- Location
- USA
Black gave us Yawgmoth, sure, but it also gave us Yahenni.
Unambiguous heroism is possible with mono-Black, it's just unconventional(and therefore not trodden ground with WotC because they're corps).
Revolution (RWBY Planeswalker Blake)
- Thread starter Alivaril
- Start date
- Crossover
Unambiguous heroism is possible with mono-Black, it's just unconventional(and therefore not trodden ground with WotC because they're corps).
AProcrastinator
You can Certainly Try
- Location
- Getting Somewhere
- Pronouns
- She/Hers
She's -
Wha -
She's literally the exact opposite of that? Her introduction in both canon and this Quest was refusing to kill innocent people who were nominally on the opposing side.
- Location
- A Table Near You
Ugh, I hope not. The reasons for choosing to stay isolated in Ignition also apply here, but even moreso.
Introducing other planeswalkers inevitably makes the story about interacting with them (either as allies, or antagonists) instead of the much more interesting solo quest focused on exploring AU settings. Blake gathering power and summon bonds so she can return to Remnant to Viva la revolución is a compelling premise; adding even a single other planeswalker derails that.
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King Arthur
The Once and Future King
Yeah, Blake is someone who was going through the Slippery Slope thing, recognized what was happening, and said "no, this isn't right, we don't get to just do whatever we want because we're fighting for equality."
It took her awhile, but she did that on her own, with no one pushing her or pointing this out, and the thing with slippery slopes is that the descent is pretty subtle so it's hard to blame her too much for taking awhile to notice.
After that ... she's been mostly moral on the means thing? Working too hard to the point where it hurts her but not really anyone else, inclination to flee, etc, etc .... nothing I'd actually call immoral. More "being too hard on herself, taking on too much trouble, finding it difficult to rely on and/or trouble others, and not knowing her limits" then anything along the lines of being particularly willing to do bad things to meet her goals.
It took her awhile, but she did that on her own, with no one pushing her or pointing this out, and the thing with slippery slopes is that the descent is pretty subtle so it's hard to blame her too much for taking awhile to notice.
After that ... she's been mostly moral on the means thing? Working too hard to the point where it hurts her but not really anyone else, inclination to flee, etc, etc .... nothing I'd actually call immoral. More "being too hard on herself, taking on too much trouble, finding it difficult to rely on and/or trouble others, and not knowing her limits" then anything along the lines of being particularly willing to do bad things to meet her goals.
OverReactionGuy
Verified Sanity
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ImperatorV
The Laughing One
- Location
- The Voyaging Realm
It's because Blue is my natural mindset that I voted Black. I like learning thing, exploring possibilities. Very few stories have a primarily Black-mana protagonist. As such, this is a good opportunity to explore something new.
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
[X] Black
[X] Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
[X] Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
Script Mak3r
(Verified Sun God) (Verified Feathers)
- Location
- Hell of Blazing Fires
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Voting's closed, guys.
If Black were a quest-derailer, why would Alivaril give that option to us? During chargen, no less, the one place you can be 100% guaranteed that anything that would make things harder or change the tone would be pointed out, barring a particularly shitty GM, which Alivaril most certainly is not.
While most of the problems with this have been addressed, I have a question for you:
If Black were a quest-derailer, why would Alivaril give that option to us? During chargen, no less, the one place you can be 100% guaranteed that anything that would make things harder or change the tone would be pointed out, barring a particularly shitty GM, which Alivaril most certainly is not.
- Location
- Germany
This is an AU, metaknowledge may not apply, and Blake's reasoning for going against Adam was entirely phrased as "this will harm our cause", not "killing innocents is evil". Not a single time did she object to the act of killing itself, it was always utilitarian logic:
That doesn't mean that she didn't also have moral objections, she's merely hiding them. But you're severely underestimating a central aspect of Blake's character that we've already seen in quest – not confronting her problems. Be that by running away, or her repeated denial that the White Fang are terrorists.
Blake is very much a character that could convince herself again that the ends justify the means if it happens gradually, and that in fact makes for a much more interesting story than the flat "redeemed revolutionist doing good".
The version of Blake you're thinking about also had a team and the social expectations on huntsmen to keep her in line.
Now that I think about it, it would be ironic if Blake ended up in a "slippery slope" kind of Dark Guild that doesn't advertise itself as such. That might even give her a chance to confront a mirror of her issues for once instead of running away.
Spectral Waltz
Scatterbrained Writer
- Location
- Walking the Endless Corridors
Just because it would go in a different direction doestn't necessarily mean that direction is 'off the rails'.
AProcrastinator
You can Certainly Try
- Location
- Getting Somewhere
- Pronouns
- She/Hers
the quest hasn't even started yet and we're already having arguments over hypothetical moral choices
sufficient velocity: working as intended
sufficient velocity: working as intended
- Location
- Germany
I would help your argument a lot if quest-Blake actually said, thought, or even merely considered those things. Except, she didn't. I checked.
So your 'quotes' are merely your opinion and lack any substance.
- Location
- Finland
Ah, was worked from the discussion, reading the actual post, yeah, there is much more utilitarian bent on her monologue.
That said, while the inner monologue focuses on practical aspect, at no point does it claim that it would be fine if not for the practical concerns. And when arguing, even in your own head, against someone, people often focus on arguments they feel would work, so when arguing against Adam, Blake would probably be more likely to focus on if something works, instead of it being right, because Adam does not care about if it is right (and possibly not even if it works).
Going from the source canon, and from other works of the author, i seriously doubt we will get a Blake who does not care about innocents, of considers it fine to kill or sacrifice bystanders.
To me, Blake's reaction to "what about them?" reads as initial moral outrage. It clearly bothered her a lot, preventing her from focusing on other things. But as she thought about it, she realized that it doesn't even make sense. Seems like Blake may have suppressed her feelings otherwise, but an action both evil and pointless was too much to put up with.
I don't think that another planeswalkers would invalidate our agency just by existing. On the other hand, now that I think, if there were other planeswalkers, they would most likely have been known of on Remnant. Blake doesn't show any recognition for the concept of world-hopping.
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BananosMoon
Banana lover.
- Location
- Poney banana paradise.
[X] Black
[X] Fairy Tail
[X] Fairy Tail
The voting is over, those options have already won.
Chapter 1: Landing Strategy
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Special thanks to @saganatsu, @DB_Explorer, @fictionfan, @Adephagia, @DaGeek247, @Wordsmith, @LonelyWolf999, Jamie Wahls, @Elfalpha, @BunnyLord, and my 20 other patrons not mentioned here. An extremely enthusiastic "Thank you" to @Torgamous for her patronage as well. Also, if you're not on here, you fit the tier, and you want to be added, please tell me. >.>
Partially beta-read by @Vebyast and @Nachtigall.
Partially beta-read by @Vebyast and @Nachtigall.
Author's Note: I encourage readers to stick with this even if they dislike a particular plane's franchise. You're working with the worlds, not their plotlines; my quests are sandboxes and frequently occur in different points in the plane's history anyway. The character sheet has also been updated with information that may be useful. (And no, Black is not evil in this.)
[X] Black
[X] Fairy Tail
Blake wouldn't have stepped out into open air if she'd had any choice in the matter. It was just a hunch, but she suspected that she might be a bit bad at this whole planeswalking thing. A sudden surge of exhaustion only reinforced the sentiment: it seemed as though planeswalking was not an activity that she could perform multiple times in quick succession. She might risk it in an emergency or if she found some way to aim for a safehouse, but it took too much of her stamina to be viable outside those circumstances. Succumbing to exhaustion in the place between worlds may very well kill her.
(Ability Discovered: Planeswalk [Rank 1])
Precious seconds were spent trying to regain her bearings and partially recover from her journey across worlds. Still, she'd be a disgrace to feline Faunus everywhere if she couldn't survive a little fall. She held tight to Gambol Shroud's ribbon and flung its kusarigama toward and around one of the numerous nearby trees. That alone wasn't enough to arrest her momentum, but a few loops around the tree slowed her enough to retrieve her weapon and land safely amid the leafy green undergrowth.
She knew it might be foolish to guess environmental trends on an alien world with unfamiliar plant life. She tried anyway. Despite the plant-infested ground level, her surroundings didn't feel humid or hot enough for a true jungle. Insects flocked to her like Grimm to fear, although none were strong enough to appreciably deplete her Aura. Blake still hated the feeling of having them climb all over her and they were crawling under her bow why–
Blake took a deep breath and tried to ignore the literal crawling on her skin. She could take a nice, long walk through fire to get them off when she reached whatever passed for civilization. Or a bath. A bath would probably be easier in a world without Fire Dust. Unfortunately, she'd need to do it in a stream or similar water source prior to reaching civilization; she couldn't help but instinctively flick her ears to try and force the insects off. A furiously twitching bow wouldn't be even remotely subtle. At least it would help distract her from the subjects she honestly didn't want to dwell on, right? Recollection could wait until after she'd acquired food, water, shelter, and insecticide.
A whole new world and I still need to hide.
She shook her head and jumped back into the trees. Fleeing from her problems only worked if she didn't let them catch up.
It was hard to break habits born from multiple years of training. The forest had no Grimm, yet Blake still found herself constantly scanning her surroundings for threats. It might yet prove to be useful against other predators, true, but that didn't stop the cumulative mental exhaustion from maintaining her vigilance. Needing to jump from branch to branch didn't help any; with all the undergrowth, it wasn't like she could just travel at ground level. Some of those leaves were just as big as her. She couldn't stop herself from reflexively slapping at the more intrusive insects, either. Bugs that weren't repelled by Aura were utterly awful and Blake didn't care what role they played in their local ecosystems, she would still wipe them out at the first available opportunity. No wonder she hadn't seen any Faunus on other worlds if this was what they had to deal with.
At least she'd managed to find a small river she could follow. She should be able to find civilization if she traveled downstream for long enough, right?
Companionship had spoiled her. Traveling on her own and without anyone to talk to proved to be absurdly boring and not something she'd like to repeat if at all possible. All she had to occupy her was what seemed like an endless forest, several painful subjects that she really didn't want to dwell on in an unsafe area, and nearly-baseless speculation about the world she'd traveled to.
She didn't recall seeing any Wizards who weren't part of Guilds, legal or not; she doubted there would be much work available for freelance Wizards. Why trust an unknown when organized groups were so much more reliable? No, Blake would need to join a Guild at some point if she wanted any kind of steady work. At least the job posting system would make it easy to find and fulfill requests, and the tight-knit nature of Guilds might make it easier to find magical tutors.
Blake wasn't too thrilled with the most common method of Guild identification, though: magical skin-markings that might as well be tattoos. Although they were designed to be removed relatively easily by the subject or a Guildmaster, doing so was culturally equivalent to quitting that particular Wizards' Guild. This trend could prove problematic on other planes. Trying to explain a magical membership marker, a glorified gang symbol, was not Blake's idea of a good time. Hopefully, she'd be able to find a Guild that understood her need to periodically remove and refresh the marker.
A conspicuous oddity did make itself known as a result of her review, too: how could Wizards endure so many attacks if they only had minimal control over their Aura? There had to be another element to their vitality that she was overlooking. Magical infusions, perhaps; if their bodies used mana as an extra energy source, it seemed reasonable that mana-users might naturally wind up more durable than the average person.
Daylight was retreating by the time Blake spotted the diffuse pillars of smoke indicative of intelligent life. If she wasn't a Faunus and thus blessed with improved low-light vision, she might not have noticed the contrast between the sun's fading embers and what she hoped was smoke from firewood. Treetop reconnaissance confirmed that impression: trees had been lashed together in a primitive wall around the source of the fires, and she could hear an occasional shout from the site. Although she couldn't confirm the legibility of those shouts, they did sound an awful lot like actual words. Hopefully, that meant she could understand alien languages and other people could understand her. Needing to learn a pile of new languages for each new plane would be remarkably inconvenient.
Skeletal wooden watchtowers and an artificially cleared area around the camp dissuaded Blake from traveling closer and stealthily gathering more information; doing so could easily be misconstrued as a hostile act. A pounded dirt path did seem to lead to the encampment from downstream, but that was the only path. This place was a dead end, not a waypoint. Was it a military camp? A place for logging, furs, and herbs? A group of scholars conducting research on the surrounding area? She had no idea. Not that it really mattered very much; she'd welcome even a hostile Dark Guild if it meant ridding herself of the insects eternally harassing her.
Throughout the day, she'd had the instinctual urge to produce a life-draining cloak of Black mana atop her person. Self-preservation warned her against that very course of action: she had no guarantee that such a spell wouldn't harm her, too. It would be best for her to either find examples to work from, or somewhere that temporary weakness or sickness wouldn't kill her. Or both.
Still, she teased a few strands of Black mana from her soul simply to verify that she could and that it wasn't all in her head. She was gratified to find that it wasn't. Less thrilling was how a green tree-leaf reacted to the infusion of Black mana: by changing from green, to yellow, to brown, and then crumbling altogether.
(Ability Discovered: Black Mana Control [Rank 1])
(Ability Discovered: Wither [Rank 1])
(Ability Discovered: Black Cloak [Rank 0])
(Ability Discovered: Wither [Rank 1])
(Ability Discovered: Black Cloak [Rank 0])
Although she could tell there was mana around her, the overwhelming Green from the surrounding forest-jungle-thing wasn't very good for helping her distinguish between its different colors. Perhaps that might have changed if she were to spend significant amounts of time teasing other colors from her soul; unfortunately, she wasn't confident enough in her wilderness survival skills to make it viable. Not on an unfamiliar alien world.
(Ability Discovered: Mana Sense [Rank 1])
Still, those failures left Blake with a fairly significant problem: the bow covering her cat-Faunus ears was borderline useless for disguise when those ears kept trying to flick away the insects crawling across them. Water from the river was traveling too quickly to safely collect some for self-cleaning, and standing in smoke would require her to painstakingly clear a space for fire. Anything less would have insects resuming their harassment within minutes.
She could wander into the camp without her bow, but she was pretty sure that this world didn't have any Faunus—or at least, they weren't common enough for her cursory inspection to uncover them. There was probably some form of magic that let the caster acquire traits similar to Faunus, but Blake had no idea how rare that was. She didn't want to draw more attention than necessary.
Honestly, the insect problem wasn't anywhere on the list of hardships she'd expected from an alien world. Remnant insects generally knew to leave Aura users alone after initial attempts at parasitism failed to penetrate the Aura protecting users from harm. Alien bugs? Not so much.
How will Blake handle her cat-ears?
[] (Reveal) Remove your bow and walk to the walled area. You might already be drawing significant attention as a stranger wandering in from the wilderness; what's a little more?
[] (Hide) Retreat a fair distance, clear space for a short-lived fire, and dissuade further insect harassment by rubbing ashes over your ears and bow. The sun will have long since set by the time the process is finished, but at least it'll reinforce your disguise. Only once that process is complete will you approach the encampment.
[] Write-in
…And what kind of approach do you take for the camp?
[] Gambol Shroud's sheath is blocky enough to look like some kind of package, and your clothing is blatantly unsuitable for the environment that you're emerging from. Pretend to be a lost civilian unless this stance endangers you.
-[] Try to imply that the family you were separated from is particularly well-off. Hopefully, that will encourage them to help you more than they otherwise would've. If you can't follow through with the implied reward... well, you have extensive experience in evading pursuit.
[] You're quick, you're armed, and you aren't likely to stand by if someone is in trouble. Present yourself as a wandering Wizard searching for the nearest hub of civilization.
[] Write-in
Voting will be locked for 2 hours after this goes up.
QM's Note: Explaining why you're voting a certain way is heavily encouraged in general. You're more likely to convince others, and it makes QM-created compromises easier if I know what player intentions are.
For this quest, I'm going to be experimenting with "Bandwagon Prevention" — which is to say, sometimes incorporating or using write-ins that arrive later in the voting cycle, have a compelling argument in their favor, etc. Emphasis on the sometimes. I don't want to encourage shenanigans like "don't bother to debate, just spam all possible plans" or "I can participate in a bandwagon and then not check the thread because Alivaril will take care of it."
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[X] (Reveal) Remove your bow and walk to the walled area. You might already be drawing significant attention as a stranger wandering in from the wilderness; what's a little more?
[X] You're quick, you're armed, and you aren't likely to stand by if someone is in trouble. Present yourself as a wandering Wizard searching for the nearest hub of civilization.
[X] You're quick, you're armed, and you aren't likely to stand by if someone is in trouble. Present yourself as a wandering Wizard searching for the nearest hub of civilization.
taovkool
Forever Gone
- Location
- The Library, Department of General Works
[] (Reveal) Remove your bow and walk to the walled area. You might already be drawing significant attention as a stranger wandering in from the wilderness; what's a little more?
There's already a cat girl in Fairy tail. What's one more?
[] You're quick, you're armed, and you aren't likely to stand by if someone is in trouble. Present yourself as a wandering Wizard searching for the nearest hub of civilization.
It's technically correct, and we need to wean off Blake's need to hide, lie, or cheat about everything. That is really not a healthy attitude.
There's already a cat girl in Fairy tail. What's one more?
[] You're quick, you're armed, and you aren't likely to stand by if someone is in trouble. Present yourself as a wandering Wizard searching for the nearest hub of civilization.
It's technically correct, and we need to wean off Blake's need to hide, lie, or cheat about everything. That is really not a healthy attitude.
Mate, I agree with you. But it's still moratorium. Wait for the next 2 hours.
- Location
- France
I suggest just brazening it out. Yes she's a wandering Wizard with cat ears, what of it?
I know little about Fairy Tail, but it's an anime so I bet you that people with weird physiologies and adventure-seeking behavior aren't that unusual.
I know little about Fairy Tail, but it's an anime so I bet you that people with weird physiologies and adventure-seeking behavior aren't that unusual.
What was number 1, actually? Is there a ranking or preferred metric?
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Puella Magi Adfligo Systema kept the #1 spot for multiple years. I don't recall what metric I used to measure; probably views?
I try to avoid letting prior setting knowledge provide an advantage to players or be required in general, but this checks out.
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