Olivebirdy
mook.
...Coil does not have that much power yet.
The Big Three (Worm/Pact, minor AU)
- Thread starter Sheaman3773
- Start date
Every single mission by the Undersiders and Travelers discredited the shit out of Piggot by putting her in a no win situation and he can cheat to make sure when he tries, it works. And if it doesn't work he takes notes and tries again another day without any alert being given.
Frakir's brother
Goodbye.
- Location
- The Sea of Trees
[X] Be a villain! Nothing too destructive, but your dad could always use some more money around the house. It was your childhood dream to be a hero…but it's time you grew up. Besides, when has authority ever helped you out?
[X] Be a hero! Fight for Justice and Order and the Law! You could join the local government-sanctioned team for underaged capes, the Wards, which offers quite a lot of support for their members in exchange for a lot of oversight, or you could stay independent, being a legal vigilante with a lot less support but no oversight either.
redzonejoe
Vaguely Pastafarian
- Location
- Canada
I don't think I actually voted earlier. I'm going to tentatively for
[X] Be a hero! Fight for Justice and Order and the Law! You could join the local government-sanctioned team for underaged capes, the Wards, which offers quite a lot of support for their members in exchange for a lot of oversight, or you could stay independent, being a legal vigilante with a lot less support but no oversight either.
[X] Be a hero! Fight for Justice and Order and the Law! You could join the local government-sanctioned team for underaged capes, the Wards, which offers quite a lot of support for their members in exchange for a lot of oversight, or you could stay independent, being a legal vigilante with a lot less support but no oversight either.
Sheaman3773
(Unverified Writer)
- Location
- Within ~1 AU of Sol
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Okay, so real life is kind of kicking my ass atm, which delayed this next chapter, but wrapping it up was a good distraction, so it's with my beta now. Dunno when he'll get to it, though. In the meantime, have some spoiler boxes!
The first is the current alignment votes. They stay open for a while longer, btw, but this is where they are currently.
So rogue is currently winning, though it's a lot closer than I thought it was from looking at the votes as they came in.
This one is the current poll tally across all three sites. This one closes...when I start writing the short timeskip coming up, probably, so we don't have to spend too much time on the middle of the week.
...so it's a bloody tie. Well, I guess if you haven't voted yet, please do so now? I'd rather the tie be broken than I make an executive decision that ticks off half of my readers.
(edit: as of the posting of 1.6.2, Dice? Eewww. is winning by one
...and now Just so, so many dice. is crushing it.)
To clarify a little, even with "Just so, so many dice," not everything will be mechanics. Narrative issues will still hold, but will be far more guided by the RNG. This would also result in, say, you needing to reach a certain score to learn or master a new rune, with a roll for every action you guys devote to it.
On the other hand, even with "Dice? Eewww," there is at least one mechanic that will still use dice. Fights, social or physical, would follow narrative conventions far more closely. Also, there would be set amounts of time for learning or mastering new runes, so no chance to jump ahead or fall behind schedule.
The first is the current alignment votes. They stay open for a while longer, btw, but this is where they are currently.
Vote tally:
##### 3.21
[X] Be a rogue! Forget getting into fights, you can just use your power to make money! Actually, you know, there are a lot of ways to monetize this, based on what Blake's mentioned about shamanism. Beware lots of cape organizations coming to recruit or "recruit" you, though.
No. of votes: 10
Irenicus, Sasha, Ridiculously Average Guy, dpara, silentspirals, readerboy7, esran, TheAlec, Enohthree, rooster
[X] Be a hero! Fight for Justice and Order and the Law! You could join the local government-sanctioned team for underaged capes, the Wards, which offers quite a lot of support for their members in exchange for a lot of oversight, or you could stay independent, being a legal vigilante with a lot less support but no oversight either.
No. of votes: 8
veekie, ReaperofInterest, will408914, Indivisible, redzonejoe, wingstrike96, DOOMPOTATO, Bozwevial
[X] Be a villain! Nothing too destructive, but your dad could always use some more money around the house. It was your childhood dream to be a hero…but it's time you grew up. Besides, when has authority ever helped you out?
No. of votes: 4
1986ctcel, tinkerbell, Frakir's brother, Anzer'ke
-[X]You've heard that a rogue with cloth based powers recently moved to Brockton Bay. Perhaps you should ask her what it's like to be a rogue (in disguise, of course).
No. of votes: 1
Sasha
##### 3.21
[X] Be a rogue! Forget getting into fights, you can just use your power to make money! Actually, you know, there are a lot of ways to monetize this, based on what Blake's mentioned about shamanism. Beware lots of cape organizations coming to recruit or "recruit" you, though.
No. of votes: 10
Irenicus, Sasha, Ridiculously Average Guy, dpara, silentspirals, readerboy7, esran, TheAlec, Enohthree, rooster
[X] Be a hero! Fight for Justice and Order and the Law! You could join the local government-sanctioned team for underaged capes, the Wards, which offers quite a lot of support for their members in exchange for a lot of oversight, or you could stay independent, being a legal vigilante with a lot less support but no oversight either.
No. of votes: 8
veekie, ReaperofInterest, will408914, Indivisible, redzonejoe, wingstrike96, DOOMPOTATO, Bozwevial
[X] Be a villain! Nothing too destructive, but your dad could always use some more money around the house. It was your childhood dream to be a hero…but it's time you grew up. Besides, when has authority ever helped you out?
No. of votes: 4
1986ctcel, tinkerbell, Frakir's brother, Anzer'ke
No. of votes: 1
Sasha
This one is the current poll tally across all three sites. This one closes...when I start writing the short timeskip coming up, probably, so we don't have to spend too much time on the middle of the week.
- Just so, so many dice.
22 + 3 + 2 = 27
- Dice? Eewww.
15 + 3 + 6 = 24
(edit: as of the posting of 1.6.2, Dice? Eewww. is winning by one
...and now Just so, so many dice. is crushing it.)
To clarify a little, even with "Just so, so many dice," not everything will be mechanics. Narrative issues will still hold, but will be far more guided by the RNG. This would also result in, say, you needing to reach a certain score to learn or master a new rune, with a roll for every action you guys devote to it.
On the other hand, even with "Dice? Eewww," there is at least one mechanic that will still use dice. Fights, social or physical, would follow narrative conventions far more closely. Also, there would be set amounts of time for learning or mastering new runes, so no chance to jump ahead or fall behind schedule.
Last edited:
[X] Be a hero! Fight for Justice and Order and the Law! You could join the local government-sanctioned team for underaged capes, the Wards, which offers quite a lot of support for their members in exchange for a lot of oversight, or you could stay independent, being a legal vigilante with a lot less support but no oversight either.
Dice can add an element of controlled unpredictability which can be a lot of fun. However, unless they are used at just the right time for just the right thing, they can make a narrative choppy as it struggles to fit the results in coherently. It's hard to say what would work best without seeing the execution.
[X] Be a hero! Fight for Justice and Order and the Law! You could join the local government-sanctioned team for underaged capes, the Wards, which offers quite a lot of support for their members in exchange for a lot of oversight, or you could stay independent, being a legal vigilante with a lot less support but no oversight either.
It probably won't anger hundreds of people! Probably.
It probably won't anger hundreds of people! Probably.
Introductions 1.6.2
Sheaman3773
(Unverified Writer)
- Location
- Within ~1 AU of Sol
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
<-Prev | Next->
AN: Some slice of life here, though I tried to make it all relevant. My current plans for future updates are to skip the parts that are less interesting/significant. Like doing homework.
Also, the alignment vote isn't closed yet.
Introductions 1.6.2
It's already past lunch time—it was past lunch time when you started to talk to Blake, really—but after what you just talked about, you're not hungry at all. So, onto homework.
You have four classes a day; this semester, it's computer and world issues before lunch, art and math after.
You don't have any homework for your computer class, because of how far ahead of the curve you are in that class, but you do in the others. Math is pretty easy, and you had already gotten started on it on Thursday, so you decide to leave it for a little later. You find your homework goes better if you leave some of the easy stuff for later, either because you're frustrated with something else and can take a break from it while still being productive, or because it's nice to finish up with something easier while you're more tired.
That left the world issues and art assignments. World issues is a half-page paper on any piece of legislation going through Congress right now, and art is a take-home quiz and worksheet on the art styles you're currently learning about.
It's a paltry amount of homework, but you aren't going to complain about something that makes it easier to get back to cape stuff.
You get out your world issues notes and are about to start going through them when you realize something. Why wait until after the homework is done to do cape stuff? Obviously you can't start practicing runes on your homework, but there's no reason not to get better at using the Sight, and maybe doing the assignments with your implement will give you some sort of benefit? Well, not likely, but maybe. Giving yourself a little grin, you grab your pen and turn on the Sight. The grin grows a bit larger as you see the tiny spirits in their place beneath reality…a grin that disappears as the spirits wink out once you leave the pen on the desk.
A quick scramble for the pen later and you check that yes, the Sight does still work for you. You huff a quick breath of relief, before your face falls into a frown. Apparently you can't maintain the Sight without the pen in your hand. That's…irritating. More than irritating, actually, but this is supposed to be something you're doing while you do homework, so you'll have to put your worries aside for the moment. You tuck the pen into your left hand, curling your pinky and ring finger around it, and try to flip through the world issues notebook.
On the upside, even looking at the notes with the Sight is interesting. Just glancing at the spirits while looking for your place in your notes is remarkable. The wood pulp that makes up the paper is fairly easily determined, especially when compared to the wood spirits in your desk. It looks like they're made of different trees, though, and you have no idea which is what. The ink spirits on the page look distinctly different from the ink that has come from your implement, though you're not sure yet whether it's just a different formula or something more power-based. Most interestingly, you can see color! Not that you're colorblind or anything, but even color seems to have its own spirits, which certainly has interesting implications on what you'll be able to manipulate. Once you have the time, at least. There's also a lot of spirits that stand more or less alone, being the only few of their kind in an area or in the whole notebook. You're not really sure what's up with those.
On the downside, your notes themselves are pretty spotty. You're better than this, even with the trio breathing down your neck, but when you add how distracted the bundles have been making you, especially lately…well, you're lucky you have anything more than doodles written down. The bundles have been much less distracting since you summoned Blake, so your notes should improve from this point on. Hopefully.
You ponder for a time on asking Blake for help. You did just want some space to let things settle, and talking right now might not be the best way to do so. On the other hand, you would just be talking about school stuff, not any of the other topics that might be touchy between the two of you. And you wouldn't mind his help. The worst thing he'd do is say no, right? Probably?
You open your mouth to ask Blake, and then you remember that he's from an entirely different world. The legislature from his world wouldn't be anything like the bills here. That might be for the best. You suppress a sigh from habit and, with a quick aside to let Blake know where you're going, you get up to wake up the dinosaur of a computer in the office up here.
Roughly one eon later, you are finally able to browse through the Q-Link search results. It's surprisingly frustrating to find information on what your elected officials are up to, but on second thought, they probably design it that way on purpose. Eventually, you manage to find a list of current bills, along with a summary and a bunch of other info you don't care about.
You hesitate before picking a bill. Your inclination is to go for a bill concerning capes—and there are many that touch on the subject to some degree—but you're wary of breaking habit in any sort of noticeable way. The idea of your world issues teacher, Mr. Gladly of all people, as being someone who kept an eye out for new capes seems absurd, but still. You were something of a cape geek even before you became one, but you didn't choose a cape topic every time. Better safe than sorry.
You pick a law trying to adjust the regulations on the upkeep of Endbringer shelters as a sort of compromise, and then spend another age pulling up a couple of different articles on the bill, because you have more integrity than to just copy or paraphrase from the government site. Eventually, you have enough information to make a well-written half-page paper. You could make it longer without resorting to fluff, but Mr. Gladly actively discouraged exceeding his requirements.
Just as you finish up, you get a thought, glancing from your assignment to the untouched paper nearby. One of the things the trio has done since the beginning is sabotage your academic career. They've been ratcheting up the tension even in class, making it harder to take notes or even pay attention, and they frequently destroy or steal work for class. Creating duplicates of your work was an idea that came to you early, but you don't have a copier at home, and frankly you want as few reminders of your terrible school life as possible; just the idea of spending more time physically copying all of your work, perhaps to still have it be ruined, is physically exhausting. With what you know about shamanism, though, you should be able to use your power to copy your homework in almost no time at all.
The smile that crosses your face is rather vicious, but it fades swiftly. The problem is, you don't know such a rune, and Blake told you he only knew so many by heart. That means that you two will have to spend some time working it out, and you could hardly justify doing that before you learn the ones he already knows.
You could try to convince the spirits to do it directly, without need of a rune, but even beyond the time and energy it would take…part of you doesn't want to have your first effort—other than the rune to test that your implement works—be on homework, or school at all.
Besides, right now was time for homework, not power testing.
Still, it's an idea for the future, and one that you make a note of as you start to shut down your ancient monstrosity. The machine's already started to shut down when you realize—Dammit! Irritated, you repeat yourself out loud.
"Dammit!"
"What's wrong?" says a voice from nowhere.
"Wha--!?" Breath sucked in, you half-jump off your chair, spinning to face the unexpected sound. You have your pen clenched aggressively in one fist and the other in front of you, ready for—
Oh.
"Uh. Hi Dad," you say weakly, your hands slowly starting to relax. Your breaths are deep and harsh as you come down from the adrenaline surge. As you do, embarrassment hits at the image you draw with your overreaction.
Your dad doesn't exactly look much better. His hands are just starting to come down from a ready position, and his eyes are wider and more startled than usual. His breath, too, is faster than normal.
Your dad and you stare at each other awkwardly for a few moments. It goes on longer than the pauses that have become so normal around here, long enough that you become acutely uncomfortable. A few seconds before you'll venture saying something else, your dad gives a large breath and puts a hand over his heart.
"Sorry for scaring you, kiddo."
"Oh, it uh…yeah, sorry for scaring you too." Your dad's mouth may start to quirk upwards, but you frown. You could have sworn you had closed the office door behind you…
"What's wrong?"
"Oh, it's nothing. I just thought I shut the door behind me, that's all." At that, your dad's frown—a surprisingly heavy frown, you note with surprise—lifts from his face.
"Oh, it was," he says. "I was just—I was just coming to see what all the noise coming from the office was." He gives a forced chuckle. "I guess it's been too long since I've used it."
You nod, but that doesn't seem quite right. He might not use it that often, but you still use it at least once a week for homework, though you don't need to as much when your notes are better. Though, you're not sure how many of those times were while he was awake…or maybe he was upstairs this time? Sound does travel really well in this house, he probably wouldn't need to be upstairs to hear it…
Whatever, you don't need to be analyzing your own dad's words like this. It's probably nothing.
"So," he says before the silence gets too awkward again. "What were you cursing about?"
Your heartrate, which was returning to normal, suddenly picks up for a second, before you relax again. Cursing, like curse words, not magic. Right.
"Oh," you say, keeping your relief from your tone, "that. I just started the shut-down process on the computer when I finished some of my world issues home…work, and then realized I also needed it for art class." Your voices stumbles when you remember that the world issues teacher almost never assigns homework over the weekend, and crap, he's going to realize this is homework from before the weekend—
"Oh, I see," your dad nods. "Well, that's easily fixed." He waves as the machine behind you, still sounding like it's in its death throes. "You just need to wait for a little bit after it turns off."
…or he won't even notice. "Yeah," you say after a moment. "It's just irritating."
"Okay."
The silence drags on, again longer than is usual around here. Is something actu—
"So I'm going to go make dinner," your dad says abruptly. "Does spaghetti sound good?"
You open your mouth—and pause as your stomach loudly rumbles. "…yeah, great," you mutter, cheeks flushing.
"In that case, it'll probably be done quickly enough that you won't have time to turn it back on." With a chuckle that sounds a little less forced, your dad leaves to get started.
Shaking your head, you go to close the office door. You swear that when you get a headquarters or office or lair or whatever, your desk will be facing the door. Always. Abruptly you notice that your mother's pen is in your hand…and was the whole time you were talking to your dad. You might normally start to panic at that thought, just a little, but he would have said something if he had seen it; he didn't say anything, so clearly he hadn't seen it.
You head back to the noisy computer.
You get your art notes out, holding your pen with two fingers in your left hand again as you try to find your place. You notice much the same with this notebook that you did with the other, down to the smattering of unique spirits, though a lot of those are different. You think. The spirits are kind of tiny, can sort of overlap and many of them look similar, so it' a bit difficult to tell with some of them.
The computer groans on.
Unfortunately, your notes from art class aren't really better than the ones in the world issues notebook. You want to care about school—you were always good at it before high school, and your mom was a teacher after all—but it was hard to pay too much attention to the teachers that wouldn't help you out when the bullies were in the class and keeping you paranoid of their torments. Compounding the issue is the take-home quiz, which basically just checks that you've been taking notes. Unfortunately, the ones you've been taking aren't very good. Hopefully, the internet will be able to answer the questions that you don't have the notes to answer.
Your computer's noise shifts to a grinding sound.
You throw your hands up. "Forget it!" you blurt out, barely remembering to keep your voice down. You knew that you wouldn't have time to turn it back on before your dad finished making dinner, but this is ridiculous. Irate, you reach out and flip off the computer screen, in case it interfered with what you wanted to do.
You were going to ask Blake for help before, right? You just didn't bother because the question was too topical, there was pretty literally no way he could have known the answer. But this, this was just art. Your worlds were pretty similar, so you should have similar art styles. You think. Even if he doesn't know much about art—and what are the odds that he does, honestly?—asking shouldn't hurt.
You place your hand on the dark screen of the deactivated screen in front of you. "Blake Thorburn." You wait a moment, but he doesn't appear. "Bl—"
"What's up?" Blake's voice comes from the screen, but it's…vague. Distant. Like his image.
"Blake?" you ask, squinting a little at the screen after you drop your hand. "Are you okay in there?"
"Yeah," he says after a moment. "It's not exactly pleasant, in reflections this fuzzy, but it doesn't hurt or anything. It just feels like ground might not be completely stable, but I can just jump away it becomes a problem."
"Oh," you say, not certain what else to say. Ah, banalities would work. "How's the research coming?"
You can't read Blake's expression at the moment, it being far too fuzzy, but you can tell that it changes.
"It's…going okay, I suppose. There's a lot to go through."
You nod in response; he did copy a lot of books from the library.
"So why'd you call me over?"
"I was…" It feels silly at this point, but you're already this far. "I was curious if you knew anything about art?"
There's a pause. "Not that I mind you asking or anything, but I'm curious about why you're asking."
"I have an art class assignment or two," you say, feelings of awkwardness increasing, "but my notes aren't very good at the moment, and I accidently started shutting down my computer before I remembered I needed it to check for the art stuff. And…since dinner is soon, I won't have time to restart it and find the information before then. So I thought I'd ask you if you knew anything about art."
"Oh," Blake says in a surprised tone. "I know a lot about art, actually."
You perk up. "You do?"
"Yeah," he says, an odd note of sadness entering his somewhat distorted voice. "Actually, most of my friends are artists."
"Ah," you say, feelings of awkwardness returning with company. "Are you an artist too?" you say, jumping at the first thing you can think of to relieve it.
"No," Blake says, the sadness much more apparent now. "The ability to create like that…it's not a talent that I have."
"Oh," you say pointlessly. What should you say?
"I'm pretty good with my hands, though," Blake says, voice cheering for a moment before falling again. "Though I can't really do anything with it in here…"
You just sit there in social agony, knowing you need to say something to make this better, but having no idea how to do so.
"Anyway!" Blake says after an interminable amount of time. "I do quite enjoy art anyway, and I know a lot about it. Did you have specific questions?"
You latch onto the out and ride it for all its worth, quickly becoming engrossed in the details of the art styles your teacher has been instructing the class on. Blake as a way of speaking passionately on the subject that you find more interesting than when your teacher does. It might just be the lack of bullies around, breathing down your neck. Or it might be that though your teacher is passionate about art, she clearly had her passion for teaching beat out of her from years of dealing with Winslow students. Whatever the reason, you're distinctly disappointed when you hear your dad call you down for supper.
"I've got to go," you say, dragging your feet. "Thanks for all of the help—I won't need to use the computer nearly as much I thought I would." You gesture to the dinosaur in the room, which fell silent at…some point, you're not really sure when.
"I'm glad to help," Blake responds with a smile. "It was fun. You want to pick it up back up afterwards?"
"Sure." And with that happy thought, you go downstairs.
You head back upstairs with a significantly more thoughtful expression on your face.
The actual food itself was fine. Dad had thrown together a quick salad to go with the spaghetti and tomato sauce, and had even spruced it up a bit with carrots that weren't too stale.
But the conversations, and his behavior—totally unusual, tonight.
Normally you have peaceful silence with your dad, interspaced with comments that, okay, can be pretty awkward. It has been getting more strained lately, what with the secrets building up between you, but tonight…tonight is much worse than you're used to. His questions were far more uncomfortable than they usually are, and at several points he outright stopped speaking, his hands clenching and expression contorting, before starting up somewhere else entirely. It was very strange.
Still, weird as it was, you need to focus. You still have to finish your art homework, and your math too, since you decided to finish them up tonight. That will leave you all of tomorrow without having to worry about them.
You go into the office, unsurprised to find Blake absent from the computer's monitor, and take a moment to turn the computer back on. You think for a second or two, then walk back into the hall to your room. You look into the two mirrors on your desk, and yes, there's Blake in the n'kisi.
You pause for a moment, looking between the two. Your desk chair is visible in both mirrors, but only the n'kisi shows Blake sitting there, books piled on the desk. Strange.
"Hey Blake," you say, noting the oddity but focusing on your current task. "I'm done with supper. You ready to start again?"
"Sure," he says, starting to shuffle the books around. "Go ahead, I'll meet you there." You start to do so, then pause as a thought strikes you. "Yes?" Blake asks when he notices you standing still.
"Hey, Blake," you say slowly, teasing the idea around in your head. "You saw the little mirrors I bought, right?"
He stops shifting the books around to look at you. "Yeah, I did."
"Well, one of the reasons I bought them was so that you could always be sure to have somewhere to be without needing the n'kisi around, and so that if a mirror you were in broke, there would be others. But right now…would you like a few around the house? In the areas that don't consistently have solid reflections, at least."
"Yeah," Blake says after a moment, a smile on his face. "That would be nice. Thanks, Taylor."
You flash him a quick smile and go to fetch the mirrors. You place two on the top of your desk, to maximize coverage of the room, and if one of them happens to have your bed in its range, oh well. You go into the office and set one up in there, right next to the hand-mirror that you had on the desk in your room.
The fact that the second mirror is pointed directly at the office door is a coincidence, surely.
Blake soon arrives and you spend the next while chatting about the topics of the art homework. Unfortunately, he can't tell you everything you need to know, and once you are able to use the computer, you discover that the internet can't either, though it does fill some of the gaps. You aren't sure if that means that your teacher is teaching you obscure stuff or if she's making things up, but you aren't able to quite finish the assignments. Still, you do far better tonight than you have been doing, and faster as well, while having more fun. All in all, you'll chock this up as a win.
You move on to math, starting to shut off the computer and taking everything back to your room. Blake tells you he won't be able to help with this subject; that's okay, though, since you don't need his help with math. It takes you a little while to remember what he had been teaching on Thursday, but eventually you do, and once you get the hang of it again by going through the examples, you finish the remainder of your assignment with ease.
With a satisfied sigh, you lean back in your seat, almost tossing your pen on top of your homework before you remember what happened the last time you let go of it while using the Sight. Your assignment looks a little weird, shifting from pencil to pen where you picked it back up tonight, but you had already planned on using your pen to do your homework, and since your math teacher never specified what kind of writing tool you were to use, you didn't see a reason to change the plan. Besides, it let you discover what happened when you made a mistake with your pen—simply put, your pen acted like a normal one would, marking the page indelibly. Whiteout covered it up like normal, too.
You also noticed that the pen didn't run out of ink—you hadn't refilled it once since you turned it into your implement, or filled it up in the first place, and the ink really should have been dry from how long it spent in the basement. It looks like it has some kind of bottomless internal inkwell, on top of being able to draw its own ink back into it. It isn't very cool on its own, but it sure is a handy secondary power, you have to admit. And never having to worry about buying pens or (possibly) pencils again is nice. A small frown crosses your face. As long as you can keep the pen safe, at least.
Still, that is a worry for another time. Right now…well, you don't have anything really planned for right now, actually. You wanted to talk to Blake and finish your homework, and you did both of those things. You know you didn't cover everything you needed to when you talked with Blake, but you covered the most important things, and there isn't enough time left in the evening to pick it back up. Not if you want to straighten up your sleep schedule, and you do plan to do that. You have a feeling that you won't be getting much sleep once your cape career really takes off. Besides, despite how invigorating your talk with Blake was, you're feeling pretty tired.
Plans…
It's true you still don't know a lot about how your power works—though you know a lot more than you did three days ago—but Blake suggested trying to live in sync with implement, which in this case means labeling and planning.
You've been doing a lot more planning than labeling so far. You suppose you could label your cape notebooks, but you have been relying on obscurity to hide them, and putting a big label on all of that seems…unwise. Something about that bugs you more than it should, but you resolve to consider it later. After a moment, you think of a way to label more without any such risks, and take your homework back out. You carefully fill in headers for every paper, including the kind of information your middle school teachers wanted but the Winslow teachers never bothered with. It only takes a few minutes, and there, you just labeled some things, that you wouldn't normally have done. That should help, right?
Your power is so weird.
Anyway, that doesn't feel like enough, and didn't take up much time on top of it. So what to do? Something with labeling or planning, or both. Hm…aha.
You start going through your desk, digging through all of the junk you keep in the drawers until you find your goal.
It's a simple school agenda, purchased from Winslow at the beginning of the school year, when you were cautiously optimistic about this upcoming year. Time had soon shown you the folly of your hope, and you ended up leaving it at home rather than risk it being trashed with the rest of your school supplies. The loss of money was an aggravation, but better you never used the thing than using it for a short time and then suffering in its absence. Now, however, it can actually serve a purpose.
You open it up to the first page, some obvious drivel about it being a Winslow High School student planner. But really, you won't be using it for that anymore, will you? You still aren't sure what you'll label it, you don't want to just give the truth away—and something about that is still bugging you—but you know what label it won't have, at least. With a little florish, you slash your pen through its title, repeating the motion until the header was unintelligible. You turn the page, only to notice that the ink didn't seem through the page or give it that weak, sodden feel that often happens when you use too much ink in one place.
Hm. Another benefit.
You flip through the pages until you find today's date: Sat, Feb 5th, 2011. With a glance at the clock, you turn your attention to the 6th instead. Twirling your pen absently between your fingers, you plan out what you're going to be doing tomorrow, with an eye for what you're going to need in the long-term.
Basic Info
Vote for one option per underlined section. Feel free to customize your votes with up to 60 words of additional description if the option is listed; if you are using someone else's plan and wish to add something to it, please bold the new portions.
You can bide your time no longer! What kind of cape do you want to be? (No customization yet)
If you already participated in this vote, feel free to ignore it, though you can still change it if needed.
[] Be a hero! Fight for Justice and Order and the Law! You could join the local government-sanctioned team for underaged capes, the Wards, which offers quite a lot of support for their members in exchange for more oversight, or you could stay independent, being a legal vigilante with a lot less support but also a lot less oversight.
[] Be a rogue! Forget getting into fights, you can just use your power to make money! Actually, you know, there are a lot of ways to monetize this, based on what Blake's mentioned about shamanism. Beware lots of cape organizations coming to recruit or "recruit" you, though.
[] Be a villain! Nothing too destructive, but your dad could always use some more money around the house. It was your childhood dream to be a hero…but it's time you grew up. Besides, when has authority ever helped you out?
What do you want to do tomorrow morning? (Pick two.)
[] Learn all of the runes Blake already knows.
- -[] Customization
[] Figure out more about this awesome Sight power.
- -[] Customization
[] Try to figure out more about your shamanism in general.
- -[] Customization
[] Take another look at the inside of your head, particularly at the parts changed with getting your pen.
- -[] Customization
[] You cleared a lot of the air, but you still have a fair number of things to talk with Blake about.
- -[] Explore magic vs parahuman abilities, try to understand how it might be different instead of trying to dismiss alternate perspectives. Anything Blake wants to discuss immediately?
- -[] Alternate Customization
[] Start working to master the runes Blake already taught you.
(Must have chosen "Learn all of the runes Blake already knows." Pick your top three, each on a separate line; order will progress with descending number of votes. Ties will be dealt with semi-randomly)
- -[] Rune Name
- -[] Rune Name
- -[] Rune Name
[] Blake has a number of runes that he thinks he can figure out and teach you more easily than he can help you train the spirits totally new runes. Help him figure out what they are and learn them.
(Must have chosen "Learn all of the runes Blake already knows." Pick your top three, each on a separate line; order will progress with descending number of votes. Ties will be dealt with semi-randomly)
- -[] Rune Name
- -[] Rune Name
- -[] Rune Name
I waffled on it, but the way it ended up, you and Blake still need to talk more so you don't break your word (not that it's karmically binding), but the biggest issues were resolved. You don't have to continue it tomorrow, but you shouldn't let it lie for too long either.
I am absolutely planning on skipping or glossing over the homework more in future updates. This isn't Polyhistor Academy, you guys don't get bonuses based on individual class performance heh
Voting will be open for at least 72 hours, possibly more, due to all of the traveling I need to do in the near future.
Also, please notice the poll at the top
<-Prev | Next->
AN: Some slice of life here, though I tried to make it all relevant. My current plans for future updates are to skip the parts that are less interesting/significant. Like doing homework.
Also, the alignment vote isn't closed yet.
Introductions 1.6.2
It's already past lunch time—it was past lunch time when you started to talk to Blake, really—but after what you just talked about, you're not hungry at all. So, onto homework.
You have four classes a day; this semester, it's computer and world issues before lunch, art and math after.
You don't have any homework for your computer class, because of how far ahead of the curve you are in that class, but you do in the others. Math is pretty easy, and you had already gotten started on it on Thursday, so you decide to leave it for a little later. You find your homework goes better if you leave some of the easy stuff for later, either because you're frustrated with something else and can take a break from it while still being productive, or because it's nice to finish up with something easier while you're more tired.
That left the world issues and art assignments. World issues is a half-page paper on any piece of legislation going through Congress right now, and art is a take-home quiz and worksheet on the art styles you're currently learning about.
It's a paltry amount of homework, but you aren't going to complain about something that makes it easier to get back to cape stuff.
You get out your world issues notes and are about to start going through them when you realize something. Why wait until after the homework is done to do cape stuff? Obviously you can't start practicing runes on your homework, but there's no reason not to get better at using the Sight, and maybe doing the assignments with your implement will give you some sort of benefit? Well, not likely, but maybe. Giving yourself a little grin, you grab your pen and turn on the Sight. The grin grows a bit larger as you see the tiny spirits in their place beneath reality…a grin that disappears as the spirits wink out once you leave the pen on the desk.
A quick scramble for the pen later and you check that yes, the Sight does still work for you. You huff a quick breath of relief, before your face falls into a frown. Apparently you can't maintain the Sight without the pen in your hand. That's…irritating. More than irritating, actually, but this is supposed to be something you're doing while you do homework, so you'll have to put your worries aside for the moment. You tuck the pen into your left hand, curling your pinky and ring finger around it, and try to flip through the world issues notebook.
On the upside, even looking at the notes with the Sight is interesting. Just glancing at the spirits while looking for your place in your notes is remarkable. The wood pulp that makes up the paper is fairly easily determined, especially when compared to the wood spirits in your desk. It looks like they're made of different trees, though, and you have no idea which is what. The ink spirits on the page look distinctly different from the ink that has come from your implement, though you're not sure yet whether it's just a different formula or something more power-based. Most interestingly, you can see color! Not that you're colorblind or anything, but even color seems to have its own spirits, which certainly has interesting implications on what you'll be able to manipulate. Once you have the time, at least. There's also a lot of spirits that stand more or less alone, being the only few of their kind in an area or in the whole notebook. You're not really sure what's up with those.
On the downside, your notes themselves are pretty spotty. You're better than this, even with the trio breathing down your neck, but when you add how distracted the bundles have been making you, especially lately…well, you're lucky you have anything more than doodles written down. The bundles have been much less distracting since you summoned Blake, so your notes should improve from this point on. Hopefully.
You ponder for a time on asking Blake for help. You did just want some space to let things settle, and talking right now might not be the best way to do so. On the other hand, you would just be talking about school stuff, not any of the other topics that might be touchy between the two of you. And you wouldn't mind his help. The worst thing he'd do is say no, right? Probably?
You open your mouth to ask Blake, and then you remember that he's from an entirely different world. The legislature from his world wouldn't be anything like the bills here. That might be for the best. You suppress a sigh from habit and, with a quick aside to let Blake know where you're going, you get up to wake up the dinosaur of a computer in the office up here.
Roughly one eon later, you are finally able to browse through the Q-Link search results. It's surprisingly frustrating to find information on what your elected officials are up to, but on second thought, they probably design it that way on purpose. Eventually, you manage to find a list of current bills, along with a summary and a bunch of other info you don't care about.
You hesitate before picking a bill. Your inclination is to go for a bill concerning capes—and there are many that touch on the subject to some degree—but you're wary of breaking habit in any sort of noticeable way. The idea of your world issues teacher, Mr. Gladly of all people, as being someone who kept an eye out for new capes seems absurd, but still. You were something of a cape geek even before you became one, but you didn't choose a cape topic every time. Better safe than sorry.
You pick a law trying to adjust the regulations on the upkeep of Endbringer shelters as a sort of compromise, and then spend another age pulling up a couple of different articles on the bill, because you have more integrity than to just copy or paraphrase from the government site. Eventually, you have enough information to make a well-written half-page paper. You could make it longer without resorting to fluff, but Mr. Gladly actively discouraged exceeding his requirements.
Just as you finish up, you get a thought, glancing from your assignment to the untouched paper nearby. One of the things the trio has done since the beginning is sabotage your academic career. They've been ratcheting up the tension even in class, making it harder to take notes or even pay attention, and they frequently destroy or steal work for class. Creating duplicates of your work was an idea that came to you early, but you don't have a copier at home, and frankly you want as few reminders of your terrible school life as possible; just the idea of spending more time physically copying all of your work, perhaps to still have it be ruined, is physically exhausting. With what you know about shamanism, though, you should be able to use your power to copy your homework in almost no time at all.
The smile that crosses your face is rather vicious, but it fades swiftly. The problem is, you don't know such a rune, and Blake told you he only knew so many by heart. That means that you two will have to spend some time working it out, and you could hardly justify doing that before you learn the ones he already knows.
You could try to convince the spirits to do it directly, without need of a rune, but even beyond the time and energy it would take…part of you doesn't want to have your first effort—other than the rune to test that your implement works—be on homework, or school at all.
Besides, right now was time for homework, not power testing.
Still, it's an idea for the future, and one that you make a note of as you start to shut down your ancient monstrosity. The machine's already started to shut down when you realize—Dammit! Irritated, you repeat yourself out loud.
"Dammit!"
"What's wrong?" says a voice from nowhere.
"Wha--!?" Breath sucked in, you half-jump off your chair, spinning to face the unexpected sound. You have your pen clenched aggressively in one fist and the other in front of you, ready for—
Oh.
"Uh. Hi Dad," you say weakly, your hands slowly starting to relax. Your breaths are deep and harsh as you come down from the adrenaline surge. As you do, embarrassment hits at the image you draw with your overreaction.
Your dad doesn't exactly look much better. His hands are just starting to come down from a ready position, and his eyes are wider and more startled than usual. His breath, too, is faster than normal.
Your dad and you stare at each other awkwardly for a few moments. It goes on longer than the pauses that have become so normal around here, long enough that you become acutely uncomfortable. A few seconds before you'll venture saying something else, your dad gives a large breath and puts a hand over his heart.
"Sorry for scaring you, kiddo."
"Oh, it uh…yeah, sorry for scaring you too." Your dad's mouth may start to quirk upwards, but you frown. You could have sworn you had closed the office door behind you…
"What's wrong?"
"Oh, it's nothing. I just thought I shut the door behind me, that's all." At that, your dad's frown—a surprisingly heavy frown, you note with surprise—lifts from his face.
"Oh, it was," he says. "I was just—I was just coming to see what all the noise coming from the office was." He gives a forced chuckle. "I guess it's been too long since I've used it."
You nod, but that doesn't seem quite right. He might not use it that often, but you still use it at least once a week for homework, though you don't need to as much when your notes are better. Though, you're not sure how many of those times were while he was awake…or maybe he was upstairs this time? Sound does travel really well in this house, he probably wouldn't need to be upstairs to hear it…
Whatever, you don't need to be analyzing your own dad's words like this. It's probably nothing.
"So," he says before the silence gets too awkward again. "What were you cursing about?"
Your heartrate, which was returning to normal, suddenly picks up for a second, before you relax again. Cursing, like curse words, not magic. Right.
"Oh," you say, keeping your relief from your tone, "that. I just started the shut-down process on the computer when I finished some of my world issues home…work, and then realized I also needed it for art class." Your voices stumbles when you remember that the world issues teacher almost never assigns homework over the weekend, and crap, he's going to realize this is homework from before the weekend—
"Oh, I see," your dad nods. "Well, that's easily fixed." He waves as the machine behind you, still sounding like it's in its death throes. "You just need to wait for a little bit after it turns off."
…or he won't even notice. "Yeah," you say after a moment. "It's just irritating."
"Okay."
The silence drags on, again longer than is usual around here. Is something actu—
"So I'm going to go make dinner," your dad says abruptly. "Does spaghetti sound good?"
You open your mouth—and pause as your stomach loudly rumbles. "…yeah, great," you mutter, cheeks flushing.
"In that case, it'll probably be done quickly enough that you won't have time to turn it back on." With a chuckle that sounds a little less forced, your dad leaves to get started.
Shaking your head, you go to close the office door. You swear that when you get a headquarters or office or lair or whatever, your desk will be facing the door. Always. Abruptly you notice that your mother's pen is in your hand…and was the whole time you were talking to your dad. You might normally start to panic at that thought, just a little, but he would have said something if he had seen it; he didn't say anything, so clearly he hadn't seen it.
You head back to the noisy computer.
You get your art notes out, holding your pen with two fingers in your left hand again as you try to find your place. You notice much the same with this notebook that you did with the other, down to the smattering of unique spirits, though a lot of those are different. You think. The spirits are kind of tiny, can sort of overlap and many of them look similar, so it' a bit difficult to tell with some of them.
The computer groans on.
Unfortunately, your notes from art class aren't really better than the ones in the world issues notebook. You want to care about school—you were always good at it before high school, and your mom was a teacher after all—but it was hard to pay too much attention to the teachers that wouldn't help you out when the bullies were in the class and keeping you paranoid of their torments. Compounding the issue is the take-home quiz, which basically just checks that you've been taking notes. Unfortunately, the ones you've been taking aren't very good. Hopefully, the internet will be able to answer the questions that you don't have the notes to answer.
Your computer's noise shifts to a grinding sound.
You throw your hands up. "Forget it!" you blurt out, barely remembering to keep your voice down. You knew that you wouldn't have time to turn it back on before your dad finished making dinner, but this is ridiculous. Irate, you reach out and flip off the computer screen, in case it interfered with what you wanted to do.
You were going to ask Blake for help before, right? You just didn't bother because the question was too topical, there was pretty literally no way he could have known the answer. But this, this was just art. Your worlds were pretty similar, so you should have similar art styles. You think. Even if he doesn't know much about art—and what are the odds that he does, honestly?—asking shouldn't hurt.
You place your hand on the dark screen of the deactivated screen in front of you. "Blake Thorburn." You wait a moment, but he doesn't appear. "Bl—"
"What's up?" Blake's voice comes from the screen, but it's…vague. Distant. Like his image.
"Blake?" you ask, squinting a little at the screen after you drop your hand. "Are you okay in there?"
"Yeah," he says after a moment. "It's not exactly pleasant, in reflections this fuzzy, but it doesn't hurt or anything. It just feels like ground might not be completely stable, but I can just jump away it becomes a problem."
"Oh," you say, not certain what else to say. Ah, banalities would work. "How's the research coming?"
You can't read Blake's expression at the moment, it being far too fuzzy, but you can tell that it changes.
"It's…going okay, I suppose. There's a lot to go through."
You nod in response; he did copy a lot of books from the library.
"So why'd you call me over?"
"I was…" It feels silly at this point, but you're already this far. "I was curious if you knew anything about art?"
There's a pause. "Not that I mind you asking or anything, but I'm curious about why you're asking."
"I have an art class assignment or two," you say, feelings of awkwardness increasing, "but my notes aren't very good at the moment, and I accidently started shutting down my computer before I remembered I needed it to check for the art stuff. And…since dinner is soon, I won't have time to restart it and find the information before then. So I thought I'd ask you if you knew anything about art."
"Oh," Blake says in a surprised tone. "I know a lot about art, actually."
You perk up. "You do?"
"Yeah," he says, an odd note of sadness entering his somewhat distorted voice. "Actually, most of my friends are artists."
"Ah," you say, feelings of awkwardness returning with company. "Are you an artist too?" you say, jumping at the first thing you can think of to relieve it.
"No," Blake says, the sadness much more apparent now. "The ability to create like that…it's not a talent that I have."
"Oh," you say pointlessly. What should you say?
"I'm pretty good with my hands, though," Blake says, voice cheering for a moment before falling again. "Though I can't really do anything with it in here…"
You just sit there in social agony, knowing you need to say something to make this better, but having no idea how to do so.
"Anyway!" Blake says after an interminable amount of time. "I do quite enjoy art anyway, and I know a lot about it. Did you have specific questions?"
You latch onto the out and ride it for all its worth, quickly becoming engrossed in the details of the art styles your teacher has been instructing the class on. Blake as a way of speaking passionately on the subject that you find more interesting than when your teacher does. It might just be the lack of bullies around, breathing down your neck. Or it might be that though your teacher is passionate about art, she clearly had her passion for teaching beat out of her from years of dealing with Winslow students. Whatever the reason, you're distinctly disappointed when you hear your dad call you down for supper.
"I've got to go," you say, dragging your feet. "Thanks for all of the help—I won't need to use the computer nearly as much I thought I would." You gesture to the dinosaur in the room, which fell silent at…some point, you're not really sure when.
"I'm glad to help," Blake responds with a smile. "It was fun. You want to pick it up back up afterwards?"
"Sure." And with that happy thought, you go downstairs.
You head back upstairs with a significantly more thoughtful expression on your face.
The actual food itself was fine. Dad had thrown together a quick salad to go with the spaghetti and tomato sauce, and had even spruced it up a bit with carrots that weren't too stale.
But the conversations, and his behavior—totally unusual, tonight.
Normally you have peaceful silence with your dad, interspaced with comments that, okay, can be pretty awkward. It has been getting more strained lately, what with the secrets building up between you, but tonight…tonight is much worse than you're used to. His questions were far more uncomfortable than they usually are, and at several points he outright stopped speaking, his hands clenching and expression contorting, before starting up somewhere else entirely. It was very strange.
Still, weird as it was, you need to focus. You still have to finish your art homework, and your math too, since you decided to finish them up tonight. That will leave you all of tomorrow without having to worry about them.
You go into the office, unsurprised to find Blake absent from the computer's monitor, and take a moment to turn the computer back on. You think for a second or two, then walk back into the hall to your room. You look into the two mirrors on your desk, and yes, there's Blake in the n'kisi.
You pause for a moment, looking between the two. Your desk chair is visible in both mirrors, but only the n'kisi shows Blake sitting there, books piled on the desk. Strange.
"Hey Blake," you say, noting the oddity but focusing on your current task. "I'm done with supper. You ready to start again?"
"Sure," he says, starting to shuffle the books around. "Go ahead, I'll meet you there." You start to do so, then pause as a thought strikes you. "Yes?" Blake asks when he notices you standing still.
"Hey, Blake," you say slowly, teasing the idea around in your head. "You saw the little mirrors I bought, right?"
He stops shifting the books around to look at you. "Yeah, I did."
"Well, one of the reasons I bought them was so that you could always be sure to have somewhere to be without needing the n'kisi around, and so that if a mirror you were in broke, there would be others. But right now…would you like a few around the house? In the areas that don't consistently have solid reflections, at least."
"Yeah," Blake says after a moment, a smile on his face. "That would be nice. Thanks, Taylor."
You flash him a quick smile and go to fetch the mirrors. You place two on the top of your desk, to maximize coverage of the room, and if one of them happens to have your bed in its range, oh well. You go into the office and set one up in there, right next to the hand-mirror that you had on the desk in your room.
The fact that the second mirror is pointed directly at the office door is a coincidence, surely.
Blake soon arrives and you spend the next while chatting about the topics of the art homework. Unfortunately, he can't tell you everything you need to know, and once you are able to use the computer, you discover that the internet can't either, though it does fill some of the gaps. You aren't sure if that means that your teacher is teaching you obscure stuff or if she's making things up, but you aren't able to quite finish the assignments. Still, you do far better tonight than you have been doing, and faster as well, while having more fun. All in all, you'll chock this up as a win.
You move on to math, starting to shut off the computer and taking everything back to your room. Blake tells you he won't be able to help with this subject; that's okay, though, since you don't need his help with math. It takes you a little while to remember what he had been teaching on Thursday, but eventually you do, and once you get the hang of it again by going through the examples, you finish the remainder of your assignment with ease.
With a satisfied sigh, you lean back in your seat, almost tossing your pen on top of your homework before you remember what happened the last time you let go of it while using the Sight. Your assignment looks a little weird, shifting from pencil to pen where you picked it back up tonight, but you had already planned on using your pen to do your homework, and since your math teacher never specified what kind of writing tool you were to use, you didn't see a reason to change the plan. Besides, it let you discover what happened when you made a mistake with your pen—simply put, your pen acted like a normal one would, marking the page indelibly. Whiteout covered it up like normal, too.
You also noticed that the pen didn't run out of ink—you hadn't refilled it once since you turned it into your implement, or filled it up in the first place, and the ink really should have been dry from how long it spent in the basement. It looks like it has some kind of bottomless internal inkwell, on top of being able to draw its own ink back into it. It isn't very cool on its own, but it sure is a handy secondary power, you have to admit. And never having to worry about buying pens or (possibly) pencils again is nice. A small frown crosses your face. As long as you can keep the pen safe, at least.
Still, that is a worry for another time. Right now…well, you don't have anything really planned for right now, actually. You wanted to talk to Blake and finish your homework, and you did both of those things. You know you didn't cover everything you needed to when you talked with Blake, but you covered the most important things, and there isn't enough time left in the evening to pick it back up. Not if you want to straighten up your sleep schedule, and you do plan to do that. You have a feeling that you won't be getting much sleep once your cape career really takes off. Besides, despite how invigorating your talk with Blake was, you're feeling pretty tired.
Plans…
It's true you still don't know a lot about how your power works—though you know a lot more than you did three days ago—but Blake suggested trying to live in sync with implement, which in this case means labeling and planning.
You've been doing a lot more planning than labeling so far. You suppose you could label your cape notebooks, but you have been relying on obscurity to hide them, and putting a big label on all of that seems…unwise. Something about that bugs you more than it should, but you resolve to consider it later. After a moment, you think of a way to label more without any such risks, and take your homework back out. You carefully fill in headers for every paper, including the kind of information your middle school teachers wanted but the Winslow teachers never bothered with. It only takes a few minutes, and there, you just labeled some things, that you wouldn't normally have done. That should help, right?
Your power is so weird.
Anyway, that doesn't feel like enough, and didn't take up much time on top of it. So what to do? Something with labeling or planning, or both. Hm…aha.
You start going through your desk, digging through all of the junk you keep in the drawers until you find your goal.
It's a simple school agenda, purchased from Winslow at the beginning of the school year, when you were cautiously optimistic about this upcoming year. Time had soon shown you the folly of your hope, and you ended up leaving it at home rather than risk it being trashed with the rest of your school supplies. The loss of money was an aggravation, but better you never used the thing than using it for a short time and then suffering in its absence. Now, however, it can actually serve a purpose.
You open it up to the first page, some obvious drivel about it being a Winslow High School student planner. But really, you won't be using it for that anymore, will you? You still aren't sure what you'll label it, you don't want to just give the truth away—and something about that is still bugging you—but you know what label it won't have, at least. With a little florish, you slash your pen through its title, repeating the motion until the header was unintelligible. You turn the page, only to notice that the ink didn't seem through the page or give it that weak, sodden feel that often happens when you use too much ink in one place.
Hm. Another benefit.
You flip through the pages until you find today's date: Sat, Feb 5th, 2011. With a glance at the clock, you turn your attention to the 6th instead. Twirling your pen absently between your fingers, you plan out what you're going to be doing tomorrow, with an eye for what you're going to need in the long-term.
Basic Info
- Status
- Normal
- Tired
- Big Three
- Central Pool ( (?-1)/? )
- FAMILIAR
- Blake
- Normal
- Blake
- demesne
- ???
- ???
- ???
- implement
- Pen (shamanism)
- Normal
- Pen (shamanism)
- FAMILIAR
- Central Pool ( (?-1)/? )
·
· Push (trigger: gesture)
·
·
· Unlock
· Wind (imbuement: a little lighter, pushes a little harder)
· Quiet
· Durability (inanimate/inorganic)
· Alarm (hamper: Stick)
· Alarm (notice: detects life within radius)
· Orient: Heart (trigger: finger)
· Wind (imbuement: a little lighter, pushes a little harder)
· Quiet
· Durability (inanimate/inorganic)
· Alarm (hamper: Stick)
· Alarm (notice: detects life within radius)
· Orient: Heart (trigger: finger)
· Alarm (punish: Y)
· Secures locks
· Physical stasis (inanimate/inorganic)
· Reaching out (sensory, detection, no significant locomotion)
· Electricity/Lightning
· Metal (pseudo-transmutation)
· Fire
· Banishment (incorporeal/projection)
· Smell-be-gone
· Exile (prevents spirit tampering, mutes effects)
· Defense (applied to walls, effect: Z)
· Extinguish
· Escher connection
· Secures locks
· Physical stasis (inanimate/inorganic)
· Reaching out (sensory, detection, no significant locomotion)
o Fire (senses warmth, explodes)
o Air (senses breath, moves faster)
o Earth (tracks footsteps, hits harder)
o Metal (transmits signals, moves slowly)
o Water (senses magic/powers, insta-charges)
o Air (senses breath, moves faster)
o Earth (tracks footsteps, hits harder)
o Metal (transmits signals, moves slowly)
o Water (senses magic/powers, insta-charges)
· Electricity/Lightning
· Metal (pseudo-transmutation)
· Fire
· Banishment (incorporeal/projection)
· Smell-be-gone
· Exile (prevents spirit tampering, mutes effects)
· Defense (applied to walls, effect: Z)
· Extinguish
· Escher connection
· Anything you can See.
o Except oops, you're Manton-limited.
Vote for one option per underlined section. Feel free to customize your votes with up to 60 words of additional description if the option is listed; if you are using someone else's plan and wish to add something to it, please bold the new portions.
You can bide your time no longer! What kind of cape do you want to be? (No customization yet)
If you already participated in this vote, feel free to ignore it, though you can still change it if needed.
[] Be a hero! Fight for Justice and Order and the Law! You could join the local government-sanctioned team for underaged capes, the Wards, which offers quite a lot of support for their members in exchange for more oversight, or you could stay independent, being a legal vigilante with a lot less support but also a lot less oversight.
[] Be a rogue! Forget getting into fights, you can just use your power to make money! Actually, you know, there are a lot of ways to monetize this, based on what Blake's mentioned about shamanism. Beware lots of cape organizations coming to recruit or "recruit" you, though.
[] Be a villain! Nothing too destructive, but your dad could always use some more money around the house. It was your childhood dream to be a hero…but it's time you grew up. Besides, when has authority ever helped you out?
What do you want to do tomorrow morning? (Pick two.)
[] Learn all of the runes Blake already knows.
- -[] Customization
[] Figure out more about this awesome Sight power.
- -[] Customization
[] Try to figure out more about your shamanism in general.
- -[] Customization
[] Take another look at the inside of your head, particularly at the parts changed with getting your pen.
- -[] Customization
[] You cleared a lot of the air, but you still have a fair number of things to talk with Blake about.
- -[] Explore magic vs parahuman abilities, try to understand how it might be different instead of trying to dismiss alternate perspectives. Anything Blake wants to discuss immediately?
- -[] Alternate Customization
[] Start working to master the runes Blake already taught you.
(Must have chosen "Learn all of the runes Blake already knows." Pick your top three, each on a separate line; order will progress with descending number of votes. Ties will be dealt with semi-randomly)
- -[] Rune Name
- -[] Rune Name
- -[] Rune Name
[] Blake has a number of runes that he thinks he can figure out and teach you more easily than he can help you train the spirits totally new runes. Help him figure out what they are and learn them.
(Must have chosen "Learn all of the runes Blake already knows." Pick your top three, each on a separate line; order will progress with descending number of votes. Ties will be dealt with semi-randomly)
- -[] Rune Name
- -[] Rune Name
- -[] Rune Name
I waffled on it, but the way it ended up, you and Blake still need to talk more so you don't break your word (not that it's karmically binding), but the biggest issues were resolved. You don't have to continue it tomorrow, but you shouldn't let it lie for too long either.
I am absolutely planning on skipping or glossing over the homework more in future updates. This isn't Polyhistor Academy, you guys don't get bonuses based on individual class performance heh
Voting will be open for at least 72 hours, possibly more, due to all of the traveling I need to do in the near future.
Also, please notice the poll at the top
<-Prev | Next->
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Sasha
Not the Leader
- Location
- The Ever After
[X] Learn all of the runes Blake already knows.
[X] Blake has a number of runes that he thinks he can figure out and teach you more easily than he can help you train the spirits totally new runes. Help him figure out what they are and learn them.
- -[X] Fire
- -[X] Extinguish
- -[X] Escher connection
I'm going for the straight up training plan to improve our versatility.
No clue what the third rune I chose does, but it was in invisitext so it's bound to be interesting.
[X] Blake has a number of runes that he thinks he can figure out and teach you more easily than he can help you train the spirits totally new runes. Help him figure out what they are and learn them.
- -[X] Fire
- -[X] Extinguish
- -[X] Escher connection
I'm going for the straight up training plan to improve our versatility.
No clue what the third rune I chose does, but it was in invisitext so it's bound to be interesting.
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Ridiculously Average Guy
I'm you, but stronger
- Location
-
[X] Be a rogue! Forget getting into fights, you can just use your power to make money! Actually, you know, there are a lot of ways to monetize this, based on what Blake's mentioned about shamanism. Beware lots of cape organizations coming to recruit or "recruit" you, though.
[X] Learn all of the runes Blake already knows.
[X] Blake has a number of runes that he thinks he can figure out and teach you more easily than he can help you train the spirits totally new runes. Help him figure out what they are and learn them.
- -[X] Fire
- -[X] Extinguish
- -[X] Escher connection
[X] Learn all of the runes Blake already knows.
[X] Blake has a number of runes that he thinks he can figure out and teach you more easily than he can help you train the spirits totally new runes. Help him figure out what they are and learn them.
- -[X] Fire
- -[X] Extinguish
- -[X] Escher connection
redzonejoe
Vaguely Pastafarian
- Location
- Canada
[X] Learn all of the runes Blake already knows.
[X] Try to figure out more about your shamanism in general.
Normally I'd like more discussion before voting but I'm about to go camping for the weekend. May reconsider when I return, but until then this is my tentative vote.
Great update btw, it was a pleasure to read!
[X] Try to figure out more about your shamanism in general.
Normally I'd like more discussion before voting but I'm about to go camping for the weekend. May reconsider when I return, but until then this is my tentative vote.
Great update btw, it was a pleasure to read!
- Location
- gmt+ 12
[X] Take another look at the inside of your head, particularly at the parts changed with getting your pen.
[X] You cleared a lot of the air, but you still have a fair number of things to talk with Blake about.
- -[X] Explore magic vs parahuman abilities, try to understand how it might be different instead of trying to dismiss alternate perspectives. Anything Blake wants to discuss immediately?
I think that getting information about our demesne is key to getting our power back to ? out of ? instead of ?-1 out of ?. Using magic heavily will be a bad idea until we know how much we can use, and refuelling ourselves will be important.
As to learning about magic in general, it's useless to have a tool that you don't know how to use, so we should learn from Blake. 'Trying to figure out more about shamanism in general' doesn't seem like a good idea to me, from how it's worded. That implies experimenting by ourselves instead of asking Blake for help, which sounds bizarre to me.
The Taylor/Blake interaction is nice, Sheamann. Also, it seems that Danny is keeping secrets from us.
[X] You cleared a lot of the air, but you still have a fair number of things to talk with Blake about.
- -[X] Explore magic vs parahuman abilities, try to understand how it might be different instead of trying to dismiss alternate perspectives. Anything Blake wants to discuss immediately?
I think that getting information about our demesne is key to getting our power back to ? out of ? instead of ?-1 out of ?. Using magic heavily will be a bad idea until we know how much we can use, and refuelling ourselves will be important.
As to learning about magic in general, it's useless to have a tool that you don't know how to use, so we should learn from Blake. 'Trying to figure out more about shamanism in general' doesn't seem like a good idea to me, from how it's worded. That implies experimenting by ourselves instead of asking Blake for help, which sounds bizarre to me.
The Taylor/Blake interaction is nice, Sheamann. Also, it seems that Danny is keeping secrets from us.
[X] Take another look at the inside of your head, particularly at the parts changed with getting your pen.
[X] You cleared a lot of the air, but you still have a fair number of things to talk with Blake about.
- -[X] Explore magic vs parahuman abilities, try to understand how it might be different instead of trying to dismiss alternate perspectives. Anything Blake wants to discuss immediately?
--[X] Broach the idea of using Shamanism to empower him. If vestiges are temporary because they run out of power, could feeding him power sustain him? If Shamanism can create spirits, could he become something other than a vestige.
A good foundation is necessary before we build anything. Understanding how Taylor's parahuman power works and how it differs from Pact magic will make experimentation more effective. Furthermore, establishing a strong relationship with Blake will make everything better, establishing that Taylor respects his viewpoint and experiences are very necessary to that. Establishing that Taylor wants to help restore his agency is also a good step. Give the poor guy something other than an inevitable death to look forward to.
[X] You cleared a lot of the air, but you still have a fair number of things to talk with Blake about.
- -[X] Explore magic vs parahuman abilities, try to understand how it might be different instead of trying to dismiss alternate perspectives. Anything Blake wants to discuss immediately?
--[X] Broach the idea of using Shamanism to empower him. If vestiges are temporary because they run out of power, could feeding him power sustain him? If Shamanism can create spirits, could he become something other than a vestige.
A good foundation is necessary before we build anything. Understanding how Taylor's parahuman power works and how it differs from Pact magic will make experimentation more effective. Furthermore, establishing a strong relationship with Blake will make everything better, establishing that Taylor respects his viewpoint and experiences are very necessary to that. Establishing that Taylor wants to help restore his agency is also a good step. Give the poor guy something other than an inevitable death to look forward to.
[X] Learn all of the runes Blake already knows.
[X] You cleared a lot of the air, but you still have a fair number of things to talk with Blake about.
- -[X] Explore magic vs parahuman abilities, try to understand how it might be different instead of trying to dismiss alternate perspectives. Anything Blake wants to discuss immediately?
- -[X] Broach the idea of using Shamanism to empower him. If Shamanism can create spirits, could he become something other than a vestige?
[X] You cleared a lot of the air, but you still have a fair number of things to talk with Blake about.
- -[X] Explore magic vs parahuman abilities, try to understand how it might be different instead of trying to dismiss alternate perspectives. Anything Blake wants to discuss immediately?
- -[X] Broach the idea of using Shamanism to empower him. If Shamanism can create spirits, could he become something other than a vestige?
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[X] Be a hero! Fight for Justice and Order and the Law! You could join the local government-sanctioned team for underaged capes, the Wards, which offers quite a lot of support for their members in exchange for more oversight, or you could stay independent, being a legal vigilante with a lot less support but also a lot less oversight.
Again, like I said before. Taylot WANTS to make a difference, and being on the hero side gives us some protection. As long as we don't try a stupid stunt like "pretend to be a villain to infiltrate them". That's for people with better socials
Rogue would have a slightly higher profile if we want to make money, be contactable, be known. Until we have the personal power for it, we're likely to be drafted into an orgaization. Where hero can have either backing from the PRT or obscurity, a rogue can't actually make money if nobody can find them.
[X] Learn all of the runes Blake already knows.
[X] Blake has a number of runes that he thinks he can figure out and teach you more easily than he can help you train the spirits totally new runes. Help him figure out what they are and learn them.
-[X] Physical stasis (inanimate/inorganic)
-[X] Escher connection
-[X] Electricity/Lightning
The logic here is to basically protect our stuff better...and got something to use on SS when it becomes a thing.
Again, like I said before. Taylot WANTS to make a difference, and being on the hero side gives us some protection. As long as we don't try a stupid stunt like "pretend to be a villain to infiltrate them". That's for people with better socials
Rogue would have a slightly higher profile if we want to make money, be contactable, be known. Until we have the personal power for it, we're likely to be drafted into an orgaization. Where hero can have either backing from the PRT or obscurity, a rogue can't actually make money if nobody can find them.
[X] Learn all of the runes Blake already knows.
[X] Blake has a number of runes that he thinks he can figure out and teach you more easily than he can help you train the spirits totally new runes. Help him figure out what they are and learn them.
-[X] Physical stasis (inanimate/inorganic)
-[X] Escher connection
-[X] Electricity/Lightning
The logic here is to basically protect our stuff better...and got something to use on SS when it becomes a thing.
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- Location
- gmt+ 12
Does this mean that if we created a blast of cold with our runes and the cold hit someone, the air would instantly revert to normal? Or does it merely mean that we can't, for example, give someone high-quality plastic surgery with runes?
Thats not how Manton effect works.
It means that we could create a blast of cold, but we couldn't just write a Cold rune onto them and freeze their blood directly.
Sheaman3773
(Unverified Writer)
- Location
- Within ~1 AU of Sol
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I love that you got these two together. That's using your head!
Shamanism is a very versatile Worm power, so working to improve it is a good choice
Dangerous, dangerous assumption...
I won't say what the invisitext means just yet, though it does have a specific meaning. I will point out that it's not the only invisitext item in those lists, and the other might make it more clear why they are written as invisible.
If "Learn all of the runes Blake already knows." wins, then you'll basically be told outright what it means.
Thanks! I'm honestly a little antsy writing this much without a fight scene, but if it's going to be all character interactions and world-building (edit: for the moment, it won't be like this for the whole quest) I'm glad it's being done well
What? Keep important secrets from a family member? What, do you think Danny is a Hebert or something?
That's my bad, if that is the impression you're getting. It's more "figure out the differences between the shamanism Blake knows and how it works here." Part of the confusion might be due to awkward phrasing--that vote would include learning more about your pen too, as it is part of your shamanism power.
Assume Blake will be helping you in any action if it makes any sense for him to do so, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
I've been considering including a set of Blake Actions for you to vote for, with the default option being "Help Taylor, unless he can't, in which case he researches more about Earth Bet and all its crazy cape stuff." A familiar is designed to help expand your agency, after all, and it makes sense to allow him choices like that.
Remember that customizations can only be up to 60 words. Combined, those two go over that line by a bit. A little tweaking will fix that, though.
This. This is a good comment. I made a habit of Liking votes specifically, but I may give an Insightful for this line alone.
Well. Uh.
Vestiges do have that problem in general, but that's when they're not set up with a stable power source.
Blake is connected to your power source, as far as you both can tell. He seems to be stable.
Which isn't to say you couldn't try this. But his imminent death isn't hanging over his head like the Sword of Damocles or anything.
That would be very important to Blake, yes /nod
There are more ways to make a difference than knocking heads together
And there's the question of how tolerant of injustices that Taylor herself sees...True, some protection.
Probably true. It's entirely possible to have a very low-key business, if you do the contacting. If it was a power that only would help in...architecture, say, there's little reason for people who aren't in the field to know about you.
You could bill your power like that, something secretive that you only use to enhance the people in the know.
Kinda like Cauldron
heh
Don't forget she also has a weakness for aerosolized attacks like pepper spray. Nobody remembers that one.
veekie has the right of it, here.
I'll also point out that you can't even see the spirits that make up people--they appear as an empty void.
TheAlec said:
I'm glad to get your question on this site, TheAlec!
Mastered vs Known is a mechanic that perhaps I should have waited to introduce until later. There is a small increase in effectiveness, from Known to Mastered, but primarily it's a matter of use.
The thing about runes is that they are just shapes. The few we see aren't really that intuitive, and I think only one that matches what it does well enough to be sensible even in retrospect. You're also going to be learning quite a few at a time. That means you might mess things up, if you don't know the runes firmly enough. A rune that is Known just means that if...say, you were asked to demonstrate it, you could. Mastered means being able to do it on demand, under pressure, without mistake.
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Sasha
Not the Leader
- Location
- The Ever After
I have experience working with flammable and explosive materials, so maybe I'm just extra careful about these kind of things, but really it's just common sense. Thanks though!
I said interesting, not safe. Does this mean it's a boring option?
I know it's not, but it was the only available one in that selection.
That one does not fall under the "master" choice.
Remember that Taylor doesn't know SS is Sophia. I figure that something like fire is a better choice, both in and out of character, because is has a multitude of applications outside of combat, whereas lightning/electricity sounds like it will have far less.
For me, the choice of rogue is attractive because it's different. There are a million quests where Taylor becomes a hero or a villain, but not many that have her become a rogue. I'm not saying that choosing to be a hero or villain would lead to a predictable story line, but being a rogue would undoubtedly provide a novel narrative experience beyond the change to our powers.
You have a point about Taylor wanting to make a difference, but fighting the bad guys isn't the only way to do that. There are tons of ways we could improve the bay if we put our minds to it.
On the danger of being a rogue, I can't imagine it's as dangerous as you make it out to be.
-Becoming a villain holds the same risks of being forcibly recruited, along with extra enemies (PRT, Protectorate, other villains).-Joining the Wards would give us support, but we would be getting into fights on purpose because it would be our job (yes, I know Wards aren't required to participate in fights, but the Brockton Bay Protectorate/PRT has been shown to ignore this rule).
-Becoming an independent hero might provide us with some safety in obscurity, but it runs the same risks that joining the Wards does and doesn't include the support.
Sheaman3773
(Unverified Writer)
- Location
- Within ~1 AU of Sol
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
This underlined phrase...I know I've heard of it before, but...what does it mean again?
Mm...yes and no.I said interesting, not safe. Does this mean it's a boring option?
The rune itself is anything but boring, imo. But it was invisitext for a reason (which was not just to tease you guys) so you might find it a bit...underwhelming due to that. I won't punish you for making that choice, though, so feel free to make it
Thank you for reminding me. I noticed it, then forgot before I had a chance to get to a place where I could respond.
You can only Master runes that you Know. You won't Know those unless you spend an action on learning these in the first place, which you can't do within this action. You could vote to learn the ones Blake knows, then learn these specific ones in this update, then choose to Master them in the next action, but this option currently doesn't work.
I think that came out poorly. Let me put it this way:
You can't master any runes that aren't in the Known Runes window. Right now, that's just Push. If you choose to do "Learn all of the runes Blake already knows," then everything in Easily Known Runes will be added to Known Runes. You could then choose to master those runes. Unfortunately, the runes you mentioned aren't in Easily Known Runes, and so cannot be learned in time to be mastered this morning.
Electricity has loads of uses, especially once you figure out how to regulate the output. The Magic to Electricity ratio will determine how useful it is, but it does have a lot of uses.
Tasers are used as non-lethal take-down tools pretty commonly, and you will have need of that no matter which way you choose, albeit for different reasons.
Though fire also has lots of good uses too
We have the creativity of all of you on top of my own for the limits on what can be done, after all. We should be able to finagle some interesting applications.
That does seem to be the general feeling I get from the posters on the subject.
Precisely!
Just for one of the bluntest options, provisional donations can work wonders (e.g., "Here's this money--you can only use it to repair and start the running of the ferry. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go give an interview on the subject to a couple of news organisations.)
See the above about the creativity we have on-hand.
- -[X] Explore magic vs parahuman abilities, try to understand how it might be different instead of trying to dismiss alternate perspectives. Anything Blake wants to discuss immediately?
- -[X] Broach the idea of using Shamanism to empower him. If Shamanism can create spirits, could he become something other than a vestige?
- -[X] Broach the idea of using Shamanism to empower him. If Shamanism can create spirits, could he become something other than a vestige?
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Sheaman3773
(Unverified Writer)
- Location
- Within ~1 AU of Sol
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Okay, so I should have closed this days ago, but, well, IRL intervened for most of it. But now...
Vote Closed.
That includes the alignment vote, btw. The poll is still open, though don't count on that continuing for much longer.
A brief note before covering the vote and such:
So I had a talk with my concept-beta and he pointed out that I wasn't playing the pen as an implement fully enough. Upon thinking on it, I decided that he was right, so there's a tiny retcon from the previous chapter, as well as some other changes on stuff you haven't run into yet.
Now that that's out of the way, to the vote!
And the winner!
Congratz, this is now a Rogue Quest!
So the rest of the talk you would have gotten if the issues they had been bottling up hadn't been so volitile, and learning the runes Blake already knows and will work just fine.
The latter was something you guys were going to pick at some point no matter what, so I already started on that section: ~1.6k words in.
Quick note to @Indivisible : when you make a new post with the [X] inside, it ignores your older votes. In the future, just changing it inside your original post or reposting the entire vote would work better for the bot.
Vote Closed.
That includes the alignment vote, btw. The poll is still open, though don't count on that continuing for much longer.
A brief note before covering the vote and such:
So I had a talk with my concept-beta and he pointed out that I wasn't playing the pen as an implement fully enough. Upon thinking on it, I decided that he was right, so there's a tiny retcon from the previous chapter, as well as some other changes on stuff you haven't run into yet.
Vote tally:
##### 3.21
[X] Learn all of the runes Blake already knows.
No. of votes: 6
Sasha, Ridiculously Average Guy, redzonejoe, silentspirals, veekie, TheAlec
[X] You cleared a lot of the air, but you still have a fair number of things to talk with Blake about.
No. of votes: 4
readerboy7, silentspirals, Indivisible, TheAlec
-[X] Explore magic vs parahuman abilities, try to understand how it might be different instead of trying to dismiss alternate perspectives. Anything Blake wants to discuss immediately?
No. of votes: 3
readerboy7, silentspirals, Indivisible
-[X] Broach the idea of using Shamanism to empower him. If Shamanism can create spirits, could he become something other than a vestige?
No. of votes: 2
silentspirals, Indivisible
-[X] Explore magic vs parahuman abilities, try to understand how it might be different instead of trying to dismiss alternate perspectives. Anything Blake wants to discuss immediately? And check to see if your father could hear you talking to Blake from elsewhere in the house!
No. of votes: 1
TheAlec
[X] Blake has a number of runes that he thinks he can figure out and teach you more easily than he can help you train the spirits totally new runes. Help him figure out what they are and learn them.
No. of votes: 3
Sasha, Ridiculously Average Guy, veekie
-[X] Fire
No. of votes: 2
Sasha, Ridiculously Average Guy
-[X] Extinguish
No. of votes: 2
Sasha, Ridiculously Average Guy
-[X] Escher connection
No. of votes: 3
Sasha, Ridiculously Average Guy, veekie
-[X] Physical stasis (inanimate/inorganic)
No. of votes: 1
veekie
-[X] Electricity/Lightning
No. of votes: 1
veekie
[X] Try to figure out more about your shamanism in general.
No. of votes: 1
redzonejoe
[X] Take another look at the inside of your head, particularly at the parts changed with getting your pen.
No. of votes: 2
readerboy7, Indivisible
##### 3.21
[X] Learn all of the runes Blake already knows.
No. of votes: 6
Sasha, Ridiculously Average Guy, redzonejoe, silentspirals, veekie, TheAlec
[X] You cleared a lot of the air, but you still have a fair number of things to talk with Blake about.
No. of votes: 4
readerboy7, silentspirals, Indivisible, TheAlec
-[X] Explore magic vs parahuman abilities, try to understand how it might be different instead of trying to dismiss alternate perspectives. Anything Blake wants to discuss immediately?
No. of votes: 3
readerboy7, silentspirals, Indivisible
-[X] Broach the idea of using Shamanism to empower him. If Shamanism can create spirits, could he become something other than a vestige?
No. of votes: 2
silentspirals, Indivisible
-[X] Explore magic vs parahuman abilities, try to understand how it might be different instead of trying to dismiss alternate perspectives. Anything Blake wants to discuss immediately? And check to see if your father could hear you talking to Blake from elsewhere in the house!
No. of votes: 1
TheAlec
[X] Blake has a number of runes that he thinks he can figure out and teach you more easily than he can help you train the spirits totally new runes. Help him figure out what they are and learn them.
No. of votes: 3
Sasha, Ridiculously Average Guy, veekie
-[X] Fire
No. of votes: 2
Sasha, Ridiculously Average Guy
-[X] Extinguish
No. of votes: 2
Sasha, Ridiculously Average Guy
-[X] Escher connection
No. of votes: 3
Sasha, Ridiculously Average Guy, veekie
-[X] Physical stasis (inanimate/inorganic)
No. of votes: 1
veekie
-[X] Electricity/Lightning
No. of votes: 1
veekie
[X] Try to figure out more about your shamanism in general.
No. of votes: 1
redzonejoe
[X] Take another look at the inside of your head, particularly at the parts changed with getting your pen.
No. of votes: 2
readerboy7, Indivisible
Vote tally:
##### 3.21
[X] Be a rogue! Forget getting into fights, you can just use your power to make money! Actually, you know, there are a lot of ways to monetize this, based on what Blake's mentioned about shamanism. Beware lots of cape organizations coming to recruit or "recruit" you, though.
No. of votes: 10
Irenicus, Sasha, Ridiculously Average Guy, dpara, silentspirals, readerboy7, esran, TheAlec, Enohthree, rooster
[X] Be a hero! Fight for Justice and Order and the Law! You could join the local government-sanctioned team for underaged capes, the Wards, which offers quite a lot of support for their members in exchange for a lot of oversight, or you could stay independent, being a legal vigilante with a lot less support but no oversight either.
No. of votes: 8
veekie, ReaperofInterest, will408914, Indivisible, redzonejoe, wingstrike96, DOOMPOTATO, Bozwevial
[X] Be a villain! Nothing too destructive, but your dad could always use some more money around the house. It was your childhood dream to be a hero…but it's time you grew up. Besides, when has authority ever helped you out?
No. of votes: 4
1986ctcel, tinkerbell, Frakir's brother, Anzer'ke
-[X]You've heard that a rogue with cloth based powers recently moved to Brockton Bay. Perhaps you should ask her what it's like to be a rogue (in disguise, of course).
No. of votes: 1
Sasha
##### 3.21
[X] Be a rogue! Forget getting into fights, you can just use your power to make money! Actually, you know, there are a lot of ways to monetize this, based on what Blake's mentioned about shamanism. Beware lots of cape organizations coming to recruit or "recruit" you, though.
No. of votes: 10
Irenicus, Sasha, Ridiculously Average Guy, dpara, silentspirals, readerboy7, esran, TheAlec, Enohthree, rooster
[X] Be a hero! Fight for Justice and Order and the Law! You could join the local government-sanctioned team for underaged capes, the Wards, which offers quite a lot of support for their members in exchange for a lot of oversight, or you could stay independent, being a legal vigilante with a lot less support but no oversight either.
No. of votes: 8
veekie, ReaperofInterest, will408914, Indivisible, redzonejoe, wingstrike96, DOOMPOTATO, Bozwevial
[X] Be a villain! Nothing too destructive, but your dad could always use some more money around the house. It was your childhood dream to be a hero…but it's time you grew up. Besides, when has authority ever helped you out?
No. of votes: 4
1986ctcel, tinkerbell, Frakir's brother, Anzer'ke
No. of votes: 1
Sasha
[X] Be a rogue! Forget getting into fights, you can just use your power to make money! Actually, you know, there are a lot of ways to monetize this, based on what Blake's mentioned about shamanism. Beware lots of cape organizations coming to recruit or "recruit" you, though.
No. of votes: 10
Irenicus, Sasha, Ridiculously Average Guy, dpara, silentspirals, readerboy7, esran, TheAlec, Enohthree, rooster
[X] Learn all of the runes Blake already knows.
No. of votes: 6
Sasha, Ridiculously Average Guy, redzonejoe, silentspirals, veekie, TheAlec
[X] You cleared a lot of the air, but you still have a fair number of things to talk with Blake about.
No. of votes: 4
readerboy7, silentspirals, Indivisible, TheAlec
-[X] Explore magic vs parahuman abilities, try to understand how it might be different instead of trying to dismiss alternate perspectives. Anything Blake wants to discuss immediately?
No. of votes: 3
readerboy7, silentspirals, Indivisible
No. of votes: 10
Irenicus, Sasha, Ridiculously Average Guy, dpara, silentspirals, readerboy7, esran, TheAlec, Enohthree, rooster
[X] Learn all of the runes Blake already knows.
No. of votes: 6
Sasha, Ridiculously Average Guy, redzonejoe, silentspirals, veekie, TheAlec
[X] You cleared a lot of the air, but you still have a fair number of things to talk with Blake about.
No. of votes: 4
readerboy7, silentspirals, Indivisible, TheAlec
-[X] Explore magic vs parahuman abilities, try to understand how it might be different instead of trying to dismiss alternate perspectives. Anything Blake wants to discuss immediately?
No. of votes: 3
readerboy7, silentspirals, Indivisible
So the rest of the talk you would have gotten if the issues they had been bottling up hadn't been so volitile, and learning the runes Blake already knows and will work just fine.
The latter was something you guys were going to pick at some point no matter what, so I already started on that section: ~1.6k words in.
Quick note to @Indivisible : when you make a new post with the [X] inside, it ignores your older votes. In the future, just changing it inside your original post or reposting the entire vote would work better for the bot.
