hugtopia | [video] An elf's got an idea y'all

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[video] An elf's got an idea y'all

[It's his grand debut to the network and he's looking fine, mostly thanks to a glamour that gives his clothes a little more pizazz than the robots can manage. He's sitting at his kitchen counter, chin resting artfully on the back of one hand, inspecting the nails of the other nonchalantly.]

Soooo, say I have a proposal for something that's mmmm-- [He pops his lips a few times as he thinks] --mega fun and a great way to, y'know, fill up the hours that we're stuck in this place. Oh, and it's useful for everyone, natch, can't introduce a product without letting you know that every single one of you can get some sort of use out of it. So say I got this awesome idea, but need a little help in the whole development portion, who can I get to help little ol' me out with that, huh?

Anyone here good at coding or doing nerdy computer shit? I got the idea and know exactly how I want it to go down, but, while I'm a baller wizard and a chef [and a scientist, but who needs to know that part, right?] I'm not exactly saavy with this whole [He gestures at the communicator camera.] thing. The coding thing. Making apps and shit wasn't Taako's deal, ya dig?

So? Anyone out there wanna help me spruce up this place or what?

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[ Honerva was learning a lot from being around them, moreso from their interactions than even observation. The movements of her ears were also natural, more giveaways to her mood than she'd ever been capable of before.

Now the carrot was before her.

Certainly, it sounded simple, certainly it felt as though it should be so. A process that she should have been able to replicate on an arcane level. And yet... her work with the organic was never for a task of this measure. When she worked with metals or even energy, this energy could be used to refine, to make something new or necessary.

But to restore... to provide the necessary balance to change this carrot into the proper form? She frowns, feeling the buzz of her magic beneath her skin as she focuses to bring it to bear, even knowing that... this was not the purpose toward which her energy was so inclined.

The color needed to be orange. She could visualize that; visualize the proper taste, even; she'd had some recently enough.

But the results are still thus: the carrot on the table before them is not orange. It is, in fact, purple. ]

[He watches as she concentrates, can feel the arcane energy gather in the air and focus in where she wants it to go. It all seemed to be going how it was supposed to, the magic channeling through the vegetable on the counter and humming through its skin. It isn't going haywire into the table or into his hands, which is good because he definitely does not want carrot fingers.

The skin starts to change and shift, moving along the color spectrum until?

It's purple.

And a very lovely shade of purple at that.

Taako stares for a second, then bursts out laughing, not at her, necessarily, but at the whole situation.]

Well, I gotta say, you definitely stick to your aesthetic and I commend you for that.

[ This is it, this is her curse. Lup might have magic changing hair color, Taako might be cursed to drink lime-gogurt for the rest of his days, but for her?

Purple. It's always going to be purple, isn't it?

He might think it funny, but this was unfair. She didn't want this reminder. He likely didn't notice, all the ways that she was trying to get as far away from that aesthetic as possible. She'd made a point of keeping it out of her clothing choices, and everything else, ever since she'd begun to make the effort to get away from it.

The reminder. Had it been so long since she'd last utilized her abilities in such a way that she'd forgotten the color would simply manifest? Perhaps it mattered less in other things. He might be laughing, but she's staring at her hands, not quite scowling, but her ears have gone low. ]

... I should have known that would be the result.

[No one could ever accuse Taako of being the most observant of people, except when it came to his family. He liked to fuck around and pretend he didn't care or notice at all, but he did. He watched them carefully, a skill he'd grown out of necessity through the century of living and dying side by side with them. It used to just be with Lup, but living on the Starblaster had slowly opened him up to others.

Now he was learning to do that again, but with the two who had followed with him to this world. They were the closest thing he'd get to a Starblaster crew here, even if they weren't yet anywhere near that stage. So while he didn't notice right away how dismayed she was or how much she'd been moving away from her previous image, it was hard to miss the tilt of her ears as she stared at her hands.

His laughter peters out and he flicks the carrot goodnaturedly.]

Hey, you still got a result and for your first time trying to transmute a food? That's pretty good. It didn't explode or turn into a gerblin or something, so you're on the right track.

[He picks the carrot up, rolling it in his hands to see where it could have gone wrong.]

And technically? Carrots were originally purple anyway. People went and fucked up their genetic code for so long that they turned orange, and since that looked fancy as fuck, people stopped growing the original variety.

[ Well, it wasn't as if she was new to the principles. Just new to applying them in these... perhaps it is not fair to call them mundane ways, but it was new to her. ]

... Perhaps.

[ She was a perfectionist but she knew to expect some degree of failure. If it had simply blown up, she might have been amused, too. If she could only affect the color of the food without degrading it in some way? She wondered. Any degradation at all would have been expected. She doesn't know what he will truly find, looking it over like that. ]

But this may be no simple failure, even if that much is a coincidence.

[ Carrots being originally purple, who knew? That was new. He was trying to console her... that was new. ]

I had not considered the possibility, perhaps because it has been so... long, but my application of energy can often result in objects or substances... taking on that color. It did not matter so much in an empire that had ultimately been based upon it.

[ But it was unacceptable to her with the reality of it here; how was she supposed to learn new things and help if this was the wall she was stuck behind? It's a lot to say, to him. She knows he doesn't like to linger upon such things, especially if it was mood-affecting, but since they were talking about magic, it might... help, to have more disclosure. ]

No shit?

[He raises an eyebrow as he appraises both her handiwork and her. If her magic tends to tinge things purple, it could make sense why she's so sick of the color. Taako rather liked it, honestly. It wasn't blue for the Bureau or Red for the IPRE, but somewhere in the middle, where he was now. Stuck there, without a real way forward or back.

Maybe after a few hundred years in that position, he might get sick of it, too, though.

With a shrug, he tosses the carrot back to Honerva, expecting her to catch it. Instructing people on magic and through food were the easiest ways he'd found to connect with people. He knew he sucked at it on every other level, but these two things at least made it easier to talk about. It had worked with Angus, and it'd work again here. He knew it. He just had to...let it.]

You might be trying too hard then, putting too much of yourself into forcing the change, rather than coaxing it. You're used to pushing things with your magic into places where you want them to go, but this? This is about letting the food be what it's supposed to be. It probably knows it looks all wonky as fuck and tastes weird so it wants to be what it's supposed to be. You just have to nudge it that way.

Might be harder with things like uh... [He thinks and his ears flick back.] -changing garbage into roast duck, but eventually you can figure out the pathways to get there. Just takes a lot more practice and finesse.

[ "Sick of it" and "feeling distinctly uncomfortable because of the implications of it" were entirely different matters.

But Taako did not know so much about her, to fully understand her reaction. That consistent, sickly reminder of her disastrous life.

She catches the carrot easily, and listens, waits for him to consider the information, and then debates the outcome of his advice. Involving too much of herself with the process? Strange, to consider, but perhaps her magic was the sort that would be used to brute force methods instead of gently coaxing changes. She was already having to learn to be delicate with it in ways she had not experienced, all because of the lack of necessity to push harder for the sake of someone else's need for excess energy and a greater empire.

The energy had the same sorts of principles, but everything about the applications needed to be readdressed, to perhaps learn the smaller lessons that may have been considered unnecessary when it came to the major changes she could inflict. The energy should have been something else to begin with, anyway; what good was all the excess power when all it could do was cause pain? ]

... To coax it by using less. That is... interesting.

[ Her ears wiggle again, responding to his more alertly. Allowing it to become what it needed to be without too much involvement... instead of forcing it to become something else. She could easily have forced it to become something monstrous, warped and twisted instead of simply discolored. But could that truly free it from this taint? She was still missing so much. Perhaps this carrot was too much like her, wanting to return to ... what she was supposed to have been, and not so wonky and twisted. ]

Perhaps it is only that I am not accustomed to... restoring the natural properties of such things... and allowing it to respond. It will take time to adjust to such methods... but time is what I have here.

Yeah, I can't really explain it all that well except to say don't be such a tryhard.

[But the ear wiggle and her interest in continuing is encouraging. It'd definitely help to have someone else besides him and sometimes Lup doing the transmutation in the house. He already expends most of his daily spell slots doing this and with the cafe and everything else opening soon? He'll need the help, even if he hates to admit it.]

But either way, it's not like I expected you to pull out the perfect spell the first time. If you did, I'd have to kill you. [His voice lowers an octave and takes on a somewhat...bad English accent.] "There can be only one!" [He snickers at his own joke and brings his voice back to normal, tossing his carrot between his palms as he thinks.]

You got the ability to uh....scan? Or uh detect magic getting used, right? Like you can feel it when it's happening? That arcane buzz and all?

Edited 2020-03-06 22:20 (UTC)

[ She's got to work with what she's got and she's not used to being hit in the face with how dissatisfying it was to not be immediately good at what she does, especially when it comes to something she usually was skilled with, though she only felt her limitations more, in these domestic settings.

Or at least, she wasn't used to struggling with something she was supposed to be good at where someone else could judge the results. ]

... that is correct.

[ She pauses, thoughtful. She was already sensitive to magical energy, certainly could feel the arcane all around here, but perhaps she had not been watching his process on a deep enough level, for further appraisal. ]

Perhaps... I will apply a ritual to study it more intensively, while your work continues. That should help... at the roots.

[ Because... they're working with root vegetables. ]

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[video] An elf's got an idea y'all

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