Howler

There Are No Heroes [Revamp]

I almost had a post up last night and it got deleted. Tonight for sure, come hook or crook.

Falling Skies: 7th Mobile Armor Suit Team

Drama queens.

As they slid their way to their respective MAS units, Tom did his best to ignore the confrontation happening behind him. As soon as it was clear which unit she'd be piloting it was inevitable, but it didn't stop another tic or irritation from rising. Astelion could at least try to be professional about the affair--if their fucked up little group wasn't known for playing by the rules, Trent would like to think they were at least better than throwing tantrums about the matter. Not a one of them owned the machines that they used, could afford to put a tenth of one together out of their salaries combined. The only thing that bought a pilot the right to call a machine his own was performance, and even that could be ignored in the right hands. Whatever it was Eric had hoped would happen with his sister's MAS, it was quite literally out of his hands.

Better to focus on the present.

In the same way, it wasn't that Tom was attached to the Mosquito because he thought it his. It suited him very well, admittedly, and he'd done some incredible things with it, but primarily it was his because anyone else piloting it would have been a liability. Never mind the explosive potential in the experimental core if calibrations weren't just so or the risks of ionization and plasma technology in the Arbalest--the thing was practically a screaming metal death trap, lightly armored and intensely responsive. Anyone without significant light-chassis experience would get themselves shredded under anything resembling concentrated fire, to say nothing of the dangers of a Tesla Drive to the uninitiated. Calibrated as he had it fire-fights were finger-twitch instant responses, the mech reacting practically at thought and requiring intense concentration to keep aligned, active and in order. The Astelion, with its intense speed capabilities, would require similar concentration and precise handling.

Still, he'd done it. Combat had come naturally to him, so perhaps it would to her as well.

Tom and Wes shared similar levels of communication between themselves and their mechanics, but where Wes was able to simply allow them to do their jobs Tom had to let them fiddle and fuss over this suboptimal stabilization rod or the amount of lithium currently in the cooling solutions. They ran endless strings of numbers and made an endless series of adjustments, the end result always being that he had to re-calibrate his damn self. Yes, he knew that under lab conditions the Tesla Drive could run at optimum speeds with only a 15% energy draw--he also knew that the stabilizer struts and the Tesla Drive ran through the same relays and, without upping the allocation to at least 18% there was a loss of in-flight stability for the first second or so of Tesla initiation. Yes, the Arbalest required at least a 35% ED budget in order to operate at optimum efficiency for maximum range, but the thing's maximum range was several miles--it was significantly more efficient to cap it at 30% and pull the remaining energy towards the maneuvering vents, which needed to be responsive at the drop of a hat to handle high speed performance. And so on and so forth, little kinks and alterations that were necessary for performance, not ideals. So it was that by the time he got to his machine and waited, deadpan, for them to finish fawning over the reactor, that he finally managed to draw himself up into the machine proper and settle himself in.

It was enough to drive a guy crazy.

"Mr. Wizard up and running, booting up the optimization suite. Combat ready in five." He offered mechanically through the vocal feed, eyes already flicking through lines of holographic data as they filled themselves in around him. Fingers flicked out to adjust a statistic here or there, an endless string of corrections and calibrations. He took the ribbing about his slow start ups in stride, bitching good-naturedly about meddling R&D and statisticians, but when it came down to it he'd be ready to go with the rest of them.

And you couldn't argue with results.

There Are No Heroes [Revamp]

I'll have a post up tonight, sorry for the delay.

Falling Skies: 7th Mobile Armor Suit Team

I'll throw a post up by the end of the night.

PROJECT // EOS

Interest piqued.

Black Cross, Red Beast: A Transylvanian Affair (OWoD VtDA)

Alright! Having PM'd the lot of you, I'd suggest you check them to see if there's anything I need from you. I'll admit, we have a bit more work to do before starting than I was expecting. Some of you have homework and things that will need to be changed before we can begin the game in earnest. Once I've confirmed your character is doing well, I'll start folding you into things a bit so we can kill a bit of time before beginning in earnest.

Black Cross, Red Beast: A Transylvanian Affair (OWoD VtDA)

Alright, might have been a bit aggressive on starting up the IC, but I did get a chance to review everyone's characters. I'll be pming you about them more directly over the course of the day to tune things up a bit.

@themerlinhawk Any word on your potential Ravnos friend?

The Road To Indigo (Pokemon RP: Chapter 1: Intros and Out We Goes!) (Open for Applications!)

@NeoAC There you are, modified. He received his Axew when Auntie Claire brought him along on a trip to Unova for a conference on Dragon-types and their relative prevalence in Unova in an attempt to give him a 'special' Dragon of his own compared to the dratinis and gyarados that all his other friends had. As for the money, I reduced it considerably to a $500 account, which should be reasonable considering parents sending their kid out into the world to make money by gambling on monstrous cock fights. As for his talent, was that a mandate to change it or a raised-eyebrow-but-alright? I have actually met quite a few misanthropic teenagers in my day that were excellent judges of character and people's intentions--just because they didn't like them or chose to seek attention and act out didn't mean they didn't understand, and often times were pretty intelligent when it came to seeing power dynamics and manipulation tactics having used plenty themselves. I can change it if you like, but I at least don't find it as outlandish as you do.

Falling Skies: 7th Mobile Armor Suit Team

Laying back on top of one of the crates, Tom Trent was probably the only member of the 7th that didn't care that the rookie was green. He'd said as much on the walk over, but it was easy to talk over the soft-spoken rebukes from the slouching pilot. What did it matter if she was green? They all had been at some point or another, and it wasn't like the rest of the team couldn't pick up the slack. Trapp had already replaced Astelion--well, the female Astelion--and frankly if anyone should be under such scrutiny it was him. He's the one they would be stuck with. If the rookie couldn't hack it, she'd die. Simple. The faint trail of smoke from the cigarette in his lips was one of the only things that showed he was still alive up on a crate of his own, trailing off to the metal ceiling. It was strange for him to really feel the death of another, but it was different somehow now that Tori was gone. They'd made a great team on more than one occasion, their MAS units well suited for the high-risk, high-reward roles of the missions they undertook. It was a loss of direction more than anything else, like a compass left to spin searching for North. It was the most Tom could say that he'd really felt about anyone's death, and if he hadn't said much about it he'd raised a shot in a soldier's salute every night for the woman. He didn't really believe there was anything left of her out there to see it, but it felt good. At the sound of Wes introduction he sat up and pulled the nail from his lips. Crushing the cherry out on the bottom of his boot, he pushed off and dropped the few feet to the floor, boneless. Good Ol' Wes. Big man, bold man, heavy drinker, heavy hitter. Tom had always liked him in the same way most people did--there was something to be said for his gruff exterior and heart of gold. As he rattled his way through the squad, Tom was busy watching the newbie. She was, he had to admit, exactly the kind of green the others had been worried about. She saluted, she stood at attention, she radiated inexperience, but there was a reason she'd been assigned to them. And if it wasn't a good enough one, it wasn't like they'd have to deal with her for very long. The AI chimed up from behind a crate just to the side and, not for the first time, Trent wished she made noise like a normal human being. It was the most disconcerting thing about her, the discrepancies--she walked, talked and acted like a duck...almost. Ironically it was her emulation of humanity that caught his attention, pinged his perfectionist tic. Not that he didn't appreciate her, just that he didn't see why she couldn't just be what she was. Though he supposed it could be argued that none of them really could. And there was Delecroix, the charmer. A Frenchman in so many ways and a pretty-boy to boot. Though in many ways they presented themselves similarly--relaxed, relatively affable--Tom remembered a few too many pulled punches for his taste. He'd gotten better about it, but if he was the sort of person to do it in the first place he was the sort of person to feel the strain when he didn't. Time would tell if the stress would bend him or not, but Tom always kept an eye on him when he had one to spare. Maki's barb drew a slight smile from the older pilot, amused as he watched her throw out her father's name again. As irritated as she was at the mention of him, she did always seem to make the relationship clear. Not to say that she hadn't distinguished herself, of course, though the loss of her old unit had hit her hard. She was still a firecracker, however, still saucy and fun, and if she couldn't be more different from the other Japanese lady in the group that wasn't a bad thing. Yuu could make even Tom look serious, already starting to wander off in the middle of introducing herself. She was good at what she did, he'd give her that, but there was something about her that rubbed him the wrong way and had since she'd joined up with the team. It wasn't the kind of thing he'd ever mention, but for whatever reason that whimsicality about her just...made him twitch. When she fell silent he took up the mantle, continuing the barrage of information with a wry half smile. Good Old Mr. Wizard. "Thomas Trent, nice to meet you." He offered with an idle two fingered wave, his voice an easy drawl. "Don't let these bozos scare you. Some big boots you're stepping into, but my money's on you." And that was that, though he had to hide the quick flick of his eyes and a slight smile. If the Captain didn't want them sounding off, he wasn't about to call her out on it.

There Are No Heroes [Revamp]

But of course. I'm on quite a bit at work or on my phone, but I can't really post there. Nights and weekend mornings are usually my prime time.