The Reference Desk: La [Biography, Character/Player Updates]
August 26, 2010 - 4:58am — AlisonRobin
Most Recently: Back, briefly. Discord is Alison number zero three seven one if anyone wants to chatter. I'm trying to get pages working again after dropbox's policy change. I'm just hosting the files now where I host some other stuff.
Being that I am trash, there is now a La tumblr.
Spoken Name: La (humanuses); Archaeologist, Librarian, Researcher Age: Five; arrived in The Forest on Tuesday, August 24th, 2010. Sex, Gender: Female/Doe/Hind, moderately feminine. Irrelevant to character. Real Name:La's Pictograph can be seen in my avatar, with reduplicating circles and isosceles triangles, plus a strange little fifth mark on the side I can't explain. Click for most complete set of visual references, though still a WIP.
Physical Traits and Mannerisms of the Body La's facial structure is fairly typical for Endless Forest deer. She has wide set eyes, a broad nose, and a mostly lipless mouth. She would not be considered pretty by most standards. I never draw her face the same way twice because I'm quite quite faceblind even in real life, and how pretty La is has never affected her as a person. She is usually monochrome (though still a bit brown due to natural brown coloration underneath the spell colors) and tends to look drab in most light.
Four feet tall at the withers, she could look many humans in the eyes comfortably.
La's obsession with humans has caused hand-like marks to form in her pelt and antlers. La has hand shapes over her eyes, shoulders, and hips as well as in her antlers. La's fur is soft and floofy, good for cuddles. Her antlers do not shed but are also done growing for good (unless changed by magic, in which case it seems anything could happen). They are slightly flexible, as if made of stiff rubber, and no matter what spell is cast on her the tines will always be blunt. Sometimes they stick out farther than others or in other directions if she sleeps on them funny. When other spells are cast on her, she will always have hands visible on her somewhere, and her antlers will always have hand shapes to them regardless of shape, so on occasion you may see her wearing all kinds of spells.
Under the regular forest smells of grass, water, wood, dirt, and deer smell, La smells like a new book, and it's the hard cover edition, baby. She can speak softly and still be intelligible, and she can make her voice carry far without shouting. La can sound as strict as a librarian scolding someone for a late return or as kindly as a kindergarten teacher helping a student up on the playground after a fall.
La is often turned into other creatures, though she cannot change herself. She maintains her monochromatic coloration across any form that she takes thanks to the power of the Forest magic, and is black in the same places and white in the same places across different animals. When not a deer, her handprint shapes are replaced with hoofprint shapes to reflect where her heart really is. There are always hairless or featherless white circles where her antlers should be. She always maintains her voice and book-scent.
As a human, La's eyes are on exactly the same level as her eyes when she is a deer. She has short hair and the body structure of a healthy person who exercises regularly but mostly does cardio. She is otherwise very average in build. She resists the wearing of clothes except by necessity to be polite and stay warm. She has limited finger coordination and struggles with things like forks, doorknobs, and other fine motor tasks.
Personality, Emotions, and Philosophies La is a bookworm whose life has been all study with little opportunity to apply what she has learned. At one time she had dreams of being a widely respected researcher, but she has given up on that and now just wants to find kind deer to engage her in conversation because it's rare for anyone to read what she writes. She loves to share what she knows and learn new things, and she loves to talk. If you love to talk too, that's fine because she also loves to listen to your stories. La appreciates but has no talent for art. She is very laid-back about her beliefs and accepting of others' differences unless they are willfully ignorant or intentionally cruel.
The doe can be easily excitable but also easily frightened, and in stressful times her emotions can be all over the place. She isn't as playful now as she was as a fawn, but she still likes to watch play and occasionally join in. Her favorite game is running at others from the side and leaping over them. La absolutely loves being turned into other animals, and usually spends hours in a form. She likes the curiosity of fawns and the conversation and wisdom of older deer. Please assume in The Forest that she is chattering pleasantly (or listening when you chatter back if you like) when your deer is keeping her company. If you are a fawn she will do her best to give you a proper education even if she is playing with you.
Often, La is wrapped up in small details and has difficulty seeing The Forest for the trees, so to speak. She can very easily come across as dopey if the person speaking to her is not making the same connections that she is, or because La will often speak about things without providing adequate context, e.g. telling humans "I've been a squirrel before and..." or other things that wouldn't make sense to a layman.
Conversely, she can be extremely to the point, and her typical threat-response is with a wit and sharp tongue that only shows up when she may be in danger. La notices more than others think and usually knows if someone is a potential risk. She'll fight with her words by being precise and truthful, and that's usually enough--sticks and stones can break bones, but the pen is mightier than the sword. These are only last-minute tactics to diffuse a threat-situation though--if she's actually in trouble, she'll just sprint. If she has to, she will protect a fawn by being a meatshield (and has in the past been injured this way).
La is very pious towards The Twin Gods but has put time into learning about some human religions as well, mainly studying Christianity and assorted varieties of European paganism. La believes that the role of religion in a person's life should be palpable, and worships The Twin Gods because they are present and part of The Forest--she would likely lose her affection for them if they left for good and would perhaps worship the sun instead.
La has no inclination or intention of ever having a mate or romantic partner. She is oblivious to flirtation and will just think you're being weird if you try it with her. She thinks kissing is gross. She just wants friends.
If La put stock in astrology, she would be a Virgo (analytic and helpful) or a Gold Tiger (enthusiastic and brave).
When in human form, La doesn't eat meat even though she has the option. She believes that humans, as omnivores, should eat meat to respect their evolutionary heritage, but she does not because she comes from a line of herbivores, and her people are not meant to eat flesh.
La uses the word "people" to generically refer to deer, humans, and any other entity with a sense of self-identity. Typically when she says "deer" she refers specifically to her human-faced Endless Forest kin, not other kinds of deer or deer-like beings that live in The Endless Forest.
Story and Plot Elements, Pathways Forward La is not an especially exciting person, but exciting things happen to her and she tends to roll with the punches. Because of her insight into the human world, La uses the Gregorian Calendar to keep track of time.
La came to exist on August 24th, 2010. She acquired her book shortly thereafter, or it acquired her. She learned to read before she learned to speak and didn't speak until late September 2010.
Shortly after physical maturation in late September 2010, La became reclusive and mostly sequestered herself to focus on studies. She returned in late December 2013.
On Mardi Gras 2014 she encountered one of The Gods in orb form and saw a disco ball, and was also witness to an airplane flying over The Forest. Somehow, she was invisible to all other deer (but they were visible to her) and a motionless owldeer wore her pictogram at the ruins and several of La's friends later told her about the owldeer. (I even saw it myself on my partner's computer, looking between his screen and my own.) The owldeer's importance on La's life and story is yet unknown.
On March 11, 2014, La woke up with a skull stuck to her face that was impossible to remove. The story is recounted here with illustrations and it is ongoing. On March 15th, she again woke up with a skull but this time also with the rest of the skeleton that goes with the skull.
On Easter 2014 La ate the tree eggs and played with bubbles for the first time with Tanpopo and Twist. She wonders who sets up the candles, who lights them, and how they get to some of the places they get.
On May 4th, 2014, she was turned into a giant dove, thanks to the Glitch Skull's glitch magic. She spited it by enjoying herself. Later, on July 17th, 2014 the Glitch Skull tried a new approach and got rid of all of La's spells while she slept, but she's a tough cookie. La had fun running around naked for a while and even reverted to a fawnhood state. Then on the next day she woke up again as an adult with all of her spells returned to her. Called the Glitch Skull on its shenanigans and went naked anyway, even going so far as to be a fawn in order that her magic wouldn't stick. Allowed her magic to come back naturally by letting friends and strangers cover her with spells.
On July 29th, 2014 La went on an hour long meditation walk organized by Quad. It started at The Old Oak, which unnerved her, but she reasoned that nothing bad would happen if she was surrounded (and protected) by a herd of other deer. She was right--and making it to The Old Oak was the worst part. Meeting Quad there and finding him dancing made her feel better, though she still never went under the tree. The meditation walk was wonderfully soothing after that, and La stayed the entire time.
During October 2014 when many of the forest folk were rutting, The Glitch Skull became enormously active and has been casting spells on La almost non-stop. She has given up on trying to shake off these frustratingly resilient spells for now since new ones keep coming in hopes it would frustrate the Skull.
La celebrated her fourth birfday on August 24th 2014. A cake from The Endless Cake dimension (neighbor to The Endless Forest) appeared and she attempted to eat it but failed due to endlessness.
For Halloween Eve, October 30th, 2014, La met the Big Zombie Deer Velocity for the first time. Later, she met the god Auriea and nuzzled her. She was gifted with a green luchador mask. She followed her god to The Old Oak and fearlessly followed her inside of it--yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me--and followed her after that to De Drinkplaats. While a crowd of naked deer frolicked, La found Auriea and they stood together without magic, side by side. Screens.
La spent the end of 2014 and all of 2015 and 2016 mostly absent from the forest, focusing on her education. She misses her friends but feels a spiritual call to pursue knowledge.
On more than one occasion La has been able to travel outside The Endless Forest and she assumed a human body. Because of her pelt spell sticking to her human skin and the fact that she is a deer at heart with no true human skills, La has proven absolutely unable to pretend to be a normal human in any convincing way. Her trips there are either comedies of errors or very dangerous situations indeed.
And of course, there's always more being added.
Skills, Talents, and Accomplishments of Note La has nothing to separate her from other Deer except her hard work, diligence, and the ability to draw careful conclusions through analysis of facts. La is a polyglot, reading a mix of modern and dead languages relevant to western literature including Old, Middle, and Modern English, Norman, Modern French, Classical Greek, and Latin in addition to her native Deer language. Her pronunciation is imperfect for most and she has a Deer accent (whatever that sounds like). She is good at turning misfortune and failure into opportunities to learn. She thinks outside the box. I would also consider it a power that she does not experience the emotion of boredom--the closest thing she feels is sleepiness and she often ends up using an open book as a pillow.
Her second favorite place to sleep is under the slanted rock in The Playground, around (357,394), because a Kind Stranger kept her company there one night when she was a fawn and they were the only deer in The Forest. After that, she likes the mushroom ring nearest The Ruins and sleeps there whenever she wants to feel safest.
She often wanders around The Forest, especially if she sees a pictograph that she recognizes or is off investigating something. You may see her running around aimlessly and weaving through trees or performing figure eights--it probably means she is trying to look at every side of a thing, or she just feels like moving around. It's possible she is also looking for the exact, proper location of something.
The only place she will NOT go is into The Old Oak, as she believes that it is a well of bad things. She is willing to go near it if there are enough deer around her to keep her safe, but that's her limit. The one exception is when she followed Auriea inside, certain that her god would protect her.
Reasons to Not be Alone, Reasons to Smile La has no family and was born into the world without parents. The Book is her family.
La has many friends and acquaintances whom she enjoys and treasures. She looks for them in moments of awakeness and often tries to stir up activity if she sees them out and about--otherwise she'll usually join a cuddle puddle or just sit with them.
While accepting and loving of all those she knows, La can still be leery of strangers. Individuals who carry themselves in threatening ways, are armed in any sense, or have features typical of carnivores can make La nervous and she is less likely to approach and converse with them. In some but not all cases she considers the wearing of skulls and furs to be morbid and possibly offensive to her herbivore sensibilities, but tries not to judge the cultures of others. If she has heard rumors (i.e. if I read it in a biography) that a person is exceptionally aggressive and especially if they have killed someone before and that is widely known, La will avoid them peacefully but if approached will allow conversation.
La believes that by either magic or nature, deer that most closely resemble The Twin Gods (which is to say, true-blooded Endless Forest Deer with humanoid faces) are the most natural residents of The Forest, but she also believes that there is room for everyone in The Endless Forest and doesn't think that her gods would turn away any good-hearted asylum-seeker. She is usually pleasantly amused to see deer with inhuman faces, or even intelligent animals other than deer who have come to the Forest. She simply doesn't understand why anyone would want to come here, and is flattered.
Vipin- The first deer La ever met. Incredibly terrifying on his own, but he was sitting down at the time and that lessened La's fears. She quote-unquote sneaked over to him because her desire for company outweighed her fear of him and sat a few feet away. Later inched closer. Regards very kindly. Hasn't seen in a long time.
Flyleaf- One of the first deer La ever played with. An infinitely kind soul full of laughter and love, La is always happy to see Flyleaf and would do anything for him.
Ourania- One of the first deer La ever played with. Regards her very fondly. Hasn't seen in a long time.
Kind Stranger- La was often completely alone in The Forest as a fawn and on a dark and stormy night (in the 3.4 beta) she found only the Kind Stranger in the woods. She went to them very sadly and miserably and found comfort and shelter in their company under a mushroom and later underneath the slanted rock in The Playground. Hasn't seen them since and sometimes thinks maybe she imagined them.
Gustiro- Present for the first time La was ever helpful, before she even learned to talk. Gustiro's antlers were stuck and La helped him get un-stuck. Gruff, but he is La's definition of traditional masculinity in deer. Regards very fondly and recently reunited with him.
Kheiron- The first deer that La feels took her seriously, and the first deer that she introduced to The Book. She wasn't talking yet, but La wanted to talk with him more than anyone else in her childhood. Loves his playful nature. Hasn't seen in a long time.
Vaq- An individual she met when he was a fawn. Watched him grow up and developed a strong friendship with him. His extremely extroverted playfulness and tricksiness is counter-balanced by her preference for quiet tricks. He clearly cares for her in return, but La knows that he sees everything about how she likes to study the world around her as heretical and bizarre and has told her that her study of glyphs in pictographs "ruins the magic." She disagrees.
Walter- Owes him gratitude for his patience with her in helping her gather together her magic. La is oblivious to his past. Has run into him again now that he is a fawn and recognizes him by his pictograph. Intends to be nurturing in any way she can.
Ben- Such an eternal source of love and kindness. La seeks out Ben's pictograph any time she can sense it and will cuddle with him and romp with him any chance she gets.
Nika- In La's opinion, the best traveling and adventuring partner that one can have. Nika's life experience and La's technical understandings mix well together. La also probably owes her some money for buying her human clothes. A source of comfort and reassurance and La firmly believes that Nika could kick anyone's butt.
Toya- A sweet and mysterious soul, definitely an artist. Has been pranked by her spells and always surprised to see the way that Toya's visage can change. Hasn't seen her in a while.
Jennie- A wonderful playmate. La is always amused by her antics and happy to see her, but unnerved to see her with a different pictograph lately. Hasn't played with too much recently.
Kio- Much like Ben, Kio is a well of neverending love. La is enticed by her otherworldliness and mystery and seeks her out for cuddles and romps at every opportunity.
Twist- A squirrel! La doesn't know her well and hasn't spent an immense amount of time in her company, but owes her her life.
Stitches- The character of a fraudulent player who lied to the community, so a complicated entry. But, regardless of the player, the character did exist and La did know him as a very sad fellow. Kept him company when possible to cheer him up and attended his wedding, though assumes it is dissolved with the character's absence.
Arcus- A fascinating chimeric person. La doesn't know her intensely well but enjoys her. Attended her wedding to Stitches.
Shahla- A tough gal. La aspires to be more like her in that regard. Enjoys her company quietly most times, sort of observing and admiring.
Peppino- Complicated. Distantly aware that he may have a crush on her that La will never ever want to nor be able to reciprocate. La fails to notice his advances and maintains a strictly platonic friendship, taking advantage of his know-how of elements of the human world that she fails to comprehend. He has saved her life.
Sunna'May- A shape-changer that La finds intriguing. Has played with her and been amazed by her magic in the past, really blown away by her. Wonders what her story is.
Adrien- A deer raised by rabbits. La would like to pick his brain more than she has been able to. Knows him to be a genuinely caring individual. Met him when trying to hatch The Nubbin.
Trout- A unicorn true to unicornness. Beautiful as nature and just as kind. Has experienced and seen Trout taking on burdens for others out of selflessness and was immensely proud when Trout began to talk.
Tanpopo- The sweetest little girl. La is deeply invested in her well-being and frightened for her since she hasn't seen her or Oduvanchik for a while. Intervened in the past to step between Oduvanchik and Tanpopo and keep them apart, seeing the demon as nothing but dangerous for the fawn, but was unable to keep them separated.
V- An anxious, self-conscious person. La wants her to feel good about herself.
Cian- A young boy with a big imagination that La adored. Loved to play make-believe with him and tell him stories. Watched him grow pretty fast, he was always big for his age. Hasn't seen him in a while.
Palila- A very sweet young thing that never really had time to blossom before her player was bullied off the site. What I saw on the forum wasn't pretty. PSA: It's never okay to bully a child, no matter what. Even if a kid does something bad, they are still a kid and they need to be taught, not insulted. Don't let a few jerks ruin stuff for you.
Isca- A very magical young thing that La met trying to hatch The Nubbin. Believes she will grow up right.
"Nubbin"- An alien! La is invested in its well-being but is scared to take a strictly parental role with it, so she got it a cow to provide it with food.
Oduvanchik- A straight up monster from another world that came out of The Old Oak. Terrifying. La would avoid him completely if he didn't hang around Tanpopo. Has clashed with and been injured by him.
La is always open to meeting new people of all kinds, but if you look scary it might be best if you initiate.
Artifacts for Museums and Other Acquisitions La isn't much of a hoarder and has a tenuous concept of ownership at best. For better or for worse she has learned from humans when reading about them. Her view of non-dangerous objects is that they are meant to be shared and kept in good condition, and is in love with the ideas of museums and libraries because they exemplify what she believes responsible ownership should look like. She will happily share and show off her acquisitions to people who would like to learn about them.
Green Luchador Mask cast on La by the God Auriea on October 30, 2014. Outside of The Book, La's most precious possession and symbol of her faith. Her Luchadora name is "La Cierva." A terrible joke.
Blanket from The Human World, gifted by Peppino - His parting gift to La after taking her to The Human World. She keeps it in her nest area near The Point of Origin and it is usually covered with dry grass and leaves. In warm weather she sits on it and in cold weather she uses her mouth to pull it over her and wear it kind of like a cape. She will not hesitate to share it with anyone in need.
Book of Fairy Tales from The Human World, gifted by Peppino - Peppino's other parting gift to La. She read it in a day. It is kept in a hidden room under The Ruins to avoid damaging it but she will happily share it any time she thinks someone would like it.
Shard of Alien Egg salvaged from The Nubbin's Egg - La helped hatch an alien, and after its birth she saved a few shards of the egg. The largest is about the size of her face. She wants to analyze it to learn what the superhard sparkling blue material is made of. She keeps them in one of the rooms under The Ruins and will show it to others.
Glitch Skull and Accompanying Skeleton - The skull and skeleton of a mysterious, unidentifiable, asymmetrical creature. These objects are connected to an entity that haunts La and inflicts glitches on her. She keeps it wrapped in burlap as a way to punish the object. Occasionally she takes them with her to meet others if she thinks that they might be able to help her understand what they are, but is generally not keen on showing them off because she views them as threat.
Human Clothes from The Human World, gifted by Nika - a bizarre but plain costume acquired at a human LARP gathering that makes La look out of place in any setting, strange human appearance aside. Made of cotton, is a brownish red. Outfit consists of a sleeveless shirt, chest wrap and a long skirt over shorts. La struggles to don and remove the clothes because she is inexperienced. Philosophically and because of deer habits, she might be happier as a nudist but understands the social importance of clothes. They conveniently vanish when she returns to The Endless Forest.
Old Books from under The Ruins. Nika showed La where they were. The books are mostly gospels and other copies of the bible.
Ruin Rock A piece of rubble from The Ruins with some lines on it. La doesn't know where it belongs but keeps it because she found it as a fawn. A squirrel stole it and La had nearly given up on finding it when the doe Jezara found it and brought it to her again!
La is always looking to acquire strange things, but she especially likes books, items of historical significance, items connected to mysteries, and of course useful things.
La found a large reddish book in The Ename Ruins when she was only a few days old. It imprinted to her and now bears her pictograph on the front cover. It is the doe's window into the human world and her sole companion on lonely nights. The book appears mysteriously when La wants it and vanishes when she stops paying attention to it. It can display whatever it desires (which is often but not always whatever La desires to learn about). Sometimes it will be a show-off and introduce itself with flashy, full-color illustrations. Occasionally it displays a level of prescience and an awareness of its surroundings, usually with the cheeky intention of causing La some mild chagrin. It leaves opinions and comments in footnotes but they are rarely longer than a word or so and often comedic and sassy. The book seems to have some level of dominion over other books as well and can move them the way it moves itself, but this is rarely necessary.
La's underlying scent of books is this book's way of marking its territory.
It has a fear of water, fire, and any vermin that might nibble its pages.
The book may loan itself out to deer other than La on its own whims. Let me know if you just want to interact with the book or want it to cameo/participate in a roleplay you're in, I'll be happy to come over there. It's unlikely to aid evil characters, however.
How I Play La in The Endless Forest La and I react to people much the same way and like to be friendly and happy and playful. We want to run around and play or maybe just sit with you and enjoy some good cuddles. We'll keep our distance and run off if you do something aggressive or angry in or out of character.
We try to prioritize new fawns and nameless deer because they need the most guidance and help. With my player insight I know they are new players; La sees fawns as babies needing guidance and she sees nameless deer as hapless tourists who have no idea what they're doing and who don't speak the local language.
I generally think of biographies I read on TEFc to represent rumors and chatter that La overhears in The Forest when talking to others, so she may have heard of your deer. Obviously La will only be aware of the most superficial things about your character. She's usually up to date on deaths and births because I imagine those are the kinds of things that she hears most from gossipy deer.
La and I will ignore trolls and OOC rudeness both in and out of character. Additionally, La won't be injured by anything that happens in the forest unless I get to talk about it ahead of time with players and we all agree to something, although that is highly unlikely because she is very much not a fighter and not likely to get into fights. If you just start wailing on her in The Forest, tough titty--your attacks mean nothing.
Please don't have bought pictograms interact with La. I'll do my best keep her away from them too so it will be no work for you, I know several of them by heart and will give you space and avoid affecting your play. I do not hate players who have done it as people because I'm not going to let that ruin friendships, but I am upset with the idea of buying pictograms and I think the best way to resolve this for myself and demonstrate that I intend to side with M&A on the issue is to avoid them peacefully in the game.
When I play the game, I play it windowed so if La fails to react to you it means I've tabbed away or something has happened around me and I have had to abandon my computer. Occasionally this means it's frozen up. In-character, if she ignores you, please assume that she isn't doing it to be rude and is just distracted or dopey. She wouldn't want to hurt feelings and I'd rather your character think she's dumb than mean. If I am slow to react or if I moo, I am on my laptop without hotkeys or I messed up when trying to hit them.
Alison Alison is a turd who can't be trusted to hang out enough with you lovely people. I've always kept the game on my mind though.
I find La really interesting!
And I think both my Dullahan and Hallfir would be very interested in discussing old lore and that kind of stuff with her (Mostly, Hallfir then since Dullahan can't talk much ;; )
Intereseting story up there. I think my OOC won't be really disgusted, thou. How weird of me.
Anyway I know who is responsible for slapping something that once belonged to another something and then stayed when it dissolved. I know him, his name is Mr. Server Glitch and he is responsible for pulling all clothes down off of my deer and giving them flowers to disguise what he had just done, thus forcing me to restart the game.
But a RP may be very interesting...
Ah, the old glitch monster, a beast that roams the forest with mysterious magical powers beyond our ken. La would fear such a beast immensely. I like to imagine that deer think of glitches and talk about them the way we humans tell ghost stories--something unexplainable from their perspective happens, what else can they do?
So I have to try to rationalize where possible from poor La's perspective and roll with the punches. Perhaps the skull itself was harvested from the skull of a dead glitch beast! That would make for an interesting roleplay.
Ha that's a really cool way to explain that glitch. It's been pretty rampant as of late! I always have to laugh at my poor Verve who gets the brunt of the attacks. One day she woke up looking like her father, and just yesterday she became some hulking beast with a skull mask and zombie antlers. But I really like how you made a story about it for La. She has a wonderful design/personality I wanted to add, she fits really well with the entire atmosphere of the game.
That's awesomeness totally. 8D
Undead glitch beast, woo. I believe he is also responsible for my friend's fawn growing up all of sudden, getting rust-colored pelt, remains of a deer's head on the face and tiny creepy antlers that scream evil all around. I also believe he is responsible for pictos not spreading and he can make any deer look like the God.
Perhaps he is also responsible for Oak's branches of doom and their minions scattered around the Forest, mini pelts not having it easy, the Void, and etc etc. He is also evil in such sense that some deer take liking in glitch stuff, and then fly, sit slide, sink, walk on water and perhaps edit their own game files. And that way they work for him and help him take over the forest.
RP would be definitely interesting, but so would be a story perhaps, nu?
Oh no the glitch is after Verve too! ;_; I hope she handles it better than La does.
Thank you also for your kind words about La, Mis. it's super sweet of you to say. I was actually thinking of having La take the skull chunk to Verve to ask her if she's ever seen anything like it since she works with skulls a lot in her art. La might end up dragging the ugly thing all over the forest just asking everyone if they know anything about it. "Have you seen anyone fitting these over the heads of sleeping deer? No? Okay thanks later bye."
I can only wonder how this horrible beast chooses its victims, and Jennie adfasdfasdf your drawings are gonna give me nightmares like La that isn't niiiice.
La already had a run in with a deer that wasn't a god that looked like one and she was pretty terrified of that since she believed that it was trying to lure her under The Old Oak to kill and eat her. For the purposes of her story I might say that that hacking player was either The Glitch Beast or someone that made some kind of Faustian contract with The Glitch Beast.
Maybe deer that exploit "glitch magic" as opposed to more "natural magic" are what give The Glitch Beast strength, or perhaps "glitch magic" could become dangerously addictive with time or some other big problem with it. I tend to think that The Void is a more natural magic meant to protect deer who fall into a very deep sleep (computer shutdown, ha) from things like rain. It's dark but that's just so the deer that it hangs onto for safe keeping don't get woken up from the light until they're good and ready.
I definitely have time to worth through this and turn this weird event into something fun, I just need to decide. :x If any of y'all have any more good ideas feel free to let me know.
I'm gonna say let's hold off on it for now, mostly because it's the end of the quarter for me and life's bizarre but also because I just don't know what to do with it yet, I'm mostly just spitballing.
I kind of already have one page of spooky stuff related to The Old Oak and the specific creepy things that surround it so it's possible that I may consolidate it into a general creepy stuff thread to cover everything in the game that could be interpreted that way (but I probably won't), OR something else. I'm not sure.
I did have an idea that I'm not sure will work. Sort of a biography but not a biography for a glitch character that I would stat out with things from other games on the page. Possibly use CSS to make it intentionally bizarre, but I wanted to have like d20 abilities on there and then some bizarre WoD references and maybe a note about, "The only way to beat a glitch in a game is to go analog" and tell players they need to find some real life dice and roll them in order to defeat it. Sort of a group participation game I suppose?
Life is good, just full of things that eat time and energy--such as homework and a tarantula who is going on a hunger strike purely because he can. Also next quarter they canceled my Spanish Class because there weren't enough students at my level and this means I am ON MY OWN.
Dude, I hate it when they cancel language classes because there "aren't enough people". You could look into who HAD signed up and do a private study group or something?
My sister had a similar problem with her German class and they got together to practice and it seemed to help just having people in a room only speaking what little German they knew.
Also, hope your little buddy decides to eat soon. While I don't care for spiders much, I do worry about a living thing struggling.
I know. My class this quarter was five students and it was super fun. But next quarter, nope no intermediate Spanish, I'm just screwed. Need to find a study group for sure.
Howard isn't struggling, he's just not eating. It's just a thing his species does from time to time, presumably to terrify their owners. I read one thing where a member of his species just didn't eat for a year and then started eating again. So whatever.
I'd be angrier if he weren't so goddamn cute with his little spinnerets and pedipalps.
Gonna agree with what everyone else said about how this is a very cool way to interpret a forest glitch! I do wonder how La would react to something like this, haha.
HAHA well I just never thought of making it an IC thing for her :") So this is really clever if you ask me. I do always like considering 'where do these things come from' since they're so.. Odd. How does a glitch like that even get in the coding. And that sounds like fun! We're always open for rp so feel free to approach Verve whenever you're up for it
I have a character that steals skulls from heads, but it would be funny to see one that adds them to people their heads ;x They'd get along just ffiiiine.
That whole participation game sounds really funny though. Love exploring TEF lore. Glitch magic being an opposite of the forests' natural magic is really clever.
Also ee your spider's a cutie ;_; Is he done molting? I think they sometimes stop eating before a molt. But I've never kept tarantula's. Or spiders.
@Fairy He's cute because... uh... I dunno. He's a sweetie pie. When you have such a helpless and unintelligent animal as a pet you can't help but grow to feel something for them, a need to protect and care for them. I got my first tarantula (years ago before I started college, and I had to give her away to a veterinary student I knew before I went to college) because she needed a home and because I was afraid of tarantulas. My first night with her in my house I had a nightmare that she was sick and unhappy and after that it was impossible for me to fear her.
Howard, this tarantula, we got because I finally moved to a house where I can have simple pets like him and because I just love keeping tarantulas. Also, I found out at one point that my partner is scared of spiders so I decided that exposure therapy was the way to go. Six months ago he wouldn't be in the same room with Howard and now he is comfortable touching him. Progress!
@Unplugged what the hell happened to your computer to make that even remotely possible? Are you using LSD as a coolant or something? And that picture of the deer with the eyeball, where the HELL did that come from? /screaming
@Mis The lore of The Forest is one of my favorite things, but it's so sparse in what's "canon" and what's just assumption that I feel the need to play to my headcanons a lot and maybe see if other people want to play along with them. I'm a big fan of horror type things and there's really not a lot that's spooky in the game so sometimes you just need to look for excuses. My scapegoat in the past has been The Old Oak but with The Glitch Beast as a new possibility there are a lot of things to work with and twist depending pretty entirely on deer perspective.
I spent a lot of my morning trying to find a way to come up with a good "analog" game that people could play over the forums with group participation. I need to take an inventory of all of our board games and I am tempted to make little deer pieces and move them along a Candy Land board and take photos as people progress towards eliminating The Glitch Beast or something (they would use a Go To Jail card from Monopoly to do this maybe). Possibilities are endless.
Howard the tarantula is not done molting. He's never been sexed so for all I know he could be a female who is younger than I thought but I think he's a male based on his size and abdomen proportions. He will molt for his entire life until he reaches sexual maturity, at which time he will have little hooks on his foremost legs and he'll die sometime after that. It's hard for the male tarantulas, who only get to mate and then die and only live for 5-10 years while the ladies can be 20-30.
I've been thinking he's ready to molt (and he's about due for one, it's been at least 8 months since his last one) but he doesn't seem interested. Someday I'll just look into his tank and see him looking all squishy. My last tarantula left her molt in her tank upside down and it scared the hell out of me when I saw it:
I don't know what Howard thinks about with his tiny tiny tarantula nervous system but as far as I can tell he just wants to sit in the shade, drink water, and not eat.
Maybe if I do the board game thing Howard can play The Glitch and sit on the Candy Land board.
I think everyone has a different headcanon about it, which is also pretty interesting but yeah there's not really one 'canon' XD Yes, horror themes are a lot of fun to play with and I think TEF does kind of lend itself for that if you look at it from different angles. Some things are pretty creepy. My favourite glitch is when someone gets spelled into a large bunny out of nowhere. You just hear the end of the spell and bam, bunny. Nobody to cast it. And when they sneeze it off, within 10-30 minutes they're a bunny again. Makes me think maybe there's a prankster on the loose. The bunny curse.
Haha oh man that board sounds really funny. Could get different glitches involved. "Your deer is now stuck in the praying pose for the rest of it's turn" ;_;'..
Hmm, I don't know about Howard being male or not, might be easier to tell with knowing the species. And maybe if he's done molting it'd be easier too. I can't help but somehow remember the males legs would be longer compaired to the body, but I'm sure that's different between each species.
Yes, male bugs have it kind of hard in general ;x I used to keep mantids. They have a lot in common with spiders except nothing. The males only live a few months after adulthood, the females continue for half a year beyond that. But they don't even live one year so go tarantula. I had bought four mantids from some guy in a crowdy building and was told they were two males and two females. It turned out to be three females and one guy, who had the task to fertilize them all. And live to tell the tale. He did really well! Then he turned out to be infertile. Such luck.
That molt looks like it wants to give you an awkward high-five. Howard being the glitch would honestly kill me, maybe if he randomly wanders off and knocks some people off they've got some extra heavy glitches. They all fell through the floor.
I've never seen nor heard of the giant bunny glitch. It seriously does just sound like some invisible prankster is running around the forest giving everyone a hard time. "Oh, they got sick of being a rabbit and changed back? Better mack them a rabbit again!" What a jerk, seriously. Mr. Glitch needs a new hobby. >:|
Mantids have it rough. They are such lovely bugs and I have considered keeping them in the past but their short lifespans made me less interested. It is so cool that you're able to keep them. There's a photographer I like called Igor Siwanowicz who takes really gorgeous photos of insects and arachnids and just about everything small, his photos of praying mantises (like this one) always make me think of royalty. You might like him if you like bugs in general.
Howard is a Chilean rose hair. Females have larger abdomens and are overall much larger. Howard is appropriately small for an adult male, but he could also be younger than I think he is and be a female. When he molts I'm probably gonna try to get some friends in the chemistry club at my college to help get me into the labs so I can use the dissection microscopes to look for signs. It's not something I've had to do before so it will be a learning experience. I am very excited.
Ben is convinced those are definitely Robins and Blue Tits. After closer investigations ben believes the brown ones are most likely House Sparrows, (possibly tree sparrows due to that black cheek patch, although tree sparrows should technically have a much more prominently white cheek.)
I'm so glad I'm not the only person to look at those little birds and need to know what they are. Your screenshots are so much better than miiine thank you for sharing those.
For the brown ones I was looking through lots of finches and sparrows and starlings and swallows and in the end I gave up because there are just so many brown birds I didn't think I'd ever come close to identifying them. Took a look at house and tree sparrows again and both fit.
And yes, I see now definitely a blue tit and not the nuthatch since the tits have the black band around the neck and the nuthatches don't. Thank you!
I think I forgot to say that it happened to me a couple of days ago, the giant bunny glitch. I tabbed back in a window I was playing in, five seconds and suddently boom, spell with no caster and my deer was a giant bunny. Giant. And what creeped me out was that I was playing as a fawn with no pelt, fawn with no pelt let me repeat. I know stuff about glitches since I love to do them [>) what a doomsday] and I know that you must have a pelt for being a giant shapeshift outside de drinkplaats. If my deer wore a pelt, I could still think that the spell somehow sank and interacted with the pelt due to it being lagged due to game not running in background, but no. Fawn, peltless, and giant bunny. This creeped me out.
That night I dreamed about an entity haunting me in my room, making spooky sounds and so on. I tried to tell them to go away, but my heart was beating like insane and when someone casted a spell at a piece of jewerly in my room, turning it into a bunny just like in the TEF, my dream turned into UGLY one. idk what to think about it.
It fascinates me, though, as any other creepy stuff does.
The bunnies weren't ugly, no. They were nice cute cuddle bunnies. But the act of casting was ugly. Already in the TEF it became weird when I couldn't explain it... And then it had me in the paralell reality of my dreams. That got me off.
I'm sorry to hear any sad things from your side. :C
I imagine, in my headcanon, that magic that uses glitches is either ugly or invisible or otherwise bizarre. I see it as the opposite of The Gods' intended spells (in that glitches and bugs are a strange byproduct of trying to program anything) and probably lack the golden glowing beauty of the more "proper" magic.
Lol What fun! ^-^
^-^
With Love :3
Helloooo The fawn was SS
The fawn was SS ..( She is not a fawn in real lol ) .
Ouhh track here so
Aha! Thanks Flyleaf, I looked
It's good to cuddle with y'all.
track
i'm the orange, skullmask little horn mini deer who sleep with you sometimes =D your ery interesting and kind doe. =D
Yes, I have definitely seen
^^
I find La really
And I think both my Dullahan and Hallfir would be very interested in discussing old lore and that kind of stuff with her (Mostly, Hallfir then since Dullahan can't talk much ;; )
I hope we can meet in the forest!
www.silverracoon.deviantart.com
La seems like a very
@ Silver I will definitely
@Forgetmenot Thank you very much. I picked her name because in a lot of languages it's nothing more than an article or pronoun.
-track !
La is in Trout's Thoughts
Here's some fan art for la! I
Image © Alhnna
Thank you, that's awesome! I
Your welcome ^^ I adore how
Image © Alhnna
Pretty! : D
"mentees: trout"
*applauds* Yes please!!!
"Please do not bring anything
Roleplay of it should happen.
La is taking students? :0 We
We wants in! :3
I agree. Though to have
Tanpopo's in. When I have
Being that The Forest has weird time I imagine it's impossible to schedule things well.
I made you a present!
Tracking! Thought it was
Intereseting story up there.
Anyway I know who is responsible for slapping something that once belonged to another something and then stayed when it dissolved. I know him, his name is Mr. Server Glitch and he is responsible for pulling all clothes down off of my deer and giving them flowers to disguise what he had just done, thus forcing me to restart the game.
But a RP may be very interesting...
Also and mainly, tracking if I hadn't as of yet.
Ah, the old glitch monster, a
So I have to try to rationalize where possible from poor La's perspective and roll with the punches. Perhaps the skull itself was harvested from the skull of a dead glitch beast! That would make for an interesting roleplay.
Ha that's a really cool way
That's awesomeness totally.
Undead glitch beast, woo. I believe he is also responsible for my friend's fawn growing up all of sudden, getting rust-colored pelt, remains of a deer's head on the face and tiny creepy antlers that scream evil all around. I also believe he is responsible for pictos not spreading and he can make any deer look like the God.
Perhaps he is also responsible for Oak's branches of doom and their minions scattered around the Forest, mini pelts not having it easy, the Void, and etc etc. He is also evil in such sense that some deer take liking in glitch stuff, and then fly, sit slide, sink, walk on water and perhaps edit their own game files. And that way they work for him and help him take over the forest.
RP would be definitely interesting, but so would be a story perhaps, nu?
E.: I couldn't help it.
How a fawn gets glitched.
Oh no the glitch is after
Thank you also for your kind words about La, Mis. it's super sweet of you to say. I was actually thinking of having La take the skull chunk to Verve to ask her if she's ever seen anything like it since she works with skulls a lot in her art. La might end up dragging the ugly thing all over the forest just asking everyone if they know anything about it. "Have you seen anyone fitting these over the heads of sleeping deer? No? Okay thanks later bye."
I can only wonder how this horrible beast chooses its victims, and Jennie adfasdfasdf your drawings are gonna give me nightmares like La that isn't niiiice.
La already had a run in with a deer that wasn't a god that looked like one and she was pretty terrified of that since she believed that it was trying to lure her under The Old Oak to kill and eat her. For the purposes of her story I might say that that hacking player was either The Glitch Beast or someone that made some kind of Faustian contract with The Glitch Beast.
Maybe deer that exploit "glitch magic" as opposed to more "natural magic" are what give The Glitch Beast strength, or perhaps "glitch magic" could become dangerously addictive with time or some other big problem with it. I tend to think that The Void is a more natural magic meant to protect deer who fall into a very deep sleep (computer shutdown, ha) from things like rain. It's dark but that's just so the deer that it hangs onto for safe keeping don't get woken up from the light until they're good and ready.
I definitely have time to worth through this and turn this weird event into something fun, I just need to decide. :x If any of y'all have any more good ideas feel free to let me know.
Shall I start a project blog
I'm gonna say let's hold off
I kind of already have one page of spooky stuff related to The Old Oak and the specific creepy things that surround it so it's possible that I may consolidate it into a general creepy stuff thread to cover everything in the game that could be interpreted that way (but I probably won't), OR something else. I'm not sure.
I did have an idea that I'm not sure will work. Sort of a biography but not a biography for a glitch character that I would stat out with things from other games on the page. Possibly use CSS to make it intentionally bizarre, but I wanted to have like d20 abilities on there and then some bizarre WoD references and maybe a note about, "The only way to beat a glitch in a game is to go analog" and tell players they need to find some real life dice and roll them in order to defeat it. Sort of a group participation game I suppose?
I'm sorry to hear your life
So yea, feel free to take your time. ♥ You can make it hovewer you want then.
Life is good, just full of
Dude, I hate it when they
My sister had a similar problem with her German class and they got together to practice and it seemed to help just having people in a room only speaking what little German they knew.
Also, hope your little buddy decides to eat soon.
I know. My class this quarter
Howard isn't struggling, he's just not eating. It's just a thing his species does from time to time, presumably to terrify their owners. I read one thing where a member of his species just didn't eat for a year and then started eating again. So whatever.
I'd be angrier if he weren't so goddamn cute with his little spinnerets and pedipalps.
ROFL I screamed. Eeehh.
Eeehh. cuuute....fuzzzyy. It's fuzzy. That's what's cute about it right?
Not the abnormal crawling and scary teeth. *shudders*
Nope. I could not hold it.
Nope. Nope. Nope.
SO MUCH NOPE
(No subject)
Gonna agree with what
I-I can't. Help me anyone? XD
HAHA well I just never
I have a character that steals skulls from heads, but it would be funny to see one that adds them to people their heads ;x They'd get along just ffiiiine.
That whole participation game sounds really funny though. Love exploring TEF lore. Glitch magic being an opposite of the forests' natural magic is really clever.
Also ee your spider's a cutie ;_; Is he done molting? I think they sometimes stop eating before a molt. But I've never kept tarantula's. Or spiders.
@Fairy He's cute because...
Howard, this tarantula, we got because I finally moved to a house where I can have simple pets like him and because I just love keeping tarantulas. Also, I found out at one point that my partner is scared of spiders so I decided that exposure therapy was the way to go. Six months ago he wouldn't be in the same room with Howard and now he is comfortable touching him. Progress!
@Unplugged what the hell happened to your computer to make that even remotely possible? Are you using LSD as a coolant or something? And that picture of the deer with the eyeball, where the HELL did that come from? /screaming
@Mis The lore of The Forest is one of my favorite things, but it's so sparse in what's "canon" and what's just assumption that I feel the need to play to my headcanons a lot and maybe see if other people want to play along with them. I'm a big fan of horror type things and there's really not a lot that's spooky in the game so sometimes you just need to look for excuses. My scapegoat in the past has been The Old Oak but with The Glitch Beast as a new possibility there are a lot of things to work with and twist depending pretty entirely on deer perspective.
I spent a lot of my morning trying to find a way to come up with a good "analog" game that people could play over the forums with group participation. I need to take an inventory of all of our board games and I am tempted to make little deer pieces and move them along a Candy Land board and take photos as people progress towards eliminating The Glitch Beast or something (they would use a Go To Jail card from Monopoly to do this maybe). Possibilities are endless.
Howard the tarantula is not done molting. He's never been sexed so for all I know he could be a female who is younger than I thought but I think he's a male based on his size and abdomen proportions. He will molt for his entire life until he reaches sexual maturity, at which time he will have little hooks on his foremost legs and he'll die sometime after that. It's hard for the male tarantulas, who only get to mate and then die and only live for 5-10 years while the ladies can be 20-30.
I've been thinking he's ready to molt (and he's about due for one, it's been at least 8 months since his last one) but he doesn't seem interested. Someday I'll just look into his tank and see him looking all squishy. My last tarantula left her molt in her tank upside down and it scared the hell out of me when I saw it:
I don't know what Howard thinks about with his tiny tiny tarantula nervous system but as far as I can tell he just wants to sit in the shade, drink water, and not eat.
Maybe if I do the board game thing Howard can play The Glitch and sit on the Candy Land board.
I think everyone has a
Haha oh man that board sounds really funny. Could get different glitches involved. "Your deer is now stuck in the praying pose for the rest of it's turn" ;_;'..
Hmm, I don't know about Howard being male or not, might be easier to tell with knowing the species. And maybe if he's done molting it'd be easier too. I can't help but somehow remember the males legs would be longer compaired to the body, but I'm sure that's different between each species.
Yes, male bugs have it kind of hard in general ;x I used to keep mantids. They have a lot in common with spiders except nothing. The males only live a few months after adulthood, the females continue for half a year beyond that. But they don't even live one year so go tarantula. I had bought four mantids from some guy in a crowdy building and was told they were two males and two females. It turned out to be three females and one guy, who had the task to fertilize them all. And live to tell the tale. He did really well! Then he turned out to be infertile. Such luck.
That molt looks like it wants to give you an awkward high-five. Howard being the glitch would honestly kill me, maybe if he randomly wanders off and knocks some people off they've got some extra heavy glitches. They all fell through the floor.
I've never seen nor heard of
Mantids have it rough.
Howard is a Chilean rose hair. Females have larger abdomens and are overall much larger. Howard is appropriately small for an adult male, but he could also be younger than I think he is and be a female. When he molts I'm probably gonna try to get some friends in the chemistry club at my college to help get me into the labs so I can use the dissection microscopes to look for signs. It's not something I've had to do before so it will be a learning experience. I am very excited.
Hope it's ok that I'm curled
Tan's avoiding Odu right now.
Ben is convinced those are
Robin and Tit
Sparrows 1, Sparrows 2
I'm so glad I'm not the only
For the brown ones I was looking through lots of finches and sparrows and starlings and swallows and in the end I gave up because there are just so many brown birds I didn't think I'd ever come close to identifying them. Took a look at house and tree sparrows again and both fit.
And yes, I see now definitely a blue tit and not the nuthatch since the tits have the black band around the neck and the nuthatches don't. Thank you!
I think I forgot to say that
That night I dreamed about an entity haunting me in my room, making spooky sounds and so on. I tried to tell them to go away, but my heart was beating like insane and when someone casted a spell at a piece of jewerly in my room, turning it into a bunny just like in the TEF, my dream turned into UGLY one. idk what to think about it.
Jennie that's scary. You
You talk about ugly rabbits and it makes me think of all the traumatizing parts in Watership Down that scarred me as a child.
It fascinates me, though, as
The bunnies weren't ugly, no. They were nice cute cuddle bunnies. But the act of casting was ugly. Already in the TEF it became weird when I couldn't explain it... And then it had me in the paralell reality of my dreams. That got me off.
I'm sorry to hear any sad things from your side. :C
I imagine, in my headcanon,