Lumine: Welcome back from the dead. You look... different.
Sandrone: Stop beating around the bush and just spit it out already!
Lumine: Your skirt is... um... much shorter than it was the last time I saw you.
Sandrone: Ugh, tell me about it! Those fucking amateurs at the Research Institute couldn't follow a Technical Specifications Document if it grabbed them by the balls and squeezed, and now I look like a whore.
Lumine: It's not that bad.
Sandrone: It's a travesty. Poor Alain would be generating electricity if they had wrapped him in copper before burying his corpse.
Columbina, floating by: Oh, hi Sandrone! I love the new outfit. Really accentuates your legs. See you around!
Sandrone: ...that said, I could learn to live with this.
Lumine: Nice to know that your personality remains unchanged.
If there is no upper limit on the number of people in a polycule, this implies the existence of a point in which the polycule is big enough to be considered a macropolycule.
You Miss Some Things When You're Sleeping on the Job
Heavenly Messenger (HM): My Lord, I bring news from the surface. Dost thou remember thy angels?
Phanes: Verily, one of my worse ideas all told. What of the traitorous little mongrels? Last I checked, they did fuck around and subsequently found out.
HM: Yes, well, the one known as Nicole has allied herself with the mage called Alice.
Phanes: "Allied"? With that blonde maniac?
HM: Aye. One might say that they are in cahoots, my Lord.
Phanes: Cahoots! Gods be damned, can one not get a moment's peace in this wretched hellhole?!
HM: I am sure thou shalt have no trouble dealing with them as thou wilt, my Lord.
Phanes: Hast thou ever dealt with the Mad Witch Alice before? Because if thou hadst, thou wouldst not speak such idiocy in my presence. I simply cannot with this right now. Make it someone else's problem. Get Naberius to do it, she hath not been busy recently, has she?
HM: My Lord, Naberius was consumed.
Phanes: I'm sorry, what dost thou mean, "Naberius was consumed"?
HM: Uh... I mean to say that Naberius was devoured and no longer exists independently as the Shade of Life, but as a facet of the rogue Khaenri'ahn alchemist Gold.
Phanes: A Khaenri'ahn ate my Shade?! I thought we killed them all!
HM: Nay, my Lord, quite the opposite. Ronova cursed them with immortality, remember?
Phanes: Right, shit, she did do that. I always suspected the immortality curse was a bad decision. When did this "consumption" occur?
HM: We are not sure, my Lord. Nobody was paying much attention at the time, what with the cataclysm and all.
Phanes: Oh fuck me sideways. Then just send another flood! One would think these mortals would learn after the drowning of Fontaine, but I am not above repeating mine message until they get the point.
HM: ...my Lord, Fontaine still stands.
Phanes: Excuse me, what? Fontaine should be at the bottom of the ocean! What happened to the prophecy? I was told there was a prophecy!
HM: Um... it seems that the common interpretation of the prophecy was... missing some critical details.
Phanes, heavily sarcastic: What detail could we possibly have missed? The part where the Hydro Dragon Sovereign reincarnates, regains his authority and personally saves every last Fontainian from certain death?
HM: ...
Phanes, incredulous: Thou art fucking with me. He didn't.
HM: He goeth by the name "Monsieur Neuvillette" now, my Lord.
Phanes, defeated: This planet was a mistake. My entire life hath been a mistake.
HM: Look at the bright side, my Lord. At least the reborn trilunar goddess destroyed the heretic who attempted to usurp the power of the three moons.
Phanes: ...did she now? And when wast thou going to break that particular news to me, hmm? Or wert thou going to leave me to figure it out on my own?
HM: Ah. Hm. Well. I think I shall take my leave now, my Lord.
Phanes: Indeed, that would most likely be for the best.
HM: ...though before I depart I really ought to inform thee of the incident regarding the Frost Moon and the firmament-
Phanes: GET OUT. And don't come back until thou canst tell me something that makes fucking sense!
Data Dottore, holding a giant electro sword: Ahh. I knew you'd come. To stand before the Irminsul. To become-
Lumine: Hey, yeah, sorry to interrupt your super important villain monologue, but are you trying to pull a Sir Gideon Ofnir right now?
Data Dottore: Excuse me?
Lumine: Don't play dumb with me, jackass, that's obviously the Magatsu Mitake Narukami no Mikoto - Baleful Shadowlord's "Final Calamity" technique. You stole it from a different boss fight.
Data Dottore: Nonsense. Stealing as such is beneath a scientist of my caliber. I have merely iterated on a few maneuvers from Irminsul's databanks when I had a bit of free time.
Lumine: For a supposed evil genius, you're the biggest plagiarist I've ever met. What else have you got in there? Bloodtide Banquet? Severing Primal Fire? Ooh, how about Celestial Voyager? That one's a classic.
Data Dottore: What you are referring to is called "innovation", though I understand that the distinction between scientific progress and plagiarism might elude someone of your intellectual capacity.
Lumine: Uh huh. Was that what you said when you got expelled from the Akademiya?
Data Dottore: Oh look, the invasive species has a sense of humor. We'll see if you're still laughing when I expel you from existence.
Lumine: Because that worked out so well for you during your first weekly boss fight. You're even stealing from yourself now! Can you get any more derivative?
Data Dottore: I prefer to think of it as having strong methodological reproducibility.
Lumine: Cool. Let's reproduce me kicking the shit out of you.
2025: A closeted trans girl takes estrogen while boymoding (not socially transitioning). All her friends kinda know because she has like C cup breasts and an hourglass figure, but they respect her enough to let her come out on her own terms.
2050: A closeted furry takes CRISPR CAS 9 injections to become their fursona while humanmoding (not socially transitioning). All their friends kinda know because they are covered in fur and straight up vored an entire rotisserie chicken from Costco Galactic Enterprise Corporation (still $4.99), but they respect them enough to let them come out on their own terms.
Yeah, but is the Costco chicken also a furry or is it still just a chicken? (Or is it a "feathery"?) Do chicken furries and chicken-chickens exist at the same time, like the situation where Goofy and Pluto are both dogs?
Also, is a furry buying a chicken like... trafficking? Slavery? And is eating it afterwards considered necrocannibalism?
people online: I rent a proxy server to protect my privacy
people in real life: I just connected my Facebook account to my Venmo account for no reason and now I'm going to take a picture of you in public and post it with geolocation turned on
I love how the engagement metrics at the bottom are just these long-ass numbers that still have "k" at the end, signifying three more zeroes as if there's a meaningful difference between a septillian likes and an octillion likes.
Varka: Okay, listen up. Got a report on Liyue from the Honorary Knight, and I have good news and bad news.
Kaeya: Still playing games, Grand Master? Fine, I'll bite. Give me the good news first.
Varka: We finally found a horse.
Kaeya: Seriously?! I've been Cavalry Captain for years and was starting to think I would never live to see the day. This is amazing! What's the bad news?
Varka: The bad news is there's only one, and she's an Adeptus who is currently occupying a humanoid form.
Kaeya: ...is she hot?
Varka: I don't know, maybe?
Kaeya: So you're telling me I get to ride a horse who's also a hot woman?
Varka: If my intel is correct, she's an ancient moon goddess, so, uh... obviously, you'd need her permission. But otherwise, yeah, I guess that's what that means.
Kaeya: Not to get ahead of myself, Grand Master, but I'm having trouble seeing this as anything besides an absolute win.
Varka: Yeah... you know, I feel like I really misplayed this conversation, but I'm not sure exactly what I did wrong. Should have started with the bad news first, maybe.
Any writer who is having trouble with their cosmic horror novel, spend a few weeks by yourself in New England during the off season. The rest should flow quite easily.
Now the thing that I put on Private because it wasn't ready yet has completely vanished from the mobile app, but is still visible to me on the website. What the fuck, Tumblr, are you drunk?
Childe: We're just dropping like flies, huh? Don't tell me I have to go to Dottore's funeral next.
Pierro: Il Dottore will not receive a state funeral, having been convicted of treason prior to his death. We are also unable to confirm that he is actually dead.
Pantalone: He had better not be, that cockroach owes me 800 million mora for the loan he took out to finance his moonbat research institute.
Childe: Don't you ever think about anything that isn't money? You're like a caricature at this point.
Pantalone: I would say that's rich coming from someone as bloodthirsty as you, Tartaglia, but we both know that nothing about you is rich.
Childe: Very funny, Trousers. You know, you've been way bitchier ever since you broke up with your little boyfriend.
Pierro: Enough! We are here to attend to critical Fatui business, not litigate your petty grievances. Now, with the vacancies created by Columbina's resignation, the termination of Dottore's employment and Sandrone going on... indefinite medical leave, Her Majesty the Tsaritsa and I have decided to reassign Harbinger rankings. 1st position remains with Il Capitano. Arlecchino, you have been promoted to 2nd, Pulcinella to 3rd, Pantalone to 4th, &6?<g7P÷,!*# to 5th and Tartaglia to 7th. Any questions?
Childe: Yeah, I have some questions. First: This is your "critical Fatui business"? Second: How did you do that thing with your mouth when you said the 10th Harbinger's name? Third: Why the hell are we still keeping the 6th seat open? It's been empty for centuries.
Pierro: It is the Tsaritsa's will that the seat remains unfilled. Is that a problem for you, Tartaglia?
Childe: No, but the harbinger rankings are how I measure my self-worth and it sucks losing out to an empty chair.
Pierro: That is incredibly sad, and also absurd, because I can guarantee that no one else here cares what rank they are.
Arlecchino: The Jester is correct. Regardless of ranking, I am prepared to gut each and every single one of you like a fish the moment you cross me.
Pantalone: The only number that matters to me is my bank balance.
Childe: ...Right. If that's what the rest of you care about, I'm going to stick with the rankings.
Pantalone: This "ranking" is nothing more than a subjective ordering of who the Jester thinks would win in an arm-wrestling match.
Arlecchino: Indeed. Namely, me.
Childe: You sound pretty confident. You wanna go?
Arlecchino: It would be my pleasure to put you in the infirmary again, Tartaglia.
Childe: That was just a sprain, and only because you got lucky. This time for sure-
Pierro, beneath a cacophany of bickering Harbingers: ...five more deaths and I will finally know peace from this evil.
Childe: What was that?
Pierro: I said, "If there are no other questions, this meeting is adjourned."
Hyperdimensional Babysitting Part 5: Playtesting is Hard Work
Alice, explaining her Magic Bubble: -so we just have to send someone to scout things out first. Then, we can manually correct anything that doesn't make sense. Sounds good, right? We'll allow you to be the first to relive these precious memories, and in return, you'll be our eyes on the inside.
Lumine: ...you want me to do free QC testing for your interactive nostalgia simulator?
Alice: Come now, dear, you don't have to be so cynical about it.
Venti: Welp, here we go again.
Lumine: Wanting to be paid for my labor isn't cynicism you slave-driving she-devil.
Nicole: Oh my...!
Alice: Has she always been this feisty?
Venti: No, just since when she took Klee on a month-long vacation to the Veluriyam Mirage for you. To be fair, you can only ask someone to pick up your tab so many times before they start to cop an attitude. Believe me, I know.
Nicole: Well we certainly won't be building a reputation for that kind of stinginess. How about five primogems and five thousand mora per bug report filed?
Lumine: Okay, see? Now we're getting somewhere! Granted, that's still peanuts, but at least it's more than "the satisfaction of a job well done".
Alice: Oh, fine. I suppose you'll want me to start paying Jean for all of her assistance too, then?
Lumine: ...yes?
Alice: And Dvalin?
Lumine: Especially Dvalin, you've been using him as an on-demand taxi service for YEARS! Do you really not know how you sound when you say stuff like this?
Alice: I was going for "whimsical".
Lumine: Nicole-
Nicole: I'm sorry. If there was a way to break through to her, I would have found it centuries ago.
Lumine: ...fine. I'll take the primos and 5k per bug.
Alice: Lovely, then it's settled!
Lumine: Even when I win, it feels like a loss.
Nicole: That is an amazing summary of what negotiating with the Hexenzirkel is like, I'll need to write that down.
I'm sure someone has done this already, but here's another ttrpg idea:
We're all familiar with the trope of "warlock-married-to-their-patron", along with the slightly more subversive "warlock-divorced-from-their-patron". How about playing as the divorced patron?
Example: You're a seelie who's hit a long stretch of rotten luck, only for your charismatic scumbag bard spouse to ditch you at your lowest. Since then, you've been doing the fairy equivalent of sitting on the couch in your underwear eating Cheetoes and binging Netflix (which explains how you've gone from Archfey to Level 1 PC).
The character arc is you regaining your power and learning to live after love. Do you get back together with your ex, or get revenge? Do you form a new pact and get a new warlock? Maybe you're an unemployed fairy godparent desperately seeking a godchild in a world where you're not wanted. Or maybe you abandon the whole pact thing entirely and become the strong single fairy who don't need no bard you were born to be.
I think this would be fun for a wild magic or lunar magic sorcerer.
Oh man, what if they took the dog (read: direwolf) when they left? That's your heroic quest: to get your goddamn dog back from the asshole who broke your heart.
I'm sure someone has done this already, but here's another ttrpg idea:
We're all familiar with the trope of "warlock-married-to-their-patron", along with the slightly more subversive "warlock-divorced-from-their-patron". How about playing as the divorced patron?
Example: You're a seelie who's hit a long stretch of rotten luck, only for your charismatic scumbag bard spouse to ditch you at your lowest. Since then, you've been doing the fairy equivalent of sitting on the couch in your underwear eating Cheetoes and binging Netflix (which explains how you've gone from Archfey to Level 1 PC).
The character arc is you regaining your power and learning to live after love. Do you get back together with your ex, or get revenge? Do you form a new pact and get a new warlock? Maybe you're an unemployed fairy godparent desperately seeking a godchild in a world where you're not wanted. Or maybe you abandon the whole pact thing entirely and become the strong single fairy who don't need no bard you were born to be.
I think this would be fun for a wild magic or lunar magic sorcerer.
