NorthernKraken

Red Dead Reckoning

Penny

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Appearance

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Theme

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Appearance

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At 5’3, Penny’s short, willowy stature comes across as entirely unassuming. Her delicate features are almost entirely unmarred by the harshness of life in New Austin, and whilst she usually keeps her tresses of soft brown hair tied back out of her face, it falls long and wavy when she lets it down.

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Assets

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Nothing but a revolver, the clothes on her back, and a small amount of cash in her pocket.

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Personality

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Penny prides herself on being a good homemaker, her value being in the skills she brings to the table. Cooking, cleaning, mending and other domestic tasks are her forte, and she remains demure and quiet when not called upon to act.

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History

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Those seven words scrawled on a piece of tattered paper with rust coloured creases make up the entirety of what Penny knows about her past. The letter, along with the formerly white dress she was wearing were the only things she’d had on her when infamous outlaws Jack and Luke O’Reilly found her with blood in her mouth (and everywhere else), half dead, face down in the dirt. It wasn’t a lot to go off, but Penny knew one thing - she had to find her husband. At any cost.

Miles from anywhere and unwilling to leave an injured woman alone to fend for herself, the O’Reillys quickly adopted Penny as one of their own, and she adopted them right back. They came to an agreement - the O’Reillys would keep Penny safe whilst she looked for her husband, and she would cook, clean, and generally make their life on the road feel a little homier.

Penny was aware of the things they did that weren’t quite… legal. The gunfights and the bloody clothes and the running weren’t part of the simple domesticity she longed for. But true to their word, they kept it away from her, and true to hers, she continued to search her husband wherever they went. It was an easy routine, until it wasn’t.

One second, Penny was stirring a pot over the fire, humming softly under her breath - a tune she’d heard Luke sing on several occasions. The next, the O’Reillys were barrelling into camp, half a dozen of the sherrif’s men showering them in bullets. Penny hadn’t even realised she was moving, but then Luke’s revolver was in her hand and

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Six men. Dead on the ground with bullets dead centre between their eyes, and just like that Penny was a killer.

Horrified at her actions, Penny ran away into the night, not even stopping for food or an extra change of clothes, the only possessions she had were the rifle and the clothes on her back. She walked for days, before coming across the town of Armadillo. It was imperative now - she had to find Porter. Her husband. It was obvious now - she was nothing but a mindless killer, and that was okay if it was keeping her husband safe, but without him? Those men had died for nothing.

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Do you have a personal story arc prepared? Of course not, whatever gave you that idea? =P

Cold Front: Tacitum (Completed)

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Alice eyed Reika coolly, eyed the gun pointed, point blank, right between her eyes. She’d been on Reika’s end enough times to know how it would end - squeeze, bang, splat, and the only thing left would be one hell of a mess to clean up afterwards.

Her phone buzzed in her bag. She ignored it. Continued to stare Reika down from behind the heavy layers of makeup hiding the even heavier bags beneath her eyes. Leo was dead, and ‘innocent’. Rachel as well. Two. There’d been two.

Of course. Of course it came down to this. Ever since meeting her, she and Reika had been at each other’s throats. It made sense that now, at the end, it was the two of them. The past few days.. she’d kept the other woman safe. A word in the ear of the right person, a promise of a well timed look, and Reika’s various crimes had been hidden from the sight of any who thought to look.

Selfish, really. If Reika went down, all eyes would’ve gone straight to her. Not that it did much good now.

In the end, it was just the two of them.

She stared down the barrel of Reika’s gun. She swallowed, maybe… “Reika. Listen. It’s not me.” she glanced, just for a moment, at Lucia and Vinnie, “We need to leave. Now.” she said quietly, eyes cold as ever, “It must be one of them.”

|| Primordial Uprising - [Kaiju & Monsterverse-Inspired RP] ||

Hi everyone, I've messaged Lmpkio, but I thought I should probably say here too that I'm making the decision to drop this rp. There's an awful lot of characters, and to be completely honest, it's a bit much for me to keep up with. I hope you all have fun going forward though!

Cold Front: Tacitum (Completed)

Oop, sorry, been having a little writer's block with this one. Will try and power through and post tomorrow

The Red Hoods: Initiates

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Village of Traffyn Fenwd - Beds For Ewe! (External)

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@MsMorningstar@ZAVAZggg@Damo021

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Colin’s cheek stung.

For a moment, that’s all there was. Just that stinging. He probed the tender flesh with tingling fingertips, blinked dumbly as Eliza of all people rushed to his defense. His knees shook, and he could hear screaming from some place distant and buried. Do something. He should do something. Don’t just stand there, or do you want to die? Stop hiding behind your sister and fight like a man. For fuck’s sake, what’s wrong with you?

“-miserable shell of a man like him-"

A part of him was terrified.

The lock clicking. Smoke and burning flesh. A child’s screams.

But then something else roared - flame licking the doubt, the coherence, the hesitation, turned them to straight ash. If it hadn’t smothered even the possibility for anything else, it might’ve frightened him. But it had, so it didn’t.

His sister was in that inn. Eliza centimetres away from the creature. Fendrel was gods knew where. The rags over it’s shoulder were starting to look awfully person shaped.

He had to do something, or it would slaughter them all. He charged into the inn. Humid air, the stench of dog, threatened to swallow him up. He ignored it. Eyes found the creature, right by the entrance.

His daggers were in his hands.

He launched himself, straight towards the threat.

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|| Primordial Uprising - [Kaiju & Monsterverse-Inspired RP] ||

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The thing about Japan, as Noah was quickly coming to realise, was that he did not speak Japanese. And no, regardless of what Amber, the editor of Cryptid Weekly, seemed to think, a semester abroad way back in university did not make him ‘more or less fluent’, something he’d tried to tell her ever since being given this assignment. Of course, her response to that had been to just point out that he wasn’t meant to be talking to the Kappas. Just, y’know. Looking for them. That begged the question though.

Could Kappas talk?

The thought gave him pause, before he pushed it away and kept going, almost like he hadn’t stopped, mid stride as he made his way across Hakata’s busiest bus terminal. It was a warm day, and people were clearly busy, if the glares they were shooting in his direction were anything to by. He frowned, before pulling out the paper map he’d brought with him and opening it up where he stood.

It was heavily annotated, red sharpie lines carved swathes through the different districts, post it notes fluttered in the slight breeze, and the margins were filled with blue-black scribbles. Noah traced one of the lines across from where he was now to what looked to be a small hub of nightlife which had been heavily circled several times. Next to it, Noah’s own black biro scrawl outlined its significance.

Whoever this ‘Kappa Man’ was, Noah had a feeling he’d find more information from him than he would poking around some random river. The only trouble was, Noah had no idea where to start.

His phone buzzed in his pocket,and he pulled it out glancing at the glowing screen. A text from Amber, two simple words spelled across the LCD screen - ‘Food Baka!’. His stomach gave a treacherous grumble, and he realised the Kappa Man would have to wait.

He grinned and shook his head, before tapping out a quick reply, and setting off to find somewhere to eat.

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When Sarah told people she worked in HR, their reactions were almost too easy to predict. The slight glaze over their eyes, the polite nod and smile, the instantaneous and blaringly obvious lowering of expectations. As depressing as it was to have her career be an instant turn off, it still felt like an inside joke, given what she actually did. Because yes, Sarah worked in HR, but she worked in HR for TERRA, and that was an entirely different ball game.

It was a Thursday morning like any other, and she stared at the rolling bank of monitors at the end of the large office. Thousands of global press releases, only around half even in English. Everything from major diplomatic issues, to kitschy stories about local celebrations. There were operatives in charge of specifically combing the non-stop feed for anything relevant to TERRA operations, but Sarah’s team kept an eye out anyway.

Sourcing the exceptional, the weird, the too curious for their own good - Sarah personally had recruited well over a hundred agents into TERRA during her time. Some she kept in contact with out of personal preference, others out of professional obligation. The latter category was mostly scientists, those who kept an ear to the ground in their respective fields without actually working for TERRA directly. She made sure their info kept coming, and their mouths stayed shut. If it got out what they did here… what they were keeping secret… Sarah didn’t want to think about it.

She leaned back in her desk chair, and booted up her PC, taking a sip of strong black coffee from the mug she’d brought with her from the kitchen. Her phone buzzed in her pocket, but she ignored it deliberately. It was probably, no, definitely Haley. The break up had been messy, but that was only half her fault, not that you’d know it from the endless stream of texts and missed calls she’d been bombarded with since. It’d die off soon, at least she hoped so. As much as she was a ‘stone cold bitch’ in Haley’s words, she didn’t want to block her.

Another buzz, and Sarah scowled, before pressing the power button down hard. She was at work. Haley knew that. She pushed it out of her mind for now though, she had bigger fish to fry. Namely, a Ukrainian scientist just a bit too interested in Egypt for Terra’s liking.

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It was a late afternoon in the small village of Drumandochit, Inverness when it happened. The temperature had skyrocketed over the past couple of days, and in response, tourists and locals alike had turned out in droves to enjoy the rare good weather by the loch. Queues for the single ice cream truck had waiting times of over an hour, the Loch Ness Centre was so packed with people it was hard to see the exhibits, and boats full of people coursed chipperly over the calm, deep waters.

On one such boat, Timothy Johnson, four, was enjoying a day out with his parents and two younger siblings. His baby sister had been screaming for the better part of a half hour, and whilst his mother attempted to soothe her, his brother, comparatively new to the world of bipedal motion was running rings around their father, leaving Timothy comparatively unattended. And so, he’d decided to entertain himself with the cheap disposable camera his parents had gotten him for the trip. It had up to 100 pictures he could take, and when specialists at TERRA would later pour over the film, they would find most of them to be pictures of people’s sunburnt legs, the floor, and an unusually large number of interesting bushes.

One of these images, however, would prove to be quite a bit more important than legs and floors and bushes, because Timothy Johnson was pointing his camera at the water the exact moment the ground quaked. There, on a cheap disposable camera, was the moment Loch Ness monster exploded out of the water, snatched an unfortunate seagull in her pointy teeth, and retreated back beneath the surface, changing Drumandochit forever.

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[Open Legend] Onto a Sea of Stars

this seems cool :D

RPGC #23: InGlorious - Discussion

@Calle Hey there :) Sorry if anything I said made you nervous to post your review :/ Anyway, figured the events of my story could use a little clarification, as I don't think I did a very good job of making it clear what actually happened.

Spoilers I guess?

- Before the events of the story, Jenny's father hits Malcolm Brady in a drunk driving incident
- He gets a funeral, but nobody really goes along
- Taking us to the start of the story, where Jenny has, somewhat ghoulishly, decided to go to the funeral of the man her father killed.

Like I said though, I don't think I did a very good job making it clear what was happening, and if I were to do another draft, that's definitely something I would pay close attention to. Anyways, thank you for taking the time to review everyone's stories and provide thoughtful, helpful feedback :)

R E B E L L I O N - A Superpower Roleplay (CLOSED)

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The grass was dry and dead beneath Nia’s toes as she let herself drown in the sun that poured across the front of the scrapyard, and a few feet away, Loch picked at the ground. From where Nia lay, flannel shirt bundled beneath her head, he looked about a thousand feet tall. More like he was ravaging towns and villages and farmland than enjoying a nice lunch with teetering stacks of rusted out cars and chainlink fence in the background. Although then again, the two weren’t exactly mutually exclusive.

In the yard, there was a metallic crash, and Nia winced. She craned her neck to see two men, one, large and sweltering in a stained wife beater, the other slightly younger, late teens at best, the first man’s son, perhaps? Either way, the larger was yelling now, something with a lot of words that started with an ‘F’ or a ‘C’, and even more flying spittle, and even Loch paused his pecking to get an eyeful.

The younger looked upset, or rather, like he was trying really hard not to be, and Nia felt something stir in her gut. Yelling, screaming, humiliation - all had been par for the course on the inside. You were nothing. Any attempt to be not-nothing was met with… well, Nia didn’t like to think about that.

She wasn’t nothing now though.

She sucked on her bottom lip. Her neck was stiff from staring so long, and she reached up to massage it, just as Loch waddled over. He butted her hand with his beak expectantly, and she smiled, scratching softly down the back of his neck.

A loud crack echoed across the yard, and Nia’s gaze snapped back to the two men, Loch withdrawing from her touch almost immediately.

Her eyes widened.

The older man had the younger by the scruff of his sweat-stained grey T-shirt, screaming in his face, now, face like port. Nia didn’t need to think too hard to guess what had happened, not when younger’s cheek was a pink stain on dusty skin and he’d stopped trying not to look upset. Just looked scared. Nia had been scared like that before, a lot of times. And now.

She wasn’t nothing now.

Nia heaved herself to her feet, pausing only to tell Loch to wait there (he didn’t), and marched towards the drama playing out before her.

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RPGC #23: InGlorious - Discussion

@SleepingSilence I admit, I may have been overly harsh. But I stand by what I said in my review. I apologise for the fact that I may have gotten overly personal, but I think instead of shouting back in turn, it would be more helpful to consider the reasons why. In all honesty, I (and others I've spoken to) found the tone you took in your reviews to be a little arrogant. For one, the extensive rewrites of other people's work were somewhat offensive and incredibly unhelpful. Also from what I saw, you bassically applied paint stripper to anything that made the peices interesting or unique. 'Fluff' and 'padding' are often deliberate stylistic choices, oftentimes they make up elements of voice.

Anyway, moving on.

when discussing censorship, I think it's worth remembering that free speech goes both ways, and doesn't make you immune to criticism. I strongly dislike your story, and I feel like the themes contained within were deeply unsettling, but I would absolutely fight for your right to post it. As an individual, not a government, I don't have the ability to censor anyone.

Another note, a 'failed' rape is still a sexual assault. It is still traumatising, and it is still illegal. I honestly don't have the time or energy to waste addressing each and every point you make, but I think you would benefit from remembering that your work doesn't exist in a vacuum. Inaccurate portrayals of 'insanity' and 'madness' can and do reinforce real world stigmas against mental illness and disability in general. Ideas surrounding female 'purity' and the 'sanctity of virginity' can and do have incredibly harmful effects on sexual assault survivors - both in how they treat themselves, and how they are treated by the world around them.

If I sound preachy, it's because I am being. These are issues that are incredibly close to my heart for various reasons I don't particularly want to get into here. If you're going to be discussing these issues in your work, I strongly suggest investing a little time into researching ways you can do so without perpetuating harmful stigmas.