Freak: Amidst the Neon Lights WIP and playtest.... last update July 4th 2019

Hosted Games Works In Progress
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Who said Silic was dead? smirks wickedly

Fun chara info, that I really want to share.
Silic is short for a full name Rubin Silic which is also short for Rubicite Silicate, dumbed down for a fourth moniker Ruby Sand. Which describes the base of Silic’s power. Silic is a walking talking bio-mineral with the ability to harden or revert to dust and even shift shape as needed. Now tell me how hard would it be to kill something like that? :slight_smile:

For important characters I’ll have lil work ups of how their powers work. And believe me I’ve thought them through quite nicely.

And thanky you very much @MichaelMaxwell for the support.
The MC’s powers I’m going to leave subtle crumbs, but the general stuff will be obvious as the need to use them arises *winks*

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Ever heard of a that Active Denial System? AKA Heat ray? that microwave gun on top of military vehicles for crowd controls? well… they actually made something much more effective… as in… it’s able to heat up metal to it’s melting point in less than half a minute…

… so I was thinking… the MC was raised in a lab which had room that could imitate a natural environment… and the whole text has more of the word “holo” than a Xhosan greeting ritual… you MUST have that kind of technology already, right?

I mean, Death Lasers are kinda cliché, but… seriously do you have those here, right?

Anyways… incoming Typos… sigh… took a long time…

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No worries I’m running the whole thing through Word as we speak and then I’m going to read it over and smooth it down while its still small.

Its possible but you’ve got to hit the target first :stuck_out_tongue:

Yep its a sci-fi world, lotsa advancedness lurking in this bit. Well passed current tech.
Death lasers… hmmmmnot quite, why develop them when you’ve got living beings that can be made into weapons at a much cheaper price :slight_smile:

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seriously, what is with you and the word “Guard”?

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pssst see reply above,
I wrote the majority of the this in like ten hours on a single binge pass, though the planning was longer. Yeah its messy but I was very excited to share.

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:laughing: you write better than I do…

as in… you write fast.

I make less mistake… but takes more… and more… and more time…

(which is also why I have 1 on going novel… which started 5 years ago and never got to the ending…)

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I sacrifice control for speed lol I don’t often stop writing to correct myself it ruins my flow but I regret it later inching through the story going “OH MY GOD I MESSED UP ALOT!!” like right now.

EDIT: I ironically write faster than a I read so I get ahead of myself trying to get everything in my head down on paper ‘figuratively’ speaking.

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@LordOfLA We’ve got to do something about MichaelMaxwell. I hear he’s travelling to China…on a jet. Still have that rocket launcher I gave you?

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Man Snoe you are really ambitious two stories at once? Round of applause for Snoe everyone claps

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If I don’t alternate, ideas get stale. And thanks, its only worth it if they’re ‘good’. So far I haven’t heard anything bad other than my technical skills.

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Alrighty I hammered out the ‘obvious’ issues ei)things a word program can find.
My ‘shiny new ish Word’ program is handy but now I am reading through to fix the less obvious bits and refine the existing story and elaborate where needed.

Let me know if I missed anything. Shouldn’t take long before I can get through a few more segments and scenes.

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You mentioned this game idea on another thread about writing MCs with disabilities. I think a bit of research on ASL grammar, and some more attention to signed dialogue, would help mitigate the drawbacks brought up on that thread.

I don’t really know ASL, so I could be wrong about some of this, but I don’t think the signed dialogue quite feels like sign language. ASL is not English, so you are translating from one language to another. Some elements won’t translate.

Any deaf/mute/hoh/ASL-familiar folks, please feel free to correct anything that seems wrong. I get this info from the internet and a tiny amount of personal experience. Still, I would consider making these changes:

*“I don’t like that name”*

Change to: “I don’t like the name ‘First’”

This isn’t a literal gloss (I think that would be something like “I/me don’t-like name F-I-R-S-T”), but it probably comes a bit closer to what someone would actually say. (Also, I think the italics do enough to set off the dialogue. No need for asterisks.)

*“They’re listening today, use the whiteboard…I’m sorry Jamie, I know you don’t like it.”*

Change to: “Today they are listening. You must write on the whiteboard. Sorry, I know you don’t like it.”

Again, not a precise gloss. My guess on that would be something like, “today (points finger at door) listen you-me. You write (points to whiteboard). Sorry. I know you don’t-like (points to whiteboard).” It’s just as quick and easy to sign “write” as it is to sign “use,” and “write” is more precise.

You make the an exaggerate roll of your eyes with a flick of flippant gestures “Yes ma’am.” Followed with a mock salute and a quite breathy chuckle.

According to Lifeprint.com, there is no sign for “ma’am” or “sir.”

Change to: You roll your eyes and give Lydia a mock salute. She chuckles, and begins putting away your books.

(The playful nature of the sarcasm is implied by Lydia’s reaction. No need to describe incidental gestures.)

I’m not saying that you need to know ASL in order to write the MC’s dialogue, and I’m definitely not saying you should put your project on hold while you research ASL. I am suggesting that you spend some time reading about ASL, and that your editing process include tweaking the dialogue to better reflect ASL style.

Also, First is a horrible and mean-spirited choice for a name. Poor First.

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THANKYOU very much for your heads up,
Asterisks help me ‘note’ where the sign language is in the story so like in this case I can find and change if it doesn’t feel right. I only know basics like ‘hello good bye thank you love you good bad’ the rest is improvised but you make some really good points.

I’ll do some reading tonight. on ASL maybe dig up a translator.

I’ll do some modifications as I’m going through the story now and find appropriate ‘translations’

As always your scientific approach to ‘points of views’ is very enlightening. /hugs
https://www.harriscomm.com/catalog/images/N249.gif

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Sorry :frowning: it just felt appropriate for a lab

it was chosen by a scientist, for a ‘particular’ reason. And as a narrative choice it’s genderless and ‘impersonal’ so a scientist wouldn’t be so bothered by doing experiments on something with such a moniker. Its also why the scientist with a heart uses First’s real name.

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I feel like it would’ve sounded better if we were called something like ‘subject one’ which could be shortened down to ‘sone’ (pronounced son, or pronounced swan because the ‘s’ from subject and ‘one’ would sort of sound like ‘swan’)

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I dunno. Something tells me an administrator wouldn’t want their staff calling the test subject “Son.” It might engender unconscious feelings of attachment.

You know who has a worse name than First, though? Third. I feel bad for Third. Poor Third.

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Which is why I also suggested ‘swan’, because isn’t our characters hair white (if I read correctly)

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Its only a temporary moniker used my your slave masters anyway, so no worries mate! :stuck_out_tongue:

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We do, he repeated reports you and I made and failed to read Snoe’s posts making his post redundant. Rocket launcher ready!

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Hmm, I think we can go the Star Trek route here and just hand wave it to English, the vast majority of people don’t do sign language, plus there is substantial variation among the various forms of sign language around the world.

This is a game, not a lesson on sign language. So long as it is highlighted to be an indicator of sign language, those that know sign language to any extent can head-translate to what they think it should be. Much like I have to head-translate the many broken English WIP’s to actual English because I don’t wish to invest the time re-writing another persons work.

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