Obscene Symphony

Of Blood and Magic

Lilie’s professor did what?! Aaron’s brow shot up at the very mention, shock written all over his face. How did one forget their clothes, exactly? Max’s professor attacked him, Lilie’s was a nudist, Maddie’s had her singing like a toddler—where on earth did Ryner find these people? Was this another one of her ways of having fun at her students’ expense? Good lord, maybe there was some credence to Max’s little jab; Ryner of all people would know that his upbringing didn’t lend itself well to dealing with… whatever flavour of unprofessionalism every other professor seemed to practice.

Oh, and speaking of Ryner having fun at her students’ expense, Aaron supposed he should have known it was only a matter of time until the matter of the practical came up. He nearly groaned; the whole thing was an exhausting web of nonsense he’d been chasing his tail over far longer than he’d like to admit, and while it was some comfort to hear he and Max weren’t the only groups to have a harrowing time with it, it was a topic he would very much have preferred to avoid.

Fate would not be so kind, however, and any semblance of comfort was dashed when Max opened his mouth. He’d been to see one of the Mental professors about the practical, then? Well, either Eris’ little fact-finding mission hadn’t ended with him or Max had been just as dishonest as he was at their little meeting. The thought was almost comforting, if only to ease his conscience a touch about lying to Max’s face about keeping his own mouth shut, but the timeline didn’t favour it; even with his connections, Aaron himself could scarcely expect to organize and conclude a meeting with a participating member of the Mental faculty within less than a night of the practical.

Besides, comforting himself with the hope that everyone else was as scummy as he was was tangential to the task at hand: Eris was digging again, and Varis would definitely want to hear about it. As far from amused as he was about Max just casually throwing that out there—he sure seemed to have loosened his lips a bit since they last spoke on the issue—Aaron snapped up every word, filing it all away to report later. He wasn’t sure why Max even offered that much, but until Varis told him they could write the whole thing off and move past it, every little scrap of information was important.

“Yes, Her Highness certainly has an eclectic idea of teamwork,” Aaron added pointedly, shooting Max a subtle look from behind his pleasant facade. As much as the metal mage seemed to neglect the fact that blabbing things like that all over the place was a risk to more than just himself, Aaron knew better to think that he could get much more out of him with an audience. Frankly, the practical was a garbled mess he was tired of thinking about, but his better judgement told him it would be smart to get some information on the other groups’ experiences, and unfortunately that meant offering something of his own.

“My version had me fighting Max. The illusions they implemented were incredible, weren’t they?” he offered more cheerfully, mostly to Maddie. He definitely also had a “strange” time in the practical, but unlike Max he wasn’t keen on drawing attention to it. “I don’t know how they did it, but my Master and I did another one that turned me completely intangible as we searched for a token. I fell right through a tree.” He punctuated the remark with a well-placed chuckle, artfully omitting the amusing details of Varis shrieking in terror as he tried to dig a medallion out of a hole as it tried to buck him off into the abyss.

_{@Achronum @Scribe of Thoth but yknow basically everyone}

Fire Emblem: The Slumbering Goddess

_@Eleven

Jorah’s grin only widened when Raimund picked up flawlessly where he left off, going as far as to organize an unofficial meeting party at the end. Industrious as ever. He was glad to see two years stuck away from him hadn’t stiffened Rai back up too much; it had taken long enough to loosen him up the first time, and Jorah didn’t fancy having to start back from scratch.

There were plenty of introductions after his and Raimund’s show concluded, and as ever, Jorah only really caught the highlights. The Lions seemed predictably frigid across the board; Jorah had thought it might just have been Auberon with the halberd up his ass, but it seemed stiffness might just have been a Faerghus trait. Maybe the cold did it to them, who knew.

The Eagles were all over the map, though Jorah couldn’t resist a snicker at the Aegir siblings’ tandem introduction; they reminded him of a matching set of toy soldiers, painted in complementary colours and each with a trait the other lacked. That was, until one of the soldiers stood up and challenged the general (or, well, a Knight of Seiros) to a duel, and Jorah had to try (and fail) to hold back a peal of laughter. He vaguely remembered a tale in his boring scripture class about a tiny warrior defeating a behemoth, but he sincerely doubted this Valerian boy was going to fill that role—all the more delightful that he issued the challenge in the first place!

When it was time for the pink-haired girl he’d winked at to take her turn, Jorah struggled to keep his jaw from dropping: Throughout introductions he’d been passively aware of a great buzz of emotions in the background, typical of crowds, but it wasn’t until Imogen stood up that he realized a good half of them were all coming from her.

He almost doubted his senses, but there she was, right in front of him and impossible to deny. Jorah had met bubbly people in his life, but this girl was positively boiling over with… with… Goddess, he couldn’t even pinpoint it all! Her mood seemed to ebb and flow with the beat of her heart, flitting from one place to the next like some kind of manic hummingbird in a garden. If other people’s emotions were murmurs in the room, then hers were a great peal of raucous laughter, ringing loud and clear through the building and bouncing off the walls. Hells, he needn’t worry about getting lost in the woods nearby; even if he lost sight of Garreg Mach’s spires, surely the sheer volume of Imogen’s emotions would be enough to guide him home.

Any following introductions paled in comparison, consisting only of another Deer who shrank even smaller than that poor Kevin boy and an Eagle whose aura was as prickly as the tone of her voice, like a thistle chafing against skin. Jorah was vaguely aware of Michail’s taunt and while he was certainly interested in watching that stupid duel unfold, his first priority was to see what on earth was up with Imogen.

The moment the bell tolled, Jorah gave an absent wave to his friends and hopped out of his seat, climbing over his bench to make a beeline for Imogen. Sidling up to her as she stood, he hooked his arm into hers, falling into step with her without skipping a beat.

“Hello Imogen, I don’t believe we’ve properly met,” he greeted, voice smooth and sweet as honey as he gave the (shockingly) shorter girl a smile. “I’m Jorah—you may have heard—and as House Leader of the Golden Deer I am taking it upon myself to personally greet each and every one of my housemates before the day is through. Appropriate, don’t you think?”

He gave her a look that made it clear this was anything but professional courtesy, and with an affable shrug, continued. “How would you like to come with me and see that Eagle boy get stomped?” The question was a lot less ‘professional-sounding bullshitting’ and a lot more sincere, the blond practically bouncing on his feet in anticipation. Not really for the fight, fine, but even he had to recognize that coming out and telling Imogen how absolutely freakishly fascinating she was might come off a little too strong. Besides, dinner and a show had never failed him, and what luck that the monastery had provided both in one day!

Ah, he was going to like it here.

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread

Y'all I know that game pads evolved the button and joystick model of arcade cabinets but honestly they're just doing it wrong, Halo would be better if it was played exclusively on a Pac-Man machine

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread

Video games that are only fun with friends and not on their own are generally doomed to a flash of success and then death. See: Among Us in like 6 months, or any of those party games. You might pick them up in a year or two for like, an evening or a week, but you won't exactly be coming back to it on the weekly.

That's a horrible model for an MMO, since MMOs rely on replay value to make their money. Games like Among Us and Town of Salem and all those other "fun with friends but not on their own" little games are one-time sales - the company has made their money whether you play it continually or not, and in that sense can be called a success. But since the MMO model is too long-running to rely on initial sales alone, they NEED people to keep coming back (and frequently, too) in order to stay profitable. And before you come back screaming capitalism, you should definitely care if your MMOs make money, cause if they don't, they die and you don't get to play them anymore.

Besides, it's nice to be able to play an MMO you enjoy without needing other people, for those times when you want to play but your friends aren't around, or it's a slow time on the server and queues are taking forever. Engaging singleplayer content (especially overarching main story) is also a great way to get players who haven't played in a while to come back for updates and expansions, because the singleplayer content has them engaged enough to want to see what comes next regardless of if their friends still play the game.

Singleplayer content also adds to the multiplayer experience. An MMO that's basically just a chat room relies on the players to make the content, and they're not always up to the task. But an MMO that also has a main story going on and side content that's done singleplayer can enhance the multiplayer experience by giving you and your friends something to talk about, compare, or even turn into a multiplayer engagement (ex. gathering convoys in XIV, housing, etc).

Then there's kinda hybrid content where it's singleplayer 95% of the time but requires multiplayer objectives to progress, ex. story quests in XIV that are played singleplayer until you reach a dungeon or trial requiring other players to beat. Mind you, that's hours of singleplayer content combined with maybe a combined hour of mandatory multiplayer across an entire expansion.

Basically if I can't play the game unless my friends are online, then I probably just won't play the game, and that's a terrible idea for the MMO model.

And needless to say, MMOs absolutely have to be fun as games. "Facilitating social interaction" is the design philosophy of AA, not video games XD If it's not fun, it'll just be passed over in favour of the millions of other games that ARE fun, and therefore die.

For the record, I love the multiplayer aspect of MMOs. I love playing with friends and even strangers. But if not for the singleplayer content I definitely wouldn't have stayed with FFXIV for this long. I would never have made it through the early leveling stages, since back then I was too baby to participate in the content my friends were running!

Fire Emblem: The Slumbering Goddess

_@Hero

The rest of the introduction session was expectedly tedious, despite appearances from the future monarchs of the Empire and the skinny boy who decided to challenge a Knight of Seiros to a duel. As far as Lienna was concerned, it was all noble pageantry; the thought crossed her mind that she should pay attention if she was going to fit in with the highborn students, but as it turned out, they didn’t seem all that different from what she’d imagined in her head. Stand up straight, eyes forward, think a little too highly of yourself—she could get that down in a day, no further study required.

What interested her more was how Professor Michail was making eyes at the red-haired boy who introduced himself as Derec. She vaguely recalled seeing a shock of red in the classroom earlier, so he was probably in their House, but that couldn’t be what interested Michail; if her hunch was correct, he looked like he knew something the rest of them didn’t. Had Derec omitted something from his introduction? Was Ballard a noble family she’d just never heard of? Or was Michail just prone to inappropriate student interaction? Hmph, given his antics so far, Lienna wouldn’t find that hard to believe.

Of course, no sooner did she notice it than Michail was occupied with the Adrestian student who challenged him, whistling to him like a dog as the class was dismissed. Ridiculous and belittling as it was, Lienna couldn’t quite condemn it; play stupid games, win stupid prizes, as they said. She couldn’t claim to be interested in seeing the kid get flattened—although a part of her did enjoy the fact that his comical ego would probably be flattened in kind—but after the Archbishop’s welcome, she definitely didn’t want to go back to the church. The utter strangeness of the place still haunted her, even if she couldn’t fathom why. It had been a long time since she’d been to church, fine, but even when she’d gone after a long time away or after doing something bad, the church at home had never made her feel so… out of place. Maybe it was the lavish construction or the presence of the highest members of the clergy that intimidated her, but whatever it was, she couldn’t quite bring herself to go back just yet.

Still, the way Auberon carried on about the Goddess, Lienna half-expected him to drag her and the other Lions to the cathedral along with him, and if she wasn’t going to do anything but flee to her dormitory, she wouldn’t have much excuse to get out of it. She supposed she could always say no, but the thought of souring her relationship with the head of her House on the first day didn’t sit well with her. If she had someone to occupy her, that might do it, but who…

Her answer came as some of the other professors took their leave, leaving only one of their number behind: the one who introduced himself as Professor Tomai, if she recalled correctly. He was sitting with a book and looking very much like he didn’t want to be bothered, but Lienna didn’t mind; maybe that intimidating air he had about him would keep other students from bothering her if she struck up a conversation with him.

Decision made, Lienna stood, giving her fellow lions an obligatory smile and a “I’ll see you all at dinner,” before approaching the Professor as the crowd began to thin.

“Pardon me Professor, if I could…” she began, though it occurred to her quickly that she was not nearly as practiced in the art of small talk as she should have been for plots like this. That was a skill that she could stand to work on, as tedious and time-wasting as it sounded, though she supposed now was as good a time as ever.

Clearing her throat, she tried again. “Sorry, my mind seems to be everywhere today,” she recovered, resisting the urge to cross her arms and instead clasping her hands behind her back. “You said you were interested in… Crest research? Is that what you teach here?”

2020 Highlights?

I graduated university this year (no ceremony which was A-okay for me, not having to spend 6 hours waiting for my name to be called sounds like a win in my book), then spent the summer studying for the LSAT. Ended up getting a 94th percentile score and am currently awaiting a response from my law school of choice ^^

I also got into the habit of exercising more and got a slightly better handle on my health, although work starting back up has put another pause on that. Had some health issues too, but nothing too serious thankfully. I suppose that's a highlight in that even though it all happened right in the middle of my LSAT studying, it didn't seem to hurt my score!

I spent a lot of time with family (both my immediate family and extended), played a LOT of crib, and had a lot of fun with that. I love seeing my relatives and I was happy we found more excuses to do that this year that'll hopefully extend into the future. We also had an absolutely bitchin' Christmas, I think because people had a little more time to spend getting ready for it, and I'm super happy about that.

I also worked on some hobbies, including some marked improvement in my watercolour painting, which I'm really excited about. And I joined a raid static, woo!

I'm glad I had the LSAT to focus on once school was done, because without some structure in my life I find I'm totally aimless and go a little crazy. You'd think having more free time would allow you to invest more time into hobbies and personal projects, but that's not how it turns out at all for me; I just end up aimlessly clicking around youtube all day. With a bit of structure though, things didn't get too stir crazy.

This was honestly a pretty good year for me, all things considered. Yeah I know it was shitty for many, but every single year is shitty for many for different reasons, so if we all hedge our memories on how the world at large found a certain period of time then we'll all be miserable forever. I'm glad this thread is here, cause it's okay for people to have good things happen even with bad things happening in the world. It's okay! And it's important to focus on the good things that happened, because focusing on the bad will only make you miserable.

Have a happy new year!

Obscene's Scratchpad

Alicia Nilsson

_______________________________________________ Alicia Signe Nilsson _______________________________________________ 25 ┃ November 14, 1995 ┃ Female ___________________________________

Character Summary Personality ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ Alicia is a very driven individual, tirelessly pursuing whichever goals or interests she has at the time. True, her interests often change, but she's eternally dedicated to music and enthusiastically throws herself into her work. A relentless optimist, she believes you can overcome anything with the right attitude and has no time for people who get in their own way feeling sorry for themselves. Growing up in a hotel environment made her sociable, with polished and practiced people skills - not that she always opts to use them. Her upbringing in hospitality taught her ease with new people and how to deal with them, and as a result she's very comfortable in social situations; people who know her say she could make friends with a tree. Pulling out what she calls her "retail self", if she must she can smile and be friendly even when she really doesn't want to. Outside of business, she's prone to running away with the conversation, and she struggles to remember that not everyone is as eager to meet new people as she is. However, growing up in such a bustling environment made her uncomfortable being alone, and she does her best to fill her time with friends and strangers alike. When she can't do that, she turns to her ever-changing hobbies as a companion, but has been known to satisfy her need for company by heading out to a local club and partying it up with total strangers - perhaps more than could be recommended. Appearance ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ [+] Height: 5'6 Weight: 120lbs Alicia is a classic Nordic beauty, with clear pale skin, light blonde hair and a pair of vibrant blue eyes. She's slim but not shapeless; she doesn't have a whole lot going on in the hips or bust, but manages a feminine figure nonetheless. She can dress it up or down depending on the circumstances, but always likes to toe the line between classy and comfy. She likes to look polished, nothing forgotten or overlooked, but never stuffy; an outfit of leggings and an oversized wool sweater might look thrown together until one notices the matching socks and hair clip. She keeps her nails neatly manicured and painted, wears just enough makeup not to look sloppy, and is never one to just let her hair do any old thing. She's not one for trends, and instead likes to stick to tried-and-true classics, though she's not beyond at least looking at the latest styles. When she dresses down she still keeps everything coordinated, and when she dresses up, look out for a bombshell. Background ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ Born and raised in Banff Alberta, Alicia grew up in a bustling tourist town where her parents ran a small hotel. Their hard-working nature rubbed off on Alicia, who helped out at the hotel as much as she could in her time outside of school, starting when she was old enough to collect room service trays. Her parents worked her hard, but they also loved her dearly and supported her every endeavor to the best of their ability, even though she flitted between interests with every changing wind. To Alicia, magic was a normal household occurrence; her parents never really talked about it, and the little charms sewn into her clothing and the enchanted shoes that kept her from running into traffic felt so run-of-the-mill she never felt the need to question it. As she grew older and more curious, any questions were met with uninteresting answers of, "oh, it's just something my grandmother taught me" or, "it's nothing special, just an old family recipe". Fortunately, these were enough to satisfy the boisterous young girl, whose many hobbies kept her occupied enough to keep her from digging too deep into her family history. However, one thing always did pique Alicia's interest: the occasional letters and gifts she'd receive from her mysterious aunt on the west coast. She'd only met aunt Signe a handful of times, Miscellaneous ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ▶ ▶ ▶ Alicia is fluent in Swedish and English and is working on French; however, she prefers English. Her parents insist on speaking English at home. ▶ "It's ah-lee-see-ah."

The Fall of Faith: A Journey Home

Have some interest for Christmas! I still need to read most of this OP but I'll def keep an eye on it.

The Introduction

Welcome! Always good to see more Canadians on the site. I recently discovered Team by Lorde for the very first time when I heard it in a Chanel commercial and have been playing it on repeat XD

I took a peek at your interest check already, looks like good stuff ^^ I'm so used to american writers that seeing Canadian cities in a check is so familiar it's jarring! XD