Ammokkx

Nexus: The battle for one's memories.

The night sky had settled in as the battle concluded. After the battlefield had gone, Rui, Haruto and Sora were left blanketed what the few stray rays of street lighting they could get. Rui was very close to Sora. "Don't apologize, you dummy..." was all she could say to comfort him after the fact. Sora apologised to Wolf, and in that moment, Lumia spoke up.

"Don't worry, Sora-kun. Wolf is just resting." she said. "Battling is rough on us Avatars. It sucks all the energy right out of us. He'll be okay."

"It's the same for my Sacchi." Haruto suddenly chimed in. He had his back turned to both Rui and Sora. Without looking back at them, Haruto raised up Sacchi's card. Sacchi was curled up into a ball, peacefully resting as his chest bobbed up and down.

"Who cares about you? You're horrible," Rui spat back at him. Sora also had something to say about the situation.
"I thought we were best friends."

Haruto turned to Sora. Haruto's face was neutral, expressionless. Just like it had been throughout the battle. "I guess we were, huh?" he replied.

Rui blinked twice. "Best... friends? Sora, you know this guy?" she questioned her brother. It wasn't her brother that answered, though.

"I've known you and him for years. You're a Commander too. Your memories of me must be stolen." Haruto told her.
"Don't give me that! If you're his friend, then what was this about!? Why would you toy with him like this?"
"For my wish," Haruto replied in monotone. He opened his hand; five golden coins were inside of it. "I'll do whatever it takes. Even if it's taking advantage of Sora-kun."

Haruto turned his back to the two of them again. "Wait! I'm not done with you yet!" Rui called back to him. Haruto tilted his head so he looked back over his shoulder at Sora.

"I meant it when I said I didn't want to get you involved. Even if we were friends, now you're just another Commander for me to defeat. Stay out of my way, Sora."

Haruto walked off after saying his piece, even when Rui protested it. As her attempts were all ignored, just her and Sora were left behind. After Rui was done watching Haruto's back she turned her attention to Sora. She gave him an apologetic smile and took his hand into her own. "...I'm sorry, Sora. It's my fault for yelling at you. Let's go home, okay?" she requested of him. Rui began tugging on him to bring him back. A familiar, nostalgic feeling washed over her. When she tried to place why, static filled her head. Rui stayed strong for Sora's sake and didn't let it show she was in pain. She knew, though. She knew what was causing the headache.

---

"...promise...!"

---

'...I'll remember our promise, Sora. And when I do... I'll make sure to keep it, too.'

What kind of RP mood are you in?

Y'know, for the longest time I was always in the mood for a Yugioh roleplay, even if they looked like a trainwreck. I couldn't actually be bothered to run one after Duel Tower scarred me for life. (outriders? what about outriders? never heard of it.)

Somewhere last year, though, I realised "wow, I really don't like YGO as a game anymore" and like an on/off switch I immediately lost all interest in ever RPing it again. So kind of like the exact opposite of the thread's conceit.

As for something I actually am down for, though? For some reason I've been wanting to RP magical girls for the longest time, but not a whole lot of magical girl RPs show up over time. (I realise I am in one. Still would like some more.) Specifically dark magical girl stories with all that edge to them, like the entire subgenre of trash that spawned in Madoka's wake. For some reason I just want to indulge in the fantasy of characters suffering for no other reason than they made a series of poor decisions coupled with extraordinarily unfortunate circumstances.

I'd also like just a JRPG-like adventure, which aren't too common around these parts either.

Good luck getting me to GM anything though lmao

Nexus: The battle for one's memories.

Rui held a balled-up fist to her chest, worriedly looking to Sora as he tried to pull himself together. Lumia was sitting on Rui's shoulder and took notice of the field. "Nee-chan," she said to grab Rui's attention, "it's not looking good. Sora only has three life cards."

"Life... cards?" Rui repeated. She tried to think back to the small rulebook from earlier. "Sure, that's bad, but... he should still be able to survive as long as he can put more attackers on the field." Rui had hope. Even if Sora was a beginner, he could still play. She felt that hope surge when Sora played his cards. "Keep it up, Sora! You can still make it!" she cheered him. As long as he ended his turn now, Sora would be in a position to claw it back.

"Wolf... Full attack." Sora declared. Rui felt a shiver run down her spine.
"Wait, Sora, don't! Just end your-"
"I can't block because my attackers are exhausted, so I'll take it all from the life." Haruto interjected before Rui could finish her sentence. Rui's pupils shrank as she turned her head to look at Sora's opponent.
"Wait... no, don't..." she stammered, but it was too late.

Wolf launched forwards, empowered by his three attackers. Sacchi couldn't draw upon his own attackers to block Wolf's strikes with, so the red Avatar was left defenceless as Sora's partner pummelled him. "Nh-! Gah! Urgh!" Sacchi grunted, trying to bear the pain of the blows. A final kick launched him onto his back, five of the lights around him shattering like glass. Five more cards appeared in front of Haruto, having been added to his hand. Sacchi giggled and defiantly stared back at Wolf. "It felt good, right? To get back at me like that?" he said to Wolf, unsteadily rising to his feet. Sacchi met the green avatar's gaze even long after the latter had retreated back to his own field.

"He wanted him to copy his moves..." Lumia muttered under her breath, realising something. "That guy knew Sora-kun would follow his lead. He wanted to leave him wide open for every attack!" she hesitantly explained to Rui. Rui angrily looked at Haruto.

"What's your problem!?" she yelled at him. "Sora's just a beginner! Why are you doing this to him!?" she continued to shout, as it was all she could do. The mist separated Rui from the target of her anger and she wasn't about to test if there was any solid ground off her platform.

"So what if he's a beginner?" came the reply. "Sora is the one who said he needed to battle. I don't any reason to go easy on him. Not me, not anyone else."

Rui's anger continued to bubble to the surface. "That's so low! You're the worst kind of scum! Taking advantage of him like that...!"

"Ooooh, I see how it is!" Sacchi suddenly chimed in, a smug grin plastered all across his face. "Onee-chan's just mad she didn't get her cute little brother's first time..." he said with his index finger on his bottom lip. "You shouldn't be so attached to him... Sora's never going to grow into a big boy with you hovering over him like that, you know~!"

Rui was taken aback, all she could do was yell back at Sacchi to "Shut up!" and not much else. Lumia tried to calm her Commander down with very few effective results. As if bored by Rui's tantrum, Haruto turned his attention back to Sora.

"Is that everything?" he flatly asked. It was all business with Haruto, just like it had been from the start of this battle. "Your attackers are exhausted. You've used all your colour. There's nothing left for you to do but wait for me to end it."

Nexus: The battle for one's memories.

"No waaay, he really didn't attack~!" Sacchi playfully commented on Sora's mistakes. "Hey, hey, Haru? Aren't you being a little mean to him?" he said back to his Commander after twirling on his heel.

"Quiet, Sacchi." Haruto reprimanded his Avatar.

Sacchi, with a playful hum in his voice, replied again: "Oooh, you're so scary~! It's a good thing I like that about you~"

The clock's hand shifted back to Red with a loud clicking of the gears, Haruto hovering over his deck as another card joined his hand. "Colour charge." he said, same as before. Sacchi, too, went through the same motions, a wry smile on his face as if he knew what was coming. Haruto continued his turn. "Your blockers are an eyesore, Sora... let me get rid of them for you. Incantation: Scorched Earth." he told his friend. One of Haruto's own cards, the level 1 attacker, burnt away. A flickering flame remained on his field in its stead. The flame suddenly shot out and leapt at Sora's table, splitting into two and incinerating both cards on either side of Wolf. Sacchi could barely contain his laughter.

"Pffufu! Don't look so surprised, Sora! Your cards will be fine after the battle's over," he explained with a wink, "but now that you don't have much left to protect you, let's have some fun!"

---

'Sora... Sora!'

Rui desperately ran through the darkening streets in search of her brother, but didn't make much progress. She took a short breather, leaning up against a nearby house. From her pockets, she could hear a voice chiming in. "Nee-chan! Nee-chan!" it kept pestering her. Rui took Lumia out of her pocket, mildly annoyed. When she saw the serious look in Lumia's eyes, however, Rui couldn't find any words to tell her to be quiet. "I didn't know how to tell you this, but... there's a battle going on not far from here. I don't want to believe it's Sora, but..."

The pupils in Rui's eyes shrank. "No... he wouldn't- that idiot!" she angrily shouted as she stomped her feet. "I need to make sure he's safe! Tell me where it is!" she demanded and Lumia obliged. Rui continued her mad dash, following the instructions fed to her by Lumia. She soon reached a small clearing where she found Sora and somebody else slumped up against a nearby tree. Rui dashed over, grabbing Sora's shoulders and calling his name.

"It's no use, Nee-chan... he's... he's battling," Lumia timidly informed Rui. Their eyes met.
"Then tell me how to stop it!" she demanded. Lumia just shook her head.
"I'm sorry, but we can't. It's impossible for a commander to stop a battle between two other commanders. However... we can still enter their battlefield." she replied. Lumia explained that Rui should "Hold me up and shout 'Open'" to her commander. Rui, determined to do what it takes to see Sora safe, did just that.
"Open!"

---

Haruto's eyes remained fixated on his board. "Two more attackers, one level 0 and level 1." he continued, having a full formation lined up as the two joined his one remaining attacker. "Sacchi, full attack."

Upon hearing his Commander's order, Sacchi narrowed his eyes as he grinned. "Aye aye, sir~!" he playfully replied. The three cards around him briefly glowed with a red aura, those auras then coalescing around the avatar. He kicked off from his platform and shot forward, being in front of Wolf before Sora had time to blink. Since Sora had nothing to block with, Wolf couldn't do anything to guard against Sacchi's upcoming strikes. He grappled Wolf, threw him down onto the table and then jumped into the air. Even if Sacchi was wearing sandals, the force with which he crashed down into Wolf's gut with left its mark. Sacchi proceeded to use Wolf as a springboard to leap back all the way across the battlefield, landing neatly on his side while the other Avatar lay battered and bruised. Seven little lights had surrounded Wolf, of which four shattered. Sora's life had been reduced from full to three within just one turn of starting the match.

At that moment, from the depths of the intersection between the two mists, another platform rose up. Rui's platform. She didn't have a table to play Nexus with and it was much narrower compared to the other two, but she still had more than enough legroom to herself. "Sora! Sora, are you okay?!" she shouted in concern. Rui didn't really know what was going on, but any confusion about the situation was pushed to the wayside to make sure her brother was alright.

Nexus: The battle for one's memories.

Haruto smiled as the duo agreed to the proposal. A gentle, caring smile like Sora had known up to that point... or at least, that's what it should have been. To Wolf, who didn't know Haruto before this, it looked different. It had malice behind it, like the smile of a hunter as he approached the sprung trap he'd laid out beforehand. Haruto raised up his Avatar, narrowed his eyes and said: "Open."

---

"Rui? Is everything alright?"

Rui jumped a little when she heard her mother's voice from the other side of the door. "Did you have a fight?" she continued to question and Rui was at a loss for words. Rui's mother wanted to open the door, but because she was sitting in front of it, couldn't make much progress. When her mother protested, Rui quickly shot up to her feet and opened it up for her.

"Sorry, mom! I... I yelled at Sora," she sheepishly admitted.
"I see... well, as long as he doesn't interfere with your studies it's fine. I'll give him a talking to when he gets back home," her mother replied.
"No, don't! It's my fault, you shouldn't- wait, huh? Did Sora leave the house?"
"Hm? Oh, yes, I suppose. I didn't really notice him earlier, but he ran down the hall and out of the door before your father could tell him to be quiet..."

Rui's face went pale. "No way..." she muttered. Rui's mother noticed the card on the floor and asked about it, reminding Rui she could be studying instead of playing games. Rui grit her teeth as she picked Lumia up off the floor as she was told to. "...I'm sorry, mom. I'm going after Sora," she said to her mother, running past her into the entryway and putting on her outdoor shoes. Rui's father and mother were close behind her, chastising her for wanting to leave so suddenly and telling her to stay put. She repeated "Sorry, but I'm worried about him!" to them before running out the house to go look for her brother.

---

Sora and Haruto found themselves in an entirely new place. The air was cold and pierced through their clothing like they wore nothing at all. The space was illuminated, but the light was gloomy and dyed everything a slight shade of grey. Black little snowflakes fell all around, but they disintegrated as soon as they touched anything else. Each boy stood on their own platform, a fancifully designed table floating in front of them. The platforms themselves were partially submerged inside of a thick mist that covered the entire field, coloured in the same shade as the main colour of their decks. Haruto's was Red, but all of that wasn't the strangest thing about the situation. On the tables in front of them, dead in the center, was each person's Avatar. The cards weren't just lying face-up; no, the people themselves were standing proudly, in the flesh and blood, on top of the now-empty art box. Wolf was a lot smaller now compared to when Sora saw him inside his own memories. Once both players got their bearings on the situation, seven black cards appeared behind them. Inside the centre of two of them, for Sora, appeared a small golden coin. For Haruto, however, four were lit up.

"Sacchi, let's proceed like usual." Haruto flatly stated, hovering his hand over the pile of cards in front of him. One of them floated from the top of the deck and joined five others already laid out in front of him. "Colour charge," he continued.

"Leave it to me, Haru~!" Sacchi said back to him, striking a cute pose before reaching out his hand. The red mist from below gathered in his hand and focused at a front point in the table, collecting into a small ball.

"Two attackers, level 1 and level 0." Haruto proceeded in monotone, two cards lifting up and placing themselves next to Sacchi on the table. "Go ahead, Sora." he said. Haruto didn't explain any of what he'd just done, which had to have been a mistake, right? But even if Sora asked, all Haruto would do was coolly stare back at him, saying nothing as he waited on Sora to play his turn.

Nexus: The battle for one's memories.

"Sora-kun!"

It was Haruto. Just a little distance away, dressed casually for the cooling weather, was Haruto. He ran up and grabbed Sora's arm. "Let me look at that," he demanded, 'that' being the fist Sora used to punch a tree with. Haruto's face twisted with concern. "You're bleeding, man! Why'd you do that? What are you even doing here?" he asked, concern on his face.

"Ehehe, for the same reason you are, silly! We both know you heard him say 'battle!'" a second voice came from Haruto's direction. His face went pale. Haruto's eyes drifted to Wolf.

"No way! You too?" he said, pulling his hand back to dive into the inner pockets of his jacket. From it, Haruto pulled the same kind of card Sora was holding.

"Hiiii~!" a rather effeminate boy cheerily greeted from within its borders. "You know, normally I neeeever feel any Commanders around here, so I was, like, super surprised and excited when I found one. But then it turns out it's Sora! You only just bought a deck!"

Haruto sighed. "What a mess... I'm sorry for dragging you into this, Sora. I didn't think you'd be selected as a commander when I recommended those decks to you," he sheepishly told his friend.

"Pfu! It woulda happened sooner or later, Haru. We come to our commanders one way or another- hey waaaait a minute... didn't you say you wanted to battle?" the yet-unnamed Avatar excitedly swapped topics. "You know, you know, Haru loves battles! You two should totally duke it out!"

"Hey, calm down... we have to keep Sora-kun's feelings in mind," Haruto made sure to chastise his partner, who playfully put a finger to his bottom lip. Haruto looked back at Sora, a serious expression on his face. "But... I would really like to battle you. I didn't get a chance to do so earlier today, but now's perfect right?"

Nexus: The battle for one's memories.

"Oh, that sounds good!" Lumia eagerly agreed with Wolf and Sora. She turned to Rui to say: "Let's do it, Nee-chan! You should totally take them up on that offer!" but she didn't get much further than the word 'you'. When Lumia had turned to face her Commander, Rui had turned her head down. Even if Sora couldn't see Rui's face, Wolf could maybe spot her expression from where he laid... as could Lumia. Rui was gritting her teeth. "Nee-chan?" the avatar called out to her, concerned.

"Why...?" Rui softly spoke, her voice slightly cracking. She had her hands clutched tightly on top of her lap. "Why are all of you okay with this?" she continued. Rui stood up from her bed (accidentally tossing Lumia onto the floor in the process) and looked back at Sora. It wasn't her usual kind, collected expression. Her face was something she never showed Sora. Genuine anger. Rui yelled "Don't you get it? We're betting our memories!" at him. She averted her eyes from Sora briefly to look at Wolf. "Didn't you explain it to him?! That if he lost, he'll just lose more?!"

"Nee-chan, please calm down!" Lumia tried pleading from her new comfy place on the wooden flooring, but they fell on deaf ears.

"I won't! Because I... I can't do that!" Rui hysterically kept shouting, grabbing her head as if trying to placate the voices coming from inside. She continued to chew Sora out: "I-! I have memories I don't want to lose, Sora! How could you... could you just... casually dismiss them? Don't you care what happens to me? What happens to you?!"

Rui, shaking like a leaf, pointed to her door. She choked out "Please, just... just leave," and waited for him to do just that. "Go!" she urged him again when she sensed his hesitation. Once Sora was outside her doorframe, she weakly muttered: "Thank you for the ice cream. Good night," and closed the door on him. Rui slumped back against it, curling up into a ball and burying her head into her knees.

"...Are you okay with this?" Lumia asked, seeing Rui's pitiful state. The Avatar wasn't feeling great about this herself. Rui weakly shook her head. "I'm sure he didn't mean anything bad. You can still apologise and-"

"And what? Can't you see he doesn't care about me?" she bit back. "You chose memories dear to me, right?" Rui looked up and glared at Lumia. "You took everything I knew about him! I... I know he's important to me, but that's it! But he doesn't seem to care at all... so... the memories we shared... he doesn't..." Rui whimpered. She hugged herself as tightly as she could.

"...Do you have a wish, Nee-chan?" Lumia asked. "Sora-kun probably has one, you know? A wish he wants to make true no matter what," she continued. Rui didn't respond. Lumia wasn't sure whether or not to keep talking, but did so anyway. "Let's get your memories back, okay? I'm sure he wants that, too." she said. Her Commander looked up, eyes red from the tears welling up.

"I don't want him to forget me, Lumia..."
"He won't. We'll make sure of that."

Nexus: The battle for one's memories.

"Oh? So you don't think I'm any fun, do you?" Rui narrowed her eyes as she butted into the conversation. The older sister leaned in closer to stare into his eyes for the remark. She waited a bit for his reaction, but couldn't keep a straight face for long before starting to snicker. Rui backed off and winked at Sora, then pointed down to the Avatar on his lap. "Honestly, he seems just like you. You two won't have any trouble getting along at all," Rui told them. Lumia, having been ignored for a little too long, raised her voice to grab everyone's attention.

"Hey, wait, hold on!" she said. "If he's Nee-chan's little brother, does that mean I have to call him Nii-chan?" the card said, putting her two index fingers to the temples as if she's thinking really hard. She opened one eye to look at Rui. "...! A-ahaha, I'm joking of course! Sora-kun is fine enough, please don't glare at me like that!" she quickly backpedalled.

Rui sighed. "Really, though... you don't need to worry about me, Sora. I'll be fine. If I didn't work this hard, my grades would drop. Besides, you have more time to spend with your friends if you don't have me hovering over you at all times, right?" she looked back at him with a smile. "You know, you're really popular with the girls. They're always asking about you," she continued, "and it's no good for your big sister to get in the way of that, right?"

"That's... kind of creepy, actually." Lumia off-handedly interjected. Another glare from Rui caused her to go down on her knees and apologize profusely for the comment.

Nexus: The battle for one's memories.

Rui sat on the edge of her bed, Lumia in one hand as her other was filled with the seven memory coins. "Are... are you okay, Nee-chan?" Lumia carefully asked her Commander, staring up at Rui from the card she was contained in.

"...Nee-chan?" Rui repeated in a confused tone.

"Oh, um, sorry! Do you hate that? It's just, you seem so much more mature than me and, well, I thought... maybe you'd want to be called that instead of 'Commander'..." Lumia hurriedly apologised, trying to back down from her statement. Rui just shook her head.

"I don't hate it," she replied back to her Avatar, who breathed a sigh of relief. Lumia answered back that she was worried having to come up with some other thing, but Rui didn't really look back in her direction.

'It's been a while since I've heard that...'

Rui looked back down at her open palm. Five of the seven coins were still dyed black. Five of her memories were still gone. No matter how much she sat and thought on it, none of them were coming back to her. As Rui was preoccupied thinking about it, Lumia suddenly began to panic about from inside her card.

"Nee-chan! I feel another commander nearby!" she suddenly yelled. Rui flinched and shot upright, dropping the coins in her hand by accident. The seven of them vanished into thin air as soon as they left her hand. Rui wanted to ask Lumia what she meant but didn't have the time to as her door suddenly flung open.

"Rui, don't open..."

A pause. "Sora?" Rui stammered out in shock, seeing him hold onto an Avatar just like her.

"You too..." he answered back to her. Rui gave him the softest smile she could muster.

'It's still "Rui", huh...?' she briefly thought to herself. "I'm sorry. I wanted to see what you got me and, well..." Rui looked down at Lumia. She turned the card to Sora.

Inside of it, Lumia awkwardly rubbed the back of her head while giving a wave. "Ahaha... what the heck, right?" she sheepishly said. "I didn't expect Nee-chan's little brother to be a Commander, too."

Rui turned around and closed the starter deck's box, putting it on the floor next to her. "You can sit down if you need to. I don't mind," she said to him as Rui did so herself. She put down Lumia on her lap, looking at Sora's own Avatar. He seemed much more confident, relaxed even, compared to Rui's. She gave Sora a bit of time to sit down in her desk chair, come take a seat next to her on her bed or to just keep standing there in the doorway. She wanted to ask him so many things, but for now, she looked back down at the card on her lap.

"She told me her name was Lumia." Rui said. Lumia nodded fiercely. "What about you?" she asked Sora's Avatar directly after raising her head up to meet his gaze.

Discord vs OOC

It shouldn't be a case of "Versus" at all. Discords and OOCs compliment each-other. OOCs are slow by nature due to having to refresh the page to see if someone has said something, leading to a lot less immediate feedback like you'd get from a chatroom. That said, the fact it is slower lends itself just that tiny bit better to thinking out what you say, as well as being a good place to store important discussion points. Any public questions should definitely go through the OOC, because then the GM's answer is also able to quickly be accessed again.

And also,

<Snipped quote by POOHEAD189>
I see your point but I wanna ask you this--how is it all too different from when we used mIRC or Skype or Chatzys or Titanpads/Etherpads/etc?

@TGM

What?

Skype is missing the easy tabs of discord as well as being more annoying to get people into a group chat to begin with. You need to go out of the way to exchange contact addresses and then add someone, while with Discord you can just toss out an invite link to anyone who's willing to spare the time to join it.

Chatzy is primarily a website, not an app, meaning you always have to have a tab open you need to check, as well as generally not having nearly the slick UI or QoL features Discord does.

Pads are even worse in that aspect. I literally never saw those used for OOC banter outside the context of the collab post that was trying to be created, so you have to question how OOC the banter truly is.

Discord has the perfect elements of a clean UI, easy to join, easy to moderate, easy to set-up and easy to separate program. While I'm sure a better chatroom app could be developed, Discord is currently the perfect storm to en-masse reroute discussion from OOCs into its own chat. It's almost an extension rather than a replacement; a "fourth tab" as you would. It has the benefit of being live, not based in a web browser and you can customize how many notifications you want to get from it.

The only downside to discord is that it is an app, and you do need an account, so some people are just not going to want to bother and that's fair. It's still a vastly superior experience to the mentioned three with features or elements to it they lacked and are crucial to the kind of shift we see now.