Die Shize

I never knew it was so...big.

Idgi

trade your @ for a quote?

Thank the falcon 🐦

They had elected to be as secret as her, then. That was well and good. Tyra could only smile at her companions and their answers, or lack thereof. They all three shared the memory of that falcon from the sky; a bird that fell and landed as if fated to do so without interference. What they did not share was whatever was too intimate to be spoken aloud, whether something seen, something heard or something felt. Of the experience, they had more than memories. Matte has his very own memento in the form of a fallen feather. She sighed like someone crawling out of a hot spring, ready to brave the cold world again while still wrapped in the bliss of the bath. At Yshmael’s gesture, Tyra adjusted her pack. “Yeah…” She hesitated, gazing at the sky as though it were begging her to return to it. Her feet on the land, she was more level with the sea that had once carried her sails, yet the clouds above took on a hundred shapes more akin to an airship. Am I on the right path? Heading in the right direction? Is this where I’m supposed to go? “...Let’s go.” With that, she placed one foot in front of the other and headed off toward De Viento. Music OOC Tyra kept silent on the way to the forest. She might have revisited the falcon and its enigma, and maybe the guys did so between themselves, but she would have been in a world of her own by then and not paying attention. Of all the things she had seen in her years, that tree in her head was quite something else, like roots beneath the ground which took on shapes and colors one could hardly imagine. Later. I’ll figure it out later. She relented as the sun began to fade, but not from the time of day. The enormous luminary was overtaken by the massive towers that loomed over the trio as they approached the tree line of De Viento. Each and every tree was a giant among giants, mighty and magnificent, unmoving and unmoved by the tiny things that stood looking up at the wall of wooden bastions. Two hundred feet high, three hundred—five hundred? Some trees roared over the others, waiting in the woodland depths, while each sentry that served in the front line was easily ten to fifteen feet in diameter. The bark they wore like armor looked thick and ancient; a deep redwood with engravings for carvings, reaching up to dizzying tops where branches curved and spiraled to support crowns of dense green. The large leaves let in just enough light to where golden rays shined like beams upon the earth, as gentle and warm as a mother’s touch. The forest wasn’t just great and gigantic, not merely rich in red brown wood, green vegetation or yellow light. As Tyra stood not but feet away from the coiling roots of the grassy bed, a breeze escaped from between the trees as though De Viento had just exhaled a breath. It was cool as it hugged her body like a blanket, and her only response was to take a breath herself right as a whisper emerged from the depths, though the words were anything but intelligible. “Hear that..?” She asked her partners. Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t, but Tyra was too enticed by the calling to rely on any direction but forward. Going alone or side by side, she ventured forth and crossed the boundary that separated the open plains of the land from the world enclosed within it. She blinked, caught in a daze as she entered the forest to hear its alien noises and secluded silence all at once. There was a stillness in the air even as wind curled around the trees, triggering a rustle of leaves as much as a rattle of branches, with sounds intertwining into chimes or a rainstick. Birds chirped before an elk’s bugle. It felt so close yet so far, like a voice in a cave as it bounced around the walls. I have no idea what to make of that tree in my vision, and not much more an idea of what to make of these trees all around me… Turning to her companions to confirm if they were feeling just as weird as she was, a hand went to her forehead. She had all but forgotten the headache until a throb emerged, as sudden as it was painful before disappearing in a second. She treated her mouth to a water bottle. Her gaze roamed over the woods with admiration and anticipation. Nature’s bounty spread far and wide, the view of the distance hindered only by the very trees that treated the eyes. It looked like any one direction that was not backward could take them anywhere and everywhere. Or nowhere. Where do we go from here? These trees are splendid and swell but it’s the secret buried within them that we’re looking for...and without a map to take us there. “Well…” Tyra started, playing eenie-meenie-miney-mo with a finger. “We could take a straight path forward or split off diagonally, I suppose. At this point, I wager any one direction is as good as the other.” She looked both Yshmael and Matte in the eye. “Unless either of you two have a way to navigate these trees that I don’t?” She shrugged. “Put me on the open water or high in the sky and I’ll find my bearings in a heartbeat. In a forest like this...eh, I’m more lost than a cloud in an ocean.”

ok ok you win hide me /run

I like animals

These trivia points make me want to dance

I reckon! I was feelin’ the nitty-gritty like a gunman bitin’ sawdust in a barn with his scatter punchin’ shoulder afore a man afeared! Even had a pot boilin’ black as night, no dehorned bellywash, yep. Y’ever been to Sally Tally off the river bend in Touchatoma?

oatpeak

This isn’t a knock against myself or any other roleplayer but I haven’t come across one with a style I’d call advanced lol. I’d reserve that term for some of the finer authors of novels I’ve read. I’ve been inspired by a few but ultimately I’m in this game to have fun, and one way I do that is by experimenting, for better or worse. Depending on the gauge of your concern with your own writing, you could try doing the same. I tend to tell people a universal suggestion that I found successful with me; not with writing well so much as feeling comfortable with knowing what to write. That is to put yourself in your character’s shoes and to otherwise let your character write the post. This is what I do with third person limited point of view. You get inside your character’s head. You don’t narrate them from a distance—you let them narrate for you. In a way, it takes the worry away from me, since I’m relying on my character and not myself. If that makes sense.

“Relevant” can be a versatile term. There is what is relevant to the immediate story of a thread (here’s where your A to B action is paramount), the overall context of a thread (that may include intercharacter dynamics woven within the thread’s story while not necessarily driving it) and elements outside of the thread (such as the greater setting, maybe the country of a city the thread takes place in). I fancy all PCs to be ‘main characters’ especially on a site like Valucre so sometimes the details I find relevant might be centered on the other person’s PC and I may not be able to practically use it at all. But I can appreciate the insight. I don’t mean writing three paragraphs of what that PC did on this same day ten years ago every day, but I liken it to characters in a novel—I can’t really use the information but still it’s interesting to learn. It adds to the overall story and world (which here would be Valucre itself). It’s all about balance. If you find your post pushing paragraphs, why the length? Not a bad question to ask. If it’s eight paragraphs focusing on a chair then you may have a problem. If it’s a mix of character insight, PC interaction, worldbuilding, advancing the story or what have you then that’s swell and even better if properly coordinated. There should always be a limit on length though, however loosely defined. A one-word IC post is likely not going to cut it but thirty paragraphs is just insane. I have a natural stopping point that usually caps around the same paragraph number each post, because I reach a point where I feel I’ve covered the relevant elements, and additional writing would indeed just be redundant if not ridiculous.

Not sure how to interpret that last part but, like I told you before, length should never determine quality! It's as simple as comparing some really great long novels with some really great short stories. It's all about the platform and the purpose. I was thinking of a tavern setting just now, because it's often one of those locations where I can either go one way or the other way when it comes to 'length of text'. Sometimes I might keep it as simple as "The party entered a tavern", maybe mentioning a NPC smoking a pipe outside, a bartender running a rag through a glass, some laughing patrons, but three sentences later and it's down to business and say no more. (And that doesn't even depend on how long the party stays at the tavern. In my experience, that's often besides the point.) Other times I might convey the color scheme of the tavern, what the tavern's name is, the appearance of that bartender, the music being played, the quality of the alcohol, the contrast of furniture. This isn't three pages describing a single chair; it's just added flavor to what already works, really for no other reason than to further detail the scene, especially if I plan on using it in the future. Of course, it does mean more words, which can attribute to longer reading, especially if I'm writing in some kind of 'style' (or whatever word you want to use) where my PC is being rather reflective in that moment. Necessary? Probably not. I could even expand the setting in future posts (or threads) instead of all in one. Likely, my fellow writer won't even refer to the added detail (it could actually be jarring if they did). More than likely, they would fill in the blanks for what isn't mentioned, and I'd be none the wiser. The mind is amazing in how quickly it can conjure an image of something with little more than a word; say, "tavern". It is also amazing in how it can work with material that is otherwise very minimal. Yet, it might still be offered for the same reason I enjoy reading it when someone else does it: it's just that—enjoyable. Sure, I can fill in blanks with my imagination too, and that's a sales pitch for roleplay to begin with, but I like seeing what my fellow writers conjure. Sometimes, that is. I may be breaking my own record of repetition but, really, it tends to depend on the thread at hand and its participants. I'm comfortable hitting ten paragraphs in a post. I'm just as comfortable with two.

Everywhere I go I keep a poker chip and dice in my pocket, but when it comes to using them, well I love poker and I love board games Monopoly is great I play chess with my mom (with the pandemic and not being able to visit each other, we're playing on separate physical boards, taking photos of piece movements and such) Liar's Dice is really fun. I learned it from a video game, Chinchirorin from another, and Five Finger Fillet too but that's less dice and more knife (and I won't play it again)