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Oh come on, you knew it would be C. It has to be. Get that urchin under the spotlights.
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Apr 24, 2022 18:52
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C all the way.
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Apr 25, 2022 10:49
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Just caught up with the thread, and I'm loving this so much! Shame I didn't find it in time for the Kefka decision. It'll be really interesting to see how you move forward with Kefka dead, but I will confess I'm a little disappointed because I was really enjoying the character-building you were doing with her and her relationship with Chayma, and there was a lot more interesting stuff to mine there... Anyway, gotta go with C! Take advantage of how many green-haired ladies we ended up with, I say. PepperedMoth posted:Of course, not knowing how to sing might be a wee obstacle for our intrepid orphan... but hey! She's got a bardic tutor right here to put her through musical cram school. I really like this point, a good bonding chance for Rekha and Jadate! In fact... Jadate: Give Rekha a crash course in musicianship.
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May 9, 2022 22:48
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Princey posted:Just caught up with the thread, and I'm loving this so much! Shame I didn't find it in time for the Kefka decision. It'll be really interesting to see how you move forward with Kefka dead, but I will confess I'm a little disappointed because I was really enjoying the character-building you were doing with her and her relationship with Chayma, and there was a lot more interesting stuff to mine there... I was also (cheerfully) flummoxed by the derailment of Chayma's character arc. We were clearly moving towards catharsis with her terrible mother figure, right? But now I guess she's got to figure out where her life goes when someone she barely knows steals her closure at spearpoint. I'm excited to find out! quote:Anyway, gotta go with C! Take advantage of how many green-haired ladies we ended up with, I say. This is a fun thing: sprites in FF6 are coloured with a small set of shared palettes, the colours of which Beyond Chaos randomises in each seed. Rekha, Nalaal and Zekiye share palettes - their base game counterparts use blonde, green, white, and blue - and we ended up with sprites for all of them that share the same palette category for hair. This is cool because it means that, in any given run, the Figaro siblings are likely to have some kind of family resemblance, even if one of them is Samus Aran and the other one is Donkey Kong. (Nalaal and Zekiye, of course, have a clear and evident sisterhood that no mere ape could match.) TooMuchAbstraction posted:I'm gonna vote for C, but either way, if it's at all possible, please record video of the opera and share it with us. I know it won't have your custom dialog on it, but I wanna see it. This will happen! It's gonna rule.
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May 11, 2022 03:08
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Just popping a bump in here so we don't fall off the bottom! Should be an update next week.
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Jul 8, 2022 14:34
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 Glad to hear the quiet has just been due to you plugging away; I'm looking forward to the next update!
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Jul 8, 2022 14:59
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16. The Halfpenny Opera          Princey posted:I really like this point, a good bonding chance for Rekha and Jadate! In fact...   It's okay. You're not the best judge, but you can carry a tune. Sometimes you'd sneak into a music hall performance and watch the balladeers.   You slaughter the Imperial anthem with a gusto usually reserved for professional abbatoir workers. It actually hurts your voice a little to sing this poorly. You watch Jadate's eyes pass through mortefaction into genuine concern. Perfect! That's just where you want her.  You beam at her ingenuously, as if you haven't just heard her.    Easy. You muddle through the dress rehearsal with your actual singing voice, passable but not stage ready - something you're able to divine from the fierce looks Nadia keeps throwing you. Afterwards, she pulls you into the wings.     Nadia hisses through her teeth at you.     quote:♫ Truly, the only appropriate music for the scene.                    The director looks at Zekiye with a sudden cognizance that, yes, this actually is the Queen of Figaro, and no, she doesn't look like a vulnerable waif. She takes it in stride.   You asked Jadate to check in with you before you went on stage. When you hear footsteps in the foyer, you prod yourself once in each eye, summon up some imagery from your mental catalogue of extremely upsetting things (there are plenty of entries to choose from) and manufacture messy tears.  Jadate looks at you with the tortured expression of someone who doesn't want to lie to you, but also doesn't want to tell you the truth.      You watch Jadate's heart melt in real time. Her cheeks flush.                  Carbuncle's influence waxes... Sheesh. You don't have to work to look sad. In rehearsal, the words seemed hokey - you were barely paying attention to them, just droning them out and planning what you were gonna say when the director birthed a sparrow about it. Now Jadate's doing the heavy lifting and you're free to soak it in - and sung out by a real singer, the set around you and the musical instruments building the sound in their dozens, those hokey words are actually sad. Which is stupid, right? It's not like that stuck-up director or her team of scriptwriters have the first clue about what it's like to be actually, truly, genuinely alone. And the story turns out pretty good for the queen, and anyway, she's a queen, it was never actually bad for her in the first place. Living in a castle while your engagement gets terminated is still living in a castle. You do cry a little. Just a little. Up here, nobody can see you, not really - just your silhouette and the impression of you. In a way it's the safest place in the world to be yourself.          A moment of relief.  The stage doors of the opera house clatter as Jadate Jhaum rushes to the box seats.         You open your mouth, mimic the shape of the words - and then realise Jadate is no longer in the wings. As she would say: oh, crumbs.  You muddle through what you remember of this bit of the song, poorly. There are murmurs of discomfort from the audience, who previously had been rapt.               quote:Before heroics, a moment of mechanics...  More steady than she's been in weeks, Nalaal's aura flares with steady pulses, crown to toes. A moment later, Zekiye surprises everyone - herself included - by catching a swathe of that aura and lancing it outwards.   The Figaro sisters move in concert, Zekiye sculpting the leftover magic of Nalaal's divine eddies. Blades of piercing light rain through the rafters, and for a second it becomes impossible to tell who is guiding them. This is concerningly hard. You would not expect these rats to be a major roadblock, but they are. They have scads of HP, and it takes three casts of Rage to defeat a group - or, as here, two Stunners! They're also no joke damagewise, and will knock people down if you play slow. ?-VaRam is a good tool for clearing groups of enemies, but casting Vanish on an ally eats time - and more importantly, even when Jadate scores a hit and gets triple Bolt Fist, the animation and message time cuts valuable seconds off the clock. I lost two attempts to the timer before even reaching Ultros. It's genuinely that tough.  Cornered on the rafters by a humongous crew of rats, Zekiye clasps her hands, separates from Nalaal, and focuses on the magicite tucked into her robes...   The hunchback bull that manifests splinters the wood of the rafters under its churning hooves. It lets out a mournful bellow, opens its single eye, and a red glare sweeps across the gantries. When the hideous light fades, the opera house is possessed of a gaggle of new gargoyles. Ultimately what saves us is this - Zekiye having Shoat. It eats 45 of her 75 MP to cast Shoat, so it's a one time deal, but the large encounter would be backbreaking without it.   For a moment, Ultros seems immensely confused that there are two Zekiyes. Perhaps it's because of this that the ensuing tussle ends the way it does.        The timpani begins to clatter as, undeterred by the requirements of theatre, Ultros' prating voice provides a melodic lead.    Unbelievably, he's actually on key. He sounds awful, but the notes are right.  As Ultros begins to twirl and wobble, Zekiye spots a corona of black magic building in his tentacles - and sheathes herself in the anti-magic shell she uses for her magicite experiments.     Wind whirls as Ultros summons a sharp, hydrating breeze. It stings lightly. Nalaal dives through it with her heirloom blade, digging it up under his tentacles. He emits a theatrical moan of protest, and she makes a face.    Jadate joins the orchestra, momentarily, by playing warlike countermelody on the vanishing flute. The magicite in her satchel vibrates, resonates, and rises, and Ramuh's lightning forks through Ultros repeatedly. He yelps, squeaks and sizzles every time.    Then he refreshes himself - as the black magic corona around him coalesces into an enervating bubble of red, and sucks the life straight from Jadate's lungs. She wobbles. Here's Ultros! You may remember this fight from the base game. It's a cute distraction - a fun little comedy capstone to the opera sequence. This version of it is a hot nightmare. Ultros has swapped out Level 3 Confuse for a straight Confuse, which if it lands on Nalaal or Zekiye spells bad times for the party. He casts Drain, Fire, Gale Cutter, Confuse and Acid Rain, and he has 3124 HP, a bit more than his base game incarnation. That would be nothing Nalaal's divine magic and chaincasts of Ramuh couldn't handle - except for the fact that Drain seems to have replaced Attack in his AI script, so he tops up his HP constantly. I had one attempt that involved multiple quadracasts of Ramuh, then Zekiye mimicking Ramuh into a pentacast, and the octopus still did not die.    Ultros attempts to repeat the trick - and his ball of scarlet magic dissipates harmlessly against Zekiye's shell, leaving him high and dry.   Nalaal gets in one final swing with the Striker - and, with a catapult-like motion of his tentacles, Ultros realises his tight five is up, and launches himself into the rafters, brachiating away through the rat statues. Ultimately, what saved us was Zekiye's support magic. Shell halves the damage dealt by Fire and completely nullifies Drain. I stopped rolling Slot and had Nalaal stick to attacking with the Striker, which does comparable damage to Aura Bolt and doesn't trigger Ultros' Blitz counter - something which thrashed my first few attempts and which I didn't realise was a factor early on (for those who don't know, because I'd certainly forgotten, Opera House Ultros counters abilities from the SwordTech and Blitz sets with a spell). The party had to work together like a machine, and the ?-VaRam cursor had to land on Ultros, but with Nalaal and Jadate pouring on the damage and Zekiye casting Shell between mimicking ?-VaRam hits, it got done. Beyond Chaos: it's hard!      You look at Jadate with big eyes. You have a feeling she's not gonna buy it this time. You are now Jadate Jhaum. So Rekha's been playing you. She didn't have stage fright - she just wanted to use your (impeccable) pipes to make some cash. You think back to her using her magic at the top of Ramuh's tower in Zozo, how quick she went from trembling behind you and Minna to blasting holes in the walls, and wonder if her story about her heart condition's fake too. Deep down, you know the answer. If it had been anyone else soft soaping you, you'd have clocked it straight away - but you wanted to believe in Rekha. How do you feel right now? A) Upset. It really stings being lied to - and now that you suspect the heart condition's made up, her keeping her fantastic magical powers in bed sipping raspberry cordial, while the Returners fought for their lives, feels worse. She was probably planning to ditch you as soon as she got paid. B) Humiliated. You always wanted kids, so of course the second one wandered into your life you started acting like you were her mother. She was wounded, so you wanted to fix her - that's your pattern, and apparently it's obvious. She must have thought you were an easy mark from the start. C) Exhilarated. Sure, Rekha may think you're a rube, but that doesn't matter - you're proud of her! She apparently bullied what sounds like a great deal of money out of this rich person, and - yes - sold you a sob story about the poor little orphan, too. That takes smarts.
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Jul 23, 2022 23:26
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Ah, real glad this is back. Anyway, C, gently caress the rich. Kid, you're gonna go far.
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Jul 23, 2022 23:57
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Mainly C, with small touches of A and B. Upset at the idea of being ditched the moment she got paid, and humiliated that she did in fact play you like a fiddle.... but drat proud of the kid for being able to pull it off without anybody suspecting a thing until now.
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Jul 24, 2022 00:33
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Absolutely C. Glad to see this back again.
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Jul 24, 2022 02:40
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Oh, C is absolutely the option here. Jadate, if you manage to somehow team up with Rekha, you two are going to be a menace 
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Jul 24, 2022 02:47
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A, 100%. With a bit of C, but hey, you gotta give her a taste of her own medicine first, right? 
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Jul 24, 2022 03:14
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A, because it really, deeply sucks to have someone you're trying to help lie right to your face in order to take advantage of your kindness... but with some grudging respect for Rekha's skills (honed by the hard life the kid's had to lead).
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Jul 24, 2022 03:49
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Equal parts A and C.
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Jul 24, 2022 04:34
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Also, I'm glad to see this back! Sounds like the opera was actually difficult from a gameplay sense in addition to being difficult from a
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Jul 24, 2022 04:41
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Also, I'm glad to see this back! Sounds like the opera was actually difficult from a gameplay sense in addition to being difficult from a It was tough on all fronts! I lost two runs before reaching Ultros, and then five to Ultros himself, making him hands down the toughest boss of the run so far. Doubtless he'd be smug if he knew. Then, yeah, pulling the story together turned out to be kind of a mammoth undertaking, too. And thanks! Even when it's a tonne of work it's just great to hear people are enjoying the story. 
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Jul 24, 2022 04:48
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Hey, they're back! I'm gonna go with B, because it suggests interesting things about Jadate. And nothing says Final Fantasy like emotional baggage!
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Jul 28, 2022 05:05
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I'm going to go off-menu here and say disappointed, but understanding. Rekha was manufactured to be a disposable weapons system, who'd get thrown at enemies until she inevitably burned out. That's going to give you some issues about who you can trust and with what. The problem, of course, is that "how does Jadate show Rekha that she can be trusted" and "how does she not get conned again" are things that have wildly incompatible answers. Trust means vulnerability, after all, and Rekha's not acting this way because she's a bad person, she's acting this way because it's the kind of thing she had to do to survive. So that, I think, buys some leeway, since she doesn't really know any other way to be. I'm also wondering if their Espers will play into it. Ramuh's Illumination may not have helped Jadate see through Rekha's bullshit thanks to Carbuncle's Concealment, but if Jadate lays down the law (gently, of course; I did just say Rekha's had a rough go of it so it's understandable ), will the fact that Carbuncle embodies Servitude make Rekha follow along with Ramuh's Authority? After all, I don't think "you took me for a ride, well the ride's over, gently caress off" would go over very well, and even overlooking that throwing this kid to the wolves for doing what she thought she had to to survive is kind of lovely, there's Wisdom in keeping her around. If not as an asset for us, at least to deny an asset to someone who'd use her against us, possibly with no thought to her well-being.Plus, y'know. It was a pretty good con.
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Jul 28, 2022 09:27
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MechaCrash posted:I'm going to go off-menu here and say disappointed, but understanding. Rekha was manufactured to be a disposable weapons system, who'd get thrown at enemies until she inevitably burned out. That's going to give you some issues about who you can trust and with what. Agreed w/ this.
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Jul 28, 2022 13:07
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Have the male dancers in the opera always been recolors of dressed up Gau, or is that the randomizer's work? I honestly wouldn't put it past myself to have just never noticed before until that... let's go with vibrant, palette change drew my attention to them. Anyway, voting B.
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Jul 28, 2022 15:48
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MechaCrash posted:I'm going to go off-menu here and say disappointed, but understanding. Rekha was manufactured to be a disposable weapons system, who'd get thrown at enemies until she inevitably burned out. That's going to give you some issues about who you can trust and with what. Yeah, I like this idea. Like, Jadate seems like the type to respect this kid’s moxie, but moxie without empathy for others turns you from a loveable rogue to a cad. Not to mention, A points out something kinda important: Rekha coulda saved lives by helping in battle, even if only in a support capacity. On the other hand, gently caress the rich, and it was a drat good con. So I’d say A with a good chunk of C to go with it.
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Jul 28, 2022 23:06
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Con Rekha into thinking it's B when, in fact, it is C
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Jul 29, 2022 23:38
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Secret Answer D: She's a kid with street smarts, but you don't become the world's greatest bard without picking up a satnav-full of those yourself. Maybe if she'd been planning on turning you in for the bounty you'd have brought it up, but the pint-size swindler cheated you out of... snacks and coddling? An abused kid isn't going to trust easily, so if she needed to think she was tricking you out of those, you'd just let her keep believing she was. Sure, this isn't how you'd have chosen to confront her about it, but... Also, Girl Fantasy clearly has some major omissions.  Much better.
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Aug 6, 2022 02:31
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Elfface posted:Secret Answer D: 
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Aug 6, 2022 02:43
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B
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Aug 14, 2022 14:36
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There hasn't been an update since July. Is this Let's Play dead?
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Sep 8, 2022 12:03
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The last gap was three months long, I imagine how actively we influence the plot makes updates take a while.
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Sep 8, 2022 12:14
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Mildly Interesting posted:Hey, they're back! I'm gonna go with B, because it suggests interesting things about Jadate. And nothing says Final Fantasy like emotional baggage! Yeah, this sold me, B it is
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Sep 8, 2022 16:26
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EchoBaz posted:There hasn't been an update since July. Is this Let's Play dead? Good art takes time.
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Sep 8, 2022 17:03
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Elfface posted:Secret Answer D: She's a kid with street smarts, but you don't become the world's greatest bard without picking up a satnav-full of those yourself. Maybe if she'd been planning on turning you in for the bounty you'd have brought it up, but the pint-size swindler cheated you out of... snacks and coddling? An abused kid isn't going to trust easily, so if she needed to think she was tricking you out of those, you'd just let her keep believing she was. Sure, this isn't how you'd have chosen to confront her about it, but... Just found this thread. Amazing writing! Voting this.
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Sep 9, 2022 00:28
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Girl Fantasy is everlasting, and shall not end until the curtains fall. Updates are gonna be slow for the foreseeable though - I have a lot on my plate and yeah, I can't really prep updates in advance at this point in the story! So glad everyone likes it and absolutely love all the prompts. Going off-menu to add more emotional complexity is exactly in the spirit of things!
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Sep 9, 2022 04:46
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Should be an update tomorrow! In the meantime, here's that elusive opera recording. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu5WTeHF3dM You may be wondering how this remixed opera works under the hood. So! If you flag "alasdraco" when generating the seed, the opera sequence will be randomised. The names of the duelling factions are randomised, as are the identities and titles of the major players in the opera's story and the Impresario. Here we have a guest appearance from Chrono Trigger with a lovely Marle sprite which I kept canonical because, frankly, she was giving diva director vibes. This uses a set of parameters that's narrower but more detailed than the custom spritelists for other characters - there's a much shorter roster of characters to pick from, but to compensate, the dialogue warps around them more. If the person replacing Maria is male, for instance, the kidnapping letter will say Setzer's replacement wants him for their husband. You might notice that dialogue refers to Marle as Princess Nadia, and every other potential director has their own little title, including one of my personal favourites, the ghost sprite, which is referred to simply as "a ghost". As you can see, Rekha is very much not Rekha here. The Impresario has a wonderful singing voice, but he was a gigantic bear to edit out of every shot in the opera. There's actually a single shot where I missed him - but he's in the background and it doesn't hurt the fiction, so happily, I didn't have to go back and do another gruelling edit job. There's one more extremely wonderful thing. The synth voices for the opera are different per character - and there are several custom synth voices for the replacement sprites. In my test run, Cyan replaced Maria, and his voice was the flute from his character theme. Celes here uses her base game synth voice, while Miss Cloud sings in a dulcet soprano. It's a true labour of love, entirely cosmetic, and you have to admire it. If you were on the fence about trying Beyond Chaos, it's honestly worth running a seed just for this.
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Dec 6, 2022 15:17
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17. The Southern Continent How does Jadate feel? A) You're upset. [4] B) You're humiliated. [4] C) You're exhilarated. [7] And our off-menu options... Elfface posted:Secret Answer D: She's a kid with street smarts, but you don't become the world's greatest bard without picking up a satnav-full of those yourself. Maybe if she'd been planning on turning you in for the bounty you'd have brought it up, but the pint-size swindler cheated you out of... snacks and coddling? An abused kid isn't going to trust easily, so if she needed to think she was tricking you out of those, you'd just let her keep believing she was. Sure, this isn't how you'd have chosen to confront her about it, but... 2 votes. MechaCrash posted:I'm going to go off-menu here and say disappointed, but understanding. Rekha was manufactured to be a disposable weapons system, who'd get thrown at enemies until she inevitably burned out. That's going to give you some issues about who you can trust and with what. Also 2 votes! Feelings fizz through your body. Headwinds of hurt and confusion convect and collapse into a single overwhelming consensus - that ruled. You set out this morning hoping Rekha would be able to make her bones as an actor, build some confidence. Well, it looks like she already had all the acting skills she needed, and confidence is apparently a pose she's very familiar with. Also the first part of a two part phrase she's spent the past couple of days working on you.  [CHECK: Fear] Rekha tries to read Jadate's intentions...  [Rekha's Fear is higher than her Friendship.] Rekha is unable to believe that someone who's seen her real self could still care about her. Her voice is harsher than you've ever heard it, except maybe in those moments just after you met her, where she was unguarded and angry at her captors. Maybe you shouldn't have been so credulous when you saw that anger fade away.   Sure, it stings a little. You took your best shot at showing Rekha unconditional love, and her response was to grift you mercilessly. Maybe you should try to be a bit less cozenable in this moment - just put a layer of varnish on how impressed you are. Let her know it's a different beat, and maybe you can take another run at relating to her.  Plus whatever she's skimming off the actual figure. You've pulled that exact trick before, and there's no point arguing with it. It'll just make things worse.  You let the hard-bitten act drop a fraction, in part because your genuine pride can't stop itself from bubbling up.  You see her face waver, and beneath the wide-eyed urchin act and above the hardened street kid, you see what you've always seen in Rekha: a heartbreaking amount of fear.    You gotta stop calling her sweetheart. That probably chafes, you're starting to realise, or at least makes her think you think she's fragile and unimpressive. You've been treating Rekha like she's a bruised flower that needs to be staked up against the sunlight, but that's not right at all. The kid isn't a windowbox peony; she's lichen, impossible to scrape off and able to extract value from a stone. MechaCrash posted:I'm also wondering if their Espers will play into it. Ramuh's Illumination may not have helped Jadate see through Rekha's bullshit thanks to Carbuncle's Concealment, but if Jadate lays down the law (gently, of course; I did just say Rekha's had a rough go of it so it's understandable      Ramuh's influence waxes... You're embellishing a little here. You'd never lean on Zekiye for favours and loot, but it's technically true that Figaro's coffers funded the Returners for years, and you bending her ear was a part of that. And her dad's ear. And Nalaal, when she was set to inherit. Doesn't matter - this is just how you persuade someone. Take the points of truth in your life they can relate to, and paint a picture around them. This picture's a little jaggier than the truth because, weirdly, you're starting to realise Rekha feels more in her element when she's being bargained with than when she's receiving unconditional love. You keep the game, ready tone in your voice and try not to let that make you visibly sad.  She doesn't need to say for now - you can hear it in her tone. She extends her hand, too scrawny for her age, the knuckles standing out, and like you're signing the lease on a new mandolin, you shake it. Jadate feels a painful distance between herself and Rekha... [Jadate's Friendship is challenged, but does not decrease.] ...but her determination to protect her is more complete than ever. [Jadate's Compassion 2 > 3] Rekha feels a little less afraid. [Rekha's Fear 4 > 3]    Now that you have a new-minted celebrity in tow, boarding the Side Bet goes as planned. You fork over an unearthly amount of gil and Rekha endures the captain trying to absorb her momentary fame by osmosis for a few minutes; suggestions that she might perform for the passengers mid-flight are made. You say, hey, that's a splendid idea.    You leave the captain looped to one of the stanchions on the launch platform, with the rest of the ballast. Shortly thereafter, the Side Bet makes an unscheduled stop in a field near South Figaro. Passengers are encouraged to explore with tales of quaint bridges and picturesque natural waterways. The instant they're all off the ship, you (well, Minna and Nalaal, who have a lot more corded muscle than you) start stoking the anthracite furnace high enough to fly for a few days.    Lift-off is quick and clean. By nightfall, you line the bridge, watching the churning smokestacks of Vector squat hump-backed on the horizon. Mildly Interesting posted:P.S. Zikiye, study Rekha. Think of how much you can learn about magitek infusion! Maybe even enough to become a calm, stable, emotionally centered living weapon instead of the other kind. The Kefka-y kind. You are now Zekiye Lexos Figaro.  Your cathode-anode setup is smoking, gently, after you asked Rekha to touch a finger to a wire and direct the lightest possible pulse of magic through it. Parts of the apparatus are simply gone - not melted or exploded, but vanished, as if they've been jigsawed out of the wiring and pocketed by an invisible thief. When you ask Rekha about this, she says she doesn't know where they are, could not return them if she tried, and anyway, why would she want to? You'll have to repair it, and that won't be easy, but this is fascinating enough that you don't at all mind.    You make a note. Rekha watches you curiously: she's been brusque, as children sometimes are, but she's answering your questions readily enough. Honestly, you find it refreshing. It's nice to set your hand to poring over a puzzle without it being crammed full of queenly niceties or emotional pitfalls. Mildly Interesting posted:Minna: Did you see what Zekiye did, there? She did your move. Someone who WASN'T the strongest woman in the world might feel threatened by this, but you know what it means, right? Training partner. There's a clomping of boots down the companionway, then the sound of bounding steps on the iron gantries of the engine room.  She grins at Rekha. There's something canny in that look.  As you've come to expect from Minna dar Holm, she gets to her point quickly. Admiration for your flurry of telling strikes when you battled Kefka; enthusiasm for how near to her own style your "style" is. In truth you don't remember a crumb of the technique you employed; it was a shadow of hers, something in your synapses telling you how to move your anger into them to make your arms jolt and legs brace.  You've never grappled in your life. You draw your lips into your mouth, considering the proposition. Exercise isn't your favourite thing; you've always seen physical strength as an inefficient form of leverage. Perhaps, though, that was just an excuse for your lack of natural kinaesthetic talent. Perhaps if your attenuated artificial magic allows you to throw power through your body - as indeed it may be taxing Rekha's body - you should try to understand your body better.   [CHECK: Curiosity & Friendship] Zekiye considers getting out of her comfort zone...  And Minna has magic, doesn't she? Knowing what little you do of her background, you cannot for a second surmise where that spark was struck from the flint. You become aware of the sensation of grudging responsibility giving way to one of flashing interest. [The sum of Curiosity & Friendship is equal to Zekiye's Anger.] Zekiye is drawn out of her shell, but her heart remains stiff.  Zekiye learns more about magicite infusion... [Zekiye's Curiosity 2 > 3] Rekha feels a faint yearning to understand the full scope of what was done to her. [Rekha's Curiosity 1 > 2] You moor the Side Bet in the mountains west of Albrook, one of Vector's spoke towns. This was the actual first stop on the ship's pilfered itinerary, so it should raise no suspicion.    Footfall through the town is strange. You're badly wanted in the northern continent, but Imperial forces in the south have no inkling you might be here; you tie your hair back and leave your emerald robes on the ship, and wonder if each glance is a flicker of thwarted recognition, or just a look.   You and Jadate are most recognisable, and you can see the bard holding herself in, walking with a slump in her back and no grace. You try to emulate her and find yourself surprisingly competent at it.  This relic shop has some good stuff! Jadate splashes on a Wall Ring and two sets of Earrings. Earrings boost magic damage dealt by 25% per pair, and will be fantastic for Rekha, whose entire skillset is whacking enemies with huge amounts of magic damage.    Beyond Chaos scatters the base game's monster-in-a-box encounters freely through all places where you could normally find an item in the overworld. Every pot could, therefore, potentially be home to a Tonberry. The grandfather clock in Narshe where you normally find an Elixir? Save before checking it, because it could prove to have a more sophisticated defense system than anticipated.    Rekha rips open a hole in space, and sends the spectre on a tour of the reeling stars. Its ectoplasm curdles. You catch the residual magic at the tail end of the spell, and are left visibly breathless after mimicking a shadow of its power. (In this case, it's just a ghost. The Earrings equipped, Rekha's Quasar hits for upwards of 1400 damage. This rules.)   The road to Vector is paved with flagstones much older than the Empire's innovations in magitek; this is evident by the places where the flags have split under the pressure of tromping walkers, or tracks from mobile artillery have left unstitched seams in the grassy bank. You pass freight wagons with similar mechanised treads, but apparently not foolproof ones, as pairs of chocobos still idle at the bit, waiting for the lower-grade magitek to choke itself out for the day. You surmise that whatever glimmering refraction of the Empire's supply of Esper magic makes it down to this level of the social stratum constitutes the worst and thinnest off-cuts. It's difficult not to wonder, watching the wagons beneath their pillars of thin smog, how comparable they are to the fragments Kefka once delivered to you.     Straight-sided smokestacks pour residue from the capitol's factories down on the warren of streets below. Vector is bulging with people, soot-smeared, desperate, polished, brusque. You occasionally catch sight of an Imperial military uniform, but the soldiers you see are using their authority to push through crowds, not vigilantly scanning for dissidents. This is the Empire's thumping pulse; the Returners are just a strange myth, here, irrelevant to the way the city moves.   Not irrelevant for long, you hope. Magitek Research is the evident crown jewel of the city's industrial district, and where soldiers in the smog-drowned streets were sparse, here they are omnipresent, arranged in neat files next to suits of unmanned magitek armour.  Who should lead the infiltration? A) Be Zekiye. Have Jadate play some light sabotage with the vanishing flute, then breach with a small burst of directed violence where security is thinnest. B) Be Ziqiya. Your people are hostages here - you have to secure their safety before the fighting starts. You'll take Minna, scale the network of pipes, locate the Mysidians, then open a way for the others. C) Be Rekha. Being back at the doorstep of Magitek Research makes you feel small, weak and apprehensive. So listen to the drumbeat in your heart, go loud, and melt a hole through the wall. Android Blues fucked around with this message at 10:21 on Dec 7, 2022 |
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Dec 7, 2022 10:16
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Hooray, this is back! Actually this: Felinoid posted:B, then C. Secure the hostages then unleash something that would make the Esper War look like a footnote. If any part of the city besides the slums remains intact, that's a failure. GunnerJ fucked around with this message at 15:22 on Dec 8, 2022 |
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Dec 7, 2022 14:42
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I am windmill slamming the C button on this particular vote. I do not have any kind of narrative justification on this one, however. I am voting C because I am a big fan of going loud and using large, unsubtle, and direct action.
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Dec 7, 2022 15:22
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B I think. The empire seems the killing hostages sort, especially now that we’ve iced (however briefly) Kefka. Sooner we get the civilians out of the way, sooner we can start melting tanks.
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Dec 7, 2022 17:30
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Edit: all this stuff about "stealth" and "hostages" is a good point, I'm changing my vote to B but I am keeping the video link in tribute to my original choice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6n2iAY28kAw YggiDee fucked around with this message at 18:13 on Dec 7, 2022 |
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Dec 7, 2022 18:01
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So happy this is back! Voting B.
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Dec 7, 2022 18:07
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Welcome back! Voting B.
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Dec 7, 2022 18:24
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Hooray, we're back! Now, uh, who are these people again?  Okay, okay, Zekiye is the Queen of Figaro. She's here because...? the Returners, and leverage over the Empire, I guess? In other words, this is just a covert op to her. I guess there's some scientific interest in how the Empire uses magitek, but that's a purely selfish motivation. Ziqiya is here because she's in charge of Rekha I remember, the magical street urchin. Honestly out of these three, her motives feel the hardest to read. Why is she here and trying to get back into the origin of her trauma? I'm sure she could cause a lot of damage...to herself, at a minimum. Rekha: reflect on your past. Do you really want to go here? Meanwhile, I vote B. (and let me say, I really enjoy your prose! Do you have any published fiction?) EDIT: also re: the opera, I seem to recall hearing that two of the singers you can roll are a) Kefka (who laughs through all the lines, of course), and b) a grandfather clock (which tolls bells instead of singing). TooMuchAbstraction fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Dec 7, 2022 |
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Dec 7, 2022 19:29
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