You're likely to get more of Kayleigh Shipping us with Laura anyway.Favorite writer taunting me with a missed chance for those two to have a serious life talk about cape-dom, in a compromising circumstance Kayleigh will misunderstood.....
Is this the true face of Despair??!😭
Of course, voters don't really control the scenes you choose to write in-between votes. How many days is this beach trip?
Magical Girl Escalation Taylor (Worm/Nanoha)
- Thread starter Silently Watches
- Start date
- Location
- Georgia
Huh. When I watched it, it wasn't in a special part of the Blockbuster(yes, that long ago). As I recall, the movie was actually pretty clean in what it showed, it just poked a lot of fun at what was going on off camera*. Either my memory is faulty, which is admittedly likely, or I'm underestimating how much the language counted. I thought it was R, or I wouldn't have made the comment at all, or without at least spoilering it with a disclaimer or something.
*Which, since it was parodying the porn industry, was also on camera.
Stop: This is a thread about Minors.
Ellf
Apprentice Wizard
- Location
- Virginia
this is a thread about minors.
@Wyrd, linking to an NC-17 movie that, even as a porn parody is still something that shouldn't be implied in a thread bout worm characters, most of which are minors. Now, it seems like you've had a genuine bit of confusion, but I'm going to say this. We take Rule 6, the sexualization of minors very seriously on this forum.
As such, though you were apologetic, you need to remember not to make such comments about teenagers. So, I'm giving you 25 points and a three day threadban. Don't do this again.
@Wyrd, linking to an NC-17 movie that, even as a porn parody is still something that shouldn't be implied in a thread bout worm characters, most of which are minors. Now, it seems like you've had a genuine bit of confusion, but I'm going to say this. We take Rule 6, the sexualization of minors very seriously on this forum.
As such, though you were apologetic, you need to remember not to make such comments about teenagers. So, I'm giving you 25 points and a three day threadban. Don't do this again.
- Location
- Canada
Aw, i missed the tie breaker somehow, but even with my vote laura would still have lost. Bleh.
Suntan 13.4
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
[] Kayleigh
-[] She's been surprisingly insightful before, it may be a good idea to make sure she hasn't learned anyone's identities, followed by asking (for a friend) how to normal teen.
Suntan 13.4
It really is not a difficult decision. You have a decent guess about what Missy is doing: pondering the realities of her situation and the social isolation that apparently has followed her since she Triggered and took on the name of Vista. Cassiel you are not sure of, but she has Dragon with her who will do a better job keeping her from doing something awful than you ever will. The choice, then, is really between Kayleigh and Laura.
"Can you check if Kayleigh is alone?" you ask your Device. "If so, give me the coordinates."
Laura would be interesting to talk to, but you can not say how much you have in common. The very general elements of being 'capes', you suppose, since she is still technically a criminal no matter how much you suspect she has heroic tendencies if not well-hidden intentions, but outside of 'work' your only real connection to each other is through Kayleigh. Not to mention, Missy's distress regarding her lack of anything resembling a non-cape identity has you curious. Kayleigh has been friends with Laura for what sounds like a long time, and she has mentioned before that Cailleach has a 'stuck switch'. Maybe she has better advice about how Missy can behave like a normal teen than you did. At the very least, she would be hard-pressed to come up with something worse.
"Friend of Mistress alone. No digital signals nearby. Room should be secure."
Plugging the coordinates Perfect Storm provides into the spell formula, you let your magic whirl you through space and into the room. The orange light surrounding you fades away to reveal you standing on top of a low-slung pool table, and you hop to the ground with an embarrassed blush. Now you are glad for two reasons that there were no strangers nearby to see that.
"Taylor! Ah, crap," Kayleigh says, watching a character on whatever arcade game she is playing getting her head brutally ripped off. "I had him on the ropes that time, too."
"Sorry?"
She shrugs it off and moves away from the arcade machine. "Don't worry about it. I was getting bored with it anyway. Anything you want to play?"
"I've never been much of an arcade person," you admit. Watching her bounce around the room looking at the options, you continue, "I'm surprised you're one, honestly. I would have thought you would be spending your time in the spa or something."
"Well, they're already closed, so that'd be hard." She laughs, and you roll your eyes. "I made an appointment for first thing in the morning, so I'll get my spa time, don't you worry.
"But as for the games, did you know I was a tomboy when I was little? I blame it on spending time with Herman, my cousin. He used to be really cool, but then he turned fourteen and became such a pain in the ass. He hasn't gotten better since, either."
That is news to you. Kayleigh is as much a girly girl as Madison and Emma ever were, though nowhere near being as much of raging bitches. "What made you not be such a tomboy?"
"I found out I really like looking and feeling cute. Doesn't mean I can't still enjoy things like games and shooting from time to time, though."
The juxtaposition of those words gives you an idea, and you motion to one of the boxes with two huge plastic pistols shoved into the frame. "How about we play one of these so I can check out that shooting?"
Kayleigh shrugs. "Sure. Just lemme warn you that I won't wow you. These games seriously aren't like real shooting, like, at all." Despite herprotests, she swipes her room card-slash-resort credit card through the slot and grabs one of the guns.
The controller is bulky and awkward in your hands, but you pull the trigger at every alien that pops up on the screen. "You and Missy had a long conversation on the plane," you say as nonchalantly as you can. "What do you think of her?"
"Heh." Another three targets fall to the other girl's shooting in the time it takes you to aim at one. "Even if you hadn't warned me ahead of time she was a cape, I would have figured it out. Laura gets her switch stuck sometimes, but Missy's is totally broken off. I don't know if she even knows how to not act a cape anymore." The accuracy of that statement is startling, and you whip your head around to stare at the other girl. Kayleigh rolls her eyes at you and points the gun off-screen to reload the virtual bullets as the camera pans around, and then she is shooting again. "Get the one on the bottom right.
"Anyway, yeah. Missy. I don't know who she is in costume, and I don't care, but she needs help desperately. I'm really glad you invited her. I think getting away from fighting for a bit will be good for her."
"You don't care who she is? You were really interested in my identity a few months ago," you remind her.
"Well, duh. I wanted to pass on information to you, so I needed confirmation that you were a cape because otherwise it makes me look really weird that I know so much about what's going on behind the scenes in the cape world. But even before you told me, I had suspicions for, like, three or four weeks maybe?" She twists her lips in thought, her gun never stopping. "Yeah, I think that's right. I just wasn't super super sure until the gang war broke out."
Your side of the screen flashes red, and the controller dies in your hand. "Looks like you're on your own for this one," you say with a sheepish shrug. It turns out that shooting a gun is a lot different from shooting Shooters despite their name.
Kayleigh seems to have no problems with the increasing difficulty of the game, and after a few minutes you ask a question that has been bugging you off and on ever since Laura revealed her identity to you. "How did you learn that Laura was Cailleach, anyway?"
"Wasn't all that hard. First, you have to know that Laura and I have been friends for years. Since we were little girls and our moms were arranging playdates for us. We were best friends, even if she'd rather have her teeth pulled out that admit it more than she absolutely has to. She was a total ice queen even before she got powers," she says with a snicker, but quickly her face falls. "We talked about what kind of powers we would want just like all kids do. I wanted to be a teleporter so I could see the world and go on safaris and swim with dolphins; she wanted to be like Alexandria because who doesn't? We never really thought we ever would get powers. But then the Warlocks—"
Kayleigh cuts herself off and nibbles on her bottom lip, clearing the screen and two more afterwards. "But then some stuff happened," she tries again. "Bad stuff. And Laura started acting different. She was even more closed off than ever, started hanging out less. I thought it was just she was still shaken up over what happened, so I gave her space like Mom and Daddy said I should, but it didn't get better. Then… more bad stuff happened, and it became obvious that something even more wrong was going on. I confronted her about it because I was worried about her, and after just a little pushing she told me everything.
"It was scary how much she changed over just a couple of months," she admits. "She was hurting, and she fell further and further into being Cailleach to try to make it stop, but no matter what she did, it just got worse and worse. Powers don't really make any of your problems go away," she adds with a small, wry smile. "Just between you and me, I think they actually make things worse because now you have cape shit to deal with on top of everything else. You'd know better than me, though."
"I'm a bit of a special case," you have to say. Not because you are a mage rather than a parahuman, either. "Before I got powers, I was trapped in a bad situation with no way out. My powers gave me options, options I never would have had or seen without them. I'm not saying life as a hero has been perfect or that I haven't had any issues since then"—after all, without finding Perfect Storm you would not now be in the middle of changing the balance of power in Philadelphia by giving the PRT Guardian Beasts or revealing the existence of Earth Bet to the TSAB or trying to figure out how to kill the Endbringers once and for all—"but if I hadn't been saved like that…"
You trail off. Kayleigh puts the gun down and ignores the flashing screen to face you. "If you hadn't been saved, what?"
"…I don't know that I would still be here," you admit, looking away. It feels shameful, painful, to say it, but Kayleigh does not deserve a lie. Not about this. "Things were bad enough I don't know if I could have pushed through it this long. I… I probably would have just given up and… you know… taken the easy way out."
The arms wrapping around you catch you off-guard, but after a moment you lean into the hug. "I'm sorry," Kayleigh says, her voice muffled.
"We're all screwed up. Laura. Me. Missy. We're broken inside, and it's easier to put on a costume and pretend we're okay than to take an honest look at ourselves and realize that we will never be able to undo what was done to us. Then one day we stop only to find there's nothing left behind the mask." You give her a helpless shrug. "I have no clue how to stop it or even slow it down. I don't know if any of us do."
Kayleigh opens her mouth and then closes it. "I can only say what seems to help Laura," she starts, "but it seems that the most important thing is doing stuff that doesn't involve danger and fighting. It doesn't have to be with normal, non-cape people – like, if you and Laura went out for dinner and a movie or something, that'd work fine – but hanging out just with capes means you're more likely to slip into turning it into caping stuff. Us non-capes are better at keeping your feet on the ground. Literally in your case," she says with a fake glare.
It sounds a lot like the advice Samantha and even your dad gave you once upon a time. "I don't know. I think even if you did get powers, you'd be less likely to fall into that trap than the rest of us."
"You have more faith in me than I do." Her uncharacteristically somber statement kills the joking mood. She shakes her head. "Besides, I've seen firsthand what powers cost people. How much they weigh on you. I might have wanted them when I was little, but now? I wouldn't wish them on my worst enemy."
So that's that. Sad stories and hard truths all around. I'm starting to think Taylor will need a vacation from her vacation.
I didn't want a super-short transition, so you get a tiny bit more information about what everyone's doing for the next chapter, which takes place in the morning. You can choose to join…
[ ] Kayleigh at the resort's spa
[ ] Laura on a run on the beach
[ ] Missy for a hearty breakfast
And just like last time…
[ ] Specify a topic of conversation
-[] She's been surprisingly insightful before, it may be a good idea to make sure she hasn't learned anyone's identities, followed by asking (for a friend) how to normal teen.
Suntan 13.4
It really is not a difficult decision. You have a decent guess about what Missy is doing: pondering the realities of her situation and the social isolation that apparently has followed her since she Triggered and took on the name of Vista. Cassiel you are not sure of, but she has Dragon with her who will do a better job keeping her from doing something awful than you ever will. The choice, then, is really between Kayleigh and Laura.
"Can you check if Kayleigh is alone?" you ask your Device. "If so, give me the coordinates."
Laura would be interesting to talk to, but you can not say how much you have in common. The very general elements of being 'capes', you suppose, since she is still technically a criminal no matter how much you suspect she has heroic tendencies if not well-hidden intentions, but outside of 'work' your only real connection to each other is through Kayleigh. Not to mention, Missy's distress regarding her lack of anything resembling a non-cape identity has you curious. Kayleigh has been friends with Laura for what sounds like a long time, and she has mentioned before that Cailleach has a 'stuck switch'. Maybe she has better advice about how Missy can behave like a normal teen than you did. At the very least, she would be hard-pressed to come up with something worse.
"Friend of Mistress alone. No digital signals nearby. Room should be secure."
Plugging the coordinates Perfect Storm provides into the spell formula, you let your magic whirl you through space and into the room. The orange light surrounding you fades away to reveal you standing on top of a low-slung pool table, and you hop to the ground with an embarrassed blush. Now you are glad for two reasons that there were no strangers nearby to see that.
"Taylor! Ah, crap," Kayleigh says, watching a character on whatever arcade game she is playing getting her head brutally ripped off. "I had him on the ropes that time, too."
"Sorry?"
She shrugs it off and moves away from the arcade machine. "Don't worry about it. I was getting bored with it anyway. Anything you want to play?"
"I've never been much of an arcade person," you admit. Watching her bounce around the room looking at the options, you continue, "I'm surprised you're one, honestly. I would have thought you would be spending your time in the spa or something."
"Well, they're already closed, so that'd be hard." She laughs, and you roll your eyes. "I made an appointment for first thing in the morning, so I'll get my spa time, don't you worry.
"But as for the games, did you know I was a tomboy when I was little? I blame it on spending time with Herman, my cousin. He used to be really cool, but then he turned fourteen and became such a pain in the ass. He hasn't gotten better since, either."
That is news to you. Kayleigh is as much a girly girl as Madison and Emma ever were, though nowhere near being as much of raging bitches. "What made you not be such a tomboy?"
"I found out I really like looking and feeling cute. Doesn't mean I can't still enjoy things like games and shooting from time to time, though."
The juxtaposition of those words gives you an idea, and you motion to one of the boxes with two huge plastic pistols shoved into the frame. "How about we play one of these so I can check out that shooting?"
Kayleigh shrugs. "Sure. Just lemme warn you that I won't wow you. These games seriously aren't like real shooting, like, at all." Despite herprotests, she swipes her room card-slash-resort credit card through the slot and grabs one of the guns.
The controller is bulky and awkward in your hands, but you pull the trigger at every alien that pops up on the screen. "You and Missy had a long conversation on the plane," you say as nonchalantly as you can. "What do you think of her?"
"Heh." Another three targets fall to the other girl's shooting in the time it takes you to aim at one. "Even if you hadn't warned me ahead of time she was a cape, I would have figured it out. Laura gets her switch stuck sometimes, but Missy's is totally broken off. I don't know if she even knows how to not act a cape anymore." The accuracy of that statement is startling, and you whip your head around to stare at the other girl. Kayleigh rolls her eyes at you and points the gun off-screen to reload the virtual bullets as the camera pans around, and then she is shooting again. "Get the one on the bottom right.
"Anyway, yeah. Missy. I don't know who she is in costume, and I don't care, but she needs help desperately. I'm really glad you invited her. I think getting away from fighting for a bit will be good for her."
"You don't care who she is? You were really interested in my identity a few months ago," you remind her.
"Well, duh. I wanted to pass on information to you, so I needed confirmation that you were a cape because otherwise it makes me look really weird that I know so much about what's going on behind the scenes in the cape world. But even before you told me, I had suspicions for, like, three or four weeks maybe?" She twists her lips in thought, her gun never stopping. "Yeah, I think that's right. I just wasn't super super sure until the gang war broke out."
Your side of the screen flashes red, and the controller dies in your hand. "Looks like you're on your own for this one," you say with a sheepish shrug. It turns out that shooting a gun is a lot different from shooting Shooters despite their name.
Kayleigh seems to have no problems with the increasing difficulty of the game, and after a few minutes you ask a question that has been bugging you off and on ever since Laura revealed her identity to you. "How did you learn that Laura was Cailleach, anyway?"
"Wasn't all that hard. First, you have to know that Laura and I have been friends for years. Since we were little girls and our moms were arranging playdates for us. We were best friends, even if she'd rather have her teeth pulled out that admit it more than she absolutely has to. She was a total ice queen even before she got powers," she says with a snicker, but quickly her face falls. "We talked about what kind of powers we would want just like all kids do. I wanted to be a teleporter so I could see the world and go on safaris and swim with dolphins; she wanted to be like Alexandria because who doesn't? We never really thought we ever would get powers. But then the Warlocks—"
Kayleigh cuts herself off and nibbles on her bottom lip, clearing the screen and two more afterwards. "But then some stuff happened," she tries again. "Bad stuff. And Laura started acting different. She was even more closed off than ever, started hanging out less. I thought it was just she was still shaken up over what happened, so I gave her space like Mom and Daddy said I should, but it didn't get better. Then… more bad stuff happened, and it became obvious that something even more wrong was going on. I confronted her about it because I was worried about her, and after just a little pushing she told me everything.
"It was scary how much she changed over just a couple of months," she admits. "She was hurting, and she fell further and further into being Cailleach to try to make it stop, but no matter what she did, it just got worse and worse. Powers don't really make any of your problems go away," she adds with a small, wry smile. "Just between you and me, I think they actually make things worse because now you have cape shit to deal with on top of everything else. You'd know better than me, though."
"I'm a bit of a special case," you have to say. Not because you are a mage rather than a parahuman, either. "Before I got powers, I was trapped in a bad situation with no way out. My powers gave me options, options I never would have had or seen without them. I'm not saying life as a hero has been perfect or that I haven't had any issues since then"—after all, without finding Perfect Storm you would not now be in the middle of changing the balance of power in Philadelphia by giving the PRT Guardian Beasts or revealing the existence of Earth Bet to the TSAB or trying to figure out how to kill the Endbringers once and for all—"but if I hadn't been saved like that…"
You trail off. Kayleigh puts the gun down and ignores the flashing screen to face you. "If you hadn't been saved, what?"
"…I don't know that I would still be here," you admit, looking away. It feels shameful, painful, to say it, but Kayleigh does not deserve a lie. Not about this. "Things were bad enough I don't know if I could have pushed through it this long. I… I probably would have just given up and… you know… taken the easy way out."
The arms wrapping around you catch you off-guard, but after a moment you lean into the hug. "I'm sorry," Kayleigh says, her voice muffled.
"We're all screwed up. Laura. Me. Missy. We're broken inside, and it's easier to put on a costume and pretend we're okay than to take an honest look at ourselves and realize that we will never be able to undo what was done to us. Then one day we stop only to find there's nothing left behind the mask." You give her a helpless shrug. "I have no clue how to stop it or even slow it down. I don't know if any of us do."
Kayleigh opens her mouth and then closes it. "I can only say what seems to help Laura," she starts, "but it seems that the most important thing is doing stuff that doesn't involve danger and fighting. It doesn't have to be with normal, non-cape people – like, if you and Laura went out for dinner and a movie or something, that'd work fine – but hanging out just with capes means you're more likely to slip into turning it into caping stuff. Us non-capes are better at keeping your feet on the ground. Literally in your case," she says with a fake glare.
It sounds a lot like the advice Samantha and even your dad gave you once upon a time. "I don't know. I think even if you did get powers, you'd be less likely to fall into that trap than the rest of us."
"You have more faith in me than I do." Her uncharacteristically somber statement kills the joking mood. She shakes her head. "Besides, I've seen firsthand what powers cost people. How much they weigh on you. I might have wanted them when I was little, but now? I wouldn't wish them on my worst enemy."
So that's that. Sad stories and hard truths all around. I'm starting to think Taylor will need a vacation from her vacation.
I didn't want a super-short transition, so you get a tiny bit more information about what everyone's doing for the next chapter, which takes place in the morning. You can choose to join…
[ ] Kayleigh at the resort's spa
[ ] Laura on a run on the beach
[ ] Missy for a hearty breakfast
And just like last time…
[ ] Specify a topic of conversation
Not subtle at all there, Kayleigh. 8/10 for the attempt though LOL
[x] Laura on a run on the beach
-[x] Take Kayleigh's suggestion literally. Ask Laura out to dinner and/or a movie. (For heroic purposes. You just want to feel out her…heroic tendencies)
Is this a crack vote? Almost definitely. Will I regret it? 50/50 either way tbh
Rajvik_wolfboy
Wolf amongst the stars.
- Location
- Florida
[x] Laura on a run on the beach
-[x] Take Kayleigh's suggestion literally. Ask Laura out to dinner and/or a movie. (For heroic purposes. You just want to feel out her…heroic tendencies)
i like this idea, i'm happy to be a part of it
-[x] Take Kayleigh's suggestion literally. Ask Laura out to dinner and/or a movie. (For heroic purposes. You just want to feel out her…heroic tendencies)
i like this idea, i'm happy to be a part of it
Silvereagle21
Soaring through the Sky
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
[x] Laura on a run on the beach
-[x] Take Kayleigh's suggestion literally. Ask Laura out to dinner and/or a movie. (For heroic purposes. You just want to feel out her…heroic tendencies)
-[x] Take Kayleigh's suggestion literally. Ask Laura out to dinner and/or a movie. (For heroic purposes. You just want to feel out her…heroic tendencies)
And so it begins. That didn't take long did it?
- Location
- New York
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[x] Laura on a run on the beach
-[x] Take Kayleigh's suggestion literally. Ask Laura out to dinner and/or a movie. (For heroic purposes. You just want to feel out her…heroic tendencies)
Very subtle. As soon as Kayleigh finds out she'll hold it over Taylor's head forever.
-[x] Take Kayleigh's suggestion literally. Ask Laura out to dinner and/or a movie. (For heroic purposes. You just want to feel out her…heroic tendencies)
Very subtle. As soon as Kayleigh finds out she'll hold it over Taylor's head forever.
Salvare7097
be the salvation of the hopeless!
- Location
- [REDACTED] [O5 APPROVAL REQUIRED]
This This, Got me right in the feels. @Silently Watches exactly how old are they all? Another thing with all the shit they've been through I'm surprised they don't have PTSD or some other form or another post traumatic stress.
Last edited:
Silently Watches
Professional Stalker
- Location
- Right behind you
Eeeh. I'm not telling people how to vote, but just know this particular Laura vote would take significantly more time and effort than the last several updates have.
Taylor and Kayleigh are 16. Laura is in the grade above them, but considering Taylor was one of the older members of her class (being a June baby), so she's probably not much more than 6 months older than Taylor and therefore also 16. Missy is a few months shy of turning 14.
- Location
- Ohio
[x] Laura on a run on the beach
-[x] Take Kayleigh's suggestion literally. Ask Laura out to dinner and/or a movie. (For heroic purposes. You just want to feel out her…heroic tendencies)
Ohhhh. Taylor canonically likes running and this gives massive shipping fuel to Kayleigh? As tempting as spa time is, I'm all in for this one.
-[x] Take Kayleigh's suggestion literally. Ask Laura out to dinner and/or a movie. (For heroic purposes. You just want to feel out her…heroic tendencies)
Ohhhh. Taylor canonically likes running and this gives massive shipping fuel to Kayleigh? As tempting as spa time is, I'm all in for this one.
[X] Missy for a hearty breakfast
Can we please not? Kayleigh's Shipping is obnoxious enough already.