Quadstuck - TV Tropes Forum (2024)

>Be the hipster

You cannot be the hipster because the role playing game hasn't started yet!

>Start role playing game

WELCOME

TO

QUADSTUCK

>Select your character

The HipsterThe ClimberThe MechanicThe WrestlerThe ProgrammerThe CollectorThe AthleteThe CharmerThe Special Snowflake

>Be the hipster

Your are SARAH LLEWELLYN. More can be learned about who you are in THIS THREAD. It is currently December of 2012. The end to your first semester of junior year is quickly approaching, and with it winter break. It's only a matter of days before you return to your hometown in the midwest where all your old friends will be. You are both looking forward to it and not. For REASONS YOU WOULD RATHER NOT DWELL ON.

Maybe there's something you could do to avoid seeing them face to face too much. Make it like the school year when they're all handily just faceless text. But what? Hm. This is a tricky one.

Actually, you just might have an idea.

See, there's a game you've heard about being released soon. A beta, meaning it won't be too mainstream for you to play, which is definitely a plus. But if you get your friends to play it over break it means they'd be busy not reminding you that you're back home and they sort of actually exist. But you still get to talk with them. Having your cake and eating it too. Delicious.

Aaaaaaand the game is some kind of sims game from what you've heard. A game where you basically create a world. And with December 21st, 2012 looming, the supposed date of the apocalypse, the irony is just too delicious for a hipster to pass up. So that means you can't pass it up either.

Well, if you're going to make this be a thing that happens you should probably talk to one of your friends. You walk over to your computer and start up Pesterchum. You know that it's pretty mainstream, but no one you know uses anything else, so you're stuck with it. You scan your friends list to see if any of them are online. You instinctively look for Danny's name first, but he appears to be offline. Damn. So who else is on that's somewhat tolerable...

>Pester Nate

You recruit one of your friends to the game cause and even get him to do the dirty work for you. Today is a good day and nothing could possibly go wrong.

"Teebs is a total grump, but he's usually right." - NLK

>Be the climber

You are DANNY SKULD. You climb things. That is a thing you do. Since coming to college you've started something of a daily ritual, if you can call a thing you do whenever you feel like daily or even ritual. You like to go EDIFICEERING, climbing up the outside of a building because stairs are far too sensible. You do this with your TRUST GRAPPLING HOOK and OTHER CLIMBING TOOLS. The campus authorities do not approve but they have not managed to catch you despite the fact that you are often inebriated when you do it. You attribute this to your cunning wits and your FALSE BEARD which totally misleads them. But anyway, at the end of the day, you like to climb buildings on campus, do a little drinking and watch the sun set. Its somewhat spectacular and really takes you out of yourself.

You log out of pesterchum on your computer when you leave your dorm room but forget to log onto it on your phone device. Oops. Well, its never done any damage to be out of touch for a bit.

Walking around on campus, you arbitrarily select a random dorm building to climb, adjust your fake beard and start ascending. Its about halfway up that you realize that you forgot to bring any booze.

Forever liveblogging the Avengers

>Be the programmer.

You are ALAN DAVIDSON. You study COMPUTER SCIENCE at a smallish college near the coast. You enjoy a wide host of VIDEO GAMES and are sometimes distressed to find that you understand them better than you understand schoolwork. However, you love to PROGRAM. More specifically, you love problem solving, and live for the moment when the answer to a problem unfolds before you.

That being said, school remains something of a challenge. After your second Fall semester, which you would RATHER NOT DWELL ON, doing well has been both more urgent and more difficult with each passing year. You finished up a particularly stressful set of FINAL EXAMS a few weeks ago, and are glad to be finished.

>Check grades.

Oh right. Your grades for the term came in today. The school can sometimes be way behind the times when it comes to grading, though, so they were sent through the mail.

Let's see... Oh! Better than last year. Not quite as good as you'd like, though. But no real surprises.

>Check computer.

Looks like someone's Pestering you. Can't keep him waiting.... Oh. It's her. You consider yourself a friendly dude, but sometimes, the word "Pester" is all too fitting.

>Answer the hipster

Ugh. Conversations with that dude are always so tiring. Always they turn into an argument about some thing or another. You're starting to think you should just stop mentioning music, games, literature, tv shows, movies and the like to her. You swear you have to add another thing to the list every time you talk.

You decide to wait on the link/Google this game in a few minutes. Play some other game first. Gotta find something to unwind after that conversation. What's more relaxing than talking to her? Perhaps a Touhou game.

On Lunatic.

edited 9th Jan '12 8:12:37 PM by Enlong

I have a message from another time...

>Be the Charmer.

Your name is NATE SHOCKNESSY. You are a THEATER BUFF, and it shows in your speech. You also like to think you're a PRETTY LIKABLE GUY, although occasionally you have reason to doubt yourself. For example, you have just finished having a rather TERRIBLE CONVERSATION, and frankly you're a bit steamed about it.

It's not that you don't like Sarah. Okay, maybe you have had a bit of trouble convincing yourself to keep liking her. Especially since you've convinced yourself that she doesn't really like you. Which bugs you for some reason. And yet you still let her talk you into doing her dirty work. Geez you are such a doormat. Though you guess if anyone should be Ambassador to Mary-Land it should be you. With your awesome charisma and all.

...Right.

>Get down and dirty.

You glance at your chumroll. Mary is, unfortunately, online. You suppose you should tell her about Sarah's game and get it over with.

But you really don't want to talk to Mary yet, so you scroll through your list of online chums, hoping someone you actually like talking to is available. Luckily for you, one is.

>Pester Addy

That made you feel a little bit better, and you managed to recruit another of your friends for the game as well. You think you have enough confidence for the task at hand now. At least you hope you do.

>Pester the Leviathan

That...actually wasn't near as bad as you thought it would be, much to your surprise. You guess even Mary can be tolerable when she wants to be.

Her last statement, however, was pretty cryptic, as per usual. You're probably going to spend the next half hour or so staring at the screen and wondering about it. Or you're just going to listen to the West Side Story soundtrack and take a nap. It's kind of a gray area for you.

edited 20th Jan '12 1:22:36 PM by WhichDockter

>Be the CLIMBER

Half-way up a building is no time to realize that you are boozeless. It tends to make the rest of the climb unspirited. But wait! What luck! You are totally accidentally climbing the dorm building of Sarah Llewellyn, your drinking partner in technically crime! Further luck, your climbing path puts you right at her window.

>Knock on window and beg for booze

It goes about as well as you'd expect. Exceedingly. She decides to join you on the roof with some shots, although she has her own hipstery reasons. But she usually does. You think that the reason why you two get along is that you roll with it.

While you're up there, she tries to rope you into playing some new game over the break. You don't give her a definite answer but a part of you knows that you'll probably end up playing it. Also, you totally had the greatest idea in the world all by yourself. Alcoholic oreos. Brilliant!

And then the conversation drifts towards the scratch and sniff conspiracy and she must away to tell the world of the startling abuses of power corrupting society de jour. You crash on her couch with the bottle of vodka and watch.

Later on, her roommate comes into the apartment startling you into falling off the couch and yelling "horny evil" at her. These things happen.

Forever liveblogging the Avengers

>Be the Special Snowflake

You are Marirhakarkjarin Suchomundkanor, and you are AMAZING. You have HUNDREDS of friends, all of whom naturally ADORE you. It's ok though, because you're a GOOD PERSON, and never take advantage of their adoration. It sure can get busy sometimes, though! This particular day, however, marks the beginning of the END OF THE WORLD, and you've cleared out the next few days in your schedule for it. If you remember correctly, someone should be contacting you aaaaaaaany minute now.

And there it is. You get pestered by Nathan about joining an upcoming game. We saw it already. All you can say is, God it's gonna be great to finally have an actual use for all these visions. You don't usually pay it much mind, but you have a sneaking suspicion that most of your friends might be tired of them after all these years. Gonna be amazing to rub it in their faces when you end up being right. So great.

Of course, that's all still in the future. Gotta all avoid the meteor storms first. And to do THAT, you need to get everybody rollin' with this game asap.

To that end, you pester someone who's already in to play and having a rousing discussion about various topics, none of which are really relevant. Nice time management skills there, darlin'. If you weren't always right you might even be worried about it. But time enough for productivity in the future, you've still got days before everybody is dead.

Do or do not, there is no try.

> Be the mechanic

You are JACKIE CARTWOOD. You study MECHANICAL ENGINEERING at a college in the East that you attend with your FRIEND. This interest in CREATING MACHINES might have something to do with your interest in ROBOTS. You have so many AWESOME and REALISTIC ideas for what you want to design and build. You wish you had the skill to actually make your numerous ideas work, but unfortunately you just end up with piles and piles of HALF-FINISHED PROJECTS as you move on to different ideas that might work better. You encourage yourself to continue pursuing your interest despite your HIGH FAILURE RATE by lighting up the LIGHTBULB on your shirt whenever you come up with an idea that you can work on.

Right now, you are in your college's engineering studio enthusiastically working on one of your many PROJECTS, just like every other day during the week. You are not making any progress with it, though. Just like every other day during the week.

>Examine project.

Well, it is SUPPOSED to be a machine that places two pieces of toast into a toaster and then pushes the handle down. It was such a great idea! You always feel too tired in the morning to make breakfast, but with this all you needed was to push a button! So automated. So AWESOME.

You are having a hard time getting the machine to actually work though. Big surprise. And you didn't even design it to look like an actual robot this time either. You were so sure you could handle making this!

Wait! You think you got it. If you just connect the wire like this and attach this cog like so, and maybe link the chain here instead of there... DONE. Now to turn it on and see if it works.

>Automated toaster-machine: Work.

The automated toaster-machine fails to work. It instead collapses under its own weight.

>Jackie: Ragequit.

You slam your WRENCH down hard on the table and scream in frustration, but you refuse to quite. After all, perseverance is the key to success in life, right? Okay, so this idea didn't really pan out, but you have so many other ideas to choose from!

>Notice bell ringing.

Like that! You actually managed to design something that would make a bell ring every time someone pesters you. It is one of your only successful inventions.

>Answer your friend.

Sarah is such a great friend. Even when drunk. Or especially when drunk. It's been hard to tell as of late. But it's nice to have someone support you and your projects. Plus, when she's drunk, she ends giving you inspiration for a lot of your ideas!

...Is what you would be thinking if something didn't just BLOW UP.

>Check source of explosion.

Oh THANK GOD it wasn't one of your projects. You might end up working on those again if the bitter sting of failure ever fades away! Still, you should probably put the fire out.

>Put out fire.

After doing just that, you decide to check on your SUPER SECRET PROJECT THAT NO ONE MUST EVER KNOW ABOUT to make sure it wasn't damaged in the process.

Phew. It's still safe. Maybe you should finish this bad boy before you start to play the game that Sarah mentioned. You would have to dedicate all of your time to the SECRET PROJECT though...

♥ ♦ ♠ ♣

>Be the Hipster.

You cannot be the Hipster. The Hipster is already in play in DRUNK MODE, and you have yet to unlock DRUNK MODE. Try again, smartass.

> Be the Wrestler.

Ah. Much better.

>Enter Name.

You are ADDY GILES of course! You are currently at your computer desk, talking to people you haven’t been close with for a while. You talked with Nate for a bit and learned that apparently Sarah wants your old high school group to play a game together! This is GOOD NEWS, as you miss your old friends. However, it could potentially be DISASTROUS judging by that one DnD game. You focus on the positive though, and you have yourself convinced that it’ll be fun!

It must not take Nate very long to talk to Mari about the game, though, since she Pesters you not very long after Nate stops talking to you. Man, you never know what’s going through her head. She confuses you a lot and the others complain about her. You decide that as long as you stay on her good side, it’s okay to humor her a bit, especially since you’re all about to play together.

Mari spouts some cryptic stuff about Armageddon and the game you’re going to play. You had thought that it was just like multiplayer SIM CITY or something, judging by Nate’s description, but you suppose it’s not since Mari tells you it’s not. And that’s pretty much ALL she tells you. Darn her crypticocity! Seriously, she Pesters you and the rest of your friends a lot, and always spouts the same cryptic stuff. You’ve developed a habit of TUNING SOME OF IT OUT. You really didn’t forget! Honest!

Okay, maybe you did, a little. But she’s been telling the same stuff for years and at some point you just stopped caring. At least she acts friendly most of the time? And you are going to see her and the others soon, according to her…you really wish she would give you a better explanation than “clouds above a golden city told me”!

> This is getting boring. Look around your apartment.

Your roommates are out, so you have the place to yourself. It makes you feel even more acutely how much you want everyone to have fun when you play this game. After all, you haven’t seen each other for years. You sometimes worry about them.

>Net: Fall on the Wrestler’s head.

You do so.

>Addy: Scream in pain.

OUCH! The wooden handle of the SWEEPNET you took home is really solid, and your head is also very solid. It hurts!Oh, you took the sweepnet home because you need to have it accessible for doing field work on the weekends! The professor you are currently working for does insect work. You’ve really gotten good at it!

>Allocate the net to your Strife Specibus to get it out of the way. There’s only so much room in this apartment, you know.

Okay? You don’t know why you would do that instead of just putting it in your SYLLADEX for storage, but that works. Your STRIFE SPECIBUS is now set to NETKIND. Awesome!You decide to pick up your things around the room as well. Your CUSTOM LUCHADORA MASK should be safe in your sylladex! You also pick up your TEXTBOOKS, PENS and NOTEBOOKS, and your KEYS.Man, you love your BAG MODUS. It holds so much. It’s almost like it has some special attribute of HOLDING things!

>What are you wasting so much time for? Begin downloading that game poste-haste!

Alright, alright! You eagerly pull up the log of the conversation you had with Nathan and click the link. You begin downloading the torrent of the game. Oh no, you hope it’s not large enough to raise the suspicions of the people monitoring the download use of the campus internet! It should be fine since you never download movies or anything on campus, so you’ve never gone over the acceptable use limit.You just could not be more psyched to play this game. This should be fun! 8D

edited 10th Jan '12 8:20:32 PM by PulpFreeBookworm

The baby bat/ Screamed out in fright,/ 'Turn on the dark,/ I'm afraid of the light.'

> Be the collector

You are SALLY LITTLEMAN, and you are currently facing a minor crisis. Whilst cheerfully wagging your chin with your good friend SARAH, you have accidentally upended a bottle of glue onto the DOLL you are attempting to repair!

The DOLL is covered in thick resiny-goop and pretty much beyond repair at this point. You whisper your dear sweet DANIELA a heartfelt goodbye as you wrap the kleenex tissue about her glue-drowned limbs, and deposit her lovingly in the trash with a single black tear of sorrow. Poor DANIELA. She didn't deserve getting her arm chewed off by the Dorm Squirrel(a menacing rodent that stalks the halls of the dorm you've landed in), and she didn't deserve this gummy grave.

You must take better care of your dolls in the future; they are your only friends as of right now. At least, your only friends that you interact with regularly in real life. As each day passes in this 'quirky and fun!' college, you regret not going to the college of your friends a few miles East. Sometimes you, Addy and Jackie manage to meet up and go out together, but these outings have been more infrequent as of late. As such, you look towards the upcoming break with both eagerness and trepidation: What if no one gets along? What if no one still likes you? What if you've been holed up in this room for so long that you've become unfit for public interaction??

Paranoia strikes, and you hurriedly finish cleaning your desk of the glue($18 a bottle, that's going to eat into your savings). Disaster not averted but at least cleaned up, you go back to your computer to check on the torrent and see if anyone else is online. The torrent is downloading without any unpleasant problems(you've gotten more than one virus from attempting to pirate old Disney movies your MOTHER didn't let you watch as a child) and should be done within the next ten minutes or so. Wow, the internet is truly an amazing thing!

>Be the COUCH CRASHER

You are totally still crashed on this couch. At some point you'll have to get up and return to your dorm but the night is young and this bottle of vodka will not drink itself.

Sarah is still over at her computer pestering people about the game so you decide to embark on a little bit of conversational interactional inquiry of your own. You manage to talk to Sally about the game but only after mentioning some weird library rooftop room of crazy and before making an epic wager with highest stakes. So, that's cool.

You also talk to Mari and the conversation goes swimmingly although you think maybe she was being a little bit weird at the end. But you guess there's not much you can do about that except wait to be the sober Danny that she fires those truth missiles at.

Pew pew.

edited 10th Jan '12 11:17:29 PM by Bocaj

Forever liveblogging the Avengers

>Be the Programmer

You continue to be the programming student, and you continue blow off steam by killing a bunch of well-dressed faeries in the game you're playing. A mistimed twitch sends you into a bullet, ending your game. You suppose it's time to turn the thing off. You've been on this for at least an hour, and you aren't making much progress on it today.

>Look around you.
>Look... around you.

You push up from your laptop and look around your apartment. Your room is cluttered, as always, though you swear you can find everything that you need. TEXTBOOKS are stacked near your backpack, though you suppose you should put this semester's set away, what with the term being over and all. An assortment of VIDEO GAMES are scattered wherever you put each one down after playing it. Your ROLE-PLAYING PARAPHERNALIA is arranged in a crate where you store various books. A good portion of the room is dominated by your BED. Really, it's a fairly average room.

>Examine backpack

Ah yes. The old reliable backpack. You've had a number of the old girls in the past, but this one suits you quite well. It's also a nice way to cheat your SYLLADEX, when you don't want to give a dozen synonyms for "Pen" or "Book"

>Examine RPGP

Various sourcebooks, a smattering of miniatures, a dice bag swen into a plush representation of a ZOOLOGICALLY DUBIOUS overlord creature. Everything an aspiring gamer needs.

Lately, though, you haven't been playing much. Oh sure, you played a few campaigns since coming here, but what you really want is a good game with some closer friends. It's been a tad difficult making lasting relationships at this university, and you rather do not want to remember all the sordid details of the last time you tried to play a game with your high-school friends.

At this point, it's rather a blur of trecherous dice, hastily re-written notes and character sheets, and misunderstandings. The time someone burned a character sheet stands out, though. And is it your fault that the DM took to your idea of a campaign in the Arctic that one time? Maybe, maybe not.

Again, best not to dwell. You have a few UNFINISHED NOTES about a character class you've been working on, but nobody outside this room has seen it yet.

Leaning against a wall is an old WALKING STICK you made in woodshop a long time ago. You thought it would be fun to carve it into the shape of a wizard's staff, and you've brought it to a number of games to get into character a bit. Well, one game. Sarah's reaction was... well, if you heard it today, you'd just call it "typical". Which is a bit sad, now that you think about it.

MOVING ON.

>Download game already

Yeah, fine. You were able to find a torrent to the game. Your Google-Fu is as strong as ever. Of course, Sarah did send you the same link a few seconds before your search resolved. You decide to use the link you searched, on a sort of principle.

You start downloading the thing.

Interesting, it's got a custom download window. You've never seen that before. Interesting patterns.

edited 11th Jan '12 9:27:46 PM by Enlong

I have a message from another time...

>Stop being whatever dork you're currently being

Hold on! This guy might be getting somewhere!

>No! Be the Athlete instead.

Fine.Okay, so now what?

>Enter Name

Your name is Benjamin Parker, but you're known as BRICK to the ladies. You're pretty much the best thing on the COURT, FIELD, or GREEN. At least, you WERE back in high school. College has been significantly less awesome as far as your SPORTS career goes, of course, you have no one to blame but yourself. Your chosen INSTITUTE OF HIGHER LEARNING is none other than BIGSCHOOL UNIVERSITY, home of the BIGSCHOOL BITCHKICKERS. It's a well-known fact that the BITCHKICKERS accept only the baddest of asses in their SOLEMN SANCTUMS of STRENGTH, and unfortunately you didn't make the cut this year.

You've held on to hope, secure in the knowledge that SPORTS aren't your only strength. You happen to enjoy MATHEMATICS and NUMBERS, and derive (heh heh) enjoyment from them. This has given you a chance to integrate yourself with the BITCHKICKERS, helping out some of them with MATHS. If your SPORTS career doesn't work out, you can do something with MATHS, right?

>Examine surroundings

Looks like your teeny dorm room. You don't share it with anyone, and chose this one specifically for its location to the gym, which is all but next door to you. You spend most of your time in the gym, TRAINING for NEXT YEAR.

You keep some pretty spartan living quarters. You have a BED (actually an yoga mat with a blanket on top) in one corner and a chest of drawers in the other. An occasional SPORTS poster or JERSEY adorns the wall. The majority of the space is taken up by your TWO TON TUB O' OATZ, with your compact MICROWAVE sitting next to it. Your COMPUTER BOX chugs away beneath it, it's fan whirring loudly in a desperate attempt to prevent itself from dying a horrible virus-laden death.

>Examine oatmeal tub

TUB O' OATZ you mean. It's pretty much the start and end of all your nutritional needs. Every morning after you work up a good sweat, you treat yourself to a nice big bowl of OATZ. And then you go work out some more. In fact, that's what you were about to just do when suddenly your COMPUTER BOX starts beeping.

>Examine COMPUTER BOX

The much maligned bit of technology you call your COMPUTER BOX sits under your MICROWAVE. According to your more technologically gifted friends, it's a miracle it still functions. You aren't really worried about it, because you can't operate anything more advanced than a calculator, and those graphing ones still give you trouble sometimes. You were just about to turn it off and go work out, in fact. Looks like someone's messaging you. Who could it be, though? You haven't used this 'pesterchum' program since high school.

>Answer high school homie

So now you're playing a game or something? Sweet. You're always up for a good game. Not too sure what thing she sent you is, though. She said it would "run" or something, and that's a good idea if you ever heard one.

>Go run

...Whew, always feels good to get the old blood pumping. And nothing gets your blood pumping like several laps around the track. You still aren't sure what the f*ck to do with this "torrent" thing. Maybe you better ask that Nate person what's up.

>Pester Nate

Okay, now we're getting somewhere. Looks like thing thing takes some time to load or whatever. You think it's time for a hearty bowl of OATZ to pass the time.

edited 12th Jan '12 8:48:44 PM by GOINGtoDIE425

I won’t say ‘See you tomorrow’ because that would be like predicting the future, and I’m pretty sure I can’t do that.

>Sburb.trnt: Be finished downloading.

You do so. Another thing you do is consist of two files, SBURB CLIENT and SBURB SERVER data.

>Be Addy.

You do that too. And another thing you be is BORED. So very boredy-bored. You don't want to start until you know your friends are ready, and Mari said that you'd see everyone soon so you don't even know WHAT'S GOING ON.

>Watch wrestling matches to while away your time.

Oh no way. You really shouldn't. The last time you did that in the living room during daylight hours, your roommates came back early and gave you REALLY FUNNY LOOKS.

...

And yet. AND YET. You do so love your VIRTUAL STASH OF DOWNLOADED WRESTLING MATCHES. The boots and fists flying everywhere, the HEELS getting their just desserts, the honor and pride of the FACES...and of course the MASKS! You are sort of ashamed to admit that part of the reason you learned Spanish in High School was to understand what was going on during LUCHA LIBRE matches you watched on GALAVISIÓN. Ah, youth in the days before you learned the wonders of the INTERWEBS!

Ah, screw it. Who are you kidding? You click open a file and start watching a classic, REY MYSTERIO VERSUS GOLDBERG.

Awesome!

>Wrestling match: be interrupted by sudden appearance of furry tail.

You do so.

>Addy: show that cat who's the boss.

Really? Do you have to? You guess you'll do it...

You push the cat off the desk. Then you repeat it when the cat has the audacity to jump up again!

You like the little rascal, but NOTHING interrupts WRASSLIN' TIME.

Eventually that cat will know you're the boss. Oh yes, rest assured. The day is coming when that cute little fuzzball knows exactly where she stands in relation to yourself on the hierarchy of things. It shall be YOU blocking the views and YOU loudly demanding the food and YOU licking- okay maybe you won't do that.

In the meantime you figure letting her sit on your shoulder and stroking her while your eyes remain glued to the computer screen is a good enough compromise.

Man, Rey Mysterio is so cool!

edited 12th Jan '12 9:11:59 PM by PulpFreeBookworm

The baby bat/ Screamed out in fright,/ 'Turn on the dark,/ I'm afraid of the light.'

> Skip to the next day

Yeah, Sarah didn't send any follow-up messages after you got the download completed, nor did she respond to any of your questions. You assume she's on one of her drunken adventures, as she is wont to do sometimes, and just go to bed at the early hour of 3 A.M.

> Check the software

The thing was loaded up last night, but you guess you can take another look at it. The readme that the torrenter threw together really only told you how to install it, and it also had a few explanations for what to do when the game starts. You skimmed some of the latter, but not all of it made sense. You figure that you can just figure out what you need to through trial and error once you get into the game.

That's the problem, though. You need a "client or server" player before you can enter the game, and Sarah, who told you to connect with her, still isn't online, it seems. It seems you will have to make first contact this time.

> Pester the Hipster

You pester the hipster, and you finally get this show on the road.

The road... goes to a lot of unexpected places.

And now you have no idea if your hipster friend is alive.

This is not a very fun game.

edited 12th Jan '12 9:39:52 PM by Enlong

I have a message from another time...

>Sarah: be killed by meteor

A bright light...this is it. You're finally here at death's door. You never imagined it would end like this. Hung over and doomed by space rock.

Wait.

Now it's not bright. Thank god. Your head hurt enough as is.

Wait, what happened to the meteor?

>Look outside

You look out the window, and Toto, you're not in Africa anymore. You are in a giant tree. There's fog outside, and you are in a giant tree.

Holy f*cking sh*t. What happened.

Maybe you're actually dead and this-

Oh hey someone's messaging you on pesterchum.

>Answer chum

Oh god, it's her.

>Be pestered by another chum while Mari's busy pissing you off.

Oh good, it's Danny.

So you eventually realize that you need to coordinate this sh*t with your teammates and start a memo.

>Start memo

Boom. Memo started. And Mari proves to by a cryptic and annoying bitch (big surprise), Brick proves to be a dumbass (another big surprise), Jackie and Addy and Sally all panic (so many big surprises today), and everyone else manages to keep it together for the most part.

So now you need to be Nate's server. Alrighty. Gametime. Oh god, did you just say that unironically?

edited 13th Jan '12 9:28:05 PM by Teebert

"Teebs is a total grump, but he's usually right." - NLK

>Addy: Watch the news.

You look over to your TV and listen intently. Are they talking about Danny and Sarah's school? You need to check in on them! You log into Pesterchum to try and reach them like that. Oh, what's this? Sarah's started a memo! Good to know she's safe, at least.

>Join Memo.You do so.

>Addy: Flip the f*ck out.

You do that too.

WHAT THE MONKEYLOVING f*ck IS GOING ON YOUR FRIENDS AND PLANET ARE IN DANGER AND THERE’S NO WAY TO SAVE YOUR FAMILY AND EARTH IS GONNA BE GONE AND METEORS FROM THE SKY AND SARAH IS APPARENTLY ON ANOTHER PLANET-

>Now that you’ve flipped the f*ck out, calm the f*ck down.

You can do that too, after hyperventilating a bit. You open the SBURB SERVER FILE and prepare to Pester Alan.

>Pester Alan.

You figure there’s something to be said for having the only guy who knows what being a Server entails be your client. You are calmed by his seeming command of the situation, and you are able to focus enough to not be completely useless. You do break his bed, however. Oops.

He does his 733T HAXX0RS Puzzle Thing JUST BARELY in the nick of time and disappears. You think that’s what was supposed to happen, but you're not sure!

Now you just have to wait for the loop to happen. Who was your Server again? You pull up the memo you closed earlier and scroll up a bit.

Oh. It’s Brick. Who is currently MIA. Lovely.

edited 13th Jan '12 10:12:54 PM by PulpFreeBookworm

The baby bat/ Screamed out in fright,/ 'Turn on the dark,/ I'm afraid of the light.'

>Be Nate

You are now Nate. Just moments ago you participated in a memo where you learned what was really up with this game you and your friends are about to play. It did freak you out a little, but you tried to keep a cool head. Unfortunately your attempts to get everyone else to calm down didn't turn out so well, so now you're waiting on Sarah to contact you so you can get this game rolling.

Speak of the devil, there she is.

Answer server player

Sarah proceeds to trash your room and mock your interests, but you eventually manage to prototype your kernel with a MUSICAL POSTER and solve the puzzle of your entry item, a TICKET STUB.

You then enter the Medium.

But that's enough about you. You've got other friends that need to get into the game, after all.

>Be Marirhakarkjarin Suchomundkanor

You are so Mari right now, like wow this is crazy.

You, meaning Mari, were involved in a memo earlier, in which you imparted a tiny modicum of your knowledge to your friends. Just enough to get them in alive without all floundering around leaderless, but not enough to get them too dependent on you. That can come later, when everybody is in. ;) Since then, you've been touching up your apartment, making sure everything is set up nice for Nate. Wouldn't do to have dirty apartment with a gentleman present, now would it? Even if he's only there in spirit.

After finishing hiding everything cute in the closet, (you have an appearance to keep, after all) and of course consulting your flawless memory of your visions, you contact Nate. He is receptive, and jumps straight to doing what you command, albeit a little sarcastically. But it's nothing you can't handle.

He is suitably impressed by your foresight and preparation, which you're 100% sure blows all of your friends out of the water, and makes swift work of every task involved in the entry process. It's a matter of seconds. You're not one to brag, but that's probably some kind of record. It all comes naturally to one of your talents, of course. :)

The first complication comes with the prototyping of the kernelsprite. After having Nate look away, which you're 100% sure he is no peeking, you prototype your beloved Adorable Tiger Plush. It had been with you for as long as you remember, and no monsters will be hurting it now as a sprite, you can be sure of that. And then Nathan comments on it, calling it "adorable," which while true doesn't even begin to encompass the sheer breadth of the plush and oh f*ck balls EVERYONE CAN SEE THE SPRITE

GODDAMMIT YOU NEVER MAKE MISTAKES HOW DID THIS HAPPEN NOW EVERYONE WILL KNOW f*ckING f*ckITY f*ck AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

You flip out a little, but calm down again after swearing Nate to secrecy. He may not think you're serious, but if he tells anyone there will be hell to pay. You will cut a bitch, you swear to god. You will make him bleed.

Then the second complication comes, in the form of your artifact, a very nice mirror. Very clear. You can't help but smile upon seeing yourself in it. But time enough for preening later, you have a medium to enter. Not that there's any rush, with how well you prepared for this. Got almost 40 minutes left. Easiest sh*t ever.

Unfortunately, even with your towering intellect, the mirror has you flummoxed. You try examining it for hidden writings, you try reflecting various objects, you try carving it, but nothing seems to work! With under five minutes left, you finally admit that maybe Nate's stupid "break it" suggestion might be right and f*ck it you don't care anymore. And then you break the mirror and surprise surprise it works. Probably symbolic of trusting others over yourself and not treasuring your own self image too much and blah de blah, stupid bullsh*t game.

Then it's WOOSH or maybe BOOM or some noise like that and suddenly you're in the game. Exciting.

Do or do not, there is no try.

>Danny: Cope with the horrible reality of existence

Oh god, you just woke up and you feel terrible. That is often the case when you overindulge. Your tongue feels like its three sizes too big, your mouth is dry, light is like tiny daggers stabbing your retinas, you just don't feel like moving at all and your head is pounding. Ugh.

Your bleary eyes sweep over your room and away from the window where the light is. You live in a dorm room, small and one man. Your bed is lofted over your desk, there's a sink on one of the walls, and a doorless closet on another. You have a small tv sitting on small end table in one corner hooked up to your NES and Genesis. Next to the sink there's a small bookshelf where you keep your books and games. Next to the bookshelf there's a mini fridge where you keep your drink mixings and some food, you guess. You cleverly stash your drinks in a drawer of the desk. You see that you managed to hang up your fake beard and grappling hook on the coat hook when you came in last night but the traffic cone is a mystery to you. The walls are undecorated since dorm rules mean that you can only affix things to the walls with staples.

Your room is basically way too small for any large machines, not that that's relevant.

The pounding in your head is growing worse. It almost seems to be pounding in a similar pattern of that evacuation alarm they made you listen to your first day in college. No, scratch that. The exact pattern.

What.

You force yourself to look out the window and notice that the campus actually appears to be on fire. Also, explosions.

>Contact Sarah

You can't trust your senses right now. They are liars. You need a second opinion. And apparently that second opinion is that the world is ending. Its going to be one of those days.

>Install programs

You also notice that the flash drive with the Sburb programs on them appear to have pictures from Sarah's camera. You browse through them and quickly decide that no one must ever see these. You keep them so that you can periodically send one to Sarah though. Periodic mocking will teach her not to bring her cameras on drunken quests for snack foods.

>Memo

This already happened. No need to go over it again. While half-paying attention to this heady mixture of panic and actual productiveness, you look out the window and notice that between the fires and the meteors, the clock tower is falling down. That was one of your favorite climbing spots. The end of the world blows.

>Get contacted by Addy

She is worried about you. That makes one of you two. The best you can muster right now is vague irritation with the whole situation. Other emotions are just too hard with the headache you're nursing. But somewhere underneath the horrible pain you think there might be some appreciation for her friendship. Or something.

She asks that you contact Brick so he can get off his lazy muscle bound duff and server her to Mars. On the balance of things, spending some time talking to him is worth saving her life. You should also talk to Jackie so she can server for you.

>Contact Brick, Jackie

If you have list of priorities its this:
1. Contact Brick, Jackie
2. As soon as feasible get a drink
3. Don't die

edited 14th Jan '12 12:11:50 PM by Bocaj

Forever liveblogging the Avengers

>Sally: Play a stupid game for girls.

Alicia the Brave fell to one knee, grievously injured. She looked up at her nemesis, Anjelica the Dragon, without a trace of fear though she had been thoroughly beaten. "Your reign will end soon, Dragon of the North! My sister, a hundred times stronger and nobler than I, is coming to save the kingdom you thought you could claim as your own!" Anjelica laughed, long and hard, and lifted Alicia's jaw with one long, manicured finger.

"As far as I care, she can have it. I have all I wanted right here." Now Alicia's eyes widened with fear, and stared at her enemy's face, a face she used to know a long time ago.

"You've changed, Anjelica. You've changed so much. I don't know you anymore. What happened to my friend?" Anjelica raised her perfectly painted lips in a grim little smile.

"The world, my dear. The world."

Your playtime is interrupted by Mari pestering you on the computer, and you hastily stow your dolls in their rightful places before responding. It looks like she's going to be serving you for the Game you're all about to play, and she wants to start now!

There are quite a few mishaps, during which you remember how... difficult working with Mari can be. You don't really know why she knocked those holes in your walls. That was completely unnecessary. However, the machines have been placed, the game is starting, and your darling Lil Deb has been transformed into a floating, giggling doll head.

It's slightly... hm... unsettling, but this is your oldest toy! What's there to worry about? You have no doubt her pretty face will lead you through the game with no trouble at all.

Ignoring Mari's advice to attempt to sew an extremely elaborate dress within the next ten minutes, you decide to take a chance based on Sarah and Mari's descriptions of destroying their artifacts, and tear the pattern.

>Addy: Be Pestered by Brick.

Do you have to? Yeah, you guess you do. Otherwise you get death by fiery meteors and all that.

You lose your patience with him more than you’d like to admit during the conversation. But you can’t help it! It’s like he TRIES to be as dense and scumbagalicious as humanly possible! He learns a very little-known fact about you, and you hope he doesn't open his rude mouth and go spreading it around.

He sets the machines in your apartment (at one point almost breaking your GENERIC LAPTOP which is running the client. You don’t take it well, to say the least). You end up “prototyping” your kernelsprite with a copy of THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES (the book, of course). You are now the proud owner of MOTHMANSPRITE! His black shadowy form is second only to his glowing red eyes in CREEPOCITY!

You then use the various machines to make your entry item, a CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING BELT. After an inordinate amount of time feeling silly, you decide you should just break it, so you THROW IT ON THE GROUND. Then you bring your heel down, HARD!

edited 14th Jan '12 10:11:33 PM by PulpFreeBookworm

The baby bat/ Screamed out in fright,/ 'Turn on the dark,/ I'm afraid of the light.'

>Sarah: contact friend

Time to find out what you do next in this game now that you're on an alien planet. Alan seemed to have a good grasp of the game mechanics, having read the manual. So you contact him.

Your conversation starts off with you making sure he's already in the Medium so he won't die talking to you. Then he mentions prototyping his sprite with some anime thing.

Oh god damn, anime. It's horrible stuff. The women are these squeaky-voiced breasts with a woman attached that exist only to be cute and items of sexual appeal. Any sort of strong characterization is always ignored when given the chance to objectify them and put them in a position where the male lead can save them and prove his masculinity. Or its one of those disgusting harem ones. Yes, all a woman wants is to jump into a man's pants because god damn, you all sure love some good penis and want nothing more in life than to jump through hoops to please someone that has one. What the f*ck is wrong with Japan.

And nerddom! It's got these juvenile delusions and fantasies and worships stereotypical "alpha males" that are all muscle and dickery and have women at their beck and call. And that translates into people in real life like Brick.

f*cking Brick. Such a douche. You mention it to Alan. He agrees. Good. He's got some brains in him.

Conversation turns to your respective locations in the Medium, then your sprites. For a moment you lament yours' lack of any sort of interactivity, then you realize that you would be interacting with the Foo Fighters. Its' silence is truly some form of blessing. Then Alan laments how his sprite does nothing but encourage him to sell his soul.

You move on, and soon you now have a new item called a Punch Designix to play with. Turns out you can enter captcha codes into it to punch holes in blank captcha cards, which you can use to make items with the Lathe and Alchemiter. Your first creation: OREOS. You found you had actually acquired a pack of them last night, but it was buried in your sylladex, which you hadn't bothered going through. Too early in the hungover day.

Anyways, the important thing is that you now have oreos. You immediately inform Danny of this joyous discovery. Very important stuff, this.

Sadly, you discover that Oreos are high in Grist, which, according to Alan, is the building material of the game. The fuel for the server thingy and the Alchemiter. Oh well.

You then convince him to prototype a Bible with his sprite to try and get the devilbeast to shut up. Of course, that's mostly because you find the idea hilariously blasphemous, and it proves to be just as great as you imagined.

Alan then mentions the possibility of prototyping Sean Connery in your sprite.

f*ck NO.

You tell him in no uncertain terms why that would be horrible and that he is horrible for suggesting it, and that Sean Connery is a horrible sexist asshole.

You attempt to move on and help Alan experiment with Alchemy. You discover that you can alchemize containers with stuff inside them...and you discover that he's a dick and put a Sean Connery bobblehead inside the container. Just to piss you off. Like the asshole he is.

God.

You then engage in a search for some climbing equipment Danny left here a long time ago that you kept meaning to get back to him, but it made its way to the back of your closet and you just kept forgetting about it.

Then you hear a voice.

A horrible horrible voice.

The last voice you wanted to hear.

>Turn around

And there you find yourself face to face with Sean Connery with grunge rocker hair.

GOD DAMMIT, ALAN, YOU ASSHOLE

"Teebs is a total grump, but he's usually right." - NLK

>Brick: have a f*cking sweet run

Oh hell yeah. All your runs are f*cking sweet, but this one was marginally less so, mostly due to all the meteors raining down from the heavens. You counted no less than seven impacts in your immediate area, one striking the track itself, and the space rocks don't seem to be decreasing in frequency. Quite the opposite, actually.

You aren't entirely sure what this bodes for the future, but you have a sinking feeling Bigcity is breaking several world records. Most meteors to strike a single city. Most city-wide destruction in shortest period of time. You can't help but feel a little bit of pride in this. Also you totally picked up that sweet space rock that just wrecked the track. SCORE!

>Get outta there you doof before you get hit by a space rock

Oh man, that's a good idea! Those other wimps were getting their panties in a knot over that game you guys were supposed to play. Pfft.

Should probably check up on them anyway.

You boot up your COMPUTER BOX and make a hearty bowl of OATZ as you wait for that piece of sh*t to open up pesterchum.

>Danny: Frantically pester Brick

Okay, so that guy was actually pretty helpful. You feel kinda bad about calling him a puss* earlier. Should probably contact that Addy chick. Make sure she's ready for this game or whatever.

>Brick: Pester Addy

Uhhh, so that was weird. Is she in the game now? Maybe that helpful dude from before is continuing his helpful ways.

>Brick: Pester Danny

>Brick: Enter the medium.

edited 15th Jan '12 8:28:46 PM by GOINGtoDIE425

I won’t say ‘See you tomorrow’ because that would be like predicting the future, and I’m pretty sure I can’t do that.

>Nate: Do something.

Like what?

>Check out your new planet.

Okay, you can do that. You poke your head out the window but before you can get a good look a flash of lightning darts by and you quickly duck back inside. The sky is ink black and it's storming like crazy out there. You think you'll try looking around later. For now, might as well see what there is to do here in your room.

>Look at your sprite.

What. The hell. Is that.

Your sprite has appeared to have become a giant venus fly-trap. With a ghost-like tail. Once it realizes you are staring at it, it opens its toothed maw and says two words:

"Feed me!"

You could have sworn you threw your "Cats" poster in the kernel. f*ck.

>Exposit for the benefit of the non-theater buffs.

Of course. It appears that you prototyped the kernel with your "Little Shop of Horrors" poster, and your sprite has assumed the form of the musical's antagonist, a monstrous plant named Audrey II. Naturally, you have no intention of feeding the thing. That would only lead to trouble. You'll have to find some other way to deal with the hungry sprite.

That will have to wait, though. It appears Mari is pestering you.

You know you volunteered to be her server, but you're still not really looking forward to this.

>Answer Mari.

You have a conversation we've already seen before.

It goes about as well as you thought it would, with one exception. Mari actually made a mistake in your presence. You found it hilarious, and while you promised not to tell it anyone, you are probably going to lord it over her. Which has the potential to go badly, but whatever.

...What's your sprite doing?

NO. BAD AUDREYIISPRITE. BACK AWAY FROM THE HAMSTER CAGE.

...Oh god it just ate Dot.

>Mourn your lost pet.

You sob quietly, fondly remembering the times when you would set Dot on top of your hat or when she would roll around in her hamster ball being all adorable and her cute little nose and how when you got her she fell out of the box with a little paper dot on her head and it was so damn cuuu—why is Audrey II Sprite glowing.

It appears your sprite has combined with Dot, to create some kind of...hamster/plant combo.

You're not really sure what to think of this.

>Alan: Freak out about this "game"

Oh god, this game is way more than you thought it was. You spend roughly thirty minutes on the edge of a breakdown while you wonder what happened to your friend, only to see a Pesterchum memo started by her.

>Alan: read memo

You engage in a large conversation with the others that we've already read. In it, you learn a few things.

1. Sarah's still alive

2. The whole world is about to be destroyed by meteors

3. Mari has known about the details for a long time, and only gives "the game wasn't done" as an excuse for not elaborating.

You kinda want to strangle something, after learning that there's no way to save anyone else in time. But you have to keep it together and use what you learned with Sarah to help the others get in.

Speaking of which.

>Connect with your Server player.

You have another conversation that we've already seen before as you work with Addy to get into the game. Things go faster without all the shenanigans you went through with Sarah, but you still just barely manage to get in in time. There's a bright flash, and you lose track of your location for a bit.

>Wake up.

You find yourself in a strange place. Your apartment seems to have landed in the middle of an enormous plot of black dirt. The moon is high in the sky, and there's enough moonlight (Is that a face on the moon?) enough moonlight to make out a bunch of tiny rounded stones in the ground... at regular intervals...

Oh hell, this place is a giant graveyard.

>Examine sprite.

Your Kyuubeysprite has morphed from a ball with a creepy face, into a ghost with a creepy face. You... guess that's better? Oh, and it's talking now, but all it says is "Make a contrace with me and become the Seer! ／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼"

You're not sure how it's managing to say that ASCII pattern, but there it is.

You hope that you're not going to have to sell your soul to get any game info from this thing.

>Talk with Sarah.

You have yet another conversation that we've already. You are such an avid conversationalist!

The conversation starts out all right. Discussing the various places you've landed in.

And then you make the mistake of mentioning the source of your Sprite's figure. Well, make that another entire genre to add to the list of things to not mention to Sarah. You begin to think that she often calls you a doormat for not giving her an argument about this kind of thing. You know that there are people who fetishize absolutely everything, but you don't do that. Heck, you find it very hard to fetishize stuff from any work you actually follow. And not every series is a big male power trip. Sometimes it really is as simple as "cowboys in space", or "pirates with superpowers". Heck, you just finished reading a really good series done by a woman author.

You think that it's going to calm down while you discuss the sprites. You end up throwing a copy of the Bible into the Kyuubeysprite to get a Kyuubeyjesusprite. Perhaps the most sacrilegious thing you've ever seen. If the Internet still works to the rest of the world, you think you might want to send a picture of him out somewhere, see what it stirs up.

While discussing Sarah's sprite, she freaking explodes when you suggest an image of an actor that she's done a lot of research on, and lays his crimes at your feet. Standard issue stuff, but then she suggests that the death of actors like him are a good thing to come out of the apocalypse. Oh sure, she backtracks and talks about horrible dictators, but this is just the straw that broke the cow's back.

Camel's back.

Whatever.

>Make Her Pay

You concoct a CLEVER RUSE and send over a figure of that actor in an Alchemy experiment that you genuinely wanted to try out. However, while her back's turned, you throw the figure into her Sprite, creating a new Foo Fighter Connerysprite.

She's probably going to hate you for a week for this, but you don't really care. She wants you to show some backbone? Let's give her some backbone.

I have a message from another time...