(WIP) Drink Your Villain Juice! (Superpowers, Horror | 349k) Patreon 28th April 356k

[A_guy]

Yes, Licorice flavored

[stsword]

Free healthcare.

[HarleyQueen]

I am super bad with creative names so I am happy that I already got a name from the Coven to also use as my villain name. Paradigm is the perfect name for a perfect wet cat MC.

[Darkhero918]

I’m a little sad we can only pick one deformity. I want to look like a freak of nature instead of just a regular freak.

[bitmo]

As nice as the “same hat” moment with Kay is, it would be nice to have a choice for how the MC feels about being outed to Teddie or maybe change up the scene a bit so MC actually chooses for him to know or not, especially for those with a low relationship.

[AnneWest]

You know, after a while not playing and coming back to it “raw,” I think the power user choice of nodes may indicate a severely lonely character. It’s this bit:

Concentrating on the nodes, you call them back with a compulsion they cannot ignore. Not a command, but a deep, almost primal pull on the connection you share.

one. whole. us.

They scramble up your body, dendrites already beginning to sink into your membrane as they ascend to your shoulders. The trio reaches your head and you take a deep, steadying breath, bracing yourself.

whole.

It just seems that someone who wasn’t feeling extremely isolated and alone would neither have such mastery over that particular command, nor would they have phrased it in those terms.

[Keldin]

>takes out veteran precog mano-a-mano
>stealth 1-hit KO Portrait and Enfilade
>have minor existential breakdown on seeing Phalanx
>engage the super strong, super durable speedster 1v1

>do our best All Might slugfest impression

>walk away after maiming them (without a hole in our stomach)

All on our third outing, eat your heart out Taylor Hebert :V

I think the various groups are going to be a lot less concerned about the group as a whole per se, but more about the complete monster that just decimated half of an experienced hero team near single-handed.

…which ironically would raise the exact type of red flags that we want to avoid i.e. there’s no way a new blood is that skilled without some past so from who and where exactly did we get that experience.

Either way that Horror tag applies more and more to us each day :V

[izzily]

@BubbaJubbs

Super awesome to see how exactly each characters’ powers work! I can tell you put a great deal of thought into them. On the topic of powers, I was really surprised that the mc can separate his tentacles (and maybe other parts of himself with wild mutations) and control them. Can’t wait to see if this is further expanded on or if we’ll find out other applications of our powers.

Thank you! I try to make sure every power has at least something cool going for it, even if it’s fairly simple on the surface.

I want to keep giving creative options for the usage of MC’s powers; I enjoy writing crunchy action but I feel it gets old if the choices are always boiling down to ‘bonk them with my tendrils’

@Man

Pretty much, he has an ability to store energy and re-release it, and output is often represented with electricity in his case, whether through one of his other abilities or the aforementioned one

Aha! I sure see it from that clip!

@Sujan_Dhakal

This game inspired by worm, by any chance?

I’ve read Worm and recognise the parallels in some of the worldbuilding but I don’t consider DYVJ to be inspired by it. I think the lens of the story is pointed in a pretty different direction. (After I remembered it’s used in Worm I really wasn’t sure for a while if I was gonna use the term ‘parahumans’ but none of the other ones I could come up clicked in the same way)

@stsword

Free healthcare.

Don’t worry, Mal’s a doctor!

@bitmo

As nice as the “same hat” moment with Kay is, it would be nice to have a choice for how the MC feels about being outed to Teddie or maybe change up the scene a bit so MC actually chooses for him to know or not, especially for those with a low relationship.

Hm, interesting thought. I’ll consider it - definitely in terms of at least having something regarding Teddie’s presence, since Kay’s intentionally written to be a bit oblivious to that sort of thing. (her thought process is kind of ‘Well, I’d tell Teddie that I think MC is similar to me anyway, and I know Teddie is cool about this kind of thing, so there’s no problem having this conversation!’)

@AnneWest

It just seems that someone who wasn’t feeling extremely isolated and alone would neither have such mastery over that particular command, nor would they have phrased it in those terms.

This is a really neat thought, especially when sometimes it’s less clear which way the nodes’ broadcasting is going.

@Keldin

I think the various groups are going to be a lot less concerned about the group as a whole per se, but more about the complete monster that just decimated half of an experienced hero team near single-handed.

Hahaha.

I wanted to make sure that this battle was an opportunity for MC as much as anything? Like, they’ve been kicked around quite a lot so far and often aren’t getting a choice about what to do, so I felt it was high time they got to kick some ass. Even if there are some mitigating factors about this particular fight (Surpass especially is gonna have a ‘psh, I wasn’t done yet’ attitude towards getting smacked, and doesn’t view it as a loss), MC’s gained a healthy dose of cred. mucho cred

[AnneWest]

@izzily

This is a really neat thought, especially when sometimes it’s less clear which way the nodes’ broadcasting is going.

Given that when you pet the node it feels like you’re patting your own head, does it so much matter in context which way it’s going? They’re a part of MC now, and at points may be expressing in a feedback loop.

[JohnKittz]

Can’t relate. Always got a hole where my stomach should be lol.

[Weisskralle]

Same I often eat until my stomach says “that was to much”

And like half an hour later I am hungry again.

[jjc73]

Dime: patting and petting fleshling, getting the pleasant feedback and releases a pleasant sigh

Mal: “Kinky.”

Kay: “Enjoying yourself?”

Fracture: just smirks momentarily

Dion: thinkings

Ghost: “Odd.”

I think i got this right. Others hopefully may add alternatives or better than I just did.

[Raptorofwar]

Here on a Monday night thinking about a Beth/Surpass poly… if only…

[Sel_Lee]

@izzily

Yeah I kinda made my bed with the title at this point.

It’s been mentioned before that the title gives a different impression (and forgive me if I’m repeating myself from this thread, but I think I was replying to a tumblr post last I discussed this), but DYVJ is, well, by far the best name I could come up with? Like nothing else was anywhere close to as memorable or as interesting, so I kinda banked on that Horror tag up there to clue people in that the tone isn’t all that goofy,

I dunno, it’s absolutely a good point, just can’t imagine changing it now barring some kind of magnificent bolt of inspiration.

I dearly love this game, but I’ll say; I had a Very hard time convincing my friends to play this because of the title. They all loved it once they gave it a chance, but it definitely does drive away readers rather than interest them. While I love a good campy comedy, the game is not that and the tone difference is still jarring to me.

[izzily]

So I kinda promised I’d write something about That Moment in the Zone with Phalanx…
(consider this a thank you for all the support!)

In the Zone one night

Phalanx crashes into Fracture with a satisfying clang of metal on bone. The villain drops, and with practiced ease, Phalanx plants her lance into the shattered concrete below her, halting her momentum before she can carry off too far.

This situation is getting out of hand. Fracture and Rampage were already a handful, and with Enfilade down, Phalanx and Arcade are fighting at a disadvantage. Surpass is nowhere to be seen and given Vantage’s most recent opponent is now reinforcing the enemy, the team leader must be incapacitated.

Phalanx disliked this mission from the start. Given the choice, she’d never have set foot in the Zone again.

She shakes herself out of the malaise. Fracture is resilient, she needs to be on guard, and a little help from her teammate wouldn’t go amiss. She’s not eager to take another zap from Rampage.

“Arcade! Cover my flank!” she calls, levelling her lance at Fracture. This is entirely winnable, provided she focuses—

“BETH!”

Her heart stops.

Nobody should be calling her that. Not in the middle of a battle. Even a comrade desperate for help surely wouldn’t cross that line.

Phalanx whips around. Arcade? No. Enfilade? No. She can’t see any other teammates around.

Then… what does that mean?

“Who said—” Before she can finish the sentence, Fracture rises up and slams a fist into her chest plate, knocking her backward.

She almost doesn’t care.

Someone just called out to her.

But already, she’s second guessing. Doubting herself.

"Quick—"

“Get away from them!”

“There’s no time to argue! Go!”

“I’ll be fine! I promise!”

So, so many times, Beth has heard their voices. She’s wondered what she could have done. She’s taken that night apart piece by piece, searching for a better way. Searching for a way to save everyone.

She’s grown accustomed to the ghosts of failure, but familiarity does nothing to dull the blades of their contempt.

“BETH!”

It itches in her head, even when the battle is done and the Altruists have wriggled from their grasp, when the weary Hounds regroup as a team.

What she heard is simply impossible.

The weight of the Zone and the stresses of combat made her think back to that night underground, where her life was irrevocably altered and she lost so much. And so Beth ‘heard’ someone call her name.

She must have imagined.

She must.

“BETH!”

She must, lest she crumble for good.

[greenfly]

Ahhhh hahah, I would like to bring something up when talking to Hypothesis:

“I know your secret.”
“Well, I have many of those. Whatever it is you think you know, I will probably kill you for mentioning it.”
“I know you poop in the shower.”
“Ah. But that’s not a secret.”

[StellarSkadi]

For my two cents on the title, I personally love it. It stood out to me immediately and made me laugh, but I don’t think that means it doesn’t fit the tone of the story. It’s absurd and weird certainly, but I think that serves to contrast with the darker elements, and to compliment the small moments of humor and levity of the narrative. To much doom and gloom everywhere can come across as a story trying too hard to be edgy and dark for the sake of it.

I definitely wouldn’t have been as intrigued if it had a more generic gloomy title like “Villain Project” or “Paradigm: Shift” for example (not great titles anyway but I think you get the point)

[bl00dragon]

I wasn’t bothered by the title either personally. If anything I was pleasantly surprised and intrigued that it turned out to be different from the expectations the title set in my mind.

If anything the title is eye-catching, so it does its job of drawing people in. There’s something almost morbid about the title seeming so light-hearted for the story it comes with, and that’s right up my alley.

[Greytrap1]

For me, the title gave me a different idea about what the plot might have been, but I didn’t find the prose style to significantly jar with the title. I agree with the above: it got me interested in the project, whereas a different title might not have. I personally quite like it!

[Gloomcat]

I liked the title. It was funny, and I thought “with a title like the story is certain to be a banger” and it was!