#hello_world

My Pen Name is Stevaroony, my Real Name is Khang.

OOC INFORMATION:

What I am looking for: Memories, twists, turns, laughs and strong sense of character progression.

Fandom: World of Warcraft

Faction I play on: Alliance

Server: Wyrmrest Accord

Venues for roleplay: I prefer roleplaying within the game, but I’m flexible enough to consider roleplaying through Discord if schedules don’t match or even on Tumblr.

Types of RP: I’m keen on just about any type of RP, from deep, engaging conversations, to darker subjects to just casual and humourous. I enjoy flexibility.

Triggers: No outright triggers.

Things I will not RP: Rape/Sexual Violence.

RP Strengths:

A strong, imaginative writer.

Flexible enough to mirror other people’s writing styles and accomodate for other’s strengths and weaknesses.

Ability to mentor newer roleplayers efficently and effectively, especially when it comes to Druid/Night Elf lore (hit me up, newbies!)

RP Weaknesses:

I find it easy to build a particular scaffold for a character, but I tend to roleplay my character slightly differently according to each situation rather than uniformly across the board.

The effort that is applied to story is not uniform at all. There will be some days I will write all day and the next day (or week) I won’t write anything at all.

IC INFORMATION BELOW:

Name: Aythir Swiftspirit

Nicknames: “Old man.”, “Swiftspirit.”

Race: Night Elf

Age: 12, 037

Class/Profession: Druid of the Claw, Advisor to Lady Elizebella Ludlow 

Location: Primarily based in Ludlow Estate.

Notoriety:  Among druids:

Instructor for the Cenarion Circle 

Druidic Ability

War Veteran

Among the rest of the populace:

Advisor to Lady Elizebella Ludlow

Very active in Stormwind

Is often attending events with House Ludlow or as representative of t.

Can sometimes be found drinking in seedy bars in his spare time.

Personality: Aythir could be best described as stoic. A relic from another time in a different place. An eloquent speaker and a charismatic fellow, but often prone to moments of carelessness. He is slow to warm up to anyone who isn’t a Kaldorei, but fiercely defends those close to him to the best of his ability, even if they might not want it.

Languages: Darnassian, Common

Height: 7′8′’

Weight: 330 pounds (150 kg)

Build: Peak Condition

Eye Colour: Amber

Hair Colour: Burnished Silver, (Was Purple)

Scars: A deep jagged scar running across the back of his right shouldblade ending in the center of his spine. A myriad of small, pink scars that marr the rest of his body with a pale scar running from his right brow, across the bridge of his nose and ending at the apple of his left cheek.

Tattoos: Tribal tattoos running down his right arm with a bear maw on the face of his right shoulder.

Piercings: None yet!

About Hello Wold:

Scott’s skills as a surveillance expert come in pretty handy when he’s breaking down firewalls. But hacktivism isn’t enough; he’s going after the holy grail—UltSyn’s Human Information Drives, human assets implanted with cerebral microchips. While plenty of hackers are trying to save the world these days, all Scott wants is to find his sister.

After following the clues to London, he makes a plan to kidnap the technical marvel heading into town. When this Human Information Drive turns out to be someone unexpected his nerve waivers. The HID, who calls herself Sonia, would be priceless on the market, but born out of joint self-preservation the two team up.

With her contacts, they travel across Europe in the search of personal secrets and leave a trail of industrial espionage all for the sake of misdirection. As the unlikely pair digs deeper into restricted databases, Scott discovers that those who enlist with UltSyn get far more than they bargained for. Not only is this secret HID program is much bigger than he had imagined, students are lining up for a future they only think this biotech wonder company can provide. Even worse, these leads are getting him nowhere closer to his own goals.

Plunged into a world of human trafficking, Scott is determined to find his sister no matter the cost, which tests Sonia's fragile friendship with him. But when the information reveals the people closest to Scott have been working for UltSyn all along, he has to find them—before UltSyn finds him.

You can pre-order the ebook now, or wait until February 21st to get the paperback!

Note: I received an Advanced Reader Copy of this book for the purpose of a review. The ARC was sent out prior to final edits, therefore the little things that will be cleaned up will not factor into this review.

Queer representation. Hacktivism. Lots and lots of sarcasm and wit. I love this book. Literally, I finished it in 3 days, and not just because I had a review due today ;)

The books wastes no time, immediately throwing the reader into the action and Scott wastes no time making them fall in love with him. Part of me could use the whole review to talk about how much I adore this character, but this is a book review, not a cutie ace hacker review. In my mind, it played more as a movie than as a book, if that makes sense. Does anyone else have those books that you can just see/hear on the big screen? This is one of them; I could almost hear the soundtrack and follow the camera movements. Hollywood, pay attention. 

I also want to take a moment to talk about the deliberateness of this novel. It makes a point to talk about a non-binary activist (who I hope we see more of in the next books? They might be my favorite minor character). There is a casual mention of a character and her wife. At one point, Scott is talking about respecting someone because she is someone’s sister, daughter, etc., and then goes on to say she should be respected because she is a person. Many characters’ sexualities are explicitly talked about, there is no author post script, and the characters around them do not look down on anyone for their sexuality. It’s a sci-fi action adventure featuring queer characters rather than a book about queer characters featuring nothing but queer pain. Characters are canonly disabled. There is also a lot of mention of fighting and not being complacent; just because something is legal doesn’t mean it’s good and just because something is illegal doesn’t mean it’s bad. It felt like it was holding up a mirror to the world, using fiction to force us to take a good hard look at where we are and where we want to be with human rights. What makes something ethical? Where does technology stop being for the advancement of all people and start being for profit? Can corporations balance human rights and their profit margin? (Spoiler alert: Probably not.) I was highlighting a lot of quotes in the last few chapters that are extremely relevant right now.

If I had any complaint, it would be that the pacing felt off in a couple of places, but they were so minor that I can’t even tell you when that happened because it immediately picks back up. And those might be taken care of before the final version is published.

Hello World is the perfect novel for 2017. You will laugh. You will cry. You will be sitting on the edge of your seat rooting for Scott. And you’ll fall in love with fictional characters. Buy this book, darn it.

Rating:  ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

About the Authors:

Tiffany Rose is still waiting for her Starfleet uniform to arrive, but isn't so picky about color. Until then she spends her time writing about magical girls, the morally grey, and articles that would warrant the title of cyberpunk beatnik since the themes are unabashedly focused on queer theory in the information age. Any extra time would ideally be spent looking out for plot bunnies and serendipity, but in reality, likely used on refreshing twitter.

For more check out her twitter, goodreads, or her book blog Art Over Chaos!

Alexandra Tauber spends much of her time cuddling her cat and putting off any adult responsibilities. Love of science fiction, comic books, and video games fed into her creativity since her youth and drove her to take part in many online roleplaying communities, and formed her aspirations to write novels. Her point of focus is inclusive writing that honors the struggles of more than the carbon copy white knight figure.