SIGINT

The Technology Planet - Frixion Prime - Open

	Frixion Prime — Main Road @Antarctic Termite @Patches

Changed...

Hair color...changed...to pink?

It tickled at something in the back of the little girl's mind. She felt as though she should have remembered something at that moment, as though those words were the key to unlocking something hidden. But, there was nothing. Whatever it was that nagged at her remained vexingly out of reach.

^{"Why can't you just do as father says!?"}

Mary was noticeably bothered by it, sulking and shifting her feet left and right as she rattled her brain amongst the cobwebs. But as soon as a distraction came along, she was all-too-willing to discard the train of thought entirely, as she had many, many others.

"She's a fighting robot made by bunnies!" The little girl helpfully added, jumping up and down in excitement. "That's why she's so clean." The reasoning was questionable, but the observation itself was sound. Mary was covered in the desiccated remains of blood, vomit, and sputum across a well-worn hoodie — from a distance, it actually looked like a pattern in the fabric, but up close, it was easy to see the grime adorning her. Compared to that, anyone would look clean.

Her head darted back and forth between Ayem and the mysterious, pink-haired person. "I'm gonna be all clean and stuff too, so the bunny robots won't be mad at me." The little girl stated, "But Iunno where. I've never done that before."

The Technology Planet - Frixion Prime - Open

	Frixion Prime — Main Road @Antarctic Termite @Patches

"Huh?" Mary called back, confused. Whaddaya mean whaddaya mean!? It was like she didn't even see her own hair!! "It's pink!! That's what's about it!!"

The little girl huffed, clenching her fists as her cheeks puffed out in frustration. "People can't haaave pink hair! It's not allowed! 'Cause..." She blinked, her hands hanging limp. "...'Cause...umm..."

She didn't remember.

She didn't know why she was so afraid and concerned. Something told her that this was important, that this girl was in danger, but the meaning of it, the memory behind it, escaped her, like trying to capture a wisp of smoke. "...Don't...don't people...hit you when your hair is pink?" She asked, more quietly, despite the distance between the two of them. "I thought...I thought there was a reason. That, when you have pink hair...people get mad at you, and...it's dangerous...right...?"

The woman...seemed safe. No one around her was trying to hurt her. The little girl didn't understand how that could be, with her hair as prominently displayed as it was. Ultimately, Mary was concerned with whether or not she'd be okay — as though maybe she'd maybe accidentally had pink hair that day and hadn't noticed — but everything seemed...utterly...fine. In a way that was very, very disturbing to her.

The world and her mind didn't match up.

"...I...ummm..." She nervously swayed side to side, turning her head towards nothing in particular. "...I guess I got it mixed up...is it a different color...?"

Expanding Horizons Feedback Thread

I like the idea as a solution, but my only concern with that is that you can't really choose who you RP with - you're not allowed to keep people out of threads. We can say, "I hope no one would do that", but there's no actual recourse for if it does happen aside from call in mods, which runs the risk of turning people away from the whole thing for fear of being policed.

To rectify that, I'd recommend that the approval process for such a character also include the intended use of the character - as in, it is assumed that such a physical god has very important god business to be attending to, and will mostly be involved in a certain sphere of things, or a certain area.

This is really more my personal beliefs than anything, but I think that powerful characters can and should exist for the benefit of weaker characters, because overcoming an obstacle that's inferior to yourself doesn't do much for character growth. If a hypothetical Tier-5 character's Intended Use followed that philosophy, I think everyone would feel a bit safer.


tl;dr I'd prefer if people didn't make Tier-5s because they can and/or to screw around, but to create meaningful change for the benefit of everyone.


I do think that the idea could breathe some life into the world. Tier-4 is high enough to create conflict that characters can interact with, but it's not really high enough to create a situation or a circumstance that characters can interact in.

And it feels like that's what's missing to me. We have many areas and many threads, but no circumstance, no happening, because we're all waiting on someone with more power to put it there. That's my perception, at least.

The Technology Planet - Frixion Prime - Open

	Frixion Prime — Main Road @Antarctic Termite @Patches

"Whooaaa..." Mary stared up (waaay up) at Ayem, wide-eyed, as they left the foody place. "I didn't know bunnies could make fighting robots. This changes everything ever." From anyone who wasn't eight years old, the statement probably would have come across as deeply sarcastic - but the little girl's earnestness was clear in her face. Her eyes glazed over a bit as she daydreamed about bunny-piloted mechs saving the future by flying around and being cool. So cool. All the time.

But that fragile daydream came to an end abruptly, as she realized that her state of not having showered or laundered her clothes at any time she could remember would be a barrier to entry. "I guess I gooootta, then..." She pouted, teetering from side to side as she dug her hands deep into the pockets of her soiled hoodie. "...I dunneven know where, though— Holy cupcakes!!"


<sup>"Can I tell you a secret?"

"I won't...have to keep it from mother and father again, will I?"

"I'm gonna dye my hair! I'm thinking...pink."

"Anna, you know father won't allow that..."

"Hehe, duh. That's why I'm gonna. He'll flip when he sees it!"</sup>


In that moment, Mary froze up completely. She had only seen it because she had craned her neck up to match Ayem's height. The sky, its stars blotted out by the lights of the city, taking up more than half of her vision. On the walkway above, was a sight that would change her entire life for at least the next five seconds.

"That person...has pink hair!!"

The little girl was jumping up and down, pointing excitedly towards an innocent bystander on the walkway above them. "Heyy! Heeeyyy!!" She called out as loudly as she could (which wasn't that loud — her voice became strained and crackled as it raised higher than an indoor voice). "You've got pink hair! Your hair is pink!! It's piiink!!"

She was calling out in the same tone one might use to alert someone of an oncoming car, veering in the street. A warning, desperately issued at the top of her tiny lungs, showing concern for their safety. In her head, of course, it probably made perfect sense — or, at least as much sense as anything else that made it out of her mouth. For some reason, 'pink hair' was equated with 'danger' for her, through some contrived, internal consistency of questionable logical strength.

To everyone else, she probably just looked like a raving lunatic, or an out-of-control child, or both.

The Technology Planet - Frixion Prime - Open

"Because it...was made by bunnies."

THE BEST

XD Ayem has successfully learned how to control Mary

Also, heya Patches! I'll bring you in too with my next post (tonight most of the likelies)

The Technology Planet - Frixion Prime - Open

I'd be interested, but it would depend on your impression of Mary, since she's a bit of a basket case XD;; if you think they'd work out, though, then by all means! But I totally understand if not. She fits into very few venn diagrams.

The other character I'd volunteer, SIGINT (much less psychopathic) is off-planet currently, so I can't really throw her here at the moment.

The Technology Planet - Frixion Prime - Open

	Frixion Prime — Foody Place @Antarctic Termite

"Bubble tea, hmmmmmmm..." Mary put one finger to her forehead, and then another from her other hand, concentrating intently. "HMMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmm...ermmmmmmm..."

"I dunno." The little girl snapped her head upwards, bouncing a bit. "I feel like I've had it somewhere before...but I can't remember...when or where..."

It was like a buzzing fly around her head that wouldn't go away. Like trying to remember a certain word for a sentence, but the more she thought on it, the farther away it seemed, as though her efforts merely scattered her own mind further. "Well, I'll have it anyway! If I've had it before, it can't be bad, right? I wouldn't drink something that tasted bad, right?"

The girl didn't seem to catch on as to Ayem's mental state. So, yes, they were there for quite a while.


Swaying back and forth, the little girl looked up at Ayem intently. The older woman was nearly three times her height, and craning her neck to make eye contact was a little uncomfortable — but she didn't mind that much. "So, whaddo you do? You have a floaty-boat, so you must move around in the sky a lot. I bet you do a lot of cool stuff all the time." Mary posited optimistically, "And— andandandandand!! I can come along!? I can go on your floaty-boat!? For reeeals!? Pinky swear!?" Jumping up and down with her arms outstretched, her body swayed back and forth while she made airplane noises. "I'm gonna be like— whooooosh!! Through the sky!! It'll be so cool, all the time!!"

The Technology Planet - Frixion Prime - Open

Edited from my original response - I'm a little squirrelly about getting jnto fights, but it is a persistent world RP, so it's not really on me or anyone else to determine where you can go or what you can do. If you feel like jumping in, go ahead and jump in!

The reason Termite and I decided to have our RP in the planet megathread was to try to breathe some life into it, since not much was going on. So, having gone into it with that in mind, far be it from me to push people away.

The Technology Planet - Frixion Prime - Open

@Antarctic Termite youtu.be/3v8I5egzoMo?t=1m26s

The Technology Planet - Frixion Prime - Open

	Frixion Prime — Inner Streets @Antarctic Termite

"Bunnies...only like healthy girls...?"

Mary's face fell as she followed Ayem obediently through the streets. "That's...no good." The girl said quietly. "I'll always be sick. I won't ever get better. Never ever. Because...I was born sick. So I'll always be this way, forever and ever." There hadn't been much strength in her grip to begin with, but even so, it still somehow gave a feeling of weakness. "Even if I got new clothes...they'd just get dirty and messy all over again. Is there even...a point to replacing them? If I won't ever stop coughing stuff up?"

All of the dirt and grime over her hoodie hadn't come from the ground or from the air, but from her own throat. Changing the clothes wouldn't cure her illness. Nothing would. Her body was unstable from the start, a false existence forced into being, and made to pay the price for her father's hubris.

Even if she took care of herself, how long would that flaw-ridden body persist? A year, maybe two. And then she would fall apart, just like all of the failures before her.

And even that much, really, was a miracle in and of itself.

---

"Candy~"

The little girl was distracted easily enough by the wide assortment of choices before her. All of them likely owned and produced by the same company and made to create a thinly-veiled illusion of consumer choice, but eight-year-olds generally didn't care about that sort of thing.

"I like these ones!" Tapping the screen, she moved quickly to a sort of powdered candy that was basically a straw filled with pure synthetic sugar, and adjusted the 'quantity' slider to its maximum value, 99. "They don't weigh a lot, and they're easy to chew."

Without even thinking twice, Mary swiped a black, unmarked card, which seemed to pay for the purchase in full. Those kinds of cards were generally carried by high-ranking businessmen, and were tied directly to a corporate account. They weren't credit cards or anything of the sort — it was literally a corporation asset.

The screen briefly flashed a name as it authorized the purchase — Atticus Vüqar — before it went through without issue. Mary was now the proud owner of 99 glorified sugar cubes, according to a computer on the wall. That was probably enough food for an interplanetary expedition.

"I wonder if I can get a flying thingy with this...Papa said it only goes up so far..." The girl wondered to herself, turning back to Ayem, standing and waiting for the purchase to be brought to them. "Where do they sell floaty-boats? The ones that go up into the sky." The girl blinked, "Oh, um...we needed other things first...I forgot. What was it...?"

It was difficult to tell if she had a short attention span, or actual short term memory issues.