#but it does feel a bit like I had to trade one colonist for another

[pushing500]

Starting today off by introducing our 21st colonist, Henry!! Woo! How exciting- and annoying. My colonist bar had to break into two rows on top of each other to handle so many pawns! it won't be a problem for long, don't worry

Henry is a little boy who is of the 'Hussar' xenotype, which just means he's a genetically engineered super-soldier who will apparently develop a dependency on Go-Juice later in life. Hooray for him. He has a wooden foot and lil' bandaids on his face, which makes me think this kid has seen some fights way too grown-up for him. Fortunately, the colonists at Eureka don't believe in sending children into combat, so Henry is free to spend his days learning and having fun.

The first thing Henry did (after putting on a new shirt) was go hang out with Irwin in the school building to learn about melee. For what it's worth, Henry is already the third-best melee fighter in the colony, at the same level as Kawoo, and only beaten by Irwin at level 14 and Connie at level 11.

I think he is going to get along swimmingly with Irwin.

Then we had a drop-pod raid, which I did not think was going to be a problem because there didn't seem to be that many Saurid raiders... But, alas...

I guess someone named "Executioner" would ruin my day, huh?

The problem with drawing the adventures of these colonists is that I get way too attached to them. So, uh... I wrote eulogies. Sorry. They're under here if you feel like reading 'em.

Wendy Marsengill

Wendy Marsengill was killed on the 13th of Decembary, at the age of 27. She is survived by her wife of 1.5 years, Tamarind, by a vast and eccentric family, including her Aunt Kawoo and cousin Andy, and by many friends in the settlement of Eureka and beyond.

Wendy had a fascinating start to her life when she was recruited as a Child Spy. She went on to become a Barber in her adulthood, though, at some point, she ended up on a distant Rimworld and was lost to madness as a Wild Woman. She wandered in this state for some time before joining the Animist Alliance, where she met and eventually married her wife Tamarind.

Wendy was the best cook in the settlement and often was single-handedly responsible for keeping the colony fed with properly cooked food, and nobody ever got food poisoning while Wendy was manning the kitchen.

Some of Wendy's greatest moments include wearing a jester's hat to her own wedding and somehow managing to cement herself as the most Australian colonist in my head based on a single social interaction way-back-when.

Pearl the Cheetah

Pearl was the first animal to join the ranks of Eureka's ever-growing menagerie, not including Rogan the rottweiler who crash-landed with Albina, Brennan, and Irwin.

Pearl landed near our burgeoning settlement in an animal drop-pod, where she was rescued and nursed back to health by Head Researcher Brennan. Pearl decided to stay with us and spent a very long time sleeping on an animal sleeping spot on the rough marble floor of Irwin's ascetic bedroom (sorry, Pearl. You deserved better).

Once Andrei McCarthy joined the colony, it was love at first sight, and he bonded with Pearl almost immediately. She was eventually given a proper animal bed in the room Andrei shared with his wife, Kawoo and their infant son Andy, before Andy moved to his own room.

Pearl was brave, beautiful and very fast, as cheetahs often are. It is a tragedy that I can't draw animals as well as I would like to, or she would have featured far more prominently in all these posts. I'll miss her. She made silly noises when I zoomed in on her sometimes. It's going to be quiet without her.

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[niennavalier]

AC: Rogue - Second Chances

Summary: He's not an Assassin anymore - Shay has no doubts about that. He's less sure where that leaves him in the world, or in the context of this centuries-long war between Assassins and Templars. But when he's presented with a second chance - from a Templar, no less - he has to question all that he's done in the past. And all that he'll do in the future.

Character study set during AC: Rogue Sequence 3-1 "The Color of Right".

(Also posted on AO3)

*****

Shay isn’t sure what he’d been expecting. There’s little he remembers of the moment after being shot, aside from perhaps accepting his fate, knowing that, at the very least, he’d stopped the Assassins from leveling more cities. But he hadn’t expected to wake up at all, much less in a comfortable home and cared for by a kindly couple.

He’d not thought that he could be surprised by much else, but then Mrs. Finnegan - Cassidy - had handed him some clothing, and now, dressing himself, he can’t help but think.

They were our son's . Those words - they keep circling through his head as he readjusts the coat, finishes tightening his belt. Because he can't keep the thought from his mind.

The Finnegans' son - he'd been a Templar.

He'd not wanted to believe it at first, seeing the crosses at his shoulders, telling himself it was something else, something he'd seen elsewhere. It wasn't the Templar cross, and the couple who'd taken him in and cared for him as their own - they weren't Templars. They weren’t the same people he’d spent years fighting.

But pulling the strap for his rifle over his shoulder, the other cross settling on top of his heart, it’s not something he can deny. Somehow, he’s certain of it; whether the Finnegans are Templars themselves, their son had been.

And now he’s wearing the lad’s clothes. It’s something that makes him all the more aware of the hidden blades at his wrists - nothing feels quite right about any of this. Not that he can do much about it.

Sighing and shaking the thoughts from his head for now, he takes the time to tie his hair away from his face and happens to catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Looking as he does, he has no doubt his younger self would've thought him a Templar himself, some fanatic obsessed with order. With his weapons returned, he looks every bit a man ready to fight for all that he’d once fought against . Though it's not like he has much choice; he doubts his old clothes had survived the ordeal.

He's not mourning their loss, though. It's a sudden realization, and one he wasn’t expecting to have, but he hadn't been eager to don the hood again. And he still isn't, perhaps would never be. Stranger still, it's not a thought he can bring himself to regret.

Wearing the uniform of the people he’d called enemies is unsettling, but as his last memories of the Homestead flash through his mind - all those he’d called friends, called family , suddenly turned against him - he’s certain that wearing his own robes would’ve been worse.

As he steps back into the main room, though, it’s like none of that even matters. The way Cassidy’s eyes light up - “Oh, well don’t you look a right gentleman!” - it fills him with something warm that he can’t remember when he last felt. Warmth. Family. Feeling like he doesn’t have to work to earn affection, the way he suspects it feels to have parents, despite never properly knowing his own.

Perhaps it shouldn’t feel as novel as it does, but he can’t help freezing on the spot. How is he meant to respond to that?

So he doesn't respond, at least, not directly. He asks about the Manuscript - lost, apparently, and some mix of relief and anger flares in his chest. Good, better that no one can get their hands on the damned thing. Good-hearted folk like these - they wouldn't be caught in the crossfire ever again. He'd see to that.

***

He's not expecting it when a man approaches him from behind, the cross on his sash - a Templar cross, it must be - the first and only thing Shay sees. His hand is reaching back for his pistols before he even realizes it - trust isn't something he's keen on having in spades for now.

"Be at ease, Master Cormac, we are friends.” Doubtful. But the man does know his name, somehow, even if Shay can’t guess why. Does he also know -? He must. This dance they’re doing - it’s too familiar. Both of them know what the other is (or rather, was , Shay supposes). He’d have to tread carefully; he has no idea what this Templar wants with him. “The Finnegans were worried you might take matters into your own hands. I am Colonel George Monro.”

Shay nods, the safest thing he can think to do. “Colonel.” The Finnegans, he’s willing to trust, and the Colonel knowing them might have meant something had their son not also been a Templar. As it stands, the connection means little.

“I came to help, but it seems I am late. Thank you for dealing with these foul criminals.” He eyes the gang leader (the Assassin-trained gang leader) Shay had killed just minutes earlier. “They were a blight on New York.”

The words are quick to rub him wrong. “What do you care?” For all Shay might agree about the gangs, he’d yet to meet a British officer who gave a damn about the colonists. Much less one who was a Templar, besides. “You Redcoats are nothing but landlords. The townsfolk here are grinding away, trying to make a living.” And for what, really?

“I cannot blame you for having that impression.” Of course he can’t. It’s true, and Shay had seen it himself. The restrictions keeping merchants from trading as they pleased, the dangers and hardships braved by the colonists only for their earnings to line the pockets of the Crown. It’s the truth, not just an impression. “Some of my comrades have been less than helpful. But I take a different approach.”

“And what is that?” The words are bitter on his tongue.

“I care. I want to see these colonists safe and prosperous.” Years of training are screaming in his head not to trust this man. That he's just another Templar snake who's willing to say anything if it gets him his way. There's no way for Shay to know if he means any of the things coming out of his mouth.

"Noble words." But were any of them true? He’d naively thought others as righteous as the Colonel made himself out to be, and they’d all proven otherwise.

"Perhaps actions will convince you otherwise, Master Cormac." The Colonel gestures for him to lead the way, and he hesitates for a moment - it's a trick, it has to be - before thinking deeper on it. Betrayal still lingers in his mind, learning that the people he’d called his family cared more about ancient artifacts than they did him, or the thousands of innocent lives on the line. He knows now that they must have lied to him all along, and, really, were they all that different from the Templars? Now, he’s not an Assassin anymore, and that’s not enough to change any of what he believes about the Templars, but it’s enough to make him think.

Perhaps he could hear the Colonel out, if nothing else. At worst, his beliefs would be confirmed yet again. At best…

He's not ready yet to think there can be a better outcome.

***

“You can do great things for this city and its citizens. After all, a man needs purpose.” Those are the last words he hears from the Colonel before the man takes his leave, and they cut into him deeper than he'd like to admit. Though it's not for a bad reason of any sort. The way he explains himself - Shay can't help but feel like he can trust him. Perhaps because it sounds like the Colonel trusts him in return, despite having never met, and the two of them having stood on opposite sides. There's more than a chance that it should worry him, but instead it makes him think of something else - the orders and harsh reprimands from the Assassins. He'd known none of them (save maybe Liam) had ever really trusted him or his skills, but he'd not thought that much of it at the time. Assumed it was normal, being that he'd been the newest one there, but now, the way the Colonel was talking to him, he's starting to rethink that. Perhaps starting to resent that, too, whether he likes it or not.

It’s a selfish reason to make any kind of decision, and he knows as much, refreshing as all of it might feel. It’s not something he’d act on alone - he’s already seen what blind faith and desperation can do, and who can pay the price of death and destruction as a result. Lisbon flashes through his mind, as clear as if it’d happened yesterday. Screams of pain and terror still ring in his ears as smoke and sulfur make his eyes and nose sting, heat from the flames burning his cheeks. His rib smarts, and for a moment, he thinks it’s from tumbling through a crumbling building, crashing against walls and floors and furniture, not from falling off a cliff at the Homestead.

He forces himself to breathe and shakes the memories from his mind. That’s what he can’t let happen again. That’s what he has to make right, no matter what it takes.

And so he can't help but feel drawn in by all the things Colonel Monro said, about just doing right by the people. Making their lives better, not through freedom or control - not through the Assassins or Templars - but just by helping where they can.

As badly as he wants to remain skeptical, he can’t find a problem in that, at least.

But he still stands and watches for some time after that, wanting to see for himself. He stays along the sidelines as the citizens of New York wander by, their eyes turning bright as they hear that the old building is to be restored. From their conversations, he learns that the place had once been a church, left to disrepair now with the threat of war hanging over them. And seeing it ready to be restored - it visibly fills them with hope, and that lights something warm in his chest. Something that he's not sure when he felt last.

It reminds him of the way he’d felt when he’d first joined the Assassins, hopeful, and like he was finally sure of what he was doing. But he’d been a fool, then - he knows that, now - and hadn’t known that he’d hurt far more people than he’d help.

He can't say where he stands when it comes to the Assassins and Templars, to the endless war he'd fought in without ever really understanding it, but he's always trusted himself to know what's right. And this - seeing the lives of normal, everyday folk made easier - he can feel is right.

And for now, perhaps that would be enough.

He can accept that much, and knows he should head back to the Finnegans - all else aside, he trusts them. But as he winds through the familiar streets of his home, he can't help but think on the Colonel's offer. The man may be a Templar, but what he's offering - this way to just help people - it feels like a second chance. Like a way to start atoning for all the lives lost in Lisbon. Exactly what the Assassins wouldn't allow him to do.

Perhaps… perhaps this is the way forward. He may not be fully ready to trust the man yet, for all that he seems honorable, but doing some good for the people of the city, protecting them against those who would do them harm - that much, he would do.

[eljackinton]

Final Thoughts on Greedfall

Greedfall popped up on my radar last year when people began mentioning that it had been a while since we had last seen a Bioware style RPG. In recent years story heavy RPGs have tended to come in two varieties: Massive open worlds, or Baldur's Gate style throwbacks.

It wasn't long before people started talking about Greedfall for another reason: It's rather insensitive take on colonialism. In both instances enthusiasm for Greedfall was tempered. It was a worthy effort to try and rival something like Dragon Age, but it had too many problems to succeed.

Still, with no Dragon Age or Mass Effect game currently on the horizon, and nobody else trying to contribute to the genre in that way, I knew I was going to find myself playing Greedfall eventually.

Let me be clear, I absolutely think RPG fans out there should play Greedfall. Problems or not, I have to applaud Spiders for at least attempting to make a game nobody outside Bioware (or even in Bioware these days) is trying to make. I'd absolutely be up for seeing a sequel, and I hope some modest success can put pressure on EA to let Bioware get back to regular releases again, or encourage other studios to try something similar.

With that out of the way, I want to talk about what I liked and what I didn't, but first, we have to talk about...

Greedfall's one big problem.

Greedfall is a story about colonialism that has nothing to say about colonialism. It takes place in a fantasy world where an island is sort of, but not quite, being colonised like the Americas were. The game skirts the line between how much it resembles this. The natives of the island are not Native Americans, but they're not not Native Americans either. The game wants to ask the difficult questions about expansion and coexistence, but then wraps it all up with mealy-mouthed 'can't we all just get along' platitudes.

Greedfall's idea of colonialism is about as complex as Disney's Pocahontas. It's a world where bad things only happen because of bad individuals. It it wasn't for the craven or immoral there would be peace on the island. Colonialism is capable of being benign.  The game constantly pushes this idea at you, and makes it super obvious that when the time comes to nominate who will be the next high king, the candidate who wants to drive the colonists off the island is treated as one of the bad choices (or 'less good' if you're being charitable.)

Despite the name being Greed-fall, greed and the nature of it are barely explored. The colonists are on the island searching for a cure for a plague. The Bridge Alliance is driven by scientistic discovery, Theleme is driven by religious conviction. The faction the player represents, The Congregation of Merchants, is probably the one most motivated by monetary gain, but they, ironically, feature so thinly in the plot that they might as well not be there.

Over the last few years, culture and society has began to look at colonialism with a more critical eye. The fact that Greedfall failed to consider this shows both a profound lack of imagination and ambition. Better writers than I have already discussed whether this makes the game mildly insensitive or outright offensive, but it's undeniable that it's a problem and it's a dead weight at its core.

What I liked

- The gameplay and game feel was all great. Combat felt smooth. Magic and technical abilities never felt redundant and always added a new dimension to the fights. Firearms felt powerful but never overpowered. There was never a point in the game where I felt overwhelmed.

- There was no 'busywork' sidequests dragging the flow of the game down. There is exactly one 'collectathon' side quest and it's short and easy to ignore. You manage to see all of the world simply by following the quests, meaning it's hard to miss anything significant.

- Collecting resources goes seamlessly with travel and you always have an abundance of resources for crafting and alchemy, which is as easy as 'do you have all the components.' No multi-part crafting or blueprints required.

- The writing and the dialogue was all really steller. At critical points in the game I got really drawn in and could feel the weight of the steaks.

- The characters were a joy to hang around with, chat to, and discover their past. The romance was heartfelt. The side quests were all interesting and cool.

- The visuals were beautiful and parts of the game really made me want to go off and explore.

- Great soundtrack.

- I liked how you could only learn so many abilities over the course of the game. This is a character system where you're either going to be a specialist or a jack of all trades. I don't like it when RPGs essentially give you enough skill points to unlock everything because it just robs the player character of their own unique flavour.

What I didn't like

- The pacing was a real mess. We spend far too long in the starting port that it kills all momentum. The whole story lacks direction for most of it, and any semblance of a plot only really begins two thirds of the way through the game, This was a game that really struggled to make me want to find out what happens next. This is particularly weird given how well the actual dialogue is written.

- The world-building is also implemented poorly. There are whole chunks of the world and backstory that are not elaborated upon. The factions all lack depth and dimension. The game fails to utilise the companions as a means to flesh out the factions they come from. It's hard to appreciate a 'new world' when we don't really know anything about the old one.

- The story brings up ideas and does nothing with them. The fact that (spoilers) the player characters is revealed to be the child of a native adds nothing to the story. The reveal that there was a secret former colony on the island adds nothing to the story (spoilers end.)

- There's not enough variety of environments. Every sub-map blurs into another after a while, even the cities from supposedly vastly different nations have identical architecture styles. It's a crazy big mistake that the HQ of every faction is just the same building template with the textures swapped.

- You can't really impress a personality upon the player character. The game really needed some dialogue choices that added 'sarcastic' or 'frustrated' options. While there are choices the player can make, the personality of the plater character is pretty much set in stone.

- There really wasn't enough content to justify the romances. It basically boils down to about three or four conversations. There's no chance to flirt, or have a bit of back and forth. You just complete the companion quest and then 'romance now?' A missed opportunity.

So all in all, Greedfall is not a prefect game. It's got a lot of problems and a big one in particular, but, again, I applaud the effort. I'd like to see a sequel, and I'd like to see more studios taking chances like this.

[satashiiwrites]

*whistles happily* So yeah. Finally got that Outlaw chapter pushed out yesterday.  So for today’s WIP Wednesday... a few MReyder snippets that currently don’t have a home in a specific fic. Maybe will get put in AAT.... might never fit in a specific fic. 

Also warning that the second one is porn. Also there is swearing?  Not sure if that needs a warning really since it happens a lot in my writing. 

Snippet #1: a post high noon scenario. MReyder. Mass Effect Andromeda. 

Tearing himself away from Scott had been a monumental mental struggle. When Scott had offered to stay... to assist..

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

He’d almost pinned Scott back against the wall of the cave a second time and ravished him right then and there like one of the love scenes in his mother’s telenovelas. Whoever saw them be damned because Scott was being Scott.. just Scott. 

His Scott. 

Loyal... and completely Reyes just as much as Reyes could confess in the depths of his soul that he wanted to be Scott’s. The possessive instinct to hold Scott as close as possible had to be fought off by the more logical part of his mind that was screaming that it wouldn’t be good for Scott to be openly assisting the Collective and the Charlatan.  Scott’s superiors would rake him over the coals if he was known to be involved. 

And Scott had taken that revelation much better than Reyes had ever expected or hoped. The jumble of thoughts and emotions and... memories? Reyes’ defenses had been blasted away to reveal his inner experiences and feelings...and he’d been rewarded instead of tossed away. 

If he didn’t have so much depending on him right now he’d break down and sob—mostly in relief at Scott’s response and what had been shared equally.  

He couldn’t give into his own needs right now. He had work to do. 

Reyes stood transfixed as he watched Scott leave. He barely was able to return Vetra’s nod as she passed by him but he did stagger a bit when Drack purposefully knocked into him. 

Twisting to face the krogan, he braced slightly.  If Drack didn’t approve all it would take would be one blow from the krogan and Reyes would be on the ground and regretting his life’s decisions in short order. The grizzled veteran studied him, allowing Vetra to leave the cave and join Scott as he crowded right into Reyes’ personal space.  Their noses were almost touching and the smell of old blood and dirt was strong as Reyes inhaled. 

“You understand what this means?” The krogan rumbled, tone surprisingly neutral given how intimidating his posture was.

Reyes swallowed hard, mouth dry. “I do.”

“Then prove the kid right. Prove you can be the solution Kadara needs.  It’s time to be a professional not amateur hour anymore.”

“I know.  This... I am going to do what needs to be done.”

“Hmph,” the krogan’s snort was unimpressed but the way Drack tilted his head and examined Reyes wasn’t unkind. “You could hardly do worse... but Kadara and Scott need you to get your shit together and keep it together.”

He clenched his jaw, teeth grinding. “Kadara doesn’t need war—it needs allies. Trade. Colonists. Things we all need.”

“And you seem to understand that better than the former management,” Drack added with another grumbling snort and pulled back slightly. “Morda likes you as does the Kid. Don’t disappoint either of them.”

“I won’t,” Reyes swore. “I know what’s at stake.”

Another head tilt as Drack thought about his words. “You actually may.  Good luck—you’re going to need it.”

Snippet #2: Playing around with the idea of Asari mind melds, sex and MReyder. This snippet is currently homeless and looking for a fic to belong to. Warning for explicit sex scene. 

Breakfast was a sensual experience and they only made it halfway through a shared plate of food before they found better uses of their time. Reyes had resisted letting Scott sit apart from him and had pulled his lover down to sit between his legs on the kitchen chair. Scott had just on a pair of Reyes boxer briefs that were slightly large on him in the hips as well as one of his henley’s in a dark charcoal color that he preferred. It just made Scott’s usually protected from the sun’s rays skin glowed pale in the morning light making Reyes want to mark him up again. SAM’s ability to make any mark left by Reyes disappear within hours made him feel a primitive urge to renew them constantly—the bruise from his teeth and tongue over Scott’s pulse point on his wrist had faded until it was barely visible. 

The breakfast that had been delivered to the front door and then taken to the kitchen by Reyes had scrambled eggs, fruit, and an angaran version of what could be likened to pancakes that were drizzled in a sugary strawberry syrup with an extra squeeze bottle of the stuff included in case they wanted extra. Reyes hadn’t held back and he found his hands constantly roaming from around Scott’s waist to his thighs and chest, pulling Scott back against him firmly when he leaned forward to pull one of the dishes on the table closer. Scott, for his part, was amused by Reyes and had tangled his ankles around the outside of Reyes’ foot, caressing the outside of his shin before shifting his fantastic ass back into Reyes’ increasingly interested and perked up cock. 

Reyes hadn’t bothered with a shirt, having just put on a loose pair of sleep pants that were overly long that allowed Scott to push up with his feet and play. He nuzzled into the side of Scott’s neck as Scott speared a piece of strawberry and offered it to him. Having not yet shaved, he rubbed his stubble against Scott’s neck before delicately nipping at the red berries, left hand delving between Scott’s legs to give his package a squeeze over the thin fabric, making Scott shiver and groan. Guiding Scott’s head to his with his other hand, Reyes shared the strawberry with Scott as they kissed, his tongue pushing the berries into Scott’s mouth. Scott’s hips gave an aborted thrust into his hand as he ground his own cock into Scott’s ass. 

Releasing Scott’s tongue, Reyes pulled back to look into his lover’s eyes. The icy blue of Scott’s iris was a thin band around the dilated pupils that were hidden as Scott sighed, tipping his head back into Reyes as he swallowed the strawberry. “Reyes,” was all Scott said as he picked up another bit of food, this time a piece of pancake and held it out to Reyes. This time he didn’t look away as he ate the fluffy pancake that was dripping in red syrup. He allowed a small bit of the syrup to stain his lips and it was immediately licked off by Scott as he chewed. 

His hand that had been twined in Scott’s hair found it’s way to his abdomen and found the hem of the shirt, pulling it up so he could splay his hand over Scott’s abs and hold Scott tight against him even as his other hand slipped underneath the loose briefs to grip his erect shaft. Scott shuddered in his grip, hips thrusting into Reyes’ grip. Scott’s breathing had sped up and he was mindlessly rutting back and forth between pressing his ass against Reyes’ own erection and his cock into Reyes’ hand. Reyes just rhythmically gripped Scott’s shaft, fingers finding the precome that he was leaking to provide lubrication as he began to slide his hand back and forth to stroke Scott from root to tip. 

Getting the stimulation he needed, Scott was now fully pushing his weight back into Reyes, his own hands tightly gripping Reyes’ wrists but allowing them to move. Reyes moved the hand that was on Scott’s abs up and found his left pec, cradling the thick muscle as his thumb pinched and rolled the nipple causing it to peak and Scott to let out a snarl as he pushed back harder, grinding his ass against Reyes in a frank display of unrestrained need. Reyes was rock hard and the cloth barriers between him and Scott needed to go away now.

Biting at the thick tendon over the pulse in Scott’s neck  as Scott strained to push back into him, Reyes nuzzled the hot spot he’d found just below the ear. “So fucking good mi vida, so beautiful. Want you to come in my hands and then I’m going to drench you in that syrup, lick you open and fuck you right at this table. Do you want that mi vida? Do you want me in you? As deep as possible, take me to the root as I fill up that space in you that was made for me?”

“Fuck me,” Scott’s voice was hoarse and fucked out already. “Please babe... Fuck me,’ he pleaded as he rocked back and forth between the two points of stimulation. “Want you in me. Fill me... so empty.”

At Scott’s words, Reyes found his grip tightening to the point that Scott whimpered as it was too tight. Realizing this, he loosened his grip and began to pull at Scott’s shirt as he kissed him, taking his mouth in a possessive kiss, tongues twining. They separated long enough for him to pull the shirt off and drop it to the floor before returning to the kiss, Scott twisted in his grip so he could wrap his arms around Reyes’ shoulders and found himself straddling Reyes.

Drawing Scott closer now that they were facing one another, Reyes gripped Scott’s hips and pulled him in tight, their erections rubbing together through layers of cloth as his hands sought the skin and went underneath the waistband before gathering a handful of asscheek in each hand, thumbs pulling the cleft wider. Kneading and spreading as he pulled Scott to grind tighter, Reyes broke the kiss to begin nipping down Scott’s neck to his clavicle as Scott’s back arched, head thrown back and his toes curled even as his arms clutched at Reyes’ shoulders. 

Nipping hard enough to bruise over the clavicle, Reyes soothed the mark with his tongue before rubbing his stubbled cheek over it. The sounds Scott was making was a garbled combination of Reyes’ name and “fuck” “more” “babe” and other endearments. Pulling harder with his thumbs, he moved his hands to follow the groove of Scott’s crack to his entrance, pulling the briefs down and uncovering his cock that was leaking profusely. The briefs couldn’t move further due to Scott sitting on his thighs. “Stand up,” he snarled against Scott’s pecs, wanting Scott naked. 

It took a few seconds for Reyes’ command to penetrate the haze of arousal that Scott was entrapped in. He reluctantly released his grip on Reyes’ shoulders and stumbled backwards, his bare ass hitting the edge of the table and cock hanging out free and bobbed with each stuttering breath Scott took, abdominal muscles contracting as he trembled. He looked wrecked—mouth swollen, skin red from stubble burn and a blossoming love bite on his chest, nipples peaked and tight, a light sheen of sweat making his skin glisten in the diffuse morning light from the windows. Reaching forward, Reyes gently tugged at the briefs that clung to Scott’s muscular thighs to make them fall to the floor where Scott flung them away with a flick of an ankle. Gripping the table edge with white knuckles, Scott purposefully arched his back to push his hips towards Reyes, stretching to show off his body and tempt him. “Please Babe.... please....” he asked softly. 

Reyes slowly stood, kicking the chair back and away as he found the waistband of his own loose sweats and shucked them, kicking them to join the chair as he settled between Scott’s spread thighs, arms bracketing Scott’s own tight grip to encourage them to loosen. Scott did and his hands grazed up Reyes’ arms back to his shoulder even as his legs wrapped around his waist to pull Reyes closer. He didn’t look away from Reyes’ eyes, a small, private smile that was just for Reyes. He inclined his head and touched their foreheads together, eyes fluttering to half mast as their noses touched in an Eskimo kiss as they shared breath. “Please,” was the only thing Scott said before Reyes kissed him to silence any further words. 

This kiss was gentler than the ones that preceded it, a promise and a nonverbal declaration of love even as his hands bracketed Scott’s hips, fingers splayed as he tilted Scott to give them more physical contact cock to cock. As their erections aligned, Reyes pushed Scott to sit on the table’s edge, pushing the plate and food to crash to the floor as he pushed Scott backwards but catching the bottle of strawberry syrup before it tumbled after. He had plans for that. 

Scott, having seen the squeeze bottle, gave Reyes a smirk.  “I think I know what you’re planning,” he gasped out even as he purposefully wriggled against Reyes. “We’re going to need another shower after this.”

“Of course mi vida. I plan on getting us nice and sticky... and dirty...” Reyes said as he leaned down to put Scott’s back on the table. “I just wonder if it’ll hide your natural flavor too much or not,” he whispered into Scott’s mouth as he kissed him again, tongue delving behind Scott’s lips to tangle with his tongue. 

“Why don’t you find out,” Scott said as soon as the kiss broke, his eyes gleeful as he challenged Reyes, smile showing a lot of teeth as he nipped at Reyes throat as he threw his head back as Scott rubbed their groins together in impatience, the friction just right. 

Pulling back so he wouldn’t loose control, Reyes stood at the edge of the table with Scott’s legs wrapped around his hips. Scott was unbelievably flexible and he flexed the muscles in his legs to tighten like a python’s grip around Reyes. It was undeniably sexy and Reyes almost lost his train of thought on what he intended to do next. He hadn’t dropped the syrup bottle from his grip so he upended it on Scott’s chest. A thin stream of bright strawberry red syrup came from the tip to land right on Scott’s sternum to pool in the groove between his pecs to create a small puddle before it ran down to the end of his rib cage—some going down into his abdominal muscles and the rest spreading laterally. Reyes kept applying it liberally in a line down past the indent of Scott’s navel and to each pelvic groove before stopping. He had maybe half the bottle left and he set it carefully to the side. 

“I’d suggest you hold on,” he told Scott before bending forward. He didn’t put his face into direct contact with Scott’s cock but instead breathed on it which made it twitch as he watched. Giving Scott an amused look, he then lowered his mouth to the right hip and began laving the area the syrup had dripped into with his tongue to collect it. Salty yet sweet, an overpowering smell and taste of strawberry with Scott underneath it. 

He switched to the other hip, Scott making noises that suggested he was impatient but enjoying himself. Reyes snuck a hand around to start jacking Scott as he followed the trail of syrup up to his belly button and sucking hungrily at the small, pooled collection there before continuing northward up the impressive six pack to the base of the rib cage. 

As he reached the valley between Scott’s pecs, he felt Scott’s hand gently cradle his head and suddenly he was seeing double as Scott initiated the mind meld when he didn’t pull away. He could feel the stickiness of the syrup as it lay on his skin and the clean strip that he’d licked clear that still had some residue.  Scott was holding on with iron control to his biotics not to flip their positions and ride him which made Reyes moan and his hips to stutter, thoughts following Scott’s mental vision as he showed several different possible positions in rapid succession—Reyes sitting back on the chair and Scott riding him both forwards and backwards, falling to the floor and rutting into Scott from behind, and his current preferred position of pulling Scott’s ass to the edge of the table so he could get leverage to fuck him across it... before a vision of Scott standing, hands braced on the table, legs spread with feet on the floor, red syrup trailing down his spine in a river to go between the perfect globes of his ass and trail down his inner thighs, inviting Reyes to lick him open and then take him. 

Unaware he was moaning Scott’s name, Reyes continued to lick the chest before him clean. Scott’s hands were carding through his hair as he pled through the open link for Reyes to fuck him. Soon, Reyes promised him. I will take care of you, he told Scott, maintaining eye contact as he finished the last bit of syrup, his hand jacking Scott even faster as Scott’s eyes rolled back in orgasm as he came over Reyes’ hand at the promise. 

Scott didn’t resist as Reyes pulled back and started licking his hand clean, legs reluctantly releasing him. The connection buzzed as Scott wasn’t with it enough to break it and the pleasant floating feeling made Reyes want to preen at having caused Scott’s sense of pleasurable satisfaction. Reyes watched Scott with half-lidded eyes, his body unhappy with delaying it’s own gratification but he ignored it in favor of Scott.  Scott who hadn’t looked away from him but provocatively, as if reading Reyes’ thoughts, spread his legs further. Scott’s cock hadn’t softened at all and his breath was rapid, pulling the muscles of his abdomen in with each inhale. His skin was inflamed from stubble burn and Reyes could tell that it was something that Scott found arousing.

“I want you to rub your fucking face against my thighs until I can’t close them,” he confessed. “I want to have a hard time tolerating clothes because they’ll rub against where you’ve been, remind me you were there. That you did this,” Scott told him as he flexed his muscles to adjust his position where he lay on the table. “Do you like what you’ve done Reyes?”

“Yes,” Reyes told him as he hesitantly touched the inflamed skin that was slightly warmer than the rest of Scott, voice hoarse like he’d been deep throating Scott for hours. “I want to do it again.”

Scott’s biotics flared like a flash of lightning over his skin at Reyes’ confession but the flare didn’t hurt Reyes.  “How do you want me Reyes?”

“Any way you’ll have me, mi vida,” Reyes whispered, hand spreading out to feel the fluttering tremor in Scott’s abdominal muscles as he adjusted himself. 

“I noticed that you didn’t have any position in particular when I shared...” Scott prompted him, the mental connection strengthening and Reyes was hit with arousal that made him shake momentarily at how hard his muscles contracted, hand curling up on Scott’s belly. 

“The last one,” he finally admitted. As much as he wanted to feel those powerful thighs wrapped around him... he wanted to taste and take some more, the vision of Scott spread wanting him and allowing him to explore... able to rub his face against those thighs and ass until they trembled... “The others... we have time later.”

[mst3kproject]

111: Moon Zero-Two

 In his review of Serenity, the late Roger Ebert defined ‘space opera’ as being like horse opera, but with space instead of horses.  I can think of no better description of Moon Zero-Two.

Captain Bill Kemp and his co-pilot Kaminsky were once heroes, the first men on Mars, but now that a proper colonization of the solar system is underway, they’re reduced to running a salvage operation.  The opportunity to do something more profitable knocks when Evil Businessman Mr. Hubbard asks them to help him crash an asteroid on the far side of the moon – an asteroid made of almost pure blue sapphire!  Meanwhile, Kemp is also trying to help a woman named Clementine Taplan, who’s supposed to be meeting her brother Wally, but nobody’s seen him since he sent her the invitation four months ago.  And isn’t it interesting that Wally’s lunar mining claim is exactly where Hubbard’s asteroid is going to hit?

I actually really like this movie.  The visuals are often silly, but it’s quite well-made and the ‘space western’ feel is fun. The actors are decent, the effects aren’t bad, and when you think about it, it’s surprisingly hard science fiction. The only overtly unrealistic things in it are the artificial gravity and the characters’ bad habit of going for spacewalks without a tether.

Moon Zero-Two’s overall aesthetic probably made more sense when the movie was new than it does now.  It is, indeed, rather painfully late-60’s, but nothing about it is just gratuitously weird – everything has a purpose.  The music, for example.  Tom Servo complains about the ‘free-form jazz’ but it’s as effective at suggesting the free-floating emptiness of space as the Jaws theme is at saying ‘shark!’.  Indoor scenes have a more grounded soundtrack and even the low-gravity barfight is not scored the way the parts that take place in vacuum are.

Likewise, the odd outfits and plasticky wigs serve to emphasize the artificiality of the environment.  The ‘natural’ late-60’s-early-70’s look, with loose clothing and long hair, would have been entirely out of place here.  This is a world humans have had to build from the ground up – nothing else is natural here, so why should the people be?  The moon colonists try to jazz up their world a little with their fanciful outfits and theme nights at the bar, but they can’t even make a dent in the relentless desolation of the landscape.  They barely even make one in the self-consciously futuristic white of their cities.  Kemp says ‘we will always be foreigners here’, and the sets and costumes reinforce his point.

In Clementine’s case, what she wears also serves to show how comfortable she is in this environment and in Bill’s company.  When she first arrives on the moon she is covered from head to toe. As she adjusts, she trades her weird headpiece for a wig.  Finally, we see her with her own hair hanging down.

On another level, clothing in this movie is about vulnerability. Bill and Clem come closest to being humans in the natural state (nude), when they are near death from over-heating in the un-insulated moon bug.  Bill’s two topless scenes are supposed to be about his dislike of vulnerability turning into a willingness to show vulnerability around Clem, but they don’t work very well because both of them are such clichés: she catches him coming out of the shower in what’s supposed to be a joke, and then there’s the ‘couple who won’t admit they’re falling in love have to undress because of the heat’. I can see what they were going for, but I wish they’d found a better way to do it.  Both scenes get some very powerful eyerolls.

(ETA: I probably should have said something about how Bill is in love with Clem like twenty minutes after his previous girlfriend died, but I only just dealt with something like that in the EtNW review for It’s Alive and I decided not to bother.)

The idea of vulnerability brings us to the movie’s main theme, which is that while space is a place of limitless potential, full of things like rich nickel veins and sapphire asteroids and other opportunities for science and profit, living there is always going to suck.  In the future of Moon Zero-Two, there is a large population of humans on the moon, but anything above and beyond a very basic lifestyle is rare and expensive. There’s the tiny hut we see that Wally Taplan was living in, Kemp’s complaints about the cost of drinks, and the difficulty of getting anywhere that’s not a tourist center.  Danger is everywhere – as one character observes, ‘nobody dies slowly on the moon.’

These dangers are mostly hidden from casual travelers so as not to frighten them (witness the monument, around a corner where only residents will see it), but vacuum, heat, cold, and radiation are ever-present.  It’s much like modern air travel, which is perfectly safe as long as everything works and everybody does their jobs, but all it takes is one mistake, one faulty component, and everything goes down in flames. This makes Moon Zero-Two stand out from other sci-fi movies that rely on alien monsters to scare the audience, forgetting that space itself is really far more frightening than any number of extraterrestrial teeth.

This isn’t a horror movie, though – Moon Zero-Two bills itself as ‘the first moon western’.  I’m not sure if it’s actually the first, but it’s definitely a moon western!  I mean, we’ve got miners, tycoons, shootouts, and untold riches in a wild new frontier with dangers around every corner!  As a bonus, setting it on the moon avoids the troubling questions of who has a right to this land, and doesn’t allow the writers to use ‘angry natives’ as one of their generic dangers.  Western clichés pop up repeatedly, but unlike the cliché nudity, these are actually entertaining as each one comes with a sci-fi twist. There’s a saloon, but the barfight takes place in microgravity!  Bill and Clem may overheat and die in the desert, but that’s because their moon bug has broken down rather than because their horse stepped in a gopher hole! These fun little uses of the tropes are a running gag in themselves.

Moon Zero-Two is also another movie where it’s a load of fun to look at what the writers and production designers thought the future would be like versus what actually happened.  The film-makers probably thought they were being very forward-thinking, with their personal computers and satellite communications.  Of course now we scoff at the briefcase-sized computers with their single-colour displays and giant keypads, but at the time it must have seemed quite futuristic!  It makes me wonder what people fifty years from now (if there are any left) will think of the interactive hologram technology we depict in movies like Avatar and the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

For all these things to like about it, Moon Zero-Two is a long way from perfect.  Everybody on the moon seems to be white and there are far more men than women, although the women we see are portrayed as competent and intelligent (except for Hubbard’s collection of bimbos, barely able to sound out the words on their Community Chest cards… though when we consider Harry, I suppose we’re meant to assume that Hubbard just likes surrounding himself with stupid people).  We relate to Bill as he seems like just a guy trying to make a living, but he’s a bit too much of a bitter grouch to really be likeable.  I would have liked to see some more personality for Clem and Kaminsky, too.

The biggest thing that just feels like it’s missing from Moon Zero-Two is any idea of what’s going on down on Earth.  This is not, of course, essential to the story – it’s notable that we never see Earth, only what’s happening on the Moon and in space – but considering when the movie was made I was curious what it would predict for the outcome of the Cold War.  In the opening, we see an America and a Russian astronaut who are rivals until they are both swept up in the (extremely capitalist) race to colonize the solar system.   In the movie proper, the Russians vanish.  Somebody sneeringly asks where Kaminsky is from, but it’s not clear whether this is a cold war thing or just garden-variety xenophobia.  What happened?  Have the Russians left the moon as the British-American colonization project got going?  Do they have their own bases elsewhere on the surface?  We never find out, and it makes me wonder why the opening sequence brought it up.

Speaking of the opening sequence, I do love the theme song.  It’s so cheerful and catchy, and it makes exploring the solar system sound like a really good time!

Outside of the Russian movies, which had been badly-translated and mercilessly cut down, I think Moon Zero-Two might be the best film ever featured on MST3K.  It is very easy to make fun of, being so obviously a product of its time, but it doesn’t have any of the egregious errors of acting, pacing, or cheapness that ruined so many other good ideas in such movies.  For the most part it uses its clichés in an entertaining way and we don’t really hate any of the characters except the smug, cackling Hubbard, whom we’re supposed to hate.  Its visuals, audio, and story never bore us, and the story has only one major coincidence in Clem and Hubbard both going to Bill for help – but what we’re told about Bill’s past and present doesn’t make this seem too unlikely.  As I already mentioned, it doesn’t need a whole bunch of technobabble to get the story going, and still manages to be pretty good fun.

Perhaps the highest praise I can give to Moon Zero-Two is this: it’s probably the only MST3K episode where the riffing actually annoys me, because I’m trying to pay attention to the movie.

[lethesomething]

Campaign resources: Torotuga, the pirate den

After three days of sailing, land finally came into view. A large island, with a small fortified city on one end, cut off from the rest of the island by steep mountains and dense jungles.  To my dismay, however, the captain curved away from that crest of civilization, turning the ship in a large arc towards the back of the island, where nothing but dense forests and swamp greeted us.

“Hoist the flag” the captain shouted, and one of the crew came out with a piece of black cloth, which he unfurled to show a white painted, rather crude depiction of a turtle. With that, a hush fell over the deck and the ship veered into a large mangrove forest, a maze of brakkish water, low fog and bleached trees. I swear I saw movement in those trees. Little flickers of light, be they lanterns or will o’ wisps, and the occasional glint of steel. It was clear to everyone traveling with me, that we were being watched. (from ‘The Sea-Faring Adventures of Milton Hornswaddle’)

Torotuga is your prototypical Pirate’s Den. It lies on the swampy half of Rhea Island, in the middle of a heavily contested region in the ocean. The island itself ‘belongs’ to the sea-faring and conquering nation of Pardoba, and it holds an outpost in the form of the military fort town of Santa Gasso. However, most of it is densely forested and if not unexplored, then at the least uncontrollable, blocked off as it is from the fort by a sheer mountain range and dense jungles. It is here, deep in a mangrove maze called the Forest of Skeleton Fingers, that you can find the bustling city of Torotuga.

The ship continued on through these treacherous waters, narrowly avoiding collisions with trees and rocks, until we finally reached what I had feared all along, a dead end. It was then that the captain came out and marched up to the bow. “Oy! Open the facking gate, ya crusty cumstain!” To my wonderment, I heard a voice coming from the nearby trees. “State your name and business,  cuntwaddle” “Marston ya old pissdog, you know damn well who I am.” There was a moment of silence, and I held my breath at such signs of incivility, praying for the gods to save me from the arrows that were sure to befall us, when the ship’s captain sighed. “I am Captain Orsric Graverobber Bones, of the Drunken Elephant. Me and my crew kindly request entry,” he said, in a tone that suggested ennui to a point i would not be able to muster. “Good enough for ya, ya vomit covered sea slug?” And with a creaking sound, a wall that had appeared to only be dead trees blocking our path, was lifted, revealing a hitherto unseen waterway further into the forest. (from ‘The Sea-Faring Adventures of Milton Hornswaddle’)

A Safe Harbor

The town of Torotuga holds about 500 semi-permanent residents, a number that can be boosted up to 2.000 by visitors.

The populace holds a few notorious criminals that have settled down far away from the law, as well as travelers and actual colonists that have stuck around. About a third of the permanent residency, however, consists of escaped slaves, either native  to neighboring islands or brought here from far-off places to work on the plantations and farms of Pardoba and a few other nations.

Trade

It is clear almost immediately to any somewhat intelligent adventurer, that the economy of Torotuga is mostly illicid, and largely circular. This is a trade hub and stock-up place for privateers and pirates, though adventuring parties, specialized traders and even certain military groups (of the underground variety) also frequent the place.

The largest trade here is ‘entertainment’. The economy of Torotuga consists for about 60 percent out of brothels and bars. Coming off a boat in the bustling harbor part of the town means  weaving your way through runners and trade deals, to be met by a veritable row of… very friendly people. Men and women beckon you, wearing bright clothes, some quite revealing, and made up with red lips and dark eyes.

Another large trade here are pawn shops or, if they try to be fancy, ‘antiques stores’. On the outskirts of the town you’ll find fishermen and a few farming communities, eking out a living on the edges of the jungle.

Architecture and craft

Torotuga gets most of its supplies from passing ships, and it shows. Most of its buildings are made out of scavenged wood and smelted or otherwise repurposed parts. Newer buildings use a mixture of ancient techniques, such as woven vines, and parts made out of metal or imported bricks.

Everything about this town has a distinct improvisational feel. The furniture and decorations are either made out of barrels, stolen off of ships or built new, with themes that remind you of the cultures native to the islands here. The whole town is a mishmash of styles, techniques and bits and bobs. True master craftsmen, however, are few in number.

There are a few carpenters, mostly specialized in boats. Apart from that you can find some relatively skilled weavers, leather workers and woodworkers, as well as smiths. Any mastercraft weaponry or armor found here is probably found or plundered, though.

It is, however, important to know that you can find Anything here, if you search hard enough. The people of Torotuga are good at finding ways, certainly if there’s coin in it. If you let them know you need a seamstress, for instance, they will absolutely find someone, even if it is the cook’s old nan, to do your thing for a pretty price.

Safety

Torotuga runs on ‘pirate’s honor’, which is to say, controlled anarchy. The place does not have a single point of authority, but instead had several factions who look out for their own. Some of the most feared of these are the Whores Patrol, a group of vigilantes that see to it that the prostitutes of the island can do their jobs safely. The artisans also have a neighbourhood watch of sorts, which is Extremely Protective of its members and most shops and bars will employ a very ostentatious group of guards.

Since there is no justice system, those caught committing a crime against someone in Torotuga will need to appeal to one of the factions or lose their hand and/or life.

Food

Torotuga has a mixture of different cuisines from the islands, mixed with the kind of stuff the pirates would know from home, in so far as this can be found. The different inns and bars serve mostly beer, but will whip you up some soup or bread and cheese, or grilled meat, when asked. Notable delicacies can be found in The Temple Bar, which serves a special stew, made of rice, wheat, sharp spices and seafood. There’s a bunch of not particularly identifiable stuff in there, but it’s very tasty. From food stalls, you can buy a simple type of taco, made of flatbread folded around a mixture of meat or poulty, mixed with random vegetables and spices. Most of the best and cheapest food can be procured from the smaller sellers, such as The Baked Potato and Kulita’s.

Notable shops

The largest pawn shop in town is The Hoard, run by a steel dragonborn, Dimitri Helfdal and his mate, a sapphire dragonborn named Irin. This shop stands in the very center of town and has carved stone walls, seemingly built out of the ruins of some ancient structure that stood here before. It is a fairly large building, with a stone and wood front and a large shop sign bearing a carved wooden dragon head, apparently an old masthead. Inside is a quite literal hoard. Dimitri and Irin tend to get the pick of any treasure troves that come to Torotuga, so you can find the best and most expensive stuff here.

Sulejman Sirk runs the apothecary, the Glass Shoal. It’s meticulously clean and organized, seemingly made out of the hull of a downed ship that was outfitted with a brick and windowed front and plated with iron shales. The centerpiece in this store is a large chandelier, a mobile of glasswork fish surrounding a steel brazier that lights up the place. He has your basic health potions and a Very Expensive set of water breathing things (like, super overpriced, guys). Also stocks an impressive amount of poisons.

Davy Jones Locker is a thrift shop of sorts. The proprietor, Antanen ‘David’ Jonesin, is a halfling that collects the mundane and the useful. The interior of this classic brickwork building is made with a number of treasure chests that have been stacked and arranged along the floor and on tables and sideboards. These things are not what typical pirates care for, but he does good business because they do tend to be things sailors Need. His store has stuff like barrels of rope, caltrops, a few smoke bombs found on drowned assassins. He has oil skin bags to keep books and letters safe from the water, sealing wax, forgery and climbing kits, a few block and tackles, fire stones, that sort of thing. Nothing magical, nothing glamorous, but exactly the kind of thing you need to survive.

The Silt Reader is a very small book shop that specializes in literature and poetry. Mostly second hand, a lot of them waterlogged. This store is owned by a half-elven woman, Runa Pavalur,   who keeps it very organized, with tomes neatly stacked on shelves and arranged by category. Each book has been outfitted with a bookmark made of thin rope, with a little card attached to it that gives a short summary of what the book is about. Most of the books in The Silt Reader are travel diaries and novels, a fair amount of those of a ‘popular’ variety. This is why, apart from categories like Studies, Travel, Political etc, the shop has shelves named things like the Rose section (hetero romance), the Heather section (mlm romance), the Calla section (wlw romance) and the Orchid section (straight up porn).

For maps, it is best to go is the Crow’s Nest Cartographer. This is a very small house that has one entire wall made up of shelves holding a large amount of rolled maps. It is owned by two gnomish brothers: Illilniss and Omulnis. They will also pay for coordinates of places that have been discovered, or were hitherto unknown.

Lavar’s Smelter: Lavar is a fire genasi, who isn’t too crafty, but is very good at, well, smelting. He’s the one that melts down all the anchors and random steel and iron that is hauled here, something that should not be possible with a smithy as small as his. Is smithy doubles as a blacksmith for basic tools. When asked, he can shoe a horse and provide stables overnight.

Shell and Shield: The only somewhat skilled smith in town. The Shell and Shield is owned by a tortle named Perrahar, whose main trade is tools. She sells non-magic weapons and some simple armor as well but mostly she’s very interested in learning new things. Bring her some new metal that she’s never seen before and she’ll happily craft new things out of it.

Other establishments

There is a church, The Temple Bar, dedicated to Dionysus, the god of wine. It’s not clear if this is a sanctioned church or not. Mostly it appears to be one of the largest bars in Torotuga. Its purveyor is a dwarf and beer connoisseur named Mazzoum Hornmail. The interior is decorated with fake grape vines and filled with assorted furniture. This one is fairly fancy, with a little orchestra playing, and a dance floor. The rooms upstairs can be rented by the hour. The bigger ones are outfitted as meeting rooms, serving the purpose of neutral ground for pirates to strike deals or talk strategy. The smaller ones tend to just have a bed and a washing tub.

Despite the name, The Baked Potato does not sell potatoes. It does sell yams and sweet potatoes, stuffed with a variety of fillings and baked in an oven.

Kulita’s sells a lot of fried things, including fried fish and fried chicken, combined with dumplings, corn bread and pickled vegetables or stewed beans

The local bath house is called the White Whale. It rents out large, round tubs in private rooms to interested parties. These are pretty nice and use, important, ground water, so any visitor can finally get all that salt out. Rooms are outfitted with scented oils and soaps and come with one complimentary towel. The rooms are priced fairly reasonably, but the rate goes up quite a bit if you opt for one of the companions or masseuses that are offered.

The Sickly Shrew: A Very Seedy bar and one of the cheaper establishments to acquire a room for the night. Also a great place to find, like, a specialist to kill someone for you.

The Foghorn Inn: The most boring and basic of inns that Torotuga has to offer, if you’re into that kinda thing.

Assorted locations

Thaba’s Hut

Take the road out of town, past the farm fields that have been planted here, and into the swamp. Follow the set of foot bridges and walkways, till you reach an island, a clearing in the dense foliage. Standing here is an ancient looking hut, built on stilts. It has a thatched roof and a porch, with stairs leading up. The railing of the porch and the stairs looks solid from afar, but upon closer inspection, they are laden with offerings of a sort. Little dolls hang from string tied to the wood, shells, glass vials, trinkets and shiny objects, all tied to the outside of this house. In front of the hut, a small crackling fire burns in a fire pit, tended to by a tall, broad-shouldered man. This is Thaba’s hut, and if you are in need of special magical services, this is where you go.

You pay Thaba for entry, and for the privilege to see the wisewoman inside. Should you enter, you’ll find that the entire place is overstuffed with jars and more dolls and trinkets. A bunch of objects, too, are suspended from the ceiling, much like they were wrapped around the railings. Some tools hanging from twine off a crossbeam, glass and brass pitchers, something that you very much hope is a wig. There’s dried herbs, ham, but also bones, something that looks like a dead snake. There’s… a lot. The hut is where Iyabo, sitting in the middle of the floor in a magic circle, performs magical services. Most likely this will be along the lines of identifying items, removing or placing curses etc. Nahin’s fighting pit

Walking around town, you may hear a number of shouts and just general noise, originating to a dirt square just on the outskirts. Here, you’ll find a small mound of dirt that serves as a brawling ring. Two figures are squaring off here. One is an apparent halfling in monk clothes, fairly lean build, the other, on this day, is a goliath, a large, looming tank of a man, in somewhat soiled sailor’s clothing. They’ve drawn quite the crowd. On one end you see what seems to be the rest of the goliath’s crew, a number of sailors jeering and egging him on. On the side of the smaller figure are also supporters of a kind, albeit a bit more demure. You see a number of humanoids, all in fairly ratty clothing, most of them dark skinned and weathered looking. They’ll occasionally clap but they’re mostly looking. Bets are being made by the crowd, with bookies walking around trying to get any visitors to have a little go. But as soon as the fight starts, a heavy groan goes through the crowd and it becomes apparent just how skewed this match-up is. Within the first second, the goliath has already been kicked in the face. The smaller figure jumps up onto his chest, kicks him in the chin and backflips off, down to the ground. The goliath swings and the smaller figure leans back easily to avoid it, jumping up over a second swing, before turning in mid air and swiping at the shoulder, following that up with two swift kicks. This goes on for a little while, before the goliath says ‘You  little shit’, and he pulls out a crossbow. The crowd starts booing. You hear the people behind the smaller figure yell ‘unarmed only!’ but the fighter themselves holds up their hand. “Learn’, they say, and sinks into a defensive stance. The goliath shoots once, twice, point blank, and you watch as the smaller fighter plucks both out of the air before they reach. As the goliath starts reloading, angry now, the other fighter moves. They jump up onto the crossbow and run up their opponent’s arm, before leaning down and kicking the goliath in the sternum. The giant goes rigid, for a moment, their eyes at this point confused and fearful, as the other fighter jumps down, dashes around and swipes at a spot right behind the knee. The goliath. Topples. The crowd erupts in shouts and you can see a well dressed man, apparently the goliath’s captain, walk up to the smaller figure and hand them a pouch. “Sorry about that,” he says. “Temper, that one. But you won fair and square.” The smaller figure bows and returns to their friends, as the crew, with some trouble, pull up the goliath and the crowd slowly disperses.

Kobinahin, or Nahin for short, is a higher level monk that fights for coin and has a little outdoor dojo going. Nahin is always itching to learn new tricks and will gladly match or teach adventurers.

Characters

Merchants and assorted service people

Thaba: A tall, broad-shouldered dark-skinned man, clean shaven and wearing modest but well-kept clothes. He has milky white eyes and a deep voice. He serves as a guardian or manager of sorts to Iyabo. He can usually be found sitting in front of the fire pit by his house.

Iyabo: This wise woman is a multiclass druid – bard with some wizard thrown in there. She is a tiny woman, potentially gnomish in nature, but it’s hard to tell. Her hair is quite a bit longer than her body, a mass of tiny braids, embellished with rope, ribbons, glass beads and brass rings that obscures her shape almost completely. From what you can tell, the hair may have been dark in color once, but it’s been painted with clay. Individual strands are red, ochre, green or a chalky white, the whole thing giving the impression of a gloomy, if colorful, bead curtain.  The hair makes it almost impossible to see her face, but when her arms emerge from the curtain, her skin appears to be greyish blue, mostly because that, too, is rubbed with some kind of dust. Her hands are studded with different rings, her wrists covered in bracers and rows of bangles. Iyabo jingles when she walks, and you can discern the rustle of fabric, as well as the sound of many, many necklaces or chains clinking together. She doesn’t so much talk as whisper harshly , also with vague southern accent.

Dimitri Helfdal: A man of smallish stature, stocky and broad, with medium gray skin. Mid forties and fairly jovial, incredibly curious about new treasures and things. He wears a monocle and light linen, embroidered pants, with a sleeveless shirt. Dark grey scales line his shoulders, hands and head, glinting with a brushed steel look that makes him seem , in a weird way, armored. He does not have a tail.

Irin: A dragonborn woman of dark olive skin, fairly tall and with a long tail that whips back and forth between the folds of her long skirt. She wears a beautiful silk tunic, with cropped pants lines in copper thread and a long skirt consisting of four almost see-through loose panels. On her head, and down her back and tail are long crystalline dark blue spikes and the scales that adorn her skin are strangely see through, giving the impression of dark blue gems. It also seems like she has filed some of them to resemble jewelry, the ones around her throat and down her chest looking like a very elaborate necklace.

Sulejman Sirk: A black man in his late thirties, with corn rows tied into his hair, and a cropped full beard. He tends to smile widely and has a prominent gold tooth. He has several gold earrings in one ear and wears a dark grey v-neck kaftan of sorts, with embroidery on the shoulders.

Runa Pavalur: A red haired half-elven woman, fairly young looking, very pale with freckles. Basic hippie attitude, she wears what appear to be several crocheted tablecloths stitched together, and her hair falls down her back in two long braids. Speaks in a gentle, slow  tone and has very obviously read every single book in the store.

Illilniss and Omulnis: Gnome brothers, both with heavy mustaches, kindof tanned skin and an almost inky blue hair. They finish each others sentences and then get grumpy about it.

Antanen ‘David’ Jonesin: An elderly halfling with salt-and-peper hair that poofs up around his head like a cotton ball. Wears tiny round glasses and looks rather clerical, but very businessy attitude. His voice is clear and fast, like an american radio dj.

Mazzoum Hornmail: A very serious dwarven man who looks jovial and fat and jolly. He gets quite stern when people don’t treat him with the right amount of respect. It is said Mazzoum has spent years sailing the oceans, and kinda just settled down here because he got tired of the floor moving.

Kobinahin: A dark skinned halfling monk of indeterminate gender. Dark, golden ochre skin, long black hair usually tied in a ponytail. Fairly elegant features. They wear a dark grey jumpsuit with cropped pants and sleeves tied with cloth strips. It is cinched in at the waist with a large strip of cloth. Kobinahin fights for coin and essentially teaches the prostitutes and the escaped slaves self-defense. It’s not clear why they left home to travel the world and fight. (the reason is this DM needed to introduce the Monk class). Speaks in serious, shortish sentences. Very no-nonsense.

Lavar: A fire genasi with tanned skin and flame red hair who serves as a smith. A practical sort who, despite his fiery nature, doesn’t really get upset easily. Always looking for find new ways to make coin.

Perrahar: A seemingly young tortle, though her shield is quite damaged with little black spots. Very curious in nature but extremely chill in attitude. Speaks Very Slowly and pretty damn deadpan. Very little gets to her.

Back-up NPC’s

Loughlin Nic Cadhla: An older woman, lots of scars, with frizzy brown curls in almost an afro, and pale freckles skin. Hard of hearing, from standing next to cannons most of her life. Retired pirate.

Tran Phu Nguyen: A forty-something man who is immaculately dressed and must have been utterly gorgeous when younger, still quite handsome.  Ex-prostitute.

Hamisi: A slender, dark skinned man, bald with a short beard. He’s missing an eye and has some horrific scarring, mostly on his wrists that you can see. Missing two fingers on his left hand. Wearing a loose shirt and simple cropped pants, no shoes.

[jeanjauthor]

This article gets a little bit into the science-y math-y side of food flavor combinations, but only a little bit, so it’s still quite easy to understand.

I stumbled across it trying to find out if almonds are popular in Indian cuisine. (Basically, I was having takeout leftovers and thinking “mmm, slivered almonds would go good with this saffron & cracked mustard sauce on basmati rice”...turns out almonds come from South Asia & the Middle East, so yes, it’s definitely in the cuisine, just not that particular dish I’d ordered.)

Sometimes you just fall down into a rabbit hole of “I wonder if...” and some days you just get super-lucky in your research, finding a really fascinating article.

How does this relate to writing?

Uh, duh, almost every story will contain protagonists that eat, right? (Not all, but the vast majority.)  Food is vital to life as we know it...but the same old food day after day gets very disheartening.  Therefore, flavoring your food in new and different ways is a major impetus for travel, trade, warfare, and economic power.

Plus, food as medicine is important.  Not just in the literal sense (lemon juice contains vitamin C, chamomile is a calmative, etc, etc), but in the sense of, if your character is in a great deal of pain, or suffering from an illness...their appetite will be diminished.

One of the medicines I”m taking kinda...kills my appetite.  I still get hungry...but I have no cravings for anything.  It’s not stimulating.  It comes across as same old same old, nothing appeals, I don’t know what to eat, it’s all just fuel that makes me go “meh.”

Except...the myriad plethora of scents in Indian cuisine can stimulate my appetite.  Not every time, but more often than not, when my appetite has been dull for a while, that’s when I’ll just go smell curries and so forth.  (American chili recipes have similar highly complex flavor profiles, so sometimes a good texmex chili will stimulate my appetite, too.)

It may be simply because there are so many different scents and flavors, something catches my gastronimic senses.  Or it may be that only in combination can my body find whatever micronutrients it needs.

In most cases, your body craves certain foods because it’s trying to tell you what nutrients it needs.  (Of course, it could be an emotional craving that needs fulfilling, but I’m talking nutritional cravings, the kind where you feel satisfied after you eat the whatever-you-crave, which doesn’t happen with an emotional hunger...and sometimes you’re just thirsty and think you’re hungry, so try drinking something first, then checking in with your body in ten or so minutes.)  This is why pregnancy stirs up the weirdest food combinations; it’s literally the uterus telling its person, “I need X, Y, G, W, E, D, and Z to make a baby, GIMME!”  and anyone else hearing that combo would go, “you don’t pair E, D, and G, with W, let alone X, Y, and Z!!”  (Aka the pickles, peanutbutter, yogurt, and chocolate all at the same time syndrome, or the “send the partner out to get cottage cheese at 3am, please!” cliché.)

So when you’re building your worlds, your nations, your cultures, their resources...what flavors do they have?  What flavors do they crave that they have, versus what they crave that they don’t have?  Can they afford exotic flavors from far-flung corners of existence?  Is it common to find in their local market, or something that costs half a year’s wages for the average peasant/peon...?

What combinations do your people put together?  How do they react when traveling to other lands?

...I want to point out one more thing about flavors.  The reason why Western (European-influenced) cuisine uses so many “similar flavor” spices and herbs is because exotic spices started getting transported in such great quantities, that it no longer was a status symbol to be able to afford to consume exotic flavors from far-flung nations.

This pissed off European nobles.  Whereas before cumin and coriander and nutmeg and so forth were exotic and costly, literally a single meal’s worth of spices costing a peasant’s wages for a week or a month or even a year...became so affordable that even *gasp* the farmer-class colonists in the Americas could afford to have a personal supply of nutmeg and use it in every meal!! (Well, not quite, but...)

So they had to distance themselves from the peasants...and switched on the “national pride” stuff and started insisting that herbs grown in France were the best flavoring for foods, far superior to that foreign stuff--aka the “your tastebuds are too coarse and unrefined to appreciate the delicate subtleties found in similar-flavor-profile seasoning!” 

...Also, better food preservation techniques had a hand in it, because they got better at keeping meats fresh rather than spoiled, and didn’t need strong flavored herbs & spices to cover up any gamy or starting-to-go-off flavors.  All of which had the peasantry wanting to imitate their local nobles, etc, so they, too, started going for the locally grown stuff as the “fancy food”...and of course everyone wanted to be thought of as “fancy” in their class/caste level, fancier than they actually were so...recipies emphasized “French cuisine” influences with all those local-grown herbs...

This is literally why it took generations for curry restaurants to get a foothold in Great Britain, even if it was popular in the British colonies of South Asia.  People who lived in colonized India loved the food flavors over there, but when they got back home, the Upper Crust weren’t touching that “foreign food stuff” because it wasn’t “national pride” enough, and “belonged to the overseas subjects (subjugated peoples) of the Crown” who weren’t “British enough” to have it be considered “noble enough”...and just...ugh.  Just trust me that there was a LOT of racist bigoted bullshite going on underneath the surface of a seemingly simple “preference” for one style of seasoning versus another.

Anyway, this is why American Colonial cuisine was...pretty bland and boring, really, until they started experimenting with flavor profiles of the Americas.  The first major complex food flavoring developed in America was...well, chili.  Chili con carne (sans/con frijoles, doesn’t matter) has a gazillion different flavor profiles.  Sweet, salty, spicy, fatty, acidic, creamy, sour, peppery, oniony, meaty/umami...incredibly complex flavors that seem like they would clash and not go together, yet so much ends up going into them that they meld together into a melange of deliciousness.

(Seriously, if you want to know just how complex a dish can be, try this link for Oaxacan mole negro, 30-ish various different ingredients, takes hours and hours of preparation, different methods of evoking flavors (smoking, frying, baking, grinding, etc...:  https://youtu.be/ysiEyAQ27P4  Mole can be just as complex as chili, but it’s very much a thing developed in Mexico, not in the U.S.; I’m just saying that in the United States of America, chili was the first truly complex dish that we developed with our own explorations into developing our own complex flavor profiles...of all the dishes that got written down.  I’m sure we lost a lot of complex dishes due to the slaughter of indigenous peoples and/or the destruction or suppression of their cultures & local knowledge of non-agriculturally-based food resources../)

So food needs to be considered when you’re creating cultures.  Flavoring food needs to be considered.  Are there specialists who grow and/or process foods?  Are the recipes written down and widely available, or are they controlled by only a few producers?  Which areas produce the best local sauces (everyone knows that the best garum (ancient Roman fermented fish sauce) came from such-and-such port town) or the best spice blends, or the best...  On and on and on, these things drive trade, commerce, wealth, warfare, exploration, travel, and more.

Don’t be afraid to have one or more of your characters be a culture-appropriate foodie.  Don’t be afraid to have your characters be hesitant about new foods...but make sure to have them like at least some things, and even like it enthusiastically. (Whatever you do, don’t promote cultural isolationism & bigotry/xenophobia...because what we write, others absorb and emulate.  We got waaaay too much of those things in the world.  We need to open people up to new experiences...and not do it in conquest-minded genocidal ways.  Waaaaay too much of that in the world already.  That trope’s been done, so move along & pick something new.)

Anyhoo, long digression short, this is a complex mix of fun food science and good background ideas for both your own personal food exploration & experimentation, as well as a healthy consideration for your worldbuilding and/or characterization efforts.

[mzyrimworld]

Duster Part 8 - Quadrum 7

Last quadrum was fairly peaceful after the drama the quadrum before, but can it last for very long? And with Winter approaching, are the colonists going to look at finally moving camps?

The animals continue to breed; at this rate they won’t need to grow cotton anymore, they’ll be able to make everything out of muffalo and alpaca wool. The other good thing about these pack animals is that they can eat grass if the other food runs out - not that that’s a problem around the colony right now.

But they’re not just waiting on the current ones to breed, they’re still nabbing up wild female muffalos nearby. They’re hoping to bring some of their workbenches with them to their new location, so they’re going to need a lot of carrying capacity to take that much.

And the colony receives their first call for help of the quadrum! It sounds relatively simple - no mention of turrets - and last quadrum was quiet, so perhaps they will take this up?

The artwork continues, but I can’t say that I understand their productions myself. Apparently this portrays Henry roaring in battle against raiders (not what I recall), but what I can see is a chicken or something? Possibly the planet does something to their brains?

Mind you, apparently this chair also counts as art to these people! At least it can be used as a chair too.

It looks like the colonists are taking up the request for help. Vas and Priscilla can’t get away from each other, but they are the best fighters. At least Morales is going too, the requisite medic to prevent what happened last time.

Also I note that we can see how much each colonist would be worth on the market! Probably explains Zeiph’s policy platform of valuing how much colonists are worth, when he tops that list...

The location wasn’t far away, and it does look very basic in comparison to some of the others they’ve visited...

This is a slaughter! There’s only two men, who only have short bows each - Vas and the automatic weapons are destroying them...

This one was already suffering with asthma, and then Vas came with his wooden armour and smashed him to death...

The other tried to run, but Priscilla’s gun made short work of him.

They were the only ones here - and they didn’t even have beds! Did the other faction really need our colonists’ help to deal with them? How much trouble did they really cause their caravans?

The short bows didn’t even break Vas’ skin! Morales patches him up to be safe, but he probably would have healed fine in any case.

Seems Morales felt bad about all this too, despite doing the least (if any) damage to the men - he buried them respectfully nearby, while Vas rests for a bit before they leave.

Our colonists do one mission and, before they’re even back, the same guy is requesting them destroy another camp! Still, there’s not a lot else for Priscilla and Vas to do around the camp if it’s not being raided, so they may take it up.

Yet another muffalo is pregnant! Perhaps the colonists were a little hasty taking on so many female muffalo when there’s still a male around; the population could explode pretty quickly at this rate.

And yes, Vas, Priscilla and Morales are straight back out on the new mission. Hopefully these people might deserve it more...

Not long after the two best fighters have left, a refugee is chased to the colony! Well, it’s not so bad a time, as you will see...

Our tenth colonist! Julio’s another pacifist, but a very good medic, and our oldest colonist by a while...

And his age has taken a bit of a toll on his body, leaving his torso frail. He’s also the gayest of the colonists so far. A shame Zeiph is married, or we might finally see a relationship, if Zeiph doesn’t mind an older man.

And this is why the colonists weren’t worried - there was already a caravan hanging around the base, and the raiders came in close to them, so it looks like the colonists may hardly have to do anything!

That caravan was really eager for a fight, and they won’t even let the colonists help them heal afterwards. You almost feel sorry for the Leobrin of the Brooke, they seem by far the weakest of the factions, but we know Lion’s turned out well since the colonists won her over...

It’s not the Leobrin of the Brook that Vas and Priscilla have gone after this time - it’s the Combat Pirates, and I’m quite sure that the colonists were not informed of there being a turret here ahead of time... Still, they have more experience with dealing with them now.

Morales has stayed well out of the fight (everyone following the plan for once), while Priscilla tries to destroy the power source for the turret and Vas brawls with the pirates.

With two down, the other looks like she might successfully flee, as far as she can get bleeding this much and suffering with asthma...

But she is stopped permanently just before she can get away.

Vas was actually hurt quite badly this time, which is exactly why Morales came and stayed out of the action. They don’t want to have to let anyone bleed out again for lack of a conscious medic.

Back home, the wildlife is going haywire again, but at least it’s only one this time.

It ambushed Henry coming out of her new Mayor’s office, but Henry can deal with a few scratches and bruises easily enough.

Less than a day later, before Vas and company could get back, a new group of raiders has shown up to the colony. They aren’t very well equipped, but maces have destroyed toes and ears before...

The early-rising colonists are ready and waiting by the time the raiders reach them, but the animals really led the charge - and the ibex ram looks to be gone! Jethro had better be careful, Henry needs him too much...!

Two of the raiders are killed, but the final one is downed for capture, another potential recruit for the colony.

Looks like one of our colonists permanently destroyed her kidney in the battle. Also interesting that she’s only 52 but she already has a bad back, together with all the wounds. I’m sure Henry can fix the gunshots, but probably not the spine...

And here we have the poor deceased ibex ram who seems to have his head smashed in by the raiders. Fortunately none of the colonists had especially bonded with him to get too distraught about his death. And, if you are sad about this: bear in mind that he would have died over a year ago from a grizzly bear attack if it weren’t for the colonists, so he lived a longer and alright life. Plus it was his choice to join the colony, so he took the risk.

Jethro also got a bit battered, but nothing too permanent looking. I wouldn’t be surprised if Henry wanted to devise pet armour to prevent what happened to the ibex ram happening to Jethro...

Apparently they don’t make a sarcophagus for pets. RIP the ibex ram, may the colonists absorb your bravery and spirit from your flesh.

The travellers return from their missions again, Vas not quite healed from his last wounds. Still, they’ve made a good team so far and nobody’s died so far this quadrum!

Another pregnant muffalo... They may need to consider selling the male muffalos if the number of animals get too large, but muffalo pregnancies seem to last about 28 days in total, so they shouldn’t be too overwhelmed too fast.

Most sculptors make statues of other people. Henry makes sculptures of herself. Think she specifically had her Mayor’s office in mind for this one...

Meanwhile Priscilla’s statues are expressing thirst. Perhaps being single and around an ex-lover is getting to her...

The baby alpaca is born, and it’s male this time. We’re wondering whether it’s possible to cross-breed alpacas and muffalo, but we suspect it would go horribly wrong more often than not...

The colonists have carried out a trade request for Purple Oasis before, but they have bad timing this time; they don’t currently have any ikwas, and they’re about to pack up and move to the other side of a mountain range from Purple Oasis. Hopefully the colonists can make new contacts at their new location.

Yeah, we think this confirms the source of Priscilla’s ‘thirst’. Woman’s been spending too much time on a team with her ex...

Just as the season ends, a cold snap sets in. As it happens, they were in the process of harvesting important crops before they move away. Hopefully the cold won’t cause any hypothermia on the journey, as they’re heading closer to the equator so it should get slightly warmer.

And so everyone is leaving with as much as they can carry, and some pregnancies besides. Poor elderly Julio is now lowest value human in the colony, not counting the prisoner. They’re also going to be very visible on the journey, but there’s not much avoiding that with this many people and animals, so they’ll just have to hope they don’t run into anything too vicious...

Apparently even baby alpacas can carry some goods for the colony!

And here is the route they’re going to be following, which should take about 5 days to reach their chosen destination. From what we understand, the place is the last patch of green on that road before a lot of arid land and outright desert, so they hope to build up their food stores once again (and upgrade their technology) before going on from there.

We’ll have to see next time if they make it safely!

Final Stats:

Henry: Is she still Mayor if they change locations?

Jethro: Still alive

Zeiph: Most valuable human in the colony

Dead: Surprisingly a lot less valuable

Ibex ram: Dead :(

Lion: Unsurprisingly the second most valuable human in the colony

Lucya: Just wants to be left to her prayers

Vas: Local badass

Sky: Still doesn’t like anyone

Priscilla: Thirsty

Morales: Becoming a useful travelling medic

Julio: Rescued and recruited

Other animals: Several pregnancies, we’re losing count of numbers.

Colony: Gained one colonist, several animals, and one prisoner

[callmeakumatized]

Fish Funk - ch. 3

ch 1 prev ch next ch

ao3 ff.net

Mermay Day Three - Prompt: Silky

Marinette reached up and softly touched the little orbs she kept in as earrings at all times. Her good luck charms.

"No," she finally responded to the waiting nursery maid. "No, I'd like to keep them in, if you don't mind."

The older woman huffed a little, but smiled resignedly.

"'Tis not my place to say what a princess should or should not wear to her coming-out party, Your Highness." Gathering up her things, Sra. Abaroa turned to leave, muttering something under her breath that Marinette knew was something about how she did know the proper way to dress for parties. The little princess resisted the urge to laugh out loud, and had to snap the smile off her face when Abaroa turned around again.

"Oh, Your Majesty," she started, then sighed, then rolled her eyes, then sighed again. "Your new lady's maid will be here any moment to take you down to dinner." Marinette nodded, but Abaroa looked like she wasn't done. Several times she opened her mouth, changed her mind, and turned to go. With another huff and shrug, Abaora turned to face Marinette full on. "Forgive me for saying this, Princess, but it needs to be said." Another deep breath. "Please - please - be kind to the poor girl."

Abaora really did leave this time, but not before an obvious silent prayer.

Marinette honestly had no idea what the woman was talking about. Kind to her new lady's maid? Of course she would be kind to her! Marinette was everything in this world except for unkind! Why, she had never done anything to Abaora that would cause her former nursery maid to -

Marinette stopped swirling in her dress to stare accusingly back at herself in the mirror. Mirror Marinette suddenly looked appropriately abashed, as scenes upon scenes of a Marinette right here in front of her mirror kindly harangued her attending nursery maid. One right after the other.

Abaora was number fifteen. Number fifteen in her now thirteen years of life.

Puffing up her cheeks, Marinette blew out a labored breath of air. So she was a bit…high maintenance when getting ready for…well, getting ready for anything. It wasn't her fault princesses were "required" to wear stiff, uncomfortable dresses everywhere instead of clothes that were actually comfortable! So she might have thrown a few fits. Every other moment of the day, she did everything she needed to do and more without complaint. When she was ten, she had even tried making her own clothes so no one would have to worry about such-and-such dress from so-and-so and how she needed to wear because of reasons. She would wear her own dresses. Then, not only would the people in the kingdom see her as some sort of "beauty" with no brain, they would see her as a girl with real personality.

Her parents, loving and supportive as they were, were also quite conscious of the image a young princess in handmade clothes would present to not only their own kingdom, but to kingdoms around her, and had affectionately shut her down.

But Marinette, as had been told of her for ages, was a fighter. And when her reputation alone didn't work to scare her nursery maids into letting out the sides of her dress enough so she could breathe comfortably, Marinette would fight. Some nursery maids had left crying. Some had left with needles in their fingers. She was punished each time, given grueling chores like mucking the stables or washing dishes, and Marinette would grump and groan about it the entire time.

The truth, however, was that she actually enjoyed the hard labor. Feeling active, and useful, building muscle in her little frame…Marinette cherished everything about being out in the fields or in the kitchens.

(Sometimes her parents would even make a comment, like they knew her secret. But both Marinette and her parents tended to ignore this little fact.)

With another twirl, Marinette really looked at herself in the mirror. The pink silk dress she wore was fitted just right to her frame, like always, but this time, the cut of the dress itself was different. The waist was cinched in still, but there was no bow in the back, nothing to draw the eyes away from the curve that was starting to form there. The sleeves were slim, fitted right down to her fingertips. Skirts overlayed with some type of chiffon billowed out a little more fully than they would have just yesterday. Worst out of everything, though, wasn't the additional fabric at the bottom of her dress; it was the complete lack of fabric at the top.

Suddenly Marinette felt like she would trade all the handmade dresses just to be able to wear a stiff collar one more time.

Another exasperated puff of air came out of Marinette and she turned one way and then the other, checking herself over from all angles. Just as she placing her open palms over her now-exposed chest (she was still modest, for goodness' sake…it was just less) when the door burst open, and Marinette, at war temporarily with flinging herself backward and attacking, promptly fell off her pedestal.

"Hi!" a cheery voice said from the doorway. "I'm Alya! I'm your new lady's maid!"

Marinette had given up every fight she had ever put toward her parents (or, rather, her nursery maids) about the personal uselessness of a lady's maid the night Alya had come into her life. For, as much as Marinette still didn't need someone to help her dress, she hadn't realized how much she needed a friend. Alya was her closest companion in many ways, but only a small portion of that was due to professional expectations. It wasn't to say the caramel-color skinned girl didn't know what her responsibilities were or ever slack on them in the least. It was the way she would level the princess with a look when Marinette suggested something she knew she couldn't do, or laughed with her when she tripped just to be there to pick her up, or how she talked to her like a real human being. Really, the only downfall to having Alya as her lady's maid was when she had to leave her while at sea.

Not that Alya complained too much. Not since Nino arrived a year later.

Nino was the nephew of the head chef and had come to apprentice at the castle. With him, he brought an assortment of handmade instruments – some based off instruments from France, where he hailed, some completely of his own invention. One of Marinette's favorites was a type of flute made from a thick reed. It was held in front instead of the side, and was small and thin, which made it easy to conceal in a shirt sleeve. It became a something of a staple with seeing Marinette; when the princess was there, there was sure to be a song at some point. After Nino taught her the basics, Marinette had quickly surpassed him, and the flute – nicknamed Buginette for Lady Luck herself – became a pleasure to those who shared her company, especially her fellow shipmates on long voyages in later years.

(Marinette was not blind to Alya's clear preference of the classical guitar that Nino would gladly play and sing along with when it was brought out or suggested. Nor did Marinette miss Nino's clear preference to switch to love songs whenever Alya was around.)

When Chloé came, Marinete's life changed overnight.

Literally.

It was a quiet night, and Marinette had been all too happy to ditch Alya to a hopeful-looking Nino and take a walk on the beach in solitude. She relishes the feel of the sand in her toes, the cold waves coming to brush across her ankles high enough to dampen the edges of her dress. The view from the beach, lit from high above her through the palace windows, was breathtaking, the clear, moonless and cloudless night making the water seem like it was sparkling with magic in the dark. She brought her flute up to her lips, but as the first note cut through the stillness, everything went dark.

When Marinette woke, it was still dark, but her world rocked back and forth, pitching gently across…were those waves? Shaking her head – and regretting it immediately as the pain hit – Marinette made to stand. At the next small pitch to the side, the princess was sent sprawling onto the deck she now realized she had been "sleeping" on.

The structure was a tiny skiff, barely big enough to warrant a trip a few miles around the coast. A stiff-looking girl, long golden hair catching the little light like fireflies, was working the rigging in a way that made Marinette flinch in its awkwardness. Marinette rose, steadying herself with a hand on her head. She started to stomp the short distance to the girl, realizing that she must have been the one to kidnap her, when she stopped midstep.

She was wearing pants.

Marinette now was not only furious, she was insanely jealous. Why had she never thought of that!?

The following conversation (confrontation, more like) revealed Chloé's story of her wealthy merchant father's ship being taken by pirates. Not only was her father, who she loved dearly, on board, but an entire colony's worth of people and materials. They were holding them all hostage, hoping for more booty than they had already spoiled, holding out for a ransom from their mother country of France. Meanwhile, a blockade had formed by the flagship of the Pirates, their companion ship, and now the vessel the unmoored colonists were trapped on. In the Caribbean. Every day the situation got worse, and the people were suffering. There was only one thing that could be done: a miraculous rescue from Ladybug, or the luck Ladybug carried around with her seemingly by presence alone.

"What do you think kidnapping me will do for you, idiot girl?" Marinette yelled, ripping a scrap of fabric off the bottom of her dress to tie around her dampening hair. "You had best left me at home and searched the seedy pits for this 'Ladybug' of yours! Unless you plan to try to use me as a bartering chip for her assistance, which I would hope you would have a better sense than that. Even if she does exist – "

"The sailors said she was the one 'whose tiny frame belied her strength'," Chloé started, standing with resolve as she stared Princess Marinette in the eye, "who had 'bested 50 men at the age of 10', and who flitted from oppressor to oppressor with a hum on her lips as she leveled each one, like a ladybug, swinging from the rigging of the tallest mast, the embodiment of Lady Luck herself… Shall I continue?"

"No, I… That won't be necessary."

No, Marinette didn't need to hear any more. She, like Chloé seemed to have discovered the identity of this "Ladybug" through these descriptions alone. Marinette sat, thinking, letting everything sink in. She was startled to see her own hands were shaking slightly, but…it wasn't from fear. There was anticipation bubbling under her skin.

How many ships had she said? Three now? A flagship, a –

"Is it true?" Chloé said quietly, and Marinette looked to her companion almost in surprise that she was there. The blond girl had tears at the edges of her eyes, and Marinette, really looking at her now, could fully appreciate the desperation of Chloé's journey. In the small lantern hanging by the mast, Marinette could see double black eyes on what she thought had been fair skin. A badly-healing slash went from her right ear to her chin, cutting a groove through her lip that was, in turn, already nursing a bruise on the other side. Her golden hair looked as though it had been burned on one side – along with her shirt, that Marinette was just now realizing was the upper half of a dress, making the pants she wore a necessity for proprietorial modesty rather than a smart fashion choice. She wore no shoes, and had nothing of supplies with her but a few bottles of questionable rum and some molding bread and oranges.

It was in this moment, Marinette sizing up her unwanted shipmate who, though bruised and broken still held herself with grace and hope, when the princess changed her mind.

"It was 47 men, but that doesn't have as nice a ring to it as '50', does it?"

[junker-town]

Secret Base reviews: The Darien Scheme

A colonial venture so inept that the perpetrating country ended up getting taken over by someone else.

[I]t may be doubted whether, even now, after the lapse of more than a century and a half, feelings hardly compatible with temperate examination will not be stirred up in many minds by the name of Darien. In truth that name is associated with calamities so cruel that the recollection of them may not unnaturally disturb the equipoise even of a fair and sedate mind.

I’m not much of a historian, but I (pretend to) have a well-tuned sense of tragicomedy. That sense went into overdrive when I read Thomas Babbington MacCauley’s introduction to one of the most bizarre and ill-conceived episodes in history: the Darien scheme.

The late 17th century was a strange age for European colonialism. The New World had been parcelled up long before; the Scramble for Africa was still centuries away. Foreign expeditions were fragile things, highly vulnerable to disease, logistical mishaps and war. It was clear, however, that colonies could be forced to yield up enormous wealth.

One country in desperate need of enormous wealth? Scotland. The crowns of Scotland and England had been united in the person of James I for generations, but there was as yet no real political union. What there was on this ‘sterile crag’ was a mess: Minor civil wars, climate-induced famines, declining trade and industry, a capital-M Massacre at Glencoe. The government was more or less broke and the overall population wasn’t much better off. They cast around for a magic bullet, and they eventually settled on ... this:

Ok, so a settlement in Panama wasn’t the Scottish Government’s first choice. The Company of Scotland was chartered with the intent to trade in “Africa and the Indies.” The problem? England, of course. The East India Company had exactly zero interest in enabling the growth of a Scottish competitor, and contrived to block funding for any such project from south of the border.

A trimmed down mission — it was now the Company of Scotland for Trading to Africa — still managed to raise a significant amount of cash, despite the population being broke. £400,000 was invested in a matter of weeks. That might not sound like a lot now, but the total amount of capital in Scotland at the time is estimated as on the order of £2,000,000. In other words, 20 percent of the available money in the whole country was marked for this project.

When one fifth of an entire country’s capital is invested in a scheme, one would expect that said scheme wouldn’t immediately change in every detail. But that reckons without my good and dear friend William Paterson. Paterson was one of the most influential men of the age, a slave-trading (ergo shithead) co-founder of the Bank of England. Here’s what MacCauley has to say about him:

The great projector was the idol of the whole nation. Men spoke to him with more profound respect than to the Lord High Commissioner. His antechamber was crowded with solicitors desirous to catch some drops of that golden shower [ed: lmao] of which he was supposed to be the dispenser ... His countenance, his voice, his gestures, indicated boundless self-importance. When he appeared in public he looked — such is the language of one who probably had often seen him — like Atlas conscious that a world was on his shoulders. But the airs which he gave himself only heightened the respect and admiration which he inspired. His demeanour was regarded as a model. Scotchmen who wished to be thought wise looked as like Paterson as they could.

When Paterson had viable ideas, such as founding banks and kidnapping random Africans for a hellish life in the colonies, this level of blind admiration was, perhaps, fine (as long as you weren’t, you know, one of the thousands of people he helped enslave). Slightly odd, but fine. But blind admiration was about to lead Paterson’s admirers blundering madly into the Darien Scheme.

The English and Dutch controlled the route to the East Indies. In Paterson’s day, that involved a long trip down Africa’s Atlantic coast, around the Cape of Good Hope and up through the Indian Ocean. But a simple look at the map gave another possibility: go west.

This was, of course, what Christopher Columbus was attempting to achieve when he stumbled upon the Americas in 1492 and launched a chain of events that virtually annihilated the human populations of two whole continents. By 1698, the geography was far better known. Weathering Cape Horn from the Atlantic was a nightmarish venture, which ruled out a purely oceanic route west from Europe to the East Indies.

Paterson’s mega-brain realised, however, that a route need not be purely oceanic. The Isthmus of Darien (you know it as Panama), for some reason not yet properly colonised by the Spanish, was narrow enough to transport goods overland. If rival powers controlled the eastern route, Scotland’s response, the strategic thrust which would reverse their economic misfortune, must be to forge a western one. They would colonise Darien.

Strategically, this was a brilliant, visionary idea, which would eventually result in the Panama Canal, one of the key trade arteries of modernity. But strategy does not exist in the abstract, divorced from opportunity and operational constraints. If you are, say, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, attempting to prop up Austria and Poland as a bulwark against possible Russian aggression makes a great deal of strategic sense. If you are, say, me, it would not.

Paterson was convinced that Spain hadn’t touched the isthmus because they were blind to the possibilities of global trade, instead obsessing over relieving their possessions of material wealth. Darien, he insisted, was perfect:

[The harbours], he averred, were capacious and secure: the sea swarmed with turtle: the country was so mountainous that, within nine degrees of the equator, the climate was temperate; and yet the inequalities of the ground offered no impediment to the conveyance of goods. Nothing would be easier than to construct roads along which a string of mules or a wheeled carriage might in the course of a day pass from sea to sea. The soil was, to a depth of several feet, a rich black mould, on which a profusion of valuable herbs and fruits grew spontaneously ... the isthmus was a paradise.

Scotland threw itself into Paterson’s scheme in a sort of mania. July 1698 saw five ships outfitted and sent to the Caribbean with twelve hundred colonists (and several more desperate stowaways) aboard. It took them four months to cross the Atlantic and make landfall off what they christened the land of ‘Caledonia.’ The Company of Scotland’s rising sun had a home.

All appeared to be going well. The colonists entrenched themselves on the peninsula of New Edinburgh, building a town, fortress and watchtower. The natives, enemies of Spain, happy to encourage any rival power, supplied the new arrivals with food. Letters sent home talked of plentiful provisions, a healthy climate and the unexpected discovery of gold mines in the interior. In August 1699 four more ships were dispatched to join burgeoning colony.

They couldn’t find it.

The Darien Scheme had been doomed from the outset. While Spain didn’t have an active presence on the isthmus, it controlled the area and was totally unwilling to tolerate a foreign presence threatening its colonial wealth. The Dutch and English, meanwhile, were totally unwilling to provoke the Spanish in support of an enterprise that was actually aimed at themselves. The colonists had to face the Spanish response alone.

Meanwhile, the reports of New Edinburgh’s paradisical qualities had been vastly overstated. The anchorage in the Bay of Caledonia was nowhere near as good as had been reported. There was not enough food, and what little there was didn’t agree with the colonists. Natives of the actual Caledonia suffered in the tropical heat and perished daily from malaria. The letters home were an exercise in denial and misdirection. The colony had failed with great loss of life, and the survivors had evacuated to the English colonies in North America.

All of this came as a surprise to the ships sent to join New Edinburgh. Eventually the reinforcements discovered the ruins of those who’d gone before them, rebuilding as best they could. Since this expedition was intended to resupply an existing colony rather than creating a whole new one, they were not equipped to do so, leaving New New Edinburgh even worse off than it was before. Everyone had a pretty bad time.

And then the Spanish showed up.

In Charles II’s opinion, which counted for a bit, the isthmus was rather less available than Paterson and his hangers-on had believed. Spain had been in possession of Darien for hundreds of years. It was from the isthmus that the Pacific had first been sighted, in 1513. The reason that there wasn’t an actual colony there is because it was a malaria-ridden hellhole which would almost certainly kill any European stupid enough to try living there.

Just to make sure, though, the Empire sent 11 ships and a whole army to stamp out the scheme once and for all. The besieged, succumbing to the same afflictions which had wiped out the first wave of colonists, had no strength or stomach for a fight. They opted to surrender. Here one more problem manifested itself: despite the aim of planting a colony in the heart of Spanish America, nobody involve thought it would be a good idea to bring along a Spanish speaker.

The Darien Scheme was dissolved as it deserved, in broken and barely comprehensible Latin, against a background of farce and death. The fallout of the collapse was so severe that within ten years Scotland had been forced to acquiesce to the Act of Union, joining itself to England to form the United Kingdom. In partnership with their new colleagues, they got more competent at the whole ‘colonialism’ thing.

1

[pushing500]

Sorry if this has been asked before, or if you've already shown it, but could you share your mod list?

I sure can! However, due to my technological ineptness and inability to figure out how to export a proper fancy crisp mod list, this list has been hand-typed with my own brief and probably unhelpful descriptions of what each mod does (if I can remember or comprehend it, that is).

There are about 180 mods, give or take, so it's a long list. I'll pop it under here for anybody who wants to check them out:

This is in the current load order

Harmony (a framework one I think)

Vanilla Backgrounds Expanded (this is just cool for loading screens etc.)

HugsLib (I think this is also framework one)

JecsTools (I think this is also framework one)

Vanilla Expanded Framework (I'm near-certain this is a framework one, based on the name)

A Dog Said… Animal Prosthetics (animal bionics wooo)

LBE’s A Dog Said Easy Patcher (to add bionic compatibility with all the modded animals woooo)

Better ModMismatch Window (for if I do ever feel the need to mess with the modlist)

RT Fuse (I don’t like the zzzzt events)

[GMT] Trading Spot (to stop stupid traders walking in my house)

[NL] Facial Animation - WIP (they make funny faces :3) 

Let’s Have a Cat! (I like cats)

Humanoid Alien Races (Aliens are cool)

Tree People (Continued) (because non-human colonists are awesome)

[ATW] House Decor (for aesthetic purposes)

Little Green Men - Legacy (Aliens are cool)

Vanilla Backstories Expanded (adds new and fun backstories for colonists)

Vanilla Animals Expanded (I insist on having a huge selection of pets)

Vanilla Animals Expanded - Royal Animals (more pets heehee)

More Persona Traits (this is why Xanxalbur the persona zeushammer is so cool)

Vanilla Ideology Expanded - Dryads (more gauranlen tree stuff)

Vanilla Base Generation Expanded (makes enemy bases on caravan trips more fun)

Vanilla Achievements Expanded (sometimes it gives me a serotonin)

Vanilla Races Expanded - Custom Icons (good for xenotypes and biotech stuff)

Dubs Bad Hygiene (bathrooms cool)

Hospitality (easy to make friends with other factions if you run a hotel)

Android Tiers Reforged (heehoo robots cool)

[AP] Lovin’ Reworked (Irwin and Connie are both AWFUL in bed, if you were curious 😳)

Vanilla Races Expanded - Phytokin (magic tree people very fun)

Vanilla Races Expanded - Saurid (dinosaur people wooooo!)

Vanilla Fishing Expanded (a good way to keep Wookshys distracted)

ReGrowth: Core (I don’t remember what this does but the thumbnail is cool and I assume it’s a framework mod)

Vanilla Plants Expanded (more farm stuff hooray!)

Vanilla Textures Expanded - [NL] Facial Animation (why my colonists have such cute lil’ faces)

Vanilla Plants Expanded - More Plants (even MORE farm stuff!!)

Vanilla Persona Weapons Expanded (more skins for persona weapons- another reason Xanxalbur the persona zeushammer is so awesome)

Vanilla Nutrient Paste Expanded (mmmmm yummy goo)

More Descriptive Words and Names (adds more descriptive words and names)

Ebbbs (horrible eldritch goo creatures my beloved)

Floordrawings (adds more floordrawings for kids to draw)

Horse Breeds - Skin Variations (horses very fun!!)

Vanilla Hair Retextured (helps vanilla hair look a bit nicer)

Trait and Backstory Icons (gives traits and backstories cute lil’ icons next to ‘em)

Geological Landforms (cool new map gens)

Biome Transitions (if your map tile is next to a different biome they can mix together at the edges)

Cactacae (Continued) (because non-human colonists are awesome)

NamesGalore (adds new names for people and stuff)

NamesGaloreLatin (adds new names for people and stuff but in Latin this time) 

Character Editor (I wanted to start with at least one animakin colonist)

Vanilla Animals Expanded - Caves (I have a pet cave bear now called Witch)

Strong Bridge (makes bridges strong)

Roo’s Dreadlock Hairstyles (Irwin’s hair is from this one)

[SBV] Recreational Drum Use (I like drums and so would my colonists if they had them)

River’s Tribal Shoes (don’t want to get prickles in your feet)

Romance on The Rim (they have to get their daily smooches or they’ll be sad)

Pawn Name Variety (I like them to have lots of different name options)

Vanilla Furniture Expanded - Architect (adds new building stuff)

Camera+ (for taking better screenshots)

Vanilla Cooking Expanded (expands the cooking)

Vanilla Psycasts Expanded (expands the psycasts)

Biomes! Core (the framework for more biomes mods)

Biomes! Islands (in case I wanted to reenact the movie Castaway)

Alpha Animals (even more pets!)

Vanilla Ideology Expanded - Memes and Structures (lots of cool ideology stuff)

Simple Sidearms (every colonist needs MANY WEAPONS)

Doors Expanded (adds new doors)

A Rimworld of Magic (I don’t use this heaps in the current game but it is very cool)

Anima Gear (I could make stuff out of anima grass if I felt like doing the research for it)

Sexuality Traits (every pawn has a specific sexuality, instead of defaulting to 'straight' unless explicitly stated otherwise)

Vanilla Outposts Expanded (I could go make outpost camps if I wanted)

CM Color Coded Mood Bar (helpful for spotting incoming mental breaks)

Avoid Friendly Fire (you think they would be smart enough to know not to walk in front of the guns but noooo)

Vanilla Brewing Expanded (alcohol woo)

Vanilla Brewing Expanded - Coffees and Teas (coffee and tea woo)

Vanilla Furniture Expanded - Power (adds new power sources)

Vanilla Factions Expanded - Mechanoids (scary robots)

Vanilla Weapons Expanded (can never have too many weapons)

Vanilla Factions Expanded - Medieval (more factions to make friends with)

Giddy Up! Core (framework for riding animals)

Giddy Up! Battle Mounts (ride animals into battle)

Giddy Up! Ride and Roll (ride animals around doing daily tasks)

Giddy Up! Caravans (ride animals on caravan trips)

Megafauna (biiiiiig pets!!)

Vanilla Plants Expanded - Succulents (for making the colony look pretty)

Biomes! Prehistoric (dinosaurs :3)

Vanilla Genetics Expanded (I don’t use this a lot but re-reading the description makes me think I should because it looks like a lot of fun)

Vanilla Genetics Expanded - More Lab Stuff (presumably adds “more lab stuff” to the aforementioned mod)

Vanilla Furniture Expanded - Security (more defense stuff)

[FSF] Complex Jobs (Legacy Version) (splits jobs into smaller subsections)

Snap Out! (slap pawns out of their mental breaks)

Wall Light (wall light my beloved)

Standalone Hot Spring (geothermal power boring and ugly, hot spring FAR better use of steam geysers)

Vanilla Ideology Expanded - Splits and Schisms (the one that meant Wookshys could start his stupid sub-cult)

Allow Tool (easier to forbid and unforbid items)

Minify Everything (sometimes picking up whole sections of brick wall is okay)

Replace Stuff (so I can build stone walls on top of wood walls without un-freezing the freezer, etc.)

Mod Manager (I have lots of mods to manage)

Interaction Bubbles (to see what mean stuff Irwin is saying to his friends each day)

Polyamory Beds (Vanilla Edition) (tempted to use this in all my guest rooms)

Haul to Stack (so they don’t clutter the freezer with individual piles of food instead of one big pile)

Pick Up and Haul (pawns can carry more than one thing at a time)

While You’re Up / PUAH+ (pawns will carry stuff while they’re on their way to and fro)

Giddy Up! Add On: Saddles (saddles don’t do anything they just look nice)

Roo’s Royalty Hairstyles (fancy hair)

Roo’s Accessory Hairstyles (Wendy’s hair was from this mod R.I.P.)

Rainbow’s Hair Mod (I like lots of options)

ResearchPal - Forked (I’ve always played with this mod and it’s hard to adjust without it)

Tilled Soil (it’s not cheating it’s just farming)

VGP Garden Resources (it’s a lovely day on the Rimworld and you are growing uranium in your garden)

More Faction Interaction (Continued) (I wanna be friends with EVERYONE!!)

Rim of Madness - Bones (skulls for the skull throne and all that jazz)

Anthro Race (because non-human colonists are awesome)

Alpha Mythology (adds mythological creatures to the Rimworld)

Vanilla Weapons Expanded - Laser (adds laser weapons)

Vanilla Factions Expanded - Pirates (love me some pirates)

Alpha Biomes (can never have enough biomes)

All The “Vanilla Storytellers Expanded” mods, but I have literally never used them due to my firm standing as a Randy Random purist

Vanilla Ideology Expanded - Relics and Artifacts (adds new relics and artifacts for your ideology)

Vanilla Ideology Expanded - Icons and Symbols (easier to customise your ideology)

Vanilla Weapons Expanded - Heavy (adds heavy weapons)

Vanilla Weapons Expanded - Non-Lethal (for when you REALLY wanna recruit someone)

Erin’s Cottage Collection (everything looks so cozy ❤️)

Euglena Framework (idk mate)

Euglena Expanded - Implant (idk mate)

Vanilla Factions Expanded - Empire (adds more Empire stuff)

ReGrowth: Tropical (adds new tropical plants and stuff I think)

Vanilla Furniture Expanded (the core bit)

Vanilla Textures Expanded - Variations (I don’t want everything looking so uniform! There’s like twelve different people building the chairs; they’re gonna look different)

Vanilla Fishing Expanded - Xtra Fish (more fish to distract Wookshys)

Vanilla Textures Expanded (makes stuff look sharper and crisper)

Euglena Expanded - Euglena Xenotype (tree people go brrrr)

Vanilla Furniture Expanded - Props and Decor (more props and decor)

Vanilla Weapons Expanded - Quickdraw (adds quickdraw weapons)

Vanilla Weapons Expanded - Coilguns (adds coilguns)

Vanilla Factions Expanded - Settlers (like cowboys and stuff I think)

Vanilla Weapons Expanded - Frontier (weapons for cowboys and stuff)

Vanilla Expanded - Ideology Patches (for patching things up to Ideology I guess)

Vanilla Expanded - Royalty Patches (for patching things up to Royalty I guess)

Vanilla Furniture Expanded - Spacer (cool spaceship style furniture)

Vanilla Furniture Expanded - Medical (my hospital is VERY cool)

Vanilla Weapons Expanded - Tribal (adds more tribal weapons)

Vanilla Weapons Expanded - Makeshift (adds makeshift weapons)

Vanilla Cooking Expanded - Sushi (if my colonists weren’t mostly vegetarian we could make sushi with all the fish Wookshys catches)

Vanilla Animals Expanded - Endangered (gonna start a conservation project)

Vanilla Cooking Expanded - Stews (I don’t know I had this one installed. Are vegetarian stews a thing? Probably not)

Vanilla Furniture Expanded - Art (I’m something of an artist myself)

Vanilla Furniture Expanded - Farming (for farm furniture I guess)

Vanilla Furniture Expanded - Production (makes for very nice workshops)

Vanilla Apparel Expanded - Accessories (adds fun utility items)

Vanilla Social Interactions Expanded (new social interactions for fun and interesting storytelling)

Vanilla Factions Expanded - Insectoids (bugs. ew.)

Vanilla Factions Expanded - Vikings (adds vikings)

Vanilla Weapons Expanded - Grenades (adds more grenades)

Vanilla Traits Expanded (I love hoarding traits)

Vanilla Events Expanded (more events)

Vanilla Apparell Expanded (more clothes)

Erin’s Cat Overhaul (I like cats)

Vanilla Armour Expanded (adds more armour)

Erin’s Hairstyles - Redux (There’s never enough hairstyle variety)

Rimsenal - Hair Pack (more hairstyles lmao)

Vanilla Hair Expanded (more hair)

Gradient Hair (so your colonists can have frosted tips I guess)

Vanilla Ideology Expanded - Hats and Rags (adds new ideology clothes)

Tabula Rasa (idk mate)

What’s That Mod? (tells you what mod stuff is from. VERY USEFUL)

LightsOut (pawns turn lights off when not using them)

RPG Style Inventory Revamped (better inventory layout)

RPG Traits+ (more traits haha)

Sand Castles (colonists can build sandcastles for recreation if there happens to be sand around)

Bundle of Traits (give me ALL THE TRAITS)

More Religious Origins (more ideology stuff)

Optimisation: Meats C# Edition (all meat is just “raw meat” unless it’s specifically “human meat” or “insect meat”, so it can all be stacked together easily)

Prisoners Don’t Have Keys (they gotta bash their way out if they want to escape)

Rational Romance 2 (Continued) (more romance-y stuff)

More Ideological Words (just makes random generation a bit easier and more interesting)

Roo’s Glasses Hairstyles (Debby’s hair is from this one)

Tau Armory (my favourite WH40k faction)

Somewhere in here is also the "Toddlers" mod for when Baby Kaznove comes along, but I added it after I'd typed up the whole list, and now I don't know where it fits in. Sorry about that!)

[felassan]

What's wrong with Jill?

oh dear.. so this is like this whole thing.. not really sure where to start. under a cut for length and because the content is negative I guess. this kind of turned into a ramble sorry, might come back and add to it. 

[msg either refs this post or this post]

so first of all Gil is a total sweetie, funny, a fast learner, intuitive, supportive, quick-witted, smart, thoughtful, hard-working, adaptable, an amazingly talented engineer - he was taking apart shuttle engines and putting them back together at age 10, without any schooling! he had a tough start to life as, in his words, an undocumented street kid (whose dad died before he was born), and by his own admission he has very few close ties and no real sense of purpose. he makes an irreversible decision (travelling to a whole new galaxy) thinking maybe he’ll find his true calling and purpose in life there. at the start of the game he considers Jill his one (and only) true friend. he’s never had absolute trust and safety in a romantic relationship.

Gil is already lacking in content compared to other Tempest crew-members and especially to other LIs, both as an LI and as a non-romanced character. at least Suvi is at the front of the ship by the galaxy map, and has additional lines as you do stuff like scanning planets. in that regard she’s prominent for a non-squad LI, whereas Gil is tucked away at the back end of the ship, outta sight outta mind. and, sadly for Gil, much of his already-limited screen-time and word-budget is spent on.. Jill. 

that wouldn’t exactly be a problem in and of itself, but.. like, in early conversations Gil and I had about Jill as we were getting to know each other, I genuinely wondered whether she was a real person or some kind of personification or alter-ego he made to deal with insecurities and things that trouble him. legit, she sounded to me like an insidious mean voice in his head. I mean really, ‘Gil’ and ‘Jill’?

she teases Gil that he makes her job harder, says that if he’s not making babies, he’s part of “the problem”, determinedly pressures him about his “civic duty as a man”. Ryder can straight-up say to Gil, that sounds disrespectful and hurtful. you know, the issue isn’t with that kind of friendship which are heavy on the teasing bants, lord knows I have close friendships with other LGBTQ-spectrum people where we express our affection for one another by giving each other shit and trading insults. Jill’s dynamic with Gil though.. I dunno, I just find it kind of gross and it made me feel uncomfortable. it feels low-key homophobic and emotionally abusive? almost like reproductive coercion. Gil says it’s alright because she’s like family and supports him unconditionally. I can’t presume to know the circumstances of Gil and Jill’s friendship in the Milky Way, what they’ve been through and supported each other through together, but I do know that being family or close friends isn’t an excuse for being a dick that piles on guilt and reduces your worth as a person and contributor to society to whether or not you breed, and that sometimes the worst kind of abuse and shitty behavior is done to people by their family.. Gil thinks Jill is amazing - he clearly holds her in high regard. meeting Jill, especially as a Gil-romancing Scott, is more than just a “meeting the best friend” scene. it’s Gil’s equivalent of a “meeting the parents/family” moment. he’s hoping that Scott and Jill will like each other, and that Jill will approve. what Jill says to him he clearly takes on board. it weighs on and sticks with him. I just felt like, this is your one true friend in all the world Gil? someone who says this stuff to you? my heart broke. he respects her and she has influence over him, and that’s the kind of shit she says to him.

Jill heads the Colonial Repopulation Committee. in the future. girl can’t offer same-sex and mixed-species couples which don’t involve an asari, advice and information on their child-having (and child-rearing, if they are so inclined) options? we do that already for same-sex couples in 2017. girl can’t do her job without being creepy and pressurey? the AI isn’t going to putter into extinction because a few people choose not to procreate. is she going to come harass my Roo Ryder about “the biological imperative” for not wanting children ever and for dating (universe depending) a turian female or a male angara? is she gonna come at Suvi the lesbian and try the same shtick? does she go around pressuring all colonists this way about reproduction, or just Gil (actually, either scenario is gross)? does she care about how the way she phrases things might make infertile or trans colonists feel - and we know there are trans people among the colonists? she would have been better written as part of an AI Family Planning Committee and not taking up so much of Gil’s already limited arc. the “boosting the batter” (gross) [human baby] issue is an ‘obstacle’ for Scotts who romance Reyes or Vetra, or Saras who romance Suvi or Vetra or Jaal, hell even for Scotts/Saras who don’t romance anyone or who romance Peebs (an asari child isn’t going to boost human baby numbers). yes, all Ryders can meet Jill, but the issue really arises exclusively as part of the only Tempest m/m LI’s arc. someone elsewhere phrased it, “making the main m/m romance in the game, strangely, about the dreams and aspirations of a woman.” I don’t believe that the AI only allowed sign-ups with the mandate that upon securing a home in Andromeda, you must all have at least one biological child.

the issue isn’t the plotline of a same-sex couple (Scott and Gil) or a gay man (Gil) becoming dads/a dad, or with a child having a multi-parental set-up like Gil-Scott-Jill, or with gay people and their opposite-sex friends (straight or gay. I don’t think we know what Jill’s sexuality is) agreeing to have a biological child together. nothing wrong with any of those scenarios. it’s how it was handled in the game and Jill’s weird, invasive, reductionist, homophobic, mean treatment of Gil. the plotline should have been handled better. maybe Jill turkeybastes herself using donor sperm from the AI sperm and egg bank (no way they don’t have a sperm and egg bank, tbh) and Gil’s psyched to be an uncle and it gets him thinking about what he wants in life and where he’s going. maybe Jill is explicitly a lesbian and some of her comments are self-referential and the story is about a gay man and his lesbian friend becoming parents. maybe Gil decides he wants to have a child at some point in the future, and Jill as the head of that Committee talks him (or him and Scott) through what options they have. maybe Gil finds his purpose and calling in life as part of Ryder’s team in some way - yknow, he has value to Ryder and the AI for his worth as an awesome engineer, as an example. maybe Gil has scenes where he talks about how the things Jill says make him feel and then goes on to question her treatment. 

I just.. I wanted to tell Jill, um, excuse you, you’re a bit of a jerk, back off, and tell Gil, Gil, have children if you want to and if you’re ready and in the way that you want to, you don’t have to if you don’t want to but if you do want to that’s totally fine, and never forget that you have other supportive friends in Ryder and the Tempest crew (like Vetra and Suvi), and that your worth to Ryder and the AI and to yourself as a person is not defined by or dependent on whether or not you have biological children but by so much else.

someone on bsn phrased it like,

But the arc kind a fizzles into: Jill wants me to feel bad about being gay and thus not able to have babies, Jill is a female, jill wants my sperm, Jill is going to have my baby to make my being here not detrimental to the Initiative, I have value to this initiative because you’re dating me Scott, and Jill is going to be pregnant with my baby! Which… was kind of not enjoyable to experience.

I didn’t even romance Gil and felt uncomfortable with Jill and the whole plotline. Imagine if Jill was your lesbian engineer and gil was the committee head friend, or if suvi had a male friend called Buvi, and this Gil or Buvi pressured these gay women about their civic duties as incubators or to submit to invasive egg donation procedures.. Gross. Still gross when its a woman doing it to a gay man.

will say that their dynamic changes some based on whether Jill is LGBTQ or not, but we don’t know whether she is. and this isn’t a “Gil doesn’t want to be a father”, post, it’s me taking issue with Jill’s weirdness and way she treats him and things that stem from that.

check out this post by @homoryder.

[entergamingxp]

10 Demos That Made a Good Impression

June 22, 2020 10:00 AM EST

With a wealth of game demos, I played a large selection and selected the most interesting that I could find in The Steam Game Festival.

The Steam Game Festival event that is happening right now is a pretty great idea. With all the usual gaming conventions and events cancelled due to current events, why not utilize the expanding digital space? I’ve long been a proponent of game demos, since there’s little better way to know if a game will land. Combining a week-long digital event with public access to a variety of demos and alpha builds is clever, and I hope something like it will continue.

One demo sampling spree later, I had marathoned through much of what the library offered. In total, I’ve played 24 different demos to completion, to the point that I’m as exhausted as if I’d been on a convention show floor. I intended to write impressions pieces for all of these games, so I set myself the limit of two paragraphs per demo. I’ve chosen to split these impressions into two articles so as not to completely overwhelm everyone.

For today, here are the 10 demos among the 24 that stood out to me the most, and why. They’ve not been arranged in any specific order; all of them grabbed me in different ways, so this list shall not be numbered.

Starmancer

Starmancer is a city builder and management sim set on a space station. You set up the infrastructure, reconstitute your colonists from biomass, and then make sure their needs are comfortably met. In return, the colonists can be assigned jobs, which they will gradually level up in. With the right infrastructure, you can scan the system for points of interest to deploy missions to. From this, you can gain additional resources and colonists. With the variety of features and systems at play, Starmancer is pretty damn good, even if it’s nothing that hasn’t been seen before.

The game is well presented, has lots of interesting systems, and handles well for this point in its development. My biggest concern is that I was unable to get water during my demo time, as I never found the required ice asteroids to mine. If mission appearance is reliant on RNG, it’ll eventually be bad luck that sees you out of water, and therefore out of oxygen. My original draft pointed this out as a flaw, but it’s already been patched to be more common, so issue solved. With a decent tail in the research tree to keep gameplay fresh, Starmancer would definitely be worth your time, so here’s hoping it turns out even better.

Ghostrunner

There’s been a real dearth of movement-heavy first-person games since Titanfall 2 and Mirror’s Edge. In comes Ghostrunner, evoking feelings of both of those. It’s a fast-paced game in which you play a cyborg aiming to climb a cyberpunk tower and kill the Keymaster at the top. To do this, you have the ability to run, slide, wall run, use a grappling hook, and even air dash through obstacles. These obstacles are frequently gun-toting enemies that will kill you in one shot, but die in equally short order.

I had an absolute blast playing this one. It utterly begs the player to go fast, think quickly, and use all the tools at their disposal to traverse the environment. Death is frequent but respawning is as snappy, so it constantly drove me to try again. The premise is interesting, the possibilities are enticing, and the demo is way too short. I finished it in just ten minutes, but seeing that timer at the end just made me want to replay it and do it better. Can’t wait to see speed runners get their hands on this, let alone play it for real myself. Ghostrunner is one to watch.

Fights in Tight Spaces

This game wins the Best Name award for this list of previews. That said, it’s also right up there in winning the most approval from me. Fights in Tight Spaces is awesome. It’s a turn-based deck-building game in which you play cards to move around and utilize attacks to best your opponents. What really makes it special is that the player has perfect information; you know exactly what the enemies are going to do. By moving around or utilizing this correctly, you can have them strike each other or set up for more intense combinations.

Completing fights gives you new cards and money with which to heal or tune your deck a bit for future fights. It’s simple, effective, and there’s a lot of possibilities for how these scenarios can play out. The idea of an intense tactical fighting game played via cards might not sound like much, but Fights in Tight Spaces makes it work. The minimalist presentation in the vein of Superhot suits the gameplay immensely. All that’s lacking here is a playback that runs the entire fight at full speed afterwards. Give me that, and I’ll happily pay up to live out my John Wick fantasies in this game.

Spiritfarer

I’d seen a trailer for Spiritfarer previously, but going into this demo nonetheless surprised and delighted me. It’s another sort of management and base-building game, this time set on a boat. You build additions and rooms to meet the needs of the people you’re journeying with, grow crops, fish, and juggle resources. All sounds good enough so far. But then you realize that you’re effectively Charon, ferryman of the underworld, and your residents are spirits being guided to their resting place. Somehow, despite that, the game can only be described as “comfortable.”

Spiritfarer has an achingly beautiful palette of art and colours to it. The animation is gorgeous, the sounds are fantastic, and the entire presentation is so charming and whimsical despite the sober theme and tone. Some of the tasks can be a little chore-like, but with enough passengers and things to juggle, I could really see it being an engaging set of systems. There is a lot to love here, and if executed right, this could definitely be a sleeper hit. Again, Spiritfarer was an absolute delight, and I am looking forward to playing the full thing immensely.

The Riftbreaker

I won’t mince words: this was my personal favourite of all the games I played for this piece, no question. The Riftbreaker is an absolute maelstrom of game systems. You play as a scientist in a mech suit deployed to an alien planet, and have to establish a base of operations. That means RTS-esque gathering of resources, building a base, and setting up automation and defences. This base then becomes an upgradable ARPG hub where you can outfit yourself with new equipment and research. Go out, explore, beat up hostile creatures, gather more resources and upgrades, and deal with an increasingly escalating pushback against you.

I’m a sucker for this kind of interwoven set of systems, and the combination of everything here is executed really well. The action feels good, customization is plentiful, the base construction is intricate, and the tech tree decently varied. Individual systems don’t seem to dominate one another; it all plays well and loops back together. Given that games with smaller and less ambitious systems often struggle with such a concept, this level of intricacy is seriously impressive. It even looks and sounds pretty good, to boot! For a game I knew nothing about previously, The Riftbreaker is now near the top of my list of most anticipated upcoming games.

30XX

More than any other game on this list, 30XX needed no introduction to me. It’s a sequel to the excellent roguelike Mega Man-esque game 20XX, which I still routinely play on my Switch to this day. I was happy to hear of its announcement, and happier still to play this demo and ascertain that it’s absolutely more of the same. This is a good thing.

Because I didn’t need to know much more about it, I didn’t play 30XX for very long. It’s a combat-focused sidescrolling platformer with some roguelike level generation. Items and set pieces are hidden in the levels and can potentially change up your powers, build, and stats. But more than anything, it’s a solid demo that does the likes of Mega Man proud. The new levels and enemies play well thus far, and I look forward to seeing what more comes of it. Suck it, Mighty No. 9.

Cris Tales

Other writers at DualShockers have covered Cris Tales in more depth previously, so I’ll defer to them for this one. I will say that this was my first time experiencing it hands-on, and now I’m completely in love with Cris Tales. It’s a gorgeous world with some seriously fantastic gameplay systems regarding time manipulation. I loved it, and I’m right on board with Nick on his thoughts about it. Can’t wait to play the full thing.

Solasta: Crown of the Magister

This was another real surprise! Solasta: Crown of the Magister is a near perfect recreation and implementation of 5th Edition D&D rules into a video game. The full breakdown of actions and turns is here, as are all the specific class mechanics and options that you’d find in a tabletop session. Solasta comes equipped with a pretty functional character creator, but the gameplay demo utilizes a premade party. Nonetheless, the character creator is available to demonstrate how well it translates.

Even without my own characters, the adventure demo was really quite impressive. There’s party interactions and banter, as well as dialogue with NPCs where you can choose who chimes in or makes a skill check. This will be present for a player-created party as well, according to the devs. I doubt it’ll be quite at the level of Baldur’s Gate 2 or other such classics, but there is a lot to love here. The actual combat and dungeon crawling was varied, with lots of approaches and secrets to find.

Alongside Larian’s Baldur’s Gate 3, we now have Solasta to show what a modern D&D video game can play like. Very impressed and looking forward to the full campaign.

Cartel Tycoon

Cartel Tycoon is — as the name implies — a management/tycoon sim in which you build up and manage a criminal business. You build up farms, ship the farm goods to industrial buildings for processing, then dispatch them to be sold at trade hubs. The catch between this and a standard city builder/tycoon game is that the farm grows cannabis, the industry rolls it into joints and hides it amongst legal goods, and the trade hub is a private airfield. It’s a slightly more subtle version of Tropico, in other words.

The mechanics and gameplay in Cartel Tycoon is pretty solid and the game feels quite polished and presentable. There’s a little bit of micromanagement, as your cartel boss and lieutenants are movable units that you can control. You can use them to take over territory, boost the output of buildings, or conduct actions that you’ve yet to research the automation of. I quite enjoyed my time with it, but there was a bit of concern in the late game when I found myself snowballing into an unwinnable scenario. A few more means of balancing out the Terror rating would be nice, but the effects of it causing police or federal agencies to tamper with you was a nice touch. Quite a good game, and one I’ll keep an eye on.

Cosmoteer

This game is a treat. Cosmoteer sees you starting with a simply designed spaceship, and you take it into space to fight other ships. Defeating them nets you money, and money lets you purchase upgrades and redesign your ship entirely as you see fit. Want to make it durable, fly super fast, or simply be a floating brick with a giant railgun? All of these are options. There’s a real satisfying feel to building a good ship layout, then unleashing it on the galaxy and destroying them component by component.

New aspects of gameplay opened as the game continued, and I found myself increasingly more impressed by the scope of it. Want to buy multiple ships and control them as a fleet? That’s an option. Want to accurately control and try to maximize the output of the ship against tougher targets? No problem. Or, you can just keep on building up the one ship into a hodgepodge nightmare or monster battleship, if you’d like. Cosmoteer is clearly a real passion project and I was quite impressed. There’s already a selection of original or iconic sci-fi ships that come pre-built to tinker with, some of which are community-created. Creativity is sure to run rampant with this one!

These were the definite standouts to me from my time spent sampling The Steam Game Festival demos. The event will officially be wrapping up today, so if any of these sounded appealing, you should go check them out and show your support. I will probably end up picking up the full release of most of the games listed here. As for the other games I played, tune in soon and I’ll share my impressions of them in a bonus lightning round.

June 22, 2020 10:00 AM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/06/10-demos-that-made-a-good-impression/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=10-demos-that-made-a-good-impression

[the2travel]

* World Travel Tips : What Winemakers Want You To Know About Virginia’s Wine Renaissance

Travel Tips -

I arrive in Charlottesville before noon on a pristine spring day, the rolling green hills a far cry from where I started my morning, before sunrise in an Uber to JFK. I’m here to learn about Virginia’s unique wine culture. My first guide is Gabriele Rausse, an old school Italian winemaker known as the father of Virginia’s modern wine renaissance.

My image of an intimidating wine expert evaporates upon meeting Rausse. With a laidback demeanor that is standard fare around here, Rausse offers to take me on a tour of the surrounding vineyards, and soon we are cruising along winding country roads in his 1979 Mercedes. Rausse begins to unfurl Virginia’s wine history. From the canopy of sun-dappled maples to the rolling hills dotted with vineyards, I am struck by the lushness of Virginia’s countryside.

Vintage Roots

Like most American success stories, Virginia has had to crush a variety of obstacles on its 400 year path to becoming a respected winemaking region. In the early 1600s, the first colonists tried to cultivate the area’s native vines to produce a cash crop, but ongoing attempts were thwarted by the region’s diverse climate.

By the 1770s, European winemakers were commissioned to try their luck with planting the European Vitis vinifera outside of Williamsburg, but even the experts couldn’t achieve a successful harvest. Construction began at Monticello, and along with Jefferson’s grand vision for a mountaintop estate, the founding father ensured that wine would always have a legacy in Virginia.

Rausse and I head back to Monticello to walk around the grounds where Jefferson planted 330 varieties of fruits and vegetables, along with two vineyards in which he planted 24 varieties of grapes sloping down the mountainside. Jefferson’s original crops didn’t survive, but he continued to establish wine as an important part of Virginia’s culture by importing more than 400 bottles from Europe a year to serve at Monticello’s famous dinner parties. He even installed dumbwaiters from the wine cellar to the dining room to keep the vino flowing without interruption.

Modern Revival

Rausse and I stop to admire the tight green clusters of grapes now flourishing in Jefferson’s original vineyard. Overseeing Monticello’s grounds and gardens for the past 22 years, Rausse has brought Jefferson’s dream to fruition by restoring the vineyards with several of the original vine varieties that Jefferson planted back in 1807. Several vintages produced from these grapes are now sold in Monticello’s Museum Shop, including a crisp Chardonnay and Bordeaux-style blends.

We pause to take in the spectacular panoramic view of the Piedmont and Blue Ridge Mountains that unfurl beyond Jefferson’s vineyards, where 30 wineries welcome guests along the Monticello Wine Trail.  All these wineries are located within 25 miles of Charlottesville, making this a great destination for wine lovers to enjoy tastings, wine festivals, live music, or just soak in the beauty of the Virginia’s countryside.

Jefferson laid roots for winemaking in Virginia, but it wasn’t until the 1960s that Virginia’s winemaking really took off. Looking to expand internationally, Italian winemaker Gianni Zonin bought a parcel of land outside of Charlottesville, taking a risk on a region where many had failed. He sent his vineyard manager, Gabriele Rausse, to find a fresh solution to get the wine flowing in Virginia.

Upon arriving in Virginia in 1976, Rausse was up against a healthy dose of skepticism from locals, who assured him that pinot noir could not be grown in Charlottesville. But these challenges invigorated him: “Before I came, I checked the climate of Charlottesville, and it was exactly the same climate of my town in Italy. So I said, why shouldn’t it grow here?”

Over the next six years, Rausse cultivated the fields of what is now Barboursville Vineyards, becoming the first vintner to successfully plant Vitis vinifera in the region. And in the spirit of generosity that Virginia seems to cultivate, Rausse shared his trade secrets with other local vintners. The number of wineries in Virginia steadily grew from a handful in 1980 to more than 300 today.

Like all great winemakers, Rausse let the land guide him. He realized that the grafting process had to be perfect to survive the region’s drastic seasonal changes. And when it comes to climate, Rausse tells me that “Virginia does whatever she wants.” While growers in California can rely on a mostly stable climate with temperate growing conditions, in Virginia, “there’s no year that the climate is the same.”

This is how underdog stories go. Every time the climate or seasonal variation throws a new challenge at Virginia’s winemakers, they adapt, and it’s this spirit of innovation that has allowed Virginian viticulture to thrive. With a harvest season that runs according to Mother Nature’s whims, the result is constant experimentation. For wine lovers, that means discovering a new and unique flavor profile with every visit to Virginia’s wineries.

History Preserved and Perfected

I say goodbye to Rausse at Monticello and make the 40-minute drive to Barboursville Vineyards, often credited as Virginia’s top winery. A quick rain shower en route leaves a pleasant earthiness in the air and the sun re-emerges to confirm the tranquility of Charlottesville. Even the highways here feel steeped in nature, reminding this longtime city dweller of the simple pleasure of cruising along a beautiful country road.

I pull into Barboursville and am struck by the size of the vineyard, a sea of rolling green hills and orderly rows of trellises stretching farther than the eye can see. It feels like a respite from the real world.  

Luca Paschina, general manager and winemaker at Barboursville, has offered to show me around. Like Rausse, Paschina comes from a family of Italian winemakers, and made his way to Virginia in 1990 to run Barboursville.

I climb into Paschina’s SUV and we make our way along sloping hillsides covered in neat rows of vines. Paschina tells me about the 18 varieties of grapes they have planted, and how even small changes in the slope can lead to hugely different yields. In his 17 years at the helm of Barboursville, he has grown the vineyard from 45 acres to almost 200, and launched a tasting room and restaurant that welcomes 80,000 visitors per year. Paschina is particularly excited about the burgeoning interest in aged red wines in Virginia, and the tasting room features a large collection of older vintages, offering yet another draw for wine connoisseurs.

The vineyard’s bestselling wine is called Octagon, a harmonious blend of Bordeaux, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot with a smooth-bodied finish. The wine is enhanced by its historical connections, with the name Octagon chosen in honor of the octagonal shaped dining room of James Barbour’s mansion, whose ruins flank the inn on the Barboursville property. Designed by Jefferson, the mansion burned to the ground in 1884.

Winemakers are preservationists, and Zonin has instituted an ongoing restoration process to shore up the crumbling ruins from further disrepair. With their stately brick remains coexisting peacefully with the bucolic countryside, the ruins are a sight to behold, and yet another reason to add Barboursville to your next wine tour itinerary.

I am staying the night at the 1804 Inn, adjacent to the ruins and built a century before. I’ve got the Vineyard Cottage all to myself, and the quaint 18th century dwelling is perfect for travelers seeking tranquility and privacy. I take a stroll to the ruins before turning in for the night, thinking that Jefferson would be pleased at how things turned out around here.

Laidback Luxury

The next morning I drive back toward Monticello, where I am meeting Kirsty Harmon, winemaker and manager at Blenheim Vineyards. Whereas Barboursville is steeped in history, Blenheim takes a more casual and contemporary approach to wines. “The nice thing about Virginia wineries is that every single place you go is going to be radically different than the next,” said Harmon. Visitors to Blenheim are encouraged to bring the whole family to enjoy music festivals, food trucks, and tastings at the 30-acre vineyard.

Blenheim is owned by musician Dave Matthews, who designs new bottle labels every year. Harmon says that some visitors come because of Dave Matthews, and learn a bit about wine in the process, and some come for the wine and learn about the Dave Matthews connection.

The vibe at Blenheim may be laid back, but its wines are rooted in Harmon’s deep scientific knowledge of winemaking. As one of only 20 or so female winemakers in Virginia, Harmon got her footing in the industry when she met Gabriele Rausse, who became her mentor. She’s been running Blenheim since 2008, and in that time has seen a huge increase in wine tourism. Blenheim welcomes 45,000 visitors a year for tastings.

True to her vineyard’s laid back vibe, Harmon creates wines that are fruit forward and approachable, meant for everyday drinking: “We try to present wine in an approachable but laid back way. Wine can get very intimidating and stuffy, but it doesn’t have to be that.”

My wine journey is nearing its end. I’ve learned firsthand that a spirit of generosity is as much a part of the winemaker’s job as a deeply ingrained knowledge of the land, from its history to its soil composition. Jefferson runs deep around here.

But the wineries of Virginia aren’t just bringing Jefferson’s dreams full circle; they’re also taking Virginia’s wine culture into bold new territory, where laid back and luxurious can coexist, making Charlottesville the perfect weekend destination for both newcomers and wine aficionados alike.

Experience the rich flavors of Virginia’s wines for yourself. Check out Virginia Tourism for a guide to the best wineries around the state and plan your next trip to relax in the laid back luxury of Virginia’s beautiful vineyards. Because Virginia is for wine lovers!

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