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Usagi Quest (CK3/Princess Maker) (Sailor Moon)

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Lunaryon said:
Stepping up next to her, Master Fives gives a single uncertain glance towards the bubble-bursting puzzle battle game, before taking a breath and meeting Makoto's grin head on, with cheer in his expression. "We'll see about that, won't we? But don't end up regretting it when I pull victory from the law of deceit. I've learned a few tricks, since the last time I played this."

"I'm almost certain that is not what that saying is."

"It's what it wishes it was," Master Fives fires back.
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The gig was already up here lmao.
Lunaryon said:
But a quick glance around makes it clear that the only person who could possibly be paying any attention to the two is the blonde haired young man sitting on the other side of the crowd. When the girl locks eyes with him, he lifts the soda in his hand in a salute.
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Is that where the real mystery time traveler is hanging out?
Lunaryon said:
And as the gleam in Kōsetsu's eyes begins to grow stronger, after the girl starts to really get an idea of what these games might mean, Usagi closes her eyes. Focusing once more, she pulls her coin purse out of the pocket that she made with her magic.

Even if she didn't plan on helping the girl learn about the games, it'd be more than worth it just to see the way that the spirit's eyes go wide when Usagi uses magic. Kōsetsu must not have realized that Usagi had magic. That's fine. Even better than fine.
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...Usagi dear, its not the magic, its watching someone just bend the fabric of reality to conjure their purse with no preparation, incantation or reagents whatsoever...
 
I wonder how much of the "I'm busy" excuse was that she's trying to ditch being Minako and just being Sailor Venus, and Venus can't just go zipping off to the Arcade to have fun? But MSTR5 isn't Minako or Venus, so it's safe to slip out from time to time as that.
 
veekie said:
...Usagi dear, its not the magic, its watching someone just bend the fabric of reality to conjure their purse with no preparation, incantation or reagents whatsoever...
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Possibly, though for all I know the effect could be duplicated with the right combination of sleight of hand, glamours, and a storage ring or some other known magical artifact.

Though it'd still be an impressive little accomplishment if it was done that way.
 
Yeah, it was obvious that Nejire wasn't Master 5 once the name Twister showed up. Still didn't think it was Minako until partway through this chapter.
 
I knew it was Minako! I guessed from the start, the timing of 'Master 5' disappearance and reappearance timed up way too much with her!
 
Nuew said:
What‽
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Nice interrobang!

Nejire confused me (I never even considered looking up the meaning; for whatever reason, my brain considers that "cheating" lol), but I was always certain that MSTR5 was Minako. I just couldn't tell if Nejire was pretending to be MSTR5 because he figured it'd be a hoot, whether he knew he was impersonating Minako or not.
 
In retrospective, the clues were there:

Lunaryon said:
Just a few months after he finally cast aside the hoodie and actually learned to dress himself properly, one of the two reigning champions of the Crown Arcade disappeared for more than a year.
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Lunaryon said:
There is something familiar about that smile, but you just can't put your finger on why you'd think that. It's not quite the way he smiled at you a few times, in the last few months before he disappeared... but not exactly.
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Lunaryon said:
She can't ever remember Master Fives getting into a really competitive spirit against anyone else...
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Lunaryon said:
Usagi remembers well what happened the last time that Makoto really let loose when competing against someone like this. That spar ended up bringing down an old building on their heads.
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Lunaryon said:
"Well... Then I'd say that while I can be a gracious loser at times, I'm also something of a... Double or zilch kind of guy." Master Fives says, "So I have an idea."
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Bravo Luna, bravo.
 
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okay thats what i THOUGHT was the case, but the Nejire stuff threw me way the fuck off
 
Spart117MC said:
Huh, that's interesting. Minako was using the Master Five disguise months before she left for London, but her disguise was given to her by Mary, so how did that happen?
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the magic that makes her unrecognizable to her friends NOW were given by mary. before she left, she didnt need such powerful mojo, because usagi didnt know her and she didnt know usagi, so just having a hoodie and a ball cap on sufficed. She wasn't trying to disguise Sailor Venus from her princess, she was just disguising Minako Aino from a casual observer
 
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Spart117MC said:
Huh, that's interesting. Minako was using the Master Five disguise months before she left for London, but her disguise was given to her by Mary, so how did that happen?
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So, remember this line:
Lunaryon said:
Just a few months after he finally cast aside the hoodie and actually learned to dress himself properly, one of the two reigning champions of the Crown Arcade disappeared for more than a year.
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I'm pretty sure the reason Minako ditched the hoodie and cap is because she got her hands on this:

Minako's Compact

In Codename: Sailor V, Minako Aino is given a crescent moon-shaped compact by Artemis. She uses it for her unusually strong light-based attacks as well as disguising herself with Crescent Moon Power, Transform. Some of the compact's powers are Crescent Beam, Venus Power, Love Crescent Shower...
sailormoon.fandom.com

which allowed her to disguise herself more effectively. Funnily enough, she uses again during the Mugen/Death Busters Arc in the manga to transform into a Mugen Academy student, so it means that it carried over from Codename: Sailor V.
 
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Lunaryon said:
"We'll see about that, won't we? But don't end up regretting it when I pull victory from the law of deceit. I've learned a few tricks, since the last time I played this."

"I'm almost certain that is not what that saying is."
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It's kind of impressive Mary's gadgets survived this, all things considered. At this point I was pretty sure Minako is using her Sailor V compact to disguise herself.
 
...So, do they bring the mysterious Master Fives back with "his" hair down next time they go to the Arcade?

And can I just say it's actually really wholesome that Usagi and Minako were friends before either of them were Sailor Scouts, even though neither knew it? I love that, even if they were just gaming rivals.
 
ShiftingSandLand said:
...So, do they bring the mysterious Master Fives back with "his" hair down next time they go to the Arcade?

And can I just say it's actually really wholesome that Usagi and Minako were friends before either of them were Sailor Scouts, even though neither knew it? I love that, even if they were just gaming rivals.
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something something fated to be together
 
Chaosmancer said:
She chose to hurt people, but... well, I have a hard time imagining what is was she "started" to be tempted down a dark path.

She couldn't have been tempted by an intelligence, unless it was like "Hey, want dark power? Here you go, bye and I'll never see you again" because her quotes and thoughts clearly shows she has no allies, no community. She doesn't seem to have the connections to the magical community to have performed some esoteric dark ritual to cast aside her humanity. She isn't a trained martial artist like Happosai.

The paths I can see for her having made a deliberate choice to become inhuman don't fit with her depiction. Which makes me think she was either born this way, or she stumbled into something completely by accident. She's too young, too inexperienced, and too lacking in knowledge for me to see other paths.

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I don't understand the point you are trying to make, honestly. I'm thinking she was never fully human. Happosai isn't fully human anymore, but he started as human. So, if she was born into a state similar to one Happosai achieved, then what I've said matches.

And Happosai achieved his state of being through rigorous training over decades. He didn't become inhuman until he was already an old man. Ahma is 14? She has to have had a different style of origin, she simply isn't skilled enough to be some genius prodigy like that. So either her nature is very easy to achieve, or she had some unique experience very early on.

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Sees three chapters

"Welp, that's a tomorrow thing"
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Look, people don't need any more reason for being fundamentally bad as they do for being fundamentally good. Some people are Usagis. And some people are Jack Horners. It isn't necessarily any more complicated than that.
 
Lunaryon said:
he's completely refusing to get a driver's license. Says that people who willingly drive are insane. Honestly, I think that he might be afraid of cars. Thinks that anyone who has any other option but willingly takes the controls of one of those machines has to be some kind of mad."
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Anyone who has looked up the number of fatal road accidents in a given year will know that driving is indeed insane.
Plus Jadeite can teleport, fly and presumably roof-hop. The only reason he has any need for a car is because he is trying to keep a low profile. A state of affairs that will hopefully be very temporary.

It sure would make them look good then, if the government already had a certification system in place when that happens, and already had teachers capable of teaching as well."
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The best kind of good news is bad news that ends with "except we already handled it."
The best kind of change is an unexpected change that you were already prepared for.

There's already so much going on all the time that there are times when Usagi wishes she could just grab hold of time itself and pull back. That she could choke the throttle and slow everything down so that she isn't buried under so many different things. Of course, she knows that she can't do that, because that would just put her in a situation where there is even more to do. The only way forwards to a day when she isn't completely buried under the threats to the world and the dangers to Japan and everything else that is constantly going on is to push forwards.
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Thread chatter coming through loud and clear here.

Then Master Fives' shoulders droop, and with a huff the boy's form seems to... unravel with layers of light and glimmering sparkling mirror-bright metal splintering as the boy's skin and clothes shatters and flake and change, the glimmering shreds fading away like a dream.
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Illusion or transformation? And if transformation, full TG or just androgynes enough that people assume?

Also it would have been nice to know that we had a scrying ward ready to hand when trying to upgrade our building's security. Does she has any other shinies to share?
 
Lunaryon said:
Something like this used to happen pretty much every time that BUNI3 and MSTR5 were both at the Arcade at the same time. Ever since she was just ten, and he was just a little boy always swathed in a giant hoodie with the brim of his baseball cap sticking out. The two players that consistently score the highest on nearly every machine in the arcade have a... Well, had a habit of going up against one another whenever they crossed paths, regardless of the game. And those battles against one another almost always built something of an audience.
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Huh.

Well, hopefully this means that none of them had to deal with this kind of bullshit in this timeline:



Codename: Sailor V said:
"Minako, I presume? I'm [gamer handle] in the game you just surpassed. But you're 100 years too early to try coming into my game center and pulling this crap with me!"
"Don't try to fool me with that long hair and that high voice and that sailor uniform! It's no secret fans use female names, you've just completed the facade!"
"You're not getting away! Take off your clothes! You're really a man, aren't you?!"
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(In the OTL, Minako had to turn into Sailor V and physically beat this guy up until he was unconscious in order to get him to stop harassing her)
 
Ah dang, I only figured it out just before the reveal. The clues were all there, but I was so taken by the 'future villain' red herring that I only stopped to think once it was clear I'd missed something. Really well done there Lunaryon.

On a related note....should we read into the fact that Minako has been on and off presenting as a guy for an extended length of time? Or that her family apparently disowned her for what did always seem like fairly flimsy reasoning?
 
frozenchicken said:
On a related note....should we read into the fact that Minako has been on and off presenting as a guy for an extended length of time? Or that her family apparently disowned her for what did always seem like fairly flimsy reasoning?
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It probably means something, though there's a lot of possibilities.
  • hiding from society's treatment of women
  • wanting to be taken seriously by people who would never take a woman seriously
  • otherwise trying to hide from society's expectations of women
  • trying really hard to hide from parents who don't approve of video games
  • hiding from abusive parents
  • maintaining a secret identity to avoid having to deal with fame the rest of the time
  • various gender stuff (nb, bin tg, fluid, etc.)

The Sailor Moon characters known for this are the Sailor Starlights (who are at least partly doing it to hide that they are Senshi, a girls-only role), and Sailor Uranus (Haruka), who definitely seems to like being considered a guy (at least sometimes)

edit: it's worth noting that:
  • OTL Minako did not have a male alter ego, even when she was being very competitive in the arcade
  • Usagi doesn't seem to have had a similar secret identity in the arcade

Also, another possibility that just occurred to me is that this might have happened by accident: she disguised herself, people assumed she was a guy, and she didn't correct them because actively drawing attention to her gender would have drawn a kind of attention she didn't want.
 
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DocMatoi said:
the magic that makes her unrecognizable to her friends NOW were given by mary. before she left, she didnt need such powerful mojo, because usagi didnt know her and she didnt know usagi, so just having a hoodie and a ball cap on sufficed. She wasn't trying to disguise Sailor Venus from her princess, she was just disguising Minako Aino from a casual observer
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Spart117MC said:
Huh, that's interesting. Minako was using the Master Five disguise months before she left for London, but her disguise was given to her by Mary, so how did that happen?
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Did she say the disguise was given to her by Dame Mary?

Or did she say the obviously magical 'hockey pucks' were given to her by Dame Mary?

Because she was clearly disguised both before and at least briefly after she took out and activated the hockey pucks.

Also, cautionary observation: For all we know, Usagi may not actually be better at detecting illlusions than a normal civilian who knows they exist. She's got very close friends with very good illusion-counters, but while the Mercury Computer is probably capable of passive counter-illusion actions, Honest Flame is an active counter that requires you to know you're being tricked.

RadiantPhoenix said:
Huh.

Well, hopefully this means that none of them had to deal with this kind of bullshit in this timeline:

(In the OTL, Minako had to turn into Sailor V and physically beat this guy up until he was unconscious in order to get him to stop harassing her)
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Well, headcanon could definitely be assembled around that. Though for the moment I shall remain agnostic as to what it would be. Still, I agree strongly with your sentiment.

Torgamous said:
Then maybe he should've made a haunted car dealership instead of discouraging mass transit with his haunted bus route.
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In Jadeite's defense he was high on a considerable amount of evil-infused magical cocaine life energy at the time he came up with that plan.
 
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