[b]Everyone:[/b] Mark 2 experience. One for Jasmine finishing her piece, and another for committing. Actually write an article in-character and I’ll give experience for that, too. [b]White:[/b] “Oh, sweetheart. You don’t get to keep any of the good thoughts for yourself?” A wistful look at Pink. “But then I suppose you do, if you’re both ‘yourself’.” She stands up again, composes herself. “Well. I consider us introduced then, and I must admit a wonderful curiosity. I suppose you’re now in charge of her questions? Show me how this works.” Whatever Pink’s jarring entrance cost her seems to have been paid for tenfold by the emotional vulnerability it drew from White, still on her knees. “Suppose this one wishes to be to a dragon what I am to a unicorn. Has she surrendered that decision to you, or are just here to help with the execution?” A coy smile at her next choice of words, before she’s had a chance to say them. “Do I court your permission, or your taste?” Definitely a double entendre. Her eyes are still clearly for White, here, but she’s interested in what Pink can bring out. [b]Blue:[/b] Starlight takes the card without sitting back down. “I believe you. About my safety, anyway. And that you’re sorry.” She gives a Kuleshov smile to Wendy and Perez, letting both of them read what they want into it. “The food was excellent, and you lived up to the promise of being very [i]interesting[/i].” Perez takes that one at face value, and Wendy doesn’t, and that was clearly exactly how Starlight wanted to play that. Here is what she is not saying: [i]You [/i]will not be invited back. I do not feel deceived by your sister, only overwhelmed. And finally: Having done nothing wrong is not the same as having done nothing wrong. Perez is a clear win here, though, but Charlie Euler could be another important win to Orange. He’s revealed himself as a vulnerability. [b]Brown:[/b] Opening the door of the faux tavern is a bounded white void. It looks like a solid wall, and it also looks like it goes on forever at every point. The optical illusions of empty textures. But there’s no collision box to it. You can walk right through, like a beaded curtain. The trick is thinking to try to walk through. Behind that’s a locked door, clipped into the white texture. A casual observer would think this was the white's collision box, never finding the angle that sees where the locked door clips into the faux-forever. It’s part of the security - put a locked door out in the open of the Verse and someone’s going to take it as a challenge. A missing texture for a shady app front, though? Ubiquitous as body odor at a tabletop tournament. The lock is beneath your talents, and the white void masks your attempts at cracking it. Inside is a data abattoir. Traffic is being skimmed and scraped, encryption is being sorted weak-to-strong, with the weakest being sent to brute force algorithms represented by pneumatic rams. They crush down on slabs of data. Floating strings of broken code swarm in shifting glyphs, pinning plaintext descriptions on the shattered parts that the ramheads manage to break - these assessment programs are performing vital functions, but nobody was so sentimental as to assign them so much as a .png. The rams are identical, but the swarms of glyphs have different priorities. One of them is scraping phone numbers. One of them is scraping bank card details. One of them is figuring out what it can do with doxxing. All hands off. Cryptorigs turned fucking vicious when cryptocurrencies crashed and burned. But the tools designed for industrial scale brute force decryption still found their uses. This is just what happens when a cryptographic mining rig goes mask off and the subtext becomes the text. And you have its physical address. [b]Persephone:[/b] You’re out, but you’re not clean. You’re pretty identifiable, and a cop just made you. You’ve destroyed the proof you were there, and nobody’s going to take police testimony against you right now. What, that you were breaking into and vandalizing an apartment all the way out here? Not without someone trying to ask questions about the owner, anyway. But you’ve connected yourself to Marco, now. The cops are going to know what it means that you were here. Fortunately November already got the crew out of your apartment. But those reporters aren’t going to be protection enough anymore, not after this. Maybe they won’t go full frontal assault but… There are going to be problems getting you in, and getting them out. More than just reporters this time. What’s your biggest fear right now? Where are you most vulnerable? Something bad is about to happen, something you couldn't plan for. Up in Gaia, a boot crushes Junta’s collarbone. [b]3V:[/b] [b]NeonCzolgoz:[/b] holy shit [b]NumbtoNothing: [/b]holy shit [b]ProvocativelyFickle: [/b]What? What?? [b]NeonCzolgoz:[/b] 3V’s new piece is in the submissions folder, you seen it yet? [b]ProvocativelyFickle:[/b] I’m super far behind on everything, what did she do? [b]NeonCzolgoz:[/b] numb don’t spoil it [b]NumbtoNothing:[/b] shit okay okay fuck [b]NumbtoNothing: [/b]okay but please go read it like right now [b]ProvocativelyFickle:[/b] Okay?? [b]ProvocativelyFickle:[/b] Give a Dog a Bone? That one? [b]NumbtoNothing: [/b]AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA [b]NeonCzolgoz:[/b] yeah that one [b]ProvocativelyFickle: [/b]Okay?? [b]ProvocativelyFickle: [/b]?? [b]NeonCzolgoz: [/b]wait for it [b]NeonCzolgoz: [/b]wait for it [b]ProvocativelyFickle: [/b]3V! Oh my god!!! [b]NumbtoNothing: [/b][i]AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA[/i] [b]NeonCzolgoz: [/b]and there it is [b]ProvocativelyFickle:[/b] You didn’t!! You can’t!! Oh my god [b]ProvocativelyFickle: [/b]I mean! Do it! You go girl!!! [b]ProvocativelyFickle: [/b]I just can’t believe you’re posting this [b]ProvocativelyFickle: [/b]I’m so proud of you [b]NumbtoNothing: [/b]It’s super hot right [b]NumbtoNothing: [/b]NGL though [b]NumbtoNothing: [/b]wolves? [b]NumbtoNothing: [/b]always knew you were super fucking basic [b]NumbtoNothing: [/b]no but tell me more 👀 [b]NeonCzolgoz: [/b]You’re saving up to try for husky aren’t you? [b]NumbtoNothing: [/b]Y-yeah [b]NumbtoNothing: [/b]s-shut up? [b]NeonCzolgoz: [/b]lol lmao [b]NumbtoNothing: [/b]still working out whether to do the herm mod before or after [b]NumbtoNothing: [/b]way easier as a package deal and cheaper in the long run but it just means saving for longer [b]NumbtoNothing: [/b]still means i won’t be the most basic kind of bitch b-baka Neon-senpai [b]NeonCzolgoz: [/b]honestly though [b]NeonCzolgoz: [/b]for real? [b]NeonCzolgoz: [/b]this really helps some of the really heavy stuff we’re doing in the backend, drives the conversation in the right way [b]NeonCzolgoz: [/b]It’s the right kind of controversy, starts the right kind of fights, and puts us on the right side of history [b]NeonCzolgoz: [/b]Eddy-boy’s going to be so fucking mad lmao [b]ProvocativelyFickle: [/b]@3V Hey! Uh. [b]ProvocativelyFickle: [/b]If you wanted to go again sometime [b]ProvocativelyFickle: [/b]I’d love to do a followup piece to yours, if you wanted to take me? [b]NumbtoNothing: [/b]yes [b]NeonCzolgoz:[/b] oh shit [b]NeonCzolgoz: [/b]Yeah so [b]NeonCzolgoz: [/b]We really need to really go hard on this for a little while, honestly. Different authors and different angles would help a lot. [b]NeonCzolgoz: [/b]I really like this one though. The courage and commitment angle? It’s welcoming, it’s inviting. [b]NeonCzolgoz: [/b]but strong followups would add a lot [b]ProvocativelyFickle:[/b] I don’t know what I’d write [b]ProvocativelyFickle: [/b]Trying to work it out might be fun though? [b]NumbtoNothing: [/b]I’ve got other places to recc too if you want to try something else [b]NumbtoNothing: [/b]Sirius is just kind of the biggest [b]ProvocativelyFickle: [/b]Well *I* haven’t been yet so I want to do Sirius first [b]ProvocativelyFickle: [/b]You don’t have to go with me if you don’t want to though! The article isn’t live yet, not yet. It’s still got to be edited, approved and fit into the upload schedule. This still puts you a day ahead of everyone else. A lot is going to happen while you shut yourself into your writing. Gensoukyo will get more of its spotlight in time. Instead I want to ask; What was the first article you wrote for the Anthropozine? Which publisher rejected it first, and who’s still angry about what you wrote to this day? What made it worth it, anyway?