FeatherWriter fanfic fan club :)

[FeatherWriter]

Woooo, let's ramble about AI hardware shall we? I will say that fiVe's set-up is possibly different than Vee's but this is how I've been playing them:

 

So, the AIs have a couple different ways that they can work. Their core processing takes up a set amount of space and that would allow the AiVee to think, remember, and feel emotions. On top of that, they usually run extra programs that give them communication abilities: A voice processor in most cases, occasionally they'll do a visual output as well, like fiVe's emote program at the potluck. On one of the tablets that Sylvie has formatted to run the AiVees (fiVe has her old one, from Vulcan and Sylvie has bought a replacement for Vee since then) this "core" processing takes up about 3/4 of their available power. They can really only do small tasks on the tablets themselves, which are more suited to being portable and simply making an appearance rather than actually doing things.

 

Next step up from there would be Sylvie's laptop, which can run an AiVee in about half of it's processing power. Sylvie usually tries to avoid this, because SHE needs to do things on her laptop, but when she does end up doing it, she tends to close everything to give Vee the space to do things if she needs to.

 

Finally, there's actual desktop servers. Sylvie's got ridiculously good servers for Vee (it's where she spends the vast majority of her money.) There's two of these for Vee now. One back at the apartment, one down in the hold of Tranquility. When she's running on these, Vee's got massive amounts of processing power, which allows her to do things like... navigate the ship, or run the complex algorithms of an auto-targetting system while fending off cyber attacks from an enemy warship. Back in the apartment, Vee likes to think of herself as somewhat like JARVIS, running most of the systems in Sylvie's home for her while puppeteering a complex visual output program with a 3D avatar on the screens.

I'm thinking that Seiko and Miranda probably purchased a regular hard drive for fiVe back at their apartment, but it's not going to come close to the kind of tech that Sylvie's got access to. 

[Joe ST]

HDD for ofline memory storage? do neither of the AI's have the ability to archive old memories (as is evident by fiVe's inability to think of the past without fragmenting ><)? do they just not do constant logging then? because that would take up rather a lot of space, unless they somehow refactor their 'short term' logs into a general manifest along with the 'long term' eventually forgetting stuff?

[FeatherWriter]

*blinks* Uh... Joe I think you are about 6,000 times smarter than I am with this stuff, because all of that just went over my head. Can you explain in dumb-blonde terms? I'm sure Sylvie would know what you mean, but I am not as savvy as her!

[Joe ST]

OK It's just I think you might be mixing up things a little. If your average/high end tablet in 2020 can run a fully fledged completely autonomous living being with upwards of 30 years of instantly retrievable and indexed memories. And the ability to add more memories and on the fly, including actually interacting with people. And being able to do some ancillary tasks like internet searches and other things.

Like ok, I can see if you instead had some form of permanent wireless/cellular signal to a bigger computer and more storage... but that's obviously not how it works.

You have a fiVe, who has some code corruption? which is causing memory trouble? Is that because its part of the code that IS the memories or just the access/decoding bit of the code is going scrambly? And why has drifting broken the code?

Does that mean you are using genetic algorithms and self-modifying code which encodes the memories in the code itself?

If that's the case then Hydrophobia's hard disk will be of no use, because all of the code is always necessary for it to run, or else why wouldn't fiVe have syphoned off the worst of it into this offline disk and left it there so that she can never accidentally access it?

Another thing I don't get is why doesn't Vee fork herself into many concious subprocesses when she's on a mainframe, what's stopping fiVe from, whenever she gets triggered, she forks herself and kills her current self.

Just... there's so much stuff that AI's can dooooooo XD

[FeatherWriter]

Well, perhaps the latest additions might help. Well, the first one might. The latter one probably not so much. We've got a backstory log of fiVe's Drifts with both Seiko and Miranda here and then a scene of Mike and Sylvie sparring for the first time. Also, just for fun, there's a photoset of some of the Scroungers' outfits for Zhu's potluck. The ladies at least!

 

Okay, so... let's talk some more AiVees. I think I understood most of what you said this time? First of all, the AiVee's tablets are definitely not consumer-grade. That would be Sylvie getting special access to very expensive, very high-end tablet hardware. In fact, she kinda awkwardly remarks to fiVe at the party that fiVe still has the same tablet as before, to which fiVe responds: “Tablets that can run neural simulation OS’s are difficult to come by and this one is functional.” She's right. Getting a replacement would be ludicrously difficult and super expensive.

 

Vee and fiVe both have pretty good permanent wireless capability and they tend to stay on their desktop whenever they can. Vee switches to Tranquility's servers only when she needs to specifically access Tranquility's systems, or if they're going to be out far on the open water where a wireless connection would be much slower. (See: on the first mission fiVe had to stay in her tablet, because she didn't have servers on Tranq the way Vee did.)

 

When Vee and fiVe are accessing the comms, most of the time, they do so remotely over the internet (the same way that Zhu does.) They're going to stay on their own servers as often as possible. Sylvie's laptop would really only be in emergencies and the tablets are for when they don't have another option or if they're not expecting to have to actually do things. Like... at Zhu's potluck.

 

How do the memories work? Well, the way I've been picturing it is like this: When Sylvie first designed Syl-V, she created a program that will record her own memories in the Drift and will then accept those memories as her own. So, Sylvie spent a long, long time Drifting with this program in order to get her entire memory bank in there. I tend to think of these as files that are organized in a manner that she an access them quickly, and Syl-V has a very good retrieval system to remember them. For all intents and purposes, she remembers "her" life about as well as a human would remember theirs. When Sylvie and Vee "sync" that's Vee recording the new memories and adding them to her database. (And Sylvie taking in Vee's personality and new memories as her own as well.)

 

These memories affect, but are separate from the "personality" side of the programming. There's things that the AiVees "know" rather than "remember". This affects how they act and react to things as well as allowing them to interpret their relationships with other people. So, just because fiVe has trouble remembering specific things about Seiko's history doesn't mean she forgets who he is when she sees him. (Also it's worth noting that fiVe's "original" memories, the memories which are from her and her alone, are not affected by the majority of the damage.)

 

So how does the damage work? Well, as you can see in the first Drift log that just got posted, Miranda messed her code up pretty awfully at first (though she undoes quite a bit of this). Miranda rearranges things in the code (which makes it non-functional) but beyond that, by hacking her way in, she gives fiVe quite a bit of corruption. Sylvie's not about to let people mess with her programs without her permission, so the AiVees have lots of failsafes that will auto-corrupt their damage if people try to access it. This is why fiVe hasn't been able to get her override code changed or have someone else fix her memory damage -- Sylvie's the only one who could do it without tripping all the traps, so to speak. This is also why fiVe hasn't restricted her access to the memory files. She can't. Sylvie intentionally programmed the AIs not to be able to mess with their programming. (She has seen too many sci-fi movies with rogue AIs to give them that kind of power over themselves.)

 

Miranda roots around, does quite a bit of damage, then realizes that fiVe's alive and tries to undo it. (She's mostly successful.) However... she then thinks that perhaps Drifting with fiVe might fix her... which is the real problem. See, fiVe's memories overwrite when she's in the Drift. Her programming can't tell that her partner ISN'T Sylvie and starts recording what she sees and designating it part of her memory bank. What ends up happening then is when fiVe goes to try to remember something, that nice organization system for her memories that she had is cluttered with memories that don't match, that don't fit. So she ends up getting these overlapping memories, pulling up multiple files at once that cancel over each other and don't make sense and cause her quite a bit of pain as she tries to sort through them.

 

Her first attempt at describing the Vulcan Specter incident to Miranda is a good example of this. She tries to remember "What happened that night" and she ends up getting both her memories, Sylvie's memories, and Miranda's memories of that night, all jumbled together in a way that doesn't make any sense. When she wakes up after that she remembers "I don't have the person I need to have" and gets a jumble of the fact that she's separated from Sylvie mixed with Miranda's memory of not having Jason there with her.

 

I'm... not entirely sure I follow what you mean about forking. You mean run simultaneous versions of herself at once, doing different things? Well Vee's a good multi-tasker. When she's got the hard-drive power for it, she can run all kinds of processes and subprocesses at the same time. Back when Vee was new, she often forked off into multiple runs. Sylvie mentions this at the very beginning in her prologue, she's used to having multiple Vees out and about doing things, adn then when they're done, they all sync back up and come together again. After they lost fiVe however... they got scared. Sylvie and Vee decided that simultaneous runs were to be avoided at all costs, because the risk of being separated was too scary. They don't want to lose another version the way they lost fiVe.

 

(I'm not entirely sure if that's what you were talking about, but I tried?)

 

 

[Joe ST]

OK so yeah, I get it a bit better now I think? I still don't see why fiVe can't do (or ask someon to) some memory surgery, taking the raw data that forms the bad memories and archiving it, or marking all the bad bits in the index at least. I get that the fuzzy logic behind memory retrieval could lead to the remembering from all three.

 

Is it impossible for anyone to conduct tweaks to the code? Could Sylvie not 1. change the way Vee would corrupt then 2) tell Miranda how the old way worked, or talk Miranda thru disabling the failsafes  then C: letting Miranda changing the fiVes failsafes and fixing corurption and adding improvements and stuff?

 

So basically, Miranda messed up V2's code and the corrupt memories (and code?) of Sylvies and the addition of extra memories from Miranda and Seiko are making it extra hard for fiVe to function.

 

One of the main problems I can see is that accruing new memories either needs lots of space or needs to overwrite older stuff. The fact that you have also fundamentally separated the code from the memories means that the code itsself can be constant size but the memories will have a strictly increasing memory footprint, unless older memories are lost. 

 

I assume that you could modify the AIs into pretty efficient psychoanalysts, they could basically record and sort thru all someones memories without internalising them,. 

 

Just as a technical note, having extra hard drives doesn't help at all, in the processing department. You need extra processors and more temporary memory, rather than the storage space which is what hard drives are for. The only thing I can see hard drives being good for is if the standard way that the memories are stored is in a big compressed and binary blob, and the AI wanted to take a copy of them and unpack them and sort thru stuff slowly? Another use would be for logging live activities like sensor data, for later analysis. 

 

I'm sorry these thoughts are so disjoint, unfinshed and rambly, thank you for answering me

[Quiver]

Okay, so I have been slacking. Apologies for that; I'd already read session 23 and didn't get my thoughts posted on it. The abbreviated version would be that you were right, this chapter had a lot of shipping in it. I can't comment on romance, but I did like some of the revelations that came out about the characters:

Backwards Compatability

It was nice to see the two AI's getting along (relatively), and for Vee to admit they might be wrong about fiVe. That being said, I want to reserve judgement on that until Vee and fiVe speak again, since it seems possible that, if Sylvie and her drift, it might make things substantially worse. I do find it kind of funny, in a weird way, that Vee and fiVe have that 'almost relationship'. It seems a bit reminiscent of Sylvie's drifting; the only person who could stand either of them would be... the other one.

Advanced Hydrophonia

I stand by my comment that Seiko seemed like Worf or Wolverine in the first session. That's not a criticism per se, since both those characters developed. I've been commenting on Seiko's evolution for the last few sessions, and this is another step in it. The fact he's an excellent cook, a lousy drunk, and croons j-pop doesn't add much to the overall story, but it does add and round out him, the same way his use and swappage between first names and surnames does.

What's the Marshall and the Captain's ship name?

Okay, so... I can't help but think that Kayie's haircut is symbolic in someway, but unless it's related to the fact that her and Zhu's relationship takes a big step forward this session, I'm not entirely sure what that symbolism is. Sorry! But, like Seiko, I thought this session helped give Katie (and Zhu) some in-game depth. You've mentioned in your tumblr about Shu being trans, but I think this reference to her 'transition' might be the first time it's really been mentioned in-game. Similarly, the latest sessions hinted that Katie has had bad experiences related to her family, so having it openly confirmed is a nice throwaway. It also helps open up some mysteries for both of them- if Zhu's trouble had nothing to do with her transition, then what was it? And if Katie's family was homophobic to the point she's hinted at, how did she get control of all the money?

Kal-Eleanor

Again, I like how stuff was answered. I didn't expect it to be her parents; for some reason, I thought Eleanor might have lost a cold to the tentacultists. Her alcoholism is also a neat contrast to how professional and controlled she seems to be most of the time.

Eleanor Interlude

Getting this after Act two seems appropriate; this is the act that the majority of El's background with the judges, and her confession to Sylvie, came out in after all. I like the time jumps, and the contrast between young Eleanor's happiness and later Eleanor's depression(?). If I was to critique it, I'd say that I wish there was maybe a bit more of a linguistic change as the sections go on, starting off childish and becoming more adult, but that's a minor point. I like how the situation was prism'd through the eyes of a child, and there was a general feeling that... there is more going on than what we see. That was one of the points where .i thought the growing up viewpoint was well-used, since El becomes more cognisant of the bad things around them, culminating in her feather echoing the chant of the Assembly. I don't know if he's still alive, but I hope so, because a confrontation between them would be great.

fiVe

Just completed the fiVe interlude. Again, as I've said with the other AI sections, I like how you mess with grammar/pronouns/etc. It helps create that disjointed confusion the V's face. I also liked how you worked in certain lines that, in the modern time, seem to have become part of fiVe's philosophy; stay in the present, the memories lie, humans get better. It's interesting to see where those things started, and to compare the fiVe here begging to get back to Sylvie with the one in the main game. As a matter of fact, I thought Seiko, and Eleanor came off well here as well (discounting Mira since I think she's the one who has changed the least; being the antichrist for a religion hasn't kicked in yet), both being different from their current counterparts in a way that suggests continuity.

As a complaint to balance that... I'm not overly fond of the structure. I liked the time jumps, again, but I feel like there should have been one more with Seiko to mirror the one with Miranda. As it is, a lot of fiVe's resolution seems to happen in the last section, which only covers one afternoon. There's clearly more development that happens between then and now, but I think a book ending scene with the current, more assertive five wouldn't have gone amiss.

Edited February 1, 2014 by Quiver

[FeatherWriter]

@Joe

It'd be very, very difficult for anyone other than Sylvie to do code surgery on the AiVees just because that's how she designed it to be. I mean, this is her mind and her memories, and she doesn't want anyone to be able to mess with that. The programming code is filled with all kinds of little traps and triggers and Sylvie's really the only person who's able to navigate it. I mean, she could try to tell Miranda or someone else how to get in there and change the code, but it's so complicated and dangerous that A.) she could definitely trick them into doing whatever she wanted with it, since that person wouldn't really be able to understand what they were doing, B.) if they messed up at all, it could be fatal to the AiVee, and C.) she wouldn't tell anyone how to get past it in the first place because she's not comfortable with anyone else having that info.

 

It's definitely possible to fix fiVe's damage like that, going into the code and sorting the memories without Drifting, though Drifting tends to be faster than doing it manually. It's also possible to change the way that the AiVees operate in regards to Drift partners and memory but... Sylvie's the only one who could do it. Vee trusts her to do so—she lets Sylvie makes edits to Vee's programming quite often, such as changing her override code after she found out that Seiko and Miranda knew the old one. fiVe does not trust her and does not think there is anyone else who would be capable of navigating her code well enough to let them try.

 

Yeah, I probably misspoke. Temp memory and processors are what are needed, you're right (though I'm guessing that the servers have better specs in this department than the tablets as well.) In regards to the memory stuff... well, the idea is that Vee doesn't remember things any better than Sylvie does... she remembers them exactly the same way. I'm not sure exactly how that translates to file storage and such... but seeing as human memories get fuzzier as time goes on, I'd say there's a good chance that there's some kind of memory conservation going on there too. The files get compressed to a smaller filesize to make room maybe? IDK. I'm... not quite smart enough to know exactly what I'm talking about.

 

And on that note, I'll say thanks for asking me about this stuff, because you're making me waaaay more knowledgeable about this topic. If I'm supposed to be writing a techie, it helps to get feedback from people like you who actually know what they're talking about!

 

@Quiver

Yeaaaah, I warned you about the shipping, didn't I? Backcompat is going to continue to be a major relationship that's developing here, partially because it's interesting, partially because it's a very popular relationship among readers/players.... and partially because I've recently been manipulated into loving them together by Ellie drawing me unfairly attractive art of the two of them, ugh.

 

 

Aaaanyway, moving on. Speaking of Ellie: her drunk Seiko is awesome. He's just so sweet, which is not something I usually get to say about Seiko. Miranda's good to get him out of there before he does something truly stupid though, since he nearly slipped up and told Sylvie about his sisters, oops. 

 

You know... I think we still need a good ship name for Katie/Zhu. That's rather atrocious that we don't have one yet. I will have to talk to the group and see if we can't come up with something. (The Mike/Sylvie ship name would be "Faint of Heart" in case you were wondering, heheh.) I'm pretty sure there's no more symbolism to the undercut aside from: Gavin finds them very appealing (and quite a few of the others do too) and Heather decided to make it a bit of a reveal that Katie had gotten one. And yes, that's the first in-canon reference to Zhu's status as trans, I'm pretty sure. We all celebrated it going canon!

 

I think... Eleanor's father tried to get in contact with her once after she started working for the PPDC maybe? She definitely shut him down and said that if he ever tried to contact her again she'd have him arrested, if I recall correctly. Emmalyn would know more...

 

Good news and bad news: The last little bit of writing that's published is a Sylvie/Mike scene (so it's pretty shippy) but it's the last interlude, so good news is we'll be back to full sessions pretty soon!

[Quiver]

I need to learn to type faster.

So, Feather, I edited my response for the fiVe drift into the post you made... just before me. I'm going to go read the Faint of Heart interlude, and I'll edit this post for that once I'm done.

Hmm.

Okay, so non-committal tone probably tells you this is not my favourite interlude. It's surprisingly light, given all the angst these things are typically filled with, and I'll grant that Sylvie, in particular, could use some cheering up. It's neat to see her taking some steps towards being a better person. I also thought Vees reaction was a little odd. It might be because of how she confided to swapping cyber spit with fiVe, but... the disconnect between her and Sylvie seems more pronounced here. It might just be how I'm reading it, but it seems like fiVe is already having an influence on the Mansen family.

Edited February 2, 2014 by Quiver

[FeatherWriter]

fiVe's Drifts:

Heh, fun fact: The Seiko Drift was played out before the Miranda Drift, was, but I figured chronological order was probably better here. Ellie and I ran through the Seiko one a few weeks before I ran the Miranda one with Emma. I just figured putting them in chronological order would be best. Also, the only reason there's a break is because we realized Miranda would need to steal a Pons and that would take time. There was no need for that with the Seiko Drift, so, well, we didn't have one. *shrug*

 

Yeah, fiVe misses Sylvie for a very, very long time. Part of what originally sparked her loathing was the idea that was searching for Sylvie a lot longer than Sylvie was searching for her (because Sylvie thought she was dead, whereas fiVe thought Sylvie was still alive.) Yep, you can see a lot of the formation of her philosophy here. She's very interesting, but it's still fun to play with her dialogue. Sylvie and Vee will say very similar things to what she says here in the current arc, and I love that I get to play with that.

 

Faint of Heart spar

I'm just a total sucker for being able to RP cute shippy scenes, and Gavin writes Mike so wonderfully I can't help but love these kinds of scenes. And Sylvie needs some happy in her life. And in this kind of situation, Vee tends to function like the meddlesome best friend who thinks she has extra right to be meddlesome. She's not the one who actually has to deal with the nervousness of talking to Mike and doing the thing... so she's more willing to shove Sylvie into it for her own good. (And Sylvie really does want to do this, deep down. She's just nervous.) Vee tends to be very good at getting Sylvie to do things she needs to do but doesn't want to. It's easy to be the responsible one when you're not actually the one who has to do things. Hehe.

 

Sylvie and Vee bicker amicably like this a lot when they're alone. It's been a staple of their relationship since the very beginning. The very first prologue in Vulcan Specter has this kind of lighthearted talk between Sylvie, Vee, and fiVe (back when those two are V1 and V2 still). It's just not something that comes out unless Sylvie and Vee are in a good mood though.

[Joe ST]

Regards the memory storage space, I can see a continual background process repreatedly going over the index and finding out what doesn't get any attention and then recompressing all that so it takes even less space, and results in a 'fuzzier' eventual rememberance, because some of the detail has been lost in the compression (much like what happens to jpegs and mp3s, but continual and gradual).

 

I still find it weird how relaxed Sylvie got at the end of the Mike bit, she seemed to really easily ask to be invited to his place, and to invite him back, and to ask him out? It was just surprisingly fast I think? ><

[FeatherWriter]

Well, Sylvie is not good at people. VERY not good. She's not a good judge of "this is flirty" or "If I suggest this, it means this." So sometimes she moves too slowly and backs off, and... other times she just says things she's thinking without thinking that they're really significant. So... she's not relaxed, so much as... kinda oblivious?

 

Like, she offered to kiss him at Zhu's party, and then realized that no, that's a terrible idea, Sylvie, don't do that and backed out of it. Same with not realizing "Do you want to get coffee" was a flirty thing at first. So, she's not totally grasping that asking to see his place kinda... means something. She's just thinking "I like sparring with him, and I've been in my apartment for a year and a half. I'll make a friendly suggestion that we try his place next time."

 

I'm thinking Vee probably pointed it out to her later and she got mortified that she suggested that. Because Sylvie getting embarrassed about Mike is amusing to me. He's just so smooth, and she's so not, unless she does it unintentionally, and even then she probably takes it too far.

 

Beyond that... she really likes him. There's an aspect I haven't really gotten to explore yet, but Sylvie hasn't ever really had people in her life who care about her. She doesn't know what family's like or what it's like to have best friends. She's always been on her own and told herself that she's fine like that. She thinks: "I don't understand people, so I'm just gonna do my own thing." Then, suddenly there's someone who's kind and seems to care about her and is giving her human contact and will spar with her and keeps catching her when she faints... and she's kinda realizing that this is something she kinda really wants. 

[FeatherWriter]

Been a little while, but Act 3 is ready to start! For those interested, Session 24 is now up!

[Quiver]

Editing in as I read, don't delete this post, not spam, yadda yadda yadda. You know the drill by now.

Scene One

If I was playing this game, I think I'd be nervous. This act opens up so... happily. Maybe I'm just cynical, but somehow I expect horrible, horrible things to happen this act at some stage.

Besides my paranoia, though, this general optimism fits in pretty well, following from the epilogue and the intermissions. Everyone seems to be gelling together even better than they were before, as indicated by Seikko actually talking to Sylvie, and Sylvie responding, fairly civilly, back. It makes a pretty big lull in tension, which makes the fact that Katie calls Sylvie by her last name-and the fact that Sylvie noticed it- all the more ominous. Despite the intermission, Sylvie is still a little bit isolated from the group.

And the reason I say a little is because of the Mike situation. It seems like that could make Sylvie open a bit more, and I'm curious to see how this develops. After all, she was more aware of Katie calling her by her surname, meaning she might be more vulnerable now, but it seemed to me as if she was treating Mile, and reacting with him, similarly to how she would have done with Vee. She didn't really engage in talking with the group because she was texting, and then when she needed information on Zhu, she text him. It's a logical progression, of course, but with her history I wonder if it means she's trading one obsession for another...

For some reason, Eleanor's choice of fashion threw me. It might be because I associate her with the more social aspects of the game- so you can probably imagine how excited I am about the upcoming stealth mission- but, even though. I'm sure it was mentioned at some point, I have trouble picturing in her combat boots and military-camo pants. Again, like Sylvie, she seems to be a lot more open with the rest of the crew now; I'm not sure how many if them were exactly aware of the truth behind her father and mother, but the fact that she is mentioning her mother and wearing clothing to Miranda and Seiko would seem to suggest that she's getting more social. Just... Remind me not to tell her about my fourteenth birthday party, or let her near any photos of my family.

It's interesting to compare Seiko and Katie's attitudes. The former is making an effort to engage with Sylvie, while Katie is pulling away from her. The brief mention of fiVe being with Katie could be interesting, as well; it makes me wonder if fiVe and Vee were in contact in the interim time and how that might have rubbed off on them.

And I'm not sure what to say about it just yet, but Miranda seems quite a bit more comfortable with her relationship with Seiko now. It was a bit jokey, maybe, but the fact that she didn't seem embarrassed or avoided it seems significant, somehow.

Scene Two

Having Katie and Sylvie together is great; I love the tension that's in the dialogue between them, the way Katie is being terse and doesn't realise she might be saying anything wrong while Sylvie is maybe being a little over-sensitive to what she's saying.

I sort of don't want to comment on the actual dialoupgye between them, for the same reason that Katie and Sylvie keep getting their wires crossed. It's a very delicate subject matter, which I think is handled well, and I'm worried that trying to overanalyse it would end up in making me sound like a homophobic bastard with great taste in whiskey. Suffice it to say that I love this scene.

Scene Three

Well this isn't ominous at all, is it?

I like the fact that we are getting a look at the Jaeger facilities. As someone who has never seen the film, I would have liked to see more, but the fact that Eleanor is impressed, and the description of the tang of gunpowder and metal, helps build an idea of the grandeur of the place.

As always, I like the social snooping things, so most of what I say would end up being rehashes of that. I admit I'm a bit leery about Eleanor's performance here, since she's getting more involved in the investigation than I might have expected her to- but then, she did identify herself as Eleanor, rather than a model, and it's being influenced by Doyle a bit.

And about Foyle... This is where the homophobic part might come in. I hope that all the time I've heaped praise on Zhu will counteract any idiocy I say here, but as a technical point, I think I would have preferred if you had used male or female pronouns before xe asked for those to be used. The male/female ones have been used up to this point for all other NPCs, and I just think it might have made the contrast and the point a lot stronger when xe asked for these to be used instead.

Besides that, Doyle is really likeable. I'm a tad suspicious of xer, because of the scar and my own cynicism, but... Yeah. I like xer. Xe's also the first character I can think of who seems romantically interested in El, so I'm curious to see how that develops, especially if the scar is the result of something sinister.

Edited February 6, 2014 by Quiver

[FeatherWriter]

Okay first things first: a question to those following the story. (Which at the moment I would guess is probably Quiver and Joe). So, while transcribing the latest session, I ran into a secret scene, AKA, I have a note in the text that there was a scene going on between some of the other players that was not made public to me and the rest of the group. Normally, before this, I would simply ask for a copy of what happened "off-screen" so to speak, and would then incorproate this.

 

However, this current scene and sequence has been requested to stay secret until its reveal happens for the players. So... I won't get access to it for an indefinite amount of time. This leaves me with a bit of a dilema, which I'm consulting you guys on. I could continue to upload and transcribe chapters without the secret scenes and put them in later when I get them, OR I could pause for a little while in hopes that the secret is revealed and its build up is unhidden. What would you guys prefer? I'm... really hesitant to upload chapters with holes... but we're only about halfway through Act 3 right now, and I have no idea when the set up might be right for them to unveil this secret plotting. Maybe Act 4, I've been told. I'll get y'all's opinions on thsi though, since you're the readers.

 

ANYWAY ONTO RESPONDING

 

Scene 1

Well, it's Scroungers, so "terrible things happening" is preeetty much a given. I'm glad you're picking up on Sylvie's isolation here. This is a bit of a theme with her. She didn't realize that companionship was really something to be missed and thought she was fine on her own. Mike is kinda helping break her out of that a little bit, and she's realizing that maybe being on good terms with her teammates and having friends is something she wants... and is something that's currently out of reach at her present level of ostracization.

 

Mike is somewhat starting to take a bit of the place that Vee has had thus far, though I'm not sure that's a bad thing. Relationships with real people are a step in the right direction for her, but I think you're right. This could very easily simply turn into a replacement obsession. We'll have to watch her on that.

 

Seiko really does seem to be trying to bridge the gap, which is an interesting initiative on his part. Sylvie's somewhat receptive to it, but she really is starting to be hurt by eveyone using her last name, especially Eleanor or Katie, whom she has known for a while. It's something that's really starting to nag at her, and hearing people call her by her last name alone is going to get to her in the sessions to come. (Heh, there is someone on the team who calls her by her first name at this point, though, and that would be fiVe, who calls her "Sylvia" to her face, and "Mansen" behind her back.)

 

Scene 2

I really do like this scene, yep. I'll applaud Katie's levelheadedness here. Sylvie's being rather disrespectful in her anger, and Katie doesn't let it devolve into a fight. They both manage to stay somewhat civil even as they're talking about very emotionally charged topics. Katie is feeling a lot closer and more protective of fiVe and even though Sylvie is outwardly behaving, the fact that she still doesn't recognize fiVe's independence and doesn't agree with the decision of the group is a source of tension.

 

Scene 3

Yeah, Shatterdomes are dang impressive. I mean, you've seen how big the Jaegers are in the trailers, so you can imagine that a building large enough to house them, is going to be quite a sight to see as well. 

 

You and I think a lot alike, Quiver, because I'll say that I thought about that one paragraph with Avery's pronouns quite a bit as well. I really thought about whether or not there was a way that I could rearrange things so that xe reveals xer pronouns before the narrative uses them, but... it just wasn't feasible. I could have tried to pull it off with a neutral "they" prounoun, or tried to describe Avery as having a nonbinary appearance but, eventually I decided not to mess with it. For one, this story is technically told with an omniscient narrator, so it isn't totally breaking convention to have the narration know something that the characters don't. For the other, misgendering someone from an objective viewpoint is a big deal, even unintentionally. I don't think your question was homophobic, but I can tell you that I certainly would not have had the narration use male or female pronouns with Avery  before being revealed, because that would have been pretty rude towards xem. In the end, I decided Gavin's going to be the expert on using enby pronouns correctly and inoffensively and I'd leave it the way ze wrote it. 

 

And yeah, Avery's a cutie. That reminds me, now that xe's been introduced, I can go ahead and reblog the portrait that Ellie drew of xem. (Glad you noticed the scar. I'll keep hush about that for now.)

[Joe ST]

I think I'm going to put my vote in to be post it as you have it now, but then post the secret scenes later as a separate update, letting us know what they are... I am happy to be in suspenders as much as you guys, and I'd kinda prefer to read it that way? I'm weird XD

[Quiver]

I think I'm going to put my vote in to be post it as you have it now, but then post the secret scenes later as a separate update, letting us know what they are... I am happy to be in suspenders as much as you guys, and I'd kinda prefer to read it that way? I'm weird XD

We're all weird, Joe. It's why we find FeatherWriter so charming ; )

I'd second that. It actually sort of fits with the cinematic style of FATE core,mat least based on what you've implied about it, to have a secret stay a secret off-screen, reveal it, then BAM, flashbacks as to how it happened.

It also lets us start a betting pool on what the reveal might be.

Edited February 6, 2014 by Quiver

[FeatherWriter]

Well... this would be a little different. This is going to be more like if... instead of showing you the scenes with Miranda where she talks about her exoskeleton, I wouldn't be able to show anything until the reveal happened in Session 20 as she's infiltrating the cult. That was the first "secret scene" that I wasn't privy to while it happened, but they decided to let me in on what was happening even before the payoff reveal two Acts later.

 

I mean, the format thus far is that I've really wanted this to be objective, and if things are happening to other characters, I've wanted to show that. (If I hadn't, I probably would have done a limited viewpoint from Sylvie's perspective.) I mean, I'm probably making a bigger deal out of this than it should be, but I guess it just feels strange to me to publish these with canon elements between characters missing. There's going to be scenes that are happening in time with the rest that I just can't show you because I don't have them. Trust me, if there was a way that I could somehow publish these with the secrets in them for you guys, but hide them from myself, I'd do it in a heartbeat. 

 

You guys aren't players, and you shouldn't have to be limited by my personal viewpoint. If I am going to go ahead and continue to publish these, I will most likely go back and add the scenes in where they're supposed to go when they get revealed. I mean, they're not flashbacks the way the others are, so saving them for interludes wouldn't really make sense. Other readers who start later than you guys should be able to go back and read it the way it's supposed to be read, so I'm going to do that. 

 

The last time we really had an extended secret sequence, it was Sylvie's in the cult. And I was the one privy to those secrets, so it was no big deal to put them in where they're supposed to go in that series. If say, one of the other players were the transcriber, in that situation, they might have had to go on, just following the main team and then... as soon as they met back up with Sylvie, I could release all the scenes of what she's been up to alone. 

 

I just... there's going to be holes here guys. And as soon as I'm able to plug these holes, I'm going to do so. Which means you'll be getting some scenes out of sequence, but there's not too much I can do about that, unless I decided to wait until I can do it correctly. I... still need to think about this I guess. IDK why it's bothering me so much.

[Abalidoth]

@Quiver: Feather said pretty much what I wanted to say here, but I'll clarify: Avery does not use "he" or "she" pronouns, so using them to describe xem is not OK. If Feather had just rewritten it as "the tech" and/or "they" and/or "Doyle" before xe gave xer pronouns, that would have been fine; as it is, she made the choice to keep Avery's introduction pretty much how it actually was to the players.

 

The fact that all of the other NPCs so far have used "he" or "she" pronouns is just because those characters use those pronouns. It's not any kind of default. (If anything's a default, it's "they".)

 

@Feather: I'm gonna talk to the players involved and see if I can get the timetable on that reveal moved up. You do so much work getting these transcribed; the least we can do is shuffle things around to make it easier on you.

 

EDIT: Oh, and since I'm not sure anyone caught this, Avery's name is a Despicable Me 2 reference. "Is that a boy Avery or a girl Avery?"

Edited February 6, 2014 by Abalidoth

[FeatherWriter]

I need to see Despicable Me 2... I feel like I saw it once, but I don't remember much.

 

Thanks, on the reveal shift. You're the best, Gav. It's funny. I don't even really want to know for myself... I want to know so that I can make the transcripts complete! *transcriber feels* Though I'm a bit curious about such a secretive reveal!

 

Aaaaaaaand, I've gotten over my inhibitions and went ahead and did Session 25. Because why not, right? I've left a space for the missing scene, so that I'll have somewhere to put it when I do finally receive it!

[Quiver]

First scene and... Avery continues to be likable. The thing you said about the scar made me think it was going to be addressed sooner, rather than later, so I was a little surprised that it didn't come up... but then, this is just the excuse needed for xer to come back later on. I have to admit that El's previous 'romantic' experience with the cultist ambulance driver makes me a little apprehensive that something bad is going to come out of this connection...

Still, I liked the trading of the numbers; it was pretty mature, especially considering the long build up it took Zhu and Katie to get to a similar place, and, again, the whole Sylvie a Mike thing.

Actually, I have to admit, I found Miranda's worrying about the jaegers reminded me a little of Sylvies relationship with the Vees.

Scene Two

Another nice little conversation between the girls. I liked how this time it was Sylvie saying something potentially offensive; it seemed a little like payback for comparing her to Katie's mother. More than that, though, I liked how Katie's response was to just let it roll off her back instead of discussing it- it highlights a difference in attitude between the two.

The only criticism I have is that I thought the first paragraph,mentioning finding the folders was a bit... Repetitive? I thought that that stuff had been established last session, unless that was digital content and these are physical folders, but it's a minor complaint. I also liked the moment at the end, when your teams did not instantly realise who had entered the building- it was another little moment that semes realistic.

Scene three

Again, Miranda's reference to my car puts me in mind of Sylvie and the AVees. It's different, of course, since Jaegers aren't sentiment, but Miranda humanising them while Sylvie dehumanises the Vees seems like it's an intentional point.

Also, wiki leaks? By thecendvofvthis campaign, Sylvie had better be outed as a member of the Rising Tide.

Scene four

You know, I think this might be the first time you used the word scrounge in the actual sessions.

Anyway, again, I like the interactions between everyone, but particularly between Sylvie and Seiko. They might still be insulting each other, with the tar/ocarina quips, but it feels more comradely than it did in earlier sessions, at least on seiko's side. Sylvie is still a little more venomous in her insults, but I do think that she's warming up to him slightly.

And I, personally, can't wait to see Sylvie on the dance floor. Is there a word for laughter better than hilarious?

Scene Five

Place your bets, folks, place your bets!

Scene Six

I think it's a sign of how much my appreciation for Seiko has grown that I don't find his clothing for clubbing strange. If you had told me at the beginning of the campaign that he would be going to a night club in a dress and tights, I probably wouldn't have believed you. It's more of what I've been saying about Seiko becoming more humanised as this campaign has gone on, and I like it.

And it looks like I was right to be leery of Avery, given what the Marshall said. Yes, it's still entirely possible that xe could have just been that good at identifying what the bomb was... but again,mgiven El's past record (and my suspicions of her loyalty early on) I'm bracing myself for the worst.

Scene Seven

Have we heard the name Yegerov before? It sounds a little familiar, but .i can't remember if that was the name of the Jaeger pilot Sylvie knew or not.

So, as a minor point, is Eleanor drinking a factor in the game the same way Sylvie being tempted by tech is?

The ending, again, is a bit ominous. For some reason, being addressed by a Russian gang leader(assuming that's what she is) is the sort of situation that doesn't fill me with confidence in the situation

And... Miranda and Seiko. They've really started being pushed together more this act, as a couple. Granted, Seiko doesn't seem entirely aware of what's going on whenever he pulls away from her in the club, but given his awkwardness in the first scenes to want to play her boyfriend, it's a pretty safe bet, in my mind, that they both know what's going on. The question now, really, is how long it'll take for them to act on that.

Sorry for the brief descriptions this time.

Edited February 7, 2014 by Quiver

[FeatherWriter]

Scene 1

Yeah, there's actually quite a few similarities between Miranda and Sylvie, which they're slowly starting to realize. Sylvie's software, Miranda's hardware. They're both VERY protective of their tech as well.

Scene 2

I'll point out that the comment about big houses was meant to be a bit of a hint toward Sylvie's early backstory, which hasn't come up in canon much. And even though Seiko had just texted, Sylvie's not about to trust any footsteps in the hall until she sees who it is.

Scene 3

I SWEAR, I totally came up with my only-semi-trustworthy dark-haired young female hacker who is brought on as a secret member for a powerful government organization BEFORE Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. started airing! I'm actually kinda surprised by how similiar to Sylvie Skye is sometimes, because I definitely didn't mean to draw a parallel there.

Scene 4

TITLE DROP. Yep. Couldn't pass up the opportunity to throw it down, right? Yeah, Seiko and Sylvie are starting to get better toward each other, and their teasing's pretty good natured there for a little while, but then she gets upset by the comment about changing clothes and we're kinda back to square one. She's still very sore about being ostracized, and anything that singles her out against the group is something she's going react against.

Ahahaha, Sylvie? Dancing? It'd be horrendous. Especially in those heels.

Scene 5

*Rooftop cultist may or may not do a thing*

Scene 6

Emmalyn, (who plays Eleanor), did a drawing of Seiko's outfit a little while back when we were playing! That can be found over here! We are the coolest campaign because we have so much awesome art, I swear.

Sylvie's feeling pretty suspicious of Avery at this point. There's discrepancies in xer story certainly...

Scene 7

Hehe, Eleanor's faking drunk here! It's an act. She's wouldn't actually drink on the job (I hope). As for Miranda and Seiko... they've had some time together now that he's returned. Miranda's not denying that she really cares about him, even if he's not ready to commit to anything. (Don't mind me crying over here, I've just got Advanced Hydrophobia in my eye.)

Ooh, not recognizing the name "Yegorov"? I can refresh, though the beginning of the next session might jog your memory. From Session 10 Pt. 1

Zhu sighs and runs her fingers through her hair. “Two weeks ago, Dmitry Yegorov attacked a small group of J-Tech personnel with a crowbar over a game of poker. Two of them are still in critical condition. One got away with merely a concussion. Merely.”

Eleanor narrowly keeps herself from lunging forward. “Yego—” Her jaw clenches. ”I’ve heard the name.”

"Yegorov entered the our Shatterdome right when I became Marshal. We were tight for pilot candidates at the time, and I ignored a psychiatric evaluation that would have seen him out of the program. Instead, when the psychoanalyst in question tried to push to have him out, I pushed back."

I decided to pull him into Sylvie's backstory as well, and he shows up when she's in the piloting academy, being an absolute jerk. AND THEN GAVIN FANCAST TOM HIDDLESTON FOR HIM AND EVERYTHING WENT DOWNHILL FROM THERE.

However, in an act against hirself, ze then decided to fancast Valentia as Natalie Dormer, so now there's two very attractive looking Yegorovs running around to terrorize both gynephiles and androphiles alike.

[FeatherWriter]

I swear I'll be doing Cosmere stuff again once WoR comes out, but until then... Session #26 is up! If there's any of the other Feathertips or Blades still following this topic, I'd love to hear from you guys again. I know Malliw was thinking about possibly starting Scroungers, did that ever happen?

[Mailliw73]

Sorry, I haven't yet. I've been busy. I'll try to remember to start soon.

[FeatherWriter]

No worries, no obligation! I just wanted to hear what you were thinking if you had!