I Love Me(me)
Aug. 5th, 2022 02:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xp_daytripper posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
x_projectYes, it's the love meme! Isa and I have been talking about posting it and finally talk has become action! Here's the drill: every player has a comment below for folks to leave love. It doesn't have to be words, gifs are also good. We're going backwards to distribute the love evenly (people get worn out by the end of the alphabet, so lets start with them this time!).
We've also included links to the player's wiki page and their character's logs, so you can take a refresh peek at what they've been doing. We'll also link to the individual threads from the player pages, so you can go back later and bask when you need it.
No negativity - if you can't say something positive, don't say anything at all, as the saying goes. ;)
If for any reason you'd rather not be included ping Isa or I and we'll quietly remove your thread. Or, if giving feedback publicly is a bit much, you can email the person directly (email addies are available on the player pages).
No time limits - do your best and no love is too small!
(Thanks Walks for these!)
Five words or a gif you think of when you think of this player.
Five words or a gif you think of when you think of this player's character.
Five words or a gif your characters think of when you think of this player's character.
Three random things you'd love to see this person's characters do.
You and this player can travel anywhere in the world. Where would you take them?
What's the first log or character moment that pops into your mind when you think about this player?
We've also included links to the player's wiki page and their character's logs, so you can take a refresh peek at what they've been doing. We'll also link to the individual threads from the player pages, so you can go back later and bask when you need it.
No negativity - if you can't say something positive, don't say anything at all, as the saying goes. ;)
If for any reason you'd rather not be included ping Isa or I and we'll quietly remove your thread. Or, if giving feedback publicly is a bit much, you can email the person directly (email addies are available on the player pages).
No time limits - do your best and no love is too small!
(Thanks Walks for these!)
Five words or a gif you think of when you think of this player.
Five words or a gif you think of when you think of this player's character.
Five words or a gif your characters think of when you think of this player's character.
Three random things you'd love to see this person's characters do.
You and this player can travel anywhere in the world. Where would you take them?
What's the first log or character moment that pops into your mind when you think about this player?
Chris
Date: 2022-07-22 06:52 pm (UTC)Re: Chris
Date: 2022-08-05 04:23 pm (UTC)Re: Chris
Date: 2022-09-01 07:22 pm (UTC)"Give me a second to set up my phone and get some music going and I'll see what I can do. Any preference in genre?"
“Whatever your powers like best? Is that even a thing?” Nica realised she didn’t actually know much about Allison’s powers beyond “converting sound into light frequencies. “I’ll never say no to Beyonce, if my choice doesn’t change things.”
"Nah, not really," Alison said, thumbing through the playlist. She was actually... kind of embarrassingly light on Beyonce music, she realized. It wasn't her fault, though! These phones could only hold like, thirty thousand songs or something, and she had to pick and choose her favorites once space began to run low. "I mean, kind of yes, but basically not really. As long as I'm not the one making the sound, I can technically convert anything, more or less? The effect is just different, is all."
She found a song. "This will do, actually." She pressed play, and 'Halo' begin to fill the room. "Good solid drum echo for the grey stone flashes, fluttery piano for the feathersweeps... yeah, this should have a good blend. Let's see how this goes."
And she let her power play.
Nica hadn’t really seen a lot of Allison’s powers in use before, so she was curious to watch them up close. And you didn’t get more up close than being on the receiving end. First Allison’s eyes began to glow, then the rest of her body, until she was encompassed in a… well, yes, it was a halo of light. As the song built up and the volume increased, rainbow-coloured streamers undulated through the air around them, while she could literally see the drum beat as a series of waves, darker in colour, moving along the floor. Then the light hit her and she sucked in a sudden breath. It was like being dropped into a spa bath when you were exhausted – bubbles of sensation percolating around her body, seeping into her skin and bringing with them a sense of solidity as she felt her powers grasp at the EM wavelengths contained in the visible light. She dropped to the floor from her slight hovering above the ground, delighting in the feel of carpet under her toes.
The process was slow, but thankfully not terribly difficult, and after a good twenty minutes Alison could start to see some color coming back into Nica's cheeks. And her everything else, for that matter. She'd gone from a mostly incorporeal spectre-like appearance to actually having a definite outline again, for one thing. It was like a bad special effect from an old B-movie, only it was real life and it was honestly kind of cool to watch.
Alison brushed some sweat from her brow once Nica seemed to be back to normal. It hadn't been particularly taxing, especially not without all the dancing and singing that she normally tossed in, but a full uninterrupted 20 minutes without even a second's break was apparently starting to just brush up against her limits.
"Well, you don't look like you're about to fall through the floor anymore, at least?"
Fourteen: This log from Time Stand Still. Man, even re-reading it now, you and Amanda did a stunning job.
~I didn’t know how,~ she sent, simply, no self-pity in her tone. ~I thought... I didn’t want to risk... When I was so angry, I didn’t want to be to you what my mother was to me. What my father was to me. I was afraid of what I may turn into, then. And then you had - you had your teachers and everyone in the Mansion. You had each other. You were doing so well. I didn’t think you needed me.~
~I did need you!~ 14 felt sick. The words she was trying to find wouldn't come, and the ones she was finding were all wrong. ~Even before you found me, I was always alone. I thought you might have been the one person who maybe, maybe could have understood!~
She hadn't had a childhood. Surrounded by scientists, her life had been a carefully planned out experiment overcast by the dark shadow of the Weapons Plus facility. She'd never been allowed to forget that she was unique, that there wasn't any one single person like her in the whole world.
She hadn't had friends. She hadn't been taught to make friends. She'd kept everyone she'd ever known at arms distance, because she didn't know how to not. Because she had to protect herself. Because that's how she'd been trained. And now, even when she wanted to have someone finally understand, because she was so tired of being alone, she couldn't do it.
Emma wasn't getting it, and 14 didn't know how to explain in a way that would get through to her. So 14 did the only thing she could. She did the psionic equivalent of grabbing Emma's arm, and made her understand. Her hurt. Her loneliness. Her hope, and her crushing disappointment.
~Instead you left us alone! But there is no us! There's just me! And you left me alone!~
Cai
Date: 2022-07-22 06:52 pm (UTC)Re: Cai
Date: 2022-07-22 07:35 pm (UTC)Re: Cai
Date: 2022-08-05 04:25 pm (UTC)Re: Cai
From:Ben
Date: 2022-07-22 06:52 pm (UTC)Re: Ben
Date: 2022-08-05 04:29 pm (UTC)Re: Ben
Date: 2022-08-06 06:58 am (UTC)Maya would never in a thousand years admit it but she enjoys working with Quentin. Looking forward to seeing where you go next
Re: Ben
Date: 2022-09-01 08:09 pm (UTC)"So then what does the CIA use to assassinate the democratically elected leaders of low-income countries who stand in the way of American capitalistic-imperial expansion?"
"Generals of their military is the preferred method. Coups are always better than a direct assassination because you already know what the power structure of the new government will be." He walked over and picked up a tray with a number of pre-loaded clips on it. "Are you ready to try firing it for real?"
Quentin eyed the clips like they were venomous snakes poised to strike, but surprised himself by saying "Yes." He cleared his throat and cocked his head side to side to crack his neck, trying to get back into his "I'm better than all this" act. "And then if the generals don't cooperate, it's just down the line until you find the right corporate-friendly stooge?"
"Not always. There's insurgents, rival political or clerical figures, the odd would be martyr. The problem with assassination is that it is messier than the movies show and getting away clean has a lot of risk. Better to funnel money and resources to someone who will end up doing what you want while providing deniability. Do you want lessons in regime change as well as guns now?" Kevin took the gun from him and slotted in a clip. He held it by the barrel, the grip up so Quentin could only take it back with it pointed at the ground. "So, use the stance and sight down the barrel."
Kevin pressed a button and the typical head and shoulder silhouette target came forward on the overhead track until it was halfway down the range.
"Could be a useful skill set," Quentin answered, smirking, "Next time we need one at home. Could be soon if those genocide-bots ever get up and running." He froze when he turned to the target, standing in proper isosceles stance but with the gun pointed down. The target could be so many things. He imagined the high school bullies who still tormented his nightmares. Tom Logan. Any assortment of politicians. The NYPD officers who had torn through the District X street festival so many years ago. Sabretooth tearing through his teammates. The gaseous demonic form of the Shadow King.
He shouted an unintelligible challenge and fired.
Amanda
Date: 2022-07-22 06:53 pm (UTC)Re: Amanda
Date: 2022-07-26 06:38 pm (UTC)As much as I loved that, one of my favorite things you've written this past year is the scene pulling Sooraya back from her dust form.
~Ah! There,~ thought Emma, as the quicksilver flash of another mind, suddenly swam into the telepathic net she’d cast across the medlab. It was only the merest hint of shape and had flickered out again, but it was there. And again, another flicker, and this time Emma was quick enough to catch it within her net, to touch it with her own mind, to attach the softest spider-web of a telepathic thread before it vanished again. The third time it flickered back into existence, it was a little more formed and Emma caressed it gently with her mind. ~Here, Sooraya,~ she said. ~Here is who you are.~ There wasn’t enough time or enough of Sooraya to give her the whole mindmap yet, but Emma sketched the edges of Sooraya, an outline a mind could fill.
Re: Amanda
Date: 2022-08-05 07:27 pm (UTC)Re: Amanda
Date: 2022-09-01 08:24 pm (UTC)A flash of lightning sizzled outside the window, lit her beloved’s features, a marble Adonis brought to unlife. “Wictor, my darling,” purred Emmeline, letting her hand reach out, drift lightly over his cheekbone. “Any time away from your embrace is an eternity. And eternity is not time enough to spend with you, my heart, my love.” Somehow, despite the fact she wasn’t breathing, her bosom heaved again, just brushing against his muscled chest. “To wake near you, ah… but…” Emmeline smiled, fangily. “I have brought you some little snacks to sate our waking hunger, to slake our thirst, to make our blood run strong…” her hand left his cheek, drifted down over his chest, sliding down his spectacular abs, “and hot.” Emmeline snapped her teeth at her love and then looked around her, her expression growing bewildered.
Her surprise thickened her accent. “Vait? Vhere did everybody go?”
Al
Date: 2022-07-22 06:53 pm (UTC)Re: Al
Date: 2022-07-26 06:21 pm (UTC)(And since I hit enter super fast, one of my favorite pieces you've written is the discussion with Kevin about being shifted to the analyst side of things. I can feel Artie's frustration and annoyance throughout the log.)
Artie sighed. "For what it's worth, I have some pretty negative feelings about mutants, too." He locked eyes with Kevin for a moment and, still maintaining the illusion of verbal speech, because he'd been around long enough to know that shit mattered even when people said it didn't and said "Most of the time, you wear identities like, like, costumes, right?" He held up a hand and added, "Yeah, yeah, you spent a decade wandering the lands, never knowing your true form or identity, moving from one life to the next but that was before mutants were a thing. If I've got a problem with humans, it's because every decision I make in my life, every decision I've made the in the last 10, 15 years has been in relation to them. How I talk. What language I use. How I open my mouth. When I make audible sound. Every interaction I have ends up based around the degree I want to be disabled or a mutant in public.
Humans threw me away like trash. Humans are the reason the Morlocks in the world we came from were killed. Humans are the reason I didn't have access to an entire expressive language system before I came to the mansion - I couldn't sign, I didn't know how to read and write, I didn't have AAC. I can go on, if I want. But apparently, I just have a human problem and we can't be having that."
Re: Al
Date: 2022-08-05 08:12 pm (UTC)Re: Al
Date: 2022-08-10 02:48 am (UTC)Artie stared down the road for a while. "I get why you don't like it," he offered, finally. "But you're ignoring the power imbalances. There's what? 250,000 mutants left in the world after M Day? And 95% of them, 99% have powers that are negligible. We used to think maybe one in a million might be an omega level mutant." He shifted his hands on the wheel, hardly looking at Darcy. "Our value to humans comes from whether we can be used, whether we can pass and when we're not able to do that, they find ways to destroy us." He gave a silent, bitter laugh. "I guess I'm more political than I used to think I was. If I'm calling them flatscans, it's because I want a word for them sometimes that isn't about putting us in opposition. If they're humans, we're not. That's the whole point of calling us mutants. We're not people, as far as most of them are concerned. And I want everyone around me to remember that. But most of you pass. Most of you got to grow up, thinking you were the same as them. I always knew how they treated us when they could get away with it."
"I appreciate that, and actually? I try not to ignore the power imbalance. Slurs just make me uncomfortable. You're right about how vulnerable the average remaining mutant is. Those of us with the powers and skills to really push are often too much at odds to coordinate efforts. And history tells us that the idea of Might making for caring, benevolent dictators doesn't hold up long-term. Working inside the system.." she trailed off with a bit of a laugh. "College Darcy really believed that we could work inside the system to affect change. I think that's still somewhat true at the local level. Cultivating sympathetic ears on the town board, in the wider county. Ideally, get some of our own people into those positions. We could do some good things for people in the immediate area, but we'd still get hamstrung by state and federal policies. And that doesn't even factor in having to overhaul cops and shit. I don't know what the answer is for any of that, even literally having a degree in the topic." Her lips curved in a small grin. "It's hard to not be political when the laws affect your ability to just go about life with some level of ease."
The trees were getting more frequent now that they were closer to Westchester than the city. "What I do know is that I'm willing to work with and around the system to try to change the every day things, and I'm willing to.. well. Sentinels? Other things that profess to be some sort of 'solution' to the 'mutant problem'? I'd walk that information to the Brotherhood myself, if I could be assured safe passage. There are things that need never see the light of day. I was willing to select one shitty politician for ritual sacrifice to save a city of people I didn't know and don't particularly care about. I lost some sleep over it, but I'd do so much more for any of you, or for the non-passing folks I've interacted with since we moved into the brownstone. I understand why they might find Magneto's message attractive, even if I doubt they're getting the full scope of things. Life experience has given them a different understanding of the world than I have."
Artie shook his head. "I don't know. I know I wouldn't be willing to be the good mutant on display in local government or running for school board, knowing everything I did had to be perfect to make sure that the humans have a good mutant interaction and then knowing that everything else I did could be overturned any moment by something else a scarier mutant does. Or a black mutant or..." He let the text trail off. "But also, I agree. Some things need tearing down. If you don't know about the terrorism, Magneto offers something -- " He broke off and hit the brakes hard to avoid the car in front which had in turn braked and turned without indicating. "There's a reason people support him. If he was less about the murder and more about the liberation, I'd probably support him." Artie thumped the steering wheel with one hand. "Of course, he's all about the murder." He didn't say anything else for a long while.
It was just SO DAMN GOOD, how do you do it?!
Being able to write with Artie was truly one of the treats of this year that I think fondly of, and, while I think the term infatuated is too intense, the experience definitely made Alani fond of Artie in a way I hadn't expected until after we wrapped up our log. Before she'd kinda just rolled her eyes at him whenever she saw him being a bit of a bitch to people in the journals but largely stayed out of it. Now she'd probably do any favor he asked, no drink even required.
All that to say I'd love to write again when the stars align and life isn't a roller coaster on fire. And I can't wait to see what you do with your next character when you get a chance to bring them in! 💖
Re: Al
Date: 2022-09-01 08:43 pm (UTC)Artie nodded and settled at the other end of the table. "Yeah. That's where we come in. We - X Force - we do the spy shit but some of what we also do is build cover IDs, that kind of thing. Alibis, you know? What we need you all to do is decide what we do with your life if you go missing. You and Clint are one outlier, because your family knows but for the others? Do we finish their degrees? Send them to an ashram? I don't know. But they can't go missing necessarily so what do we do?" He paused for a moment and then added, "Dead is easier, you know?"
"Dead is easier, unless they come back. Bringing someone back legally, at least as themselves and not as someone else, is a whole other can of worms," Matt pointed out. It was doable, but it was a clusterfuck at best. "And really, our dad's mostly just know about Clint. They know we're working together on stuff, but they kinda assume that I'm safely tucked away in an office. Which....I haven't exactly disabused them off. But I can have that conversation with them so they don't assume," and really, after all these years, Matt wasn't so sure they were actually oblivious. It was just sometimes easier not to discuss things. "The big issue as I see it, are families that might go looking for people. We can keep someone alive and in limbo indefinitely so long as they don't have a missing person's case on them or something."
Yeah, duh. Artie nodded and took a moment to compose his face. His voice, through the synthesiser, was mild. "Exactly. We need all of you to supply us with your desired cover. When - if - you need us to go live, what do we tell your family? The best ones aren't exactly flattering, you know? I can tell Kitty's family she's hooked on heroin in Scotland and decided to go no contact with everyone and keep a few replies running from her phone so no-one goes looking for her, but that might do more long term damage than she wants to her family. You see what I mean?"
He nodded, good, stable, normal people didn't typically go no-contact with their families for no reason. "I think sticking as close to the truth as possible is always best," the fewer lies to remember, after all, "at least when we can. For those that we can't....Kitty takes a job in Scotland studying something involved and remote. Antarctica. There are options, if we work at it."
"For sure." Artie typed, "Just remember, when they give us a list of what they want, there needs to be a reason why they're not responding to texts from their old girlfriend or whatever. If we're not killing your identities, we need to keep you alive and incommunicado in case we have to go live. And we'll cover the rest. When - if - you get back, we'll have a life for you to pick up again."
He paused and then added, "What's it like? On the other side of the wormhole? I mean, this is --" Artie waved expansively at the room, "This isn't our OG universe but it's mostly similar enough, you know? How different is it over there?"
It was his OG universe, to put it in Artie's words. At least, so far as he knew. Typing a few notes into his computer for later, Matt considered, "The world's are....very similar, at least as far as I can tell. To me, it feels off, but not wrong. If there are purple trees though, no one has told me. And Clint's colourblind," and often on comms instead of with them. "I suspect that the further from our own universe we go, the more different things become."
Artie nodded. "I think I might leave a lot of this to you. There's just something about the idea of getting stuck over there that gives me the heebie jeebies, you know? Lotta universes out there and personally, I'm okay with this one. I don't want to try my luck twice."
no subject
Date: 2022-07-22 06:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-08-05 08:15 pm (UTC)Aisy
Date: 2022-07-22 06:54 pm (UTC)Re: Aisy
Date: 2022-07-22 07:04 pm (UTC)"I gave her that mask. Happy New Years." is one of the best closing lines of a log I think I have read in the last year. Kudos.
Re: Aisy
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From:Emily
Date: 2022-07-22 06:55 pm (UTC)Re: Emily
Date: 2022-07-22 06:59 pm (UTC)Re: Emily
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From:X-Project in General
Date: 2022-07-22 06:57 pm (UTC)Re: X-Project in General
Date: 2022-07-23 12:10 pm (UTC)Thank you to every single one of you for creating this world.
Re: X-Project in General
From:Players Emeritus
Date: 2022-07-22 07:08 pm (UTC)Erin
Jeff
Lauren
Matt
Tap
Re: Players Emeritus
Date: 2022-07-24 12:10 am (UTC)"Accountable for what? For being in pain?" The words came out sharper than Jim had intended, and realized that tears were on his face. Garrison had always seemed so well-balanced, so successful -- professionally and socially adept in a way that Jim had always been ashamed he envied. Now, faced with the wave of helplessness, failure and loneliness seething beneath the surface, a tangle so close to what he had struggled with and continued to struggle, he was angry. Angry that Garrison was in this hell, and, more than that, angry that someone like him could work so hard, sacrifice so much, and think that hell was what he deserved.
Re: Players Emeritus
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