OPEN } big adventures tons of fun a beautiful heart faithful and strong

[truefriendship]

Who: My Little Phonies
Where: All around the mansion
When: 10/19 - 10/21
Rating: THIS IS A CHILDREN'S SHOW
Summary: Starlight Glimmer is making poor life choices. Everyone else gets to suffer now.
The Story:

Maybe you're outside, enjoying the fall weather. Maybe you're in the kitchen, or just wandering the halls. It doesn't matter. As soon as you lay eyes on that purple pony, walking around with a cyan-glowing horn and an insufferably smug look on her face, your world will twist.

Suddenly you're on four hooves, not two feet. You have a mane. Maybe you're lucky enough to have wings, or a horn. You aren't a human now. You're a pony, your special talent emblazoned on your flank to show the world who you are.

But clearly, this is how things have always been, right? Pay no attention to your memories of hands, this is normal now.


[ooc: Feel free to make your own top levels and go wild! See here for ooc plotting. Also here if you want to make a custom pony.]

Comments

Jean OTA (will match style)

[angewiesen]

Jean turns out to be a rather plain (if hard-eyed) pegasus pony with a somewhat familiar cutie mark. And while he's a pony now, he doesn't have any knowledge of magic, so he doesn't feel or notice any difference. So he goes about the sort of stuff he would normally be up to in a day.

Namely, he's set up a load Titan training dummies on the checkerboard hills. Sword in mouth, he makes quick, precise dives at the targets on the dummies' necks, slashing them open at a very particular point and angle. After he finishes each dive, he stops to examine his work, to see how well he did, and then winds up and tries again.

One small thing he does notice is that this seems... too easy. Didn't this used to be harder? This whole flying thing? He didn't used to be able to go in any direction like this, unfettered by gravity. Maybe he's just gotten really good at it, after so much training.

That was probably it. He was just that amazing. His only regret is that there isn't anyone from his world here to praise him on his work. This isn't nearly as enjoyable without anyone around to pat him on the metaphorical back. He subsists on the praise of strangers.

Ah well. If any Titans were ever to come to Wonderland, he was confident now that he could take them all on himself!

[alphyswhatsabara]

Dearest of hard-eyed pegasus ponies, please accept this royal, and very bearded alicorn. He's Doing His Best.

He observes you cutting up the necks of wooden... large people. It's very impressive! What good blade work. It is also a little bit scary.

"Whatever it is you are trying to do, it's very impressive. If I were a large wooden person, I would be very afraid of your aerial combat skills."

[angewiesen]

Hmm? Jean only kinda heard that from above, but he quickly noticed that he had gained an audience. And a royal audience at that. He didn't know a whole lot about being a pony, but there was something intrinsically impressive about an Alicorn. Jean flew back down to earth, and put his sword away in one of the sheathes at his sides.

Asgore was pretty dang big too. Jean had the slightly larger frame of a male Pegasus, but he was still dwarfed by him.

"Thanks," he nodded in a half-bow, and glanced back at his work. "They're Titan dummies. The real deal isn't made of wood, but they're about this big, and their weak points are where I've set up the targets."

[alphyswhatsabara]

"Oh, and are Titans... real, then? What are they really made from? Magic? Dust?"

You know, like regular things are made out of. Dust and magic.

[angewiesen]

"Nah, they're not monsters like you and Sans," Jean replied as he remembered the lessons he's had on these guys' worlds and what the word 'monster' means to them. "I guess you could say they're made of humans. Or at least, they were all humans once..."

...Humans? Jean didn't know how he knew that word. What were humans? Certainly not a pony, like him. The thought was slipping his mind.

[alphyswhatsabara]

"Ah, yes. Humans." Asgore knew what Humans were. They were the ones who drove all of the Monster ponies underground.

"Humans killed my son. I... swore vengeance against them, although... I came to regret that action. Are you... entirely certain that these Titan-humans are... worth the vengeance? What do they do?"

[angewiesen]

Jean rose a pony-brow in interest at Asgore's story. He had no idea that a human had killed his son. From what Jean knew of him, he was a giant, goat-shaped marshmallow that liked to garden and gave really elaborate Secret Santa gifts. He'd never have guessed that he once had a taste for vengeance-- and on top of that, a perfectly good reason to harbor such feelings.

Good thing he'd given up that sentiment. Asgore struck him as powerful in his own way. He could cause some destruction if he were determined to do so.

"They eat humans. Exclusively. Not because they're hungry or something-- Titans can't die without intervention," and even then, they had to be dispatched in an almost impossibly specific manner. "They just consume. And they'll destroy every obstacle in their way to do it."

"It's actually a kind of mercy to kill them. If they have any memories of what they were when they were still humans... That kind of an existence would be an endless nightmare."

[alphyswhatsabara]

He's a giant marshmallow who once swore an oath of blood vengeance. It didn't work out so well.

"Ah, you are very kind to watch out for the poor humans, then. They are so hindered, what with their diminished number of feet. I had no idea that some humans could grow into... giant humans. Although I do know what it is like to not be able to die unless killed."

Just learning a lot today about this chunk of a pony aren't we.

"Although I retained all of my memories. So I suppose that's a key difference."

[angewiesen]

"Titans are are my-world-only kind of deal, so you don't have to worry about it anywhere else. Maybe someday we'll be able to exterminate them completely, and stop any more from being created, and they'll just become an old stain on history."

Asgore's comment about "looking after the humans" struck Jean as odd for a second-- why would he, as a pony, be looking out for humans? But it was only a passing thought.

"What, you can't die? Like, here in Wonderland?"

[alphyswhatsabara]

"Well, there's a... long story attached to it, but... without a child, I cannot age or die of illness, although I can be killed. After the death of my son, and my wife's leaving me... I was never presented the opportunity... to die of old age or sickness. I have died in Wonderland, though, when an ice giant killed me as I was protecting my friend Tim the Human Pony. Earth pony. Tim the... Earth pony."

He looks puzzled for a moment. Why did he want to call Tim the Earth Pony by the appellation Tim the Human? Was it because they had been talking about humans?

[angewiesen]

"Human pony?"

There was that odd feeling again. Humans. Why would he even know what a human is? He was a pony. There weren't any humans here, right? Then why did he fight Titans?

"Hey, does this feel weird to you at all? What we're talking about? I feel like I shouldn't even know what a human is, but I do."

[alphyswhatsabara]

"Oh well I know what humans are because, as I said, the humans killed my son and then I swore to kill any humans who entered my kingdom in response and then when... the... ... the ponies... fell through, I... no... I didn't... they weren't ponies... but... I remember them as ponies?"

This beautiful alicorn looks highly confused by this entire mental exercise.

"I... don't remember ever having met a human... but I should."

[angewiesen]

"Exactly. If I'm a pony, why do I care about killing Titans? They don't attack ponies, they attack humans. But there are ponies in my strike team that can shift into Titans... How is that possible?"

Something was fishy. It felt like an event, but Jean really couldn't tell. What could possibly mess with their identities like this?

✨

[ssmisery]

A fellow pegasus drops out of the sky, swiftly and quietly. Which is not to say that she's trying to sneak up on Jean, just that she doesn't really care to announce herself.

Now, let's be honest here, this probably doesn't make as much difference for Lapis as it might for some. Technically, she's still not actually a pony any more than she was previously a human, merely shaped that way; to boot, she was already brightly-colored and winged, and would be highly recognizable with or without memory issues. The lack of hands is a thing and that'll have to become noticeable sooner or later, but frankly she doesn't even do much, in general.

Regardless, she is not a credulous sort, and already suspects that something is Off today, so she actually is, in her aloof way, investigating. Jean is simply someone she knows (albeit mostly through text) who has also been kind enough to make himself very conspicuous. ...With whatever it is he's doing. It would be a stretch to say Lapis seems particularly interested, but she does the courtesy of waiting and watching for a moment instead of simply interrupting him. Yeah, that probably counts as courtesy, sure.

[angewiesen]

Jean did a few more darting dives before he noticed a bright blue Pegasus pony watching his work. Even from afar she was easy to recognize-- it was true they had spoken mostly in text, but you don't forget someone who looks like Lapis does that easily. Jean puts his sword away in one of the sheathes at his side, and wings down to her with ease.

This whole flying thing came really naturally do him. He did it a lot as a human to, just through using a different mechanism.

"Impressed?" he puffed himself up as he approached. Jean always loved an audience. Even after his personality sobered up after a few months in the Corps, he still had an overlarge sense of pride in his ability as a soldier. "They aren't the real thing, but I was always the fastest maneuverer in training."

[ssmisery]

Her eyes linger on the wooden figures rather than Jean himself. They seem like the most notable part in this scene. "What are you trying to do?" Lapis asks, which isn't much of an answer or as ego fuel. At least she is showing some interest, though.

[angewiesen]

Interest was more than enough for Jean. He turned back around to face the dummies with her.

"These are Titan dummies. The kind we used back in training. Not the real thing, of course, but I set up targets on the back of the neck," he explained, and pointed a hoof towards the sandbags attached to the backs of the dummies necks. "That's where their weak point is. I've been practicing my dives and fly-bys to try and dispatch them in one swoop."

[ssmisery]

Lapis knows nothing of Titans, and, being Lapis, doesn't care about the details anyway. There's a lot in the work ethic of a soldier training for battle that's beyond her grasp as well, which she realizes. Heck, practicing for something that's not in Wonderland won't do any good anyway, will it?

-- Ugh, that's a thought. "How nice. Are those things an event we can look forward to someday?"

[angewiesen]

Jean had realized long ago that his training here meant nothing back home, but he couldn't find it in himself to stop. He'd been doing it for years, and sitting around made him feel like a layabout. Plus--

"Totally possible," he replied with an edge of irritation in his voice. He wasn't happy about it either. "I've heard from people that've been here longer than me that people from my world have been here before, and Titans did end up attacking eventually... So, yeah. Lightning can strike twice."

[ssmisery]

Goody. At least this means she knows where to aim, if there's ever a sudden titan emergency? Lapis is quite sure she'd still rather be nowhere near any such thing. She's still technically a civilian, dangit!

"They look creepy," she declares flatly and decisively, as if that were a conclusion reached after hours of research. QED! "You do this a lot?"

[angewiesen]

"They're way creepier in the flesh," Jean snorted (something he was quite good at now that he had a horse nose). "They're not just huge, they're... Off. You can only really tell when you see one."

"Yeah. It's a part of my job back home. It's not one many people decide to take on either. There's a pretty low survival rate..."

His ears fell. They'd lost nearly the entire force reclaiming Shiganshina. He predicted that long beforehand, but somehow, it didn't make it hurt any less.

[ssmisery]

"I mean this." Lapis indicates the dummies, the training setup, waving a hoof. She flies around aimlessly a lot, and if Jean regularly sets up this big ol display she should have seen it by now -- and she probably has, at that, but seeing isn't the same thing as taking notice. That's not important. "This is normal for you, right?"

[angewiesen]

"Oh, you mean training with the dummies? Sometimes. Usually I set them up in the outskirts of the forest," because he needed the trees to grapple onto in order for his gear to work optimally.

Wait. Gear? What kind of gear? Why would he need anything to help him to fly? He had wings! Jean shook his head in an attempt to clear his thoughts.

"But there's the hologram room too. Rocket's tweaked it to make... What'd'y'callit. Virtual. Virtual Titans. It's pretty on point there, almost in vivo."

[ssmisery]

Yeah, that's silly, forests are terrible for flying in. If she weren't so apathetic, Lapis would almost have the urge to wingsplain. Other pegasi can take care of themselves, of course.

"Huh. I've never been." Since Lapis has, uh, difficulty getting around inside the mansion, rooms like that do genuinely fall outside her aimless wandering range. That one really isn't something she'd be interested in anyway, though. "Why even bother with all this instead?"

[angewiesen]

"The Virtual Reality Room is good, but it's not perfect. Sometimes you've got to feel real wind, and real gravity to get some proper practice in..."

"...Are you ever inside the Mansion? I feel like I never see you in there."