I have said nothing about thinking her as a bad person! I have said that I am leery, which means to be cautious and/or suspicious. And it's not because she could turn into a bad person, but because ambitious characters are common in SV quests, and tend to follow similar patterns. I just prefer seeing other character archetypes. Even then, Kakara is a great character and I have thoroughly enjoyed this entire quest.
I have said nothing about thinking her as a bad person! I have said that I am leery, which means to be cautious and/or suspicious. And it's not because she could turn into a bad person, but because ambitious characters are common in SV quests, and tend to follow similar patterns. I just prefer seeing other character archetypes. Even then, Kakara is a great character and I have thoroughly enjoyed this entire quest.
I will try not to do so again. It is just that there is always some that imply that when the subject comes up, so that has become the first thing that jumps to mind when someone brings it up and I grew tired of that argument really, really fast. It is not really a good excuse though...
I will try not to do so again. It is just that there is always some that imply that when the subject comes up, so that has become the first thing that jumps to mind when someone brings it up and I grew tired of that argument really, really fast. It is not really a good excuse though...
That would be reasonable, if I had ever argued the point. I stated my opinion and asked a question, Andres misconstrued what I said, I elaborated, you misconstrued what I said, and I elaborated further.
At no point have I made the argument that I think Kakara is stupid, or bad, or that we should make a concerted effort to get rid of the trait. All I have done is state my opinion and asked a question.
I have said nothing about thinking her as a bad person! I have said that I am leery, which means to be cautious and/or suspicious. And it's not because she could turn into a bad person, but because ambitious characters are common in SV quests, and tend to follow similar patterns. I just prefer seeing other character archetypes. Even then, Kakara is a great character and I have thoroughly enjoyed this entire quest.
I'm sorry you feel that way, and I hope the quest still turns out enjoyable for you!
I think this is hard to avoid as long as a quest presents goals that require significant effort, and that can be achieved in part by "ambitious" behavior.
The effort part is going to be true of most quests that aren't deliberately low-stakes (especially ones with large worlds to improve/protect, and powerful enemies to oppose). The ambitious part is also hard to avoid, esp. without deliberately eschewing realism in some way--eg having the quest run on tropes so that the humble hero ends up being given lots of power or whatever.
I could see it working if there's acreening like that between the players' ambition and the character's...character, though. Could also work in quests that are more about cleverness or creative expression or something rather than more power-related goals. But most goals are naturally power related, insofar as they're concerned with consequences--protect people, impose ethical system, acquire wealth/knowledge, remove bad guys.
[X] Plan Understanding, Compassion, and Support
-[X] Hug your brother damnit
-[X] Respond to his concerns supportively
--[X] Admit that it isn't fair, and that we hadn't seen the issue before, but that we aren't sure how to fix it - though we're open to suggestions.
---[X] Be sympathetic, apologetic for not seeing it, and supportive.
Understanding, Compassion, and OHGODLASERS
You stare at Mato for a moment, deeply unsure of yourself.
And then you decide just to take your clones' advice. They're distant, they can think.
You step forward and wrap your arms around your little brother.
Mato struggles, at first. The instant your arms touch his shoulders he flinches, and he starts thrashing around as your weight comes down on them. But you hold on, and soon enough his anger burns out. He sags, sobbing all the harder.
"I'm sorry," you whisper, shifting to get comfortable. "I'm sorry, Mato."
He simply keeps crying.
"You're right," you say, struggling for works. "It isn't fair. I'm sorry I didn't see it. I don't know why I didn't. And it's not fair. You're my brother. I shouldn't get everything you want."
He starts to subside, sniffling.
"I just don't know what to do," you admit. "I'm not Mom. I'm not Dad. I don't know if I can fix this."
"Don't want you to fix it," mutters Mato.
You wince. He probably doesn't want to hear about how you want to swoop in and make everything better. "No, you're right. Sorry. I just...I got used to having to do everything," you say. "I don't like leaving things. Especially not when they're sort of my fault."
He sits up. "Sort of?!"
You frown at him. "Sort of. I'm not Mom and Dad. I'm sorry I didn't see it. It's not anything I did, though."
He scowls, but subsides, crossing his arms and looking away.
"I want to help," you say. "I mean...I know it's part of the problem, but they listen to me. We can do something with that, right?"
Mato snorts. "Yeah, maybe. Dunno what, though."
You sigh. "Yeah."
Silence stretches, and Mato leans back. Finally he sighs, almost appearing to shrink. "I just want to be special like you are," he mutters, looking miserable.
You look down at him. You consider.
You resign yourself to an annoying afternoon, and heave a silent sigh. You paste on a smile and look down at him.
"Wanna spar?"
* * *
SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-
BANG
You and Mato clash together in the wake of the blast, your brother taking the offensive as you recover from blocking his beam.
Not that you know it, but you look even more like Ancestor Lazuli than usual when you fight. It's all in the eyes. You normally have a naturally cheery expression, but that all burns away when you focus for a fight.
At this point, that focus is turned towards Mato's form.
Sloppy, you think, leaning backwards to avoid a punch that probably wouldn't have hurt even if it had connected. He pulled it. "You aren't going to hurt me, Mato," you say, snapping out a lazy kick that he easily blocks.
He grunts and comes back after you, properly this time.
Mato is an aggressive fighter. It couldn't be more obvious that he's trying to copy your Dad. He's always pushing to get up close and take you down in hand-to-hand.
vip
That said, while you haven't yet made a serious study in any particular school of fighting, you're much better than this, and know a lot more techniques than he does. You're doing much better at keeping the range open.
You draw your hands back, having transmitted away. "Kamehame...ha!"
A quick fire, but it makes him dodge. He actually recovers well, firing his own Kamehameha back at you in the middle of his evasive flip. As he starts closing to attack again, he starts talking. "So, Kakara, you fought Scion Jaffur, right?"
Any hint of a smile drops off of your face. "Twice. Why?"
Mato tries to sweep your legs but fails. "Was he as strong as they say he was?"
"Wasn't that he was strong," you reply, forcing him back with a wordless pulse of power. "I mean, he was, but that wasn't it. He was good. Better than I am. Probably as good as Dad. But he was tricky, too. Did something with his aura that made him hit harder than his power level."
He gives you a weird look, somersaults back, and cups his hands. "Ka...me...ha...me...HA!"
You let the blast wash over you. "Well yeah, I know that we do that too, but we have to concentrate and it's hard. It leaves us open. His was all the time. Punches, kicks, blasts, and his body. It was crazy."
"It sounds cool!" says Mato, rushing you.
You shrug. "I guess."
"Did you ever figure out how he did it?" he asks. His interest is transparent.
How do you answer your brother?
[ ] Lie and say you didn't figure out anything. You're still not sure what the deal with Jaffur's style is. You'd rather experiment some more...or better yet, ask the boy himself later this year, assuming you get through to him.
[ ] Reveal what little you've figured out (reference Jaffur's character sheet for details). Mato seems interested. Who knows? Maybe he could help you finish figuring out what this form is all about. It might be a way to help him feel special like he wants.
[ ] Write-in.
THIS VOTE IS NOT YET CLOSED.
Take note: MIGHT. It would be decided down the line depending on how it goes and how you handle it. That is all.
For those who don't follow the conversation: a friend of mine had RL troubles and turned their RP over to me for the duration, resulting in this delay. However, they've just come back and are back to GMing, allowing me to get this update out. I hope you all enjoy!
In case you don't want to trek back to the character sheets, what you know of Jaffur's style is, broadly, that it involves compressing your ki in a new and weird way. This results in a de facto significantly higher power level than he appears to express, even to your senses. You can presently replicate the aesthetics, but not the effects. As such, while there must be drawbacks you have no idea what they are. You have a variety of theories on how to improve your understanding of the effect, but haven't had time to put them into practice.
Enjoy, everybody!
Kakara is faced with an intriguing choice: the opportunity to bring her brother into her abandoned studies into Jaffur's mysterious style. Will this be the way for the Goku siblings to repair their relationship? Will shared work result in closer relations? Or will Kakara chose to hide her limited successes, and try to find another path to healing the rift between her and Mato? Find out next time, on Dragon Ball AE!
NO VOTES UNTIL THE UPDATE HAS BEEN UP FOR TWO HOURS
So the only two real drawbacks to telling him I can think of are:
1) Jaffur might be mad we spilt the beans on his super special style. If Mato gets to feel special this might be worth it, and if that falls through it's almost certainly not.
2) If we ever end up learning or using this style, it won't be Mato's special thing anymore.
Any others people can see? I'm leaning towards telling him.
My first instinct is to share it with him. If we handle it right, we can spend time with him and figure out Jaffur's thing. Ki control is our thing and it would be a good reference for whatever we end up doing with Kakara style.
Disadvantages that come to mind are: How Jaffur would react to it, and us leaving our bro in the dust, which would cause the same problem if we frame it as his thing.
Jaffur is a long term thing, and he might just take it as a challenge. With Mato, we might be able to frame it as our thing and maybe focus the blame for the favouritism thing on mom/dad.
I think the disadvantages can be handled, and want to science the shit out of Jaffur's Style. Plus, once our relationship with Mato improves this can be a good stress relief since it would twig both our social nature and our fondness for ki techniques.
"Wasn't that he was strong," you reply, forcing him black with a wordless pulse of power. "I mean, he was, but that wasn't it. He was good. Better than I am. Probably as good as Dad. But he was tricky, too. Did something with his aura that made him hit harder than his power level."
I some time ago came across a QM who said they'd found a thread talking about "author brands." Now, I'm a professional author and I'm familiar with the idea of having a brand -- insofar as I possess a public-facing persona and mode of behavior in addition to a style of writing which all come together to form my public identity -- but obviously and by design that brand doesn't apply here on SV. Now, as a professional my brand is constructed; as a part of my career, it's something I invested quite some effort into in order to best reflect the kind of author I want to be. It's something I reinforce through blogging, social media, and my writing. Professional authors who know their craft do this as a general rule, in fact, with rare exceptions. Whenever I act as [IDENTITY REDACTED] the writer, I am mindful of what impression I want to project given that I don't want to jeopardize my ability to profitably write, which is something I frankly love doing for a living.
But here on SV, that isn't the case. I've only just recently realized this, but here I've run into an odd intersection where I'm acting as a writer, but non-professionally in a setting where I'm nonetheless producing creative work. Internet modes of behavior apply, not my professional norm. In short, I've created an entirely new brand and haven't been tracking it. Now, as this isn't a professional context I'm not interested in developing a brand. I'm not selling you all anything, I'm just having fun online. But I admit that I'm curious, and even if I self-examine I may find different things than you've all picked up on.
So...what do you all see as my "brand" here on SV? Does this brand apply differently as an author vs. as a QM? Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
It's all very well and good to dump something we don't need onto our brother to help him deal with his issues but giving him something with unknown drawbacks and consequences seems like a recipe for disaster. Not to mention the impact it would have if he let it slip and Jaffur's mother found out.
Why not just tell him our misgivings and let it all play out from there?
-We found out a bit, but haven't quite figured out the nuances of it. Plus we suspect there are downsides.
-We'd be willing to teach him, especially given the recent conversation we had, but there are two major issues:
--We intend to learn the style too, so that might make him feel as if we're trying to overshadow him again.
--Jaffur may or may not have an issue with this, depending, and we can't be sure that he won't try something.
Tell him this, then tell him to think over whether or not he still is interested or not. If he is, we'll train him without complaint and deal with the aftermath that comes. If he isn't, then we can find something that's just for us.
Call it [] Communication is Key
Because I'm tired of the simplest answer being ignored.
I some time ago came across a QM who said they'd found a thread talking about "author brands." Now, I'm a professional author and I'm familiar with the idea of having a brand -- insofar as I possess a public-facing persona and mode of behavior in addition to a style of writing which all come together to form my public identity -- but obviously and by design that brand doesn't apply here on SV. Now, as a professional my brand is constructed; as a part of my career, it's something I invested quite some effort into in order to best reflect the kind of author I want to be. It's something I reinforce through blogging, social media, and my writing. Professional authors who know their craft do this as a general rule, in fact, with rare exceptions. Whenever I act as [IDENTITY REDACTED] the writer, I am mindful of what impression I want to project given that I don't want to jeopardize my ability to profitably write, which is something I frankly love doing for a living.
But here on SV, that isn't the case. I've only just recently realized this, but here I've run into an odd intersection where I'm acting as a writer, but non-professionally in a setting where I'm nonetheless producing creative work. Internet modes of behavior apply, not my professional norm. In short, I've created an entirely new brand and haven't been tracking it. Now, as this isn't a professional context I'm not interested in developing a brand. I'm not selling you all anything, I'm just having fun online. But I admit that I'm curious, and even if I self-examine I may find different things than you've all picked up on.
So...what do you all see as my "brand" here on SV? Does this brand apply differently as an author vs. as a QM? Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I some time ago came across a QM who said they'd found a thread talking about "author brands." Now, I'm a professional author and I'm familiar with the idea of having a brand -- insofar as I possess a public-facing persona and mode of behavior in addition to a style of writing which all come together to form my public identity -- but obviously and by design that brand doesn't apply here on SV. Now, as a professional my brand is constructed; as a part of my career, it's something I invested quite some effort into in order to best reflect the kind of author I want to be. It's something I reinforce through blogging, social media, and my writing. Professional authors who know their craft do this as a general rule, in fact, with rare exceptions. Whenever I act as [IDENTITY REDACTED] the writer, I am mindful of what impression I want to project given that I don't want to jeopardize my ability to profitably write, which is something I frankly love doing for a living.
But here on SV, that isn't the case. I've only just recently realized this, but here I've run into an odd intersection where I'm acting as a writer, but non-professionally in a setting where I'm nonetheless producing creative work. Internet modes of behavior apply, not my professional norm. In short, I've created an entirely new brand and haven't been tracking it. Now, as this isn't a professional context I'm not interested in developing a brand. I'm not selling you all anything, I'm just having fun online. But I admit that I'm curious, and even if I self-examine I may find different things than you've all picked up on.
So...what do you all see as my "brand" here on SV? Does this brand apply differently as an author vs. as a QM? Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I haven't quite got around to reading your other quest, but you come across as very competent, with a well-thought-out world and an interesting and novel quest system (though obviously, we can't see man behind the curtain!)
Does that help? I've never given serious thought to branding in this context, so it's not the most professional view.
Why not just tell him our misgivings and let it all play out from there?
-We found out a bit, but haven't quite figured out the nuances of it. Plus we suspect there are downsides.
-We'd be willing to teach him, especially given the recent conversation we had, but there are two major issues:
--We intend to learn the style too, so that might make him feel as if we're trying to overshadow him again.
--Jaffur may or may not have an issue with this, depending, and we can't be sure that he won't try something.
Tell him this, then tell him to think over whether or not he still is interested or not. If he is, we'll train him without complaint and deal with the aftermath that comes. If he isn't, then we can find something that's just for us.
Call it [] Communication is Key
Because I'm tired of the simplest answer being ignored.
I haven't quite got around to reading your other quest, but you come across as very competent, with a well-thought-out world and an interesting and novel quest system (though obviously, we can't see man behind the curtain!)
Does that help? I've never given serious thought to branding in this context, so it's not the most professional view.
Not sure we should mention the Jaffur issue - as far as Mato and most of the Saiyan race know, he's permanently out of the picture.
I some time ago came across a QM who said they'd found a thread talking about "author brands." Now, I'm a professional author and I'm familiar with the idea of having a brand -- insofar as I possess a public-facing persona and mode of behavior in addition to a style of writing which all come together to form my public identity -- but obviously and by design that brand doesn't apply here on SV. Now, as a professional my brand is constructed; as a part of my career, it's something I invested quite some effort into in order to best reflect the kind of author I want to be. It's something I reinforce through blogging, social media, and my writing. Professional authors who know their craft do this as a general rule, in fact, with rare exceptions. Whenever I act as [IDENTITY REDACTED] the writer, I am mindful of what impression I want to project given that I don't want to jeopardize my ability to profitably write, which is something I frankly love doing for a living.
But here on SV, that isn't the case. I've only just recently realized this, but here I've run into an odd intersection where I'm acting as a writer, but non-professionally and in a setting where I'm producing creative work. Internet modes of behavior apply, not my professional norm. In short, I've created an entirely new brand and haven't been tracking it. Now, as this isn't a professional context I'm not interested in developing a brand. I'm not selling you all anything, I'm just having fun online. But I admit that I'm curious, and even if I self-examine I may find different things than you've all picked up on.
So...what do you all see as my "brand" here on SV? Does this brand apply differently as an author vs. as a QM? Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I personally haven't interacted with you that much, but from what I've seen you're always willing to interact with people in your quests, and I think I've seen you post in other quests as well, so you don't just stick with 'your thing'.
I've noticed you tend to deal with arguments/things getting out of hand yourself (generally just by asking those involved to stop), which has worked every time that I can remember, so your questers seem to all respect you enough to listen to you. Like, the quest itself is good, but it's good to know we can talk to you if we want (though to be fair, quests where the QM doesn't interact with their questbase regularly is something I've very rarely seen).
Ability-wise, your characters are believable and well-thought out, kinda like your worldbuilding.
So yeah. Go team.
As to the vote, mentioning that Jaffur might not take kindly to us working on his technique is a good idea, but we are literally working on it from the ground up, based solely on what we observed when we fought him. He can't get that annoyed at us if we figure it out.
Why not just tell him our misgivings and let it all play out from there?
-We found out a bit, but haven't quite figured out the nuances of it. Plus we suspect there are downsides.
-We'd be willing to teach him, especially given the recent conversation we had, but there are two major issues:
--We intend to learn the style too, so that might make him feel as if we're trying to overshadow him again.
--Jaffur may or may not have an issue with this, depending, and we can't be sure that he won't try something.
Tell him this, then tell him to think over whether or not he still is interested or not. If he is, we'll train him without complaint and deal with the aftermath that comes. If he isn't, then we can find something that's just for us.
Call it [] Communication is Key
Because I'm tired of the simplest answer being ignored.
Hm.....Mind if I give this a spin? Going to format as a vote, take in ideas from you and @Alex pears .
[] Write-in: Plan Communication is Key
-[] We'll explain what small bits we've figure out, but we certainly can't replicate it yet.
-[] Let him know we will be looking at and trying to figure out the style as well, so while we won't try to overshadow him, he won't be the only one working on it, and he might start to feel that way.
-[] Explain our concern about if word gets to Jaffur's mother, she might try to make trouble about it. Her, or possibly other people who either agree with her, or hold Jaffur's use of that style as near-sacrosanct.
The only thing we're not talking about is Jaffur directly, but in my mind, the concerns about Dandeer and others isn't a lie, it's a real concern. Not enough to stop us, but still.
