place at all.

We also have tables the Narrator(Game Master) can roll on just in case the shootout runs out of Woo Roll Elements or it happens in place where no Woo Roll Elements would realistically be. Here's a sneak peak at the table for Negative Woo Rolls.

Note also that this is a 2D6 table, meaning that the results closest to 7 are much more likely than the results farthest from 7.