ledbythewind | [Voice/Action]

[Ah, Valentine's Day. The one experiment a year Richard hates most, for a variety of reasons. Granted, this year wasn't TOO terrible, as he was spared the unfortunate fate of falling in love with anyone under the effects of the experiment... but that didn't stop other people from from falling in love/lust with HIM, much to his dismay. And that's left him with many things to think about, as have some of the reactions to the experiment that he's seen from other people. Which leads him to ponder...]

Indulge my curiosity: what sorts of things are considered traditionally "masculine" where you come from?

[A bit later on, Richard will head out of the house on a shopping trip to All Passions and the item store, where he can be found looking for a new wardrobe and a few other things, probably as a result of some of the answers he received to his question. After picking out a bunch of things to take home with him, he chooses something new to wear home as well: cargo pants, combat boots, and a leather motorcycle jacket, because all of those things are super-masculine, right? Alas, on someone with the approximate build of a toothpick and delicate features like Richard has, the end result is a bit ridiculous, but don't tell him that. (Or do, your choice.) He can't quite bring himself to cut his hair - he's still far too proud of it - so instead he opts to pull it back into a ponytail.

There. Much better, in his eyes. Now the question is, what will his friends and housemates think of this?]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Is that so? I suppose they also favor strength and battle prowess...

[They seem like very orc-like things to favor.]

And scars, though only if they're on the front of your body.

Are they only rated by location? What about the shape, size and source?

[Scars from a mace are probably more valued than scars from an angry cat, but...]

That I didn't ask. I would assume that a larger scar would be more impressive than a smaller one, but that it would also depend on where that smaller one was. For instance, I would think that surviving a stab to the chest would be more impressive than surviving a gash to the arm.

Well, of course, unless their heart or brain are located in a vey surprising part of their body. Wounds that could have been mortal always look more impressive.

You never know about things like that with other species. They could have their heart located in one of their toes.

Such a race would undoubtedly greatly respect shoemakers. They do deserve more recognition.

Perhaps that is the origin of those steel-toed boots I saw in the store the other day. It all makes sense now! They're so that this race can protect their brains from being stepped on.

Or they could simply come from a world where sabatons have gone out of fashion. Most of the shoes in the store look extremely flimsy.

I can see why they did-- they are rather awkward to move around in.

[Not to mention not very fashionable at all.]

Some awkwardness is more than worth keeping your foot if a behemoth falls on it.

[Definitely ugly, though.]

I would think that would be the last of your worries if you managed to get that close to a behemoth.

You'd be surprised. Their corpses can be much more inconvenient than their attacks, if you happen to be particularly unlucky.

You sound like you speak from experience on this.

I do. I once had to climb one because it somehow managed to block the whole path down the moon's core. Then, as I was reaching its shoulders, two of its cousins approached...

[Funtimes.]

[OOH STORY TIME. Richard loves hearing about this kind of thing!]

What then? Did you slay all three of them? Or perhaps you tricked it into moving aside?

That one was in its death throes, so I doubt any trickery could have made it move. But the other two seemed very lively and unlikely to let us go easily. Thus I raised my sword, Kain prepared a jump, Rydia uncurled her whip, Rosa started to take out one of her arrows, and...

[The suspense! The cliffhanger!]

And?

[Although honestly, given the fact that Richard is an enormous troll himself, there's a part of him that's expecting something absolutely ridiculous and unexpected to follow this. Either that or something quite boring and mundane.]

...And then Edge cast his Smoke spell, and we ran as fast as we could towards the nearest protection circle. We were all running out of energy and supplies; fighting them would have killed us.

[Boring, mundane and unexpected! What better combination could there be?]

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