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Clarity Clarity is entertaining, which is actually a part and parcel with what the calligraphied note card left on the table outside her room has asked her to bring. That is to say, pizza. Now, any idiot can make pizza-- especially if they're a fancy-pants one who gets DiGiorno-- which is probably why the note stipulated 'certain unusual flavours'. So Clarity ordered out. She ordered out, and answered the door in a billowing gown the grey of mist on the moor. It was about as tangible as the stuff too, which made it easier to convince the delivery guy that generations of laddish movies were right about his profession's opportunities for promiscuity. Somewhere, the Scenestress probably smiled as her stalking-horse (Judas goat might be more accurate, though the imagery isn't as romantic) lured the fellow into the house. From there she's... extracted the other, rather particular ingredients. First, a deepest, oldest unshared secret, whispered into a pointed ear. Then, the sweetness and promise of first love's first uncertain kiss. Finally, a flutter of hope. Now? Now she's waking up, still wearing that gown, absently checking her ears to see if they're real or spirit-gummed on (the former, though 'real' is a flexible term in the house), recalling a dream that felt like one of the rather frank movies she's watched with the Weaver a very few times. And the card still reads 'pizza'. --- Misread the prompt, but didn't want to toss a perfectly good post. Also copying my sheet here, because recruit threads have a habit of falling into the archives. Clarity High Concept: Cosplay Doll Clarity really gets into character when she dresses up, summoning skills and aptitudes that she doesn't even realize she shouldn't have. New attitudes often emerge as well, lurking in the shallows of her persona, growing stronger the more she calls upon whatever traits have been granted. Invoke: Swapping costumes, drawing on the archetypes or actual characters expressed by them. Compel: Acting negatively in accordance with her portrayed character's persona, instead of her own. Trouble: Not All There Spending so much time in front of the tube, and living in the house for that matter, has softened Clarity's grasp on reality. She's a little spacey at the best of times, and... more than a little credulous. Invoke: Taking strangeness in (faltering) stride. Navigating the house's madness. Compel: Taking your word that 'gullible' isn't in the dictionary. Malleable Clothes make the man, so they say. They make Clarity on a physical level too, making her fit them no matter the size or cut, stretching her to Barbie proportions or stranger, transmuting shade and feature. She returns to normal afterward. Mostly. Usually. Simple physical pressure works similarly, but more slowly. Invoke: Squeezing into tight spaces. Absorbing blows. Compel: Being tied in knots. Undeclared Aspect Patron's Gift: The Weaver's Protégé Stories are power. Symbols, archetypes, commonalities and cycles. Realizing on some level that you're in one and knowing the pattern that it's likely to follow can offer a touch of prescience... or a big, fat dollop of fate. Clarity's patron insists on watching her shows in their original languages. Dubs are anathema, but subtitles can be tolerated. The massive, ersatz language immersion Clarity has undergone at her side, along with other, unnoticed changes, has turned her into a natural polyglot at the cost of poor functional literacy. She could read easily from a teleprompter, but more than a page of traditionally presented text and her eyes start drifting in search of something that's moving. Invoke: A helpful feeling of deja-vu. Carry on a conversation in a foreign language. Compel: "It's quiet. Too quiet." Having to read long passages. Stunts: Continuity Error: Because of my inappropriate relationship with television, once per session, while no one is looking, I can produce a useful object or move to a more advantageous position without crossing the intervening space. A Stitch in Nine: I've learned to mend and make alterations at a blur. Since time, narrative and fate share a fabric, once per session I can fix a garment and carry that momentum into something else, like crossing the house in the space of a spin wipe or performing a time-consuming task in a matter of moments. Subliminal Messenger: By weaving subvocal suggestions into my speech, I can tap the weird potential of the house and create illusions perceptible by anyone within earshot. Approaches Careful +0 Clever +2 Flashy +3 Forceful +1 Quick +2 Sneaky +1
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Apr 1, 2014 02:50
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| # ¿ Apr 23, 2024 15:30 |
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Clarity That. That was a strange movie. Not as strange as some of those other ones they watched sometimes, the ones that felt like a staircase where all of the risers were different heights, and there were landings at what felt like random, that had a rhythm that used your feet like drumsticks, but strange. Especially that last scene, where the princess and her paramour were feeding each other. That was just weird. Drumsticks. There was that nice old lady who managed the Hut. Or at least she seemed nice. Given to laughing, definitely. What was her name? Baba? Hm. She was probably someone's baba, anyway. She'd be out past one of the woods. Over the river too. If that doesn't work out, she can always keep going and visit the Market, but the merchants can be awfully pushy. They might have more interesting ingredients though. Hmm. But she might have to cook it herself-- and that conjures a fluttering rolodex of images, of would-be cooks spinning flapping masses of dough into the air, only to have all manner of catastrophe follow. Or maybe it's supposed to be... representative? That isn't the word, but it'll do. Like those animal skins she's worn a few(?) times, with the fur and the horns still on, that made her pulse pound in her ears like a drumbeat. She'll try the drumsticks first. The hut. She'll have to change her clothes. Not that there's anything wrong with the gown, it's quite elegant, but it's made for stately gliding around carefully pedicured forests, not ghosting through wild woods. Clarity consults the wardrobe. Something woodsy, something that isn't prone to catch. She smiles absently as she finds just the thing and sheds her gown. On goes the new outfit, one leg at a time, one leg briefly longer than the other, flesh of hip and bottom shifting to fit as she ties off the queerly airy shorts. 'Queerly airy' could describe the whole ensemble, and god only knows what the eyelets tacked on to the folded cuffs of the boots are for. Clarity looks at herself in the mirror. The carved whorls at the top seem to look back-- or maybe smell back-- the loops seem more like nostrils than eyes. Perfect. Oh, wait. One more thing. The cloak covers everything up, and the color is quite brash, but there are patterns that must be obeyed. With purse filled with interesting notions, tucked under her arm, Clarity leaves her room with a skip in her step and begins the trek to baba's hut.
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Apr 10, 2014 05:30
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Clarity, finally Follow the yellow brick road! Don't stray from the path! Clarity knows those imperatives like she knows those imperatives like she knows up from down-- in general terms, and with occasional pauses to double check. It keeps her away from the dark copses and darker cave mouths, the places that whisper promises of short-cuts and earlier reward in exchange for a tiny bit more risk; she's lucid enough for a bit of genre savviness. It's the warm sun and slightly giving ground that trips her up, too much of a good thing weighing her down and encouraging her to stretch out for a while. There's nobody around and she doesn't really need to hurry, does she? There's no telling how long the crone in the hut will take to make a pizza for her, though, or how popular her services are. 'Thirty minutes or it's free' doesn't have the same weight of contract in a space where the clocks sometimes run backwards, sometimes sideways, and the digital ones occasionally show 'HA:HA'. Mmmf. Need to keep going. Quick, light steps will get the blood flowing again; skirting the shade will keep that warmth from becoming too, too tempting. Of course, there's always a difference between knowing something needs to be done, and having the motivation to do so. Clarity pauses a moment to consult with her feet. --- 'Quick' check to see if Clarity can keep her momentum, or if the sun-drenched ground is too much for her... [01:54] <Bieeardo> !r 4df+2 [01:54] <Maidbot> Bieeardo, -+-++2 = 2 I think that's my second zeroed-out roll in a row.
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Apr 27, 2014 06:55
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"Clarity" She's seen this movie. She couldn't tell you how many times, though. The general, putative-audience 'you', that is, because at the moment she's alone with the memories of magic shadows. She could tell you how many times they've watched the Terminator on that big blue couch, that bosom-heaving tale of pursuit and a love so strong it turned Time itself into a perfect wedding-band loop. She could do the same for any number of the countless films They have watched, without thinking. Not thinking is an important element of the task-- thinking might lead to a realization of the sublime enormity of that data, a seizure not unlike the paralysis one might endure while looking down from a very tall ladder. She's on a platform. She's strolling down a platform, looking for her gate. A couple, cloaked in a nimbus of pre-lapsarian greys, argues while their train builds steam and champs at the rails. They argue over where they should go, but they already know. She knows too. 22/7. It isn't a proper number, a proper place, but she can see it. It's across the way, cross the tracks, like a brass ring. She hops down from the platform. The ground gives with the heavy slide of a feather-stuffed pillow as the straight lines of tracks and the ground they eat like zippers fatten into quilted stripes. Consult with the King of the Hobos? He knows the way to Big Rock Candy Mountain; he may know the path to other places besides. Regardless, the sound of the train yard fades behind her as she drifts, ground rumpling underfoot. No singing. That would mean the Stabbin' King was holding court. Just as well she didn't seek him. Assuming she had the choice. Dreams are funny that way. So is this story. She knows this one. It's a good story, a classic story, one she's seen dozens of times in dozens of variations: a scene cut here or added there, a kaleidoscope cast splitting or merging from a cluster of characters in search of an author. It always ends the same way-- there may be small variations in victories or tragedies, but changing the core conceits far enough to truly change the outcome strains credulity and makes disbelief a heavier burden. Too many changes with not enough care, and the result falls flatter than week-opened soda. Hence, the formula. That's why Clarity dozily hopes that she's waking up. It's much easier to put dreams of those stories behind oneself, than it is to muddle through them in hazy waking.
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Jul 5, 2014 05:39
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I'd be delighted! And I'm glad to see you! Hadn't seen you in IRC for a while, and was beginning to worry that something bad had happened.
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Oct 1, 2014 23:40
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