AU event open mingle post

[wrnpcs]

[For some people around Balamb Garden, it's an ordinary day. Others may notice a difference in those people, be it in personality or appearance or the memories they claim have happened, but there are still classes and clubs and missions to get on with despite these odd changes in people.

[One of these things is not like the others...]

Mod note, to reiterate:

From December 10th through December 24th, characters may be replaced with AU versions of themselves. This can be any level of AU -- a small change to a world-shattering one.

AU characters retain their game memories and CR to the best of the ability of their AU to accommodate it. If you want to sit down with your fellow players and dissect just how your CR would have changed, that's fine! (Here is a place to do so.) But applying the MST3K Mantra is also perfectly acceptable too.

Your characters do not have to be affected at the event start, nor do they need to be affected for the entire duration of the event. This way, your regular characters can interact with AUs, your AU can interact with regular characters, and your AUs can interact with AUs.

You may use more than one AU per character if you wish.

Characters will have their full memory from the AU experience at the end of the event. If their AU ends before the event ends, they can remember it or not as you choose up until the event ends.

The event is not mandatory. You don't have to AU your character if you don't wish to.

If you have any more questions, feel free to ask on the OOC post or through the mod channels (wrmods or witchesreign).

Comments

[plotdeviceturk]

I know the feeling.

[He'd had to learn entirely different grammar structures and social convections before. Wutai and the rest of Gaia were rather different places in more than language.]

Gaia is something of a world of displaced people.

[gunbladegrrl]

Displaced cultures, I assume.

[She's relaxing now, slowly but surely.]

From all that I hear, we're the only world with people pouring into it at seemingly random.

[plotdeviceturk]

It probably would have been worse if the war between Wutai and ShinRa hadn't been negotiated out of happening.

[Ask him about that next time he's wearing a suit and it'll be a very different story.]

So it seems, though I'm not sure it's a bad thing. Sometimes a bit of the unexpected is good, otherwise things get stagnant and can't change.

[gunbladegrrl]

[Funny thing is, she probably will at some point, too, and hopefully some of this mess will have become more clear by then.]

We're a pretty abused world in our own way. Nothing like having our planet's life sucked out of us, but war and Time Compression and Lunar Cries... I understand why offworlders are so feared, even if I've learned better now.

[plotdeviceturk]

[He gives her an odd look at the 'sucking the life out of the planet' bit.]

Mn. People fear what they aren't familiar with, some are more willing to get to know that unknown than others. Bravery or curiosity outweighing that fear.

It's a good quality to have.

[gunbladegrrl]

It's true, but it does have a reason. Mysterious, rare powers that ordinary people just don't have -- that's caused more trouble to our world... It's the reason you're all here, so it didn't give you any passes either.

[plotdeviceturk]

Despite not really coming of our free will.

A lot of the powers we have aren't too strange where we're from and if people asked questions we'd tell them.

[gunbladegrrl]

Yes, but the people who'd answer the question, "Do you intend to use your power for evil?" with a truthful yes aren't the ones you need to worry about.

[Which, incidentally, proves that Maria doesn't believe in evil so overwhelmingly powerful that it can cheeerfully own up to itself without fear of self-sabotage.]

[plotdeviceturk]

Evil is vague and subjective.

[It's rarely ever as cut and dry as black and white.]

Asking their intentions for the world and what they did back home could give better information, but even then lies can be told or details not stated.

Giving those who arrive here a chance to prove themselves one way or the other isn't a bad idea so long as there are people monitoring them quietly.

[gunbladegrrl]

Well, the monitoring itself would be a problem. Heck, the only way we ever managed to stop Sorceress Adel was by shooting her into space in a sealed container, and even that didn't work forever. Sort of. Outside of the SeeDs, our world just doesn't have the resources or abilities to deal with supernatural powers.

[plotdeviceturk]

Why not teach them then, or make the information available?

[gunbladegrrl]

[She's finally relaxed again, back to the level of a normal conversation that certainly hadn't made her blush at any point. It shows.]

Because the only resource the SeeDs have is paramagic, and the only means of manipulating it is through GFs. And while anyone can enroll to learn it... Garden loses a lot of trust because it's also teaching the people that 'need' to be monitored.

[plotdeviceturk]

Garden has more than just Guardian Forces and paramagic, you have information and people who are trained to stay calm when having fireballs thrown at their face.

Keeping secrets all the time doesn't always lend itself to being trusted.

[he hums for a moment.]

However, you have decided to keep those of us who are dragged here against our will and knowledge safe, so most of us won't argue with being asked to stay here.

[gunbladegrrl]

Yeah. If we'd turned you out, or placed you under lock and key, we'd be a lot more welcome to monitor you in the public eye. Externally, well, people think that the most powerful paramilitary force on the planet has been corrupted at the same time it's gained a lot more power...

Though not everyone thinks so. But enough do that it's a bad situation.

[plotdeviceturk]

Corrupted because you realized the knowledge source that was arriving on your doorstep and took initiative?

You gave people who didn't have a hope a place to call home and a job, we'd have likely been hunted down and chased out of everywhere else.

[gunbladegrrl]

Corrupted, because historically, people with unnatural powers -- Sorceresses -- get into power through their magic, and immediately start wars. With mind control, often as not. That happened in Galbadia.

Don't say 'we'. [She smiles, sheepishly.] The decision was the Headmaster's. I don't disagree, but before I came here, maybe I might have.

[plotdeviceturk]

I've read about them, as much as there is on hand anyway.

[He frowns a little, sighing.]

I'm not sure they're entierly at fault though, there are likely numerous Sorceresses around but only those who come in to the open get targeted... the dog that gets hit every time it does anything will eventually bite back.

People are much the same way, push them hard enough and treat them badly enough and they'll eventually snap and fight back.

[he sighs.]

Sorceresses simply have more teeth and sharper claws to fight with.

[gunbladegrrl]

Which means it takes a lot more pushing, because fighting back means people are a lot quicker to get hurt a lot worse.

Still, I'm glad we aren't up against any actual Sorceresses. I haven't seen an offworlder yet that terrifies me...

[plotdeviceturk]

Or it takes less because they're that more aware and on guard for it.

What would you do if someone did?

[gunbladegrrl]

Well, considering literal terror is a serious effort by the body to override all conscious thought in favor of reflexive self-preservation, I don't know, sir. [The discussion has gotten a little serious, so that air of authority he projects has her saying 'sir' reflexively, now.]

I've trained hard to suppress that kind of survival instinct. It's been a long time since I flinched from anything. So I think I could act, even if I was terrified -- and I'm pretty sure that if the terror won, I'd hate myself for it too much to ever let it happen again.

[plotdeviceturk]

Self preservation instincts aren't a bad thing to have.

[It's gentle, and he's just letting the sir thing go. ]

There are two ways to deal with being afraid, running or fighting back. Squashing that primal urge completely could be more dangerous than learning to channel it.

[gunbladegrrl]

The way I see it, if I can fight back -- really fight back, not just blind desperate flailing -- then I have conquered it. Or at the very least, if I can make a decision rationally instead of out of panic. Sometimes you have to retreat, you know? It's the difference between an ordered retreat and a rout.

[plotdeviceturk]

I agree, but learning to channel the desperate flailing in to something useful is the foundation of a few styles of fighting. The anger and pain of battle fuels them to push harder, it's not an easy way to fight nor is it always the best but there are times when falling in step with the tide of battle and laying waste to everything can be a decent strategy.

It's not something taken lightly though.

[gunbladegrrl]

[Maria giggles a little.]

I generally don't feel pain in the middle of battle anyway. I don't know about anger, though. I do know that with gunblades you need precision control, even if it's just to time the trigger.

[plotdeviceturk]

I'm no berserker, I've only spoken with a few in the pursuit of knowledge. It's not really my style.

I agree with you, but I'm willing to learn things that might help in a pinch.