Tanstaafl, The Dramatist

Member Since

9/15/2013

Last Activity

7/7/2021 10:11 PM

EXP Points

860

Post Count

5105

Storygame Count

1

Duel Stats

0 wins / 0 losses

Order

Architect Exemplar

Commendations

0

Heinleinian Jew Boy, at your service.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch!"- The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress

"Obama authorized North Korea sanctions over cyber hacking. Solution there, it seems to me, is to create unhackable systems." -Your Lord and Savior Neil D. Tyson

"Absolutely, in fact, climate change is directly related to the growth of terrorism. And if we do not get our act together and listen to what the scientists say, you're going to see countries all over the world – this is what the CIA says – they're going to be struggling over limited amounts of water, limited amounts of land to grow their crops ask you're going to see all kinds of international conflict."- Bernie Sanders

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"I turn my body from the sun. What ho, Tashtego! let me hear thy hammer. Oh! ye three unsurrendered spires of mine; thou uncracked keel; and only god-bullied hull; thou firm deck, and haughty helm, and Pole-pointed prow,-- death-glorious ship! must ye then perish, and without me? Am I cut off from the last fond pride of meanest shipwrecked captains? Oh, lonely death on lonely life! Oh, now I feel my topmost greatness lies in my topmost grief. Ho, ho! from all your furthest bounds, pour ye now in, ye bold billows of my whole foregone life, and top this one piled comber of my death! Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale! Thus, I give up the spear!"

-Moby Dick

Trophies Earned

Earning 100 Points Earning 500 Points Given by BerkaZerka on 01/09/2017 - In memorial of Mythic Nippon greatness Given by madglee on 03/19/2015 - 2015 Post-Apocalyptic Contest 2nd Place, user's choice trophy! Beautiful work! Given by Will11 on 02/18/2020 - For Undead Personna :)

Storygames

Undead Persona

Play as a human turned-Vampire forced to kill to survive. As a man dying for eternity, you set your mind and body to find and kill the man who made you this way.
Find the light in the blinding rush that is vengeance or embrace the darkness that is your being.

Beware the Zealous and fear the Professor.
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NOTE: You are encouraged to use the 'go back' button if the need ever arises in this game, as death scenes are aplenty. They aren't random though, and if you read and think through every choice survival should be easy enough. Still, it'd be a shame if you stopped playing after a premature ending, so make use of that button! Thanks, and good luck.
Another NOTE: There will be times in the story where 'choices' will be labeled as 'optional'. They aren't necessary to the story, but they add more beef and 'behind the scenes' action to it.
Third NOTE: As of now, there are 4 'official' endings, one of them true, two of them good/evil, and the last practically a loss. There was supposed to be an expansion added to the game where you'd have the choice to leave Kelso, and that path is actually thought out and partly-written already-- however, looking at it realistically I do not have the time nor the motivation to finish it so I'm republishing it on the grounds that it's entirely self-contained.

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HUGE thanks to:
JJJ-thebanisher- for giving extremely helpful advice on how to write fight scenes.
Aman- For urging me to get this finished. 
Drakilian- His evilness is contagious.
Endmaster- Just an inspiring dude.
Sethaniel- Just an inspiring dude (and a judge).
Fleshnblood_78- Also a judge, and a pretty cool dude as well.
Madglee- for hosting the contest which pretty much forced me to finish.
Various teachers who have supported writing and creativity in general.
And the Sonny games by Krin. (As this storygame is loosely inspired from it.)

2nd Place Contest Entry for the 3/1/2015 Post-Apocalyptic Storygame-Tournament!


Recent Posts

Female Characters on 7/2/2021 10:34:03 AM

just the "lol what an incredible faggot kiel is" edits haha

yeh end it really was


Female Characters on 7/2/2021 9:54:44 AM

@mizal historical revisionism be afoot lol

What a trip


Female Characters on 2/1/2016 7:19:22 PM

As if a girl would understand :P

So classic fallacy-fallacy. Wasn't intentional but fiiiiiine-- conversation got out, so successful thread I guess. Huzzah.


Female Characters on 2/1/2016 6:37:15 PM

Thought the topic died but since it sprouted into several offshoots I'm inclined to note further. 
My point was an amalgam of Killa, Seth, and Aman's points, plus a little something else tucked into a reasoned and delightfully compact paragraph made in 2 minutes. Of course, reasons go nowhere online, as penis-size, ad hominem and patronizing follow. It's certainly wise to attack my age without even considering the contents of my post, because it throws off credibility without having to discuss. It's juvenile, but I'll elaborate a bit out of boredom and freetime without a laptop to do other stuff.
Kiel noted that he has "written about guys and girls." That is a meaningless statement in the conversation, period. Kiel saying he's "gender-blind" (to paraphrase, and I ask that you not take that term literally) is also pointless, since it does not suddenly mean that women and men are the same with only 'percieved' differences-- it's much more than that, in reality, because there really are differences that many seem to ignore.
So, assuming you read Killa/Seth/Aman's posts, put this in your shake-- differences between men and women growing up in any civilisation is not just something a male teen accused of finding women obfuscating believes-- it's basically why the Feminist movement exists. Women grow up in society and face different challenges than men (and vice versa), and translating that to writing and concocted worlds is more complicated than switching up genitalia, this originally refuting Kiel's original statements about there not being many gender differences and how it shouldn't really affect writing (at least, that's what I got from it.) I think/know it really does if you're a good writer (see Secret of Daphne or even semi-dreck like BuffyVampHunter): so COGs market of gender choice is pointless and meaningless; acting gender-blind ('a human being is just a human being'-esque simplicity) when creating characters is lazy and lends to 2-dimensional characters; and ignoring cultural trends and complexities is a disservice to whatever world you're representing, not to mention the characters. Basically.

After saying basically all that in one paragraph, the response completely ignored it to focus on patronization,
"If you prefer to think of women as mysterious and difficult creatures just because they don't have dicks, that's your prerogative." 
"The opposite sex grows less mysterious with age, I promise."

I'm just confused where that comes into play as a response. It misses the point thoroughly and is, as aforementioned, juvenile-- so Mizal prophesied correctly haha. 


Female Characters on 2/1/2016 12:12:34 AM

Sarcasm haha. Your writing doesn't mean much and certainly doesn't necessarily represent an accurate portrayal of male/female experiences. Just because an author can write vague enough main characters doesn't mean ?e's doing service to either gender. Happens to be men and women in most (if not all) cultures grow up differently due to both natural inclination and gender roles provided by environment. It is thoroughly understandable why a female would be more regulated to writing female characters (as she has her own experiences to mark on) and the vice versa as a male. Interesting characters are more than their genitalia, sure, but they also grew up with those genitalia, with appropriate hormones and public reaction due to it.


Female Characters on 1/31/2016 11:56:43 PM

Kiel's an expert on gender differentials.


Did he really do it? on 1/30/2016 7:23:15 PM

Bill Clinton did not have sexual relations with that woman.


Old ideas and short stories on 1/29/2016 9:07:03 AM

Wow, that's pretty neat. Definitely looking forward to Rogues, maybe even more than Primal. Innkeeper was a really unique setting and I love this 'new'  idea. Was Innkeeper related to any of your other stories? (Like the Necromancer cameo in Eternal sort of thing).

Does the story immediately start out at age 16?


Not Alan Rickman too!!! on 1/14/2016 9:48:02 PM

Musician (Bowie) > Actor (Rickman) > Director/Producer (Spielberg)


Not Alan Rickman too!!! on 1/14/2016 3:26:41 PM

2016's off to a great start :P