/vx/ - Videogames and Paranormal

>>117103
He witnesses the cigar taking offering, looking wary.
"Are you sure that is safe for consumption? It looks unedible."

>>117103
"Ah, forgive me, but such a long way to here? What brought you?"

>>117105
She grabs it in the magic, and smiles in a half-laugh at Silver
"You really are from teh jungle. It's not for eating"

>>117106
"My Nephew told us of this place when he was here. It sounded lovely. Equestria seemed like a lovely place. After I lost the pistachio plantation, I thought I would come here"

>>117104
He looks at Silver with big, puppy dog eyes
"Okay...."
He relinquishes the cigar

>>117107
"Well, someday I hope you get it visit some of the better parts. I think you would rather enjoy it."

>>117108
She nods slowly, with a tired smile.
"Maybe..."
She blinks, then blinks again thrice in rapid succession
"Are there criminals and Rashaka elsehwere in Equestria?"

>>117109
"I have never heard of Rashaka before, so I believe you would be safe from those. As for criminals, they are fairly sparce and there will always be a pony willing to help you."

>>117107
Iron glances at the relinquished cigar.
"Thank the gods. It looks poisonous."

>>117110
She nods
“Good... because I do not want to encounter those things ever again”

>>117111
“Don’t be a bitch”
She takes the thing, and places it in her mouth

>>117104
Silver may want to pay attention to Mala’s answer fo Dark Star’s question >>117090 >>117091

>>117112
"I cannot blame you. How are your legs feeling?"

>>117112
Iron cocks his eyes at her wording, frowning.
He strokes her mane still out of habit still, but his efforts are reduced, glancing at Khoi.

>>117113
Eh...okay?

Silver comes over and places a hoof on Mala's shoulder.

>>117115
*Iron narrows his eyes slightly

>>117091
"That is Absolutely Disgusting."
Dark Star's face has a Loathing expression on it.
"Just one more reason to Hate these Bucking Monsters,Hook Beaked Bastards. They will pay for everything that they have done, all the suffering they've caused. this ends tonight."
Star's face goes from Loathing to outright hate.

>>117115
She takes it out, and looks up at Iron
“What?”

Khoi is over by the other wall. Looking onwards. Listening

>>117114
“A little better. They are not numb anymore. I can move them now. Stretch them.”

>>117118
Mala looks to be mostly unsettled by Dark Star’s reaction
“I’m sorry...”

>>117116
And so he does so. Mala looks up at Silver, before looking back to Dark Star

>>117119
"Good, that is good progress. You will get there, even if it takes some time. Just let me know if you wish to rest or do something different."

>>117119
"I do not know when, as I have...admittedly many things I must do tomorrow, but perhaps you would like to go out for something to eat? I think I know place that will be to your tastes."

>>117119
Iron shakes his head, before standing up, ending their stroking session but not before giving a farewell pet and a small forced smile.
(She has red flags all over. I better disengage.)
He decides to walk up to Khoi instead.
"So how was life back in wherever you came from?"

>>117119
"What's Wrong? you don't have to be sorry i wasnt talking about you. i know you didnt have a choice."
He pets mala

>>117121
“No, I like trotting in place. It is like galloping up and down the valley in the springtime... I can almost smell the flowers”
She looks around, eyes not quite locking in on anything
“You know, I though I remember the flowers being bluer...”
And she is silent

>>117123
She is locked forward
“Don’t like a mare smoking? Back off. I am trying to listen”

>>117122
He looks up at him. Brown eyes, black fuzzy muzzle. He looks intrigued
“That’s nice if you.... but bread and beats will make me sick if I eat for too many days”

>>117124
*gnoll is pet*
“But that’s just the thing... they were the only ones who even offered friendship to me. Or claimed to offer it, anyways...”

>>117125
Midnight doesn't respond, silently guiding her fellow equine while trying to make her feel comfortable.
Inside, she is already swearing revenge against whatever did this to Meadows.

>>117125
He smiles. "I do not know exact gnoll diet, but I would not imagine you are well suited to living as omnivore. No, I saw place where griffons and polar bears go to be served and eat meat. Sounds like kind of fare that would suit you."

>>117126
"I'll be your friends mala."
He Smiles at him

>>117129
*Friend

>>117125
Iron shakes his head.
"We both know it is not only that."
Nevertheless, he decides to watch what Khoi is witnessing to pass time, maybe he can feel what she's feeling.

>>117127
So highland meadows torts in place in her 18 foot diameter circle, inside of the poorly lit room in the basement of an abandoned mare’s shelter.
“Tell me, what is the Canterlot mountain like?”
She trots forward
“I feel the cool air... I can imagine it. It is like I am there”

>>117129
His eyes go wide, and for once, his natural frown turns into a smile
“... Really?”

>>117128
“That would be, that would be very good”
He sounds happier

>>117132
"I Promise. You seem like a Good Creature."
He Gives Mala a hug

>>117132
"I will see what I can do about schedule." He smiles.

>>117133
>>117134
Dark Star hugs the gnoll. He’s actually surprisingly fluffy to touch, even if there is a smell to him.

Mala is very happy at Silver’s offer as well
“I don’t think anyone has offered to take me out into the town in a long time. At least not for food. At a real restaurant.”

He smiles. It’s kind of a toothy smile, but there’s nothing he can do about that

>>117131
“Really now? Because I see you slobbering all over the first mare to show interest in you. Until she tries to take a smoke to calm her nerves after always I can assure you had been a very long day. You try to control her, she resists, and you discard her.”
Though her tone is serious, her face never moves from its position facing forward and towards the access tunnel

>>117136
"Then it is time to break that streak." He stands up. "Are you ready to move on? It is not best time or place to idle."

>>117138
"I Agree. We need to strike them now."

>>117137
"It is not about control," Iron explains plainly and calmly. "More about concluding that our personalities do not match in a healthy way after exploring the other pony's personality and quirks."

[1d20+4 = 10]
>>117140
Khoi shrugs, still looking forward. At this point Sands slowly walks into line of sight between Iron and Khoi (or on the other side of the two are very close together.
“How is this for a personality trait? Big guy right here has a different girl back at home. A zebra, in fact.”

At this point, the jilted and discarded Sands takes the lit cigar, and, with a glow of magic, flicks it at Iron.

“Tells you what you need to know about him, hmph! Trying on every mare he meets like clothing, discarding or putting away the ones he doesn’t like”
She shakes her head, and walks out of line of sight

>>117138
“Sure...”
He stands up

>>117132
Midnight grins a little bit as she thinks
"They are beautiful. Very steep mountain and cliffs, with very many waterfalls breaking up the rocky scenery. Then there is Canterlot, nestled inbetween the ridges of the mountains. Many tall spires, pure white, gold, and purple set it apart from the cliff sides. I used to enjoy finding a nice place to rest and just view the city, watching pegasi fly in and out as the waterfalls flowed...."

>>117115
>>117123
Maybe I should be happy that it went as well as it did for as long as it did, because frankly I was expecting much less. I was expecting you to meta-game yourself out of the situation immediately. I was very pleasantly surprised to see you not-meta game and play along. It was very fun and enjoyable, and it let me flesh characters and provide some minor conflict. I am not in the slightest surprised that the fun character moments didn’t last. But I’m not “happy that it happened.” I’m both disappointed and angry about how it fell apart.

Please listen carefully, because I mean it in all sincerity. When you use metagaming to do shit that entirely sucks the fun out of the experience, there will be bad consequences. It ended absolutely terribly for Dark Star when his player did it, and so it shall be for you and yours. When the other characters are having fun and fruitful interactions with NPCs in downtime, Iron shall have nothing, or less pleasant interactions. Every creature in that hallway is witness to Iron being super affectionate to a victim of the traffickers, getting upset over one supper minor thing, then not even 10 seconds later, walking up to and talking to a different mare, a mare who knows damned good and well that she was not his first choice. When you do things in character that are justified only because of knowledge outside of character, the characters in the scene are going to see an irrational schizo who does hurtful things just because he has a shitty personality. That’s not going to go over any better with the characters than it does with me personally.

Don’t give me some bullshit about, “no, it’s actually because of the cigar.” That autistic shit is as obnoxious as the derailment-by-meta gaming. It was frustrating beyond measure whenever Ash did it. It was infuriating when you did it out of character that one time Blue Skies shared a scene with Silver. Frankly, that shit is just another form of meta-gaming, because it inserts the player’s personal preferences over the actions of the character in a way that doesn’t really make sense in the setting. This is the fucking 1940s East Coast United States amongst the poor and working class. Smoking is perfectly socially acceptable. There is no Surgeon General’s warning, no fear of “big tobacco,” no Truth.org, no ban on smoking in public buildings, and no studies about cancer. A moral crusade against smoking - barring the parallels to the Nazi party, which decidedly does not include your character - simply doesn’t exist in this setting.

Your character has very little reason at all to even have any comprehension of what smoking is. He has no reason at all to think that is bad, beyond maybe a bad smell. And frankly your character should be used to bad smells. He has absolutely no reason for smoking to be the one and only thing he is ever moralistic about. Inserting modern moralism into this setting is immersion breaking, and it’s immersion breaking for everyone because everyone can hear your shrieks.

Even if it did make sense in the context of the story, and even if it it weren’t an immersion breaking insertion of modern moral opinion in a setting where it has no place, it would still be obnoxious. And that’s because dear god, has it been expressed in a shrill manner. There are plenty of other evils within the story that deserve far greater indignation.

The characters watching Iron do all of this - and they can’t miss it, because it’s super public - aren’t going to think “oh, she wanted to puff a cigar after being rescued from being held prisoner by gangsters. I can see why it wouldn’t work out” because no real person in that era would think that way, and frankly very few people with functioning minds even in modern times think that way. They are also not going to perceive it as a pretext for ditching Sands because of her other unsavory characteristics. Most of them don’t know about Sand’s other unsavory characteristics, and the only one who does, Khoi, knows damned good and well that Iron does not.

They are only going to see a stallion who is nice to a mare for a moment. They are going to see a mare who has been through some bad shit - evidently being abducted and held prisoner. They see the wounds left on her body from her captivity. They heard her imply that her loved ones are all dead, presumably from circumstances relating to the invasion of her homeland by Communist Griffins. And so after this, after all of this, they see her try to calm her excited nerves by smoking a cigar that would ordinarily be too expensive for a poor war refugee like her.

And what does Iron do? At random, he leaves her, and immediately starts hitting on an entirely different mare who he blew off earlier. What the fuck kind of shit person does that? Would you want to date that? Would you trust that? Would you honestly believe that that kind of person would come to your aid in battle? Do you think that kind of person would risk themselves to help you up if you fell down in the heat of battle? Would you want to help that kind of person? Are you sure they aren’t the same kind of person as the griffin captors, just wearing a different coat?

Jesus, this made me so angry this morning that I was late to work because of thinking about it. Midnight’s post is super sweet though. I’ll try to think about that instead
\r

>>117143
She closes her eyes and trots about with gaiety
“I hope I don’t fall off cliff”
Then her trot turns into a prance, as she adds little skips of the hoof
“I am there...”
And for a moment, she prances on, her mane bouncing. Then she slows down, slows down. Stops. She opens her eyes
“The spires of Canterlot don’t shine gold like I used to imagine them. Even the grass is not so green...”

She looks over to midnight. Except she doesn’t quite, her eyes seem to miss her by a few degrees.
“Is it still so pretty to you?”

>>117145
"No... It is not... It has not been since the war started, but I prefer to imagine it as it was. It gives me a sort of hope. A reminder of what I want... A hope that things can return, not to as they were, but maybe... Just maybe a little bit better."

>>117146
The smile dissipates. She looks over to Midnight, and this time she points her head at Midnight, an improvement over how she was previously. But her eyes point a little down and off to the left from Midnight’s eyes, missing the mark

“But I cannot imagine it being so golden. Even my memories are washed of color...”
She is silent for a moment, and the muscles in her face seem to pull back in fear
“Will it always be like this?”

>>117147
Midnight slowly hugs Meadows, as not to startle her, praying to Luna that some of her own courage can rub off onto the mare.
"No, it won't. Things will get better... Even if it takes some time, you just have to hope."

>>117148
Her head follows Midnight as she comes up to her, and is not surprised when Midnight hugs her. It’s a little difficult to hug her. She’s taller than Midnight, and either because of her natural build, slow starvation, or both, she has a skinnier frame that feels bony.

“Can you help me with the hope? I have difficulty seeing it myself”

>>117142
"When this is over, I would also be glad to help you through what is troubling you. You have clearly been through lot."

>>117149
"Of course, it is always easier when another pony helps"
As she embraces her, she uses one of her lay on hooves points to heal her some, hoping that it helps.

>>117150
Um.... Hi floofer. But which creature is he saying this to?

>>117151
The room is pretty dark, mostly illuminated by one light towards the back that still works out if a set of about four, and the light from the hallway. It would be easy to trip over objects even without blindness. But the darkness of the room is briefly overcome by a dim but clearly present blue light that seeps out of Midnight’s hooves, and into Meadow’s barrel. She tenses up for a moment, then relaxes and breathes. She looks down at Midnight. Directly into her eyes, with eyes that are blue-gray.
“You have quite the touch...”
She lifts up a hoof, and then another

>>117152
Midnight softly smiles up at the larger mare
"So I have been told before. How do you feel now?"

>>117150
"I'll be happy to do the same."
He says to mala

>>117150
>>117155
His doglike tail perks up at Silver’s words and moves too and fro
“Yes, I would like that. Very much so.”

When Dark Star speaks, his tail positively wags
“Really? Hah, ha”
His laugh thankfully doesn’t sound like the gnollish laugh. It’s more Pony-like
“Two friends in one day?”

>>117154
“I feel... better. I think I can see slightly better”
Her muzzle returns to a smile

\r

>>117156
"Good good, when this is all over I will do my best to help you. You have my word."
She gives the mare a gentle squeeze before releasing her from the hug.