@Cthulu: Would you like to post first? --- You would not [i]have[/i] to keep the Unity-rune active, though, even if you're keeping the runesword in hand, so tying it on your back to preserve magical energy doesn't make too much sense (I mentioned just as an option for people who might want to do so)? - As long as you are leaning it on the ground, especially if you keep it mostly vertical, the weight matters marginally, and if you are resting it on your shoulder, the weight should have somewhat lesser impact than while having it on your back (since the body is a straight pillar supporting the weight instead of the weight being off-balance and tilting it backwards). The only extra exertion would come from the (likewise optional) shifting between the two positions. - Hmm... I've mentioned it before, but dekkuns don't really roar, at least not in the traditional sense. They produce various snorts and low, deep growls, and aside of that they produce a wide array of vocalizations that probably more resemble something that could be produced by drawing two (straight-edged) blades against one another than anything else. The louder calls are very clear and metallic, and actually fairly high in tone (probably a bit closer to the typical "eagle-call" than, say, a lion's roar? I can't really bring a good example here). And yeah, I certainly agree that there is place for realism and place for absurdity, and depending on what you currently feel like, both can be equally entertaining. - I guess I myself kind of prefer to things be clearly identifiable as one or another, though? In any case it seems that suspension of disbelief works better if I take one long look at the thing and can decide from the beginning that the world follows different laws from ours and the part of me that usually analyzes the plausibility of things can go and take a coffee break in the meantime so it wouldn't bother itself too much. As opposed to me getting halfway through something before - [i]wait a moment, what [/b]exactly[/b] happened now? That isn't possible...[/i] Ironically enough, I find that people die in action movies for little actual reason as often as they survive things which simply aren't survivable, and poisons apparently work in altogether mysterious ways. But yeah, the hero gets an explosion going off right behind his back and just gets back up and continues walking (total body disruption, anyone?) while the nameless goons instantly drop dead from literally any bullet that touches them, no matter where it hit (the death rate for random gunshot-wound is roughly five percent nowadays, excluding headshots usually due to bleeding out or infection - and the latter two tend to take some time; often the victims don't even pass out at any point (both personal accounts and reports)). Never mind the hitting person over the head to knock them out for several hours ... that simply [i]doesn't[/i] work like that, and even if the person survived, they'd most likely not be able to stand up and walk across a room for quite some time. Making a person fall fully unconscious with some chemical without killing them is typically nigh-impossible, too. ...I admittedly haven't played much of the Final Fantasy series myself - I own none of the games, so it's just when I have taken a look at them at someone else's place (but still... [i]so[/i] much shiny). I am a PC gamer, it falls slightly out of my usual field (and I tend to have slight disagreements with the third person view, camera shenanigans and perception-skewups mostly - I'd rather have first person or the typical real-time strategy overview), and it seems I only have enough time to spare to take up a single new game every once in a while to begin with... Sephiroth is actually one of the very few characters from the series I could both name and recognize from image - probably the only one I relatively certainly wouldn't mix up with anyone else. (The protagonist of FF7? Erm, a guy with fluffy hair? Wouldn't be able to identify, not without the sword at least. Might be called Cloud or something else weather-related... I think Final Fantasy has had several protagonists with weather-related names.) I can certainly agree you on GLaDOS, though. Portal (though engaging for the concept's simplicity the game is) wouldn't quite be the same without her, and I'd say she is certainly one of those antagonists you actually do not want to see destroyed (as long as they stay on the other side of the screen, anyway). - I could probably partially blame you for taking the game up, since you were one of the very first people back in the day to advise me to play it (along with Half-Life; I now know why people draw orange lambdas everywhere!). That was on MG, so a long time ago... The other sort-of well-known and sometimes pointed out as remarkable female AI antagonist (SHODAN from System Shock - I think the evil AI base concept is quite common?) did not leave that much of an impression. Didn't really seem to get much more intellectual than a lot of hastily cobbled together plans and "You inferior insect. I magnificent." - I think the logs lying about everywhere gave more to the game (I also got the impression the second game wasn't taking itself too seriously anymore, as opposed to the first one). To think of it, I haven't alway only stuck with entirely serious roleplays, either... (So! A six-winged angel, dwarf, a humanoid stingray, a dark elf, an elf, an Englishman, a feathered wyvern and a dark-worshiping desert-man walk into bar one day. Literally. Well... I can't really imagine playing the character I had there in more "realistic" fantasy RP, if for the reason that the canonical reaction of humans - aside of those inhabiting their native lands - to members of her species was to either flee, hide, flee and hide, or arrange a destined-to-fail attack.) At some point I considered making an otherwise realistic character to be played in a somewhat absurd manner just to balance off Aemoten, who has been ... quite a bit more depressing recently than I'd like (and spent quite some time being either completely useless or lamenting at the fact that he is being completely useless in between). Didn't find a roleplay to put him in, though ... luckily, I had Etakar and the god to play for at least some of the time meanwhile. Hmm... The average lifespan of RPG roleplays has never been to great, either - it seems that most of the time I make something only three or four IC posts ever get made. I sometimes have thought of trying to start a RP of my own - especially since good low scifi seems nonexistent -, but I don't think I'd stably have the time to pour into solo-GMing a RP (...I apologize if I port a bit too many of my things over here instead?). Maybe in the way of 1x1 roleplays... (Jack shouldn't be so intimidated by me - you have never even been a RP GMed by me, even less in a 1x1 with me. - Since you mentioned running it with just me once, Makers of Fortune *had* a third player till the end, whom we waited to post for sometimes several weeks in a row, and who somehow never got to posting during the last turn... Also, it was long ago. At least I have done quite a bit of collaborative writing with just a single other person at a time since, and that's pretty much what you've been doing with Ashgan ever since Jillian parted ways from the group. :-P) (I can confirm that all people of The Prophecy are still here for what it's worth, though, aside of sartorous/Ink Blood, who has vanished off the planet again and whose contacts I never had in the first place.) --- @Ashgan: University stuff, mostly? It seems that most people have the end of the year arriving somewhere between less than two weeks and two months... (The northern hemisphere, anyway.)