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yui

Jack of All Trades

Posts posted by yui


  1. "Uh, I didn't mention this before but I'm not...tired. Like, at all? I don't know if I have to sleep to begin with."

    "Hm. I felt the same way last night. Must be part of the Exalted package deal."

    With a shrug, Abby then suggested as an alternative "You can stand watch with me then, if anyone else wants to get some rest overnight. Normally I'd go on for a bit about how sleep is good for you and the human brain just isn't meant to go on for days at a time without rest, but now I am curious if that's been addressed on our way over too..."

    Well, that was something that would need to be measured out over the course of a few days with firsthand experience. Which suited Abby just fine; even when she was alive, she wasn't much of a sleeper. Now that the need for sleep had been removed entirely, it almost felt more natural than when she was alive. To hell with insomnia; THIS was the way to live!

    Oh, maybe she's just got insomnia? I'm only half a doctor at best, but I really want to study the four of us and see how being an Exalted has changed our bodies. But saying it that way makes me feel more like a creepy stalker or a mad scientist.

    "Well, we can worry about it when it's night time. But man, what a weird world we've wound up in! Shame we all got here how we did though, speaking of sleep. Mowed down by a truck, turned into a fine red paste along the train tracks, stabbed, and... whatever happened to Sabrina. Would be nice if one of us could've just died peacefully in our sleep or something, huh?"

    Come to think of it, how DID Sabrina die? Abby didn't recall her mentioning it when everyone met at the church. She wasn't about to just ask straight to her face "So buddy, how did you kick the bucket?", but the seeds of curiosity had definitely been planted now that Abby realized she didn't know what happened.


  2. All's well that ends well, and after some team deliberation, it was decided that the course of action was to head for the castle. Viva la revolucion!

    All this walking through nature suited Abby. It reminded her of running off into the woods as a child, in search of cool rocks and weird bugs to bring home. And while there wasn't much that stood out to her in terms of rocks and bugs here, she did make one interesting observation. The fauna. It was bigger than she was used to back in her world. And some animals had even more remarkable qualities! Like that lion, whose mane was seemingly made of lightning.

    "Oooh...that looks so cool. I wonder...if I could catch one of them...and keep it as a pet."

    "M-Maybe not a good idea...l-l-least right now... I-I mean, probably need to get the animal handling thing down...I mean...i-is there even a skill tree like that...?"

    “We should watch them with caution. ...But perhaps, as he implies, we may be able to find some way to call upon them using the strength we have gathered from the foes we have fought. ...It was said that we would be getting ‘stronger’ from these fights we've been partaking in, wasn’t it? Perhaps we can unlock new abilities, like our weapon-skills and magic.”

    "Humans didn't need magic to tame horses and wolves back in our world," Abby mused. "At the same time though, last I checked, horses and wolves don't have electric manes. The smart move would be not to chance it, but if you girls and Gene are feeling a bit reckless, I'm down to find out the hard way."

    Adjusting the fit of her sleeves and her coat in general, Abby added on "Unrelated side note, but if we stop to camp out for the night when it's time for that, I'll stay up so the rest of you can sleep."


  3. “While your concern is noted, and appreciated, if you recall, I had discussed the matter with River during our initial puzzle expedition; taking her at her word, I… Simply had complete, and utter faith that the rest of you would survive the encounter, allowing me to return from the ‘nothing’ of Death unscathed. ...Still, I will try to take the mental ramifications of my actions into account before I make further mistakes; and apologize for acting without thinking. It seems some old habits are harder to staunch than we thought.”

    That was good to hear. Abby made a mental note to keep an eye on Marshall in future battles if she had a moment to do so though, just in case.

    Following this, Marshall presented a question about weapons, to which River had a helpful explanation. Abby for one was quite pleased with the hammer she'd received, but if she ever felt a change in weapon was appropriate, it was good to know that she'd be able to change it out fairly easily. As the other Exalted made for the water portal exit, Abby did much the same, giving River a wave goodbye on the way over. River was a good person, and Abby was looking forward to their next inevitable meeting.

    The feeling of rushing through water hit her again on the way out, but sure enough, she and the rest found themselves at the entrance of the shrine once it was over with. Which left the question of what to do next...

    "The Accursed! Come on we should go right there, I feel like I could take on ten Accursed right now!"

    Well, maybe it wasn't a question of what to do, but how.

    “...That would be the most prudent of our actions, though I wonder if perhaps we should rest given the ordeal we have just completed, or let the village know of our success here. ...There’s always the fact that they may have more information for us about the Accursed; though, it is also true that time could be of the essence here…”

    "It would be quite a detour, for sure," Abby nodded. "And we know enough to get a general idea... probably. Whoever's the Accursed around here's in charge of the regional cursed weather, so they'll probably be flinging a lot of lightning bolts at us or something. Can't imagine anyone back in town's actually met them, so I don't know what more they could tell us."


  4. titlecard8022.png

    High above the streets of Manhattan, a woman looked down from her rooftop perch. Through the black miasma that filled the world's atmosphere, she couldn't see the streets from up here, but she could still hear the traffic, always buzzing about. She wasn't sure how long she'd been sitting up here, but she did know she was getting impatient.

    "Eden Brock, stop where you are!! We're taking you back to Alchemax, dead or alive!"

    An exasperated groan escaped Eden's lips. The kind one would make when simply trying to relax, but the same interruption gets in the way every five seconds. Her gaze did turn, but rather than behind her, it was to her right, where, stuck to the wall by what resembled a black, tar-like web, was a young man still struggling to break free.

    "Who's that?" One of the armed men demanded, nodding toward the trapped man. "What's he doing here?"

    "Bait."

    "W--"

    "Do you even know who you're trying to capture?"

    "...an Alchemax intern who got fired after stealing Project Venom. Fisk's orders are to bring that thing back to Alchemax so it can be disposed of. With or without you still intact."

    "Very wrong, very false, and very hostile too." From beneath Eden's jacket came a loud snarling noise. "Oh, we don't like liars, by the way. And we really don't like people threatening or badmouthing us." Getting up to her feet, Eden finally turned to acknowledge the armed squad of men behind her, counting them up real quick in her head before concluding that Alchemax had once again not sent nearly enough people. There was only six of them. "Now, you seem to have been fed false intel, so let's set the record straight, one last time."

    WE ARE...

    "My name is Eden Brock, though I've almost forgotten that a couple of times. Seven months ago, I was an unpaid intern at Alchemax who was dragged on-board - against my will, I should add - as the first human test subject for the top-secret Project Venom, which was designed to kill Spider-Girl. We'll give you the short version from there. We got fired, the project was scrapped, and we argued for a few days because two distinct life-forms sharing a body just didn't sit well at first. We reconciled, united under a common goal, and jointly decided to kill Spider-Girl, not because Fisk says so, but because that's what we want. Of course, we want Alchemax destroyed too, each for our own reasons."

    A black ooze worked its way up most of Eden's body, before branching off at the neck. From the suit of chemical armor, an extra head sprouted, looking directly at the squad of assailants.

    "We can never go back to our old life. One of us was powerless and afraid, and the other was a lab project not supposed to think or act on its own. Together, we perfectly compliment each other; we're able to do whatever we want, and don't have to be afraid of anyone or anything. We can't describe how liberating that is. And we're certainly not about to let you take that away from us. Not that we think you could, no matter how hard you try or how many of you there are."

    The head of the suit slid itself into place, wrapping itself around and over Eden's, encasing her entirely in its pitch-black form. "After all, we are Venom. We'd recommend running and saying we evaded your capture attempts, just FYI."

    "Like hell we're backing down from this kind of paycheck!" With that, the men opened fire, spraying bullets on Venom with every intent to bring the beast down. Only to stop in shock as the chemical suit of armor seemed completely unaffected, its form shifting and churning to push the bullets back out and spill them onto the ground.

    "Well, we tried."

    VENOM

    Venom shot one of their arms forward, as if to punch, despite the distance. From the symbiotic bioarmor's fist, an extra appendage sprang forth with the punch, its end taking a form roughly like the head of a spear, which thrust itself directly through one of the armed men. Their other arm, meanwhile, reached out toward a man on the side, extending into a long, prehensile tentacle. It wrapped itself tight around him, before flinging him up into the air, and he soon disappeared out of view through the miasma.

    The tentacle then grabbed the next man over, before slamming him into the roof beneath his feet and then dragging him closer to Venom. Once he was close enough, the armor's torso erupted into an array of tentacles, grabbing him and pulling him into the armor, where his form could be seen thrashing and struggling under the bioarmor before slowly stopping, followed by the Venom suit returning to its original size, leaving no trace of the man it had just swallowed.

    "Die, dammit!"

    One of the men had managed to reload his gun and open fire again in the time it took to dispose of the first three. Venom simply ran up to the assailant and put all of their might into a single punch, shooting him off the rooftop, across the street, and into the next building over. Their hand then reached out, simply grabbing the next man over by the neck and squeezing tighter and tighter until he stopped moving. Just in time for the man who had been flung up to land back on the roof.

    With five out of the six armed men disposed of in no time flat, Venom turned its eyes toward the last one. "Tell Fisk to use something much bigger than rifles if he wants to stop us."

    "So do you just never take a vacation day or something?"

    Immediately disregarding the last of Alchemax's men, Venom snapped their attention directly behind them, a hungry elation in their voice at the sight of the masked heroine before them. "SPIDER-GIRL! We were getting tired of waiting! We set up bait and everything!" From the back of the bioarmor, a singular tentacle emerged, reaching out and grabbing at the webbing keeping Venom's hostage in place before ripping it out, setting him free. No later than that, however, did the hostage find himself in Venom's grip, and promptly flung off the roof.

    "Why!?"

    Immediately, Spider-Girl sprung into action, sprinting past Venom and getting a running start to leap off the roof. Not even a second after taking the leap, however, her spider sense was already going off. Something was behind her and approaching fast, and it didn't take a genius to guess what, or rather, who. Spider-Girl swung her arm out to the side, shooting out a string of webbing to a nearby building, and immediately yanking on it to fling herself to the side. Not a moment too late, either, as she right after saw Venom dart past her, in a trajectory that would have definitely let them catch Spider-Girl had she reacted just a moment later.

    "DON'T IGNORE US!" Venom roared, as they fell past Spider-Girl and faded from view through the miasma.

    BATTLE ABOVE NEW YORK

    Ignoring Venom's demands to not be ignored, Spider-Girl started forward again, using the same method she'd used to avoid Venom's attack. She had to find that hostage, and catch him before he turned into a red splat on the pavement. She liked to think she was getting pretty good at the whole web-swinging thing, but even so, she was putting everything she had into a mad dash down the street. Not long after her initial dodge, however, she could sense it again. Venom wasn't giving up that easily, and they were leaping for Spider-Girl at a point in her swing where she didn't really have the ability to dodge well enough to escape. Venom and Spider-Girl collided, crashing into the walls of a nearby building where the pair stuck themselves.

    Once on the wall, Venom reared back their right fist, making sure to keep the left hand on the wall to prevent Spider-Girl from chasing down the hostage any further. Their fist shot forward, but Spider-Girl moved her head aside to avoid the punch, and all that happened for it was Venom's fist went through the steel walls of whatever building they were on. They tried to swing their arm from where it was, but Spider-Girl ducked out of the way, slipping out of Venom's range by letting herself fall through the gap between their legs, and leaving a gaping gash where once there was a fist-sized hole in the wall as the only sign either woman was there to begin with.

    "Spider sense... how annoying."

    "Maybe you should take some time off to relax," Spider-Girl called out, starting off in the hostage's direction again. "I bet a good spa day would do wonders for that complexion of yours!"

    As Spider-Girl sent out her next web line to continue swinging, Venom extended a tentacle from their hand, wrapping it around the heroine's leg and pulling back, stopping her escape once again. In return, Spider-Girl grabbed the tentacle with both hands, and with the full, unrestricted use of her strength, pulled on both ends, ripping the end that had grabbed her off from the rest of the tentacle. A surge of pain shot through Venom's bioarmor, and the pair let out a horrible, primal shriek as the sudden sensation shot through them, causing them to lose their focus and fall to the streets below, leaving behind a loud thud and a small crater at the point of impact as Spider-Girl started retreating yet again.

    "Ohhh... we're gonna enjoy killing her, and we're gonna do it slowly so we can savor the moment," Venom growled, as they got back up to their feet.

    Back above the streets, meanwhile, Spider-Girl could hear someone shouting for help. A wave of relief washed over her on the fact that, based on where it was coming from, Venom's unlucky victim had found himself something to hang onto before taking a fatal fall to the streets below. As she got closer, however, she heard something large and metallic from below. Even without the spider sense, she could tell Venom was up to something. From underneath her, a large semi truck quickly came into view, springing out of the miasma and heading straight for her. With no time to dodge, the best Spider-Girl could hope for was to take the truck head-on. Once she'd been hit by a projectile truck, Spider-Girl rolled over, moving herself to the side of the truck and using it as a springboard to close the rest of the distance to the hostage, scooping him up from his precarious perch before running up to the building's roof as fast as she could, setting him down on solid ground.

    "Sorry I can't take you down from here, but I've got a maniac trying to kill me. Call the police or fire department or something; they'll get you down."

    Next order of business: the truck. Spider-Girl perched herself on the edge of the roof, shooting out a pair of webs from her arms across the street to the building opposite her. Once those were connected, she disconnected the webs from her web shooters, and secured them onto the roof she was standing on. Then she repeated the process as many times as time would allow for, before the truck started coming back down. Once the vehicle came into sight, two things immediately registered in Spider-Girl's mind. One: The truck. Two: The familiar sensation of her spider sense alerting her that Venom was coming, and fast.

    New plan.

    Spider-Girl leapt off the roof, shooting herself through the air and landing on top of the truck. On the way, she made a point to check through the windshield for any occupants. Nobody was inside, and the driver's side door was open, meaning whoever was driving had managed to get out before Venom threw the thing. Good. Naturally, once Spider-Girl landed, Venom wasn't far behind. The latter landed with such force that the webs beneath the truck gave in faster than they would have otherwise, and the truck began to fall again. Something Spider-Girl already knew she'd have to deal with. Spider-Girl planted her feet and one hand firmly on top of the truck to stick to it, and with the other, shot a web line to the closest building. She was not looking forward to this next part.

    The impact of the truck hitting an entire building was enough to shake Venom off, giving Spider-Girl a precious moment to reinforce her web line, slowing her descent until she was able to set the truck down on the sidewalk, free of pedestrians who had since vacated its landing zone. It was a strain both on her web shooter and her arms, but a sigh of relief escaped Spider-Girl's lips when she realized she'd done it. But fans and other bystanders were of course not the only thing waiting for her down there. Spider-Girl jumped, leapt, climbed, and hopped around, but the distance was closed, and Venom was not somebody she wanted to take a direct hit from. While her spider sense was saving her up until this point, eventually, Spider-Girl's luck ran out. After enough time, she found herself in Venom's clutches, the villain holding Spider-Girl up by her wrist, keeping her at arm's length to prevent her from striking back effectively.

    "We finally caught you. Now, we are going to kill you - slowly - and then we are going to eat you so that nothing is left, and then we are going to destroy Alchemax." Venom's grip began to tighten. Spider-Girl could hear the cracking and creaking of one of her injectors getting crushed and eventually broken in Venom's grip, and the bioarmor began to crawl its way up Spider-Girl's arm, constricting everything it was able to wrap itself around.

    Spider-Girl began looking around for something, anything to get her out of this bind. The bioarmor had taken her arm entirely, and was making its way around to her neck and ribs. Then she saw it. Unsuspecting, red salvation! A fire hydrant. Spider-Girl took a deep breath, and with her free hand, she shot out one last web line of desperation, catching the hydrant by one of its valves, and subsequently ripping it off. The resulting blast stream of water knocked Venom off their feet, washed the chemical bioarmor clean off of Spider-Girl's own suit, and forced the dangerous chemical lifeform that was Venom to retreat into the body of its host as the combatants rolled and crawled out of the hydrant's aquatic assault.

    "Not the spa day I suggested, but you sure look better after a good rinsing," Spider-Girl said, shaking her arm to get the blood flowing normally again once she was back on her feet.

    "You think this is over?" Venom taunted. "We'll dry off, and we'll hunt you down, again and again. You can't escape us, Spider-Girl. We'll chase you to the ends of the earth if we must."

    "Sure will, champ." As she dismissed Venom's threats, Spider-Girl hopped over the stream of water to get closer to Venom, lifting them up and putting them against the wall, before spraying them down with webbing to keep them stuck in place. "We both know you'll just break out of whatever prison they put you in, so just stand there for a while and think about your actions. I'm getting out of here before the press shows up. See ya!"

    "You aren't going anywhere without us!" Venom shouted, struggling with all of their might to break free of the web Spider-Girl had ensnared them in. Alas, without the might of the symbiote, they were but a normal person, and escape was impossible. As Spider-Girl continued to leave, it was all Venom could think to do to continue trying to provoke the hero. "This is an underhanded tactic that a hero should not resort to! You haven't won anything yet! Get back here! Spider-Girl! Fight us, you coward! You... you're already gone, aren't you?"

    In Eden's throat, the feeling of a large, moving lump could be felt, before the head of the symbiote stuck itself out of Eden's body through her mouth. "Cutting us free," it said, lowering its head down to dig its rows of dagger-like teeth into the webs holding them in place, essentially eating its way to freedom before retracting back into Eden's body.

    We have lost once again.

    "That's fine. No matter how many times we lose, we only need to win once. We're going home, I guess."


    HOME SWEET HOME

    After a long day of heroics mixed with keeping up with her job at the Bugle, there was nothing quite like going home. Once she got her Bugle job, Joanna insisted on moving out to live on her own, and found a one-bedroom apartment before long. The place was cheap and certainly not something to be proud of, but it was well within her budget, and the landlord was a pretty good guy, too. She easily could've gotten a new place by now, but by the time that was on the table, Joanna had grown pretty fond of her little home, for better or worse. Plus, the neighbors were interesting people.

    Door's stuck again.

    That, however, was her one real complaint. The door. She'd brought it up several times, and by the sound of things, getting it fixed was definitely on the to-do list, but she'd yet to see any signs that it would actually happen. Putting about as much force into it as she would have been able to before becoming Spider-Girl, Joanna gave the door one push after another, until it finally gave way and let her into her own apartment. With a door like that, she probably didn't even need to lock it, but she wasn't about to test that the hard way.

    Inside the apartment, every sign pointed to the place being decently old, predating the chemtech boom of the 90s and having received no real renovations since. The easiest giveaway was the windows. They were sealed away behind an extra pane of glass now, but the windows themselves were an older type meant to be opened to let in fresh air. Not getting to live in a time where that was a viable option was something Joanna would have regretted, had she any say in when she was born. But it wasn't like she could control that, so moping over it would accomplish less than nothing.

    Plus, this was her place to relax after another day in the life of Spider-Girl. Joanna tossed the bag hanging from her shoulder onto the couch, opened the refrigerator, and pulled out a box of pizza she'd ordered the other day, grabbing a slice and sitting down without bothering to reheat the pizza.

    "Pizza time. Finally."

    As she worked her way through the piece of cold pizza, Joanna opened up the bag and reached inside. Feeling around past her Spider-Girl suit, she grabbed onto what felt like a bent, warped piece of metal, and pulled out the injector Venom had crushed earlier. Based on the look of it, it was - in her untrained opinion - completely fucked.

    "Damn. Parker's not gonna be happy about that."

    She'd have to drop by his place tomorrow to get that fixed. If something urgent came up between now and then, she could certainly manage with just one injector, but having both just felt better. The day was just about over though, so Joanna could kick back, eat her cold pizza, and watch some garbage TV programming. News channels were mostly talking about Spider-Girl's actions of the day, which she didn't need a recap on. There was one that mentioned one of Oscorp's lead engineers was getting laid off, but what Oscorp did was frankly none of her business; her beef was purely with Alchemax. Drama channels, nothing interesting. Movie channels, nothing interesting. Comedy channels, nothing new. Joanna chose to go back to the news channel talking about Oscorp; it was a story she wasn't aware of, which by default made it the most interesting thing on TV right now. It was also one of Norman Osborn's very rare press appearances.

    "Letting go of Doctor Octavius isn't a decision I made lightly. His contributions have been invaluable in seeing Oscorp develop into the chemtech titan it is today. However, over the decades, Oscorp's philosophy on chemtech has changed, and while I still see Otto as a dear friend, and a great man, the distance in ideology between him and Oscorp has only gotten bigger over time."

    "Mr. Osborn, can we get official word on the rumors that various national governments have denied extensions to the rights for Oscorp's chemtech testing fields!?"

    "I would like to keep tonight's headline focused on Doctor Octavius."

    "Mr. Osborn, what is--"

    "Mr. Osborn, would you--"

    "Mr. Os--"

    "Mr. Osborn, Alchemax's CEO Wilson Fisk has openly decried Spider-Girl's acts of vigilantism, does Oscorp hold the same negative view of Spider-Girl?"

    Joanna leaned in close to the TV for this one. Suddenly, she was invested in this press conference. And based on the time he took to think about an answer, it sounded like Norman was willing to answer this one! Suddenly, a sharp pain shot through her body, and a bizarre, additional sensation she couldn't fully describe. It wasn't anything like an injury. More like... a feeling that she wasn't even there in the first place? And then, a hole appeared above her. Just, a hole, in the air itself. There was no chemtech in the world that could accomplish this, and before she had time to think about it further, she realized the hole was sucking her in.

    THE PORTAL

    Joanna tried to push herself back down, but that certainly didn't work. She could feel herself getting pulled up still. Her web shooters weren't even on or she'd use that, but she made certain to close and grab her Spider-Girl bag, stuffing the broken injector in as well for good measure. She reached down to the floor, hoping to stick to it like she would on any other surface. Which worked. For a bit. Soon, however, that too proved ineffective, and there was nothing Joanna could do but be swallowed up by this unknown hole above her. She did, however, manage to grab her pizza on the way out. The non-reheated familiarity of cheese and sauce on refrigerated crust was a small comfort in the extreme unknowns surrounding her. In her mind, the place she'd been flung into looked like outer space, not that she'd ever seen it herself. Moreover, it was as if a giant, infinite web was spread out across the entire... wherever she was. As she fell - though in what direction she couldn't tell - Joanna could see many other sights. Things that simply did not - could not - exist in the world she knew.

    Worlds of brilliant vibrance, bursting at the seams with color and sound. Worlds of cold, unfeeling steel, where all was machinery. Worlds of stark nothingness, seemingly devoid of anything at all but dry, gray dirt. Worlds of... was that a pig in red spandex?

    Eventually, the visage of one of these worlds was moving straight toward her. Or rather, she was moving straight toward it. Joanna braced for impact, crashing through the image of the world, and landing...

    IN ANOTHER WORLD...

    ...face-first on the pavement.

    "Oww..."

    Upon getting up to her feet, Joanna quickly noticed she was outdoors. In a sudden panic, she reached into her bag, grabbing her gas mask... before realizing something very unusual. She'd been breathing before she got up. She was doing it right now. Not choking on a toxic miasma, but... breathing. Like, breathing air. Slowly putting the mask back where it was, she realized more and more about her surroundings. The open feeling that came with not having your visibility cut down by the miasma. The breeze that felt more like a gentle caress from the air, rather than a clammy hand wrapping its gross fingers around her. People just going about their daily lives, without a care in the world.

    Okay, that last one applied normally too, but the general vibe was completely different! They dressed similar enough, but sometimes, something about somebody's attire just felt slightly off from what Joanna would expect clothes to look like. Plus, a lot of the windows she saw were those old-style windows, like the ones in her apartment. Some were even wide open, letting the surprisingly clean air just go inside.

    Okay. Calm down, Joanna. Use your context clues. Clean air, blue sky, all that jazz... this must be Latveria.

    The more she thought about it, the more that made sense. It was famously the last "clean" place in the world, owing to benevolent dictator Victor von Doom's affinity for chemtech simply being on an entirely different league from even the combined forces of Alchemax and Oscorp. At Doom's level of genius, suddenly, some mystery hole that sucks people out of their apartments and drops them in Latveria seemed fairly plausible, if not downright possible. But something bugged her about that conclusion. Latveria's foreign policy. "Nobody gets in. Nobody gets out." Latveria's isolation was infamous for how strict it was, so unless Doom knew Joanna was Spider-Girl, she saw no reason she'd be randomly abducted to this place. And how would he know that? He probably didn't even know Spider-Girl existed.

    As Joanna turned a corner to try and get some answers from the locals, another thing stood out to very clearly tell her this wasn't Latveria.

    A towering bronze statue. Dedicated to a man named "Mike Haggar" and the revitalization of a place called Metro City. That certainly didn't sound like a Latverian city name, but more importantly, Mike Haggar was NOT Victor von Doom. While his nation was infamous for its refusal to interact with the outside world, Doom's ego was nothing short of legendary. From what little she knew about the guy, there was no way Doom would raise a memorial to commemorate anyone else, and if one were to be raised without his approval, it would surely be torn down before dinner.

    So this wasn't Latveria after all. Which begged the question.

    "Where the hell am I?"

    As Joanna tried to get her bearings to figure out what this mysterious Metro City place was, a rather average-looking white collar salaryman looked straight at her. And then began to approach her. Quickly. Joanna's spider sense was telling her that this very average salaryman who was approaching her at a full sprint was trouble, but she had been on edge in general ever since that hole opened up in her apartment, so it could have just as easily been general parano--

    Suddenly, Joanna found herself instinctively swerving to the left, barely dodging a punch thrown by this guy.

    AVERAGE DAY IN METRO CITY

    Okay, this guy's got a lot of anger to let out, apparently. Should probably deal with him.

    It wasn't really in Joanna's usual agenda to beat up random office workers, but he did start it. And he was clearly out for a fight, hands up and everything. Joanna was willing to humor him, not as Spider-Girl, but plain old Joan Joanna Jameson. It was a good opportunity to dust off her high school boxing experience. Joanna put her own fists up, ready to defend herself. At first, she wasn't sure if this guy was fighting her or some invisible foe in the air, based on his repeated kicking of the space in front of him. Joanna chose to believe his target was her though, as despite his bizarre tactics, his eyes were fixed on her.

    In high school, she wasn't much of the "bob and weave" type, but being Spider-Girl, that sort of thing came naturally to her. And so, she bobbed and weaved around his attacks, getting into punching range. As she approached, however, her spider sense alerted her to something. But even it didn't seem to be sure what. Probably just nerves. Joanna threw her fist out, hitting the man square in the chest... and stopping in utter shock at he was completely unaffected. Instead of hitting him properly, what appeared to happen was he was somehow immune to her strike, and was now shooting up with a strike of his own, catching Joanna in a rising uppercut attack. At this distance, even with her agility, there was no time to dodge, and Joanna felt herself get knocked off the sidewalk, shot up and away from this extremely normal person, and landed harshly on the pavement once again.

    What... the hell... just happened?

    As Joanna got back up to her feet, something unusual happened. The man who had assaulted her threw - of all things - a ball of sand at her. Not only was this extremely underhanded, it wasn't a very effective method of attack. Joanna simply closed her eyes, and was suddenly very surprised as the ball of sand struck her with all the force of a human fist. Physically getting her bearings back from the strike didn't take long, but in the time it took to mentally recover was enough that by the time Joanna opened her eyes, the man was right in front of her again, about to strike her with the same uppercut. Unable to react in time, Joanna was once again shot upward, this time staying down a while longer.

    thelengthsimgoingtoforthisbitareconsider

    Uuugh... wherever I am, I clearly need to be more on guard.

    Joanna watched the man who had just beaten the shit out of her then went about his day as if nothing had ever happened. Even the crowds that had stopped to watch the one-sided fight simply continued their daily routines, completely unfazed by what they had just witnessed. Joanna didn't get back up until her assailant was out of sight, upon which time she took in her surroundings again, watching for violent maniacs this time. It was definitely a city. Aside from the statue that wasn't of Doom, the only place that really stood out to her was a Japanese restaurant a bit down the street. Cold pizza was tasty, but it wasn't terribly filling. Maybe a good meal would make her feel better.

    And so, Joanna made her way over there, keeping herself on high alert.


  5. Abby's struggle with the armor was on in full, and her game plan had been executed. Albeit, to slightly less success than she'd have liked. Perhaps a 1-on-1 with this thing wasn't as easy a task as she'd expected. Luckily, she wasn't quite alone. Thanks to some timely intervention from Sabrina and Gene, the spear-wielding armor was disposed of, and the Exalted were deemed the victors! And to the victors went the spoils, to the tune of an orb sticking itself into the Dragon Signs of the two still-living girls. Which, in turn, prompted quite a vision from Abby.

    Or perhaps it was better to call it a lack of a vision? After all, it was so much nothing, that it was frankly impressive how nothing the nothing was. And then there was light! And within the star before her, a dragon! Abby hoped she didn't have to fight that - while she was no expert, she knew dragons were not suitable early foes - and her hopes were fortunately right on the money. The vision ended with a return to the room from before, but with all the cascading water done away with, new wall carvings became apparent, as well as a statue! It seemed that all four Exalted were none the worse for wear... yes, all four of them.

    Despite Marshall having just died moments ago.

    While Abby was relieved to see Marshall alive and well despite the whole dying thing, she was even more relieved that this meant she'd be able to make her feelings on the heroic sacrifice perfectly clear.

    But first, there was one other matter that warranted Abby's attention. The triumphant return of not just Marshall, but also her hat, and the line of questioning that came with it.

    “...I suppose then, that it’s similar to our weapons? Where, since they are a part of us, their physical form is shaped by our self perception? And in that way, our clothes and appearance are as well?”

    “Yes very similar. As I had mentioned, identity is a very important part of the soul, and both the concept of wearing clothes and these clothes in particular must have some importance on your own identity. So rest assured that no matter how damaged or lost your clothing becomes it shall always return to you, in a similar way to how your body will always retain the same shape after being healed.”

    "Dunno if I identify with this getup," Abby commented, taking a glance down at her own attire. "I just happened to die wearing it, due to... reasons."

    “...I suppose I should add to this; good work. I wasn’t able to see it, but judging by the fact that I have returned, I’d like to thank you all for dispatching our remaining foes in a timely manner.”

    "And speaking of dispatching," Abby groaned, planting the business end of her hammer into the floor, to use the shaft as a convenient pivot to quickly turn around and face Marshall more directly. "Mind telling us what the hell you were thinking throwing yourself into the jaws of death like that!? Now look, I'm very happy you're alive and well, but for all you knew, that would have been it for you! We're already tight on numbers as it is, and the last thing we need is..."

    Abby paused in her scolding, taking a deep breath before tossing her hammer aside, dissipating it into the great nothingness of spiritual weapons that are no longer manifested. "Look, you're lucky for a lot of reasons you came back in as good of shape as you did. We gained valuable information about dying and all, and you're still with us. So it's fine, I guess, but... ugh, whatever. It's not me to get all worked up like that, but people just throwing themselves out to die really rubs me the wrong way. Though I guess you being back begs the philosophical question of "if Marshall is alive in front of us did she really die?" but I super don't want to get into that right now."

    Another pause and deep breath. "Point being, welcome back, please don't do stupid shit like that again."

    This line of thought and conversation was clearly getting nowhere fast in Abby's head. So she turned her attention to River instead.

    "So, the clothes thing. Am I stuck wearing what I died in or can I get a wardrobe change if I think really hard about it?"

    River silently watched as Abby vented her frustrations, seemingly curious about it, before becoming more pensive as the question came back to her. “I am unsure. Trying to change the identity of your soul through sheer willpower could prove both difficult and dangerous so it is not something I recommend. However, if you have no particularly strong feelings or identification with the clothes your wearing then if you purposefully remove them then they are likely to not return, and perhaps a different set of clothes that are more impactful to you would take their place.” After a pause she then added, “oh, I am unsure of how wardrobes work in your world but I have observed that typically humans do not wear two sets of clothing at once. So if you find something you like in this world and replace your old clothing with that then in due time it would likely become the default outfit for you.”

    "Hm. Worth a shot later on, I guess."


  6. Toxic

    Spoiler

    notjojo.png

    Name: Joan Joanna Jameson/Spider-Girl (Earth-8022)
    Age: 20
    Gender: Female

    Appearance:

    Spoiler

    1649970_sKE9Pr8K.png

    made using Picrew
    Height: 5'8"

    The Suit...

    Spoiler

    spider-girl_suit.png

    Spider-Girl's suit was designed with consideration for both her abilities and her world. A gas mask was deemed a necessity, of course, and the hood is made of materials resistant to acid rain, just in case. The suit itself bears this resistance too, to an extent, but if exposed to acids for too long, it will eventually start to disintegrate. Mounted on each arm is a venom injector, a device designed by Peter Parker that allows Spider-Girl to shoot a blast of her paralytic venom directly into an enemy via jet injection. Additionally, stored in a belt on her thigh are metal syringes designed to automatically inject their contents once the needle pierces something.

    Joanna came up with the general design, and let Peter handle the finer details, such as the spider emblem on the chest and the web-like patterns prevalent across the suit. The belt is a remnant from an early version of the costume in which Joanna wanted the syringes to be holstered on her waist instead of her thigh, despite Peter's objections. One web-swinging accident later that saw Joanna injected with her own venom, she quickly gave in to Peter's insistence on a thigh belt instead.

     

    Personality:

    Spoiler

    Overbearing in demeanor, stubborn in her beliefs, and unflinching in the face of adversity, Joanna is very much her father's daughter. Although she has a friendly, humorous attitude in social situations, when it comes to work, Joanna is a girl with a no-nonsense, rest-when-you're-dead work ethic. If she's got a job to do, she makes damn sure she does it, and does it to the best of her ability. Between this and the high value she places on punctuality, if somebody needs something done, getting Joanna to do it is almost a surefire way to guarantee it'll get done, and fast. However, if something goes wrong, she's likely to blame herself, even if there's no way the fault could be linked to her.

    Joanna also prides herself on her personal toughness, and did so even before becoming Spider-Girl. And true to her boasting, Joanna's an incredibly resilient girl, both physically and emotionally. She can be brought down just like anyone else, but keeping her down is leagues more difficult. Alas, this extends to not just Joanna herself, but her beliefs as well; although she's got a good head on her shoulders and a heart in the right place, she is incredibly stubborn. She insists on doing things her own way, and getting her to compromise will seldom be as simple as merely asking nicely. While this does mean it's all but impossible to tempt her down a path of evil, it can also make her difficult to work with in coordinated efforts if she doesn't like the plan. This stubborn sticking to her beliefs also means that the values she holds dear reflect well in her personality: Punctuality, professionalism, honesty, and integrity. If nothing else, one can expect these qualities from Joanna as a baseline.

    History:

    Spoiler

    "One last time, from the top. I'm J. Joanna Jameson, Daily Bugle. I was bitten by a chemically-enhanced spider, and for the last five years, I've been the one and only Spider-Girl. You can pretty much guess the rest. I busted some crimes Alchemax was running behind the scenes, got into a fistfight with CEO Kingpin himself, wound up in the hospital... yeah, he's a tough one. That's where I met my tech guy, Peter Parker. He made my web-shooters and injectors, and even made this suit for me! Did some more crime busting, mom died, I saved Manhattan a few times, fought Kingpin again and almost won that time, and by now I'm kind of a local celebrity. The Bugle sure doesn't like me, and there's plenty of other people who hate me too because of it, but to a lot of them, I'm your friendly neighborhood Spider-Girl, here to save the day. Balancing being Spider-Girl and working at the Bugle is difficult, but I never wanted an easy life in the first place. Oh, and, don't tell my old man that I'm Spider-Girl; I think he'd die on the spot if he found out I'm the masked menace he keeps ranting about."

    The full story...

    Spoiler

    On Earth-8022 - a world where the natural environment was ravaged by decades of unchecked development in chemical technology - was born Joan Joanna Jameson. Her mother primarily worked overseas for Alchemax and spent little time in New York, leaving Joanna to be raised mostly by her father, J. Jonah Jameson Jr, owner of the Daily Bugle. The Bugle was a paper with a bit of a mixed reputation. To the people, it was simply a newspaper that printed cold hard facts, even if the people or the Bugle itself didn't like them, and nothing more. To Alchemax and Oscorp, however, the two chemtech giants that effectively owned the world, the Bugle was a threat, owing to the unflinching integrity of its owner. The two companies were responsible for Earth-8022's high standards of life, but also responsible for the all but total erasure of the world's natural beauty, as well as being both the owners of the world's police forces and also the root of countless criminal operations. While most media outlets could simply be given "generous donations" to buy their silence, J. Jonah had proven time and again that his silence would not be bought. If Alchemax or Oscorp was responsible for something terrible, there was no doubt that the Daily Bugle would report it.

    Joanna grew up admiring her father, and the unbreakable conviction he showed the corporations. She aspired to be like him, going so far as to take up a part-time job at the Bugle as soon as she was of age. When she was fifteen years old, Joanna was given a job as a photographer, though she had a tendency to make some personal investigations of her own while she was at whatever event she'd been assigned to. This is what saw her in the back rooms of a corporate party hosted by Alchemax one night, searching for any sign of industrial-grade misdeeds. Instead, she had found - or rather, been found by - a spider, which bit her in the leg before scurrying off. Joanna left the party shortly after, and went to bed feeling rather unwell. When she woke up the next morning, however, Joanna was better than ever.

    She had strength and reflexes beyond her wildest imagination! She could climb up walls and stick to the ceiling! Her body contained a paralytic venom! As she later discovered, she had a supernatural instinct that alerted her to danger!

    With abilities like these, Joanna saw it fit to use them for good, and elected to keep them a secret. The last thing the world needed was a superhero everybody knew by name. During her spare time, Joanna would look into signs of foul play by Alchemax and Oscorp, and take it upon herself to crack down on the criminals. Before long, word had spread of the "Spider-Girl" who would appear, stop criminals dead in their tracks, then scurry off up the walls before anyone could get a good look at her. The Daily Bugle made its stance clear from the start: Spider-Girl was no better than the criminals she was apprehending.

    "She has neither the training nor the authority to arrest these men, and her anonymity relieves her of all personal responsibility. Spider-Girl could turn on this city, and nobody would be able to track her down. She is a menace; the last thing the world needs is a masked vigilante who can't be held accountable for the misdeeds and failures she will inevitably stumble into."

    At this point, Joanna knew she had to double down on her Spider-Girl efforts, and had to work all the harder to ensure her secret stayed a secret. The former ultimately culminated in one of the Bugle's hottest headlines to date: "Spider-Girl Assaults Alchemax CEO Wilson Fisk". The common threads in her crime-busting spree all led back to Fisk; the "Kingpin" who sat atop the world as one of the two kings of chemtech, and so she had elected to take the fight straight to him. She was soundly defeated, and was lucky to escape with her life. Forced to retreat on broken bones and a bloody face, Joanna later checked into a hospital to get fixed up, citing a mugging as the cause of her injuries. It was here that she'd meet someone that would turn Spider-Girl from a mere vigilante to Earth-2088's first bona fide superhero: Peter Parker.

    Peter was a boy with a brilliant mind, who had been doing some volunteer work at the hospital to get an up-close lesson on the medical applications of chemtech. He wanted to use his gifts for the good of others - something the two had in common - and so after becoming fast friends and confirming Peter could keep a secret, Joanna revealed to him the true identity of Spider-Girl. After she recovered, Joanna made frequent visits to the Parker residence, discussing plans for tools to better utilize her gifts. A pair of wrist-mounted devices were created that allowed Joanna to shoot out a web-like substance, light enough to carry freely but durable enough to swing from. An additional pair of devices to be filled up with Joanna's paralytic venom, that could discharge it straight into an enemy at a measured dosage via jet injection, plus the means to safely extract her venom so she could fill the injectors. And, as a surprise from Peter, a dedicated costume to be worn during her outings as Spider-Girl. Light, breathable, but still durable, and with a built-in gas mask; a necessity in the chemical-filled atmosphere of Earth-8022.

    Joanna then went about her business with renewed vigor and even greater success, quickly becoming a local celebrity. The Daily Bugle doubled down on their stance, and while Joanna backed up the Bugle from behind the camera, as Spider-Girl, she doubled down right back. However, true to the Bugle's predictions, Spider-Girl was inevitably met with failure, by her own hand no less.

    During one of Mrs. Jameson's brief vacations back home, she and Joanna had gone out for a day of mother-daughter bonding. During this vacation, however, Mrs. Jameson was unaware that a target had been painted on her back by Alchemax, after the company had discovered that she was a corporate spy whose true loyalties lied with Oscorp, and that she had leaked the discarded plans for an experimental serum Alchemax deemed not worth pursuing. Kingpin wanted her gone, and her brief return to New York was a perfect time to see it done. That night, after Joanna and her mother had gone their separate ways, had witnessed a group of armed men holding up and stealing a chemical delivery truck. Having neither her suit or gadgets on her, and not wanting to out herself as Spider-Girl, Joanna decided it was probably best to let these chem thieves get away with this one. It wasn't until later that she learned, to her horror, they weren't thieves; they were assassins who had killed Joan Jameson under Kingpin's orders.

    J. Jonah was furious, both at Alchemax once he uncovered it was their call that ended Joan's life, and at Spider-Girl for not being there this one time. J. Joanna wasn't faring much better, blaming herself for the incident she could have easily prevented if she'd just demonstrated a bit more responsibility with her power. Joanna was given leave from her duties at the Bugle for a time to grieve, during which time Spider-Girl's activities increased massively. During Joanna's weeks off, Spider-Girl had cracked down on and dissolved entire chem clans, following the threads of evidence all the way up to Kingpin once again, culminating in yet another brawl between the two. Under any other circumstance, this would have ended in Kingpin's defeat and subsequent arrest, but between Joanna's clouded judgment and Kingpin having several tricks up his sleeve, he ultimately escaped, forcing Spider-Girl to turn her attention back to the crimes being done on the streets rather than the ones being executed from the office.

    The years that followed were more or less stable. Joanna resumed her work at the Bugle, striving to excel both as a photographer and now columnist as well, as well as in her role as Spider-Girl. Gangs and clans were formed and broken down, various other villainous characters turned up and were met with the webbed hand of justice, the Daily Bugle continued to preach that Spider-Girl was a masked menace, and the days passed on and on. The year is now 2027, and while the people of New York live good lives, they are lives that can quickly take unexpected turns according to the needs of Alchemax and Oscorp, or any of the other villainous sorts that have bent chemtech to their own ends. However, there's one simple truth they can count on. If there's danger afoot, you can count on your friendly neighborhood Spider-Girl, masked superhero, perhaps even the first of many.

     

    Abilities:

    Spoiler

    Like most Spider-Men/Women, Joanna has powers that are considered standard among them. Incredible strength, durability, and agility, the ability to stick to walls and ceilings, and a supernatural "spider sense" that lets her detect danger before it becomes an immediate threat. However, there's also one thing fairly unique to Joanna.

    Her venom. Not an alien symbiote - such things don't exist on Earth-8022 - but rather, a paralytic agent contained in special glands that have developed in Joanna's mouth and fingers. She can eject this venom from her body at will, and her stores of it replenish rather quickly, but using it in combat like this is highly impractical. To facilitate their use, Spider-Girl's suit comes equipped with both a pair of injectors that use jet injection to force measured doses into her opponents, as well as a numerous metal syringes that automatically inject upon hitting something. Naturally, Joanna makes a point to thoroughly clean the latter after every outing.

    Misc:

    Spoiler

    MORE ABOUT EARTH-8022:

    Spoiler

    Earth-8022 is a world in which chemicals rule all. From power sources, to medicine, to construction, to waste disposal, and any and all else in-between, chemistry is king, and there are no greater kings of chemistry than the mega-corporations Alchemax and Oscorp. Respectively headed by ruthless businessmen Wilson Fisk and Norman Osborn, Alchemax and Oscorp combined dominate virtually all of the world's commerce, and the two companies are in constant competition to try and one-up the other. As of 2027, the numbers show that the only nation in the world as wealthy as the two companies is the small, highly isolationist nation of Latveria, and so it's not much of a stretch to say that Alchemax and Oscorp all but own the world.

    And for all intents and purposes, these chemical kings appear to treat their subjects well. Quality of life is often high - though the same can certainly not be said of the air - and due to the advanced chemistry of Earth-8022, things like world hunger and disease have since been kissed goodbye. Indeed, life is good. Assuming, of course, one just looks at the surface, or only a little bit beyond it. Dig a little deeper, and one will find that things are very not fine. Owing to decades of unchecked chemtech development, the environment of Earth-8022 is all but uninhabitable. Wildlife is all but extinct, and a murky black smog envelops the earth, making the days dark and the nights darker. Even the very air itself is unbreathable on the best of days, requiring the use of a gas mask merely to avoid suffocating on the streets. Aside from the world having been so ravaged by the commercial warfare between two chemtech behemoths that the word "natural" has lost most of its meaning, the treatment Alchemax and Oscorp show to the people is largely a front. Rather than out of a genuine care for the consumers, this is done more to make one company look like "the good guys", and thus the other one "the bad guys". Plus, people would have a much harder time buying their products if they were dead.

    In the dark underbelly of the world, away from the public eye, Earth-8022 is a world more toxic than even the most potent chemicals, and it becomes clear that "Alchemax and Oscorp own the world" applies to more than just economics. Because the two companies hold such financial power, in nearly every corner of the world, what they say goes; a power that they pay for with roads, buildings, and even police, hospitals, and other essential services that allow people to live their lives. This means that Alchemax and Oscorp write the law, control its enforcement, and if a scandal almost comes to light because of these actions, the hush money to get the media to ignore it is mere pocket change to them. Armed with de facto control of most of the world, and the financial power to force whatever's left to do their bidding anyway, Alchemax and Oscorp are thus able to create the image that everything is fine, by giving people their high standards of living with money that will immediately end up back in their pockets anyway.

     

     

     


  7. Abby had learned two vital pieces of information from the exchange between the spear and her hammer. One: The armor could still call back the spear, even if it was deflected in such a manner. Two: Doing so took longer than if it had hit like normal. Abby could take advantage of this later on, probably. For now, the armor seemed to get the message that throwing the spear wouldn't work anymore, and so it began to approach to the considerably less safe melee range. As it approached, however, its speed suddenly changed from a slow walk to a lunge, with the spear coming straight for Abby. This wasn't quite what she had in mind for how to deal with the enemy in front of her, but she could very much make this work.

    Abby made no effort to avoid the incoming spear. If anything, she seemed to welcome the attack, bracing for impact and taking the attack head-on. She could feel the electricity of the spear surge through her body, but she was ready this time. As soon as she felt the spear pierce her flesh, Abby immediately turned her attention to the conspicuous hole in the armor that Marshall had made earlier. She'd never finished med school, but you didn't have to be a doctor to know water and electricity didn't mix well. Which was why getting close to the thing had been her plan. Once she was met with the spear, Abby thrust her hands forward, sticking them into the hole and letting the current also run into the water beneath the armor.

    That would show it! It would show it, right?

    Abby could tell it was affected by this course of action, though to what extent, time would have to tell.


  8. "The Rubber Duck Solution" - How It's Very Easy to Overlook Stuff Unless You're Explaining it to Somebody Else

    A post significant enough to warrant a post, but not significant enough to be called a "dev update" post. This is gonna be a fairly technical post that I won't be able to tl/dr the programming end of, despite the post you can literally see from this one where I said I'll try to provide those, but I'll do my best to explain what's going on as I go along so that readers unfamiliar with RPG Maker at least get the idea of what's happening and how sometimes all you need really is just someone to listen.

    (that someone is @Kazooie she also asked the question that made me realize why shit was broken)

    For those unfamiliar with the term, the rubber duck solution is a programming practice in which you explain your code to a rubber duck. This applies to RPG Maker as well as actual factual coding as well, apparently, as the story of the night is about to show.

    One of the functionalities of Yanfly's Party System plugin is the ability to "lock" certain characters. All this means is that the character you've locked will stay exactly where they are in the party. This was integral to my idea of how character select works; you can recruit all 8 playable characters into a single party, but the one you chose at the start is the "main" character for this playthrough. That one needs to be in the front slot of the party at all times, so that things like inn rooms and certain other special areas - where the rest of the party stops tailing you and instead is scattered about the room - work as intended. Otherwise, there may be cases where you've put someone else in the front slot, and now there's two of the same character in the room while the ostensibly main character is nowhere to be seen, at least visually.

    However, tonight I realized a bizarre problem while testing the general setup I'm using for things like inn rooms. I was testing these features as Sakura, since her island is currently under construction, and it required a test event that adds everyone else to the party. But when I activated the event...

    image.png

    Carol was shoved into the front slot!

    This was both very confusing and a serious concern for what I was working on at the time, for the "two of the same character" reasons I mentioned a bit ago. Lemme explain.

    When you enter something like an inn room, basically what I'm doing is a bit of an illusion. If you're familiar with the way the rest of the party follows the protagonist in some top-down RPGs, that is present in this game as well, and what I'm essentially doing is disabling that specific feature as you enter the room. This way, everybody isn't tailing behind party member 1. From there, I plop down a copy of each character in the room, and have a special event run checks to see who's the main character you picked at character select, so that it can erase the copy of whoever you picked. Combining these two tricks gives us a room where the rest of your party is freely roaming around, as you may have seen a couple posts above.

    image.png

    Cool, right?

    Well, the illusion is shattered if this bug where Sakura is conspicuously in slot 2 continues to persist, so I had to squash it.

    Initially, my suspicion was it had to do with Actor IDs. Every character in any RPG Maker game is assigned a numerical value that represents them, based on where they're positioned in the database. Carol is Actor 1, Sakura is Actor 2, so on and so forth. Since Sakura was Actor 2, my original theory was that characters were being locked into the slot corresponding to their ID for some reason. So, I tested this by starting a fresh save as Xun to see if she'd get locked into slot 4, since that's her Actor ID.

    image.png

    As you can see, she was not. Please note how Carol is in slot 1 in both this pic and the Sakura one, because it's about to be both the symptom of the problem and also the cause of it.

    So, let's talk about the technical issues behind this. I don't have any database or event editor pics for this that I took prior to the fix, and I'm not about to revert anything just to take some, so bear with me.

    Obviously, to play a game, you need a character to play as. In this case, I was using another small illusion to make it look like you had no characters yet. By default, the game assigns you Actor 1 (Carol in this case) as your starting character, but you can change this to anyone you want, or even multiple anyones. You can also choose to start the game with your character/s invisible, for the exact purpose of such things as opening cutscenes. What I'd been doing was setting Carol as your starting character, and making the player invisible until you're sent to your chosen character's intro dungeon.

    I didn't realize this before, but now I know, you actually have the ability to run the game with no party members. Because I didn't realize this, not only did I have the player start the game with a sneaky invisible Carol, but I also kept Carol in the party for just an instant if you picked anyone else. Say you picked Avend. What would happen is the game adds Avend to the party, then removes Carol from the party, then locks Avend afterward. This creates a weird behavior that I think the party system plugin just wasn't ready for. I still don't fully understand it myself, but if I had to theorize, here's what I'd say is happening so backstage that even I can't see it.

    Avend was in slot 2. Just for an instant, because Carol immediately gets removed from the party, but that's where Avend is. Just because Carol's gone now, that doesn't mean Avend is suddenly promoted to slot 1. It's like playing on an old console, but you've only plugged a controller into player 2's port. You're the only one there, and you can probably play the game normally, but you're still player 2. Then Avend gets locked in. He's player 2. Later, if Carol comes back to the party - such as through the test event I was using - it's like plugging something into player 1's port so you can do some multiplayer. You were there first, but you're still player 2.

    The fix is actually remarkably simple. Just have the player start the game with no characters, which I didn't even know you could do until tonight, and I like to think I'm a pretty experienced RPG Maker user. You really do learn something new every day.

    Now, all this may warrant one glaring question, which I thought about after fixing it and realized the answer was frankly hilarious. "How did I never notice this when I was testing the room before?" After all, I had to get that pic somehow.

    Well, when I was testing the room during its construction, I was spawning myself directly into the tower lobby. No character select, no actor locks, none of that. I briefly changed some stuff in the game editor to let myself spawn in as other characters besides the then-default Carol, but I kept bypassing character select with all of those, meaning that not only were those characters starting the game in slot 1, but they weren't getting locked either way. When I noticed the problem tonight, it was because I'd gone into the tower on a proper, from-the-beginning save file for the very first time. Prior to this, I'd never gone in with a locked main character, so the conditions for it to arise had never been met.

    Not the issue I'd expected to run into, but I'm certainly glad I found it instead of whoever may be interested in playtesting this thing once it's ready to be playtested.


  9. 16 hours ago, cr47t said:

    i'd like to say a lot of things, but first and foremost among them, kudos for 1) staying active in the pursuit of your project and 2) recognizing when it's getting too much and taking a step back. that's something that most would-be creators never realize they need, and it's something i struggle with often in my own work.

    i recall one of your posts around the time of the project overhaul/switch/whatchamacallit that you were tired of saving the world plots. i agree with that and i think it'd be refreshing to have an RPG with "lower" (i.e. not as heavy) stakes that still engage. if you want, i could provide some feedback of the story plan, but if not that's okay, because in the end it's your game and i don't want to take it over so to speak. not to mention i'm just curious what it is at this stage =P

    one other thing - i used to work on video games before switching to written word writing, and while i do own RPGMaker MV, i haven't used it much or really spend much time on it when i was active, so it can be hard for me, who hasn't played much RPGs, to understand what's going on - perhaps a summary at the end of a post could be useful? i'd love to support you on your work but i just don't know how i can when there's so much to take in...

    Technical summaries at the end of each update is a good idea; I'll keep that in mind for future posts.

    As for the story plans, I've more or less got it figured out, but the general gist is that the story's kinda split between two questlines.

    1. The main quest, which consists purely of the climb up the Clock Tower in an attempt to claim the World's Hourglass - an artifact that grants its user total control over time - with the motives varying per character. Sakura wants it because she's been ordered to retrieve it, Aran wants to sell it, etc.
    2. Each character will have an optional chain of sidequests that explores their own personal story arc. I won't disclose the plans on any of these.

    After you get the Hourglass, you'll get one of a handful of endings depending on who you picked at character select, and which of their endings you got (Bad/Normal/True). There's a couple different criteria that I plan to have go into the calculations for which ending you get for your character, but I'm keeping my lips sealed on those.


  10. Dev Update #7: The Prologue(s) (Again), Getting to Know Your Party, and Also the Tutorial

    Untitled.png

    Very productive week means big post!

    In the days since my last post, I've done a lot of work on the very beginning of the game. More specifically, I've...

    1. Created a playable tutorial that gives you varying amounts of guidance depending on your familiarity with this type of game, which explains things like the ATB system and boss phases
    2. Gave everyone some flavor text you'll be able to see in the Status menu
    3. Confirmed that everybody's intro isn't going to drop them into the middle of the ocean where they'll be trapped for eternity
    4. Rewritten the story blurbs for each character's intro (compare Avend's bit in this pic to Dev Update #5 from about this time last month) since some info got changed and quite frankly the old blurbs weren't that great anyway
    5. Given all four islands placeholder names
    6. Gotten rid of the day/night cycle since it was proving to be too much of a pain to deal with this early in development (and temporarily disabled the lighting plugin that was running it too, for good measure)
    7. Made treasure chests a bit cooler using a neat little plugin I found in MV's dlc folder
    8. Created the lobby for the Clock Tower (name pending), as well as the common room you can see in the bottom-right of the above pic

    I'd like to talk about the tutorial and tower lobby in particular for this post, since the latter is also something of a proof of concept I want to do in other spots in the game.

    Starting with the tutorial for pacing's sake, what I've done is basically boil a proper dungeon in this game down to its simplest form. One puzzle that you'd have to REALLY try to not do right, one locked door with a nearby key that leads to one easy encounter, and a very simple boss fight, all the while the game will give you various amounts of info based on how familiar you said you are with these kinds of games. This way, RPG veterans can blaze through the tutorial and only be notified of system things like ATB and the way the Boss Key works, while somebody who's never played an RPG before can be given more guidance on what's going to be expected of them in the future. I've also included an option to exit the tutorial at the start if you opted into it by accident.

    As for the tower lobby and the common room, this is a bit more complex.

    The tower has 100 floors in total, and you're obviously not expected to do them all in one go. Instead, you do them in sets of 5. Currently, the plan for gameplay is like this: For each set of 5 floors, the first 4 are standard dungeon-delving fare, while the 5th is a boss fight. After beating the boss, you're returned to the lobby, and the game starts to evolve based on how many floors you've done. Ironically, the first five floors might end up being the hardest ones for certain characters (namely Mavie), since I plan for you to be unable to recruit new party members until clearing Floor 5. As you climb up to higher floors, other changes like new items in shops and the ability to gain new quests will unlock, which is all kept track of with a single variable.

    Let's go back to the database!

    Or, in this case, the variables window, which isn't part of the database for some reason?

    image.png

    These first two variables are what matters for the sake of this post. When you clear a set of floors, Variable 2 "Progression Tier" will go up by 1. This will basically be like a little counter that tells the game things like what things shopkeeps will keep in stock or who will have quests for you. The Clock Tower itself will also gain new features and functionalities as you progress, maybe, if it's not a pain to implement. One feature I considered for example, is a boss rematch system that lets you fight previously-defeated tower bosses again for... something, dunno what yet. Maybe just for fun?

    That "Main Character" variable, however, is the most most important variable, which is why it's #1. Basically, when you pick a character at the start of the game, that character's Actor ID gets put into that variable for the rest of the game. This lets me do a lot of clever things with conditional branches. For example, Merudy is revered by beastmen as a sort of legend-to-be, so if she's your main character, beastmen might be nicer to you, perhaps even giving you discounts at shops or handing you quests you could only get if she's the main character! On the flipside, Pupa is a one-of-a-kind living puppet, so various NPCs might react differently to it than they would a human (or beastman) adventurer.

    This variable also comes into play in the common room, which I can finally talk about. Everything I'm about to say also will apply to inn rooms unless otherwise specified, but I haven't made any inns yet.

    So basically, as you recruit new party members, they'll start to appear in this common room. Here, you can interact with the party, see what they think of each other, you, your quest, this swanky room in the Clock Tower, all that jazz. But more importantly, this is how you'll unlock and turn in quests related to each character. Each character has their own story, after all, and while there can only be one MAIN character per save file, you can still choose to do everyone else's stories too, possibly with some modifications I don't know yet I'm not thinking about character quests just yet. Plus, completing someone's questline just might grant them a shiny new ultimate skill!

    As for where the "Main Character" variable plays into this, it's got to do with needing to put everyone in one room. Basically, how this works is while you're in the common room, the sprites of party members following you around in classic RPG fashion get disabled, and each playable character has an interactable event in the common room that represents them. You can see all eight of them here.

    image.png

    Now, it would be weird if you walked in here and there were seven strangers you haven't even recruited yet. Luckily, RPG Maker MV lets us set having a certain character in the party as a condition for the event to even go active. You won't see Avend in this room until you've recruited him, for example. Now, let's say you're playing with Sakura as your main character. You get to the tower, go to check out the common room, and...

    Untitled.png

    There's two Sakuras! That's not right.

    This is where the variable comes into play. RPG Maker lets us give events multiple "pages" that can have various conditions for being active, and it will always have an event operate on the last page that currently meets its requirements. So if I put a blank event page in with its requirement being that the "Main Character" variable is the actor ID of your main character, there won't be an event, only one Sakura will exist, and we avoid a horrible time paradox situation! That said, there's one little problem that I didn't actually notice until I was typing this very paragraph.

    image.png

    Rather than just getting to say "If variable equals this, load this page," RPG Maker is hard-coded that the variable condition for event pages must be "greater than or equal to". I didn't notice this problem at first because I was spawning myself directly into the tower lobby, so character creation never adjusted my Main Character variable, and when I adjusted it myself in the debug menu to test my initial fix to the Sakura Paradox, I only set it to 1 since I had Carol in my first party slot so it was the fastest and easiest way to test the concept. Basically, this is a problem for one simple yet hilarious reason.

    The way this all works together, anyone who has a lower actor ID than your main character just won't appear with the current system. The worst-case scenario would be you're playing as Mavie, who has the highest actor ID (8), now nobody is there except you.

    This isn't a particularly difficult thing to fix - I could easily put things back in order with just a few minutes' time tomorrow in a couple different ways - but it is a funny situation and a good example of how easily things can get weird in game development.


  11. Dev Update #6: The Prologue(s)

    It is nearly four in the morning as I type this and I just want to go to bed but...

    Untitled.png

    All eight character intros are complete and most of them are in a state that I'm either pleased with or content enough that I'm willing to leave it be for now (Avend's needs some patching up). This was not an easy first step, thanks in no small part to trying to get Aran's power level in line with the other characters, Xun's and Avend's intro bosses being nothing but development nightmares from the word "go", and having to redo the world map halfway in as detailed in the previous post. I still haven't ensured everyone's being dropped off where they're supposed to after their respective intros. With this difficult first step tackled, I'm going to do something that should IN THEORY be easy before tackling the writing nightmare that is finding a way to get everyone their own means of reaching the floating island in the middle of the map to access the tower. Some - namely Sakura and Aran - are pretty easy to work out, but characters like Mavie, Carol, and especially Pupa might be a bit of a headache here.

    Before worrying about that, however, I want to knock out the tutorial. This should be a one-size-fits-all tutorial that covers the basic mechanics of the game. Namely...

    • The controls, at the risk of seeming obnoxious
    • General playstyle tips for each of the eight playable characters (you'll only get the tips for whoever you pick at character select)
    • The basics of the ATB battle system, and the way this affects things like buffs and the action economy
    • The knowledge that different elements behave differently in combat
    • Dungeons - more specifically getting keys to progress & reach the boss - and chests
    • Boss fights usually having multiple phases and some scripted actions that trigger independant of the action bar
    • Some boss battles having special actions exclusive to that fight

    Ironically, the tutorial boss will probably be more complex than the intro dungeon bosses as a result of those last two.

    Once the tutorial is settled, I'll need to get everyone their own methods of getting up to the tower (not a programming nightmare, at least), add in whatever towns and villages are necessary to that task, then do the first few floors of the tower. Once these tasks are all complete, I'll be satisfied enough to post something playable. For now, I can breathe something of a sigh of relief that, in theory, I'm making good progress toward a 0.1 version.


  12. Everything was going more or less to whatever semblance of a plan Abby had. The lance armor had turned its attention to Abby, and was getting ready to thrust at her. To be honest, she hadn't figured out what to do once she was impaled, but she knew it was better her than Marshall. So, prepared to face the attack head-on, Abby braced herself for impact...

    Only for Marshall to do something incredibly stupid!

    "Are you stupid!?" Abby barked as her partner charged into the now-spearless armor, receiving a pugilistic pummeling for her efforts. Marshall was soon after rendered down for good. Either she was dead, or she probably wished she was. This sort of thing was something Abby had prepared to be met with even in her previous life - she did want to be a doctor, after all - but she wasn't expecting it to happen quite like this. Least of all by someone recklessly charging in time and again against a singular foe. But unless Abby wanted to join her in the afterlife (after-afterlife?), she didn't have time to freak out over that. It was now 1-on-1 against a foe meant for two, and the armor demanded Abby's full attention.

    As did the spear. While she had to admit she hadn't expected it to be thrown at her in such a manner, the how and why of it didn't matter. The spear was there, and Abby needed it to not be inside her body. And so, as the spear approached, she brought from the side her hammer to meet it mid-flight, swinging at the projectile weapon. And the attempt to deflect it did work, somewhat. The force behind the spear was a bit more than Abby had suspected, and while she wasn't able to fully rid herself of it, she was able to send it off-course enough that the spear found itself lodged in her waist rather than piercing through her heart. That was definitely a preferable outcome, though the electricity surging through her body did briefly cause her muscles to seize up. Marshall's sacrifice was something of a blessing in this moment, since the armor being occupied killing her meant it didn't have time to move in on the briefly-stunned Abby. And she was certain this time that "killed" was the right word, for Marshall's spear even disappeared from the field of battle. This mortal distraction gave Abby a brief moment to cast a quick Cure on herself, but at what cost?

    The other spear, meanwhile, turned back into water, rushing back to its owner's side. So that's your game.

    If the armor was smart, it would turn this into a war of attrition. Keep throwing the spear until Abby is worn out, then finish her off from there. Abby couldn't have that. Even if "run at the opponent" wasn't the best strategy by any measure, it was what she'd have to do in this moment. She could play the rest by ear, with one particular endgoal in mind. As she began her approach, the armor threw its spear once more, though without the additional windup and crackling electricity this time. Perhaps this time a good swing would deflect the spear in its entirety? Much to her relief, it was! As the hammer and spear collided, the latter was sent off to the side, clattering uselessly against the floor.

    Well now!

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