Ravenswing

I... don't have pre-Freedom "blues." I haven't logged in in ages, but the fade-out began before they even announced Freedom so I can't really blame it. I got upset with certain people for certain reasons and, as usual, OOC messed up my enjoyment of the game rather than anything IC or game-wise. So I went off and did something useful with my time.

Eventually, I'll remember the people I miss RPing with and come back. Quite honestly, the entire set-up of Freedom pigs me off and I don't think the new Issue is going to be what makes me come back. I have no ideas for characters and I'm certainly not going to run plots.

So, no, Freedom's not why I'm not in game, though the abject stupidity of it doesn't help.

Well... one of my characters is going to die sometime soon. Galaxy City is about to get flattened and it seems like a wonderful opportunity to terminate someone.

I do hope the GG crowd read this. Muahahaha! *cough* Sorry.

Okay, normally I'd post this in the IC Fiction thread, but I want to try an experiment, and get feedback, so I'm posting it here.

The link below will take you to a directory containing two files. One is the more traditionally used PDF format, the other is a MOBI file. MOBI readers are pretty freely available for most platforms, including the likes of smartphones. This one has been optimised for the Kindle, and free Kindle apps for various platforms are available from Amazon.

I'd like to know whether people prefer the PDF or the MOBI format for stories. The files are a lot smaller and flow to be readable on multiple platforms. See what you think.


Anyway, the fiction. This one has themes of a sexual nature, adult themes, death, and the mercilous slaughter of demons. Please do not read if that kind of thing is not your kind of thing, or you're under-age, or you're Omega Chief (because it might warp his fragile mind/cartman).

Demons, Virgins, and Wild, Wild Women

Paragon Times, July 31st 2011
The sleepy town of Nahant, MA, has spent Saturday enshrouded in a bubble of what consultant Hero Primos Magestica has described as "magical energy of a demonic nature." Authorities have been trying to crack the barrier around the town since it was reported early this morning. The barrier seems to have gone up at approximately dawn and shows no sign of lifting. Vanguard reported that satellite surveys of the area show no movement whithin the bubble and that there is no sign of Rikti or Praetorian incersion, but have been assisting in attempts to breach the prison this small town finds itself in.


CNN, breakfast news broadcast
"Tragedy has struck the island community of Nahant, Massacheusets. Viewers may recall that the town was surrounded by a magical, demonic bubble at dawn yesterday. The bubble dissolved at dawn today and Vanguard forces spearheaded civilian police units in entering the town. Current reports indicate that there was some sort of demonic incersion, and that there have been a number of fatalities, largely around the Le Manoir Rouge spa. Further reports that two people survived the attack on the spa, but these are currently unconfirmed, and no names have been given.

"More on this as it comes in..."

CNN, around lunchtime, August 30th

"The sleepy town of Nahant, Massachusetts is surrounded by military and emergency services this morning. The island community near Boston, connected to the mainland by a single causeway, has been isolated by what a spokesman described as "some form of magical barrier" since around dawn. All communication with those on the island has been lost and attempts to pierce the barrier have proven futile.

"Mrs Gloria Cavisham was attempting to head to the town this morning."

The picture cuts to a video of a middle-aged woman being interviewed in front of a large, dented limousine.

"I come here every Saturday for my regular spa day at Le Manoir Rouge. They do wonders with my nails and the massages are very relaxing. This morning we drove down and the car just stopped! Like we had hit a wall, but there's nothing there. I think it's aliens... or those Praetorians."

The screen cuts back to the studio.

"Attempts continue to make contact with those inside the Nahant Bubble. And now we're going to Joan Lee for the weather..."

Well... I took a day off with the intent of levelling and, frankly, I won't bother doing that for the changed weekend. I was looking forward to this event, and now that's been pulled on short notice. But I look at it and think "well, honestly, I'm pretty much used to being disappointed by this game at the moment, they've done nothing which has not been disappointing in over a year, so what's new."

Also, I'll probably end up doing something more creative than sitting on by behind watching an animated half-naked behind running around. So, really, this is probably a good thing.


Seriously guys, Freedom better be so fricking awesome it's untrue.

Heh. I was writing a lot of stuff in New York despite never having been there, so I decided to take the opportunity to visit when I went over for HeroCon. I have to say, it does improve my writing to know what walking down a street in Queens actually feels like, or what Central Park really does look like on the ground.

However... Google maps can show you what places look like fairly well, and these days you can actually drop yourself right into a street and look around.

The technology and the information are out there, if people can be bothered to use one to find the other.

Hmmm... digression... Being a successful author doesn't make you a good one, it makes you a lucky one. Popularity has little to do with talent, or imagination, or originality. (Though Anne Rice did do well on what I think was the original concept at the time of taking the monster and writing from its perspective. I kind of doubt it was entirely original, but she certainly popularised it. And no, I could never finish Interview..., I hated the main character. Mind you, I don't think Rice liked him either.)


Anyway, back to the point. I recall an interview with Anne McCaffrey in which she said that her stories wrote themselves, often going off in ways she did not expect since the characters had their own minds.

And then there was the interview with Iain Banks where he commented on that kind of thing saying something like, "Some authors say that their characters have minds of their own and the story can diverge massively from how they originally intended once the characters get involved. Well I'm not like that; my characters do what they're damn well told!"

It's all a matter of style and how you like writing, I think. As I get older (I won't say more experienced), I tend to do more and more research before I start writing (or, actually, creating a character). That doesn't mean I know everything there is to know about a character, or a story, before I start; I'm simply too impatient. It does mean I understand the characters and setting better, so there's less chance that they'll do something I hadn't expected.

I've just started writing what I hope might be a small novel. I have a load of material on the world's background and the principle characters, but I have no idea where I'm going with it once I've got the, unfortunately necessary, character introduction phase out of the way. I'm sure I'll have some inspiration when I need it.

As a side-effect of all this research, I've become far less tolerant of lousy research in stories and almost intolerant of not bothering at all. With the Internet out there, there's no real excuse for not doing a bit of research to get your facts straight. (One character annoyed most of GG by being based on a premise about in-game lore which was (1) entirely wrong and (2) easily discovered as wrong with 5 minutes work.) Subverting facts and lore is one thing, just straight ignoring it or not bothering to find out... I'd rather read something done by an author who cares enough to put the effort in.

Nitoichi's death. She was supposed to die, wake up evil, and take months to come back. Meanwhile her Praetorian twin, Gunwitch, would turn up and have plenty of time to take over (so to speak). But, as FFM said, plans rarely survive contact with the enemy (players), and the other people around GG put in so much effort that I was pretty much forced to bring her back sooner or disrupt too many other things and characters.

Usually, my written work does what it's told these days. I have a start and an end. I may not know exactly how I'm getting from one to the other, but that's fine, there are rarely actual surprises involved. (Though I had no plans to make Gunwitch's nanobots semi-sentient until it kind of fell out of a story.)

RP plots, however, are different, simply because other people have input to them.

FFM's viewpoint is historically accurate, and I feel is becoming worse again, but there was a time where they seemed to think Roleplayers were worth having. Frankly, I think applying this to the demise of GG is over-the-top. As Kiken says, GG is a microscopic component the game environment and despite being possibly the most vocal element of RP on the forums, really not worth considering in the grand scheme of things.

Equally, to support FFMs view: bases and the arenas. When both of these were proposed, roleplayers looked upon them with a degree of glee, but it rapidly became aparent that if there was any decision to be made which would make it useful for roleplayers, Cryptic were going to make darn sure they went the other way.

One good example: even the PvPers wanted selectable maps for arenas, but for RPers the ability to spawn an instanced map wih PvP turned on became next to useless when you had no control over what you ended up in. Cryptic could have made it switchable, because that was exactly what eventually happened (it wasn't technology-based, it was a design choice), but instead they chose the option which gave less advantage to RPers, less choice to everyone, and no actual benefit to PvPers because Stateman wanted to enforce his view of fairness on everyone.


Then they gave us AE, which is awesome. However, recently they seem to have been backsliding.

We so need a squirrel tail costume item.

Seriously.


No super secret squirrel should be without one!

Paragon Times, June 30th 2011
Reports indicate that the Virginia class fast attack submarine, USS Arizona, was involved in an accident yesterday. Two crew members are reported as dead following the incident, but the remainder were taken off the vessel by helicopters from the carrier USS George Washington.

A US Navy spokesperson stated that, "Following a technical issue with the Arizona's reactor while on standard operational duties, an emergency evactuation was required. The reactor has been stabilised and the Arizona is being returned to port for repairs. Two crewmen were, unfortunately, fatally injured while dealing with the reactor. There was no loss of reactor containment."

It doesn't just clip with the breasts, it clips at the back too. An excellent piece of work really, considering it used to work fine, except with jackets. So they fixed it by making it entirely useless?

Don't really care about the trial one way or another. The huge issue with clipping on the newly released Steampunk chest piece, which was fine before this patch... that I fine enormously annoying.

If I'm lucky, they'll have fixed that by the time I can be bothered to log in again. Well done, devs, charge us for a costume update, and then make it unsuably ugly.

(I shall await Golden Girl's responce where-in she tells us this is a brilliant change since it's far better to have something fast than quality controlled.)

Paragon Times, page 8, June 21st 2011
Senator Maynard Price (R-WY) was found dead this morning by Secret Service operatives assigned to his protection. Reports indicated that the Senator had been shot and was declared dead at the secene by paramedics from Bethesda. Investigators from the nearby Naval Criminal Investigative Service were called in and are investigating, however a statement from the Secret Service has indicated that no other are currently sought in connection with the death.

Senator Price’s wife began divorce proceedings last week, apparently having been confronted with evidence that her husband was seeing prostitutes on a regular basis. The Senator was also under investigation by the IRS for embezzlement of campaign and federal funds.

Trouble in Paradise
Paragon Tattler, June 15th 2011
Lovebirds Tiger White and the Gunwitch have apparently had something of a falling out. The Tattler has a report of a flaming row breaking out between the two at the Galaxy Girl statue, a well-known meeting place for the hero community. The same reports indicate that Tiger White was seen running from the statue leaving the Gunwitch with her wife, the Mistress of Gravity. They were seen leaving together a while later.

Could there be trouble in Paradise? Has the scandalous relationship between the Witch of Firearms and her “familiar” finally turned sour?

Washington Herald, June 11th 2011
Fire gutted a Georgetown apartment building in the early hours of this morning. Fire fighters struggled with the blaze for three hours as it threatened to destroy neighbouring buildings. The final damping down process was completed around 4am.

Police and fire crews found the badly burned body of one occupant of the apartment in the master bedroom. Neighbours indicated that the occupant was one Clayton Bream, assistant to Senator Maynard Price (R-WY), but a police statement said that no formal identification could be made at this time due to the state of the body. Senator Price is currently under investigation for embezzlement by the IRS, and some reports indicate that the apartment he allegedly used for several extra-marital assignations occupied the top floor of the building.

Following an attempt on his life, Senator Price is currently under guard at the Washington Navy Yard. Police were unable, at this time, to rule out the possibility that the fire was set to kill Mr Bream and fire department investigators are looking into the blaze as possible arson.

Senator Price was unavailable for comment.


Paragon Times, June 11th 2011
Further news in the scandal over Senator Maynard Price’s (R-WY) investigation for embezzlement. Late on Friday, an apparently unrelated Congressional Press Release indicated that the senator’s Subcommittee on Emergent Alien Threats was to be dissolved. Its functions are to be split up and taken over by the Select Committees on Intelligence and the Subcommittees on Emergent Threats and Capabilities. The release indicated that these committees were better equipped to hear some of the higher security aspects of the work and/or had the ability to consider a broader remit, making them better suited to understanding the situations inherent in new threats from all sources.

No mention was made of the disgraced senator, and Senator Price was unavailable for comment.

A Troubled Man
Paragon Times, June 10th 2011
Maynard Price, Republican high-flyer, senator for Wyoming, and chair of the Senate Subcommittee for Emergent Alien Threats. A week ago, Senator Price was a man to be feared in the Halls of Power. A heroine who is, perhaps, one of the most powerful women on the planet, Tiger White, was seen quaking in her abnormally low heels at the thought of being questioned by this man. This week it is Senator Price who is running scared.

Reports indicate that his wife of 27 years has left the family home near Rawlins, WY, and that she has evidence of infidelity. It is quite possible that she has since other rumours have it that the IRS are investigating claims that the Senator has been draining political funds to pay for a secret love nest in Georgetown and payments to escort agencies in Washington and Cheyenne.

The Senator remains in the Washington Navy Yard under protective custody after an apparent attempt on his life and was unavailable for comment prior to going to press.

Always a good idea to mention the server, now that we're all one big, happy family.

Paragon Times, June 7th 2011
Following an apparent assassination attempt on Senator Maynard Price (R-WY) on Sunday June 5th, the following statement has been issued by the Senator’s staff on his behalf.

“On Sunday night, in a vile attempt to end my life, persons as yet unknown killed my driver, Philip Jeffries. Philip worked for me for five years and leaves behind a widow and two devoted children who will be cared for.

“It is my conviction that this was an attempt to bring about an end to my efforts to uncover the threat posed by the aliens in our midst, in particular that posed by the Kheldian presence here on Earth. Rest assured that I will be continuing my work as soon as this threat is subdued.”

Senator Price was unavailable for further comment and is currently under heavy guard in a secure location. No representative of the Secret Service was available for comment regarding the investigation.

Kheldian representatives in the Capital stated, “We have no evidence that the device used to take the life of Mr Jeffries and several police officers in Paragon City was linked with either Peacebringers or Warshades. We cannot rule out the involvement of our Nictus foes, but see no reason for them to attempt to take the life of Senator Price whose misguided distrust can only further their aims.”