lynora's page

Thanks for the birthday wishes! I had a good time, hung out with my daughter, had a del toro movie marathon, ate delicious chocolate cake. :)

I’ve never used discord and attempting to download the app has triggered yet another round of ‘oh, bloody hell, wtf was my password again??? Guess I’ll find out when I try to change it and have to go with like my thirteenth choice because I’ve used all the others already’, so it might be a bit before I can even get that far. My ragequit threshold is currently very low due to weather headaches. At least the seasonal migraines waited until after my birthday! Hey, I’ll take what I can get. :P

30 years in the future would be fine by me! Ace & Silinrul should still be around, if I wanted to reprise them in any form. They would only be in their '40s'.

I definitely wouldn't want to even attempt this without Lyn's blessing, even if she isn't able to be involved. This is her baby after all.

To quote one of the best movies, The Crow: "Little things used to mean so much to Shelly. I used to think they were kind of... trivial. Believe me, nothing is trivial."

The 'little' plots were some of my absolute favorite stories!

Oh, if you guys want to do this, you absolutely have my blessing. Just because I can’t run the game anymore doesn’t mean the setting needs to die. Heck, that’s how Avalon happened in the first place, with a new game and a time skip from the original Agartha game when E7 had to bow out. It’s tradition! :)

I dunno about 30 years...maybe 10 or 15. Some of us might want to play our in-game progeny ;)

If the progeny in question is draconic they uh, hit their ‘teenage’ years around age 26 :P

I mean, unless you were really wanting to play them in kindergarten….;)

As far as a possible reboot goes, I don’t know how much/if I would be able to participate. The spirit is willing but the meatsuit malfunctions a lot, yadda, yadda, etc.

That said, I can offer some advice. Don’t try to retread old ground. If you do this, either move the timeline or the location. So, you could set it on one of the other worlds and bring in current characters as exchange students OR, and this is the option that probably works best since it preserves the setting, fast forward about 25-30 years. Let it be its own story in a slightly altered but still recognizable setting a la Legend of Korra. That way everyone gets to start on an equal footing and you’re not stuck with a too big kinda clunky plot. Because if there’s one thing I learned in the process of playing this game, it’s the little plots that people actually get excited about. You don’t actually need some big doom crisis lurking on the horizon. Adolescence manufactures enough doom crises on its own. :P

how would Tyrrin and Ghalen fit in there?

Honestly, they would be my pick for special envoy to the other gem dragon worlds and would likely have been/would be (Ephebe makes her nonlinear perspective everyone’s problem) a big reason behind why the cavalry showed up when it did. Not set in stone or anything, just kinda what I pictured for them post big battle.

I think the most important question I have is,

What happens to/with the coffee demons?!? lol

Honestly, I think my main questions are mostly what happens to the various characters my PCs were involved with, first and foremost being Ginni.

Ace is an interesting character. When I originally made him, he was based in part on a mashup of Taskmaster, Darwin(from X-Men), and like one other character I can never remember, lol. His core concept was to be able to adapt to or evolve in such a way as to overcome almost any obstacle, problem, or circumstance.

I also made him incredibly skill based, and gave him class features that weren't all magic/supernatural. Obviously, he has plenty that are both, but the idea was for him to function just fine without them.

I could easily see him taking the fight to the Empire, and truly wrecking havoc all by himself. **Especially** if he started using his Consume Identity ability, eating the brains of fallen officers and important enemies, and completely duplicating them(including their special abilities). He can store up to 16 such personas.

However, as he grew as a character from my playing him(and as I grew as a roleplayer), he formed many friends, got a girlfriend, etc. If it came down to it, I could easily see him making the sacrifice play to help save them. Idk if he would come back or not, after that.

As for Silinrul, I would like to think he would be able to help rally all the lycans, lycanthropes, weres, shifters, etc to take the fight to the Empire. Idk even know if that's a possibility, or where Lyn wanted to take that story arc, but if he was able to, I think that would have been really awesome.

I honestly have no idea what may or may not happen with Serrin, and her being the champion of Darkness. I suppose a lot of it would depend on what Darkness wanted from her when the 'final battle(s)' happened. I could potentially see her becoming a villain or being a *very* reluctant hero.

Lol, funny you should ask about the coffee demons….so, I had this idea stuck in my head that the quietest, shyest, most utterly timid one of Ephebe and Krays’s kids was gonna basically get picked by them to take over the crossroads since Ephebe can’t do it anymore now that she’s officially Time. And the idea of this very soft spoken little girl being in a position of power over demons and devils amused me no end. So yeah, that’s how we get the Most Unlikely Demon Lord. :P

And I think that Ginni would probably be willing to go out and work as a spy with Ace, presuming he comes back after the big battle. I mean, a succubus with a soul has a lot of possibilities there, especially once she gets control of her shapechanging abilities. And I think that she would be able to ground him a bit, keep him from going dark side even though it’s a pretty morally grey line of work. But helping free people from oppression would be a noble cause that she’d be up for signing up for.

So I never really got to play it out, but the plan was for Jaiye to make her power play during the lead up to the big battle, basically slowly defeating each lycan clan leader in combat to take over until she had them all. It was gonna be difficult, but that was the plan, and I figured Sil would basically be the right hand of the queen in that scenario. Basically Jaiye was gonna be focused on leading her people and raising her adopted daughter (Ehos’s succubus child) and there wasn’t really gonna be room for anything else in her life. But that’s a lot really and she would definitely be working hard to create peace between the lycans and the elves. Set up a sort of sports competition for settling disagreements, that sort of thing. Basically trying to bridge the cultural gap without making either side give up their identity.

Well, keep in mind that like all patrons, Darkness is morally neutral. Good, evil, it’s all the same to him. So she would have had complete freedom in matters of morality, same as all champions.

Kryzbyn wrote:

Would everyone who was still a champion remain a champion after it's all said and done?

If I remember correctly the only real ways to stop being a champion were to die or become immortal.

I think being able to just quit if it no longer suited you would have struck a nice... balance. ;)

And if anyone has the right to make demands of all the other patrons, it’s that guy! :)

Oh I guess these thoughts lead to another question:

Would everyone who was still a champion remain a champion after it's all said and done? I think for Krays, the answer is most likely yes, but curious about the others...

And who would Ephebe take as Time's champion?

Yeah, the whole champion thing is still a lifelong commitment and all that. Some of them might have given their champions a chance to back out though because they all picked who they did because they needed to have their people in position when the Others arrived. But mostly they stay with who they picked and that’s that.

Ephebe already picked. That’s literally why An is back. She felt guilty about unintentionally stealing An’s life, so that’s why she rezzed her in the first place. And Kronos 1.0 was like, *shrug* whatever, not my problem, so there wasn’t anyone to stop her. And An never had a problem with being a champion, but boy howdy is she gonna be weirded out about her patron being an alternate reality version of her. After all, if you want something done right,…. ;P

Oh and what was Phaeze turning into? lol

I feel like I was told this at one point, but honestly cannot for the life of me remember now…not sure if it’s because my memory is worse or because I switched to a new hyperfixation …..eh, might be both. :)

I started thinking about it.

** spoiler omitted **

I love this for him. :)

Ahh ok I missread some of that then, good to know!

** spoiler omitted **
For my characters...
Krays' future is entirely dependent on how far he'd feel he had to go to protect anyone in his family, but especially Ephebe and the kids. I could see him going a bit darkside on our enemies, Ephebe is always able to pull him back though, so it would not have been for long.
Ghalen would have stuck by Tyrrin's side no matter what. After Ehos' death...I had planned for that to shake him a bit, enough for him to completely lose his hesitance in fighting against the Empire directly. He was already working with Jiminy a bit, but he would have gone all in, and lead spec op units against IPSD incursions.
Unless Keme would have wanted to stay and fight, Gennosuke would have tried to get him and Alys as far from Agartha as possible. If he faced any pushback, or either of them refused to leave, he would have called in the rest of his clan to directly aid in the conflict, and fought hard.
I think most of my other characters were pretty much retired, or became NPcs to an extent.

Oh, and Keme would have definitely stayed to fight. He was beyond done with running away. He’d really grown up a lot from where he started.

I think both endings sound really cool and powerful! I actually went back and read the kobold worldbuilding I wrote way back when, and I think it might have been fun if some of those other surviving kobold colonies could have allied with Agartha against the Empire, finally avenging their creator against the Empire and making peace with their neighbors.

The idea of an open-enrollment fantasy rules-light high school RP was always really cool, albeit probably very overwhelming to run! In hindsight, I wonder if it would have been easier on Lynora if there'd been multiple main GMs managing different parts of the school, with the rest of us skittering about helping them play out storylines like "school dance" and "battle for the future of Time itself".

It was fun! I'm really glad the whole OTD Roleplay Maelstrom came to something in the end. I wasn't ever the best contributor to those origins, to say the least, but it was really nice to see the story indirectly make it to a much better place.

That would have been awesome with the kobold colonies thing!

So when we started this game, it was more of a group project type deal, but as time went on the others stepped back more and more. And I didn’t mind. I loved running this game. But it did mean that when I had a life crisis, well…..yeah. It just sorta crashed everything to a screaming halt. Eh, c’est la vie.

[Virtual Hug]

We're just glad you're still around our corner of the multiverse, Lyn - 'radio silence' over these last few years has taken on some really scary connotations, so it's very, VERY good to hear from you!!! (^-^)

(But I'm also first to admit to never using much social media to keep me more in the loop on RL, so me culpa, heh.)

As far as my warped opinion on this...I honestly figured that the 'founding' characters from Realms of Agartha would finally fall fighting the Empire, with all of them and the School going down in a blaze of glory saving our main Avalon student characters, who then go on to finish what was started and free the galaxy, yada yada yada.

Not that I have any problem at all with a much happier ending - just figured it might be time to 'pay the piper', as it were...

** spoiler omitted **

Yeah, sorry for worrying you guys! I kinda had a mental breakdown fueled by health problems + major life stress and sorta lost language for a while. Autistic reactions to extreme stress are kinda wild like that.

I won’t say I never considered a more tragic ending, but honestly, I have been so frustrated with tragic endings basically being the default every time I start to like something and decided screw that. While there are tragedies and not everything is happy happy, I wanted to give this a more hopeful ending where it felt like all the crap along the way was actually worth it. I mean, come on, even Tolkien doesn’t kill off all his characters! :P

I'd love to know what happened with Michael and Kitty. ^-^

** spoiler omitted **...

Kitty would have reconnected with her family, which would be very helpful in her trauma recovery, although that was still gonna be a process. Ultimately, obaa-sama was gonna agree to fund their business and they would have moved to Michael’s hometown as planned. Eventually. After the whole war thing. But yeah, I had intended for them to be able to achieve their plans in the end, even if it was with a lot more emotional scars than either had anticipated at the beginning.

its great to hear from you Lyn :)

I can just imagine that it would have taken another 4 years of real time play to finish all that up, too.
I'm sorry your health isn't the best, and wish the best for you, and thanks to you and the other GMs that kept this going as long as it did.

I guess I have a few questions...
** spoiler omitted **

I guess thats it for now.

Allo! Yes, it is I! MG sent out the bat signal over on twitter that y’all were hanging out and chatting about the good old days, so here I am. It’s been a rough few years for me, as I’m sure is true for many. Although so far I’ve managed to avoid Covid, by some utter miracle. Which is good since I don’t think that would go well for me with all the other health problems I’m trying to cope with. I miss gaming in general and this game in particular, but there’s no way that I could maintain the necessary speed of writing and mental processing to make it happen these days. Which makes me sad, but not much I can do really.

The discussion about game systems is very interesting, especially in the discussion for a game that was basically run by stripping down game systems for parts and ad libbing most things. Like, seriously, this game was run like an episode of Whose Line is it Anyways. I very much used the “yes, and” ad lib drama rules for practically everything. Why? Because I have adhd and rules bore me, but you need a few to keep things fair, but as few as possible please and thank you. It worked because I was playing into my strengths and away from my weaknesses (minutiae do not spark joy for me), which is honestly all being a good GM is really. Plus, different systems work better for different types of stories. A superhero story needs less rules and more flexibility, IMO.

Anyhow, if anyone has any questions about how I had planned on ending things, now’s the time to ask. Most arcs were totally player/character driven, but the overarching plot had been planned quite thoroughly from the beginning. Pretty much set in stone since the whole champion arc really kicked off. The attack from the Others and the Empire was going to occur more or less simultaneously, which had some interesting possibilities for defections I think as enemies might (or might not) be willing to form temporary alliances in order to survive. The Others were going to pull out their anti-Time weapon, there would be sort of a blink as Kronos 1.0 ‘ended’ (not exactly, non-linear existence and all that, there are two, therefore there always were two and will always be two, it’s just about which points in everyone else’s perception of linear time which version of Kronos gets the final say on things) and Kronos 2.0 comes online. And she’s kinda pissed. Please tell me I don’t have to tell you who she is?! I foreshadowed the hell out of that one. :P Anyhoo, big battle, etc, etc, scrappy heroes win against the Others, get saved from the Empire by the combined fleet of the other hidden planets (non-linear being! Just because you haven’t sent the envoys yet doesn’t mean they haven’t actually been working on building alliances for years!). I expected there to be mass destruction, which is why I set up the whole Bradley storyline, powerful angel who sacrifices himself to repair the world, etc. It was inspired by a doctor who storyline which is why it’s so damn sad, if that helps. Anyone who wanted their character to come back from the dead and have their chance at a happily ever after could choose to do so. And roll credits, write your own epilogue, etc. It was a loose framework to make sure that I left enough room for everyone else to tell the stories they wanted to with their characters.

I had considered a possible future campaign set on Haven since that was a very different, more industrial/futuristic sort of setting. But even if I hadn’t hit burnout before this story ended, I probably would have run out of steam by then anyways.

*stumbles into thread*

I was summoned? ;P
FCD, got your text, sorry for the lack of reply. I was recovering from my second vaccine shot and whoo, boy, are the side effects a doozy. But still way better than getting Covid! Anyhow, decided to just respond here since that will save on international texting charges.

Sooooo……yeah…….it’s been a …….wait, how long has it been? My sense of time was never reliable to start and it is shot. I know I filled MG in on the drama that is my life via twitter dm, but I can’t remember what had and hadn’t happened yet the last time I was posting here. So, apologies if I’m repeating myself. It’s been lots of high stress around here. My husband has had ummm…..three? Four? No, three heart attacks and four heart catheters. I think. Too many anyhow. It’s apparently a chronic thing, possibly genetic, and they’re just trying to put off the inevitable open heart double or triple bypass they’re eventually going to need to do. So much fun. Especially during Covid. So. Much. Fun. And of course the kiddo fell apart from the stress and I had to basically spend eight hours a day being academic support so that they could, ya know, actually pass their senior year of high school. As if the switch to virtual learning hadn’t already been difficult enough for a kid who struggles to adapt to change. But hey, we got through it and kiddo graduated and now has to figure out wth they want to do next now that they’re finally done with the last round of AP tests. Not that there’s any pressure there or anything. (Yikes!) Hard to even believe that my baby is going to be eighteen in less than a week. So not okay. I mean, I can barely adult, how am I supposed to be the parent of an adult?!?!?!?????!

So I would love to be all like yeah, things are calming down and let’s get back to the fun, but I honestly don’t know when or if I will be ready to do that if I’m actually being honest. Like, this game was such a hyperfixation of mine for so long, but my brain kinda moved on to other stuff now and it’s really hard getting back to that. Especially when I know that things can blow up again at any moment. I’m not sure if the right answer is to try to participate a little bit for a while and see how it goes or if the best thing would be for me to just bow out gracefully and let you guys take it from here. (With answers to any questions about plot of course, but honestly there’s only like one actual planned event in this campaign and it’s been the intended final boss battle from the get-go, ie the battle against the Empire/battle against the Others, because of course they were gonna happen at the same time because there is no freaking way I’m setting up all the pieces for an epic battle twice. Everything else was always me winging it and b&~+*!#@ting my way through.) Thoughts?

Okay, posted a quick introduction for the games, so you can go ahead with them whenever you're ready.

Ugh, it’s been a really crazy week. So last week my husband had a heart attack. He was able to get to the hospital during the early stages of it, and they were able to fix the problem with several stents, so the outcome is overall good. He was in the hospital for about three days before they released him and has been recovering at home since. He’s cranky about the dietary changes and has to be watched like a hawk to make sure he doesn’t try to lift more than he should (he has pretty severe limits on physical activity for now for obvious reasons), but he’s trying to cooperate with doctors orders for the most part. And I don’t need to hover quite as much now as he is slowly getting better.

So anyways, hope y’all are having a better week than that! :P
As far as how to get things started, I can put up a narrator post if you like to explain the transition to temporary side plot. And yeah, sure, have it be a sort of welcome activity for visitors if you like. Folks considering the school or exchange programs or whatever. This whole interlude is kind of outside our normal narrative structure, so no reason not to take advantage of that

I’m cool with JJ for this. Starfinder characters are a little challenging to meld in mechanically speaking in general, but especially with the terms of this challenge being strictly luck based rolls I think that it won’t really pose any problems here.

MG, that sounds like a really good well-thought out plan. :)

And yeah, what FCD said, the sim rooms can modify the course based on participant. I mean, in order to be totally free to be creative and crazy, it's gotta be done in the sim rooms anyways, so take advantage of the AI being able to help. (I kinda wonder at this point how long until the sim AI develops full self-awareness. I mean, I know I set it up as having a limiter to prevent that, but *snerk* like that's ever stopped anything from happening before :P) So yeah, a straight up roll to show that it's been modified to be mostly a matter of luck sounds good to me.

Hmm. Maybe some screen time for characters who haven't been involved in the main plot for a bit?Seems like that would work best. Morrivan maybe, and possibly Pan or Alev and Etain. They've barely had any screen time at all.

Yes, I love this idea. I think we need some light fluff to get our groove back....or at least I do! :P

Of course now I'm picturing some kind of weird hybrid between Quidditch and Chase....see if you can get the ball in the goal before it gets eaten!

Edit:oooh, and with a side of Japanese game show! Nice, MG! That sounds awesome! :D

*waves*
Hi, guys. Still alive here. FCD, got your texts, but I saw them later and didn't want to reply in the middle of the night (er...when is that? Not only have I lost track of time zones, I've gone totally nocturnal since this whole craziness started. Like I sleep from 7am to 3 pm kind of totally nocturnal. My internal clock is so utterly borked :P)
And sorry for missing your PM on twitter before MG. I think it got et when the app updated. It shows in my history, but there was never any notification. Didn't mean to ignore you.
DB3, so sorry, I never got any email! Or it got lost in all the school crap. Like, seriously, my inbox is a freaking mess with all the school updates between district updates, school updates, teacher updates, google classroom weekly summaries, and college board crap. Only a couple more days of this crap and hopefully kiddo will actually pass all these stupid classes (Not to mention the stupid AP exams that had to be taken twice >.<) It's gonna be close. As usual. Gave the usual end of term pep talk today about turning in bad work being better than turning in no work. *sigh*

Anyhow, yeah, I haven't written in what feels like forever, and haven't gamed in longer since my IRL group fell apart due to drama. Which is great when it happens in the game, but not so much when it's between players. :/
So I'm not totally sure how well I can manage with the whole writing thing as I genuinely haven't tried like at all. But I have been doing plenty of reading.....nothing I can admit to in polite company (look, my browser history is basically AO3 and knitting patterns, mostly the former, so ya know, ALL the smut ;P), but still lots and lots of reading..... which is important when you're stuck with writing. Gotta see what does and doesn't work as a reader. And I definitely see why I got overwhelmed with the overarching plot line from way back in Avalon season one finally starting to pan out. Like, oh dear, I didn't mean to paint myself into this corner, but here we are...
So, yeah, maybe it would be better to start small? A side story? A one shot? I dunno, just spitballing ideas here because I don't want to try to get the behemoth moving again only to get crushed under the metaphorical weight because I wasn't ready. I may also need to build confidence and all that. I mean, I've got my weight stabilized again which stabilizes my blood sugar at least a little. And also the antidepressant seems to be working again now. Dosage gets super wonky real fast when your body weight keeps changing. So I think it's really just me needing to get past worrying that all that nonsense is going to start again. Which I won't do unless I actually try.

In a moment of supreme irony I am procrastinating signing the kiddo up for an executive function class to help them learn organizational skills and crap...yeah, kiddo definitely gets their neurotype from me. What can you do? ( apparently the answer does not include getting organized enough to get help getting organized.....)

lynora wrote:

lisamarlene wrote:

After not having to cook for an entire month, this is my third night cooking. And I'm already reminded of why I hate it.

What IS that?
Is it spicy?
What is this stuff on it?
Well, I'll eat this part, but not the rest of it.
Do you know what we should have? (names an entirely different dish)

FML.

I'm not a bad cook. I'm not Nobody, but I fix a decent meal, and no one leaves the table hungry unless they choose to.

Kids are jerks.

I feel this so much. All the complaining about it...hah! My fam didn’t know how good they had it before my body decided food was the enemy. I can’t even stand to be around food most of the time now and they’re lucky if I cook a couple times a week and now they miss it! :P

I am going to have to give your body a stern talking to.

Hey, if that works, that would be great! This subsisting on less than a thousand calories a day or experiencing excruciating pain thing is getting really old. It’s been months. I’ve gotten good at finding ways to up calorie count so I’m getting 800-900/ day instead of 600-700, but obviously this is still less than ideal. I have to go to the thrift store tomorrow because my pants are all too big, which would be a bigger problem if my t-shirts weren’t now big enough to be dresses. Not a weight loss method I would wish on anyone ever. :(

After not having to cook for an entire month, this is my third night cooking. And I'm already reminded of why I hate it.

What IS that?
Is it spicy?
What is this stuff on it?
Well, I'll eat this part, but not the rest of it.
Do you know what we should have? (names an entirely different dish)

FML.

I'm not a bad cook. I'm not Nobody, but I fix a decent meal, and no one leaves the table hungry unless they choose to.

Kids are jerks.

I feel this so much. All the complaining about it...hah! My fam didn’t know how good they had it before my body decided food was the enemy. I can’t even stand to be around food most of the time now and they’re lucky if I cook a couple times a week and now they miss it! :P

Sorry for not checking in for a few days. Fever plus hyper focus = weird. Why can't I ever use my powers of obsession for good??? Instead I end up reading an unfinished fic that even though it's already long enough to be worthy of George RR Martin just stops in the middle of the story and hasn't updated for two years so probably not gonna because fml, to the exclusion of all else for several days. And I do mean all else. Cause who needs sleep? Clearly not me.... *facepalm* (If it's any consolation, please trust me when I say that it's better for everyone that I not update the game while hallucinating...I've done it before and it almost always ends in convoluted retcons that I desperately try to bury where no one will notice them :P)

Dalesman, I am so sorry for your loss. No worries at all about your posting tone. Obviously dealing with real life is more important.

DQ, you make an excellent point about the difference between a busy, crowded place and a Crowd. The latter does indeed cause meltdowns. That situation at the March you described sounds horrifying. *shudder*

Ambrosia Slaad wrote:

Freehold DM wrote:

NobodysHome wrote:

I finally had an epiphany about big tourist cities.

Just like San Francisco, after just a couple of days in London, Edinburgh, or Paris, I’m ready to flee town. And I finally realized it’s the crowds, the noise, and the pollution. Here in Paris the city is beautiful, the people are (finally) welcoming... but the constant need to dodge other people, the inhalation of second-hand smoke, vaping, and diesel fumes, and the neverending battle to actually get anywhere just wears me down quickly.

If Paris were 20 degrees cooler and empty, I could spend a month here poking around. With the crowds, I’d practically rather go hungry than go out again.

But we have a boat tour on the Seine, and it will be beautiful, and so out I will go.

where is the eye rolling emoji when you need it?

Some of us really really hate crowds of people. The idea of trying to live in a place like that makes my skin crawl just thinking about.

Totally. It took me until the third and final day of our first visit to even stop hating New York, and a second visit to actually love it. Ditto for Paris. And after 22 years of living in the Bay Area, I never managed to love SF. More of a grudging occasional fondness.

Oddly enough, in spite of being an introvert with sensory sensitivities, I actually love cities. I loved New York and Paris. And Baltimore, but not DC. London was okay. Chicago is a favorite place to visit. Sure, I need the noise cancelling headphones at times, but that’s true here too. And the ability to be invisible in a crowd is quite lovely. Also I’m an architecture nerd, so I may be too distracted by my special interest to even remember there are people around. :P

Just found out on FB that one of my best friends from college just lost his wife this morning.

Root canal infection that went septic. She was in the ICU and they were trying to get her stabilized for surgery.
Steph and Rog were expecting their first grandchild this fall, and they still have two kids in high school.
They married the week before we graduated, and for 23 years, she's been his world.

That’s awful! So sorry :(

I finally had an epiphany about big tourist cities.

Just like San Francisco, after just a couple of days in London, Edinburgh, or Paris, I’m ready to flee town. And I finally realized it’s the crowds, the noise, and the pollution. Here in Paris the city is beautiful, the people are (finally) welcoming... but the constant need to dodge other people, the inhalation of second-hand smoke, vaping, and diesel fumes, and the neverending battle to actually get anywhere just wears me down quickly.

If Paris were 20 degrees cooler and empty, I could spend a month here poking around. With the crowds, I’d practically rather go hungry than go out again.

But we have a boat tour on the Seine, and it will be beautiful, and so out I will go.

See, this is why you go in August not July, when there are less people and it’s lovely even if you are an introvert. :)

I’m in the no Facebook camp. I tried it. It was.... well, I’m pretty sure disaster is the right word here. It caused no end of stress and ended some real world friendships because I have no idea, but it was some kind of thrice-damned NT nonsense involving social ‘rules’ that no one ever explains. (You know what you did! Ummmm..........no? If I knew I wouldn’t be asking? >.<)
I like twitter though. I mean, it’s a dumpster fire, but it’s aware of the fact. Also it’s even more cliquish, which oddly helped once I found the right group of my fellow awkweird oddballs. ;)

lynora wrote:

Freehold DM wrote:

lynora wrote:

Vanykrye wrote:

Freehold DM wrote:

lynora wrote:

We also have art fair this week. Like most townies, I avoid like the plague. Predictably the weather this week is ungodly hot and intermittent rain. So yeah, no thanks. Crowds, heat, and walking: all the no. :P

wha? Only new yorkers ignore the things that make their area great as a sign of pride!

Seriously the city's greatest comic book store and rpg shop used to be on the same street with the empire state building. Didnt find that out for years upon years because we didnt bother looking up.

Not sure if Lynora's in a college town, but it sounds like it to me.

Yeppers. A2 has a lot of the same kind of energy as a larger city, but also all the trees! ( no, really, the last time I went on the Ferris wheel at the carnival I was struck by the way the town just disappears and looks like a forest from above) I love the balance of it, having all the cool stuff around, but also nature.

are you sure you don't live here?

You just described here.

There’s a reason why I loved New York the one time I visited, waaaay back when. :)

why didn't you call me?! Or did you have absolutely NO idea who I was at the time?

This was many, many years ago, before I even joined the Paizo boards :)

DeathQuaker wrote:

Lynora, let's work on that mech suit. I'm sure with my Master's degree in English I'll find a way to engineer it, honest!!!

are you two TRYING to seduce me?

Well, you need cheering up, and I need that mech suit, so... is it working? ;)

lynora wrote:

Vanykrye wrote:

Freehold DM wrote:

lynora wrote:

We also have art fair this week. Like most townies, I avoid like the plague. Predictably the weather this week is ungodly hot and intermittent rain. So yeah, no thanks. Crowds, heat, and walking: all the no. :P

wha? Only new yorkers ignore the things that make their area great as a sign of pride!

Seriously the city's greatest comic book store and rpg shop used to be on the same street with the empire state building. Didnt find that out for years upon years because we didnt bother looking up.

Not sure if Lynora's in a college town, but it sounds like it to me.

Yeppers. A2 has a lot of the same kind of energy as a larger city, but also all the trees! ( no, really, the last time I went on the Ferris wheel at the carnival I was struck by the way the town just disappears and looks like a forest from above) I love the balance of it, having all the cool stuff around, but also nature.

are you sure you don't live here?

You just described here.

There’s a reason why I loved New York the one time I visited, waaaay back when. :)

The nightly dilemma.... it’s time to go to bed, but there’s a cat on my lap and it would be a crime to wake him when he’s being so cute and cuddly <3

Ugh, talking about art fair reminds me that I need to go back to the pharmacy tomorrow... on the other side of town, past the art fair traffic. >.<
*shakes fist at insurance company that wouldn’t authorize my scrips two days early*

Freehold DM wrote:

Ambrosia Slaad wrote:

Hope your day today went well, or at least better than expected, Freehold.

it went. There's no...coming back...from what happened yesterday. It will remain with me forever, professionally speaking.

Well, sh*t. I don't know the details, but that sounds f*cking terrible. I'm really sorry.

+1 :(

lynora wrote:

We also have art fair this week. Like most townies, I avoid like the plague. Predictably the weather this week is ungodly hot and intermittent rain. So yeah, no thanks. Crowds, heat, and walking: all the no. :P

Nah, very different thing. The massive multi-city-block spanning event in my town is far more than a "fair" and very much a local point of pride in how much we support our artists and the arts (and possibly also food trucks and getting drunk while dehydrated). Also while out of towners show up (it gets an attendance of 350,000 which is like half our population, so it's not all locals, it certainly is something that isn't exclusively one or the other), I'd think some tourists aren't as stupid as we are to go out in all the heat and stick to their hotel pools. It's not even located in the touristest district. I love all the performances and displays and I'm not too hip for it all... where I will agree with you is it's the crowd and the heat that's the problem. I want to go, I just want to do it in a personal, air-conditioned mech suit.

Lol. Ummm, yeah, I can see how that would sound if you’re not from here, but A2 art fair is not small. :P

Edit: and no worries, no offense taken. I’m extra down on things that require lots of walking right now, and I was more snarky than intended. Last time I went to the zoo I was bed bound for a week from pain. Yes, I need a damn wheelchair. No, I am not in a position to get one for various reasons. Art fair has never been my favorite, but I did used to enjoy a quick tour of it back before it hurt so much to walk. Sorry for being snotty about something important to you, and thank you for explaining.

Freehold DM wrote:

lynora wrote:

We also have art fair this week. Like most townies, I avoid like the plague. Predictably the weather this week is ungodly hot and intermittent rain. So yeah, no thanks. Crowds, heat, and walking: all the no. :P

wha? Only new yorkers ignore the things that make their area great as a sign of pride!

Seriously the city's greatest comic book store and rpg shop used to be on the same street with the empire state building. Didnt find that out for years upon years because we didnt bother looking up.

Not sure if Lynora's in a college town, but it sounds like it to me.

Yeppers. A2 has a lot of the same kind of energy as a larger city, but also all the trees! ( no, really, the last time I went on the Ferris wheel at the carnival I was struck by the way the town just disappears and looks like a forest from above) I love the balance of it, having all the cool stuff around, but also nature.

We also have art fair this week. Like most townies, I avoid like the plague. Predictably the weather this week is ungodly hot and intermittent rain. So yeah, no thanks. Crowds, heat, and walking: all the no. :P

Denulia's post is proving difficult for me to be happy with. Scrapped like 3 drafts so far. Eventually gonna have to just hit post and leave it. ;)

*nudge, nudge*

Get this burning orb in the sky away from me!

I too am not a fan of the hideous light of the daystar. It burns us, it does...... ;P

I am excited and terrified and nervous and confident and pretty much every male stereotype of how to panic but still be super happy about this scenario.

Every FaWtLer with spawn: Best piece of advice?

Congrats!

Vidmaster7 wrote:

*shudder* Kale....

I tried a recipe that involved honey and chili powder and a few other strong flavors in hopes of making Kale eatable. It failed.

I always wondered what this super healthy kale thing was and why people were obsessed with it.

Untill I googled it.

We've been eating this for centuries. Boiled, then mashed in with potatoes and gravy, and eaten with smoked sausage.

Weird people putting it in a smoothy.

I do a lot of kale in smoothies. It helps keep them from being so sickly sweet, especially if I’ve added coconut milk powder to try and up the calorie count. I also drink a lot of smoothies as meal replacement since it’s the one thing I can reliably keep down. Spinach also works, but honestly it’s not as good as kale at toning down the sweetness.

** spoiler omitted **

That’s so cool! Thanks, John! :)

Happy birthday, TL! :)

Hey, all, just letting you know that I’m still here, but have been unable to update game because it’s been a busy, busy, busy week with no freaking downtime. Getting kiddo their learners permit (it only took.... five hours... at the dmv >.<), doctors appointments, kiddo’s birthday, helping kiddo clean their room (it got bad, they needed reinforcements:P), and getting ready for tomorrow’s ‘fun’ (family get together all day and into the evening for fireworks, some actual fun if the rain holds off, but a really exhausting day). So I should be able to post on Friday if I’m not too fried after the fourth. Figured I should let you know what the schedule actually looks like. First week of July is always insane.

Kiddo is 16 today! Where did the time go?! How did they get this old already ???!!

Have done the annual pilgrimage to Dave and busters. They’re playing through the last credits. I’m hiding in the car. Even with noise cancelling headphones it was too loud and bright in there. I swear I can hear the blinking lights. When the synesthesia kicks in, its time to leave. ;P

We’re making a special dinner later. Steaks in the grill, homemade French fries, and I baked a cheesecake at kiddo’s request.