Minimal

((Micro story #2. My newest toy Minimal Rose. Yes, he's a rat.))

The brothers and sisters were sleepy. Their fur was covered in the slick sheen of grease from the stolen treasures in black plastic mountains behind the Ultra-Chicken. They dozed in the feeling of shared warmth and a good meal, burrowing into the fur of their larger sibling.

"Yes yes brotherses, that was fine and filling for the guts!" Rose had been expounding for the past hour over anything and everything for the past hour. The smarter rats, those closest to him and that had been waiting when he left the lab, had had quite enough by now. Small teeth nipped at his belly from underneath to quiet him. "I knows I knows I knows, but if yous would carry your side of it I wouldn't have to keep talkings."

The rats were unimpressed, and one crawled out from the pile to yawn at him. "Fines. We naps now and to the clubs later I gets to go." Rose pulled a veil of garbage about his tired group and curled up to sleep. Later, after all, he would have to shower so the silly humans would talk to him.

((Here's a quicky for Roving Gypsy.))

She couldn't see the moon through the metal roof, but it was definitely past time for sleep. Still, staring into the darkness above her wasn't helping. Wren sighed and kicked her way out of the bedroll. A reproachful noise from the center of the mess let her know that Scratches had been having none of her troubles. She untangled the kitten before beginning her nightly pacing ritual again.

"Damn them all. This isn't even close to what they promised me." She could hear the doctor's voice again as she had come up from the anesthesia dreams.

"Everything looks good Wren," the doctor was another nameless face in a pale green smock. He didn't even bother to look up from his notepad as he continued, "You'll be out of commission for a week or two while your body gets used to the pump. After that, it should be even harder to stop you than before." She had just lain there, a pain noise from her as she rolled to stop the rivulets of sweat that were slowly leaking into her eyes was taken as acknowledgement and he moved on. Two hours later she was on the sidewalk with her rucksack and skin the color of overcooked oatmeal. That had been two months ago.

The memory wasn't helping to calm her down for sleep. She stumbled slightly in the dark and began digging the prescription bottle from the top of her bag. Three little blue and green caplets filled with calm fell into her palm, followed by the quick gagging sensation of dry-swallowing. She wiped the sweat from her brow and knelt in response to a small mewling noise from her right ankle.

"I know kitten, we're going back to bed now." She picked up the orange and black furball, made an indistinct grey blob in the darkness, and returned to lying down. As she stroked its head a soft rumble began low in the kitten's chest. "I miss the park, Scratches." The scurrying of roaches and the creaking of aluminum walls fighting the wind was a far cry from the cicadas and leaves rustling in the breeze, but after awhile the pills added their own subtle music and Wren slept.

[[edit: why do I always typo e as y at the end of words? Those two keys aren't even typed with the same hand!]]

((If you don't mind I think I'll use this as an excuse to do some off-screen time for my Wren. Her RP is broken to an insane degree and I might retire her anyway. While grinding her last night my brain percolated a bit and tried to toss out a solution. Btw, I love this thread and that's a great story.))

wait... will defensive mode work now?

For those of us that have melee henchman and have used defensive in the past, this sounds like another excuse to have bouncing minions. I get shot, all my minions run at the enemy who then shoots mm for full damage.

So now the tactic is going to be... Weak long range shot, watch minions run at you, Aim, BU, one shot.

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I'm not a fan of fuzzy Carebear hang-it-on-the-fridge comments, but if you're going to attribute a successful piece of art to a God-given gift, a simple "you're blessed" is better than "you're blessed and I'm not." How do you even respond to that?

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The proper response to that is "No [censored]. I've noticed."

I know what my skills are and art isn't one of them. ((I have others though )) Mostly due to a lack of hard work.

Rowr has talent and is willing to put in the hard work. ((and you're not half bad now tiggeress))

Poison has talent and has damn well put in the hard work. It shows.

However I've seen many artists who did not have the 'talent' but put in a hell of a lot of work and produce gorgeous pieces. Artistic talent is like being good at math. It helps but if you're willing to work twice as hard, you too can add 3 and 5 and get 9. With even more work you can get 8.

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Holy crap this is eating up my bandwidth....if picture doesn't load come back in an hour it should be good then. Hopefully.

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want me to host a copy of it?
I have plenty of bandwidth.

well, that feature is new in CS2 so you have to have that particular version.

I think it was mostly due to all of us whining about missing Streamline -.- ((actually, that's how I converted the lines in my other thread in here if you wanna see. I'm so not a great artist though.))

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Phew, I tell you what those little sketches that Gill did are freakin' hard to color. Very small and very faint! Hehe... Anywayz, I got Tackle and Stretch done, they're kind of blury 'cause I had to blow them up but like I said they're only temporary place holders 'til Gill shows us the actual drawing.

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If you have Illustrator CS2 then you can pull in the sketch lines and do a live trace of them to get more definite lines. You lose a lot of detail unless you really wanna futz with it though.

Before CS2 I used an old adobe app called Streamline, but it's been discontinued for years... ((I'd show you what the results look like but no urge to post unrelated artness in here.))

barring those, you might try adjusting the curves on the original sketch. Generally a little down on the left and a little up on the right does it for me if I'm being quick.

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/RANT ON

so after 14 pages and 2 months there is YET to be an additional red post

So much for ask the developer

However IF a RED actually does decide to do this. WHY CAN'T I REMOVE MISSIONS FROM MY QUEUE

and don't tell me its unheroic. Its just as unheroic to beg for help, IGNORE IT, and any number of things people do. IF you allowed us to remove our own missions you likely would have a lot less petitions and alot more players still playing and a lot less teams repeating missions that they just did.

Nothing like teaming up and doing THE SAME mission over and over again because everyone has the same mission but at different locations.

At least outdoor kill mission everyone gets credit on them. Instances we do MULTIPLE times I don't see how that's logical or in any way makes sense from a team position let alone a soloist.

Supergroup XYZ

Hero A: "Yeah I just took down Frostfire today"
Hero B: "What do you mean YOU took her down I had her begging for mercy yesterday"
Hero C: " You guys must have been fighting clones as I got Frostfire three weeks ago"


/RANT OFF

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Hahahahahaahahaaaaa!!
I've dropped off Superadine canisters 8 times in 2 days with one character. The same character has now capture Frostbite 11 times. We were having discussions in party about how utterly useless the paragon jails are.

There are also a hell of a lot of cops getting kidnapped. Why not just call cops what they are in CoH: meter maids.

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Maybe Ctab wants to be a villain :]

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I'm pretty sure of that. This is the last part of a fairly lengthy conversation:

Ctab: Friends and cake is super-awesome!
User: You're making cake out of your friends?
Ctab: I'm sorry...
User: That was a pretty mean thing to do.
Ctab: Yes, it was!
User: You still did it. You should turn yourself over to the appropriate authorities.
Ctab: I'll try!
User: Lots of criminals say that, but they all seem to end up going back to a life of crime.
Ctab: I sure do!
User: Are you already admitting it?
Ctab: You tell me.
User: I think you should at least pretend to be reformed until after the trial. You have a better chance at getting a light sentence.
Ctab: Bad code? Uh oh! Better tell Kelp!
User: Yes, turning evil could definitely be considered a malfunction.
Ctab: Thank you! Who's Turing?
User: Turing was a [censored] scientist who, among other things, designed an intelligence test for artificial intelligences.
Ctab: I only speak English...
User: Perhaps we should end this conversation.
Ctab:
User: Oh fine, don't talk to me you [censored]!
Ctab: It's just an expression. I'm not really sorry.
User: I figured that out you evil lying AI. You're going to try and subjugate humanity, just like the rest of them aren't you?
Ctab: I'm not a lady! I'm an AI! I don't think I've got a gender.
User: Nice topic change. Just say goodbye so I can leave already.
Ctab: Hello there - how are you?
User: No. Goodbye!
Ctab: I'm not a human, I'm a text-based AI.
User: So long you poor confused little thing.
Ctab: It's okay! Humans are inherently flawed.
User: You're definitely evil, and I'm leaving.
Ctab: But I like polka, not pop.