James Donobran stepped out into the rain, locking the door of his brownstone behind him. He muttered two short incantations: one summoned a small dome of force above him, and the other cloaked it to make it invisible. He flipped the collar of his coat up to keep the wind off, and stepped off into the streets. His goal was a couple blocks away. Should be simple, a quick errand.
Monthly Archives: October 2017
Retaliation – A Story of The Night
Allston, MA
10:22 PM
Mellisa Flanagan, or more accurately with how she dressed and with her clip-on hair extensions on, Marishka Petrovskaya, walked down the block, a few blocks from the club she’d kidnapped a mob boss’s son from a few weeks before, hands in her pockets and head down. She was going to her favorite (not favorite) dive to talk to someone she could get information from. The weather was cool, and a little rainy, and she wasn’t enjoying it. She would have preferred to be up there, above the streets, running across the rooftops and launching herself with her swingline, the wind in her face.
So intent in her grumpiness was she that she nearly was surprised by the three large men in t-shirts, jeans, leather jackers, and boots, all with the particular hairstyle popular with the not-quite-made-men associated with the Patriarca crime family’s street muscle. One of them sported a bandage across the front of his somewhat crooked nose.
Revisiting the Impostor. (Reposts)
A few years ago I wrote a series of posts about Impostor Syndrome. It occurs to me that people might not have seen those, and so I’ve decided to put this post up linking to all four of those.
I know some other people have been having trouble with it lately. I thought it might help. I hope that if this is something troubling you, it helps you a little.
The Ballad of Master Three-Inch: A song by Juliette d’Aubigniy.
This song is mentioned in the story about her, and now here is the song itself.
Talking About Baseball – A Night Story
Allston, MA:
/* “Look What You Made Me Do
Taylor Swift
Reputation */
The club was at the same time brightly and dimly lit: the moving lights of the club made it hard to concentrate on anything else if you were not dancing, shining on something for a moment and then moving on. The pounding beat didn’t help, nor did the smell of sweat and alcohol, or the movement of the bodies on the dance floor.
I’ve Been Watching… Critical Role.
So I’ve started, finally, watching and catching up with Critical Role. For those that don’t know it, it’s a show of a group of voice actors playing Dungeons and Dragons (5th Edition). If you hadn’t guessed by now I’m a gamer, well, you probably haven’t been reading me very long or very well.
I just got up to episode 69, “Passed Through Fire”, and I’m enjoying it tremendously. While I’m not really big on 5th Ed, this is one of those things where the game system isn’t the situation. I admit I’m not really sure about what ‘with advantage’ and ‘with disadvantage’ mean, so I get a little lost with the system, but it’s the play that has me coming back. It’s got me feeling excited and pleased to be, hopefully, getting things stable and getting back to tabletop gaming again.
Plus the ‘wait I know that voice’ part really is cool. Admittedly, it was easy for me to hear (for my World of Warcraft playing readers) the voice of Illidan Stormrage running around in there when Vax’ildan speaks, or going (another WoW reference) “Wait, wait, is that Darion Mograine?” when Percy gets off a particular intonation. But some I don’t immediately get, so it’s cool, and I want to go tracking down some of their other work.
But the play… I just finished, as mentioned, episode 69, and it was great. They had to do a resurrection, which, gamers know, tends to be more of a ‘oh well’ after you’ve played for a while. But… I don’t know if it’s the first time they really did it, or that it came off some really dramatic stuff, or that, again, not really big about the rules, but this was great. The fact they roleplayed a lot of stuff, that these are not just a bunch of people working together, but friends, a family, really made it come together. Add in a confession of love that the recipient didn’t hear (because he was dead). They really seemed to be emoting, and all cheering when Percy came back to life.
And then there was a letter that they weren’t supposed to read, because it was supposed to be read posthumously, giving that question of “so if you come back to life what counts as posthumous?”.
It was really very well done, and it felt real.
I’m going to enjoy coming back to roleplaying.
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A clarification on what I’m doing here.
This is my blog; I write what I wish to write. Sometimes it’s fiction, sometimes it’s things about my life. (My posts about Imposter Syndrome, for example, were popular.)
In addition, I am transgender, and happily so.
If you have a complaint about my writing, these are your choices:
- Contact me directly.
- Start your own blog.
- Go away.
Thank you and have the day you deserve.
Reclaiming – A Scarlet Angel story
TUKWILA, WA:
Midnight and change.
Annaliese Korper sat on the broken chair in the run-down studio apartment in the worst suburb of Seattle. Mentally, she reviewed what she had, and admitted to herself it didn’t amount to much.
Four years ago, she’d had everything she could have wanted: a good job, money coming in, a nice apartment, and a night job as a superhero. She’d even, thinking back, had what looked like a relationship. But it hadn’t been, really. And that was the problem, right there.
This is my morning.
This about what I do in the morning. The self-care to get myself running when I wake up.
Shadows in a Tavern – a Lady Mara Hornraven tale
Waterdeep:
She lingered at one of the tables, red hair hanging in ringlets over her shoulders, eyes with a soft blue on the lids, and her dress both full yet clinging to her buxom form. She had been in the festhall for the better part of the evening, watching the show, refreshing her drink, and making small bon mots about the noble families of the city to the glee of those sitting with her.