The Star Destroyer SS Teachable Moment

@littlepinkbeast @seebs

a thread for discussing, gossipping about, and flailing over our tabletop dtd game, with a particular focus on brainstorming little vignettes for me to write about the destroyer crew. because i love them. i love them all.

please feel free to invite the rest of the players here, btw; i don't email and they don't tumblr so i have no contact route.

 

vent mochi

 

death mochi

 

mochi mochi

 

do you recall how it went down between murphy and jake van kemmer during the takeover? all i remember now is that murphy was dancing with him, then got him alone and punched him out. but i'm p sure there was more story there. perhaps some witty banter.

 

hmm, what do their uniforms look like? are the pants tight? tell me murphy got to call him 'chief petty officer tightpants'.

 

ok i recall perfectly how we got to the idea of domhnall gleeson being our visual model of jake, and it had little to do with his exact features, but i saw this



and immediately went "something VERY WEIRD happened to that man in the warp, look at his eyes, the fuck happened to his eyes"

 

my ramble from tumblr, mostly for my future reference:

also:

and although i kind of tapped takeshi kaneshiro for a pb, that's only because there aren't enough outlaw-looking pictures of yoshi sudarso

 

dorks :D



*fans self*

 

ok i'm gonna attempt some character bios here. the easiest for me is, obviously:

Augustus Zhulong Murphy



height: 6'5"/196cm
weight: 220lb/100kg
skin: med-light brown
hair: black, straight, thick and shaggy
eyes: dark brown
alignment: bahamut
class: monk/priest
exalt: paragon
aliases: Roadflare Murphy, Coalmine Murphy, A.Z., Murf. NEVER Gus.
distinguishing marks: prosthetic right arm, bright red lacquer with a gold inlay of bahamut; tattoo on left arm of sumi painting of mountains and clouds with bahamutian psalm in chinese calligraphy
clothing: usually wears jeans, cowboy boots, cowboy hat, a t-shirt advertising some alcoholic beverage, and, if the weather warrants it, a fleece-lined leather coat, all of it in black or dark brown. for formal occasions, the t-shirt might be replaced by a black button-up shirt with clerical collar. for partying, he wears his tightest jeans and ditches his shirt as soon as possible. he is a man of simple tastes.
armament: comfortable with handguns and shotguns, and usually carries one of each on a mission, but kind of considers them 'varmint control' and would much rather solve his problems with kung fu. if things get nasty, there's a knife in his boot that he's a lot better with than a padre probably should be.
life philosophy: freedom stems from interpersonal respect and strong ethical principles; you can't just selfishly do whatever you want, you have to think hard about what's important to the others in your community and how to make things better for everyone. there's nothing wrong with power or command, but you have to use it responsibly for the benefit of the group. people who ruin shit for everyone else need a good whupping. laws aren't sacred just because they're laws; when the law is controlled by corrupt people, it's your duty to be an outlaw.
personality: fearless and unphaseable, though occasionally grumpy about shit being too weird to work with. very friendly, if somewhat overbearing and sometimes loud. nearly impossible to manipulate, due to his 'wall of nope' level of mental resistance -- he's a bred-in-the-bone skeptic about all new information, and won't accept anything until he's thought it through himself. this exasperates his mother, but makes him hella hard to mindtrick.

 

==> Murphy: Talk To A Cute Boy

He’s ignoring you. Probably.

It can’t be that he doesn’t know you’re here. The shop is a big, cluttered space, but you’re sitting on top of the truck with a welding torch, that’s kinda hard to miss. You don’t know if he glanced at you when he came in, because you had your welding mask down and were focused on fixing up the halfassed job you made of the gun mounting. But he’s got his back to you now. Rummaging among the parts drawers. Pale and slim and fascinating in his slightly rumpled uniform. Most of the crew doesn’t wear their uniforms anymore since the ship turned pirate, but Jake van Kemmer does.

This is an opportunity you should probably take. You’ve been working yourself up to talking to him. You’ve just about accepted that there’s no right thing to say, that you’re just going to have to wing it and look stupid. Now here he is, so you should definitely go for it. Yes.

He has to have noticed the welding torch is off. Hard to tell if he’s nervous, though. He’s always tense. You wonder if you’re listening too loud. You’re kind of expecting the remote control to come out any second here. Like, if there is such a thing as ‘listening too loud’ that is what you’re doing right now. Well, that and staring at his ass. It’s really quality. He wears his uniform pants tight, like he knows it. But then he’s all twitchy and scowly and it should be a weird contrast but it works, is the thing, and… yeah, okay, he’s nervous or something, he’s not rummaging in any kind of organized way.

You set down the welding rig and mask and slip off the truck. When your boots hit the decking, his twitch is subtle enough that you’d have missed it if you weren’t a martial artist. You strip your gloves off and toss them on the workbench beside where he’s standing. “Help you find something?” you offer.

“I’ll be out of your hair in a second,” he mutters, glancing aside at you. His weird, Warp-damaged eyes make your heart go thump.

“No, that wasn’t a passive-aggressive — like — I am legit asking if I can help. I know where stuff is.”

“Oh.” Another flicker of a glance, and then he visibly gathers himself and looks at you straight-on. It looks like his calm expression is costing him, but you can’t tell whether it’s because he’s angry or scared or awkward or just… the usual van Kemmer twitchies. “Octadic capacitors. I need six of them. I found one but it looks like a cat pissed on it.” He holds the item up to show you: disgustingly corroded.

“Oh, what the fuck, who put that back in the drawer. Toss that before someone tries to use it. Yech.” You look in the usual drawer for those, and sure enough, there’s nothing but a dried puddle of whatever did the corroding. You toss the drawer onto the workbench so you can clean it. Then you start searching, flicking drawers open and shut with quick fingers.

After a minute there’s a soft snort beside you. “Well, now you’re just duplicating my efforts.”

“I know, but it’s faster than you telling me where you looked.”

“Weren’t you watching?”

You look over and find him leaning his (exemplary) ass against the workbench and crossing his arms, raising one rusty eyebrow at you like he’s proud of himself for catching you out. He’s such a smug, why do you like it. Why. “Not, uh, the whole time?”

He sighs. “Look, I’m not going to come after you, if that’s what you’re nervous about.”

“I — wait. I’m nervous?”

“I know the trope, the hero does a seduction for plot purposes, and the poor moron they macked on takes it seriously and follows them around forever. Calling them stupid pet names and making stupid kissy-faces. Look at me, Murphy, do I look like comic relief to you?”

You shake your head slowly.

“So you can quit watching me like I’m about to do the fangirl squeal and call you Snoogums in front of your cool outlaw friends.”

Laughing softly, you shake your head again. “Boy, have you got me wrong.”

Another smug jerk eyebrow quirk, just as inexplicably charming as the last one. “Well, you’re not afraid I’ll punch you back. I’m a mere mortal and you’re made of truck.”

“I kinda wish you would punch me back.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I mean, so we’d be even. Um, not that that would really make us even I guess, because probably the punching wasn’t as much of a problem as the thing where I tied you up and took over your ship. I’m not sure if it makes any sense to apologize for that, because it was necessary to rescuing my dad, so I wouldn’t undo it if I could. Which is why I haven’t yet. Apologized. Because I was overthinking it.”

“Riiight.”

“Mostly I was staring at your ass, though.”

He looks genuinely baffled. Not offended, though. “Mine?”

“Well, yeah,” you say, ignoring the opening for a sarcastic remark. Now’s not the time. “It’s quality.”

“My ass is quality.”

Deep breath. “Jake van Kemmer, I would follow your ass into Hell. Your eyes are like jade lamps. Dancing with you on the cruise ship was the nicest date I’ve ever had, and I was hella bummed that the plan required knockouts out instead of makeouts.” Oh good, you seem to have finally remembered that you’re not a chickenshit. Unfortunately, you are actually sort of an idiot. Case in point, he looks like he might be mad.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

Yeah, that’s definitely mad. Shit.

He points at you with the corroded capacitor, eyes flashing with mesmerizing pale fire. “You humiliated me. You ended my career. Granted, it was a terrible career and I hated it, but you took the choice away from me. You’ve got my crew hero-worshipping you, and they all know about the thing where I followed you away from the party like an absolute chump because I was thinking with my dick, and I will never live it down. And now you’re, what, offering me a pity fuck? Fuck you, Augustus Zhulong Murphy. Fuck you and the trashy redneck halftrack you rode in on.”

Welp. You think you are probably in love. “How do you know my middle name?”

“I do my homework,” he spits. “It’s an officer thing. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go beg capacitors from the techpriests and try to get someone to clean out those storage drawers because I’m pretty sure the vent mochi got into them and oh my god you’ve got me using that stupid name for them I hate you.”

“Jake.”

His pointing capacitor prods the center of your chest sharply. “That’s Chief van Kemmer to you, cowboy.”

“Okay but do you want to go on a date?”

He freezes in the angry-prodding position. “What?”

“I don’t know about any pity fucks. Um, in fact, okay, I’m not quite a panicky virgin but I’m not exactly mister experienced either and even if I wanted to be a vile seducer I wouldn’t know where to start?”

“What.” He’s fighting a smile, he’s winning but you can see the battle. “What kind of cool outlaw doesn’t party with a babe on each arm?”

“The Murphy kind? I was just thinking maybe we could try the date thing without the hitting.”

“Well, but the. The cruise ship is? You can’t dock in the Warp.”

“Yeah, no, I know, but we could have a picnic on the farm deck maybe? I’ll cook, I’m a good cook, do you like Chinese food?”

There’s a long, still silence. Then he slowly straightens up, and allows the smile to take one corner of his mouth before he reclaims the territory. “Pick me up tomorrow at 1200, and we’ll find out.”

He turns on his heel and strides off, posture and gait halfway between smug and get-me-out-of-here-before-I-lose-my-cool. You watch him out of sight. This time you’re not fixating on his ass, nice as it is; you’re watching his shoulders, his hands, the flutter of his coppery hair escaping from whatever product he tames it with — and the backs of his ears. They are scarlet.

You spend the rest of the afternoon cleaning the shop with your music cranked, boot-sliding across the blastproof deck plating and singing into your mop.

 

yeah that's p much what murphy had in mind! :D

he'll pick out a spot where there's a bit of a leaf canopy and spread a picnic blanket on the floor, and they will have dim sum and beer. either this is as romantic as he thinks it is, or jake enjoys the fact that he's an entire dork.

 

does it have that wack-ass cowcatcher on it btw and have they graffittied it yet

 

so i'm thinking about writing murphy doing the cooking for his picnic date, and i'd like to know more about cooking/eating/food storage arrangements if you've got ideas. and also about lalun, what's she look like, what's she sound like, etc.

iirc murf and lalun got along pretty well from the very beginning. he heard about the sandwiches, and went to her to suggest trying salty-sweet peanut sauce on spring rolls instead, and she was pleased that SOMEONE recognized peanuts/soysauce/mirin DO go well together, if maybe not on rye bread. i'm thinking she would probably enjoy watching him make a bunch of little chinese delicacies and talking about what goes into them. what i don't know is if she would tease him about going on a date with jake, or approve, or disapprove, or be like "i thought humans were mammals don't you need a female mate", or what.