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20 days ago
Current Ethical issues aside, AI prose is just really bad.
3 likes
28 days ago
She wanted to read, she wanted to write, but the main thing she wanted was something to fight
4 likes
1 yr ago
Make it clear that you don't need him to be reading Dante tomorrow. Also suggest it would be fun if you had a private language that you could use to mock English speakers in secret.
5 likes
2 yrs ago
Luckily history suggests an infinite ability for people to be shit heads ;)
1 like
3 yrs ago
Achmed the Snake
1 like

Bio

Early 30's. I know just enough about everything to be dangerous.

Most Recent Posts

Camilla go the distinct impression that outsiders were a rarity in Kennenburg. There was a sudden lull as the pair of sellswords stepped into the Traveler's Rest. The tavern itself was a sight familiar the length and breadth of the Empire. Dark wooden beams interspersed with aging flaking plaster, a floor of straw that was cleaned out every so often to keep the smell and the lice to a minimum, a roaring fire in a stone fireplace over which a pot of something hot bubbled perpetually. The place seemed to be doing a fair business already, men and a few women, sat at long wooden benches sipping ale and eating breakfasts which ranged from porridge to bacon, depending on their means. Winter in rural places was a social time, there was nothing to be done in farm and field and the locals tended to pass the time socializing and gossiping.

For an awkward moment there was silence as they collected villagers took in the sight of the two strangers. A quiet amazed whisper broke out as they debated why anyone in their right mind would travel in weather like this. A moment later the unity of the conversation broke down into more general conversation which slowly returned to normal. Camilla unwrapped her face and shook out her hair, earning several speculative glances from men and accompanying scowls from their wives. One young man of twelve or thirteen summers audible gasped but was cuffed over the ear by a well meaning elder.

"Welcome welcome," piped a voice and Camilla turned to see a plump barmaid crossing the floor towards them. She wore a cotton dress with a green wollen apron and had a bust that seemed almost nonsensical. Camilla blinked, the voice seemed too high pitched to have possibly come from so stout a matron.

"Welcome to the Traveler's Rest strangers!" she made a prefunctory curtsey and gestured them down to a bench. Camilla and Cydric allowed themselves to be seated gracefully.

"What will you be having dearies? Ale? Breakfast? A room for the night?" the woman gushed.

"Uhh... all of the above," Camilla replied quietly. The woman seemed to start back.

"Not from around here are you dearie, Bretonnia?" she pronounced the word Bree-ten-yah.

"Tilea, actually," Camilla replied dragging the words out in a deliberate purr that thickened her accent. She pushed forward several silver shillings by way of good faith. THe coins vanished into the apron like a conjurers trick. Few patrons in a place like this would have anything as valuable as actual currency.

"Aint never heard of it," the barmaid replied and hurried off to fetch them ale and some fried eggs.

"So how do you want to start looking for your friend?" Camillia asked Cydric. Her eyes swept around the room, slapping the gazes of gawking onlookers back to their proper business. In the corner of the room she caught the eye of a forbidding looking man in clothing mutch finer than the standard. A sword, nearly as tall as Camilla stood propped against the fireplace beside him. The stranger did not look away as the others had but instead raised a pipe to his lips and drew in a mouthful of the aromatic smoke. His face looked contemplative but Camilla recognized a hard man when she saw one.

@POOHEAD189
<Snipped quote by SleepingSilence>
Even if the suicide bomber is alone in the ocean on an inflatable boat?


You didn't clarify if the suicide bomber owns the boat or the bomb. I know it seems obvious from context but apparently you would be wrong.
Aiden nodded skeptically, clearly unconvinced that the marking was a simple tattoo. The prince had been on many archaeological expeditions, a diallitente rather than a true professional, but he knew the working of ancient technology when he saw it. Never before had he seen it impact a human in such a way though. He sat himself down in one of the chairs and pivoted it slowly back and forth.

"You will excuse me if this sounds indellicate," Aiden continued, clearly a little uncomfortable to speak so informally.

"But is there anything.... you know... going on between you and the good Captain?"

_____________________________________

"Isn't he just the most handsom...ahhhhh!" Taya yelped as Junebug slapped her elbow. The pair of women were in the galley, with the table folded up to make an improvised exercise area. Sayeeda exercised with the discipline with which she approached everything and rarely missed an oppurtunity to train.

"Keep your elbow up," she snapped, "If you want me to teach you, you will pay attention." Junebug's voice was censorious but not angry. Taya adjusted her grip on the plasma rifle and lifted her elbow as instructed. Nodding her approval the mercenary backed off several paces.

"Why am I learning hand to hand if you are training me to shoot?" Taya complained. Junebug darted forward and snatched the barrel of the weapon as Taya began to swing the butt up in a defensive stroke. With a twist of the wrist she broke the younger woman's grip and yanked the weapon away.

"Don't hesitate like that, any move you make is better than no move," she counseled and handed the weapon back to the girl. Taya readjusted her grip.

"But Aiden is handsome right?" she pressed. Sayeeda could only sigh.

@POOHEAD189
Camilla nodded thoughtfully, sparing a careful glance at Cydric's move to grab his sword. Having grown up in Tilea and immersed in its literature she could understand the allure of a a debt of honor. She touched the big mercenary back comfortingly and then began to gently massage the muscles. It was a bit like trying to massage granite but he seemed not to object. It turned out that a surprising number of courtesan skills were transferable to other situations. She grinned wickedly behind Cydric's back, some of them more transferable than others of course.

"Well as soon as the storm breaks we will be there," she said confidently and peered out into the roiling storm of ice. Northern winters were a thing to behold. In Tilea she had seen snows only on the high mountains but here it seemed to drown the land. It was a marvel the whole world didn't flood when it melted in the spring. Talk of Norscan warriors settled poorly on her mind. She and Cydric had fought their share of the agents of chaos and a onetime champion of Sl...., her mind skipped over the name unconsciously, had once claimed it was her destiny to serve him. That Champion was dead now, is rotting brains blown out with enchanted powder at a hidden keep in the Reikwald. Still... she shifted a little closer to the fire.

"I don't suppose it will do much good when we cant see ten feet infont of us, but why don't I take the first watch?"

___________________________

Morning broke clear and bitingly cold. Camilla climed out of the improvised lean to and was surpsised to discover the outside of the pine branches had been had been completely sheathed in white ice. In fact, the whole world appeared to be coated in a layer of frozen ice. She put her foot down experimentally and felt it crack beneath her boot in a spiderweb that radiated from the pressure point.

"Morning," Cydric called to her from halfway up the canyon. Judging by the cracks in the ice he had clearly been scouting. He tossed her a pair of cold sausages and she snatched them from the air with her gymnasts relexes. The made it out to the road without to much difficulty to find the entire mountain path frozen solid. Fortunately the layer was thin and crunched under foot rather than forming a slippery death trap. In the distance she could see smoke rising above the tree line.

"That must be Kennenburg, we should be there in time for some real breakfast," she said with a smile and a critical glance at the sausage.

@POOHEAD189
And participate in their weddings, as the case may be. Come to think of it I've never heard of an atheist bakery whining about business at a Christian wedding, so..... yeah that checks out.


If someone I don't like invites me to their wedding I don't go. That is in my private capacity. If someone I don't like comes into the ER I treat them to the best of my ability. That is my professional capacity.

Real talk -- where do you draw that line? I imagine "grab 'em by the pussy" is probably a dealbreaker. What about (and I don't wanna be leading here, just spitballing) like a gun owner, or a sock-sandal person, or a male cat person -- if you're in charge of the arrangements and there are no laws/lawsuits to impact your decision, who gets sent to the Nazi table?


Pussy grabbers are an obvious one. If you are a hard core misogynist I'm completely uninterested in having a relationship with you. Gun owners are a pretty broad church and I need more of a case by case basis. There is a world of difference between the former marine who shoots competitively and the Sandy Hook denier who is arming himself for the race war.

I know you would like me to come up with some sweeping statement that draws a clear boundary but the issue has too many layers to separate out conveniently and listing particular groups individual would be long and necessarily incomplete.

I think the closet I can come is that if you are 'punching down' at others (ie anti-LGBTQ people), or peddling hate (I'm not interested hearing your defense of the ethnostate) I have to start asking serious questions as to whether I want anything to do with you.

Some of these groups include: Nazis, White Nationalists, misgoinsits, anti-choice people, fundamentalist Christians, fundamentalist Muslims, people who are cruel to children and animals, homophobes, transphobes, bigots of various stripes, people that support deporting children, MS-13, people who proudly proclaim they have never seen star wars and so on.

Interesting and tangentially related. I think its a bit extreme but I sympathize.
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2017/politics/state/dating-new-york-trump/





(I should probably clarify that I don't think that patients dying of cancer who opt for euthanasia have the right to set the building on fire with their last breaths. Just making sure we are on the same page.)


@SleepingSilence I went back and added the () in case you weren't able to figure out I was being sarcastic. (I hope that helps.)
Here I'll start again,


Sorry but you are clearly not arguing in good faith.
(I should probably clarify that I don't think that patients dying of cancer who opt for euthanasia have the right to set the building on fire with their last breaths. Just making sure we are on the same page.)
Neil and Sayeeda exhanged glances. She hadn't heard of Dar'monad but logically it had to lay ahead of them or she would have seen it while searching for destinations on previous legs of the journey. The profit margin on the cola they had been hauling had been slight even before they had let a score of shell shocked soldiers trample all over it. They seemed to come to a mutual decision.

"Alright, we can shape course for Dar'monad," Sayeeda agreed with a professional smile.

______________________________________

Neil was taking his watch on the bridge when Aiden unexpectedly clambered up the ladder. For once the noble didn't have any of his entourage with him. It was what passed for the night cycle on the Highlander although Junebug was notoriously ambivalent to things like sleep patterns. There was a quiet hum of electronics lit mostly by the roiling golden fire of this portion of the RIP through the main view screen.

"Ah Mr Edwards," the Prince began his gaze sweeping the cockpit to make sure they were alone.

"I was hoping to have a chance to speak with you privately. A remarkable ship and a strangely assorted crew yet all the Captain will give me are vague monosyllabic responses. You are both former military yes?"

@sly13 We are still accepting
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