FunkyFuggerson

To me, it looks like its in the coastal townsite or rural crossroads, most likely the latter with some changes.

1 hour ago, TheEldritchGod said:

Seriously? Okay, Seriously then.

There's an old saying: Never ask a question you aren't prepared to hear the answer to.

I mention this, because you brought this on yourself.

My mom is a refugee and my father an orphan. WW2 to be exact. I was born in America and if my grandfather on my mother's side hadn't been a genius, he wouldn't have figured out how bad things were getting in Poland and failed to get his family out before Shit hit the fan.

And by genius I mean grandmaster of chess level of genius.

And Lo the nazis and Russians cut Poland up like a pie and Grandpa joined the US army to fight for Poland. Being super smart and a polyglot, and of no small insignificance of a personage in Poland, the US army in their infinite wisdom sent him to go fight in the pacific theater.

Where upon a shell fragment entered next to his eye, went down the center of his brain and out the back. They said he was going to be a vegetable. Three days later, he was walking around. It appears the only part of his brain it got was the part that tells you to shut the hell up. Tough as nails that man.

It is from him I learned how to become the Determinator. No matter how many times you got knocked down, you get back up again. That's what a MAN does.

Anyways, Poland in the end was occupied by the Russians and Gramps was having none of that shit, so he started smuggling guns into Poland and smuggling more people out. All the jews in our family had been killed off by the nazi's, and over the years, the Russians would kill the rest. No living genetic relative of mine in Poland survived.

This is where I come in.

At the age of 8, along with a number of other Polish males born in America, we were gathered together at the Local Moose lodge to hear testimony of people who had fled Poland. We were to remember and never forget what was happening. I forgot most of it. I was only 8 and it was way over my head. However, when I asked one guy what was wrong with his hand, he held it up and the translator calmly explained they tore out all his fingernails with pilers.

That stuck with me.

Mom wanted gramps to just let things go, but Gramps always made sure to pour as much anti-communism as he could into my head. I regret not giving him more time. The stories were important to him. He needed to know the fight would not be over when he died. However, after the fall of the Berlin wall, he thought the problem with communism was finally over, and when Poland was finally free, he felt his work was over. He died about a year later.

I'm glad about that. It would hurt him to see how bad things have gotten since then.

So what's all this got to do with what I write?

I had put into my head a serious sense of responsibility. That one has a duty to the future. To pay things forward. It is a duty and responsibility of every man born to do this. You are a man and it is what you do. I failed at doing my duty for a long time, but eventually I got my act together.

Now I talk people out of suicide. I help the mentally and physically disabled. I work with people getting out of mental hospitals and over the years I am proud to say I've saved quite a number of lives. A few of them have gone so far as to call me hero. One of my hobbies is rescuing dying cats. I have a real knack for keeping cats alive for some reason. I also work very hard to put ideas in people's heads. Get them to think. Ideas that will make them stronger, give them solace when they need it most. Mostly I do this by talking to them. I also do it through my writing.

However, as of late, things have gone really... really bad.

I've had a client I worked with for years lose it and wind up in jail ruining his life.
I've had a former client finally give into the demons in her head and finally catch that train she's been obsessing about.
I've got another who's 94 years old who I've had to transfer to a facility where she's going to be warehoused until she dies.
I've got a cat who is on death's door and I fear I will have to put him to sleep soon.
All of which I don't have time to deal with, because at this very moment, my wife is in surgery having two cysts removed from her lungs. She went in about 40 minutes ago.

Those cysts are not being removed to save her life.

No no no, it's too late to save the lungs. This surgery is just to determine if she qualifies to get a lung transplant. She's got about 2-3 years to live, and the lung transplant waiting list is about 3-4 years. Let's just skip over the 2.03% chance she never gets out of the surgery alive. It is 5 hours long and her lung will be collapsed most of the time. Hard enough for a healthy person, much less someone who's lungs are covered in scar tissue from an immune system deciding that said lungs are a threat.

Oh, did I mention I moved to a new home that was a ranch so my wife wouldn't need to go up and down stairs anymore? Turns out the construction next door to my old place shifted the ground and the corner of my house sunk. Twelve grand to fix IF I want any hope of even SELLING the place. I may just have to let it go into foreclosure.

Do you have any idea how expensive it is to pay for all the medical bills just TREATING my wife? Let's not get into the cost for this surgery, or the next one, or staying in the hospital. Even with insurance, I am being bled dry.

Not that I care.

I'll let you in on a secret. If you live long enough there will be a point where gold loses it's luster, diamonds stop sparkling, and the only thing you will value is TIME. Nothing else matters, except time. You start to measure everything you say and do in units of time. How much time wasted doing X, how to save time doing Y. What is important and needs to get done, and what you can put off because there are more important things to do.

Time spent with those who may not be around to spend with anymore.

However, given the situation, I, ironically, find myself like I am right now, sitting around and waiting while other people do what I cannot. They are being paid money both directly and indirectly by me to take the course of action that will give me more time. All I do is sit here, watching time pass.

It is amazing what you will sacrifice for mere moments.

And it is also amazing what becomes important. What gets brought into sharp clarity. What was important in your life, and what wasn't.

It. Is. MADDENING.

Trust me, just sitting here can drive you insane. You might WANT to spend every moment worrying about the one you love, (who might be dead as I type, but they just haven't come out to tell me yet) But there's no point. I am helpless. I have no control. At this point, it is up to the winds of fate. The butterfly will flap its wings, and maybe a tornado destroys a trailer park in Ohio.

To sit here and obsess would weaken me. It would leave me mentally unfit. So many people depend on me. The one that I love is the one dying, not I. I simply do not have the luxury to worry about myself. I cannot allow myself to spiral into depression. I MUST remain of sound mind. I MUST hold it together. Failure is not an option.

But you cannot FORCE yourself to hold it together.

The only way to remain of sound mind when the universe is falling apart is to experience Joy. Happiness will be beyond you, but not joy. You can't hold your breath in anticipation forever. You have to keep breathing. Moments of positivity can give you just enough "oxygen". A mouthful of air.

A gasp in a vast echoing void.

When I find myself unable to sleep, and unable to do anything productive, I write. I write about the life of a man who's life is infinitely more screwed than mine. Not just because he's in the long dark, but because of far darker things that are on his island. An island in a particularly skewed world with a few laws of physics that aren't in this one. And those laws make his world a nightmare with a thin illusion that keeps most people from going insane.

Nothing I write is just for fun, although I hope you smile from time to time.

I am describing a man who is fighting against cosmic horror, because I am fighting a more mundane horror and of the two, I would prefer the cosmic one. It would make more sense. The world that the Quonset Manager lives in is a terrible place, but it also has something the real world does not.

It has a face to punch.

There is something to blame for the horrors of QM's world. There is reason. There is logic. As unfair that world is, There is a face somewhere that deserves to be punched. His world has meaning.

My world has none. In my world, good things happen to bad people, bad things happen to good people, and there is no justice. Life is not fair in my world. And I tell myself, over and over, that this is a GOOD THING.

It is a good thing. Because if life was fair, that would mean I had it coming. It would mean I was a bad person being punished, or the people I love and care for are being punished. They are suffering because they are bad people... IF... the world is fair.

I know a man who was a first responder. He helped a little baby 18 months old. She had been raped by her step father so the mother could film it and sell the video on line to make money to buy the Heroin-Fentanyl combo that is so popular here in central New York.

Yes, I help my fair share of recovering drug addicts as well.

But his story... He told to me at 2am one night, I work the night shift you see. When the clients have problems, I'm the one who handles them. This was just him unloading about the horrors that finally broke him. When he finished describing it, I asked if the baby had it coming. He almost attacked me. And I asked again, "Did the baby deserve it?" And he screamed "No" and, "How could I ask such a thing?"

I replied, "So you know that life isn't fair. If it was fair, she would have deserved it. People want life to be fair, but not me. If life was fair, then everyone would win half the time, and lose half the time. Most people when they say they want things to be fair actually mean they want the world to be UNFAIR in their advantage."

"Me? I want everyone to win. I want everyone to be happy. Even the people who raped that baby. I wish they had been happy enough they didn't HAVE to have done it in the first place. I want to cheat. I want everyone to cheat and everyone to win. Because that would be unfair. And in an unfair world, that would be possible."

He settled down and let go of me. I waited until he had time to think before I continued, "I'm telling you this, because you want the world to be fair, and it CAN'T be fair. You can never make this right. You can NEVER punish the guilty enough in this case, and you can NEVER compensate the victim enough. If you try, you'll only fail and eventually try to kill yourself again."

"I'm sorry. I really am. But you need to accept this hell you are in and let it go. Life is a pile of good things and a pile of bad things. They don't cancel each other out. They both exist and you have to deal with both SEPARATELY. Nobody who ever won the lottery deserved it. That baby didn't deserve what happened to her either. All we can do is accept what we cannot change and try to make things better going forward."

"So you got a choice. You can drag everything down into flames and burn the world to ash, or you can try to make the world a better place. Let those who committed wrong be dealt with by the justice system. That's what it's for. It's not perfect, but it's better then the alternative."

"I don't expect you to forgive the mother or the step-father, but you need to put yourself first. Not just for you, but for those who depend on you. You aren't going to survive like this. You will keep breaking and winding up here until you find a way to let it go."

And he asked me how. I said, "I don't know. However, I have a board game over here. Let's try and get through the next twenty minutes."

...

Sometimes all I can do is get through the next twenty minutes.

And so I write. I write about silly things and horrifying things and true things and new ways of seeing things. I build a world based on truth and nonsense. It is a wall. It is a house of cards. It is a toy. It is a metaphor. It is a cross. It is... It's...

It's just a game.

A game I play to make myself forget the horror of the real world where I am powerless and helpless and alone. If I lie down nobody is coming to save me. In that respect, I identify with the Quonset Manager. In the end, nobody will save us. We get back up, or we die where we fall. That's my life. That's always been my life.

I tell myself that this is how things are, and that every other option would be worse.

This IS the best of all possible worlds, because every other option would be worse.

And occasionally I take some time to forget and to rest, not because I can't handle it. Far from it. I can handle the horror of my life just fine. The question is, For How LONG? Moments like this, where I write shit like this, is just to rest. Not because I want to, but because I NEED to. I need to relax and rest because...

Well...

Things will get worse. When things get worse, I need to be ready. I need to be at my best. I cannot allow myself to be anything less then 100% ready to do everything I can at a moment's notice. All I have right now is hope. All I can depend on is chance, and Chance is a fickle thing. if chance gives me an opportunity, I will have to be ready.

This is what I pour into the Quonset Manager. I pour all of this into him and it fills him and then I try to break him. Again and again and again and again I shatter him against the rocks. I pound the surf into his soul and lash the wind into his back. Because if he can make it 20 more minutes, maybe I can make it 20 more minutes.

If life was fair, hope couldn't exist.

If life was fair, nothing would change, except that you would deserve all the shit that happened to you. That's all it takes for life to be fair... for you to DESERVE what happens to you. Nothing changes, just the purpose... just the reasons... just the MEANING of your suffering. So, between the two: life being fair, or life having hope, I'll take hope.

I want to live in a world where sometimes...
Things works out in my favor...
Even if I don't deserve it.

Because right about now...

 

 

I could REALLY use an unearned miracle.

 

 

(And that's why I write.)

You unleashed quite the torrent of preaches, ideas, opinions, and other such philosophies upon me. This was like a present box, unwrapping it and seeing what lies inside was your own, squishy, blood oozing brain. You remind me a lot of a youtuber I enjoy heavily, perhaps you have heard of him, his name is Exurb1a. I think you your styles of writing, story telling, and other such word riddled thingamajigs are not indifferent. Thanks, this was a nice read, Im still young and dumb, so I cant quite relate to you yet, but I am quite afraid of just waking up one morning, wasting the time, stepping outside and getting killed by a car. What a way to go! Not necessarily a blaze of glory.  

Oh yes, and heres a quote from Darkest Dungeon I wanted to tack on, might not relate to you but I think you should here the gravelly rasp of Wayne June to get you into a chipper mood. 

2 hours ago, TheEldritchGod said:

The history of Coastal Town is complicated. Short, but complicated. Short, being a relative term, in this case.

We start about 13 and a half billion years ago. In our local area, the last thing to abandon the future site of coastal town was a photon. A particularly reticulated photon of the microwave family, that had been born many an eon before in the death of the last singularity that had finally succumb to the relentless evaporation caused by hawking radiation. The photon, and many like it, when the event horizon finally dipped below the Planck distance, decided that that maybe it was time to move on.

This photon realized that the party was over. As the event horizon collapsed, the photons hurried to gather up coats and keys. Many remembering that they hadn't paid their rent in a terribly long time. To drive the point home, one of the photons started humming, "Closing time". That old song has always held great wisdom.

You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.

And Lo the photons scattered into as many directions as there were photons, although a few remained superimposed upon one another for quite while, saying their last goodbyes. Making promises they would never keep to stay in touch. Awkward goodbyes at the end of eternity.

But our particular photon was a bit of a loner and was at just the right frequency that when he reached the boundary of the void, like light being refracted at the surface of a glass of water, he bounced back into the universe, to take one more victory lap.

In effect, he was to be last light to go out... err... GET out, I suppose.

Now, starting out as an x-ray, thanks to the passage of time and the relentless smoothness of the void, this photon took forever to stretch out into a microwave of just the right frequency to finally pass the barrier out of the void, well, you simply do not have the ability to conceive of the number, so I won't even bother explaining it to you.

Although, in a curious quirk of fate, because time slows the closer you get to the speed of light, and time stops at the speed of light, from the point of view of the photon, no time passed at all. After all, light travels at the speed of... well... itself. So to a photon, nothing happens as it travels. Without the passage of time for the photon, nothing changes. It is frozen between moments, no matter how many moments for us may pass.

To a photon, time only passes when it interacts with an object, gets absorbed, and is re-emitted. Often changing wavelength. One could argue the original photon dies and a new one is born, because a photon is nothing more than the conveyance of information. Information that happens to take on the form of a tiny packet or wave of energy, depending on how you look at it.

In other words, photons are the original bi-sexuals and if not for their slutty nature, the universe as we know it could not exist. Which is also why so many were hanging out at the last singularity. These so called black holes were the cosmological equivalent to a New York city sex club, its just they weren't as pretentious.

However, you didn't come here to hear about the bedroom lives of bosons.

Now, it is important to note that time is only SLIGHTLY frozen for photons. Time DOES pass, slightly. A single Planck moment. To you or I, a ridiculously short amount of time. In fact, it is the shortest unit of time possible. You simply cannot exist without at least one Planck moment passing. From our point of view, again, we cannot conceive of such a short amount of time.  If a Planck moment does not pass, nothing happens. If the universe had a clock, it would be a single tick of the Planck hand. If the universe was on film, it would would be the passage of a single frame. Well, subjectively. Every single fundamental fragment of matter, energy, and thought would have its' own film running, of course. It's own frame of reference, limited by the Planck distance, the Planck moment, and the Planck Meme.

Although truth be told, the photon was all too happy to leave. Even if a photon is experiencing only a Planck moment as it zooms about the eternal void, photons have notoriously short attention spans, and it was very, VERY bored. From a photon's point of view, Planck moments can take FOREVER.

And with the departure of the last photon, this particular patch of nothing finally, well and truly, was empty.

And this is where Coastal Town begins.

Right next door to our void was another void. THAT void had given up its' last photon several eternities before our void did and it had happily settled down into retirement. It was content to remain empty and to enjoy being void. Yes, not much to do as a true empty void where not even virtual particles are popping in and out of existence, but that's the way out neighbor liked it. It had retired and it was enjoying some serious "me time" and it was glad its' next door neighbor, our universe, had finally settled down and stopped making so much noise.

Our void, finally utterly and completely empty, was settling down for a long nap itself. The last Planck tetrahedron had settled into perfect interlocking harmony with all other Planck tetrahedron that make up what we consider empty space. Space and time had become, finally... perfectly... smooth.

But as the old saying goes, smooth seas never made a skilled sailor.

You ever sit in a parking lot and listen to the radio? Maybe you close your eyes and catch some Z's only to wake up suddenly, realize you are late, and panic. You turn on the engine, throw the car into reverse without really looking, and back up, only to find out the guy next to you was doing the exact same thing. As you both back up without checking, you catch the other out of the corner of your eye and slam on the breaks, only a little too late?

Bam! A minor fender bender.

That's exactly what happened to our universe.

When we achieved perfect smoothness, and the universe right next to us achieved perfect smoothness, they synched up perfectly. The disruption caused by the presence of matter, energy and information prevented the two voids from ever coming in contact before. But at that moment, they were both identical in their smoothness, and as such could do something that doesn't happen very often.

They touched.

You might think, two voids touching, how bad could that be? And from the void's perspectives, it wasn't bad at all. Cosmologically, it was the equivalent to trading paint. Unfortunately these two universes had bought insurance with an insanely high deductible, and there was no point in trying to get insurance to pay for it. So there was a short period where the both got out, looked at the damage, our universe slowly shook its head, worried about how angry its spouse was going to be, while the other universe spit on his hand and tried to rub out the damage. A futile gesture that was a bit gross, but given the situation was not something worth complaining about.

In the end, both universes just agreed the damage wasn't that bad and that they would exchange phone numbers, just in case some unseen damage had occurred, not that that was really possible, given they collided at merely the speed of light, but hey, stranger things have happened.

Better safe than sorry, as they say.

You might think that would be the end of it, but on OUR level of reality, that much void colliding with an even BIGGER void, well... that might be a whole lot of nothing, but even an empty universe still has quite a bit of heft to it.

This is where most people get the whole big bang thing screwed up. They walk the clock back to a single point, when in reality it was more like getting side swiped in a parking lot.

In that instant, an unimaginable amount of energy was released and the current incarnation of the universe was bone. This was about 13.5 billion years ago, by our particular point of view. The vast majority of the Hydrogen atoms that combine with water were created at this point. Later the hydrogen and a few stray helium atoms would collapse into galaxies, then stars, then some would form huge super giants that would burn hotter and hotter, fusing hydrogen into helium and helium into lithium all the way up to iron, where upon the whole reaction would suddenly collapse as more energy went into the process then came out.

Where upon the supergiant would collapse and explode, which in our local area included triggering a neighboring supergiant to explode as well. This is when the vast majority of the elements that make up the earth were created. Slowly they collapsed back into a disk, and then the solar system, and right after all that the sun got going, then a few other stars nearby exploded, clearing out our neck of the interstellar woods.

It's nice to have a clear view. Really helps the property values.

Then the earth formed. Right after that, earth got smacked upside the head by a chunk of rock about the size of mars and as a result, the moon was formed. Originally this got a ton of complaints. Which is understandable, because nobody likes change. However, given that the collision stirred things up putting a ton of heavy elements within arms reach of humanity, not to mention the fact that a large chunk of crystalized iron roughly the size of mars spinning in the middle of your planet makes a wonderfully protective magnetic field, in the end, this has been seen as a good thing.

Then Pangea formed and a good time was had by all. Almost immediately there was drama and a break up that put MTV's the real world to shame and next thing you know, the continents are drifting apart. That sort of thing happens after college. Then some chemicals got the idea that self-replication was what all the cool kids were doing, and order started to break out all over the planet.

Unfortunately, many forms of this self-replicating order quickly discovered there's only so much crap on the planet you can use to replicate yourself. This resulted in various disagreements which were increasingly resolved through the process of digestion.

Then Chlorophyll showed up, started shitting oxygen EVERYWHERE and made a right mess of things. Fortunately at the same time, a particular ambitious bit of self-replicating order that was to become modern day mitochondria thought, "Hey, maybe Oxygen ain't so bad." and got in on the ground floor of aerobic respiration, thus becoming the first capitalist.

And with the boundless energy provided by burning digested bits of other creatures, not possible before oxygen or mitochondria, a couple of cells figured if they remained in a clump, there was strength in numbers and they could seriously kick everyone else's ass, thus becoming the first socialist.

And Ironically, it was the first living creature with an ass to kick. Sort of a chicken and the egg situation. Or a self fulfilling prophesy. Not sure which.

Now, when it came to this particular form of order self-replicating, originally most multi-celled organism tried to stick with Binary fission, but that became impractical over time, so they moved onto fragmentation, and eventually budding. Still, there were issues. While asexual reproduction has the advantage that you are technically immortal, it just wasn't polling well.

And so a small group cells got priority over all the others and started running the show, telling everyone else to "take one for the team" while putting themself first. Specially, I speak of genitalia.

And as soon as the first form of self-replicating order started thinking with their junk, shit got real. About this same time, the nervous system became a thing, and before you knew it, skeletons, both external and internal started trending on twitter.

Now this resulted in spines and brains, both good things, but the problem was that all the programing stored in these nervous systems were hard coded and the firm ware was notoriously hard to upgrade. People got annoyed every time they wanted to adapt to the environment, they had to throw out the old model and buy a new one.

Knowing a pyramid scheme when he saw one, the first human decided to fuck that noise and grew a frontal lobe. Now, while this thing is still in beta testing, the frontal lobe has been truly amazing, what with "free will" and "self-reprograming", while admittedly quite buggy, being a huge advantage. Yes, it does result in some whacky output from time to time, like religion, The Kardashians, and fart jokes. The frontal lobe has, over all, been a huge success, having a 93% audience score on Rotten tomatoes.

And the next thing you know, humanity spread across the planet like wildfire. And like wildfire, burned down everything in its path without a whiff of mercy or concern. After all, if you were in humanity's way, you clearly had it coming.

Which almost brings us to Great Bear Island, but lets back up a bit.

Just after Pangea broke up, the North American Craton had some deep butt hurt by that chain of events and was really ticked off that he never got back his deposit on the apartment they all shared, and basically stomped off in a huff. He did keep in contact with south america, but only because they were drinking buddies. In the process, North America built up the west coast accretion belt. When combined with some serious deep sea continental shelf on oceanic plate action this resulted in a number of islands being created on the west coast of Canada.

Canada is very sorry about all that. They will try and to keep the noise down.

About this time Humanity was cutting loose and a bunch of humans wound up on Great Bear. After discovering the place was way too cold and covered in bears and wolves and other shit constantly trying to kill you, as well as the many many many earthquakes from being smack dab in the middle of two of the largest geological structures on planet earth trying to get "jiggy with it", those humans left for safer places.

And lo the humans that wound up settling on Great Bear and eventually founding Coastal Town would be Canadian.

Originally settled as a company town, the first administrator, Todd Granby, incorporated Coastal Town under the name "Coastal Town" Because he wrote the name of the town in the description, and put the description where the name should have been. Once the name of the town was officially recognized by the federal government, it became way too much of a pain fix, and thus went uncorrected.

Most likely for the best, because Granby was about as creative as Sir Issac Newton. Which is to say, his creativity has been rotting in the ground for centuries, and is best left undisturbed.

Coastal Town has waxed and waned over the years, becoming quite the boom town in the early 20th century. However, in an unknown year, but estimated to be around 1903, there was a forest fire that swept through the area after a particularly dry summer. Pine resin, when dry, becomes extremely flammable, and under certain circumstances, capable of detonation.

That night would forever more been known as "The Night of A Thousand Exploding Trees"

After the fire swept the island, devastation was left in its wake. Coastal Town lost every major building, which included a 45 room hotel, a general store, and a nine hole golf course.

The town's use to the mining company vanished over night and the companies just moved to a new area less prone to arboreal ignition. However, many locals survived the fire by simply rowing out to the island off shore, and they were determined to rebuild in their beloved town.

A number of houses sprung up, but the main building that the town would now center itself around was Quincy's Quonset Garage, so named because of the metal dome that forms the main part of the garage. Nobody knows who Quincy was. It is suspected that the person building the garage really liked the TV show with the same name. Which was quite the feat, because the show wouldn't air it's first episode until 1976.

While one couldn't call Coastal Town thriving, one could say it was surviving. In fact, its small size was instrumental to its survival of the Spanish Flu epidemic when it swept through the island.

Many accredit the survival of the town to Todd Granby, now known as Old man Granby, who was a heavy drinker. He claimed a sip of moonshine every half hour kept you immune to the Flu, and handed out alcohol to everyone. His skill at making alcohol kept everyone rip roaring drunk, although it is thought that a few instances of people going blind may have been caused by his alcohol, I'm afraid I have no confirmation of this anecdotal story.

Todd Granby was well known all over the island, being one of the few people brave enough to enter the homes of those who died, to drag the bodies to the Stone Church and bury them. Todd died at a ripe old age of 103, remaining the mayor until his passing.

In the resulting power vacuum, two rivals started to fight over who would be the next mayor. Percival Carr and George Blarney. Apparently their rivalry wasn't just political, but also for the affection of the Town School Teacher, Margaret Maud.

Alas, Margaret enjoyed playing the two men against each other, enjoying the attention and loved to openly flirt with both. 2 days before the election to determine would would be the new mayor of Coastal Town, She had a fight with Percival. Later she would claim to George that Percival had hit her, and this resulted in George hunting down and shooting Percival dead.

Margaret would later confess that she lied, would never forgive herself, and moved away from the island. Her eventual fate remains unknown.

After George went to jail, William Quincy, inheritor of the Quonset Garage would step up and become the town mayor.  William, Town scoutmaster, and head of the island's masonic lodge, would be mayor for another 18 years before he died un-expectantly in a tuna trawler accident. Control of the town would pass to Albert Flem, who also took over the island's masonic lodge. He appointed his lodge brother J.R. Shields as chief of police, and the other members of the lodge became the Coastal Town Planning Board.

They would become the most corrupt political force Great Bear had even seen. Their ties to organized crime and smuggling became a thing of legend and the worst kept secret on the island. While everyone knew what was going on, they also made sure everyone's palms were well greased, and no local was willing to stand up to them. They then shifted the town's focus to fishing and tourism as a means of laundering their money and helping to cover for being a way station for smugglers coming from Asia.

A running joke was that the cabin rental company was called Key Rentals, because when you rented a cabin, it came with a key of cocaine.

Things were going very well until 1988, when the entire Masonic Lodge was meeting in the Stone Church one Saturday evening. Someone had planted a fragmentation device and the resulting explosion killed everyone and blew out the corner of the church. In the resulting federal investigation all the smuggling operations had been uncovered and while no one would ever be arrested for the mass murder of masons, it is thought that a rival drug cartel ordered the hit.

In the aftermath, the town almost disappeared, only to be brought back to life in the year 2000 when large tracks of the mostly abandoned coastline were bought up by Myron Rogers, Who would join forces with Sarah Quincy, the then owner of the Quincy Quonset.

He made a deal with local logging interests and worked to build up an ACTUAL fishing and tourist industry along the coastal road. He started the annual Ice Fishing competition that, while never super popular, did bring in a good deal of much needed off island funds to the local economy.

The annual ice fishing competition was well underway when the first flare hit. The subsequent earthquake that occurred along with the flare dislodged a fish mounted on a wall, hitting Myron in the head and killing him instantly. Everyone agrees, that is exactly how he would have wanted to go out.

Since the flare, the town was abandoned until The Quonset manager came into town, reincorporated the town, assumed squatter's rights, and reopened the Quonset Garage. Since then the old town planning board has returned as shadowy apparitions, hell bent of the resurrection of Coastal Town, at any cost.

In a surprising turn of events, local Car Battery, CB, was elected to be the new town mayor, thus being the youngest, and most inanimate object to hold the office. CB is very progressive in his view of the future of Coastal Town, where as the Town Planning Board are rather reactionary, what with them being the physical manifestation of hate filled darkness. This has caused the planning board and the mayor's office to butt heads over more than one zoning issue.

Still, while Coastal Town's past may be grim, the future is looking bright. The mayor's office has many new plans to help the town. For example, he plans on claiming the coastal town is a riverboat that ran around in hopes of applying for federal disaster relief.

Whereas the Planning board thinks that opening a new curling rink would be a better way to go. When asked who would actually use the curling rink, considering everyone is dead, the Planning board's jaws became unhinged and dropped open, stretching their faces to impossible lengths. Their tongues, that could only be described as "The Color Of Spite", lashed out and flayed the soul of the person who dared to ask the question. In a flash of un-light, he became a statue made of grey ash, that softly and silently crumbled away, leaving behind only a nondescript smudge as evidence that he ever existed.

So I'm going to put that down as a "No Comment".

I haven't even been aware of this whole "Quonset Manager" stuff, (if so, i've forgotten) seriously, what is with you and your obsession over this!??!? Its amazing and spectacular, but it also seems like a dedication akin to a junkie and his needle. Perhaps you are as mad as the man you claim to wander these snowy wastes!

3 hours ago, Wintersteel said:

Rush.

Good ol' bridges going off into the mist, to bad you weren't the first to upload something like that here, I WAS! So you better get a good lawyer, cus' i'm suing! 

6 hours ago, shade_grey said:

Ultimately, I think that the knife, as an object, is a very important part of this particular interaction. It had a bit of the "Trolley Problem" vibe to it. If you don't kill Hobbs, are you just allowing the death of another person? In the end, he's a bad guy, bad guy.

"Why is the knife important?" You might ask. Well, the Trolley Problem falls under a theory of Ethics called utilitarianism. Utilitarianism attempts to determine the value of certain ethical choices by it's overall outcome. But there's a reason why Ethicists still continue debate the Trolley Problem and the overall value of fully committing an utilitarian model for judging ethical choices, the overall outcome of real life ethical choices can never be fully calculated before hand. And there's another important part of ethical choices that needs to be addressed, the psychological impact the choice has on the person making the choice. Sure you saved people by pushing a guy in front of a moving trolley, or sure you probably saved people by pushing a knife into Hobbs, but... what did making that choice do to you? Chances are, making that choice changed you as a person. You've killed someone. There's no going back now.

Now you're probably thinking, "OMG! What about the knife though?!" Okay, I'm getting to it. When you push the knife into Hobbs the overall outcome is much more concrete relative to the outcome of the other choice. Hobbs is dead. You killed a man, but the people can sleep a little more soundly (relatively speaking). Whereas, if you pull the knife out, Hobbs lives, or does he? Even if he does, what does that really mean? Would it really be that bad to let him live? He might do something stupid like try and mess with Grey Mother and die anyway. But at least you get to keep what little humanity you have left and the knife will remind you of that. Make it a special item: Bloody Knife: You pulled this knife out of a convict named Hobbs.

Ill be honest with ya, I just asked this and sat back, totally wasn't expecting this amount of dedication to a singular question or outcome of a moral choice. Damn good job hinterland, and bravo Grey for this response.

Some great first posts andspran! 

14 hours ago, Ice Hole said:

Was hoping I did not have to show this.

 

  Hide contents

 

 

 

Id think a crazy calvin and hobbes snowman in some obscure corner of timberwolf mountain would be a nice easteregg! 

Wait... You didn't fix the glitch were your sent to the void if you try to harvest the deer corpse at the start of the first episode?

Hinterland, kudos for having a moral choice far, FAR better then choosing whether or not to loot a gas station for supplies. But for the love of god, please have this choice actually matter in later chapters. If you spare Hobbs life make him show up down the line either interacting or antagonizing Will or Astrid in later chapters. Or if you killed him, would you make it so it actually affects Will beyond word changes in his dialogue like in Telltale games? I let a dangerous criminal live, MAKE IT WORTH MY WHILE EH?

Not even surprised you made it to 100, Not to stroke your ego, but im not sure any challenge stands in your way as long as you keep at it eh? 

4 hours ago, Drifter Man said:

Deadman 3 / Day 30

It's foggy now but I know better than to walk outside in early morning. Round the next bend I'd be building an emergency fire of 40 sticks. I'll wait until midday and if the weather is reasonable, I'll slip by the Bunkhouses and approach the Homestead from the north. Ideally I want to work at the forge through the night (knife + as many arrowheads as I can get material for - I have 6 pieces of scrap with me). Then sleep in the morning and leave in the afternoon of Day 31, destination Marsh Ridge.

If the weather isn't good today, I'll wait in the cave until tomorrow. No rush.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

I use the morning to read "Survive the Outdoors" and sleep, leaving the cave around midday, felt -6°C, in light fog. I avoid wolves at the Bunkhouses and build a fire next to a deer carcass between the Bunkhouses and the Homestead, harvesting and cooking neat 2.0 kg of meat in place. Wind nearly blows my fire out but this time I'm able to babysit it until the meat is done. And since I haven't eaten since last evening (in expectation of this opportunity), I can also eat it on the spot - no risk of attracting wolves. The deadman mode teaches you appreciate the sound of meat sizzling by the fire even more

As the Homestead is free from wolves - only deer are around - I pick up a large amount of sticks, finishing with more than 70, in addition to 10 coals I have with me and some 10 more in the building. Warm drink keeps me from freezing in the wind as I return to the forge and start the fire.

First I only put a few sticks in, let water boil in a can, and search the barn. Simple parka - a good piece of clothing but slightly heavier than the ski jackets I already have. I'll leave it behind. Matches, Sewing Primer, two sewing kits, guaranteed 1000 calories in the form of dog food. Surprise in the tool container:

My second cured gut found! I force open the locker, nothing inside. Several pieces of scrap metal are around together with coal and firewood, I pick them all up. I don't break any crates - I'll leave the accelerant and anything that possibly is in the safe behind. Then I put in coals and start forging.

First I verify that I can make water in the can while crafting arrowheads. I can - 3 minutes left before it boils dry. Then I work until after midnight. With a knife and 8 arrowheads done, I add sticks to the fire and go to bed.

Deadman 3 / Day 31

I wake up in the morning, check the fire, eat dog food and sleep some more. In the late morning there's heavy fog outside. Early afternoon, it clears up and I'm fully rested. I've beaten the 30-day challenge. [76900 calories consumed]

So do you think with enough luck, planning, an understanding you would be able to survive 100+ days? Or is that a complete stretch, Ive attempted it but alas, I havent made it past day 5. 

15 minutes ago, Hotzn said:

No sandbox update before December. People are starting to lose it...

+1

No thats just an accurate depiction of what would happen, the bunny corpses would pile up and destroy the earth. 

5 hours ago, MrWolf said:

Morning from the tail section on the summit of Timberwolf Mountain

Nice! But how did you do that? 

2 hours ago, Looper said:

Was it a case of "dont-drink-and-type"  ?

Looking at all the empty whiskey bottles littering my house your probably right

Holy crap what the heck did I just wright last night? I barely remember doing that  

17 minutes ago, Pillock said:

I think you're exaggerating a bit

What??? Thats totally what would happen if the bunny snare exploit isn't fixed. 

1 hour ago, Looper said:

The point being?

I only said I liked the trapping mechanic not that is was perfect.

Day 697, I returned to ML, I haven't been to this region since day 124, I remember I left many snares out behind the trappers. I am at the dam currently writing this, tomorrow I will go to the trappers. 

Day 698, I made it to the trappers, but instead of the cabin and surrounding areas there was a gigantic pile of rotting rabbit corpses. When I got closer it began to groan and swell. Soon the corpses began to melt together into a formless blob of meat and gut and staring eyes. It twitched and began to expand at an accelerated rate. The mass of bunny bodies soon began to consume everything in its path. I saw a deer get completely absorbed into that mass of flesh and bone. I ran for my life and dropped my pack of goods. I saw that get absorbed into its mass as well, the blob making horrible screeching and squelching noises. I ran through the rail tunnel into the muskeg screaming for my life. I dared to look over my shoulder, I saw something that would bring even the most steeled of minds to insanity. A horrible profusion of errant flesh came bounding over the cliffside like a tidal wave of squealing doom. I ran up into hat creek, I lit my last road flare and stepped into the cave at the basin of the waterfall. I laughed and cried and screamed for death as I ran through the dark halls. I heard the flesh give a mighty roar, I felt the ground quake underneath me. The cave began to collapse, I just barely made it out alive. When I entered outside it was a sight to behold, across the entirety of the muskeg the bunny corpse pile had covered every inch of land. When I looked down upon the ground I could see I was standing upon live rabbits, but they were all fused together. Twitching ears and flailing legs surrounded me. I stooped down and stabbed my flare into the flesh, it screamed and began to move. I felt my feet being pulled down into the mass. I tried to fight it but like quick sand the more I fought the more I was sucked into it. The bunnies began squeaking in unison as I was pulled farther and farther down. I unsheathed my improvised hatchet and began hacking wildly. I cut away at the flesh hack by hack, the ground rang out an ear splitting screech. Hundreds of mouths began to cut into my legs and sides. They were digging into my flesh like razors, but so much adrenaline was pumping though my veins I did not feel any pain. I stabbed and hacked and managed to climb up onto a fleshy tree. Covered in viscera and entrails I finally collapsed from exhaustion. 

Day 698, I awoke on the flesh like tree, it appeared to also be made of bunnies. I felt soft whiskers against my cheek, hot breath on my neck. The rabbits were affectionately nuzzling me. I got down from the tree, I pulled out my hip flask and took a long swig. But no water met my lips, damnit I forgot to fill it with water. I trudged around the overlook, but I found nothing of interest besides endless fused rabbits. I climbed down the overlook, stabbing my hatchet into the fleshy sides of the cliff in order to gain a foot hold. I stepped down onto the marsh, now covered in endless rabbit flesh. I saw a hunters blind in the distance, but when approaching it, it to was covered in fur and eyes. I wont last much longer without water, But there has to be something under all this flesh right? Right? Possibilities begin rushing through my head like a wildfire, all of them ending in my painful demise. I take out my hatchet and begin hacking at the flesh once more, More and more I begin to tunnel down, I feel my hatchet sink and absorb into the flesh but it doesn't matter. I take off my gloves and I begin scooping out entrails and meat and tossing them out of the hole. I feel my fingers being chewed down to the bone by thousands of gnawing and raving mouths. I feel them tearing at my clothing, but I strike something. I feel it, its a large vein, stabbing into it with my mouth I drink my fill of warm blood. I wipe my mouth, cackling with bliss I climb back out of the hole. The ground beneath me moves and ripples with every step I take. I see a wolf in the distance, It barks at me but it doesn't seem to be able to get a stable footing on the ground. I here its yelps as it is absorbed into the mass. 

Day 799, I wear a thick covering of rabbit fur now, and I live in a tent of rabbit fur. Rabbit, rabbits... Why why did i have to leave all those snares outside of the trappers cabin? Why didn't I just kill those rabbits before they did this! I made my way to the ocean, but there was no ocean, I walked and walked for hundreds of miles but there was nothing but endless rabbits. Sometimes I would see fleas, endless waves of fleas, they were like blankets of thick insects. I remember the first flea storm I had to bear through, it was an endless barrage of insects, I couldn't breathe without swallowing them. Once the storm was over the fleas were like locusts, they ate through the skin and fur and soon tore into the body's of the endless rabbits. I trudged onward for another hundred miles, but it was exceedingly difficult. Where the ground was once firm and soft it was now a goopy mess of eaten and rotting flesh. So much fleas had gotten on me that I tore all my hair off, and I scratched so hard I tore my skin from my arms. My only source of sustenance is the occasional artery I find, I stab it open, drinking my fill of blood.

Day 823, I made it to the mainland today, I could tell it was. The large city's had been covered in rabbit fur and eyes and ears. I saw mouths the size of houses with jagged teeth as large as cars jutting out of the ground. I found a pair of corpses as well, half human half rabbit. It was two adults and a child, I realized they were still alive, I quickly took advantage and I ripped them open and drank there blood. I kept moving, the ground below me is becoming restless, the flesh beneath my feet occasionally moves and jitters. I feel it trying to absorb me, but I resist, Ive fashioned a new hatchet, one of bone and sinew. Soon I will have a knife! A knife! And a spear! Yes yess! I will tear everything apart! HACK THIS WORLD TO PEICES, YES YES YES YES YES!!!!! HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA

Day 2348, Today I emerged from my bone palace and made sure my bunny slaves were ripe for the bleeding. I made bunny slave 89 cut them open, I let her take there lungs for her meal but no, only I get the heart and blood! All the other bunny slaves are talking about rebelling, once I hear this I pin there skin apart and eat them from the inside out while they are still living. There squealing is enough to scare the others into submission. WHY WOULD THEY REBEL YOU SAY???? I created my bunny slaves from the flesh, I sculpted them! I am there father! Fathers get to do whatever they want with there children! I created this world, I left those snares, this is my world, MINE. My bunny slaves want to rebel they can, but I will sic the flesh on them, I will absorb them into the mass and I will start again. I am the god of my realm, I am the creator! Mine mine mine mine mine mine! 

Day 24455, Everything is dying, my bunny slaves have died, my bone palace has crumbled. The mass underneath me has stopped moving, the tick storms have stopped raging. The air is thick with decay, I fear my end is upon me. I wandered for thousands of miles during the last of my days. All I found was dead bodies piled high, there is no noise besides my ragged breath. The stench is something unfathomable, it smells like everything foul that this earth has ever produced. I have many bone cups of blood, but it has gone stale. I no longer have my blood to keep me alive, I will die soon. 

Day 24456, The only proof I was still on earth was the stars and the sun. A heavy fog so thick you could cut it with a knife has descended upon the land. I cannot see anything but fog. The stars, the sun, the only warmth and solace I ever felt is gone. The ground below me has rotted away, leaving only an endless and intricate weaving skeleton. It looks as if a million skeletons have been fused together, creating a spiderweb of bone. I cannot move much anymore, each step breaks the ground and I fall ever deeper into an endless abyss. I will reshape this bone one last time, I will create one last kingdom. 

Captains log #234, Ship ID Q1P92OP1

Hello, I am Knef'twue, I am the commander of this ship, this is my personal log. My and my team have recently found a planet that appears to have once harbored life. Data samples brought back from the planet appear inclusive, the whole planet appears to be covered in a thick shell of calcium. Scouting expeditions have yielded meager results but we have found a sign of a civilization. A city spanning about 12 Gleptocrams has been found, it appears to be made of the same material covering the planet. The city seems to be mostly large towers of the calcium substance, with many large houses dotted around in an erratic pattern. A large castle stands a top a hill, inside all the scouting team found was a heavily decomposed pile and a large book full of scrawling's. Even are best scribes cannot decipher the writing in this book. I have had the symbols stored in the archives for further study. The decomposed pile appears to be organic, with what appears to be extremely small creatures covering its surface. Very odd... The pile has been sent back to laboratory #23Q3FGH for further study. I have seen many ruined worlds, but this one is most perplexing. 

Just now, Looper said:

I guess you're right. My post had some suggestions - others have contributed with solution. Point of the list is of course onlys to consolidate the different exploits that goes somewhat contrary to what was intended in the game. 

While it isn't an exploit and therefore shouldn't have been put on the lis, I still hope for a change to the stone throwing accuracy. Hitting a rabbit with a stone is very very hard in real life, but can be trained in TLD to work 9/10 times. Plus I really really think that the trapping mechanic deserves more love.  

I left a rabbit alive behind the trappers and set out about three snares and got 1-2 bunny corpses every day, there was enough gut to probably craft all the animal clothing twice. In fact the whole idea of one live rabbit yet you can have infinite bunny corpses is an exploit! Oh no! OOOOH NOOO! DUN DUN DUUUUUUN! 

24 minutes ago, Pillock said:

OK! Here's my suggestions:

• Infinite torches: campfire-pulled torches capped at 25% condition, and only torches that are 26% or above can be re-lit once they go out.
• Lighting a campfire or walking on to 'inaccessible places' always scares away wolves: the AI could have an intermediate behaviour-mode between 'aggression' and 'running way'. In this mode, they could stay locked on to you, but would run around you in an erratic way, making it difficult to shoot them. Staying near the fire or on a rock/tree/whatever where it can't reach you would keep you safe, but you wouldn't be able to escape the situation unless you took another measure, like firing the gun or throwing a torch/flare at it.
• Starvation: I think we need a 'malnutrition' affliction, similar to how Cabin Fever works - that is, if your calorie intake over, say, five days does not exceed your calorie expenditure, you get the affliction (there could be a warning phase first). If you get the affliction, your tiredness and freezing rate is doubled, and your general condition-loss rate and condition-regain time is also increased. You can cure it by bringing your five-day calorie in/out rate back into the positive.
• Night-time illumination making it easier to navigate indoors at night than in the day: Just get rid of the weird bluey illumination at night so that it's dark!
• Consistent condition-loss for freezing: scale condition-loss rate according to temperature - every few degrees of "feels like" temp below freezing could increase your condition-loss rate by a bit. That would make it advantageous to stay out of the wind and wear your warmest clothes, even if you're still freezing (which it isn't now).

I'm not sure how you'd fix the ability to spider-man down very steep cliffs, rocks or dam faces without a big overhaul of the physics. But maybe some kind of 'tumbling' phase for movement might work? A bit like when you fall short distances and pick up bruises, minor injuries and clothing damage, except you can't arrest the falling until you reach a 'safe' bit of ground? I don't how that work really, in terms programming it, but it would be nice if the Devs could have a look at the situation, at least.

Brilliant suggestions pillock! Yes that whole mountain goating thing is a tricky one to solve isn't it? Perhaps instead of over hauling the physics the chance of spraining your ankles, bruising, or tearing your clothing is doubled so by the time you reach the bottom of Timberwolf you covered in injuries. But if you take off all your clothing and have plenty of painkillers that wouldn't matter would it? Hmmm... Perhaps there should be a new affliction? Like maybe a broken ankle or very badly damaged ankle for this kind of cliff climbing? 

On 8/12/2018 at 10:37 AM, Fuarian said:

Bait and kill wolves. You should have to throw bait instead. 

Good idea! And bait doesn't work from medium distances.

Look, I agree with pretty much all of these, but what good will listing them down do? Instead perhaps we should try and come up for solutions for these exploits. Like the ability to pull infinite torches out of the fire, instead you have to have 3 sticks order to pull out a torch.

28 minutes ago, piddy3825 said:

dude, get something to eat!

Im on loper so eating food is out the window!!

I already posted this somewhere else but I decided to share it with you all in this thread, sweet dreams!

6 minutes ago, stratvox said:

If you use F10 to take a screenshot you'll get an HD version with no UI icons on it. I don't know what the key on XBox(?) is, but I'm sure there's one there....

Nah darn, well if I was playing on a computer I could do that. BUT NO, XBOX HAS TO MAKE IT SO THE UI DOESNT GO AWAY  

No matter how much UI icons clutter the screen, CH will always look good.