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Welcome to your OOC thread, Class 2-B! Class 2-B! Lucky Ted, the Beacon by TheNabster Dynamic Savior: Phoenix, the Legacy by Justice Grieves Rave, the Outsider by LifeGetsWorser White Emperor Runaway, the Janus by Scrree Lyrebird, the Protégé by Auraboks Jacob Lawson, the Delinquent by Takanago Please establish your influences, relationships, and what happened when you first got together as a team. You'll also need to come up with a team name, and designate a team leader! Please link back to your sheet through your header image, or repost it here. Either is fine! Here's your influence sheet! Tardzilla fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Feb 6, 2017 |
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Feb 4, 2017 17:55
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 Relationships: quote:Jacob Lawson knew you from your civilian life first. I was really surprised to see Jacob in our class. Okay, little backstory here: Rose Princess Noriko is the defining work of art for the 21st century, no doubt about it. It's an absolute crime that more people have never watched it! Back in middle school I was pretty into the (unfortunately small) online fan community, and one time I decided to try and organize a local meetup for fans at a cafe near Rat Street. I got about a dozen 'maybes', and that got me so excited I actually wrote out a whole itinerary of episodes and themes to discuss as a group. I was such a little nerd. Anyways, when the day actually came I showed up at the spot twenty minutes early, Jacob was already there. No one else came. Forty minutes later and I had already checked my phone over a hundred times to make sure I didn't mess up the date. I had ordered and drank two whole cups of coffee, was working on a third, and was generally feeling like a a complete idiot. I looked over at Jacob, who had been basically mirroring me the whole time, and desperately asked "Are you here for the Noriko event?" He said yes. The next couple hours went by blissfully fast as we talked our jaws off about Rose Princess Noriko. The story, the characters, the music, the cool spiral staircase! It's so good! I actually ended up getting home so late I got yelled at by my parents, but it was worth it. Jacob and I got each other's numbers, and every couple of weeks I'd text him about some show I had watched, and eventually (it always took him so long to reply!) he'd text me back with an opinion on it. When I knew I was going to run away from home I decided to totally cut off contact, and I even lost his number when I threw away my phone. I thought I'd never hear from him again. So imagine how shocked I was when I saw him on the first day of class! I didn't even know he was a mutant - apparently he has some kind of telekinesis, and an empathetic ability like Mr. Empathy. Although I hope he chooses a better hero name. He puts on a tough show, but I know how much of a freaking weeb he is, haha. Too bad I can't talk to him... but anyone knowing my secret is a danger. I mean, he is always talking about how arbitrary the rules of society are, so maybe he'd understand... but even if does he might let it slip, and then I'd be done for. Ah, it'd be so fun to talk to him about Noriko again, and Nikolai has garbage taste in shows - he watches Bloodbath Academy! Who actually watches Bloodbath Academy? Cretins, that's who! Ugh! I should tell Jacob privately that - no, I'm not going to sacrifice everything just to chat about an anime. What would Noriko do? Not have a lovely dad that forces her to do stupid bullshit like this! gently caress! quote:You refused to tell Lyrebird your secret identity when they asked. She asked me what my secret was the day after our team was formed. Told me, in private, thank god, that if we were going to work together she needed to know what was up. Now, I've been reading a lot about psychic defense online ever since I learned I had three of them in my class, and while 90% of what the internet says is total bull, one technique appears in every guide - go full lizard brain. Don't consider anything, and shorten the time from the cerebral cortex to the mouth to zero. Basically, you can't have your thoughts read if you aren't thinking. "Marie already knows my secret," I was pretty sure this was at least partly true. She's been going to the cafe a lot recently, and takes pleasure in misgendering me (as both Nikolai and Judith) and then pretending she'd made an innocent mistake. "and she'd tell you if I was a danger to the team." I tapped my temple, "She found out by looking right in. Honestly, it pisses me off, but you're better than that, right? If you think I'm hiding something, find it out the old fashioned way." Then I simply turned and walked away. I don't know why the hell I taunted her at the end; lizard brain me is not very smart. Lyrebird seems a bit... prideful. So I guess I trying to goad her into not using her powers to just rip all of the answers from my head. She hasn't done that yet, so mission freaking success. I think she's definitely on my trail, though, and I've been going out of my way to make sure I'm fully hidden before I transition. Still, Lyrebird has so far kept the secret hunting away from actual field duty, and she's more than competent in battle. So many petty difficulties, but... Being a hero makes it worth it. Others: quote:Lyrebird: Your mentor is cautious; they asked you to keep an eye on White Emperor. Feel like I covered this in above section; Lyrebird is hunting the secret of Nikolai Bruskina. quote:Dynamic Savior: Phoenix: You trust White Emperor and told them an important secret of your legacy. Dynamic Savior: Phoenix has been a great help in making me less of an embarrassment with the sword. When she first approached me out of the blue I was in my normal paranoid state; was this some kind of test? Did she believe that Nikolai was a renowned fencing expert, and once she saw how amateur I was she’d find out I was a fake? After a couple minutes of basic drills I realized I was being myopic. Jennifer was just practicing because that’s what aspiring heroes do. Then, right at the end, she broke pattern with a sudden thrust – I was stunned, but instincts traveled up my swordarm into my brain faster than I could understand them, and I deflected the strike. My first instinct was right. Her offer to practice had been a test, not for me, but for the blood rapier. She started to talk about her own family history of inherited weapons, and it made me feel… It’s like, I didn’t need to impersonate anyone to become a hero. I just needed to not be Judith Prince, and becoming Nikolai was just the way to do that with the least amount of suspicion. Honestly, it’s been more of a pain in the rear end than I’ve expected, but when Jennifer approached me, practiced with me, and trusted me her own family story it, it was the first time I've been happy to be Nikolai Bruskina. Influence: quote:You look up to your teammates; they seem to have this superhero thing figured out. Give two of them Influence over you. Definitely Lucky Ted. He doesn't want fame or inherit a mandate. He simply wants to be a hero, and I respect that. I know that despite his tough exterior, Jacob Lawson wants to defeat villains more than most of the goody-two-shoes in the Academy. His sense of justice is strong, and if he told me I was in the wrong about something I'd believe him. quote:When our team first came together...We saved the life of someone important, either to the city or to us. Who was it? Why are they important? It was the first day of actual team patrol. After weeks of shadowing other heroes, performing simulated field exercises, and being told the same joke about how the worst villain we’d meet was ‘a raccoon raiding our cities precious garbage bins’ over a dozen times, the preparations now seem like a complete joke compared to what we actually faced. We were near Harmony Corners, a part of the city that’s split between upscale houses and state office space, when we heard the honking of a horn and the sudden Clang! of metal hitting metal. We rushed to the scene, and found a car that had been made to crash into a lamppost. I say made to crash because it had obviously been shoved off road by this beast.  Bigger than the car it had just tackled, it eyed us warily as we approached. Seeing it bare it’s fangs, tense it’s muscles for a charge, tell us with all of it’s body language that if we got any closer it was going to attack – seeing it’s hatred froze all of us. My heart was pounding, but I didn’t know what to do or what the others were going to do. Every prediction in my head ended with that thing’s jaws on my throat. Then a voice broke the silence. Orders. Orders to call for backup, orders to inspect the car for injured civilians, orders to engage the monster at range only. Rave’s loving techno started to blare in my brain, and I sprinted for the car. There was a single driver with her head planted firmly into the airbag, unconscious, but otherwise unharmed. I pulled her out of the car and checked on the fight; the beast was ignoring the rest of the team, and looking straight at the woman in my arms. It charged. I didn’t need to be ordered to know what to do next. I ran. Last thing I saw of the battlefield was the car being lifted by one (or maybe all of them? It moved pretty drat fast.) of the psychics and tossed at the monster. That stopped it’s charge. I kept running until I got the all-clear signal a couple minutes later. By then, the woman had woken up. Her name was Emilia Olsen, and she was the head researcher at the New Aracadia Institute for Interdimensional and Outerdimensional Physics – also known as The Gateway. She has doctorates in Applied, Theoretical, and Imaginary Physics, and had been on her way home when she had attacked. She was happy we saved her life, she was a little… less happy when she saw her car. Team Name The (Class 2-B) Determined Team Leader Judith stared at the ballot in front of her. She'd been stuck on this for far too long. Sighing, she took a pen and started to write Jaco-. She paused, blotted that out, and wrote in Dynamic Savior: Phoenix. Secret Identity Sliding Scale: Dynamic Savior: Phoenix - Another person from a line of heroes, cool! Except he got really maudlin when you tried to bond over how smothering superhero parents can be, what's up with that? Lucky Ted - The exchange student doesn't say much in class, probably due to struggling with the language. Except one time, just after a field exercise, he said, "You're the best of them, Ted." Uh, okay? RAVE - Most humans are stuck in one form and have one concept of gender, but after picking up a stray thought you discovered this one habitually changes theirs. That's surprisingly unboring for a human! Lyrebird - The foreigner's got a secret. That's obvious from what you've picked up, but most of what else is on the surface doesn't make too much sense. Doing a deep dive is (more than) a bit rude, but what if the secret could endanger the school, or is just really really juicy? Jacob Lawson - Nikolai is constantly projecting a huge wave of both anxiety and determination. Kind of like your mom is one foot away from your hidden weed stash, but at the same time you just want to study for the upcoming test. Who the gently caress feels that way? Also, you've never seen the guy before the first day of school, but he definitely recognized you. His psychic presence is just... strangely familiar? quote:The Janus Scrree fucked around with this message at 03:56 on Feb 12, 2017 |
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Feb 4, 2017 18:01
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 "I like this banner head and I will continue to use it." Influence You are so excited to be here. Give Influence over you to three of your teammates. Lyrebird, Dynamic Savior, and White Emperor "Holy crap dude! I get to be on the same team with THREE superheroes in training from prestigious superheroic dynasties (Well kinda in Lyre's case I mean, the Batman dynasty was like two guys for a long while so it counts.) But no for real though three! Most people only ever get to see like, one, maybe two, and here I am seeing the next generation up close." "God I love my job." Relationships To go Lyrebird is awesome, and you take every chance you get to hang out with them. "I try to hang out with the others when I can, 'cus you know, team spirit, I'm working with these people and these people are cool so I want to hang out with them as often as I can because they are good people and Ted likes them a lot. But well; White Emperor always seems to vanish into the ether after school, Dynamic Savior is really busy with her family and stuff, Rave is, also really busy with her alien stuff and I don't like bothering her except when it's time for Terran Education time, and Jacob is... Jacob is Jacob, he keeps to himself a lot and I kinda don't want to cramp his style so~." "I end up with Sun-Li a lot of the time." "People give Lyrebird a bad rep, saying she's an overconfident blowhard with an inflated ego and an inbuilt superiority conflict. And I'm not gonna say some of those things aren't a little tiny bit true but that isn't the only thing that is there. She cares about her team, about her friends, she attracts people to her just by being her and they are happy just hanging out with them. It's just that kind of confidence that is contagious, and when she smiles in that way she smiles I just..." Ted sort of runs off in that sentence without finishing, shuffling awkwardly, and then clears his throat --- You’ve got to prove yourself to Dynamic Savior before you feel like a real hero. "Alright so, the Dynamic Saviors? Serious business. People seem to forget that sometimes, they see the toys and the silly Saturday morning cartoons stuff and the flamboyant TV appearances, and they forget that these people are real heroes, in real danger, fighting real villains. Hell the second incarnation of the team got wiped out, and it almost resulted in whole country, if not the world being overrun by legions of horrible beast monsters. They do an important job, and you'd quickly notice if they weren't doing it." "They're important, and right there is the person who is going to go on an inherent a title with that kind of enormity attached to it. People are going to be judging her on how this team performs, and the last thing she needs is some dumb normie dragging her down because he's half-assing it. So for her sake I have to bring my 110% Triple S Plus game at all times. Because if I make the next generation of that line look bad because I messed up somehow? If I'm not good enough? If I didn't try my drat hardest? Then not only do I not deserve to be on the same team, I don't deserve to be at this school." "So you know, no pressure Ted, you only gotta keep up with the rest of your super powered teammates." Would like Rave - You’ve been learning about Earth by spending time with _____________. Normal guy over here check me out! When our team first came together... We found signs that this incident was just the start of something bigger. What were the signs? "After we had dealt with the weird psychic beast monster Ted did what he does best, poking around in the remains for anything of interest that we can wave in front of the people in charge. Now Lucky Ted has been reading up on his superhero history and superheroes as they are now? A fairly recent phenomenon but people with superpowers have existed waaaaay before the Golden Age, just in very limited amounts, like one in a million or even 10 million at the outset." "So when you find something that was attached to what was the most infamous meta-human incident to happen long before the Golden Age, something is wrong."  "This isn't from the golden age, this was from the second world war" "The second world war was the first time in history where the powers that be were starting to realize that there were people a little more than human living amongst us, and this was discovered during a time of great conflict, so what exactly do you do when you have something more then your average man and you are fighting a war? You recruit them into your army as your secret weapon kept under tight wraps, you could even say they were the really special forces. And these were not the capes we know and (mostly) love today, these people were soldiers, hard bred, extremely dangerous, and the few times they have been documented as entering the field it was to devastating effect. The Omega Squad that Pointman came from for example, are the remains of one of those squads, although mostly changed in structure now due to the Treaty of Vermont officially banning the use of super-powered beings, magic and other meta-humans in war." "So when you have a good thing, of course you want to make more of a good thing. So you get a few volunteers, mostly soldiers specially selected from regiments before they deployed, but also some civilians who wanted to fight but couldn't for various medical reasons, and you get a few donated genetic examples from a couple of metas already on the strength, and you of course try to artificially create a few more meta-human super soldiers to take the fight to the enemy. The project was called FENRIR, after a few promising initial tests, 100 volunteers were injected with a mutagen viral strain in order to attempt to foster the growth of superpowers in formally normal humans without the body rejecting foreign tissue samples. At no point did people think about what might happen psychologically to someone suddenly undergoing rapid uncontrollable mutation, or what happens when you attach this to a virus." "It went poorly." "The project wasn't scrapped, the project was burned to the ground and it's facility destroyed when the experiments started to go horribly wrong and the mutagen virus got out of control. The natural supers had to be deployed on american soil to put down the monsters the subjects and some of the staff at the facility had become before more bystanders got hurt. It was a pretty black stain on the books that the government tried pretty drat hard to cover up until the files came to light as a result of inquiries into the sharp rise of Meta-humans during the Golden Age." "But if the facility and its research isn't as dead and buried as we thought it was, and someone has their hands on the hardware, the research notes, or god forbid the mutagen virus strain, we're in deep trouble." Team Name and Team Leader Being that she is a real legacy hero, Ted will suggest Dynamic Savior leads this wild bunch. Actually there's an idea, how about The Wild Bunch for a team name?  (Finally found a picture I wanted to use) quote:Hero Name: Lucky Ted TheNabster fucked around with this message at 19:39 on Feb 11, 2017 |
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Feb 4, 2017 18:06
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 Influence You care way more than you let on. Give three teammates Influence over you. Judith/Nick, Phoenix, and Rave Relationships Mine You keep trying to impress Dynamic Savior: Phoenix with your antics. Hahaha, can you believe that there's a Dynamic loving Savior on this team? poo poo. If there's anybody- anybody that knows what being the hero business is all about, it's them. And I don't mean like- 'having a pure heart' or just 'punching dudes' or 'saving the day' or whatever. It's about doing dumb stunts and looking cool! ...And I'm not saying it's not about those other things, but like- don't you think there's a reason heroes give themselves fancy costumes and dumb names? It's all about looking cool! And these guys? Oh! They loving got it! That's why they're cultural icons, y'know? I mean, America might not appreciate them so much, but some people do! Like, poo poo- it's hard to watch any anime without seeing a little bit of their influence, right? Okay, technically maybe but shut up. So you know what? Having Jen on the team is actually a kind of big opportunity. I mean, she's a Dynamic Savior, and the Dynamic Saviors are legit as gently caress. So if she can recognize my style, that means MY style is legit as gently caress, too! Right? Makes perfect sense! Who cares if I don't have a costume? Who cares if I don't have a name? If a Dynamic Savior thinks I'm a real superhero, I AM a real superhero! That's why I may have been ramping up my act around her. Like, I'm not saying I'm the type of guy that cares what others think, but I may have been purposefully stepping up my own dumb poo poo to see what works! If she thinks its a good stunt, then it's a good stunt! You and Rave pulled an awesome (if illegal) stunt together. Oh yeah, that was the... what the hell do they call it these days? The Great Great Rat Street Flash Mob-slash-Rave-slash-Riot? Yeah, that sounds about right. It started off as like- Uh... One of those, uh- anime meet-ups. Like- I wasn't expecting it to be cool, okay?! So don't even think any of this "look at this dumb nerdlord" crap! I knew it was gonna be totally lame, yeah?! Yeah... But it was even worse than I thought! Everybody was totally embarrasing, and they didn't even have good taste! gently caress, even the one I went to where one person showed up was better... And then Rave is there?! She just kinda shows up?! Like, she wasn't there for the meet-up, Thank God... and she was like, oh, what are you doing here? What's this event? And I was like, "Uh... Uh... It's a... Flash Mob!" Yeah, shut up! It's the best thing I could think of, okay! How about you try to come up with an excuse for why you're hanging out with a bunch of lame-rear end dorks! I gave her like, some bullshit vague explanation about how a Flash Mob is about getting a whole bunch of people in one place to do a certain thing. Which was technically true, but I didn't like- explain how they actually work and get planned. I just showed her some videos on my phone and said it was a thing humans do. She kinda ended up thinking it was a psychic thing. And I didn't correct her 'cause... Well, why would I? It's not like I was really hurting her... and this way I didn't have to get stuck trying to explain what was actually going on. Plus, y'know, the whole idea was so much cooler than actually standing around and hearing people talk about their dumb, wrong opinions about anime like I was. So I asked her, "Hey, you wanna try it out?" And we pooled our powers together to make this poo poo happen. First it started with us getting everybody to do your kinda standard flash mob stunts which, nerds being nerds they did in a dorky-rear end way. But y'know, in the grand scheme of things? Flash mobs are pretty lame. So I decided to kind of amp up the emotional content in there. And it ended up becoming something a lot more like, well, a Rave. But with even shittier music somehow. And it was pretty drat fun. Nerds were partying harder than they probably have in their entire life. They became all new people that day. But then like- poo poo started getting out of control. It's like- you know that moment when someone at a party starts partying too hard? Imagine that just happening to everybody at once. And like, I've seen some poo poo go down at parties, but not anything like that. It's just like- one person breaks a glass cabinet, and then suddenly everybody starts wanting to tear poo poo up? poo poo got out of control. It turned into a regular loving riot. Which was not what I was expecting that day when I went to go meet some loving anime nerds, but- y'know what? Probably the best way that could have ended, honestly. Yours DS: Phoenix: You once got caught doing something that shames your legacy with Jacob Lawson. White Emperor/Runaway: Jacob Lawson knew you from your civilian life first. When our team first came together... We totally broke some major rules to win the fight. What rules did we break? Whose rules were they? Oh yeah, what was that rule again? It's in the student handbook. It's something like... "When fighting in a public area, it is understandable that collateral damage might happen. But always remember to exercise caution, to never put civilians in harm's way, and to minimize the amount of collateral harm done whenever possible. Keep in mind that even when no civilians are harmed, a destructive fight can cost a tremendous amount of money to clean up after. The academy will cover these costs, but remember that is YOUR responsibility to prevent collateral harm in the first place." It says right there, collateral damage is supposed to happen, okay?! So lay off my case! We were fighting a big loving rat monster! Of course some poo poo was gonna get destroyed! It's not my fault! ...Okay, yeah, maybe I did lead it into that mall! But what, were you expecting us to fight it right out there on the street? No way, it was wide open out there! You gotta fight smart, which is what I did! I mean it was so dumb and easy to lead around! I've never seen anything just so mad before in my life! So I lead it into the mall. And through each of the stores. And it knocked around a lot of poo poo. But that was the plan! It's like leading a bull around, you can't get mad when it smashes things! But some of the teachers just don't get it. Property damage isn't a big deal, okay? I mean, that poo poo's all insured, right? If it's not, it's their fault. Who builds a mall in New Arcadia and doesn't insure it against monster rat attacks? And for the record, I was not "endangering civilians," okay?! I made sure to scare them off, too! I'm not dumb! Nobody got hurt so stop giving me poo poo about it! Team Name What, you expect me to come up with something? I don't even have a hero name. Let the dorks come up with something dumb. Team Leader Do we have to? Like, what's even the point? You really think I'm gonna let someone boss me around just 'cause we voted for them? We're six people, what do we need a leader for, anyway? If I had to pick, I'd go with- gently caress, I don't know Phoenix? Definitely not Lyrebird. Probably not Rave, either... quote:
Takanago fucked around with this message at 02:09 on Feb 9, 2017 |
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Feb 4, 2017 18:21
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  When Our Team First Came Together We didn’t trust each other at first, but that changed. How? Why? It is simple to see why I would not trust the rest of the "team" I have been assigned to: they are limited entities and thus their understanding of things like teamwork, tactics, trust, and other notions that do not being with the English letter of "T" is limited. But beyond that, the rest of the team is a quite mismatched effort: Jacob is what is referred to as a 'hooligan', Sun-hi is narcissistic without warrant, Nikolai/Judith has far too much to hide, Jennifer has been raised since birth to be what she is, and Theodore is...well, almost more of a liability than an asset. The five of them left to their own devices would certainly have never solidified into a functional combat unit, which I suppose indicates that the administration of the academy had at least some sense in assigning me, with my superior understanding of T-things, to the group. Still, I must admit a certain level of what Terrans would classify as bemused surprise at the functionality that occurred during our chance encounter with the FENRIS-engineered Macro Virus. After Jacob had lured it through an astounding number of local storefronts, Sun-hi and I (as I allowed Sun-hi to duplicate my abilities for the explicit purpose of allowing her to not die during the fracas) surrounded it and proceeded to shut down it's autonomic functions such as ambulatory movement, respiration, or optical feedback. It took more effort than I had anticipated so I suppose I was...satisfied with Lyrebird's assistance, but apparently the Macro Virus contained a contingency for psychic assault - it lashed out, mentally. I believe it had intended to lobotomize Sun-hi and myself, but perhaps due to Jacob's empathic abilities, it failed to do that. Instead, some manner of synchronization occurred - for a moment, or well, a fraction of a tenth of a second, Sun-hi was Coran - not just duplicating a Coran's abilities. Instead she saw, she understood what I see and understand. And then it passed - like a bolt of terrestrial lightning, from Jacob, to Theodore, to Jennifer, and even to Nikolai/Judith (who I will know surreptitiously refer to as Judolai to save time) and just as quickly, they gained, and lost, understanding of true unity. But something of it lingered, perhaps subconsciously, perhaps not. And while I perhaps would not have chosen these five were I given the choice...they are the closest thing to Coran here upon Terra. I...cannot help but trust them. An infinitesimal fraction of myself lingers within each of them. It has done wonders for team morale! Relationships You’ve been learning about Earth by spending time with Lucky Ted. When I was accepted to the Academy, it quickly became apparent that I had very little interest in immersing myself in inferior Terran culture. For some reason, this vexed the arbitrary hierarchy of Academy rules creators. At first they attempted to force my conformance by making me attend those oppressively banal counseling sessions with The Marshall, but I assume they have perceived how completely useless an activity that is. They haven't stopped requiring this of me, unfortunately, but they have taken an additional step to "assist me in acclimating" - which I believe is code for their fear of my inherent superiority and ability - as such I have been assigned a "tutor" in human cultural norms. They have chosen the inappropriately named "Lucky Ted" for this task. From what I have been able to garner about human society, he is roughly as banal and normal as is possible for a Terran gifted with above average physical wellness and slight metahuman capacity. They felt a "peer" would be better suited to getting me to "fit in", which is a perfectly foolish notion because for one thing as I have attempted to explain to the staff a number of times I am far older and more experienced than any of them, and for another thing I have no interest in fitting in to standard Terran behavioral patterns. In addition, Theodore is interested in an activity the Terrans refer to as "sport". This is much unlike the Coran concept of Sport, which consists of expanding one's physical frequencies and mental capacity to new limits - instead Theodore seems mostly interested in this "baseball" activity, which as far as I can tell consists of people standing around in silly costumes in dirt while waiting for someone to hit a ball with a club. I watched a total of one round of this...what Theodore calls an inning...before the fact that I was basking in natural daylight and was thus getting a good meal no longer served as an adequate distraction, and I flew away. I have attempted to mostly avoid these tutoring sessions ever since. ...except, that I have seen Theodore at the Gamer's Corner once or twice, and he is decent. He invited me into his dorm once where he was playing an electronic enjoyment simulation called "Hotline Miami". The game seemed relatively basic - but the music! ...I have incorporated it into the psychic link I engender in our team during training sessions. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You have a crush on The White Emperor/Runaway but you keep it under wraps. The Terran species, even the metahuman Terran species, is dis-interestingly static. I find very little interest in any of these lower life forms. Most of them. However, the entity known publicly as Nikolai Bruskina is a different matter. They are enticingly less static. Only dual-formed, but that is...something, on Helios 3, at least. I became aware of the plural nature of Bruskina's existence quite by accident. They...he...was exiting class at the same time I was - I was quite hungry and thought I would fly up into the upper stratosphere for a quick bite and apparently he was headed to some form of caffeine injection station for after-school employment - by the way the Terran function of monetary gain is a delightfully antiquated one; once you are inevitably evolved enough to be joined to the Coran Protectorate you will have no need for such frivolities, but for now, I suppose... ...at any rate, he was quite worried about "holding it in" for long enough to get away from the Academy. It was a stray thought but one that he was broadcasting quite loudly at the time. As I understand it on occasion the preferred Terran method of energy consumption leaves quite an excess of waste product, so I assumed at first that was simply the issue. But then I caught the flash of a name...and a face...Judith, she is called. So I followed - discreetly, as he headed to the caffeine injection station. And then I couldn't help but notice as he became she en route. Why she feels the need to keep this a secret is currently beyond me, and too much rooting around in someone's mind - even a limited non-psionic entity like a Terran, would be too invasive, so I haven't pried, really. But he...she...they are interesting. I have made it a habit to stop by this caffeine injection station on a daily basis to observe. Perhaps if I can garner the trust of one or both of their personas, I can get to the bottom of this mystery. It would provide me with some entertainment while I am here. ...yes, of course that is all there is to it. Influence Choose your demeanor: haughty If you’re haughty, you think you’re better than them. Give no one Influence. quote:Eh'mdee-ehm-ma'y, aka "Marie Daisy Mitchell-Adams" Team Leader While Rave doesn't think any of the rest of the team is capable of leading her anywhere, she doesn't have any particular interest in leading them, either. The complex nature of her relationship with Lyrebird means she's willing to entertain adding that label to her. She could also see Dynamic Phoenix doing it since that seems to be that entity's function. Team Name After having the eye-rolling practice of naming teams explained to her, Rave suggests a couple things that, if she wasn't an alien who claims to not comprehend the subject, you'd swear would ring as sarcastic. Like Rave and the Adolescents, or A Self-Important Grouping of Limited Entities in a Pre-Warp Civilization. Eventually, after much prodding from the others, she finally suggests with a bit more seriousness The Pulse. As far as her meaning for it, her only response is "take of it what you will." LifeGetsWorser fucked around with this message at 07:18 on Feb 9, 2017 |
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Feb 4, 2017 19:29
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 quote:Hero Name: Lyrebird When our team first came together... We stuck together after all was said and done. Why? How’d we keep in contact? After we saved the day (in an adequeate, if not ideal, fashion) with that whole FENRIS monster thing, I figured the next step was pretty, obvious, right? Make an official team and kick butt for real! It seemed so obvious I didn't even say anything at the time. But then someone said "See you in class," or something, and I was just like... what? Nuh-uh, no god drat way. We clicked! I was not going to let that go to waste. It took a bit of pestering (some needed more than others) but I got 'em all to come to the Official Team Formation Session. It's not like they could say no after I'd prepped all the paperwork already. Relationships: You and Rave teamed up a few times before the rest of you came together. --- A couple of weeks into the term, there was this mandatory field trip into the mountains for all the "inexperienced" first year telepaths. To get us away from "the psychic background buzz of the city" and teach us "the basics of mental discipline" and a bunch of other crap I already knew. Good for the newbies, I guess. Rave had to go too, and she was just unbearably smug the whole time. Like, I get the feeling, but you can't blame those kids for having no idea what they're doing. It's not their fault they suck, and they'll probably get better. Anyway, we got to day three before things took a turn for the interesting. Right in the middle of an exercise, everybody's powers (even the teacher's) started going all wonky — couldn't read anything at all, and when we tried to figure out why, we just got this weirdly distorted image of a creepy-looking big-rear end robot falling through the sky. And then a creepy-looking big-rear end robot actually fell from the sky.  "Behold, Mentoraxx!" The voice didn't come from a speaker, it was being projected right into our heads. At a painful volume. "Once my creation has fully absorbed your psychic powers and becomes a nexus of nightmare, nothing will be able to stop it! I shall carve a path of terror across the continent! All must kneel before the genius of DOCTOR ZPIRITUS! MWAHAHAHAHA!" Things got a bit panicky, to say the least. The kids who couldn't shut out the voice just plain fainted, and the rest were running around like headless chickens. Teacher (that was the teacher's codename: Teacher) tried to calm them down, but he was useless without his powers. Rave and I, we had one of those silent moments of mutual understanding, then I slapped her on the back, souped myself up with her powers, and together we just blasted the thing with technicolor laser blasts from every possible angle we could think of. And thinking was hard, since it was mentally maniacally laughing the whole time. I guess "Doctor Zpiritus" wasn't operating it manually, because it didn't do anything except stomp around threateningly (and laugh) while we melted it into slag. So we saved the day and got a free pass for the rest of training week! Since then, Rave and I have ended up doing most of our field assignments together. It makes sense, since we work well together. Even if she is, you know. Her. --- Your mentor is cautious; they asked you to keep an eye on White Emperor. As suggested — it gives me a reason to pry into your private life, which I wouldn't do otherwise. Influence: Choose your demeanor: playful or If you choose playful, give Influence to two teammates. Lucky Ted has practically no powers. Him being useful anyway shakes up my worldview a little. Rave is, uh... I might kind of hate her? Or maybe we're best friends? I mean, we hang out all the time (and we're sort of at the top of the social food chain), but we also keep trying to psychically sabotage each other in class. I mean, I'm not gonna let her mind-read her way to the answers if I can help it! That's cheating! And rude! As for the others, White Emperor is absolutely hiding something! But I'll show him. I'll get to the bottom of things, and I'll do it fair and square! Dynamic Phoenix is okay, I guess. She's a bit too proper, but not in a super annoying way or anything. We'll get along fine. Jacob really needs to sort himself out. Dude's got issues. I'm sure he'll open up to someone eventually, though. Team leader Lyrebird would nominate herself. Instantly and insistently. She would accept Dynamic Phoenix on account of her being more-or-less a real hero already. Team name The Betterers (because we make things better, not because we are better but we totally are) S.I.G.M.A. Squad is good, especially if we can't agree on what the acronym stands for. As far as I'm concerned, it means Super Impressive, Generally Magnificent Ace Squad. Auraboks fucked around with this message at 17:47 on Feb 10, 2017 |
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Feb 4, 2017 23:13
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  “Hey guys! Sorry I’m late, Home Ec ran a little long…still feels weird to have that class right before my lunch period.” A chipper voice declared, looking over Ted’s shoulder as she circled around the table towards an empty seat. Setting her bookbag on the floor, she produced a hankerchief that had been wrapped around something and knotted closed, setting it on the table and undoing the knot to reveal a collection of sugary cookies still fresh from the oven, “I brought some left overs, so help yourselves, okay? Anything you don’t eat is just going to go to Jason when I get home.” “Ooooooooh!” she remarked, a spark of recognition on her face as she finally got a proper look at the forms, picking one up for herself, “Team Registry data, huh? Good thinking! Let’s see what we’ve got here…” she said, sticking out her tongue and brandishing a pen like a weapon. Relationships You once got caught doing something that shames your legacy Jacob Lawson. Uuuuuuuuuuugh . . . This … was so incredibly dumb of me. Like, thinking of it is kind of cute, I guess, but there are so many points during the execution where common sense should have triggered and put the kibosh on things. I guess I’ll just take it as a testament that pride can make people do stupid things. Okay, so, it was just a normal day. I don’t even remember what I was doing anymore, I was talking to Ted when I overhear Jacob saying my family’s stuff is ‘basically anime’. Now, I don’t really get upset often, but that’s … ah. Mom has issues with Otaku, okay? I don’t know much about it, but apparently something happened at Comiket that left a really nasty impression on her before I was born. Hell, she gives me the side-eye over my gaming, but Dad’s always got my back so long as I keep my grades up. I guess I sorta got offended on her behalf? I mean, once upon a time, but at least as long as I’ve been around whenever animators pen tokusatsu stuff it’s done as a gag. I guess you’d expect that a little bit? They’re basically competing brands of entertainment, and I don’t see sentai stuff cut down to half-seasons and OAV’s all the time. Just sayin’. So, I pop off saying that if he’s ill-informed enough to say something like that, he’s clearly never seen real Toku. I don’t know why I bit on that bait so hard, I mean, this is Jacob we’re talking about. Of course he pushes back, either because he’s feeling defensive or just because he’s amused at seeing me rattled. So, lunch is wrapping up, and I’ve got my teeth in this too deep to let go. So, I do a little math and tell him to be in the New Arcadian Central Park at 10:30 so we could settle this properly. I mean … I calmed down later, but every time I thought about calling it off I thought about his smug, stupid face. I was committed.  Now, I’m not sure what Jacob expected to happen out there in the park at night, but I’ll guarantee you an advanced space-fighter coming to a hover over a clearing was not on his short list. The look on his face alone was almost worth the hell I caught for sneaking into the base and taking it without asking. Eh heh. Anyway, when I pushed back the canopy so he could see my pink suit, he figured out I was there to pick him up pretty quickly. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand … then I kind of flew him at Mach 6 across the Pacific Ocean directly to Japan. To catch a screening of Masked Racer: Number One! on opening week. I mean, Jacob is a Telepath, I figured he’d be able to glean the meaning of what was happening on the screen from the audience … and, honestly, it was the audience that I really wanted him to experience. It was the only way I could think of to get across what the difference between my family’s admirers and … I dunno, Dueling Blades Online fans. I guess it wasn’t a bad evening (the movie wasn’t as good as I’d hoped), but I caught all kinds of hell when I got back. I mean, when you’re going that fast it’s kinda hard for people to notice that you just dashed across their airspace, but the main branch of the family back home detected a Dynamic Wing sprinting for home without sending any kind of identifying signal and kinda went on high alert. I mean, the family has rules for how we use our abilities, right? The third one is that we don’t use our powers for self-advancement … and apparently using a transatmospheric fighter jet for a “date” (so not a date) skirted the line with some of the hard liners. There was even talk of pulling me out of the Academy if “acting out” like this was what came of it. Still, ultimately, no one was hurt, so things mostly smoothed out. It’s been months and I’m still not allowed anywhere near the hangar … but I guess there’s always Bilröst if the team needs to act outside of the city. You trust White Emperor and told them an important secret of your legacy. Okay, so, this wasn’t all that long ago. You know that rapier White Emperor has? Well, he didn’t start the year with it. The first day he brought it with him to combat drills, I just kind of assumed that it was a part of his regalia that had gotten stuck in Customs when he’d first come over. Of course, it quickly became apparent that he’d never used one before. Well, Mom’s weapon back in the day had also been a rapier (mind you, she had enough energy attacks that it may as well have been a wand), and I’d trained with her Dynamorpher so I’d had to learn my way around a fencing foil. I decided to come over and help. This was after our awkward little talk about home, after all, and I didn’t want to leave things weird between us. So, we’re crossing blades, and there’s a weird pressure coming off of him. I’m not really sure how to explain it. I mean, I’m calling out my attacks before I make them so he can get his body used to reacting appropriately, basic stuff, but my heart was beating like I was in the middle of a competition bout. Like, my eyes are telling me that he’s a rank amateur, but my heart’s telling me this is dangerous. So, I decide to push a little, see if I can’t draw a little talent out of him. I start calling out a series of attacks, picking up the pace. I hit a little harder too, ostensibly so that I can make sure he won’t lose his grip from a determined attack, but he’s focused on guarding the strikes so he hasn’t realized I’m pushing him back a couple steps with each series. Then, right as his back foot hits the end of the map, I use a little bit of my real speed. I call the same series three times, stepping it up each time until we’re just past human responses…and then I slip in an undeclared thrust in right at the end. Maybe that’d be considered a little mean, but I was testing a theory, and the tip was blunted. Either way, his sword moved exactly right, drawing the foil into spin off to one side, twisting my wrist, and then flicking up to toss the sword up and away as my hand opened slightly. Of course, he didn’t press the attack, because he seemed to be surprised by the motion himself, which gave me the chance to take a few steps back and catch the foil as it came down from the high arc it had been thrown in. “I thought so! You’ve got the echo of someone with more developed skills in there, like when borrowing a ‘morpher!” at which point I quickly slapped a gloved hand over the mouth guard of my helmet (because that helps). I was so happy to be right that I kind of let slip something I wasn’t supposed to. So, you know, I told him. If I was going to be helping him learn how to use the sword, he should know where I’m getting my experience from, right? So, between classes, I pull out the Dynamorpher and remove the Transmetal, a disk of silvery Dynametal about the size of a thick silver dollar. Dynametal has a lot of strange properties, there’s the obvious stuff, of course, but what we don’t talk about with outsiders much is that it seems to be a kind of ‘living’ metal. Over time it grows, expands, and develops patterns…and it also seems to be empathic in nature. Supposedly that’s why the ‘armor’ is always among the first abilities to develop, it’s an enclosure that allows the Dynametal to isolate and study its host. It responds to thought, and that guides its further development … when I received my Transmetal it hadn’t developed the Phoenix crest it currently sports, and I hadn’t had access to the bow either. The thing is, it changes the host while it adapts to them as a kind of feedback loop. Old Dynamorphers remember their former bearers. Their minds are indelibly imprinted on the Transmetal, so, if you try to give them to someone who’s too different they can reject the user. Willingly passing on the power helps ease the transition, but the old mind is still there acting as a kind of guardian and mentor. If you look at old footage, you’ll notice that Dynamic Red fights the same no matter who is under the helmet. The old, retired Dynamorphers still have the ghosts of their former users in them … under certain circumstances those ghosts have even manifested. Anyway, mine is new, but I have used Mom’s while I was in training. If he wanted some advice on how to let the blade help guide him in battle until he caught up with its level, I thought I’d offer some insight. -- -- -- -- Lucky Ted: You’ve got to prove yourself to Dynamic Savior before you feel like a real hero. Jacob Lawson: You keep trying to impress Dynamic Savior: Phoenix with your antics. Influence You’re a part of this team, for better or worse, and you care what they think. Give Influence to all of your team mates. Hey, I told you we were friends, didn’t I? I mean, really, they’re all great people and I’m lucky we’ve found each other. You’d be hard pressed to find someone more self-motivated that Lucky Ted. Some of us are in the hero game because or family or circumstances pushed us in that direction, Ted just decided to go for it, and he puts his all into everything. It’s hard not to respect that kind of heart! Most people just don’t bounce back like that after giving up a dream. Sure, Rave and I don’t really travel in the same circles. Still, she has a lot of positivity for someone who’s marooned on a distant world! While I might not really appreciate the whole rave scene like she does, I get that it’s important to find something familiar when you’re so far from home, so I don’t push. Besides, having access to a unique perspective is a great catalyst for self-reflection! Of course, while he may not come from as far away, White Emperor made the brave decision to leave everything familiar behind to try and refine his skills as a superhero. I can’t help but admire that a little bit. His legacy has been around even longer than my own, so I know the kind of pressure he’s under to perform. I guess it makes him kind of stand offish, but if you pay attention you can tell that he’s personally invested in the hero thing. I just wish I could convince him that just because he’s in a different land doesn’t mean he has to be alone, but he’s always making excuses and running off whenever I invite him to something. I hope I’m not being a nuisance … Lyre Bird is great to have on the team! I mean, everybody kind of expects me to know what to do just because of who my family is and the training I’ve done up to this point. Me, on the other hand, I keep thinking that I’ve only really been doing this for three months. Having someone else on the team with genuine field experience is invaluable…of course, her head is big enough as it is, so I can’t really tell her how much I appreciate it. As for Jacob Lawson … ha, ha, well, he drives me right up the wall, honestly. Still, you can’t deny that he’s unmistakably him. There’s a genuineness to Jacob that’s rare in a scene where everyone wears masks, which just makes it all the more clear that he’s not so bad of a guy. Of course, the problem is that it also makes it really apparent he’s kind of a jerk. Like, I can get my head around his ‘emotions are the only thing that matter’ theory, but sometimes he makes it seem like his emotions are the only ones that matter. That’s kind of a messed up perspective for a telepath to take. When Our Team First Came Together… All things considered, we did well and impressed an established hero. Who was it? So, it took some doing, but eventually we managed to put a stop to that … weird … purple thing. Man, I hate it when badguys don’t introduce themselves, it makes it so much harder to talk about them. So, we’re trying to figure out who to call for containment when this shadow drops out of the afternoon sky. It looks like kind of a shadowy blob at first, but when he rose to his full height I recognized him almost immediately:  Nevermore, a seasoned bronze ager, though a little low on the power curve. He started as a pretty typical street-level guy, mixing a dab of menace with some advanced technology and some martial arts skills. He’s got some kind of mad-on for a cult descended from Babylonian snake worshipers, but chasing after them has put him in the middle of a number of high profile fights which he eventually managed to finagle into becoming a Justice Alliance affiliate. He still has a bit of a reputation as a conspiracy nut which is why he hasn’t made it passed affiliate status, but he seems to prefer the freedom of freelancing for the big guns anyway. He took a moment to look over the downed beast, though the turn of his head as he went passed that to regard the rest of the street suggested he wasn’t particularly impressed by that. I’ll admit, between the busted cars that had gotten used as improvised weapons, the fire hydrant gushing water into the air, and the fact that I was picking myself out of a shattered storefront window I guess I could see that. No, it wasn’t until Lucky Ted mentioned the symbol laser-etched into its carapace that he seemed to pay attention. He leaned over and ran a gloved hand over the etching, the eyes on his cowl narrowing as he examined it, listening to Ted expand on the history of the symbol without interrupting. “Good eyes, Kid.” He finally rasped, standing to his full height again, “You lot might be worth watching after all.” It was about then that an A.E.G.I.S. Containment VTOL roared overhead, hitting us with a spotlight. By the time the glare was out of my eyes, Nevermore had vanished, leaving us to make statements as uniformed men rushed out of the back carrying some kind of energy cage between them. Team Leader I guess I’d be alright with following Lyre Bird. I mean, how often in a superhero group do you get a team captain who actually understands how your powers work? She’s pretty sharp too, so she could do a great job … as long as her ego doesn’t get in the way. I mean, really, who nominates themselves? Still, maybe it would be better if we rotated the position for a while? I mean, I don’t hear Rave’s name coming up, but I think she has talents that would really lend themselves to a field leader position. Ted too. We shouldn’t let our perceptions of our abilities blind us to hidden possibilities, right? Of course, if Jacob spontaneously combusts upon contact with authority, I take no responsibility. Team Name After doodling around on a scrap sheet of paper for a while, listening but not participating in the team naming discussion, Jennifer finally pipes up. “What about the S.I.G.M.A. Squad?” she said, having apparently broken down “Self-Important Group of Limited Entities in a Pre-Warp Civilization” into “Self-Important Group of Masked Adolescents” after trying a variety of less useful combinations of words. “I don’t think we’re going to come to a consensus without at least a little sarcasm in the name, and I’d rather be in on the joke.” She chuckled a bit, not trusting Rave’s “Pulse” suggestion for being too simple not to be deceptive, “Also, all the best team names invoke alliteration. It plays well with the headlines.” Justice Grieves fucked around with this message at 18:02 on Feb 9, 2017 |
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Feb 5, 2017 18:29
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Sorry for the delay, your IC thread is up now!
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Feb 11, 2017 16:08
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Bluh ... Jacob ... I can't believe you used a real name in the field, even fractionally. You understand I'm going to have to be actually cross at you now, right?
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Feb 26, 2017 20:41
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v v Sorry, Jen.
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Feb 26, 2017 21:09
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So you've all probably noticed the thread hasn't been updated for a while. I have to be honest; I don't think I have it in me to run this game anymore. It's been really stressing me out, and my anxiety problems haven't been helping things. I think I've made a mistake trying to run two threads. I know it's lovely to leave things like this, but I honestly don't think I can do this anymore. I'm really sorry guys.
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May 6, 2017 01:01
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