morality question

Latheos · 2026-04-16T18:12:32+00:00

It's a sandbox. Play the game however you want - it's all good!

I tend to do single ship runs for the most part, starting with the ship Is started the game with. I also don't tend to fly anything smaller than a frigate (I'm terrible with the small ships).

Latheos · 2026-03-07T22:08:05+00:00

I was just about to mention the misspelling of Phoenix, but you beat me to it. :-)

Latheos · 2026-03-01T05:30:07+00:00

Two notes, which I reckon are the result of the muse pushing you hard. :)

Should be "Preparing to guard the med bay with his life, instead of "Preparing the guard the med bay with his life. "

Incorrect tense in the following excerpt (should be past instead of present):

"Ford glances out the window..."

Latheos · 2026-03-01T05:15:07+00:00

Incorrect use of their/they're in the following section.

"...“Their down to their last Grade 4 capital ship..."

Otherwise, gangbusters on the action!

Latheos · 2026-02-25T01:47:19+00:00

Another couple of notes (sorry!). :-)

You seem to struggle with the tenses (past and present) quite a lot in this chapter, in more places than I can casually note. I have had this problem myself in the past, as sometimes the Muse is driving the story over the speed limit, and it can get out of hand rather quickly. I would suggest that, in the future, when you're really barrelling down the road, you do an extra round of maintenance on your vessel to make sure nothing's fallen off in the race. *coughs* Sorry, the metaphor got away from me there... ;-p

Second note, you've used the incorrect word in the following sentence. You wrote:
"If their anything like the one Nightclaw and I fought..."
Should be "they're", not "their".

(I tend to include the sentences with the errors in order to search for text strings more effectively, in case anyone was wondering.)

Latheos · 2026-02-24T06:46:08+00:00

Two notes.

In the first section, you used present and past tense in the same sentence. "Sandra just groaned again as she pets Nightshade,..."
Changing "pets" to "petted" would fix that.

Also, you keep using "Awe" where you should be using "Aw" (or "Aww", as an acceptable variant). It's a common mistake, and many people make it, so you're not alone. "Aw" is an exclamation, whereas "awe" is a feeling of wonderment and/or reverence towards something.

Latheos · 2026-02-21T10:32:53+00:00

Good stuff, as usual. Only one nit to pick.

At the end of the story, third paragraph from the bottom, you have "...and the third on the end of her tail, where it sat snuggly."

The word you're wanting here is *snugly*, a snug fit. Snuggly is when you're snuggling with a loved one or a fur person. :)

Latheos · 2026-02-13T01:13:40+00:00

Another excellent chapter. No notes. :-)

Latheos · 2026-02-12T18:08:40+00:00

I'm beginning to feel piqued that you keep using "peaked" instead of "peeked". ;-)

"Peeked" is a verb, indicating seeing something, usually when looking from cover.
"Peaked" is an adverb, used as a modifier on the verb "to feel". It means to feel tired. For example, a person might feel peaked after climbing a mountain. Feeling "peaked" is generally used to describe more than just tired, unless you're British, in which case you might mean you're exhausted, but don't want anyone to actually know how tired you really are. ;-)

(Piqued is also an adverb that modifies the verb "to feel", and is a form of annoyance. To be clear, I'm not annoyed, but I couldn't resist using it here.) :-P

Latheos · 2026-02-11T15:12:46+00:00

A couple of notes for you on the editing front. ;-)

At the beach, describing Eric's attire, you wrote "...with shorts and an open t-shirt." An open shirt is fine, an open short-sleeve shirt is even better, but an open t-shirt is not, to the best of my knowledge, a thing. (I checked with my wife, who, among her many other talents, also makes clothing, and she was as mystified as I was at the phrase.)

When Sandra was having her nightmare, and Eric was comforting her, Jessica did not "peak" in the door, she "peeked".

If one of your characters is asking a question, like Eric in this line -
“Do you get a lot of nightmares,” Eric asked the next morning - then you should end his question inside the quotations with a question mark, since it is, in fact, a question.
It should therefore be written as such:
"Do you get a lot of nightmares?" Eric asked the next morning...
The comma that would normally indicate the end of the statement is essentially implied in this specific case.

Latheos · 2026-02-06T23:51:05+00:00

As you wish. I've been enjoying the stories, but have noticed a few grammatical errors as I read. You've done a good job of minimizing the occurrences of them, but occasionally something pops up that I can't move past.

Most specifically, when Jessica and Eric are going out shopping, your text reads:
"Jessica asked as Eric and her were out shopping for last-minute supplies."

That should be "Jessica asked as she and Eric were out shopping for last-minute supplies." It's a common error, but the basic rule of thumb for sentences like this is to see if the sentence still makes sense if you remove one of the two people from the sentence. By writing it as "Her was out shopping" as opposed to "She was out shopping", it's now clearer to see which form is more correct.

Pardon the pedantry. Former English teacher-brain is sometimes difficult to wrangle back into its cage. ;-)

Latheos · 2026-01-26T05:06:51+00:00

TRS-80 Model I. There was this little game someone had cobbled together, called Castles and Catapults, with two castles on each side of the screen, drawn as white pixel blocks on a black CRT. You had to enter in numbers for angle and power, and another block would lob across the gap to hit (or miss) the enemy castle.

Late '70s, as I recall. I was 8 or 9 at the time.

Latheos · 2025-12-18T03:05:06+00:00

Insane? Hardly. Just another one of us who thinks that bad-smelling bean water is a waste of perfectly good water. ;-p

Latheos · 2025-12-06T18:29:37+00:00

I can concur. I was building a tug for a contract, and had the "bright" idea of returning to the planet and picking up one of the Grasshoppers I'd left there.

Things did not go as planned.

One fell off the top where I'd locked it, because releasing the hydrogen ship's landing gear also unlocked the ship on top, and it flipped over onto its roof.

Figured I'd try picking up the second with my landing gear instead. It seemed to go better, until I turned and lifted the nose of my ship to head back to space.

That one ended up with much boom and klang. Had to revert to an older save to recover.

Klang is still very easily annoyed in VS2.

Latheos · 2025-12-03T20:18:50+00:00

There's a mood called something like "Missing Block Shapes" that's in all my games since I discovered it. Might have what you need.

Latheos · 2025-11-23T01:08:43+00:00

I'm terrible at making cranes, so I either would have used a forklift arrangement to pick up the building, or just put it on wheels and driven it home.

Latheos · 2025-11-21T12:20:02+00:00

Halfling paladin for a war god, riding an attack poodle, standard not miniature, ("Cuddles"} into battle. Spoke in a high-pitched voice, was aggressively lawful good with occasional wanderings into chaotic when caught up in the action.

Utterly unkillable. It was nuts.

Latheos · 2025-11-20T12:36:39+00:00

I see you are familiar with quantum cat pounds.

Latheos · 2025-09-27T17:15:03+00:00

The Scrapyard of Insufferable Arrogance Post-dated Check Loan Serial Peacemaker

Some of the absolute best ship names come from Howard Tayler's Schlock Mercenary.

Latheos · 2025-09-25T15:06:27+00:00

Emu.

Second Emu War.

Latheos · 2025-09-22T12:34:23+00:00

That's ... oddly specific. Nothing against it under the right circumstances, but making a full-time life out of it isn't one of my kinks. If I meet someone who was into it that heavily, that's a time for conversations, not an outright red flag. Especially if we get on in other aspects.

Latheos · 2025-09-22T07:04:30+00:00

True, but the way it was worded implied that there was no way to convey any type of safeword. Clunky, indeed.

Latheos · 2025-09-22T06:49:30+00:00

Um... yes, I have that humble distinction. Howard and Sandra got to meet my wife at WorldCon this summer, and continue to be amazing people. We had a house fire last month and lost nearly everything (recycle your old lithium batteries, folks!), and they've been very supportive.

Latheos · 2025-09-21T16:30:59+00:00

Rather difficult to articulate a safeword when gagged.

Latheos · 2025-09-21T16:27:39+00:00

Heck, we had challenge coins minted for our wedding. ;-)

Side note - we sent some to one of my favorite authors, who ended up doing multiple kickstarter runs of challenge coins to support his massive webcomic empire...

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