the Ring-Spirit (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
improvking) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
bottlecaplogs2025-05-04 08:18 pm
improvking) wrote in bottlecaplogs2025-05-04 08:18 pm
[OPEN] fight fight fight
Who: the Ring-Spirit, various others (maybe even YOU?)
What: meetups for sparring!
When: throughout May
Where: small forest clearing in town outskirts
Warnings: possibly violence? it's "just sparring", but different folks may value safety vs winning to differing degrees,,
[ The Ring-Spirit has been feeling the need to work on his battling capabilities ever since he helped rescue Smoochum back in March... and the disturbing discovery made during Tangela's more recent rescue only made the importance of combat practice more clear.
So! He makes arrangements during the month to meet up with various other pokemon to spar - not on the coast (CERTAINLY not after hearing out Tangela), nor too deep into the forest, but just outside of town enough that they won't have to worry too much about the uninvolved getting caught in the crossfire. ]
[A] - Meeting as Arranged!
[ If you previously agreed (in person or over pearl) to meet with the Ring-Spirit to spar, you'll find him already waiting at the location when you arrive. He perks up on seeing you. ]
You want to stretch or something first, or get right to it?
[B] - Who You??
[ If you're not someone he's expecting to meet up with, but you linger long enough that he starts thinking you're seeking his attention, he'll be a little ruder. He has plans! ]
...Yeah? What do you want?
What: meetups for sparring!
When: throughout May
Where: small forest clearing in town outskirts
Warnings: possibly violence? it's "just sparring", but different folks may value safety vs winning to differing degrees,,
[ The Ring-Spirit has been feeling the need to work on his battling capabilities ever since he helped rescue Smoochum back in March... and the disturbing discovery made during Tangela's more recent rescue only made the importance of combat practice more clear.
So! He makes arrangements during the month to meet up with various other pokemon to spar - not on the coast (CERTAINLY not after hearing out Tangela), nor too deep into the forest, but just outside of town enough that they won't have to worry too much about the uninvolved getting caught in the crossfire. ]
[A] - Meeting as Arranged!
[ If you previously agreed (in person or over pearl) to meet with the Ring-Spirit to spar, you'll find him already waiting at the location when you arrive. He perks up on seeing you. ]
You want to stretch or something first, or get right to it?
[B] - Who You??
[ If you're not someone he's expecting to meet up with, but you linger long enough that he starts thinking you're seeking his attention, he'll be a little ruder. He has plans! ]
...Yeah? What do you want?
A-ish
Maybe the Ring Spirit is just warming up, or maybe he's in the middle of a session with one of his actual planned sparring partners; whatever the case, when the Zoroark comes across the clearing he pauses, then goes to settle in comfortably in some of the nearby shade. ]
Do not mind me! [ he'll chirrup when or if he's acknowledged. ] You may continue on your current track. I am fine just watching.
no subject
You think I'll notice when I learn something new? The archives were a bit vague on the details of how new moves get learned, just that it periodically happens...
no subject
[ there is a minor problem here, if that's what it is: ]
I am not the best person to ask in that case. I already have a general idea of what I probably should and shouldn't be able to do. So I have actively been trying to figure out how to do specific things.
Learning things by way of experience should be fairly instinctual, though. Builds on preexisting foundations a lot of the time. So maybe just try to do what feels natural, and see if something clicks that didn't before?
What are you hoping to learn, anyway?
no subject
Hm... I'm not entirely certain. Perhaps I'll grow more satisfied with what I can do now if I can just get the timing down... which likely is just a matter of practice.
But according to the Archives, a pokemon like me ought to be capable of more that involves shadows than what I can do at present... and maybe it's not strictly necessary for me to be functional in combat, but the Shadows were something of a specialty of mine before coming here - so it'd be nice to reconnect with them more.
Shadows here don't respond the way the Shadows did at home, though. I'm not entirely sure how to go about this reconnecting.
no subject
[ There's a method to the things he does, but a lot of Emmet's process when it comes to this kind of thing is in actively doing, not overthinking or contemplating it for overlong. So he has to take a moment to backtrack from action to the thoughts behind it, then sort them out and get them in order.
The Zoroark stays perfectly still where he is, beneath the tree, but the shadow beneath him quivers and warps before stretching its way towards where the Ring-Spirit was practicing a moment ago, like the precursor to a Shadow Sneak Emmet never commits to and follows through on. Instead Emmet twists it this way and that for a few moments, like flexing a very esoteric muscle of sorts, before calling it back and letting it return to him as he remarks: ]
Stop me if I say something strange. Anyway. You already can do Shadow Sneak. So can I. Ghosts like Ingo can't at all. For me, maybe it is because I didn't have these kinds of senses or abilities before this. But that means I am very aware of where my shadow is these days, because it is so different from before. [ distinct, noticeable. ] My shadow is me but it also isn't. I think a lot of ghost moves can be thought of that way. Ingo can make ghost fire. I should be able to do ghost ice. I think that the 'being like something else' part is maybe the difference between ghost shadows and dark... darkness.
[ Things that are like and might mimic others, but aren't quite really. One of his ears flicks a bit, but he readjusts his position so that he can lift a paw such that a flurry of rushing shadow can cloak it in the jagged phantasmal claws of Shadow Claw as a demonstration. ]
Shadow Claw is easy if I don't think about it much. Or if I feel about it that way. With that half-step of distance, I mean. That it isn't me, that I am not there, that it is like my claws but it also isn't. You know.
[cw: discussion of possession]
Hm...
[ He takes a moment to digest the information and ponder it properly. ]
I am... not as... attuned to being, ah. physical. Not as myself... It's... Tch -
[ This is starting to butt up against his new aversion to ~being perceived~, which makes proceeding difficult. He taps his tail-stick against his "head" as he tries to figure out a good middle ground. ]
Would this be at all similar to how I worked within my host, back home, do you think? Where I'm in control of the body but it's decidedly not my body...?
[ ...Wait, maybe he should explain. ]
In my world I was an amulet. I had to possess my wearer to do much of anything.
[ ALL IS NOW EXPLAINED, SURELY, ]
no subject
... why are you a Mimikyu and not one of the more physical ghosts. [ oh, his filter. ] Well. I guess they wouldn't be able to do Shadow Sneak. Never mind then. Maybe? For your question I mean. I am Emmet. I have not exactly done any possession nor been possessed before so I could not say for certain.
no subject
[ ...Is. is he being serious, or is that just really dry sarcasm? Impossible to tell! ]
I had a very good understanding of my host's physical capabilities... but it was a somewhat more conscious effort to use his body than say to move the Ring's tines. Hmm.
[ He ponders how to translate that experience into this new situation. ]
...Maybe I should try meditation...?
[ He'd been with Ryou so long he can't quite recall how he got so attuned to someone else's body in the first place. ]
no subject
[ You know. Like your host. He's not touching the possession thing. Chandelure does not really do that so, ]
Mimikyu's true body is whatever shadowy bits are underneath. [ Which no one has seen and lived to tell the tale of, apparently, or at least hasn't documented on account of how defensive Mimikyu are of their true form. ]
Maybe, if you think of it as separate that way. Like your host and your Ring. You might have more luck?
no subject
Ok, ok, calm down, Emmet's helping, this - the Ring-Spirit tells himself that he can deal with this. Getting angry at being helped is irrational, even for him. Calm down.
It takes the Ring-Spirit a few moments, during which time he might seem to be thoughtfully contemplating the suggestion, while in reality he is fighting the urge to attack. He has no idea why having his costume be called what it is - a disguise - is so viscerally upsetting. He'd never had an issue with admitting he and his body were separate entities before becoming a pokemon... ]
...Thanks. That. should help.
[ He is audibly speaking through grit teeth. Does he has teeth? It's that tone at least. ]
no subject
Haha. You do not have to force it. If you are not feeling it.
What part was it, though?
[ That bothered the Ring-Spirit, that is. Emmet doesn't think he's tried to do anything that invasive or prying? But, well, he might also not be the best judge of that, all things considered. ]
no subject
He manages to stop himself after a moment though, sucking in a deep breath and holding it as he tries to will himself calm. This is... yeah, if he's thinking it's weird, Emmet is probably totally lost. He should probably... explain. As best he can. Before either he or Shoka end up biting the poor guy. ]
...I do not. appreciate. commentary about... my composition. The... the. dis..guise...
...And fuck if I know why, I've never cared about not being my body before! It's gotta be some kind of pokemon thing.
no subject
[ Like, for example, what he's learned about his breed of Zoroark— but he's hardly the only instance of such a thing among ghosts. ]
So it makes sense. That you might have new compulsions and strong feelings about things that you did not have before, I mean. Working around it, though...
[ He's going to rearrange himself a bit, getting a little more cozy as he settles himself back down under the tree and tucks his paws in, but Emmet cocks his head a little. ]
Spoken directly to you? If I were to say, write something in the dirt, then let you read it while I was somewhere else. Do you think it would be as much of an issue?
no subject
I'm not sure... I suppose we could always give it a shot. I don't recall the records in the Archives instigating emotional reactions from me. I wasn't focusing too heavily on Mimikyu facts, but I must have looked some stuff up...
[ If nothing else, writing the comments down and then leaving the area would mean if the Ring-Spirit did have an outburst that there'd be no one around to get caught by it. ]