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kenimichrow · 5 years ago

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The Landless King (Arvaelon Narkerym) 1: The Day of Memories

Spring in the Southern Continent, City of Flosee

That day was a day of memories.

It started with good memories. It was a new city in a new continent. A new country with a new culture. I had already been there a few days after arriving from Masserine, where I had left my magic teacher to settle into his retirement. Having rested a little, I could now go out and explore.

The city was filled with sights to behold. I met a merchant with wondrous wares from all parts of the Sessite Confederacy. Each item was extraordinary and unique, and he explained each one’s origins in detail as he tried to convince me to purchase it. Alas, traveling is not the most profitable of pastimes, and so I had to turn him down. He seemed to think I was haggling and brought the price down, but in the end I could neither afford the luxury nor the weight.

Soon after that I wandered into the palace district. I gazed upon huge majestic buildings with foreign architecture that I couldn't even begin to understand and admired their lavish beauty. You’d think that I would have had my fill of such displays of overly obnoxious amounts of wealth from my decades in Kessan, but there is a reason they cost so much. They were dazzling with a hypnotic strangeness unique to the Sessite Confederacy’s culture. I’m sure I made more than one palace guard anxious as I stared at them from the street, so I did not linger at any one palace for long.

Flosee, however, is not only beauty and wonder. That day, I met a poor soul who tried to pick my pocket. I chose not to pursue him as he ran into the market crowd after I foiled his attempt, but his presence reminded me of the dark underbelly of the city that I had been ignoring.

He wasn’t the only poor soul in the city.

I pretended not to see them, but slaves littered the city. It made my own slave mark tingle beneath my leather bracer as memories of ancient pain tried to surface. I pushed it down, intent on enjoying my day, but my momentary pity for the thief rekindled the same thoughts for those shackled in the market.

My mood soured, but I told myself I could do nothing for them. It wasn’t as if I had sparked the Revolution of Sladora myself. I had simply played my part. There were other far wiser men who had given me the opportunities to free myself. I had been the soldier, not the commander, and so I wouldn’t know how to light the match of similar flames here. And even if I could, would I do it wherever I saw slaves? Travel the world, setting every city on fire who dared to collar their fellow man?

I saw my long lifespan stretch before me, and a weariness began to weigh down on my soul. The Revolution of Sladora had been a hard and trying time, and I selfishly didn’t want to repeat it just to change the entire world. I just wanted to live in it, content that I myself was free and that I had my homeland of Sladora to return to.

Perhaps Tuenoril was right, and I was a coward without conviction. Our whole family was now dead, countless years of their life cut short, and what had I done to stop it? Counseled caution? Spoke of endurance and waiting for an opportune moment? As I waited, our sister had wasted away in the same bed where her nightmares were made real. Would the slaves in the market waste away too under their suffering as they waited for an opportunity that might never come to them?

I had no answer, and so I pushed it to the back of my mind and made my way to find lunch. I had seen a particularly interesting food stall earlier that day and had promised myself I would try it.The excitement of trying something new temporarily replaced my melancholy, but the fates were not so kind as to let that last.

Art by Haver

Before I could reach my anticipated destination, I saw a flash of steel from the corner of my eye. My instincts from the war made me turn to face it, but the blade I saw was not meant for me. Too quick to stop, a dagger entered the throat of a nearby guardsman. The unlucky man fell to the ground as he quickly bled out, and his compatriots swiftly descended on his assassin.

The sudden violence was unnerving, and I was quickly swept up in the panicking crowd as they fled the scene of the attack. I managed to find an alcove to escape the stampede, but by then I had been carried far from where it had all happened. When I tried to return and offer help, I was shooed away by a wary guard who was barring people from re-entering the market.

I decided to find a tavern instead to fill my belly and clear my sense of unease. It was only later that I would realize that the guard’s death might have been a warning from Kirith, if her divine spark still lived.

“Flee! Like the flood of people from the market. Before the coming violence.” Her gentle voice might say. But alas, I viewed it then as only a random skirmish in the vast expanse of the cityscape.

My unease dissipated as the shadows grew long. As I made my way back to the inn I was staying at, I heard a gasp in a nearby alley way along with fleeing footsteps. When I moved to inquire, I found a woman staggering towards me as she clutched her side. Blood dripped onto the pavement and gushed between her fingers. Even in the dim light I could tell it was the wrong color. I could smell rot, and the flesh exposed by the tear near the wound was clearly festering in a way that old injuries fester when ignored. But old wounds didn’t bleed like that.

I offered her support, and she fell into my arms. I instructed her to apply as much pressure as possible to her side, though I was careful not to touch it myself as I held her up. Then I scanned our surroundings for the nearest guard. My search was fruitless in an eerie way. There were no guards nearby. I wracked my memory and could not remember seeing any guards for a while. The unease from that afternoon began to grow anew, but my immediate concern was the woman.

We made our way into the city towards where I assumed would be a guard station. As we walked, the woman leaned on me more and more until I was practically carrying her.

Then I heard them. Warning bells ringing throughout the city.

Memories of the night the Sladoran Revolution caught flame flooded my mind. The cold sweat brought on by panic. Standing above my dead master as the mansion came alive at the sound of the city bells. Fleeing into the night to discover the city in a riot as other slaves who had also successfully assassinated their masters attempted to save those who had failed. My heart rate spiked, but I forced myself back to the present.

There was no battle in the streets right now, but the bells were ringing, so there might soon be. I turned to the woman in my arms, intent on moving her to my back to speed up our progress, only to find her eyes unfocused and her breath stopped. Reverently, but with haste, I laid her in the streets. I said a silent prayer to a God who had long before my birth been no longer able to hear it, and turned away.

My knowledge of Flosee was limited, and with a different culture, I had no way of knowing the city’s plans to protect the citizenry in the case of an attack. As such I made a guess - the most protected part of the city would be either the palace district or the city center. I decided the city center was the better bet, as they would have to make it past the palace district to get there, and began to make my way there.

Before I could reach it, however, sounds of battle began to surround me. As I tried to avoid the sources of the noise, I caught glimpses of ogres, trolls, hill giants, and even goblins fighting alongside men of all different races covered in red-painted armor. It was an unsettling sight of cooperation as they murdered the people of Flosee, but oddly quixotic in a gruesome way.

I did not stop to admire it, though. I fled deeper into the city. I quickly became lost in the maze of a foreign metropolis, but I noticed I wasn’t alone. Others fleeing the battle were also gathering, almost as if they were being corralled toward one another. This became more obvious when, at one plaza, red-painted attackers emerged from all directions. Most of the civilians fled, but two armed combatants and myself were cut off.

One of those trapped in the plaza was a grey skinned half-orc covered in hides and wielding a large sword. He was the only one of us who looked rather undisturbed by being surrounded, even seeming a little excited as he eyed their crimson armor.

“These guys don’t seem to be too friendly, how about you guys?”

When I called out to the two, he didn’t even look at me. I thus deemed him agreeable enough to hide behind as I summoned a disk of force to act as my shield.

The other potential ally, a mocha half-elf with the exotic features of the Sessite Confederacy, no doubt from the dilution of her Elven blood, had a similar idea. The leather clad lady graceful maneuvered to my side and brandished a dagger at the man who charged her. As she fended him off, she greeted me back in a furious shout. “They’re burning my city to the ground!” I took that as yes, she was indeed friendly to me. Probably.

Art by Haver

The half-orc began to mow down those who came at him like they were little more than dogs, so I decided to lend a hand to my kin. I made my way behind her attacker with my rapier in hand, and gracefully cut him down. Or rather, I tried. I managed to get a few good hits in, but then made a major error of judgement.

Casting magic in combat was new to me. Though over the last 35 or so years I had been taught by my teacher to fight with it, and had even learned to cast while wielding my rapier, I had not had many opportunities to put the skill to use in real combat. As such, I failed to put the proper distance between myself and my opponent before trying to cast a ray of freezing air at him. The spell shot over his shoulder as his blade sank into the flesh beneath my arm. I could feel the blood seep into my wool shirt beneath my armor, plastering the tattered cloth to the wound.

As a seasoned soldier, I pushed through the pain, but the battle dragged out as neither the lady nor myself could land a decisive blow. Eventually the half-orc, having decimated his half of the battle, moved to our side of the plaza to take out the remainder of the enemies. One by one they fell at his hand until finally, only one attacker still stood. His life ended thanks to a well placed dagger by the lady while he cowered from the half-orc’s raging visage.

The half-orc smiled at the woman and patted her shoulder with a growly “good job”, while I clutched my side, ignored. He then kicked one of the corpses that surrounded us and asked, “Where are these weaklings from?”

I could only shrug, but the half-elf mentioned some rumors of red-painted bandits she had heard before. She had no specifics, though.

As we mulled over the mystery, I suddenly noticed that it hadn’t been three people fighting in the plaza, but four. A small halfling waddled through the fountain water that came up to his waist as blood streaked behind him. When he got to the edge, he clamored over the fountain wall and came to stand before the three of us.

He was caramel in color with the robes and features of a native and a grim look on his face. “Who here is a citizen?” He demanded, but only the half-elf gave a reluctant “I am”. It seemed the half-orc was also a visitor unlucky enough to be in the city at the wrong time.

“Then you’re conscripted. You’ll be with me on this. I’m a member of the city guard.” The halfling mandated.

“I am?” The half-elf sneered scornfully, clearly not on board.

“We must defend the city.” He stated firmly, but the half-elf continued to express her reluctance. We didn’t have time for them to argue, here in the middle of a besieged city, and so I quickly stepped in.

“Have you seen any other guards of late? I don’t think only two, one conscripted, are going to be much good by themselves.” I interjected, and the halfling paused.

“And who are you?” He asked.

“You can just call me Arnny for now.” I replied in the interest of brevity. My full name could be a mouthful for those unfamiliar with the Elven tongue.

“Well, Arnny’s right, I stumbled upon some robed figures who seemed to have killed a guard. Have you seen anything like that?” The halfling asked as he looked at the group.

“I haven’t seen any guards, but I have seen some dead people with some nasty wounds made by a robed figure in the… uh, in an alleyway.” The lady responded.

“Like decaying nasty? On a fresh wound?” I asked, remembering the woman who had died in my arms earlier.

“Yeah.” We began to muse over the connection between everything that had happened: the strange wounds, the robed figures, and the guards. It was clear by the timing that the robed figures had something to do with the red-painted attackers, but there wasn’t much any of us knew. Thus, before we said much, the half-elf stopped us.

“I think this discussion would be better had somewhere safer.” She cautioned.

“Then we should head to the guard station. Even if there are no guards there to help, it will at least have supplies.” The halfling suggested, and we all agreed, though the half-orc gave a token protest in favor of searching out more combat. The half-elf quickly assured him we’d probably find a fight on the way. After all, the city was under attack.

Before we could decide which guard station to head to, however, a crowd of people came running through the plaza. Low and behold there was at least one guard other than the halfling left in the city. He was directing the group that raced by as they traveled through the war torn streets. He called out to us as they passed:

“The walls have been breached! The city is lost! Head to the docks! We must escape the city!” With his brief warning delivered, he continued to herd the citizens to the south. We quickly decided to follow.

What awaited us there was the bright, orange flames of all the city’s boats set afire. Massive ships all flying the same colors dotted the river. They clearly belonged to the red-painted soldiers who had taken the city. Behind us, those same enemies surrounded us, killing any who fought back. Eventually a lull in the battle appeared, and a leader among the attackers came forward. “Surrender or die.” He declared simply.

The half-orc who I had fought beside in the plaza immediately went to protest by readying his weapon until the half-elf put her hand on his arm to caution him. “There will be time for revenge another day.”

“It will not be revenge for me.” He grunted back, still hesitant.

“For me it will be.” She murmured with quiet fury.

Something in those words, perhaps the fierce anger so lowly spoken, seemed to convince him “You promise me a good fight?” He asked.

“It will be.” She swore in a voice dripping with venom. With a grunt of agreement, he dropped his sword. Everyone in the crowd did as well. Surrender was the clearly logical choice. We were vastly outnumbered with no place to retreat. If even the battle-hungry half-orc could see it, how could the rest of us not?

Logic did little for my heart as despair locked around it just as the cold metal of the shackles locked around my wrists.

Almost a hundred and twenty years, and I was still as powerless as the night slavers invaded the small fishing village I was born in off the coast of Martovia. That night, the bells rang out as they had here, and my family fought as I had fought here. My father and eldest brother lay dead at our feet as my sister and I urged Tuenoril to surrender. Just as the woman had urged the half-orc. It was the clearly logical choice then too. But my mother never even saw Kessan, and my only remaining family despises even the sight of me. Was it logical if you died anyway? Was it logical if in return for your life you lost everyone you cared about?

I had hoped I would never have to make that choice again. I trained so I would never have to make that choice again. I thought I had become stronger since then. That I could at least defend myself if something like that ever happened again.

I stared down at the shackles.

As the weight of my past and my present overtook me, all I could feel was a vast apathy resurging from a human lifetime ago.

It must certainly be that the Elven gods are dead, and our fates cast off to crueler ones.

#pathfinder #elf #magus #landlesskingarnny #ArvaelonNarkerym #journal #tabletop #roleplay #rp #kalredia #homebrew

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geek-patient-zero · 5 years ago

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Part 2, Chapter 2

Or: Prospect Fights

Blood War: Masquerade of the Red Death Trilogy Volume 1

Brooklyn, NY—March 14, 1994

Last chapter we were introduced to our second main protagonist (and secret “former” ancient vampire) Alicia Varney, her manservant (and sometimes lover but only if she’s really desperate) Sanford Jackson, and her (ignorantly treated and no doubt illegally owned) pet black panther Sumohn. Miss Varney decided to start her day off by taking her pet for a walk in “Prospect Heights Park”, which Jackson described as a virtual No Man’s Land abandoned by the police and local government to gangs and psychos.

Before we move on, let’s talk a bit about the place.

In real life, the park this chapter takes place in is called Prospect Park. No “Heights”. Looks like Weinberg got the name confused with Prospect Heights, a small but affluent neighborhood and one of five that border the park. The park’s main entrance, Grand Army Plaza, is part of Prospect Heights, so along with the name and location I can see how you can confuse the two.

There really was a point, during the 70′s, where the park was considered dangerous and crime-infested. I know. A place in New York City? In the 70′s? Awful? Nah, can’t be. Back then, 44% of New Yorkers warned others to avoid the park. One New York Times article I’ve found from 2010, about a then-retiring park administrator credited with helping restore the place, begins with this about 1970′s Prospect Park:

Drugs were sold at the carousel. Muggers used the cover provided by the park’s shrubs and foliage. One year, near the skating rink, a man was found shot to death, and another year, the acting supervisor of the zoo was arrested and charged with shooting animals.

In the 1970s, Prospect Park in Brooklyn looked more like a crime scene than the pastoral refuge imagined a century earlier by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux.

As if to advertise the woeful state of the park, in 1976 Columbia, the figure driving atop the arch at Grand Army Plaza, fell over in her chariot, a victim of disrepair.

So don’t go thinking that Weinberg got all this stuff from nothing.

During the 80′s and early 90′s, thanks to efforts from both the city and non-profits like The Prospect Park Alliance, the park was cleaned up and became a nice safe place to take the kids. But this is the World of Darkness, a Harsher, Crueler Yadda Dadda Da, you get the point. Going with the usual theme of “Everything’s Awful, Always, and We’re All Going to Die (And There’s Werewolves N’ Shit)” what little restoration efforts were made to the park in this universe failed miserably. And hoooohoho man did they fail. Here’s how the chapter starts, with a more thorough description of the park now that we’ve got a viewpoint character there:

Huge white signs with blood-red lettering were posted on every gate leading into the park, declaring the area off-limits to law-abiding citizens. The posters, left untouched more as a grim joke than sage advice, were ignored by the crowds of people who constantly entered and left the forested area. Prospect Heights served as the major supply center of illicit drugs, assault weapons, and kept women in New York City. It was also the headquarters of more than a half-dozen major gangs and two terrorist groups.

Anything illegal could be bought for a price in the dense woods. That purchasing the goods required a certain amount of risk was a fact of life. It was all part of the New York scene. Those who couldn’t adapt, left. Or died.

A fifteen-foot-high steel fence surrounded the entire park. The last attempt of a previous administration to keep the cancerous growth of the park from spreading through Brooklyn and the connecting boroughs, it worked more as a barrier to keep the police out than the criminals in. At least once a month, a body was found impaled on the sharp spikes that topped the posts. Several years ago a dozen heads had decorated the pikes for days, a grim reminder of the gang warfare that waged incessantly within the gates.

It’s like if instead of closing down and becoming an auto parts shop, your local Blockbuster turned into a snuff film distributor. Also, goddamn terrorists moved in.

No one dared to enter the park alone, or unarmed. Unless that person was Alicia Varney.

Walking in with a panther doesn’t mean you’re accompanied and armed? Good to know, good to know.

It’s currently early afternoon, and let’s see... She got up at sunrise, which in March would be between six and six-thirty. The events of the last chapter seemed to have taken about over an hour. She’d have to get from Manhattan to Brooklyn in World of Darkness New York City traffic. Assuming she was driven she probably didn’t beat rush hour. If she had really bad luck, she would’ve had to deal with squeegie-men; y’know, those guys who wash the windows of cars stuck in traffic without being asked and try to extort the driver for the “service”? And she’d have to take a route that avoided the Baseball Furies. Add all that up and... I guess? Frankly, early afternoon’s the best case scenario here.

Varney, with Sumohn by her side with a thin leather strip for a leash, enters the park near the giant carousel (which according to the PPA website is the Willink entrance, east side of the park, at Flatbush Avenue and Empire Boulevard). The carousel was “one of the last efforts in the futile attempt to restore Prospect Heights to its former glory”, making it sound like the whole thing was installed recently instead of being a part of the park since the early 1900′s.

Alright, alright, no more park talk. You’re here for vampires, not Brooklyn history, I get it.

The black panther growled softly with every step. A great deal different than an ordinary jungle cat, the monstrous beast possessed more than five senses. It detected hostility in the woods. And death.

After what we’ve been told about the park, no shit, cat.

I’ve seen some WOD vampire OC’s described as having ghoul pets, There’s this one video campaign on Youtube, Blood on the Thames, where the Nosferatu character has a pet ghouled fennec fox. But when you think about it, if ghouling works the same with animals as it does with people, then they’re not really pets. They’re mental slaves, their feelings of love and loyalty toward their owner artificial. They might look happy to see your OC, but in reality it’s having a little heart attack out of fear because the thing rubbing its belly is an unnatural dead thing that God hates and they can’t do anything but let it. And your OC wouldn’t even know.

But I’ve never seen that aspect explored before. In fanworks, Ghouling’s just a way for a vampire to have a pet with an extended lifespan. In official material, there’re other important benefits to ghouling animals. Feeding them a little vampire blood every once in a while makes them bigger, faster, and stronger, and since they’re compelled to be loyal to you, they make useful weapons. We’ll see that a few times in this trilogy.

Sumohn senses something dangerous in the park, and you won’t be surprised to learn that the she and her owner aren’t here just for exercise.

“I feel it too,” said Alicia softly, talking to the panther as if it possessed human intelligence. “They’re out there in the park somewhere. Watching and waiting for me. I first sensed their presence when I woke up this morning.

We saw you wake up this morning. You shimmied around in your sheets naked while thinking about how good it was to be alive. Then took a shower and masturbated. But maybe ancient Mesopotamians have a different way of reacting to threats on their life. How would I know?

Someone wants me dead. They’re hiding in the woods. I thought it best to confront them here, on their home ground, instead of chancing their disrupting my plans for the evening.”

She sensed this one threat in Brooklyn all the way from her Manhatten penthouse. Fucking Methuselahs...

Once they’re far enough into the woods for the setting to be dark and ominous even in the afternoon, Varney takes the collar and leash off Sumohn so it can hunt down her enemies.

Chuckling, Alicia tucked the leather strap into her belt. She had complete faith in her pet. It would find and eliminate those who meant her harm. It was just a matter of time.

While Sumohn’s hunting her enemies, Varney decides to take a stroll and enjoy nature. Big business Manhattan garbage had been cutting into her free time, and it’s been months “since she had experienced the feeling of freedom walking in the woods gave her.” She plans on enjoying it as fully and luxuriously as she does everything else, all the while “mentally” keeping an eye out for threats.

Alicia had no desire to be surprised by unexpected visitors. Jackson had been correct when he said that Prospect Heights was no place for a young, unarmed woman. But Alicia was a great deal older than her bodyguard imagined. And she was not nearly as unprotected as Jackson thought.

She hears Sumohn’s “scream of rage” break the silence, meaning her pet had just made a kill. Unfortunately, despite Varney making it sound like the panther would wipe out her enemies on its own, Sumohn worked too slowly. Varney abruptly realizes that she was surrounded by five other people. She can’t see them yet, but she can sense them with her psychic radar power that I’m assuming is an Auspex power. Two of them are heading toward her, so she summons Sumohn back to her. This being a vampire story, she does this with a brief theater kid monologue.

“I refuse to let anyone interrupt my plans,” muttered Alicia angrily. “Death is not an acceptable option at this stage of the game. Sumohn, attend me. There is killing work to be done here.”

The two hostiles reach her.

“Hey, lady?” The speaker was a short, thin man around thirty, dressed in a pair of faded blue jeans. He wore no shirt, despite the cool March weather. A tattoo of a naked woman with an arrow passing through her breasts adorned his hairless chest. Stuck in the waist of his pants was a .45 automatic. “You lost or something?”

“Yeah, said his companion, tall and wide, with a shaven head, pencil-thin eyebrows, and a perpetual leer. He also wore jeans and no shirt. A 12-gauge shotgun, carried loosely in one hand, was his weapon. “Or maybe you’re looking for some action.”

They weren’t called “swarthy,” so these must be white gangbangers.

Varney realizes the assassins plan to rape her before killing her, because this is dark fantasy and rape’s gonna get brought up eventually. There’s some prose about sex and death being linked throughout history, especially hers, then she begins to deal with these guys. Now, you figure she’ll start with one of her vampire powers. Maybe a Presence power, making the gang awed and infatuated with her and drawing them into killing distance. Or maybe she’ll skip messing with their heads and use Celerity to boost her speed and reflexes, swiftly killing them before they can reach for their guns. Or

“Actually,” declared Alicia, taking a tentative step forward, “I was looking for some big, handsome men to satisfy the hunger inside me. I need to be fucked. Repeatedly. Do you two think you can help me?”

...Or that?

“Huh?” said the short man, her reply taking him completely by surprise. His face turned beet red. It was an old trick, but one that still worked. The jerks expected her to cower in fear, beg for mercy–not talk about sex. They weren’t sure how to respond.

Gun her down immediately because this is clearly a trap.

Look, despite how I might come across, I don’t get bothered every time a character does something irrational or wrong in a story. But considering this gang shares their territory with six or seven other gangs and two terrorist groups, and one bad move could get their heads mounted on the park perimeter, there’s no way they should be stupid enough to fall for this. But they do, because the writer wanted to contrive a scene where Alicia Varney “weaponizes her sexuality” I guess.

Varney’s “vulgar declaration” also lures out the three other men, who “didn’t want to miss out on any of the action.” Now all of her enemies are in view, but considering she could sense their presence accurately enough to know exactly how many of them there are, she really didn’t have to.

“You heard me,” said Alicia, raising her voice so that everyone could hear her. “I’m burning up. I want it so bad my body feels like it’s on fire.” She ran her hands up and down her hips, pressing the material of her pants tight against her skin. She moaned passionately. “If I don’t get it quick, I’ll go crazy.”

“Hot damn,” said the big man excitedly, his hands trembling as he fumbled with the buttons of his pants. “The bitch wants to get screwed, and I’m going to nail her right now. The rest of you jokers wait in line, ‘cause I’m first.”

God damn, this is so unnecessary.

The shorter guy struggles with his belt in an attempt to beat his friend to the sex, but thankfully this whole bit comes to an end when Sumohn pounces on him and pulps his head with her jaws. Trusting the panther to take care of the other guy as well, Varney turns to the three other gang members. They try to aim their guns at her, but instead start jerking around “in a ghastly parody of dancing”, unable to shoot her as she approaches.

“What the hell is wrong?” screamed the nearest of the trio, a young black man still in his teens. “I can’t do nothing.”

“A simple matter of paralyzing the part of the brain controlling motor skills,” said Alicia with a smile.

There’re some Thaumatergy powers that could do this, but Varney will turn out to have nothing to do with the Tremere, so it’s unlikely this is any of those. There’s also Paralyzing Glance, an advanced Presence power that can “send someone into a seizure of terror.” Or maybe I’m overthinking it and she’s just generically psychic.

Varney kills the teenager first by tearing out his throat, her technique described more thoroughly than when Makish ripped out a guy’s throat. The second guy, she uses the old “smash his nose cartilage into his brain” move, the second time someone’s been killed that way in this story, and not the last time someone will be in this trilogy. Apparently it’s impossible to do. Even if cartilage was strong enough to penetrate bone, using enough force to do so would likely smash the victim’s skull in anyway. But it sounds cool and Weinberg was probably fond of it. He also seemed to think it would result in a quick death because he described Varney as “merciless but not cruel” before she does it. Anyway, the third guy faints, so Varney snaps his neck while he’s unconscious.

“Very neat, Miss Varney,” said a voice from behind her. “But not really very smart. You let yourself get distracted by the diversions. I’m the real threat.”

Alicia turned, knowing she was too late.

If the assassin who snuck up on you is this chatty and you still don’t turn around by the time he’s finished, you should feel embarrassed.

Sumohn’s too busy tearing apart the guy who was taking his pants off earlier to notice her owner’s in trouble, “a wonderful ally but was too easily tempted” as the narration puts it. This sixth guy, her “true enemy” who somehow evaded her telepathic people sensor, is a well dressed young man already squeezing the trigger on his submachine gun. But instead of Varney dying and ending her role in the story weirdly early, the assassin drops with the handle of a bowie knife sticking out of his back.

“I paralyzed his fingers so he wouldn’t jerk the trigger by accident,” said a blonde man in a white suit and white shirt, walking over to the corpse. Bending down, he jerked the knife out of the body and wiped the blood on the dead man’s clothes.

Hey, Reuben.

He tells Varney that the dead guy was named Leo Taggert, who was headquartered in Coney Island and specialized in “celebrity kills”. The other jerks were local talent he hired. He was also a ghoul who could hide his thoughts, which is why Varney didn’t sense him. Varney asks who Reuban is, thinking he looks familiar yet positive she’d never met him, but Reuben only says he’s “a friend.”

He turned and started walking down the road. “Better call off your pet,” he said in parting. “That man’s quite dead.”

Distracted for an instant, Alicia glanced at Sumohn. When her gaze returned to where the stranger had been, he was gone.

Quickly she mentally scanned the area. Discounting a drug dealer and his teenage customers, there was no one within a hundred yards of her location. It was quite mysterious. Alicia hated mysteries.

Varney asks Sumohn if she saw Reuban, but because she’s a big dumb animal all Sumohn’s thinking about is “blood and death.” And probably mating, because Varney doesn’t seem like the type who spays her pets. She didn’t notice the stranger either during or after the attack, like he appeared and disappeared out of thin air.

“And this SOB,” said Alicia, kicking the dead body of Leo Taggert in frustration, “called me by my name. He was no ordinary assassin hired by my business rivals. He was a ghoul. Which ties him in with the Kindred. And the joker knew enough about me to hide his thoughts. Damn.”

At least her first fight went better than McCann’s. The only thing he has over her in this department is that he didn’t try to distract his would-be assassin with the idea of unexpected sex.

Varney assumes that Jackson’s loyal, so she figures whoever wants her dead has either been watching her closely, or they’re linked to her “friends” at The Devil’s Playground.

First there had been the distressing tiding about Baba Yaga. Now came this assassination attempt, coupled with the appearance of the oddly familiar young man. Alicia wondered grimly what else could go wrong.

It was a question best not asked.

That’s the end of the chapter. Alicia Varney’s “weaponized sexuality” scene in this chapter is the lowest/most awkward this trilogy gets. The good news is, no matter what other dumb things happens, it’s all uphill from here.

#vampire the masquerade #vampire: the masquerade #vtm #world of darkness #blood war

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yarnings · 6 years ago

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Dangerous Time

I finished washing the lunch dishes and mentally ran through my list of chores, deciding what I wanted to get done that afternoon. Jamie had spent the morning checking household accounts and correspondence, but had announced at lunch that he was going to walk the fences to see if anything needed repairing. Roger volunteered to go with him (to facilitate repairs happening immediately), and Jem and Germaine negotiated to be able to accompany the men.

There were simples I could be compounding, but something that could be done outside was preferable. Just like Jamie, I wanted to be outside, taking advantage of the mild spring weather. My thoughts lighted on the mending. I sighed, weighing the tedious chore against the pleasure of taking it outside to work on. The overflowing state of the mending basket won the argument in favour of me taking a chair and the workbasket outside. Ever since Jenny had left to live with Ian and Rachel, the mending had been accumulating as I always seemed to find other tasks that were more urgent.

I dug out one of Jamie’s shirts, and examined the hole in the arm. I could probably get away with just darning it. Brianna, for once without a more industrial project to occupy her scant free time, came out with two chairs, followed by a somewhat sullen Mandy carrying a large workbasket. Brianna set up the chairs, and Mandy immediately threw herself bonelessly into one of them. Brianna handed Mandy a bundle of fabric and dug out her own project, which appeared to be a new shirt for Jem. We really need to get some more domestic help I thought. I had made do on my own when we first came to the ridge but that was when it was just the three of us, and there were fewer demands on my time as a healer. (We had also had a larger store of clothes, so the mending had been able to be ignored for longer before it threatened our ability to find something to wear.)

In theory Mandy’s project was going to be a dress for her doll. I had my doubts, as she was a little young to be trying to sew an actual project, especially for such an active child. But she took to it reasonably well. Her upset was more due to having been denied the chance to go with her grandfather than with the alternative employment that she had been presented with.

The three of us sewed for a while, and Mandy kept up a ceaseless commentary on her project, the birds, the interesting plants she had seen that morning, her opinions of lunch, and everything else that crossed her mind. After a while she stopped doing any actual sewing. Brianna reached over to see what progress had been made on the dress, and told Mandy that she could go and play. Mandy was off like a shot, leaving Bree and me in blessed silence.

I interrupted that silence a few minutes later, noticing a wistful look on Bree’s face as she looked at where Mandy had run off.

“They grow up so quickly. I remember when you were that age. Always wanting to go and do things on your own.” I got a real smile for that, but Brianna shook her head.

“I was just thinking about how different their childhood is going to be. I thought I’d come to terms with it before, but after going back… As much as I love being here with you and Da, there is no way I would have brought the kids back if we weren’t in danger there. Do you know what the life expectancy at birth is for people here, now? 35 years. It’s twice that back home by now.” She pressed her lips together, as if to prevent more fear from leaking out.

I hesitated, not wanting to dismiss her realisation of the very real risks of this time. But a bit of basic hygiene went a long way towards making one so much safer than everyone else in this time.

“That’s the number for a country full of people who don’t understand what germs are or anything about how to stop them. Whose best medical care is generally a man who thinks that bad air causes diseases, which can be fixed by bleeding. I’m fairly sure that we are somewhat better off on the ridge. You’re not going to die of a hangnail here.” Thinking of some of the patients I had lost who I would have expected to be able to save, honesty forced me to add “Well, it’s extremely unlikely.”

“People don’t die from hangnails, Mama.”

“They can if said hangnail gets infected. It’s quite fascinating to look at what is listed as historical causes of death – not just now, this goes back to when they started listing cause of death in records. All sorts of things that aren’t really fatal, but if they’re the cause of an infection, they got listed. Figuring out germs might be beyond people right now, but they can still see infection moving through the body. If you get a hangnail, and then a few days later you see an infection spreading from there to the rest of the body, you blame the hangnail.

“ I can’t always do as much as I would want to once infection takes hold, but so much of it could be prevented just by simple things like clean bandages, and washing your hands with soap.”

Brianna made a Scottish noise, but didn’t say anything more, so we worked in silence for a little while. As I finished the shirt and was looking for the next-smallest mending job, she spoke again.

“You weren’t entirely honest with why 35 years doesn’t really apply.” I put the stocking I had in my hand back down, and gave her my full attention.

“A child of Jem’s age has a longer expected lifespan ahead of him than a newborn does. And there’s even a noticeable boost to expected age at death if they make it to adulthood. Now, I kept up with the kids’ shots, and Dr. Joe made sure we had all the ones that aren’t in the regular schedule. But if we all get cholera, there’s nothing you’d be able to do about that, and then they’d just be statistics. Roger and I – we know that there’s risks and decided to stay. But in doing so, we decided for Jem and Mandy. What if they don’t think it’s a good trade?”

I was surprised at this unexpected awareness of risk from Bree. Mandy’s heart problems had obviously worked a profound change on her. Not that that was really surprising when I thought about it, I just hadn’t thought. We expect our children to go on the same as always, even though our entire role as parents is to shepherd them through change. It made sense that she would worry more now, even despite the fact that she hadn’t worried this much about Jem, even before he got modern vaccinations and removed a lot of the risks – And then it clicked.

“How far along are you?” I asked gently. She shot me a look, and twisted her mouth up in acknowledgement of the obviousness of the source of her concern.

“We’re not quite sure. We’re fairly sure that there were some issues with switching over from my pills to the seeds, and given the cause, I’m not sure I trust my period to be as regular as it normally would have been. Probably around 6 weeks though.”

My mind raced with possibilities. There wasn’t much I could do in the way of prenatal care. I was out of practice anyhow – my family medicine rotation had been a long time ago, and even if I’d had the diagnostic tools for routine care now, no one in this time would consider a routine pregnancy to be a reason to see the doctor. Until it was time for the baby to come, my hands were tied. Of course, it might not matter. For all my confidence in my medical skills, there wasn’t a lot I could do if there was a problem in utero. I was suddenly worried. If Brianna was worried about the safety of the children, would they return? Would this pregnancy be the impetus they needed to go back and face their problems in the 20th century? Bree’s second pregnancy hadn’t been, but Brianna clearly had a more accurate understanding of how dangerous this century was now.

Following my train of thought on my glass face, Brianna reached out and touched my hand.

“Roger and I talked about it. We’re staying.”

It’s amazing what an effect two words could have. They couldn’t vaccinate this baby. They couldn’t prevent bandits or other marauders from coming and burning the house. They couldn’t prevent the kids from having a fall like Henri-Christian. But they could make everything ok.

“Good. Your father will be thrilled.”

#gotham's writing workshop #Week 8 #Fugitives from the law of averages #Outlander #fan fiction

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jtblogs · 4 years ago

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Q&A w/ Tyler Eresian

It’s Saturday afternoon. The sun is beginning to crack through the clouds as a glorious 60 degree day is upon the town of Beverly. What better time is there to grab a world class sub from a legendary establishment? Stepping inside, one can see several employee’s hard at work, piecing together arguably the best sandwich that someone is going to eat that day. In a normal year, the line is wrapping around the building, stacked with eager patrons. This envelops exactly what SuperSub brings to the table.

Throughout SuperSub’s 50 year lifespan, the team is dedicated to recruiting and hiring the best fit for the atmosphere and reputation that is upheld within the establishment. Tyler Eriesian is a longtime employee and a great representation of what the SuperSub family expects out of their workers. Tyler brings a personable and welcoming attitude to every customer that walks through their doors. On top of that, he also helps Paul Guanci, SuperSub’s owner, with their catering service: Casual Catering. This has been a great secondary revenue stream for the SuperSub team and plays as a big part of their success.

Eriesian brings that extra leap towards relatability as a home town man. He graduated from Beverly High School in 2007. Shortly after, he acquired his associates degree at North Shore Community College in Danvers, Massachusetts and carries along as a key member of the SuperSub and Casual Catering team. He plays a significant role in the everyday operations of the restaurant.

Q (Jackson): How did you get started with SuperSub?

A (Tyler): I got started here in about 2004 because my step-dad was working for Paul on Sundays and he introduced me to Paul’s dad, who owned the store at the time. And then I ended up getting a job that way. I started in around high school

Q: I have some experience in the food industry as well and I know that it is a tough task to handle sometimes. What about SuperSub makes it seem like more of a family?

A: Paul is like a dad, father figure, you name it for me. He has really taken care of me my whole life. I had a bunch of personal struggles that I was going through at the time and Paul really stepped up and he made sure that I got the help that I needed. The whole store rallied around me to help make sure that I was healthy and able to work here long term. Everyone else has always supported me and they’ve done well by me. They are awesome people and I would totally go out of my way to help them.

Q: That is so awesome. I wanted to ask you, what is your favorite part about working for SuperSub?

A: Most times I come in here, my main objective is to make peoples food. That’s what makes me happy. And when someone comes back in and says “That was the best food I’ve ever had,” that is definitely the most rewarding thing for me, especially coming from a place like this. I do a lot of other things, usually in the back, but ultimately my favorite thing is to make food for people. Like, I come in every day and all I wanna do is make peoples food.

Q: What is your favorite menu item?

A: I love the pastrami. Really good pastrami. Especially if you get it chopped fine so it’s like a cheesesteak in a sense. It’s made so good that way. My second favorite thing I would say is the chicken cutlets with sauce and cheese, especially if they are cooked perfectly. Such juicy chicken, if made right. It’s so good.

Q: Are you also involved in Casual Catering? What are some of the things you do?

A: Yes I am involved. A lot of the catering trays, Paul makes all by himself. If he’s not here I’ll obviously take over. The thing he is most concerned about is our chicken and broccoli ziti because it is our most popular catering entree. What these guys do is we’ll sometimes make subs or cheesesteaks for a tray. But most of all we do the larger batches that Paul or I make.

Q: Have you had any notable experiences with customers?

A: Some guests I have taken care of personally I have become long term friends with over the years. A number of them that I have created the connection here and then went and hung out away from the restaurant. Certain people come in you know, and they just make you smile. They walk in and you’re like “heyheyyy!” That’s a good feeling for us, as well as them where people know your name and what you order. Those bonds, I think they’re long term honestly I mean there are people who have been coming in here since the 80’s. Because of the environment we provide for people, we generally do not have many negative responses if someone dislikes our food.

Q: How well were you able to handle the weight of working with a pandemic on our hands?

A: We at SuperSub were fortunate enough to stay open during the entire pandemic. With having a bunch of new rules, it was definitely much harder to continue with our usual flow. I was perfectly okay with wearing a mask. At the very beginning, like before it became the law, I was totally okay with it. I believe that we at SuperSub are the cleanest in Beverly. We already wore gloves and regularly kept the store tidy, so we were at an advantage from the start. Like regularly, we are rated ten out of ten for cleanliness and that just went up with COVID-19. Right now, we don’t have inside dining. I mean it’s obvious it’s a bit small inside. Like, it would be very cluttered and everything, so I’m glad that we are able to still provide outside dining. In this time, we probably only took off like three or four days for employee breaks or days to sanitize everything.

Q: What do you see in the future of SuperSub?

A: Well, the ultimate goal is to be here long term. And honestly, I just want to help Paul do less. Right now he does so much. He does literally everything. He’s here at lunch and dinner, doing most of the catering. He’s doing all the paperwork and the ordering. So much… And like, I’m trying to get him to do less. Like “hey, we can help you do this stuff if you let us.” That’s like the ultimate goal long term is to take some weight off of his shoulders and I can do more so he can rest for once. He’s very tired a lot and always working. I want him to do less and me do more to help him out. That’s the goal.

A: That’s awesome...

#SuperSub

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solivar · 7 years ago

Text

WIP: Matryoshka

A slice of life in Hong Kong.

Written for my dearest @exmachinus ‘ natal day. I’m afraid it’s going to have to be a fic in two parts, my fic-daughter, because my brain is running out of coherent sentences.

Hanzo Shimada was a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, and, frankly, is was driving Jesse McCree out of his goddamned mind.

For a significant number of years Jesse had cherished a rather fixed idea of who and what Hanzo Shimada was: the sort of man who, at the behest of his clan’s elders, would murder his own brother, then turn around and abandon the whole lot of them to their fate when Blackwatch came calling to end their criminal empire, scampering out ahead of a whole can of asswhup, only to turn up years later as one of the world’s best and most sought after and highly paid assassins, with corporate robber barons, corrupt military officials, and the heads of at least two fairly nasty and dysfunctional states on his confirmed resumé. A coldly self-interested bastard, in short, who valued nothing more highly than the sanctity of his own admittedly very pretty skin and the resources necessary to maintain it in the fashion to which it had become accustomed during his brief stint as kumicho of the Shimada-gumi. That idea had calcified over the years and settled into the bedrock of his preconceived notions with nothing to alter or dislodge it -- particularly not Genji Shimada, the aforementioned murdered brother plucked more dead than alive out of Hanamura and reconstructed as a moderately psychotic cyborg killing machine with knives for ankles and a seething hatred of his brother matched only by his seething hatred of himself, and certainly not the years he spent on the run after the fall of the ‘Watches, trying to avoid the sort of attention that would shorten his own lifespan rather significantly.

At some point in there, though, Genji found religion. Or he found himself. Or he found religion and himself and, upon doing so, decided that he didn’t really want the brother who had wronged him so profoundly dead any longer. Jesse could respect that in a man. Revenge was the sort of vice that lacked any meaningful step-down program and learning that his dearest friend, his brother in all but blood, had decided to forgo it for his own emotional and spiritual good was entirely understandable. Less entirely understandable? When he found himself looking at a combination contractual/emotional blackmail agreement under which he found himself relocating to Hong Kong to act as the bodyguard for said stone-cold snake/coldblooded assassin brother.

The least comprehensible part of all?

The moment he watched Hanzo Shimada, startlingly hot ice-cold rat-bastard, hurrying across the lobby of the ritzy arcology complex in which they lived to help one of his little old lady neighbors with her shopping bags, a thing he seemed to do on the regular. Regularly enough that she greeted him by name -- not his real name, of course, but Kira Ishinomori, the alias he used to all his neighbors and to Jesse himself -- and patted his arm and called him a good boy and gave his hulking giant of an American boyfriend the stink-eye when he came over to help. Hanzo/Kira’s neighbors were more or less evenly split among those who thought that Jesse/Jesse was the best possible thing that could happen to their shy and withdrawn neighbor who clearly wasn’t actually a serial killer despite his weird habit of disappearing at random in the middle of the night and those who wanted him to walk off a balcony in the dark and fall thirty stories to his death because they had cherished some hope of setting said neighbor up with one or more of their grandchildren. Mrs. Takaguchi-Simmons was one of the latter and regarded him with baleful disfavor even as he helped hump approximately six thousand pounds of groceries up five flights of stairs because the lifts were acting up again.

Hanzo/Kira’s neighbors would, each and every one, flatly refuse to believe that he had ever been a gangster-lord, a brother-murdering kinslayer, or was currently a professional assassin, even if they were shown incontrovertible evidence to the contrary -- which, as a matter of fact, they saw at least semi-regularly in the form of elaborate ink because the man didn’t always wear button-down sleeves. Hanzo/Kira was the sort who, when he knew a neighbor or a neighbor’s child was sick, would turn up on the doorstep with a pot of warm okayu and another pot of tea and would sit with the invalid while they ate and do the dishes afterwards. Hanzo/Kira always remembered birthdays and anniversaries -- Jesse knew because Toshokan-in’s calendar was full of reminders -- and he always bought or made at least a card and usually acquired some small but appropriate gift, as well. Hanzo/Kira was respectful of and helpful to his elderly neighbors with the reflexive deference of someone raised from the cradle to honor his elders, even the immensely crotchety Old Man Zheng, who had been the leading proponent of the serial killer explanation for his erratic comings and goings and who had lost quite a bit of money in the arcology betting pool when Jesse showed up to disprove it. Hanzo/Kira could occasionally be found sitting on the balcony smiling wistfully over the antics of the neighborhood children and slipping them candy and small bits of spending money when their parents weren’t looking. Hanzo/Kira interrogated him with immense casualness about his likes and dislikes, the things he preferred and those he merely endured, somehow sussed out his birthday from that information and baked him a cake, bought him a box of his favorite cigars and a fifty year old bottle of bourbon, and watched a John Ford movie marathon with him as they snuggled down together on the kotatsu and got happily shitfaced on forty-thousand dollar hooch.

Jesse was having significant quantities of trouble believing it himself and he knew every bit of it was true. Had trouble since the moment they’d met, when Hanzo/Kira had swooped out of nowhere to literally step on the heads of obnoxious punks causing him grief and seriously testing his desire to avoid attention from local law enforcement. Had trouble since that first morning/afternoon when Hanzo/Kira had floated the obvious explanation for his sudden advent with the word lovers and then took to cultivating the appearance with enthusiasm and verve. Had trouble because nowadays he was waking up every morning with his arms and head and heart all full of him and, oh, was he ever fucked.

Flickers of the sort of cold he’d expected from the start showed through every now and again, but they were few and far between. The most obvious and most persistent was the spare bedroom he’d turned into a walk-in storage and manufacture closet for his weapons, protected from accidental access by its own security system, to which he’d only been permitted entry once, and he had come out with a cold shiver lodged in the base of his spine that had refused to thaw all day. Hanzo/Kira had not, to his knowledge, accepted any side contracts since taking him in, ostensibly to protect him from his numerous enemies both real and fictional. Jesse was legitimately unsure of what he’d do or say if he did, since at least some of the proceeds from that particular profession were fueling his current lifestyle, which involved eating delicious food prepared by a man who really knew how to cook, drinking the best class of booze he had enjoyed in many a long year, indulging his favorite old hobby (photography) and his favorite new hobby (lounging in the sun smoking and playing endless games of Mah Jong with two salty old men), updating Joel Morricone’s blog on a significantly more regular basis, and sleeping safe and warm in the arms of a man who could probably kill him with his toes alone.

(“How much of this comes from…” He’d begun to ask one day only to come to a halt when one of those flickers of cold happened -- Kira’s warm amber-brown eyes icing over and his face going utterly still and he knew he was looking on the last thing at least a few people in the world had ever seen.

“My day job?” Hanzo Shimada had asked, and the silky-cold smoothness of it had sent a chill rolling down his back. “Less than you might think. If it bothers you --”

“Oh no. No. I was just --” He reached over the breakfast table and caught his hand. “A li’l curious, is all.”

“Ah.” A little smile twitched at the corner of his mouth and a certain impish gleam came into his eyes and the cold was gone just like that. “To be honest, before I left Japan I extracted my entire trust fund and moved it into an anonymous offshore account. Genji’s, as well. Once matters settled enough to allow it, I laundered it through a number of different operations, and placed most of it in a highly diversified investment portfolio. I have been living off the proceeds ever since.” He picked up and nibbled at an apricot. “Honestly, the first goal of any Yakuza worth the name is extracting as much profit as possible from any enterprise in which he involves himself. You have no idea how close I am to being a CPA.”

“So, uh,” Jesse had asked, “why the killin’ people?”

“Some people deserve to die,” Had replied Hanzo Shimada and Jesse fell a little bit more in love than he’d been before.)

And, yes, he was in love. Deeply, fucking stupidly in love, with his best friend’s big brother, with whom he was sleeping nightly, chastely, platonically. And it was killing him. Killing him dead. It was not only that he was hotter than the photosphere of the sun, all warm golden eyes and silver-threaded black hair and regal aquiline features you’d find in paintings of Heian court noblemen and a body kept in shape through regular exercise that did not partake of the hellborn abomination known as jogging. It was not only that he seemed perpetually bathed in a gentle, intoxicating blend of cedar-cinnamon-sandalwood-spice that invaded the senses and worked its way into his dreams and likely was the sort of thing that would make men far straighter than himself seriously question their sexuality. It was absolutely not only the cooking.

It was a blend of all the things he’d show himself to be since he’d come into Jesse’s life, or Jesse had come into his, and Jesse was absolutely, one hundred percent certain that Hanzo or Kira or Hanzo and Kira recognized absolutely none of them, because the man could, transparently, only barely stand to live in his own skin.

He had come upon the knowledge, randomly and unexpectedly, in the dead of night, when he was woken from a deep and dreamless sleep by the desperate, pained whimpers of an animal with its leg caught in a trap. Or, at least that’s what he thought it was, as his mind swam up from the depths, and then crashed into reality, which was a cold spot at his side that Hanzo usually occupied and sounds that were half-words and half-not, emanating from where he lay curled around himself at the edge of the bed.

“Kira?” Jesse had asked, thoughts fuzzy and muddled with sleep and then, when some of what the man whispering, over and over like a panic mantra, made its way through, “Hanzo?”

He hadn’t responded, except to curl up tighter and sob aloud, words in Japanese he wished he didn’t know but did, from experiences similar. It had taken him awhile to bring him back down, with soft words and gentle touches, and in the morning he had still been quiet and withdrawn. Kira had spent the next few days making a good attempt at being the Best Human Ever, with not a single glimpse of Hanzo peeking through, not matter how alone they were. Jesse had spent them mulling over the knowledge that, even though Genji was alive and had granted his forgiveness freely, Genji’s brother didn’t think he deserved it and still dreamt of why. Spent even more thinking of Kira and of Hanzo and whether or not Hanzo realized they weren’t two different people, not a role and a real person, but one whole being, because nobody, no matter how dedicated they were to verisimilitude, actually bothered to make friends with other people’s kids unless he really enjoyed it, or made his best girl friend a medicinal rub to make her nasty asshole granddaddy less unbearable, or behaved like a basically decent human as completely and reflexively as he did without actually being one. Wondered if there were anything he could do to make him see it, or believe it.

#WIP Matryoshka

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materialsworld · 8 years ago

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Interview with the ss Great Britain Trust

Often at Materials World, we end up speaking to fascinating people with very sumptuous stories to tell. And as often, because brevity is important, much of their comments get left out of our write-ups.

Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking with Nick Booth, Head of Collections, Simon Strain, Active Interpretation Officer, and Luke Holmes, Interpretation Officer, at the ss Great Britain Trust (and got to play around the ship a bit) and, as you can imagine with interviews between three people, there was a lot said.

The recreated kitchen of the ss Great Britain

In the next issue of Materials World, we begin our first regular feature, Material Marvels, looking at engineering ingenuity and history, starting with the ss Great Britain. However, I thought you might enjoy some tidbits - copied verbatim - that didn’t make it into the magazine.

Entirely unsponsored and personal recommendation, but if you’re in the Bristol area, check out the museum some time. The ship has been lovingly recreated, the museum chronicles the timeline of the ship fantastically, and the docks are a sweet place to be. - Khai

----

The Dry Dock that helps preserve the ship’s iron hull

I understand Brunel was a core component in persuading the Navy into adopting iron ships, as they were hesitant to move away from wooden ship, although again I can't speak for the validity of this claim.

Strain: I don't know much about Brunel's involvement with persuading the Navy. I know there had been early tests with iron ships, and the problem was that under cannon fire, iron is brittle and shattered and that was the reason for the hesitancy within the admiralty. It's also why Warrior was iron clad, because the combination of the huge oak hull with an outer layer of iron addressed the brittle issue, as the wood gave a degree of flexibility, but I don't know much about Brunel's involvement in iron warships.

*murmurs of agreement from Holmes and Booth*

I could be wrong.

*laughter*

Holmes: He got up to a lot!

Strain: No doubt he had an opinion about it, and surely made it well known to the admiralty! That's the downside, there's so much he was involved in and so many stories that despite all of the research done and all of the objects found, there're just things that slip through the gaps.

Holmes: I guess the best thing we know [on this] is that he really didn't like the admiralty at all. He got fed up with them very quickly, and I think that's why he preferred private, commercial business. He felt people would listen and he could exact change, whereas the admiralty was just bureaucracy through and through, and there are multiple accounts of him getting very frustrated when he was forced to work with the admiralty or military, or even just the government, and how it took them weeks to replace to one of his letters, but he could do it in a day. He found that whole process very frustrating.

Strain: It's so good to know things have improved a lot, because the military and Government are so good at that nowadays.

*laughter*

Booth: He didn't patent things either. He didn't agree with government interference to that level, and he didn't think engineers should be subject to government inspection. When the Government tried to bring in military inspectors to look at bridges, he didn't agree to an extreme degree. And not patenting things is obviously very interesting, he probably could've made a lot of money from the things he did - and his dad did patent a lot.

Holmes: He felt it interfered with competition in that period, and he mentioned explicitly that it would stifle the ingenuity of the working class. He thought the patent system didn't encourage competitive thinking and coming up with innovation, and I think it was the same with how he hated getting medals and awards for anything. Because he felt people shouldn't be encouraged to do things for merit or reward. Good ideas will make their own living.

----

A replica of Brunel’s original six-bladed iron propeller

The six-bladed propeller was replaced with four, and later to two. I don't know very much about the mechanics of screw propellers, so I'm curious as to why.

Holmes: A lot of the issues were that the six-bladed propeller Brunel designed was the most efficient at the time. That was based on the findings of the report Simon [Strain] just mentioned. But if you imagine, it's still a largely untested technology at that scale, and essentially was too weak. Blades would snap off beneath the water. The other thing was, because they were traveling from Bristol to New York, the water gets very cold and the iron gets exposed to cold iron fatigue - because the iron contracts and expands, it essentially wears the propeller so it deforms and breaks. That was a huge problem, and the propeller was far from a reliable technology in the early life of the ship. As the screw propeller gets more successful and people take more interest in designing them and manufacturing processes catch up, becoming a developed technology better at forging the propellers and tweaking materials used, it got several upgrades over its life. The two-blade propeller was the most successful.

Booth: We've also got a two-blade propeller on the HMS Rattler, a Naval ship, which Brunel inspired. If you can use the propeller, it's a better military technology, leaves more room for guns.

Holmes: There's an interesting relationship between Brunel and the admiralty, because he applied to the admiralty for what is essentially funding for experiments. They were conservative and hated the idea of the propeller - or at least certain people in the admiralty-

Strain: I was going to say, I've read other accounts.

Holmes: But the Rattler is a great example of that. Brunel was promised a ship to experiment on, and they gave him the most rundown, old ship they could find. He turned it into a real success story, and the Rattler went on to have a really successful military career as effectively one of the first screw-propelled warships ever.

Booth: It's really nice that Brunel has to tie-in too. His success in the commercial world and military world. He did write a report for the admiralty too, which we have his handwritten copy here in which he lists the pros and cons, and comes out endorsing the propeller. It's in the format you would recognise today, and not all of his working-out is correct because, well, it was the very start.

*laughter*

Booth: But it's still really interesting to see. There's a famous tug-of-war between the Rattler and another Navy ship with a side propeller...

Strain: The Alecto.

Booth: The Rattler won, pulling the Alecto at a couple of knots, and you can't argue with that. It would be considered now as a PR stunt. Both sides were aware that the Rattler would win. But you can't really argue with that, can you?

----

An imitation decorative sheep’s (?) head atop a pie in the Great Britain kitchen.

Throughout the Great Britain's lifespan, the parameters of the ship changed a lot. The number of propeller blades changed, and the propeller was removed entirely eventually, and the number of masts went down. This gives me the suggestion that there was a gradual backlash against the early innovations of the ship as time went by.

Booth: When she was originally built, she was a transatlantic ship, designed as a steamship with auxiliary sails. When she ran aground in Ireland in Dundrum Bay and there for over a year, and only really survived because she was made of iron, she bankrupted the company that owned her, and was bought and transferred to a sailship with an auxiliary engine, so kinda a switch. That was because she was sailing to Australia and you couldn't carry enough coal to steam all of the way there. That was Brunel's plan for his third ship, something big enough to do that [the Australia trip]. So I think that was the ship changing her life, I'm not sure there was a backlash against the engines, more changing the job she was doing.

Holmes: She was so successful that she grew to an old age, and she couldn't be insured. So they wanted to make as much space for cargo as possible, and that was when she was changed into a windjammer. Interestingly, though, she carried coal so I don't think it's a backlash against that technology as such. In a way, she still facilitated that technology.

Strain: A lot of modern ships built today have a working life of 15-20 years in mind. The Great Britain, which was experimental, was in service as a passenger ship for around 30 years, double what we would expect from a modern ship today. Plus it had a couple of extra years as a cargo ship, and another 30 years as a floating warehouse, so it's really a testament to how well built and designed she was that she lasted for so long and was able to go through so many iterations. Rather than a backlash, I think it's a testament to how sound the basic design of the ship was that she could be repurposed and reused in so many different ways.

Holmes: And rescued.

Strain: And rescued, and brought back! Arguably she is still a working ship today as an award-winning visitor attraction and wedding venue.

Wedding venue?

*murmurs of agreement*

Booth: We get quite a lot of steampunks, I think.

*laughter*

Strain: My father got remarried on the ship. He was a helicopter engineer for the Royal Navy and Brunel is a huge hero of his, so he couldn't pass up the opportunity to get married on the ship.

Booth: You get the whole ship for the afternoon, eat in the dining room.

Strain: No sheep's head.

*laughter*

I'm not interested anymore.

Booth: We do a lot of events, like murder mysteries. They are really fun.

#ss great britain #engineering #isambard kingdom brunel #brunel #steamship #screw propeller #steampunk

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silyabeeodess · 8 years ago

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Kuroshitsuji: Hollow

"Those aren't good for you, you know." A tendril of smoke billowed in the cold, January air as Eric took a puff from the cigarette in his hand. He watched in slight fascination as it danced before his face in a spectacle of winding curves before dissipating along the chilly breeze that tickled his flesh in a needle-like manner, coming from the seam of the damaged frame of the window to his left. Rather than answer his partner, he gave the younger Shinigami a light smirk before bringing the object back up to his lips. He—as with the rest of his kind—were well beyond the point of no return, so what could smoking really do to him? Besides, he needed something for his nerves. Alan narrowed his eyes distastefully as the former continued to ignore his chiding, but spoke up once more nonetheless, "And we're on duty." Despite Eric being his senior, at times he acted much more like a mother than a subordinate to his more experienced partner. It wasn't so much that Eric was irresponsible but that he spent his working hours with an exceptionally lax attitude, doing only the barest minimum of effort required of his services. Alan was the near opposite, keeping the other in check and acting with a zealous fire that shattered through his typical calm whenever it came to the matter of guarding the souls in his charge. One simply rolled with the punches that made their monotone existences while the other was the sort to double check every file he had written before turning them in. "There's no one here 'cept me an' you," Eric finally countered. Gesturing with the butt end of the cigarette pointed forward, he added, "I mean, I doubt that poor bloke 'as much of a problem wif it."

The 'bloke' in question was indeed a man who had probably seem more smoke in his lifetime than anyone could ever wish for: A chimney sweep, or he had been one at least. Now the middle-aged figure sprawled along the floor of the small, dimly-lit, one-room tenement was nothing more than a broken vessel. Before certain laws had been passed dictating against young children from entering such a dangerous field of work, young boys predominantly held the occupation. Unfortunately, those laws would not firmly take root until some twenty odd years after the mortal had already begun to prowl the rooftops of London. He had worked all his life and now, it seemed, he had worked himself to death. Alan's frown deepened, but this time it was not out of dismay for his partner's work ethics—nor was the sigh that escaped him. Kneeling to the filthy, cracked wooden boards at his feet, he shifted his Death Scythe in his hold to make a faint cut on the body. With a small rupture of light, the man's Cinematic Record poured out of him. A reflection of the film that played out his entire life shone in the glasses of the younger Grim Reaper. Unlike many of those who passed away young the Record waved lazily in the air just above the body, as if mimicking the tired soul they had been sent to collect. "Matthew Harkins," said the Reaper, "Born November 22nd, 1841: Died January 6th, 1889, due to carcinoma. Additional remarks..." But here he paused, and a sad smile began to curve along the corners of his mouth. The serious gaze in his eyes turned soft as he quietly reviewed the document in his spare hand by the light of the Record and fading candle resting on a nearby shelf. For a moment, all that could be heard was the muffled chatter of neighboring tenants through the thin walls are they shared an evening meal and distant footsteps of others just coming in from work. A man's course roar of laughter echoed from the floor below. Only the room they were in was silent until Alan's voice once more pierced through the quiet: "He was only five when he was taken off the streets to become a sweep," he voiced in a hushed tone. "He slept on a bag of soot, in a room with seven other boys and one girl. He watched one of them suffocate in a chimney. He gave portions of his lunch to the boys who were apprenticed to him when he was a young man. He never went to school, but took pride in making it to church every Sunday—even when he was ill. He never married. He loved dogs. Someday, he planned on saving enough money to travel to the Americas." As the Cinematic Record faded, reaching it's end, he stood. "Not that they'd ever let me write any that down, of course..." Eric only nodded, letting the second moment of silence linger more out of respect for his partner than for the deceased. These obituaries were somewhat habitual in their routine, for Alan anyway. Sometimes, like now, he voiced them aloud and other times he did so only in his head, but he knew he always did them. Eric didn't think he could help but say them: He was too gentle a soul. Too kind, too empathetic, too... As always he couldn't help but tease him about it. He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, "Wif ya bowing yer 'ead t' e'ery person tha' kicks the bucket, iz no wonder we run o'er our shifts." "It would help if you were on time," Alan countered, turning back around to face him. "What were you doing that was so important that it couldn't wait until after work?" That's when Eric made the mistake of looking his partner in the eyes. They weren't strikingly different from any other Shinigami's: The same chartreuse, iridescent double irises; the same intelligence in them that came with the kind of education they received during recruitment training; the same weariness from years beyond a mortal's lifespan, witnessing far too many lives enter and depart from the world. However, what made Alan's so unique was their defiance. Never against Dispatch or their grim circumstances, but against the distance those within the Collections Division always took with their unfortunate clients. No matter the pain it caused him, he always dared to feel compassion for the humans that made it on his list. His was a tender gaze that held a great and ironic love of life. And, at the moment, what stood out most to Eric was how innocent those eyes appeared. Nevermind the bleak horrors of the lives lost that the both of them had witnessed, somehow it was still there. It was in his eyes and in his smile—just as it had been that very afternoon for the two young mortal women whose paths he had crossed that very afternoon. They had bared that fawn-like gaze as well, grinning and giggling at his flatteries, unbeknownst of the weapon laced tightly within his white-knuckled grasp. Not even when he raised the blade and... He took another puff of the cigarette, raising his shoulders in an imitation of bored shrug. "Ya can't blame me fer not hurryin' t' parade abou' the East End. S'not the finest place. It reeks." Eric only half-listened to Alan's mother-hen lecture, too consumed with his own thoughts to really bother with what the other way saying. Alan had been a strange sort from the beginning, always paying close attention to detail of the Records under his care and wondering about 'who a parson was when they died,' 'who had they been,' 'what were their final thoughts and emotions.' Surely he was warned ahead of time, but he cared anyway. Before, his concern and over-fascination has been amusing: Now it was aggravating—even infuriating. He opened his heart to dying mortals, and as a result their despair planted the seeds of the Thorns of Death to tear away at his very soul. That was his cancer, and it was doomed to slowly overtake him. So how could he still feel empathy for a dying human? How could be worry over their dying alone, preaching that he was doomed to the same fate, when he was standing right there beside him?! How could he say that he didn't want to die yet seem so ready to accept it a second time over?! "Eric, are you even listening?" Alan pressed, but when he could see that his senior clearly wasn't, he released another heavy sigh and shouldered his Death Scythe. "Well... That was the last collection of the day. Miraculously, we still managed to finish on time, so let's just head back to Dispatch to finish the last bit of paperwork. Agreed?" He could only offer him another nod in answer, and Alan's stare was none the more suspecting of him as he pulled it away to seal the documents in his grip and teleport back to their own realm. Taking one more puff from the cigarette, Eric flicked it to the ground—snuffing it out with his shoe. When he pulled his foot away, he suddenly felt tired as his half-mast eyes caught the tip of the paper cylinder and the last remnants of smoke evaporated into non-existence. The small red tint to the bud had been crushed into an ugly grey. Despite himself, he snorted. Alan's gaze may not have fit a typical Shinigami's, but Eric knew his own very much did: They were empty, just as dead as he felt inside.

((A quick fic I wrote for a monthly challenge in one of the groups I'm in on DeviantArt. It was my first time writing about Alan or Eric, but I enjoyed the musical and those two characters.))

#Kuroshitsuji #Black Butler #Fanfiction #fanfic #Alan Humphries #Eric Slingby #kuromyu #the most beautiful death in the world #shinigami #grim reaper

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samuelfields · 7 years ago

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What Does Early Retirement Feel Like? The Positives And Negatives Of Not Working For A Living

Financial independence and retirement are used interchangeably, but there are some subtle differences. Financial independence is usually applicable to people across their entire lifespan. Those who cashed out $5 million dollars worth of Facebook stock at the age of 30 are financially independent just like those who saved $5 million in their retirement funds by the age of 65.

Retirement, on the other hand, is a term often used to describe someone in the last quarter of their lives e.g. ages 65 and up. This is why some folks get so hot and bothered if you aren’t in the upper ages but say you are retired. They don’t think you deserve retirement because you’re not old enough! If you don’t want unwanted attention as an early retiree, just say you are unemployed, on sabbatical, or an entrepreneur.

The reality is all of us would rather be financially independent earlier, so we have more time to enjoy our wealth. When the director of admissions at UC Berkeley asked why I was applying so early (25), I told her it was because I knew what I wanted to do and felt it best to leverage an MBA degree sooner, for a longer period of time. Little did I know I’d be done 10 years later.

Although I’m no longer considered an early retiree due to the endless hours it takes being a full-time dad and maintaining this website, I did have at least one year of early retirement life after 2012 where I was completely carefree. For those curious about what early retirement feels like, I’m going to highlight all the positives and negatives I can think of since leaving the workforce in 2012.

The Positives Of Early Retirement

* No longer having to commute in traffic feels like heaven. It’s funny that not riding the bus was the first positive that came to mind as opposed to workplace politics, stress, or more common answers. I used to leave the house around 7:20am every morning to catch the 7:23am bus around the corner. Despite my punctuality, the bus would either not arrive on time or be so full of people I’d have to walk another 5 blocks just to get on. Now when I see folks crammed in buses I can’t help but smile.

* Running errands is easy. I do all my errands around 10:45am or 2:30pm, because that is when most people are still at work. There’s no traffic or lines at the store during these hours and I’m much more efficient in getting things done. I continue to wonder why everybody wants to come to work at 8am and leave at 5pm. It took me 1.5 hours to drive 20 miles to pick up my parents at Oakland Airport due to traffic the other month. It only takes 35 minutes during off peak hours. Come into work earlier and leave a little earlier. Your stress level will go way down.

* Lots of free entertainment. There is an incredible amount of free entertainment during the week. Part of it is because organizations want to show their community support and free access on weekdays provides the lowest amount of damage to their bottom lines. Museums that cost $15-$20 to enter are usually free at least once a month. There are also free cooking classes by Williams Sonoma, free interior design parties by AirBnb, free rock climbing lessons by REI, and so on. There are always free music festivals at various public parks as well here in SF.

* You learn to become more self-sufficient. When I was busy working, I didn’t have time to figure out how to fix the leaky toilet. I would call the plumber and pay him $150-$250 at a time. Nowadays, I simply search on YouTube for a home maintenance tutorial and voila! Call me handyman Sam. If I can’t fix something I’ll chat up the local hardware store attendee and see if he can tell me what’s wrong. Having a smartphone to videotape the issues helps tremendously. Learning how to do things myself has also saved me a lot of time and money on rental property maintenance.

* Better nightlife. Because I used to start work by 7:30am every morning for the past 10 years, I was tired by 10pm. I just wanted to stay in and watch some TV after work. Now I’m always down to go out for dinner or drinks with friends during the weekdays. I’ve attended multiple events that last until 11pm and am ecstatic to not have to go to work the next day.

* Better friendships. I spend more time cultivating my offline relationships now that I don’t work. Those thin relationships one has on Facebook become stronger as you actually send them personal messages to see what’s up and hang out. The more you go out, the more friends you’ll meet. This is especially helpful for single folks. Social integration is vital for happiness.

* Better family relationships. I spend much more time speaking to and visiting my family now that I have more time. Spending more time with family is probably the most rewarding part about retirement. The younger you are, the more you appreciate it because you likely have more family still around. While I was working, literally months would go by where I didn’t interact with my parents because I was too busy.

* More comprehensive posts. Good posts can take a long time to write. But with so much more time now, I can afford to write meatier content that can help more folks. Meatier content also tends to do better in the search engines, bringing in more traffic, and more revenue. In the past, I’d write 750 word posts. Now I’m able to spend more time researching to produce posts that are double in length on average.

* More purpose in life. Most people I know don’t believe their purpose in life is to do whatever they do at their jobs. Plenty of folks start getting depressed when they talk about spending all their time at a job that doesn’t really make a positive impact. They see a job as a stepping stone for something greater and can’t wait to get out. Once you no longer have to work for a living, you hone in on exactly what you want to do that provides meaning.

* In better shape. Without having to sit in a chair for hours at a time, you’ll naturally burn more calories being more active. At 5’10”, I used to struggle maintaining a weight of ~165 lbs, now it requires less effort because I now play tennis, bike, walk, or hike at least three times a week compared to just once or twice a week while working. Being in better shape feels great. It might even extend your life, who knows!

* You can always keep busy. One of the biggest fears working people have before retirement is figuring out what they are going to do with all their free time. I worried how I was going to go from working 70 hours a week to just writing for 20 hours a week and playing sports in the afternoon. If you have a hobby you are passionate about, you don’t have to worry about not being able to fill the void in retirement. There is an endless amount of things to do.

* No fear of getting fired. No employee is ever safe in this hyper competitive world. You could be a star performer, but if your new boss hates you for whatever reason, you’re done. I used to worry about whether I’d be called into the HR’s office due to a recession, underperformance, complaint, error on my expense report, etc. Now there is no worry.

* A more positive disposition. Do you know that smile you get after carving down a black diamond or riding a jet ski over some waves? You will catch yourself smiling without even knowing because people will randomly smile back at you because you’re smiling at them. Smiling when you don’t even know it is probably the #1 outward signal for true happiness.

* The ability to be present with your kids. Our baby boy is the most precious thing in the world and has crystalized the value of early retirement. Before our son was born, it was nice to travel, sleep in, play sports, and write. But now, I’m excited each morning to give my son a hug and play with him for hours. Every day we thank our lucky stars that we get to spend the critical first five years of his life raising him before kindergarten. They grow up so fast!

The Negatives Of Early Retirement

* Become more impatient with delays and waste. Traffic and long lunch lines used to annoy me, but now they really annoy me because I hardly ever experience them anymore. I get annoyed with myself for going anywhere during peak rush hour. I really try not to meet anybody if I have to commute during the hours of 7am-10am and 4pm-7pm. I have to remind myself when it’s bumper to bumper thank goodness I no longer have to deal with such jams on a regular basis.

* Gets lonely sometimes. While your friends and acquaintances are busy working, you’re sometimes busy doing nothing. If you don’t have a partner or family, then you might end up having breakfast, lunch, and dinner alone. I’ve built a small network of work-from-home, unemployed, or work at night friends to play tennis and hang out with. I’m trying to meet more people through a softball meetup that I’ve joined, but I haven’t met anybody I’d like to hang out with so far. It’s easy to feel disconnected if you’re always working from home.

* Easy to get lazy. Before my son was born, I found myself taking hour long naps after lunch, watching too much sports on TV, and chilling in the hot tub for hours. It takes a lot more discipline once you’ve retired to push yourself to do something meaningful because nobody is telling you what to do.

* Potentially less money. This one is obvious, but maybe not. You only voluntarily retire and stay retired if you have enough money to support your desired lifestyle. It’s a different situation if you are forced into retirement. It did sting a little bit to no longer have a healthy W2 income the first six months. However, just like how we adapt quickly to a nice bonus or raise, we also adapt quickly to a loss of income. The fear of running out of money in retirement is overblown.

* Vacations aren’t as exciting anymore. I used to love taking five to six weeks of vacation every year. If my old job could grant 10 weeks of vacation a year, I would have stayed on for at least another five years. Now that we can go on vacation 365 days a year, it’s just not that exciting anymore. We did travel for 6-8 weeks between 2012 – 2016, but by the end of 2016 we were completely traveled out. All the churches in Europe started looking the same.

Other Observations After Retirement

* Spend less time on social media. I spend probably 50% less time on Twitter than when I was working. Perhaps it’s because Twitter was a great way to pass the time during commutes or in between meetings. I also continue to spend very little time on Facebook except for my tennis team group page.

* Know a lot of unemployed people. No matter what time during the day I go out between Monday and Friday, there are tons of people out on the street or hanging out at the tennis courts. When you’re working, you think everybody is holed up in an office building and only comes out during lunch or when the clock strikes 5pm. In reality, plenty of people are unemployed or have flexible work schedules.

* Discover so many different ways to live. When I was working I just figured most people just had a normal 8am – 5pm day job. But during my time away from work I’ve met dog walkers, nannies, professional athletes, teachers during summer vacations, government employees who retired early with great pensions, bartenders, strippers, bouncers, tennis teachers, coffee shop owners, small business owners, and plenty of online entrepreneurs who enjoy a lot of freedom during the day. Related: Abolish Welfare Mentality: A Janitor Makes $271,000 A Year

* No desire to play golf. The cliché is that once guys retire we end up playing golf all day. I thought I would love to play at least once a week with all my free time, but instead, I found the game to be absolutely boring when I had to play it alone or with strangers. Further, the game takes way too long.

* Feel inspired by older workers. Every time I go grocery shopping, I bump into cashiers and baggers who are over 60 years old. They probably only make around $13 an hour. Their hard work inspires me to not take things for granted and keep this site going. Everybody starts off with different opportunities in life. We’ve got to make the most of what we’ve got.

* Just want to feel useful. If I don’t feel useful to someone, I feel like a loser. Hence, I try and stay busy writing online, volunteering as a foster kid mentor, doing work around the house, and coaching high school tennis while I’m not taking care of my baby boy. Retirement takes away that good feeling of having someone depending on you for guidance.

* Constantly wonder what else is there in life. When I was busy working, I didn’t have much time left to think about philosophy. With so much more free time I sometimes think, is this all there is to life? Starting Financial Samurai has given me a strong sense of purpose. I recommend all retirees start their own site as well to find their tribe online.

* It gets harder to stay retired over time. The first six months of retirement were full of excitement, fear, and joy. As time went on, I adapted to my newfound freedom by creating a routine that best suited my desires. Once I mastered my routine life got incredibly easy. When life gets easy, life also begins to get boring. With such a strong economy since 2012, I couldn’t help be do some consulting with several fintech companies and see if I could build Financial Samurai into something larger. See: Staying Retired Is Impossible Once You Retire Early

* You need much less money than you think to be happy. My biggest surprise since leaving my day job is realizing how much less I need to be happy by about 30% – 50%. One of the reasons is that once you’re retired, you no longer have to save for retirement. It feels foreign to spend 100% of your retirement income or passive income, but that’s what you get to do if you truly have enough. Further, you are so much happier in retirement that you don’t need to spend a lot of money to make you happy.

Early Retirement Is So Worth It

There are studies that show death comes quicker after retirement due to a lack of purpose. With the internet and so much good we can do once we have our free time back, I can’t see how anybody would ever feel permanently lost in retirement. Try volunteering at a charity or mentoring a child if you start feeling aimless. Everybody could use a helping hand.

Retiring early is a blessing because our bodies still allow us to climb the steepest Mayan steps and start the most daunting businesses when we still have the energy. Hopefully this post gives you some inspiration to get up a little earlier, save more money, and take calculated risks to retire early as well. The feeling of being able to do whatever you want is priceless.

The Dark Side Of Early Retirement

How Much Do I Need To Save To Retire Early?

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