TFF Royalty

[Andromeda]

Alright, I look forward to seeing what you have. I don't know when this weekend I'll post, but I'll make sure that it is sometime. I have to sort out a few things so I don't know what I end up doing with Eris. I have several different paths that I am looking at and a good part of that depends what you do with Eris.

[Victoria]

After the battle, you mean? Because right now it's a good idea to have Eris out of the way, as she'll only be a burden. Heh.

In my post I didn't do anything with her because you had already posted she left. So I just acknowledged that she was gone. And went into the battle.

[Merlin]

Oh since I didn't add it to the PM, I doubt Falaris is in any condition to be impressed. Even if she was, she still wouldn't be impressed. She's a stuck-up bitch who thinks she's better than everyone. Hence why she refused to acknowledge that your characters could do squat against him and her, in her weakened state would be able to fend him off. She might have worded it nicely, but in the end, she simply wanted your chars out of the damn way so she could fight alone. xD

Sad but true.

[Victoria]

Aww. That's pretty sad. Oh well. She didn't get what she wanted and ended up having to have her butt saved.

Oh well. xD

[Merlin]

Yes, the ultimate insult to someone who is uppity: save their ass from a situation they can't handle. It seriously rubs them the wrong way. But thats what makes it so damn funny. ^_^

[Andromeda]

I hope that Dragonheart is around sometime tonight. I've decided on which path that I am going to be taking with Eris and well it is going to indirectly affect her. It is nothing too serious, but I would like to cross it over with Dragonheart quickly. I'm still going to make an effort on getting my post done for today, but if I don't hear back from Dragonheart I may abridge that part until I know that she is alright with what I am doing.

But either way, you'll want to be on the look out for some fireworks from Eris, if you get my meaning. I've got some work to do with her now and I pushing for that first step now. Well, its not really first step at this point, but you know what I mean. Either way, I'll also be making some reveals, though they were already implied for a little while. Excitement. ^^

[LocoColt04]

Anyone have any suggestions on how to go about FINDING the time to do things? My problem with writing (or even being on the internet these days) is that what little time I have is funneled so strongly into the thought process that no actual work ever gets done.

I've tried the whole "stream of consciousness" thing before, be it jotting down ideas or just writing freeform, but nothing good ever comes of it.

What tactics do you guys use to write when you're short on time? I'm afraid that if I don't find a way to force it, nothing will ever happen.

[Victoria]

The blunt answer would be to have less friends and stay home more often.

The serious answer would be: Whatever time you do have, combine the thought process AND writing. Or even carry a notebook with you everywhere with a quick writing utensil. (Pencils, ballpoint pens.. those are slow.)

I suggest reading Writing The Bones.. it's helped Psiko get back into writing. And she has a lot of good things to say to help you get into it again. There may be some things in there that you've tried before, but overall it's very good. I suggest that notebook thing, so that way when you get ideas, just jot them down. Or even an audio recorder and record your ideas that way.

[Merlin]

I wouldn't be much help in that department because my problem is different. I always have a shitload of ideas, I just never write them down. Whenever I'm driving, working, whatever... I can run entire RP posts through my head in great detail. Its just impossible to actually write it at that time for obvious reasons. So by the time I actually have two seconds to sit down and write it, I've came up with 5X different ideas and can't decide which one to use, so I write nothing at all. O.o

Actually I guess that could be help in itself. Whenever your brain has free time, use it. I feel like my brain is constantly running at full steam. It never shuts up, even when I need sleep. ^_^

[Andromeda]

When I don't have the time I schedule it. Sundays in general are my writing day. I don't do anything else on that day if I can help it. I just put myself in front of my laptop and say that I'm going to write. I'm forcing it, but if I don't have the time I have to make sure to make time for it. The other thing is realizing priorities and seeing what is important to you.

For me, RPing and writing is more important than being social, playing video games or even doing what I probably should be doing. Is that the best approach? Probably not completely, but a certain level of mind set is necessary. You have to place it equal or greater than other things that you "think" are important, but really can wait just as much as anything else. That video game you want to beat that TV show you want to watch. Games will always be around and DVR and VCR were invented for a reason. If you make it a priority and place an importance of need not want, it will get done.

After that it is scheduling and maintaining that schedule. Being in a routine is the best way to keep yourself going. The problem with RPs is that they are infrequent when you need to be posting. So keep something on the side on those times in your schedule you don't have a RP to write for.

For me I also put a lot of personal pressure on myself to finish something. And I torture myself when I miss the goal that I was shooting for. Though as I said that is just me and I'm insane. So I don't how seriously you should take all of my advice.

Though in all seriousness scheduling and placing yourself in the mental frame of mind that this is important will help out a lot. Having the spare time helps too, but in reality everyone has spare time. Even those that claim that they don't have spare time. It is just that they are using it for some recreational purpose and delude themselves into thinking that they don't have spare time. The only time that is not spare time is the time required for eating, sleeping and school/work(or homework). Everything else, and I do mean everything else is recreational or spare time.

So if you seriously want to write take some of that spare time and allot it just forcing yourself to sit down and sit at the keyboard. Even if you don't do anything you are at least putting the effort into it. And eventually you find that you will be writing.

[LocoColt04]

Heh, well, we all know how good I am at missing goals as of late.

I really could cut back on the social business a bit, but that's really the only thing. If I'm not sleeping, I'm working. That was the definition of my life from October through mid-February, right up until I took vacation. And here's part of the problem: It's 12:25 in the morning and I have to be at work at 7:30. Rather than sleep, what do I do? NOW I'm taking the time to get online.

My whole schedule is whacked. I miss the times when I wasn't so heavily scheduled (re: pre-promotion) and could do as I pleased.

I'm not really sure how to make time. With the exception of last week's vacation, I usually don't get out of the house more than once or twice a week. Somehow I find myself without the time to do anything, and I'm not really sure WHY this happens.

I always have a notebook at work, but I'm too busy... you know, working.

Whenever I get a good idea, I can't keep it in my head long enough to write it down. I feel like I'm stuck in a giant, mundane rut.



All the same, I appreciate the ideas.
I'll see if I can force some time and go from there.

[Andromeda]

Even most hard worker person has a day off. When I was working 70-80 hour weeks for six months I still had Sunday off. I do know how it is working, eating and sleeping and nothing else. I lived that life for six months. But as I said I still had a day off. You can make use of whatever day you have off. There is always time you just have to be able to see it.

[LocoColt04]

I usually find myself sleeping, or on some work-related project on my days off.

At the very least, that last sentence should be in the past-tense. Now that we're all caught up and the store's no longer in post-holiday shambles, I actually should have some time to myself.



...my gosh, now that I look at the last few months, half of my days off were spent getting stitched up and the other half were spent... well, sleeping. I could have slept less!

[Victoria]

Speaking of sleep. That's where I have to go. Yay for working at B&N. I really need to find someplace else. I wouldn't want to quit because I love my discount.. but yeah, the hours... need moar.

[Andromeda]

Yeah, you did have extenuating circumstances didn't you. But another note that I forgot to add in the last post as I was talking to Shadow. Music, its a great motivator and way to smooth things over. It really works wonders. A lot of it depends on my moods, but the obvious thing is never play a song that you are visually able to recall. Like LOTR music or something, I hear LOTR music and I know the scene in the movie its from. That's distracting. You have to play something that you've listened to endlessly and can ignore. Its a mood setter.

And now depending on the mood of the song can help increase your excitement or enthusiasm to write more. The example I have right now is that I'm listening to Rhythm Emotion, it is pumping me up and getting my excited. It gets me in the zone and mood for what I'm writing right now. It puts me in to that sort of heighten state where you just feel everything that you write. Its invigorating.

On random moments I go to the Caramel song which Shadow should be familiar with. It just gets you happy and giddy, at least it does for me. It puts me in that mood to put my nose to the grindstone and finish up what I'm writing. Don't ask me to explain it, it just seems to work.

EDIT: I more or less have finished my post, but its a little late I need go back over it and make some alterations. But it'll be up tomorrow I can be certain of that since it is only about 30 minutes more of work. I just need to get to sleep or else I'll be useless at work.

[Merlin]

I have my post about halfway done. Its taking me a bit longer than expected. People keep bugging me at college. xD

I'll just post it up, since its not PM size, I think. If there's any problems, just let me know Jay. ^_^

I'll edit this once its done, unless someone else posts... then I'll just post instead. O.o

[Andromeda]

Well I made my post. It is only half of what I am going to be doing. I'll finish up the ordeal in the next post. But I'm going to be returning a few more things into the next post as well to start increasing the scale. I don't know the full extent that I'm going to be using them yet, but I will know when I make it happen.

Once you read my post you might have some questions or some confusion so read the following to answer some of it.

SPOILER!!:

Alright, there are a couple things to address. One of the first ones is the comment that I have Remi make about the necessity of nature as a critical component. What this simply means is that until that point Eris had been summoning lightning from the clouds. It is the way most magic users start out, they require nature as a catalyst, like having a fire to make a fireball. No longer requiring nature just means that she was using magic like the usual fantasy magic is, cast from the person, body, hands whatever. Its not really anything new, just fancily worded.

The other thing is that if you end up in your next posts or whatever running across Eris like after everything is over Remi would not be present. If I end up making my post before that happens, he is just going to disappear. Obviously Eris will be clueless as to what happened. But I want Remi's alter ego to remain hidden from the characters for the time being. That is all I think. If you have other questions I'll answer them.

I did create some magic mythos in the post to make things a little more interesting. Since I'm feeling in the creative spirit I will probably doing a lot of touches to magic as I feel the urge.

[Merlin]

I posted mine, but didn't look at yours beforehand. It shouldn't be an issue, methinks.

Anyways, I had fun with that one. It has a lot of twists and reveals in it. If you see any problems with your chars, just let me know Jay. I really didn't make them do to much other than reactions, etc as I mentioned before. It seemed to fit the scene to me.

[Andromeda]

Its probably not an issue, just depends if you had wanted to react to the post or not given what occurs in my post. Though it seemed to me that Falaris probably does not care enough once the primary goal was dealt with. I imagine that Shadow will have business with my post though since it will be a lead in finding Eris for his characters.

[Victoria]

Well, I just finished reading your post, Merlin. I really liked the twist. I thought Falaris was going to be manipulated and duke it out with them, haha. Wow was I wrong.

I liked the big bolt of lightning as well. Took her a while to concentrate enough energy to be that accurate. Matsuri was pretty well done as well. And those reactions were pretty generic. =P But they worked.

Although I DID want to ask maybe if Matsuri could have applied/tried out for the MCTU before but got denied because they already had alastora and they didn't need anymore fire users. But then I thought that'd be a bit much. XD

Regardless, my characters have to find Eris now. ...I think it will be easy with the huge lightning bolt that they'll be able to see. =P

[Merlin]

Nah, it doesn't relate to yours at all.. xD The only misconception is that I always had the hospital at the edge of town and you place it somewhere inside of it instead. With a more distant location, the townspeople would be kept out of the "shooting range". But whatever. O.o

[Andromeda]

There is more than one edge to the town, Merlin. ^^ It could be on the other side of the town. I never when in the town just that you were towards in the inside somewhere. I left it vague enough to work out.

And yes, it'll be pretty easy for you to find Eris. Since Merlin posted I'll see about making that second post to wrap up the things going on with Eris. You can talk to me Shadow about how you want to enter in on the field with Eris. I'll probably just leave it at the point where you appear if you want to handle it that way.

[Merlin]

Andro, that makes no sense either literally or figuratively. The "inner" part of a town is also considered "Down Town". Its the centralized portion of a town, whether directly in the center or not. It shares no edges with the town's border, only with the outer rims, suburbs, peasant land, whatever. The "outer" part of a town shares an edge with the border of the town.

I said it wasn't a big deal since I technically never specified where it was in the first place. It just sounds odd because the explosions would have caused catastrophic collateral damage to surrounding buildings if it was down town(inner Haven), none of which I mentioned. Its not that I overlooked it, its that no other buildings were harmed since there wasn't any close by.

Reasoning: The original hospitals(real world) were created and ran by religious groups, mainly Christians, in order to house the helpless individuals, including paupers, pilgrims, travelers, aged persons, orphans, and destitute. They provided "hospitality" to them, since there wasn't any real cures for anything at the time.

While Lothua technically isn't one to discriminate, I seriously doubt they'd have a Pilner Religion-ran institution in the inner parts of a town. It would be kept a safe distance away towards the outskirts for political and sociological reasons.

At least, that's my take on it. ^_^

[Andromeda]

Why would they have a Pilner ran hospital in their town to begin with? That seems a little strange to me given that it is a foreign nation. For as much as people are currently entering Lothua it is an isolated kingdom. They would not be allowing anyone from Pilner in unless under special circumstances.

And well for me inner its pretty much anything that is not on the outer edge of the town. So its pretty open. And just because I said inner, doesn't mean that it would be the exact center. You could be on the very edge of inner. You were just somewhere inside the town.

Anyway, its a minor point right now since there was not really a clear definition of where we were in the town. We were thinking in two different places. But either way, its not much of a matter to dwell on anymore since we are no longer needing to know where in the town you are right now. So I'm working on my post last night and more tonight. I was visiting a friend so I did not get much time tonight, but I'm going to be adding some more things to it. I don't know how much I'll be adding, but it should be done sometime during the weekend I think.

[Merlin]

The name Pilner in this case refers to the religion, not the country. Its not my fault you named them the same. As you yourself described:

The new religion was instituted by the Kingdom of Pilner roughly fifty years ago and has since spread as the primary religion in the kingdom. It has also spread into the neighboring kingdoms that still believe in the old pagan gods, which are numerous and vary from region to region. The new religion was seen as a sort of standardization of the too varied religions that had created internal conflicts in the past.

While the main sect that is in Pilner would indeed be against magic users, that isn't to say that those who travel outside of the country would support those ideas. For example, Gwinnyn is a high-ranking member of the Pilner religion but has never supported the killing of magic users. As for why she hasn't been excommunicated or killed is something I haven't revealed yet. As I said, not everyone supports the beliefs as a whole. In what religion does every single person support the entire sum of the doctrine? None that I know of.

To me, it would only make sense that those who support the religion without the hate of magic users would wish to leave and travel to other areas where they wouldn't be persecuted or the like. Also, magic users themselves could easily believe in the altered form of the religion. I would assume that not all magic users are atheists. That would be a bit odd, especially since a lot of them use elements which could be seen as being "lent from the gods". Yes, a good number would protest the religion and condemn it for its beliefs, but not everyone is so hard-headed enough to fall into the endless cycle of prejudice.

Think about it: Its been 50 years since the religion first started. That's more than enough time for religious magic users to have made their way into Lothua and even enough time to set up a hospital in a building. They aren't there to convert the nation, but to help others out... They aren't Pilner citizens. They aren't evil priests trying to slaughter the people of Haven. They are ordinary(well as ordinary as a magic user can be) people who simply want to help out. I doubt the government would have a stick so far up their ass as to not allow that.

But, thats just my thoughts on the matter.

EDIT: For some reason this whole thing about the hospital, etc is starting to come off a bit smarmy. I'm not saying its you or me but the topic in general. Maybe I'm just getting weird vibes or something, I don't know. It smells funny. O.o

Anywho, I don't know what your original idea was for Lothua was other than the description. I just figured that since they were unofficially accepting magic users, it only made sense that they could easily be religious magic users since not everyone was "born" one. I'm also not really a fan of the religion sharing the name of the country. I suppose I could make up another term for the break-off people? ^_^

EDIT2: As to why I might seem defiant on the hospital idea: It ties directly into quite a few things. The hospital being run by religious magic users perhaps from many countries(besides just Pilner) explains quite a few loose ends in itself.

• What could possibly drive Gwinnyn to leave willingly to Lothua?
• How did Alastora know exactly where Gwinnyn was when she herself had never been there?
• How did Doctor Silverhand appear exactly where Alastora was when he had no knowledge of where she was going? (she was assigned to go to Pilner and come back, not wander off that far). Coincidence? No.
• etc...

[Andromeda]

Well Lothua is an isolated kingdom for the last hundred years. They have a wall that runs around their border keeping people out. Now officially they do not allow anyone into their borders, magic users included. But they do ignore Farore and the underground's work in bringing in magic users. It would not really matter if they were from Pilner or Cormenyr it would be difficult to get in unless you forced your way in.

Given that I can see some people accepting of the Pilner religion while being magic users. But just because there is an organized religion does not discount the other religions that exist in the world. The rest of the kingdoms do not have a set religion, but are seen as pagan in the eyes of the Pilner because they follow the old ways. I see most of the magic users believing in that most since it does not persecute them.

And I never actually assigned a name to the religion, I just call it the Pilner religion, because the people of Pilner are the ones that believe in the new religion. So we can name it whatever we want.

I don't have anymore time, so I'll have to finish this incomplete post later. But I don't mind having a discussion. Its giving us something to post about.

[Merlin]

Yeah thats part of edit2 which I must've started writing right when you hit the post button, because I didn't see your post.

I suppose it wouldn't be ran completely by those who believe in the religion of Pilner(the offshoot version anyway) but more of a joining of different beliefs under one roof. Its just a bunch of people from different religions who all share the desire to help other people out. They put their differences aside and aren't there to preach to the people. Gwinnyn would be playing a key role in that hospital in the last year, but none of that is revealed as of yet. They are kindof like the Red Cross I guess. Not really the best comparison... but yeah. People gathered together for charity reasons.

Of course, not everyone in Haven would love the idea of those folks being there, specifically those from Pilner. Those who have had loved ones killed by Pilner, etc, wouldn't be interested in hearing about how these guys are supposedly in support of magic users. The hospital staff would be seen as hypocrites, since they themselves are magic users yet allegedly support a religion that openly slaughters them. I don't think I need to explain that much on that. Its pretty straightforward with any prejudice: You are from Pilner, therefore you are a murderer... etc.

That would actually be an interesting thing to go into. When Jay's chars return the money that was given to rebuild the hospital, etc... many people could rally against having it rebuilt. "Its their fault we were attacked". Actually, its not far from the truth. Its a skewed view of the truth(slippery slope, post hoc ergo propter hoc, so on), but not without merit. That is unless they steal the money... XD That would be interesting. I digress...

I think I'm becoming repetitive. I already have my next set of plans in motion and will hopefully have it written tomorrow, but definitely by Sunday. Gwinnyn will finally get the spotlight.(about damn time ^_^ )

[Imposter]

What fun rping is n'est pas? Alrighty so thanks to a pep talk from Jay I'll be posting sometime in the next few days, and this will bring Ezhno into the Haven area. So by the looks of it I think that will put pretty much everyone taking part in the area right? Excitement and such must be building in everyone now.

Merlin could you clear up a little bit of confusion for me? Tyrbrane and Yuuna are still a day behind right? So your next post will be bringing them up to the point that just happened at the end of the second half of your post?

[Merlin]

Tyrbane and Yuuna are technically arriving in Haven at the point where my latest post ended. I was simply describing what happened to them the night before, since I haven't been showing that angle in a few posts. I actually could have went back a few more days, but the events with Shadow were really irrelevant and uninteresting.

As for how they arrive and whatnot, I will leave that to my post. I'm just waiting on someone else to post so I can put it up. ^_^

[Andromeda]

I started working back up my post. I finished the stuff with Eris last week. But I have more things that I'm going to be doing. I'm going to do more with Wihnem since he is going to be available now. Plus all of the other things that I'm going to be doing. So I don't know if I'll get it done today, but I'll try to get what I can written up.

Its nice to see you back Atma, sort wondered what happened to you after that one post. That will bring us back to having four people in the RP. I wish that Dragonheart would return or Aerif or Musicmuse who both have either been absent or negligent which ever the class may be. Well we'll pushing forward.