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Entry tags:
- !event,
- blue exorcist: rin okumura,
- blue exorcist: yukio okumura,
- dangan ronpa: kiyotaka ishimaru,
- ensemble stars: subaru akehoshi,
- hanako-kun: nene yashiro,
- identity v: helena adams,
- mass effect: jane shepard,
- mass effect: tali'zorah vas normandy,
- mo dao zu shi: meng yao,
- original: sidney wolfe,
- the world ends with you: yoshiya kiryu
September Event
Autumn Semester
✽ School starts up again on August 30, and club supplies resume being replenished at the start of each week.
✽ All character run clubs survive the vetting process. Maya gives the jar of dragonflies to Hiro, who hot potatoes it to Nao, who opens the jar and sets them free outside. Maya will also tell Add that if his club damages any more of the school, she will shut down the Robotics & Programming Club. The cultists are delighted with their gifts and play rock-paper-scissors to determine who gets to keep what.
✽ The science club is shut down and disbanded due to their club project being interrupted and therefore incomplete, and the door to the lab will not open to any student. The club may be reinstated in the winter semester, and will be open to all students regardless of grade level.
✽ Posted all around the school are colorful posters painted by somebody who has no sense of color theory nor any idea what racoons, manta rays, or zebras look like. They advertise the student store, and its newest attraction:
✽ There is now a gacha machine set up outside the student store, which only takes tokens provided by the shopkeeper. Tokens are 1000 yen or 10 merit points each, and 99.99999% of the prizes are normal boring rocks, but there is a miniscule chance of winning rare gemstones. If you return 100 empty gacha capsules back to the shopkeeper for recycling, they will give you one free token.
✽ All character run clubs survive the vetting process. Maya gives the jar of dragonflies to Hiro, who hot potatoes it to Nao, who opens the jar and sets them free outside. Maya will also tell Add that if his club damages any more of the school, she will shut down the Robotics & Programming Club. The cultists are delighted with their gifts and play rock-paper-scissors to determine who gets to keep what.
✽ The science club is shut down and disbanded due to their club project being interrupted and therefore incomplete, and the door to the lab will not open to any student. The club may be reinstated in the winter semester, and will be open to all students regardless of grade level.
✽ Posted all around the school are colorful posters painted by somebody who has no sense of color theory nor any idea what racoons, manta rays, or zebras look like. They advertise the student store, and its newest attraction:
✽ There is now a gacha machine set up outside the student store, which only takes tokens provided by the shopkeeper. Tokens are 1000 yen or 10 merit points each, and 99.99999% of the prizes are normal boring rocks, but there is a miniscule chance of winning rare gemstones. If you return 100 empty gacha capsules back to the shopkeeper for recycling, they will give you one free token.
Setting Updates
✽ The right fourth floor hallway will be cleaned up during the first few days of school, with the gorinto rocks lined up against the walls on either side, and enough structural support is done so the hallway is in no danger of collapsing.
✽ The rooftop on the right side of the school can be accessed via the stair up from the end of the fourth floor hallway. The rooftop on the left side of the school can be accessed via the windows on the fourth floor, where you have to lean out the window and pull yourself up somehow. The two halves of the roof are separated by the clock tower, and there is no railing. There are concrete dividers sectioning out part of the right side into what may have once been a rooftop garden.
✽ Touching the track for more than 2 seconds results in permadeath. If you're able to jump over the track to the field, the grass is lush and green, although it gives more than expected, like a lawn after rain.
✽ There are six ball courts with height-adjustable poles for tennis and volleyball. Very old, falling apart equipment can be found in storage in the auditorium, while brand new ones can be purchased from the student store. The courts are surrounded by 10-foot fall chain link electric fence both between and around them, with a voltage high enough to cause severe burns to death, depending on the duration of contact. Electricity flows through all parts of the fencing except the door handle on the side of each court to enter.
✽ The indoor swimming pool contains separate girls and boys changing rooms, each consisting of 5 changing stalls, 2 showers, a bathroom, and 20 small lockers that do not come with their own locks but you can purchase one from the student store. Swimsuits, floaties, and towels can also be purchased from the student store. The pool is 25 meters by 25 meters, with a shallow end of 3 ft which then drops precipitously towards the deep end, where a flimsy diving board is set up. The deep end seems to continue down for thousands of meters, with light quickly disappearing and pressure becoming immense, and there is no bottom. The water is held at a constant lukewarm, and is very very slightly tinged pink. It tastes strongly of saltwater. The only windows are located on the ceiling like a skylight rather than on the walls, and lights shut off at 6pm, so it is pitch black after sundown. The pool is always open.
✽ The dormitory is open to be moved into, with rooms assignments being ICly first come first served. There is no Resident Assistant in charge. It's a lawless land. Please use the toplevel below for sign-ups.
✽ The rooftop on the right side of the school can be accessed via the stair up from the end of the fourth floor hallway. The rooftop on the left side of the school can be accessed via the windows on the fourth floor, where you have to lean out the window and pull yourself up somehow. The two halves of the roof are separated by the clock tower, and there is no railing. There are concrete dividers sectioning out part of the right side into what may have once been a rooftop garden.
✽ Touching the track for more than 2 seconds results in permadeath. If you're able to jump over the track to the field, the grass is lush and green, although it gives more than expected, like a lawn after rain.
✽ There are six ball courts with height-adjustable poles for tennis and volleyball. Very old, falling apart equipment can be found in storage in the auditorium, while brand new ones can be purchased from the student store. The courts are surrounded by 10-foot fall chain link electric fence both between and around them, with a voltage high enough to cause severe burns to death, depending on the duration of contact. Electricity flows through all parts of the fencing except the door handle on the side of each court to enter.
✽ The indoor swimming pool contains separate girls and boys changing rooms, each consisting of 5 changing stalls, 2 showers, a bathroom, and 20 small lockers that do not come with their own locks but you can purchase one from the student store. Swimsuits, floaties, and towels can also be purchased from the student store. The pool is 25 meters by 25 meters, with a shallow end of 3 ft which then drops precipitously towards the deep end, where a flimsy diving board is set up. The deep end seems to continue down for thousands of meters, with light quickly disappearing and pressure becoming immense, and there is no bottom. The water is held at a constant lukewarm, and is very very slightly tinged pink. It tastes strongly of saltwater. The only windows are located on the ceiling like a skylight rather than on the walls, and lights shut off at 6pm, so it is pitch black after sundown. The pool is always open.
✽ The dormitory is open to be moved into, with rooms assignments being ICly first come first served. There is no Resident Assistant in charge. It's a lawless land. Please use the toplevel below for sign-ups.
Autumnal Equinox
✽ September 23 marks the autumnal equinox. Like during the Vernal Equinox, students spend the week cleaning the school and gorintos are set upon the windowsills. Touching a gorinto causes the character to fall into a trance and experience the moments prior to death of the person being honored, up to and including the death, with all the physical and emotional pain that comes with it.
✽ On the morning of the equinox, red spider lilies bloom all across the courtyard and deep into the forest seemingly overnight. From the clock tower or rooftop, characters are able to see the forest surrounding them on all sides is entirely covered in the red flowers up to the crest, as if the entire land were awash with blood.
✽ The wisteria tree starts to shed petals, only a handful a day and impossible to notice compared to the hundreds upon thousands of petals held aloft by the tree, if it weren't for the fact that wherever a petal drops and touches the ground, the grass and flowers in the immediate vicinity are all dried up and dead.
✽ The void continues to grow, expanding outward and reaching up into the floor above.
✽ On the morning of the equinox, red spider lilies bloom all across the courtyard and deep into the forest seemingly overnight. From the clock tower or rooftop, characters are able to see the forest surrounding them on all sides is entirely covered in the red flowers up to the crest, as if the entire land were awash with blood.
✽ The wisteria tree starts to shed petals, only a handful a day and impossible to notice compared to the hundreds upon thousands of petals held aloft by the tree, if it weren't for the fact that wherever a petal drops and touches the ground, the grass and flowers in the immediate vicinity are all dried up and dead.
✽ The void continues to grow, expanding outward and reaching up into the floor above.
OOC
✽ Characters in classes 1-B, 1-D, 1-E, 2-C, and 3-E (classes who rose at least one rank in August) find that in the void school, they can start to see the void students' faces instead of them being completely shadow. They look scared, angry, resigned, anything but happy.
also major yttd spoiler in the white text 2/2
Ahaha… Ahahahaha…. W-what makes you and me that different… if we both know how it feels to be powerless! Do you think it’ll just magically work out? Would you have lost more than an arm if we’d been slower, or would you have broken too, I wonder? Regretted it when it was too late to do anything about it, cursed us while getting ripped apart? Are you that stupid, just utterly idiotic, worthless, just willing to die for people you shouldn't, just like-?
[These thoughts make him sick but they keep spilling out of his mouth, impossible to stop, loud, way too loud, like something in him has snapped under mutually exclusive forces, subsided downward under its weight and thick dark water is rushing out, impossible to dam or push back, almost visible rising on the floor He breathes in hard, pressing his hands and scarf over his mouth in horror, smothering the laughter into a sort of ratcheting.]
SHIN..... U GOOD BUDDY (no) also this got so long i am so sorry
and then sou loses his shit, kind of- and just barely regains it just as quickly with guilt and horror and whatever else. and sidney can only stare for a moment, brows furrowed and eyes just barely widened. given his capacity to express emotion through his face, that's kind of impressive, almost. )
Sou...
( sidney takes a breath, before shifting to sit up properly, looking shin in the eyes. his gaze isn't unkind, but there's a certain gravity to everything- but with sidney, there always is on some level. and his voice is steady, with little emotion- just like always. )
I couldn't tell you. But there's nothing shameful in wanting to live. I won't tell you to be like me. I wouldn't tell anyone to be like me, in this situation. No one should be. My 'worse' is a game of cat and mouse where the cat can kill the mouse as many times as it wants and the mouse gets brought back from the dead every time, and has to play again and again. I can willingly do what I've done because that was my role in that game.
( fuck. sidney inhales, and exhales. he doesn't want to talk about this. but. it looks like he really does need to. if only to explain himself. )
... It was four of us, and one hunter. We had to work together to escape, and the hunter got to chase us down like animals. Even if we did escape, we got some time to rest before being thrown right back into the arena. So over time, we took up specific roles- Clara focused on unlocking the machines and decoding the passwords, since she was an investigative reporter, good with technology. Wright played bait, focused on antagonizing the monsters and drawing their attention and outrunning them. The third was a wildcard. Did what he wanted. But my role was to save the others if they got caught. To make myself a more enticing bait than the half-dead person behind me. ... To block the way while everyone else escaped, take the hits for them, and if need be... Die. And I did. Many times. ... I got more angry about it when they wasted my life and fucked around instead of escaping, honestly. But for leaving me to die while they got out? No. That's what they were supposed to do.
( dying and coming back again and again and again- it does things to you. but so does the manner in which you do so. sidney isn't sure if he truly qualifies as human anymore. compared to clamor or lucifer, surely. but compared to shin? hajun? the kids here? ... he has his doubts.
he is a man born to shield others. that's what he's learned in his deaths. if he gets out but someone he could have saved doesn't... what is he worth?
nothing, considering he's left wright and the bastard both to die out of spite a few times.and now he can't. he survived, but... )It was too easy for me to register everything that was happening as the same. Four people and a monster. So with that mindset, it was just as easy to fall back into that role. Lead the hunter around while the others find the way out, and then block the way so they can escape. As far as I'm concerned, you did exactly as you were supposed to. You found the way out, and took it.
( even if sidney himself had to tell hajun where the 'gate' was. it's so simple to sidney- sou would be the decoder at the door, putting in the password with hajun behind him, and sidney would be distracting the hunter. it's too simple.
the manor will always have him, on some level. )
I don't blame you for running. I don't blame you for escaping. I'm not... wired the same way.
nooo this is a good meal
'There's nothing shameful in wanting to live' and Shin makes a small weak noise as two of the broken shattered bits in him equally weakly and no less viciously tear at each other briefly. He focuses hard on holding it together as Sidney proceeds to describe a horrible, horrific game, of the sort Shin knows but somehow worse... doing it over and over and over... he can't think about it. He can't help but think of simulations... did any... lets not go down that road. Four roles, and Sidney's being to die...]
Exactly as I was supposed to... [He didn't even tell anyone about the exit, was only thinking in the moment of his own skin. How is it this hurts more than Sidney hating him for it? Is he just hiding it, using this? He can't even be certain about that right now, everything's all in pieces, scattering light like reflections. His tone is the small airy muzziness of someone not fully connected in to current events.] And so did you... You make it sound so neat and tidy when you put it like that, ahaha. Like it really is just a game...
[You can watch his demeanor and composure being brushed off, placed back on, with only some lingering lack of breath and a sense of resignation for it. He reaches for the first internal shard and it draws ignored blood. He can't understand it, really.]
Guess that's how it is, huh. Are we just... stuck like this?
[Not for the first time he feels a sense of inevitability grip it's claws down, the kind of grip he'd tried to become someone else to evade and didn't, in the end, like the story of a fox that gnawed off three legs to escape a trap and was still stuck. Cycles repeating themselves, over and over... leading back to the same place every time.]
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but with him bedridden and grievously injured, alone with one person blocking the door-- it's... ...
... )
... It sounds so simple in those terms. But the game- and what happened, on the fourth floor... they aren't so easy in reality. It's simple to put it in terms like that, but the truth of it is so much different. We were in a fight for our lives. There's no rules to that, just... adaptation.
( both back then, and in the week they disappeared. )
If we are... it's not my first time. ( obviously. ) Which is why I can say for sure, there's a way out. We all got out of my own eventually, and there's a way out of here. We just need to figure out how. ... Our best bet right now is graduation, but there's bound to be a way to break everyone out.
( and once they do, sidney will do whatever it takes to make sure he never gets dragged into something like this again. he's tired. )
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'If you want to live, you change'...
[Does it count as quoting if he's quoting 'himself'? Adaptation... it really is. His face and hand are still in his scarf as he murmurs it. But escape... that's something he can try and focus on. That's a point he can begin to reorient around, put his mind to, set the rest of the mess aside for for now.]
A way out... Best case for us is something's been overlooked but, ahaha, well. It's always more fun to watch someone struggle for something they can't reach, isn't it?
[Even if that's the case, if it's a genuine dangled string and not a yank of the chain from top to tail... well. Midori never intended to die, so he's heard. The unexpected and un-thought-of happens. It's like a small crack through which the fresh air of possibility flows.]
So that means... graduation. [He knows it's important and ominous, that only one person did this year and by his own reasoning and that ominousness it's highly likely the others didn't survive, but what it is exactly... he doesn't know. Sidney... seems an easier vein than Komaeda.] What do we know about it?
[This is before we find out someone will kill for good grades. :' ) He's keeping the other option in his mind's pins but he's narrowing in on this for now because it's more of a known quantity.]
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( which seems to be a rising issue. but. what can they do but search for themselves? )
So our best bet at the moment is fishing for information, because a lack of knowledge here is suspicious at worst, weird at best.
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[He thinks into his scarf. There has to be people who'd know... but finding and actually getting the information from them is the tricky part. Merit points and grades... and you get merit points from murder... it's not a good picture.]
A student called Nao Sato... I heard she remembers last graduation... not very well, though. [He'd thought about talking to her, but then he got lured into a meeting and Stephanie locked them all in.] If this one's anything like it... then we've got a lead, at least.
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( they definitely have, but that isn't quite confirmed yet for these two, unfortunately. it's something to think about however, and at least it's something to pursue instead of sitting on their thumbs. )
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[It's more of a murmur to himself. The rules changing... it does remind him of something, though.]
Right... Rantaro said something about the rules having changed recently... some kind of fire. "When the whistle blows, line up quickly. Those who tarry shall be left behind." ...things like that, apparently.
[He's got a good memory for reciting things verbatim, and that was something clearly important.]
...how... long ago was it... do you think? That Haruka died.
[Maybe she got rescued by someone other than them but... he can't really fool himself there.]
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( and she failed. alone, lost... the timeline of this place is hidden and obscured between memories and layers of cycles and loops. )
She's still there.
( he checked. )
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...Ah.
[Still there... hhhhh. He's never seen her all the times he's been in there, but he knows from Nene that ghosts are real and out there even if if he's one is metaphysically uncertain, so.]
I-is that why... it was so cold there?
[He's a little stricken. She's been there the whole time and he didn't know...]
...nobody really did come back for her, after all.
[Abandoned for escape, again. It's one thing to surmise and another to be sure... He knew it was stupid to think or hope a tiny packet of apple slices might have changed the past, after all. But... something they did did change something, somehow. There's sound in the library now. What does that even mean?]
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( he wanted to save her. to bring her out of that hell hole, even if this was no place to raise a small girl. and yet... and yet.
weeks later, sidney will think back on coming to in the hallway without her, and realize this was the first instance of true powerlessness he's had here- that regardless of his desires and capability, he cannot truly change anything.
but for now, there is a girl who's been lost to time, and a young man drowning in guilt and pretending his head is above the water. it's easy to see how he's feeling, with how he looks away so pointedly. )
... Hiyori.
( he straightens up for this- it's important, after all. )
I forgive you.
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[It's better than nothing, but it still feels like literally small comfort to him.
A sense of powerlessness is an old friend to Shin, but this is new to him as well. He's used to not being able to help himself. Not being able to help others like him is newer, harder, more painful, especially outside of a death game where he can tell himself he's the most vulnerable there. In a fortnight that'll be hit home harshly, finding someone barely breathing on the floor.
His head lifts as Sidney straightens up and there's... a physical reaction to this, the kind you get when someone's urge is to flinch as under a physical blow and there's something rerouting that into keeping absolutely still. It turns into a twitch of the fingers, a drawing in of body language, and a weak, strangled laugh with it's own question mark.]
D-don't force yourself, ahaha.
[You hate him, right? Isn't he awful?]
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I forgive you.
( repeated, so that hiyori knows- no strings attached, no lines to read between. )
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Y-you... Ahahhahaa, I just don't get it. You really don't care about yourself at all, huh?? Otherwise you'd... it's natural to be angry, isn't it?
[Sara's own sendoff was gentler than this, cushioning the same, if no less epiphanitic. The words of the one he's quoting, they were equally painful in parallel and opposite; 'even Sou probably isn't a bad person'. Misguided...
Worn down by deaths and deaths and deaths to that lack of care or... the worse option. That he really was too successful in becoming the sort of person others would throw their lives away for, that person that uses and toys with that.]
Forgiving me... D-do you hear yourself? [But it's clear he's winding down, exhausted from his earlier outburst and in general; he doesn't have room for another, and that's probably a good thing. He scrubs at his face, breathes out, and when he finally lowers his hand that smile is back.] That's just fine then... I accept it.
[No he doesn't, not really, he can't take it into his heart where it's currently too raw to put it anywhere. But it means something to Sidney, so.]
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such a day probably won't come for some time. perhaps when they've escaped. maybe after. sidney glances away for a moment, at the meal shin brought- somehow, it's still piping hot. it feels like this conversation has been longer than it really is. )
You don't have to understand. I think I prefer that you don't, actually. But it's bothering you, isn't it? ... ( sidney glances up at hiyori and perhaps he's a little too impassive as he speaks. ) If you believe you've done wrong, you know what not to do in the future. You can do better. Life is a nonstop lesson, really. This is just one of the uglier ones.
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[It feels like small comfort when the results of those mistakes can be so permanent. But... it's something he can grab onto, that Sidney's offering. He can at least try not to let it happen again... hasn't he already been making resolutions like that? To trust others... to not let history repeat.]
Ahaha, I'll do my best!
[Where even to start, though... but this conversation has already wrung them both out like dishtowels. It's something to think about later. Still, he can start to pick up the pieces again, try and find places for them. And he notices that glance... he can take a hint.]
Nene's cooking is good, isn't it? I'll leave you to it, ahaha...
[He only brought enough for Sidney and it feels a bit awkward to stick around, after all that. But also... it's his instinct to disappear, especially under that impassive gaze.]
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Alright. ... Take care of yourself. And don't beat yourself up. What happened there wasn't your fault.
( and sidney means it. as far as he's concerned, he got too close- it happens sometimes. they can deal with the rest of this... later. )