A Bug In The Game

supernewjt.bitballoon.com› ★ ★ A Bug In The Game

Is a platform video game developed by Realtime Associates and published by Sega for the Sega Saturn. It was first released in North America in 1995 just weeks. Aug 20, 2015 (Canon bug control. Higher skill level in utilizing QA increases her range) This seems much more interesting than just going with an empowered version of the generic gamer power, especially if we ever gain the ability to fire lasers from our bugs.

Click to expand.Thanks again! I really appreciate these. While I appreciate all the feedback from my readers, you're one of the few who really grasp how to do concrit: • You keep your remarks specific • You quote passages that needs to be fixed.

• You offer specific suggestions for how to fix the problem While your comments are focused on grammar, these basic rules apply to all constructive criticism. You're also being overly generous calling these typos. A few of them are legitimate typos. Most of them are flat out grammar errors.

Much appreciated and also timely. I was just about to post this revised segment to A Bug in the Game. This gives me a chance to fix them before they go out. >>>>>>You're putting a space between the open angle bracket and the text, which doesn't seem consistent with your co-author.

Also, didn't the ellipsis actually get included in that party name? I believe FL was putting spaces in an earlier draft, but you're write. It's inconsistent. Search and replace done.

Also I'm pretty sure I have this same mistake in later posts. I'll fix them as I move over to A Bug in the Game. The ellipsis represents a spoken pause. James's actual words and tone were picked up, but the pause in speech isn't rendered into ellipsis. So the group is named 'Tutorial?' >>>>Well designed clothes provide can bonuses to reaction rolls, defense, and other stats.

>>>can provide Fixed! >>>>>>The experience progress to next level should be on the end of the previous line, next to the actual level. >>>>Not the time or the place for a rant and not James’s fault, or even his powers. >>>>To create an Illusion Barrier, simply raise one hand over your head, focus you energy there, and then flare it. >>your Now this one was actually a typo! The others were just flat wrong.

>>>>Raise your hand, focus your power, and flair it with the intent of exiting the barrier. >>flare Fixed. Also needs to be fixed by FL in Tutorial. >>>>James bats it out of the air and curb stomps onto the deck. That's not a curb stomp, though? He didn't even get in the finishing blow (or a comparatively successful one), to invoke it as a metaphor.

Also, reads that he's just stamping the deck, not the zombie. Two obvious potential fixes: either delete the bolded words, or rewrite as 'air, knocking it onto'. Hmm, you're correct. I was using 'curb stomp' in the figurative instead of the literal, but that's a bad choice here because a curb stomp is a specific combat maneuver. 'knocking it onto' fixes that, but I wanted something more vivid. I'm replacing the entire sentence: James swung his bat like a sledgehammer and slammed it onto the deck. Also some more extensive changes in this paragraph and the previous one.

I slipped into present tense for a bit. I'm writing in first person past. >>>>I follow -up it up by caving in the things head and it vanishes along with the maggots that fed off it.

>>Delete this. >>thing's Changes accepted and also reworded to past tense: I followed it up by caving in the thing's head >>>>It was really trolling it and I couldn’t help but laugh. Maybe us or delete?

Change to 'us' >>>>I kept spinning and tried to follow-through and smash it, but I was off-balance and missed barely clipped the zombie. >>You're repeating 'and'; the first one could be replaced with a comma if you also make 'tried' into 'trying'. >>You probably want to delete 'missed', but depending on what you want to mean (and thus the emphasis you're aiming for) it could also be changed to 'missed, barely clipping'. Fixed to: but I was off-balance and barely clipped the zombie.

>>>>It didn’t seem at all phased by the blow. >>>>Better to put it finish the job then live it alive, unalive?, and turn my back on it. >>Delete one of these phrases. >>than >>leave Ick, that was just garbled wasn't it? Reworded: 'Better to finish the job than leave it alive, unalive?, and turn my back on it.' And parenthesis usually sound like authorial intrusion in fiction, but I'm going to further change it to: Reworded again: 'Better to finish the job than leave it alive (unalive?) and turn my back on it.'

While chitin isn't mentioned in Noob 1.2, it will make its way into Lady Bug's initial costume. Kevlar vests work well against handguns.

Modern military body armor adds ceramic and/or metal plates to stop higher velocity and armor piercing rounds. They also add a lot of weight. For Skitter's costume Wildbow had Taylor add chitin to reinforce the silk for the head, chest and spine initially and later included striking surfaces.

Wildbow claimed it made her suit tougher while still being relatively light. While I'm not entirely convinced that Wildbow is correct about the effectiveness of chitin (or we'd see it used in the real world), Lady Bug's completed armor will include it, and it will have the same toughness as Skitter's costume did in Worm. Noob 1.2 was focused more on the style and presentation of the costume. Taylor will later clarify that it does have chitin in it, but she hadn't thought of adding chitin at this point.

That was an enhancement that she thought of later and incorporated to the final design. This is also Lady Bug's first costume. Canon Taylor tweaked her costume several times in Worm.

In A Bug in the Game she'll show the same tendency to tinker with her suit to make it more effective. Click to expand.I just thought that it would be a good idea to mention it to you just in case. Chitin is basically the same stuff as your hair and fingernails but much more compressed.

Mixed with spider silk it would make for good body armor if there was a fair amount of it placed in between the bullet/knife and a person. The problem is it takes a fair amount and getting the size and shape right is gonna be a headache and a half for Taylor due to the fact that she is using insect chitin. For someone without Taylor's bug control it would be unpractical. We now return to Taylor Hebert for her view on the events. This segment is concurrent with Tutorial 2.1 & 2.2 of Co-Op mode.

Party Invite 2.1 I arrived early at the Ship Graveyard to scout it out. It wasn’t entirely abandoned. There were homeless living here, but not many down by the beach. While there were plenty of wrecks around, they were regularly submerged beneath the tide and storm surges, so they weren’t exactly fit for human habitation. With the economy of Brockton Bay being what it was there were plenty of other abandoned places to choose from that weren’t regularly flooded. I’d managed to find a beached container ship that was accessible by climbing over a submerged tugboat.

Two-thirds of the vessel was underwater, but what was left was almost perfect for power testing: no people, walled off from prying eyes, nothing at all of value that could be damaged, plenty of junk for target practice, and places to hide even if we did attract attention. My bugs would provide us with ample warning if someone did intrude. I sat down on a rusty oil drum to wait. I took out a notepad where I’d jotted down some ideas and reviewed them. I was really looking forward to finding out more about James’s powers.

His powers were weird, but there was safety in numbers. Just spotting other capes would be useful, but I needed to know what else he could do. I’d come up with quite a few ideas for testing his abilities since we’d parted.

The Capes and Crooks books had been helpful, but not as much as an older less popular game, Dungeons and Dragons, 2.5 edition. That book had levels and skills and stats like vitality, although they’d called it constitution. After reading them I’d decided that the most important thing to determine was whether James had a Thinker power that reported when statistics like vitality improve or if he had some kind of power that allowed him to easily improve statistics and skills.

The easiest way to do that would probably be by testing strength. If we had access to a gym or a weight set, it would be easy. We didn’t, or at least I didn’t have access to one. I’d brought a bathroom scale. My plan was to use an empty oil drum, weigh various bits of junk, fill it up and find out the maximum James could lift.

Then we’d both do a strength workout. I’d brought some dumbbells for that. After James got a strength check, we could see if he could lift more. If it was a thinker power, then James shouldn’t have an observable change in a few hours of working out. If it was something else, then I hoped expect to see an obvious increase. The next thing I wanted to test was skill acquisition and improvement.

James had mentioned that Danger Sense was not very useful. However, that would be a very useful skill IF it could be improved. That led to the same question.

Either he had a thinker power that was merely quantifying skills as he learned them at a normal rate, or his power allowed him to improve at an accelerated rate. To test danger sense, I planned to use the kung fu movie method – have James close his eyes, then randomly hit him with a stick and see if he could learn to sense the danger. I expected James not to be at all thrilled with that method. For skill acquisition I’d borrowed a fishing knife from Dad’s tackle box. I wanted to see if having James stab at a target would trigger him getting a knife skill. As another test, I wanted him to try sneaking up on me, with my bugs sent away, to see if he could pick up a stealth skill.

Having some kind of stranger ability could come in handy. My bugs let me know that James was approaching. I loved having an early warning system. I directed some ladybugs to form arrows to guide James to me. I could have used more threatening insects, but I was trying to build the habit of using ladybugs for my public face.

While they led James to me, I closed my notebook. One thing that I hadn’t written down that I needed to remember: this was James’s power. He seemed to be willing to let me take the lead, and I liked that, but this partnership of ours was in the early stages. I didn’t want to get bossy trying to tell him how to use his power. I needed to let him volunteer his own ideas first. I could introduce my ideas later. “You’re early.” I gave him a nod of approval.

Early was a good sign that he was taking this seriously. Since not taking things seriously could cause both of us to end up dead, that was important to me. “Thanks for the directions.” Or maybe I was wrong about him taking this seriously. James looked a little spaced out.

“Are you okay? You’ve got a weird look on your face” “I just finished the quest to meet you here. 200 XP and it ‘unlocked the tutorial’. It wants to know if I want to view the tutorial now?” He made a gesture in the air as if pushing something that wasn’t there. “It’s kinda annoying that these block my view when they pop up. At least I can just slide them to the side if I’m not ready to close ‘em.” Seriously? He got popups that blocked his view?

That could be a real problem in the middle of a fight. “Why would you leave them open?” “Um I’m not sure how to open screens up again. And I don’t want to wait for however long it’ll take to level up again to spend my points.” Cool!

“So you really do get points? Do you know what this means?” I hopped down from the oil drum and tried to get a better look. While James was apparently looking at something, I couldn’t see the slightest distortion in the air, nor could my bugs feel anything flying about us.

“What stats can you spend them on? What are your stats at now? Why haven’t you spent them already?” James backed up and dropped his backpack. No?” He started pushing his hands at nothing again. “4 strength, 7 agility, 12 vitality, 39 intelligence, 4 wisdomand 5 luck. I wanted to check with you before I spent any. Should I focus on vitality to tank for you?

Strength to put attackers down hard or hold them still for you? Agility to actually be able to hit them? I also practiced with some -” I let a little laugh slip out when James mentioned his wisdom of four and felt immediately guilty. Yes, that was very James, but laughing about it wasn’t nice.

He compounded my guilt by offering to spend his points to make him a better partner for me. Then he trailed off again. I waved my hand through the place he seemed to be staring at – nothing. “What happened?” “I just accidentally triggered that power that gives me a little more detail about who or whatever I'm focused on. Your title has changed.” “It was, right?” Now what is it? James nodded. “And now it’s.

I wonder how much that even means? After all, titles in games can be purely cosmetic or really awesome boosts to stats or skills or growth.” “No way to tell though?” His power was so weird. “Not that I’ve found yet.” “Well, maybe we should learn more about your power first. Go ahead and open the tutorial.” That wasn’t bossing him, just encouraging. “Sounds weird without a computer around” More poking in the air. “Looks weird, poking your fingers at nothing.” He didn’t really react. Just stared at something I couldn’t see.

I counted to ten. Still staring. Did he get sucked in? “Are you okay?” “Yeah.

” Wait, what? Did he just give a voice command? “Okay, that works.” He jabbed the air again looking satisfied. So he has a status window? Strangest thinker power ever.

“” He kept staring. I might as well not be here. It really wasn’t new that his power quantified his stats and skills, but that it would display them on demand was new. How was his power doing this? It didn’t even match up with what I knew about trigger events. I got trapped in a locker full of bugs, so I triggered with bug powers.

That at least made a little bit of sense. James got beat up and triggered with videogame powers.

That made no sense at all. In the end his theme didn’t matter as much as the results; except that it made him act like a mime. Maybe that could be his hero name, Mr. “.tutorial?” Party? Now that could be interesting! “” “What was th- AH!” Suddenly I had my very own window with text written on it asking me if I wanted to join the party. I should have expected that.

The new window was only visible for me. My bugs flew through it without feeling a thing. I pressed the yes button. I felt no resistance, but suddenly more words appeared. “Really?” Whoa. Who cared about how silly it looked. James has the best power ever!

Would it respond to me now that I was in the party? I had skills! I had lots of skills! That made too much sense. I had originally thought my power was insect control, but it included spiders so that made it arthropods, but I’d already known about worms and leeches. I should have figured out invertebrates on my own.

This made it much more versatile than I’d thought. I’d studied up on bugs, but I needed to do more research on other spineless critters.

No fucking way! I knew that I could control a lot of bugs at once, but I had seriously underestimated my own abilities. Even more shocking, Multitasking was listed as independent of my ability to control invertebrates. Thinking about it, I could easily individually adjust each of my fingers in complex patterns while reading this. It wasn’t even an effort. Oh, this had potential!

That wasn’t right. I could feel where my bugs were at all times, mostly feel what they touched. Smelling and taste – usually. However, hearing was wonky and trying to use sight was an exercise in pain. This was wrong. Again with the not quite right.

No, wait This must be what happened when I first triggered. I almost went insane before I learned to shut out everything my bugs were screaming at me all the time. When I tried to see or hear things I had to relax that control. So this interpretation matched even if it was a backwards way of describing it. Well damn, that spelled it out quite clearly didn’t it?

Three meters per level. This more than implied that I could expand my radius with practice. Making the most of my ability to multitask, I immediately sent out bugs to the extreme limits of my range to work on extending it outward. Huh, James’s power was really proving its usefulness.

Just knowing this was a skill that I could work on and improve was very valuable. Also that 99.1% experience was interesting. I should be able to level it easily. Backlash, that would be the headaches, passing out and catatonia. If the backlash was based on how far senses diverged from my own, then I should start by trying to interpret smells and taste better, then working my way up to hearing and leave sight for last. That insight alone was worth more than I could put a price to.

Fashion design? And was James’s power mocking me? Now I was certain that James’s power was mocking me, but those bonuses on Cryptography opened all kinds of doors. Did that mean other skills might come with a bonus to statistics? “How do you gain stats and skills?” “I got five points to spend on stats from leveling up. Some games you get more points at higher levels, but most actually stay the same amount each time, so it’ll probably stay the same Oh! Not only did I get the one point of vitality in your locker, I earned three running home last night and two more running here today.

Exercise works, with diminishing returns. Which I guess is kinda normal. Skills so far I seem to get them based on things I do, but the tutorial said I can also use skill books to get new skills.” Skill books!

Oh my god, the possibilities. I could completely take over and boss James about his power. I even had my finger in the air to wave at him.

I needed to chill. I lowered my finger.

“We’ll come back to that. Can you make the tutorial continue?” Heh, James’s power mocked him even more than me.

“I’ll remind you.” “That obvious?” “Wis 4. On that subject, I want to see how much better level 12 is. ” I still wasn’t sure what Novice Hero meant, or how good level 12 was without a scale to measure it against.

Now, the good stuff. “Okay.” “Nice.” “Nice.” “Sweet.” “Awesome.” What the?

“FUCK!” “What’s wrong?” “I have no luck.” I’d like to think this was James’s power screwing with me again, but the truth hurt. There it was in print. A great big fat zero. That explained so much. James made an weak attempt to sympathize with me. “My luck isn’t exactly great eithe-” “Not low luck.

Less than one. Not the time or the place for a rant and not James’s fault, or even his powers'. XP sounded good. “Hey, I can just leach off my level 12 friend until I’ve got a few levels to work with.” James was aiming for funny, but didn’t quite make it. I shifted my glare to him, but my heart wasn’t in it. I wasn’t mad at James.

I was furious with my life. Now James’s power is mocking both of us.

That breaks the rest of my tension and pulls an unwilling laugh out of me. James put his hand in the air. Nothing visible happened, but suddenly every bug that wasn’t in direct contact with my body vanished. It was a rather scary feeling, like being suddenly blindfolded. Almost reflexively I commanded the bugs still on me to spread out. As they flew out from me, my awareness of my surroundings returned, albeit lacking in the detail it had before. It was also quiet.

“It worked, right? Everything looks the same, but the noise all stopped. And I can only sense the bugs I had on me.” “Yeah, it worked.

And I got a skill called to do it again.” I wondered if I could learn those skills. The name, Illusion Barrier, said a lot. So none of this was real. That meant James was part Master? If someone was outside would they see us standing around with vacant looks on our faces? That could be really bad. “Yes!” That was everything I hoped for out of ‘inventory’ and more.

I reached for my bag for my costume and it was gone. “No!” “What?” “You don’t get it? We can use the inventory to do quick changes. My costume takes almost half an hour to get into, but with your power, I can switch into it in a second.” Alright, not really half an hour, but it took less time to get the skirts hung right than it did to wriggle into my costume. However, I couldn’t try it out, because like most of my bugs my bag wasn’t here right now.

“Or I could, if your power hadn’t left it in another dimension.” Lady? Did James’s power know? “,” James commanded.

Saying things out loud like that would get James and I noticed quickly. As an experiment I mouthed a not even audible “” and was pleased to see a beige window popup. There was a Barbie doll version of me taking up most of the screen with little boxes of clothes arrayed around it.,,,,,,,, and. At the bottom was another comment in dull yellow. I dismissed the window with an angry wave and watched James. There had been something about presents for a lady. It had better be good to make up for And James reached into thin air and pulled out a bat.

Reading it and looking at the screen was one thing. Watching him pull a shiny aluminum baseball bat out of thin air was something else.

As I took the bat from James another bat appeared in James’s hand. Only his bat was a girly pink. I looked from my shiny metal bat to his pink wooden one and smirked. I probably would have taken the girly bat if he’d asked, but it was cool that he didn’t stereotype me. His power is so weird. I was getting too used to James’s bullshit power. I was more bothered by the lack of advanced warning from my bugs than the sudden appearance of something from Night of the Living Dead part 23.

It was the typical horror movie reject: rotting swollen flesh with raw meat hanging off of it. However, no horror movie was that real. Movies don’t come with the smell of the grave. Worse, they don’t have real maggots in the flesh sending me that taste of death and describing it as yummy. I barely avoided puking as I hurriedly closed off listening to the tastes from the maggots.

As James calls out “”, I try muttering it, but nothing happens. I look to James for details. “It’s strong but slow.

Pretty basic zombie, I guess.” Right. The zombie really was slow. I rushed towards it and brought my bat up. With the maggots inside the creature aiming was easy.

It was like reaching out to touch my own hand. I smashed it in the balls, and actually lifted it up and off its feet. James swung his bat like a sledgehammer and slammed it onto the deck I followed it up by caving in the thing's head and it vanished along with the maggots that fed off it. The thing fadeed away into some kind of shadow-stuff, but I couldn’t see because I was flooded with pop-ups. So, no extra damage? What good was it then?

Was knockback a gaming term? Would it do damage if I knocked a zombie into something like a wall? This sounded much better. I had considered picking up a sword to go with my costume, but I didn't really think the Protectorate would smile on me having an edged weapon. My new bat had a nice heft to it, but wouldn't match my costume.

Maybe a scepter or something? A collapsible baton might be better, easier to carry. This tutorial had proved I shouldn't depend on having access to James's inventory. Double damage at first level? Would it get stronger? I’d have to be careful with this one.

I could use it on zombies and tough brutes, but this could kill a normal person. Then again, I had caved in the zombie’s skull with a baseball bat. That would certainly kill a normal person. Against zombies, the power combo was awesome. “What did you get?” Interrupted James. Harman Kardon Pc Sound Driver For Windows 7 more.

“,, and.” I gave him a big toothy smile. “How about you?” “Nice. That weapon mastery is freaking awesome. Something’s weird about though. The description had an extra line, dot dot dot ‘and knock ‘em down’?” Weapon mastery wasn’t as awesome as, but I was more amused by James’s power. It was really trolling us and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“My says ‘Set ‘em up’ “.my power is weird.' James finished as he got the joke. I burst out laughing again.

In that we were in total agreement. One zombie popped out of nowhere in front of us, but I sensed the presence of three maggot-filled bodies; one of them was swinging at me! I spun away barely in time to avoid getting my head caved in. It wasn’t the most graceful of dodges, but it worked. I kept spinning and tried to follow-through and smash it, but I was off-balance and barely clipped the zombie.

It didn’t seem at all fazed by the blow. James was in trouble. He was tumbling down the gentle slope of the deck with two zombies after him. I needed to put this one down hard and fast.

The zombie shuffled forward slowly. He looked like a reject from office space of the dead wearing a dirt encrusted suit with a red tie. Perched on top of its head like a dunce cap was a bright orange traffic cone. The zombie staggered closer and tried to tag me with a clumsy swing. The maggots in its body made it ridiculously easy to avoid, although the maggots felt wrong, somewhat itchy for want of a better word. I really didn’t have time to explore that sensation in the middle of combat. I stepped forward swinging my bat like a golf club trying to activate the Rising Strike skill.

My aluminum bat made contact with its crotch and sent it flying toward the prow of the boat. For a moment I weighed running to help James, but he was already back on his feet and fighting. I’d seen enough zombie horror films not to assume the zombie I was facing was down for the count. Better to finish the job than leave it alive (unalive?) and turn my back on it. So I advanced on it and caught it as it was staggering back to its feet.

Another upward strike caught it under the chin and sent it tumbling backward. I followed up with two more pummeling blows before it vanished in a wave of darkness. James meanwhile had his fight under control.

Both zombies were down. He whaled away at both their prone bodies while ranting at them, “Die, die, you rotting undead freaks, die” I made an executive decision that James needed a few moments. I kept monitoring the situation with my bugs, but I decided to focus on the pop-up windows.

I still didn’t know how much experience I needed to level up or if I could spend points to increase my stats, particularly luck but more experience had to be good. Okay, this skill wasn’t too surprising after receiving three other skills for using a bat.

Ten percent wasn’t that much only a point or so of agility, but every little bit helped. I had one more screen. Hmm, sounded vague, but promising. In part this was merely telling me what I’d already noticed – it was easy to dodge and hit foes when I had my bugs on them (or maggots inside them). It would be like knowing my own hand trying to sneak up on me, or finding my foot.

It was almost instinctive. The alert confirmed what the vanishing maggots told me, both of James’s zombies were dead, make that destroyed. James still looked a bit out of it. I’m not sure what was the right thing to do here. James went a little nuts, but it was with good reason. They were zombies, so not exactly wrong to turn them into maggotburgers, just disturbing.

Then again, who was I to complain? I’d had a full-blown psychotic break of my own.

Before Emma’s inner bitch devoured her soul, I would have given old Emma a hug. James wasn’t that kind of friend yet, plus he was a teenaged boy, which meant he had that male ego thing going on.

I decided to give him some space and watch. Right, so that happened. James apparently had pop-ups to read, because he started swiping and punching fingers at the air. Whatever he read must have improved his mood because he started smiling a happy smile instead of an axe-murderer smile. Hopefully he was better now? Except he still had zombie guts on him.

“You you’ve got a little something on your face.” James reached up and wiped his face, but still didn’t say anything. James let out a squeal that disturbingly reminded me of old-Emma spotting a pair of ‘simply adorable’ shoes on sale for twenty percent off. Note to self, James wasn’t all there.

Up until this point I've been reposting content from Co-Op Mode, but now I have some shiny *new* content for you: Party Invite 2.2 This chapter happens over lunch, after Tutorial 2.3 and before Tutorial 2.4. Join Taylor Hebert and James Barron for lunch: Party Invite 2.2 I took off my mask and sat down to eat with James on the little picnic spread he’d laid out. My bugs were back on patrol duty, so we’d have ample warning before anyone got close. “I’m glad you thought to bring food. I brought stuff to test powers with, but forgot to bring food.” He deserved the compliment. He had sandwiches in little tupperware containers instead of merely shoved in baggies, plus bottled water for us both and even a blanket. So even if the food was basic, he’d tried, and that was more than I’d done.

“My power suggested I pack lunch. So, what stuff did you bring?” James sounded politely curious as he grabbed a fake ham sandwich.

I opted for a dependable PB&J over the questionable pseudo-ham. I took a bite and discovered that the jelly was strawberry; I approved. After a sip of water to clear my palate I answered him. “Well, one thing I want to test that we still don’t know for sure: do you have a thinker power that is quantifying things, or is your power granting and/or helping us gain skills.” James sighed, probably thinking of my warning. “I’m pretty sure it’s actually improving things, but it would be good to be sure. How would we test it?

I sketched out my plan for using a kitchen scale and an oil drum to approximate our how much we could lift, then we both do strength workouts until we get a stat increases and try again. “And normal people after a workout would have sore muscles. If either of us can lift more” “ Then we know that my power helps people get better. That reminds me, how do you want me to spend my points to help you? Vitality to take more damage?

Strength to dish it out? Agility to hit things?” “I don’t know how to answer that.” Really, I wasn’t sure what the points meant. How was I supposed to decide for James? “Right now I’d be tempted to put my points in luck, but there was that thing about it getting harder to get stat increases from practice.” With all that had happened, I wasn’t sure about the exact wording, but the meaning was clear. “So maybe rather than bump up my luck, I should try to play Yahtzee, or poker, or something, and see if I can increase it.” James nodded with eager enthusiasm. “That’s probably a good idea. Also, most game systems reward specializing.

Your wisdom is probably so high because you’re a master, so spending points on your wisdom would probably make you a better master. On the other hand, you don’t want your dump stats so low you get penalties.” A few hours of reviewing rule books had obviously not taught me geek-speak. “So a dump stat is my lowest stat?” He made a wavy gesture with his sandwich free hand. “Well, yes and no. Normally a dump stat is one you purposely let be low so you can spend your limited points on other stats and skills that fit your build better. I didn’t choose to have a low wisdom, but the cool thing about my power is that I’ve been getting wisdom bonuses just for not being an idiot. I probably won’t spend points on it since I’m not a master, and it’s increasing slowly anyway.

I don’t think anyone chooses luck as a dump stat. It usually affects everything a little.” That earned him an eye roll. “Can’t imagine why.” “Yeah, sorry about that, but anyway, you’re probably right about being able to level up your luck easily, judging by my wisdom increases and the vitality bumps that I’ve gotten since yesterday.” I nodded. “Which lead me to believe your power really is augmenting us. However, I don’t like all the guessing. Maybe we should save the points until we have a better idea what the stats really do and how easy they are to raise?” James grinned. “We’ll make a munchkin out of you yet!” I hated to ask, but “So what do the little people from Wizard of Oz have to do with anything?” “A munchkin is someone who games the system.

They figure out power combos to take advantage of the rules.” “Right.” I tried a fake-ham sandwich. It looked like deviled ham, except it was a darker pink. The texture was off, and it was maybe a little on the sweet side.

Not exactly bad, just different. Still better than my father’s cooking. If it didn’t come out of a box with an attached recipe, he was clueless. “So let’s put aside spending stat points. I want to test gaining and leveling skills.

We both already got way more skills than I expected, but I think we should prioritize danger sense. It would be awesome if we could improve it.

So that's where I want to start, young grasshopper.” “Young grasshopper? Is that a kung-fu movie reference?” “Yeah, my father likes kung-fu movies and westerns. To get back to the point, I have a stick and a blindfold. You wear the blindfold and use your danger sense to avoid me hitting you with the stick.” James only briefly looked hesitant about me hitting him with a stick, then he embraced the idea. “That’s brilliant! I didn’t know how to level danger sense safely.

I can also check the exp gain to see if it is working.” Note to self, it wasn’t just James’s power that was weird. “So in addition to testing leveling up skills, I wanted to test gaining new skills. I brought a fishing knife out of my father’s tackle box. We can both try stabbing a target with it to see if we pick up a knife skill. The other thing I thought up was some kind of Stranger ability. I thought we could try sneaking up on each other.

We could both use it for different reasons.” “Well in your case, most Masters try to avoid attention. However, it doesn’t look like you’re going that route.

You’re a little too shiny.” I held up a hand for him to wait while I chewed my fake ham sandwich. It really wasn’t that bad.

In fact, compared to some of the things my bugs found delicious, it was downright tasty. “You’re partly right. My Lady Bug costume has a -20% to stealth, but things aren’t always what they seem.” I gave a completely unnecessary wave and my bugs flew off with my cape and hung it black side out up against a nearby wall.

“At night, I have my own portable concealment. I’ve also got this combat map of everything around me in my head.

So despite my glittery costume, I can probably do a good job at avoiding attention if I put my mind to it. I still want some kind of stealth. My combat map doesn’t do me much good if I stomp around like an elephant.” “Detachable cape, cool. ” James poked at the air. “Where did you see the stealth penalty for your costume?” “Let me check. ” I’m sure we looked odd pushing invisible buttons together.

“It’s at the bottom of my little Barbie doll thing in inventory, in yellow print. Fashion Rating, Impressive. +50% to Reaction Rolls, +25% to Intimidate, -20% to Stealth. Moderate Protection vs.

Slashing Damage. Moderate Protection vs. Piercing Damage. Minor Protection vs. Crushing Damage.” I swiped my screen closed.

“Wow, that sounds pretty good. I don’t see any yellow print. I guess because my clothes give no bonuses.” Or maybe it was because you had to have the Fashion Design skill to see fashion ratings? I didn’t really feel like volunteering that.

James obviously respected me, and fashion design sounded a bit flakey. However, there was something else that I could offer. “I’ll be glad to make you a suit. It won’t take half the time it took me to make mine. Most of my time was spent building up a supply of spiders to weave it.” “Wait, you had spiders weave that?” I grinned. It’s mostly spider silk. Black widow dragline spider silk to be precise.

If the stuff I’ve read is correct, it stops bullets better than Kevlar. I haven’t had a chance to test it. I’ve used common house spiders to color the white parts and golden orb spiders spun the breastplates and other bits. I’ve also used chitin to reinforce the breast, helmet and striking surfaces for my hands.” “Wow you’re a crafter!

Please, make me a set. I still want to see what the bonuses are for the zombie armor, but it will probably take me a while to farm the parts anyway and that’s assuming that the blueprints drop to make the other pieces. I’d like something like yours, but could mine be darker?

I love the shiny image you’re working, but I want something less, um, New Wave.” I grinned. Maybe a bit edgy? I think that I’ve got just the thing for you. Strip away the cosmetic layers of white and gold silk on my suit and you get pure black widow dragline silk, which is a yellowish gray, plus the black widow and chitin sectons which are a mottled gray. It is plenty dark and edgy.” Parian had claimed it looked villainous, but I was sure I could make an edgy antihero out of it. “I also had this idea for a mandible looking sections along the jaw line of the mask to give it more of an insectile look.

I’ve got a sketch at home. I’ll bring it next time.” “Sounds cool. I’ll” James lost focus for a moment staring at something between us that I couldn’t see. “Huh, I just got a quest pop-up. Assemble a costume.

I have to obtain a full costume. Doesn’t seem to matter how I do it. I just have to get one.” “Oh.” I was in the party this time and hadn’t received that quest. So that part of his power seemed to be for James only. I felt a bit disappointed, but really it was amazing how much of James’s power could be shared.

“So what do you get for the quest?” “For success I get 500 XP and a matching item!” And James’s power goes beyond weird into total bullshit. Why was I even surprised? James had already mentioned crafting armor out of zombie parts. “Matching item?” “Yeah! If it’s like most games it will probably be some minor bit of jewelry with a negligible stat plus on it, like plus one agility or such. If I’m really lucky it will be a matching weapon.” I glanced at the bat that I already regarded as mine. Yeah, his power really did make stuff out of thin air.

How easily I had accepted that, but if his power was correct I could multitask a simply ridiculous 10 to the 48th power concurrent operations. Powers were all bullshit in some way. “So does that mean you want to skip power testing and work on your costume quest?” “What? No.” He waved his hand in a gesture I was growing to recognize as dismissing an unseen window. “I’ll work on that tonight at home. I want to do power testing first, then maybe try more zombies.

I gotta get more drops if I want to make zombie armor.” Somewhere along the way we’d eaten most of the sandwiches. “So about costume design.

Best advice I can give you is pick a name first and work towards it.” I took a gulp of my water. Something else that I’d let slip my mind. “Also I’m worried about the name of your Illusion Barrier power. What if it is a master effect? What if when we’re in an illusion barrier both of us are standing around staring at illusions?

That would leave us vulnerable.” “Oh. That would be bad. I didn’t consider that, but on the other hand my inventory is extradimensional weirdness. So maybe it’s a pocket dimension or something.” I nodded my head in agreement. “That would be better. It could even be exploited. It left my bugs out.

So if it leaves out people, we could use it to infiltrate. It’s not quite teleporting, but you could open up a zone, and we walk inside a building and just appear inside. Or if we get over our head fighting Hookwolf or someone we could use it to run away.” And that would be extremely bad to do if it was a Master effect. “So we test it. My bugs gave me a pretty good idea on the range of your zone. It’s a bit more than a football field. I’ll be outside and can test whether you’re standing around staring at nothing or if you vanished into a pocket dimension.” James started laughing.

“Taylor, are you sure you don’t game much? Because you were born to munchkin.

Yeah, if it is a pocket dimension, then we can exploit the hell out of that.” For a moment James’s laugh had set me on edge. Lately laughter meant people laughing at me. However, James’s laugh was friendly, even admiring.

It felt good. “Thanks, but testing first.” Testing out my ideas proved to be mostly boring sprinkled with a few moments of excitement. I’d grown to enjoy running, but lifting weights didn’t give me the same kind of charge. It was boring lifting things over and over and over.

Still, we stuck with it for an hour until I gained a point of strength. During that time James gained two. My kitchen scale and oil drum test confirmed what we’d both guessed – James’s power really did cause improvements.

We were both noticeably stronger, James more so than me. He also seemed less tired.

We moved on to beating James with a stick. It worked in a way.

James reported small increases to both his and skills. However, It didn’t turn out like I’d expected. The bamboo pole training thing had been funny to watch in movies. While I wasn’t raising a mark on James, hitting him with a stick obviously hurt him. There was nothing funny about it. A quick calculation showed it would take hours of hitting James with a stick for him to gain levels in his skills. I didn’t have the stomach for that.

Trying to pick up Stranger abilities was more fun. I sent my bugs to the edge of my range and practiced using a knife on a life preserver while James tried to sneak up on me. That earned me skills in,, and an unexpected one called that gave me bonuses to spotting enemies. Meanwhile, James picked up a skill. We swapped places so we could learn the other skills. I was a bit disappointed that Stealth wasn’t more useful.

It only gave a 2% bonus to remaining hidden while stationary and 1% while moving slowly. However, it leveled much faster than or so maybe there was hope for it. I also took shameless advantage of my multitasking ability to practice my powers the whole time. I ordered bugs at the edge of my range to fly away for a bit and then come back. This worked and slowly increased both my Master Control Area and Lingering Command skills. I even leveled from level 22 to 23 – further proof that James’s power could help parahumans improve their own powers.

James suggested we try hand to hand and wanted me to go first because he didn’t want to hit a girl. He begged for me to give him my best shot, so I decked him in the face. He’d been asking for it on multiple levels. Maybe I hit him a little too hard, but I picked up a skill out of it. However, he was apparently serious about that chivalry crap and didn’t want to hit me back. I wasn’t a raging feminist. It might be nice to have a guy open a door for me sometime.

However, training was no time to get chivalrous. Plus what would he do in combat?

His only offense was hitting things. Would he not hit Cricket or Rune because they were female? Also we’d need to take things up to sparring sometime soon. I didn’t like hitting James with a stick, but sparring would be different.

He wouldn’t be just standing there and taking it. I wanted to rage at James about this. I wasn’t some fragile flower, but he seemed pretty serious about it.

Now wasn’t the time for an argument. There were other things to test. I could come back to this later. While I would have loved to try increasing my luck, I didn’t even know I had a luck stat this morning when I put together my training kit. So I didn’t know to pack dice or cards. So that had to be postponed for a little while at least.

“So I think we made progress. Ready to test to see if Illusion Barrier is a Master effect or pocket dimension?” “Sure, you’re the boss lady.” He smirked at me. “Make that the boss Lady Bug.”.

So a short Author's Notes to cover two points. First, FL and I are going to try to stagger the story more in the future. There will still be some He Said/She Said posts where they are substantially the same except for point of view.

This post is a step in that direction. However, that isn't exactly easy to coordinate. Second, the Tutorial Arc is probably going to be the most game mechanic intensive section of the story. The game mechanics of James's power will certainly get mentioned through both stories. It wouldn't be a Gamer crossover without some game mechanics. However, this is the point where the characters are trying to figure out James's powers.

So the game mechanics are more intrusive now. They won't stay the focus of the story. Learning 'magic' could help them with slide of hand and misdirection. Even the classic cup and balls trick could get them a few levels quickly and the parts are as simple as 3 cups and a few balls that can be anything from real balls to crumpled up paper/foil.

As soon as they have some cash from loot they need to hit a dollar store for cheap supply's like cards, fake swords and paper. Then to thrift stores looking for tool or other things that can be cheap weapons till they can gear up.

As a under 18 they cant buy swords/knives/machetes but they can buy a $5 crow bar from a thrift store. Yard sales are another good option as people dont even think about the use of the items they are selling and some times weapons/tools/sporting equipment can be found at a good price. Would a youtube or google type site be around in this universe? Because it would be a big help to them on how to make improvised weapons like throwing stars/knives cut out of old circular saw blades to what standard tools make good 'to get better weapon' weapons. A baseball bat is $50+ new where an axe handle is $10 and will do more damage per hit till it breaks.

I'm glad to see you took my comments about concrit to heart. Very specific with quotes. >>>>After a sip of water to clear my palate I answered him. >>Maybe that period should be a comma? It would be a comma if it had been: After a sip of water to clear my palate I answered, “Well, one thing I want.

However, I used a full sentence so it's period full stop. >>>>yahtzee >>What? As KennW already mentioned Yahtzee is a fairly popular children's game in the US that's almost all luck. Not a terrible choice for trying to improve her luck.

I will change it to a capitol since it is a proper noun. >>Luck is probably the hardest stat to increase. Everything should be grinding luck and yet people don't walk around with that much luck amounts. Technically luck should be impossible to increase outside of paranormal abilities.

If people varied in the amount of luck they had (good or bad) then scientists would have long ago noticed that some people were lucky at dice and some weren't. However, it's a Gamer crossover, so LUK exists and it is a stat. >>>>I’ve been getting wisdom bonuses just for not being an idiot >>His wisdom is now high enough for him to realize it Remembering facts is a function of INT. >>>>I probably won’t spend points on it since I’m not a master >>But not high enough to realize just how idiotic this decision is.

James admits that a stat shouldn't be low enough to cause penalties. He also has gotten 3 WIS points already. I'd say waiting to spend points until he knows what he better understands the game mechanics and knows what to spend them on is wise. Acting without knowing all the facts is often considered to be rash and foolish. Also if he really knew the game mechanics, he'd probably be sinking points into VIT or INT, because HP and MP gain does not retroactively adjust to reflect increased VIT and INT. >>>>I took a sip of water. >>You seem very interested in remarking how many sips of water Taylor is taking.

Either it's a Checkhov Gun moment or weird narration. Unless it's plot Important I don't expect to be informed of every chew of hers.

Any particular reason you're telling me that she's thirsty? I'm posing the characters as having lunch. I also refer to her eating a PB&J and trying out a faux-ham sandwich. So you would prefer pure dialog with never a reminder of the setting? That's called 'Talking Heads' and is considered bad writing. So I try to avoid it. That being said 'I took a sip of water.'

Doesn't really add anything to that paragraph. >>>>So let’s put aside spending stat points >>And now we know how James thought it was a good idea to face ten zombies on his own. Please remedy this ASAP.

Don't let your friend walk around as an idiot. James made a point that most game systems reward specializing. Until she knows the rules Taylor is withholding judgement. It's quite consistent with Taylor's approach in canon. While she is capable of improvising on the fly, she prefers to do her research and be prepared. What evidence she has indicates that it is relatively easy to level low stats, so they might be better to be saved up and spent later. She's conducting research that afternoon.

Also idiot implies low intelligence. James has low wisdom and is therefor a fool.

>>>>Is that a kung-fu movie reference?” >>It's more of a pop culture reference. Everybody in earth aleph would have understood what she was saying, that James doesn't feels a little weird. /shrug FL didn't get it when I wrote it.

So if the older version of the pseudo-SI doesn't get the reference, why would the younger. >>>>You wear the blindfold and use your danger sense to avoid me hitting you with the stick.” >>And this proves Taylor isn't as munchkin as my beloved Skitter. She'd have random bugs biting him randomly all day everyday. The bugs with the painless but damaging bites. She's just that clever. Not you though, Ladybug Your suggested method would level Danger Sense even slower than Taylor's stick. It would also top out at Danger Sense 2 or 3 at most after a day or so of mosquito bites.

I suggest you reread Party Invite 2.2 and Tutorial 2.4 closely. There are enough clues dropped in those section that an attentive reader should be able to figure out why.

>>>>I brought a fishing knife out of my father’s tackle box. We can both try stabbing a target with it to see if we pick up a knife skill. >>You already said this one or two paragraphs back, Harper. First reference removed. >>>>The other thing I thought up was some kind of Stranger ability. I thought we could try sneaking up on each other.

We could both use it for different reasons.” >>Again, how come The Gamer didn't think of it first? First you comment that Lady Bug is not munchkin enough (compared to Skitter), now she's too munchkin? >>>>My Lady Bug costume has a -20% to stealth, >>Because it's a stupid costume. Sigh, you know this isn't concrit. I like the Lady Bug costume. Calling the costume stupid is not in any way constructive.

>>>>but things aren’t always what they seem. >>Really, they tend to be. Not even sure what you mean by this. >>>>So despite my glittery costume, I can probably do a good job at avoiding attention if I put my mind to it. >>I honestly disagree. In a fight she will be in the thick of it not hanging back enclosed in her cape in the dark. Weaver often worked through her proxies.

Taylor didn't rush out and wave at Lung. She hid on a roof. >>>>Let me check. >>Why is Taylor saying inventory? I thought only James had one! This has already been made clear in Tutorial 2.1 'While party members don’t gain access to their own extra-dimensional space, they can still use this feature to sort items on hand and manage equipment.'

Taylor even made a big deal of how it would facilitate quick costume changes. >>>>I didn’t really feel like volunteering that. Why are you going full retard? Never go full retard. Why is being embarassed retarded? >>>>James obviously respected me, and fashion design sounded a bit flakey. You're embarrassed you have a skill?

You're so dumb sometimes p, Taylor! She is a bit more secure than canon Taylor, but making a good impression on someone is new as is having a friend.

Taylor has emotions. >>>>I’d like something like yours, but could mine be darker? >>And you know not have this frilly girly weird theme? (I foresee MALESKITTERcostume ) That's what she has in mind. Whether that happens or not probably depends on what drops James receives.

>>>>Best advice I can give you is pick a name first and work towards it.” >>Terrible advice. Assemble the best set of gear and name yourself around that, not the other way around. She's giving advice based on her own past experience of what helped her most. That's how most humans give advice. >>>>It worked in a way.

>>Missing comma. Where and why? There is no dependent clause here. >>>>A quick calculation showed it would take hours of hitting James with a stick for him to gain levels in his skills. I didn’t have the stomach for that. >>Cute of you.

Hope you realize the bug way is the best way soon. As mentioned bug way would be even slower. >>>>We swapped places so we can learn the other skills. >>Could Fixed >>>>was apparently serious about that chivalry crap and didn’t want to hit me back. >>So it's cool for you to dislike beating him but the other way around is machismo?

Go fuck your self. She didn't want to beat James for hours for him to go from level one to level two in one skill.

She did beat him long enough for them to confirm the skill was increasing and to get a rough estimate of how long it would take to level. If it had actually been effective at leveling Danger Sense, she would have gritted her teeth and done it anyway. Compared to she received a skill from one punch. Not wanting to hurt someone for hours for little to no result does not equate to being unwilling to throw a single punch.

I appreciate good feedback, but flames are not welcome. Tell me to fuck myself again and you'll be reported and placed on my ignore list. This is your one warning. >>>>Make that the boss Lady Bug.” >>Ugh, awful pun. Please, Taylor, never let him do it again. There will be more puns. Clockblocker hasn't even had an appearance yet.

Learning 'magic' could help them with slide of hand and misdirection. Even the classic cup and balls trick could get them a few levels quickly and the parts are as simple as 3 cups and a few balls that can be anything from real balls to crumpled up paper/foil. As soon as they have some cash from loot they need to hit a dollar store for cheap supply's like cards, fake swords and paper. Then to thrift stores looking for tool or other things that can be cheap weapons till they can gear up.

Part of the problem they have right now is that they have so many possible different ways to they could go and they lack the information to make good decisions. They didn't know they would be fighting zombies so they didn't think they'd need better weapons. I can tell you that First Aid and some kind of ranged weapon will get added to Taylor's list soon. However, grinding luck might be at the top of her list.

There are search engines and video type sites, but again they have so many unknowns that even deciding what to research first isn't an easy question to answer. I like the tire iron idea. It's fast and simple. However, they're already planning to farm zombies. They might get lucky and get some item drops. Probably any loot drop would be better than what they could buy.

James admits that a stat shouldn't be low enough to cause penalties. He also has gotten 3 WIS points already. I'd say waiting to spend points until he knows what he better understands the game mechanics and knows what to spend them on is wise. Acting without knowing all the facts is often considered to be rash and foolish. Also if he really knew the game mechanics, he'd probably be sinking points into VIT or INT, because HP and MP gain does not retroactively adjust to reflect increased VIT and INT. Click to expand.No no no! Ladybug isn't supposed to be munchkin anyway!

Skitter had months-years of practice at it! Ladybug is a perfect skilled newbie and that's awesome! James is, however me more familiar with videogames which makes it really weird that the more obvious RPG bits, stealth in particular, aren't something he thought of. I mean, detect danger isn't a thing in most games but it's hard to find ROgs *without* stealh components. It's not so much about munchkniry as it is about the obvious stuff that I thought James would've thought of first. Click to expand.She is being embarrassed by a very minor, meaningless thing.

And more than that she is depriving James of, maybe, critical knowledge de about how his power works. Her not telling him is the part that's extremely grating. It's probably not something major about his powers but it's the sort of thing that a friend/teammate *needs* to be able to tell one another. I get that she is embarrassed. I definetely don't get that she'd leave her teammate (who has done nothing but try to helpful to her, going so far as agreeing to do whatever she tells him to do) hanging out to dry like that.

Sure, he'll get the skill himself shortly and she can tell him if he doesn't get the same info as her later but it makes very little sense, IMO, for her not to do so now. (As you can notice by length of my response this was one one the more serious bits of my post). She didn't want to beat James for hours for him to go from level one to level two in one skill. She did beat him long enough for them to confirm the skill was increasing and to get a rough estimate of how long it would take to level.

If it had actually been effective at leveling Danger Sense, she would have gritted her teeth and done it anyway. Compared to she received a skill from one punch. Not wanting to hurt someone for hours for little to no result does not equate to being unwilling to throw a single punch. I appreciate good feedback, but flames are not welcome.

Tell me to fuck myself again and you'll be reported and placed on my ignore list. This is your one warning. >>>>The ellipsis represents a spoken pause. James's actual words and tone were picked up, but the pause in speech isn't rendered into ellipsis. So the group is named 'Tutorial?' >>“.tutorial?” >>Party “.Tutorial?” Created>Sigh.

Didn't catch this when I reviewed Tutorial 2.1. This time I'm going to ask FL to change his version. >>>>We both already got way more skills than I expected, but I brought a knife and we can both try stabbing and throwing with it to see if we get a knife skill. >>>>“So in addition to testing leveling up skills, I wanted to test gaining new skills. I brought a fishing knife out of my father’s tackle box. We can both try stabbing a target with it to see if we pick up a knife skill.

>>It seems like this is unnecessary repetition, though that might be character-mistake, not author-mistake. Author mistake. I'm not sure if it was a cut and paste error from moving dialog around or just me being forgetful. Carlos Augusto pointed out first and already fixed. I reworded the first instance. >>>>However, I didn’t turn out like I’d expected. >>it Fixed >>>>We swapped places so we can learn the other skills.

>>could Fixed. Click to expand.I removed the spoiler. Mostly because of the comments about Taylor being embarrassed about Fashion Design led me to some things that I think some other readers should read. >>I think most of my specific answers to your comments are gonna come down to this: I'm not complaining about the story.

I'm venting at the characters. Venting now understood.

I can understand letting loose some steam, but probably won't comment on those. >>I actually LOLd a bit at your correction ^^ Good.

>>By the by, since James is a semi-Faria SI could I assume Taylor is semi-You? To some extent all characters that I write are part of me because I draw on my own life experiences to make them real. While I experienced some social bullying as a teen, I didn't have Taylor's experiences. Canon Taylor is also a strong guidance to writing Taylor for A Bug in the Game, but this Taylor has already diverged and will continue to diverge. It is our choices that define our character after all.

>>I meant more like some exotic bug whose powerful poison also injects some form of anesthesia and thus doesn't hurt that much. Given that James can monitor his vitals quite accurately I thought it'd a nice bit. Maybe it's not actually feasible. Better, but still very slow at leveling Danger Sense. The clues are out there. Go piece them together.

>>I mean, detect danger isn't a thing in most games but it's hard to find ROgs *without* stealh components. It's not so much about munchkniry as it is about the obvious stuff that I thought James would've thought of first Taylor has a very tactical mind. Windows Xp Service Pack 3 Build 5512 Final Download more. She's very good at seeing how pieces work together. James is still a little overwhelmed from learning he's a cape. He'll get better.

>>For the record: im really, one hundred per cent fine with Taylor using whatever costume she deems appropriate. >>It's been explained thoroughly both in and out of the story. I just enjoy writing angrily for fun sometimes. >>Given how poorly received this has been I think I shall stop doing it Understood. I overreacted a bit. >>She is being embarrassed by a very minor, meaningless thing.

One of rules I've seen for writing is avoid assigning character traits by author fiat. Ex: 'Jane is a smart girl.'

This fails for many reasons. First of all this is a characteristic of children's stories. In stories for teens and adults it comes across as spoonfeeding, like the author thinks dumb reader needs to get hit over the head with it.

Second it fails because once your decide something by author fiat, it's gospel. If Jane ever acts in some way that shows she's not smart, then you've lied. That's why SHOW not TELL is almost a mantra for writers. However, in a Gamer story, the characters get stats. Taylor has a WIS of 58.

She could be described as wise even for an adult, let alone a teen. That's a pretty tall order to have to write against that Taylor always be wise.

Especially when canon Taylor made some pretty foolish mistakes. I'm trying to write Taylor as mostly making good choices, but sometimes she'll make mistakes. This was a conscious decision to let her be a teen girl.

She just made a friend. Her last friend, her BFF betrayed her. James looks up to her, respects her and is letting her take the lead. That's a lot of pressure.

She's proud of her costume, but embarrassed by having the fashion design skill. She's been bullied a lot. She's better than canon Taylor, but still insecure. This time she acted like a teen girl and hid something that embarrassed her. I'm going to try to live up to Taylor having a high wisdom score, but she's still going to make mistakes, some small, some huge. Even King Solomon the Wise made some whopping big mistakes. Despite being 'wise', Taylor has to be a teenaged girl sometimes.

This was one of them and it's a choice I'll stand. I hope that I'm at least doing a better job of writing a wise Taylor than The Gamer does of claiming Han Jee-Han has a 138 INT with some of the stupid things he does.

There's a pesky little bug in the kitchen! And it's not just any bug - it's a HEXBUG® nano®, scuttling around the game board!

Quick - can you catch it in the trap? By turning knives, forks and spoons you can direct the bug into the trap. Throw the die to discover which utensils you can turn. Catch the bug in the trap and earn a token - the first player to collect 5 tokens wins the game. A fun-to-play family game suitable for 2-4 players, aged 6 years upwards. Average playing time 20 minutes Contents.