Ryik

A Truly "Gifted" Life (Ignore post count)

Koto

He stumbles yet again before picking himself and running faster.

Every dead tree in this god-forsaken excuse for a woods bears a face twisted in anger. The light bends as the twilit dusk threatens to leave him blind, and the sound of his pursuer never fades. Step by step, the sounds of twigs snapping never ends, never speeds up, as if they were walking towards him. Still yet, it only grows louder and louder, but every time he looks back, all he sees is an empty woods. He runs endlessly, already out of breath for a while now, but he can't stop. Stopping would mean certain death, or worse. The sounds of its approach suddenly speeds up, little by little. His terrified running becomes a desperate sprint, ignoring the pain in his chest that results. Even so, the sounds of its impossibly fast approach grow ever louder, deafening, and then continues to grow. He can't look back now, or he's sure he'll be caught. Even when pushing himself to run so fast, the sound of the footsteps feel like they're right behind him. They stay there for a moment, and then he feels a warm breath clearly on the nape of his neck, making his hairs stand on end. That's when he falls, tripping yet again, but unable to pick himself up and continue, light-headed and gasping for air. The sound is gone. The sun has almost completely set. The feeling of being watched never escapes him, but he has this moment at least, to breathe. A few seconds later, out of the corner of his vision, a flash of red darts behind a tree, accompanied by the sound of muffled indistinct whispers. He stands up, wincing at the pain of his overexertion and the sound of a slow pursuit picks up again. Not from the flash of red, but from directly behind him. Despite the sharp, ripping pain in his chest, he gets up and starts running yet again. Everything plays on repeat, but the exhaustion is twice as great for him. The whispers join the footsteps in a collective crescendo, becoming so loud as to hurt his ears. His feet become numb from smashing the ground so fervently. He had heard rumors of the inhumanity of his assassin, a visceral monster straight out of lovecraftian nightmares, so stained in blood that it's all his victims see. Even so, he never imagined they would be this inhuman.

Nonetheless, running is just what it wants. Clearly it can't be escaped, so it's just weakening him before going in for the kill... and it's been working.

As the whispers start giving him headaches and the sound of footsteps are right behind him again, he twirls around, only for all to stop, dead silent. Not even the wind can be heard. He looks around anxiously, scanning a full 360 degrees around him, but finds nothing but dead trees.

That's when a searing pain cuts through the nape of his neck.

He falls to the ground and turns around. He looks at it- he looks at you, but all he sees is an anatomically impossible smile. You bring the knife down on one of his arms and step on the other, pushing all your weight down on it. He struggles against your foot before you pull out another knife and push it through his wrist, pinning it as deep as you can into the ground.

You pull out a gun and use it to shoot his ankles, leaving him completely and totally at your mercy. Now comes the fun part. You retrieve your tool box and cooler from your buggy nearby and begin getting to work. After all, it's a pretty big waste to just cut into some of the more valuable parts. You begin humming a mellow tune as the sound of screams fill these deadened woods.

The perfectly relaxing evening.

A Truly "Gifted" Life (Ignore post count)

I as well. A designated means of instant communication would be highly useful.

A Truly "Gifted" Life (Ignore post count)

Koto

Full Name: Koto Wolfram
Age: 23
Gender: ♂
Gift: Koto is a walking, talking cognitohazard, able to subtly induce acute paranoia, hallucinations, and increased heart rate within anyone who perceives him. This effect is persistent and needs to be suppressed deliberately on Koto's part, though it does wear off after a while. While he has a degree of control over these hallucinations, it will also happen without any input on his part.
Loyalty: Born and raised an Ashlander, Koto works as a mercenary wherever he can and a cutthroat any time the opportunity presents itself.
Description: People associated with Koto tend to recognize him by his red hood and nigh permanently affixed grin. His hair is relatively short but thoroughly unkempt at all times, and his eyes, combined with his ability, have a piercing or even glowing essence to them. It is quite common for people to mistakenly believe his eyes are red, due to his association with the color and his ability, but they are in fact a vibrant amber.
Personality: While somewhat antisocial, Koto often behaves friendly or even cheerful, matching his indelible grin, though he sometimes does this thing with his tongue that most would find unnerving. He tends to behave stoically, but does have a sense of humor. He is sedulous, honest, and has horrible sadistic tendencies he is fully willing to inflict on the innocent. -If it's the time and place for it, that is. Koto is altogether calm and rational, but with or without his gift, he'll often seem a little off.
Skills: Koto has adapted to his own gift quite well, and has figured out ways to increase its duration and effect simply by changing his appearance; Features that stand out such as his blood-red hood and his smile that just so happens to be a little too wide stick with people's memories longer, contributing to stronger paranoia and more vivid hallucinations. People that see his red figure against the bleak colors of the ashlands will be affected for a few minutes after the last time they see him, a passing glance close-up will last longer, maybe even hours if they think his smile is creepy, and prolonged contact without Koto turning off his ability can cause the effects to linger for days. The effect itself can be cured by Koto pretty quickly and easily. Koto is capable of seeing the hallucinations he induces and, to an extent, controlling them. By the same token, Koto is able to notice that his gift has affected someone when he perceives them.

As a mercenary specializing in pursuit, Koto is a pretty good tracker, accustomed to reading partially faded tracks covered in the constantly shifting sand and dust of the wastes. Being able to sense the effects of his gift on someone after noticing it lends itself to his tracking capability, as it allows him to know where affected people went, even without visual confirmation, within a certain radius.

Koto is also proficient with knives and guns, of which he is never without at least one of each on his person. More often than not, he has an assortment of them stowed nearby. Nothing too fancy, but a little bit of variety is there in case he needs or wants it. For that matter, Koto possesses extensive surgical knowledge not actually useful in a surgery. Rather, he is very familiar with what will ultimately be fatal and what can be patched up and healed.

He owns a buggy of sorts for traversing the wastelands and giving chase to his victims. He's a pretty good driver and can generally pull off a stunt of some sort from time to time, though he wouldn't be very good at following traffic laws.
Weaknesses: Koto's hallucinations generally take the form of directionless paranoia if he is not directing them. Movement or strange shapes in the corner of their eye. The feeling of being watched, or perhaps followed. How people see this is ultimately up to their perception, but unless they happened to be creeped out by Koto, they'll generally suffer no issue initiating a surprise attack. Koto also can't use his ability solely as a tracking mechanism; he is only able to detect the presence of his gift's effects or remove it, not suppress it. This means that, if you know what Koto's ability is, you can tell when you're being followed by him. (...Unless it's all in your head, I guess) In terms of when he manipulates someone's perception directly, Koto doesn't fare well against opponents with high continuous stamina or those that can travel faster than he can over a long distance. A lack of defining landscape (a wide open area) is very hard for Koto to work with, as it means that Koto has to rely solely on mirages. While mirages are effective at a distance and with actual heat to cause mirages, they aren't very convincing when too close-up or in a cold environment... Unless it's extremely dark. A lack of instincts or common sense would be a decent countermeasure to Koto's ability. (Assuming that they aren't wearing themselves out at the same time)
Brief History: Koto grew up in the ashlands and lost one of his parents at a relatively young age. How he grew up to be the person he is pretty much starts and ends with that.
Theme: Dark Road

A Truly "Gifted" Life (Ignore post count)

This actually reminds me of another RP I was in previously (and its many reboots) that explicitly used the term "gifted" to describe much the same thing as it means here. Hell, this RP could be a continuation of that one, except post-post-apocalyptic. In any case, I'm interested in joining:

Koto

Full Name: Koto Wolfram
Age: 23
Gender: ♂
Gift: Koto is a walking, talking cognitohazard, able to subtly induce acute paranoia, hallucinations, and increased heart rate within anyone who perceives him. This effect is persistent and needs to be suppressed deliberately on Koto's part, though it does wear off after a while. While he has a degree of control over these hallucinations, it will also happen without any input on his part.
Loyalty: Born and raised an Ashlander, Koto works as a mercenary wherever he can and a cutthroat any time the opportunity presents itself.
Description: People associated with Koto tend to recognize him by his red hood and nigh permanently affixed grin. His hair is relatively short but thoroughly unkempt at all times, and his eyes, combined with his ability, have a piercing or even glowing essence to them. It is quite common for people to mistakenly believe his eyes are red, due to his association with the color and his ability, but they are in fact a vibrant amber.
Personality: While somewhat antisocial, Koto often behaves friendly or even cheerful, matching his indelible grin, though he sometimes does this thing with his tongue that most would find unnerving. He tends to behave stoically, but does have a sense of humor. He is sedulous, honest, and has horrible sadistic tendencies he is fully willing to inflict on the innocent. -If it's the time and place for it, that is. Koto is altogether calm and rational, but with or without his gift, he'll often seem a little off.
Skills: Koto has adapted to his own gift quite well, and has figured out ways to increase its duration and effect simply by changing his appearance; Features that stand out such as his blood-red hood and his smile that just so happens to be a little too wide stick with people's memories longer, contributing to stronger paranoia and more vivid hallucinations. People that see his red figure against the bleak colors of the ashlands will be affected for a few minutes after the last time they see him, a passing glance close-up will last longer, maybe even hours if they think his smile is creepy, and prolonged contact without Koto turning off his ability can cause the effects to linger for days. The effect itself can be cured by Koto pretty quickly and easily. Koto is capable of seeing the hallucinations he induces and, to an extent, controlling them. By the same token, Koto is able to notice that his gift has affected someone when he perceives them.

As a mercenary specializing in pursuit, Koto is a pretty good tracker, accustomed to reading partially faded tracks covered in the constantly shifting sand and dust of the wastes. Being able to sense the effects of his gift on someone after noticing it lends itself to his tracking capability, as it allows him to know where affected people went, even without visual confirmation, within a certain radius.

Koto is also proficient with knives and guns, of which he is never without at least one of each on his person. More often than not, he has an assortment of them stowed nearby. Nothing too fancy, but a little bit of variety is there in case he needs or wants it. For that matter, Koto possesses extensive surgical knowledge not actually useful in a surgery. Rather, he is very familiar with what will ultimately be fatal and what can be patched up and healed.

He owns a buggy of sorts for traversing the wastelands and giving chase to his victims. He's a pretty good driver and can generally pull off a stunt of some sort from time to time, though he wouldn't be very good at following traffic laws.
Weaknesses: Koto's hallucinations generally take the form of directionless paranoia if he is not directing them. Movement or strange shapes in the corner of their eye. The feeling of being watched, or perhaps followed. How people see this is ultimately up to their perception, but unless they happened to be creeped out by Koto, they'll generally suffer no issue initiating a surprise attack. Koto also can't use his ability solely as a tracking mechanism; he is only able to detect the presence of his gift's effects or remove it, not suppress it. This means that, if you know what Koto's ability is, you can tell when you're being followed by him. (...Unless it's all in your head, I guess) In terms of when he manipulates someone's perception directly, Koto doesn't fare well against opponents with high continuous stamina or those that can travel faster than he can over a long distance. A lack of defining landscape (a wide open area) is very hard for Koto to work with, as it means that Koto has to rely solely on mirages. While mirages are effective at a distance and with actual heat to cause mirages, they aren't very convincing when too close-up or in a cold environment... Unless it's extremely dark. A lack of instincts or common sense would be a decent countermeasure to Koto's ability. (Assuming that they aren't wearing themselves out at the same time)
Brief History: Koto grew up in the ashlands and lost one of his parents at a relatively young age. How he grew up to be the person he is pretty much starts and ends with that.
Theme: Dark Road

Ardor

[Damon]

Four more roombas zoom over to each individual in the room, entering from random vents in the walls. They pause at a respectful distance, cleaning up bits of sword hilt nearby.

Already, he can imagine it, every last one of them lying in a gruesome fucking pile, butchered by whatever the flying fuck those claws do. He'd be the last one to die, having to watch everyone go down before him for having failed to pick an item that wasn't a legendary pile of shit. Stupid, so fucking stupid, is was such an obvious trap, god fucking dammit. Why does he have to destroy everything he touches? Damon can't help but stop and wonder when it'll finally happen. When the proverbial looming sword of Damocles will come crashing down, throwing the dark curtain over their saccharine excursion. Kayden's acting so suspiciously benign. When will he strike? When the roomba is away? How could this situation be turned around?

Escaping now would be simple enough, but all of his friends might die as a result, and that's not the kind of outcome that can be considered acceptable. He could try provoking the roomba, but that's more likely to just draw its ire to himself. Finally, there's the prospect of attacking Kayden first, but if that became the only reason he decided to attack, everyone's deaths would all be Damon’s fault.

Damon spends a good minute or two lying down after being blasted away, staring blankly at the ceiling and trying to find ways to circumvent elaborate problems which may or may not exist. His gratuitous internal turmoil is interrupted by the surely well-meaning concern of the only adult in the room. Kayden peers down at Damon, trying to make out signs of life. It takes longer than one would expect, but eventually he blinks, indicating that, yes, he is still alive.

Concerned adult and sole guardian of these four kids, Kayden is looks relieved. He opens his mouth, pauses, then tries again. “...Why aren’t you getting up?” Belatedly, he offers Damon his hand. Damon continues to be comatose for another five uninterrupted seconds of pure awkwardness before he takes Kayden’s hand and gets up. ”Thanks, I appreciate the gesture.” Damon doesn’t answer Kayden’s question at all, instead dusting himself off as he weighs the possibility of the roomba just being fucking broken to begin with.

Shrugging off the immense amount of disinterest he had garnered, Kayden attempts communication once more. “You should pick a different Soul Tech--the web and glove looked fairly promising.”

Yeah, that’s definitely not suspicious. God fucking dammit, those would have been his other choices, whatever will he do now? ”Yeah, you’re right.” Like walking into a trap on purpose, Damon tries to think of ways to, at the very least, batman gambit this son of a bitch. He then comes to the conclusion that this is fucking stupid, and that such an ultimatum would be better off resigned to when he actually has a Soul Tech to work with.

He turns to the queen of the roombas and asks the most important question in this dangerous game of life and death, the answer to which would change fate forever. ”Why is the steel string in a spiderweb pattern?”

”Dr. Nadim decided that stainless steel was aesthetically pleasing when arranged into a spiderweb.”

Meanwhile, Kayden gives up. He walks over to an empty pedestal, the roomba following, and asks it a question that the others don’t catch.

As if his world view had just been shaken at the foundation, Damon looks at the steel string in a new light, as if this bundle of metallic silly string held power over the lives of everyone here, because yeah, it probably did. He doesn’t even bother to look in the roomba’s direction this time. ”I’d like this one then,”

”Understood.” A slot on the pedestal opens up, and the spiderweb rises up out of it. The slot then closes, leaving the spiderweb on the pedestal. At the same time, the glass lowers. Off to one side, Kayden spots this and glowers at his roomba, conversing in low tones.

Damon takes the web, subconsciously bracing for impact. It somehow turns into an actual cobweb and gets stuck on his hand.

Scenes of himself using the web flash through his mind. A rope, fired from his hand, sticking to targets. Separating the rest of the rope from himself to fire the other end at another target. At Damon’s whim, things sticking to the rope, or sliding off of it. The rope contracting and flinging things together violently. The rope relaxing and sagging. One of two ropes vanishing as Damon creates a third rope.

With an expression of pure placidity, Damon withdraws the web and points it at the roomba. The rope extends, latching on to the hideous yellow hockey puck before he gives it a whirl, spinning the roomba around and smashing it violently into the pedestals. Somehow, its glass parts only get minor scratches from the collision.

”Please do not assault the self-directed cleaning units. There are fifty training dummies for that express purpose directly to your right.”

”I’m feeling pretty lied to right now.”

”I do not recall the self-directed cleaning unit having lied to you.”

”An aesthetically pleasing arrangement and indicating that it turns you into fucking spiderman are two very different things. Are you telling me I need to deal with this sticky mess just to function?”

”The ability should not leave any residues behind. If you’re referring to the activation of the Soul Tech, that will only occur upon absorption.”

Damon blinks behind his glasses. ”‘Absorption’?”

”When you touched the Soul Tech, you absorbed it.”

Damon lifts the roomba up yet again before bringing it back down, slamming it against the pedestals again. A crack forms, but the glass still holds steady. Wow. ”Couldn’t you have mentioned this earlier? Do you have any idea how much I hate spiders?” Already, he can imagine it. This stupid rope thing servicing as a makeshift noose to end this joke of an existence he’s been cursed to.

”Revealing the ability earlier would have ruined the surprise.”

”Shut up, you stupid, worthless hunk of garbage.” Damon pinches the bridge of his nose, absolutely blown away by the sheer magnitude of stupidity at work here. He feels his fingers stick to his face ever so slightly as his anxiousness increases.

“Kid, how about you don't insult our host? _{The one that could bring this whole place down on our heads at any moment...} Kayden whispers furiously, having crossed the room with surprising speed.

...That’s an interesting reaction. Damon remains silent, appearing to ruminate broodingly as he confirms that his three friends are on the far end of the room, unable to see him. His right hand, pinching his temple, pushes his glasses up and to mask his face as it twists, tears starting to escape.

Kayden just stares awkwardly. What else could he do? Put him out of his misery? If the kid made a scene too, he might actually consider it. Kayden looks over at Damon’s friends, but they're all gleefully occupied with their own new powers. Such good friends.

“Are you sure I can't have a second Soul Tech?”

The heavily dented roomba crackles, but otherwise answers as usual. “I am sure.”

Suddenly, Damon is hugging Kayden, burying his face into his shirt and gripping uncomfortably tight. Kayden is torn between comforting the kid and violently freaking out when Damon pushes off him, looking as if absolutely nothing just happened. “Sorry, man. When I was younger, my dad was bitten by a venomous spider, and... you look a lot like him.” Walking backwards towards where they came from, Damon makes an announcement loud enough for the others to hear. ”I’m ready to go, you guys coming?” Kayden is left to wonder what the fuck just happened.

“Before you leave, please return your Soul Techs to the pedestals.” The AI’s voice echoes to the room. One might pick up a hint of frostiness in the AI’s tone.

So this is the game being played. Alright then. Your move, Kayden. With a facade of innocence, Damon turns to Kayden, as if deferring to his wisdom. ”Kayden?”

“Listen to the nice lady and put it back on the pedestal.” Kayden gives Damon a reassuring smile.

Damon’s expression manages to be completely and totally neutral. ”It’s been absorbed, remember?”

“Have you never used a Soul Tech or something??” Kayden asks rhetorically.

”Welcome to Kylertown, where only a single person in the entire town has ever used a Soul Tech. I’ll give you a hint, it isn’t any of us.

“...That’s actually amazing. What the fuck age is your town living in?!”

”It’s actually a concentration camp with no selection criteria.”

“...That ...I ...wow. Okay then. Damn. Whatever. Focus on your Soulspace and just think of removal, taking it out, lifting it out, however you want to think of it. It should appear in your hand, judging by how it disappeared in the first place.”

Damon lifts his hand, palm up, as if to say ‘well there you have it.’ Nothing happens.

Kayden blinks. “What’s the problem? Literal children can do this on their first tries. ”

Damon, without moving anything else, looks in the direction of his palm, then back at Kayden.

“...Don’t tell me you can’t. Fuck fuck fuck, god fucking dammit of course.”

Ardor

[Damon]

The functionality of the decrepit establishment incites Damon's hesitation, but as more of the facility is revealed to be empty, he performs mental gymnastics to invent new ways for this scenario to be suspicious. It was already suspicious enough as it is, really, with a shifty drifter giving a bunch of random strangers an offer that was too good to be true. When the tour came to an end and the roomba of potential mass destruction announced that everyone would be getting a single soul tech, everything fell into place. Damon decides that the best course of action is to ask the roomba for details on the soul techs, then call everyone over and propose the acquisition of two soul techs, simultaneously making sure to keep important ones out of the hands of Kayden that could determine who survives if the roomba were to decide that getting greedy with the free samples is a sin worthy of a violent, fiery death.

As Damon plans literally 5 steps ahead, Claire steps forward and immediately chooses one, ruining everything. God dammit Claire.

At this point, adjourning a meeting would just appear suspicious. The only reason why Damon might have been able to in the first place is because that dumbass roomba might be programmed to mind her own damn business, and he'll be damned if there's not a strong possibility that it's connected to a security system that has eyes and ears everywhere. Already, he can imagine it, every last one of them in a fiery fucking pile from a truly excessive explosion. Hell, there's even the possibility that Kayden would see through his actions and kill them on the spot. None of his friends knows anything about what he could be packing.

The best Damon hopes for now is a nonviolence policy from the roomba or otherwise coming to grips with the soul tech before Kayden decides to drop the charade. Tempting Kayden and to go on a killing spree more than he already is without knowing with certainty which artifact can most effectively assay the issue of both Kayden and the roomba is a fool's errand. Already, he can imagine it, every last one them slaughtered in a plasmatic fucking pile by an eclectic collection of impressive trinkets Kayden hid down his trousers. Hell, there's even the possibility that the roomba is as dumb as sack of potatoes dropped on its head when it was a child and won't even attempt to interfere with the slaughter.

Whatever. Whatever! Now's the time to just pick an artifact blindly, so Damon goes over to look at them all one by one, intrigued with the respective corresponding sensations they exude.

Let's see, the pixie is an obvious trap, the egg is taken and the winged sandals and black leather gloves would probably get annoying, considering that there's no other matching pair. The steel string is appealing yet uninteresting, (why a spiderweb of all things?) the angel wings seems like another trap, and the pyramid is yet another trap, and not even trying to hide it. It looks useful, conceivably, but come on, a shield within glass? What's that supposed to mean? The silver claws are the fourth trap, clearly going to rip holes wherever they are stored, and the quartz gives Damon Hotel California vibes. Finally, he comes to the last object, a sword hilt sticking out of its pedestal. He immediately gets the feeling that there's no sword on the other end of that hilt, but also the feeling of 'sinister' white noise buffing the harsh edges of the static making up his usual thoughts. It's actually pretty calming, in a way.

Definitely a trap. The absolute biggest trap. A bigger trap than all the other traps in this facility combined. Even so, Damon theorizes that the white noise might help with his sleeping problem and decides that such an invaluable possible utility trumps the risks, Kayden be damned.

Turning back to the roomba, he calls out to it while pointing at the hilt's display. "I'll be taking this one. ...What does it do?"

Ardor

Name: Damon Uccello

Gender: ♂

Age: 19

Appearance

Motivation: Escape.

A different SBURB session. (Ryik and Deadpixel101)

> Bell: Be the kid full of conspiracies.

The kid full of conspiracies is too busy furiously mashing his keyboard trying to coordinate all of his friends and simultaneously win a game of Touhou Unreal Mahjong.

Instead you get to be this guy. What is his name?

> NUTJOB MCSTUPIDHAIR X

Come on, who would believe that that’s an actual name?

> RYAN TARBOSAURUS

One stupid name is enough, thank you very much.

Oh wait, you’re serious.

> RYAN TARBOSAURUS O



This is Ryan Tarbosaurus, I guess.

> Wow, his hair just gets stupider the more I look at it.

That’s not a command, you asshat.

> Ryan: Examine room.

Ryan ignores the words of an actual living creature in favor of talking, out loud, to a stuffed animal. Stuffed animals make positively riveting conversational partners, and they’re bound to be less rude than SOME PEOPLE.

Tigerlog

RYAN: What Izen said earlier is true, right?
[████ ████ ████ ████]
RYAN: I know, I know, it’s just that he’s being so up-front about it.
RYAN: I’m pretty sure I’ve known about this longer than him, yet as soon as he found out about it, he let everyone know.
[██ ████████ █ ███████ ██ ███ ██████]
[████████ ████ ███ ████]
[███ █████ ███ █████████████ ████ █ ████ ███████ ██████]
RYAN: What’s that supposed to mean?
RYAN: You know I trust you implicitly, and I know that no one else would believe me, but there’s no way you could be a mere figment of my imagination.
RYAN: I don’t know what you mean by “WHISPERS FROM THE VOID”, but there’s no way I could be telling myself the things you tell me.
RYAN: So shouldn’t I…?
[██]
[███ ████ ██ ████████ ████ █████ ███ ████ ██████]
[█████ ████ ████ ██ ████ ████ ████ ████████████ ██ ███ █████]
RYAN: What’s a Kernelsprite again?
[████ ████ ██████ ████ ██████ ███████ ████ ██████ ████ ███ ███ ████ ████ ██ ████]
[██████ ██ ████ ██ █████████ ██ ███████ ██ ██ ███ ██████ ███ ███]
RYAN: Why do you need to be so cryptic all the time?
[]

> Ryan: Stop being crazy and examine room!

Great, TD’s gone silent again. You return him to his lair (your closet) since he has the uncanny effect of making your guardian uncomfortable and ponder what to do next.

> Ryan: Examine room! ==>

Ah, that’s right. One of your friends is messaging you. You should answer them.

Pesterlog

-- cynicalToxophilite [CT] began pestering arrantTachyon [AT] --
CT: what’s up loser?
AT: Not much! I’m still waiting on the games to arrive.
CT: dammit.
AT: Something wrong?
CT: shouldn’t there be?
AT: Absolutely!
AT: I’m pretty anxious about all this myself.
AT: The mysteries of life itself are going to be revealed to us lucky few, as we operate the mechanisms of creation itself.
AT: It’s a pretty big occasion no matter how you look at it.
CT: yeah, about that...
CT: you seem to be putting a lot of stock in the things i say about this game.
AT: Whatever else would I do?
AT: You told us all about your dreams.
CT: that’s just it.
CT: they were dreams.
CT: how do you know they aren’t just some nonsense my sleep-addled mind made up?
AT: Oh come now, who are you trying to convince here?
AT: Not even a week ago you were giving us this absurdly long list of reasons why these reoccurring dreams of yours held water.
AT: Besides, as you so elegantly put it, you “can separate theory from conclusions.”
AT: The proof is in the pudding after all. Those games didn’t just come out of nowhere.
CT: ...thanks.
CT: for a naive idiot, you’re actually pretty smart.
AT: Ha fucking ha.
AT: Just you wait for when we meet in person.
AT: I can’t wait to strife you all!
CT: you and your strifes.
CT: i thought i was the one raised on skulldeath island.
CT: you know it isn’t normal to casually challenge people to a fight to the death for no reason, right?
AT: That’s nonsense! It’s all in good fun.
CT: i don’t believe you.
AT: Then I guess it’s just another one of my crackpot theories!
CT: are you making fun of me?
AT: What? Me? Make fun of you? Why, I could never!
CT: i can smell your shit-eating grin you know.
CT: my bullshit senses are tingling.
AT: Oh, wouldn’t you know it? My doorbell just rang.
AT: The game must have arrived, gotta get going!
CT: how awfully convenient.
AT: Goodbye!!!
-- arrantTachyon [AT] ceased pestering cynicalToxophilite [TA] --

> Ryan: Examine room!!! ==>==>==>

You’re such a terrible liar, not that being good at lying is something to take pride in, you think. As you ponder the value of a skill used almost exclusively for treachery, the doorbell rings, bringing you out of your thoughts. Well, looks like your package really did arrive!

> aaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! ==>==>==>==>==>

Jesus fuck, fine! Your room is empty okay?

> ...

...Mostly empty.

Where did you leave off? Your name? Alright, your name is RYAN. Normally the things scattered about one’s room would indicate their INTERESTS, but you keep your room very clean. You don’t think yourself a neat freak, but the open space is invaluable for your proclivity for STRIFES. You might not carry out much actual strifing in your bedroom, but you pride yourself on your ACTIVE IMAGINATION, fueled in turn by your ACTIVE LIFESTYLE. Or, as active as you can make it when you’re not allowed to leave the house. Most of your things are stored in your closet, primarily a VAST COLLECTION OF OUTDATED VIDEO GAMES, which forms a throne upon which your best friend sits. You have quite a collection of video game consoles in there too, but every last one of them is INCREDIBLY ANCIENT. There’s also a pair of WOODEN TONFA, your ideal strife weapon.

> Ryan: Equip Tonfa.

Sure, why not. You put the wooden tonfa in the strife deck of your tonfakind specibus.

> Ryan: Examine bamboo.

What? oh, yeah.

You keep a stick of bamboo in your room for whenever you want to play around. You aren’t nearly as skilled with it as you are with Tonfa, since there’s never enough room to practice with it in your apartment, but it quite closely approximates an effective bō Staff

> Ryan: Equip Bamboo.

You can’t! You lost your staffkind specibus a while ago. Instead you captchalogue the BAMBOO STAFF, wherein your PokeModus assigns it three pokemon.

> Ryan: Continue examining room.

Do you have to? You have stuff to do you know.

> Ryan: Eeexxxaaammmiiinnneee!!!

Why do you even need to listen to these commands? They're probably not even real, even in your imagination.

> Ryan: Finish examining the room or I will become very upset.

...That’s a weird threat.

In your hands is a gameboy advanced which is usually loaded up with your copy of Pokemon FireRed. Oh, how you love Pokemon. If there was only one game you could play for the rest of your life, it would be Pokemon. While chatting with Tigers and friends alike, you’ve been slowly leveling up the last member of your party, since you don’t think you’ll have much time to do so once you start playing CT’s game. A little ping goes off to indicate that Nidoking hits level 99 and you’re reassured that you’ll be able to get it done with time to spare.

Your closet with sliding mirror doors makes up the west side of your room, with a TV unrepentantly standing in front of it, facing your bed. Said bed is on the south end of your room, right beneath your room’s only window and adorned in only the finest of abstract tiger patterns. The bed takes up the entire length of the wall that your dresser, on the south-east part of the room, doesn’t. It’s a pretty standard dresser, though atop it and on the shelf above it sits your martial arts trophies.

> Ryan: Examine trophies.

On a shelf over your dresser as well as on the dresser itself is a small collection of trophies from your various martial arts exploits. You're quite proud of them, every last one of them gold, but the tournaments were local, and for the young, so you doubt you are any sort of intermediary substance approaching "HOT SHIT" just yet.

In the middle of the north wall is a desk upon which one of your brother’s many laptops sits, this one being his absolute shittiest, incapable of doing much more than playing ancient video games and operating Pesterchum like it’s the only thing it was built for. Its complete and totallack of any web browser is baffling.

At the east end of the north wall, is the door out of your room.

> Ryan: Finally answer door.

You’re glad you agree on this, because you’re already at your apartment’s front door.

Evidently however, this door isn’t going to be opened by your hands. Your Dad keeps his impressive lock collection on the door at all times, both to keep intruders out and keep you in. Why, it’d be easier to break down the door than to try and get it open. Fortunately, you can just barely see a speck of something on your doorstep. Something… reddish...

> Ryan: Examine apartment.

No way, you’re through appeasing these ethereal commands, you are going to get down to business!

And by get down to business you mean return to your room and mope. It’ll probably be hours before your Bro is home, and you won’t be able to pick up the package waiting right outside your door until then.

> Ryan: Do something productive.

Absolutely!

If by productive you mean chat with one of your friends, ultimately accomplishing nothing. You go ahead and carry out this conversation before resolving yourself to jumping out of your window.

Which just so happens to be on the top floor of your apartment building.

What could go wrong?

> Ryan: Cease these self-destructive delusions of flight.

What are you going on about now?

You pocket your Gameboy, since you can’t exactly captchalogue it without triggering some sort of absurd metaphysical paradox and gather up some of the many dubious trinkets littering your apartment, doing your absolute best to put the nature of their intended use out of your mind as you fasten them together one by one.

> Ryan: Explain yourself.

Well aren’t you a bossy one. You’re making a rope to climb down of course! You give each knot and convoluted binding a tug to ensure that they don’t come undone at the worst possible time as you drag it around your apartment like you’re playing the world’s worst game of centipede.

> Ryan: Examine living room.

For the love of all that is holy, why would you feel the need to re-examine your own place of dwelling?

> Ryan: Examine living room, please.

You know what, you'll take what you can get.

The living room has all the makings of a functional and fashionable living space. It has a flat-screen TV on one end, a large and comfortable leather sofa at the other, and a glass coffee table in the center. The thing is, your Dad's "projects" litter the place. Everywhere. 90% of the time there’s not a single place on your carpeted floor that you could actually lay down on without touching the stuff, and frankly, you refuse to describe any of these objects other than that they are sexual in nature and you need them to make a rope. Hiding behind the sofa is a Papier-mâché Raptor. A Herrerasaurus, as your bro constantly reminds you. As if supposed to simulate an environment, there's even a couple of house plants on either side of it, both of which for some reason haven't died even though you are almost positive your Bro never waters them. You ignore the kitchen because you are not a god damn tour guide and begin the arduous task of picking up these items, finding solace in the fact that their presence in your apartment means they have never been in use.

God you hope they've never been used.

As you inadvertently clean up the place you notice something your Dad left sitting on the table...

...It's a book.



Okay, you know what, you think this rope is long enough. It’s about time you drag it back to your room.

> Don’t you need to captchalogue that?

You consider yourself an expert on sylladex management. Sylladex battles do not grant your pokemon exp, so you try to avoid them unless you’re really bored.

In other words, not now.

> Ryan: This still seems like a bad idea.

You’re sure it is! Still, you don’t have time to sit around waiting for your Bro to come home. Well, maybe you do, but you don’t want to okay? Besides, it’s not like this is the first time you’ve done this.

After tying it to your bed, you open your window and toss out the pile of makeshift rope. You smile to yourself in satisfaction that it reaches the ground without too much excess.

> Ryan: Break legs.

Fuck no.

You were really careful when you made this rope, and now you’re sure you’ll be fine climbing down its length. After an extra confirmatory tug, you gingerly step out onto the windowsill backwards and, rope in hand, step off of it.

It only now occurs to you that you really should have tied the other end around your waist. Oh well. You have ample upper-body strength for this anyway. Little by little you slide down the rope, your shoes making a scraping sort of sound against the building until the first window comes up where you rely solely on letting your hands slip to control your descent. Wow, you live really high up.

A ways down the side of the building, you look up to see what else but part of the rope ripping right through one of the “leather” straps. You should have known it was made out of some sort of shitty substitute, though you aren’t actually certain of leather’s tensile strength to begin with. You start to panic a little and speed up your descent, letting the rope slip through your hands as much as you can without losing control of your speed. The rip is too close to the window to attempt climbing back up. Not long after you begin to hurry however, the rope snaps and you experience complete and utter weightlessness.

> Ryan: Die horribly.

Don't be so melodramatic. That was leg-breaking height at best. Fortunately for you however, the pile of cloth, leather and metal chains that accumulated on the ground broke your fall. You think you might have a bruise or two, but otherwise you’re no worse for wear.

Looking back up towards the window, it seems that almost your entire rope has broken. While it’s nice that it’s not too conspicuous, you lament the fact that you're going to have to wait outside of the apartment for your Dad to come home to get back in the apartment. Fucking great, you’re back where you started. The circle of stupidity is complete. You are the idiot. It is you.

Nonetheless, you captchalogue the BDSM ROPE and head out of the alleyway you've fallen into. You turn the corner and enter the building's lobby, a vision of velvety red. You normally take the stairs because of how it gets you exercise in the one area you can't work on comfortably in your apartment, (cardio) but fuck that. You just want to sit down outside of your apartment for now and finish off your Nidoking. When the elevator dings for your floor and you step outside, you can’t help but stare in unbelieving horror at the empty space outside of your apartment door. You internally groan as your march your way to your apartment as you realize that this entire ordeal has been a fool’s errand all along. That is, until you notice that the door to your apartment has been left unlocked and slightly ajar.

Bro knows.

You enter the apartment slowly, more cautious than the most timid of Cats.

It's empty.

The remaining BDSM shit has been swept to the side and bro's book put away. A single scrap of paper adorns the coffee table.

Bro.

Roof. Now.

A different SBURB session. (Ryik and Deadpixel101)

Name: Ryan Tarbosaurus (Original Surname: Tairin)
Gender: ♂
Age: 16
Appearance:
Personality: Mostly shy, passive and friendly, but can be harsh and cold with people he dislikes and distrusts. He has a habit of bottling up anxiety, which can be common due to his frequent self-doubt. Tends to default to a cheery personality, facade or not. Overall socially awkward due to his upbringing.
History: Ryan was sheltered by his guardian, Al, from a young age, forbidden from leaving the house, having his internet (but not Pesterchum) access restricted, homeschooled after kindergarten, and living in a house with no cable television. He owns many video game consoles, but none of them were released after 2001. Due to this, despite his apparent obsession with pokemon, he’s never heard of a pokemon game beyond FireRed/LeafGreen.

He was taught self-defense at a young age by his guardian, which Ryan embraced. Since Ryan has little to do each day, he often strived to be more like the many martial artists he sees in movies and video games. Al accordingly humors his strife requests and allows him to enter local martial arts tournaments from time to time, but otherwise, his relationship with his guardian isn’t the best.

Ryan is, broadly, theistically curious, but as Al is an atheist, he is discouraged from pursuing or even learning of any religions. Contrarily, the apartment usually has inappropriate items strewn about at any given moment as a result of Al’s website, which mostly sells BDSM accessories. This has resulted in mild merinthophobia in Ryan and made him a bit of a prude. For the most part Ryan ignores it, instead focusing on his video games and “training” himself. The problem is, he’s not normally allowed to leave the house. Because of this, while he’s physically fit, he lacks cardio, and tends to feel trapped by his own home. Finally, there’s the matter of Ryan’s best friend, a plushie that Al has dubbed “Tigerdeath”. The name stuck, albeit usually abbreviated TD. Ryan is convinced that he can speak to TD, with TD speaking back. However, even without mentioning it to Al, he seems to dislike the plushie, probably due to its tendency to randomly move around the house when no one’s looking.
Hobbies/Talents:

• Strifing
• Imaginary strifes
• Nerding out over hypothetical strifes
• Martial Arts movies
• Martial Arts (copied from movies)
• Working Out
• Patience
• Sleeping anywhere
• Video games, especially pokemon
• Talking to friends, usually TD

Classpect: Heir of Hope
Planet: Land of Burns and Binds
Dreaming Planet: Prospit
Strife Specibus: Tonfakind
Fetch Modus: PokeModus (FireRed edition) - Assigns pokemon vaguely related to stored items and requires you to defeat them to retrieve the item. The modus links to a designated game, and uses the pokemon therein to fight them. All enemy pokemon are scaled to the level of the user’s team, which in this case is always 100. Items are assigned a number of pokemon proportional to the item’s size, (and in rare cases, importance) and will be ejected in hilariously tragic fashion should the user lose.

A pretty easy modus to use, though a little time-consuming, and the Gameboy used to operate it can be misplaced. Can store any number of items so long as the total number of assigned pokemon does not exceed 420.
Guardian: “Al” Tarbosaurus, acknowledged as his “Bro-Dad” and called by either title. Surname is a result of a name change for inscrutable reasons. Al has ten strife specibi.
Place of Residence: A penthouse apartment in Phoenix, Arizona
Pesterchum Handle: arrantTachyon
Text Color: #FFE135

---

Name: Nyna Esteban
Gender: ♀
Age: 16
Appearance:
Personality: While Nyna generally seems mature and calculated, (or at least tries to) she’s rather impetuous or even impulsive. She tends to be manipulative or domineering and can be downright sassy at times. She has a bit of an inferiority complex, so she goes to great lengths to hide her flaws from people that matter to her. Really hates being demeaned. She thinks poorly of her own personality and is accordingly haunted by the idea that all of her friends are merely temporary.
History: Nyna was found by her guardian in Mexico, was raised in Canada, went to school in China and moved to America two years ago, where she now resides. Her father, the head of an oil conglomerate, moved around quite frequently, and Nyna tried to follow him whenever she could. Of course, he would have her stay in one place whenever he could, deciding that moving around would interfere with her education. He had nannies upon nannies for her whenever he wasn’t around anyway.

Despite being fluent in English and Spanish, Nyna never bothered to fully learn Chinese so soon after learning a language that she stopped using soon thereafter. Instead, she had a translator help her, a classmate named Yuna, arranged by her father. Yuna was the last in a long list of translators hired to serve Yuna in school. Every translator before that had quit from her abuse of power. As the daughter of a very wealthy benefactor to the school who wasn’t afraid to make bribes, everyone from the teachers to the faculty bent to her will. This gave her the freedom to step on anyone she wanted without suffering the repercussions, and often one of her biggest targets was her translator, who was always arranged to share classes with her.

In spite of this, Yuna never quit, and after some time, they somehow grew to be friends. They would spend time at each other’s house (mostly at Nyna’s) and they would share their interests with each other. However, Nyna's desire to become a doctor and her fascination with death proved fatal for Yuna. Nyna was able to perform surgery on small animals and sew them back up just fine, and because of this she thought she was ready to practice on human bodies. She even used an anesthetic, and promised Yuna that she would wake up again just fine.

She was very wrong.

Yuna’s family thinks Yuna was killed by a serial killer still at large and as a result of the incident, Nyna was allowed to follow her father’s current operations to America, where she is permanently grounded.

Not that her father is around to enforce it most of the time...
Hobbies/Talents:

• Darts; uncanny aim
• A steady hand
• The occasional video game that piques her interest
• Fashion Design
• Shopping
• Swimming
• Music, both listening and composing. Plays the flute, violin and piano.
• The study of biology and death
• Bullying that one super-annoying girl in her class
• Cutting apart and studying both the innards and death threshold of small animals

Classpect: Sylph of Doom
Planet: Land of Lilies and Calm
Dreaming Planet: Derse
Strife Specibus: Scalpelkind
Fetch Modus: Surgeon Modus - Every time an item is captchalogued, the captchalogue card is sealed in an airtight container and magically inserted into the body of a designated creature. The modus can summon (and put back) the creature at any time, and the item must be surgically removed. If the creature is sapient, it can only be designated with their consent. If designation is changed, all current items in the sylladex are removed and inserted into the new host’s body. This modus has many applications, drawbacks and loopholes. It is currently designated to Nyna’s childhood friend, Yuna, who’s body was treated with chemicals and stored in a coffin in her basement.
Guardian: “Lorenzo” Esteban, Nyna’s Father and head of an influential multinational oil conglomerate. He’s filthy rich, and Nyna is accordingly spoiled.
Place of Residence: A private manor in Boulder, Colorado.
Pesterchum Handle: gangreneConductor
Text Color: #7DEAF7

---

Name: Izen Nicolas
Gender: ♂
Age: 16
Appearance:
Personality: While harsh or even caustic in speech, Izen generally has a calm temperament, not meaning the things he says maliciously. A bit of a hermit, Izen is somewhat antisocial, preferring to keep interaction filtered and indirect. Appears perpetually moody.
History: Izen was raised on a secluded island within the Pacific Ocean by his legal guardian, Nick, from which his last name is supposedly derived. This is to say, he doesn’t know his guardian’s last name at all. While a responsible and supportive guardian, Nick isn’t very expressive and is in fact quite distant, so Izen has never come to think of him as a father so much as a caretaker. This suited him all the same though, as he never learned to behave around other people. Making friends online at Nick’s suggestion was supposed to develop his social skills, but even then, all he has to go off of is media and how his friends act in turn.

Still, with all his time alone, he’s developed quite a few hobbies. In particular, his home, an observatory with suspicious machinery lying about, begs many questions which Nick avoids answering. The ruins near his house also seem to have unnatural qualities, which has led Izen to become convinced that Nick’s employers handle in extraterrestrial activity. He suspects he fits into the equation somehow, but he has thoroughly searched and failed to find any system that monitors him. To make matters even more puzzling, he has dreams of a purple world where he speaks with mysterious entities far in the sky, who foretell the unfolding of nonsensical mysteries.

He never really took any of it too seriously until he listened to the entities and found that the writing on the ruin’s walls translated into computer code. It needs multiple users to do anything though, so he’s burnt some CDs and sent them to his friends.
Hobbies/Talents:

• Archery
• Cooking
• Handicrafts
• Taxidermy
• Hunting animals. Whether this is a result or the cause of the above hobbies is hard to say
• Astronomy
• Unhealthy obsession with UFOs and the possibility of alien life
• Programming
• Anime
• Video Games, so much video games. If you’re not good at video games, he’ll think you’re not trying hard enough.

Classpect: Mage of Space
Planet: Land of Chaos and Frogs
Dreaming Planet: Derse
Strife Specibus: Bowkind
Fetch Modus: Has Modus Gone too Far??? - Hides captchalogued items with an image of the item transformed in various outlandish ways. When withdrawing items, Izen needs to guess whether the presented item is actually the real item, modified in some way, or just a fake image made to look real. If he guesses correctly, the original item is returned to him. If he thinks the real item is a fake, the item is ejected in hilariously tragic fashion. If he thinks a fake item is real, he does not retrieve the real item, is given the fake item, and all images for the items in the modus are changed, which can make it hard to tell what image denotes what item.
Guardian: “Nick”, an “agent” of some “organization” with suspiciously discreet modus operandi.
Place of Residence: A strange observatory with bizarre gadgets on an island in the middle of the pacific ocean. The island is home to an active volcano and ruins with a frog motif.
Pesterchum Handle: cynicalToxophilite
Text Color: #761616

Anyone still like homestuck?

I'm interested. I've done Homestuck RPs multiple times before, but I'm not very experienced with 1x1 RPs. Perhaps we should discuss the details through PMs?