Subject: That's what I would also like to know, replied the Datura.
Author:
Posted on: 2022-06-13 00:24:43 UTC
Lori, who'd raised her hands along with the others (though not without some shock at Meg's detached hands in general), flashed a sheepish smile at the Flower.
"We're here to investigate the cause of a mysterious disappearance of multiple PPC staff of ex-Suvian origin," she said pleasantly. "Perhaps you could enlighten us as to what happened here?"
(Moved over here to prevent the main Board from being too stressed)
So, in a world where one agent's wish that all Mary Sues would just disappear came true, a good portion of HQ's denizens of Suvian/badfic origin have all vanished. All continua with Canon Sues in them have also gone missing.
Current disappearences:
Current threads:
As with last time, please make your reply to one of the above posts to start us off.
Also, wanna know what's going on in a certain thread? The doc has you covered, with most (if not all!) of the posts are linked, with a short summary of what's going on in general.
-kA
"My colleague Flib is... was? A literal mad scientist." It was a little numbing to think about how Flibbertigibbet was probably gone, now, but Neo reckoned he would have time to worry about that later, after getting Boadicea where she needed to go. "And we've got an entire department of assassins, so what's one more person who had to fight monsters for survival?"
He nearly bumped into Boadicea then, but was able to peer around her to see where they'd gone. Sure enough, the door to the General Store was there.
"Sweet!" he said, holding out a hand. "Up top, Boadi!"
((Reply to Bookworm.))
There were no signs of anyone else in the General Store. Neo wasn't sure whether that was because of the Poofening or because Leto just wasn't in at the moment. Still, he started browsing the shelves, looking for toiletries. "You got anything shiny to pay for these things?" he wondered.
... than I know what to do with." She looked around. A baffling array of shelves, boxes, etc. filled the room. She wasn't sure where to start looking for stuff.
"Maybe try over there?" he suggested.
It was in a very strange font, and she had to read it three times over before she could figure out what it was saying.
"I think this is it," she said to Neo.
((I am back. Life has been crazy. Replies will probably be slow because of said craziness.))
"Though... I think it's meant for straight hair. Is your hair straight, wavy, curly, or coily? Might not be very effective if you've got the wrong type." He fluffed at his own hair, as if to provide an example.
"It could also use a good washing, so hopefully this stuff will do the trick." She picked up the bottle.
"Not to say you can't use it, obviously, but it might get a bit too heavy on your hair." He held up a bottle in a different colour. "This one'll work better, promise."
and I figure that these soapy things are all about the same. I'll get this one, then."
"Sometimes it feels like I'm the only one in Headquarters besides the Elves who cares about their hair," he muttered to himself, before going over to examine the food section.
I guess that's why." Boadicea went to look at the clothes. her own were getting pretty ragged and beat up. All of the clothes were black. She chose a black long-sleeved button-up shirt and black pants.
"You want a sandwich? They got salads and chips and stuff here, too."
"Maybe in the Cafeteria, but I'm pretty sure they stopped serving the really weird stuff ever since the meatloaf came alive in 2013."
Bill and Liam, on the other hand, went with the others. "I'll give you the portal coordinates to our place in New Cal, and we can make our way to HQ from there. Don't want to alert the DES when they're already probably on high alert for intruders into HQ itself," he explained.
((Reply to owosphere and Scarlett.))
“Everyone ready?”
... And she stepped through.
When the portal flickered out behind her, she looked up to see... grey. Generic grey hallways, almost exactly like Headquarters. But peppered in between the grey were posters that could only generously be described as "motivational Lisa Frank nightmare". Lori had the feeling that, had the Poofening not happened, these posters would be ten times more garish, and the walls might be ten times more sparkly.
Turning back to the group, she added: "Let's see if anyone's still alive around here."
“I can tell you real fast if any ‘uman is. I can’t help with the Sues; they don’t have souls that I can sense.”
"Or Flowers? I wonder if the Venomous Tentacula is still kicking."
“Nothin’. If there are people left livin’ ‘ere, I don’t sense them.” She gave them a thin smile. “Uh, sorry if you had friends here.” There was a pause. “That’s wot I’m supposed to say, right?”
((Meg has difficulties with most human emotions as well. She doesn’t feel much at all.))
The wand emitted some sparks, which immediately went dull.
"... Oh," she said. "Guess it makes sense for Suvian spells to stop working too. I guess we'll have to search the regular way, then."
"On the one hand, we'd cover more ground. On the other hand, that's a horror movie cliche."
With that, the group took the hallway on the left, and walked for a while.
Rose finally spoke again. "Think this is a HQ situation too? I mean, do we need to get ourselves distracted?"
"But as that is partially due to the Glitter, and Glitter now no longer exists in its proper form..." She shrugged, before they arrived at a door at the end of a hallway. "Is this your door?" she asked, in the tone of a magician flourishing a card.
With that, Rose brandished her wand, and went to open the door.
Pods. Hundreds of thousands of pods meant to grow the Sues in baths of urpley-wilver Glitter, except now with the Poofening all that seemed to be left of that Glitter was... magenta sludge. She winced a little. It seemed wrong, in an ironic way.
There were no Sues in the pods, either.
“Wot was this place anyway?” Her eyes scanned over the empty pods, over the splashes of sludge and fallen posters. “Looks like a level of the Backrooms.”
Rose approached a pod, eyeing its dull contents. "Yknow how the PPC's always strapped for cash? Well, back in nineteen-ninety-whatever-the-shpx, somethin' like this – " she gestured at the pod – "was their solution."
"The whole thing's funded by lootin' stuff from missions, yknow. So obviously, someone, some day, had the bright idea to mass-produce the dang things. What they grew in there was..." She gave the pod a couple taps, making its contents jiggle around a bit. "Not even people, not even anything like people. Just empty shells to fit in a contrived plot and get killed by agents, as an excuse to loot half the continuum every time."
Rose turned back to the pair, keeping her face carefully neutral. "Eventually, people caught wind of that, and that whole branch got kicked out of the PPC. They kept going, though. Mostly for revenge or somethin', I guess. Started making these things actually dangerous, actually halfway smart. Weapons for their war against the PPC, and true to their roots, against anyone else standin' in their way."
As she continued, carefully enunciating, she eyed the door the group had entered from. "What I'm wondering is... There's supposed to be Flowers running the place. Where are they?"
((Understandably, Rose may or may not be a bit of an unreliable narrator in these circumstances.))
"My husband and I actually showed up a couple months after the one in 2008. Then there was another invasion on the Hetalia OFU in 2011..."
She trailed off as she looked at the charts of daily statistics, at the ominous splotches of sludge where there should once have been a Factory Sue or Defective. "Yeah, where are the Flowers running these things?" she wondered. "Maybe there's a map somewhere leading to their upper --"
The door creaked, and a voice rang in her head:
I'm going to have to ask you to come out with your hands up.
((...No solid idea who this is, though it's clearly a Flower of some sort. Feel free to play with it!))
and holding up her detached human hands with two shadowy hands. Well, they couldn’t really be called hands, since hands usually have a defined shape and don’t seem to shift into increasingly more worrying claws.
((Meg has beaten up on her human form terribly by this point in time. She doesn’t seem to realize that humans break.))
Having done so, she put her hands up and stepped through the door. Despite the Datura's lack of eyes, she had the distinct impression that it was glaring at her.
"Well, hello there!" she said, putting on a cheerful tone. "Got any clue as to what happened?"
Lori, who'd raised her hands along with the others (though not without some shock at Meg's detached hands in general), flashed a sheepish smile at the Flower.
"We're here to investigate the cause of a mysterious disappearance of multiple PPC staff of ex-Suvian origin," she said pleasantly. "Perhaps you could enlighten us as to what happened here?"
... That your organisation had nothing to do with this.
"Apparently!" Rose replied. "I'm not with the PPC, but I'm almost inclined to believe 'em, on account of a whole bunch of their agents got disappeared too."
Almost, the Datura repeated, its tone increasingly annoyed.
Rose nodded. "Wouldn't be the first time Upstairs did somethin' behind the agents' back, but then again, they've been less blatant about it the last few times. These two don't seem to have anythin' to do with it, regardless."
"Just, you know, trying to make sure we're all on the same page."
After all, wouldn't this Flower take offence to being accused of being the source of the anti-Glitter pulse?
She smiled thinly, the temperature dropping around the room. “I see.”
((See, Meg is the daughter of the Prince of Wrath. And when she’s mad, you’ll know. The temperature drops and you’ll start feeling like whatever is standing next to you is in fact, evil and means you harm, even when it’s not you she’s angry at. Fun demon things.))
I think that our entire production line and most of our personnel being destroyed is awfully convenient for you.
"Yeah," Rose replied, "that's just about what they thought about y'all too." She shrugged, as much as she could with her hands up. "Bit galaxy-brained, I know, but it's why they insisted on checkin' this place. Looks like y'all both got shpxed over by whatever happened."
And you claim not to be part of the PPC, then. The Flower certainly sounded skeptical.
Rose nodded. "Bunch of agents stormed Goldie's while me and whoever else remained were tryna figure out what's goin' on." She twitched her head to the side, indicating the pair next to her. "I'm taggin' along with their investigation so they let us run ours. Any more questions?"
"My main theory was League competition, especially considering the proliferation of Y/N-Sues may have rendered classic Sues obsolete, and who knows how Y/N-Suvians have fared with this sort of event..."
Meg’s glare lessened and the unpleasant icy sensation disappeared from the room.
((So I’ll be gone from tomorrow evening on until maybe July 2nd? I may stay on later, I don’t know yet))
((A reply to this)
“Are you okay?” she asked.
((Alberta has abandoned Makes-Things...I dunno, ‘cause I feel like it. Sierpinski, I await your reply.))
Noman heard the door hiss open behind him and whirled about. He glanced to Winfrey (who was opening a bottle of vodka) and then looked down.
"I'm... fine," he said flatly, turning to the console, "I'll figure something out, I guess. I'll call up the boys and maybe we'll have a party... and then..." he trailed off, "and then we'll have to figure something out, won't we?"
“I heard noise and came to investigate.”
((Sorry for the long time it took to respond.))
“I guess whoever’s in there is probably okay.”
Alberta continued on her way.
((Sorry, Sier, I had to end it. I am officially done with the WWS RP, which has killed 2/3 of my current agents.
—Ls, out.))
((Besides, plot can't really happen when half your characters are locked up lol.))
((-kA))
((Notes: I think it's Rose that Bill and Meg are travelling with? Also, hidaney's (?) thread with DIA agent Laura and Christianne trying to get info from her is also a thing))
((Neo and Boardicea walk to the General Store for shower stuff.: Boardicea --> Boadicea.
Lori, Rise, and Meg go to a Mary Sue Factory: Rise --> Rose.
DIA agent Laura and Christianne trying to get info from Corporal Perkins and Officer Maywell --> Christianne Shieh tries to get info from Corporal Laura Perkins and Officer Maywell.
Sorry it wasn't clear before!))
((Anyhow, all fixed oops. Thank you for the corrections lol))
((-kA))
... threads intially to keep things going, like we did when we moved to a seperate thread at first.))
((Basically, Lily will be able to reply to the post by noting that they are replying to your latest post.))
((-kA))