r/whowouldwin • u/LetterSequence • Mar 04 '22
Event Character Scramble 15 Semifinals: I'm Still Here
This round is now closed for voting! Please vote for the write ups in the form linked here. Voting will close at 10PM on April 12th.
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This round is for matches 37 and 38 on the bracket. Make sure to double check to see if you’re in this one!
Your journey is reaching its end. The location of Kingdom Hearts may be nearly impossible to reach on foot, by land, or by sky. Except there is one way to get there. After all this time traveling, all the information you’ve acquired, all the things you’ve seen, you know the secret. It all involves a door.
“When the door is open, so too will Kingdom Hearts open.”
There’s one door that is spoken of. A door used by a dreaded space captain. This captain stole treasures from all across the universe, and kept them to himself, never to be seen again. This door is a portal that opens to his treasure, and it can also open up to anywhere in the entire universe. It can open the way to Kingdom Hearts.
And that door is located on…
Treasure Planet
So you know where to go. But how do you exactly open this door?
Luckily for you, one brave adventurer holds a map, a spaceship, and the key to this door, and is looking for a crew to help escort them across the cosmos to reach the planet unharmed. That’s when the ideas start to formulate.
Escort or Heist?
Will your team present themselves to this adventurer and offer them aid? In exchange for directions, a split prize, and a companion, this would involve ensuring their safety, providing passage across all of Treasure Planet, fighting off any who would stand in your path, putting your life in harm's way all the while.
Or… will your team simply wait for someone else to take up the offer? If they follow this path, they can stalk the team who joins them instead. By prowling in wait, they can ambush the other team at the vital moment they reach the treasure, and take it all for themselves. However, you’d need to obtain your own means of travel, as losing sight of them means losing the treasure in its entirety.
Space, Land, or Underground?
Traversing an entire planet aimlessly is a good way to get yourselves killed. You’ll need to pick a route that’s safest to get there with the least danger possible.
Do you approach from outer space? Going from above may seem like the route with the least danger, but it comes with plenty of downsides. One wrong move, a stray asteroid, an attack that leaves you stranded from the ship, can leave you floating in the deep reaches of space until you finally perish.
Do you approach from land? It’s the most straightforward and easiest to circumnavigate, but this planet is covered in deep jungles and vegetation, with very little wildlife. Resources may be difficult to manage, the path would be the longest, and an ambush is almost all but guaranteed.
Do you approach from the underground? Beneath the surface is an entire system of passageways, tunnels, and heavy machinery, as if the planet was built by some insane person. It’d get you to the door the fastest if you know where you’re going, but if you don’t… you may be lost under here forever.
The Door
At the pivotal moment when the door is open, what will your team do? It can offer them guidance, lead them anywhere in the universe, and lead them exactly to Kingdom Hearts. But the promise of unlimited riches stands in front of them as well. It is here that what is most important to them will be tested.
All of this being said… this is the final leg of your quest before finally obtaining all you desire. So… what will you do?
Scramble Rules
That’s Sora, Donald, and Goofy Too!: Every participant this season received three characters on their team, but many of them might not be a household name. To aid with readability, please give a brief summary of your characters, with enough information so the average reader can get excited for your team before starting.
Let Your Heart Be Your Guiding Key: Your write up will depict a scenario where your team is the victor. Even if your team has a one in a million chance of overcoming the odds, show what they’d need to do to come out on top against the challenge in front of them!
Unlocking Limit Form: Writers are allowed to make changes to their characters in their narrative to fit their story, such as allowing power stealers to gain more powers, teaching martial artists new techniques, or having characters gradually grow in strength between rounds. However, you are not beholden to following what your opponent is doing. When facing another team, you are only required to write their characters as they were submitted. This is to help with ease of research, and make things more fun for both sides.
Round Rules
Guest Starring…: Space Adventurers! The guest in this round is someone who has a vested interest in Treasure Planet. Are they the person who holds the key, who needs to be escorted to the door? Are they the leader of the band of misfits who intend on stealing your treasure for themselves, or the group that escorts the client to the door? Are they a lone wanderer, stuck on this planet, who once resided on the crew of the captain who stole all the treasure? However they show up is up to you!
Setting: Treasure Planet, a mysterious and deadly planet said to hold all the treasures in the world at its core. The solar system surrounding it, deep in the cosmos, bathes this world in purple hues, the lights from hundreds of millions of stars. The planet itself is teeming with vegetation. Thick jungles, moss, mildew, and yet curiously, no life at all. Only the remnants of an adventure long since finished. Underneath the surface, this planet functions as a machine. Deep tunnels that lead to secret passageways, lights that illuminate this world, and cogs turning for some reason or another. There are plenty of paths that all lead to the same place. The door that leads to everywhere, and most importantly, to your goal.
Key Points: The key points of this round are as follows. You must obtain the key to open the door that leads into your ultimate goal (Kingdom Hearts). How you obtain this key, reach the door, and what roles the enemy team and guest fill are up to you.
Post Limit: For this round, writers will be limited to 10 posts, or 100k characters. While it is fine to go a little bit over, anything that far surpasses this limit will be automatically disqualified. This limit does not include intro posts, or analysis of the matchup. Use your best judgment, if you think your story is too long for the round, it probably is.
Due Date: Write ups will be due at 10PM EST on April 8th. That’s a full month, so you should have plenty of time!
Flavor Suggestions
The Door is Open: Your team is heading for the door that resides somewhere on this planet. This door is essentially a portal that can lead to anywhere in the entire universe. While you ultimately have a destination in mind, does such a prospect tempt anyone on your team? How would they react to such an easy method of transportation? Would they try to keep it for themselves? Visit any places before settling on Kingdom Hearts?
Fool’s Gold: The core of Treasure Planet is roughly one hundred million billion metric tons of gold, jewelry, and riches stolen from various cultures and civilizations. Maybe your team is only in it for the money. So, is there something that’d tempt them even more than this? Some kind of goal that’d make them seek out Kingdom Hearts instead of ending their journey here and just nabbing as much gold as they can get their hands on? Or maybe, they’ll get greedy, and try to do both? Remember, it all depends on what your team would do!
3
u/OddDirective Apr 09 '22
Ripper!”
“Now!”
I flew up when Gwen called it out, and watched as the threads swept through the gold underneath our feet, turning up the rocks beneath even that- and doing even more damage, damage that the others wouldn’t know about.
The Stitcher struck out at me again, but I wasn’t concerned about his hits. I was concerned for the last one he controlled, who was moving into position to try and do something about all of us.
And then, right on schedule, he did.
"Alright, you've had your fun," Fourze said, menacingly. "It's over, now."
Fourze pulled out a new set of switches, larger ones, and slammed them down into place. "N+S Magnet, On!"
His suit changed again, now a heavy metallic suit with two turrets sticking out from it. Fourze reached down, and pulled that lever again, and the two guns separated and combined.
I should’ve seen it coming. He created a giant magnet.
“You can’t understand how much I’ve had to struggle to work like I have. So I won’t even give you the chance.” said the Rider.
The magnet turned on, and my two teammates were forced towards it. Steeljack tried to stand strong, like it was just a storm he was caught in, while Lancelot turned and planted his sword in the ground. Gwenpool, meanwhile, was chasing after her shark backpack, the place where she kept all her guns.
That meant the only ones who could do something were the two we saved… and me.
For his part, Chuuya tried to do what he could. He lobbed balls of his power into the maelstrom that was forming. But when it hit, it didn’t seem to do much. “What the hell is this?”
“Sorry, Chuuya,” said Fourze, “but gravity is a weaker force than electromagnetism. You’re not going to get through that easily!”
So it was up to me. I swooped down, and asked “How does it happen?”
Fourze turned to me. “What?”
“I heard you before, at the start,” I replied. “How ‘You put too much work on yourself’. How does it happen?
"It happens the same way every time. My laziness and my inability to stick to a schedule pushes more and more work onto my future self,” came the reply, the magnet still pulling my friends towards us. “Then, when the time comes, what I think I can do and what I can actually do run straight into each other. And I torture myself, overwork myself to the point of passing out and going until night becomes day. And it never. Works. Out. I'm not even creating anything worth this kind of suffering!"
“You’re wrong!” Gwen shouted with both hands on her bag.
Fourze just hauled back on the magnets in response, jolting everyone it was pulling along.
“Gwen is right,” I said. “It might not be what you want from this, but you’re making something. That’s what this is all about.”
“Like it even does anything for me,” Fourze said, looking off and down.
My mind raced for options of what to say, and settled on “What motivates you to get things done?”
That was not my smartest possible move.
"That’s just it! I can't motivate- I can't freaking move or type even when I know I have to! Even when there is no other option! I seriously can’t stop myself from pulling myself away from my work. What the hell am I supposed to do when my brain can't do the only thing it's good for? When it comes down to the wire and nothing is being created?!"
I looked back. Hale had Lancelot in his arms, and was keeping him from coming any closer, while Chuuya had managed to weigh Steeljack down enough that the magnet was pulling him inches at best. Gwen was still being dragged in, though.
“I know this is no solution," I began, "but how about you make some space where there us no distractions, and then do your work there when you have to."
Fourze scoffed. "Even that's not enough. I'll find a distraction, make one myself."
"Then- planning," I said the first thing that came to mind. "Make your plans to do things in advance, and then follow through."
"Great, just already do things before- are you even listening to me?! How is that supposed to help me now?!" he raged.
I needed to get things back on track. I needed something to help, and there wasn't an animal alive that could help me now. Just Buddy Baker, the man.
"Then break it down. Don't do a chapter, go page by page, paragraph by paragraph if you have to," I recited. "Leave and come back with fresh eyes if something is escaping you. Pace yourself, and pace around if it helps you."
And somehow, middle school essay prep became useful in the real world. Guess there's a first time for everything.
Fourze hung his head, after nodding along to my writing advice. "Right. Right. But there's only so much any one of those things can do. At the end of the day, words have to end up on the page. And I leave too many of those off."
I frowned. “You’re being too hard on yourself. It doesn’t matter how things get done. What matters is that they get done. And you’ve gotten us here. So use what I said, and get this done.”
Fourze finally shut the magnets off, but they returned to being the turrets in the suit. More than that, now Fourze turned to face me. "Even if, if that works. How do I stop this? How do I stop falling for the same problems, the same pains, the same situation every single time?!"
“You’ve gotta know your limits,” Hale piped up.
That set him off. The Rider turned and blasted indiscriminately, saying “I know where my limit is! I’ve run into the wall too many times by now!”
The others scrambled for cover, and I flew around to the front side. “Even so, you can’t give up now! I know you can get there without breaking down! You can reach and surpass your limit!” I ate a shot to the chest for it, but it was worth it. It gave the others a chance to regroup, and it gave Fourze a chance to think about what I said.
“An’ when you beat your head against that wall again and again and again, you can break all the way through!” shouted Steeljack. “That’s called improvement! And that’s what winnin’ is!”
Fourze stopped firing. And the threads appeared from his body.
“Tell me the truth.” he said, quietly.
No one replied. He raised his voice back up.
“What am I doing that’s making this happen? What is going on that makes me push everything until the last second? I won’t accept any cop-out, I won’t accept anything that says I can’t do anything about it! Tell me!”
And I looked, looked past him, and saw what was really going on. So I spoke back up.
“The reason there’s so much work… is because you have so many big ideas.”
“So, what do I do about it?” he asked in return
“I can tell you what you shouldn’t do,” Hale jumped in. “You shouldn’t give up on those ideas.”
Fourze seemed confused. “But then what-”
“You hold yourself to a higher standard, kid,” Chuuya said, looking off into the distance. “Live up to your own expectations, and you’ll have a masterpiece. And even if you can’t get there, you’ll have something you can work with.”
“The goal cannot be to be perfect, else you never shall reach it” Lancelot added. “You must do all that you can to work towards your goals, and what that goal is, or how you put your all into it, looks different for every man.”
I could feel that he was ready. So I gave him one last push in the right direction. “You’re better than you know. You’ve got the experience with this. And that’s why… you can get this work done.”
Fourze’s arm twitched… and then fell onto the lever. “LIMIT BREAK.”
The cannons charged, we braced for the attack-
And then each string pulled itself out, one by one, and Fourze spun straight back around. “Rider Electromagnet Bomber!”
The Stitcher’s eyes went wide, and his threads quickly leapt in front of him, weaving in and out in the seconds it traveled to create an intricate shield of threads. It buckled inward, blocking the attack.
“I saw what was happening while I was being controlled. Well done with all of that.” Gentaro said. “Now, let’s finish this!”
When the shield came down, the Stitcher did not lash out. In fact, he was eerily quiet. “I'm going to kill all of you.” he vowed.