[ ] Greet them.
- [ ] Introduce yourself and your friends, and ask which one is Ermine and which is Recast.
In the awkward silence that follows, Hailstorm places her hand over her visor and sighs. The black-clad girl's lips part slightly as she looks at you, but her companion doesn't seem nearly as surprised, instead letting her curious eyes take you in. You feel like you should be blushing.
Feeling the need to break the silence, you wave a tentacle at the two and make yourself smile. "Hi, there," you say. "I'm Charlotte. This is my friend Alice, and our friend Jeanette is currently getting looked over by Doctor Fairclough." You pause for a moment, then forge onward. "Sentinel said Ermine and Recast were coming. If you don't mind me asking, who is whom?"
"Oh, I know!" Alice suddenly exclaims from beside you before they can answer, then quickly goes pink as everyone looks at her. "W-well, Ermine's in white, of course."
"Which would make you Recast," you finish for your friend as you look at the girl in the black dress. "It is a pleasure to meet you." You dip in a proper curtsy to them, tentacles lifting nonexistent skirts, before freezing. That, that felt so… nostalgic. But of course, you have no idea why, frustratingly enough.
Biting the inside of your cheek to shock yourself out of stillness, you rise to see that everyone's stares have now focused on you. Recast's free hand rises to partially cover a soft smile, but fails to restrain a giggle. "Wow. I'm sorry, but all those sessions spent learning how to curtsy, and the first time someone curtsies to me, my leg's too numb for me to return it." Her hand falls back to her side, but her smile remains. "It's a pleasure to meet you, too."
Ermine's hand comes up in a shy little wave before she helps Recast over to one of the beds, easing her down to sit on it. You realize a smile had grown on your face, but it slowly fades as your curiosity grows. Sidling over to Alice (something that proves to be rather easy to do with your weird legs), you quietly ask her, "So, ah, just curious, but, well, they're parahumans too, right? Do you know what they can do?"
Alice's eyes brighten as her blush fades away. In a similarly soft voice, she replies, "Yeah, they're capes. All the Wards are. Ermine's a Brute - ah, a cape who is stronger and more durable than normal - and she's really agile, too. Oh, and she's got some sort of special martial art thing she does, nerve cluster strikes or something like that. Recast is a Tinker, a cape who makes super advanced tech. Her gloves and boots can transform, but there's almost certainly some other stuff she's made that hasn't been used in public yet."
You blink, then smile again. "Thanks," you say, then straighten up and slowly make your way towards the two Wards. You stop when the clicking of your claws attracts their attention. "Um, I hope you don't mind if I ask, but, well, what happened to your leg?"
They look at you for a moment before Recast smiles at you. "Nothing much, just an accident while sparring." She shifts on the bed so she doesn't have to turn her head quite so much to look at you. "So, what're you here for?"
You look down at your shredded clothing and the piece of glass still embedded in your chitin. "Well, my friends and I, we got caught up in a fight between Brigadier and Terracotta."
Recast winces. "Is that when your clothes got all torn up?"
"Yeah, some broken windows fell on us…" Recast covers her mouth with her hands, and Ermine's eyes widen. "B-but we got out pretty much okay!" you hurriedly assure them.
"Oh, that's good," Ermine says, and you find yourself surprised because her voice is softer than you were expecting. She glances past you, at Alice, you presume, then back at Recast.
An awkward silence settles in the room, and your claws click on the tile floor as you shift nervously.
.o.o.o.
What do?
[ ] Break the silence by regaling these two with a tale about how you bravely ran away from the situation.
[ ] Turns out, the silence brought along its descendants, each generation more awkward and oppressive than the last. You pray for someone, anyone, to break it.
[ ] Alice saves you by coming over to strike up a conversation of her own.
[ ] Write-in.
Adhoc vote count started by helnae on May 31, 2018 at 1:39 PM, finished with 26 posts and 21 votes.
[X] Alice saves you by coming over to strike up a conversation of her own.
[X] Explain that you have a power that seems to, at some level, heal people. Don't press giving it to her, but say that if it's deemed safe later that you'd be willing to try and help.
[X] Turns out, the silence brought along its descendants, each generation more awkward and oppressive than the last. You pray for someone, anyone, to break it.
[X] Break the silence by regaling these two with a tale about how you bravely ran away from the situation.
- [X] (write-in) Completely seriously, why are the others laughing?
[ ] Turns out, the silence brought along its descendants, each generation more awkward and oppressive than the last. You pray for someone, anyone, to break it.
Incredibly tempted for awkward monster time, (and the mystery box of someone breaking it finally), but.
I must be loyal.
[X] Alice saves you by coming over to strike up a conversation of her own.
Instinctively curtsying makes me assume we come from a rather different culture, possibly another world.
Maybe we can test this:
[X] Break the silence by regaling these two with a tale about how you bravely ran away from the situation.
Will we accidentally insert a certain Monty Python reference?
[X] Explain that you have a power that seems to, at some level, heal people. Don't press giving it to her, but say that if it's deemed safe later that you'd be willing to try and help.
Also, let's be real hear: awkward silence is the most realistic option here.
[X] Turns out, the silence brought along its descendants, each generation more awkward and oppressive than the last. You pray for someone, anyone, to break it.
You dip in a proper curtsy to them, tentacles lifting nonexistent skirts, before freezing. That, that felt so… nostalgic. But of course, you have no idea why, frustratingly enough.
So this is interesting. It's probably a typical Case 53 false hope type of thing, but I still jumped immediately to feeling like this is worth investigating. Probably an "at some point -- later, not now", but even so.
[ ] Turns out, the silence brought along its descendants, each generation more awkward and oppressive than the last. You pray for someone, anyone, to break it.
So, since I wasn't putting in the effort to make a write-in about investigating the curtsy, I was going to vote for this. But then:
Instinctively curtsying makes me assume we come from a rather different culture, possibly another world.
Maybe we can test this:
[X] Break the silence by regaling these two with a tale about how you bravely ran away from the situation.
Will we accidentally insert a certain Monty Python reference?
So:
- are we okay with meta-gaming like that?
- are we prepared to live with the consequences of that vote if we don't make the reference, or if we do but no-one recognizes it?
- do we want to be telling such a tale?
- even if we are okay with meta-gaming and this gambit succeeds, what do we get out of it? What's the benefit? What's the payoff?
...And now I no longer know what I want to vote for, because I've basically talked myself out of it. Peachy.
[X] Turns out, the silence brought along its descendants, each generation more awkward and oppressive than the last. You pray for someone, anyone, to break it.
So:
- are we okay with meta-gaming like that?
- are we prepared to live with the consequences of that vote if we don't make the reference, or if we do but no-one recognizes it?
- do we want to be telling such a tale?
- even if we are okay with meta-gaming and this gambit succeeds, what do we get out of it? What's the benefit? What's the payoff?
I don't think it would tell us much ingame, it's just interesting to know for us players. For that reason I also see no problem with metagaming (also there's always metagaming in quests anyway).
Of course, not making a reference doesn't tell us anything at all.
None of these are goal-oriented a but they are characterization. When the stress dies down, are we a goof, awkward, or does the thread abstain from deciding that for now? That's how I read this vote.
Or it could be characterization of our lost culture, if it's not actually a joke to her, just an extremely foreign concept of bravery (probably among other things that haven't come up yet). I'd like that very much, but it's low odds.
[X] Break the silence by regaling these two with a tale about how you bravely ran away from the situation.
- [X] (write-in) Completely seriously, why are the others laughing?
[X] Explain that you have a power that seems to, at some level, heal people. Don't press giving it to her, but say that if it's deemed safe later that you'd be willing to try and help.
