#his prefered shorting is still just lutz. which is a name on its own and normally short for other names with lud- like ludwig

[schadenfreudich]

Really funny thing is that Lutz did in fact choose his full name so I (primarily) could randomly elongate his name. Truly living up to his middle name (god's friend)

[devitalization]

↻ᴹᵉˢˢᵃᵍᵉ ˡᵒᵃᵈᵉᵈ ꒰ original character.txt now available ꒱

that said, i would like to introduce my gamedec to you guys! details are still work-in-progress and subject to change, but it is the character i did a video playthrough with, so what is canon within the series (via that playthrough; i did change the name for my youtube, though) is canon to it...

and yes, my gamedec uses it/its pronouns.

featured above are its official appearance (what i would consider its net avatar), and its alternate appearance (what i would consider its real world appearance)

this is lutz rosenhain. it is a former doctor who comes from low city. however, circumstances with its work and interpersonal life have led lutz to pursue more lucrative work behind the scenes. this is how it became a gamedec. a more expanded summary is as follows:

꒰ lutz was born in low city, the slums. cramped housing, inadequate resources, synthetic light, etc etc. it was a street doctor for the longest time, working in the low city clinics and rendering what aid was possible in these environments. lutz had to "get with the times", and began to indulge in hacking/tech stuff on the side. integrated some into the medical aspect of things, then ultimately went freelance when the clinic it worked at shut down due to funding and resource issues. it saved up enough to move to the mid city, where it became a game dec and kinda got a start-up going there. ꒱

now living higher up in the polis, lutz is still very much an outsider. its eccentric sense of style and reserved personality make it an intriguing individual. talkative, but not cordial. formal, to a "surprising" degree. lutz much prefers speaking in professional circles than those that are more interpersonal and intimate, and as such keeps everyone at an arm's distance. more commentary from when i was explaining its character to a friend:

꒰ the cases in the actual game are like… the breakthroughs. lutz has done some prior, but the first case with mr. haggis and his son are like, the cases that break the glass ceiling.

then the plot just kinda goes from there. lutz helps mr. haggis' son, then helping solve the whole thing with the nanette foundation and the orphan kids, then poor ken dying and the hon clan… and the can of worms that all opens. ꒱

some miscellaneous facts include:

during the investigation, whilst at twisted and perverted (t&p), lutz allowed umbra to engage in some… kinky interrogation. it was very much into the knifeplay and codeplay, and as such would have likely been a recurring visitor to the game world before the investigation.

and more in-depth plot points / explanations are below the "read more", as it contains spoilers for the game.

this summary was taken from discord messages between me and another, so bear with any spelling issues:

꒰ these breakthrough cases just fuckin,, get so dark

the first one is bad enough, with this billionaire's son (who, like his father, has a nice problem of molesting staffers) getting lost in a game world dedicated to bdsm and other taboo interests, stuck in a loop of his own creation (fucking and eviscerating a hooker) by a mysterious third party entity.

and then the second case is like "oh, this won't be so bad. it's a cute farming game". wrong! the in-game sheriff is an older teenager who "liberated" a bunch of fellow orphans from the nanette foundation (a place to give houseless children resources and education through tech) to practically drug them, enslave them, and grind this game so they could turn real world profit by selling off accounts.

then ken is like "hey, chief, i've got my own thing going on, can you help me?" and you agree. and then you end up going to the meeting spot the next day only to find ken dead from an apparent suicide, which turns out to be a murder.

then! then! as you're investigating into it, not only do you almost die by getting jumped and shot, but you have to negotiate a hostage situation as one of ken's old allies short circuits people's game chairs and fries them alive.

and then!!! as you think "okay, what the fuck", you end up going into the hon clan's base of operations (the people who effectively had ken killed), infiltrate their ranks, and get sucked into this empty voice of a simulation that, surprise! turns out to be the bridge between reality and virtualium. there is no "real world", and you meet a previous iteration of yourself: 314.

because there have been 2 resets since the actual investigation into all this began. 314 started it, risked going through the new cycle, and fragmented himself into the code of dozens of people hoping someone would pick up his trail. it apparently happened, because you have 315 (who holds no significance, really) then you. you are 316.

and you can either ally with him (to tear it all down and try to fix things), ally with jester (a representative of an admin collective working for the corporation upholding this simulation), or work in your own self interest.

and it's cool because it is so reminiscent of the relationship v and johnny (note: cyberpunk 2077) have. 314 will, if you protest enough, take control of your body and force you to an objective. he will chime in and express his upset. he will offer solutions. and you can do your best to shut him up or hear him out.

so you may be thinking "oh? so is 314 just you?"

yes and no, because while you are a result of his line of resets, you lived vastly different lives. 314 is torkil! and given its background and personality do draw inspiration from the earlier iteration (314; or torkil aymore), it and 314 are alike. however, the two definitely have their differences and often bump heads while trying to navigate the case at their feet.

ultimately, though, lutz does accept the offer 314 provides and decides to do what is best for the others who find themselves stuck in this sick game. ꒱

[theseventhmarch]

Reflection as a figure skating fan on 2017

This year has been an amazing year for me. At the end of 2016, Tumblr has introduced to me YOI, which has been a joy on its own. It has also brought me some friends on Tumblr, @boredjodyc and @pigfarts23. I would like to thank the unclear explanation of quad jumps in YOI, which prompted me to look up “quad Salchow” on YouTube - this led me to Miki Ando and Yuzuru Hanyu.

Edited: 1 January 2018 - minor grammatical errors; additional paragraphs in bold.

It took me about 4 or 5 months before I can confidently distinguish different types of jumps (I was stuck on the difference between the Flip jump and the Lutz jump in the last 2 months of that). Thanks to @pigfarts23 and their Rabbit watch-parties, I found myself falling in love with Yuzuru’s skating, and I “met” @boredjodyc , who is my partner-in-crime for all things Yuzuru then. I couldn’t stream his Four Continents short program live, but I managed to stream his free skate! That was my first introduction to Yuzuru’s emergency layouts. (I'M STILL NOT OVER TRIPLE AXEL AS THE LAST JUMP - AND THIS IS ACTUALLY THE PLANNED LAYOUT THIS SEASON.)

Early March, a few days after my birthday, I created a fandom Twitter account.

Jody was in London late-March and I suggested to meet up! We had afternoon tea (in my opinion it was disappointing) - we talked for 4 hours, if I remember correctly! This was my first time meeting an online friend, and I'm so glad I did it!

World Championships came - I pondered if I should go to Helsinki, but the Men’s Free Skate tickets were sold out on the official site (later I learnt I should have asked around on forums/twitter/tumblr) - and I died over Yuzuru’s knee down on his quad Salchow. Two days later, on April 1st, he broke another record, and it was definitely not a joke.

I jumped and screamed when he landed that quad Sal-triple Toe combo that he struggled with the whole season.

Then, World Team Trophy happened, and the men were popping their jumps left and right. LOL at Yuzuru getting that positive (+0.09) GOE for that single Axel. But it is ok, since it was a joke competition anyway.

I met up with Jody again mid-May at a pub, after she was done gallivanting around Europe, before she was headed back home. (I MISS YOU!)

Off-season, there were many ice shows. Perhaps the most important reveal of these ice shows was that Yuzuru would be repeating his Chopin short program, with a quad Loop and a back-loaded combo: quad Toe-triple Toe. After his reveal (I remember it was during my last exam and I found out about it on my way home), Jody and I frantically calculated all the possible jump layout and base values for his free skate (after staring at the jump layout rules for a while), whatever it may be. We had two different situations on our hands - with or without the quad Lutz. I don't know about Jody, I could tell that the quad Lutz was likely, looking at the base values (and the other competitors). I would realise much later (around December) that the (sad) reason for the inclusion of 4Lz was really unfair score inflation with the other competitors…

Twitter freaked out about some things that happened during the shows, including cat ears and Pooh headbands. The Twitter friends that I was beginning to make indulged in memes, and I tried my best to brush up on my knowledge of figure skating.

In August we heard about the return of Seimei for Yuzuru. Fans and observers had been going crazy with attempting to predict his programs, and what I gained from this was that I could distinguish the fans who were able to predict correctly - which meant, in my mind, that these are the fans who have been following Yuzuru’s journey (and interviews) and who could truly understand Yuzuru’s thought process.

He also told journalists that his jump layout was without 4Lz, that there will be one more quad and one less 3A. I think even a newbie fan like me treated that news with distrust - less 3A??? Are you sure the one who said it was Yuzuru Hanyu, the king of Axels???

Seeing Jody attend a figure skating competition in Hong Kong made me feel like doing the same, so very soon, at the end of August, I decided to go to Italy to watch Lombardia Trophy in mid-September. I decided on this particular competition, not because Yuzuru was there, but because it was the only competition that I could attend throughout. So I spent €€€ and 4 days freezing my butt off in a rink.

I did not regret it - I saw Wakaba skate her new free skate to Skyfall. At her opening pose in the practice run-through, it was love at first sight. Other notable skaters for me: Carolina had a queenly presence both on and off-ice, and Shoma had great speed but his free skate costume was too sparkly (but it looked great on photos).

After coming back from Italy, I decided that I wanted to attend another competition as soon as possible - preferably a competition which would allow me to see more high-level skaters compared to the small competition in Italy. So I picked the Grand Prix event in France - even though it had no Yuzuru or Wakaba in it.

A week after Lombardia, it was Autumn Classic International, the ‘B’ competition that will start off Yuzuru’s season. He (or his team) then revealed he was not going to do the 4Lz because of knee pain - which meant that, yes, the quad Lutz was there all along, he just didn’t want to tell us in August. (A few months later, with the reveal of more footage, I saw some people speculating that during the media day at the Cricket Club, the media likely saw the actual layout with a 4Lz and two 3As.) Because of the same knee pain he wasn’t going to do 4Lo either... And in his short program, with a downgraded layout by substituting 4Lo with 4S, he broke another record. Wow. The emotion I felt was just - joy tinged with disbelief.

I made a decision for some time already that I was not going to go to Moscow, because of the extra complication in trying to get the visa as well as the much higher cost of travel. But Rostelecom Cup - where both Yuzuru and Wakaba were competing - was The Competition that both of my absolute favourites were competing at, so I live-streamed as many as possible during school. Yuzuru’s first GP was always terrible compared to the rest of the season (even if it wasn’t Skate *Chanada*), but he scored the highest among previous seasons’ first GP personal scores! MOST IMPORTANTLY, HE LANDED THE QUAD LUTZ - HIS LEGS FOUGHT SO HARD TO SAVE THAT LANDING, AND IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL JUMP NEVERTHELESS.

Jody went to Cup of China and saw some skaters I would have LOVED to see - Wakaba (again, obviously), Mai, and pairs Sui/Han. Wakaba was PERFECT at the Cup of China - not that she wasn’t perfect at Lombardia - she settled into her new programs much more compared to 1.5 months before.

Then came NHK Trophy. Yuzuru injured his right ankle on an awkward fall from a 4Lz attempt. He tried so hard to compete but he wasn’t able to. So, no NHK Trophy for him, no Grand Prix Final for him. As a fan, I feel really sad that we wouldn’t be able to see his wonderful skating during this period, but MORE IMPORTANTLY, this is the Olympics season and injuries are NOT GOOD AT ALL.

With that disheartened mood, I went to GP France (its name keeps changing in recent years, so everyone kind of gave up on giving it a new acronym) in mid-November, only attending the free skates and exhibition (Saturday and Sunday). I met a fellow Wakaba fan (recent Twitter mutual), Verit, there. Unexpected podium placements in the Ladies led to the two of us agonising over Wakaba’s chances of getting into the Grand Prix Final. I loved Misha’s skating, even though he wasn’t the fastest skater, or a quad jumper. Papadakis/Cizeron was sublime too.

Then, Skate America, the last Grand Prix event before the Final, came. Ashley withdrew due to foot injury (it sounded like an injury easy to recover from, compared to ligament/whatever), and Polina was underscored, and Satoko skated her way to the top of the podium. With that, Wakaba’s in the Final. (Later, Evgenia, who is Wakaba’s best friend, withdrew due to an injury that left her in a cast, and Satoko was in the Final as well.)

At the Final, Wakaba performed… poorly, compared to the other Ladies. Her short program was fine, but her free skate faltered - she popped two triple jumps into doubles. And that’s how it is in the Ladies field now - you need to be perfect to be on the podium.

Then came a bit of rest, when there were no important competitions, before the Two Most Important National Championships That Are Almost Always Held During Christmas Weekends.

My Christmas was bad (I don’t really celebrate it but I treat it as an excuse for food and wine and partying and playing). First, Yuzuru did The Thing where he announced one week before that he just started skating and there was still a bit of pain - the knowledgeable fans could tell straight-away that it was a really long, drawn-out announcement that he would be withdrawing from the Japanese Nationals. Fine, so he officially announced his withdrawal the Monday/Tuesday of the week of the Nationals. His fans (including me) got worried about him not having a competition at all before Pyeongchang - even though there is Four Continents, the time (last week of January, basically 2-3 weeks before the actual competition dates at Pyeongchang) and place (Taiwan) of the competition was not ideal, compared to his current location of training (Toronto: far, and a very different timezone).

Wakaba skated in pain at Nationals - it turned out that she got injured shortly before her short program (but I don’t know how much before, whether the pain was there at GPF), and she ended up in 4th place. The JSF decided to send Satoko and Kaori to Pyeongchang instead, and Wakaba might have tweeted incredibly brave words about aiming for Beijing 2022, but she was crying after the exhibition on Monday.

I spent my Christmas crying, if you can’t tell already. Wakaba’s programs for this season ARE SUPERB, and they won’t be seeing the Olympics… (I’m going to cry again typing this.)

The JSF decided to send her to the World Championships in March though, where she would be fighting alongside Satoko to earn Japanese ladies 3 spots again to the next World Championships (which will be in Japan!). They would have to earn a combined placement of 13 or less, and I’m worried about burnout for Satoko and underscoring for Wakaba. I already got tickets to Milan to see the Ladies FS (as well as Men FS, and exhibition), so I’m glad JSF at least decided to send her to a competition I already decided to attend.

For the Russian Nationals, Evgenia withdrew - from what I hear on Twitter, she was so headstrong about competing at Nationals that the Federation had to send 3 men to persuade her to stay and recover and not to go. They are sending her to European Championships, which will be held in Moscow (so, good for her). The Russian team for Pyeongchang will be decided officially after Europeans. She hasn’t lost a competition in two years so her chances are good.

Yuzuru’s next competition will most likely be the team event in Pyeongchang, which will be 9th February for SP or 12th for FS (Korean time, which is a day ahead for the most of us). Hopefully he will be able to calibrate his training based on his performance in the team event, and perform satisfactorily in the actual Moment. I am hoping he will do the FS while Shoma the SP for team event. Wakaba’s next international competition will be in Milan late March, but I don’t know if she will be going to any regional competitions within Japan (likely not). Hopefully she will be able to recover quickly and prove herself to JSF.

For the new year, I am hoping for The Gold for Yuzuru. I celebrate the Lunar New Year (but it isn’t a work/school holiday in this part of the world), and I will be spending it on watching the Men’s individual competition in unholy hours of the day (damn the US for that time schedule even if the competition is in Korea).

Of course, I wish for the most important thing - good health for Yuzuru. If I’m allowed to be greedy, also: that he will choose to compete for at least another season, and land the quad Axel.