Mag

As she walked ash fell from the sky. The ash was as thick as the creep had been previously. It shuttered the light of distant fires, muted the crackling so they were nothing more than distant images of horror. The ash settled in the same patterns, the same tortured uncertainty, swirling and ebbing and crashing up against the buildings like snowdrifts, burying the halves of the dead. Wherever she walked it trailed in her wake, kicked up like a cape. As she walked she saw the people hidden away, terror tranquilized by the absolute stillness of Sanctuary. They didn’t know anything; their minds were gone except for fear, and fear being vacated by peace, they had nothing left. Some looked at her blankly, unable to come to terms with the miracle. Some ran, unbelieving it. Some cried. Some dreamed. None thought very much of the future, just of the past. They would remember these horrors and among them some would be strong enough to rise above: to dream of soldiers and peacekeepers and what tight stitches they made for, holding the city together through shakes and shocks. As she walked she considered the nature of evil. She considered people who thought the world was made for whoever had the biggest arms for taking, boys and men who mistook fear and obedience for devotion, women who believed in the tides of the human heart and thought wouldn’t it be fine to try and sail them? Wouldn’t it be possible, desirable, and perfect to puppet like so? Girls who dreamed of being princesses and never thought about the undercurrent composition of that dream. People who chose the easier of two easy options, people whose world was smaller than themselves. Size was all. Small people. As she walked the electrificed, sanctified air clung to her extending coat, as if begging her not to leave. Or begging her to take it away. It traced patterns in the ash, spelling out letters to the mad and prophetic, drawing icons for the dreamers. Anywhere but here, it seemed to say. Anywhere but dying Casper. And it knew, she knew, all who saw the Peacekeeper’s procession knew that it was so: that she was headed for the living at last, a bridge of light cutting across the waters, and that she would be ferryman for their souls. As she walked, she underwent her transformation. She was overtaken by iridescence, pulled under by the light emitting from her wrist, and never emerged from it. She only shone brighter in every color. She walked into the middle of the shipping plant, and there she stopped. The box rested, half-open, on a table darkened by fresh blood.

Foreword: Whatever I was going to say, Vansin said just as well, if not better. Read their post above instead. "My Guy Syndrome" is only a problem when it becomes a problem. This might sound obvious, but I think that's the point of the discussion to begin with. That is to say: the real meat of the discussion lies in asking when MGS arises at all. So for the sake of discussion, consider a pretty shoddy example, beginning with the basic premise: our RP is set in a high school. Should the setting be a school, nobody would find accusing a "studious student" of MGS reasonable. You're right: studying is what "my guy" would do, but there doesn't seem to be a problem with that, is there? You say: No, Mag, you've insufficiently lawyered up, you utter buffoon. Sure, it's a school, but how about this? This RP features a detention class of delinquents who do poorly, so your studious nerd has no place here. If "your guy", as you say, studies all the time, why's the hell he in detention for? I'll admit it. You've got me. You're right. I'm rightfully accused of MGS in this case. If I so heartily argue with you: "Fuck off, my character is my character and he studies!" And your response is: "This is detention, he shouldn't be here then." Then I'm guilty. [1] But something pretty fundamental has been revealed: MGS occurs not because of a character. No singular character, or aspect of a character, exhibits MGS in a vacuum. That is patently impossible. What is perfectly suitable in one situation can be MGS in another situation that's almost identical - identical except for the single or multiple aspects where "My Guy's Traits" is concerned. To be more specific: is a serial killer an example of MGS? Is a general, or king, or prince, or demigod, an example of MGS? They can be, yes. "My guy is a prince! Of course he would have his fellow students executed for bullying him." And they may not be, no. Not when the King of China and the King of Russia ally to lay some smackdown on the invasive force from Japan. So then it must be in the character's interactions with the story that MGS arises. Ataraxy hit upon the core of it the moment he used the word "bending." If your character is bending to the story - one side of the coin that Ataraxy up there vehemently disagrees with - or if the story is bending to your character - our typical use of MGS - then we've got a problem already, and no amount of mud-slinging accusations of MGS is going to solve it. If I'm playing pretend with little kids in a daycare and you're rolling in with Red Army Katyusha Missile Batteries, it's not you, it's not me. It's us. This is also one of my main gripes with the open-world setting of Valucre, and why I am rather restrictive in choosing players for my RPs. It's not that I'm trying to be elitist or snobbish, or that I refuse to play with certain people out of some misguided sense of entitlement. But when I'm looking for a swashbuckle, I'm going to pick swashbucklers and pretty dames, outcasts and conniving scoundrels, people with a sense of adventure living in a world of endless seas - all of these built specifically for this story, at this moment, right now - and your Arch Magus of the Anima Imperium, your Biomechanical Wardroid Shaman that you've traversed the whole world with, your well-traveled Academic who's already seen it all and who's poised to ruin everyone else's fun of discovery, can make themselves right at home on the bench. Because bringing those sorts along guarantees a "But My Guy..." [1] This is a shoddy example because the obvious answer is that "my guy" has problems other than studies that lands him in detention. But for the sake of example, assume that studiousness is a key violation.

what mystique

“Wow, I really don’t want to go in there,” Echo said. Her hand gripped her pistol firmly. Her words rang flat. Soldiers said a lot of things, liked saying them for the way they sounded while calm. Dove knelt to the ground, touching the stump of the neck of the closest guard. It was cold, slimy, and thoroughly dead. “As if…” As if it were a matter of want. “Plenty of room for heroics inside, though it might be cramped.” “Though I think --” The jittering of the last Skeleton broke the faux quiet of the WAK. Briefly they looked at each other, and that was about it. He whipped the horses and off they went, clattering down the street. Dove made a violent motion throwing motion with her right arm; a stray red thread, tied around her index finger, remained connected to the first corpse, which jerked upwards and forwards as if fired from a cannon. As it went, the muscle fibers, arteries, veins and capillaries separated from each other until the entire networked interior of the body spread into a fine, tree-like web; the bones of the skeleton entangled between thin glowing red branches. Rubbed to annihilation, they were twisted, they were shaped. Once it hit suitable velocity, the mass of fibrous material flattened into a disc, snapping to a halt while the newly formed spikes of bone hurtled across the distance to perforate the sides of the wagon. They wedged into the side, into the back, splintered the doors in the back. A few caught the wheels, were drawn in, and then pounded to dust. The skeleton continued its march until it skidded across a distant corner, harassed but unharmed. Dove let her hand fall to her side. Slowly, the thread drew into her sleeve, taking its newly discovered payload with it. “Well, it was worth a try.” As they contemplated the empty space a man entered through the gate behind them. The grisly scene didn’t seem to bother him; he made a beeline for the duo standing there. Thinking on it, Dove concluded anyone with a stomach for warzones might have. “You,” he grunted just within earshot. “You are not bound by fate.” Dove froze, a look of supreme displeasure crossing her face. “Well, a new friend. Sociable days like these are just charming,” she murmured, leaning in towards Echo. “Although I have to say I’ve hardly dressed up for the occasion.” “The only being I have ever met that was fateless was a god.” “See, Echo, this is what proper respect looks like. Or the feeding of hubris. I can’t tell, but that’s a given, I guess.” She cleared her throat. “Sad to say I’m not the savior you’re looking for, but good on you to look.” He seemed undaunted. “Are -” “Hold on. We can do two things at once.” The group meandered towards the grand entranceway to the abattoir. It hung dark and quiet over them. A faint fine smear of blood coated the steps. “The more important being rising action.” Roman repeated his question. “Are you the one behind all this?” Dove laughed. “Well, small people are capable of great evil, case-in-point, but even I’m a bit too small for that. Wish I was an unstoppable force, wish I could move the world just like so.” She flicked a piece of gristle off her shoulder. “Well, the good lady and I are about to take up the role of immovable wall against. Aren’t we, Echo?” @Stumbler @Wade @amenities @bfc @SweetCyanide

“Listen,” Echo said, “Protocol dictates that you give me something to work with, else we work you over. I don’t think you want that.” “Once upon a time, prophets were treated with reverence.” Dove sounded wistful. She drained her glass. “Alas.” “Profit’s still treated with reverence, lady.” “Smart. Very smart.” “How I get my job. So, how’s it going to be?” Echo looked over the rim of her wineglass critically. A Very Large Burrito lay on the table between them, almost entirely vanished except for two stray jalapenos and a smattering of chicken; a beginner’s magic trick that the hungry inventor was particularly fond of. The two were seated across from one another beneath the sodium lamp of a second-floor interrogation room. The shuttered window was closed against the waning sun but wisps of blue twilight seeped through the gaps, making the light cold. Dove had at some point along the prison march produced a bottle of wine and a bag of Taco Harp. Echo had a world of questions and none of them worth horses or gifts. The staff-room had a few glasses lying around, and the blondie hadn’t seemed like she was planning on going anywhere. She picked at a jalapeno. “Going to come cleanly? I’m sure you think your time is very important, so I’m not really scared to waste it. Start talking straight intead of loops and you’ll find the world isn’t so loopy.” “Do you think nooses are loopy?” Dove breezed forward without waiting for an answer. “That’s the slim aperture through which we’re looking at tomorrow.” “Grim.” “Tia has a black mark on the date. You want specifics but I have nothing. The Sight is cloudy but absolute. Looking at a supernova through prescription glasses. Some terrible thing is about to happen. I could see that blind.” Her voice had the sort of edge that was unused to being turned. “Yes, certainly. Blind as a bat. Terrible things! You want some detail, don’t you. Don’t you think you’re the only one who’d like some detail? And here I am going to the government for help, because they might even be useful for once.” Everyone learns self-control sometime in their lives, some people twice, even. Dove had seven hundred years of that bottled up and she was about ready to throw a table through the window. She wouldn’t because she checked herself, but also because it would accomplish nothing. So it went. Every so often something came by that nobody would have seen coming, except the screeching prophets, and which nobody had the individual capability to alter. Really, she was starting to doubt her ability to accomplish anything at all. Well, now that the thought was on the table, why not throw the table? “That’s it. Really. I was coming with a warning, but if you want self-interest: I’d like to know, too. I like this city. Do you remember the uprising a while back? I was there.” Echo drummed her fingers along the length of her arm. “Command isn’t going to buy into this wishy-washy shit. I’m going to tell them what?” “To keep an eye out. To scramble the jets. Glass the city. Hell if I know what protocol is.” “The diviners would’ve said something.” “Your diviners have their eyes buried up their ass, along with the rest of their head.” “Point.” Dove leaned over the table. “Proposal. You’ve got Command’s ear, don’t you?” “The implication that governs our current power dynamic, yes.” “Come with me. I’ll lose you your bet in person. We’re going to see wonderful things, and we’re going to all be miserable as it goes to pieces. And if nothing happens, then I suppose Taco Harp will be standing afterwards, too.” Echo considered it. “Bet.” They went outside. As of yet nothing had happened; as of yet, all was quiet. The Tia into which they strode, the streets that they crossed beneath the brilliant pink-purple setting clouds. That was what they called tension; when the beauty of autumn set in with the chill of winter, the sort of weather in which first snows would fall, the crossing of some set threshold by unknowing actors that would look back on the day and wince to have not seen it so obviously. Dove muttered curses under her breath and Echo drew her jacket closer around her. “Cold, isn’t it?” “I lost the ability to feel temperature sometime in the 2nd century.” They made their way to the complex’s garage. "So how’s this gonna work?” Echo twisted the ignition until the car was idling up a whole cloud of fumes on the curb. “You got a map, I got some darts, let’s throw?” “Smart to make bets, yeah. Smarter still to win them.” Dove made a couple adjustments to the dial, then slapped the radio until it started squeaking. "—zzZZ—that’s signal 0 at the WAK, over—we’ve got what looks like a 10-33, officers to remain on standby—“ “That is – that’s just plain lucky timing.” Dove stabbed the map with a pen right through the WAK into the plastic of the dashboard. “Drive.” @amenities @Wade @bfc @SweetCyanide @Stumbler

Noi flowed like water. The evasion, parry, and counter all in fluid motion, unfolded like lilies before him. Caught in the descent Severus could do nothing. He could watch but not to save himself. Well, he did not need to, for once. Dove grunted as the haft of the tonbonkiri smacked her out of the air; shielded, the force was transferred to the body which went flying into a tree. Dove rose to her feet again, golden bars of iron curling around the shimmering torso. It formed into the shape of an old knight’s plate; a transparent visor of glimmering light sat on his brow as gauntlets encased his body thinly. “Perhaps you should put on some weight, boy.” Dove marked a line in the dirt, then called out to Noi: “I think we should begin with physical drills, actually. No magic except for strength and speed. How does that sound?” The hexblade lit up, strengthening itself for the trial to come. Dove pressed a foot into the dirt again, and then took off directly at the pacing Noi.

Never let it be said that man had not the ability to choose. This was not the most noble of battlefields or the deepest pit of darkness into which Saron, and Casper, was to sink before the closing of the dawn; but it was one black enough. Black, for the diminished man leaping towards her; black, for the hole of rubble and ashes they had burned through the futures of so many. The woman crossed her legs, easing herself into a seat in midair and wincing. It was more the relieved descent of aching old wives, than the throning of a conqueror. Ankou staggered towards her, energy equally vacant. Neither seemed to be full of the same fire that possessed them so shortly ago. The culprit, the stray breath that still clung to Ankou’s skin like a puppy. What good is death if all it does is kill? (Ha ha.) Saron awaited his last approach. This was falling action; the fight is won, the sun arcs downwards, passions cool. Rain sets in, a rain on the spirit, cold and regret to make Saron wonder whether she ought to give the man the final farewell after all, or if this was worth walking away from, leaving his half-dead corpse behind to chase bigger shadows. It would be partially an act of mercy, partially something to balm the soul. Saron was never the type to stomp on wounded squirrels. But no. Some had to learn. The world had to learn. Each and every observe would know that Peacekeepers would keep the peace when necessary, and that they make the peace when compelled to at the temptation of evils. Ankou, Lilith, all of these, had tempted their hand. So they would learn. She would be a candle to guide their way. The warmth of candles is illuminating particularly in stormy half-light — and those with many gifts, Gaia commanded, must give freely. So Saron gave. So rainbows did form only in the presence of rain. Ankou grunted his last and threw himself down at her. She lifted a hand. Threads crept out from the faded friendship-band, teasing between each finger and through each ridge, until her hand was encased. The surface flared up into sweeping bevels and arched plate and flashed iridescent like the carapace of a beetle made from careless sunlight. The gauntlet encased her solitary palm, held forth like a reluctant handshake, and Saron took Ankou’s fist into hers when he fell upon her. The momentum of his descent brought his weight crashing into her diminished frame, which snapped the invisible chair in which she was seated. Twined in this way, they dropped for a soothing few seconds. They looked at each other. Saron showed some teeth. She never let go. “Men, die.” She said, in a voice that asked everyone to listen for it was her truth. Her eyes glittered. “Man — Man is immortal.” She snapped her wrist to the side, carrying all of Ankou’s weight in that quick, brutal motion. His body flew outwards like a slung pebble, a blur which slammed into the side of the Aviary, punched a hole through it, smashed through two or three tons of machinery regulating Sanctuary, and exiting out the other end with enough loss in velocity to drag his face across the pavement for a thousand feet. But Saron had not let go, and the lever through which such force was exerted remained in her hands when she touched down onto the ruined street. “If it was Saron Swain you were fighting, take it no problem. But it wasn’t just me. It was all this city, and a lotta people besides. A whole continent of them, a history of them and a future, too. You guys,” Saron flipped his arm into the air, the same arm she’d cut before, dismembered at last. “You guys are inevitably punching above your weight class.” The flash of purple light erupted out of the Aviary, out of every window, electrifying everything it touched and reducing the creep to inert dust. It spread, and spread, and spread, ever outward… One of the Aviary Phoenixes landed upon her shoulder. She stroked its head as he brushed his wings over her flesh, revitalizing what had been drained away. “That’s the truth,” she said. “The greater shall prevail. And we will always be the greater.”

“I’ll be right back,” Dove assured them, in Renovatian, before taking the car out. You can lie once in every language. Before then words are just words, and sentences struggles in semantics. Before then we talk in shades of indicative grey, the-weather-is-such and I-have-brought-so-and-so. Then comes the lie. It is neither intentional nor premeditated, neither ordained nor the product of malice, it is not quite original sin being neither original nor sin. But after that moment the language is not descriptive but prescriptive. What happened has happened, but now there is hope. The real defers to hope. The road strikes out before her like a lie. Sometimes when she blinks she sees a black mark on the horizon like a smudged-up charcoal mistake; sometimes it’s not there but she knows it is. The artist has done a lovely job of disguising it but in so doing the whole landscape is blacked up. Dirt and dust kicked up in stormy vortex by wind; wind stealing across the barren, wild land under the overcast overwatch of tilled fields of stratus; clouds descending as a haze so that the horizon was splotchy and uncertain. She knows that the black mark is there. What Serafino senses, Cain feels and Dove knows. Today is a terrible day, the kind of day that dogs howl and accidents happen and nobody can’t do nothing about anything, gods to ants. “This time will be different,” she muttered to herself in an old tongue. The words hardly escaped her breath, meandering through the open window, before they were whipped to shreds by the wind, falling to the ground, torn up by the wheels of a car shooting like an arrow across the cloud-dust plains towards familiar dauntless Tia. The city, encased at times in the image of a black, smoldering charcoal ruin, overlooking the twisting plain, drawing everything in to be torn up and destroyed along with it. -- well, it was no such great loss. She had lied before. [Site 81] “Chicken chimichanga. You had one of those for dinner last night. It was a luxury.” “Now that’s just a lucky guess, and maybe grounds for a charge of harassment, but --” “I wish I even cared enough to know your name. You had plain chicken for breakfast today, and plain chicken for lunch as well. They looked identical but you were particularly excited about the second because you had heated it in the microwave at the compound instead of eating a fridge leftover at your home. Where you do not have a microwave, evidently.” Dove took a sharp intake of breath. “You’re a boring sort, aren’t you?” He was starting to redden up. He had been trained for spellfire and swords, not targeted attacks on his character. “I - listen, what the hell do you think you’re doing here?” He tried to puff himself up. “This is grounds for removal. You need to remove yourself from this area.” “In fifteen seconds, the fellow engineer which you’ve fancied from a distance will drop by to investigate the commotion that you’re needlessly causing. She will smell the remnants of the Big Fucking Chicken Chimichanga that you bought from Taco Harp last night, and will be suitably repulsed. Unless, of course...” Dove looked at her wrist as if reading a watch. “Well, here she comes.” The engineer blanched, backing away as someone rounded the corner. “E-echo! Echo. Uh. This woman. I can’t...please help her, I need to finish up some calculations.” Then there were two. Dove wasted no time in addressing the newcomer. “Are you a betting woman? I’d hope you believe in fate more than the other guy.” Her face turned stony. “I would certainly like to meet whoever’s in charge of this compound, because Tia is about to slide off the precipice of a tall, tall cliff into a valley of razor blades and shit. The military might like to have something to do with that, wouldn’t they?”

my babes my lovelies come to me

@Wade you read my mind too easily. <3 I have a plot in mind for that situation exactly; will PM you in a bit.

how funny i was about to say i love lily, olivia, and all my girls there the most H N N N N N NN N NG

Calm, she said. Calm?! Severus thought. But he said nothing. In part because he was unable, but in part because he was undergoing the process of shut-up-and-listen that all great students synthesize in the presence of the master. Dove looked into the veins on his hand, as if she was a palm-reader. The stones flying her way did not register. She merely subsumed and pressed herself into the fibers and nerves running through the boy’s body. What is man but a tangle of cords bound around a loom of bone? A miserable bunch of cords, but special and each different. Above-average aptitude for magic, but a strange breed. Something like the Genesar Arcantians but not; almost beast-like, supra-human. I don’t understand gypsies. Interacting with the tangle left the taste of spice on her fingertips, which bloomed into her hands, then through her arms as she stretched further and further into the body like a suit until her being filled the whole essence. Recursive, nonsensical. Severus controlled himself well in that locked-away part of his mind as he watched the stones grow nearer and nearer. Good kid, she said. Let’s try this. His hand closed into a fist, which jut forward to meet the first stone, force exploding out of every finger. The barrier cast was bright yellow, shaped like an umbrella, and shattered each stone where it touched. Severus thrilled and gasped. Remember how that felt? You won’t be able to replicate it for weeks but you’ll remember that sensation. That is what you’re shooting for, boy. Dove wiggled his toes and cracked his fingers, familiarizing herself with the rest of the body. Remember all of these, too. Severus stepped forward fast as thought, two steps launching him into a flying leap. Both hands grasped the hilt of the hexblade, both hands intended to bring it down onto Noi.

Dove is, in fact, on her way to Tia at the moment for completely unrelated reasons. This came at a good time. She will defend the city with one of the Gauntlets of Zengi.