State of the Game - Master Post

[pimpmytroll]

State of the Game! Where is your character at this point in time, and what is their next course of action?

This post shall contain the weekly SotG comments/threads as the game goes on. This is to encourage discussion and plotting about where your characters can go from here. As this is the primary SotG post, this has now been stickied to always be at the top of the OOC community.

CURRENT SOTG POST July Activity SotG 2013 - Here!
Old SotG posts: Feb 12th, 2013 - Here! Feb 23rd, 2013 - Here! March 2nd, 2013 - Here! March 10th, 2013 - Here! March 17th, 2013 - Here! March 30th, 2013 - Here! April 07th, 2013 - Here! April 21st, 2013 - Here!	Previous SotG posts: May Activity SotG 2013 - Here! + May Mid-Month SotG - Here! June Activity SotG 2013 - Here! + June Mid-Month SotG - Here!

The next SotG will go up on July 1st!

Comments

Pherae

[elaphaea]

This is maybe less a "state of Pherae" as a "holy shit Degen needs to do stuff," but!

Pherae has (presumably) been spending a lot of time exploring her planet, meeting her extremely eager satyr consorts, and finding a whole lot of thorn-entrapped (and thus currently useless) frogs.

She needs to:
1) alchemize stuff — I confess this is an aspect of Homestuck that I am not good at brainstorming myself, so thoughts are lovely, including links to epic weapons and outfits that he can make happen
2) have epic fight team-ups
3) go grimdark

Yes, that last one is still a thing I'd like to happen. Not as devastating as Chi-Rho up there, as I intend for it to be snap-out-able, but here's what I've established: Pherae, once she learns of her purpose as a Space player, becomes increasingly distressed at her misplaced dreamself and the implications this has for her ability to fulfill her Duty. Because she can be trusting to a fault, she thinks of the horrorterros (so conveniently available to her Derse-located dreamself) as "helpful sources of advice," and follows that advice right off the madness cliff.

Things I would love from other people:
- people to be in on grimdark plotting with me
- various quadrant shenanigans
- adventures!!

[callouslystalwart]

Post Pherae's stuff to the Alchememe! Skye and I will make her all kinds of terrible stuff. Maybe one or two useful things eventually.

Her and Perrix need to meet up at some point and have hatesexan imp-slaying competition. I know she's normally the life-respecting type but I can just totally see the two of them alone storming a dungeon and constantly yelling kill counts at each other, staying neck and neck the entire time an even simultaneously ending the dungeon boss.

[elaphaea]

Things that are now happening: another tab open in the Alchememe, as I slowly but surely attempt to come up with actual stuff for Pherae to have. It's gonna be a thing.

And heck yes that sounds exactly perfect.

SORT OF RELATED: Are you up for backtagging Perrix's entry thread? I kept meaning to tag it, kept holding off because "help what are actual SGRUB SCRIB mechanics???," and then...fell off the face of the earth. Of course, backtagging that and jumping ahead to shenanigans are hardly mutually exclusive!

[callouslystalwart]

I'm totally up for backtags! Scrib is a really laid-back game that already punches chronology in the ovaries consistently. Basically anyone could tag any post I've made no matter how old and I'd reply.

[soundtricks]

...and then Pherae and Perrix were Legolas and Gimli.

[callouslystalwart]

Including the hatesex!

Re: Pherae

[soundtricks]

It's times like this that I wish merging Alpha and Beta could be more of a thing.

Because man I want Rara to bitchslap some people right out of Grimdarkness.

[elaphaea]

I actually get kinda nervous about going through with the grimdark plot (though I haven't exactly "gone through" with it yet), simply because there's already some grimdark going on and I don't want to be redundant or take away meaning/significance from a fairly, well, significant character event simply by virtue of overloading our story with it.

I feel that, setting the Chi-Rho plot aside for the moment, Pherae going Grimdark fits in rather well with SCRIB's kind of "Murphy's Law" thing, where if there's a possibility for something to go horribly wrong, then that is sure as hell a thing that it does. With Pherae, grimdark is the answer to "what's the worst that could happen?" when you've got a Derse space player.

At the same time, it is my hope to avoid issues of "special snowflake"-ness with this plot, and have it be more than anything else an opportunity for other players/characters to play the hero to Pherae's "girl gone seriously fucked shit up this time." (Meanwhile, I get to do creepy role-playing. God but I love creepy role-playing.) Even if Rara can't be physically present, since it's plenty well-established that cross-session conversation is possible, it might be cool for her to offer instruction and/or leadership in the effort to bitchslap a grimdark player right out of that shit. I haven't personally decided how I'd like Pherae to be snapped out of it, but that's sure as hell one option.

[soundtricks]

Honestly with how the game is supposed to go down, I would be surprised if more Derse Dreamers didn't go grimdark out of desperation/in an attempt to try and salvage the session the closer things got to the breaking point/game climax. Especially since the Horrorterrors can be pretty persuasive (considering they managed to get to Rose) as well as the fact that Grimdarkness also seems to feed off of emotional desperation in order to implement itself? Like again, Rose- seemed perfectly in-control until she saw what had happened to Mom.

--also pointing out that 'Grimdark' also doesn't necessarily mean 'creepy' since Rose was pretty okay while talking to John. Idk if Pherae has anyone she's close enough to that might be able to keep her calm enough to keep her from going completely off the deep end though. That is, if that's even something you want to do, since idk how far you're wanting her to go in terms of how far off the proverbial grimdark deep end you want her to go.

As far as snapping her out of it, I'm not sure how many options there are, since canon-wise, Rose died and her un-grimdark dreamself took over... so maybe it would be a good way to have her go god-tier, if nothing else can be figured out? I'm sure Perrix would probably be glad to be the one to shank her and set her on a quest bed or something like that?

Either way, there is a possibility for planning a lot of things around her going grimdark, especially taking the unlikeliness of too many other people in Alpha (if any) doing so into account.

[elaphaea]

Okay, so, true confession, the "die and go god-tier" option had indeed crossed my mind, and it would indeed be a really good way for Pherae to go god-tier. But I didn't want to force the matter, in case that seemed like too much at once. However, I value your opinion quite a bit, so it's something of a relief that you also see it as a valid pathway to getting the tiger, and it's something I'd be quite interested in exploring.

(On the other hand, if other players or mods are uncomfortable with that option as being too much at once for a single character, I think the fact that we don't have much in the way of explicit canon information about grimdark mechanics actually works in my favor here, as what broke Rose out of her grimdark-possession doesn't necessarily have to be the only option.)

As for actual grimdark flavor, I anticipate playing up the creepy/eldritch aspect somewhat, because, simply put, that is fun to me, and I think — especially re: the eldritch part — canon backs me up there. However, kind of like canon Rose, I definitely don't see grimdark!Pherae as being actively malevolent so much as inadvertently destructive, attempting to fulfill her duties as the Maid of Space with the power equivalent of a sledgehammer, rather than the surgical precision that is actually required. If/when this goes further along, I'll probably consult with the mods about specific grimdark powers and limitations. Getting Maid of Space "preview" powers would be very appropriate to the nature of the way that the horrorterrors would tempt her, but I'd think they should be definitely less powerful than those same abilities earned "truly."

Does that make sense? You tend to have good thoughts.

[apiarycryptonaut]

More Pherae shenanigans? Yes please.

Also yeah Avispa (and myself) are totally game for helping in any way with alchemizing because alchemizing is fun and the best and so great and everyone should alchemize ALL THE THINGS. It comes to mind that there're a billion video game characters to draw inspiration from for various options, plus series and other things and man... so many options. All you'd have to do is think of concepts you'd like to elaborate upon and then ALL THE ALCHEMIZING can happen!

A- And oh dear, her grimdark path sounds rather un-fun for her. D': But good that it won't consume her to the point that it won't be all-enveloping! (Or... will it? Little blackouts here and there? Dohohoho)