The Syndicate

Epignosis wrote:It's time to go.

We live in an awful neighborhood, in case you were not aware.

In six years, our house has been robbed, our car broken into, our house was shot at during a drive-by, our mailbox was taken out deliberately by a van (after which a second car deliberately ran over what was left), and there was a street fight right in front of our house two days ago involving at least twelve people, one of whom was pregnant (a student of mine), and baseball bats.

We are at fifteen emergency calls in six years. That's not counting the ones we didn't phone in because we knew the neighbors were already on it.

We're not belligerent people or racists. We don't stir up trouble or make demands of other people. We live quietly and keep to ourselves. Yet people here mean us harm, and I don't understand why. I am told a gang has infiltrated this area, and that is why occurrences have escalated. Perhaps they are attempting to intimidate us- but to what end?

Tonight someone tried to come into our front door (it was locked, of course), and then a car drove past doing perhaps 65mph blaring the horn and shouting. The police officer tonight asked me if I had a gun. He told me if anyone tries my door again I should shoot through the door. Never mind that the person on the other side could be a friend or my pregnant student who lives nearby and comes over to do school work.

And so I stay up most nights, as long as I can lately, concerned that something is going to happen in the middle of the night. I go to work exhausted. I come home equally so. I watch. And I wonder. When will there be an escalation? And I think: What if my daughter had been playing outside the day the driver of that van roared into our yard and eliminated our mailbox, and he didn't see my little girl?

How would that change me as a man?

Our circumstances are about the change, however.

In May, we were approved for a mortgage. That might not mean much to you, but in 2008, I lost my job while my wife was pregnant with the daughter I mentioned above, and every expectation we had of a hopeful future went to shit. I couldn't find work and we were unable to pay for almost anything but the bills and groceries. We lost our car. I had to sell instruments to pay bills. We ate cabbage and baked cakes made of flour, parsley and water.

I learned to cook like Gordon Fucking Ramsay because I had to learn how to be creative in the kitchen.

Then this past May, as I said, we were approved for a mortgage. That was great news on its own- we could turn our rent into a mortgage and get out of this neighborhood. The trouble was that we could not save the down payment because our vehicle is as unreliable as a chimpanzee accountant. So I worked hard and worked hard to build our credit. We now qualify for twice as much as we did in May.

It's time to go.

My wife spent several of her evenings covered in sugar. I have taken extra work through my school, earned additional money through fantasy sports, and we are selling so much stuff- even our furniture- to get out. We are getting this down payment. I don't care if we have nothing when we move- that's less shit to haul out anyway. If all we have come the first of the year is a nice big ass empty house in a modest and clean neighborhood, and our children, so be it.

Right now my eyes burn and my eyelids sag, but I cannot sleep yet. I have to watch.

Tonight these tired eyes look over a crappy house in a shitty neighborhood sheltering a remarkable family.

But tomorrow they will gaze upon houses we could not imagine owning six years ago. And in six weeks, perhaps they will weep, knowing that we have a place that is our own. That we, of all people, arising from the gutter of bitter circumstance and despair, are homeowners.

I apologize for my lack of involvement here lately and in the immediate future. I really really do.

But it's time to go.

Epignosis wrote:My three-year-old boy just beat world 1-1 of the original Super Mario Bros. on his fourth try.

I am a proud papa.

The Anti-Monitor

[Life Shell] : The Anti-Monitor is bulletproof and can survive a lynch. If hit by a superkill or a lynch, his shell will be destroyed in his stead, leaving him defenseless. He can regain his shell by personally faction killing two regular roles or one super role, via [Energy Absorption(passive)].

[Anti-Verse(passive)] : All affiliation investigations, role investigations, lie detects, watching and tracking abilities used on the Anti-Monitor turn up the opposite. For role investigations, a random town role will be chosen. For watchers and trackers, it will say that he was targeted by those he targeted and targeted those that targeted him(if he wasn't targeted at all, a tracker would receive a result saying he didn't target anyone).

[Energy Absorption(passive)] : If the Anti-Monitor performs the faction kill, he will make the target generic prior to the attack hitting, rendering all passive abilities null and keeping them from using any active abilities. For every two regular roles or one super role he has killed he can restore a shot of [Power Distribution]. For every four regular or two supers he can restore a shot of [The Anti-Verse(active).

[Energy Absorption(active)]: The Anti-Monitor can make a player generic for a phase once per cycle.

[Power Distribution] : The Anti-Monitor can power-up one of his faction, doubling the strength of their abilities(minus one-shots) for a cycle. The power is too much to handle however, rendering the member generic for a cycle afterwards. Two-shot

[The Anti-Verse(active)] : Sending the game into the Anti-Verse for a phase, the Anti-Monitor makes it so that all regular positive abilities will become negative and all regular negative abilities positive for a phase. This ability does not affect his own faction or limited use abilities(one-shots, two-shots, etc) from roles outside his faction. One-shot.

Metalmarsh89 wrote:

Dragon D. Luffy wrote:Hosting a 58 player game is hard.

But it's so fun.

I should be studying yet I keep looking at role spreadhseets and answering questions at BTSCs.

I don't think I've hosted a game of over 20 players before. 58 would be quite a lot.