Antarctic Termite

Myth Academy - The Exchange

Done. To Mali, Grey looks something like this unspeakably ugly bastard. Aztec artistic license, I guess.

Myth Academy - The Exchange

"Is my daughter sent?"

"Her materialisation went through without a hitch," answered the skeletal, many-gazed creature in a fearsome and utterly humble voice to the far greater and more terrible one enthroned before her. "Teotalca has been supplied with all human necessities she desired." A pause, then, "My sister is eager."

There were no lips to smile, but somehow the mother goddess did. "I know. She was not my first choice. But in her I am well pleased."

"She may not learn what they elect to teach her, Mother."

"No, she will not. But when she returns, she will teach you so much."

Malinal

It didn't even occur to the youth that bare feet was poor form with regards to first impressions. The concept of a uniform was tucked in an unused and undisturbed nook of her head, into which she never intended to look. That was for the better, she'd learn in the oncoming days- Even custom shoes were ill suited to the cassowary feet that supported Malinal Teotalca as she burst into the run that carried her within view of Grey.

Her backpack bounced as she skidded to a halt, grinning like a skull on its wedding anniversary. It was light. Tzitzimitl wore few clothes, and Malinal hadn't packed much more than that. What she did have had, like a variety of things in the increasingly modernised realms of heaven, been imported from Earth. Right now, a skirt and an album cover of a tee were enough over her smallclothes. Her chest spouted the words 'Lustmord - Metavoid' to the world, with a contorted pattern of grey swirls in between.

She had a map, somewhere, but Malinal wasn't looking at it, though between her face eyes, joints and uppermost vertebrae, she was looking at pretty much everything else. The tzitzimitl had been told in good faith that she would materialise discretely, but very close to the exchange guide, a figure that she saw without trouble- A large, vaguely humanoid spirit that seemed composed of a dream's mangle of geometric patterns and primary colours, and familiar trinkets of heavenly rank. Primary but for two obvious eyes, which were black. Odd contrast.

Of less familiarity, and more interest- So much so that Malinal slowly turned around on the spot, as if to inviting all of her eyes to partake of every one- Were other students. She'd never seen this many humans in person before, and she'd never seen these types of non-humans. It was dizzying. At least two nondescript boys with feathery wings, a cute androgyne with much greyer skin than her own fading brown, some lady with enormous white wings and other remarkable endowments. Most of them seemed to be getting at least a few stares, though the humans looked completely at ease with the vibrant, imperfectly-named figure of Grey.

Malinal didn't realise she was twirling until she started to grow really, physically dizzy, and nine vivid blue eyes snapped shut along with two standard-issue brown ones to avoid falling down. She was grinning even wider when they opened, in time for her knee to catch a clear glimpse of a hovering skeletal hand half-hidden in the cloak of a girl she'd taken for human. She yelped in delight. "Hey! Tall chick! Wait up!"

Malinal was following right into the gaze of the decorated spirit as she ran to keep up, and that suited her well- Two birds, one bird-footed stone, so to speak. "Hile, spirit!" -In dubiously formal Nahuatl, then without a beat, "Sis, listen- You smell really good- Can you show me your hand? Give me five, come on, do it!" She lifted her own bony hand, not too dissimilar in shape to the cloak-hidden one attached to the older girl's shoulder, high above her head. It was a human tradition she'd grown obsessed with on earlier, briefer excursions, and the idea of trying it with a disembodied hand- A skeletal one, at that- Was unspeakably thrilling.

@Gaudi@Spawnling

Myth Academy - The Exchange

My guess is a corruption of 'dale'. Writing up now.

Edit: Going to pause writing process for an hour or two because reasons. I'm surprised so many of us so far have seen Grey as human-ish as opposed to the same species as the perceiving character. Also, pings! Let's all please remember to ping (@mention) anyone our post interacts with!

What's your least favorite part about taking a shower?

not having you with me bby

Knowing that I'm wasting water by staying in more than fifteen minutes.

Why don't classes actually teach us how to write essays

Literature and ancient history. My assessments are almost nothing but essays and long answer. We always lose marks for not responding correctly to the question or not wording our essay clearly enough, rather than not knowing the course content. But we never actually learned how to write an essay to the desired standard. I've been given better resources for learning how to write an essay in psychology than I have in the other two, and we've done only one psych essay over the course of the entire year.

I'm complaining over classes I don't intend to keep, much less care about, but it still feels weirdly frustrating. Did anyone else get this idea when they were at school?

Myth Academy - The Exchange

And then you have the mermaid

@Arty Fox

And then we have the mermaid. Merlad. Merkid. Merboy. Merunmarried young man. Merbachelor. Bonus points for an old mermaid: Merspinster.

Mermale? Usually I just default to Mer, but I have a feeling someone's going to tease Roan about maid meaning virgin.

Myth Academy - The Exchange

I heard roommates.

I also heard roommates who would hate each other be put together, (Elize and Cia mostly because that sounds great).

@Termott

plEASE

A note though that fairly exclusive conversations might be happening between characters while they're in the same room, so I think that if this happens it should do so on the basis of roleplayer time zones and availability, so that small interpersonal conversation can be paced into shorter and faster posts (Or hell, even a reformatted chat log within the context of a larger post).

Myth Academy - The Exchange

Alright I put up the character sheet. Fun tally: Seven of the characters so far have either wings or wing nubs. I feel like they're going to get into some competition about whose wings are cooler. E: At another count, four of them can produce or control some form of fire.

Also, plot idea for later on: Characters run campaigns for student council or head boy/girl.

I think that if things go smoothly I might have Malinal start a dance group, or a band.

Myth Academy - The Exchange

Star Spirit

Name: Malinal Teotalca.

Gender: Female.

Age: 16.

Race: Tzitzimitl, plural tzitzimimeh, a species from Aztec folklore. The tzitzimimeh are a humanoid, all-female race, most of which make their home in Tamoanchan, a utopia among the stars. During a solar eclipse or the end of the seasonal year they are most likely to appear on Earth, as harbingers of cosmic change and renewal. They have a strong association with safe childbirth, though their relationship with humans can be a little strained- Many tzitzimimeh are fierce, and may eat disrespectful humans. Tzitzimimeh look rather like grey-skinned humanoids with taut, skeletal faces, clawed limbs, and most strangely, functional blue eyes adorning their joints and vertebrae. They are ruled by their collective mother Itzpapalotl, once a mortal noblewoman who died in childbirth and was deified as a winged arch-tzitzimitl.

Appearance: Malinal is very young for a tzitzimitl, and as such, still appears pretty much human. She is tall but not lanky- about 1.8 meters- with light brown skin just starting to take on a grey tone, and jagged dark hair around her shoulders. Malinal's face is not yet skull-like, but does appear rather bonier than the rest of her body, and she has a bit of trouble closing her lips over her teeth. Similarly, her hands are still human in shape, but quite large and strong, while her feet closely resemble that of a flightless bird, like a cassowary, and are equipped with a long spur on the innermost toe. Atrophied black wing nubs are embedded in her shoulder blades. Her most noticeable non-human trait is the blue eyes resting one each in her shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees and ankles, and down her spine. These are tough enough to survive daily knocks and bumps, but squint or close in bright sunlight, so she often steps outside with a parasol or long sleeves and leggings.

Personality: Young, cocky and confident, nothing can get Malinal down. She is energetic and social and treats everyone like a buddy, even her elders, and doesn't so much have trouble following rules as she loves the thrill of breaking them. Always up for a laugh, Malinal rarely takes the world seriously, and considers snarky remarks a form of bonding. Gifted with a more than healthy sense of irony and an actor's touch, she is known to express herself with exaggerated gestures. Part of this behaviour is driven by growing necessity- As Malinal's facial tissue slowly atrophies into its skull-like adult form, facial expressions become more difficult to display, which is part of the reason why she looks so smug all the time.

Quirks: Malinal has a few preferences common to most tzitzimimeh- She loves skirts, hair accessories, skull-and-crossbones designs, moths and deer. There's some lovely art of tzitzimimeh around the internet and the pic I took most inspiration from was here. Contains a topless demon lady.