Act 5- Toon History, Parkour Flops, and Rube Goldberg

--- Joshua ---

During lunch he skimmed through the various books around the library, hoping to find something that might help him with his powers. (The question is what though?)

In the roughly twenty years since Deviants were made public, dozens of books and studies had been published about each deviancy ranging from scientific breakdowns to reports given by said Deviants who’d spent years researching their own abilities.

(Though how much of that applies to me?) He frowned, remembering that his powers were the result of an ongoing experiment by the Malice Merchant. (And I doubt that experiment’s been made public.)

Everyone knew that Corrupted were a thing, but the ‘corruptors’ -whatever their method may be- were usually frowned upon by the government due to their ability to essentially make supersoldiers on demand. (Which is why I probably won’t find anything regarding ‘Malice’ based powers.)

Sighing, he shook his head before deciding that he wouldn’t get anywhere working at a problem he didn’t even know where to begin with. So instead he made his way towards a section of the library filled with video game artbooks and other such books that were more picture than word in the hope of getting some of the students to actually read.

(Let’s see…) He ran a finger along the book spine, reading the title but finding nothing at least until he found ‘The Cartoonist’s Chaoticly Complex Compendium’ a book that sung out to him for some reason he couldn’t quite comprehend.

“Why not?”

After the night previous when he’d used his ink to draw something he’d felt a deep sort of satisfaction in the act of creating something with his ink, and felt like maybe it could be a new hobby. Though given how he’d never tried drawing outside of a handful of half-assed art projects, he didn’t actually know all that much about drawing, hence why he’d been looking for a book on drawing in the first place.

The first few pages weren’t all that much, though the author and/or illustrator had had the brilliant idea to have an old black and white cartoon character explaining everything, with a couple of other characters occasionally popping in to add to the chaos.

Flipping through he learned a fair amount about cartoons and the techniques behind their creation, such as how the earliest forms of animation were toys that when spun would give the illusion of movement, and Charles-Émile Reynaud, a now-parisian inventor of one such toy, would go on to create one of the first animations by using transparently projected images over a second projected background to create one of the first animated films that he released in 1892.

From there animation slowly took a step into the world of film as small animation was added to films via a stop-motion technique where films would stop and start filming so that drawn images could be swapped out as seen in the Enchanted Drawing. A short film where a man interacted with his drawing, pulling pieces of it out into reality by replacing the drawn objects with their real world counterparts while the figure of said drawing flipped to new images after each interaction.

From there the first cartoon using the now traditional technique of drawing a number of images blending together was ‘Fantasmagorie’. Released in 1908, the short piece lasted about seventy-five seconds and was made up of roughly seven-hundred hand drawn images that when played together created the first animated film to be released.

A few other animators were mentioned developing new techniques over the course of the next decade to help smooth out the animation techniques that had been thus far developed.

One such technique being ‘by 2s’ -a technique in which animators only changed out their images every other frame instead of for twenty-four frames needed for a second of animation- which had been in (and still was) in active use for over a hundred years, given its use in Fantasmagorie.

Unfortunately these solo animators slowly died out as studios quickly became the standard as animation began to get a foothold in the film industry in the decades leading up to the golden age of animation.

Scene Consequences

-Consequences to be seen, (you meta-gamers...)*

-Additional options available in the Cartoon Cabaret. (When unlocked.)

*This comment was to the questers who wrote this option in.

---

Feeling a bout of inspiration after reading about so many different artists, he pulled out a few sheets of paper and began using his (ink) to sketch and draw little shapes and figures, once more feeling that odd sort of satisfaction as his (ink) lasted notably longer in the creation of something else.

(I really should keep at this.)

Scene Consequences

-1 point of progress towards [(???) Ink] Power.

--Currently: (2/10)

---

Now that he was out of school he decided to attempt making use of his theoretically unlimited stamina to try and figure out something that was considered a must for all serious Masks. Namely parkour.

“Now if only I actually knew anything about parkour…” He sighed to himself, having managed to find a decent enough area without any witnesses to practice, that was his only real problem at the moment.

What little he could think of was based off of movies and video games, places where they didn’t necessarily have to rely on how realistic their actions and movements were. (Meaning I can’t actually trust them.) (Then again there’s sometimes some truth in television.)

Shaking his head, he looked at a nearby brick wall before taking a few steps back and trying to sprint at it. He managed to get one foot on the wall before crashing into it as he banged his knee into the stone work.

“Shit, fuck!” He cursed bouncing away from the wall as he waited for the pain to fade from his knee and side.

“Okay.” He started, forcing himself to slow down and think about this. “Wall running isn’t going to be a thing until I figure out some of the other basics of parkour.”

Grimacing as the solution came to him -and at the fact he hadn’t thought of it sooner- he walked to his backpack and pulled out his phone before searching, ‘basic parkour moves’.

“Let’s see here…” He began, reading over the list of beginner exercises to build up to the actual parkour moves. “Rolling… Some balance work… Precision jumping… Jump spins… And quadrupedal movement?”

He re-read that last one before realizing it was meant to get people used to coordinating their arms and legs at the same time.

“Alright, yeah. I should be able to work with this.” He nodded, knowing that since he didn’t really have an understanding of any of this stuff it was going to take him a bit to figure out how to do this. Especially since he was still a little out of shape compared to most people who practiced parkour.

(That just means I’ll have to work a bit harder to figure it out.)

Scene Consequences

-Progress made towards ??? Mobility Power or Skill. (1/4)

---

Sitting on his living room couch exhausted, sore, and mildly bruised after his mixed parkour practice, he ended up staring at his hand as he remembered the incident from a few days prior when that odd series of accidents had happened in the bar.

At the time he hadn’t given it much thought seeing as how he was standing in the middle of all of that chaos and carnage, but now that he had time to think about it he couldn’t help but consider the fact that the whole incident had been extremely familiar.

“I thought I was done dreaming about this.” He sighed, clenching his fist shut. (But that was before I had any star power.)

Leaning back he let his gaze rise until he was left staring at the ceiling fan spinning mindlessly in circles.

Ever since he was a kid he’d always dreamed of having his brother’s powers, of making the world around him bend the knee through sheer force of will. Then of course came the year he hit the age his brother got his powers, and he was so excited, until the year after came, and the year after that still without any change.

And so it would continue until he drank a little vial of red and black.

“Fuck it.” He decided, standing up. “What’s one more try.”

Reaching into his pocket he took out one of the vials responsible for renewing the hope of this childish dream, before undoing the cap and downing it in a single gulp as the coppery tasting strawberry hit his tongue.

His heart rate spiked and he heard that sweet jazzy symphony starting up once more as his foot began to idly tap along.

“Now then, how to test this?” He asked the world around him while eyeing everything in his living room. (Best to start small and work up to the bigger performances.)

Nodding to himself, he pulled a quarter out of his pocket and made it dance over his fingers -a parlour trick his brother had taught him back when he’d still been trying to help him discover his powers- before turning towards the room’s light switch.

“It’s ten percent luck, twenty percent skill, and eighty percent power of will…” He recited, repeating the line his brother used to tell him about giving his all.

(Just hit the lights.) He told himself, before slowly feeling something resonate within him, something distinctly different than what he felt whenever he used his tags.

Smirking he flipped the coin between his index and his thumb, pulled his arm back, and threw the coin at the light switch to the room, where it connected with the switch, and immediately flew back to hit him in his eye.

“Fuck!” He cursed losing his balance as he fell backwards at an odd angle, before banging his elbow on the table as his shoe flew off his foot and the sound of shattering glass followed shortly after.

Laying there surrounded by broken glass, he couldn’t help but smile through his pain, because while it hadn’t happened the way he’d intended or anything like the way his brother would’ve done it, the ‘lights’ had in fact been ‘hit’ through a series of unusual circumstances.

“Finally!” He laughed, a little madder than usual but hey, (I finally did it! After four fucking years, I finally did it!)

Scene Consequences

-Power Revealed: Rube Goldberg Field Lv. 1 (0/4)*

--Note: Madness based powers are debuffed until ??? ??? is unlocked.

*A/N: Those of you wondering this was the first (chosen) Toon power -sweet symphony- and would’ve been hinted at until revealed when the restriction was lifted.

-1 Malicious Madness sent to the Cartoon Cabaret.