terra

The cabin of the Venus was eerily quiet for several minutes after they took off. Fiona looked around at her companions; a couple appeared to be staring interestedly at the optionally transparent ceiling, some were fiddling with the various monitors dotted over the deck, and others had claimed chairs, only to sit in them silently without making eye contact or conversation. Coupled with the silence and smoothness of the Venus's engine, the silence was positively overwhelming. It was broken slowly, as Reploids began conversing in nearly hushed whispers about the mechanics of the ceiling, or pointing out interesting features to each other discovered on the touch screen panels. Fiona couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief as the cabin seemingly came back to life. The mystery of their upcoming trials had been unnerving enough already, and she didn't want the eeriness of silence adding to it. "Man," Sariyah said at her elbow, and turning to look at him, Fiona felt a twinge of amusement. His expression was somehow charmingly naive as he was still looking around at their lush transportation. "This is one nice car." Fiona, oddly enough, smiled. "That's called understatement, I believe." "Well, what can I say?" Sariyah laughed back. "It's time to relax, isn't it? I mean, the hard part is over -- we're in." "I doubt it," Fiona said, though not with the same callous tone she would usually reserve for such a statement. "So what do you think they've got here?" Sariyah said, wandering over to one of the monitors. He seemed almost unwilling to discuss anything serious, and considering her own current mood, Fiona didn't mind. She stood and followed him, where he was pressing the screen seemingly at random. "You figure this has got to be one of the most advanced vessels of our day ... but what can you [i]do[/i] while you're travelling in complete luxury, that's the question." Sariyah's fingers flew over the screen, exploring various options. He found data concerning their destination, arrival time, and other various flight information, but the screens flashed by quickly, obviously not enough to keep his attention for very long. Then -- "Ooh, Tetrinet!" Sariyah squeaked, and this time Fiona laughed aloud. "Do you want to play?" "Well, are you any good?" Fiona said with a smirk, readying her fingers above the monitor. --------- OOC: Hope that's ok, DW ... Fiona on her own is boring. :p Oh ... if anyone doesn't know, Tetrinet is like Tetris, but you can battle each other. Don't mind me.

[color=green]Aissa yawned, stretched, turned, snuggled deeper into her blanket. "Sun's up, Aissa," a familiar voice came from behind her. She ignored it. She would not, however, have ignored the hushed whispering of a muttered spell, if she had heard it. Seconds later, Aissa felt a suspicious warmth near her feet, and sitting up to see what it was, yelped. "Arland!" she shouted aloud, her index finger pointed accusingly at the licking flames that were at the corner of her bedspread. Her voice returning to its customary calm tone, she said, "[i]Merus tha Nieesen[/i]," and the flames died out at her command. She sighed as she looked at the fresh charred marks on her blanket, adding to her gallery; this had to be at least the fourth time Arland had chosen this route to get her up. Her younger brother was eating breakfast innocently by the time she appeared downstairs, and she didn't dignify him with anything more than a contemptuous look ... and, a brief fire spell that, though he put it out almost immediately with his own magic, at least burned his toast to a crisp. Aissa squinted up at the sun as she strode quickly along the streets of Tal'Ebot, grudgingly thankful that Arland had awoken her when he did; she had an appointment in less than fifteen minutes. She wished she could've borrowed some of his good brotherly cheer and kept it in her pocket or something. There seemed to be less and less to smile about when she was out in the city. Her morning was fully booked, something that hadn't happened very often in Aissa's history as a healer, even though she was reputedly one of the best in town. Aissa attributed it at least partly to the rumors emanating from Ma'Uriith, and the people who were supposedly fleeing from there as fast as their feet could take them ... It seemed to be affecting people's psyches, as a couple of her patients had shown up declaring they were on their last legs, and Aissa had found nothing wrong with them. She entered the building her patient had asked her to meet at, wondering if he would be another of those placebo cases ...[/color]

Sorry I haven't posted yet, I've been busy and you guys are so prolific that next thing I know, it was the third page. Also, I thought the meeting was between the Lowendove Brotherhood and the Guild of Vampiric Allegiance, not the Alliance of Vampiric Defense? I'm not sure ... ----------------------- Dagger fell into step behind the figure who was whistling a small tune. She kept her own pace casual, just quick enough to keep up with him, nothing more, nothing less. She guessed that Hyde would easily feel her presence behind him, but he seemed unwilling to turn around and acknowledge it. Finally, after she'd followed nonchalantly behind him for at least ten minutes, he turned, his teeth bared in a rabid snarl. "What do you want, Dagger?!" Dagger knew that Hyde didn't think much of her. He didn't seem to think much of anybody really, but particularly her, being such a "young" hybrid ... but she didn't let it get to her. She replied calmly, "Nice handiwork back there. Still playing games with Draka? Don't you think there might be more important things to take care of?" Hyde turned around and continued walking, as if she wasn't important enough to warrant his attention any further. "And just what important things might you be referring to?" he spat contemptuously, as Dagger began walking her ten paces behind him again. "There's nothing we need to do. We are a new breed, and we have the utmost power!!" "It would appear that an important meeting will be occurring soon," Dagger said, her voice soft so that Hyde had to stop the padding of his feet along the street to hear her. "I'm not positive who it involves, but I believe it to be a meeting of the Lowendove Brotherhood and the Guild of Vampiric Allegiance." Hyde laughed, his cackle like blood on snow, though he did not resume walking. "Those committees mean nothing to me --" "But an allegiance between these two groups can only mean one thing," Dagger said, her tone still deadly quiet. "They are rallying against us, Hyde, and even we can be outnumbered, though not outpowered --" Hyde turned to face her, and this time his eyes were ablaze. "I don't want to hear it!" he all but shrieked. Dagger sensed his fearful bloodlust, but held her ground. She could at least live through an attack from him, if it did occur. "Do whatever you want, Dagger, I don't care about them, I just want to kill ..." She held her breath for a moment, but Hyde merely turned away and kept walking.

I've been wondering what it meant. Not that your post clears it up at all. Anyway, I can still comment :p. I like it, for some reason. Haha, not that it's bad ... just that, even though it's simple, I think it looks nice. The colors really contrast against everything else on OB, so it sometimes hurts my eyes, but it also makes the whole banner stand out, which is good. And if I look at it long enough somehow it looks 3-D ... Enough about my psycho optical illusion-seeing. I think the red text in the middle is a good touch, as well, it keeps the banner from being just too green and black. So, good job :).

"What the ..." Trystae didn't waste any more time with words, just pointed her bow and arrow at the path that lay between Lekitas' weapon and Sagelin, hoping her reflexes would be quick enough to shoot the arrow off path if indeed Lekitas did shoot. Sure, she didn't know Sagelin that well, but she wasn't exactly supportive of killing people for no reason. And she didn't see a reason, not yet, anyway. "Staff of evil, eh?" Sagelin said a little weakly, trying for a feeble smile. "Er ..." "Yes, the staff of evil," Lekitas repeated, "that holds the key to Darkus's power, that has the ability to call back his very soul from the dead." "That's [i]that[/i] staff?!" Trystae said, and now her bow and arrow was pointing at Sagelin right alongside Lekitas'. "Girls, girls!" Sagelin said, waving his empty hands as if their attention wasn't already completely fixated on him. "It's not what you think. I found this staff in the woods. Haven't you heard that [i]other[/i] legend about the staff? The one who finds it and is not possessed by it has instead a great responsibility ... to defeat the ten demons and [i]prevent[/i] Darkus from returning." Trystae snorted before she could help herself. "And we're supposed to believe that that chosen one is you?" "Well ... yes," Sagelin said meekly. Trystae choked back her laughter and relaxed her bow. Lekitas, on the other hand, didn't look like she found the situation was funny at all, but also lowered her weapon. "It is true that I do not sense any darkness in you," Lekitas mused, her beautiful brow furrowed in thought. "Yeah, see?" Sagelin said eagerly. Trystae was already turning Namaarie back towards the city they were heading to. "Come on, get up, you two," she said. "We can still make some good progress before nightfall." "So you believe him?" Lekitas said, mounting Elias, and all but ignoring Sagelin himself as he clambered up onto the horse in front of her. "Are you saying you're going to accompany him on the quest to defeat the ten demons?" Trystae looked back at them over her shoulder and laughed. "Not exactly," she said. "I don't know whether to believe him or not, but I figure that staff needs an eye kept on it, and I'm heading in the same direction as you for now anyway. So let's head out." "Why exactly are you going this way, Trystae?" Sagelin asked, but she'd already urged Namaarie back into a gallop and she didn't respond.

"What the ..." Their customer seemed slightly at a loss, staggering backward into his front door while Tao, May, and Aurora strode towards him. "I think you'll find the demons have been successfully eradicated," Tao said politely, and then named their price. May thought the guy's eyes would simply fall out of his head. He at least would've fallen over if he hadn't been supported by the wall. "But -- but the damage to my house! This'll cost me a fortune already!" "I'm sorry to hear that," Aurora interrupted sweetly, "but I think if you look at our contract of agreement" -- here she reached into her jacket and pulled out a long piece of paper, unrolling so it reached the floor. "You'll find that Yushi no Yami is not responsible for any damage to the building in question. There's a copy of this contract online, and we urge our customers to peruse it carefully before --" "Peruse it carefully?!" he cried, "I was being attacked by demons, how can you expect --" May tuned out the conversation, it had happened often enough. She knew its inevitable ending, and it was the man handing Tao a check. ----------------- As the car bumped along the road heading back towards the headquarters, May was the first one to speak. "We shouldn't have shot him." She glanced over towards Tao, who didn't take his eyes off the road. A small "Hmph" did escape his mouth, but he didn't bother explaining his reasoning to the other two. May rolled her eyes and looked out the window, watching the streets flicker by. [color=green]EDIT OOC: Hahaha ... I was referring to Roman. (Wondershot made us shoot him in one of his posts.) Sorry, it wasn't clear because I wrote the second part first, then realized I had nothing more to say so added the asking-for-payment scene at the beginning. Personally, I don't think May would've shot Roman. But, your interpretation of "we shouldn't have shot him" is much funnier.[/color]

[color=green]Er ... I really like Starcraft (the computer game, by the way, for the person who asked, though CB Shin did mention it in his first post), but I have a question: Is there a story to this RPG? Is it just the story of the computer game transferred over? I haven't really seen anything on the story itself yet ... And as we all know, back stories in RPG's are good ... :D --terra[/color]

OOC: I'm an eagle. But it's all good :p. The Owl-Elder sighed and stood, ruffling his feathers gently before refolding his wings. "Perhaps you should see how your friends are doing," he suggested, and gave her directions to Ben's quarters. "They might be willing to start moving, or at least planning, again." "Thanks," Crystal said, and heading out the door she collided head-on with a scratchy, familiar figure. "Alaris!" she said in surprise. "What are you doing here?" "Looking for you," he responded, his voice impatient. Crystal knew the feeling. "Where's Ben?" "I was just about to go see him," she said, and, her steps increased by his urgency, she hastily led the way to his quarters. On the way, he informed her of the bobcat-clones and their rather hostile reception of him. "That's weird," she said. "But you know, they're probably in bad moods, considering they were completely tricked by the fox-clo-- Er ..." Unthinkingly, she slowed her pace as they neared Ben's chamber. There was an unmoving body lying on the floor just outside it ... Alaris, on the other hand, surged ahead, and was kneeling on the floor next to the body in a moment. "Hey! Hey, are you okay?" Crystal knelt down next to him, feeling his neck for a pulse. "He's still alive," she said after a couple seconds. "I don't know how we can get him to regain consciousness." "Ugh," the lizard-clone said at that moment, and Crystal, caught off guard, let out a little shriek and fell over. Alaris didn't make a comment on this less-than-graceful movement, instead asking the lizard-clone, "What happened?" "Fox-clones," the lizard-clone spat, venom in his tone though he still looked like he might pass out at any second. "Several of them. They snuck up on me while I was on guard ..." Crystal had already raced down the hall to the next closest chamber, pounding on its door. A sleepy-looking possum-clone peeked out, and Crystal said rapidly, "Someone down the hall is hurt. But I have to go -- can you go for help?" The possum-clone's eyes woke up a little bit, brightening slightly, and nodded. He scampered off down the hall as Alaris came striding back towards her. "He'll be okay as soon as he gets help," he said grimly. "I hope Ben's doing all right, too." "We're gonna go find him, right," Crystal said. It wasn't exactly a question. "The only problem is we have no idea where to look ..."

Hm, I've never actually heard of these. They sound interesting. I know there are a couple of RPG's going on in the Adventure Arena that are based on Dungeons and Dragons and Vampire the Masquerade. EDIT: Was beaten to the punch, similar to OtakuSennen ... Anyway, I still don't get the idea behind them :P. What's there to do beside puzzles, do you create a storyline as well?

[B]Name:[/B] Vampire Genome-Product # 17 (Dagger) [B]Race:[/B] vampire hybrid thing [B]Gender:[/B] female [B]Age:[/B] 1 year since created [B]Height/Weight:[/B] 5'7" / 140 lbs. [B]Appeaence:[/B] Brown hair with natural blonde streaks (interesting since she doesn't usually go into sunlight). Dark brown eyes, dewy, yet calculating. Enjoys wearing bright colors, but usually covers them up with a long, chocolate-colored leather trenchcoat. [B]Weapon:[/B] Dagger's pretty clever and will use whatever she can find. Usually, though, she sticks with your run-of-the-mill hardcore double-barreled shotgun and a sniper rifle, both of which she carries with her on her back. [B]Nationality:[/B] N/A [B]Attitude:[/B] Usually, she is rather calmer than the rest of her kind, though no less deadly. She doesn't often feel the urge to attack, but once in a while a strange bloodlust surfaces in her and she must attack practically everything in sight. She does not think much of humans, or vampires, only holding respect for her fellow hybrids. [B]Special Skills:[/B] Heightened senses, particularly of sight and hearing. Her aim is impeccable, making the sighting mechanism on her sniper rifle mostly unnecessary. She can also hear and smell you coming ... [B]Organization:[/B] Hybrid of Anti-Slayers, but there doesn't seem to be much of a coalition at the moment, as everybody prefers working on their own. [B]Bio:[/B] Dagger was one of the last hybrids created, since the first several had such violent tendencies. Though the experiments were forbidden to continue, a few scientists persisted, thinking that creating a peaceful hybrid would now be the only way left to destroy the violent hybrids. They attempted to make hybrids easier to control, as well as decreasing the amount of power they would have so that they would be less dangerous. However, they still could not perfect the experiments, though they improved their methods slightly -- this is why she does not feel violent urges as often as most hybrids. Regardless, the scientists were unable to eradicate the condescending nature of hybrids towards both vampires and humans; so, Dagger doesn't care about the little vampire-human war at all. It's currently not as good a signup as I'd like, sorry ... I wanted to get in before the spots were all gone. I may come back and edit when I have more time.

[color=green]Arika, do not double post. You've been a member here for quite a while, you should know not to do that. (If there was a post in between yours and it was deleted, I'm sorry, please PM me.) Also, please keep conversation such as in the last four posts to PMs. There is no need to clutter up Recruitment threads like this. By the way, nobody can be forced to stay in an RPG, particularly before it's even started. --terra[/color]

[color=green]While we're on the subject of making things a little more detailed ... your backstory could use a little bit of work. Right now it doesn't seem to be much, though the premise of the zodiac is interesting :). --terra[/color]

Er ... You sure are strange. :D Anyway ... the colored ducks are damn cute. (Seems like the sort of cuteness where a word like "damn" is applicable, for some reason.) The mountains behind the buildings strike me as sort of strange ... But that's probably just because mountains behind buildings is generally a strange sight to see. You did nice cutting jobs, too. What was the assignment? Go for it, post "a lot more things."

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Baron Samedi [/i] Ok, I have a poll for who I want to be: Are you rich, popular, funny, respected, reasonably good looking and have a post count over 300? Then reply to this, and we will swap places. [/QUOTE] Let's go, Baron. I made it over 300 recently :p. I may not be able to fulfill any of the other requirements, hope that's all right with you. And, just so you know, I always notice your posts. Perhaps it's because of the bright rainbow banner made by a special someone that accompanies them ... Anyway ... I'm not particularly jealous of anyone on the boards, I don't think. Hm, I suppose it would've been cool if more people had said they'd been jealous of me, so perhaps you can put me down as being jealous of anyone you've said you're jealous of. [offtopic]Haha ... okay ... I am going to fail this paper ... I have been procrastinating all night long.[/offtopic]

[color=green]Sorry to intrude, but please restrict conversation to PMs as much as possible. I would also appreciate it if you did not post such short posts at all. Perhaps instead you could edit your original post, putting your comment in a different color so it would be noticable. Thanks, --terra[/color]

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Adahn [/i] I think I'll convince her I wasn't just kidding ... [/QUOTE] Heh ... just don't be too shady. Though I have to say it'd probably be nice to hear and believe from any guy, so whatever. :p Anyway, I'm lucky enough to have several people in classes who are extremely helpful in homework situations just like the one you described above. It's funny, because all the rumors I heard promised that wouldn't be the case. I'd heard premed people are really competitive, and will go so far as to steal your books so that you can't study and get as good a grade as them, thereby helping the curve ... But none of that has turned out to be true, at least in my classes. So I consider myself very lucky there. (Oh, the reason I mentioned premeds was because as a biochemistry major, there are tons of premeds in basically all of my classes, and many of my friends are premed.) (For anyone who doesn't know, premeds are those going to college with plans to apply to med schools. They're usually very competitive because they need very good grades for med school, etc.) Let's see, good samaritans in other contexts ... One of my best friends is similarly incredibly helpful whenever I need it. We had one class together and for a week I was sick and unable to go to lecture, and she would sit with me and discuss exactly what had gone on in class so that I wouldn't be lost at all. That was nice :). Eh. That's the same context, really, isn't it.

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by RPG&BattleKing [/i] Talim 14 me post soon zoidien chaos.[/QUOTE] [color=green]Posts like this are absolutely unacceptable. Even if you're going to come back to edit this, you can still post in complete sentences. Also, signups in this thread could generally use some work, especially those of you with one-line bios. Please include more detail in future signups. Thanks, --terra[/color]

[color=green]Hello all, Most of the signups in this post do not meet the post quality requirement for OB. The Adventure Arena is a forum based around detail and extensive story; most of your biographies are only one line, and that's not acceptable. I realize that signups are pretty much over now, I just wanted to let you know for the future, so that you can [b]lengthen your signups and add more detail[/b] next time. Also, please try to keep conversation such as the last four posts to PMs. Thanks! --terra[/color]

I think the highlighting members idea is a little random. For some reason it doesn't strike a good chord (... I just made up my own saying) in me. But some people might like it, so ... Heh, I guess I see why it's been "controversial," as I can't even make up my own mind. I like #3 a lot (seeing when "Friends" have updated), but I think it should be an option, not mandatory. Some people probably don't want to see all that extra information. EDIT: Meh, I didn't comment on the members list idea (#2). That's fine with me.

Yeah, I like the Mayer too. Particularly since he writes his own songs, which as has been said before is becoming less and less common in pop music. [quote][i]Originally posted by Heaven's Cloud[/i] Although he doesn?t play too many solos in his albums, I heard him play a duet with his guitar player at a concert this summer?it is too bad that he doesn?t incorporate more solos in his music.[/quote] At a concert I went to last year, he actually incorporated several guitar solos into the normal songs on his albums. He'd just create a musical interlude for himself so that he could go off on his guitar for however long. In 83, for example, he stopped in the middle and played "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" for a bit, then switched to "Let's Hear It for the Boy," then moved right back into his song. I consider things like that pretty fun, and if I were a pop star, I know I'd be trying to do things like that too :P Oh right ... on guitar solos. My original point was that he seemed to have several of them in his live performance, from what I can remember. I personally don't enjoy listening to guitar solos in the middle of songs; perhaps on his albums he laid off the guitar solos to cater to people like me. His newest song, "Bigger Than My Body" (I think?) is pretty addictive, although at first listen I thought it sounded just like all of his other songs. ... Which, in a way, it does, but he is only one artist, so what more can you expect, I suppose. Anyway, as I listened to it more it grew on me a lot. I also really like his song "Comfortable," which I've only ever heard live versions of. The fact that it's not repeatedly played on the radio probably helps that song out for me ...

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by AzureWolf [/i] That is, the theory of evolution defies the law of entropy. Additionally, you can take that theory to imply that life, and living things in general, defy entropy. It's really an amazing phenomenon, especially when you consider that [I]everything[/I], from interstellar debris to our organic building blocks, follows entropy, and the only known exception is the nature of life.[/QUOTE] Got to go to class. Just wanted to say that actually only yesterday in class my p.chem professor was talking about the idea that evolution defies the law of entropy. This is in fact not necessarily true. (Crap, I need the delta sign, and I don't know where to get it.) While the entropy of the system (the living organism who is evolving) may indeed decrease, the entropy of the surroundings apparently still increases, making net entropy increase overall. His explanation of why the entropy of the surroundings increases really sucked, but I think it has something to do with the amount of energy being given to the Earth by the sun every day.

Ahhh, hahahaha. I really like it. :) The joke is a really good one. Only problem I have with it artistically is that Frodo sort of looks like he's falling over. I'm not sure what he actually is doing :P And Aragorn (... I'm assuming that's him) doesn't look like he's pulling open his eye, it sort of just looks like his hand's on his face. ... [i]Is[/i] he supposed to be pulling open his eye? Last thing, the left archer looks like he's pointing his arrow a little behind Darth Vader, not at him. Not sure why. Whatever. The humor is great. :D And the drawing overall is really nice, too. Legolas, Aragorn (once again if that is indeed Aragorn) and Frodo's faces are soooo cute! Oh yeah! I really like the coloring, too. No really, it's not just b/c your brother did it, I like that style with the darker outlines and such. And it's all done very carefully, nice job.

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Adahn [/i] I would like to know how the hell one of those "happened" from a [I]scientific[/I] viewpoint (notice how I didn't say religious). Essentially, there was a "cosmic pool" of elements an compounds, all churning around together. Then a cell suddenly "exists". Everything comes together precisely at the same time, creating a perfect cell capable of mitosis, with all the incredibly complex organelles functioning perfectly.[/quote] Let's see *digs out what she learned in biochemistry last year*. There's been an experiment done in which the four gases postulated to be necessary for life (CH3, water vapor, ammonia, and hydrogen gas, if anyone cared) were put into a container and provided with energy (UV, or a spark, or whatever). It formed this black gunk, and within the gunk they discovered amino acids, which are the basic building blocks of proteins, and the things that probably made up the first cell. I guess what this means is that provided those things were on Earth and were given some form of energy (from the sun perhaps), it's very possible from that formed the first amino acids and from there, the first cell. [QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Adahn [/i] Next, it survives the cataclysmic birth of the planet, which is always described by scientists as having much to do with tectonic shifting, volcanoes, deadly gases, and explosions.[/quote] I always thought the first cell was thought to have formed [i]after[/i] this birth of the planet ... Not sure on that. It seems to make more sense to me, though, since it's after those explosions that things started "settling down" on Earth and becoming the atmosphere that we can live in, i.e. having ammonia and whatever. [QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Adahn [/i] I'm not going to say that it's impossible, but the probability is what boggles me.[/quote] That's what's always puzzled me about evolution as well. I used to be a Christian, and be more on the side of a God-shaped evolution, but now that I'm not quite one anymore I don't quite know what to believe :p. (Oh, and sorry for bringing in religion, but as others have already said, it's pretty difficult to have a discussion about evolution and try to completely cut religion out of it.) In the end, my stance on the beginning of the world always ends up being that I'm really not sure what to believe on it. [QUOTE][i]Originally posted by James[/i] Although, I do wonder what will happen if we one day discover life (or evidence of prehistoric life) on other planets. That would certainly turn a few long-held ideas on their head.[/quote] Indeed. Although I suppose it would just confirm other long-held ideas as well. There are tons of planets out there and people are always saying that there's a possibility of other life out there. (Which reminds me of a very interesting topic ... but way off-topic from this so maybe I'll post a thread on it sometime instead ...)

Man. This is making me really really want to buy a Gamecube. Particularly Mariokart [drools slightly]. Although I think I read some reviews on it and it's not supposed to be that good? Perhaps I'm thinking of another racing game, though. Anyway, to get back on topic, I too have heard most of those companies generally lose money on the hardware and make it back on the games. I've especially heard this is a problem for XBox ... hm, exactly like James just said. I think Microsoft was more interested in capturing the gaming market for the future rather than really worrying about making money right now.

Yay. DNAngel. I've only watched the first five episodes or so, because I haven't had time to watch the others. I thought the first episode was great. After that, they started going a bit downhill ... I've never read the manga and it was kind of confusing, to be honest. I thought, like you said, that when Dark saw Riku he had to turn back into Daisuke (because she was his true love or whatever) ... but in one of the first episodes [spoiler]when Dark kisses Riku[/spoiler] he can stay as Dark, which I thought was weird. And other times Dark saw Riku he didn't appear to have any problems ... Yeah, maybe it'll become clearer as I watch more. So yeah, I plan to watch the anime regardless. Dark is really hot ... and Daisuke is really cute ... as is Uizu! (this little rabbit-type thing that's their accomplice, for those of you who haven't seen the show.)