Entry tags:

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.

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.

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.

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

We've witnessed different experiences, and that's why we're able to handle the situations that we can.

( the silence means to not hear your own voice, to be left to your own thoughts — whatever it was, whatever was said, could it have eaten away at her? he takes context clues, and he picks up on actions, and apparently he's able to manage, but her fear of almost dying — of dying had played with her sanity. it's said that complete silence can drive a person insane, cause them to hurt themselves if they're not able to hear something, and what they see before them is hallucinations. )

Were you afraid? Of no one being there, or dying? Humans are... very fragile creatures, they need one another to survive, but sometimes one must hold on to extend that hope to others.

( by making it through the night, to awaken to a morning where all is audible — it's the fact of having someone there, he guesses. him and helena are in a way different from how they handle their problems, but he can only imagine... the sight of seeing her want to help, and then kill, what could that complete silence have done to her? )

Oh, I'm not afraid of death.

[she says it so frankly that there's no room for doubt. her cane taps in time to her footsteps, and she walks on next to him.]

My hearing to me is my eyes and ears both. Even now, if I went quiet, I could hear you breathing, the sound of that chain you wear, could faintly measure the world before us through your footsteps alone. It's how I know how tall you are, where our classrooms are, how I managed to walk with that boy as long as I did without stumbling.

For you, it might be as if suddenly, you had no senses at all. No touch to anchor yourself with, nothing to see, nothing to hear, nothing to smell or taste....you simply exist, and cannot find the proof of that. Even you would find that sort of experience disconcerting.

...Hm, in a way, it's like you're prepared for it?

( a lack of senses is close to losing what makes then human, and komaeda has never felt human in his entire life. a being with no worth, no reason to exist outside of molding the hopes of others that he comes across. yet, to be known so well within the silence, for her to construct an idea of him in her mind from sound alone, that means her imagination is one that's trustworthy, because even she can't lie to herself. )

That depends on how attached I am to the world, doesn't it?

( his brow raises, voice soft as usual while walking down the hall. komaeda doesn't know if he's ever wanted to exist in the first place, not when he's chased death for so long. between that and hope, it's the only reason he's able to keep himself sane, and not break down from the pressure. )

If it happened suddenly, I guess anyone would be in disbelief... shocked from how jarring it is.

You're not attached to this world at all, are you?

[she says it with kindness, but without judgement. without shock. simply a matter of existence, like the fact that the cane she has is made of wood of that his jacket was too big on her. it would go a long, long way towards explaining some of things he said, or how he sounded. yet, she can't sense anything desperate about him - not in the usual sense. no, whatever resided in him took another shape, stranger and with sharper teeth.]

In a way, we're weighed down, anchored by an invisible chain — being attached is an... emotional concept I don't view as needed.

( he laughs, keeping things light-hearted between them despite how straightforward her question is — she's trying to read him, but if it's for filth or not, he's not too off-put. instead, he lifts his mechanical hand, a soft whirr coming it as a telltale sign that he's moving it away. she can probably hear how it moves further away from her, but that's him crossing his arms. )

This world is unknown, yet we take part... will you adjust to it as the norm, and grow attached?

I think I'm the sort of person who will get attached no matter where I end up. Even if my world becomes new to me many times over.

[lightly said, but again a fact. and she knows it to be reality, given the changes in her life already. she cares about those in the manor, even if in the end she wanted to escape. she cares about the people here, in their own strange cage. her heart simply found others, and latched on.]

Unattached as you are, you're still here, though. No matter what chains you want to let go of, you're still in this place, and you still have to deal with all the rest of us. So the question then becomes what you plan to do with that fact. What path you want to take, and how to make the best of it.

[by now, they've reached a door to exit into the grounds, outside the school building. autumn brings pleasant breezes, and the scent of the wisteria in the courtyard still can reach them, faintly.]

If you want to really cut yourself off, you could. But, call it a hunch, somehow I don't think you're going to do that, not when you want to see the hope of others. Because if you don't want to be attached, then you've got to figure out how to not care about that.

[reaching out, she lays a hand on his arm, as if they're escorting each other at this slow, steady pace. sure, sound would remind her that he was here, but so does contact. the texture of his jacket, and the solidity under it, mechanical as the arm is.]

Hope isn't created by the world, but by those who harbor it. That's what I want to see.

( if it wasn't for their hope, komaeda wouldn't acknowledge the world as it is, but because everyone attempts to try and change, better their surroundings with their own actions, and the stepping stones placed before them... komaeda has to pay mind to what's around him. he's not attached to the world, but the people, what they do, what they say, it's a telltale sign of their hope, and he closes his eyes in thought on the idea of... a world where there was none. if that was the case, then... living already would be unbearable. )

My path is already set before me, I'm meant to take everyone where they need to go depending on how they use me.

( simple as that, he's a stepping stone for their hopes, he's why they can take their first step, and then their second step. as long as he can play that part, he doesn't need anything else, even if helena's touch can ground him — he doesn't feel, he doesn't know, but out the corner of his eye he can see where her hand rests. ) If someone's hope shines bright, managing to cover this world in their grace... that's an entirely different story, but hope comes in all shapes and forms...

( he pauses, looking down at helena as the rustle of the leaves, and the crunch of the grass sounds beneath their feet. )

Is your hope fond of this world, or of the people? ( he witnessed it once, but maybe this time they can expand, because then... there was only so much time. )

[she pauses in her steps, listening to the movement of the leaves. some authors say it's like a dance, but is it truly? is the thoughtless motion she perceives the same thing, or is it a borrowed phrase? she has to trust that perhaps it may be true, and that gives her an answer.]

Why does it have to be one or the other? Why can't it be both? I rely on others in many ways, and the world is what gave me and all the rest life to meet each other, to make what we would. I can no more separate them than I could divide my mind from my soul.

[words seem to tumble out, but at the same time, his questions invite it. higher concepts than the day to day, that ask Helena to unlock the vault where she stores up how much she thinks and thinks.]

But if you're referring to this world in particular, I lean slightly more on the side of the people. There are drawbacks for every benefit we have here. Every good thing with a downside, but that's fair, isn't it.

[an inhale, and then she turns her head to his direction.]

...You can't live your whole life giving yourself away, though. You have to take something every once in a while. It's how we manage to exist, all of us with needs and wants.

[how funny, that she'd be giving this advice to two very different people, both not wishing to overreach. preaching the virtues of moderation. and here she is, paraphrasing herself, trying to throw out another lifeline.]

I don't mind if you're selfish around me, at the very least.

Here... What we do affects the world, just like in Arata Rokuro's dream... but it's the person that reaches out who can change what's before them. That hope that can shape the world with their talents, to give the lackluster group of people a path to follow, and to act... the world gives them nothing, because they're hardly aware of how to handle it.

( the world is filled with the weak, and they latch onto the strong for help when it's the latter who does most of the world. to be slowed down by those inadequate, but there's people like helena who form their own path as long as a stone is set before them — was their conversation not that, hearing the direction she was willing to take? )

But... You're correct, for every good thing is someone just as bad... equivalent exchange, and vice versa... though, there's no reason for me to be selfish when this isn't about me.

( a life was more than enough, he's taken one without any thought — he did it for the group, for what he loves, but that must be giving himself as well. everyone after disliked him, couldn't stand him, because skeptical and wary, and now he walks alone without complaint. )

Are you curious about my needs and my wants, Adams-san? No one's ever really listened to me before... they stop me halfway through, so it'd be a waste of a conversation. That said... I'm not the selfish type, I'm content as long as I can watch the hope from everyone here prosper... to build everyone else, keep their foundations strong...

[he's saying much, and it all sticks in her head like tree sap, only she knows it needs to stay. Arata Rokuro. a name she's never heard before now, but a name she can give that soul she was so desperate to keep. she can't agree with him that the world can be so divided - after all, wasn't she such a person? weak, easily targeted, and yet she wanted to live as badly as anyone else. but this isn't Helena's turn to speak, nor will she force her views over his. if she can tell him to be selfish, then it means he's allowed to talk, even when the idea of others as stepping stones to more sits ill for reasons he would have no method of knowing.

in a way, she finds Komaeda like a character in a difficultly written book. not one she can understand on the first readthrough, but if she keeps going back, if she gives him patience, perhaps she'll be able to understand a little more, a little more. We've witnessed different experiences, and that's why we're able to handle the situations that we can. what experiences make someone like him? what does he perceive in the world? will he tell her, even a little?

has anyone let him talk?

her hand carefully makes its way over, to properly hold onto Komaeda's arm. really, Helena would have taken his hand, if it was free, but this will do.]

I want to listen to you, Komaeda. All the way, until you're done with the conversation.

[he reminded her of her path. this is the least she can do in repayment.]

That's kind, I understand you must be pretty good at that.

( considering her lack of sight, so that means her hearing is better than normal, and he knows — he's been witnessed to it before, and yet, he already knows that she would search for a deeper meaning in his words. the question is, would she be able to understand him in his entirety, even if he's able to talk as long as he wants. the option has never been given to him willingly, and he doesn't do what people say anyway, he chooses to speak, to act, to say what he already does because who would stop him? it's just others hate to hear it. )

Mmm... I wouldn't know where to start, what things you'd want to hear —

( keyword being what she wanst to hear, because komaeda-arata's molds conversation where it doesn't have to be about him, it's showing again. even with how helena holds onto his mechanical arm, it whirrs as his fingers move, and his other hand reaches over to rest upon the female's hand. )

...To tell the truth, I'm no good at conversation, so this is difficult for me. ( ... ) Maybe we can find someone else to be our background noise!

If you're no good, then the first step is to practice.

[turning, she moves them so that in the end, they can be holding hands, hers holding his as if it's the most natural thing in the world.]

And it's not about what I want to hear. It's about what you want to say - what you can't say when others cut you off. Which can be anything, absolutely anything at all.

[there's no trace of deception, or pity, or anything else still. it's still just happening.]

You don't have to be afraid when it comes to me. You don't have to try to gain my approval.

I don't need approval.

( he doesn't need anything, really, because there's one thing for certain that separates him from everyone else, and why he places a certain group on a higher pedestal than others. )

And I'm not afraid.

( he's worried about his luck and how it affects the people around him, even now, he doesn't feel good about where he is now. he wants to take his arm back, find some way to move the topic along, but he remembers that she's holding his hand, that she doesn't seem keen on letting go. why would she? )

I'm scum, trash to this world... I'm nothing useful, but I'll help hope in any matter that needed. That's what I am... something easily disposable once you're done, and many people don't seem to understand that. ( he sighs, listening to the way his footfalls hit along the stone on the courtyard's path, and he shrugs his shoulders after. ) Do you like deciduous trees? They lose their leaves in the fall.

And they regrow them in spring. I'm told they're bright green - small things that grow and grow, reaching for the light. I've touched them...how fragile they seem. How easily they'll break off. But they persist anyway.

[he hasn't shaken her off yet, and so she thinks she can push one more time. it's a delicate balance - knowing when to back off, when it's been enough. but with him, persistence feels like it can go a little further, before she'll turn it to simply being a nice walk.]

I may not know why you see yourself with those eyes - there are many things I don't know. But I do know if it is so that you're to be disposed when someone is done, then I simply refuse to be done with you. You can't make me throw you away, Komaeda. I've made up my mind.

You want to put up with me? Is it pity, do you feel bad?

( because helena doesn't have to feel bad for him, she doesn't have to think he's lonely. no one does, he doesn't need any of that, but he does listen as he looks down towards her. he closes his eyes afterwards in thought, wondering what he should do now, or even next, and he finds himself back onto the commentary she had with the tree. )

They are fragile. Why must they break when you're only admiring the beauty of their efforts, but trying to snap away the pieces that's only holding them down.

( to touch them, who is at fault? the one who wants to help, or the tree that needs the help? )

[she's quiet for a long moment, letting his words fade away, and when she speaks again, there's a hint of iron in her words that wasn't there before, has never been in her words to him before.]

...Komaeda. You really think someone like me is going to sit and pity you?

[the shadow is the room isn't an elephant. it's in the way she squeezes his hand a little, trying to pull his attention over. in her heart, there's a room for everything that rages, that wants to spit at him that she hates pity. poor little girl, needing to be protected. poor Helena, she doesn't understand. it can't be helped that you're killed first, after all, you're so weak, poor you.]

Don't answer that. Let me ask you this. Why were you kind to me in Rokuro's memory? Why did you bother talking to me, when you could have simply nudged me off the cliff? Why did you try to make me feel better after what I did, which wasn't supposed to happen? Is it because you pity me? Does seeing me make you feel sorry for me?

[if he says yes, she's going to explode. it's been a while since she felt this impulse, to act out and cause some kind of problem, to give someone trouble because it meant they'd acknowledge her not as something precious, but as a person. they'd listen, even in a bad way.]

Everyone's capable of pity, I can look at those unfortunate to not understand hope, and think of how pitiful it must be to exist so naïve.

( he looks down at her, his attention completely hers, and he gives it because he can as he watches helena with a neutral expression at first. yes, komaeda can do something so vile as pity, he can feel sorry for people around him, but not out of kindness, but because he's better, and couldn't imagine being in their shoes. throughout the memory, he doesn't remember a moment his actions were pity, because as vile as he can be — )

I meant every word that I said then, and I mean it now. I'd like it if you had a little more hope in me. ( in him, but he had the audacity to say that about her — they're leaves who don't fall so far from the same tree, just different experiences, some that mold them better than others. )

As despairing as it was, I believe such a scenario was needed to push you further than every before. You said that your ability wasn't meant to do that... but what was so wrong with what happened? Yes, they all died, but at that moment... should I have pitied you or the animals that died by our hands?

( he can remember the moment, how the animals all cracked and twisted, dying right before their hands, their eyes... ) Instead, I was proud of you. Hope comes in all shapes and forms, as unsightly as it was, that was meant to elevate your efforts, put you in an experience that either you can handle or avoid the next time —

( though, avoiding seems like running away. ) The latter doesn't seem like you, seeing how you walked off the edge of the unknown yourself. Rather, it helped them, and now you can use them to continue on, knowing that what you did was right because you did pull them out of their cycle of suffering... Next time, you'll be prepared, your body won't lock up in fear of a disaster. Hm... pitying you because of actions you used to your advantage? ...That's not the type of person I am.

[...okay, so his words aren't the worst case scenario. she doesn't need to fly from him in anger, but he doesn't understand, and she has to tell him why.]

I wasn't trying to save them from their suffering! I was just trying to see if there was danger ahead, if there was something important - I can do that, I can hear it if I focus in just the right way, and instead it killed them. How is that hopeful? What if I tried to do it again, and it hurt you or someone else? What sort of hope would that be?

[it tumbles out, less polished and put together, but real. that's the agony she's been carrying since it happened - what if what was meant to be a signal ended up only causing more and more bloodshed?

what if one of the few things that made her strong simply made her cruel instead?]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

September Event

full navigation

Autumn Semester

Setting Updates

Autumnal Equinox

OOC

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject