give your friends a surprise

[closewithnewintown]

Who: EVERYONE
What: FAMILY MEETING
When: 8/4, right after school closes.
Where: Student council room
Warnings: Eventually, probably.

["If my friends back home were acting like this, I would've already locked them in a room and forced them to figure out their feelings."

the job puts all of her considerable superspy skills to the test. she knows where every normal kid's locker is; it's easy enough to slip the note into each that morning. if it's someone who she knows would be unable to read the note, she tells them its contents, but keeps her own involvement out of it. lies of omission don't count.

the note reads:]

I have very important information about this place. Please come to the student council room after school ends today.

- Nao Sato

[and if the text looks just a bit girlier than you'd think she'd write, hey, you don't know her. she's got layers.

either way, it's a pretty interesting proposition: the student council room door is, for the first time in seemingly ever, wide open. anyone can walk inside - and, hopefully, most everyone should. because it's only when Stephanie thinks that she's got enough of them inside that she actually enters the room, shutting the door behind her.

click.

it locks. she grins, spins the key on her finger, and slips it into her pocket.

"How are you supposed to do that with grownups?"

the exact same way, she's decided.]

We haven't had any meetings since, um. Well. The last one. But, I'm pretty sure nobody has no more murders to report, so it shouldn't be too bad, and we can all just focus on the most important task: Getting along! All of us are on the same team, but most of us barely even know each other; some of us even hate some of the others! [SHE SAYS, LIKE SHE DOESN'T ACTIVELY DESPISE KOKICHI] So, I figured we could spend the evening fixing that problem. Play some games, talk about stuff we've discovered since the last time...

And, maybe, if everybody does a really good job, I'll unlock the door!

[smiles]

Comments

let's talk about an amazing invention called the ELEVATOR

[subtract]

The red button in the elevator... I want to know who else has pressed it. If you have, what did it show to you?

[partly because he wants to know what the connection is and how it works, but also because he's just nosy. tell him about your AU trauma for science.]

I believe whatever's on that floor is replicating people and places from the memories of those inside of it... but it's difficult to reach any solid conclusions with only my own experiences. Also, the events that take place on that floor seem to be distorted. Impossible scenarios, or timelines that are different from our own...

[carpevinum]

While I have gone into the elevator myself, I never saw some strange alternate timeline of my own world. I did, however, see alternate worlds belonging to Stephanie, Sidney, and Nene. If it matters at all, it was never, at any point, myself pressing the button. I'm not sure if that would be a factor or not, but I believe it's worth mentioning.

From what I understood, things were "wrong" in each iteration of the worlds, though I will let those who hail from those worlds speak for themselves.

[But he watched a child get mauled to death with Stephanie, and he's pretty sure that's not something that happens in LazyTown, from what he was understanding, given her severe reaction to the scene.]

[subtract]

[nodding like yes thank you lucifer for being reliable as always]

I've only been able to see copies of my own world thus far, and I've been the one pressing it as well... there was one exception, but in that case the other individual was from the same world as me, so it's possible that affected the results. They pressed the button, but a scenario that was familiar to only me was shown. [so it might be related to who presses the button, but it might not? needs more data...]

Question. Did you notice anything unusual about the people within that world? Such as obscured features, missing sounds... anything like that?

[carpevinum]

[Lucifer's here to be reliable always, it's part of his, heh, Pride.]

Answer. I did, yes. With regards to Stephanie's world in particular, the people within it were all faceless, and she had indicated to me that several things were "missing".

[Like the sports equipment, for example.]

[subtract]

Faceless... kuku, interesting.

Your input is appreciated.

[closewithnewintown]

I don't know how it was for other people, but... When I saw my world, and when Turing saw theirs, it was a world where the worst thing that could have happened, happened. Worlds where the bad guys won.

But... It's like when there was that fog that made us hear people from home. They all said awful things they'd never say in real life. This place takes things we remember and shows them worse than they'd ever get.

[subtract]

[he nods along to Stephanie's answer as well, filing away all this information in his mind. "A world where the worst thing that could have happened, happened"...]

... Not necessarily. More likely... it's a matter of perspective.

Right and wrong, good and evil... these are human concepts, fabrications. Meaningless to an indifferent universe. If the rabbit escapes the fox, then is that a good outcome for the rabbit who lives, or a bad outcome for the fox who goes hungry?

"Right" and "wrong" are determined by individual perception. Whoever made these illusionary worlds... they've been tailored to the individual. What you see is something that is "wrong" to the person it belongs to. It's likely intended to elicit a reaction—shock, anger, despair... as for why, I can't say. But it is an interesting phenomenon.

About the world that you saw, though... was there another version of yourself there?

[closewithnewintown]

[INCREDIBLY LONG PAUSE]

I saw my best friend get torn to pieces. [LIKE IF WE'RE GONNA CITE ANYTHING AS AN OBJECTIVE EVIL IT'S DEFINITELY "PUBLIC EXECUTION OF NINE YEAR OLD."]

No, I wasn't there. I couldn't be; the world wouldn't have gotten like that if I was there to stop it.

[songstressedout]

[ Yuzu will slowly raise her hand. ]

I did...

[ Alright Yuzu, deep breaths... it wasn't real, it couldn't be real. As weird as it is dealing with two sets of memories, she at least knows for certain that Zarc was beaten. ]

It... showed me my home, but it was all destroyed. Nothing was still standing...

[subtract]

Destroyed in what fashion? A cataclysmic event of unknown causes, or... was the cause of the destruction also familiar to you? Maybe something that you had personal stakes in. Something you were supposed to prevent, something you feared would occur...

And what about the people? Friends, family members... did you find a version of yourself there? If there were any bodies, were their features visible, or distorted? Ah, though I suppose it depends on the type of destruction. If the bodies would be too damaged to identify... possible that they would also be buried under the debris...

[... thankfully he trails off a bit there, someone please slap a hand over his mouth before he traumatizes Yuzu any further]

[elevelvetor]

( , elizabeth was going to also talk about her elevator experiences but right now she's going to calmly put a hand over add's mouth. )

Don't mind him, Miss Yuzu. He's rather fascinated with the world - or what's left of it - that one finds down there. I find him quite frequently in the elevator due to that.

[songstressedout]

A-Ah, t-thanks...

[ YEAH... THANKS ELIZABETH... Yuzu was already starting to look visibly uncomfortable with the questions Add was asking. She really didn't want to go into that kind of detail, thanks... though no, she didn't see bodies, everything was kind of... destroyed. Corpses too, probably. ]

(elizabeth voice) the elevator......

[elevelvetor]

Well, there's only one thing I can say for certain... and that is they are timelines that could have happened, should things have aligned in a different way.

( it can be a bit of a downer, but it's alright. )

In example, in my own world, my guest decided to fight for what he believed in... He challenged fate and death itself, and he sealed away the destruction of the world. ( she sounds proud, yet a little sad. elizabeth smiles regardless. ) However, there is a beast which returns each and every year to attempt to break that seal — and I do battle against it, in order to help him and to find a way to save him from his fate.

( ... )

The world I rescued Minato from, however, was one where he chose differently. ( it isn't said unkindly. she loves minato, just... well, this is complicated, let's not get into it. ) The moon was coming down, and the streets were rather empty... The world was ending, in essence. I couldn't bear to watch him die, and thus I and Thanatos spirited him away to here.

( is that better or worse? well— )

Regardless of if that was the correct choice to make... It was mine to make, and so I made it. ( ahem. ) And while I'm well aware the meaning of this meeting is to diminish any potential incidents... Should any harm come to my guest, I shall not hold back.

Re: (elizabeth voice) the elevator......

[compendiem]

[ Liz is really out here going "This is a Minato who doomed the world" huh ]

[elevelvetor]

( she didn't SAY THAT, SHE JUST SAID HE CHOSE DIFFERENTLY.......... AND THAT DIFFERENCE TRAGICALLY MADE IT SO THE WORLD ENDED it's fine, he's still her guest ): )

[compendiem]

[ Liz at Minato is like me at my cat: "I love you but why did you do that" ]

[subtract]

[... yeah sorry Minato but. he's gonna stare very hard at you now. not because he's judging him for ending the world, but more due to the fact that Liz is claiming he was a "resident" of that world.

kinda puts a wrench in the illusion theory.]

... Did he have a face? Were you able to hear him speak in that world? Explain it in more detail. Don't leave anything out.

How are we sure he's real?

[compendiem]

[ Averts his eyes.

Nothing like having an existential crisis because somebody's questioning your being real]

[subtract]

[suspicious

he still wants to hear Liz's answer, but while he's burning a hole into Minato's head anyway]

This school teeters on the edge of the void. In Henir's domain, where all time and space is linked and history is etched into the fragments that drift within... perhaps this boy is just a fragment himself, a recording of someone whose time has already ceased. Memories may be intact, but that would prove nothing. We'll need to perform a physical examination...

Kukuku... if you're just the traces left behind in time and space... perhaps we're more alike than I thought? How interesting.

[commences]

Wait, are you killing people?

( gestures to whatever crack shit he's got going on, anyway, count him IN. )

[subtract]

[he waves a hand dismissively] Not people... just the constructs of that place. [y'know, like Minato. totally different!]

Speaking of... I find it interesting that the "observer" of each world was seemingly absent in the experiences described thus far. In the worlds I saw, there was always another version of myself. If he wasn't there... the message sent would've been different. So there may be exceptions to the established rules in order to achieve a certain reaction.

Unusual side-effects occurred when we came into contact as well. [translation: i felt all my clone's pain while ruthlessly and repeatedly murdering him]

[closewithnewintown]

Maybe you're a construct, and you don't remember!

[commences]

Are you starting arguments, I thought this was about getting along?

[subtract]

Irrelevant. I am a construct, of sorts... but that was by my own decision. What I am doesn't matter so long as I can accomplish my goals.

But since we're considering all possibilities... if the world Minato came from was "real", then the world you saw was likely the same. You could've saved her, if you'd been just a little faster... what a pity, kukukukuku...

[commences]

The elevator, I've went down many times... I never ran into myself, but I heard in one... I was killed by someone who was taking part in the world that it had to offer, but their memories... or perhaps they're a clone... they're different... It's pretty odd... ah, at least they're back now.

( that said, hinata apparently got komaeda killed in that world, but he states over and over that didn't happen. of course, add's piece is interesting, being able to see himself. )

Another Add-kun... what was it like to meet yourself, did you have any regrets? Or were you happy to come to an understanding... ah, that's pretty psychological.