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Liquid Communism posted:Does smelting count? Hell, even meteoric iron gets melted coming through the atmosphere... I mean, if you're going that far, all iron on Earth has been molten at least once.
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# ? Apr 8, 2018 19:27 |
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# ? Jun 6, 2024 11:07 |
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Is "puff" an outdated 80s homophobic slur in America like it is here in the UK?
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# ? Apr 9, 2018 11:54 |
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Drunken Baker posted:Is "puff" an outdated 80s homophobic slur in America like it is here in the UK? Not that I can recall in high school. It was typically all "Homo" or "human being", back then.
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# ? Apr 9, 2018 12:52 |
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I guess creampuff still is used like wimp here, but mostly puff is used in reference to smoke or breathing or what have you.
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# ? Apr 9, 2018 13:43 |
Depending on your age, it also makes you think of Puff the Magic Dragon.
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# ? Apr 9, 2018 14:45 |
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Drunken Baker posted:Is "puff" an outdated 80s homophobic slur in America like it is here in the UK? Wait, what? I never heard that one. What part of the UK? Closest I ever heard to that was "poofter". And I heard a lot of homophobic slurs.
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# ? Apr 9, 2018 14:47 |
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‘Poof’ is definitely a thing in the U.K., but I’m not sure I’ve seen ‘puff’.
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# ? Apr 9, 2018 15:00 |
quote:Over the last week I had become very familiar with the compound. There was the two-story office building/fortress, and several smaller buildings that served as barracks, classrooms, workshops and armories. A few hundred yards away was the hangar, housing one medium plane and one strange-looking helicopter of foreign origin. Behind the asphalt runway, just far enough away so that the noise would not be distracting, were the shooting ranges. Bulldozers had pushed up huge berms of red clay soil to serve as backstops. A razor-wire-topped chain link fence stretched around the entire property, intimidating and sharp wherever it had not been overtaken with kudzu vines. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyAoQBYUQEA Keep in mind that Pitt is doing this a full second faster than that; set the YouTube video to x2 speed to see what it's like in the book. He says his personal best is 1.75 with one of his custom guns back home. Someone says that it's a fluke and to do it again, so Sam (the guy with the walrus mustache and cowboy clothes, that he said looks like Kenny's dad on South Park) sets him up. Despite dressing in a Stetson and with a gigantic belt buckle, Sam is a former Navy SEAL. quote:Somebody else pushed the button to activate the pneumatic target system. The five plates reset themselves with a hiss. I decided to show off a little for the crowd. Since the action was open, I quickly plucked a spare round of buckshot from the elastic sidesaddle mounted on the shotgun's receiver. I dropped it into the chamber, and instantly slammed the pump forward. Instinctively my support hand moved to the bandoleer of spare shells strapped across my chest. Grasping four cases, I palmed them under the loading port and rapid fire shoved them in as if my hand itself was a spring-loaded mechanism. Snick, snick, snick, snick. Four shells loaded in under two seconds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lprcnmeql2Y That's the loading trick. Of course Pitt is so badass that the instructors ask him for help on his first week. Pitt's second run is 1.82 seconds, proving he can repeat it. The guy that was demanding he do it again is Grant Jefferson, his self-imposed nemesis. Grant is a handsome, muscular guy who looks like an underwear model with perfect hair descended from a wealthy New England family. But the real reason Pitt hates him is that he's Julie's boyfriend. Since Pitt inevitably has to bone Julie, one wonders what will become of Grant. Does he die or get transformed into a monster? Does he turn coward and run? Does he turn out to be secretly evil? Sam decides to have Pitt take over instructing the class. Pitt explains that you need to shoot as if the gun is an extension of your body, rather than thinking about what you do. He uses Trip as an example, who pauses after every action he takes. Trip (whose real name is John Jermain Jones, or "Triple J"), is the token black guy of the group. He's a dreadlocked high school chemistry teacher (since it was a small school, also substitute band teacher and assistant football coach) who joined MHI after a voodoo priestess placed a curse on his small Florida town, forcing him to put down his zombified students with a pickaxe. The next one he talks about is Holly Newcastle, a blonde stripper with huge fake boobs who hasn't yet told anyone why she ended up here. quote:As far as I could tell she had exactly zero experience with any sort of firearms, but she was coming along gradually. She really surprised me when it came to the class portion of our training; she had an amazing ability to soak up knowledge and monster-related trivia. She may have looked like the stereotype, but she was no dumb blond. I had no doubt that whatever she had done to get herself recruited by MHI, she had done very well. Pitt continues through the line. The recruits are as varied as a taxi driver, a narcotics cop, a librarian, and even a plumber (Pitt says you do not want to know what his monster encounter was). The number of recruits has dwindled day by day, with instructors making judgement calls as necessary to send recruits home or recruits quitting when they're unable to handle the training, so Pitt's group of 40 has now gone down to 20. Anyone who leaves is given an extremely generous severance check. Even Pitt considered quitting a few times, both from internal conflict over monster killing for fun & profit and struggling with PT due to his werewolf injuries. quote:Earl Harbinger sat with his feet up on the desk. In one hand he held the remote control for the slide show, and the other held a yardstick that he used to point out interesting things. The photos on the slide show were disturbing to say the least. Zombies come from all sorts of sources, from voodoo to mad scientists. Depending on the severity of the outbreak, PUFF is usually $5000 a head plus more for bagging the reanimator himself. quote:Click. The thing in the picture had obviously once been a person, but was now a hunched and rotting pile of rags and jagged edges and pointed teeth. The creature held what appeared to be a human leg in its mostly skeletal hand. It looked as if its lunch had been rudely interrupted by the flash of the picture. "This is a ghoul. Think of it as a super zombie on crack. Much smarter, much faster, way harder to stop. Luckily they're rare, which is a good thing because the one in this picture soaked up about two hundred rounds before it finally quit kicking. Head shots don't usually work, though they tend to slow them down. Your best bet is to hammer them until you break down their skeletal structure to the point where they just can't fight anymore. Then burn them to be sure. They're usually found around cemeteries, as they're carrion feeders. PUFF for a ghoul runs around 20K." Pitt can't resist asking for the story behind this. He explains that it occurred when Julie was 18, just before Halloween 1995 (Pitt estimated her age at mid-20s, which would put her at 24 in 2001 and thus confirm that this book takes place about 6 years before it was published). Wights paralyze whoever they touch, even through clothing, and it popped out of the ground during a ghoul hunt at the cemetery and paralyzed Harbinger and Milo. Julie jumped out and took on the wight with a spear until Harbinger recovered and lit it up with a flamethrower. quote:Sawing off a human head is harder than it looks. The body tends to flop around every time you hit it, and it makes a really nasty mess. Once goo gets on the handle of your knife, it gets even worse, and the next thing you know, your blade is glancing off of bones that you didn't even know were there. I grunted as I strained the blade against the rubbery flesh. Obviously, you need to get your class used to chopping up poo poo and staking vampires. They usually save this until the end of training, since most recruits have washed out and that's fewer bodies you need to wrangle up from medical schools. They hold these classes in the Body Shack, a refrigerated room near the hangar. quote:"Next team. Newcastle and Mead," Sam said to Holly and Chuck, the next people in line, as Milo used a hose to spray down the floor. Several of the other Newbies had lost their lunch on this exercise. Mingled fluids coagulated around the central drain. The Gut Crawl just sounds like something a modern extreme haunt like McKamey Manor would put someone through for signing a waiver. Holly the stripper seems completely unperturbed by staking a corpse, which leaves everyone wondering just what she ended up doing to get invited to MHI. quote:"That wasn't so bad. Chuck got stuck with the head. Poor guy, he brought it on himself though," she said, flashing us with a wicked grin. They get the weekend off, but we cut to their next training session where Pitt is about ready to collapse after the last mile of the forest running trail, which Grant Jefferson gleefully calls him pathetic for. As the other newbies stumble off to sleep or throw up (Trip gives a jaunty thumbs-up because he's fine with running forever), Pitt collapses on a bench to rest. This invites Julie to take up a seat next to him as Grant strips off his shirt and begins practicing martial arts by himself in the yard. quote:"So . . . how long have you guys been dating?" I asked, trying not to sound jealous. I don't know if I succeeded. Larry is really proud of being an accountant. As Pitt walks back to the barracks, he kicks over a trash can in his anger at not getting to date Julie because he's actually 12. chitoryu12 fucked around with this message at 15:27 on Apr 9, 2018 |
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# ? Apr 9, 2018 15:23 |
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Wait, I thought he said earlier that the one brick building was the only permanent structure at the camp? Now they have barracks, aircraft hangers, a refrigerated morgue, etc etc
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# ? Apr 9, 2018 15:40 |
Choco1980 posted:Wait, I thought he said earlier that the one brick building was the only permanent structure at the camp? Now they have barracks, aircraft hangers, a refrigerated morgue, etc etc Temporary refrigerated morgue!
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# ? Apr 9, 2018 15:43 |
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It's all the same building, it's just really big
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# ? Apr 9, 2018 15:48 |
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So is the Gut Crawl better or worse than the Hawg Innards Problem?The Cow Spoke French posted:The company scuttlebutt was right on target. In addition to the usual maneuvers, a night assault on a heavily defended dam redoubt was mounted. The attacking troopers advanced by crawling under low strung wires, while live machine gun bullets cracked and whizzed just inches over their heads. This was frightening enough, but matters were made worse by what they found themselves crawling through. The exercise became infamous later, known simply as the 'Hawg Innards Problem.' A local slaughterhouse had provided the army with fresh guts and entrails from animals they had butchered. These were spread liberally on the ground so that each man had to slither through them, becoming smeared with the slimy, bloody goo. It was a revolting and truly terrifying experience which none would ever forget. Band of Brothers shows a tame version- in the day, with no MG fire.
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# ? Apr 9, 2018 15:55 |
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chitoryu12 posted:That's the loading trick. Of course Pitt is so badass that the instructors ask him for help on his first week. I was wondering how long it would take for this to happen.
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# ? Apr 9, 2018 17:46 |
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chitoryu12 posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyAoQBYUQEA Something to keep in mind is that Pitt is 100% an author insert & he does have a shooting background: http://monsterhunternation.com/about/ I don't know what his ranking was but he said he was an Expert in IDPA: quote:For the record, I consider myself decent with a handgun. I’m qualified Expert in IDPA, haven’t ever made Master because limited Vickers messes with my head in the classifier, and the times that I’ve tried USPSA, I usually score on par with the B class guys. I’ve taught basic defensive pistol classes for years, and I’ve gotten to take classes from, or assisted several really good top-notch, been-there-done-that instructors. I’ve had the opportunity to associate with and shoot with some of the best shooters alive (and gotten my butt correspondingly kicked). I just say that to illustrate that I know what a competent pistol shooter looks like.
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# ? Apr 9, 2018 17:58 |
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sky shark posted:Something to keep in mind is that Pitt is 100% an author insert & he does have a shooting background: http://monsterhunternation.com/about/ This guy is full of so much poo poo.
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# ? Apr 9, 2018 20:08 |
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I'm not sure if he's worse or better than Laurel K. Hamilton's Anita Blake as far as author self inserts go.
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# ? Apr 9, 2018 20:14 |
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Liquid Communism posted:I'm not sure if he's worse or better than Laurel K. Hamilton's Anita Blake as far as author self inserts go. Here I was having fun, and you had to go ruin it with Anita "So tight, so wet" Blake. Loved them early on (to the point of having some personally autographed paperbacks), and slowly had to run. Run so far away...
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# ? Apr 9, 2018 20:27 |
quote:"What're you doing?" Trip asked me as he entered our tiny barracks room. The windows were open and loud insects chirped and whistled in the darkness outside. So yeah, Pitt had a bit of an accident in between paragraph breaks. He tells Trip about his history in underground fighting rings, but also that apparently his dad is a hardcore survivalist who prepared Pitt for life in a post-apocalyptic world. This led to a bit of a problem when he ended up in a fight against a guy who was rumored to have killed a few people in prison: he snapped and blacked out, and woke up with broken knuckles and blood up to his armpits as he was being dragged off the guy. Pitt chose to become an accountant because it was the most boring, straight-laced job he could think of to get away from that life. Trip successfully convinces Pitt that he's probably not going to accidentally get mad and kill someone during training, so he puts his suitcase away and heads back to training. This extremely uncomfortable Alabama summer day is also the day the remaining recruits get their monster hunting armored suits. To acclimate them to it, they're required to wear them for several days straight. Milo (wearing a Violent Femmes T-shirt and with his beard tied into two braids, which conveniently makes him look like Jeff Quinn of Gunblast) is adjusting everyone's suits to be arranged properly; they had a particular problem with Pitt due to his comically large 62-inch chest. quote:Grant Jefferson watched us smugly in our discomfort. He was wearing his armor, which had been tailored to suit him better. Holly had said that he was dashingly handsome, and even she, being so very jaded and cynical about men because of her background, found him very charismatic and charming. She told me that it was easy to see why Grant and Julie had hooked up. He was young, smart, good-looking, knew how to talk to people, and everybody loved him. I still wanted to kick his rear end. Grant goes on about how the armor saved his life from what would surely have been a mortal blow from a golem, and Milo whispers to Pitt that the golem was only three feet tall. Hey, do you like tech porn? quote:The armor was a modular system that could be configured by the user depending on what kind of threat we were going to face. A thick layer of stab-proof Kevlar covered the vital organs. Though not much heavier than regular thick clothing, the sleeves and pant legs had the same fibers sewn into the fabric. There was a neck guard that could be raised to resemble a turtle neck to protect against bites. Most of the threats we would face would involve teeth or claws, so unlike regular body armor, ours was designed for that rather than for bullet resistance. Milo informed us that the torso was rated the same as a traditional level IIIA bulletproof vest, able to stop most pistol rounds. There were pouches on the front and back designed to hold ceramic plates that could stop rifle rounds if the threat warranted it, and if the user didn't mind the extra weight. The system incorporated load-bearing gear and pouches for magazines, weapons, tools, medical kits, or whatever other useful things the Hunter might need. Level IIIA is the highest level you can get soft armor in. While it can stop a lot of pistol rounds, I've seen videos of surplus 7.62x25mm Tokarev going straight through it. One question I have is how the armor is actually constructed, since stab-proof and bulletproof vests require completely different compositions and the opposite weapon will easily go through it. Grant notices that Pitt isn't paying attention to his tales of heroism and yells at him. Pitt snarks back, so Grant runs up and starts asserting his authority by poking him in the chest. quote:"I'm trying to teach you Newbies how to stay alive." Because Pitt is the cool hero that everyone loves, Milo promptly takes Pitt's side and warns Grant that he's about to commit "suicide by accountant". Grant calls Pitt a bitch and tells him to stay away from Julie, since Pitt's been real loving obvious about having the hots for her, which is what finally results in the class breaking up. As they walk away, Trip talks to Pitt about the confrontation. He explains that while both he and Grant think the fighting is over Julie, Trip can tell that it's just because Grant is the former golden boy jealous at getting shown up by a newbie, while Pitt can't stand to lose a fight and antagonizes him rather than backing down. Plus, you know, slobbering all over his girlfriend. quote:"Thanks, Pastor Jones. I'll be sure to keep my pride and my slobbering in check from now on." I laughed. He was not that much older than I was, but somewhere along the line Trip had gained a lot more wisdom than I had.
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# ? Apr 9, 2018 20:34 |
Also in case you wanted to see how big Owen Zastava Pitt's 62-inch chest is, this is a 60-inch chest:
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# ? Apr 9, 2018 20:56 |
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Wait a second book, put it in reverse...you can't just drop that Golems are in the monster pool without explaining what kind they are. Are we going by D&D rules where just any vaguely man shaped monster created by a wizard counts? Or is the the old school Jewish variety with "Life" etched in Hebrew on their clay foreheads, waiting to be smeared into "Death" to undo them?
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# ? Apr 9, 2018 22:22 |
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chitoryu12 posted:Also in case you wanted to see how big Owen Zastava Pitt's 62-inch chest is, this is a 60-inch chest: I was going to say, this sounds like the bra sizes listed out in bad porn stories, rattled off with a vague idea that big numbers mean something but no meaningful connection to reality. I looked it up, and Arnold Schwarzenegger at his biggest measured in with a 57" chest.
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# ? Apr 9, 2018 22:43 |
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Samizdata posted:Here I was having fun, and you had to go ruin it with Anita "So tight, so wet" Blake. Loved them early on (to the point of having some personally autographed paperbacks), and slowly had to run. Run so far away... There's a game I play every time a new one comes out. Find it at the book store, open to a random page. If a sex act is occurring on that page, put it back on the shelf instead of buying. I haven't bought one in a decade. chitoryu12 posted:Also in case you wanted to see how big Owen Zastava Pitt's 62-inch chest is, this is a 60-inch chest: For comparison The Big Show has a 64" chest and is 7 feet tall:
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# ? Apr 9, 2018 23:08 |
Yeah, the more Pitt is described the less he looks like the guy on the cover art. He's the size of a "world's strongest man competition" powerlifter.
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# ? Apr 9, 2018 23:12 |
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chitoryu12 posted:Level IIIA is the highest level you can get soft armor in. While it can stop a lot of pistol rounds, I've seen videos of surplus 7.62x25mm Tokarev going straight through it. One question I have is how the armor is actually constructed, since stab-proof and bulletproof vests require completely different compositions and the opposite weapon will easily go through it. Impact gel body armor maybe? Works equally good with bullet and knifes with much greater level of protection but is 10 times more expensive than traditional body armor.
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# ? Apr 10, 2018 00:25 |
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So if we tally up all the bullshit things he's amazing at, Pitt is: 1) one the best 3-gun competitors in the world, 2) an amazing martial artist who kills people in underground pit fights and was so good at it that he paid for college with it, 3) has a physique rivaling world-class bodybuilders and powerlifters, 4) is a hardcore survivalist when he's not at his day job as a CPA. Did I miss anything?
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# ? Apr 10, 2018 00:35 |
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His brother's in a world famous rock band, and he's like 6'7" or something.
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# ? Apr 10, 2018 01:39 |
The size of Pitt and his muscles will increase with every chapter. In the next he’ll be struggling to fit his head through the office door and need to wear custom uniforms made from bedsheets.
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# ? Apr 10, 2018 01:49 |
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Well I am now imagining Pitt as The Big Show, wondering why his love interest is more attracted to the well dressed, attractive, talented man she has an established relationship with.
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# ? Apr 10, 2018 01:53 |
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chitoryu12 posted:The size of Pitt and his muscles will increase with every chapter. In the next he’ll be struggling to fit his head through the office door and need to wear custom uniforms made from bedsheets. Turns out this was all just weird Hulk fanfiction the entire time.
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# ? Apr 10, 2018 01:54 |
PittTheElder posted:Well I am now imagining Pitt as The Big Show, wondering why his love interest is more attracted to the well dressed, attractive, talented man she has an established relationship with. Pitt in his work outfit:
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# ? Apr 10, 2018 02:02 |
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Don't forget the conflicting ethnic descriptions
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# ? Apr 10, 2018 02:13 |
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What Larry Correia looks like: What Larry Correia imagines he looks like:
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# ? Apr 10, 2018 02:20 |
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The resemblance is legitimately disturbing.
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# ? Apr 10, 2018 03:20 |
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Imagine how much cooler this book would be if it was just about Big Show wrasslin' monsters instead of Correia's self insert telling us how great he is.
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# ? Apr 10, 2018 03:45 |
Oh yeah, Big Show's chest size is 64 inches. So that really is what our hero looks like.
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# ? Apr 10, 2018 04:38 |
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Something bad is gonna happen to Trip, I just know it. He seems pretty cool so far, I'd like to know his story more than Pitt.
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# ? Apr 10, 2018 05:53 |
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Grenrow posted:So if we tally up all the bullshit things he's amazing at, Pitt is: 1) one the best 3-gun competitors in the world, 2) an amazing martial artist who kills people in underground pit fights and was so good at it that he paid for college with it, 3) has a physique rivaling world-class bodybuilders and powerlifters, 4) is a hardcore survivalist when he's not at his day job as a CPA. Did I miss anything? Hahahah. I remember the salad days of page 1 and I was thinking to myself, "Wow. For once Chitoryu is reading something that isn't the usual insane self-insert lunacy." And now here we are. Grenrow posted:Imagine how much cooler this book would be if it was just about Big Show wrasslin' monsters instead of Correia's self insert telling us how great he is. No word of a lie I started work on a story just like this on Friday.
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# ? Apr 10, 2018 08:54 |
quote:I was dreaming. I found myself in the same field as I'd been in during the strange dream that I had experienced in the hospital. Once again, the crop was lush and green, and my feet were bare. The air was cool and fresh, so I definitely was not in Alabama. The sky was darker and thick black rain clouds were collecting on the horizon. It looked like it was going to be a terrible storm. As the storm approaches unnaturally quickly, Pitt suddenly finds himself over the MHI compound. He's aware of everything, in spite of the walls that should be blocking his vision. Along with seeing his own body sleeping below, he can see a huge underground level below the main building that none of the trainees are aware of. quote:. In the dark corners I glimpsed that not all of the other employees were human. What a strange dream. Okay but....are you going to tell us what they look like? quote:In the women's barracks I was not surprised to learn that Holly Newcastle slept in the nude. As interesting as that sight was, I moved on. I was no Peeping Tom, or in this case a peeping ghost. How chivalrous of you. Pitt finds Harbinger, Julie, Sam, Grant, and Milo all holding a meeting on the top floor of the main building. As he focuses on them, he suddenly appears next to them. Their movements are cloudy and their voices are muffled, but he can still understand everything perfectly to help the plot move forward. quote:"No other teams are available. Just us and the Newbies. Boone's team's in Atlanta. They just finished a case, and they can meet us on the way. I can send them the schematics." Julie was speaking. "The protagonist is the best and I want him to personally massage my prostate!" said literally everyone but the guy we're supposed to hate. As the rest of the team overrules Grant and heads downstairs to wake up the trainees, Harbinger suddenly jumps and stares right at where Pitt's dream ghost is standing. Pitt is suddenly jerked from the room into the sky by an apologetic Old Man. The ground flashes by at thousands of miles an hour, over the dark ocean and night sky. He's landed on a beach at night, where a small lifeboat is moving toward shore under its own magical propulsion. Pitt can sense every living creature in the forest behind him going silent or running as the boat approaches. quote:"He comes," said the Old Man. When the armored thing touches the sand, the whole universe seems to jolt. An unexplainable shiver and feeling of unease emanates for hundreds of miles. quote:The lead vampire announced something in a foreign language. It took me a moment to recognize it as Portuguese, or a dialect thereof. I knew enough of the language to understand. Well, that's awkward. Giant winged with enormous horns and claws crash down onto the beach from where they had been silently circling above. The old man, Byreika, pulls them away, but Pitt can feel Lord Machado's power attempting to pull their spirits back. Pitt finds his soul unceremoniously flung back into his body and wakes up screaming. quote:"Owen! Dude! Wake up. It was a dream. Calm down."
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# ? Apr 10, 2018 14:08 |
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Oh no, not Dread Lord
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# ? Apr 10, 2018 14:40 |
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# ? Jun 6, 2024 11:07 |
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We’ve got another thing to add to the list, our protagonist is the chosen one. Because of course he is.
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# ? Apr 10, 2018 15:06 |