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semimedieval · 3 months ago

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the beach part 7: I dunno, don't judge my Chuji metaphor

We begin with a crowdsourced call to action.

Rim saw a pearl lying on the ground. Could it be the pearl? MOOPY277: (Vote A if yes, or B if not. Then vote C for him to be attacked or D if he won't be attacked) DRAGONODSESSED: BC! TOESOCKSQUEEN: BC. they should all be attacked and the pearl should be sparkly and magical,wrapped around by the dragon as he sleeps. Let's get all of our charcters in one central place in the water.

Augustine is conspicuously absent, a fact that will surely not come back to bite anybody in the ass as they make decisions about his storyline plan. The decision has been made, though, and the storyline acts accordingly. This kind of flops too.

To his dissapointment it wasn't the pearl. He started to swim up when a huge snake slammed into him. He glared at it and swung his fist, causing a massive water current to slam into it. (Someone wanna control the snake?) DRAGONODSESSED: Dracus (the snake!) was thrown back by the current, but went forward right afterward. (BBL, dinner.) TOESOCKSQUEEN: (Me!Me!)The Snake hissed and glared at Rim. This was not his battle, for there was no need to kill just one. Yes,he would wait until they were all together. He swam back into the depths of the water, letting his silvery wings flap behind him.

I love it when Jack and I both go for something and it's equally lame. That said, it's roleplays run by 11-year-olds - they're always going to be corny. Mine isn't corny but it's boring, which is the far greater sin. It's no wonder that Jack won this one.

That said, I can still giggle at the way he wrote villains the same way I giggle about the way I write villains:

Dracus looked up and smiled sadistically. He knew what to do. They had woken him from his slumber and now it was time to pay. He swam round and round, swirling the water. (Dracus is'nt a bad guy, he's just protecter of the pearl. If it got into the wrong hands, mass choas could be realesed.)

Jack makes a great point: what the hell are the greater implications of the Soul Pearl? 15-year-old me made exactly the right move by defining its rules in very specific terms, that is to say, fairy tale rules. It appears as a favor, to reward a great deed done for the fairies, rooted in stories about the Fairy Queen's own loss. I think we should double down on that in part 2 – maybe there should be something big that someone (Mari or Lark?) sacrifices to the fairy queen bring back Tallin? Maybe it should be a reward for freeing the kids in the Castle on the Strait? Either way, maybe the most important part isn't just the sacrifice – it's real people caught up in fairy tale rules. Tallin's return is joyfully impossible, but it's also strange and frightening in the same way that a fairy showing up at your real-life baby's baptism to give her gifts would be strange and frightening. Even if magic was otherwise real. Operating by fairy tale rules in real life would be, well, weird and scary.

Anyway, in the original roleplay, no element of the Soul Pearl's lore is ultimately addressed at all, though Jack does try here. You sly dog, Jack, you've got me monologuing!

Everyone's like 'ah, the water, it's shaking!' We get stock reactions from everyone. Wow, Moopy was LOVING Indiana Jones that summer.

Suddenly, the whirlpool got faster and faster, threatining to suck them all in. The dragon burst out of the water,curling it's massive body round them, as to not let them escape. Rim hammered it with water, trying to squeeze out of its coils. "SO THIS IS WHY INDIANA JONES HTES SNAKES!!!!" He screamed

There's a reaction from all four (!!) of my characters (Katia ditch Lorcan or else, I am no longer asking), the unniest of which is "Obsidian attempted to use his powers, but they appeared to have been drained." Are they drained, Obsidian, or are YOUR POWERS simply no use against a fuckoff sea dragon? Much to consider.

I try to control the dragon again but Jack once again writes a significantly better post than me, which I hope means I've given up on the 'sharing' thing and just ceded control for once. The time to assert leadership was 10 pages earlier, Katia, when everybody was milling around on the beach without anything to do. I was always too unauthoritative as RP leader – collaborative storytelling is built on strong ideas, not vibes. That's right, I'm a narrative authoritarian.

He closed his eyes and the sea started churning, another snake began to form, made out of hardened water. The serpent concentrated on using it's powers to make a magnetic pull that stopped all powers from being used in the circle. But wait...the boy. He had water, the only power he was unable to block. the Snake muttered a curse in a foreign tongue.(rim get's to be the hero! XD) Ky tried to cry out, but was cut off as salty water filled her mouth and nose.

I like the idea of Rim getting a big story moment but I do giggle at the idea that water is the 'only power Dracus can't block.' Shouldn't it be the power Dracus has the most authority over??? Clearly in the coherent version of this story the gang can't use their powers because they are BUSY DROWNING and rim is ok because HE'S THE WATER GUY AND CAN'T DROWN.

Obsidian gets owned by a wave of water, Lupus and Ky hold on to each other until Ky is pulled away from him by a wave, Quartz loses track of Obsidian and calls out his name. This is the lamest part of this adventure, the fact that every single person online except Moopy decides that every single one of their characters JUST HAS to heroically rescue someone or get heroically rescued.

I must really have had some kind of undefined Jack Problem this summer and been trying to disguise it as character development for my newly deep and edgy character, because I have Lupus's internal monologue be an actual genuine jackass:

Ky drifted down into the water, frozen in shock. She watched as the bubbled escaped from her mouth and floated away. A sort of calm washed over her, and she exepted it. She was going to die. "What about Lupus?" she wondered. How would he fare with it all? Lupus....she must find Lupus.....there he was swimming towards her....she wanted to say "It's too late. I'm gone." and reach out to touch his face. Her eyes began to close and darkness started to take over her vision. "Ky!" he tried to yell but only bubbles exited his mouth. "KY!" He pressed down toward her. (wow, dramatic.) He took her hand and kicked upward, making little progress. A tiny part of his brain, the treacherous part, was complaining that she had to pick this of all times to be the damsel in distress, but he ignored it as he often had to.

SHE IS DROWNING YOU STUPID ASSHOLE. SHE DID NOT "CHOOSE" TO DROWN. EVERYONE AROUND YOU IS DROWNING ALSO, IF YOU WOULD CARE TO CHECK THAT OUT.

Anyway, a fairly similar story plays out between Quartz and Obsidian while Rim fights the snake. Meanwhile, my middle school playlist reaches Starships, which means we're officially in Summer 2012, or Extranei Summer. Being a middle schooler in the early 10s means having nostalgia moments over the silliest fucking songs. It's so incredibly funny that this is one of Nicki Minaj's big hits, given that I do not feel it has a lot to do with her general artistic identity. Also i love that 2018 me put the fucking clean version on this playlist for peak authenticity to what my friends and I were listening to. Good lord. Also I fucking put Good Time on this playlist when it was transparently the Summer of Call Me Maybe. Liar, revisionist, tasteless, you are not too good for Call Me Maybe, NOBODY is too good for Call Me Maybe, i'm going to have to remake this stupid idiot playlist aren't I –

Sorry. Where was I.

Tim yelled louder then he had ever before and the snake of water smashed into Dracus. He was in the water snakes head now, controlling it. He made it wrap itself around Dracus, a test of, well, strength. Obsidian! She had to find Obsidian! She tore through the water, catching a glimpse of Rim's snake and the serpent entwined; they were pretty evenly matched. Obsidian felt the whirlpool pulling him down. Despite fighting against it, he was still drowning.

Jack starts setting up for a pretty silly anticlimactic ending while Moopy, to their credit, maintains a very appropriate sense of stakes –

Dracus thrashed against Rim's water snake. He felt Rim's presence in his mind. Was the water....speaking to him? He stopped to listen.(Rim,say something to explain to Dracus about Tozi and the Soul pearl ect. ect.) Rim gritted his teeth and managed to negate the whirlpool. He concentrated harder on his snake, but he was slowly going down hill, he couldn't keep his snake hard enough, and fight Dracus at the same time. "Freeze the snake a little!" he screamed hoping Lupus would hear. Spark treaded water much more easily as the whirlppool stopped. She looked around, seeing Quartz swimming to Obsedian as quick as Chuji to fresh Rassberry pie.( I dunno, don't judge my Chuji metaphor...XD) Rim true to speak to Dracus through the pendant, maybe it would work. "Please, we don't wish to fight! We only wish to brig back our friend Tozi with the soul pearl! If your guarding it, then I will ressurct him where you like so you can stop or kill me if I begin to do evil!"

I love him. What a great negotiator. I do love the aspects of Extranei that involve Negotiating With Powers Beyond Your Comprehension, and I wish the original roleplay and especially the novelization had more of these moments.

Lupus heard and letting go of Ky with one hand extended it and sent a blast of ice, albeit not a very strong one. Quartz pulled Obsidian from the water and held him close. "Obsidian..." Rims snake froze a little, giving him an edge.

Dracus is ready to negotiate but the act of ice freezing sets him off again. Meanwhile, Spark realizes she hasn't had a chance to do a heroic rescue yet, and runs off to rescue Miyong. She does "CPR minus mouth to mouth...XD" but mouth to mouth isn't really an effective part of CPR and is not included in current procedures – the chest compressions make all the real difference. I don't know if that protocol was already in place in 2012, but if not, Jack was ahead of his time. Good on him!)

Rim negotiates a little more, while Quartz and Obsidian reunite.

Rim dissolved the snake and landed on a part of the snake in front o it's face. "I apologize, and I am deeply sorry for the fate of your brethren, however we were not the ones to do it. Though if I were to meet them, they would not last a second. I to am a guardian of sorts, I hunt down people who kill and steal. I am not an evil person." Quartz grabbed Obsidian's hand. "Obsidian! Can you hear me" Obsidian's vision wavered and he saw a figure in front of him...it looked vaguely familiar. "Quartz?" he asked thickly. The dragon nodded and all hostility vanished. The waves stopped and he unwrapped his tail from around them. "I see. Thank you. Remember me. If I ever see you again I will consider you my allies. Let me get that pearl for you and I'll meet you at the shore."

Several takeaways from this, including 1) that rim is a cop, boo, 2) that picking nostalgic taylor swift songs for the playlist is hard because so many of them are ubiquitous enough to not REALLY work as nostalgia-triggers, but "ours" REALLY hits, right down to the memory of that cringe as hell video where her Cool Alternative Boyfriend Her Dad Disapproves Of is... in the us military??? 3) that the problem with this adventure isn't that the ideas are BAD, necessarily, only that there are way too many ideas! I would say the sea dragon is more compelling the pendants if I had to choose one, but the pendants are the thing that's directly relevant to the future of the story, so...??!! I guess I could include one of these stories as a Lost Years feature, but that feels iffy, 4) that we came SO CLOSE to getting that damn pearl in the way Jack rather than Augustine envisioned. In fact Jack straight up narrates Dracus getting the pearl!!!! It was the wild west out there!!

I narrate Obsidian standing up and Jack replies with "Stood up? We are still in the water...XD" This is a certified 'bro is onto nothing' moment, how did Spark give CPR while floating in water?? I don't think that's possible without at least like a flotation device??

Anyway, Dracus shows up and has a cool new twink form, which is stupid but completely to be expected. Rim explains that his deal with Dracus entails Dracus having the right to kill Rim if he feels he's fucking up, which is actually a really cool idea and works better as a Chekhov's Gun for Rim dying than a stable plot solution, but Rim dies under pretty unrelated circumstances so let's not worry about that.

I rip off Discworld in a pretty lame way – 'where mass goes' during a shapeshifter transformation is a profoundly lame question in a non-comedic (not intentionally comedic) work of fiction like Extranei, because the very easy answer is 'IT'S MAGIC, WHO CARES' - but it's okay because we get another one of those subtle little Rimquartz moments. Aw <3

"Yes. There are many like me, who can shift their shapes between their guardian animal and human. We have the choice to walk among you." Rim nodded in reply to Lorcan. "I thought you might of been some form of Asian lung, apparently not. We're Extranei" "Interesting," Quartz said thoughtfully. "How does shape shifting work then? A sea serpent must have a much larger mass than a human, where does that go?" Normally Rim would have veen annoyed, but it was hard to dislike Quartz.

It's a pretty personal question. To Jack's credit, he gives a pretty good "shut up, it's magic" coded answer:

Dracus looked at her, with piercing silver eyes and began to speak. "Our mass mixes with our aura, a practically weightless glow that surrounds everything."

Oh, hey, I did put Call Me Maybe on the playlist after all. Thank God. But "Good Time" came out after "Call Me Maybe," so it had no business at all coming first.

Anyway, Rim thinks ominous thoughts about shapeshifters and their physics, Quartz glances at him in a worried manner because glancing at boys in a worried manner is the most fun an Extranei girl can have without glancing at girls in a worried manner, and Dracus has "three bags of chips, a whole chocolate bar, and a leg of chicken", which is like... not an unreasonable amount of food. Hey, wait, we're doing Rimquartz! Quartz, maybe he seems different because he's narrowly avoided death twice in one day, ever think of that?

Quartz turned to Rim. "What's happening?" she asked. "You seem...well, different." Rim hesitated. "A year ago, there was a crim hiding in a forest, and I was looking for him wih some soldiers, he had a gun," He whispered. "We came close to an object, it was glowing, the soldiers went to take when we were attacked by a huge tiger, the soldiers, they shot it, it turned into a boy before it died and tried to say something, and then it faded away," He swallowed, the horror of it trickling back into his memory. He hadn't like it at all then, and it was even worse now. "Oh." Quartz was unsure of what to answer to that. "Sorry I asked."

Go, girl, give us nothing! Also, AT LAST, we have resolved the pearl situation, which is good because you'd think that, if we were planning to get it back Dracus-ways, there would have been SOME HINT OF NARRATION INDICATING THAT. But what do I know.

TOESOCKSQUEEN: (Rass wants us to find the soul pearl a different way. Let's just say Dracus gave us a Dragon blessing and was protecting the rare dragon egg.) DRAGONODSESSED: Okey-dokey. I didn't know that ;)

I don't know if the wink is supposed to indicate that we talked it over at school and I'm pretending we didn't for Moopy's sake, or that I'm just being nice. It's anyone's guess. See, I can forget things about middle school!

Rim drops his line AGAIN, a melancholic feeling comes over the beach, and Quartz completely fails to play ball. I'm sure that what Rim was planning to tell Quartz about was something convoluted involving magic lore, but I wonder if I was half-convinced Rim was gearing up to confess his love. I think at this point in my life I was getting teased by Jack and Augustine about having a crush on Moopy, which I don't think I ever did. I mean, maybe a little? But certainly not moreso than I had a crush on Augustine. Pick your battles, guys.

The song changes to "Here's to never growing up" by Avril Lavigne, which is a song I have a lot of fondness and nostalgia for but came out in 2013, *not* 2012. Sigh.

Rim looked at his feet. "But how am I supposed to tell her about it?" He asked, half to her, half to himself. Obsidiabn glanced at Quartz. She was changing again. Quartz looked out onto the ocean. The wind was building, and waves crashed over the shore. "G'bye," Quartz muttered, distracted.

She keeps ditching him to talk to Spark. Another lull falls over the story – Moopy disappears before Rim can say or fail to say anything to Quartz, Augustine remains absent, Obsidian takes a nap, Ky and Lupus commit to frolicking on the sandy dunes, and Quartz approaches Spark for their famed field trip into town. There are very interesting Quartz character things coming up, but we will tackle those next storyline and I – to my regret – will go back to doing my actual job. 12:22 letters done? We can only hope.

And Die Young by Kesha is on. It still goes hard. It's a shame about the circumstances. Some good things from your young years (like Adventures of the Extranei) are enriched by context, and some (like the Kesha discography) only make you sad and a little sick to consider.

#og rp lb #iteration 1.0

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