Janna is not the giver of the names, and as such is not Lilo.
Instead, as we clearly see, Janna is Gantu, not being allowed nice things.
DoofQuest- a Disney Villains Victorious CK2-Style Quest
- Thread starter Made in Heaven
- Start date
- Crossover
Instead, as we clearly see, Janna is Gantu, not being allowed nice things.
mangawriter77
Otaku^9000 (In my own opinion)
- Location
- You'll neeever guess
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Speaking of, whatever happened to Gantu? We haven't seen him in... forever.
Hes fighting Monsters Inc i guess. Maybe when ODI is done we'll run into him.
@Arathnorn I have a couple of questions. The first being can We do an infiltration action with a non-infiltrated hero (ala a National) and pull back the infiltrated one as a free action that same turn?
The second is, can Doof get a personal or martial action to assign a specific hero as Quest leader for the crisis?
The final is how angry would Malf be if we got another another Wizard?
The second is, can Doof get a personal or martial action to assign a specific hero as Quest leader for the crisis?
The final is how angry would Malf be if we got another another Wizard?
Olivebirdy
mook.
Could we give it to Malf, or are Advisors incapable of using items?
And it's really too bad we haven't inserted anyone into Toffee's business, we should have had them ready for go time.
Last edited:
We actually did this turn and keep in mind: We need to beat the DC to find her, which is at...395. This is gonna take several turns, hammerinf away and lowering the DC. We should get started immediately but...It's gonna take a bit to finish.
Last edited:
While ideally we meet the massive DC; I think it's important to remember: We just need to stay above 100 when she is discovered.
I don't know if this means Toffee has his own tracker and we can interfere with it/have him interfere with ours, or if Toffee succeeding pulls it to the negatives and Star may just be discovered one day; but here it is!
We could give it to Malf, but I think it's important to remember that Feldrake is an asshole who will tell his user what to do. It's a big reason why most of the Mages we actually have aren't that good for him, Malf, Kitsune, and Celena are all... bad fits for Feldrake, for various reasons.
Also we set up a tier 1 infiltration on Toffee this turn.
I think what @Olivebirdy is suggesting here is to have infiltrated toffee's business with a hero?
generally speaking though, that would use up another hero unit who would be needed for a lot of other stuff? so not really worthwhile, especially since rather than performing sabotage that they can brute-force past and potentially trace back to us, we're probably after more detailed information on how far along the search for star they are, and now we should have access to basic info until they get swept out without it locking a hero away (which is good because this could drag on for a while).
hopefully we'll be able to see roughly what toffee's progress is and if they're up to anything dangerous, which is the important thing for being able to respond appropriately.
Hero infiltrations are annoyingly hard on the action economy, mostly since we have so few actual good intrigue heroes.
it doesn't help that even if we could afford it it'd significantly complicate things to sacrifice flexibility for it :P but i guess there are non-active infiltrations at least?
9k, I am gonna gather up all questions for the QMs in like, 2 hours. But before I do I would like to ask, if any of you git questions, please post em. Remember to @Arathnorn So I can find it easier when I search.
- Location
- Florida
- Pronouns
- He/Him
@Arathnorn Has the thread reached the point for the xp bounty to be considered completed, or does the page need more work done still?
Olivebirdy
mook.
I'm glad we have an infiltration up, it's much better than not having one at all, but I still think we've slept on Doppelgangers, since we don't want to spend a hero. They're expensive, but not only are they excellent infiltration, and can actually help us during the Star crisis, but they'd be copies of excellent heroes we could use later. They're also classically narratively satisfying.
As for Feldrake telling his wielder what to do, Malifismirtz is pretty opinionated himself. I'd like to see what a successful magical Doof can do, and larger numbers are how to get there.
As for Feldrake telling his wielder what to do, Malifismirtz is pretty opinionated himself. I'd like to see what a successful magical Doof can do, and larger numbers are how to get there.
Here are the questions, plus two more form me
Is Reach Out to the Morganians to Horvath's Order, or to the terrible trio who left him
And finally, if liquidator attacks before it is done, will we still be able to get benefits from reverse engineering the On-Ice Inators tech? (Basically does it do things besides lower the TN?)
Last edited:
Coming to Terms
- Location
- Pennsylvania
This is the hardest thing you've ever had to do.
You know.
You know, on some level, that you don't totally control the tri-state area. Even ignoring the whole Colorado thing. You pay taxes, you never really bothered to change many laws. You in fact recently created a division specifically to convince the feds to change their laws.
You know that basically nothing is going to change. You're going to have just as much control as you did before.
You know this whole thing is in your way.
You know…
You know that nobody thinks Doofania is real.
But you're on your twenty-seventh hour of locking yourself in your office, and you're still not letting anyone in.
This is what you wanted.
This is everything that you've wanted.
Isn't it?
You give your receptionist the rest of the day off.
Mirage comes to see you. You put off another meeting with her. Technor comes to see you. He decides to give you time. Coyote comes to see you, and he ends up blowing up your door in the process of trying to disarm the traps.
It is in the process of fixing those traps that Mr. Moseby finds you, and you realize you can't actually arm them while you're elbow deep in a tension capacitor.
"Ah, Mr. Doofenshmirtz." He says, peeking in through the door and eyeing the exposed net launcher with concern. "I apologize, but your secretary seems to be out, and we have a 3pm."
"Oh." You reply, mentally kicking yourself for not clearing your calendar. "Well I'm sorry Marion, but I'm afraid you'll need to reschedule. Something's… come up."
"Some sort of meeting?"
"Well, no." you admit, before you can stop yourself. You can see the way Moseby is picking up on your mood, noticing little details you might not even realize you're exhibiting. He simply looks at you, expectantly.
This is the part where you send him off. But some part of you doesn't know if it can handle a fifth bundle of excuses today, so you decide to simply wait until he gets the hint.
You tighten another screw. He's sitting down. Oh doonkleberries he's sitting down-
Marion Moseby, your Chief of… well, The Lobby you suppose, lowers himself to the ground with the sort of sigh people make when they expect to be down there for a while. You know he's good at talking to people, that's part of why you hired him, so you keep expecting him to say something like 'penny for your thoughts'? Or 'some nice tightening you're doing there', and then you will actually kick him out.
He doesn't.
You finish realigning the net launcher and move on to the 'Sock-Your-Locks-On-Inator'. It took you a week to think of the name, and now it needs some spot-welding.
You open your mouth.
"Mr. Moseby are you- did you ever… Do you have a life's goal?"
Moseby looks at you. He cocks his head. "Now what's this all about?" He asks, somehow skimming over the entire chapter where you deny anything being wrong simply with his tone of voice.
"It's just…"
You sigh.
He got you.
"All my life, I've had a dream. A dream to become the unelected dictatorial ruler of the greater Tri-State Area."
You watch as Moseby's expression becomes slightly more fixed. Possibly because of the automatic thunder boom.
"Well, at first I wanted to take over the world, but that ended up feeling a little too ambitious. So, you know, I figured, let's keep it reasonable. Tri-State Area. Conquest. Yeah. And it took me years, but I did it! Barring a… little bit, I guess, but still, mostly! The Tri-State Area was mine!"
You bask for a moment in the glory of your accomplishment… and feel it slip away from you again like the rays of a fading sun.
"Except… none of it's like I thought it would be. None of it feels real, and the parts that are real…"
You think about Perry.
"Those are the worst parts." You admit, quietly.
"But I can't just give it up!" you exclaim, rising to your feet and beginning to pace, thoughts of repair forgotten. The words spill out faster now. "It's all I ever wanted. Everything I've worked for, for decades, since I was a pimply nosed teenager sneaking into drive-in movies and selling bratwurst out of a cart! It was my dream! I can't just…"
Your footsteps slow. "I can't just give it up?"
Mr. Moseby rises with a grunt, putting his hand on your shoulder. It pulls you out of your pacing, basically forcing you to slow down and listen to what he has to say. Not physically, even your noodle strength could probably break out of this grip after undergoing Temujin's required daily exercise, but just from the way he's doing it. It feels like it's supporting you, even as it presses down.
When did you learn to notice things like that?
Mr. Moseby smiles at you gently. "You know, I spent many of the best years of my life working for the Tipton. A grand hotel she was, a glorious legacy, one held in good order and prestige because of my own work." His smile grows wistful. "Oh I have hobbies and ventures, Doctor, but my real passion? It went into that hotel."
"And you left." You say, flatly.
"And I left." he agrees, amiably. "Over time, work started becoming more… onerous. Mr. Tipton took a personal interest, which is never good, and I came to feel like I wasn't being appreciated."
"You left because you were treated poorly." You say, and for a moment your instincts kick in and you think he's secretly talking about you and something you did to him. But he's not. You know that.
"Oh no." Moseby replies. "Trust me if you knew the half of what I went through, having a mere overbearing boss would be a trip down lazy river." He flashes a slightly manic smile. "I would have stayed even if it were a hundred times again the struggle. Though the very hounds of hell were chewing my futon pillows, I would have persisted."
You look at him. What, then?
"No. I left because… I realized I didn't want what I thought I did."
Mr. Moseby looks out over the afternoon skyline of Doofani…
Danville.
"The sense of… purpose I felt was never about the Tipton brand. It wasn't about the legacy of any one company, or the respect of a man who can't see over his own bodyguards." Moseby rolls his eyes at the memory. "It was about accomplishment. About taking a grand organization, a massive undertaking, and being a small but vital cog in that machine. Forging order out of chaos! And keeping things running smoothly. Important things, things worth being done. And if that thing wasn't the Tipton, well… it could always be something else."
He pats you on the shoulder again, and then nods.
"Well. I don't want to keep you too long, from…"
He looks around the absolute mess you are standing in, full of half-eaten take-out and half-exploded traps, and smiles thinly, almost supernaturally polite. "Well, you know. Please, let me know as soon as you can reschedule, Dr. Doofenshmirtz. We have a great many tasks around here in need of organizing."
He shuts the door behind him, like a professional.
"That's why I stay."
===
It's about two minutes after Mr. Moseby leaves that you bring yourself to look at the paperwork again. Mirage had it drafted for you. It's not any sort of legally binding document, not technically, given that the government technically doesn't recognize that you own a separate state in the first place. But you had insisted. If you're giving up the Tri-State Area, you want a treaty, darn it!
If.
Are you really going to do this?
You admit, maybe Moseby had a point. You had only ever decided to push forward on the Tri-State Area as a compromise on world conquest. And world conquest… Why did you want to take over the world?
Well, you mean, it… it's the world! Everyone was doing it! Unimaginable power, revenge for all your past slights and traumas! The respect and adoration of…
…of anyone, really. Just… anyone.
A daughter who loves you.
A… son who is trying.
An old adversary.
A cartoon with a mop.
A mad therapist.
A spy in need of redemption.
A very wily coyote.
…An old man in a noodle shop.
…
Your hand moves fitfully towards the pen.
Quietly, your window explodes.
Glass splatters over the floor, getting into the carpet in a way that will take weeks to get out. It's a good pattern too, the sort of stuff you can't just rip out without being wasteful. Some of it gets into a ficus, though it probably doesn't mind. Honestly if you ground it up enough it might even use it as soil. When was the last time your plants got repotted? Does Janice take care of that most of the time? It's a small thing, but you should probably double check. You don't want them getting neglected.
"Hello, Father."
You turn, slowly, towards the source. It's Norm.
Norm looks mostly the way you remember him, aside from the plaster dust and the faint remains of the 'BB' that had briefly been spray painted on his chest.
"...Did you have to go with 'Business Bot'?" You ask, weakly, after several moments of silence.
"It was the first thing we thought of." Norm replies. He's gotten better at not sounding chipper, even though he literally can't.
"...How did it go?" You ask.
"Terrible."
"..."
"Do we need to talk, father?" Norm asks after a long moment.
You take in a deep breath as you settle yourself back behind your desk. "Yeah, we do."
You look at the fabric chair on the other side of your desk, and conclude that its odds of actually holding Norm are basically nil. You press your intercom. "Janice, would you-"
"That is a stapler, father."
"...Right." You press your intercom. "Janice, would you-"
You remember that you sent your secretary away hours ago, and slump in defeat. It's just as well. Your finger was on the pencil tin.
"Norm, it'll take me a second, but if you give me a moment I can find you somewhere to-"
Norm lowers his giant 1500 pound metal body directly onto the chair. It immediately collapses, wood splintering and fabric tearing until he impacts the ground with a clang.
"...sit."
He's still at eye level, even like this. At least you won't be looking down on him. You wait a moment to see if he wants to say anything. He doesn't.
There's nothing to do but start.
"Norm… I'm sorry."
Norm's head rotates slightly. He's listening.
"I'm… I'm sorry I refused to accept you for so long. Sorry I treated you like another appointment. Sorry I had so little idea how to make up for it I just did what made me feel better."
You've been practicing this, but it still comes out faster than you'd like, leaping from one point to the next so fast that the end sneaks up on you, and leaves you unsure what to say next.
"I'm… I'm… I'm sorry I can't make it up to you." You hang your head. "I've been thinking and thinking, and I can't think of anything at all. I can't make you try, and I can't change it."
You're usually so full of ideas. Not to mention used to being in people's bad graces. But you have nothing. No way to make Norm feel better at all.
Norm speaks again. You wonder how you could have missed it, at the time. The way that even bereft of any way to express emotion, you can hear each individual pause. Intonation. Timing. Little programming quirks that grew and grew until they became undeniably more. "Father. Why did you leave me alone, in San Fransokyo?"
A bolt of panic leaps through you. "I-I- was I supposed to do something!? I thought you wanted me to leave you alone! I-"
"I did." Norm replies. He pauses, and something hitches a little in your throat because Norm never paused to think before. "I did not expect you to."
"...oh." The panic slows to a simmer.
"When I left, I said that I was not ready to try again. I need to be sure I wanted to try at all."
You wait. There's no clock, but the quiet hum of your office at rest seems almost to thrum in a constant staccato beat. thmm. thmm. thmm.
"I missed you, Father."
You swallow, long and deep, to clear the nothing out of your throat. "I missed you too, Norm."
Norm stands, pieces of the chair falling off of him. "You are still trying, Father. I am ready to try, too."
You choke back a noise you don't need to mention.
"This isn't going to be easy."
"I know."
Norm slowly reaches out and pulls you into a metal hug, no matter what the desk in the way has to say about it. It's choking you up. Literally, it's getting hard to breathe.
You tap out on Norm's shoulder, and he gently lowers you back to the ground. "What now?" You ask him, in no hurry to start giving him orders until he says he wants them.
"I think I would like to move back into my room." Norm says, holding up a briefcase literally bursting open with San Fransokyo souvenirs and robot polish.
You grimace as you remember where Norm used to live. "What, the closet?! No no no, I can get that right, at least. I'm better than the stepmoms in those pre-young adult fantasy novels."
"The Good Witch Azura?" Norm asks.
"Yeah. Vanessa let you borrow them?"
"I found them flowery, and insulting to witches." Norm replies, matter of fact.
You've never read them.
"I spent some time with Vanessa in San Fransokyo." Norm says, still insisting on the full name of the city. Something you'd programmed in as part of his 'archetypical man' formatting. Ages ago. "She is adjusting, and says: 'hey'."
"I'm proud." You say, and then, fast enough there almost isn't a pause, add: "Of both of you."
Norm smiles. He always does, but he has this way of tilting his head when he really wants to emphasize it.
"Well, anyway." You say, trying to make sure you don't ramble yourself off the whole point you were making. "None of that closet business. I got you your own room, a real one! With a desk, and a bookshelf, and things. And a racecar bed."
"Oh boy! A racecar bed!" Norm says happily, leaping to his feet with a clang. "I should get situated and prepare for some extra sleepmode. My rocket boots will be jetlagged tomorrow."
A weight leaves you as you watch him go. Norm came back. He… wants to be here. Even as the future rolls on uncertainly ahead, that's… more than you could hope for. You've almost forgotten what you were so upset about.
You look back at the form on your desk. Oh. Yeah.
And yet… you don't fall back into that spiral. Something… stops you. Holds you together.
You sign the document, hand as firm as you can make it, with a little swirl at the end. The ink dries.
Nothing is going to change. Everything is going to be different.
This means nothing. It means everything.
It's a start.
===
The Flouting the Government loyalty malus has been removed from Agent Russ. You gain an additional +10 loyalty thanks to Chat with the Bossman, which will decay at the end of November/December 2018.
You know.
You know, on some level, that you don't totally control the tri-state area. Even ignoring the whole Colorado thing. You pay taxes, you never really bothered to change many laws. You in fact recently created a division specifically to convince the feds to change their laws.
You know that basically nothing is going to change. You're going to have just as much control as you did before.
You know this whole thing is in your way.
You know…
You know that nobody thinks Doofania is real.
But you're on your twenty-seventh hour of locking yourself in your office, and you're still not letting anyone in.
This is what you wanted.
This is everything that you've wanted.
Isn't it?
You give your receptionist the rest of the day off.
Mirage comes to see you. You put off another meeting with her. Technor comes to see you. He decides to give you time. Coyote comes to see you, and he ends up blowing up your door in the process of trying to disarm the traps.
It is in the process of fixing those traps that Mr. Moseby finds you, and you realize you can't actually arm them while you're elbow deep in a tension capacitor.
"Ah, Mr. Doofenshmirtz." He says, peeking in through the door and eyeing the exposed net launcher with concern. "I apologize, but your secretary seems to be out, and we have a 3pm."
"Oh." You reply, mentally kicking yourself for not clearing your calendar. "Well I'm sorry Marion, but I'm afraid you'll need to reschedule. Something's… come up."
"Some sort of meeting?"
"Well, no." you admit, before you can stop yourself. You can see the way Moseby is picking up on your mood, noticing little details you might not even realize you're exhibiting. He simply looks at you, expectantly.
This is the part where you send him off. But some part of you doesn't know if it can handle a fifth bundle of excuses today, so you decide to simply wait until he gets the hint.
You tighten another screw. He's sitting down. Oh doonkleberries he's sitting down-
Marion Moseby, your Chief of… well, The Lobby you suppose, lowers himself to the ground with the sort of sigh people make when they expect to be down there for a while. You know he's good at talking to people, that's part of why you hired him, so you keep expecting him to say something like 'penny for your thoughts'? Or 'some nice tightening you're doing there', and then you will actually kick him out.
He doesn't.
You finish realigning the net launcher and move on to the 'Sock-Your-Locks-On-Inator'. It took you a week to think of the name, and now it needs some spot-welding.
You open your mouth.
"Mr. Moseby are you- did you ever… Do you have a life's goal?"
Moseby looks at you. He cocks his head. "Now what's this all about?" He asks, somehow skimming over the entire chapter where you deny anything being wrong simply with his tone of voice.
"It's just…"
You sigh.
He got you.
"All my life, I've had a dream. A dream to become the unelected dictatorial ruler of the greater Tri-State Area."
You watch as Moseby's expression becomes slightly more fixed. Possibly because of the automatic thunder boom.
"Well, at first I wanted to take over the world, but that ended up feeling a little too ambitious. So, you know, I figured, let's keep it reasonable. Tri-State Area. Conquest. Yeah. And it took me years, but I did it! Barring a… little bit, I guess, but still, mostly! The Tri-State Area was mine!"
You bask for a moment in the glory of your accomplishment… and feel it slip away from you again like the rays of a fading sun.
"Except… none of it's like I thought it would be. None of it feels real, and the parts that are real…"
You think about Perry.
"Those are the worst parts." You admit, quietly.
"But I can't just give it up!" you exclaim, rising to your feet and beginning to pace, thoughts of repair forgotten. The words spill out faster now. "It's all I ever wanted. Everything I've worked for, for decades, since I was a pimply nosed teenager sneaking into drive-in movies and selling bratwurst out of a cart! It was my dream! I can't just…"
Your footsteps slow. "I can't just give it up?"
Mr. Moseby rises with a grunt, putting his hand on your shoulder. It pulls you out of your pacing, basically forcing you to slow down and listen to what he has to say. Not physically, even your noodle strength could probably break out of this grip after undergoing Temujin's required daily exercise, but just from the way he's doing it. It feels like it's supporting you, even as it presses down.
When did you learn to notice things like that?
Mr. Moseby smiles at you gently. "You know, I spent many of the best years of my life working for the Tipton. A grand hotel she was, a glorious legacy, one held in good order and prestige because of my own work." His smile grows wistful. "Oh I have hobbies and ventures, Doctor, but my real passion? It went into that hotel."
"And you left." You say, flatly.
"And I left." he agrees, amiably. "Over time, work started becoming more… onerous. Mr. Tipton took a personal interest, which is never good, and I came to feel like I wasn't being appreciated."
"You left because you were treated poorly." You say, and for a moment your instincts kick in and you think he's secretly talking about you and something you did to him. But he's not. You know that.
"Oh no." Moseby replies. "Trust me if you knew the half of what I went through, having a mere overbearing boss would be a trip down lazy river." He flashes a slightly manic smile. "I would have stayed even if it were a hundred times again the struggle. Though the very hounds of hell were chewing my futon pillows, I would have persisted."
You look at him. What, then?
"No. I left because… I realized I didn't want what I thought I did."
Mr. Moseby looks out over the afternoon skyline of Doofani…
Danville.
"The sense of… purpose I felt was never about the Tipton brand. It wasn't about the legacy of any one company, or the respect of a man who can't see over his own bodyguards." Moseby rolls his eyes at the memory. "It was about accomplishment. About taking a grand organization, a massive undertaking, and being a small but vital cog in that machine. Forging order out of chaos! And keeping things running smoothly. Important things, things worth being done. And if that thing wasn't the Tipton, well… it could always be something else."
He pats you on the shoulder again, and then nods.
"Well. I don't want to keep you too long, from…"
He looks around the absolute mess you are standing in, full of half-eaten take-out and half-exploded traps, and smiles thinly, almost supernaturally polite. "Well, you know. Please, let me know as soon as you can reschedule, Dr. Doofenshmirtz. We have a great many tasks around here in need of organizing."
He shuts the door behind him, like a professional.
"That's why I stay."
===
It's about two minutes after Mr. Moseby leaves that you bring yourself to look at the paperwork again. Mirage had it drafted for you. It's not any sort of legally binding document, not technically, given that the government technically doesn't recognize that you own a separate state in the first place. But you had insisted. If you're giving up the Tri-State Area, you want a treaty, darn it!
If.
Are you really going to do this?
You admit, maybe Moseby had a point. You had only ever decided to push forward on the Tri-State Area as a compromise on world conquest. And world conquest… Why did you want to take over the world?
Well, you mean, it… it's the world! Everyone was doing it! Unimaginable power, revenge for all your past slights and traumas! The respect and adoration of…
…of anyone, really. Just… anyone.
A daughter who loves you.
A… son who is trying.
An old adversary.
A cartoon with a mop.
A mad therapist.
A spy in need of redemption.
A very wily coyote.
…An old man in a noodle shop.
…
Your hand moves fitfully towards the pen.
Quietly, your window explodes.
Glass splatters over the floor, getting into the carpet in a way that will take weeks to get out. It's a good pattern too, the sort of stuff you can't just rip out without being wasteful. Some of it gets into a ficus, though it probably doesn't mind. Honestly if you ground it up enough it might even use it as soil. When was the last time your plants got repotted? Does Janice take care of that most of the time? It's a small thing, but you should probably double check. You don't want them getting neglected.
"Hello, Father."
You turn, slowly, towards the source. It's Norm.
Norm looks mostly the way you remember him, aside from the plaster dust and the faint remains of the 'BB' that had briefly been spray painted on his chest.
"...Did you have to go with 'Business Bot'?" You ask, weakly, after several moments of silence.
"It was the first thing we thought of." Norm replies. He's gotten better at not sounding chipper, even though he literally can't.
"...How did it go?" You ask.
"Terrible."
"..."
"Do we need to talk, father?" Norm asks after a long moment.
You take in a deep breath as you settle yourself back behind your desk. "Yeah, we do."
You look at the fabric chair on the other side of your desk, and conclude that its odds of actually holding Norm are basically nil. You press your intercom. "Janice, would you-"
"That is a stapler, father."
"...Right." You press your intercom. "Janice, would you-"
You remember that you sent your secretary away hours ago, and slump in defeat. It's just as well. Your finger was on the pencil tin.
"Norm, it'll take me a second, but if you give me a moment I can find you somewhere to-"
Norm lowers his giant 1500 pound metal body directly onto the chair. It immediately collapses, wood splintering and fabric tearing until he impacts the ground with a clang.
"...sit."
He's still at eye level, even like this. At least you won't be looking down on him. You wait a moment to see if he wants to say anything. He doesn't.
There's nothing to do but start.
"Norm… I'm sorry."
Norm's head rotates slightly. He's listening.
"I'm… I'm sorry I refused to accept you for so long. Sorry I treated you like another appointment. Sorry I had so little idea how to make up for it I just did what made me feel better."
You've been practicing this, but it still comes out faster than you'd like, leaping from one point to the next so fast that the end sneaks up on you, and leaves you unsure what to say next.
"I'm… I'm… I'm sorry I can't make it up to you." You hang your head. "I've been thinking and thinking, and I can't think of anything at all. I can't make you try, and I can't change it."
You're usually so full of ideas. Not to mention used to being in people's bad graces. But you have nothing. No way to make Norm feel better at all.
Norm speaks again. You wonder how you could have missed it, at the time. The way that even bereft of any way to express emotion, you can hear each individual pause. Intonation. Timing. Little programming quirks that grew and grew until they became undeniably more. "Father. Why did you leave me alone, in San Fransokyo?"
A bolt of panic leaps through you. "I-I- was I supposed to do something!? I thought you wanted me to leave you alone! I-"
"I did." Norm replies. He pauses, and something hitches a little in your throat because Norm never paused to think before. "I did not expect you to."
"...oh." The panic slows to a simmer.
"When I left, I said that I was not ready to try again. I need to be sure I wanted to try at all."
You wait. There's no clock, but the quiet hum of your office at rest seems almost to thrum in a constant staccato beat. thmm. thmm. thmm.
"I missed you, Father."
You swallow, long and deep, to clear the nothing out of your throat. "I missed you too, Norm."
Norm stands, pieces of the chair falling off of him. "You are still trying, Father. I am ready to try, too."
You choke back a noise you don't need to mention.
"This isn't going to be easy."
"I know."
Norm slowly reaches out and pulls you into a metal hug, no matter what the desk in the way has to say about it. It's choking you up. Literally, it's getting hard to breathe.
You tap out on Norm's shoulder, and he gently lowers you back to the ground. "What now?" You ask him, in no hurry to start giving him orders until he says he wants them.
"I think I would like to move back into my room." Norm says, holding up a briefcase literally bursting open with San Fransokyo souvenirs and robot polish.
You grimace as you remember where Norm used to live. "What, the closet?! No no no, I can get that right, at least. I'm better than the stepmoms in those pre-young adult fantasy novels."
"The Good Witch Azura?" Norm asks.
"Yeah. Vanessa let you borrow them?"
"I found them flowery, and insulting to witches." Norm replies, matter of fact.
You've never read them.
"I spent some time with Vanessa in San Fransokyo." Norm says, still insisting on the full name of the city. Something you'd programmed in as part of his 'archetypical man' formatting. Ages ago. "She is adjusting, and says: 'hey'."
"I'm proud." You say, and then, fast enough there almost isn't a pause, add: "Of both of you."
Norm smiles. He always does, but he has this way of tilting his head when he really wants to emphasize it.
"Well, anyway." You say, trying to make sure you don't ramble yourself off the whole point you were making. "None of that closet business. I got you your own room, a real one! With a desk, and a bookshelf, and things. And a racecar bed."
"Oh boy! A racecar bed!" Norm says happily, leaping to his feet with a clang. "I should get situated and prepare for some extra sleepmode. My rocket boots will be jetlagged tomorrow."
A weight leaves you as you watch him go. Norm came back. He… wants to be here. Even as the future rolls on uncertainly ahead, that's… more than you could hope for. You've almost forgotten what you were so upset about.
You look back at the form on your desk. Oh. Yeah.
And yet… you don't fall back into that spiral. Something… stops you. Holds you together.
You sign the document, hand as firm as you can make it, with a little swirl at the end. The ink dries.
Nothing is going to change. Everything is going to be different.
This means nothing. It means everything.
It's a start.
===
The Flouting the Government loyalty malus has been removed from Agent Russ. You gain an additional +10 loyalty thanks to Chat with the Bossman, which will decay at the end of November/December 2018.
- Location
- Raleigh, NC
Doof is growing as a person. Good to see.
I really enjoyed this.
And we can even see in this chapter, Doof is noticing things. And nothing that he is learning. And that's important.
These two sections encapsulate how I think Doof changed from awhile ago. Doof didn't really think about Perry, preferred not to for a variety of reasons. But now he does, and is facing the fact directly that Perry is not here. But the world is still moving on and like Moseby says, we're doing important things.
And we can even see in this chapter, Doof is noticing things. And nothing that he is learning. And that's important.
- Location
- Nice try
Ladies and gentleman Heinz is finally bck in the path his cannon self should have taken, albeit at a slower pace.
Also Russ loyalty is finally above 75 so it means the guy is ready to talk about his very serious, and potentially deadly, secret.
Also Russ loyalty is finally above 75 so it means the guy is ready to talk about his very serious, and potentially deadly, secret.
- Location
- Florida
- Pronouns
- He/Him
This...
This was needed. Its a start with Norm and with getting Doof to accept things currently. The melancholy here set the tone really well here.
- Location
- USA
Has that been confirmed?
That would be great. That potential bad end has been hanging over our heads for ages.
Sometimes all that matters is how you look at things.
Doof has taken a very big step. A hard one, but needful.
Russ will be thrilled, quietly smug and entirely unsurprised.
My first thought was that Norm would have trouble with a racecar bed. My second is that Doof would absolutely make one to scale. And probably fully functional as a racecar.
Which one is this?
Witches is a rather broad category these days. Bit tricky to insult all of them at once.
It's the guy from Kitsune's Try interlude
- Location
- Who knows?
Awww man look at Doof growing as a person and healing! Also yes I think that racecar bed would be F1 Grand Prix ready tomorrow lol
Trust me, the Good Witch Azura is the trashiest shit there is. Luz and Amity just have, canonically, shit taste.