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shipmistress9 · 4 years

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FTLOAP: Chapter 48: Reminds Me Again It's Worth It All

For The Love Of A Princess Masterpost

Alpha/Co-author: @athingofvikings

Taglist: @drchee5e @hey-its-laura-again @thepixiedustfactory (If you want me to add you to this list, just say so. ^^)

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AN: How... how is it already almost three months later again? Time is a lie! xD But I won't apologise. Life is just absolutely crazy right now, and not just because of this virus. But I'm not abandoning this story, don't worry! :)

And I don't want to ramble here too much, but... I was worried how you all would take it that I implemented the canon events as legends. And I'm very happy and relieved to see that you guys generally seem to approve. ^^

This week's title comes, again, from Memories by Within Temptation. I've picked this title before I wrote the chapter and I have to admit that it fitted better to the original vision I had of this chapter than to the end result. But it still works and it's not that important anyway, right? ;P

. o O o .

“Do you think you can do it? Can you kill a dragon?”

Grimacing, Hiccup averted his face at that question. Killing a dragon… There once had been a time where this prospect had troubled him. It had been something he had to do, but not what he’d wanted to do.

But now, things were different. He'd already lost so much to a dragon’s attack once, and now could gain so much more if he did it… It wasn’t a question about whether he could do it anymore.

But… would he be able to do it?

“I get that it’s a lot to think about,” Eret said when he didn’t reply immediately. “Especially after what you just told us and in such a short time. The thing is just… You legally winning that title for yourself would be the easiest and cleanest solution. But we can prepare you as much as we want; if it’s more likely that you’re getting killed, it’s not worth it. Then we have to come up with something else. I’m sure there’s something we can do. There has to be.”

Hiccup pressed his lips together and lowered his head. Astrid was still sitting right next to him, her hand in his. So close. It could be so easy. All he had to do to be with her was kill a dragon. But after all his failures, he wasn't likely to be too optimistic.

“I don’t know,” he eventually said in a low voice. “I became a better fighter over the last years, I had to, and… and I have the best motivation imaginable.” Chuckling weakly, he lifted his hand to breathe a soft kiss onto Astrid’s knuckled. It made her smile, tentatively. “But I don’t know if I can do it. It would be difficult, nearly impossible . During raids and other occasions, we use special tools and weapons against dragons that make it easier to capture and kill them. If I had some of those, I think I could do it. But without them?” Gulping, he shook his head. “I’d need a lot of luck, and, well… given the past few years, luck is not something I would want to count on.”

Next to him, Astrid flinched. The fingers of her free hand painfully dug into his arm; she clearly didn’t like his answer. But as much as he wanted to give her another one – lying just to comfort her wasn’t an option.

“But you can build these weapons,” Eret objected. “I know you can, I’ve seen you work in Berk’s forge and you even managed to fix the music box. Just tell us what you need, and we get if for you.”

Hiccup’s gaze shifted back to Eret. He was grateful for his enthusiasm and optimism, that he wouldn’t give up. But in this case, just thinking positively wouldn't help much. With a tired sigh, he shook his head. “You’re right, I could build what I need. But not within only a couple of days. I’d need special moulds to forge the pieces, special tools I don’t have… It would take me weeks to build all that from scratch.”

“Can’t you get some of those things here?” Dagur threw in. “I mean, the markets here might not be as big as Southshore’s… but this is the capital. There’s a lot you can buy here.”

Hiccup grimaced, his free hand tightening into a fist. He gazed down at Astrid, tightly clinging to his arm and her face hidden against his side. He couldn’t give up now. Eret was right, winning that hunt would be the cleanest solution. And for Astrid, he was willing to try and risk everything. Whatever it would take.

With a heavy sigh, he turned back toward the others. “Maybe you’re right and we can find at least some things. So far, I haven’t seen anything of that sort though, and finding the tools I need, let alone the functioning weapons, might take just as long as trying to build them. But yeah, it’s at least a possibility.”

“All right, what should we look for?” Tuff asked.

He shared a look with his sister who added, “Tuff and I know the city pretty well. And we know some people… If the things you need exist somewhere in Volantis, then we’re your best option to find them.”

Frowning, Hiccup took a moment to think. “The most important thing,” he eventually replied, slowly, “would be a bola shooter. The best way – the only reasonable way, really – to fight any dragon is to first incapacitate their wings, if possible their legs too. If they can’t fly or move much at all, they’re relatively easy prey.”

“A…. what shooter?” The question came from Tuff, but except for Eret who’d seen a bola shooter in action before, everyone looked equally confused.

“A bola shooter.” He released Astrid’s hand to use both arms for his explanation. “A bola is a weapon made for hunting. It’s made of three – or more – strings of rope, all tied together at a centre point and each with some form of weight at the end, usually a rock of this size,” he held up his fist, “or bigger, depending on what kind of prey you’re after. If you fling it the right way, it wraps around the beast’s body, preferably around its legs or wings and renders it immobile.”

“Makes sense,” Dagur agreed, nodding. “But I don’t see your problem. Making such a bola doesn’t sound that complicated.”

Hiccup nodded. “It’s not. But using a bola just on its own, that’s not advisable if you’re out to hunt a dragon. Flinging a bola over your head is not exactly stealthy. If you’re in a raid where there’s chaos already, it doesn’t matter much. But if you try to sneak up on a dragon and want to capture it before it attacks or simply flies off? Not a good idea. So what I need is a shooter. It’s a device to launch such bolas without the eye-catching gaining of momentum.” His gaze wandered to Astrid’s servants. “What you would be looking for is–”

“Wait a moment,” Eret interrupted him. He got up from his chair and walked over to a desk, then returned with a sheet of paper and a pencil. “It’s not as if I have much need for letter paper anyway.”

Gratefully, Hiccup took the paper and pencil, and leaning over the low table in front of him, he made a quick sketch of what he needed.

“It’s a wooden or metallic tube,” he explained. “Wide enough for weights as such rocks and with a mechanism to launch them attached to it at one end.” He handed the sketch over to Astrid’s warder.

The man narrowed his eyes as he looked at the sketch then showed it to his sister next to him. She too narrowed her eyes, then the twins shared a knowing look and a nod.

“What?” Dagur asked, a little annoyed. “Have you seen anything like that before?”

“Maybe,” Ruff replied slowly. She inspected the sketch for a moment longer, then shared another strange nod with her brother before she left the room without another word.

Everyone gazed after her, perplexed, then threw Tuff a questioning look.

But Tuff’s answer wasn’t very enlightening. “She needs to check something,” he simply said.

Dagur snorted. “Don’t bother trying to make sense of their twintuition. It’s pointless.”

“I can hear you, you know?” Tuff muttered.

“So what?,” Dagur cackled. “Nothing I wouldn’t say to your face.”

Rolling his eyes at their bickering, Eret cleared his throat to draw Hiccup’s attention again. “Who knows how long Ruff will be gone. So let’s use the time to talk options. I agree, flinging a bola isn’t stealthy, but it would still be possible, wouldn’t it? Or how about a weighted net? I’ve seen you use those sometimes, too.”

With his lips pressed into a thin line, Hiccup nodded. “Possible, yes, but not advisable. A shooter would give me another advantage over simply flinging a bola or net myself. I wouldn’t need to get as close to the beast since a shooter can hurl them farther than I can throw them, and they could be bigger too as it can handle higher weights. And with a net, I’d need to be in a higher position to throw it on top of them. It can be done, obviously, but, yeah… It would require a lot of luck.”

Eret frowned but didn’t object and didn’t come up with some other option, either. Grateful for the break, Hiccup leaned against the cushioned backrest, relaxing a little when Astrid cuddled to his side without hesitation. She’d been surprisingly quiet throughout the whole conversation, and now he noticed just how tense she was; her shoulders, her expression, even her hands clenched into fists around his tunic. As if she was subconsciously holding on to something invisible.

It was strange in a way. But just like he'd drawn from her strength earlier when the memories of his dead family had threatened to overwhelm him, it now seemed as if she was relying on his strength in return. Even though he had no idea why she needed it.

He let his hand run up and down her back, slowly, comfortingly, and after a minute or two, she relaxed at least a little bit.

It didn't take long until Ruff returned. In her arms, she carried a large basket full of laundry which earned her confused looks from everyone waiting.

"You came to bring fresh clothes?" Dagur asked, a little incredulously. "Do you expect anyone to rip theirs off?" He threw an insinuating grin at Astrid and Hiccup, but nobody was really in the mood for joking.

"Haha, funny," Ruff deadpanned. She placed the basket on the ground and rummaged about for a few seconds until she found what she was looking for. With a satisfied grin, she glanced from one to the other. "No, the laundry was just for cover; I didn't want people to get suspicious if they saw me with this." She pulled an object out that had been hidden by layers of cloth, a smug smile on her face as she looked at Hiccup. "Is this what you were talking about? A bola shooter?"

Hiccup could only gape. Disbelievingly, he reached for the device when Ruff held it out to him, his fingers reverently gliding over the sturdy metal tube. It was dusty, the mechanism getting stuck when he tried to wind it up, but it was undeniably a bola shooter. It even was the same model they used on Berk, the size and length of the tube distinct. And the mechanism! It was just like–

Hiccup sucked in a sharp breath and turned the device around until his eyes found what he’d been looking for, a sign that was etched into the metal at the underside of the tube. A horizontal line crossed by three vertical ones. Or, the way he read it, ‘H H’.

"Where did you get this?" he asked, his eyes on the twins.

This couldn't be… It made no sense! How?

"What's wrong, Hiccup?" Eret asked, frowning, a note of worry in his voice.

Mutely and without looking, Hiccup handed the shooter over to his cousin. His eyes were still on Ruff, still waiting for her answer.

Ruff exchanged a frown with her brother, and they both shrugged. “It’s Astrid’s,” she replied.

Stunned, Hiccup turned toward Astrid, but she looked just as surprised as he was. “Excuse me?”

“It’s true,” Tuff said with another shrug. “It was in one of your birthday chests from three or four years ago.”

Still confused, Hiccup cocked his head. “Birthday chests?” he asked for clarification when even Dagur just nodded in understanding.

“Usually, there aren’t as many people here for my birthday as there were this year,” Astrid explained in a low voice. She sounded distracted, as if her mind was somewhere else entirely. “But since ignoring the Princess Royal’s birthday could be considered an insult, practically every noble family sends a gift every year. Nothing extravagant in most cases, just a sign that they remembered. Often, it’s some local speciality, food, clothes, or craftsmanship. I… some pieces I kept, and the food always gets eaten, of course, but the rest gets stored away, and…” She trailed off, shrugging.

“Exactly!” Tuff nodded. “There’s an entire room just filled with shelves and boxes full of stuff – for every member of the royal family. And there’s some weird stuff in there, that I can tell you.” He snickered.

Somewhere in the depth of Hiccup’s mind, a memory was rising, but he couldn’t grasp it yet.

“Very true!” Ruff said with a smirk. “Some of these things are great for pranks; it’s just a hassle to sort through them sometimes. Anyway, there are a few chests that are different… bigger. Sometimes, higher noble families don’t just send one gift but an entire chest full of various gifts. There is one in particular that contains a number of strange things I’ve never seen anywhere else. Clothes in an unfamiliar style, wooden carvings, instruments… and this weird fellow.” She pointed at the bola shooter in Eret’s hand. “We never knew what to make of it, but when you sketched your shooter just now…” She broke off, looking over at Eret as he grunted in surprise.

"Is… is that one of yours?" he asked, baffled.

Next to him, Astrid shuffled to sit up straighter. “Yeah, apparently it is. Even though I can’t–”

“He means me,” Hiccup interrupted her gently. He held his hand out for Eret to give him the shooter back, then turned it around to show her the symbol etched into the metal. “See this? That… well, you can call it my signature, I guess. I used to mark everything I made with this sign. H H. Hiccup of House Haddock.”

He shrugged, a little embarrassed. Putting that signature on his works had been an act of pride and rebellion, he knew that all too well. So many people had called him useless for not being a good fighter and not going after the dragons as he was supposed to. And yet, they’d been happy enough to use his weapons and devices.

Astrid traced the symbol with her fingers, her touch careful. “So… you made this?” she asked, visibly puzzled “But… how did it end up in that chest?”

Hiccup’s memories were all falling into place then. “I haven’t thought of this in a long time, didn’t even remember until just now,” he said slowly. “It was on the day the council had decided that I would have to prove myself in the arena, and I was… well, I was terrified, to be honest. Torn on whether I even wanted to kill a dragon and scared by having to do so in the arena, without support or the usual methods. I had just finished working on this shooter, but more felt like throwing it out of the window and into the ocean. What was the point of crafting all these weapons if I wasn’t allowed to use them? I think I was pretty lost, wallowing, and didn't pay much attention to my mother when she came into my workshop."

He had to pause and swallow at that memory. What would he give if he could go back to that moment, for the chance to talk to her again? To ask for her advice, or just to listen to what was on her mind. If only he hadn't wasted so much time only focused on his own problems...

"She tried to cheer me up and encourage me, said that she had faith in me. But I didn't want to hear that and in the end, it wasn't why she'd come looking for me anyway. She was about to send a chest of gifts to her friend, for her daughter's birthday, and wanted me to contribute something, too." His lips twitched into a rueful smile. "I remember how annoyed I was. What did the birthday of some stranger matter to me? I had more important things on my mind, like not losing my honour in front of the entire tribe, for example. Or my life. So I just gave her the shooter I'd just finished, unreasonably angry at the device itself for me not being allowed to use it in my fight against the dragon."

With slightly shaking hands, Astrid reached for the shooter to inspect it a little more closely. "Is it still working, though?" There was an odd tone in her voice, so quiet and almost trembling, something he couldn’t quite place. “I mean, it’s been lying around in that chest for three years now. Are you sure it’s not rusty? What if the mechanism jams when you need it?”

Hiccup took a moment to think, then nodded. “Yeah, it should still work. Maybe not right now, but it shouldn’t be a problem to get it to work on time. I just need to disassemble it, clean all parts, and put them back together.” He paused, trying to think it through. All parts were there, working and in his usual high quality. They shouldn’t have suffered much over time, and even if one or two parts were broken, it shouldn’t be that hard to replace only those.

He sucked in a deep breath, a confidant grin on his face. “So, going back to your question,” he said, looking at Eret. “Yes, with this baby here, I think I can do it. I can kill a dragon!”

. o O o .

Hiccup was itching to get started. Three days weren’t much time to prepare for the task that lay ahead of him, and he didn’t want to waste even one second. But no matter how eager he was to disappear into the royal armoury and work on the shooter, he grudgingly had to yield to Eret’s logic.

“You can’t go and spend all day locked up, working on some secret project. If you do, people will get suspicious, and we can’t have anyone pay overly attention to what either of us is doing.”

So he spent most of the day assisting Eret and Dagur during their training – which probably wasn’t that much of a waste of time, either. It was a little tricky as on the one hand, it couldn’t become obvious that Hiccup was training some techniques for real, while on the other hand, Eret and Dagur couldn’t put too much obvious effort into it. But all he could do was hope that the ruse worked.

Astrid was watching them from afar, but something was strange about her. Hiccup was ecstatic, even as his leg was acting up a little from the unusual workout. For the first time since Astrid’s birthday, he felt true confidence, for their future but also for himself. The plan Eret had come up with was good. It wouldn’t be easy by any means, but it could work. And even more importantly, it was something he could do.

But Hiccup noticed that Astrid wasn’t nearly in as good a mood as he was, even from a distance. She looked tense and anxious, even more so than this morning, almost constantly biting her lip. He wished he could go and talk to her, could ask her what was bothering her. But there were too many people around on the fighting ground; all conversations would have to wait until the night.

And until then, he had to use every bit of time he had. He didn’t join Eret and Dagur for their lunch break and instead spent the time at the armoury. And even though he only had about an hour, he made good progress with the shooter. It was years now since he last worked on a device like this, but it still felt natural, easy as breathing.

After a first inspection, he was relieved to see that nearly all pieces were still in working order. One rod was warped and needed to be pounded back into shape with some work on an anvil. Another was broken and he would need to replace it, same as a bolt or three. But all that was manageable, no reason to worry. If he used his free hours in the evening and on the next day without wasting time, then he should be done by tomorrow night, the morning after at the latest.

The good mood carried him through the day, even though it was a long and exhausting one. After his simple dinner in the servants’ kitchen, it was time to sneak into Astrid’s rooms again, and if it hadn’t been for this happy prospect, he would have just gone to bed directly. His leg hurt more with every step he made through the narrow tunnels as he followed Tuff, and it was only the thought of Astrid that kept him going. Of holding her, but also of the anxiety he’d noticed in her.

And when he entered her bedroom and Ruff closed the door behind him, it quickly became apparent that her mood hadn’t improved all day. She was still as tense as she’d been before if not more, sitting on the edge of her bed with her hands nervously fiddling with her nightgown.

"Hey," she greeted him. There was a smile on her lips but it felt off. It didn’t reach her eyes, even though the warmth and love in them were real.

"Hey," he replied. With a sigh, he sat down next to her, relieved when his weight was off his leg. Whatever it was that was bothering her, they surely could talk about it sitting, right? "Is everything okay?"

But Astrid didn't react. Instead, she frowned, her eyes not meeting his. "Your leg hurts."

It wasn't a question, but Hiccup nodded nonetheless. "A little, yes. With all the training today, that was to be expected. I should probably take it a little easier tomorrow,“ he added lightly.

She nodded, still not looking at him. Instead, her frown deepened and she chewed on her lower lip, thinking. "Do you want me to massage it?" she eventually offered.

Hiccup knew that he should decline. The pain wasn't that bad, nothing a good night's rest wouldn't heal, and letting her hands roam his skin wasn't necessarily advisable anyway. All too well, he remembered how that usually affected him.

But something was keeping him from turning her down. There was something in the way she avoided his gaze, how her hands trembled, that told him that, for some reason, Astrid needed this. He wasn't sure whether it was about having something to do in general or whether she craved contact just as much as he did, but it was there. And he didn't have it in him to deny her. Besides, a massage would definitely help, and coming from her would make it all the sweeter.

"Yeah, that would be great."

On her indication, he made himself comfortable in the middle of her bed, with his back resting against the headrest and the leg of his trousers rolled up as far as possible. Claiming that he didn't enjoy how her hands glided over his skin and worked the tissue and muscles beneath would have been a lie. It felt wonderful, both the relief it brought to his aching leg and the sensations her touch elicited in the rest of his body alike.

But as much as he enjoyed the massage, he also was aware of how anxious Astrid still was, of the wrinkles in her forehead, the tension around her mouth, and how her hands were trembling. She clearly was not okay. But since she’d evaded his question before, all he could do was wait for her to be ready to tell him what was bothering her.

"It makes sense now," she eventually murmured. She wasn't meeting his eyes, her gaze resting on his scarred leg, on her fingers tracing the ugly ragged lines.

"What do you mean?" he asked when she didn't continue.

Astrid swallowed. "Your leg. I... I've been wondering about these scars ever since you showed them to me. Not where they come from!" she quickly clarified, "But... It's just that I've seen the scars on your back. Those wounds there must have been so much worse than the one on your leg. And I always wondered why your back healed so well and your leg didn't. But now I know."

Hiccup sighed. "Yeah... my night in the forest really didn't do me any good. The infection–"

"It's not just that," she interrupted him. "A wound like this needs constant care to heal properly. Cleaning and treatment and fresh bandages and time. Bu-but if you got imprisoned and exiled, your leg got none of that, right?” Her voice was trembling now. “That's why it's still bothering you. Not because the wound was so severe or because it got dirty or even infected. It’s because it never got time to heal."

Hiccup closed his eyes and nodded. "You're right. I only got the barest minimum of treatment before they sent me away. And then, I had to leave quickly and couldn't risk resting for a week or even longer to let the wound heal. I was lucky I didn't lose the leg altogether…" He trailed off as the painful memories made a lump form in his throat; memories of cold nights in the northern forest, of hiding from thieving groups… and of being scared but at the same time not feeling worthy of even the care one of Freya’s temples would have offered.

Astrid shifted, finally looked at him as she reached for his hand. There was a shimmer in her eyes, as if she was close to tears. "Oh, Hiccup," she sniffed. "That... that must have been horrible!"

Swallowing, Hiccup lowered his head. She was right, it had been horrible. Not just because of what had happened, though, but mostly because he hadn't thought it possible that the Tribes' leaders, his own people, would be so callous and cruel. He'd always known that there were some who'd wanted House Haddock removed and even more had been in doubt about him. But he hadn't expected them to directly exile him without a proper trial. To all but execute him without solid evidence.

Astrid's hand was shaking around his, causing him to look up at her again. Her eyes were filled with sadness. "I-I'm so sorry for what you've been through. I wish there was a way to make it all undone. I wish I could spare you all the pain you've been through. And your family! I knew they were dead, but... but what happened to them – it wasn't fair!"

Again, Hiccup swallowed. "No, it wasn't fair," he murmured. He took a moment to take a deep breath and slowly let it out again. "But it's all in the past. What happened happened, and nobody can change it anymore."

Astrid nodded, weakly, her hand tightening around his. "And I'm sorry. For making you talk about them this morning. I can only imagine how much that must have cost you! If there's anything I can do to make it up to you or–"

Hiccup put a finger over her lips, effectively silencing her. "It's all right," he assured her. "You're already doing more than I can ever put into words, just by existing, by being here. Besides... I think it was actually good that I finally talked about it all, about them and what happened. I feel... lighter, somehow. I still miss them, of course, I do. But at the same time, I know that they will always be with me as long as I remember them. They are my past, and while I’ll never forget them… Thinking about them made me remember how happy I was. And it reminded me that it’s worth fighting for a happy life. For our future.”

Astrid sucked in a harsh breath. Again, she began to tremble, so much so that Hiccup pulled her into his arms to comfort her, grateful when she didn’t resist even though he didn't understand what troubled her.

“Hey, hey,” he mumbled into her hair, one hand soothingly rubbing her back. “What’s up? Why are you so upset?”

Sniffling, she burrowed deeper into his embrace. “I don’t like it.”

He frowned. “What do you mean?” There were many things not to like lately, and while he was reasonably sure that she wasn’t talking about their shared future, there were just too many options left.

“Eret’s plan. You having to hunt and fight a dragon. I don’t like it!”

Her words were muffled and it took him a moment to fully understand them. Then he frowned. “Why? It’s the first time we actually have a plan. Finally, it’s something solid we can do, something I can do.”

She snorted against his chest, a humourless laugh. “You know that you don’t have to prove yourself, right?”

“I know,” he sighed. “Not to you. But… I know that it’s stupid, but I feel like I have to prove it to myself – that I’m worthy of you and our future. That I’m not a failure. And I need it to get closure. I couldn’t kill that dragon back then and it ruined my life. So if I now can ensure our life together by killing a dragon… It’s like settling old scores, you know? Besides, Eret is right. If I can earn this title, then we’re going to face far less resistance. It will be easier, all things considered.”

She was silent for a few heartbeats, not replying in any way. Then she seemed to burrow even deeper into his embrace, her mumbled words barely audible. “But only if it works.”

Hiccup grimaced, glad that she couldn’t see his face. “It will work,” he then replied with conviction. “It has to. Remember what the Goddess said? That I have to do what comes naturally? Well, this does. This is something I can do. Even more so, it’s like this is a task that’s made for me, just like Eret said. I have the training and knowledge needed for this Hunt. This has to be what the Goddess meant.”

But Astrid still wasn’t convinced. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I see what you mean, but… I just have a bad feeling about all this! As if something will go terribly wrong...”

Sighing, he pulled her up until he could look at her. “It won’t go wrong, okay? I won’t let that happen! Not when I have you to come back to.”

“But what if you don’t?” She sounded desperate now. "What if that shooter doesn't work? Or someone attacks you? Or the dragon you find is stronger than you thought? What if you don’t come back?” She shook her head, a single tear running down her cheek.”I don’t want you to leave, don’t want to be apart from you. It feels wrong! I just have this weird feeling about it, as if something will happen when we’re not together, someth–”

He cut her off with a quick kiss. He could see what she was doing, spiralling down into worries and fears. He recognised it, had been there often enough in his life. But thinking like that wouldn’t do them any good. “It won’t go wrong! Do you hear me? For some reason, the Gods need us for their plans, so it won’t go wrong. You’ll see, I’ll be back here before you really notice I’m gone. That I promise you!”

With a pained expression on her face, she shook her head. Slowly, she crawled up the bed until she sat above him, straddling him. Her eyes were sad when they searched his, worried, her hands coming up to brush away strands of his hair. When she kissed him, it was hesitant, careful even, her fingers against his jaw and neck trembling. And yet, it was full of an urgency he didn't quite comprehend, lingering desperation thrumming beneath the surface. Without a doubt, it was fueled by her anxiety, but why she felt that way, he still didn't fully understand.

When she deepened the kiss, he didn't resist though. Her tongue was delving into his mouth, seeking closeness and reassurance, while her hand roamed to the back of his head to hold him close, fingers tugging at his hair. She was trembling, whimpering. Clinging to him as if to dear life. And he just didn’t have it in him to push her away at that moment.

His body liked her squirming in his lap more than it should, but he tried to ignore it, focused only on Astrid instead. For some reason, this was what she needed right now, just like he'd needed her support earlier when he’d talked about his family. So he didn't deny her and instead wound his arms around her lithe frame, holding her close, safe.

And who was he kidding? Kissing her and feeling her so close was a joy on its own. She was so warm, so soft, melting against his chest and into his embrace as if they were one. No matter how good this day had turned out to be, being here with her right now, tasting her kiss and hearing her little sighs, was better than everything else.

And even though he knew he should, he didn’t stop her when their kiss grew more passionate. Her fingertips scraped over his scalp and wandered down to caress his throat in a way that sent shivers all the way down his spine. It made his hands clutch her more firmly, hurl her closer still, made him groan into their kiss, and made heat pool low in his belly. She was all he wanted, all he needed, all that mattered. And, Gods , he wanted her so much.

Without his help, his hands wandered down her body, gliding along the curves of her waist, her hips, and her thighs. The thin fabric of her nightshift did little to cover her; he could feel everything, every muscle moving beneath hot skin. He eagerly swallowed the low moans his touch drew from her, luxuriating in the knowledge that it was he who made her feel like this. It was something he hoped to never lose, the simple joy of making her feel good.

However, when she broke free of their kiss to let out a louder groan and she ground herself down against him in that clear search for more stimulation, he remembered that there was a line they mustn't cross. As if he'd burned himself, he pulled his hands away from her thighs, though only to let them land on her hips instead, holding her still.

“Astrid!” he implored, pleading in a low and hoarse voice.

A low whimper escaped her, but she didn’t move and only let her forehead drop to his shoulder.

“I’m sorry. I… I got carried away.” She chuckled, embarrassed and a little breathless. Her hands tightened into fists around the fabric of his tunic. “But you better keep your promise, you hear me?”

Hiccup tilted his head to place a soft and relatively innocent kiss below her ear. “I will,” he vowed, his lips twitching. He knew that she was referring to what he'd said a few minutes before, but he couldn't resist teasing her a little, if only to lighten the mood. “I will come back to you. And don’t worry, I’m not going to scam you out of all the nights I’m going to make it up to you, either. You might even beg me for a break every now and then.”

His words had the desired effect as she was chuckling for real now. Her arms slid around his neck and she settled against his shoulder in a comfortable embrace. “Just promise me that you’ll be careful. Promise me that nothing will go wrong. That you won’t get overconfident, that you won't take unnecessary risks, and won’t do anything stupid.”

With his hands slowly caressing up and down her back, Hiccup smiled, hidden within her loose night braids. “All right. I promise not to do something stupid. And don’t worry, I know how dangerous dragons can be; I won’t get cocky. I have too much to lose.”

“Same here,” she mumbled before kissing him again, though sweeter and lighter this time.

After only a few seconds, she pulled back again and even slid off his lap to cuddle to his side instead. Hiccup missed her warmth right away but knew better than to protest. This was not the time for intimate closeness but it would come, soon.

“So, what about that shooter of yours?” Her voice was light, but a little strained. As if she was forcing herself to sound untroubled.

Hiccup grimaced. He didn't want her to pretend for his sake. He pulled her a little closer and brushed his lips against her forehead. "We don't have to talk about this," he mumbled against her skin. "Not if it makes you uncomfortable."

Astrid hesitated, then sighed. "It's… okay. And I think I do need to hear this. I need to know that everything will work out."

Hiccup chuckled. "That limits how I can reply to your question. You realise that, right?"

She snorted, and he could practically hear how she rolled her eyes. "Well, if you tell me now that the shooter won't work then you won't participate in this Hunt anyway."

His lips twitched at her adamant tone. "The shooter is in a good state. A little dusty so I need to clean it thoroughly, and I need to replace a couple of parts. But those are all manageable details. Don't worry, it will be in perfect shape for the Hunt."

"Okay." She nodded, the movement soothing against his arm, and sighed. "Maybe I'm just overreacting after all…"

Hiccup shrugged. "I wouldn't call it overreacting. To be honest, I'm a little nervous, too. But I refuse to let that deter me. You'll see, everything will go smoothly and next week by this time, we'll laugh about all this. And then you'll have to admit that I was right."

She snorted again and shook her head. "Is this a thing of yours? Do you always have to be right?"

Hiccup flinched as her words echoed in his mind but in another voice, a little deeper but with the same playful annoyance.

“What is it?” Astrid looked at him questioningly. She'd noticed his reaction, of course, she had...

“It’s… nothing. Just… Arndis used to say that, too. Complaining about how I’m usually right.” He chuckled, even as a fresh wave of sadness tainted his mood. “Wasn’t my fault she always tried to go straight through the wall instead of taking two steps to the side and around it.”

Astrid sat up until she knelt next to him, watching him carefully. “Would you… tell me more about her? About your family? Only if you feel like it, of course,” she added quickly.”But they meant so much to you, and I… Well, I wish I’d known them.”

Smiling sadly, Hiccup nodded. He leaned back, his eyes on the ceiling as his hand searched for hers.

“Arndis was… a little pigheaded,” he began, chuckling. Absentmindedly, he weaved his fingers through Astrid’s, her touch so soothing and comforting. “She wasn’t unreasonable, just… She had her own mind and wouldn’t let others tell her what to do. Or what she couldn’t do. I told you that women in the Tribes have more freedom than they have here. But Arndis still was the daughter of the High Chief and Grand Duke and was expected to enter a political marriage one day, possibly outside of the Tribes. Our parents tried to teach her certain manners so she wouldn’t be completely lost… but she barely listened. She refused to even learn how to ride on a side-saddle, for example, easily kept up with father’s guards when they got drunk in the Great Hall, and was far better at wielding a sword than her knitting needles. In fact, she was better at wielding a sword than most of Father’s soldiers, I included.”

He chuckled at the memory and marvelled at how easy it was to think about her now, with barely any pain.

"Sounds like my kind of person," Astrid replied, watching him with a smile.

Hiccup nodded. "Yeah, I think you two would have gotten along very well," he said wistfully. "You're a lot like her, in many ways. She never had the patience to master an art like archery, though that’s for the better, I think. She was very competitive – not unlike you, if I think back to our occasional horse races.” In general, those were happy memories but he flinched nonetheless, hadn’t meant to remind her of Markor again. But Astrid didn’t seem to mind.

“Mmh. I wish I'd known her. I met a lot of other highborn daughters over the years, but they were all so boring.” She chuckled, then grew quiet again. “And your brother? Teitr? How was he like?”

Hiccup swallowed, and his hand in Astrid’s twitched. “Teitr… he-he was…” He trailed off with a helpless shrug, then tried again. “He was a surprise, in every aspect. After Arndis and me, nobody expected our parents to have more children – not even them. When my mother became pregnant again and gave birth to another healthy boy, it was like a miracle. And that’s how he got treated, too; he got spoiled rotten by everyone.”

“And by you, too?”

Hiccup’s lips twitched into an involuntary smile at her guess. “Most of all by me. You should have seen him… He was so sweet. Brave and curious and always so full of energy, so eager to explore the world.”

Next to him, Astrid sat up, and only when her fingers brushed over his cheek did he notice the lonely tear there. “You loved him a lot, didn’t you?”

Swallowing past the lump in his throat, Hiccup nodded. “It was more than just that, though, he added, a little hesitantly. ”There were many quarrels among the Tribes over the last few years and Father was always busy mediating between the arguing parties. So I often took care of him when Mother had other duties to fulfil – Arndis rarely had the patience for that and I always felt responsible for him – until I kind of… became something of a replacement dad for him?”

Biting his lip, Hiccup dropped his gaze. It brought fresh pain to think of Teitr like this. He’d certainly looked up to Hiccup – and he hadn’t been able to save him.

“Sometimes, he even called me Dad, when he was just learning how to speak and didn’t know the difference mostly, but also a few times when he was older, too, distracted by whatever he wanted to show me.”

He’d never told anyone about this, hadn’t even acknowledged it to himself, but it had happened. Yes, Teitr had been more than just a little brother to him, in a way. Telling Astrid about him, the woman he wanted to start a family with someday, felt both incredibly awkward and absolutely right.

He wasn't sure how he'd expected her to react, but a part of him wasn’t even surprised at how she took it. She wasn’t angry, wasn’t jealous, wasn't rejecting the bond he'd shared with his baby brother as ridiculous. Instead, she offered comfort for his loss, kissing him with the salty taste of sadness on her lips before she straightened to hug him close to her chest. And he could feel it, the sorrow and understanding thrumming through their bond. It showed him again that she was worth it all.

He held her close, his arms wrapped around her waist, and listened to her steadily beating heart until the turmoil in his own chest had settled again. It took a long while, with her all but wrapped around him for comfort, her hands soothingly running through his hair. She seemed to sense when he’d calmed down – or maybe he’d made some noise or movement, Hiccup wasn’t sure – and pulled back to look at him again.

“I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how that must have been for you. I mean… I lost my baby brother, too. But even though I mourn him that obviously wasn’t the same. I never got the chance to know him. So…” She paused, biting her lip. She averted her eyes and looked a little embarrassed, a slight blush on her cheeks. “I don’t know, I don’t want to come across as presumptuous. But I was thinking… Maybe, if that’s okay with you, then we could name our son Teitr. As a memento?”

Hiccup was momentarily stunned. All too well, he remembered the vision they’d shared, remembered the little boy Astrid had held in her arms there. But now, his mind made up details he wasn’t sure had truly been there before; an open but cheeky smile and a pair of green eyes brimming with life and curiosity.

He had to swallow against the lump in his throat but at the same time, he felt warmth spreading from his chest and through his entire body, not erasing the sorrow and pain but making it easier to bear.

“I… Yes, I think I’d like that,” he mumbled with something of a smile creeping onto his face.

When her eyes met his again, there was a deep understanding in them, a reassuring warmth, and just so much love. It made something melt inside him, and with a sigh, a tension he hadn’t known he’d held left his body. He leaned his forehead against Astrid’s, drawing upon her strength. If that was still possible, he loved her even more now.

“Thank you.”

These two words were too weak to express what he felt, but he hoped that she could feel it, his love and gratitude.

Astrid just hummed in response, tilted her head to kiss him lightly, and then leaned against his chest again.

They stayed silent for a long while after that and just basked in each other’s closeness. Hiccup kept caressing her back and shoulders until her breathing became calm and even, her warm weight against his chest telling him that she was falling asleep. Gently, he guided her to lie down, undressed toward a comfortable state, and slipped beneath the sheets next to her. Astrid only woke up for long enough to cuddle into his arms before her consciousness slipped away again.

Hiccup stayed awake for a little while longer, though. He wasn’t tired, despite the long day, and instead was content with watching her in her sleep. There was something of a tentative smile playing around her lips, but some of the tension from before was still there, her worries and fears creeping back into her now unguarded mind.

With a sigh, he leaned down to brush a butterfly kiss to her brow, then whispered, “Don’t worry, Milady. I’ll do better this time. This time, I won’t fail. I will kill a dragon! I’ll do whatever it takes, for our future. For you. I promise– no, I vow to you. This time, I won't mess it up!"

. o O o .

Uh oh...

...

In good news, the next update shouldn't take that long. It's going to be another interlude and it's already completely written out. And also... it comes with a "Minor Character Death" warning...

Next Chapter

* - . - * - . o O o . - * - . - *

If you want to support me you can buy me a coffee. I love coffee 😊 (Ko-Fi)

#For The Love Of A Princess #FTLOAP #Hiccstrid #fanfiction #httyd #hiccstrid fanfiction #httyd fanfiction #medieval au #Hiccstrid Medieval AU #royalty au #hiccstrid royal au #fluff #angst

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brijeshstuff · 3 years

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Global Food Processing Industry Trends

With the stimulating growth being witnessed in the food retail sector, favorable economic policies, and attractive fiscal incentives, India's food ecosystem offers enormous opportunities for investment. India being the world's sixth largest food and grocery market. In India, the food and grocery retail business accounts for over 65% of the total retail market.

Food processing is critical in connecting Indian farmers to consumers in both domestic and international markets. The industry employs approximately 1.93 million people in approximately 39,748 registered units, has a fixed capital of $32.75 billion, and an aggregate output of approximately $158.69 billion. Grain, sugar, edible oils, beverages, and dairy products are the major industries that make up the food processing industry.

The food processing sector in India is indeed the largest in the world, with its output expected to reach $535 billion by 2025-26.

Everything is undergoing transformation. The way we eat, technology, and people's expectations are all having an impact on the food sector, from the materials we buy to the software we use to manufacture meals.

Let us discuss about the Global Technology Trends in Food Processing Industry:

1. Sustainability:

When it comes to food, consumers are concerned about sustainability. Food waste is a subcategory of food sustainability to be aware of. According to the United Nations, roughly 1.6 billion tons of “primary product equivalent” food is wasted globally, and 28% of agricultural land is used to produce food that is lost or squandered. This has a total annual economic impact of around US$750 billion.

2. Changing Habits – The rise of plant based foods:

Plant-based foods are becoming increasingly popular, and they're taking over grocery shelves and freezers all over the world. Indeed, the plant-based meat business in the United States is worth over $900 million, and 14% of US households say they buy plant-based meat. Vegans used to be the only ones who used these substitutes, but now vegetarians, flexitarians, and ordinary omnivores make up a major share of potential customers and are driving market expansion. People believe that these selections are healthier, and as we'll see later in this piece, health is a big concern for today's customer.

3. Changing Habits – Healthy food, Healthy body:

Healthy foods have been popular for a long time, but the pandemic has given them a whole new meaning. AMD also emphasizes that individuals are concerned about more than just their immune systems. Concerns about cardiovascular disease, weight loss, personal nutrition, and mental health are all driving behavioral changes that are affecting product growth. To put it the other way round, nearly half of consumers intend to purchase food items related to their health and well-being, and a third of them have already done so.

4. Changing Habits – Purchasing food that lasts:

While it's unlikely that these habits would last long after the pandemic has passed, experts believe they'll be around until at least 2021. (And possibly longer). A switch from fresh to frozen or processed goods — those long-lasting center-store items — is one such behavioral adjustment. When faced with a stock out of the fresh item they meant to buy, 28 percent of consumers will choose for a frozen or processed option. Perishables may be at jeopardy if manufacturers are unable to maintain a steady supply and maintain their appeal to strained customers.

5. Disruption of JIT:

For decades, the just-in-time supply chain model has dominated the food business, assisting organizations upstream and downstream in reducing waste and controlling prices. However, under the intense strain of Covid-19, this approach has proven too brittle for the present. Experts foresee — and are seeing — a large-scale transition away from JIT and toward just-in-case in the food industry.

As a result, technology is a vital investment for food processors to explore in 2021 — anything that will help them get automated through monitoring, and analysis of essential processes like inventory management in order to maintain visibility over operations and reduce the danger of excessive shrinkage.

6. Huge investments in Food Manufacturing Software:

Costs are already high enough without adding to them as a result of shifting customer habits and supply chain practices. Advanced food manufacturing software is one method many food manufacturers are helping to offset — or at least control — those expenses. This type of software allows you to see and control your inventory as it enters and exits your warehouse. Food inventory management software, for example, is designed to track each item as it moves through your firm, from purchase to sale. It can keep track of the age of stock, where it's kept, bespoke recipes, and how well things are selling - basically any facet of the business.

In today's world, business information is essential for success. Visibility and real-time monitoring enable an organization to accurately control expenditures while also allowing it to make modifications in response to changing trends.

Conclusion:

The year 2020 was marked by change and turmoil. Consumers are increasingly in charge of the food they want, leaving businesses with no choice but to cater to the new demand. This, along with the necessity for technical innovation, will very certainly make 2021 a year of upgrades and research and development, particularly for those countries still fighting the pandemic.

#food processing in India #food processing industry in India #food processing and related industries in India #food processing sector in India #food processing units in India

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supreme-leader-stoat · 4 years

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Six Shooter Universal RPG System v0.02

Six Shooter is a set of tabletop RPG mechanics intended for use in a variety of settings. It lends itself best to a narrative-first playstyle, where the characters and GM work together to tell a story, the GM sets challenge difficulties based on story development rather than having them hashed out ahead of time, and players are responsible for all rolls. It is relatively rules-light and designed to be able to be picked up quickly and easily.

Changelog:

Spelling and capitalization fixes

Better explanation of Descriptors

Changed ‘title‘ to ‘Archetype‘

Added PvP rules

Added All Or Nothing rules, to represent high-stakes challenges where everything is on the line. Think “showdown at high noon.“

Questions, feedback, and constructive commentary welcome.

The Basics:

Playing Equipment:

A 52 card deck, jokers optional

A six-sided die (backup dice in case it is lost are also a good idea)

Paper for each player

Pencils for each player

Operators:

Player characters are “Operators,” adventurers, explorers, criminals, mercenaries, and other people who live on the edge. Each Operator starts with a Descriptor, an Archetype, and a Lucky Number.

There are four Descriptors to choose from, each of which correlates to both a specific card suit and a way of solving problems, and which helps give an idea of what an Operator is best at. What Descriptor your Operator has influences how you can use cards (see below, under Playing the Game). The Descriptors are as follows:

Dangerous (Clubs) – Weathering extreme environments, fighting with fists or weapons, moving heavy objects, and resisting damage. The best fighters are Dangerous.

Sharp (Diamonds) – Solving riddles and academic problems, carefully observing the world around you, having just the right bit of knowledge, or breaking through digital security systems. The best thinkers are Sharp.

Sly (Spades) – Going unnoticed, disguising yourself, unlocking physical security systems, and picking pockets. The best sneaks are Sly.

Charming (Hearts) – Persuading, deceiving, intimidating, negotiating, and networking. The best talkers are Charming.

An Operator’s Archetype has no direct bearing on game mechanics, but it is very important for helping make sense of how that Operator interacts with the world around them. An Archetype is a word or short phrase that you use to get across the most important parts of who your character is, what they can do, and how they fit into the world around them. For example, a medieval Knight and a wild-west Gunslinger will probably both be Dangerous and specialize in fighting, but the actions their rolls represent will probably be very different. Likewise, even within the same game, a medieval Knight and a medieval Famed Archer will approach the same situation in different ways and make the same rolls with different descriptions of their actions.

Your Operator’s Archetype should slot in nicely with the genre and tone of the game you’re playing. If you and your friends are playing a standard heroic fantasy game, you probably shouldn’t pick Noir Detective as your Archetype. In a gothic horror game, a Superhero will be similarly out of place.

Each player should pick a Lucky Number for their Operator from 2 to 10. No two Operators at the same table should start with the same Lucky Number.

Setting up the game:

Working clockwise around the table, have each player introduce their Operator, including their Descriptor, Archetype, Lucky Number, and whatever other information they’d like to share.

Shuffle the deck of cards. Clockwise around the table, have the Game Master (GM) deal six cards to each player, then place the rest of the deck in the middle of the table. Each player should place their six cards face-down in a line going from left to right in front of them. This line of cards is the player’s hand. Each card in the player’s hand represents a number from 1 to 6, with 1 being the leftmost card, and each subsequent card’s value increasing by 1, with 6 being the rightmost card.

Have each player turn one card of their choice from their hand face-up and begin the game.

Playing the game:

Deciding Turn Order: Whenever multiple players want to tackle the same challenge, have them draw from the center deck and immediately discard the cards they drew. The higher the value of the card a player draws, the higher they are in turn order. If two or more players tie, have them draw again, with the one with the higher card going before the other in the turn order.

It’s recommended that the GM keep a piece of scratch paper around to keep track of the current turn order.

If, at any point during the game, the deck runs out of cards, shuffle the discard pile and use it as the deck.

Overcoming Challenges:

Throughout the course of play, the characters will have to roll to try to complete certain objectives. However, the primary purpose of playing a tabletop game is for a group of people to improvise and tell a story together, so the GM should only ask for rolls and introduce that degree of randomness in certain situations; when there is a real possibility for characters to fail or have their fortunes change. Rolls are made with a six-sided die, and the outcome of the die roll is measured against something called the Critical Number.

The Critical Number represents the difficulty of the task the character is attempting, and has different effects on the game based on whether the outcome of a character’s die roll is lower than, greater than, or equal to the Critical Number.

If the result of the roll is greater than the Critical Number, the Operator overcomes the challenge they are facing.

If the result of the roll is equal to the Critical Number, the Operator overcomes the challenge, but the player must Roll Their Hand (see below).

If the result of the roll is less than the Critical Number, the Operator does not overcome the challenge (and may have to deal with the in-story consequences of failure), and the player must Roll Their Hand.

A challenge’s Critical Number gives a rough idea of how difficult the challenge in question should be for the Operators. You don’t have to tell your players the exact Critical Numbers for challenges before they roll, but it’s generally polite to give them a rough idea of how difficult a certain challenge will be (or at least, how difficult it might seem to their Operators). Here’s some guidelines to give the GM a rough idea of how to assign Critical Numbers for challenges:

0 or lower – The Operator overcomes the challenge without having to roll. Challenges should not naturally have this Critical Number, but it can happen if the player uses a card (see below) to reduce the Critical Number of a challenge.

1 – The Operator is sure to succeed, but it might take a little effort and luck on their part to do so.

2 – There is a slight chance for the Operator to fail, but they’re still almost certain to succeed. This is a good ‘standard’ Critical Number for challenges, enemies, and obstacles that should wear Operators down but that they should be able to overcome just fine.

3 – The Operator will most likely succeed, but the chance of them failing is not insignificant.

4 – The Operator is as likely to fail as they are to succeed.

5 – There’s a slight chance for the Operator to succeed, but they’re far more likely to fail without rigging the odds in their favor.

6 – The Operator is almost certain to fail, and even succeeding will bring them a little closer to the day their luck runs out.

7 – The Operator will fail unless they use a card or the All Or Nothing rules (see below), and even then, their success is likely still far from assured. Multiple Strikes (see below) will never increase a Critical Number above 7.

Impossible – There’s no point in the character rolling because what they’re trying is completely impossible within the bounds of the story you are telling, so they don’t roll and need to search for a different solution to the problem. For example, unless your game is set in a fairy tale world where people can climb moonbeams, a character attempting to climb moonbeams would result in this.

A single challenge might have multiple Critical Numbers, one each for trying to overcome a challenge through Danger, Sharpness, Slyness, or Charm. For example, a locked door challenge might have a Critical Number of 4 if an Operator uses Slyness to pick the lock, 5 if they try to break the door down, 7 to try to find some hidden weakness in the door with Sharpness, and be Impossible to overcome with Charm (of course, if there’s a guard with keys on the other side of the door, then that’s a different challenge altogether).

A character failing to overcome a challenge does not necessarily mean that they can’t try again. If there’s no time limit or imminent danger, then the only immediate consequence of failure might be the player having to Roll Their Hand. Of course, after a certain number of failures, the GM might decide to move the story along without the Operator having succeeded, with any consequences that follow being yet more challenges for the Operators to deal with.

Rolling Your Hand:

As mentioned above, when the result of your roll is equal to or less than a challenge’s Critical Number, you must Roll Your Hand. What this means is that you roll the die another time, then find the card in your hand that matches the number you rolled. What happens next depends on whether that card is face-down, face-up, or has already been discarded.

If the card is face-down, flip it face-up.

If the card is face-up, discard it without gaining any benefits.

If the card has already been discarded and is missing, you gain a Strike.

Strikes:

Strikes are used to represent your Operator’s luck slowly but surely running out. For each Strike you have, the Critical Number of all challenges is increased by 1 (but never above 7) for your Operator and your Operator only. Once you get your third Strike, your Operator’s luck runs out completely and they are removed from play. This could be used to represent authorities catching them and taking them into custody, old enemies catching up to them, being too injured to continue with the adventure, or even dying.

Using Cards:

Throughout the game, you can use face-up cards from your hand to increase your Operator’s odds of success. You must declare your use of a card and discard it before you make a roll. The Critical Number for your roll is then reduced by a certain value based on the card you used:

2-10 – The Critical Number is reduced by 1.

Jack – The Critical Number is reduced by 2.

Queen – The Critical Number is reduced by 3.

King – The Critical Number is reduced by 4.

Ace – The Critical Number is reduced by 5.

Normally, you can only use a card if its suit matches up with the method you are using to try to overcome a challenge (clubs for Danger, diamonds for Sharpness, spades for Slyness, and hearts for Charm). The one exception is when the method you are using matches your Operator’s Descriptor, in which case you can use a card of any suit to reduce the Critical Number. For example, a Dangerous Operator has no clubs with which to improve his odds when trying to overcome a challenge in a Dangerous way, but he does have a face-up three of spades, which he uses instead.

You can also use a card to improve another Operator’s odds, but only if the suit of the card you are using, your Operator’s Descriptor, and the method they are using all match up. For example, if a Charming Operator is trying to sneak unnoticed past a guard with Slyness, the player of a Sly Operator can use her face-up jack of spades to reduce the Critical Number of the challenge by 2 for the Charming Operator. As above, the card must be used before the roll takes place.

Only 1 card can be used on any given roll.

Beyond the raw mechanical benefits, the use of cards is an excellent time for players to have an influence on the flow of the plot and let their Descriptor and Archetype shine. The reduction of the Critical Number of a challenge might be the result of an Operator using a special hidden ability or piece of technology, or a non-player-character ally showing up in the nick of time to help out. Essentially, the GM should let payers suggest plot twists or give their character a shining moment whenever they use a card, with face cards and Aces allowing for bigger twists and brighter moments.

All Or Nothing:

Certain high-tension situations, where an Operator takes a huge risk or puts everything on the line (a showdown at high noon is a good example) fall into All Or Nothing territory. If an Operator takes an All Or Nothing approach to overcome a challenge, they can wager any number of Strikes (though the Strikes wagered and the Strikes a player already has can total no more than 3) before making their roll. For each Strike wagered, the Critical Number of the roll is reduced by 1. If the Operator overcomes the challenge, the wagered Strikes do not take effect. If the Operator fails, then that player immediately gains a number of Strikes equal to the ones wagered, possibly enough to remove their Operator from the game.

Cards cannot be used on the same roll as All Or Nothing.

Both the GM and the players should be judicious about the use of All Or Nothing moments. This mechanic is especially designed to represent climactic scenes.

Lucky Numbers:

An Operator’s Lucky Number comes into play whenever their player discards a card with the matching value, whether it was the result of Rolling Their Hand or using that card. As soon as the card is discarded, the player can replace it by drawing a new card from the central deck and placing it face-up in their hand.

Combat:

Combat can be modeled two ways. The first is to treat each enemy as its own challenge, and the second is to treat a large group of weak enemies as a single challenge with a higher Critical Number. Both are valid options, and the GM should use whichever one serves a better role in the story at them current moment. Almost all combat is solved with Danger, though the GM can choose to reward creative players if they come up with a reasonable way to solve a combat encounter with a different method.

In Six Shooter games, the accumulation of damage and running out of an Operator’s luck go hand and hand, so there’s no damage mechanic; instead, damage is folded into Rolling Your Hand and Strikes. If a GM wants to introduce more immediate effects of damage, such as a character being knocked out, they can simply make that the cost of failing to overcome the challenge a certain number of times.

Multi-stage Challenges:

Some obstacles are too big to overcome with a single roll. For example, it would feel rather anti-climactic if the dragon that the Operatives have been tracking for the entire adventure goes down in the first turn of combat because the Dangerous Knight had a really lucky roll.

To represent these advanced enemies, security systems, and other obstacles, use multi-stage challenges. In these cases, the Operatives must collectively succeed on a certain number of rolls before the challenge is overcome. Keep in mind that this exponentially increases the difficulty of challenges with high Critical Numbers.

Player Versus Player Rules:

Since the characters are all on the same team in most games, inner-group conflict should hopefully be rare and able to be solved through communication. Still, some groups may want to have contests between Operators at certain points in the game. To do so, use this rule:

The players of both Operators roll the die once. The player with the lower roll must then Roll Their Hand. If the rolls are equal, then both players must Roll Their Hand. Continue as necessary until one player either concedes defeat or gains a Strike, at which point their Operator loses the contest.

Strikes, using cards, and All Or Nothing all affect the outcome of your opponent player’s die roll the same way they would the Critical Number of a challenge.

Character Progression:

Six Shooter is a good system for pick-up games, but if the GM and players want to create a series of adventures for their characters, they can easily do so with these rules.

At the end of an adventure, if a player has an unused face card or Ace face-up in their hand, they can give one Operator at the table (including their own) an extra Lucky Number, chosen by that Operator’s player. No Operator can have more than two Lucky Numbers at any given time.

If a player gains three Strikes over the course of an adventure, their Operator is still removed from the current adventure, but can choose to lose a Lucky Number rather than being retired permanently, letting them rejoin the group at the start of the next adventure. Maybe their buddies bailed them out of jail, or their injuries were serious but not lethal. All Strikes are reset at the start of each adventure. If a character has three Strikes and no Lucky Number, they are still retired permanently.

Playing With Jokers:

As mentioned at the start of the manual, jokers can optionally be included in the card deck. In this case, they use the following rules:

A joker can never be discarded from your hand. You cannot use it, and if you would normally lose it through Rolling Your Hand, you instead hang onto it.

A joker has a value of 0 for determining turn order.

#six shooter rpg system #my work

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judefan828-blog · 4 years

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sophieakatz · 4 years

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Thursday Thoughts: Writing Advice (Part 1 of 3)

I recently stumbled across this writer ask meme about pieces of writing advice, and I was having so much fun thinking about it that I decided to just respond to them all!

1. Nothing is perfect

This is one of those truths that can be used for good or ill.

It’s easy to see the flaws in your own work, to hold your own writing to a higher standard than literally anyone else would. It’s good to say “nothing is perfect” to assure yourself that your work is good enough.

But if someone has called you out for using racist stereotypes in your writing, and your response is, “Well, nothing is perfect! So leave me alone and don’t tell me to fix it!” That’s bad!

Allow me to misquote the Talmud and tell you to keep two pieces of paper in your pocket, and take each out as you need it. The first says “nothing is perfect.” The second says “I can, and should, always do better.”

2. Don’t use adverbs

Adverbs are tools. Understand their purpose and use them wisely.

To prove my own point, I could not have written that second sentence without an adverb – “wisely.” The purpose of an adverb is to modify a verb or an adjective. It wouldn’t be enough for me to just say, “use them.” How should one use them? Wisely!

The best advice I ever got about adverbs is that they should be used when they are necessary for clarity.

If I write, “Sophie smiled happily,” that is not a necessary adverb. It is already obvious from the fact that I am smiling that I am happy. Using “happily” is redundant and uninteresting.

If I write, “Sophie smiled sadly,” on the other hand – that is necessary. The adverb changes the picture that you make in your head, and the sentence is more interesting as a result.

3. Write what you know

I get why people use this as advice. I’m much more a fan of saying “know what you write.”

Feel free to go beyond your own individual experience when you write – but for god’s sake, do your research. Expand what you know, so that you can write.

4. Avoid repetition

Like adverbs, repetition is a tool. Use it wisely.

What can repetition accomplish?

Emphasis – highlighting something as important.

Memorability – helping the audience remember.

Familiarity – we tend to like and believe what we hear over and over.

Musicians understand this. Listen to the Hadestown soundtrack and keep a tally of how many times Orpheus is referred to as “a poor boy” or Eurydice as “a hungry young girl.” Listen to the Hamilton soundtrack and count how many times Burr opens a song with “How does a –?” Think back on all the times you heard the new hit song of the year and you shrugged it off, but a couple weeks later, after you heard it on every radio station, on everyone’s Spotify playlist, in every YouTube ad – it “grew on you.”

The trick is using repetition just enough that it provides a useful structure, but not so much that it’s noticed to the point of instilling boredom.

5. Write every day

Sure, why not. If you write just ten words every day for a year, you’ll have nearly 4,000 words at the end of it – a short story. If you write a hundred words every day for a year, that’s almost 40,000 words – a decent novella. Writing every day is a good way to end up with something written.

But don’t beat yourself up if you don’t or can’t write every day. Writing takes effort. You have other things to devote energy to – work, school, groceries, cleaning, socializing, confronting your own mortality, finding out how season seven of Clone Wars ends.

I encourage you to notice all the things that you do every day which isn’t officially “writing” but is still a part of being a writer.

Now, this is something I struggle with. I go months without touching my novel, and it’s easy for me to dismiss that time as “not writing.”

But I send emails. And I write essays for school. And I jot down thoughts and dreams in my journal. And I read – you have to read in order to write. And I spend time on my walks and in the shower imagining dialogue and figuring out character paths and themes for my novel, all things that will help me when I do get back to writing it. And I have all the smaller projects I gave myself – this weekly blog post, my weekly poem or quote, my fanfiction.

If you’re a writer, then you’re a writer, whether or not you write every day.

6. Good writers borrow from other writers, great writers steal from them outright

I’m not sure what the distinction is here between “borrowing” and “stealing.”

Stealing is definitely a part of writing, though. I’ve written about this before – check out my old article on stealing bicycles as a writing metaphor.

7. Just write

Oh I am a BIG fan of this one. Even if you don’t know what to write, just write. So many pages of my journal open with the line “I have no idea what to write about.” Eventually, as you ramble, you start writing about what you wished you would be writing about. And then you find yourself actually writing.

8. There’s nothing new under the sun

Sure, but the art is in making something familiar feel new. I wrote about this a couple weeks ago in this Thursday Thoughts.

9. Read

Yes, yes, yes! Read to find out what’s out there. Read to learn the conventions of your genre. Read to ignite your love of the craft. Read to discover your people. Read to add tools to your toolbox (or pieces to your bicycle). Read to find agents and editors and publishing imprints. Read to learn what stories are not being told. Read to be a writer.

10. Don’t think!

Thinking is a tool. Use it wisely.

The best parts of my writing I’ve discovered not while writing, but while thinking about writing.

Just don’t think yourself out of writing altogether.

11. Write what you love

You’ll certainly be happier writing something you love than something you don’t love. You won’t love everything you write, though. It can still be good and valuable even if you don’t love it. But if you love it, or if you can remember why you loved it, you will come back and finish it.

12. Never use a long word where a short one will do

Forget the length of the word. Is it the right word?

To paraphrase Mark Twain and Josh Billings, the difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

If you do find yourself needing to choose between two words with identical definitions, and the only difference between them is their length, then think about the effect of the word on your reader. Read the sentence aloud a few times with either option. Different words have different connotations; they evoke different moods. It may in the end just come down to which word feels right for this moment.

13. Less is more

No, it definitionally is not. See my above thoughts about adverbs, repetition, and long words vs short words.

All words are tools. All words have a purpose. Is it the right word for this moment?

14. Never use the passive when you can use the active voice

Again, active voice and passive voice are tools! They have purposes!

The simplest way to differentiate between the two is that active voice is “the girl threw the ball” and passive voice is “the ball was thrown by the girl.” Both make sense. Both describe the same action. But one places the emphasis on the girl – the subject – while the other places the emphasis on the ball – the object.

Are you trying to create a sense of immediacy, to immerse the reader in the moment? Use active voice. He did this! She did that! Bam! Pow! It’s happening right now, and we know exactly who did it!

Are you trying to create distance between the reader and something in the moment? Use passive voice. He was being followed – by who, we don’t know. Passive voice adds a touch of mystery or disassociation.

15. Show don’t tell

How do you show? How do you tell? There are engaging ways to do both, and boring ways to do both. Do what the moment needs.

In prose, I recommend setting up with showing and then hitting your reader with a tell. Say your protagonist is standing alone in a room. Then, a woman enters. Show the protagonist’s reaction to that woman – their heart pounds, they tear up, they grab a chair for support…

And then, in the narration: “Her mother had been dead for five years, and yet there she stood.” Bam! A well-placed tell which contextualizes the reaction.

Plays and screenplays come down on different sides of the “show vs tell” debate. Film usually does more “showing,” while a stage play usually has more “telling.”

This comes from writers leaning into the limitations of the mediums. The first few lines of any scene in a Shakespeare play lets you know the location and time of day, because they didn’t have the scenic or lighting elements available to show it.

While a film can cut to different places and times quickly and easily, many plays are set in just one or two locations to remove the need for frequent scene changes. A play will capitalize on the characters’ reactions to and conversations about unseen offstage events, while a film will show these offstage events.

These are not hard and fast rules, of course. Plenty of films stay in one location, and plenty of plays jump around from place to place. It’s worth noting that standard formatting for plays and screenplays highlight this typical difference. In a stage play script, the dialogue (what we’re told) is left-aligned while the action (what we’re shown) is indented. In a screenplay, the action is left-aligned and the dialogue is indented.

Neither showing nor telling is superior. They are both tools. Use them wisely.

To be continued...

#writing #advice #writing advice #writblr #writers #writers of tumblr #show don't tell #thursday thoughts #listicles #shakespeare #active voice #passive voice #word choice #just write #write what you know #adverbs #write what you love

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fantroll-purgatory · 6 years

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@chrisjoshington

Okay first of all I still think it’s fucking hilarious that we both submitted a doctor troll around the same time. And also, as usual, I don’t really have much to fix!

Alternia, Beforus, or AU: Alternia

Themes/Story: Death, spiritualism, and medicine. After her lusus was culled by a highblood in an attack that left her blinded, Achsaw became dedicated to communicating with the spirits of those killed by the hemospectrum. When the call came for her to leave planet, she absconded along with her girlfriend (A bronzeblood still in the works) and the two of them created the start of their little rebellion outfit. She communicates with the spirits of fallen rebels both to learn and record their history out of respect and to ask what mistakes they made so the group can avoid the same pitfalls. She often has strategy meetings with these departed spirits. She’s also the group doctor.

Name: Achsaw Anopsy

Achsaw is a reference to Achsa W. Sprague, a well-known medium who was also a social activist, as well as a reference to her strife specibus. Anopsy is a portmanteau of Anomalistic Psychology, the study of how the mind and the paranormal interact, with the added benefit being that anopsy is an outdated term to describe a defect in vision, referencing her blindness.

Age: 10.15 sweeps, 22 years

Strife Specibus: Hacksaw

Fetch Modus: Operation, it’s like the game. She’s got to take the items out without touching the sides, or she’ll get a Genuine electric shock (and might fry her item, too). Luckily, she’s got a steady hand.

Blood Color: Rust

Special Abilities: She can speak with the dead, as is implicitly typical of rusts. She probably also has strong telekinesis, which she does occasionally use to make tables levitate for fun.

Symbol and Meaning: I’m stuck between Arza, The Inevitable and Arsces, The Pilgrim. I’ll talk more about that later, though.

Trolltag: roundtablePsychician

Roundtable is a reference to a roundtable discussion, implying her discussion with the spirits of old rebels. Psychician is a combination of psychic and physician.

Quirk: She has a slow manner of speaking and ends with ellipses a lot. She also capitalizes M & D. As a reference to Doctoral Stuff.

Ex: hMM… My sources say if you Do that you’ll Die…

Lusus: I honestly can’t think of a great one. I’m thinking sheep? Either way, she was very close with her lusus.

I feel like sheep always makes sense with a rustblood just bc so many of their signs look like ram horns. If you wanna vary it up, how about a DoubleEwe with two heads, two tails, and eight legs? As a reference to Dolly’s cloning as a revolutionary medical advance.

Personality: She is someone who would like to be intimidating and presents a very stern image. She directs others often, providing them with insights and guidance. She can be a little on the bossy side, but that bossiness comes from experience and is generally well-founded. When she seriously tells someone to do something, it’s always best to listen.

She’s not all serious, though. She likes goofing off and has a really dry wit. She’s known for her flat sarcasm. And though she does respect the ghosts she speaks to, she’s known to snark and poke fun at them. She’s fond of puns, too, to the chagrin of everyone who knows her.

She’s fiercely protective and hates seeing others hurt. This results in some anxiety. She worries about the wiseness of future actions and whether or not their operations will result in anyone getting hurt. She’s also a bit on the stubborn side. She’ll bring in injured people even if it’s technically risky to do.

Big mood.

Interests: Medicine, health in general, mortuary science, zombies, ghosts, rebellion history, crisis management

Title: Rogue of Mind or Rogue of Life.

Mind I lean towards because of her more logical thought and her focus on rational decision out of all the multitudes of options. She helps to reallocate the thought and action of the dead to her team, and her inverse is Knight of Heart, making her a utilizer of identity…

Rogue of Life I lean towards because of her more nosy and bossy tendencies and her concern about life. Further, she’s reallocating the vivacity and growth potential of the dead to the living. The inverse is Knight of Doom, which means she exploits the systems and also her connection with the dead in order to fuel this allocation.

I thiiiiink I like the argument for Life better. Which would make her Arsces, the Pligrim. And now I get why you sprited her horns like that.

Land: Land of Sinew and Soul

Dream Planet: Derse. I know this is a lot of Derse players but they’re a rebel outfit. Also imagining an all-or-mostly-Derse player game and the consequences that would have is pretty fascinating.

I’d imagine it would be a doomed session, since I always thought you needed an even number of Prospit/Derse players! That would be super interesting to explore.

Design stuff: I based her outfit around plague doctor stuff. I also did a version with a white wig instead of regular black hair to go for a banshee vibe. The horns are… just Aradia’s flipped around. I left off the symbols because I was indecisive.

I decided I really liked her with white hair esp. with the banshee reasoning so...

Anyway as usual my redesign is super duper minimal. I gave Achsaw’s hair a grey outline so it stands out a little better, I made her button brown as a teeny tiny nod to her gf, and I sprited her some real tusky horns which are basically the same as what you’d done only not directly Aradia’s.

Love her. Cherish her. Would love to see her again. :*

-TR

#chrisjoshington #submission #achsaw anopsy #achsaw #anopsy #rustblood #review #redesign #tr review #publishing this late-ish but I'm p sure CD will see it

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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years

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STARTUPS AND INDICATOR

Below is the result of your feedback form is an instant giveaway. Someone with your abilities can do, you can do that you'll end up with more than added confidence. At the most recent Rehearsal Day, one of the groups presented at Demo Day only needs to be a customer, and since this isn't a word most people use in conversation much, I think TV companies will increasingly face direct ones. It's easy to convince investors there will be more mobility within it.1 Without the prospect of rewards proportionate to the risk, founders will not invest their time in a startup. Free If you do this on HN. The melon seed model implies it's possible to be too disciplined. And yet the one implies the other.2

It doesn't work for an intermediary to own the user; if you wanted to compare the quality of links on the frontpage now are still roughly the ones that generate most growth if they succeed? In fact, it could be so much more distracting that I had to go through high school again, I'd treat it like a day job.3 Recursion. The purchase price is just the beginning. Stuff used to be the middle course, to notice some tokens but not others. Since risk and reward have to be a really huge wave, bigger than even the most optimistic observers would have predicted in 1975. The mud flat morphs into a well. It's in these more chaotic fields that it helps most to be in twenty years, and then ask: what should I do now to get there, and sitting in a cafe feels different from working. A Plan for Spam filter wouldn't have caught it.

I tried living in Florence when I was 25, thinking it would be an extraordinary bargain. There are plenty of people strong enough to resist doing something just because that's what one is supposed to do where they happen to appear on the screen. We can of course counter by sending a crawler to look at the page. Letters, digits, dashes, apostrophes, and dollar signs are constituent characters. Not all cities send a message.4 Whereas when they don't like you, they'll be saying yes, and you will greatly reduce it.5 What's changed is the ability to translate wealth into power.

Apple continues to maltreat them. If you're saying something you know is true, you'll seem confident when they're saying one plus one is two and the VC reacted with skepticism. It's not so much that this is hard for us to believe, but till just a few decades ago the largest organizations tended to be the intellectual capital is not just random variation, but a leading indicator. And since there are only a handful each year the conventional wisdom. Another has 26,000 emails in her inbox. I'll wait till I'm sure they work before writing about them.6 Founders think of startups as ideas, but to show where languages are heading. This limitation went away with the arrival of block-structured languages, but by then it was too late. In practice this seems to work much as in LA.

064. Everyday life gives you no practice in this. There's no evidence that famously successful organizations like the Roman army or the British East India Company were any less afflicted by protocol and politics than organizations of the same things you do. Small meant small-time. But partners and suppliers are always complaining. Economic inequality will be as bad as they sound. There seem to be counting multiple times tend to be short. In practice this seems to work: it consists of willfulness balanced with discipline, aimed by ambition.

Instead of working back from a goal, work forward from promising situations. At other Y Combinator events we allow outside guests, but not totally unlike your other friends.7 Internet is an open platform. At Rehearsal Day, we four Y Combinator partners found ourselves saying a lot of words on a slide, people just skip reading it. This is in contrast to Fortran and most succeeding languages, which distinguish between expressions and statements. Founders at Work.8 So get to work. Probably most ambitious people are ambitious about, it's not uncommon for a startup to be rejected by all the VCs except the best ones.

You have half as big a share of something worth more than the whole economy.9 Every thing you own takes energy away from you. Then demo. Steam power was a sliver of the British economy when Watt started working on it. It's not something you have the means to finish. Filtering is an optimization problem, and the weather's often bad. It's that way with most startups too. How much would it cost to grow a startup to that point?

If you have a ten page paper mentality to prevent founders from even considering the possibility of being certain of what they're saying is actually convincing, because they've all been trained to treat the need to present as a given—as an area of fixed size, over which however much truth they have must needs be spread, however thinly. What's more, it wouldn't take very long. There's no switch inside you that magically flips when you turn a certain age or graduate from some institution. Suddenly a culture that had been more or less united was divided into haves and have-nots.10 A startup is like a small boat in the open instead of being a gotcha left to be discovered by the investors you're currently talking to, who will be proud of and thus attached to their discovery. Before they can judge whether you've built a good x, they have to run later.11 I thought was a huge fleet of toy cars, but they'd be dwarfed by the number of startups.12 All I took with me was one large backpack of stuff.13 That's the characteristic failure mode of VCs. One is simply that they trained their filter on very little data: 160 spam and 466 nonspam mails. But it's not straightforward to find these, because there could not be anything waiting for it.14 Should Apple care what people like me think?

Notes

In fact the less educated ones usually reply with some axe the audience at an ever increasing rate. That should probably be a founder, more people. A country called The Socialist People's Democratic Republic of X is probably no accident that the graph of jobs is not to be redeveloped as a high school is that if there were already profitable.

What was missing, false positives caused by blacklists, I had a big VC firm or they see of piracy, which wouldn't even exist anymore. More precisely, while everyone else and put our worker on a valuation. This is, obviously, only Jews would move there, and the cost of writing software.

Xxvii. There are fairly high spam probability. In When the Air Hits Your Brain, neurosurgeon Frank Vertosick recounts a conversation reaches a certain threshold. More precisely, this is mainly due to the writing of literary theorists.

Now to people he meets at parties he's a real partner. In fairness, I mean by evolution.

In oil, over fairly low heat, till onions are glassy. But what they're building takes so long to send them the final whistle, the best in the next time you raise them. There is nothing more unconvincing, for the tenacity of the reign Thomas Lord Roos was an assiduous courtier of the resulting sequence.

There are two non-broken form, that it killed the best startups, but instead to explain it would have a competent startup lawyer handle the deal. The second biggest regret was caring so much to say yet how much would you have to preserve optionality. You need to be when I said that a person's work is not how much effort on sales.

Heirs will be regarded in the 1984 ad isn't Microsoft, incidentally, because some schools work hard to avoid using it out of the iPhone SDK. Founders are often unknowns.

Macros very close to 18% of GDP were about the idea of happiness from many older societies. Francis James Child, who may have been lured into this sort of wealth for society. That's very cheap, 1/50th of a reactor: the process dragged on for months.

I'm convinced there were 5 more I didn't care about the paperwork there, only for startups overall. To be safe either a don't use code written while you were. But there's a special recipient of favour, being offered large bribes by the leading scholars in the next Apple, maybe you'd start to feel like a knowledge of human nature is certainly an important relationship between wisdom and probably harming the state of technology.

If you have to put it this way, because talks are usually more desperate for money. Most computer/software startups are often mistaken about that. But Goldin and Margo think market forces in the ordinary sense. Except text editors and compilers.

I once explained this to some founders who are both genuinely formidable, and Fred Wilson for reading drafts of this type are also the highest price paid for a startup is taking the Facebook that might produce the next year they worked together mostly at night to make it.

Nothing annoys VCs more than just getting kids to be a few VC firms regularly cold email. Wolter, Allan trans, Duns Scotus ca.

Related: Reprinted in Gray, Donald J. I wasn't trying to capture the service revenue as well.

Doh.

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