iPlayer keeps telling me I'm not in the UK. It has to be VPN related. I connect to a UK server, "not in the UK." I disconnect. "not in the UK." I log out. "not in the UK."
It can't be turned off, it keeps causing issues on multiple sites that don't deal well with VPNs, yet nothing I do seems to stop it from interfering.
Rewatching the series, I've started to notice just how insane of a fighter Sokka actually is.
No, I don't just mean that he's smart, comes up with great plans and is crazy creative. Yes he is these things, but I'm not referring to that. I mean Sokka is legitimately extremely good at combat.
His accuracy with the boomerang is crazy, and the way he took out Combustion Man was some next level stuff. He frequently bodies multiple Fire Nation soldiers, I just watched Avatar Day and Sokka casually throws his bubble dragon pipe with such accuracy to stick on the end of a flaming arrow that's about to be fired at him.
Sokka's problem isn't that he's weak. It's that he's constantly surrounded by the most powerful and capable fighters in his universe. Yes, he still loses to other non benders like Ty Lee, but you see people like her taking on multiple trained soldiers. Sokka was deflecting throwing knives from Mai while sleep deprived, he's no slouch.
Any time he goes up against henchmen, he generally does pretty well. He just struggles with most significant characters. But by the end of the series I would argue he might at least be able to take on Mai.
New who Writers: Capaldi chose Caecilius' fave as a reminder. Gwyneth is Gwen's Ancestor. Martha is Adeola's cousin.
New Who Fans: Grrr, they never explain all these reused actors in the canon.
Classic Who Writers: Two Princesses look like two versions of Romana, a random Abbot, a random dictator and a separate Time Lord all possess the Doctor's face. Nyssa looks like a random British girl. Barbara looks like this random space woman. The Brigadier looks like this one soldier from the future. Mavic Chen looks like this one guy in league with the Cybermen. We will never explain 90% of these and sometimes the Doctor won't even question it.
Classic Who fans: Awesome!
So, I got my first two chapters done.
The story revolves around my protagonist, an Eight-Year-Old girl, joining a monster hunting guild to escape poverty. This starts her down a brutal path of training and bloodshed that over the next ten years turn her from a kind, naive, innocent little girl, to a cold, untrusting, violent woman.
At the start of the story she, her Mother and Baby Brother are all starving. Her Mother is a single mother and a prostitute who's having to work long hours just to keep up with the taxes, and they aren't doing well at all.
The thing that finally pushes my protagonist to act against her Mother's wishes and join the guild is her baby brother falls sick. It's a terminal illness that will cost a lot, and her brother will need to take it for his entire life just to stay alive. The Doctor recommends signing the protagonist up for the guild. Her Mother refuses believing she will die, because most monster hunters do, causing the protagonist to act.
My question is, should I be aging this baby up to be an actual character?
Thing is, I love the striking opening paragraphs. A mere eight year old girl, panicking, doing her best to take care of a baby at an age when she shouldn't be, her parents nowhere to be seen.
I think it really hooks you in, and aging up the baby to be someone the girl can communicate with easily does lose a bit of that impact.
At the same time, is the reader going to care about some baby? It feels a bit cheap.
I do try to go into the girl's thought process. How excited she was to be a big sister and how much she's bonded with the infant in the months she's had to take care of him.
But the baby himself is obviously not a character.
At least not yet. As I said, this story takes place over ten years. There is absolutely time to age the baby up. He will be a character. It's just at the start, he is just a plot device.
But also, the baby really isn't something the audience needs to care about.
The moment she enters the guild, the protagonist is bound to it, and it's much more grim than she ever imagined. We see a girl, a mere child, kind and compassionate enough to enter into hell for her baby brother, and what I expect the audience to root for is for her to simply stay alive.
The baby really is just her save the cat moment.
Christians seem to think this argument is a real gotcha moment. That they're offering me hope with their afterlife, because my own must terrify me. But it doesn't.
The idea of eternal nothingness is terrifying to christians. They can't imagine someone taking comfort in that.
The problem is, they think about it from the perspective of a person who still exists. Who thinks and feels. To them, they think experience must always continue, and therefore eternal nothingness is a horrific end.
I, on the other hand, love the idea.
Sure, there's no joy, no happiness, no peace. You don't get any of that. But vice versa. No more fighting. No more pain. It just ends. And that's it.
You're not around to think about the fact you don't exist anymore or feel any way about it. So there's really nothing to fear.
Eternal life sounds like a nightmare no matter what form it takes.
Has anyone ever explained what we're actually supposed to do in heaven?
Continued life with no pain, suffering or struggle sounds so boring and its inescapable. Life requires struggle. It's what allows for catharsis. You can't just take that away and expect me to keep living without it.
At least in my version when the pain stops,,so does consciousness and existence.
In there's, there's literally no goal. Nothing to strive for. You just stop.
The only form of eternal life I think I'd want is reincarnation. No memories of your former life, so you don't know any better. I could've lived a million lives before now, but ignorance is bliss. As long as I don't have to be aware if my immortality, I think I could accept that.
Because she wants to
So, I came across a post on here about removing a wifi card from a laptop to create a laptop that had no internet functionality.
Bought a cheap one for £150 because it was much cheaper than any decent digital typewriters I was coming across, and I prefer a word processor anyway. I like being able to look back when I work.
Initially I tried something that was a problem for my usual laptop initially. I uninstalled the wifi adapter. When I first bought the old laptop I had wifi issues and ended up uninstalling the wifi adapter and eventually needed to resort to buying an ethernet cable to install the correct one. So I figured it'd work on this laptop too.
Nope, it automatically reinstalls it every time.
So, I go back to Plan A of remove the wifi card.
Apparently I should've done further research because the card itself is soldered to the motherboard and can't be removed. I cut off the antennas, which very nearly does the job. But it still works if I'm close enough to the router.
Since I'm in a house share with a router I can't move or switch off without annoying everyone, my bedroom being close enough to the router to connect is a problem.
I've spent the last hour googling ways to stop the adapter reinstalling and it's just not possible. There are ways to disable it sure, ways that are so easy that I'm easily going to remember how to turn it back on.
The whole point of this is to take internet off the table completely while still having access to a word processor, but I can't even do that!
Since I'm very much doing a novel with power creep, I need to figure out the mechanics of how someone would actually control magic and get good at it.
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Now, magic in my story isn't something you're born with, but something you drink to obtain power, then use up a finite energy source.
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When you have taken a vial, in the case of elemental magic, your body is bursting with energy that has a mind of its own and is trying to escape and leak away.
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This energy reacts to your mind, and it requires constant attention to keep the energy contained in one place. Beginners are advised to focus on their breathing with emphasis on inhaling as it draws your attention to the action of sucking into your chest, which helps to mentally visualize holding the energy there. Meditation and mindfulness are also considered helpful.
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It's like driving a car down a road. You can't just hold it straight and hit the gas. You need to adjust the wheel and keep an eye on it. Since cars don't exist, I'm not sure how I'll describe it in the story, but for now, that's the placeholder metaphor.
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As the energy reacts to your mind, any wandering or distraction and the energy might slip away. It also reacts badly to extreme emotion, especially anger, sorrow, or fear.
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As you can guess, this means magic in combat is often messy, inaccurate and sloppy, with a lot of wasted energy escaping, so people are often out of power much quicker than they would be in training.
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I'll choose Pyrokinesis as an example for the next bit.
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Once you've learned to keep the energy controlled, you move on to learning to direct it.
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In theory, you can create and manipulate the fire any way you choose provided you don't run out of power, but you generally need to have a pretty vivid and certain image of what you want it to do, and as such its hard to do much without a real world reference. Like a face, it's easier to visualize the face of someone you know than to make one up.
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Fireballs are simple enough, but anything more complex, unless you have an exceptionally vivid imagination, requires a visual reference. Perhaps you visualize water spraying out under pressure to create a powerful stream of fire like a hose. Having the memory of how it acts makes it clear in your mind.
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To make their moves more by reflex, magic users often come up with body movements that they learn to associate with what they want the fire to do. This allows for a more subconscious control linked with muscle memory so they can concentrate more on their surroundings and less on their magic.
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Most do what feels natural because it helps visualize it better. This is most commonly a punch to deliver a fireball, with the power of the punch dictating its speed. Or they may tense their arm as if they are feeling pressure, then open their hand to release it, unleashing a stream of flame.
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They may repeatedly open their fingers to stoke a flame or clench their fist to smother it.
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Granted this kind of rips off the Last Airbender. I can't think of anything more original. There are more powers in this universe than just elementals, though, like super strength, possession, etcetera, but the rules surrounding those are relatively simple.
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What makes it different is that you don't actually need the movements. Which I guess is ripping off the force. But, master magic users will often forego movements or even do movements that might mislead an opponent, which makes them a nightmare to fight. The purpose of the movements is that it's hard to create such a vivid image in your mind out of reflex, but a movement is easy.
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As I mentioned before, in theory, you can make the fire move however you choose, but it's easier to visualize something you have a reference for. Here's a little experiment, close your eyes, imagine a wheel spinning, then make it stop. I think that's actually a symptom of ADHD if it keeps spinning, but I think it works for it to be just the norm in my universe.
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The consequence is that most people can only manipulate fire in a way that looks natural and flowing, like it doesn't move in a way that defies laws like inertia or momentum. This makes it somewhat easy for your opponent to see what's coming. For an amateur, you fling a fireball at a target, and its course is set once it leaves your fingertips. Why wouldn't it? It's hard to visualize a fast object coming to a sudden stop or a drastic change in direction. Try and catch someone in a jet of fire but there's a hostage in the way, most people won't be able to bend the fire around that person to get at the man behind them without harming the hostage. But a master can do these things.
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This makes a Master even scarier because while others may see a fireball miss them and think they are safe, a Master will simply call it back or suddenly change its trajectory, all without moving a muscle.
Basic Concept
In this world, humans have all but gone extinct. The world is filled with monsters and the last stronghold of humanity holds out against them.
Humanity's one trump card for fending off monsters are Hunters, a minority within their population that are able to absorb the essence of a monster, essentially granting them some of the monsters abilities for a short time.
Limitations
A hunter cannot absorb a monster's essence in entirety, that would almost certainly be fatal. This is because a monster's full essence would alter a human's biology in a way that would usually kill them.
This means there are certain abilities humans can also not possess. For example, the basilisk ability to kill all who meets it's eye. Attempts to refine this aspect of the basilisk always fails.
It must first be refined, usually resulting in a few aspects of the monster's abilities that are compatible with hunters. For example. A dragon's essence could be boiled down to fire creation, extreme temperature resistance and enhanced strength.
The need for refinement prevents hunters from simply taking the spoils from their monsters and allows the elite to control them because only they know how to refine the essence of a monster.
Additionally, hunters cannot absorb the essence of more than one monster at a time. It's too much. This means there's a cool down period where Hunters must wait until the essence is out of their system. This includes using essence from the same monster. It's generally safe to take more essence after 24 hours. There's a grey area after 12 hours but it's risky.
This is a problem because the power you can use from essence is limited. An untrained Hunter could well take a drink of Dragon essence and blow it all in one monster fire blast. Hunter's are generally taught to use their power in efficient ways as a result, and to fight smart rather than letting off great displays of power.
They are taught to be aware of how much power they have and how much an action will take.
Necromancy
Trophy casting consists of using the monster's corpse as a weapon. While you are using that monster's essence, you can essentially control the monster as though it were alive. It's unusual to do this however, because especially for bigger monsters it can take a lot of power.
A more common practice is to carry around a piece of bone and use it like a talisman. Sometimes doing that can counter certain drawbacks by not using the ability from your own body.
Soul Casting
A soul caster is a special kind of weapon, and a loophole that allows a hunter to have a second magical power, though it's exceptionally difficult to obtain a soul caster.
First it requires you to kill a ghost or demon to acquire the possession ability. These are difficult monsters to find, let alone kill, and refining it is also pretty difficult, often resulting in a spoiled batch.
Second it requires a human sacrifice, because a hunter would need to voluntarily choose to possess an inanimate object. This is always fatal. But it allows the weapon to absorb essence as a human would, circumventing the problem of only being able to use one ability at a time as the weapon responds to it's wielders command, well sort of.
That brings me to the third condition. The soul caster must contain a soul who had a significant bond with the wielder. For strangers there's not enough of a connection for the soul to respond to their will. For enemies, the weapon can even be dangerous.
A soul caster is a funny thing. If it was forged via coercion then the soul would almost certainly be in turmoil, and therefore the weapon would not work properly. It must be done out of genuine willingness and self sacrifice.
Once forged, the soul caster can't respond to threats or be reasoned with, it can only see the the relationship it had with the person. Anything else is irrelevant. So holding a wielder hostage and taking his soul caster will not make it work for you, even if you threaten to kill them. All it sees is the bond it had with you in life.
A soul caster is still bound by most of the same rules as a human, it cannot hold more than two abilities at a time, attempting to do so would destroy the weapon. However, unlike a human there is no need to wait for it to be out of your system. Once the power is gone you can simply use another vial of essence.
Reversing Soul Casting
Some have tried to reverse the soul casting process, in other words, changing the weapon back into a human, with the Unicorn's healing ability or the Jinn's shapeshifting ability. Attempts to do so always fail and often result in the cursed human variant of monster, such as Vampires and Wendigos. These creatures have nothing in common with the human they were created from.
Monsters and Abilities
Here's what I've got so far ranked by how widespread usage of this ability is. Could use some more ideas tbh.
Monster: Golem
Prevalence: 5/5 Common
Difficulty: 1/6 Very easy
Abilities granted: Super Strength and Durability
Monster: Phoenix
Prevalence: 4/5 Uncommon
Difficulty: 2/6 Easy (Not hostile but still hunted for low danger power gains)
Abilities granted: Fire creation, Fire manipulation (Note the drawback, no heat resistance)
Monster: Yeti
Prevalence: 5/5 Common
Difficulty: 3/6 Moderate
Abilities granted: Cryokinesis (Absorb heat to make it cold), Cold resistance, Super strength and durability
Monster: Vampire
Prevalence: 3/5 Rare
Difficulty: 3/6 Moderate
Abilities granted: Super strength, super speed, enhanced reflexed, enhanced senses,
Monster: Raiju
Prevalence: 4/5 Uncommon
Difficulty: 4/6 Hard
Abilities granted: Electrokinesis, enhanced senses
Monster: Mermaid
Prevalence: 4/5 Uncommon
Difficulty: 2/6 Easy
Abilities granted: Fish tail and gills
Monster: Unicorn
Prevalence: 2/5 Very Rare
Difficulty: 2/6 Easy
Abilities granted: Healing factor (Must have at least a few seconds to work to prevent death)
Monster: Dragon
Prevalence: 3/5 Rare
Difficulty: 5/6 Very Hard
Abilities granted: Fire creation, temperature resistance, super strength, scales (super durable can shrug off swords and arrow strikes, still vulnerable to blunt force trauma) (Note: No fire manipulation, just creation)
Monster: Ghost
Prevalence: 2/5 Very Rare
Difficulty: 5/6 Very Hard
Abilities granted: Possession OR Intangibility
Monster: Thunderbird (Uncommon)
Prevalence: 3/5 Rare
Difficulty: 5/6 Very Hard
Abilities granted: Electrokinesis, Flight, Super speed, enhanced reflexes
Monster: Telchines
Prevalence: 2/5 Very Rare
Difficulty: 5/6 Very Hard
Abilities granted: Hydrokinesis (Control water in all its states) OR Weather Manipulation
Monster: Wendigo
Prevalence: 2/6 Very Rare
Difficulty: 5/6 Very Hard
Abilities granted: Cryokinesis, Weather manipulation, Super strength, Super speed, Super senses, Super durability
Monster: Jinn
Prevalence: 2/5 Very Rare
Difficulty: 6/6 Avoid at all costs
Abilities granted: Shape shifting, invisibility, super speed, super reflexes, intangibility and weather manipulation.
Monster: Warlock/Witch - Subset of Human
Prevalence: 1/5 Severely endangered (Only a handful remaining)
Difficulty: 6/6 Avoid at all costs. No really. I'm serious on this one.
Abilities granted: Spacial Manipulation, (This is unusually compatible with all humans not just hunters)
The problem with rare powers
Magic takes training to master. Hunting down a Warlock may sound epic, but you'll have to hunt several before you're proficient with their abilities, and even if you were capable enough and lucky enough to kill that many and the elites don't take the essence for themselves, there aren't enough left to really gain that kind of experience.
In some cases, like with the Jinn, you can practise because other monsters use the same abilities, like ghosts, thunderbirds and Telchines. But for Warlocks, there's nothing.
Generally the rarest power a hunter has mastered would be Possession or Intangibility, and even then only a handful.
Direct Monster Exploitation
There are other ways monsters are used beyond the use of their essence.
Dragon bones are nigh indestructible and are often forged into blades and weapons. Dragon scale armour is also considered the best.
Sometimes a hunter might capture a monster in order to use abilities that humans cannot.
Mermaids are often captured as in my world they also have the power of sirens, and they are often used for crowd control by authorities.
The body of an Yeti often absorbs heat from it's surroundings for a long time after death, making them useful in making a primitive refrigerator to preserve food.
This post long enough as it is so I won't list everything here, but you get the concept.