Life in Stasis

Outmoded

@LadyRunic Sorry! I do that. I even had my boss at work telling me to send shorter emails.

And hey, really, I'm sorry to hear the rp died. I know exactly how you feel, and I won't take it personally if Alice isn't your magnum opus. Every character is unique and once in awhile, one of them just strikes you.

My friend and I have been RPing on and off (him and me but also with other people) for over fifteen years, and we still talk about characters we had from way back then to ten years ago to five, they just stay with you. They always will. They're literally part of you.

If you like, I started up an RP with a girl but it doesn't look like she's going to post. Setting is generic fantasy. I'll give her a little longer, but she doesn't turn up, we can redo the plot a bit and you can play the other side of that story.

Also I should have expressed my condolences in my last post but my guilt apparently bubbled up because I'm terrible.

Outmoded

@LadyRunic

So, let me be perfectly transparent, because I've been in your position with a surplus of free time and a lack of RPs and hoping someone can match my pace and energy. I really don't want to let you down, but I am limited and I want you to understand.

Also if this sounds like I'm lecturing, please forgive me, I just want you to know I'm not being a bum. I really do want to thank you for your patience and understanding.

I'll never leave you waiting for more than two days. I saw your terms and agreed to commit to them AT MINIMUM. That's only fair, and I'd hate to be like all these other dregs who make others wait. I prefer to post at least once a day, or even get into fast paced sessions once in awhile, but if I'm swamped I'll at least meet the minimum.

Every Sunday through Thursday, I'm out of my house from about 9:30pm to around 8am (work), and then I sleep from about 11am to 7pm. I also spend about an hour eating dinner with my SO (this is very important to me).

So this gives me about 4 hours a day of true free time, which I spend either shopping for food, (usually every two days, we go through like a half gallon of soymilk and tons of veggies every day), running some errands, trying to keep my house from looking like Pripyat, and spending some meager amount of time with my SO (besides dinner). Lately I had to address a somewhat serious thing, which should hopefully be over. God I hope it is.

Unfortunately this means that during the week I'm usually both really busy and really tired. Sometimes I do post on my lunchbreaks, but I didn't today with it bwing July 4th and I didn't want to get wrecked by a drunk driver at 2am.

It also means that my weekends (Fri, Sat) are hugely free and is when I can be a posting powerhouse, which I'd love.

Basically, during the week I'll probably disappoint you and I'm sorry. But during the weekend I'd love to do some rapid fire with you. If you see me on the site, usually I'm just reading from my phone while at work.

Also if it eases your waiting I'm reachable at almost anytime, even at work, on Steam (same name), or I can log on discord. I value close rapports with my RP partners and I'd love to discuss plot and characters in real time. I can also tell you precisely when I'm available at any time.

Unless I'm asleep. Then you'll have to guess.

I guess.

Again I'm not trying to lecture or anything! I'm really glad you're enthusiastic for this story, I think about it a lot and I can't wait to get to the meat of the story, I just want you to think I'm not a jerk. I prefer being direct.

Outmoded

Sasha glanced toward the dais, hesitating. There were mirrors there. It was not a natural instinct to avoid them, but a learned one. In this modern age of vanity, with a mirror in every shop, every room, and every vehicle, it was getting more impossible to evade awkward situations. Security cameras and phones added to the problem, as they too failed at capturing his image. It was a strange thing. Here he had been, existing all this time without having to constantly worry about his one odd quirk, when the humans had unintentionally gradually been crafting sharper mirrors and imaging devices that would expose him for what he was.

Perhaps it wasn't so unintentional. Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species did note that predator and prey constantly evolved to outwit each other, not intentionally but as a fact of biology and survival of the fittest. Humans mastering technology had made them formidable after centuries, and now almost everyone had the ability to document his or her surroundings in crystal clear recordings.

To the right crowds, Sasha stood out like a bright light in a dark room. Fortunately, he doubted that Alice had any special contact with these crowds.

Pocketing his hands, Sasha obeyed her request and walked up toward the mirrors.

A familiar scent gradually spiced the air as he passed Alice Lynch. Faint, but it was there.

Fear.

Sasha turned his back to the mirror, watching the young tailor girl as she fetched the tools of her trade. The mirth had drained out of his expression as he examined her without feeling, suddenly appearing unbelievably old. He enjoyed her reactions in an academic sense, all the little things. The new stiffness in her movements, that small change in her voice. Humans stood at the top of their food chains now, but hidden deep within them was still the wary simian fearing predation from lions and tigers. Among other things.

"Is something wrong, Alice?" Sasha folded his arms, as if in defiance of the mirrors behind him, which showed nothing. Despite her request, he left the coat alone. His ploy was over, and he was moving ahead with his strategy. "You seem a little tense."

Out of the corner of his eye he glanced at the door. If she made for it, he would have to intervene.

Outmoded

It really did take me a minute to figure out what you meant. I actually googled it to see if "lo ely" was some kind of slang I don't get. After staring at it for a full minute I realized it was just "lovely" without the v.

And hey don't sweat it. I've written tons of posts on my phone. Did you know that a slightly typoed "terrible" autocorrects to "testicle" like 90% of the time?

Outmoded

Who's Ely?

Joking, of course, I'll post again in an few hours.

Outmoded

@Life in Stasis Would Alice be able to Sasha in mirrors or no?

@LadyRunic

Good question, I forgot to mention it. She would not. He can't be captured on film either.

Outmoded

Now, that was easy. Sasha slowly drifted into the shop after Alice, like a shadowy afterthought to her serious, if reluctant professionalism. The dim illumination from the streetlights outside was briefly eclipsed by his lengthy silhouette, snuffing out the golden starlight of dimly glittering knicknacks within. His oppressing shadow was lifted when Alice switched on the lights, bringing life once again to quaint little tailor shop, which had been closed up only moments ago.

Sasha shut the door behind him, but it failed to latch, and so swung slightly open. He stared at it for a moment, considering the damage he’d wrought, and wondered whether he felt guilty.

“Thank you, truly, for going out of your way.” He drifted toward this year’s display of autumn fashioned, and took a sleeve of a coat in his hand. The material was coarse, yet yielding, beneath the experimental stroke of his thumb. “You have no idea how important this is to me.”

In a fit of whimsy, Sasha looked down at himself, comparing his own attire to what hung on the rack. He looked about twenty years out of date, if he could gauge correctly. But who could keep up with these things? And sometimes being out of fashion was in fashion, though he’d be the last person to ask.

Dropping the sleeve, and dusting his hand on his coat, he then drifted toward the counter and picked up one of the business cards. There was something poetically appropriate about the name, although thus far Alice seemed to be a far cry from the Alasdair whom Sasha once knew. His thumbnail ran over the shop’s hours. Closed at six-thirty, yet here she was.

What was so lacking in this girl’s life that she would be here, instead of out with friends like anyone else her age would be?

She offered to take his measurements.

Sasha raised his eyebrows, then lifted his head toward Alice. A fitting? He’d come to get his coat mended, not taken in.

“Now that you mention it.” He set the card neatly back with its brethren. “I think that would be a fine idea. It seems more likely than not that I’ll be back here for other things. My wardrobe could use a bit of an update.”

So with that, he began to slip off his long coat, shedding some volume from his tall frame and revealing more of his thin, buttoned shirt. He wasn’t much less broad without the coat. ‘Trim’ would suit.

“Irish, isn’t it?” The coat was set upon the counter, and he prepared to lift his arms so Alice could get to work. “Your accent. Not from around here, I take it?”

End + Sleep

Then something happened that Caesar did not expect.

@DinoNuts

Totally thought of Lord of the Rings there.

And yeah, the asterisks are there because the horizontal rule {hr} isn't converted to [code] with the code tags. Just have to take them out.

But hey awesome! A goblin and a spider girl. Looking forward to seeing them in action.

Yo!

Welcome to the site. I hope you find your interactions satisfactory.

End + Sleep

It was a familiar song. Ansi had heard it in his youth, although the words were different then. Most things were different in Quishan.

Join the Legion today! Be part of something greater than yourself! See the world! Meet new cultures! Sail the seas!, and so on and so forth. No matter the faction, it was always a similar assembly of words, attempting to entice impressionable and able-bodied youth from the comfort and security of their homes. And inexplicably, successfully. More than enough young men and women answered that call, and left everything they knew to gamble their lives for some intrepid adventure.

Once the Legion or the Company or the Army or the Coalition or whatever tiresome incarnation roved through villages and cities, they always left the populations behind them a little lessened. One way or another.

Every body of force, every corps, needed more bodies.

Case in point, there was one hanging from a rope just now.

Normally at this hour, Ansi would be sleeping and awaiting the arrival of the dreaded nightfall to strap on his quiver and earn his keep. Unfortunately with all the commotion about Alonso now, sleep was impossible. Instead, he decided to capitalize on the Legion’s offering of meals to the town’s locals—which, he supposed, he was one. At least for now.

There was nothing to indicate that accepting food from the People’s Legion meant accepting conscription, so what was the harm? He was hungry and free food was rare. It was a lot easier to fill a bowl with soup than it was to perch by the river and catch his dinner.

With his bow strapped on his back and over his chest, which seemed like a good idea to have just in case, Ansi leaned innocuously against a pollarded tree, sipping broth from a wooden bowl. Nearby a Legionnaire was spinning some sort of yarn about a mad killer. The man being a natural storyteller immediately led Ansi to assume the tale was entirely falsified. Up in the cages like animals, the prisoners were likely awaiting their turn on the rope. Ansi guessed they were probably nothing more than vagrants, driven mad by the nightly efertide or something sinister. Pitiable, but probably beyond help.

The mage-eyed woman unnerved him, however. There was no telling what she could do, even in this state. And if she did it, he’d best be out of harm’s way.

Still, Ansi listened. In the tall tale might lie grains of truth explaining the true origins of their prisoners. More importantly, therein might lie the true nature of the People’s Legion—was it really a force of good or just another meat grinder? If the Legion had simply rounded up a handful of raggedy humans just to make a show of them, then perhaps Ansi might need to plan on leaving town much sooner.

Meanwhile, some moron by the fountain was already taking the bait. Ansi never understood how these public spectacles could always churn up a foolish froth out of idle townsfolk. Perhaps they were simply desperate to know that there was more world beyond their measly homes, and thought that a companionable armed force would protect them against the ever-hungry nocturne.

It wouldn't.

Already one man was dead, swaying in the breeze at the end of a morosely creaking rope. One thing was certain, if only for the caged wretches: more death was soon to follow.