when spellchecker turns "broth" into "both"... argh.

Aye, I interpreted right xD

Everything okay?

this week knocked the racoon pee right out of me. got 24 extra work hours because someone called in sick, had to cancel things I was looking forward to, and other general crap because people are two-faced manipulating narcissistic dicks... I should count as recovered once I sleep 12 hours, which should happen today. I hope. :)

No worries, just checking up on you.
With the whole coronavirus panic it's been a bit of a hot mess over here too.

meh. the gerontocracy is shitting its pants because coronavirus kills only the elderly with already damaged health. It poses less risk than influenza to normal working class people, and none at all to children.

...I might or might not have mentioned it as a thinly disguised revision of pensions myself.

short hiatus. I work in a hospital and this coronavirus thing meant far too much overtime for me, not to mention organizing supplies :P but I have a whole four days free now, so I should be able to come up with something.

Are you fine with covering a few days of time with the next post? I've a bit of exposition to fit in.

Oooh boy, that's bound to be fun. In what corner of the world, if you don't mind me asking?
I'm stuck home on 'vacation' for at the very least two weeks, so I'll be here a whole lot of time myself.
And sure, go right ahead with the exposition - I was thinking something of the sort would have been useful just a few days ago.

Okay! Life is returning to some semblance of normalcy, with travel bans lifted and so on.

are you still with me?

Apart from all my other games somehow exploding, aye, still here.
Managed to save the world?

whaddayamean exploding? :D

save the world, hardly. But back at work and with more time to write. Got promoted in a fellowship I'm in as well, and working on a COVID epidemiology paper with a couple of friends versed in math.

Heh, just people getting busy - life on rpol as usual.
And that's plenty cool, I have a few friends working on similar projects.

novelplanet shut down. sadness.

I'm being poked distractingly by ALL THE PEOPLE now that the lockdown is kinda over, I'll try to get a post out tomorrow but no promises.

haha no problem.

Hoy there!

Just recently started playing around with rpol again and decided to take a random peek back here.

So, how did that paper go? xD

oh! you're back! :D

the paper is still in peer review owing to me being too lazy and changing one of the models to something else and using the aiake information criterion for estimating model fit bias... Or making a ton of other stuff meanwhile. Got some promotion in one fellowship in the meantime. working 5 workplaces. ah, the usual.

I was thinking of running something again, too. But hey, we can continue this story too. I still have tons of ideas and an universe writeup for this... And reading Renegade Immortal currently, haha.

And how have you been?

I don't mind continuing if you still remember what was going on xD

The usual for me too - higher ups complaining our tech is getting too old but refusing to even consider spending the time and money needed to let us code monkeys learn, much less implement, new tech.
I'm pretty sure that's a common story everywhere.

But finally vacations, so it won't be my problem for about three weeks!

Pretty boring vacations, as I'll be getting the second Moderna stabbing by the tail end of them and don't really feel like taking swabs every two-three days to go out and do wild things when I can just hug my air conditioner and be a nerd at home.

Started reading 'Tale of a Scribe who retires to the Countryside' myself. Very wuxia instead of xianxia but pretty cool.

so - coming home from vacation saturday.

I re-read my notes and I remember where the whole thing was supposed to blunder toward ^^

I'll be around when you post something!
Assuming I survive the heat of these days, of course.

haha. the heat is not a problem. Surviving spousal stress is! ♥

I have a couple orphans-in-all-but-name from another wuxia game, at least one of which fine with sporadic posting. Since you were considering starting more stuff, should I give them a nudge in this direction or you're ovewhelmed enough by life?

sure, shoot them my way, if they can handle my lack of posting rate :D

We are all wanderers seeking a way to enlightenment. Nice to be here!

Allo and welcome you!

This character has some past life issues he'd rather avoid. Assuming you aren't part of those more friends are always welcome by a gentle soul.

mind you, that gentle soul likes reducing victioms to showers of blood and flesh to get at their cores. I guess there are less gentle ways to do that. Probably. Hmm.

Just a caveat - I work absurd times (which became more absurd with COVID) and can't guarantee to follow any sort of posting rate. Seriously. If you like regular updates this game is not for you.

Gentleness is in the bloody pile of Beholder guts or something!
...Also, now that there's people around I might just need to stop being lazy and put up a character profile <.<

Okay, it was only when Xier was a rookie that he blew people up. After you've blasted apart enough people... AND wanted to not make a mess you might just learn to take someone's core out with chopsticks or a spoon or your fingers, oh so cleanly.

Just because you are good at it doesn't mean you like it. He prefers tidiness in most cases.

Naming! My ancient enemy!

Tree Frog Skin, when active the cultivator is poisonous to the touch, hazard is related to the difference between your meridian score and their internal score (further mastery allows you to target an enemy's specific score of your choice).

What does your new ability do?

In reply to Chou Xier (msg # 34):

it poisons the racoon pee out of its victims

Is it a poison energy attack like poison fog, a strike that turns an opponent's energy to poison, a technique that actually forms poison glands in the practitioners... But that ability sounds like an antidote to me.

technically, it's condensed poison energy from a bazillion of little snakeysnakes. It's up to the player to decide what the actual usage is. I guess it could be used as a botox face cream... :D

I mean if all it did was get raccoon piss out of his people then that would certainly seem more like an antidote.

One has to be very careful and using poisons to fight poisons though and you have to match the strength otherwise one will simply overwhelmed the other and still kill the patient.

I hope I didn't over do anything, it didn't sound like there was as much cultivation practice at this school so I'm running with the idea that they aren't generally strong in the arts of body and power but I wanted to hint that Xier was still being careful. I have no issues with him running across someone stronger particularly as he tours the clinic and pharmacy, or meets a gathering team that slays beasts for the clinic to harvest.

In reply to Chou Xier (msg # 39):

with 10 points of external, he's about as tough as the toughest regular human. No big deal - he'll improve very quickly if that's the area you choose to improve.

Please note that most nPCs have Chinese names. HInt, hint, prod, prod.

Hunting beasts... in the name of SCIENCE!

I'm going through and trying to fix some of the names I had used before.

Is that fresh me- I mean, someone new?! Welcome

another japanese barbarian, yes. She'll suck you dry.

Xier's family has blood from all over the world... Staining our floorboards.

Xier doesn't LIKE blowing people up. He just has very limited self defense capability. Like if someone developed the nuclear bomb just after the spear.

Hey, i'll have you know healing is a long cherished art.

So Chou, i could help you by fixing the people you blew up by accident. ;)

but they are already being blown up as a result of being healed... what's next, spontaneous compbustion?

Everyone wants to condense their inner energy right? My family is just good at doing that for other people... Really fast. Implosion is only a side effect 92 percent of the time. Sometimes it is painless too!

If you can fix implosion then my character really wants to learn from you;)
This message was last edited by the player at 17:28, Fri 05 Nov 2021.

Nonono, i'm talking about accidental kills. The ones not blown up directly, but happen to stand just a little bit too close to your target -- that's external injuries, right?

Also, got a description and some images up ^^

I'm an aspiring healer and alchemist myself. I've learned a lot of anatomy and regulating my power to effect others energy. I enjoy singing and learning local songs.

It's a calm, peaceful voice. I plan to soothe people by singing to help them sleep. Super effective back home. If there is only one person suffering a decent acupressure massage can help them relax completely in moments.

In reply to Chou Xier (msg # 51):

somehow, I get the feeling that relaxing completely in that sect means one is already dead...

That is the Last Relaxation. Complete usually means paralyzed or in a coma.

Oh, even better: My weapon of choice are Flying Needles.

Because as good as acupuncture is, it's not as cool as RANGED acupuncture. :P

Also, i have to post this now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXq3p0DFnVk

That is kinda awesome, lol.

I think I'd risk pulling needles myself... Could be bad, vs staying in the burning building.

Well it IS a commercial for an insurance company...

They had a whole series of those, made them actually fun to watch :D

All is good until people start trying to pass spear techniques as 'acupunture'! ;p

How about bow techniques? Those can imply precision... The Chou family is generally hand fighters. Half the clan techniques require contact of at least melee if not a more intimate nature. They cannot teach most of them to most of the clan though... For fear of losing them to greater houses. Only the elders and chiefs, or those expected to be such are given the one he used to knock the 'triplet' girl out.

All are taught how to implode a target for a core. Not everyone can harvest a core from just anything... Thus the family maintains some autonomy but isn't allowed to grow great. Everyone likes cores so core harvesters are an export of the Chou.

There is a reason they are a demon clan though.

Yeah, but they wouldn't be known as a demon clan or they'd get dogpiled by just about every Righteous clan in the area, right?

Hence why he uses a different name. But, yes.

Anyone who knows it is a Chou technique also knows that it doesn't work on a fighting scale... They can't just pop someone for fighting. If they beat you unconscious though... They might suck your soul out.

Xier doesn't take just any souls though.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:21, Tue 09 Nov 2021.

The idea I had was Li Huamao is a rogue cultivator, maybe they aren't super strong, maybe they used a forbidden technique to spare a life, maybe they accidentally killed someone, either way they are likely to be at least half hiding in Oxcart unless cultivation is so common that everyone does a bit.

I haven't had a good feel for how pervasive it is in society... Is every flower girl on the streets selling lillies likely to have a breath refining technique?

In reply to Chou Xier (msg # 61):

Only the ones with improbable hair or eye colour, obviously!

Only if you kill everyone you run into, in which case they'd actually be fully justified in practicing cultivation for self defense since those that didn't are dead now :D

Kidding aside though, i'd say that everyone would at the very least know of it, and it's been officially recognized in law and such, but the majority of people we'd run into out there didn't have the talent, the money, the knowledge or the connections to get into a Sect or begin one of their own.

It's kind of like feudalism. A lot of commoners would band together close to a Lord for the safety of being within their sphere of influence, in return for... goods, probably.

li huamao, as you shall see, is already in my grubby paws and I shall twist him to my nefarious needs. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

in other news, things have been horribad on my side, so updates shall be spotty until next week, when they will improve to diluted. :)

Wonderful!

The day of my first IC appearance draws closer with each passing breath :P

*in a very old man voice*Don't rush art!

I've actually been kind of inspired to make a tabletop RPG in a vein similar. Source material is all over the place but I am trying to write the history of this character as an exercise in storytelling and as a method of testing my mechanics I'm about to have some irl folks try it. Thank you for your inspiration and if you want I'm happy to share what I have for my testers.

*noticed my thread being posted*



I'll get to it in a bit ^^
This message was last edited by the player at 12:00, Tue 16 Nov 2021.

Lol

I like being able to make innocent assumptions. The character is going to stick to that for a chapter or two.

He doesn't really suspect his teacher yet but would acknowledge it is possible.

Even consuming these core/near cores could be played off as better learning the feelings of the energy, life, and suffering that make one a more empathetic doctor, and a more skilled healer... Maybe that was what Huamao was going for, but Xier didn't interpret it that way.

If instructed to consume them directly, Xier would want to be clear about wether he would have to fight their ailments within himself or not, but either way would so as instructed. He was going to be a good disciple, trying to follow harmony. He had expended energy and care to the people he drew from and he would trust their good(at least lack of ill) will toward him to make it Pure enough to keep impure energy out of his system and allow him to keep cultivating.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:57, Wed 17 Nov 2021.

We near the beginning of the end of the year holidays, I hope you all have a great end to this calendar year, with health, good foods, and relative peace!

And an insanely excessive amount of work to do!
...that's what I have, at least.

*just got back from helping to remodel a bathroom*

...Yup, relative peace. What he said :P

...I work in 2 hospitals so holidays are peak season for me :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUEUF6Qh8ys

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_AvJzkPqQ8

Sure! Let's embrace the creatures that bring peril to the world!

I got something scarier: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PQruIfBVSs

Lol! Craziness...

It isn't harmonious to physically consume the world for the purposes of understanding it. But Xier is going to plan a more metaphor of consuming the world.

I'm very interested in how this moves forward!

Just checking in to see if y'all are okay.

Perfectly fine, just waiting standing by for replies is all :)

You?

I'm around myself, just replacing more meals with coffee day after day and crashing hard in the weekend.
I'm sure that's not unhealthy at all.

I'm about to start having more time away from the office as we don't have anything but long...er term planning happening and my team did roughly 4 days of work today. So we wouldn't have to come in over the weekend.

I hope y'all had a good slide into the new year, may it be filled with something better than  last year's crap.

I'm starting the year with a little time off, not a bad way to do it. 4 out of 5 will totally start next year with time off again!

I'm starting the year with work-from-home, so... unconvinced yay?

Started with days off, followed by some more days off, and got my first actual work day on Thursday.

Fun times ^^

I'm going to have a schedule change and might slow down a little. I also edited my last Oxcart post to add a little more direction.

guess who accumulated 300 work hours this month? :D fortunately I got the last four days of the month free, yay! I'll post as soon as I recover enough sanity.

Well that sounds rather intense, given that we're still not at the end of the month yet. o_O

A couple days off is nice, but don't overwork yourself to get them! :/

Good golly! That's nearly half the month! I hope you got better than an extended weekend!

In reply to Chou Xier (msg # 88):

what is better than an extended weekend? A COVID positive wife! Yay! :D seems she'll be called to work regardless since she has no symptoms.

it's not like I have a choice with my work hours. Apart from quitting, that is :P this month should have no more than a relaxing 264 hours or so.

In reply to Laozi (msg # 89):

Ah yes, that wouldn't happen to be in the US, would it?

In reply to Chiasa Akiyama (msg # 90):

Nah, I live and suffer in Croatia.

Ah, my bad. Still, you'll be getting the Euro officially as of January next year, i think?

In reply to Chiasa Akiyama (msg # 92):

we (simple Croatian persons, haha) still can't quite believe it (how is the EU so stupid to allow that to happen? lol) but yes, it seems the Euro is coming to Croatia. Did you know the ruling party here was actually convicted for being a criminal organization, and ordered by the court to pay millions in damages to the state? And they promptly took the money to pay these fines from taxes... They even managed to steal money from EU funds, which are considered too secure and strict to be stolen from (this was dug up by journalists, and only after EU pressure did arrests happen...) There are people still waiting for assistance after last year's earthquakes, with a total of zero (0) houses repaired or rebuilt with government funds after a year of promises that reconstruction will start next week. And now that the Euro is coming, the ruling party surely has some kind of money-grabbing scheme.

We like to say that we're living in Absurdistan. :D

But hey, at least you have great dentists!
At least according to the constant advertising over here on the other side of the sea.

Hey, it's not like we don't have enough money to throw around.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-48256318

To put that into perspective:



And sure, that may look like a wad of cash (and honestly, Croatia's economy is very very small compared to some of the older members) but there's also this:

https://www.cpb.nl/sites/defau...pirical-approach.pdf



And a lot of the budget is invested back into the country:



Basically, the idea is to boost the economy of the member nations, which leads to higher contributions as it's often tied to a percentage of GDP, which leads to more income, so in light of that it's easy to write off a couple hundred million euros -- i'm convinced what caused the EU to apply pressure was not the fact that money was stolen, it's the bad press that would result from not applying pressure.

Wew. So not up for trading mind guests xD

In reply to Zhu Wenlong (msg # 96):

hmm? whatcha mean? Who in their right mind would trade such a cute little snakey-snake for anything else? :D

At least mine acknowledges that the whole world isn't already theirs... But both our spirit beasts WANT all the world. Not so different.

Just for reference, there are two well known kinds of Chinese zither. I'm generally referring to this kind (guqin): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvT3ujMqn8o
For the curious, the other kind (guzehng) also has a special kind of sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujzMHLac404 (for a more western kind of melody: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZY4b6g7JeM )

The difference might be important later on ;)
This message was last edited by the GM at 11:31, Tue 15 Feb 2022.

Well, at least the generally-found zither is also the first version I think about when I think zither.

On a completely unrelated note, got to find out if there's an achievement after maxing the 'Cheekiness' points xD

**Cheeky Monkey Unlocked**
You are a protagonist who enjoys a laugh. We sort of expected it. Congrats anyhow!

I think I'm about to unlock

**Murder Hobo**
Sure, if you killed just anyone then it would be bad... But you burst into the homes of monsters to kill them that makes it so much better!

Though there are many others

**Self-righteous Wang**
No really, it's a surname here.

**Sinister Stranger**
Maybe it's on purpose maybe you just can't help it. Either way you've joined the ranks of the creepy.

**Selfless Healer**
Penance or just WAY too altruistic... Possibly dumb. You'd heal people even if you have to use your blood to do it. Please don't.

I trust you're all people of culture and familiar with basic acupuncture points? :D

Kind of. I know the Huiyin is between the anus and genitals and is the focal point for Yin energy, and in order to close the somethingsomething Channel you need to get into the habit of resting the tip of your tongue against the roof of your mouth just behind your upper front teeth, but other than that...

...Nothing i wouldn't be able to Google. As long as Chiasa knows what it is it should be fine :)

Also, found this, which may come in useful to us unlettered barbarians: https://www.travelchinaguide.c...nese-zodiac-time.htm

Everything I know of acupunture, I learned from the medicine lessons in Tale of Wuxia!
...and then promptly forgot, because it was ages ago.

I downloaded a map of them if that's what you mean.

I also underwent emergency combat lifesaving which went over where it is easiest to stop blood in relation to catastrophic wounds on extremities. Also why male medics should keep a box of heavy flow tampons(generally same diameter as a 9mm round plugs bullet holes nicely) and saran wrap(sterile usually, under a layer or so, and retains moisture. Ideal for keeping someone's innards nearby if not exactly in their body... putting them in without training can tangle them and cause necrosis) as part of a medical kit.

As a side note, I'm happy to have any edits Laozi wants to make in that last short novel of a scene.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:44, Wed 23 Feb 2022.

In terms of actual acupuncture, i went with the common trope for cultivation stories. You can survive being disemboweled and lose 80% of your total blood volume, but as long as your qi flow and meridians are fine you can just sleep it off.

Not exactly the most realistic of treatments, but hey, we've got fireballs and flying swords too.

What, you didn't know? Cultivation increases your blood total so you can have splatter-ier fights!

Oh, i know.

I mean, acupuncture is a form of healing that has you stabbing more holes into an injured person to make them better.

Just taking a moment here to hope nobody in the group lives too close to the heated spots on the map in the current interesting times.

Oh, i'm just 900 kilometers away :)

hmm, this one doesn't translate well from my native languague, but I hope you enjoy reading this little bit as much as I did writing it :)

Spring, shyly,
spreading sleepy wings-
gentlest forest's breath,
naked sprites' glee.

Thanks for sharing with us!

Pretty cool, thanks for sharing!

I'll try to get a post going as soon as I get home with some semblance of energy left.
I'm not going to say that this country's fiscal IT infrastructure has a single point of failure, that it failed and that now it's my problem.
But it failed. And now it's my problem x.x

That is super crappy. I'm sorry you have to go through that.

Hey, you know the old saying: "To make mistakes is human, but to really mess things up you need a computer."

Joking aside however, here's to hoping it's an easy fix.

systems with a single point of failure are fun! :D

It'll be a fun story, moreso if it involves debugging COBOL programs written 40ish years ago (happened to a friend of a friend a in an Austrian bank... )

and hey, just last year I had to port some Deplhi I wrote in 2001 into JS so "it could run on mobile phones".

Fortunately it's only tangentially my problem, I don't need to FIX it.
I only need to apply the provided workaround to a few hundred of our own customers.

...that hardly sounds better, does it?

May Murphy be with you. :D

In reply to Laozi (msg # 118):

Hey, don't underestimate the human factor!

Story from several decades ago. My uncle used to be a programmer (he's retired now), and he and his team were working on a project for IBM. It was around Xmas, so someone decided to send out a Merry Christmas email to everyone.

Thing is, he messed up.

Apparently, he had added a bit of code that set it up in such a way that everyone opening the email would automatically send out a Merry Christmas to all THEIR contacts as well. And those contacts would send it to their contacts. Eventually, peoples inboxes would get clogged by the constant avalanche of Merry Christmas emails, and it actually shut down the IBM network. They went around calling every employee by phone and telex to not open any of those emails.

Anyhow, after a week or two of running scripts that automatically deleted the Merry Christmas emails, they went and backtracked to see which was the first email sent. They eventually tracked the guy down, but didn't press charges i believe since it had been unintentional. Everyone at IBM got a few weeks paid leave though, since no one could actually work on anything with the system down -- my uncle included.

I have to know, is Chiasa bad at reading people or intentionally antagonizing the righteous fellow?

She's trying to win his trust actually.

Think of it as "I am righteous therefore i cannot not bring this up". That Yin is (understandably) upset at this revelation is regrettable, but i am honor bound to point this out as remaining silent would only benefit the demonic.

That she can make a play that may possibly end up with Elders of a high ranking Clan owe her a favor is entirely coincidental, i assure you. :P

Or... Hear me out... They execute her as a heretic because they don't want an inconvenient truth to get in the way of their corrupt power schemes.

But maybe they are good guys. Yeah, it could never end poorly.

Nope, if they were they would have altered the technique before distributing it so the true version would be known only to them to begin with.

I think the most danger i'll be in is trying to tell Clan Elders that i needed less than a week to figure out they fucked up, while trying to avoid hurting their pride.

Current elders might be late and not have questioned it when they learned. They might still assume it is righteous. But they really couldn't afford word to get around unless they want to change sect fundamentally.

What if a child tells you that your prized inheritence is evil? You won't take the child seriously, right?

While face is a serious concern in chinese culture, elders are discouraged from bullying juniors. Else every cultivation novel would be really short :D

True. But if I KNOW it is evil and want to save face... I am the kind of villain that makes short stories that don't make people happy.

I think we are all glad Laozi isn't that kind of person!

I try to keep stories to only having one or two of those. Keeps life interesting, they can't be super far up the power chain though or have to already be so high up they don't notice most people anymore.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:08, Wed 13 Apr 2022.

A quick reminder that Im actually still alive.
Code must be delivered in a working state Friday.
Alpha testing started today.
I have more coffee than blood in my body.

Oof, best wishes buddy! Ya got this.

In reply to Zhu Wenlong (msg # 129):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJvEIjRBSDA

Show 'em some of that Open Sourcery.

btw guys please shoot me some feedback about how I run your stories. Do you want more or less of something, have any annoyances (apart from the slow pace of posting and my engrish, haha) or a particular thing that you'd like to share?

I've got absolutely no complaints here (aside from, indeed, the slow pace :P). You're doing a good job in making it feel like the choices i'm making matter and there's NPCs going about their day with plans and goals of their own that do not involve the PCs, so the world ends up feeling alive. :)

It is an interesting story! I sometimes get a little tangled up in descriptions and suggested options... But if Xier has safe time and space here(which he thinks he might be able to get) he will meditate with the Ding to try to contact it's spirit directly. They have the connection of unlimited eating after all... He wants to understand that.

If this Palace seals something that devours then it is just another family member that he may be able to talk into devouring targetedly with himself. If not... He may get a radical personality shift as like so many others he gets devoured. Either way I'm okay with things
This message was last edited by the player at 13:20, Fri 22 Apr 2022.

In reply to Chou Xier (msg # 135):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSSrSfN5i5A

Alright, the thing has been delivered in what some folks would define a working state. I'll try to get a post out between today and tomorrow.

Congrats!

Sharing this because cultivation and hilarity:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f41dlU9dEQk

I could only take like 12 minutes... I was hopeful for a few minutes but kept getting sadder with an occasional pause where things looked hopeful for 8 to 12 seconds.

Whew... Pretty bad.
Thank you for sharing that, I mean it!

Behold! I live!

I'm calling shenanigans. You aren't really alive it is just the machines trying to take us over by lulling us into a false sense of security with gaming and interesting stories.

Everyone okay?

I'm fine, just waiting on the updates :)

You?

I didn't get a promotion I've been hoping for for a few years now... But I get two cracks at it each year. I want to say I'm good now but it is pretty close to the loss still.

That's my biggest complaint. About to have 10 days home for some vacation.

Decided to try and lose some weight myself, not to much success. Currently switched to an 8-16, see how that goes for a couple of weeks. :/

Surprisingly, still alive too. Work schedule is still annoying, but now it's closer to stupid-annoying than to overworked-annoying. An improvement I guess.
Countdown to vacation: 1 month!
Countdown to losing weight: forever.

Ha! I wish my weight loss had anything to do with a countdown XD

Have a scifi cultivation animation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnE-J_bXTr4

Have we shared here that our bodies are just Meat Mecha piloted by our brains?

Brains are only wetware for the self-modifying programs nesting in it. These programs battle eachother as well for the right to pilot the mecha host. In the darkness within our skulls, there is only war.

I'll just leave this here...

https://cdn.discordapp.com/att...60/y2meta.com_-_.mp4

Look what you did. Now I have to rewatch Shaolin Soccer.
Again.

Speaking of things to leave here...

That's pretty funny! I I just got finished putting a solid gold statue of one of my sect leaders into a shrine that took me 25 years to build. And you're telling me this now?!

In reply to Chou Xier (msg # 155):

Well yes, i mean the trick is that you don't waste time building shrines, you get other people to do that for you.

vacation time is over, back to the coal mine it is :)

WELL!
I was today years old when I discovered that I never posted the post I was absolutely sure I had posted.
Time to do an exciting treasure hunt with about a trillion open tabs on Notepad++
...or just rewrite things, it might be faster.

An unfortunate but not uncommon accurance with this medium of play. I've had a wrench thrown in my work schedule but hope you all are doing okay.

Cultivation series were based on lesser treasure hunts ;)

But yeah, still doing okay as well. How about Laozi?

hey.

A belated happy new year to you all. May your stars be right, your pillars lit and your health excellent.

Laozi!

Welcome back, and to everyone a belated happy New Year. May 2023 unlock your true potential :)

Thanks! Best wishes to all for the new year!

So how's everyone been doing?

Heh, I actually returned to hang around rpol relatively recently - was considering annoying people in this game too.
As for 'how doing', let's look at the bright side and just say that work is no longer a problem?
You?

In an equally positive light i would say 'same old', since nothing really changed much aside from being a couple of months older (and hopefully wiser). Though according to Socrates one was wise by knowing they know nothing, so at least that is a skill i have mastered.

Also watching the Frieren anime, it's pretty nice.

Oh, that looks interesting - adding the manga to my ever-growing pile of 'to read'.
Meanwhile, I most definitely did not burn, like... 220 hours on the game Hero's Adventure: Road to Passion.
No sir. Not at all.

It was about time my life started burning around me for a while. I had a year or two where things were pretty good. It too will pass though, it is only figuratively alight.

Haven't heard of that game, i'd have to keep an eye on it.

Chou: Sorry to hear that, but here's to hoping things will pick back up for you soon :/

Oof, sorry to hear.
Have a random internet stranger cheering you up!



I find it pretty good - but the longer I go the more I become allergic to AAAs, so my tastes might be weird.
It's good for my wallet, though.

Hey, small time projects is how the AAAs got started :P

But yeah, the term "AAA" gets thrown around a lot, but it's basically only a measure of how much money the studio has to throw around. How good the game actually is does not factor into it, so it's best to ignore it and compare games to what they actually bring to the table.

Heh, I'm probably just being an old codger overly salty at the direction a whole bunch of historical, cheered IPs and companies are taking.

On a completely unrelated note, have a cat cultivator.
https://suptg.thisisnotatrueen...rchive/2021/5040335/

Nice. Binged the first page but apparently there's a 'new thread' that i haven't been able to find.

Oh well.

Made me want to play a cultivation RP again though.

Hah, let me know if you find any.

Until then I'll just leave the cat index here.
https://suptg.thisisnotatrueen...20Cultivator%20Quest

Ideally i'd like it to be this game, but the same would go for me :)

Well, of course - that's what the nefarious plans of keeping the board alive is for!

It's definitely not just a distraction while I try to headbutt math I hadn't touched since high school - or never touched in the first place.

Hm? What kind of math are you dealing with?

Eh, starting to chip away at the black magic of derivates and complex numbers.

I've been working on my own system for cultivator games but it's hard to have that feel and it seems like there are so many arbitrary broken abilities in the canon materials... It is hard to go somewhere with a game when everyone is broken all different ways.

A few days ago I had a fever dream of something loosely (veeeeery loosely) based on Ars Magica for cultivation.
Where else would you get the 'And now I want to sit in my cave to meditate for twenty years, don't bother me' feel?