mayfield_rpg | (no subject)

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[phone]
Oh, marvelous, it's August again. My favorite time of the year.

Students, I hope you've been working on your summer assignments. Adult men, I hope you're prepared to be perfect gentlemen when we all find ourselves floundering in that ghastly hotel. Anything else to expect this month? No? On to business, then.

I'm sure we're all very distracted by talking pony parties and pool parties and platter parties and inpourings of perpetually perplexed new populations, but has anyone made any effort whatsoever to sort out that business from last month or are we still playing the game where we ignore all interesting information in favor of smashing random objects we find in the dairy? I don't mind that game; of course, quite invigorating, good for the vasculature, but it might be worth trying a different approach at some point in time. I venture to suggest today, if no one's too busy holding competitions to see who looks the most absurd absent their clothing.

[action, 726 Anderson Lane]
[Susan can be found hanging up black cloaks and other assorted clothing in uniform crepuscular shades around the house where garish green was all there was formerly to see. A welcome change, in her opinion; she'd missed her wardrobe from home, even if everything looked exactly the same as the black cloak she had commissioned here in Mayfield.

Still, she pauses for a moment as she handles an emerald-green cloak, never worn, hanging in the hall closet since the previous Christmas. ...It goes back on the rack after a bit. And she'll only push it back behind the others an inch or two.]

[action, park]
[A rather unusual sight in the park later on that week. Somehow, Miss Susan the English teacher has been cajoled into reading a nice story for a small group of drones.]

And so, adding conspiracy and first-degree murder to their trespass and property damage charges, Hansel and Gretel pushed the old woman into the oven and ignored her anguished screams as they left the house of gingerbread, naturally taking all of her valuables with them as they went. With these illicit goods, they reunited with their criminally negligent father, but not, surprisingly, their 'wicked' stepmother, who had mysteriously vanished in the space of the two nights in which the children were gone, leaving the father sole keeper of his property and remaining funds and raising suspicion as to who it was had devised the plan to leave the children in the forest in the first place.

But it doesn't matter, because they all lived happily ever after.

The End.

[The drones seem quite pleased with her recitation, at any rate.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You must find a way to send me copies if you ever do take up the professional pen. One could always use a little variety in their library.

I suggest you try your hand at it. Perhaps you could make some royalties off a modified vampire version.

Now that you mention it, I have always wanted to fix up the literary train wreck that is Dracula. Not quite as entertaining as your fairy tales, but it would be righting an awful wrong, if nothing else.

"And lo, the great devil appeared and they exclaimed in horror. But he was six inches tall. So they stepped on him."

I've half a mind to consider offering you the chance to step on me just to get it out of your system, since it's clearly a recurring thought whenever you speak to me.

It's hardly my fault; blame your genetics.

At least my genetics provide me with a way to grow taller if I so chose.

Do tell?

I don't need to continue using this appearance, but since it's mine, I prefer it, you know? Even if I might be a little lacking in height-- [pointed stare!!] --it's the most comfortable for me. [a small pause, and then:]

Do you have shape shifters in your world? Or people with a similar ability, I suppose.

Naturally. There are the bogeymen, of course - Though I don't know that you'd terrify anything apart from a particularly luscious strawberry cake. And demons can take a variety of forms if they care for it.

You would be surprised. [not really said in a bragging tone so much as a matter-of-fact one, but he's gotten used to his ability to terrify taking a big hit here.]

I suppose it would be something like a demon in that case, but more limited. It isn't as though I could become a dove or a cat if I wished, but I can perfectly duplicate the appearance of anyone I've had a meal from.

I'm glad I don't work in the school cafeteria, then. Is there any especial reason for this limitation, or is it one of those arbitrary things that so often seems to accompany the pixie dust school of magic?

Yes, it's a good thing that you don't.

As for the limitation, I'd imagine it evolved as a hunting mechanism. A person is much more willing to accompany something with a familiar face, you know? Taking the appearance of a particularly harmless-looking robin or a second copy of their favorite tea kettle doesn't have the same impact. [he doesn't really know his own weirdass biology exceedingly well though, so he follows that up with a shrug.]

But another arbitrary rule of the pixie dust school of magic works just as well.

I rather think another copy of my favorite tea kettle could come in handy. I don't suppose I could persuade you to take lunch from it?

Sadly, I'm afraid I'll have to pass up your generous offer. Contact me again when science creates a tea kettle with a functional circulatory system and I'll see what I can do.

No one would want to drink from a living tea kettle. You'd contaminate all the tea with your spittle.

It's out of the question then, isn't it? I can't exactly make a meal of something that isn't living in the first place. It might be much less exciting, but you'll just have to go out and buy a second kettle if you like our favorite one so much.

I suppose there's no helping it. You ought to try to be more helpful, Charles.

[...]

Regardless, why were you curious about shapeshifters in my world?

I've reached my helpfulness quota of the month simply by humoring this conversation.

Ah, I just wanted to see if there was something like that in your world to use as a comparison. Most people are faster to understand what I am if I compare myself to a vampire, so I assumed the same would be true for explaining abilities.

You might find I'd understand quite well without going on tangents about teakettles with circulatory systems. I can assure you you'd be nothing unusual on the Disc.

You said you were a Chiroptean, was that right?

Sadly, I've become quite accustomed to explaining things to morons, so it's a very difficult habit to break at this point.

Chiropteran, yes.

Alright, then. Describe to me a Chiropteran in as much detail as you care to, and I'll see if I can surpass the morons.

You already have, so there's no reason to try, but I'll certainly give you the abridged version. We're a species whose systems are built around blood as a source of nutrition rather than proteins, sugars and fats, and if you subscribe to the theory that humans are tied to primates through DNA, you could consider us similar in that we share basic DNA with bats. I can't turn into a bat, though, and throwing a handful of rice at my feet won't stop me from moving in the same way that sunlight quite obviously has no effect on me. Any abilities I possess can be broken down in scientific terms, but explaining that would take a day and a half and leave you quite bored.

I don't think that's biologically possible, but neither is walking through walls, so I suppose I'll have to accept it.

What abilities do you have? Non-scientifically.

Concessions in the field of logic is a slippery slope that one must unfortunately travel down at times, especially in a place like this.

But for that, there's increased speed, strength, senses, the ability to screech uselessly on a hypersonic level at mutated versions of the Chiroptera order even though they never listen, excellent healing... [looks skyward for a moment, counting some things off on his fingers] My sub-species doesn't require food, nor can we sleep, and of course the limited shape-shifting. There are some other odds and ends, but that's about the gist of it.