#after action report

[asklotarasarrin]

Lessons from Adepticon

//An out-of-character musing about the weekend.

So while sitting the the airport waiting for our return flight, I had some time to muse on the course of the weekend.

It's been a lot of fun! We did have a good time; I really enjoyed meeting some online friends, dressing up, and playing games. It was also a learning experience, as every con is a little different and every venue has its quirks. It's very much a competition and playing convention, with an array of hobbying layered over it, so going without the intent to compete or play does curb a significant amount of the actual events.

It's definitely not a costume convention. There were probably about two dozen full on costumes for a convention with eight thousand visitors. Apparently in previous years there have been costume competitions, but its been awhile(last documented thing I could find was for 2018). In talking to the staff about it, there was some (semi-joking?) suggestion that I should volunteer to staff next year and run it myself. Then another veteran staffer said she'd look into running it. I got her email with the offer of supporting that venture. So maybe. lol.

We did also meet the staff for NOVA Opens costume contest with three encouragement to make the trip down. So we might have to add that to the list.

As one of only a handful of costumed persons(and maybe a touch of arrogance, definitely one of the best), I was WELL received for the most part. Lots of enthusiasm, lots of squeals, and lots of pictures. I will definitely do that again. We did have some costume mishaps (my Jedi&lotara boots will need total replacing)and I will probably do some upgrades/additions for the future.

It was also not a ribbon convention, so almost everyone I gave a ribbon to needed explanation for what it was/how it worked. But maybe with the power of repetition and exposure, we can change that lol. I did really enjoy handing them out because there was also an air of wonder and enthusiasm about it.

Hobby seminars! We really enjoyed our resin class and our freehand class. We also learned the hard way that there was a BIG difference between a "demo" hobby seminar and a "hands on" hobby seminar. I admittedly didn’t notice the difference(since they're both hobby seminars) until we discovered we'd paid 40$+ a head for what amounted to an in-person version of a youtube video. Not a mistake I will make twice. In the future I expect we'll only take classes for things we dont think we could somewhat easily learn via youtube or would otherwise not benefit from a teacher hanging over our shoulder for guidance. We'll also likely watch a youtube video or two of teachers ahead of time- some people, while very talented/experienced, are just not great teachers.

My brother will likely bring a mobile hobby painting set up next year, as there was some down time to paint. I’m not totally sold on the idea but we shall see lol. We did end up picking up a number of models and such, so I am glad we had some extra bag space.

All in all, an excellent experience. We will likely return next year, a little more prepared and ready to battle. :)

[married-to-a-redhead]

This is my notes chart for Married-to-a-Redhead from 9/22 to 9/24. The big jump in the middle was Redhead Appreciation Day on 9/23. Based on this chart, I’d say it was a complete success! Thanks again to my partner @princessred101-v2 and all who participated, especially @countrystrongforever who submitted a large number of photos and memes!

[captain-neutrino]

I’m not as strong as you think.

[goosiegoos]

So my current fortress is “Toolstrokes” run by the group the “Fragrant Dinners” a group of dwarves set out with one goal in mind: to create the greatest fast-food establishment in all of Èrnitom “The Infinite Planet”

Our Dwarf Donalds has been a astounding success so far, people from across the continent flock to taste our world famous meals of lettuce and raw mussel biscuits. A dwarven take on Sushi 

Soon we shall expand our ventures into building a great Mega-McChurch and library so that the Dwarf Donalds is the cultural capital of The Continent of Flashing 

[herzogindariya]

After the rainfall

Duga - Rainbow. What a wonderful name! I saw one just before you were born! I thought of so many different names to call you. Yet, after I saw that rainbow, I knew I had to call you that. After all of that, I feel the worst is over!

Oh, is this the letter I've been waiting for?

Wha...! Me? Incestuous?! What folly! At first he's too foreign, now he's too familiar? Or are they trying to accuse me of being the roman now? I was born on the hills of Majevica and everyone knows it! This is just getting ridiculous.

Let the father speak all he wants, I still have a task for him...

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[torielpadmelikespizza]

Rule the Waves 2 AAR

So, here I am again. Playing Rule the Waves 2.

The Random Number Generator god have blessed us with some technlogies. Hopefully one of these days we can make dreadnaughts

We also tried lowering tension with France while also lowering the budget by choosing the third option. I know, sad, but I feel scared by the number of cruisers France has and also the 7 battleships they are building.

Then I accidentally ended up starting a naval treaty because I didn’t want to raise tension and the budget to help one of our allies

YES SIR! I’m gonna build that many cruisers cause more money is better

Damn you Parliament! How am I gonna afford the glorious fleet of Tumblr?

Toomfoolery with Italy. Hopefully no war

Gonna keep you posted if I do remember to post

[greatwyrmgold]

The Colonists of Lakeside

I haven't posted much about it, but I've been an off-and-on-again player of Rimworld for several years. A confluence of finding a few neat challenge runs on YouTube and some of the DLC going on sale lead to me picking up and experimenting with the Ideology mod.

Lakeside's "ideoligion" is the Predictions of Eschatologism, a doomsday cult with the Transhumanist, Gestalt, Progressive, and Healthcare memes. They believe that the end of humanity as we know it is coming, and that all humans will either ascend to a higher form of being or perish in the fires of change. But they're charitable, and want to make sure as many people make that ascension as possible.

Wanting to try out the ideoligion's features, I dev-moded in a biosculptor pod, with plans to mess with its capabilities once taking a colonist out of action for a few days (plus the nutrition needed to fuel the biosculptor) wasn't a serious ask.

A while later, an old lady nicknamed Redrum crashed down in an escape pod. Of course, being a charitable healthcare-oriented colony, Lakeside took her in, only to discover that she was a fellow Eschatologist. How convenient! She joined the colony, of course.

Now, one of the things that the biosculptor pod can do is reverse aging, and transhumanists want to use that feature to hold aging at bay starting in their mid-20's. Redrum was physically 55, so clearly she was separated from Eschatologist enclaves for quite some time. By this time my base seemed stable enough that I didn't really need another set of hands, so I had an idea: Biosculpt her a couple dozen times to bring her back to the prime of youth! All it would take was about almost two Rimworld years in and out of the pod.

Raid #1

After popping her in for the first time, I got a raid. Now, I was pretty confident I could handle it; we were outnumbered, but since I chose the Rich Explorer start, I had a charge rifle compared to their dinky pistols.

Turns out, charge rifles don't have much range advantage over pistols, and numbers plus luck beat advanced weaponry. A lucky shot destroyed my founding explorer's torso, and my only other colonists were Redrum and a converted raider who had already been incapacitated. The ex-raider was recaptured by his former brethren, the founder's dog was shot, and Redrum was alone, blissfully unaware of what had happened.

But the raiders had left my base basically intact, including the walled-off potato patch and its crop, which finished growing while I waited for Redrum to pop out. And Redrum was a good farmer. It was entirely possible for me to let the potatoes grow, harvest them, put some of the potatoes in the bioscupltor, put Redrum in the biosculptor, and repeat. The biosculptor would complete faster than the potatoes grew, but a harvest of potatoes would fuel multiple biosculptor cycles.

Redrum, having discovered a way to regain the vigor she thought lost forever, began doing exactly that. (After burying the founder, of course.) It was working splendidly, except for two issues I hadn't considered.

Rimworld doesn't like to throw disasters at you when you only have one colonists, unless Randy Random rolls a 1 (or you install one of the sadistic storyteller mods). Which wouldn't be a problem, but...

I was watching an unconscious pawn bob up and down in a biosculpting pod while potatoes grew, with occasional interludes of micromanaging that pawn to harvest potatoes, refill the biosculptor, etc.

Luckily, the tedium was interrupted.

A space battle, courtesy of Vanilla Events Expanded, dropped a bunch of crap on my colony. Lots of scrap steel, some semi-intact spaceship chunks, lots of corpses, and a single survivor.

Through the power of cheating, Serika was "recruited" to the colony. Though in the narrative I'm constructing in my head, she doesn't see it that way. She lands in a half-frozen lake, sees a seemingly lifeless compound, goes to investigate, and decides it's better than freezing to death.

Let's quickly review our characters:

Isabel "Izzy" Fox, the cyborg ex-idol who built the foundations of this compound. Now dead and buried.

Roland "Redrum" Wood, a peasant farmer turned space refugee who crashed down close to Izzy's compound and was rescued by her. Taking advantage of the tech Izzy brought with her and the vegetable garden she built to rejuvenate her body.

Serika Onoe, a battlefield nurse turned butcherer turned stowaway in what turned out to be a warship. She started sleeping in Izzy's old room because it was available and looked neat.

And a map of the base, because why not?

The first thing Serika notices, once she patches herself up, is the animals running around. A labrador retriever with a collar and a random rabbit. The second thing she notices is that, while it's way warmer inside than out, the compound is still pretty chilly, despite having six heaters. Aside from the mud rooms and fridge, the rooms are all above freezing, but some only by a few degrees. And one of those is the garden, so this is definitely a problem! And solutions will require a skilled constructor, but Redrum and Serika are amateurs (skill level 2), so they'll need to recruit someone else to do that.

Serika has a lot of fractures to heal, so she just rests for a couple days. There are plenty of frozen potatoes for her to eat, though, and she's content enough eating raw food.

Around this point, I noticed that Serika was not the only survivor of the space battle.

Coleman needs to stop going to space. That turns out pretty badly...well, not for him, I guess.

Anyways, he's slightly better than Serika at construction (and she doesn't want to be alone), so she goes to rescue him. Coleman has severe blood loss, hypothermia, and he's starting to starve, but his injuries are surprisingly light. A couple bruises, a cut on his ear, and a cracked hip. Still, the problems add up to the point that Coleman's barely conscious when Serika brings him in.

Unfortunately, Coleman doesn't like the idea of sticking around in a place like this; he makes it clear that he's leaving once he heals. And that's not the worst thing that happens that day.

Raid #2

Raiders from Arebium, an outlander union following the Pure Cult. The Pure Cult is a secular high control group whose core beliefs revolve around the purity of the natural human body. It's no surprise that they would hate the Eschatologists, who not only use cybernetic augmentations but see that sort of corruption as an ideal future they want everyone to suffer.

(They're passing through a bunch of mechanoid detritus. The Ideology DLC adds a lot of little details that make the world feel lived-in.)

And they both have guns. And Serika is a brawler, with no shooting skill.

The one on the left is busting up Izzy's coffin, which is not cool. The one on the right is busting up our power supply, which is even worse. They probably want to draw the cyborg hermit who lives here into the open so they can shoot her to death, and aside from the small matter that pirates beat them to it, it's working.

Serika runs out, stabs Salad ("Sally" to her enemies), and runs back inside, hoping to draw the raiders into close quarters where their range and numbers matter slightly less. She gets shot four times and Sally decided to set the solar panel on fire.

She gets shot twice more, and that's all it takes.

The raiders, having set a couple fun fires to see if they can draw their target out (they can't), decide to smash up the sarcophagus some more, interrupted in order by their fires getting dangerous, the dog wandering by (not even aggressively), and a random rabid muffalo. Sadly, muffalos aren't exactly predators. Salad took a couple bruises, but the muffalo took several bullets. The raiders went back to shooting what they assumed was a cyborg's dog. until it ran inside.

Luckily, the base's outer wall is made of stone over here; the generators and most of their important components were wrecked, but the damage didn't spread. Until the raiders decided to spread it, that is.

The raiders wandered around, seemingly not wanting to enter the compound. While wandering around, Salad encountered and shot the semi-tame hare in the lung, while Gamble finished smashing Izzy's tomb. And at some point, one of them noticed a detail I'd forgotten.

The storeroom was built right after Izzy landed, out of the only material she had in abundance.

Wood.

So let me remind you of the situation. Izzy is long dead. Serika is freshly dead. Redrum is unconscious, 21 hours from the end of her de-aging cycle. There are raiders, plural, wandering around the map. And the base is on fire.

The raiders chase our hare around the lake, finally shooting it dead. Meanwhile, the storeroom continues to burn, flames licking up and down the wall. The medicine catches on fire next. The dog succumbs to her wounds at last. The raiders visit the front door, far from the fire, and smash the AC unit.

Eventually, the raiders leave.

Oh yeah. Coleman's still here. Resting, recovering, blissfully unaware that the compound just got wrecked and that the heat in "his" room is blowing through vents and into the frigid outdoors thanks to a serious fire.

Luckily, said fire burns itself out. Sure, we're missing a wall, but at least we're not missing half the storehouse and its flammable contents. Muffalo wander by, smelling potatoes on the wind through the hole the fridge's cooling unit once filled.

So this is the base that Redrum wakes up to see. A stranger sleeping in her bed, another stranger dead on the doorstep, some of the colony's most critical infrastructure wrecked, and the fridge's potato stockpile...well, there are still a lot of potatoes, but way fewer than when she went into the pod.

Should be interesting to rebuild this place.

...is what I'd like to say.

Raid #3

After I queued this, I decided to play through a little rebuilding. But all of a sudden, a new raid from Arebium stormed in. It was one dude with a shotgun, but three shells plus cold weather took Redrum down. The raider decided to kidnap her, dragging her off the map before either hypothermia or blood loss killed her.

The Man In Black event fired, giving me a new colonist theoretically capable of solving the colony's problems. But he didn't get within shooting distance of the compound before the raider got off the map, so thanks, dude. Worse, he kinda sucks. He's got good shooting and research skills, and decent animal and crafting ones, but that's it. Worse, he's incapable of hauling, cleaning, or social work—like recruiting new colonists. If the base was intact, he could probably make do with the potato garden, but it's not, and he's even worse at construction than Redrum and Serika were.

I could keep playing, but I don't really feel like it. Part of that comes from how useless this man in black is at anything that isn't shooting, but part of it comes down to a detail I haven't mentioned yet.

Way back when Rimworld was a cool new thing, I decided to support its development extra. Specifically, I paid to have the devs include my name as a name people in the game could randomly have. I mention this because the raider was one of those people.

I destroyed Lakeside. That seems like a good sign to stop.

But what a colony it was. People kept randomly crashing in, getting rescued (or rescuing themselves), and sticking around long enough to rescue the next person. I'd like to imagine that the little compound by the lake keeps housing random wanderers who need a place to stay.

[tavi-arts]

So here is a pretty random question for Tumblr:

At some point during my playthrough of FFXIV, I started doing 'react'-type stuff stuff in the related channel of one of my Discords, and it was excellent fun for all involved. I also recall let's plays as forum posts when I was on Civfanatics.

So my question is... Is this type of text-and-image-based sharing of gaming experiences still a thing? I would like to find more, and possibly do some more myself (possibly an AAR based off of Stellaris). Or is this something that has been completely usurped by video content (which I tend not to find nearly so enjoyable, or accessable to be honest)

[mwolf0epsilon]

Reboot

Coric: You're pretty proud of yourself, aren't you? Kix, applying a frozen hydropack to his swollen eye while grinning smugly: I am content, yes. Coric: You do realize the black eye was pretty pointless right? The Intern and their buddies were already in hot water. Kix: Maybe... But I needed to drive the point home. Those good for nothing shabuire were a menace, and I needed to make sure everyone could see how volatile they were. Coric: Well, decking a medic for no apparent reason certainly does make the natborns look bad... How did you even get them to do that without baiting them? Kix: Long-con. With batchers like mine, you learn to play a good manipulation game... Either way, I just hope the boys in engineering can salvage Buggy. Dogma has been... Pretty miserable. Coric: I would be too, if my friend who should be safe at base was suddenly destroyed by a bunch of utreekove... -glances towards the door when he hears it opening up- ...Speaking of. Hello Dogma. Dogma, seeming to be in higher spirits: Sir. Coric: None of that, I'm off the clock. Just keeping an eye on this sheb'ika who went and got himself a shiner. Kix: Hey Dogma. How did it go? Dogma: Buggy has been successfully repaired and rebooted. There was some data corruption, but it wasn't as severe as I'd anticipated. He... He remembers we are friends. Kix: That's great! Dogma, smiling shyly: ... It is. It's been suggested that I move his recharge station under my bunk, so that I can keep tabs on his maintenance logs. Just in case any other files get corrupted. Coric: It's ok to admit you're a little attached to the little guy. Either way, I'm happy that things have been resolved without too much injury.

[whatareyoudoingwithamaserati]

I think PrinceZam should be put in a saw trap. Not that it’d be good for him just that it would force him to either confront the worst of his mortality and all of his fears and force him to reckon with the parts of himself that he continually tries to deny. Or die trying

[captain-neutrino]

Has Captain Neutrino run into any other versions of themselves? what was it like? How do you feel about it all??

In "canon" I don't think they have, no. Which they find kind of strange, like, what happened to each universes' version of themself?? It felt... wrong to them, that they could appear in any universe as if dropped into someone's body. Were they possessing the consciousness of their alternate selves? Erasing their alternates from existence??

The closest they've come to actually running into themselves is during that scene with the glowing eyes in their cryo chamber. But they didn't have the warp crystal yet, and they didn't see or hear the signs of wormhole travel so its not like it was a sudden paradoxical event. They don't know what they saw or if that was actually them; It was like experiencing a memory through the eyes of someone else.

.....BUT IN FANON my captain has in fact met @sketchy-scribs-n-doods and @deyodrawn 's captainsonas. All three of our captains share a Mark (MY idea was that he has the accumulative memories of our original Marks all in one, but i dont remember if we went with that or if he ended up being a stray Mark we adopted who's OG captain was dead 🤔)

[dandelion-wings]

Ironically, due to the nature of the nightmare where it originated, the 'first' part of the test subject AU is, in my head, a Lisa story, about the point in this particular canon-divergence where she decides that the price of knowledge is too high, and how she decides to deal with that. In my notion of how I'd write the Long Version most of the most unpleasant parts are told via Lisa looking through Anatoli's team's research notes, plus things Kaeya does or says to her later that add additional, horrifying layers to things that sounded dry and bloodless when recorded on the page. Which is why, I think, that part ends to me with them heading Optimistically towards Mondstadt! Lisa has drawn her line in the sand and conclusively stepped over it.

Kaeya processing his trauma is largely isolated into the 'second' part to me and has co-standing with Jean's plotline (dealing with the Eroch Situation without any real support, except for this Akademiya genius who refuses to become the Ordo Librarian but will let Jean take her out to dinner to pick her brain. Which is the only reason Jean is taking her out to dinner, she swears). Hence starting it at the Stone Gate and the discovery that Crepus is dead--it would be a good place to transition into this Kaeya's POV, and then leads very quickly into Mondstadt's post-Ursa troubles and thus Jean's POV as she deals with them.

[herzogindariya]

The church bells scare the doves away

Woken up from my throughts it feels like I've forgotten everything, I take a breath before my feet are steady enough and then walk to the altar

Today I marry a general of the Romans, Symmachos of Rhodes. A lowborn man seeking fortune in the frontiers of the empire. Lands not too far for the emperor to reach but not too close for the him to rule, a land for his wayward solders to wander.

Some say there's been already too many solders of fortune like him. Solders who come and request our gold in exchange for their sword. By now we have been left with far too many swords and far too little to show for it... What use are they now?

Yet, this man was different. He requested my hand for his, for his guiding hand to lead my sword. With it, he swears, I'll strike all that threatens me and my domain. He swears that he'll stay by my side, till death do us part.

However... Some say that with this, after all the wealth they took, that they've come to take what was left. That with my hand taken I am no longer a ruler but a servant - a servant to a commoner no less!

Let them talk as they want! I have no choice in that, I do what I have to...

I do... till death do us part.

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Next chapter ->

[torielpadmelikespizza]

Thinking of Starting an AAR(After Action Report) of Rule the Waves 2 but with ships classes named after characters from fandoms

It is January 1900, Tumblr has just become the minister of the navy of the United States. It is up to Tumblr to be the very best navy that no one (except those darn british) ever was

This is some of our fleet and also some of our colonial ships.because this game is set in the 1900s up to 1950. Also, here’s how the Tumblr American fleet compares to the others. As you can see, I feel like we might be outnumbered by some of our targets... like say we wanted to snatch some territory from Germany, we’d might have to fight through a lot more stuff than we have.

Hopefully I can build up a bigger budget of dollarinos in order to I guess maybe build up more battleships. or armored cruisers or anything. Though I bet many of our ships are gonna become out of date at some point early in the game, I mean the era of pre-dreadnaught battleships is going away at some point, so we must make sure that we get the first dreadnaught battleship. Cause that would be cool for Tumblr to have. I also hope we can get aircraft carriers by 1920, Would be fun if we could convert the Karkat Armored Cruisers into Light Aircraft carriers (Disclaimer, I do not know what’s homestuck, I only know of this guy through a video about this baby is you thing). Hopefully there wont be a war for 2 or 3 years.

Also, here’s what the Naval Minister Tumblr is prioritising at the moment in terms of research

Also, you can name the naval minister (or whatever is the person role name that manages the entire navy). So I decided to name it after Tumblr because I thought it would be neat to have Tumblr be in command of an entire navy

[tennessoui]

Okayyyy so I read through your princess diaries au yesterday and it made me rewatch the movie (which is still just, chefs kiss**). Now all I can imagine is the fountain scene with obi wan and anakin.

Omg I should rewatch the princess diaries #2…..imagine seeing Chris Pine in a movie he’s actually happy to work on

jk but I absolutely can imagine most of that movie with Obi-Wan and Anakin but they’re even bigger disasters…..Grandfather Dooku keeps trying to sabotage new prince Anakin, but good guy Obi-Wan keeps being there by accident in order to save the day which he doesn’t even mean to do, he’s just trying to talk and be near anakin who keeps jumping between giving him the time of day and showing him the door.

But so really all of Dooku’s schemes just further the gay agenda because now everyone in Genovia thinks that Obi-Wan Kenobi and Prince Anakin would really be a perfect match. It doesn’t matter if that means Anakin doesn’t have kids or a wife, he looks so happy being around Lord Kenobi!!!

[elric-art]

Requested by @chariot-grimm cuz I was bored lol