20 years of X-Project - Mo'
May. 8th, 2023 10:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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x_projectMo' (aka Maureen) joined X-Project in its first year, back in 2003, with Clarice Ferguson/Blink. During her time she has played Dani Moonster (2004) and a teenaged Matt Murdock/Daredevil (2011). Clarice survived the relaunch, but Baby!Matt did not - he was replaced with the adult version we know and love currently in the game.
1) What brought you to X-Project?
Dex. This is probably a recurring answer, but he posted about XP on his LJ, and I went to check it out, saw some of the people in it and thought that I wanted to be a part of that. So I started an application.
2) What keeps you in X-Project?
Dex. No, not really :) But it is the people. I'm here for my friends, for the creative writing, for the characters and their stories.
3) What's a moment that has really stuck with you that you wrote?
After all these years so much blurs together, but one moment that has always stood out was during the Masque plot in P1 where Clarice makes the decision to mercy-kill all of Masque's victims. X-Men don't kill, but despite that tenant, as a medical professional she breaks it to do what's right.
Halfway through the space, the head's eyes opened, staring at them. That was the straw for Clarice, she had had enough. Maybe she was a hypocrite, but so be it. She was not taking this anymore, the idea that these creatures were still alive. Creating a tiny disk she sliced through it all, including the head. Severing it in half lengthwise three times. That would take care of it. Glaring, she dared anyone to question it. That was someone's loved one, and if it was dead, then she hadn't done anything worse than had already happened. If it was alive, then if it were her, she'd be thanking God for putting her out of her misery. "Keep moving," she ordered tersely.
"Yes ma'am," Hicks answered with a nod, motioning the rest of his squad ahead while he stayed behind for a moment. He unhooked the spare canteen on his belt and offered it to Clarice, "You know...my squad could finish their sweep. Judging by the uniform scraps we saw back there...there's going to be more of this sort of thing." He wondered if she'd ever taken a life before- remembering the first time he had, then the second and the rush of faceless adversaries after.
Taking a sip of the water, she nodded gratefully and handed it back. "Yeah, there is," she agreed, keeping her voice pitched to just him, "We have to stop it. Medical...is not secondary," she didn't think they were going to find anyone they could save. Anyone who would want to be.
Crystal hoped they were in time to stop the actions of the two prisoners whose names Hicks had brought up. She only knew a little bit about them, but it was enough to know that they were dangerous, that this was not the first time they had used people as their playthings. They had to be prevented from hurting more people. Maybe there were even people still alive here, people who had been lucky enough to avoid crossing their paths, or even people they hadn't "finished" with, people who might not yet be past the point of no return.
They had been moving for a few more minutes when they started to see more bodies, several stretched out along the hallway as if they'd fallen trying to get away. Looking more closely, Laurie could see limbs were missing but there was no corresponding blood, it was if someone had grabbed play dough and simply pulled until it snapped off. She continued with her pheromone output, the very act of concentration giving her a detachment to the horrors about her that she may not have had otherwise.
She was thankful for that detachment when they came across the room where a body had been...semi-dissected, skin and muscle pulled back from the bones of his legs but still moving, seemingly still breathing and she couldn't understand how he could still be awake but she could hear the whimpering.
There was no question here, these people were still alive, sort of. "Crystal, see what you can do here," she said, surveying the human destruction. She sighed, leadership training was NOT what it was cracked up to be. "Someone stay with her," she added, with a glance at Hicks to assign some people.
(full log here)
4) What's a moment that has really stuck with you that someone else wrote?
Again, so many that blur together. All of Genosha. Really, all our big game- wide plots. The plotting, the coordination to get everyone tagging, the writing. you don't see anything like it anywhere else.
The sound of the guard's footfalls slowly died away, leaving them in the cold pit, unable to even guess what was going on up above.
Doug, closest to the exit, had not moved the entire time this was happening, his head hung low and eyes closed, the picture of a beaten man. His lips began to move almost imperceptibly when the last guard's feet could no longer be heard.
"...veinte-ocho, veinte-nueve, treinta." Doug's head came up, and his eyes opened. Eyes that looked hard, ready, and not at all beaten as he looked directly across at Remy.
"Clear."
Remy's head came up, his expression thoughtful with the last noises and finally, he shook his head.
"Looks like de others decided to cut things a bit fine." His Cajun accent, gone for the duration of their incarceration, was back. "'manda, Scott, Remy hope dat you coordinated things properly, because we not getting 'nother shot at dis."
The Cajun stretched slightly, shifting the restraints a bit, and then took a deep breath. With agonizing slowness, he began to pulled his legs up, bending at the knees and curling his body to bring them up to the point that his knees were level with his forehead. His face was beet red, and trembles of pain washed through the facial muscles like intermittent ticks. He rotated his hips sidewise, and leaned in so he could grasp the bone knife deeply embedded in his thigh with his teeth. A low, pained scream started as he pulled it from the muscle, the cracks tearing flesh as his crusted pants were soaked with flesh blood. Finally, it came free and his body collapsed, hanging, swinging from the wrists as he tried to catch his breath and fight through the blinding pain.
After a long moment, he began to move again, making sure his body was straight as he pushed his head forward as far as he could. Remy let go of the bone knife, and as it tumbled in the air, caught it between his feet. He shook his head and blinked rapidly a few times, trying to clear his head. After a moment, he took a deep breathe, and once again began to raise his legs, straight out and up this time, like an acrobat on a pole. They could see his fingers going white as the weight and pressure on his wrists cut the circulation to his hands. Slowly, painfully, he went up until bent double off the wall, and he could insert the tip of the bone knife into the manacle lock. The good thing about the manacles was the fact that they were old, with locks built more for size than anything else. That meant big mechanisms, and they could be manipulated by a less delicate piece of equipment.
Sweat and blood intermingled, threatening to blind him as he worked, his leg muscles bunched and starting to spasm. There was a loud click, and Remy suddenly dropped to the ground, landing on his back with a sickening crunch. The man lay there in a heap, unmoving.
"Fuck." Amanda strained at her own manacles, as if she could break them by sheer force of desperation and concern. "Remy, you alive down there? 'Cause I've used up all my juice and I can't exactly 'port out of here again."
After a moment, the pile stirred, and Remy slowly pulled himself to his feet. He worked as his restraints for a moment, bending impossibly for anyone without plastic laced bones, as he pulled them from his body one by one and dropped them in a heap in the side. "Let's not do dat again." He said, finally regaining his balance. He went over and picked up the bone knife, and then stopped at Scott's place, working on the lock on his manacles, quickly snapping them open.
"Alright, Sarah's out confirming whether or not Essex is actually de fucking Genegineer behind dis. Did dey move Mudd down here to speed up de mutate process yet?"
Scott massaged his wrists nodding his thanks at Remy as the blood started to flow through his hands again. "He should be," Scott confirmed. "Thanks to the others the Genoshan's are being forced to react for the first time since this whole mess started." He smiled, "What say we finally get outta here?
Watching Remy get free of the manacles, was fascinating in a train-wreck sort of way. Clarice wasn't about to sneeze and risk interrupting him. "I'm....okay with that," powers or not, she could not stay here forever and with Remy and Scott, there was a much better chance of getting out. She waited impatiently to be released so she could go to Remy to look him over; even powerless she wanted to be useful and as a medic was the only way she was right now.
Tabs' eyes didn't stop moving, just waiting to be caught. "Grab mine next, would you?" she said. "I can help." The paperclip in her bra was really starting to itch. The, she felt a relieved smile start to tug at her lips. She wasn't alone any more.
Korvus waited his turn patiently. He didn't have any skills that would help them escape faster. He was low priority; he knew and accepted that.
"Tabitha, get Terry's, would you? She can speed things up, too." This came from Jim, whose blank disorientation had vanished the same moment as the guards. He glanced over to where Amanda, now freed herself, was busily working on the restraints holding Marie-Ange.
Marie-Ange hit the ground near-silently, bare feet only making a little 'pat', and rolled her shoulders to get the kinks out, one arm making a pop sound as she worked the joint loose. "Merci, Amanda." She tugged at one shoulder of the hated prison jumpsuit hard, until it pulled free and then shook it loose, and moved to work on Clarice's manacles. "When you are free, for Remy's leg." She said, handing her the fabric as she helped the purple girl down. "Please, so he does not bleed out."
Terry pushed up onto her tiptoes and tried to relieve the strain on her wrists and to maneuver the locks into a more accessible position while she waited for Tabitha's approach. Once one hand was free, she gestured the woman to move on and shimmied in place to reach the bit pf metal she had secreted away during the last escape attempt. Relying entirely on touch for manipulation of the pins, it took her a bit longer than normal to spring the clasp free, and she stumbled as she hit the ground before turning to move down the line toward Lex as the next person needing release.
Pushing one leg out, Lex set himself up as a stepping stool for Terry to use as she freed him from the locks. Once he heard the click of the metal unclasping he waited for her to step back down, and started to stretch. "Thanks," he grunted, scanning the scene to make sure there were no cameras or alarms on them. He couldn't find any so he simply waited for the rest of the group to get free.
Remy stood, leaning against the wall and trying to massage some feeling past the pain in his thigh. "'manda, you need to get Mudd. Find something left and teleport into his office. Everyone else, get out of dis pit. We not going to be left alone for much longer."
The witch winced, but nodded. Teleporting without the opportunity for a recharge was hard, and Hammer Bay wasn't exactly friendly towards her presence. At least she was actually armed - she pulled the shiv she had made out of a sharpened spoon from out of her waistband before taking a deep breath and letting herself sink into the floor, vanishing from sight.
(full log here)
5) What is something about X-Project that you really like/enjoy?
The creativity and the people. How we work together to make this our game. Even when we disagree (now), we can disagree and commit and move forward and make it work. The relationships we've built in and out of game. There's nothing like it anywhere else. It's not just a game, but a community.
1) What brought you to X-Project?
Dex. This is probably a recurring answer, but he posted about XP on his LJ, and I went to check it out, saw some of the people in it and thought that I wanted to be a part of that. So I started an application.
2) What keeps you in X-Project?
Dex. No, not really :) But it is the people. I'm here for my friends, for the creative writing, for the characters and their stories.
3) What's a moment that has really stuck with you that you wrote?
After all these years so much blurs together, but one moment that has always stood out was during the Masque plot in P1 where Clarice makes the decision to mercy-kill all of Masque's victims. X-Men don't kill, but despite that tenant, as a medical professional she breaks it to do what's right.
Halfway through the space, the head's eyes opened, staring at them. That was the straw for Clarice, she had had enough. Maybe she was a hypocrite, but so be it. She was not taking this anymore, the idea that these creatures were still alive. Creating a tiny disk she sliced through it all, including the head. Severing it in half lengthwise three times. That would take care of it. Glaring, she dared anyone to question it. That was someone's loved one, and if it was dead, then she hadn't done anything worse than had already happened. If it was alive, then if it were her, she'd be thanking God for putting her out of her misery. "Keep moving," she ordered tersely.
"Yes ma'am," Hicks answered with a nod, motioning the rest of his squad ahead while he stayed behind for a moment. He unhooked the spare canteen on his belt and offered it to Clarice, "You know...my squad could finish their sweep. Judging by the uniform scraps we saw back there...there's going to be more of this sort of thing." He wondered if she'd ever taken a life before- remembering the first time he had, then the second and the rush of faceless adversaries after.
Taking a sip of the water, she nodded gratefully and handed it back. "Yeah, there is," she agreed, keeping her voice pitched to just him, "We have to stop it. Medical...is not secondary," she didn't think they were going to find anyone they could save. Anyone who would want to be.
Crystal hoped they were in time to stop the actions of the two prisoners whose names Hicks had brought up. She only knew a little bit about them, but it was enough to know that they were dangerous, that this was not the first time they had used people as their playthings. They had to be prevented from hurting more people. Maybe there were even people still alive here, people who had been lucky enough to avoid crossing their paths, or even people they hadn't "finished" with, people who might not yet be past the point of no return.
They had been moving for a few more minutes when they started to see more bodies, several stretched out along the hallway as if they'd fallen trying to get away. Looking more closely, Laurie could see limbs were missing but there was no corresponding blood, it was if someone had grabbed play dough and simply pulled until it snapped off. She continued with her pheromone output, the very act of concentration giving her a detachment to the horrors about her that she may not have had otherwise.
She was thankful for that detachment when they came across the room where a body had been...semi-dissected, skin and muscle pulled back from the bones of his legs but still moving, seemingly still breathing and she couldn't understand how he could still be awake but she could hear the whimpering.
There was no question here, these people were still alive, sort of. "Crystal, see what you can do here," she said, surveying the human destruction. She sighed, leadership training was NOT what it was cracked up to be. "Someone stay with her," she added, with a glance at Hicks to assign some people.
(full log here)
4) What's a moment that has really stuck with you that someone else wrote?
Again, so many that blur together. All of Genosha. Really, all our big game- wide plots. The plotting, the coordination to get everyone tagging, the writing. you don't see anything like it anywhere else.
The sound of the guard's footfalls slowly died away, leaving them in the cold pit, unable to even guess what was going on up above.
Doug, closest to the exit, had not moved the entire time this was happening, his head hung low and eyes closed, the picture of a beaten man. His lips began to move almost imperceptibly when the last guard's feet could no longer be heard.
"...veinte-ocho, veinte-nueve, treinta." Doug's head came up, and his eyes opened. Eyes that looked hard, ready, and not at all beaten as he looked directly across at Remy.
"Clear."
Remy's head came up, his expression thoughtful with the last noises and finally, he shook his head.
"Looks like de others decided to cut things a bit fine." His Cajun accent, gone for the duration of their incarceration, was back. "'manda, Scott, Remy hope dat you coordinated things properly, because we not getting 'nother shot at dis."
The Cajun stretched slightly, shifting the restraints a bit, and then took a deep breath. With agonizing slowness, he began to pulled his legs up, bending at the knees and curling his body to bring them up to the point that his knees were level with his forehead. His face was beet red, and trembles of pain washed through the facial muscles like intermittent ticks. He rotated his hips sidewise, and leaned in so he could grasp the bone knife deeply embedded in his thigh with his teeth. A low, pained scream started as he pulled it from the muscle, the cracks tearing flesh as his crusted pants were soaked with flesh blood. Finally, it came free and his body collapsed, hanging, swinging from the wrists as he tried to catch his breath and fight through the blinding pain.
After a long moment, he began to move again, making sure his body was straight as he pushed his head forward as far as he could. Remy let go of the bone knife, and as it tumbled in the air, caught it between his feet. He shook his head and blinked rapidly a few times, trying to clear his head. After a moment, he took a deep breathe, and once again began to raise his legs, straight out and up this time, like an acrobat on a pole. They could see his fingers going white as the weight and pressure on his wrists cut the circulation to his hands. Slowly, painfully, he went up until bent double off the wall, and he could insert the tip of the bone knife into the manacle lock. The good thing about the manacles was the fact that they were old, with locks built more for size than anything else. That meant big mechanisms, and they could be manipulated by a less delicate piece of equipment.
Sweat and blood intermingled, threatening to blind him as he worked, his leg muscles bunched and starting to spasm. There was a loud click, and Remy suddenly dropped to the ground, landing on his back with a sickening crunch. The man lay there in a heap, unmoving.
"Fuck." Amanda strained at her own manacles, as if she could break them by sheer force of desperation and concern. "Remy, you alive down there? 'Cause I've used up all my juice and I can't exactly 'port out of here again."
After a moment, the pile stirred, and Remy slowly pulled himself to his feet. He worked as his restraints for a moment, bending impossibly for anyone without plastic laced bones, as he pulled them from his body one by one and dropped them in a heap in the side. "Let's not do dat again." He said, finally regaining his balance. He went over and picked up the bone knife, and then stopped at Scott's place, working on the lock on his manacles, quickly snapping them open.
"Alright, Sarah's out confirming whether or not Essex is actually de fucking Genegineer behind dis. Did dey move Mudd down here to speed up de mutate process yet?"
Scott massaged his wrists nodding his thanks at Remy as the blood started to flow through his hands again. "He should be," Scott confirmed. "Thanks to the others the Genoshan's are being forced to react for the first time since this whole mess started." He smiled, "What say we finally get outta here?
Watching Remy get free of the manacles, was fascinating in a train-wreck sort of way. Clarice wasn't about to sneeze and risk interrupting him. "I'm....okay with that," powers or not, she could not stay here forever and with Remy and Scott, there was a much better chance of getting out. She waited impatiently to be released so she could go to Remy to look him over; even powerless she wanted to be useful and as a medic was the only way she was right now.
Tabs' eyes didn't stop moving, just waiting to be caught. "Grab mine next, would you?" she said. "I can help." The paperclip in her bra was really starting to itch. The, she felt a relieved smile start to tug at her lips. She wasn't alone any more.
Korvus waited his turn patiently. He didn't have any skills that would help them escape faster. He was low priority; he knew and accepted that.
"Tabitha, get Terry's, would you? She can speed things up, too." This came from Jim, whose blank disorientation had vanished the same moment as the guards. He glanced over to where Amanda, now freed herself, was busily working on the restraints holding Marie-Ange.
Marie-Ange hit the ground near-silently, bare feet only making a little 'pat', and rolled her shoulders to get the kinks out, one arm making a pop sound as she worked the joint loose. "Merci, Amanda." She tugged at one shoulder of the hated prison jumpsuit hard, until it pulled free and then shook it loose, and moved to work on Clarice's manacles. "When you are free, for Remy's leg." She said, handing her the fabric as she helped the purple girl down. "Please, so he does not bleed out."
Terry pushed up onto her tiptoes and tried to relieve the strain on her wrists and to maneuver the locks into a more accessible position while she waited for Tabitha's approach. Once one hand was free, she gestured the woman to move on and shimmied in place to reach the bit pf metal she had secreted away during the last escape attempt. Relying entirely on touch for manipulation of the pins, it took her a bit longer than normal to spring the clasp free, and she stumbled as she hit the ground before turning to move down the line toward Lex as the next person needing release.
Pushing one leg out, Lex set himself up as a stepping stool for Terry to use as she freed him from the locks. Once he heard the click of the metal unclasping he waited for her to step back down, and started to stretch. "Thanks," he grunted, scanning the scene to make sure there were no cameras or alarms on them. He couldn't find any so he simply waited for the rest of the group to get free.
Remy stood, leaning against the wall and trying to massage some feeling past the pain in his thigh. "'manda, you need to get Mudd. Find something left and teleport into his office. Everyone else, get out of dis pit. We not going to be left alone for much longer."
The witch winced, but nodded. Teleporting without the opportunity for a recharge was hard, and Hammer Bay wasn't exactly friendly towards her presence. At least she was actually armed - she pulled the shiv she had made out of a sharpened spoon from out of her waistband before taking a deep breath and letting herself sink into the floor, vanishing from sight.
(full log here)
5) What is something about X-Project that you really like/enjoy?
The creativity and the people. How we work together to make this our game. Even when we disagree (now), we can disagree and commit and move forward and make it work. The relationships we've built in and out of game. There's nothing like it anywhere else. It's not just a game, but a community.
