smash_logs | That's where you wanna go to get away from it all...

That's where you wanna go to get away from it all...

Who: WHOEVER
What: A FABULOUS ISLAND VACATION
Where: TIKI ISLAND
When: July 22nd-~~July 29th~~ August 5th
Warnings: SHENANIGANS

Ah, the simple pleasures of sun, sand, sea and sky.

After a rather uneventful plane ride, the collective staff and students of the Academy find themselves on a quaint tropical island resort, to commence what should prove to be a very relaxing and well-deserved break before classes resume.

title or description

Everyone is swiftly brought to the resort proper, a straw-and-bamboo complex that will be home for the weeks. Though slightly archaic-looking, the hotel is surprisingly modern, with all the amenities of a luxury hotel.

title or description

Hang at the tiki bar! Enjoy delicious island food and drink. Chill at the pool or the beach. There are even tiki golf carts to get you around in style. Then, when you're tired, head back to your room and crash.

Should you choose to explore the jungles that surround the resort, you'll soon find the remnants of some kind of ancient civilization. Rumors abound at the hotel of unfathomable treasure...and of terrible curses.

But they're probably just rumors. Right?

title or description

Hello and welcome to a Very Fabulous Smash Academy Island Vacation! Please use this log as a hotel hub for meetings and general interaction! When you start a thread, remember to put a location/description/date or time in the subject line, and link when you thread-hop.

Beyond this, you are encouraged to make your own journal posts (the hotel has internet for logging onto the school network, of course) and logs (be sure to tag them with *event - island vacation). Should you decide to log some cursed temple adventures, please be warned you might be surprised by a mod-type NPC. Additionally, if you would like this mysterious NPC anywhere, just poke a mod and we'll take care of it for you. Curses and treasures can, of course, be anything you'd like them to be! Refer to the original event post for more details.

As always, let a mod know if you have any questions. Happy vacationing!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

VINNIE YOU ARE NOT MAKING THIS EASY ON HIM.

Max grunts. Or groans. It's a sound that doesn't sound happy. "Bulbasaurs are little guys... Venusaurs are supposed to be leaders, ain't they? I don't mean 'how do I use vine whip and not wear a shirt' I mean... you know. How do I be a good venusaur. I show you how to be a good soldier, right? And part of that's attitude and drive. How do I be a good venusaur. Like that."

Vinnie paused for a moment to digest this. If this was what Max wanted from him, he wasn't sure if he was even qualified to teach. He wasn't exactly the most stellar example of a Venusaur out there. All he knew about the job was learned from memories of his dad.

But despite all that, Max, for some reason, felt like he needed him. And Vinnie was the only other Venusaur around to do the job. Who was he to let self-doubt deny Max?

He sighed. "Well I guess you got the right idea t'start." What was he even doing, he was going to regret this. "Siddown."

Max is a willing student. But a bit thick. Be gentle.

Max sat down Indian style. "Alright. I appreciate it."

Vinnie rubbed his chin, wondering where exactly to start. It was like botany class, but instead of learning about plants, it was how to be one.

"Change back first," he began. "Let's see your flower."

"Oh, uh, okay," said Max. "Shouldn't've had me sit down. Need to take my pants off."

Max is oldschool. He learned how to gijinka from a blastoise who had to take his clothes off between alterations, or else they'd just end up ripped off.

Max stood up and turned around and for the first time you probably get a good view of his back tattoo.

And then, should you wish to see it, you have a clear view of Max's ass. It's nothing you haven't seen in the gym showers, however. He, at the very least, is considerate enough to not give you an eyefull of his crotch.

There's a puff of white smoke.

And when the smoke clears, there's an eight and a half foot tall venusaur that weighs like 400 pounds turned away from you. He manages to very carefully stomp his away around to face you now.

Firstly, Vinnie had never seen a Pokemon that didn't transform with their clothes. Secondly, that was an insane tattoo. As expansive as Vinnie's own was, half of that was actual ink, not something that came with human skin automatically.

Thirdly, it was not Venusaurly possible to be that large. What the hell. Like human like Pokemon, really, but this was ridiculous.

Vinnie just. He couldn't say anything for a moment. He just stared openly, slack jawed.

Max is oldschool, Vinnie.

And Max's tattoo extends to his ear, Vinnie. What were you expecting it to look like.

"You okay?" Max asked in pokespeak. "Somethin' wrong?"

Yes, Max. Everything is wrong. Nothing will ever be right ever again.

Vinnie had meant to change back as well, and sit down with Max as Venusaur to Venusaur, but now that was definitely not going to happen. Ever.

Finally finding his voice again, the tiny midget Venusaur shook his head and cleared his throat. "...N-nothing."

He sat down in the grass, trying to compose himself and get back on track. "So, I'm gonna guess your senses're different than when you're all human. They're probably stronger when you're in that form too. Tell me what stands out."

Edited 2011-07-25 05:27 (UTC)

"Smells," said Max. "I smell more. I don't know what most of them are... well, I smell you a lot more. And Bulba, too. I even smell you more when I'm a human. I know what you two smell like."

"And I, uh... feel. In the leaves. Like. Tingly."

"Well, your normal human nose probably just sucks," he mused, "but smells are pretty important t'us. Every plant smells a bit different. We recognize each other by scent instead've names, and we use it to communicate. Your body's gonna put out different smells depending on what it wants t'do.

"Think of it like hormones," Vinnie explained, "except every Grass Pokemon downwind can tell when you're in love."

This made being around Erika's Pokemon more than a little awkward sometimes.

"The tingly's more important. It's a bigger tingle than when you were a Bulbasaur, right?"

"The pink stuff," said Max. "From last spring."

Yes, Max. Vinnie's terrible flower ejaculate. "That's sorta disturbin'. That I can't control it. It just happens."

The giant venusaur snorted. "Yeah. It's bigger. Everything's bigger."

Vinnie waved it off. "That's just what flowers do. It's their whole deal.

"Yeah, so you know how much you need the sun, too. From the look've you, you probably need two hours've sunbathing more than me.

"You can't really just call it food. Animal-types hafta eat to give their body strength t'do things, right? Muscle energy, or whatever. Well, now that you're a Venusaur, it's more than that.

"Sunlight comes in, gets stored as plant energy. Some've that is used for muscles, yeah. But you focus enough, and you can tune into 'nother whole level around you." Vinnie closed his eyes, relaxing his body as though he were meditating. "I can feel the plants around me, if they're healthy or sick - I'm connected. Venusaurs use this t'take care of our homes.

"We can make the flowers bloom. We help Bulbasaurs evolve. Our job is to keep the cycle healthy."

Edited 2011-07-25 06:15 (UTC)

It's gross, and Max is grossed out by thinking that he's getting his pokeman-seed all over everything.

"Oh," said Maxusaur. "It's like a CO Power or a Super CO Power, sorta. You store up enough energy, you can do stuff with it. I get that."

Sort of.

"And how much sunbathing do you need? Like two hours? Four? Does it count if I'm doin' stuff outside without my shirt on?" Is Max ever going to be able to wear a shirt ever again? "Do I gotta do it while I'm a venusaur? When I was a bulbasaur I was usually okay with just bein' a human and lying in the sun for an hour or so in the mornin'."

And then a look of deep thought crossed his face.

"So, uh... how do you... you know. Feel plants around you. Or make stuff bloom. Or. Do any of that."

SHOW HIM, VINNIE.

Nature was sometimes gross, Max. Deal with it.

"I dunno if it's like a CO Power," he muttered, thinking about it. Then again, he'd never used a CO Power before. If he ever develops one, Max, he'll tell you how similar they are.

"A Bulbasaur don't need nearly as much sun. Their flowers're still sleeping," he explained. Vinnie pointed to the tattoo leaf creeping up Max's neck. "When we're like this, our skin's basically how we absorb light. So you could maybe skip an hour if you're still outside. The leaves do a better job've it though, cuz that's what they're built for. I usually spend two t'three hours, but if you're planning on doing something big, like fighting, you'll need as much as you can get."

It actually surprised Vinnie that Max was taking an interesting in the growing aspect of Venusaurism. At least, when he was human, Max didn't seem to take much stock in the whole communing with nature business. But despite this newfound interest, if he wanted a demonstration then he was going to be disappointed.

"That's something I can't 'xactly show you." An grumpy look crossed his face as Vinnie reminded Max, "Doctor's orders an'shit. Besides, it's up t'you to figure out what you're feeling."

He crossed his arms, thinking hard about how to properly describe the sensation. After all, it was an awareness that humans probably had no conscious control over, so putting it in straightforward terms was going to be tricky. Max needed straightforward. He'd never understand it otherwise.

Eventually, Vinnie held his hand out in front of him. "Al'right. Imagine that energy you've got inside's this hand. You probably already know how to do basic attacks like Vine Whip, right? When you're doing that, you're using the energy to make a fist - something you're pretty fuckin' good at already." He clenched his fingers tight to illustrate the example.

"But if you want t'do anything else with it, you need t'learn to relax that energy and use it t'feel out things around you, instead of forcing it on'em." With that, Vinnie opened his hand and placed his palm gently on the grass. He combed through the blades with his fingers, careful not to crush anything.

"Source's still the same for doin' both. But you gotta be able to use that energy t'do more than punch things if you wanna sense of being a Venusaur."

Using his energy to not attack. You realize what that's like, right? For Max?

Max was making a face. It was basically this face. :| It was the same face he'd been making for most of the time.

"Feel. Not fist," he grumbled back at Vinnie.

Max concentrated. He closed his eyes. He ~felt the flow of the energy from within~. He took a deep breath. And a second deep breath. He paid attention to the tingling in his leaves. (What a strange sensation that was). He took another deep breath.

He tried to imagine the plants around him. There was a tree next to Vinnie. A little one. He tried to think about it. To think about where it was and what it was. Deep breaths. Deep, deep breaths.

He cracked his eye open. Okay yes there was a tree there, he hadn't just imagined it. Deep breath. Instead of focusing his energy for attacking, focus his energy for feeling. And then, suddenly, as if he'd slipped from this world to one where he could feel things he wasn't touching, Max became aware of the little tree. Maybe it had something to do with all of the breaths and the smelling thing like Vinnie had talked about.

'Hi,' thought Max at the little tree. 'Uh. You doin' okay? You need some help? You look awful scrawny.' He wasn't sure if the tree was answering him back. But it seemed like the tree wouldn't say no to a little boost.

Max concentrated more. You can see his giant ugly frog head screwing up and his brow furrowing. 'Sending you good energy, sending you good energy, sending you good energy' thought Max.

Man, just using razor leaf to batter the tree to shreds would be so much easier.

But Max's flower began to glow with a pearly, holy light. The little sapling burst into flower (it was a papaya) and then stretched out an inch. Two inches. Three inches.

Max opened his eyes. It was a miracle. Okay, that's enough. So now to just...

Six inches. Twelve.

Okay no, you can stop now. Just... put forth a little effort and shut it off.

Two feet.

You can stop now.

Four feet.

Max tried to shut it off harder.

The plant grew faster. Six feet. Fruit grew, fruit dropped off, more flowers replaced them, more fruit grew, more fruit dropped off.

"HOW DO I SHUT IT OFF" Max yelled.

If he were to be honest, Vinnie really didn't expect Max to be able to influence anything to grow an inch today. Then again, he was having a solid run of getting his expectations dashed today, so he felt pretty stupid for being surprised.

The extent of this display of power, however... what the holy fuck. By the time the papaya tree sprouted fruit, Vinnie's cautious anxiety had grown into brain-melting horror. This was so wrong. This was so, so wrong.

"Fuckin' what the hell are you doing oh my GOD MAX WHAT YOU ARE MAKING IT WORSE." Seasons were flying before his eyes now. He was watching the entire lifespan of a tree fly before his eyes, fueled by either the biggest loss of control he'd ever seen, or the most powerful Venusaur that ever lived.

"STOP CONCENTRATING," he yelled back, sounding just as desperate as Max. "FUCKIN' TURN HUMAN, TRY ATTACKING INSTEAD, FUCK I DON'T KNOW"

Giant loss of control or the most powerful Venusaur ever? Let's just put it as a little from column A and a little from column B.

Turn human okay Max could do that. His brain frantically thought back to how to turn back into a human. This, too, was a matter of control. And for some strange reason, Max was finding it difficult to focus. It might have had something to do with the fact that his body was out of control; perhaps it was the shrieking green-haired man.

Finally he managed to fumble, in his mind, into being human. The terrible light that his flower had been giving off was snuffed out in the rush of smoke and as it cleared, there was only Max left standing there. He was bent over, his hands on his knees, and breathing heavily.

He stood up straight (naked, of course) and took a step, then two steps, towards Vinnie. "I... I..." he began, but whatever Max was going to say never got out. His eyes rolled back into his head, and he suddenly pitched forward, unconscious. The energy Max had expended in making a tree grow for several years worth of growth had, for some reason, drained him.

An eerie silence followed. Max was... actually out cold. It was a sight that Vinnie had never actually seen before. Nothing had ever managed to knock him out, ever. It was all he could do for a good long while just to stand there, stunned, horrified, and awed.

He cast a glance to what remained of the poor papaya tree. Max's incredible boost had pushed the tree to its limits; it was like aging decades in minutes, and its body simply couldn't support such an unnatural push. Vinnie placed a hand on the tree in apology, consoling the plant in Max's stead. It shouldn't have happened this way, but it did. I'm sorry.

...Now. What was he going to do with this giant.

Even if he transformed, the smaller Venusaur probably couldn't move him very far. He definitely couldn't lift him. The big lug was probably completely drained right now, so what he needed was sun, but this wasn't the ideal location. The canopy was too thick with leaves to allow enough light through to the forest floor.

With a huff, Vinnie sat back down in the grass in front of the unconscious CO. Erika had once suggested something similar for Bulba and himself, back when his leaves were recovering poorly. If he could make a connection to Max's flower, then maybe he could speak to it. Give it a tiny jumpstart. Much subtler than what Max had attempted.

Pop! It would've probably worked better if Max were a Venusaur too, but this would just have to suffice. He settled down and closed his eyes, focusing his own energies to touch the exhausted core of the other man's floral center.

Hey. You're tougher than this. Wake up.

~~We're sorry, the number you've dialed is no longer in service. Please hang up and try again.~~

Max was out cold, Vinnie. He wasn't consciously able to do anything. He lay there, breathing, his face in the dirt. His back, however, was at least facing up. And this put his tattoo in full view, save for the bits that wrapped around to his chest. The tattoo had changed since the last time you had seen it, Vinnie. The colors were muted. Where once the pinks had been vibrant, they were now more dusty rose, and the bright greens had taken on a bit of an ashen quality. The thorns on his arms looked a bit... thornier. In short, it looked more like a plant that had been neglected, perhaps had not spent enough time in full sunlight, hadn't got the fertilizer it needed, not quite enough water, a little too much dry wind.

But something inside responded in kind to Vinnie's prodding, though less gently than his; either through inexperience, Max's nature, the sheer exhaustion, or some combination of the above.

I'm tougher'n anything. Tougher'n you. Strongest ever.

And yet still unconscious. Fat lot of good that toughness is doing you now, isn't it, Max?

It figured that Max's flower would be... pretty much exactly like Max in nature. Vinnie might have snorted a little. Well, all the toughness in the world didn't matter if big lug couldn't drag himself to sunlight.

The survival instinct of the plant was actually quite extraordinary. When sensing any threat to their wellbeing, they were able to send stimulus to the necessary body parts to protect itself. So in theory, if Max's flower were aware of its situation, it could wake him up - much like the way Vinnie's woke him up at dawn like clockwork.

But it'd been ages since Vinnie himself had taxed his powers to the point where even his tattoo was tired. Even if he could get through to the flower, Max might not have had the reserves to even lift himself off the ground. Vinnie'd just have to share, then. A little risky, but transferring energy was always something he had great control over. He was born knowing Giga Drain, after all - so there'd been lots of practice. Being a Venusaur was just as much about being gentle as it was bout being tough.

He rubbed the top of Max's bright green head with his flat Venusaur nose, focusing intently on letting just enough energy trickle through to the other man while keeping himself from falling into a critical state.

Trust me, I know how tough you are. But you need to move t'the sun. You're gonna wither. Get up.

It ain't my fault if he did somethin' dumb. the flower responded. That's what he does.

It was true. Dumb is what Max did.

But I'll get him up anyway.

Max was soaking in a lot of energy. Unsurprisingly, moving 350 pounds of muscle takes more energy than whatever it was that Vinnie weighed.

~~Vinnie died before he gave Max enough energy~~.

The green behemoth, eyes shut, lurched to his feet unsteadily. What's that? He's grabbing Vinnie by his giant melon of a head for support? Yeah, he is.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That's where you wanna go to get away from it all...

Re: AFTER NOUVEAU MARIE

Re: AFTER NOUVEAU MARIE

Re: AFTER NOUVEAU MARIE

Re: AFTER NOUVEAU MARIE

1 of 2

BEHOLD, THE MAXUSAUR

Re: BEHOLD, THE MAXUSAUR

Re: BEHOLD, THE MAXUSAUR

Re: BEHOLD, THE MAXUSAUR

Re: BEHOLD, THE MAXUSAUR

Re: BEHOLD, THE MAXUSAUR

Re: BEHOLD, THE MAXUSAUR

Re: BEHOLD, THE MAXUSAUR

Re: BEHOLD, THE MAXUSAUR

Re: BEHOLD, THE MAXUSAUR

Re: BEHOLD, THE MAXUSAUR

Re: BEHOLD, THE MAXUSAUR

Re: BEHOLD, THE MAXUSAUR

Re: BEHOLD, THE MAXUSAUR

THEIR FLORAL CENTERS ARE TOUCHING. THIS IS GAY.

GAYYYYY

GAYER THAN GIVING VINNIE CPR???