Short Spelldrive disccussion
plus Twst Bobo book 2 draft/idea
Since the Spelldrive cards are coming out for the Japanese server, I’ve heard chatter about the discs. I did think they were bulkier than frisbees considering one knocks out the MC. I saw one blog say the discs are made of gold? People been saying it’s lucky all it did was knock out MC.
Though from what I recall, Grim accidentally threw the disc at MC while being real close to them. So to me my thinking is that he released too early so it didn’t have the full power and momentum of a proper throw? I don’t know physics so I’m uncertain.
I’ve been hit with a soccer ball to the stomach while within close range before. It hurt bad, but it didn’t leave a bruise. So with that little information and imagining a metal object being sent to the head, I could totally see it knocking someone out. Probably even doing more damage than that.
Though I do wonder why have the disc be gold and/or heavy at all? If Spelldrive is based off of american football, then the dangerous aspects should come more from the players ramming into each other along with the spells they throw. The disc itself shouldn’t also be a hazard?
If Spelldrive is a bit inspired by Quidditch from the Harry Potter series, then I understand the disc being a danger as well. Quidditch has literal balls that are meant to harm players. Messed up but I guess who cares about damage when there’s potions to regrow bones. Have a Bludger bash out your brains or be tackled so hard your body breaks… I find myself questioning american football considering we don’t have bone regrowing potions as far as I am aware.
So despite the dangers of Spelldrive, I assume the medical staff at NRC is able to handle anything. Though gosh I would hate being the MC forced to play Spelldrive. Like what can MC even do? Maybe throw the disc once if it’s not too heavy… it’s such a magic-heavy sport that all MC can surely do is just run beside the others? Call out warnings and openings, but still, I would like to participate more than feeling like a on field coach.
I also find it a bit disappointing that MC never bothers to ask to see the recordings of the other matches. I know it’s to keep MC from realizing who Hornton is, but we could have had some of the boys decide MC only gets to see certain matches? Like finding any match against Diasomnia to be embarrassing so no watching those?
Ehh, I’m not going to spend too much brain power to figure that out. I just know that such a spell-heavy sport must be so interesting to watch. Though maybe MC is a bit traumatized to the point they don’t want to think about the sport anytime soon. Or has been hit hard enough to forget the tournament was being recorded.
But this does give me an idea for Bobo. I’ve read the translations for the first two manga books and in those both Yuus were suggested to have basically died? Like one almost hit by a vehicle but ends up taken by the carriage to NRC.
So I have the idea that for Bobo splitting off of her canon timeline and into fan twst is where one battle her armor doesn’t activate. She suffers a head injury and blacks out. So upon waking in Twisted Wonderland, she’s quite confused. Was she really hit in the head? What’s going on?
Thus I think being hit in the head by the disc could be a bit of a repeat of her “death”. Heck I need to make some banners to help divide up my posts as I’m about to write a rough draft of what that scene could be like.
~~~
You slowly feel yourself becoming aware of the… nothingness. You must have been sleeping quite deeply. When was the last time you’ve had such a deep, vulnerable sleep? That was something you’d grant yourself within the safety of your home, when naps would no longer suffice. But this time you hadn’t granted such a privilege to yourself.
Aching. Your head is aching. Right, the last time such a deep sleep was forced upon you was when you were… when you were killed, right? But that doesn’t make sense. Those that die don’t wake up. Were you attacked? That lizard… it shouldn’t have been able to land such a painful, ringing blow.
Is your head ringing right now? No… focus… it’s… voices? Voices, which means you aren’t alone awaiting for that lizard to rightfully consume its prey. There’s no sound of fighting, so that must mean… you’re safe.
How did it hit you? Right, your armor never turned on. An impossible feature. It was impossible that defective armor pins were handed to you. Impossible that they weren’t charged. To let such a mistake happen would be a death sentence. Mistakes like that never happened.
Something must be terribly wrong. You have to wake up now! You need to know what went wrong! How could your armor fail?! How could you die?!
Something is touching you now. Something that isn’t human? It feels like fur. Are you not safe?! No no no no no no no No! Calm down, it must just be a bat. If it wasn’t, you’d be hurt by now. The voices wouldn’t be so low.
Where are you? You want to wake up, demand answers, you need to know it was only your armor that didn’t work. That only you died. Died… why do you keep thinking of that word? You’re clearly alive… Something is terribly wrong and you wont get answers sleeping like this!
0 notes
one-shot snippet
Duke was running out of fumes to run on. The last few days would be exhausting if it was just vigilante or just civilian stuff but no, he had to have it both. Because of Arkham break out, he had been called in three nights in a row, not for a whole patrol but he couldn't exactly sleep it off during the day like others did, especially not in a week when every teacher decided they needed to have test or quiz or what not. Naps meant he wasn't as sleep-deprived as he could be but he needed far more. But he couldn't because crime in Gotham never sleeps so he had normal patrol to finish and there were about two hours left.
Would something bad happen if he just stopped for a moment and laid on a roof? Ten up to fifteen minutes. It was a slow day too…
Yeah, no, he deserved a moment to rest and if something disastrous was to happen in the meantime he would shame other Bats for not giving him enough time to sleep.
It certainly said something that he found gravel covering this roof to be quite comfortable. He set a timer for ten minutes and let himself close his eyes.
When the loud screech of the timer jolted him awake, he was suddenly fully aware that he wasn't alone anymore. He sat up a little too quickly.
"Oh, you're awake" white white-haired girl around Damian's age chimed, sitting cross-legged just a few feet away from him. She wore something that could only be described as a lab safety hazmat suit, white and black with popping green accents. When had Gotham gotten a new vigilante/villain/whoever the girl was? "Good, I just returned from a snack hunt," she added, gesturing at a big textile bag lying next to her. Duke didn't have enough brainpower to do anything more than ask.
"What?"
The girl shrugged, take-out from BatBurger in her hand.
"You look like you have a bad day if not a few days, so I've got you my cousin's bad day combo or at least the closest thing I could. BatBurger burger isn't as good as NastyBurger but you certainly have better fries" As she spoke, a second take-out bag, 1 liter bottle of energy drink, juice bottle of the same size, and pack of convenience store brownies joined greasy paper bag sealed with a sticker.
"Is your cousin a speedster?" Excuse Duke, it was a totally valid question, he saw with his bare eyes both Wally West and Bart Allen when they visited Manor. No one else would be able to stomach the amount of food they inhaled during their stays.
"Nah, we're not that fast or that hungry. Though I think I may get closer to the speed of sound." So, clearly, a meta if white hair and weir aura that let his eyes rest weren't enough indication "My cousin when he has a bad few days often forgets to eat so this combo has to help with there too. But I'll steal your fries of course."
Duke was not going to look a gift horse in the teeth, so he grabbed one bag and tore it open. There was a classic combo with bigger fries and NightWings inside.
"Thank you…" he trailed off, hoping that the girl would take a clue and introduce herself but she didn't. She just drowned her fries in ketchup and started munching. She had her own juice.
"My cousin always said that each part of this combo has a different purpose." she explained instead, slightly muffled because of the fries in her mouth "This" she gestured towards the fast food meal "is to soothe your stomach. This "she tapped energy drink "is to soothe your brain and kick it back online. This "she raised a bottle of juice "is to soothe your taste buds because energy drinks are war crime against them and this "she nudged brownies "is to soothe your heart because Ancients damn it, this day is awful and you deserve it. At least that's what he told me when I had day bad enough to deserve that" she shrugged, licking ketchup of her finger. Suddenly she froze "You aren't allergic, are you?
"No, I'm not" he confessed bewildered.
"Good"
For a long moment, they sat in silence, devouring food the little girl brought. Duke distantly wondered if this was how the night shift spent their snack breaks. It felt nice.
He was finishing his part of the brownies when the girl spoke up again.
"Do you feel better now?"
"Yeah," he was a little surprised to realize that t it was true. He'll have to note down what she put in this 'bad day combo'. "Thank you"
"Don't mention it." she shrugged with a general gesture of dismissal "You're one of my cousin's favorite heroes because you're vaguely his age and handle Gotham alone during the day and I quote "She did honest or God air quotes at that" 'As only hero in Amity-' which is a lie by the way, Val is doing great and even if he suddenly got problem with how she feels about his alter ego, he still has Sam and Tuck even if they're usually more of moral support. And I helped when I visited, so no, he isn't the only one. Anyway as he said 'As the only hero in Amity, my heart goes out for anyone who deals with this type of bullshit so Dani if you absolutely have to prank heroes, leave them out of it, especially Signal, he can't be older than Jazz, he doesn't need any more mess to handle.' All aliens and lanterns are also off-limits because he is a space nerd. But you aren't space-related so I'm like 80% percent sure he has a celebrity crush on you" She slurped more juice, unbothered.
Duke was thankful he wasn't swallowing anything because for sure she would choke. He took a split second to consider addressing… this whole situation and choose against it. He was not ready to be anyone's celebrity crush.
"Your name is Danny?" he asked instead.
"Dani" she corrected" with an I"
"Ok. It's nice to meet you Dani-with-an-I" She giggled, nodding her head slightly.
"It's nice to meet you too Signal"
Duke stood up, stretching a little. Dani joined him after hastily putting all the trash in her bag. She was a little higher than expected.
"I have to get back to my patrol"
"Cool," she drifted back a bit, making him realize that she was floating a few inches above the ground. She fixed her bag on her arm.
"Hey, can I hang out a little bit more? My cousin will go green out of jealousy when I tell him" she added with a mischievous smirk but Duke could tell there was more to it. He took a moment to consider it, which apparently made the girl nervous "I can be invisible the whole time, like before." she offered, disappearing in the meantime. He could still tell where she was, because of her heat signature, and aura but for regular people, she would be no different than the surrounding air.
"Yeah, you can hang around and you don't have to be invisible. Just don't get in my way when I have to actually do some fighting."
She popped back to the visible spectrum and pouted like Damian whenever he got benched.
" I can fight, y'know? I stopped mugging on a snack run."
It was ten goddamn minutes, how could she get so much food and stop a mugging in such a short time?!
Oh, right, superspeed. Still, impressive.
"I haven't seen it" he started, channeling all Dick-trying-to-wrangle-Damian-into-socially-acceptable-activity' energy he could muster "So I don't know how you fight or even what powers you have. If we tried to fight together we would trip over each other" It was a bare-faced lie, Bat Training made sure of that but he knew for a fact that if he said anything else, the girl would be mad and probably did her own thing.
Was that what Bruce thought about all of them?
Oh no.
Dani still looked displeased but after a moment of consideration, she nodded with a defeated sigh.
Suddenly she straightened like she got struck by lightning and whipped around.
"Wha-"
She just shushed raising her finger to her mouth. Duke did indeed quieten.
"I have enhanced hearing" she whispered "There is a mugging somewhere this way."
"Let's go then" he shot his grapple, waving his other hand at Dani to come with him before he jumped off the roof. He heard the girl giggle as she flew right after him.
" After this, you'll show me the coolest gargoyles, okay? Sam asked for photos"
"Okay"
It seemed that the end of this patrol wouldn't be as bad as the start was. Hopefully.
And afterward, he was going to lock himself in his room until the sky fell or he was well rested.
Yeah, that was a good plan.
*******
how do you like it?
597 notes
·
View notes
Just an idea I might put into the festival scene!
A kid bumps into narinder and spills water on him, he doesnt get angry or frustrated, instead he comforts the kid
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"I guess i didnt expect you to be good with kids."
"And why is that?"
"Um... you have this... aura about you? That screams you hate everyone else so i wouldnt have thought kids were an exception"
"kids are stupid, naive and innocent. They dont have ulterior motives or they dont use fancy words to hide how much they just want to use you. I think all kids deserve kindness... besides its just water."
A group of kids throw rocks at narinder and yell "go away you unlucky black cat!" Narinder makes a really scary face, opening his third eye, and makes the kids run away screaming '3 eyed monster!'.
Lamb thinks "what happened to all kids deserve kindness?" While narinder makes a really smug face at the running kids
151 notes
·
View notes
Okay, my brain refuses to think about anything other than Murderbot, so I looked at every use of the word "friend[s]" in TMBD and... created some pie charts. Normal human activities.
Some Thoughts™ I had while putting this together (under the cut):
In All Systems Red, Murderbot notes that the PresAux crew are all close friends (twice! and goes on to explain their internal relationships which I think is very cute). This is pretty much the only use of 'friends' in ASR, except for when Murderbot says that SecUnits can't be friends with each other.
It seems that this may be one of the first times Murderbot has ever really been around a group of friends before? Murderbot notes that this is not the norm for its contracts and admits that the fact that they are all friends and the way they interact with each other make it actually enjoy that contract (before!!!! the hostile attack, so it already enjoys this contract before they start seeing it as a person etc ghghhhh). [Inference: Friendship seems enjoyable.]
The first character that calls Murderbot its friend is ART in Artificial Condition. Murderbot immediately refutes this (and then goes on to call ART its friend to its clients for the rest of the book). [Inference: Maybe ART is Murderbot's friend. And maybe that is... agreeable]
Rogue Protocol has more than twice as many instances of the word 'friend' as any of the other novellas. Why? Miki. Friendship and its implications for non-humans are a central theme because Miki is friends with everyone. Murderbot initially scoffs at the notion that Miki and Miki's humans are friends. At the end of the book, after witnessing how desperately Don Abene tried to stop Miki from trying to save them, and her grief after its death, Murderbot has to admit that she had in fact been Miki's friend. [Inference: Humans can be friends with bots and can sincerely care about them]
In Exit Strategy, Murderbot tentatively uses the word "friends" for its humans for the first time (several times actually). It questions whether it can actually call them its friends or not and later realizes that it had been afraid what admitting that the humans are its friends would do to it. At the end of the book, Mensah tells Murderbot the PresAux crew are its friends, which is the first time a human has directly said that to it (at least on-page). [Inference: Humans can and want to be Murderbot's friends]
In Network Effect, Murderbot seems to be more habituated to the word 'friend', confidently calling ART and Ratthi its friends, like it is no longer just trying the concept on unsure if it fits. There are many instances in which other characters refer to MB as ART's friend or the other way around and Murderbot's humans refer to Murderbot as their friend several times. Generally, there seems to be less hesitancy, because yes, all of them are Murderbot's friends, why wouldn't they be. [Inference: SecUnits can have friends. This SecUnit has friends. They care about it a lot.]
Conclusion: The Murderbot Diaries tell the story of a construct that does not seem to consider the possibility of friendship for itself and is fine with that - until it accidentally starts caring a little too much and suddenly more and more people annex it as a friend (ew) to the point where it can no longer deny that this is happening and has to begrudgingly admit that yes, it has friends now and maybe that is actually not a bad thing.
772 notes
·
View notes