NorthernKraken

RPGC #23: InGlorious - Discussion

So like...what the helk did any of that have to do with a fallen hero? Or somebody doing wrong because they think it’s right? This feels like a story that doesn’t even remotely match the prompt in question…

It wasn’t a bad personal reflection story...but she isn’t a hero, nor the villain who thinks she's a hero. The father was her fallen hero, but he’s not a secret bad guy. She’s whiny and angst-filled, but her father died. She didn’t do anything wrong. The mother complex isn’t relevant to the story. Most of it really isn’t tied to the story which is seems to be a story about mourning a personal loss. So...I’m afraid I don’t see the connection.

@SleepingSilence

So, I appreciate the in depth critique in like, a really big way, and the time you took to look over everyone's work, but I do think you've misunderstood my, err, entire concept a little, so I figured I'd do a little explaining in order to clarify the relation to the prompt.

So yeah, her father is the fallen hero in this case. Throughout a lot of her childhood, he was the 'good parent' (where the mother complex comes in), and now that she's older he helped her a lot with more practical stuff, like rent and food money. But, he also had issues with alcohol, and was generally irresponsible - something that Jenny didn't really notice due to being a kid. This is hinted at in the section at the pub, and where she's reflecting on the differences between her father and her mother.

She didn't see these flaws because, y'know he was her dad and she thought he was great, until he killed someone in a drunk driving incident (the guy who's funeral she rather voyeuristically tags along to). Which idk seems pretty 'villainous' to me? It's about mourning a personal loss, yes, but it's also about that realisation that even the most important and influential figures in our lives are, ultimately, human beings, and capable of doing really awful things and causing profound tragedy. And not just on the large scale - but in the small scale - that feeling at the end that he let her down, too, just by not being there, when she'd always thought he would be.

Edit: Also thought it would be worth mentioning, but I did actually run the idea of a child realising their parent isn't the hero they once thought past Frizan, and whilst it did morph slightly since then, I was essentially given the go ahead.

Cold Front: Tacitum (Completed)

@Berlin@nightmare medx Do you guys have the discord link? In any case - discord.gg/t6MHVBp

The Wolf Plague

Heyo, just letting you know this seems really cool (and will be writing up a CS when I have a decent idea lol) and would be super interested if/when you decide to start it up properly :)

Consent

A woman, aging, grey hair cropped short, stands at the back.

For a moment she is uncertain, but then she watches the other woman, and something tugs at the corner of her lips. She steps toward the table, keen brown eyes skimming across the array of objects, before they fall on a thick, black sharpie. She picks it up.

She approaches the volunteer, sure footed, then carefully, she slips the button at his collar free. Her throat catches as it slips open, revealing the slight bob of his neck as he breathes. More confident, she undoes the rest of the buttons until the shirt hangs, exposing the volunteer's bare chest.

She uncaps the sharpie, and hunches over, her body hiding the drawing from view as she works.

She stands, slips the cap back on with a sharp click, before moving out of the way to reveal a giant, hairy set of balls covering each pec, accompanied by a wrinkled trunk that sits between them and snakes down his belly.

She returns the sharpie to the table, task completed.

RPGC #23: InGlorious - Prompt and Entries

Okay. This did not turn out how I had planned, but I wrote it so might as well submit it!

Also: Words - 986 (forgot before)

PSA

There is no procession of matching black umbrellas at Malcolm Brady’s funeral.

No single tears roll down porcelaine white cheeks, and no crisply folded handkerchiefs rise from anywhere to dab them away. The eulogy is not deep and meaningful, and it is not exactly what each person in the room needs to hear at that exact moment in time. It is, to put it rather bluntly, not at all how Jenny imagined it would be.

Instead, the undertaker makes them all line up like school children outside the pokey little crematorium before they’re allowed in, and once everyone is seated, it is made abundantly clear that they are on a tight schedule, and that there is no time whatsoever for any ‘funny business’.

The eulogy is a reading of that one poem from four weddings and a funeral, pulled up on a phone. They stumble through a lilting, off-key and off-tempo rendition of ‘abide with me’, and then it’s over.

After, they all leave in single file, and everyone is very sorry for the loss. It might’ve been nice, had their faces not been dappled gold with sunlight, if the scent of flowers hadn’t been thick and sickly in the air. It’s false. These peoples' world hasn’t stopped. Hasn't crashed, been left, stammering like a scratched record. What do they know?

For a moment, rage flares, hot and white as the bright summer sun, but then she watches an old man get into a battered old ford mondeo, and it’s fifteen years ago. Her dad is driving her back to her mum’s house in a similar car, humming along to Johnny Cash on the radio. Jenny always used to wonder if, when he was alone, he sang along out loud.

She’d never know, now. Not that it really matters.

After the church, they go to the pub. There’s a function room booked and an open bar, but the line between the mourners and the regulars blurred long before today. A man with a ratty T-shirt and blue jeans is eating a slice of quiche, talks to a woman in a neat black pantsuit as she sips delicately at a pint. Jenny quietly slips into the background, away from the noise and the booze, just like she used to when she was a kid. This isn't her space, it's his.

No one here will proudly ruffle her hair as she sits, perched on the sticky lacquered bar, straw poking out of the cold can of sprite in her chubby, childlike hand. No one will loudly declare that they have the next round, because ‘Our Jen got into bloody uni!’. Her mum won't.

She remembers what it was like at the hospital. Her mum, sat, a perfect scowl is etched across her face. Red lipstick that seeped into the cracks around her mouth, makeup smeared on in the dead of night. She wasn’t old, but she looked it.

Jenny admires the stubbornness now. The quiet strength and apparent invulnerability.

It wasn’t always like that though. When she fell and skinned her knee, the first time she fell out with her best friend (and the second, and the third), when she broke up with her boyfriend. She’d wanted compassion, understanding, but her mother had wanted her to be strong. She remembers being told, a long time ago, after a misfortune long forgotten, that crying would make people think she was weak. Just another hysterical woman, too emotional for the serious business of success. Don’t let anyone know what’s inside. They won’t like it, won’t like you.

At the time, Jenny hadn't liked her very much.

Her father held her when she cried. Told her it was okay to be sad, that he’d rather she told him and didn’t keep it bottled up. He never bottled anything up. Her mother said he was a manchild, Jenny thought of it as passion. What would it be like if it were her mother in that coffin, in that hospital bed, in that car? Something sickly and cold prickles beneath the surface of her skin. She shouldn’t think like that. It’s wrong.
She goes to get a drink, something else to focus on.

After the refreshments, Jenny goes home alone. Her little flat is dark, so she turns the yellow lights on, and they flicker to life with an electric buzzing sound. She turns on the cooker, gets out a frozen pizza whilst it heats up. Pretends to be reading the instructions instead of thinking about how she probably won’t be able to pay her rent anymore, not without her dad’s help. She’ll need to pick up more hours at the store. Isn’t sure how she’ll juggle that alongside uni, but supposes she’ll have to figure it out.

Water and enzymes and salt spill over her cheeks unannounced, and when she rubs at them, her flesh turns pink and raw. No one holds her. No one tells her everything’s fine. No one tells her to just let him know if she’s struggling, for food, for rent, for anything. She’s on her own. She’s on her own and she’s mad.

Why did he have to be in that coffin? Why did he have to be in that hospital bed? Why did he have to be in that god forsaken car?

Why did it have to be all his own fault?

She thinks back to Malcolm Brady’s funeral. His sister reading the eulogy off her phone. His daughter, crying as she shook the hands of mourners as they left the building. Told her they were sorry for her loss.

That should’ve been Jenny. Could’ve been, had there been more than her, her mother, and her brother at his funeral. She wonders if her dad had sung along to Johnny Cash that night. The scent of alcohol on his breath, pride at Jenny getting into uni in his heart.

She’ll never know.

Fuck. Him.

The Red Hoods: Initiates

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Village of Traffyn Fenwd - Beds For Ewe!

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@MsMorningstar@Damo021

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For Colin, time shuddered, memory jagged and violent, a cart over rock.

The realisation that Kate was Kate. Saying as much, staring, petrified at the pallor of her face.

Smoke. Thick in his lungs.

Then he was running, fresh mud slick under his boots, rain cold and thick, soaked through to the skin in seconds. He couldn’t look at her. Couldn’t. Not when all he saw was soot streaked pale skin, when all he heard was the lock. Clicking. Locksley. Screaming.

Hands. At his neck. Wild eyes. Starched skin. Bloody fangs through lips peeled back in a snarl.

”No need to scream child-”

“Fecking move Lad!”

Lying on the ground, breath ragged. Was the sky dark with rain or with night?

Lips moving, forming words he couldn’t hear. White hair. Amber eyes. Nyssa. That was Nyssa. His fellow hood. [i]Not[i] a leech. Fuck.

He was shaking all over. Cold or adrenaline or both, he couldn’t tell. Wasn’t sure he wanted to. The scent of smoke still lingered, the back of his throat charred and thick with the ghost of cool hands like irons about his neck.

Someone dragged him to his feet. Nyssa? Eliza? It was hard to tell. Impossible. With the rain and the smoke and Locksley's flesh bubbling in his ear- Eliza was talking. Telling him to pull himself together. He clenched his fists, the inside of his palms warming upon the contact. God. He was such a fucking idiot.

“Sorry.” He didn’t look at her. “Won’t happen again.” That was a lie. She probably knew it was a lie. It wasn’t like he had any fucking control. He took a steadying breath. It didn’t do much. His heart still hammered, ribs still crushed lungs like fists with every laboured breath. His skin still rippled with cold-heat. Cheeks and ears bright red - he didn’t have to see them to know.

He glanced up, trying to find- shit, Kate. Of course.

He didn’t even have time to blink. One second she was approaching Nyssa, the next, she had a hand on her shoulder from behind. Pulled her round with an almighty heave, and…

Colin blanched.

“Keep your skinny fucking hands of my bloody brother, bitch!” she yelled, fist aimed squarely at the soft pink of Nyssa’s mouth.

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Village of Traffyn Fenwd - Forest Path

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@ZAVAZggg

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The dry, brittle branch exploded.

There was the briefest moment where, upon touching Vitius’ lips, it had hummed. Vibrated, almost, with impossibly powerful magics. Nothing natural, even for someone used to living in a world full of the strange and the powerful.

But then shards of sharp, dry wood erupted outwards.

At the same time, a fleeting glimpse of grey.



Anger. Pain, as if Vitius had driven it to the actions it had taken. Whatever it was, it was becoming increasingly unhappy, as yet another tree slammed downwards.

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Cold Front: Tacitum (Completed)

Alice Elliton

	Alice Elliton Gender: Female Age: 26 Height: 5 foot four Weight: 114 pounds Occupation: Part time assassin, full time trust fund baby

Background

Brief history.

The pampered daughter of a wealthy american tech billionaire, Alice slathers her life of luxury over instagram, snapchat, facebook, and a dozen other social media sites so hip you haven't even heard of them yet. And if the a cartel rival happens to eat some very bad shellfish and end up dead whilst on a date with her, or one of Frederika's associates just happens to take his own life hours after appearing in the background of one of her slefies, well, that's just an unfortunate coincidence, isn't it? It couldn't possibly be because of Alice. Not a chance.

Resources

1 - Her mobile phone although chances are she'll have a new one in a week

2 - Her other burner phone

3 - An American Express 'black card'

4 - Her multi-million dollar trust fund

5 - A safe house containing documentation for at least four different identities and cash

6 - Her own personal stash of high quality cocaine

7 - friends in high places, built up over time, she has connections with just about anyone who's anyone

8 - A hidden collection of interesting, exotic, and incredibly deadly poisons - her usual weapon of choice

Crimes

Among other things...

- The murder of an associate, using saxitoxin, a type of poison produced by algae that ends up in shellfish. The man offered to take her on a date to a seafood resteraunt, and Alice arranged for a deadly amount of the poison to end up in his food.

- The murder of the boss of a rival gang, staged to look like a pharmacy mistake, Alice replaced the beta-blockers the victim had just been prescribed to help with her tremors with a much higher dose, causing the woman to go overdose and go into cardiac arrest within hours.

Cold Front: Tacitum (Completed)

@Gcold Oop! I completely forgot, will do that now

The Red Hoods: Initiates

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Village of Traffyn Fenwd - Forest Path

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@ZAVAZggg

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A crunching, sucking sound, like bones snapping and grinding and splitting through taut-stretched flesh as the sword, fully free from Vitius’s grip was pulled bodily into the writhing tree, leaving only a thick scar in the bark, barely visible in the darkness.

Fantastical tales and outlandish folklore were as normal as air to people in places like this, but this wasn’t like anything Vitius had heard about in Crimson Heights, and he drew a blank. Another piercing cackle rang out across the forest.

A breath, ice cold, slicked the back of his neck.

As soon as the sensation registered, another tree crashed into the ground behind him, dry, skeletal branches snapped under the colossal force, flew off in every direction. It lurched, shifted to heave itself upright once more. Loud, but not loud enough to drown out the sound of the next tree over, one right next to Vitius, lurching and stretching and cracking, about to slam into the ground where he stood.

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The Red Hoods: Initiates

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Village of Traffyn Fenwd - Forest Path

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@ZAVAZggg

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The wood splintered around the point Vitius’s sword made contact, deep brown bark giving way to a flash of pale white in the moonlight for the barest of moments. Then, an agonised creaking, stretching sound as the tree trunk warped and grew about the weapon embedded in its form. Sap, sticky and black as blood, leaked from the tree, oozed along the length of the blade that was slowly, steadily, being engulfed.

The voice rang out out again. It came from everywhere and nowhere, bore no true characteristics except that of the forest itself. It could've just as easily been a falling tree, a mudslide, a wolf, blood on its maw, tearing into its pray. The only thing distinguishing it even as a separate entity were the words.