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Two-time, incumbent and longest reigning PDW Aluminium Drinking Champion
- Posts:
- 338
- Group:
- Champions
- Member
- #319
- Joined:
- May 2, 2013
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I don't... think I've ever written a sex scene? If I have I don't remember, so it can't have been that good. But I have done a promo with my character basically ragging on crappy sex scenes, with her talking about how you never see 'real' sex with all the awkward positions, random noises etc.
My weirdest character was probably La Sombra Oscura. You know the bit in a videogame where you have to fight a shadow version of the protagonist? Basically he was that. Dressed head to toe in a black mask and bodysuit, totally mute, and he wrestled with his opponent's moveset, body language and taunts. I made him to be an outlet for all my deconstructivist thoughts about fedding/wrestling... This, entitled "A Critique of Pure Wrestling," is the roleplay where I actually explained what his deal was (not advertising - the fed in that link is long dead).
Below is probably the most recent weird-ish roleplay I've done, from a couple of months ago.
Spoiler: click to toggle The radiant brilliance of the Moon pierces the veil of this smoggy, dirty night. Where the grimy rain lances through the glow, it sparkles enchantingly, before soaking back into the miasma. A figure in a dark trenchcoat and fedora hustles through the gloomy city streets, trying - unsuccessfully - not to get too wet. The clouds are too thick to let starlight through, too high to reflect the filthy glow of the streetlights, and the scene is eerily ethereal. Perhaps that's due to the high-contrast cinematography. Or maybe it's just the way things are around here.
We cut to a close-up of the walking figure. It turns away from the rain and strikes a match, and in a freeze-frame snapshot the flame illuminates the features of a young woman with a cigarette to her lips, head bowed to keep it dry.
A legend appears: Laurel Anne Hardy
She lights up her smoke and inhales deeply before shaking the match out and tossing it into the gutter. Then she resumes her hurried pace.
We cut to the interior of a bombsite of an office where another young woman is leaning over a desk piled high with junk, sifting through spread-out papers. As she reaches across for a note we can see that she's showing a tasteful amount of cleavage courtesy of her low-cut shirt and waistcoat combo. She looks up for a moment and, despite her uncharacteristic horn-rimmed glasses, we can see that this is:
Evangelista
A ceiling fan turns lazily above her. She brushes some loose hair back from her face, then turns round suddenly as the door behind her opens. On the frosted pane, the letters:

Laurel enters and hangs her hat and coat up, revealing a shapeless suit, dishevelled shirt and slackly-knotted tie.
in The Price of Admission was Murder!
"Morning, Larry," says Evangelista. The accent's dodgy and the words are a little stilted; Evangelista, bless her, is not a great actor, but she's trying her best.
"Mornin', Miss Fontaine," drawls Laurel - er, I mean, 'Larry Hardwick' - indolently. "We had any clients this morning?"
"Nah," replies 'Miss Fontaine,' "It's been deader than a dog in Chinatown."
Detective Hardwick just gives a vague "Hmm" and starts looking through Miss Fontaine's paperwork. Evidently there's nothing much exciting in there.
This time of year was always quiet in this business, narrates Laurel over the scene, The festive violence of the holiday season long over, the cold weather sapping people's enthusiasm for mayhem and bloodshed. Great news if you're a social worker or a doctor. Terrible news if you're a bartender or a private investigator.
And yet, even at the quietest of times, fate has this way of keeping us on the line.
This story began...
...don't all stories begin the same way? It began with a dame.
And the door opens again. A woman walks in... it's Laurel Anne Hardy. Her hair is divinely glamourous, her makeup akin to a movie star's, and as she removes her long black coat, she reveals a stunning calf-length evening gown with a plunging neckline, and a fur stole over the shoulders. She bats her eyelids at Detective Hardwick and asks, demurely, "I understand you can solve problems?"
"Well now," says the detective, looking the young lady up and down (thanks to some clever jump cuts), "That all depends on the nature of your problem... and whether you've got what I want."
Miss Fontaine glances from one incarnation of Laurel to the other. The dame smiles. "I think I have exactly what you want... money is no object to me. Full expenses for any inconvenience my case would put you to."
Detective Hardwick nods appreciatively. "You know just what a P.I. wants to hear."
"Well, it's not my first time."
That elicits a raised eyebrow, but the detective doesn't comment on it, instead cutting to the chase by asking, "So what can we do for you?"
"A man was killed last night. He had something that belonged to me. I want it back."
Miss Fontaine scribbles notes down on a blank page while Detective Hardwick sits down in the big wooden bucket chair behind the overflowing desk. "Who was the unfortunate?"
"You'll see him if you head down to the Norwood Street Fair. Can't miss him."
"What did he die of?"
"Nothing involving me, if that's what you meant."
Another flirtatious smile from Detective Hardwick. "Smart cookie."
"I know," replies the woman, betraying nothing.
"What does he... did he have that belonged to you?"
The dame takes out a cigarette holder and perches herself on the side of the desk. Detective Hardwick leans forward and lights it up for her, and she winks a grateful wink. "Oh... many things. Some things I don't care about. Some things I can't have back. But the important thing is a key."
"A key?"
"Yes. About so long, silver, with the initial 'W' engraved on the bow."
"And what does it open?"
An enigmatic half-smile. "That, Detective, is not something you need to know."
The detective looks at his potential client carefully for a moment, then nods. "Understood. Well, I'll check out the crime scene, ID the deceased, and see if we can progress from there."
The dame nods once, firmly. "Thank you. Should I settle a consulting fee with your secretary?"
"Partner," growls Miss Fontaine testily.
"We'll worry about that later. For now, we'll see how much we expect to be able to do for you, Miss...?"
"Loren," replies the dame with an enigmatic smile, "Hardia Loren."
She extends a hand, palm-side down, fingers slack. In a carefully framed shot - to disguise the fact that the hand on offer is not the same one as Miss Loren put forth a moment ago - Hardwick shakes it. It's Miss Loren's turn to raise an eyebrow.
Hardia Loren says "I understand O'Hardihan's men are down at the crime scene already. I do hope they're treating the poor man with some dignity in his final journey..."
Our image fades from the office to a ghastly image of a corpse's rictus, upside down, blood congealing in the bristles of its stubble.
"...he was quite special to me."
Murder's a tuppeny a go in this dismal city, comes the narration.There are a lot of reasons for a person to die. Jealousy. Anger. Greed. Boredom.
But this wasn't just murder. This was a killing.
The carnival was in town, but something told me the carnies would rather be anywhere else right now. They were as a people intrinsically uneasy around the law, and a murder investigation was wonders at keeping the punters away. Oh sure, it brought out the freakshow crowd... but they would have been out anyway, to see the actual freakshow. They have a guy there who can hammer nails right through his hands, and a girl with a lizard tongue.
Our deceased had nails through his hands too, and a slit in his tongue, but unlike them this guy would not be emerging from under a sackcloth in a shady caravan to hiss at tourists.
The body is crucified upside down on the spokes of the ferris wheel. Thick dark blood congeals around a vicious wound in his neck. Eyes lolling back to show the whites, ample stomach sagging down his chest like a bag of potatoes hanging off a storeroom shelf.
A degrading end for a serious player. Our victim had come down from the big freezer up north a few years back and carved himself out a nice little niche in our sleepy hamlet, ignoring the blood that flowed from the wound. He was one of biggest shots on the streets until not too long ago. In fact you might say he used to rule this corner of the berg, once upon a time, but the fairytale reign ended harshly for him. The Echo Street Abominations took down his crew, one by one... and now it looks like they finished the job.
He was known around this part of town by many names. The Mad Moose... The Northern Butcher... the Crazed Calgarian... the Spike.
Most knew him as "Strange Hugo."
Detective Hardwick glides through the crowd and ducks under the cordon, flashing a badge at a flatfoot who tries to stop him. He doesn't get too close to the team working on the cadaver - instead stopping to chat in hushed tones with a beat cop stood by popcorn stand.
Butter or salt? Neither today.
The city's finest had combed the wheel, the body and the grounds of the fair - but I didn't need any more details than what was plain in front of me. A killing this theatrical... this could only be the work of one gang.
The big question for me was this: Was Miss Loren's mysterious key something the Abominations would be after?
Actually, recovering the damn thing was the first order of business.
Since the collapse of the Strike Force, as Hugo liked to call his crew, their turf had turned feral. All it would take to case for clues was a little light breaking and entering, and maybe scaring off the odd wino emboldened by a night of fortification - the perfect afternoon's entertainment.
Back in the office, the door opens. Hardwick pokes his head around it and says, "Get your coat, Miss Fontaine, and make sure your peacekeeper's easy to hand. Oh, and toss me my lucky charms?"
Miss Fontaine obliges by extracting an oiled leather bundle from the desk drawer and lobbing it to the detective, who catches it in one hand and smartly slips it into the inside jacket pocket.
"We goin' grave robbing, detective?" asks Miss Fontaine innocently, as she pulls her own hat and coat on.
"Tomb raiding," corrects Detective Hardwick, "But maybe we'll get in some grave robbing too if it's still light once we're done."
"Ach'lly, boss, you ain't goin' nowhere 'cept the Precinct," calls a high-pitched voice from out of shot. The detective turns out of the room and looks down, and we see another person - Laurel Anne Hardy again, kneeling down with her knees resting in shoes. She's clad in a vintage orphan's get-up - braces, raggedy scarf, flat cap, filthy but eager face.
"Annie!" exclaims Detective Hardwick, "Always a pleasure to see you, never a pleasure to hear what you have to say."
"Aw, you're too kind, boss. O'Hardihan's sent some goons down to collar you."
"Dammit. Thanks for the tip-off, Annie," and he hands over a greasy five-dollar bill, which the kid snatches up hungrily and stuffs inside her shirt like it was about to blow away.
"Five whole bucks!" she exclaims, "Boy oh boy!"
Detective Hardwick sighs and turns to his cohort. "C'mon, Fontaine. Let's see what the old blowhard's knickers are twisted up about now." And all three exit. A moment later, a couple of men open the door, only to find the room empty. They frown in annoyance while we wipe-mix to an exceedingly similar, and even messier, office.
"You wanted to see me, Chief O'Hardihan?" sighs Detective Hardwick as he enters, Miss Fontaine trailing him.
The swivel chair spins round to reveal, biting down on a cigar like it had insulted her mother, Laurel Anne Hardy. Her face is flushed. Maybe it's the fact her shirt is two sizes too small, the collar visibly squeezing her neck, especially with all the padding up her front to make her look as rotund as possible. Having said that, something about her livid eyes and snarling mouth suggest that blind rage is this character's default state.
"I hear you're on the Hugo beat." This is spat with as much venom as is humanly possible.
"Private contract, Chief," replies our unflappable hero with a shrug, "I'm within my bounds."
"Dammit, this is MY case, Hardwick!" snaps the policeman, "I won't have you making my boys look like chumps again!"
"Well, you'll be pleased to know that I'm not interested in the when or how, and I already know the who. I'm on a search and retrieve mission, nothing more."
"What do you mean, you know the who? Who's your tip?"
Hardwick taps the side of his head. "Tip's all up here, Chief. I hear echoes and I pay attention to them."
"What the hell are you talking about!?"
The detective switched tracks smoothly. "Are you detaining us?"
"No."
"Then if you don't mind, we have work to be doing." And both Hardwick and Fontaine turn away.
But O'Hardihan tries to get the final word in. "You stay off my case, Hardwick! Anything you find that I need to know, you bring it to ME and let the professionals handle it!"
"I'll try to remember, but I just get so caught up in the moment, y'know..."
And he and his comrade exit.
Chief L. Andrew Hardwick was a buffoon, but a useful one. He hadn't cleared away the deceased's last known address from his desk before seeing us.
Something about this game made me uneasy. All we wanted was a key, but something told me neither the Abominations nor the fine gentlemen down at the PD would make it easy.
It was hard to know who was more dangerous. The cops were incompetent, but there were hundreds of them and they had the shield of law on their side.
The Abominations... they were few, but they had on their side the fact they were out of their trees with zero regard for collateral damage.
Four men ran the Echo Street Abominations in a truce. We'd tangled with two of them before - Fred and Robin Sertree, better known to the scum and the scared of the city as The Wicked Clown Brothers. Never face-to-painted-face, not yet, but our paths had crossed their dealings enough to know that they meant serious business. Bad business.
Murmurs on the grapevine had it that the Wicked Clown Brothers had ties to the entertainment maestro Alexander Starkey, forming three quarters of the Echo Street Abominations. The fourth? The sadistic antipodean hitman known only as The Trapper, famous for his weapon of choice: a crowbar. Rumoured to be the alter-ego of ladies' favourite crooner Marcus Austerby, but nobody knew for certain. Between the four of them, they must have controlled pretty much the entire town's entertainment industry. Links to the city's showbiz scene would certainly explain why the Wicked Clown Brothers' Circus of Horrors never got raided, because the things that went down there weren't even legal in Reno.
You ever want to see strippers in clown makeup feed live rats and snakes to an obese acrobat? You ever want to see a jester juggle live dynamite or a geek burn away his own flesh with concentrated bleach? Then you should take in one of their shows.
I hear they're a riot.
Dust motes dance through the shafts of the light coming between the boards in this dingy, dirty, decayed room. There's a bang, and the dust on the floor jumps like the skin of a drum. Another, shaking everything from the bulbless light fitting to the peeling wallpaper to the rotten furniture.
Finally, with another thud, the boards collapse in and light bursts into every corner of the room. Detective Hardwick drops through the window and mutters, "When in doubt, kick," mostly to himself, then offers a hand to help Miss Fontaine step through. Our heroes quickly set to work, opening everything which can be opened, pulling up everything which can be pulled up, overturning everything which can be overturned.
"I've found something!" calls Miss Fontaine after levering up a floorboard. She extracts a small wooden chest, and fingers the rim until she finds a catch to pop the lid open. They both gasp at the contents, which are hidden from us by the camera angle. Hardwick and Fontaine are clearly very impressed, though, and perhaps a little shocked.
"Well, it's not a key, but..."
"...yeah."
They both stare into the box in awe... so rapt that they don't see the crowbar in time.
...
Of all the sneak attacks I've ever suffered, that was probably in the bottom five.
...
Our heroes come to in a dark, cramped closet.
"My head feels like..." Miss Fontaine starts to moan, but Hardwick places a finger over her lips.
"We have to get out of here. Something tells me we're useful to someone, and I don't fancy our life expectancy once that usefulness is worn out."
He fishes in his jacket and finds the roll of leather, and unfastens it. He selects a fine, thin metal spike and a hook, and gets to work on the lock. There's a click almost instantly.
"Dumbass," remarks Detective Hardwick as he replaces the tools, and then he kicks the door open.
A man on the other side turns in shock - but not enough shock to forget to level his gun on them.
Before Hardwick can even react, the guy's chest explodes in a shower of opaque mist. Fontaine lowers her own gun, after checking that there are no more hostiles around.
Miss Fontaine, you always were the fastest draw in town. Whatever I pay you, it's not enough.
"One of Abominations' mooks?" asks the junior detective as Hardwick kneels by the corpse.
"Cop, I think," gasps Detective Hardwick. "I've seen this guy around before."
"O'Hardihan set us up!?"
"He's not smart enough. Either he just really wants us out of the way, or somebody's playing more than one side."
"Was."
"Right, was. I know I've seen this guy before. Damn, I wish I could place where from. I'm trying to remember his name. Something Polack I think, or maybe... Italian?"
Well, that threw things into a different dimension.
Italian crime in this city meant either low-level, irrelevant thugs, or one very high-level, very relevant lord: the famously brutal and crass mob boss Patricio Antonino. He was perhaps the single most powerful figure in crime and punishment around these parts, especially since the disappearance of onetime kingpin "Switchblade" McGinty. Most of the things the Echo Street Abominations didn't own, Antonino did - either him or one of his two closest associates, veteran boxer-turned-promoter "Valentine's Day" Daniels, and a giant bearded Scotsman known only as Williams. They'd managed to sweep up most of the shards of Hugo's empire too, after the Abominations had shattered it, and that had pushed the two syndicates closer than ever to bloodshed on the streets.
Hardwick turns to look at his friend slowly. "I think, Fontaine... we've just walked into the middle of a mob war."
Dun-dun duuhhnn!
...
Detective Hardwick and Miss Fontaine pound down a filthy alley, both soaked to the skin by the greasy drizzle.
"I don't..." pants Hardwick, then calls for them to stop for a moment. "I don't... know how... the key fits into all this. But..." -he doubles over, leaning against a chain-link fence- "I know I want it. I gotta hunch this key is what all the most powerful factions in this city are willing to fight and die for."
"And I have some serious questions for Miss Hardia Loren," adds Fontaine, much less troubled by the physical exertion.
Hardwick just nods, still catching his breath.
Miss Fontaine opens her mouth again, but never gets the chance to speak as two masked men leap over the fence, right over the detectives' heads, and land facing them. They take up fighting stances.
The Wicked Clown Brothers. Face to garish face at last.
The gangster clowns leer with an evil hunger at their foes, who crack their knuckles and shed their coats in readiness.
Fontaine and I stared down the carny crooks. Were Starkey and The Trapper nearby? What about O'Hardihan's goons? If Antonino, Williams and their boys showed up, would they realise that we had a common enemy?
The answers wouldn't come yet. All I could hear were the words my father imparted when he taught me the noble art of backstreet brawling. All he left me was a pair of brass knuckles, a scar on my lower back, and this magic phrase...
"Six rounds of five minutes each, ladies and gentlemen," mutters Laurel under her breath, "Two pinfalls, two submissions or a knockout to decide the winner."
The four combatants tense and circle. A baleful whistle sounds over the drum of the rain, echoing over the rooftops from the direction of the freight yard.
Our heroes, and the big-top blackguards, leap towards each other...
...TO BE CONTINUED
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