Hey, BQ... it's been a while. It's time for your mandatory GM Wellness Check. How you doin'?
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Closets can be kind of big... especially if you're cat sized. They're a great place to pounce from, too. :P But yeah, I agree with just finding someplace to be free... but Aila or Aina probably know that Temerity's Liberation Units are always on the lookout for such boltholes to... Liberate people from.
I've been thinking... Maybe our end goal isn't to fix everything, to change everything, to force our own utopia. Maybe our goal is to allow places where people can embrace themselves and be free, if only for a while. Maybe an underground railroad for yokai - the previous status quo sucked hard for them, this one generally probably isn't much better. A club house for the people who just want to do what they enjoy. If the enemy is the oppression of the most powerful in society, the weapon we use most freely and openly is rebellion. Or, we could just go full Spartacus.
"No, I'm glowy. Hammer is literally a lantern. Next you're gonna try to be the team mascot..." Nobody scoffs. "But... no, it's not that I don't know what to do, it's that I want to do what you want to do. I'm not much of a leader. I tend to just do what I want all willy-nilly. Which is usually what others want. Unless I don't want to do what they want. Have to have just the right amount of capriciousness for the persona. So, what we do is we appeal to Phil's good side. They've been jerks to him and now he's super angry, and we murdered his shade, so now he doesn't really have that little inner kid that goes 'oh no, I shouldn't rip people to shreds' in his head." Nobody says, semi-sagely, semi-off-the-cuff. It didn't matter that she didn't know, Aila didn't know she didn't know. But she'd done something similar before. "Important things are to keep him from killing anyone, and keep everyone from killing him. I've been stalking one of the cleaners, and I think death might make everything a whole lot worse." she casts a glance at the goo-person, before driving forward. She'd definitely be keeping an eye on the weird hybrid person while everything was going on up ahead... they seemed shady and they hadn't responded to much of anything in a helpful manner. They were even darkly sardonic. That was the worst kind of sardonic. After a brief pause, she adds a "Huh.", stuttering in her movement for a moment, before continuing forward like she knew precisely what she was doing. Chessa would just have to believe in the Rhodesians that believe in her. "Brilliance, you've got some 'splaining to do!"
"Huh. Who'd've thunk." Nobody says as she finishes cowering. The vaguely european blonde-haired girl in the blue jean outfit says, half of her face obscured by a magatama and the other half in mostly clear view. She's carrying a cartoonishly large hammer over one shoulder, wrapped in chains, it's illuminating the immediate area around her where the light peeks from the chains. "Not really a fair scenario, though. I guess next time we subdue everyone's shades instead of destroying them all... cause now we have a lot more people without shades." She looks over her shoulder briefly to the goo-brid, "Shhh, help or quiet." she says with a shooing motion. The creature can easily see her grin. "Hey, shiny girl. Are we gonna help Brilliance and Phil learn to get along, or am I gonna abscond with So-Many-Gemstones?"
For those not following along from season 1, Tomoyo/Sakura was the twins spirit. Its 'owner' was a scared little girl, far too young to be a magical girl. When she made her first pact, she did so with tears, as she cried into her doll, and gave up her emotions in the process... but the doll gained them. The character eventually died, creating a sort of crisis, as the Doll still had all of those feelings and had no idea what to do with them. She was used as a catspaw near the final act of the arc. Their theming was strings/puppets, and their zodiac sign was Gemini. Their passive power was understanding the connections of others. The song that still makes me think of the pair is Once by Bradley Caleb Kane.
The cyan light radiating from Nobody's lantern glows ever-brilliant as eyes adjust to the crimson light, guiding the way for the pair. Nobody slips inside the striking tail's movement, bringing up the haft of her hammer between the pair, hoping to stave off the worst of the damage, guarding the the blood-hungry shebot's movements. This one may have watched too much Evangelion when she was way too little.
I spent one of the social links for 2 stress for you guys, and the other to help you ignore one of your level 1 harms, shaken i think.
I'd already rolled the 2d6 for the help (I am a transcendent person helping you and your transcendent power is that you're better at being helped by transcended people), as instructed above. :)
In another life, Chessa might have done something horrific in response to all the RED DOTS appearing everywhere. Her foretold enemy. The evil that had been inflicted upon her people for lifetimes forgotten. But today was not that day. Her hammer rewound into place, she holds the awkward thing, handle bending slightly, in one hand... as she simply watches at first. Then she whips the thing straight up into the air, screaming "Eyes!" as it reaches its apex. Like a lighthouse beacon, the lantern-hammer-head flashes a brilliant Cyan from over Alruna's head, leaving everything a murkier red in the after-image, even with the blue-jean Chevalier's closed eyes. Those that didn't have the chance might not be so lucky.
Re:Union: "Hey kid. Not okay, blue is my color. Cyan and denim are already taken. You can have... cobalt. And silk is so... east." She says, nose wrinkling on the half of her face that you can see. "So, uh. How long is this little... nothing-moving-thing gonna last?" Chessa asks, glancing back towards the altar in the previous room.
"Hey, hey, not fair!" Nobody says as she brings her hammer closer to the shadowless creature creature, making it more clear where the real-fake-cloak of shadows is and the fake-fake just shadows parts are, before lunging in and grabbing Aila's hand just before the thing could snap shut and fully throw her. "Not alone!" she yells at the hapless... ally..? Oh, and of course another shadowless person joins the fray. "Talk later, busy preventing murders here. Help, or get out!" Nobody calls to the pair behind her, in a strange mixture of terse and cheery.
Eyes going from the nearby clutch of eggs... so close... to the girl who she'd nearly walloped with her wall smashing, Chessa can't help but recognize that she'd done screwed up. So much for a clean smash and grab. What was one person against the need of someone she didn't really know? Ugh... having a conscience was annoying. Dipping away from the shadow with all the contempt it deserved, Chessa slinks into adjacency with the young engineer. "You look familiar. Have we met?" Chessa says with a lop-sided grin that you're perfectly positive you'd remember if you'd seen it. Granted, it was mostly lopsided because you could only see half of her face, blue Magatama mask like the one you'd found - of a different color of course - and a magic denim suit. She seemed to be winding a chain around a lantern for some reason. The chain was also attached to a rather large stick. "Exit's over..." she looks to the gelatinous cube, deadpan... and sighs. While the irony was completely lost on her, that of course after defeating the manticore and collecting the treasure, there'd be something waiting at the back door to eat the party, the fact that there was a yokai in the way wasn't really much of a surprise, though.
With an equal amount of contempt for the shadows out here as she'd had in the room, Chessa calmly intervenes on the local Rhode's behalf.
BQ:
As Chessa dips backwards, bringing the Hermit's Trickstaff with her, the Tricklantern is dragged by the chain, the brilliant blue and white glow of her hammer catching shadow-Phil offguard, and lifting him from his feet... While the Bedenimmed Heroine knew her own strength - she'd already tested it on the wall back home, and found her skills... lacking... she did not know how strong the walls here, were. * * *
BQ: Nobody slips from in between the two human cultists, focusing on the more 'pure' and 'powerful' darkness that had sprung from Phil. The Manticore shadow was surely stronger than the meager human shadows, right? It was certainly more... likely to be. But maybe only on the surface. As the denim daredevil darts into the dark denizen's devious dominion, a grin flickers across her face. The trick part of her trickhammer was in that it wasn't a hammer, it was a lantern and a staff. With a heavy swipe that had no possible way of striking the creature of darkness, Chessa steps swiftly to the side, dips under a claw, and dives backwards, putting her weight into the motion - just as she lets the chain unwind from the staff to turn the lantern into a projectile weapon. The trick of her Trickhammer was that it was actually a flail.
With a deft swoop and bared fangs, Chessa narrowly avoids the creature's attempt to bite her... she couldn't allow them to land a hit until... Yata! Her furriends had gotten away! Now it was time to get... dangerous.
She doublechecks her surroundings, making sure that only the darkness remained. How strange... her Meowster's words had ripped the evil away from them - very different from Petrichor's transformation. Would that be a way to 'fix' her? By ripping the darkness out and defeating it? No, that'd be stupid. Pulling the emotions out of people didn't remove darkness, it just created more! Stupid Brilliance. But how do you tell an Erohin they're stupid without getting turned into so many eggs... And just like that, Chessa's transformation shifted, her face became softer, fur receding, as she retained her blue eyes. The blue stripes and lines folded neatly into a jean jacket and pants, blonde hair spilling out and over, as her white underbody became a white tank top under the jacket. Without the ability to raid her goodies backpack, she couldn't put on a stylish tshirt pilfered from the Sora Collection™, so this would just have to do. Her collar becomes a cute little silver necklace, from which she unclips her magatama. Her tail wraps around her waist through the forming jeans and makes a nice black belt. Reaching back into the darkness behind her, and up over her head, she simultaneously pulls down her magatama-mask and pulls out her Hermit's Trickhammer. Grinning at the shades, she offers them the same wink she'd offered the real Phil. "Hey, maybe we can talk this out... like, not try to kill each other talk. Nobody has to get hurt. Ugh. Bad word choice."
Alrighty! Sounds good. So there's no 'ideal use'. I just didn't want someone to eclipse and me be like 'soz, can't help you, I waited too long.' :P So I can give the twins 2 stress back, help them for free, or help prevent them falling to darkness should they break over the precipice, and the 'best uses' aren't entirely obvious and can't be until the dice are already rolled. Neat.
When do we need to spend our social links? Like, should we use them preemptively to keep someone (or our) numbers low?
I know once we -actually- eclipse, lowering stress becomes bad, but I'm trying to determine whether I need to use those links -now- to protect Chessa and the Twins or later, in case we need it for other things...
"Don't worry, I've got this." Chessa says, giving Phil a big blue-eyed wink. He could probably see that she totally didn't 'have this', but that was beside the point! Right next to it! None of them had it, and they needed help... or at least some measure of safety. This was gonna hurt... but also be fun! If it didn't really, really hurt...
"Phil, get back to the other cultists nearer to Conquest, purrlease. Tell Conquest that there are shadows awake further in, too. I'll hold these guys off long enough for you to do that. It's suppurr important. Other Cultists... take any shortcut you can, let the LARP Leader, Junpurrei know that the Darkness is here. He's with the Purrity Council's inner circle." Chessa says quickly to her new-found furriends as she begins to grow larger, into her 'war form'.
SPELLBAGZ. In a normal setting, you'd have bean bags with a 'meaning for what they do'. So, you pull the 'charm person' bean bag out of your component pouch, and walk up and touch someone with it, and they know what it does. I don't know if that's how this will work, but it's a thing. Don't throw beanbags at people even if they are fireballs (please use the regulation dodgeballs, they were inflated to 85% capacity for a reason). Thunk.
"Good." Chessa says, running her tail under her victim's chin, "Now that you're all on the same team, you'll make fur an epic final encounter. Are you ready to practice, Phil?" Chessa asks, being gentle with one of her paws as she plops onto the ground between herself and Phil, still in kitten form. "I think we'll know when they're coming, 'cause no way my Meowster won't call out for me when they know the final encounter is just ahead." Chessa states, matter-of-factly as her tail dances.
As Chessa begins to realize that she overshot, she twists her body and begins to shrink back down to cute-form to limit the damage... though the force of impact would be less for her target, all of it had to go somewhere...
That isn't allowed. Either you are sick and are having trouble posting, and it is perfectly understandable, or you are lame! It cannot be both! :)
As Chessa pounces, her goal is not to harm, but to intimidate, to make the person take the threat seriously... and stop being mean. The leap is telegraphed enough by the cat's behavior that fear is able to settle in even before she has taken to the sky. Her claws sheathing themselves mid-pounce is likely to go unnoticed as she hurtles towards the cultist. Regardless of whether she comes up short or on top of him, she starts to speak in a low, rumbly voice. "Stop being mean. Evfurryone here is just trying to do their job, and if you keep purr-fur-ting the scene by undermining it with laughter, all of Phil's hard work will go to waste. If you snicker during the real scene, I'll fur-real pounce you so hard."
And the consequence for failing is 'lose some effect, and try from a different course?' Right now, Chessa's goal is to spook him, so Defy seems appropriate. But not hurt him. I think that the 'spook him into taking things seriously' route will work, and barring that succeeding I'll likely switch it to an express with a 'different route' if he isn't scared straight. Does that sound like it works within the fiction?
I was allowed to do it previously when I opted into a higher risk to better understand a gooped person's predicament. :) Is defy a 2d6 take lower or a 1d6 for Big Chessa?
Chessa pauses in her playfulness, to turn her attention to the person who is being a complete and utter rude Jerky McJerkface. "I'm not sure that it'll be quite cataclysmic... but I think we'll be able to work something out!" Chessa, responds, tail twitching. "I'm not sure I'll be able to pull off perfect choreography... so we'll have to add some layers to that beforehand!" "I think the scene will be better if we have a casualty at the very beginning. I bounce that one, you pounce me. It'll be super cathartic. So... we'll need to put him in a position..." she pauses, slinking towards the 'acolyte', before suddenly pouncing and becoming BIG CHESSA. The Two-tails part was utterly untrue, at best the tip of her tail looked slightly split due to some extra fluffing... which may even just be the result of careful grooming. When the small tiger lands just in front of the acolyte her teeth are bared, and her claws extended... "You. Are being... Rude."
Sorry for any delays due to me. I've been struggling to keep up with a decent post rate in the last few days, because my Wrath of the Righteous has been exploding with posts... we just finished book 2. So much 'downtime RP' is being had... after like a year of playing to cover two ingame days... we've gone through a few days of some pretty cool RP in like a week. It's been pretty nice! But it also means that I've not really been keeping up my end of the bargain over here :p ... so I'm gonna go do that now.
Then, still, pretty much assuredly for what I have in mind for a reveal. Awesome. :3 (A reveal I should have already made clear for the audience's sake... but I feel that the reveal being driven home more canonically would be best served by someone who was aware making note of it!)
How much of Sora's life and memories is Brilliance privy to? Like, specifically the onscreen stuff of last season.
I thought you'd went 'japanese' with your scarlet letter reference and made it H for Ecchi. :P
Chessa watches the egg roll down the mound, her eyes immediately lighting up as she starts to pounce it... but then the next thing that Phil says gives her paws. Klaxons sound in the chesshire kitten's headspace. If the heist works now, then Phil takes the fall for the Erohin's eggs vanishing. Which meant that the heist had to take place between Phil or the Erohin's defeat and cleanup. Which meant that the new goal was to set up a distraction, create smoke and mirrors... and all with nearly no preparation! After the brief pause, that absolutely wasn't a blue screen of death, Chessa, bounces on her stubby forepaws. "Of course! Anything to help out! But if my Meowster calls me, I'll have to go running! Did you know Sora used to train fur hours every day fur dancing on stage? The best scenes are always choreographed together. Maybe we could work at a very short scene so that you can destroy my Meowster's pawtry summon befur the fight even begins?"
"Bravo, Phil!" Chessa calls as she makes her way boldly into the room, tippy-toeing down the foam 'strewn-rubble', still in not-fight-form with slow bounces down. "I can't wait to see the next part of the purrfurmance!" she says, tail swishing, as she looks to the other cultists, "Don't worry, catform is fur not-fight. I'm out of character right now. If I come through all big paws and teeth, you'll know that I'm BIG CHESSA of the TWO TAILS." You can hear the careful enunciation of her DRAMATIC CHARACTER NAME. "Are you looking forward to the big scene?" As she asks, she's looking about the room for the hiding place of the eggs... if not here, then where!?
Sora is canonically lithosexual. She 'courted' with May, in some ways, but wasn't interested in sex, only in the attention itself. She'd have probably reacted favorably, but felt trapped by any attempts to turn it into a 'real relationship' (Dooming the attempt, but she wouldn't understand), leaving her as Placioromantic. (Learning new words!) Chessa is probably Demi- or Reciprosexual.
AKA "Guys I'd sleep with in a heartbeat list"and 100% on your mom's freebie list.What does this mean? I'll have you know Phil doesn't even JIGGER Sora's Kinsey Scale. Maybe Kyou's..?
and 100% on your mom's freebie list. What does this mean?
I think, typically, the world is meant to be less soul crushing than this one is. The idea is that the characters are misfits and don't fit into the world (generally), but they definitely fit in together, most of the time. For a really good example: Teen Titans. The world shouldn't usually be dystopian, because it shouldn't generally be endemic that the system, the world, and the darkness are so intertwined... But the concepts that won out spelled out that that is the way it is for most everyone. Conceptually, the mission starts with 'what makes your life suck', then 'time with friends and projects that you can't fail to succeed at', and then the mission that can make or break you. If you win... You challenged the evil of the world and triumphed.
CNA: "Nope! No time fur petting! Time to go get killed by curiosity!" Chessa says, bounding up from her position. "Good talk, though!"
CnA: "I don't really hang out with the other yokai either. I'm too little, too young, too tight with Brilliance-Dono... all that. This world is really all I've effur known. So what if I've got all these human parents..." she trails off, tail swishing with agitation, "I'm not gonna scold you, because being a tattle tale is my job... and I'm off the clock. Plus... you're already upset enough, not sure another round of re-education will do anything for it."
Not to mention that Chessa had no idea what happened when re-education didn't... take.
CnA: Chessa seems at a loss for words for the sudden breakdown. She... logistically had no real comprehension of it. She'd kept her family, though she was made into a tattle-two-tails in the process. Well, she supposed other-mama hadn't been seen as much... but her aloofness had allowed her to go spy - er check up - on her. She'd seen the re-education program. It really didn't seem that bad - though, she hadn't been subjected to the full duration... which was probably the majority of the torment involved. Po was the worst. Leg hiked, unmoving... she waits for a beat, then continues, "Is there a reason you can't design things in your spare time..?"
L, unlike a set of calipers. N, as in inorganic? :3
Aina: "What do you normally do fur fun? I usually chase birds, and people watch." she leans in slightly, which has significantly less pronounced effect when she does, given her size and whispers conspiratorially, "It's my job to watch people." When next she's looked at, she's grinning again.
"What do you do fur not fun?" she adds, after a brief delay.
Aina: "I enjoy nearly effurry kind of thing!" Chessa responds excitedly, somehow speaking while still cleaning her leg. A curious side effect of not having lips that actually functioned as human lips did but still being able to talk. "I've nefur rolepurrayed befur, though. Not publicly, anyway." she whispers quietly, looking up to the human with a surprisingly human grin. "You're suppurrsed to use mun bubbles to talk out of character. My arms don't move that way."
"Do you?" Aisha asks, tilting her head, playing the role of inquisicat with ease.
Yeah, it's the weekend so I have a lot more availability atm, so I'm more likely to spastically reply to things, since I'm not at work during the 'normal hours of operation' for most people. :)
Yeah, I looked in on Tracy's scene, and I see that you've already described everything. My bad! Don't move anyone from where they are unless Tracy wants to be the ENFORCER of NOBODY. |