HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
Good enough for me!
Dragon Ball: After the End
- Location
- Rockford, USA
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Inserted tally.
Alright, vote closed!
Alright, vote closed!
- Location
- Rockford, USA
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Every time, without fail. But not this time. This time, there shall be progress!Actually making progress on multiform? That can't be right.
Quick, Poptart, have an emergency occur so we need to shift multiform AP to dealing with the emergency!
Sucal
The Devil’s Cut
- Location
- Bottom of the barrel
Every time, without fail. But not this time. This time, there shall be progress!
"And then suddenly, a space-chariot filled with invading refugees pulled by two dragons landed on the planet, mentioning something about Dandeers upcoming wedding to the Enemy'
- Location
- Peterborough, NH, USA
"Immediately afterward, Darkseid, Thanos, and Unicron come flying out of a portal the size of a solar system, in the middle of a conflict that threatens to annihilate the universe. Apparently, Thanos figured out a method to make the Infinity Gauntlet work everywhere, so the forces of good goaded the three into a fight, and then dumped them in a mostly lifeless universe. Kakara must thread the needle of convincing Thanos to team up with Unicron to prevent Darkseid from enslaving the universe with the Anti-Life Equation, while leaving the pair weakened enough that Thanos is force into retreat, and Unicron is forced into hibernation, instead of killing half the universe and eating his way through it, respectively.
Requires 3 Critical Successes at minimum to avoid collateral of most of the galaxy. 2 to avoid losing the galaxy entirely. 1 should be enough to keep the cluster relatively intact. A majority of successes will keep everything outside a billion light-year radius safe. A majority of failures will result in game over from a terminal case of destroyed universe. Crit fails risk destroying the entire Dragonball multiverse."
Requires 3 Critical Successes at minimum to avoid collateral of most of the galaxy. 2 to avoid losing the galaxy entirely. 1 should be enough to keep the cluster relatively intact. A majority of successes will keep everything outside a billion light-year radius safe. A majority of failures will result in game over from a terminal case of destroyed universe. Crit fails risk destroying the entire Dragonball multiverse."
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- Location
- Rockford, USA
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Alright, nearly done! The post'll be up tomorrow, folks!
Cariyaga
Handsome Gentleperson
- Location
- United States
Looking forward to it!
- Location
- Rockford, USA
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Damn it. Somebody's called off of work. I'm taking the night shift. No update tonight.
- Location
- Rockford, USA
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Okay. Ugh. The chaos has subsided. I have time to work on this tomorrow. The update will finally come tomorrow in the morning or early afternoon.
*collapses into bed*
EDIT:
*lunges up*
And I swear to fuck, if one more person calls off and I get asked to sub in, the company's just gonna have to deal!
*collapses again*
*collapses into bed*
EDIT:
*lunges up*
And I swear to fuck, if one more person calls off and I get asked to sub in, the company's just gonna have to deal!
*collapses again*
- Location
- Somewhere I shouldn't be
I'll call in for you, Poptart, and explain to them that you are a busy person.
"Yes, I'm calling to inform you that PoptartProdigy cannot come in for anyone, they have important internet business to do."
"PoptartProdigy"
"No, I don't know their 'real' name."
"No, their gender is intentionally ambiguous."
"Look, just stop calling them in."
"WE ARE FINALLY RESEARCHING PERFECT MULTIFORM AND YOU AREN'T GOING TO TAKE THIS AWAY FROM ME."
Uh...Sorry Poptart. I ran through several simulations, and it turns out I shouldn't talk to your work. Or anyone's, including mine.
Self-Improvement
- Location
- Rockford, USA
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] Plan Bassoon Has Apps Except We Don't Look Home
-[X] Continue Your Training
-[X] Future Options
-[X] Style Training: Tenshinhan Style
-[X] Research Project: Perfect Multiform
-[X] Improve a skill: Combat Precognition
-[X] Strengthen Host Bond
-[X] Talk to Dazarel
-[X] Historical Insights
-[X] Further Experiments
-[X] Continue Your Training
-[X] Future Options
-[X] Style Training: Tenshinhan Style
-[X] Research Project: Perfect Multiform
-[X] Improve a skill: Combat Precognition
-[X] Strengthen Host Bond
-[X] Talk to Dazarel
-[X] Historical Insights
-[X] Further Experiments
Self-Improvement
You take a deep breath, seated in the beauty of Bassoon's mindscape. You close your eyes, Dazarel settling in around your shoulders. "All right, Bassoon, I'm ready."
'And you're sure about this?' asks your host, sounding skeptical. 'You're in my head, but this is still your mind we're talking about. I haven't peeked yet.'
You shrug. "It's just mind-reading. Sketch if you're spying on me, but you're not. I gave permission. And hey, I'm actually pretty good at mental defenses. Maybe I'll keep you out on my own!"
'You will not,' drawls Dazarel. 'Namekian, if the ad hoc shields she improvised in the middle of my fight with her somehow withstand you, then as her teacher I give you full leeway to shatter them by whatever means are necessary. Otherwise, the test is pointless.'
'Your permission is both irrelevant and unasked for,' growls Bassoon. 'Kakara?'
"Do what the lizard says, this time," you sigh. "I'll deal, I do better with a challenge."
'All right, then,' replies Bassoon. 'Coming in.' A moment later, he fades into visibility in front of you. "Right. Let's get this going, then. Ready?"
You close your eyes and focus again on forming a shield of lightning around your thoughts, just like in your fight with Dazarel. You open your eyes and nod.
Bassoon reaches towards your head. "Good. Here I go- ow!" He immediately recoils, shaking out his hand. "That's ad hoc? That stings!"
'I told you I did not lose to anybody unexceptional,' sneers Dazarel. 'She cheated, but she put up a legitimately strong effort prior to that. Push through the pain, slug.'
Bassoon rolls his eyes. "Charming. Well, Kakara, the first thing I'll say is that those shields will definitely do their job. I wouldn't bother pushing through that in the middle of a fight. I definitely could, though." He raises his arm again. "Ready for me to try?"
You nod. "Go ahead."
Bassoon hisses in pain again, and then-
the lightning spasms even more than it normally does -- there's a pattern, you put it there, and now the pattern is gone -- and there's a hand reaching through it's bigger than you and it's coming on completely ignoring the lightning sparks still tracing down its fingers which are twitching and you never thought it'd be reasonable to say a hand looked angry before but it does and now it is there in your head, seizing open the pages of the book of your thoughts that the lightning was meant to shield and leafing carelessly through and now it can see you freaking out about it seeing you freaking out about it-
'And now, we experiment,' says Dazarel, completely at ease. 'Do you remember the trick to telepathy?'
You are panicking slightly, here, but you have enough presence of mind to respond with, 'Yes.'
'Excellent,' he says, curling into your shoulders and giving every appearance of his interest in the situation having evaporated. 'Do that, then.' He closes his eyes.
The panic intensifies a bit. Bassoon's not being rough or anything, nothing about this hurts, but you know from doing it that mindreading requires a certain mindset. It makes sense that it would generalize at least a little to other forms of it, and now that you're on the receiving end it's not something you're very comfortable to have driving that fuck-off massive hand rifling through the book containing your thoughts.
'I am sorry,' says Bassoon, his voice booming in your head as the hand stops. 'Again, this is all under your control. I'll leave if that's what you need.'
You shudder and try to focus on the fact that he's at least paused. "It's fine," you say. It feels better to speak aloud. "Keep going."
He lets out an audibly reluctant sigh. 'Five more minutes, then we're done.' The hand begins moving again.
You take hold of your panic with a shaky breath. Well, okay, that's a lie, but you have a better hold on it and it isn't spiraling. You'll take what you can get.
Okay, willpower. This is my mind, not yours?
The hand keeps on leafing, unimpeded.
Your eye twitches. I am in charge here. Get out.
It doesn't even twitch. You feel a twinge of frustration. You understand that this is an advanced skill, but you should be able to do something within the limits of your own mind-
You blink and promptly stop trying to think too hard about that. Don't look at it, it has no moving parts. It just is, don't question it. This is my mind. I can act in the limits of my own mind. It is mine, not yours. You're not even supposed to be here. That is how these things work.
The hand quivers on the book for a moment. In the world of the mindscape, Bassoon frowns in consternation. You reach up and close your fingers around his wrist. His eyes open and he gives you a quizzical look.
You give him a bright smile. "Time to go, now!"
The hand rockets back from the book as though shoved and slams straight into the lightning barrier. Bassoon spasms in your grip; you keep pushing. In a heartbeat, he's out and away.
Dazarel lifts his head. 'Well, then. We can stop testing.' He rises to his feet and glides down onto the grass between you and Bassoon before turning to face you. 'Congratulations, Princess; you're unique. You have a gift for internal mental powers.' He bares his teeth. 'I feel a little better now about not being able to read your thoughts during our fight.'
Bassoon steps back, grumbling. "I won't say that I couldn't have gotten back in, but that was impressive," he says. "That's what it feels like to interact with psychic abilities?"
'Yes,' replies Dazarel, looking over his shoulder. 'Challenging, aren't they?'
"It feels familiar, honestly," says Bassoon, frowning. "I think I might have interacted with a psychic before."
'I doubt that,' sighs Dazarel, looking away. 'You are still alive, after all.' He looks up at you. 'I do believe you have quite a bit of potential, Princess.' He bares his teeth. 'Perhaps this is not, in fact, a waste of my time.'
You have a gift for internal mental powers, presently in the form of psychic shielding that augments your ki-based mental defenses.
* * *
You settle into your preferred style's rest stance and breathe, focusing on getting your ki and body in balance. You smile; you are quite justly proud of your ki control. Once you've done the initial check to get in balance, you begin to move through your forms.
Bassoon, lazily reclined on a nearby beach with a book, glances up at you. "You hadn't really struck me as a dedicated fighter."
"I'm not!" you reply, continuing your practice. "All of my people do this."
"What, all of them?" he asks, setting down the book.
"Yeah! It's like sports!" You fire up your aura and start in on the aerial stances. "Hey, how do you have a book in here?"
"I keep my memories there," he replies.
"Oh," you say, nodding. "Got it. Jaffur uses rocks."
Bassoon frowns. "Jaffur?"
You miss a step. "Um. He's...he's my friend," you say after a long moment of trying to think of a more exact word. "He's still back home," you continue, hoping that it gives Bassoon something different to focus on.
It must work, because he doesn't call you on the stumble. "I'm sorry to hear that," he says. "How do you know what's in his mindscape, though? Is he a mage as well?"
"We call them sorcerers," you say. "Although, I guess it's more a job thing than a description of what they are? But yeah, he is." You shrug. "I wound up in his head when I first learned how to project," you say. "His is boring. Blank white expanse, and white rocks that hold memories."
"That's a common setup at first," replies Bassoon. "You learn to customize after a while. I'd go crazy if I had to look at that whenever I came down here."
You consider, for a moment, Jaffur's eternal isolation in that white expanse, bereft of all but the most cursory and functional of instruction. You consider Jaron, remembering each night how he forgot the previous morning all of the truth of the tragedy in his life and then having to spend all of his truly aware hours in that space.
You then consider how they each act.
"Yeah, I'd buy that," you murmur, shaking your head.
Bassoon hums in agreement, studying your movements. "What form is this?"
"Tenshinhan Style," you say, running through a series of afterimage drills.
"That's the form that the Z Fighter Tenshinhan used?" says Bassoon, sitting up in sudden interest.
"Well, no," you say. "Crane Style has kind of fallen out of favor. It's not that we can't pastwatch it, we can, but it'd have a lot of opportunity cost since that takes so much time. Honestly, it's better if we do something inspired by it instead of just copying it, anyway. Tenshinhan was a great fighter, but Crane Style was designed before the secrets of ki really came out as they did in later years. It was built for somebody without all of our advantages. Tenshinhan Style is in honor of him, though." Your hands frame your sternum, and you whirl to face the ocean. "KIKOHO!"
BANG
A square-shaped indent digs itself into the water before the whole thing flows back in, casting foam everywhere. "Like that," you say, returning to your drills. "Same techniques, similar philosophy, but we strip out a lot of the stuff that was made for humans who couldn't sense everybody on the planet and weren't as comfortable in the air as we are."
"I guess that makes sense," says Bassoon, his eyes devouring everything. "How do you decide what doesn't apply anymore, though?"
You recognize the look in his eyes and chuckle; it reminds you of yourself when you've got an interesting topic to latch onto. You finish this form and turn to him to start explaining the theory underlying the practice.
You have made progress towards the next level of Tenshinhan Style (1 progress gained, 3/10 progress). You have begun talking with Bassoon during spare time and are getting a better handle on his personality.
* * *
Perfect Multiform has been a frustrating puzzle to you for too long.
For years, every time you've tried to make forward progress, life has smacked you to a dead halt. Always, something else has come up. Always, people have interrupted you. Now, however, you have a truly uninterruptible block of time. If there is one -- and only one -- thing for which you will thank Dandeer, it is that forcing you to this gave you the chance to finally knock this long-term project off of your list.
It is a pleasure to begin.
Multiform is a frustrating technique. The reason it cuts power is well-known; the various clones all draw from a single reserve of power, so there's always a limit on how much can go around. Many Exile theorists have tried to get around this limit; all have found failure instead. That said, many Exile theorists had concluded that the Genki Dama was lost unless somebody went to go find its original teacher. While you did have to go to Heaven for your answers, you did recreate it, and you know that Cell had no such resources when he invented this technique. You can do this, too.
By now, you are used to the feeling of your ki pool splitting in half or in threes. For some reason, you can't split in this mindscape, but you can remember that feeling and work on ways to get around it. There are, after all, ways to boost one's supply of ki, if only temporarily, and you know that it's possible to keep the multiform technique running without a split like this. The only question is how to achieve that.
You have finally begun research into Perfect Multiform. Vote at the bottom for where to focus your efforts.
* * *
You have begun engaging with the theory of multiform, in preparation for the day that this odd restriction on your ability to split ends, or you get a new body. Either or. Where shall you focus your efforts?
[ ] Try to eliminate the splitting at the source: Multiform is the theoretical exercise of ki to split your physical form into separate copies, and it isn't like ki is incapable of acting on itself. Work to see if you can use your ki to create a perfectly identical copy with its own ki reserve. That seems like the kind of uncompromising approach Cell would've taken. This seems like it would be more expensive on ki to create, though.
[ ] Work on the clones themselves: Willpower pushes tell you that it's hardly impossible to boost somebody's ki reserves beyond their theoretical maximum, and there are dozens of specific techniques that make use of ki concentration or similar techniques to boost effective power. See if you can't trick your clones into working harder with what they have. That said, that sort of thing tends to impose an ongoing strain that shortens technique lifespan.
[ ] Write-in: Maybe there's something you're not seeing yet. (Write in a different approach to the problem. As a reminder: the moving part in question is that multiform intrinsically involves splitting off new physical forms from an existing ki source. Is there some other way you can think of to game that system?)
APPROVAL VOTING; MANUAL MORATORIUM.
All right, here we go! It's finally happening. Hope you enjoyed the update, folks! We'll be continuing on with the rest of your selected actions in future updates. For now, have a vote!
I've also put the actions checklist in the To-Do List on the Character Sheet with completed, in-progress, and incomplete markers attached, to help myself keep track. Have fun, everybody!
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Likewise.
Firstly, we may want our Perfect Multiforms to be able to use other ki-boost techniques like Tabe's Overdrive and Jaffur's Refinement. It's likely that multiple techniques won't stack well. Clones with their own separate ki reserves sound like they'd be better equipped to stack techniques.
On the other hand, the second option might result in us inventing our own power level boost technique, and it might even still work when we're not using Multiform. That'd be nice.
Firstly, we may want our Perfect Multiforms to be able to use other ki-boost techniques like Tabe's Overdrive and Jaffur's Refinement. It's likely that multiple techniques won't stack well. Clones with their own separate ki reserves sound like they'd be better equipped to stack techniques.
On the other hand, the second option might result in us inventing our own power level boost technique, and it might even still work when we're not using Multiform. That'd be nice.
- Location
- United Kingdom
@PoptartProdigy is it true that as we currently stand, if we produce clones we all share the same power level? As in, we can't produce a clone and make it weaker or stronger? If so, I'd like to try this:
[ ] Write-in: Attempt to form clones of varying levels of strength without changing the total number create.
[ ] Write-in: Attempt to form clones of varying levels of strength without changing the total number create.
- Location
- Rockford, USA
- Pronouns
- They/Them
You cannot do that at present, no.
- Location
- Poland
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Got to say, that feels like an amazing compliment.
If someone told me that, I would be simultaneously glowing from pride, and embarrassed from that person noticing said feelings.
- Location
- Actually pretty lost
THE PERFECT MULTIFORM HYPE TRAIN HAS BARRELLED INTO THE STATION!
Of the two given options, I'd probably prefer one - but a good write-in might be preferable. Perhaps something about using the ki of the surroundings, building on the Genki Dama?
Alternatively, we do actually have a second ki source inside of us, that we use for the Oozaru form. We could try and use that to supplement our ki expenditure? Practice using both pools of ki at once might help us do more along those lines later. @PoptartProdigy is this a viable avenue of research?
Of the two given options, I'd probably prefer one - but a good write-in might be preferable. Perhaps something about using the ki of the surroundings, building on the Genki Dama?
Alternatively, we do actually have a second ki source inside of us, that we use for the Oozaru form. We could try and use that to supplement our ki expenditure? Practice using both pools of ki at once might help us do more along those lines later. @PoptartProdigy is this a viable avenue of research?
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
The problem is that both power pools put together only sum to 1.875 billion units, so just tapping into both of them doesn't give us a lot of extra power for the clones. Split three ways, each clone has a power level of 625 million, which is good but not stunning. It's not... perfect.
- Location
- Actually pretty lost
Ah, you're right. I knew it wasn't enough to cover them, but I didn't do the maths at all.The problem is that both power pools put together only sum to 1.875 billion units, so just tapping into both of them doesn't give us a lot of extra power for the clones. Split three ways, each clone has a power level of 625 million, which is good but not stunning. It's not... perfect.
But speaking of Maths, Kakara's supposed to be amazing at maths, right? It's how she uses so Instant Transmission so well. Well, how about she tries to use the Banach-Tarski Paradox? Basically you take a sphere (or any object, I believe), break it down into a finite number of points and reconstitute them into 2 spheres the exact same size and mass as the first, without losing any volume. @PoptartProdigy forget my first idea, is this a valid avenue of research?
HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
That was my thought, too. Something like Uzumaki Naruto's Sage Mode, perhaps - split off a clone, have it charge up, then get it to materialize or IT in when it's needed.
