Hammersmith

This is a pretty flawed and dangerous argument. Unfortunately for any community that isn't cis, het, and often male, it's expected and normally enforced, often in subtle ways like this, that if they don't let "Normal Joe" in, they're the racist/bigot/bad guy. And this is wrong, VERY WRONG. There is nothing wrong with spaces intended for specific groups of people who are not in the majority. Anyone who insists this is discriminatory, closed minded, or otherwise because they're not letting in a "majority" doesn't seem to understand that the majority already owns, operates, and gets into, everything, everywhere. Everywhere is a majority holder's safe space. It leaves very few platforms where non-majority people can dwell and talk without having to instantly cater to the majority's views, cultural or otherwise. It's not just a "I want to be with my own people" white room thing. It's a "The entirety of the world is not geared towards me and I need a space that I can turn to that is, when I get tired of that" thing. It's "There are very few places in this culture that are made and understand me without baggage, judgement, or instant categorization according to a discriminatory cultural standard so having a safe space is good" thing. But you're one of the Allies? Fine. This isn't your space. You don't need to get butt-pats for being a good person. You should be doing that because it's right, not because you want to buy access to something that you're not part of. You don't need to take something from people who have very little as a payment for your kindness. You're an ally because you already have everything. You already have the power and should be applying that without any "but"s and strings attached. It's a mental health thing to have these kinds of safe spaces, something that's dramatically demonstrated in the kinds of mental health hardships the LGBT community suffers under. Obviously people being people will be dramatic, but that's an RPer community thing that us nerds can afford to work on, not a any specific line OTHER than RPer community thing. TLDR; Community specific and "walled" groups for LGBT communities are not discriminatory.

Titan. You fuck up? You get smashed. You want things? Little buddies will build and mine it for you. You fuck with the little guy? You get smashed. You being an asshole? I hope you like seeing your city turned into a pancake. In short: Loyal Violence A+ would hit people with a rock again.

I play a Hellsguard who has to deal with the severe lack of info we have on them. What I've gathered: Since they send children out into the world to keep the home numbers low, it means the Mountain is populated by firstborn, sometimes second born. Everyone else has to have an exit strategy. This means the Hellsguard Mountain homeland has to have connections, either to Mercenary camps, guilds, trading organizations, the works. It means the Hellsguard actively export their children to various processions and armies. Weather or not they fit in is another matter entirely but it seems likely that Daughter/Son three and four get their "abilities" noted at a young age and arragements are made to apprentice/contract them out to parties later in their life once they're self sustaining. Which means you probably see young hellsguard in the employ of a lot of services and guilds and organizations. It's very unlikley they just throw all these kids out into the world blind. It'd make more sense if the children are apprenticed out. Taught, and then let actually loose on the world. Not all of them are going to make it, so you can get criminals as well as mendicants and ne'er do wells. So you have a population that starts young and nomadic in that they have to travel with their new 'families' (Be it guild or mercenary, bandit, or otherwise), settles into a life path of their choosing, and then pursues it to whatever degree they want. As such it makes sense that if the Hellsguard are a lower-population then the ex-pat children of the Spine tend to be very motivated to survive, succeed, and prosper as much under their own terms and strength as they are circumstance. Some make it in society, some make it on the fringes. Each hellsguard kid who gets thrown out of the homeland ends up defining their place under their own strength and abilities. Which also explains somewhat why the Hellsguard don't keep family names. They're not defined by family. If anything they're brutally defined by how they've made themselves so "Choosing" their own name, one that works and is easily used/understand/gifted to them by the places they end up (Curious Gorge, for example, implies there's a story behind how he got his current name). You could easily have families and clans and the like who have other motivations for shedding names and the reasons why they treat them as changeable, mutable, fleeting things. Probably varies from char to char and upbringing to upbringing in terms of how hard a line they take on that. This kind of "remnant" superstition and religion is probably doubly important. A kid from the Hellsguard homeland ends up deciding how much of that they want to carry with them and how much they want to replace with whatever new life they end up constructing with their own two hands. Hammer, my hellsguard, carries a LOT of the 'old' superstitions he was fed as a kid, for a lot of various reasons, while harboring a long and hard grudge against various other parts of religion as it stands a practicality as it requires kids to get kicked out of the hearth. Edit: And this doesn't even start to touch on ex-pat communities and 1'st, 2'nd, and further onward removed children of hellsguard parents who have never been to the homeland but have similar expectations foisted on them, or that they embrace of their own accord, OR IGNORE COMPLETELY.

Been socially slapped the last few weeks. Hoping to make it this upcoming weekend.

Hah. Joke's on you guys, I've been gone most of last week and this week up until now. Wait. Shit. Well. There's always dark souls 2.

Man. I had the opposite experience from you. The Balmung playerbase was pretty open, up front, and willing to engage in walk-up RP with a player who had no experience with the game as a whole, period. That said: Go fishing in the "Making connections" board, check out the FC listings, and in general post and be part of the community and you'll start finding events, gatherings, and people who gravitate to when you log on, regardless of the amount of time you have to invest in the game (My ability to be online varies wildly depending on my social engagements of the week, ranging from full hermit mode to "Oh god why did I choose to have a whirlwind week") Now here's the flipside of it: Finding that RP IS completely your responsibility. No one is obligated to bring it to you, in any fashion. Not here, not on the server. There are nice people who will help, but you have to ask, you have to engage, and you can't just wait and assume people will reach out. It's tough, but it's worth it: Be proactive, go looking for it, get involved, jump in, and understand not everything will work first time. You'll be fine.

And to show I'm all down for my own terrible ideas: If Hammer's interacted with your char and doesn't have a rumor from him yet, post in here and it'll happen in short notice. You have been warned.

The servers are going down. The end is coming. The sky will literally be falling (Into an expansion). So. We get to sit here twiddling our thumbs. My suggestion while we wait? Spread disgusting, blatent, maybe even true rumors on the wiki. There's a lot of pages with little to no rumors. Know a char? Drop a rumor on their page. Barely know a char? Even better. I suggest a shade throwing party. Talk big, throw shade, praise, cut down, or whatever it is you think you need to do. So let's all crowd in and party while participating in every RP community's favorite past time: Talking shit IC. Just reach out and rumor someone.

Hammer.jpg

This guy is awesome for contributing to my fanfic project and has given me a lot of ideas, indirectly but he helps and that's really cool! Speaking of which Collaborative writing projects are the bomb diggity and I respect anyone who undertakes managing one.

Actual injury and respect for pain that comes with it. This gets Setsu Beaned out of existence via magic and healing potions most of the time, No one needs to every worry about it in an RP setting. This is also not a complete surprise since injury takes you out of the game and limits how you can play on a platform you're paying to...play on. Crippling injury really isn't fair to force be played, especially if it's the years/months length recovery most of those entail.

THE ONLY DIRECTION YOU'RE GOING IS DOWN BRO.

Well, what we know so far is that machinists will be trained at Skysteel manufactuory, an Ishgardian weapons producer inspired (either loosely or directly, we've yet to see) by the work of Cid Garlond to create new weapons for the war against the Dravanians. Already we're beginning to see Ishgardians use powder-based siege and artillery heavily. Considering their goal is waging war more efficiently, I feel it's safe to assume reproducibility and accessibility are major factors in design. What would be the point if they're developing esoteric things only highly trained specialists can use? Given that cannons are already becoming very commonplace, personal firearms will probably become relatively available soon. That said, I think much of a machinist's personal arsenal (such as their turrets and special barrels/ammo) will be the realm of the highly experimental and prone to backfire and failure. It is prototype and not ready for public use. It may have flaws only one who built it could compensate for or perhaps it's prone to breakdown and needs constant maintenance. They're things only a trained individual can make effective at this point in time, for whatever reason. It depends, but I do see common firearms and explosives becoming more available, because the cutting edge (see above) is already working on trying to advance that technology beyond its current capacity. Personally, I'm very interested in seeing how this industrial shift influences the very rigidly feudal Ishgardian society. Let's be clear: The Ishgardian instances in game have multiple encounters involving cannons, even before Cid got involved. They've had black powder and explosive access for a while. I'm willing to bet Cid and Friends just open it up to the public, or makes production easier instead of keeping it in the range of military secrets and/or hard to produce/expensive weaponry and the like. Whatever opens up Ishgard proper will probably also add to the need to allow these weapons more into the public eye, if not hands.

"Get outta the pool kid, before you drown in your own blood."

plate armour, when correctly fitted, didn't present much in the way of a hinderance to mobility. It was pretty much a second skin or extension of the body, with greater range of movement than the person inside. However, yes, it is a hell of a lot easier, and cheaper to equip an army with musket/arquebus/longbow etc. Also, our longbowmen, (as featured in Agincourt and other such fights) were predominantly Welsh. You're right, though only if we're not talking about jousting plate or Full plate . Well fitted infantry plate (not full plate) weighed anywhere from 10-25 pounds for a set (Jousting plate was over 50, but was MUCH heavier). It also wasn't full body and it sure as hell wasn't a second skin. Mind you it stayed in use for a verrrrry long time because, well, steel stops a lot of stuff from killing you. Hell, they were still using plate curiasses in WWI, 5lb steel breastplates, and they were effective, as long as you didn't get hit in a limb or a head. If we're talking about regular infantry plate? Yeah. Mobility wise you're still going to have guys running around in 10-25 lbs more weight than a similarly fitted guy, at range, carrying 1o-25 lbs less kit than you, which means they can proooobably run, all things being even, quite a bit longer and further than you can. It's not perfect, but it's mobility. I know we ignore RL mechanics in FF but from a pure RL perspective, that does weight a guy down and affect what maneuvers a group can manage over the course of a battle. Fresh troops in a sprint probably wouldn't have cared much or seen much effect though, to that degree. Dudes in plate charging a line of arquebusses were going to ruin someone's gun-toting day if they didn't have support, for sure. tldr; You're wrong about Full and Jousting plate, the plate we 'traditionally' think of as full, massive armor sets. You're right about lesser, more mass produced versions of plate maille, which were very much mass produced sets of curiasses, not full body plate armor sets (but would still have been a bitch for bullets to fuck with) A well fitted suit of plate, that is, full plate. Weighed roughly 15-25kg. The mobility factor wasn't an issue, sure its an extra 25lbs, but due to the way it is distributed over the body, the impact was only an issue on elongated fights. You can run, jump, sprint and climb in it. Which bit was I wrong about? What you're calling full plate I call plate, so it's splitting hairs. We're both right since we agree on the same points!

"EY. WALLFLOWER. TIME TO DANCE."

plate armour, when correctly fitted, didn't present much in the way of a hinderance to mobility. It was pretty much a second skin or extension of the body, with greater range of movement than the person inside. However, yes, it is a hell of a lot easier, and cheaper to equip an army with musket/arquebus/longbow etc. Also, our longbowmen, (as featured in Agincourt and other such fights) were predominantly Welsh. You're right, though only if we're not talking about jousting plate or Full plate . Well fitted infantry plate (not full plate) weighed anywhere from 10-25 pounds for a set (Jousting plate was over 50, but was MUCH heavier). It also wasn't full body and it sure as hell wasn't a second skin. Mind you it stayed in use for a verrrrry long time because, well, steel stops a lot of stuff from killing you. Hell, they were still using plate curiasses in WWI, 5lb steel breastplates, and they were effective, as long as you didn't get hit in a limb or a head. If we're talking about regular infantry plate? Yeah. Mobility wise you're still going to have guys running around in 10-25 lbs more weight than a similarly fitted guy, at range, carrying 1o-25 lbs less kit than you, which means they can proooobably run, all things being even, quite a bit longer and further than you can. It's not perfect, but it's mobility. I know we ignore RL mechanics in FF but from a pure RL perspective, that does weight a guy down and affect what maneuvers a group can manage over the course of a battle. Fresh troops in a sprint probably wouldn't have cared much or seen much effect though, to that degree. Dudes in plate charging a line of arquebusses were going to ruin someone's gun-toting day if they didn't have support, for sure. tldr; You're wrong about Full and Jousting plate, the plate we 'traditionally' think of as full, massive armor sets. You're right about lesser, more mass produced versions of plate maille, which were very much mass produced sets of curiasses, not full body plate armor sets (but would still have been a bitch for bullets to fuck with)

Flower smiled brightly as she held up the bright yellow and green horror that was her first ever attempt at knitting. The arms were terribly off and the neck was probably way too small for the large Roe to fit through. "All done!" "Yez hired me as yez bodyguard. Not a damned doll!" the Large elder Roe growled through the thick smoke that followed him around. "But you are always topless. You have to be cold." she spoke as she attempted to climb up the brute's back like a child. "I MADE IT JUST FOR YOU!" she spoke as she attempted to shove it over his head; which wasn't working. The Roe began to flail, trying to snatch at the small Au'ra that had hired him to protect her. "YEZ DRIVIN' ME CRAZY! GE'OFF!" he roared before the sound of ripping came. There he soon stood with the sweater down around his neck, ripped, but on. "YAY!" "Yez payin' me extra fer 'his." That last line. Perfect.

More Hammer use. More hate. More Violence. Especially on the first date.

Yeah. One of the bigger points of plate was that it was MUCH EASIER to raise an army of rifle-users than it was to get an entire army of plate users. Then you ran into mobility and the like and it meant the rifle users had more immediate lethality that was easier to train than a longbow. (The english did so well with theirs because every male, supposedly, was at some point required to train with it every day after church, punishable by...something...if you missed) Guns arn't "worse" than an archer really, since in RP you're not going to be mustering entire platoons of them onto the field.

LoS and LoS 2 were/are complete reboots with no ties to the original series. Though, with that said, anyone who's saying the plot is thin on those needs to remove the rose-tinting because Plot has Rarely Been a Thing in Castlevania games. See vampire, kill vampire. The rise of Symphony started adding some RPG and "WHAT A TWIST" into it, but it's been fairly direct in "Kill the bad dude(s)" with a splash of "MY FAMILY BLOODLINE" and a side order of "IT WAS ME ALL THE LONG" I love the games, to death, but they're not war and peace and vampires.

Given how much the Hellsguard DGAF about names, and change them easily on heading Out, I don't think it matters unless you have some pre-existing legallity that requires your name involved. Though it's kind of like giving yourself a nickname. Without a reason for it it's kinda weird.