Lugubrious

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

@Lugubriousi said i'd draw abel but i never did, so i did it now

o-o

i hope it's not bad

@NarayanK

That's quite excellent. My thanks to you.

All In (Video Game Multiverse)

What a mean thing to do to poor young Henry.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure - Funky Fistfight Freezers

To call this a day like any other day would be a travesty! Only a short while ago, the man named Vinnie Pantera could have been said to be stuck in 'the grind', that lifestyle of routine and regularity that dominated so many men. Sleep, eat, work, eat, work, and then a late afternoon and evening of free time. While Vinnie spiced this familiar recipe up with his various ventures around town, included who he helped out on a daily basis, the rest of it differed only slightly. Were it not for novels, games, movies, and getting to know different people because of his activities, Vinnie would definitely call his life 'boring'. Yet all that had changed.

Yesterday evening, after an hour spent in a local bar with two friends, it happened. For some time he'd heard about the 'selfless barmaid', whose reputation in that area of Angel Springs rivaled mythology. Evidently, she greeted every customer warmly and listened to their troubles with open ears, ready with the exact right thing to say to make people feel better. The tales Vinnie heard filled him with admiration. He imaged this barmaid, not as a kindred spirit, but as his better. Most everyone who knew Vinnie might call him 'selfless', but he knew in his heart of hearts that he didn't do nice things for people for the sake of doing good, but for self-validation, and the pride of being held in high regard. Faced with stories of true altruism, Vinnie could not help but be filled with both respect and envy. That night, however, the myth came to life. For the first time the stars aligned and Vinnie saw the 'selfless barmaid' in person. Sheepishly he remembered being so captivated by her beauty that he could say nothing for more than twenty minutes, and of course his friends instantly caught on and wouldn't stop teasing him.

After that, though, he quietly seated himself at the bar and ordered something. When the barmaid served him, the two slowly struck up a conversation. Vinnie learned that her name was Alice Benning, as well as other things about her, and he quickly found that he could not stop telling her about himself, especially his problems. Nevertheless Alice consoled him and, after hearing that he who cultivated an image of selflessness thought of her as that virtue's pinnacle, laughed and treated him to a dazzling smile. “Don't let your insecurities rule you,” she told him. “We're all insecure on the inside. It's the action you take that makes you who you are, and from that standpoint, you're every bit as good a person as you think I am.” This one statement convinced Vinnie: he was in love.

The jolt from that encounter elated him, keeping him in a sort of joyful high through the night and to now, the early afternoon. Questions plagued him, even as he strode along the sidewalk with his left hand in the pocket of his suit jacket. How could he get someone to like him who was kind to everyone habitually? As far as he knew, he was no special case, and she might not have felt anything for him at all. Barring that, how could he get someone to like him, period? Vinnie knew very little in the ways of love. How could he avoid seeming obsessed, or creepy, or stupid, or weak?

And how could anyone really connect with him when he couldn't tell anyone about Back Door Man?

My awful secret, he thought wryly. No matter what, he couldn't bring himself to tell anyone about the terrifying apparition that haunted him. Sometimes it seemed like some kind of guardian spirit, the way it went after people who troubled him, but even when he was alone it would be there. When walking in the dark, he might hear footsteps trailing behind him. In his apartment at night, he might look up from his computer and see some of the light coming from his bathroom blocked by a dark shape. And whenever it appeared, there would be wheezing. It wasn't very loud for Vinnie compared to how loud it was toward the Back Door Man's victims, but it still freaked him out to no end. Only last night had he enjoyed a perfect night's sleep. Maybe it responds to my emotions? he wondered. But it's no use wondering. No matter how hard I work to earn Alice's affection, I'll still have this curse. “Man...”

Vinnie broke out of his reverie when the sounds of gunshots reached him. Instantly he was on alert, watching the place the sound came from with wide eyes. Just down the street, someone in front of the Golden Peking restaurant had just gotten shot. Before a few seconds could pass, more bodies hit the floor, with only well-built youth standing in the middle of it all, splattered by blood. Shivering, Vinnie instinctively edged toward the nearest building, his phone already out of his pocket. He dialed the emergency hotline, and in as calm a voice as he could, reported that there'd been several shootings near the Golden Peking, and he looked around to find the signs with the street names before relaying those as well. The operator thanked him and Vinnie hung up. He continued watching, mostly staring at the dead bodies on the street in horror, but he saw something else only a few minutes later far more disturbing. An adjoining street on the other side of the Golden Peking had been the route of a steady stream of people from the restaurant, fleeing by way of a back door as far as Vinnie could guess. Now, though, it held only one person, who was currently crossing it to go somewhere else that Vinnie couldn't see.

He saw it only for a moment, but that moment changed everything. Enormous, white, and seraphic, it was something ghostly and unnatural—like Back Door Man. One thought seized his mind: there are more!? The next instant it was gone. Another person, harder to make out due to lack of distinctive white dress, followed Kijo, but without any sort of spirit of his own he did not make any kind of impression. Vinnie, meanwhile, slumped against the nearest building, his brain feeling like a bunch of bouncy balls. “What...the hell.” After a moment his grey matter started feeling heavy instead, and self-doubt kicked in. “Maybe I'm just seeing things...God, I hope I'm not crazy.”

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure - Funky Fistfight Freezers

Vinnie Pantera

Name: Vinnie Pantera

Age: 27

Gender: Male

Appearance: Standing at 6'8” and weighing 188 pounds, Vinnie is a thin man of mixed white and Latino descent. His blond hair is turning silver at a premature age, creating a sand-and-salt aesthetic, and his long hair is slicked back. Rather than becoming a mullet or ponytail, it instead sticks straight backward for a couple inches, giving the impression of hair streaming behind someone who's running. Muddled brownish-green eyes peer out from a face defined by angular features, with a slightly cleft chin, no dimples, and attached earlobes. He tends to dress formally and extravagantly, as is evident in his favorite attire: a royal blue suit with a black undershirt and white tie. His socks, shoes, and gloves are also black. Though he owns a porkpie hat, he doesn't wear it often.

Backstory: From an early age, Vinnie fit the bill of a perfect child, considerate to others and obedient to his parents. Even with strangers he used the utmost politeness, seemingly always happy to go out of his way to help others. Beneath that image lay two great pressures, however: insecurity and pride. Feeling worthless, weak, and dumb, he would constantly seek the approval of others by doing things for them. Be it in money or praise, Vinnie loved getting paid. To Vinnie, having someone else be disappointed in him was the worst feeling he could imagine. Doing well at whatever he chose to do, meanwhile, stoked Vinnie's pride. For all of his hard work helping others he developed a secret, quiet ego, which made him feel superior to others. This pride could never quite escape the clutches of insecurity, however, and to prove to himself -as well as others- that he wasn't a smug, overinflated scumbag after all, the cycle would begin anew. He was, in short, a perfectionist.

He joined the Boy Scouts, though ultimately quit due to a distaste for the outdoors and took to helping in his father's business instead. During this time, a period of hardship in his previously wealthy family served to convince him that money was the true medium of gratitude and the measure of one's talent. After high school, he worked for about a year in a restaurant, cultivating the image of a modern-day butler, before going to college. Thanks to his scores on several key tests in years past, he earned several awards that prevented him from having to take student loans. It was during college, however, that something extraordinary happened. His university became divided thanks to a few isolated incidents of violence and the eager baiting of the school paper exacerbating the conflict. One evening, on the way back from a special lecture, Vinnie spotted a local hooligan crouched over the still body of a fellow student. Despite his efforts to convince the vagrant to leave him alone, Vinnie was confronted with a bloody knife and forced to run. He ran into a bathroom hoping to hide, but the other man followed him in. Barely escaping by crawling under a stall, he turned to run with the killer on his heels, only to realize that his enemy hadn't followed. Vinnie heard a wail from inside the bathroom and returned, but ended up freezing in fear himself. In front of the killer's stall, blocking the door, stood a monster in a butler's uniform. Quaking in fear, he watched the wheezing, nightmarish creature turn his way and stare at him without eyes before turning back to the stall. Vinnie ran, leaving the scene behind, and unbeknownst to him his newly-manifested Stand kept the killer trapped in the stall for 8 hours before someone else turned up and caused it to vanish, after which the blubbering vagrant was begging to confess.

Things like this kept happening over the years after. Vinnie, having moved to Angel Springs and gained employment as an office worker, became convinced that he was being haunted by an evil spirit. The thing only appeared to terrorize people he resented or feared, and he quickly learned that nobody else could see it. He remained somewhat of a social pariah, convinced that nobody else could understand him so long as he alone knew of Back Door Man. Recently, he has fallen head over heels in love with a charismatic barmaid named Alice Benning, though he's absolutely sure that she won't like him until he gets lots of money.

Likes: All kinds of drinks, being useful, anticipating the thoughts and wants of others, proving himself more capable than others, puns, playing support in games, discretion, getting paid

Dislikes: Large breakfasts, the cold, inane chatter, not knowing what to do, disappointing others, being outdone, anti-jokes, overly-entitled deviants, people who instalock high-skill characters in games, hedonism, not getting paid

Powers: Stand (Back Door Man)

Destructive Power: E
Speed: E
Range: A
Durability: A
Precision: E
Development Potential: C

Back Door Man - a humanoid special-type stand that appears as a 7-foot tall man in a butler's outfit. Rather than a normal head, however, he has an egg-shaped, fleshy, wrinkled mass with only one discernable feature: an enormous human mouth, with grimy, neglected teeth, which covers the whole face. Back Door Man's power is to materialize behind any closed or partially closed door, hatch, or other entryway barrier opposite a sentient observer, chosen by unknown means, and position itself in such a way that no more than 20% of its body is showing. It is capable of creating fog or frost effects on glass to accomplish this if necessary. Any attempt by an observer to open or pass through the entryway results in an immediate, paralyzing fear that lasts until Back Door Man disappears. This fear, which like arachnophobia is a natural terror hardwired into the genome, completely prevents passageway through the door, including attempts to break through or attack the stand. If the stand is approached from a direction in which there is not a solid object or door breaking line of sight, it will dematerialize before direct visual contact is made. The stand itself is not a direct combatant, nor can the user control it to any degree greater than giving it its target, but it is visible to its victims.

All In (Video Game Multiverse)

There. I've refurbished the material I wrote earlier and interacted a bit with Kafka and lmp's characters.

All In (Video Game Multiverse)

Henry

While still waiting for Denys to reply, and starting to get a little bummed out that the Kaiser might have started ignoring him out of the blue, Henry became aware of a knock at the door to the little shack he'd only just now entered with his new acquaintances. Naturally, he leaped at the chance—both figuratively and literally. He hopped to it, producing another tome from his robe as he did so. Compared to the first tome he'd shown off, which glowed softly like a lit brazier thanks to the destructive fire spell it housed, this one seemed far more ominous. Its very presence out in the open came across as unnerving, as if it contained a nasty sorcery that should never see the light of day.

With this in hand the dark mage strode to the ajar door and pushed it open wider, revealing a man in a red suit and mask side by side with a strange knight. The armor of the warrior, rounded and tight rather than plated, seemed to Henry evocative of the distinctive gear of the Dread Fighter. Though this set him on edge slightly, his smile did not waver, and with open arms he declared, ”More misfits come to join the party, huh? Come on in!” His lack of concern for the possibility that these newcomers might be hostile was a telling hint about his nature. Of course, the malevolent-aired book in his left hand, and the hair-raising pressure it exuded, helped convey this.

Birdie

(@lmpkio, @kafka komedy)

Red did not, unfortunately, temper her words so that Birdie couldn't possibly hear. An angry sneer crossed over his face. Leaning forward somewhat with his hands jammed in his vest pockets, he sauntered toward the two women. Though one rivaled him in height and obviously held several guns close at hand, the other wielded a large sword. At the moment, though, Birdie was too pissed and embarrassed from earlier to back down again. ”Ey!” he called in his distinctive gruff, accented tone. ”Wot's yer problem, then? I ain't done nothin' to ya. If you birds wanna be all 'igh and mighty, you go right ahead. I'm not stayin' in this field fer one more minute. Don't say I didn't warn ya 'bout the bloody psychos with guns at the ranch.”

Heedless of whatever Red and Bayonetta thought their personal bubbles might be, Birdie strode forward until he stood on the edge of the moat. He stood there for a moment, staring at the upraised drawbridge, and came to the decision that the best option would be to pull it down with his chains. Brashly he estimated this feet to be doable with his strength, but after whirling his chains and snagging those of the drawbridge, he discovered very quickly that the thing would not be budged. Whether the problem was the drawbridge's weight or some sort of lock on its chains, Birdie honestly couldn't say, but he grimaced to think that he could spend all night tugging and still not move it an inch. He snuck an annoyed glance at the women, trying to make sure they weren't making fun of him.

Another idea struck him a few seconds later, though one decidedly less good. Taking a deep breath, the ex-Shadaloo tested his chains' grip before leaping off the precipice to dangle precariously in midair. While the force might have pulled the arms off of a lesser man, Birdie's thick, muscular arms bore the stress, and with an upper body strength only describable as startling he hauled himself up foot by foot until he could clamber onto the ramparts. There he sat, wheezing badly, for a few minutes, but not before he called down to Bayonetta and Red, ”Wotcha think o' that, then? I'm the 'igh one now.”

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure - Funky Fistfight Freezers

@Lugubrious
Good to hear from you. Your character is accepted and on board.

@Dark Eternity

Excellent. Thank you!

All In (Video Game Multiverse)

<Snipped quote by Lugubrious>

You realize that by admitting this you've basically signed your own death warrant as hundreds of thousands of nerds the world over shall rain down on you like a thunderstorm, right? D:

@ProPro

They're too busy playing Pokemon GO to do that.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Brewing Storm

HEAT UP

@krayzikk@sho minazuki@herecomesthesnow@kaithas@plank Sinatra@suku@narayank

In the distillery's plaza there came to be a reunion. Three quarters of team BASL and a third of JCL came together, each with a retinue of survivors. Though the time spent in the place, be it second floor or basement, wasn't too much in the end, everyone here could agree that it felt like ages. Some nursed wounds, both fresh and old, or worried over the injuries of others; a few were rattled by what they'd seen or experienced, be it the primal, disturbing sensation of being hunted or an intense psychological reaction to witnessing dead bodies. Altogether, everyone felt fatigue, and not just in their muscles, but for this very place. In the wake of this tragedy, the entire complex seemed like little more than a monument of death—further proof, though nobody need it, of mankind's inability to dominate the wild.

Nobody got much time to think about any of this, though. By the time that Lucas, Lauren, and Cian were about halfway up the elevator, the familiar noise of jet engines washed over the ominously silent distillery once again. Everyone anxiously awaited the arrival of Goodwitch's airship, their souls poisoned by hope. All the same, many of them dreaded the vehicle for the living catastrophe that would surely follow. Sure enough, the airship zoomed out from above the thick, twisted forest and cruised toward the plaza, its ramp already down. Goodwitch beckoned to the assembled people before it even stopped moving. “Quickly! By my estimation we have twenty seconds!” The survivors needed no more impetus than that.

With Beacon's students on alert to either side of the ramp, the distillery works gushed into the vehicle, carrying Priscilla with them as gently as they in their fear-addled states could. The hairs on the backs of necks would rise and the eyes of hunters-in-training would harden at a series of rumbling crashes growing quickly and steadily louder. Goodwitch's tranquil expression transformed into a scowl, and through clenched teeth she shouted first to the students and then to the pilot, “Get on, now. Take off!” All hands held tight their purchases as the airship rose into the air, and not a moment too soon. The gargantuan Grimm tore out of the forest like a car through tall grass, zeroing in on the airship, which had yet to ascend out of reach, in an instant. With murder in its eyes it pounced straight for it.

Time seemed to slow down while the colossal, awful creature hurtled toward the human-laden airship. A single swipe from its paw, even if it didn't pierce the hull, would turn the flying vehicle into a steel deathtrap and extinguish every soul inside. Like a reaper's scythe that black limb descended: down, down down, and past the hull. The next instant, the ship was dozens of meters away and climbing, and with no small amount of occupants too scared to soil themselves. After a moment, it became clear what happened: the pilot had engaged the airship's afterburners to provide a burst of thrust, just enough to rocket out of the way of the threat. Of course, while it would have been a great joy to soar away into the sunset, the problems of Beacon's finest had only just begun.

On the ground, the garage elevator was just now reaching the top. The shapes of Lauren, Cian, and Lucas could be made out even from the sky. The manticore had yet to notice them, but since the airship had taken off those three were trapped in hell. Goodwitch narrowed her eyes, her mind clearly racing. “I know, I know,” she preemptively informed anyone who might berate her for 'abandoning' students. “We're not leaving them behind, but I'm in a poor position to cast at that thing. I can't take it down from here.” She turned to the students, eyes burning. “Can you all coordinate a way to either kill that thing or get rid of it long enough to save the others?”

All In (Video Game Multiverse)

<Snipped quote by Lugubrious>

Do you have any idea how heavy a sword of this:

size would be? I've taken sword fighting lessons and I had trouble holding a sword half that size in the same position that he does for more than a few minutes. Not to mention his ability to climb mountains and swim with that monstrous weight on his back. And that's just the sword not to mention his other equipment. Proportionally speaking Link would be a lot stronger than birdie and even taking size into account their strength is very likely about equal.

While you can't hookshot anything in the original game the hookshot is basically a chain and in a real world environment could be stretched out to use as a grappling hook or weapon.

However this really isn't all that important as you'd eventually get into the castle town one way or another. Though you might want to edit in something about seeing Bayonetta and Red as they are standing in front of the drawbridge so if Birdie was trying to pull it open with his chain he couldn't have been more than a few feet from them.

@ProPro Never played Borderlands, is teleportation a relatively common occurrence there?

@Prince of Seraphs

I might have had an idea if I had any sort of familiarity whatsoever with Ocarina of Time, but I don't, so I must confess that I don't have any idea. The bottom line is that since from a logical perspective Birdie should interact with the others instead of going directly into the town by whatever method, I should just remove the whose section, save it for later, and have him chat.