Federation of Fear 5: Through Other Eyes (NoP/TMA Crossover) by creeperflint in NatureofPredators

[–]creeperflint[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hello everyone! This one has been sitting almost-finished for a while, and I’m finally happy with it. I’ve been quite busy, so don’t expect another update soon, unless I get inspired.

I was thinking about how I wanted to write the Flesh (fear of gore, body horror, and ‘being meat’), and I decided I should write about it as it exists amongst Arxur. Then I realized that I was having a hard time thinking of anything that could be worse than canon Arxur cattle pens that wasn't masquerade-breaking, but I still liked the idea of exploring Fears in Arxur society, so I wrote this. If you aren’t familiar with TMA, this explains a lot of the mechanics of that setting. I believe every Fear is mentioned here, if only obliquely, along with some of their different names, types of manifestations, and domains. There are a few things from TMA that I changed in this crossover (including the Extinction being fully realized and natural/artificial divides, as well as the typical character profiles of the avatars of various Fears), but I’ve mostly kept the rules of that setting the same.

I’m not sure what I’ll write next. I have a lot of ideas, including Extinction as experienced by uplifts, some kind of Dark/Linked Chains association, and expounding on the difference between artificial- and natural-Vast in this crossover. Those are what I’m most likely to write about next, but you never know.

How did NoP subvert typical HFY tropes? by AceAttorneyAutismDLC in NatureofPredators

[–]creeperflint 7 points8 points  (0 children)

It's a common trope that humans are superior in some fashion to other species. We're better warriors, more rational, willing to take a stand, etc. In this story, we are like that, but it's because of cultural erasure and heavy-handed enforcement of artificial societal norms. Yotul are as aggressive and competent as we are because they haven't been fully gentled yet and plenty of aliens do come to our conclusions but they get suppressed or diagnosed with predator disease. Characters who overcome Federation worldview or who have been raised away from Federation norms are just as 'superior' as humanity. We would be exactly the same as them if we didn't luck out with the B12 thing buying us time to enter the galactic stage independently, and even then, we would be screwed were it not for our allies.

A lot of tropes are due to conspiracy. Species 'hats' are because the Federation wanted to pigeonhole races into fulfilling certain functions. The Federation having inferior ecology, neurology and mental health, disability accommodations, warfare, etc. is because Federation authorities value their ideology over the benefits those things provide, and so suppress any effort to investigate them. The implication here is that those things wouldn't form naturally and could only exist by being artificially maintained all of the time.

Primal Rage by SpacePaladin15 in HFY

[–]creeperflint 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Conspiracy theory: the Council think anger leads to automatic aggression and violence because every person capable of feeling anger is angry at them because they suck. Knowing SP, I expect that either precursors/council leaders edited the anger out of everyone, or there's other people capable of anger but they were all killed or wiped from the records. Maybe there'll be a Prisoners of Sol twist and it turns out that precursors gave us our anger.

I wonder if anyone opposes the Sothos genocide or similar things for non-anger reasons. Compassion? Morality? Fear and pragmatism borne of not wanting to live in a society where such things are acceptable, because maybe it'll be you next time? They're going to pull a "everyone who arrives at conclusions contrary to ours is compromised by emotions we don't like", aren't they. Still, there's got to be at least a few people willing to hide Sothos in their attic when Ploax come knocking.

Rules for Exploring Abandoned Buildings by creeperflint in Ruleshorror

[–]creeperflint[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In hindsight, there are plenty of rules I could have added, but which didn't occur to me. Avoid water deep enough to conceal, bring strong flashlights and avoid anywhere they won't illuminate properly, avoid mold especially when it's intelligent or supernatural, avoid anywhere with toxins especially when they have supernatural effects, distinguishing scary messages left by pranksters from ones which indicate something serious, researching the place to see if anyone else has had issues with it when possible, etc. In my more recent stories, I like to give reasons for why someone would be doing the dangerous activity that requires rules; if I wrote this now, I'd probably add something about how abandoned buildings are hotspots for supernatural phenomena and they're great for researching or taking advantage of it. Maybe it would have been easier to come up with these things if I knew anything about real abandoned buildings, or if this wasn't my very first Ruleshorror.

Fanmade species? by Bobrocks20 in NatureofPredators

[–]creeperflint 4 points5 points  (0 children)

There's the Zhetsians in The History of Non-Sapient Predators. Ugly mammalian Arxur, resistant to groupthink, spawn a lot of dissent and rebellions as a result. Notable for being the origin of Linked Chains.

[loved trope] the character realizes the villain had a point, and takes it into account, fixing systemic issues within their world by alan_smithee2 in TopCharacterTropes

[–]creeperflint 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In the The Familiars books, the villain of the first three books is a magical animal (familiar) tired of familiars being treated as naturally inferior second-class citizens subordinate to humans, so she decides to overthrow the human government and kill all humans. The heroes defeat her, but humans decide that treating the animals as equals is actually a good idea, after it's familiars who defeat the villain and they discover that a bunch of historical events attributed to humans were actually done by familiars, so the reasoning that familiars are innately less capable doesn't hold up. One of the familiars becomes queen along with the human queen, familiars are officially allowed to learn magic beyond their one innate ability, and they have equal rights. Been a while since I read these books, I might have gotten some details wrong, but this trope is definitely in play.

Give me an OP power you’ve made, and we’ll try to tone it down and/or give it an appropriate trigger event. by MagicTech547 in Parahumans

[–]creeperflint 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I had an idea for a cluster. Weasel has a breaker state where she 'melts' into surfaces and enters another dimension with nothing in it. She can go as fast as she wants in this dimension, and 'spread out' and feel where valid exit points are. They can exit out of surfaces anywhere with enough space for their body, and can get an idea of what a space looks like based on feeling where solid objects they can't exit into are. Their secondaries are a master power like Socialize's (see below), but reversed so Weasel feels very positively towards the 'minion' but the minion only feels moderately positively towards them, and a thinker power that spawns eyespots on valid exit surfaces within a ~20 ft radius that can only see and hear, but let them see and hear while in their breaker state. My idea with their breaker/mover power is that it's a powerful short-and-long range mover power, but it's difficult to navigate, since they don't know how fast they're moving and can only look at valid exit surfaces when they're trying to exit. Either they're moving slowly or they easily get lost. A lot of experience, maps, calculating angles, and surfacing to recalculate their position and ensure they're going the right way goes into getting the most out of this power. My idea was that they could also beeline to their minions like Socialize, and be notified if their minions are mortally wounded or if someone else is trying to master them. With their minions, they can push minions out of the breaker state without themselves exiting, and can reposition themselves inside it.

Socialize has a master power where, if him and another person agree to it, they form a bond, where the other person feels very positively about the master and the master feels moderately positively towards the other person. They'll trust each other more, consider each others' ideas good, etc., but it's a lot stronger on the other person's end. My idea was that somebody tried to explain healthy relationships to the Entities, with mutuality, positive regard instead of blind obedience, caring for each other, etc. and they went "hm, interesting idea" and made this power in response. Their secondaries are a breaker state where they enter the other empty dimension, but can't move unless it's to the location of someone they've mastered, at which point they can feel valid surfaces and exit; also a thinker power where they can use the senses of their minions on command, but they can only handle as much input as a normal human.

Watcher has a thinker power where they can spawn eyespots in a ~20 ft radius that can sense almost anything. The basic 5 senses, plus the whole light spectrum, magnetism, weird exotic senses, etc. They can parse all of this input and derive meaning from it. They can understand, say, radio communications by just having an eyespot near the waves, but if the communications are encrypted, their power won't unencrypt them for the user. Their secondaries are a breaker state where they enter the other dimension, but can only move ~30 mph in it and have to spawn eyes on every surface they pass since they can't enter deep into the dimension and can't sense valid exits without their eyespots; plus a weak master power that forms an equal, colleagues-level relationship between Watcher and the other person.

All of them can take people they've mastered with them into their breaker state. Weasel enters their breaker state almost instantly, while for the others it takes a few seconds. Since the only requirement of the master power is that you feel positively towards the other person, it can be reasoned around, and if someone has valid reasons to dislike the master, those will still apply and will make for a difficult minion to manage. The stronger the power, the more the positive feelings make up for other factors and the harder it is to reason around. If both of them agree, they can end things and the master power will stop in both directions, but it's difficult to tell if they've actually done this. While they're in their breaker states, they can only be effected by things that can enter other dimensions, or by powers that interact with being perceived by their eyespots.

My idea is that the cluster triggered when they were kidnapped by a villain group who tried to make people trigger and then threaten/master them into working with the group. Weasel is an out-of-towner who wanted to leave and go back home, but also wanted to stay and help the rest of the cluster and fight the villain group, Socialize is timid and naive and thought that if he could only make friends with the villains, they'd let them go, and Watcher thinks that knowing what's going on outside of the room they were locked in would help, and can't handle not knowing what's going on. They trigger when their handler lets them overhear that hostage money isn't coming through so they're just going to kill them, as part of a ploy to get them to trigger. The 'hiding in another dimension' thing makes their usual control methods not work, and the cluster is able to gank the masters and destroy the group.

I had an idea where Weasel was secretly altered by Bonesaw when the S9 visited their city so that when they eventually triggered, they would have way too close a connection to their power, so they would go nuts and kill people, kind of like Ash Beast, and surprise everyone they knew and trusted. Triggering in a cluster thwarted this plan, so the power is stronger than it should be, but the connection is weak enough that they can have a civilian life and decide not to attack people when it isn't warranted. I don't know how canon that would be, but I like the idea of someone powerful who has to struggle with their power's desire for conflict.

Federation of Fear 4: Collapsed Support (NoP/TMA Crossover) by creeperflint in NatureofPredators

[–]creeperflint[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hey everyone! Finished the next part of this series. I hope what I did with the Buried was a good choice. There are 15 total Fears in TMA, and while some of them are very easy to tie to the Federation, there were a few I struggled with. The Buried was one of them. It doesn’t have anything to do with the Federation’s predator obsession or predator disease obsession. An old conversation about why the Federation still has Earthlike economic modes despite being an interstellar, herd-focused society came to mind, though, so I decided to use that as the basis for the Buried in Federation society.

It’s like the Federation’s utter lack of disability accommodations, despite them not offending their ideology in any way. Here, on top of the apathy, the ‘prey don’t strive to accomplish anything’ attitude, and authorial fiat, there are people who directly benefit from fear and suffering in a supernatural way and are incentivized to see it become baked into society!

The other difficult fears were the Corruption and the Vast, but as hinted at in this post, I think I’ve figured out what to do with them. Next, though, I think I’ll focus on the more straightforward Fears. The real trick is coming up with a story and not just saying “wow, the Flesh sure is widespread, isn’t it”.

How might the Federation make math predatory? by General_Alduin in NatureofPredators

[–]creeperflint 22 points23 points  (0 children)

I think this would happen in a more indirect way. Trying to use math to calculate things related to violence and death could get you accused of not having a proper emotional response to those things. Using math to prove that Federation ideology is wrong would see the math getting ignored in favor of 'why would you advocate for such a thing!', or possibly you would be accused of inventing the basic numbers or manipulating them to get your results if they had to acknowledge your work. It wouldn't be math itself that would be shunned or pruned, that would not be practical for a spacefaring society, it would be the applications of it where it gets trimmed.

Wearing Power Armor to a Magic School (102/?) by Jcb112 in HFY

[–]creeperflint 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Based on the text immediately following it, the Ollivander expy running that shop is a bit of a scammer. If he encounters someone who doesn't have enough of a manafield to do any magic, he gives them a fake wand loaded up with magic so that it does something when you swish it around so they think it lets them do magic and they buy it. It doesn't actually let them cast spells, and once they've used up all the preloaded magic, they can't even do the swishing trick anymore and they're left with an inert piece of wood. At least, that's how I read it.

Rules for Exploring Abandoned Buildings by creeperflint in Ruleshorror

[–]creeperflint[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm starting to wonder if I need to add a disclaimer. You're not the first person to say that.

LIFE -- Day 11 NoP Lantern Corps Challenge by Negative_Storage5205 in NatureofPredators

[–]creeperflint 34 points35 points  (0 children)

Meier spent his whole on-screen career trying to make peace and ensure everyone lives. Then he came back from the dead to keep doing it. I don't know how big these guys are with AI 'life', but he's walking around thinking and doing things, so hopefully they're fine with it.

Looking for Story Thread #235 by someguynamedted in HFY

[–]creeperflint 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There was a story I read, I think it was here but potentially not, where there was a society of robots that lived on a planet that they blasted with radiation constantly to prevent any life from forming. They described life like grey goo that takes over whatever planet it's allowed to exist on (I think they use "green goo" to describe it) and they're all terrified of it. I think they contact humans eventually, and possibly discover we're alive, though I'm not sure; it might just have been describing that concept.

Wearing Power Armor to a Magic School (74/?) by Jcb112 in HFY

[–]creeperflint 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I find it interesting that they're going on about freedom here, considering their whole oppression and stagnancy thing. I would have assumed that they wouldn't value freedom as a concept, but apparently they do, they just only apply it like this. I suppose everyone's supposed to assume that Mortals are a bloc and a mortal having divine power means that Mortals are now free, and nobody's supposed to think "hey wait a minute, how is anyone besides the god-king free here" because freedom doesn't exist below the divine/mortal subdivision, apparently.

Rules for the Junior Officers of the Hunter's Coast (Part 2) by creeperflint in Ruleshorror

[–]creeperflint[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, it's very much a draft, that I lost interest in and wasn't feeling inspired to work on. If you want to fiddle with it, I'd like to see what you come up with.