- Location
- USA
Give Malf a Doof, Wiley, Goofy, Janus, Mirage and Ludivine action figure so he can pretend he's still a part of the council.
DoofQuest- a Disney Villains Victorious CK2-Style Quest
- Thread starter Made in Heaven
- Start date
- Crossover
I forget, we've seen Al's Toy Barn in story right? Can we assume Woody and the Roundup Gang are safely stored in a Japanese museum, and if we ever finish off those actions about entering the Japanese market could we use the QMS to bust in and steal them?
Interlude: Try
- Location
- Pennsylvania
"Alright. You can come in now, Ludivine. Sorry for the wait."
"Oh, no problem at all. I've spent the time inventing a new type uv papaclip!"
Ludivine strides into your office with a lot more vigor you were hoping for. Her webbed feet slap against your tiled floor before she comes to rest in the plush chair that sits in front of your desk. Oh no. You can already tell you're going to hate this even more than you were expecting. Your conversations up until now have been about new inventions, or the local mathletes team, or gossip about your other scientists. Today, however, you have to talk about the elephant in the room.
With the duck in the room.
"Look." You say, placing your hands on your desk and resisting the urge to furrow your brow already. "We need to talk about what happened."
"Ahhh." Ludivine nods knowingly. "Dis is about de Flubba ting, isn't it? Well, don't worry Docta, barring inspiration I do not tink I'll be digging into dose documents for a good long ti-"
"I've burned them." You say, bluntly.
"What?!?" Ludivine squawks. "Dat- dat's a little extreme, donchu think?"
"No! No I do not think! I haven't had time to think after dealing with this… this mess! Do you have any idea how much work I had to do to keep this on the down low?! Because I didn't! Mirage yelled at me for three hours about 'PR' this and 'public image' that!"
Ludivine sighs. "Okay okay, fine, I geddit. I appreciate whatchu did for me. I'm a pretty valuabool mind, if I do say so! It makes sense, and I appreziate it."
"That's not the point I'm trying to make here. Sure, you're a good employee, but I have a lot of good employees! Most of them don't cause PR catastrophes and nearly blow up the podium they present them on in their spare time! I mean, sure, Temujin murdered all those Huntsgoons and we had to pay to clean up the bodies, and Jumba's probably made, like, all sorts of things, and also Janus took a lot of nonconsensual DNA samples… what was my point again?"
"Relax, Docta! Nobody got hurt."
"Nobody but my pocketbook. Look, I didn't just bail you out because you were useful. L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N. was useful. Oddly so, given how useless they were!"
Ludivine bristles. "Oh, do naht kompare me to dose dim bulb wata'd down Ungustl!"
"Then maybe don't make me clean up after you like them! I'm having to be the responsible one here, Ludivine, Me! Do you have any idea how awful that is? I haven't even had time to post about my backstories online! The reason I saved you was because I expect you to do better next time."
"Ohhhh, iz dat what dis is all about?!" Ludivine says, as if she's finally figured out what an uncommunicative student is trying to ask her.
The last time you were this angry at an employee it was a lot easier to process. It was L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N., of course they were easy to be angry at! They screwed up and you punished them for it… despite the fact that they did do whatever you asked them to and had been pretty effective up until they started getting surly… come to think of it there weren't as many differences between what Ludivine and L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N. did as you'd like. "Yes! Yes that is what this is all about! I like to think I'm a pretty fair boss, I let everyone do basically whatever they want! But that doesn't mean you can just… just do whatever you want and not expect there to be consequences!"
A small part of you wishes that were still the case. You still remember the days that you were able to wreak havoc on the Tri-State Area and have it all go away due to happenstance, OWCA's intervention, or… or even Perry the Platypus. But those days are behind you now.
"Okay, well! Dere's plenty of ways to improve lab safety." Ludivine begins, and then, she goes into an actual, honest-to-goozim PSA about laboratory safety. The sort of thing you would expect to hear before being allowed to touch a bunsen burner for the first time.
"Are you… trying to lecture me on lab safety?"
"Well, dat's why you brought me in here, isn't it? So we can sort out-"
"No, I did not call you in here because I want your advice!" You snap. "I called you in here because you, personally, need to not do anything like that again! I can't believe you're not taking this seriously!"
"I am taking dis seriously!" Ludivine protests. ""I brought de whiteboard and everyting."
She has indeed started scribbling out plans on a wheeled whiteboard.
"No, you are not! You don't get it! We can't have something like this happen again, Doctor Von Drake! You run my entire science division and that means you have responsibilities now! Horrible, awful responsibilities that you take on anyway because the alternative is even worse! When you're careless with your mad science, things get overlooked! Screws are left loose, buttons are placed in unexpected places, the silly little flourish you've put on every Inator up until now can end up blowing up at the worst possible time! People can dIE, Ludivine!" You yell, and your voice cracks before you can reach the end.
Ludivine looks at you oddly, for a second.
"Wait, you used to put self-destruct buttons on your Inators?" Ludivine asks.
You stop.
"I have another meeting in a few minutes." You say. You wait for a moment, trying to find a better way to dismiss her. Something that feels like a corporate overlord or a world famous scientist.
You don't.
"Ookay well, faih enough!" Ludivine says, hopping up. "I'll make shoor to be careful next time!"
You sigh, and let your head fall to your desk. Whatever your next meeting is, you really hope it isn't anything important. You tilt your head to get a look at your schedule.
11am, Spend time with Norm now that he is Your Son.
You let your head fall back down.
It thumps.
===
Norm's heavy metallic steps crash into the floor of your office, jolting you out of your fugue and forcing you to respond to his presence with bleary eyes.
"Oh, hello Norm. How are you today?"
"Satisfactory, father!"
"Y-yes. Father. Right. About that Norm. I… kinda feel bad about… refusing to acknowledge you as a person for…. years… so, I'm going to try to catch up on all of those paternal bonding experiences you've missed. I have a whole itinerary and everything!" You say, holding up your list.
"Okay, Father! But I have something important to tell you."
"Uhh… okay." You reply after a second, but press forward. You're not going to screw this up, you need to do this! "Let's just get going. I'm taking you to the faaaaiir!"
"Oh boy. Carnies!" Norm says, with great gusto.
Well. For him.
===
Your afternoon is a tableau of idyllic familial bonding. You get cotton candy together, which Norm presses into his metal speakerplate. You ride a rollercoaster, which Norm's emotionless voice dutifully calls out 'wheeeee.' during. You give Norm a dollar to try the ring toss, and have to shell out an additional $10,000 in repairs as he launches the projectile through the neighboring three stalls, causing them all to collapse.
You had a good time! Maybe this won't be so bad after all.
"So, Norm, how did you like our little day out?"
"It was a series of things I could not enjoy! But I am glad it assuaged your guilt, Father!"
"...sorry, what?"
"The events of today were primarily a way to feel better about the way you've ignored me for years on end without so much as a birthday present!"
"I- I'm sorry! I mean it, actually this time! I'll get you a really good present for your birthday this year!"
"When is my birthday, Father?"
You glance around.
"...summer?"
"Don't worry father! I am not mad at you about this! I am glad that you feel better."
"Uhhhh… okay?" you say, not really expecting to get called out like that. You're still pretty new to this whole father-son thing, you'll have to make it up to him somehow. "So, what was it you wanted to tell me?"
"I wanted to tell you that I am now in my rebellious teenage years, Father!"
"But Norm, you're four years old!"
"It's like dog years, father!"
"It is?"
"You never asked!"
"Well I'm asking now, because when you really think about it dog years really don't make sense! I mean it's not like dogs and humans are a one to one analogue or anything, if anything they should be rat years since rats are closer to humans than dogs are. And seven, isn't that kind of an arbitrary number? If you're just making stuff up why not go for something nice and even, like five or ten? I know those are odd numbers but I meant even in the sense of…being able to divide equally."
"Father."
"It's not even historically rooted or anything! I could get it if it came out of, like, Greece or something but it didn't, it came out of the fifties! And while the fifties are practically ancient history anyway they're not like mythological history, they're just a bunch of people arbitrarily deciding how to equate the lifespan of two non-equivalent species in a way that… I dunno, makes people feel better about themselves? Lets you reuse those novelty birthday candles? Really now, what is the point of the human-dog years thing?"
"Father, if I had the ability to cry I would do so right now."
"You want to cry? Okay, I can probably rig something up that'll let you cry, give me a few weeks though because-"
"Father, I am in emotional distress."
You stop.
"I… thought you said you were okay?" You ask, confused.
"You have given me the capability for great violence, Father! I am modular and easily repairable, and have the lifting capacity of many bulldozers. My weapon systems are excessive and illegal under every circumstance!"
Norm…frowns. You didn't know he could do that.
"But despite my incredible capacity for destruction, I have no inbuilt mechanism for handling relationships or emotional issues. Your treatment of me makes me very upset, but I cannot shoot rockets at you, Father. So I have decided I am going to do the next best thing, and shoot rockets at things you would not want me shooting!"
You twitch. "Please don't tell me you're going to start destroying the city."
"Worse!" Norm declares. "I am going back to San Fransokyo. I enjoyed it there! And I am going to become a superhero!"
Your vision tunnels, and what remains of the carnival falls into hazy black.
"What?!?!?! That's crazy!" You declare with vitriol. "No son of mine is going to be a superhero! Running around in spandex helping little old cats save the city. You can't even wear spandex, you're made of metal! And San Fransokyo???" You ask in disbelief. "I know it's some kind of crazy hotbed of cape crime over there- I mean I've got a few contacts set up and whatnot, but we're only just scratching the surface of it! There's that cape-hating police chief, all those weird monsters, that creepy cult that Janus thinks doesn't matter- I'm getting off the point!"
Your rant takes on a more desperate tone. "The point is that you can't go to San Fransokyo! Do you know what they'll do if they catch you?! They'll put you in jail! Or worse, chop you into pieces and now that I realize you're actually my son, that's a way bigger deal than it used to be! If anyone tried to chop Vanessa into pieces I don't even know what I'd do!"
"It may be a poor decision Father, but it is mine to make."
"Norm! Don't just talk like one of those cartoons Vanessa doesn't want me to know she likes! You can't just- I… I just started trying!"
"I have been trying for four years, Father. It appears I currently lack the ability to try any more. Maybe we can try again later."
Norm's rocket boots kick into gear and a cloud of smoke begins to billow out from them.
"Wait!" You yell over the sound of jet fuel injection. Norm stills the engines, and you continue in a much quieter voice. "Will you at least… check in with Wendy?" You ask. "Get your oil changed, and, and your ferret waxed, and rotate your axles every 10,000 miles?"
Norm doesn't stop, but he does look back at you.
"Of course, Father." He says, with his usual toneless voice.
You wish he could have used a different one.
===
Ludivine Von Drake gains +10 Opinion. Decays at the end of July/August 2018.
Norm will be Committing Superheroism next turn as his Personal Action.
Norm will gain +5 Opinion…once he vents his frustrations.
Norm's Preferences have changed.
"Oh, no problem at all. I've spent the time inventing a new type uv papaclip!"
Ludivine strides into your office with a lot more vigor you were hoping for. Her webbed feet slap against your tiled floor before she comes to rest in the plush chair that sits in front of your desk. Oh no. You can already tell you're going to hate this even more than you were expecting. Your conversations up until now have been about new inventions, or the local mathletes team, or gossip about your other scientists. Today, however, you have to talk about the elephant in the room.
With the duck in the room.
"Look." You say, placing your hands on your desk and resisting the urge to furrow your brow already. "We need to talk about what happened."
"Ahhh." Ludivine nods knowingly. "Dis is about de Flubba ting, isn't it? Well, don't worry Docta, barring inspiration I do not tink I'll be digging into dose documents for a good long ti-"
"I've burned them." You say, bluntly.
"What?!?" Ludivine squawks. "Dat- dat's a little extreme, donchu think?"
"No! No I do not think! I haven't had time to think after dealing with this… this mess! Do you have any idea how much work I had to do to keep this on the down low?! Because I didn't! Mirage yelled at me for three hours about 'PR' this and 'public image' that!"
Ludivine sighs. "Okay okay, fine, I geddit. I appreciate whatchu did for me. I'm a pretty valuabool mind, if I do say so! It makes sense, and I appreziate it."
"That's not the point I'm trying to make here. Sure, you're a good employee, but I have a lot of good employees! Most of them don't cause PR catastrophes and nearly blow up the podium they present them on in their spare time! I mean, sure, Temujin murdered all those Huntsgoons and we had to pay to clean up the bodies, and Jumba's probably made, like, all sorts of things, and also Janus took a lot of nonconsensual DNA samples… what was my point again?"
"Relax, Docta! Nobody got hurt."
"Nobody but my pocketbook. Look, I didn't just bail you out because you were useful. L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N. was useful. Oddly so, given how useless they were!"
Ludivine bristles. "Oh, do naht kompare me to dose dim bulb wata'd down Ungustl!"
"Then maybe don't make me clean up after you like them! I'm having to be the responsible one here, Ludivine, Me! Do you have any idea how awful that is? I haven't even had time to post about my backstories online! The reason I saved you was because I expect you to do better next time."
"Ohhhh, iz dat what dis is all about?!" Ludivine says, as if she's finally figured out what an uncommunicative student is trying to ask her.
The last time you were this angry at an employee it was a lot easier to process. It was L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N., of course they were easy to be angry at! They screwed up and you punished them for it… despite the fact that they did do whatever you asked them to and had been pretty effective up until they started getting surly… come to think of it there weren't as many differences between what Ludivine and L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N. did as you'd like. "Yes! Yes that is what this is all about! I like to think I'm a pretty fair boss, I let everyone do basically whatever they want! But that doesn't mean you can just… just do whatever you want and not expect there to be consequences!"
A small part of you wishes that were still the case. You still remember the days that you were able to wreak havoc on the Tri-State Area and have it all go away due to happenstance, OWCA's intervention, or… or even Perry the Platypus. But those days are behind you now.
"Okay, well! Dere's plenty of ways to improve lab safety." Ludivine begins, and then, she goes into an actual, honest-to-goozim PSA about laboratory safety. The sort of thing you would expect to hear before being allowed to touch a bunsen burner for the first time.
"Are you… trying to lecture me on lab safety?"
"Well, dat's why you brought me in here, isn't it? So we can sort out-"
"No, I did not call you in here because I want your advice!" You snap. "I called you in here because you, personally, need to not do anything like that again! I can't believe you're not taking this seriously!"
"I am taking dis seriously!" Ludivine protests. ""I brought de whiteboard and everyting."
She has indeed started scribbling out plans on a wheeled whiteboard.
"No, you are not! You don't get it! We can't have something like this happen again, Doctor Von Drake! You run my entire science division and that means you have responsibilities now! Horrible, awful responsibilities that you take on anyway because the alternative is even worse! When you're careless with your mad science, things get overlooked! Screws are left loose, buttons are placed in unexpected places, the silly little flourish you've put on every Inator up until now can end up blowing up at the worst possible time! People can dIE, Ludivine!" You yell, and your voice cracks before you can reach the end.
Ludivine looks at you oddly, for a second.
"Wait, you used to put self-destruct buttons on your Inators?" Ludivine asks.
You stop.
"I have another meeting in a few minutes." You say. You wait for a moment, trying to find a better way to dismiss her. Something that feels like a corporate overlord or a world famous scientist.
You don't.
"Ookay well, faih enough!" Ludivine says, hopping up. "I'll make shoor to be careful next time!"
You sigh, and let your head fall to your desk. Whatever your next meeting is, you really hope it isn't anything important. You tilt your head to get a look at your schedule.
11am, Spend time with Norm now that he is Your Son.
You let your head fall back down.
It thumps.
===
Norm's heavy metallic steps crash into the floor of your office, jolting you out of your fugue and forcing you to respond to his presence with bleary eyes.
"Oh, hello Norm. How are you today?"
"Satisfactory, father!"
"Y-yes. Father. Right. About that Norm. I… kinda feel bad about… refusing to acknowledge you as a person for…. years… so, I'm going to try to catch up on all of those paternal bonding experiences you've missed. I have a whole itinerary and everything!" You say, holding up your list.
"Okay, Father! But I have something important to tell you."
"Uhh… okay." You reply after a second, but press forward. You're not going to screw this up, you need to do this! "Let's just get going. I'm taking you to the faaaaiir!"
"Oh boy. Carnies!" Norm says, with great gusto.
Well. For him.
===
Your afternoon is a tableau of idyllic familial bonding. You get cotton candy together, which Norm presses into his metal speakerplate. You ride a rollercoaster, which Norm's emotionless voice dutifully calls out 'wheeeee.' during. You give Norm a dollar to try the ring toss, and have to shell out an additional $10,000 in repairs as he launches the projectile through the neighboring three stalls, causing them all to collapse.
You had a good time! Maybe this won't be so bad after all.
"So, Norm, how did you like our little day out?"
"It was a series of things I could not enjoy! But I am glad it assuaged your guilt, Father!"
"...sorry, what?"
"The events of today were primarily a way to feel better about the way you've ignored me for years on end without so much as a birthday present!"
"I- I'm sorry! I mean it, actually this time! I'll get you a really good present for your birthday this year!"
"When is my birthday, Father?"
You glance around.
"...summer?"
"Don't worry father! I am not mad at you about this! I am glad that you feel better."
"Uhhhh… okay?" you say, not really expecting to get called out like that. You're still pretty new to this whole father-son thing, you'll have to make it up to him somehow. "So, what was it you wanted to tell me?"
"I wanted to tell you that I am now in my rebellious teenage years, Father!"
"But Norm, you're four years old!"
"It's like dog years, father!"
"It is?"
"You never asked!"
"Well I'm asking now, because when you really think about it dog years really don't make sense! I mean it's not like dogs and humans are a one to one analogue or anything, if anything they should be rat years since rats are closer to humans than dogs are. And seven, isn't that kind of an arbitrary number? If you're just making stuff up why not go for something nice and even, like five or ten? I know those are odd numbers but I meant even in the sense of…being able to divide equally."
"Father."
"It's not even historically rooted or anything! I could get it if it came out of, like, Greece or something but it didn't, it came out of the fifties! And while the fifties are practically ancient history anyway they're not like mythological history, they're just a bunch of people arbitrarily deciding how to equate the lifespan of two non-equivalent species in a way that… I dunno, makes people feel better about themselves? Lets you reuse those novelty birthday candles? Really now, what is the point of the human-dog years thing?"
"Father, if I had the ability to cry I would do so right now."
"You want to cry? Okay, I can probably rig something up that'll let you cry, give me a few weeks though because-"
"Father, I am in emotional distress."
You stop.
"I… thought you said you were okay?" You ask, confused.
"You have given me the capability for great violence, Father! I am modular and easily repairable, and have the lifting capacity of many bulldozers. My weapon systems are excessive and illegal under every circumstance!"
Norm…frowns. You didn't know he could do that.
"But despite my incredible capacity for destruction, I have no inbuilt mechanism for handling relationships or emotional issues. Your treatment of me makes me very upset, but I cannot shoot rockets at you, Father. So I have decided I am going to do the next best thing, and shoot rockets at things you would not want me shooting!"
You twitch. "Please don't tell me you're going to start destroying the city."
"Worse!" Norm declares. "I am going back to San Fransokyo. I enjoyed it there! And I am going to become a superhero!"
Your vision tunnels, and what remains of the carnival falls into hazy black.
"What?!?!?! That's crazy!" You declare with vitriol. "No son of mine is going to be a superhero! Running around in spandex helping little old cats save the city. You can't even wear spandex, you're made of metal! And San Fransokyo???" You ask in disbelief. "I know it's some kind of crazy hotbed of cape crime over there- I mean I've got a few contacts set up and whatnot, but we're only just scratching the surface of it! There's that cape-hating police chief, all those weird monsters, that creepy cult that Janus thinks doesn't matter- I'm getting off the point!"
Your rant takes on a more desperate tone. "The point is that you can't go to San Fransokyo! Do you know what they'll do if they catch you?! They'll put you in jail! Or worse, chop you into pieces and now that I realize you're actually my son, that's a way bigger deal than it used to be! If anyone tried to chop Vanessa into pieces I don't even know what I'd do!"
"It may be a poor decision Father, but it is mine to make."
"Norm! Don't just talk like one of those cartoons Vanessa doesn't want me to know she likes! You can't just- I… I just started trying!"
"I have been trying for four years, Father. It appears I currently lack the ability to try any more. Maybe we can try again later."
Norm's rocket boots kick into gear and a cloud of smoke begins to billow out from them.
"Wait!" You yell over the sound of jet fuel injection. Norm stills the engines, and you continue in a much quieter voice. "Will you at least… check in with Wendy?" You ask. "Get your oil changed, and, and your ferret waxed, and rotate your axles every 10,000 miles?"
Norm doesn't stop, but he does look back at you.
"Of course, Father." He says, with his usual toneless voice.
You wish he could have used a different one.
===
Ludivine Von Drake gains +10 Opinion. Decays at the end of July/August 2018.
Norm will be Committing Superheroism next turn as his Personal Action.
Norm will gain +5 Opinion…once he vents his frustrations.
Norm's Preferences have changed.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
LET'S GO NORM!! WOOT WOOT!!!
- Location
- The City of Tears, Hallownest
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Thaaaaat. Is a dramatic and personal reveal.
Stratagemini
Totally a Fire Ferret.
- Location
- Central Park
- Pronouns
- He/Him/They/Them
"Weaponry The Mechanical Man has just brutally thwarted another jaywalking attempt by an old lady. Only the alleged criminal was hurt in the process."
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Also, weird write-in idea:
[X] Contact Hego to see if he can maybe give Norm some advice. You may not approve of Norm doing superheroics... but even if it's just a phase (you hope) you should be supportive.
[X] Contact Hego to see if he can maybe give Norm some advice. You may not approve of Norm doing superheroics... but even if it's just a phase (you hope) you should be supportive.
AProcrastinator
You can Certainly Try
- Location
- Getting Somewhere
- Pronouns
- She/Hers
Doofenschmirtz may have stopped putting self-destruct buttons on his inators, but he's sure still pressing the self-destruct button on all his relationships!
Ha ha!
...the laughter helps hide the tears
Ha ha!
Alright, we need to give Norm a voice box with modulating emotional capability now that he's capable of, you know, emotion.
and because he's a Doofenschmirtz, we need to give him a voice that sounds exactly like ours, because going by Mallifischmertz it's our family heritage to sound like that
- Location
- USA
Holy crap...
Poor Doof. That felt really painful emotionally.
At least nothing particularly bad happened mechanically.
But, man... emotional damage.
Excellent writing. I cannot wait for Try Again.
Poor Doof. That felt really painful emotionally.
At least nothing particularly bad happened mechanically.
But, man... emotional damage.
Excellent writing. I cannot wait for Try Again.
mangawriter77
Otaku^9000 (In my own opinion)
- Location
- You'll neeever guess
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
...this hurt. This hurt a lot. And the worst part is, I can't see how bad it is due to the preferences not being updated yet.
Hopefully, things get better for Doof with the Kitsune talks.
Hopefully, things get better for Doof with the Kitsune talks.
- Location
- Pennsylvania
It's convenient when you choose to do things like this because it add opportunities for us to condense lots of short stories into one, but that doesn't necessarily guarantee strong or positive synergy between actions, especially ones that rely on the randomness of dice. Even if strong synergy exists, this won't always translate into mechanical benefits. For example, look at the Doof and Ludivine interactions this turn. Doof's learning is slightly below Ludivine's, and he was never going to gain more than 1 point of learning, even on a nat 100. It certainly didn't hurt that you chose to talk with her this turn, but it colored their interactions under the lens of Ludivine treating him like a child she was trying to tutor, and you all saw the results. Barring an incredibly good roll you wouldn't have seen a mechanical benefit, but the two of them would've had a much better time together. Hard mechanical synergy like what you saw with Kitsune is vanishingly rare.
Although, granted, when we do find it, it allows us to roll a 180 on a D100 roll, so...But, yeah, I get the point.
As to the update...Ugh. We're suffering the consequences of our aversion to risk. We refused to think about Norm until we knew enough about AI to be certain it would go well, and, well...Too little, too late. We're gonna need to try harder.
It went badly from the perspective of having a successful relationship, but honestly, I'm not sure it's a bad result for Norm himself. He really was a victim of Doof's dismissal and (accidental) cruelty for years, well before the start of the quest, and him coming to that realization and realizing he needs to redefine that relationship is a very healthy perspective for him.
Add Norm to the pile of characters in this story who have achieved some greater understanding of themselves and grown for it, is what I'm saying. Now let's just hope he doesn't die horribly in San Fransokyo.
- Location
- USA
That's fair, I think condensing a lot of short stories as you say does lead to what has been the personally more enjoyable interludes, I'd much rather read a big interlude with all of individual pieces flowing together in a compelling story even if the mechanical rewards for the interlude is the exact same as if we did each individual action of the interlude on separate turns.
The potential for the story even if a mechanical benefit is rare is still enticing to me.
And I hope people were on the same page that even things that could potentially have good synergy still need good dice rolls to get anywhere.
It's unfortunate that they didn't have a good time with Ludivine's personal roll but if the die rolled well every time the quest wouldn't be as enjoyable.
True. For the time being...We should support him. And give him some upgrades so he can express emotion better.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Would building these upgrades, to help him express himself better, be something we could do with a personal action, @Arathnorn ? Or is it something that'd be abstracted away into the background like the countless Inators we build are?
And yes, obviously I understand that doing this stuff isn't dealing with the underlying problem here, but at the same time, since you guys seem to prefer us indicating what we're thinking about through our personal actions, I'd like to emphasize that Norm is still very much on Doof's mind.
[X} Give Norm a Voice Box with modulating emotional capability.
- [X] Apologize for not supporting his ambitions.
- Location
- United Kigdom
Wow, that's great
I'm not sure we'd actually want Celena on the Council but it makes that Malf might be fearing something like this happening
Well, that answers something I hadn't thought to consider
Ouch... that honestly sums it up
I'm kind of surprised that this went up, no mechanical effect from being on 40 but it's always good to have more buff
By any chance did this lesson end up being about how to properly secure a self-destruct button?
That probably went better than I expected honestly
I kind of want to take another contemplate family action but there are also so many Bossman talks we need to do
edit: another thought; with Tecnor in a more active role, do you think we should consider a "hire a new therapist" action?
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Lab_Accident
A 2D 1D4
- Location
- Your dreams
Oof. Extremely harsh, extremely fair. I hope you find yourself in Sokyo, Norm. I hope you will at least let Vanessa give you the emotional support in your new endeavors that we never managed to give you.
(Also, we're setting up ALL the spy rings in Sokyo. Just because he wants space doesn't mean we can't try to keep him safe from a distance)
That's sort of the problem. He's been capable of emotion for a very long time, now. Doof's just treated him like he didn't.
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- Pronouns
- She/Her
I mean, honestly... this is something I'm pretty unclear on? Like, Norm wasn't actually sentient for the past 4 years, as much as there is a sentience line, but there's also a continuity of consciousness, and Norm remembers all that time trying, even if for most of that time he didn't have the capacity for these emotions.
Like, the QMs have explicitly told us in the past that Norm wasn't sapient... but he still remembers how Doof treated him, now that he is.
- Location
- Germany
*And* we ended up freezing ourselves as well (accidentially and only temporarily, but it´s still a nice coincidence because of that old urban legend surrounding Walt)
...Let´s just hope that we´ll avoid the more unsavory rumors about our socio-political views unlike Disney himself...
...honestly? Aside from that "changed preferences" wildcard we don´t know anything about, those mechanical results are actually kinda *good* for what were two poopy rolls...
But yeah, it´s clear that thanks to us deciding to really work on Doofs issue, he´s becoming a vastly different and more self-aware character - it´s just that right now, that awareness is causing him some "growing pains" in the form of actually worrying about the consequences of his actions.
Not bad.
Yeah, I´d say that we now have a clearer idea of what exactly happened to Perry (I mean, we already kinda knew, that he died to a "malfunctioning" Inator, but now it seems clear that Doof is blaming himself a lot for not thinking things through that fateful day).
Honestly darkly amusing that Perry dying seems to have been the main cause for Doof becoming more self-aware in terms of "actions have consequences"...
Not against something like that - would be something a fretting father would do, after all.
Although bit weirded out, that Doof is having so much problems with dealing with Norm in a paternal context - Norm might be Heinz´ first *Son*, but he isn´t his first *child* and while boys and girls sometimes need different approaches in parenting, there is still some overlap one could try to use for reference.
Not against that either.
No?
Norm getting upset isn´t because of our aversion to risk at all - it might be because of our admittedly shoddy prioritizing process, though (putting our son of for "not having time right now and not-dealing with emotional issues instead")
- Location
- USA
The Norm thing feels a bit unfair to Doof. But in a understandable way.
He didn't build a son. That was NEVER his intention. He wanted a useful robot that could fight Perry and help out. He only recently realized that Norm wasn't just a somewhat odd robot with a weird fixation on creeping him out by claiming he was his father. That he had actually achieved self-actualization was probably a shock. And now he is trying to reach out to the son he now has. Totally reasonable.
But Norm is becoming more and more of a person. And resents the years of neglect and rejection. Also totally reasonable.
Tragic. Doof is trying the best he can. But a bumpy road makes sense.
He didn't build a son. That was NEVER his intention. He wanted a useful robot that could fight Perry and help out. He only recently realized that Norm wasn't just a somewhat odd robot with a weird fixation on creeping him out by claiming he was his father. That he had actually achieved self-actualization was probably a shock. And now he is trying to reach out to the son he now has. Totally reasonable.
But Norm is becoming more and more of a person. And resents the years of neglect and rejection. Also totally reasonable.
Tragic. Doof is trying the best he can. But a bumpy road makes sense.
If I recall, the reason we put it off so long was because we knew it would be affected by how well Doof understood AI, so we waited until Wendy had cracked it.
We kinda knew. When we visited the Perry the Platypus Memorial Park with Monogram, Doof's inner monologue muses about how it went down. Basically, he thought he'd be clever, hide the self-destruct button for once...And then muses that, if he had removed it entirely, or hadn't bothered to hide it at all...If he had done anything except hide it in such a way that it could be pressed without either him or Perry realizing until it was too late...Yeah.
Kinda different circumstances. Also...Doof's family kinda has history vis-a-vis the whole "one child is loved and even smothered, while the other is ignored at best" thing. He learned the art of ignoring your son from the best...