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Entry tags:
- alien stage: ivan,
- alien stage: till,
- arcane: viktor,
- arknights: texas,
- event,
- fallout: cooper howard,
- ffxv: ignis scientia,
- hsr: aventurine,
- inception: arthur,
- jujutsu kaisen: megumi fushiguro,
- mod,
- oc: kalmiya longwillow,
- omori: sunny,
- outlast: miles upshur,
- rwby: ozpin,
- smtv: yuzuru atsuta,
- ssss: onni hotakainen,
- teasg: lortel kehelland,
- xenoblade chronicles: noah
CALCUTTA • JULY 2025 EVENT
EVENT: CALCUTTA
ᛗ I am caught, tangled in
( content warnings: body horror, surreal horror, post-apocalyptic themes )
You wake with soil under your nails, something sharp in your mouth, and the scent of damp rust in the back of your throat. The sky is not night, but it is no longer day. Around you, a city's skeleton lies tangled in ruin and overgrowth in the crisp, tail end nips of autumn— skyscrapers strangled by vine and mycelium tower around you, streets are cracked open like wounds. No sound of civilization. Only wind, soft and low like breath.
You are not where you should be, and you are not entirely who you were. Do you remember the dream you had? Perhaps barely, perhaps almost too vividly. You will likely find a mask nearby— one you find familiar. While you may not have the same urgency to wear it as you did within the dreamscape, you at the very least feel the need to carry it with you now.
Some wake in subway tunnels pulsing with bioluminescence, others in penthouse ruins swallowed by moss and red ivy. Rooftop gardens filled with brittle blossoms. Empty galleries hung with paintings that seem to shift when you’re not looking. Vessels are absolutely scattered. You can wake up anywhere that's possible within the bones of this city. Life endures here, but it is changed. In the streets, rats with slick, glowing underskin scurry between collapsed signs. Pigeons wheel overhead, blind-eyed and silent. Dogs and cats roam in feral bands, some marked by fungal growths, others with bodies too long, too many limbs, or split maws bursting with tendrils. Deer can also be found roaming the enclosure of what used to be Central Park, and will open their strange mouths when they seem to stare at you. Seem, because they no longer have eyes to do that with. From deeper shadows and thicker canopies come the zoo escapees: a moose that climb walls and have a petrifying gaze, herds of zebra stand frozen like littered statues until they hear noises, to which they will scatter like roaches. Sewer grates rattle beneath your feet, and something wet and ancient stirs in the depths— Hippos that release toxic gases when threatened lay in the waters and gnaw on anything they could get their teeth on. The most gentle of them all are the giraffes; they still attempt to nibble on the falling sunset leaves where still gathered, and will even come up to humans who offer anything green for them to eat. There's so much more left unsaid, if you're unlucky enough to come across them.
The flora is no safer. Familiar trees such as maple, ginkgo and oak still grow in parks and fracture ciment with their powerful roots. Plenty of the bark is etched with a strange set of sigils that hum when approached. Ivy pulses with low light and throbs when touched. Entire buildings are choked with fungus: spires of mushroom growths that sway despite the absence of wind, spores spilling like ash when disturbed. Moss spreads across broken windows in fractal shapes, responding to movement, to emotion with colors beyond what you could imagine. Wildflowers bloom in moonlight— roses with petal-thorns and daffodils exhale perfume that clouds your thoughts.
And still, the city seems to watch you soundlessly. Beneath your feet, the soil responds. Something old sleeps in the brickwork, the concrete, the iron bones of this place— and your presence has stirred it.
You'd better get moving. Survive.
NOTES:
You are not where you should be, and you are not entirely who you were. Do you remember the dream you had? Perhaps barely, perhaps almost too vividly. You will likely find a mask nearby— one you find familiar. While you may not have the same urgency to wear it as you did within the dreamscape, you at the very least feel the need to carry it with you now.
Some wake in subway tunnels pulsing with bioluminescence, others in penthouse ruins swallowed by moss and red ivy. Rooftop gardens filled with brittle blossoms. Empty galleries hung with paintings that seem to shift when you’re not looking. Vessels are absolutely scattered. You can wake up anywhere that's possible within the bones of this city. Life endures here, but it is changed. In the streets, rats with slick, glowing underskin scurry between collapsed signs. Pigeons wheel overhead, blind-eyed and silent. Dogs and cats roam in feral bands, some marked by fungal growths, others with bodies too long, too many limbs, or split maws bursting with tendrils. Deer can also be found roaming the enclosure of what used to be Central Park, and will open their strange mouths when they seem to stare at you. Seem, because they no longer have eyes to do that with. From deeper shadows and thicker canopies come the zoo escapees: a moose that climb walls and have a petrifying gaze, herds of zebra stand frozen like littered statues until they hear noises, to which they will scatter like roaches. Sewer grates rattle beneath your feet, and something wet and ancient stirs in the depths— Hippos that release toxic gases when threatened lay in the waters and gnaw on anything they could get their teeth on. The most gentle of them all are the giraffes; they still attempt to nibble on the falling sunset leaves where still gathered, and will even come up to humans who offer anything green for them to eat. There's so much more left unsaid, if you're unlucky enough to come across them.
The flora is no safer. Familiar trees such as maple, ginkgo and oak still grow in parks and fracture ciment with their powerful roots. Plenty of the bark is etched with a strange set of sigils that hum when approached. Ivy pulses with low light and throbs when touched. Entire buildings are choked with fungus: spires of mushroom growths that sway despite the absence of wind, spores spilling like ash when disturbed. Moss spreads across broken windows in fractal shapes, responding to movement, to emotion with colors beyond what you could imagine. Wildflowers bloom in moonlight— roses with petal-thorns and daffodils exhale perfume that clouds your thoughts.
And still, the city seems to watch you soundlessly. Beneath your feet, the soil responds. Something old sleeps in the brickwork, the concrete, the iron bones of this place— and your presence has stirred it.
You'd better get moving. Survive.
NOTES:
• You must find shelter, water, and food. Anything that can be found in city stores is plausible, but much of the food will be expired or ransacked by the lives before yours, or animals. The Host-fauna are edible if you can stomach it, and some may talk in tongues before they die. The flora is a mixed bag, from harmless to not.OPTIONAL TOKEN EFFECTS
• The environment is reactive: Touch a wall and it pulses. Step into an abandoned deli and the shelves might whisper for a second.
• Tokens will feel a strange resonance when near remnants of human structure, especially things tied to strong emotion (graffiti, photos, childhood toys, street art, music).OPTIONAL OFFERING EFFECTS
• Tokens will feel warm when close to sites where others have suffered or are remembered deeply. These sensations are disorienting but emotionally vivid, almost like deja vu.
• Tokens could experience nosebleeds or migraines near intense emotional hotspots. This is their magic wanting an outlet, but too newly formed to pour itself out.
• Offerings will feel the thrum of the Murmur, like a second heartbeat in the earth, when near fungal flora or decayed nature.
• Offerings will feel oddly familiar with the world around them, as if it recognizes them and vice verse. Scents linger longer and skin responds to temperature or emotion in exaggerated ways.
• The act of hunting and consuming host fauna is euphoric, but only for a moment— followed by a haunting awareness of their own anatomy shifting from the inside in ways they should fear.
ᛗ
And I wake, say your name
( content warnings: sensory distortion )
One night— it doesn't matter which, time has loosened— your mask beckons. Something is encouraging you to put it on. It sears cold when you do. A pressure behind your eyes grows sharp, then splits. Suddenly, the silence inside your skull isn't yours anymore.
The Murmur is stirring.
A psychic thread pulls taut through your mind like a bow ready to shoot. Language might fail. Images are the easiest to come first— flickers of hands, blood, feathers, fire. Then voices, soft and reverent, speaking your name in words you don't know but understand. Some speak back. Some yell. Some sing. You sense others, Tokens humming with potential, Offerings heavy with heat and pain.
You are not alone. You never were.
NOTES:
OPTIONAL TOKEN EFFECTS:
The Murmur is stirring.
A psychic thread pulls taut through your mind like a bow ready to shoot. Language might fail. Images are the easiest to come first— flickers of hands, blood, feathers, fire. Then voices, soft and reverent, speaking your name in words you don't know but understand. Some speak back. Some yell. Some sing. You sense others, Tokens humming with potential, Offerings heavy with heat and pain.
You are not alone. You never were.
NOTES:
• Your gamewide "network" is live! Try to reach someone through the Murmur. Perhaps a thought, a memory, or just a name. Players are welcomed to create prompts within this log or post to the network community proper.
• Communication may come in fragments. Images repeat, words loop, emotion surges without cause or by accident. One name in particular echoes:
You may try to reach for her, even if your chances are slim. You might end up contacting someone or something else entirely.
OPTIONAL TOKEN EFFECTS:
• Tokens may begin having their first access to inner magic. Not enough to use consciously, but enough to glitch with use, accidental or not. A friendly reminder that characters should not be able to use their magic with ease, yet. Keep in mind they should all have a realistic adjustment period.OPTIONAL OFFERING EFFECTS:
• Tokens may have sensory overlaps: seeing sounds, hearing memories, tasting colors.
• Tokens may be energy sensitive. Areas with high ambient emotion (graveyards, burnt apartments, memorable objects) seem to strengthen their clarity but exaggerate their magic in startling bursts.
• Offerings may have their transformation accelerate when using the Murmur's network, albeit in a way that glitches in and out. A friendly reminder that characters should not be able to use their transformations with ease, yet. Keep in mind they should all have a realistic adjustment period.
• Offerings may hear less words, more songs, breathing, scent— nonverbal communication that may be overwhelming.
• Offerings may experience intense somatic reactions while using the network: twitching limbs, sudden pain, the sense of being stroked or watched.
ᛗ
Wrapped and quartered
( content warnings: body horror )
As the days bleed together, the city begins to still. Where once the overgrowth pulsed with strange life, now it withers back into itself. The streets grow colder. The air bites. The mutated fauna, once noisy, prowling, goes silent. Ivy wilts, retreating from the moonlight. The mushroom towers collapse in on themselves with wet sighs. Even the buildings seem to hold their breath. Your own exhales frost in the air, hanging like ghosts. Above, the sky splits at the seams— crimson bleeding in from the edges, as if the moon itself were being peeled open at the arrival of winter.
And then: the masks begin to thrum.
It is subtle at first, a hum at the base of the spine. A low vibration felt rather than heard. But it grows, constant, inescapable— as if something is ticking down inside you. The masks react even when untouched, glowing faintly, twitching. You feel it in your chest. A second heartbeat. You're urged to put it on.
A voice, familiar and female, threads through the Murmur like static on a broken radio. Espera says:
Your body responds before your mind does. Magic stirs in your bloodstream— volatile and half-born. For some, flame dances along their fingertips, mirrors twitch in response to their gaze, or their pulse sings in electric rhythm. For others, bones shift beneath skin, teeth ache with growth, limbs feel wrong. Something is changing about you. Slowly. Irreversibly.
NOTES:
OPTIONAL OFFERING EFFECTS:
And then: the masks begin to thrum.
It is subtle at first, a hum at the base of the spine. A low vibration felt rather than heard. But it grows, constant, inescapable— as if something is ticking down inside you. The masks react even when untouched, glowing faintly, twitching. You feel it in your chest. A second heartbeat. You're urged to put it on.
A voice, familiar and female, threads through the Murmur like static on a broken radio. Espera says:
Your body responds before your mind does. Magic stirs in your bloodstream— volatile and half-born. For some, flame dances along their fingertips, mirrors twitch in response to their gaze, or their pulse sings in electric rhythm. For others, bones shift beneath skin, teeth ache with growth, limbs feel wrong. Something is changing about you. Slowly. Irreversibly.
NOTES:
• Animal hosts may react reverently to tethered pairs. Lone vessels are ignored, followed, or violently met.OPTIONAL TOKEN EFFECTS
• Winter is here in full, but it doesn't seem natural— it is a forced shift. The city feels colder, quieter, and more hostile. Even the corrupted ecosystem seems to brace for something larger.
• Magic is awakening further. All vessels, Token and Offering alike, begin to experience supernatural phenomena more intensely. These changes are often involuntary, especially under emotional or physical duress. Powers may flicker, trigger, or distort, reflecting the vessel's inner state. They should not have control of it yet.
• The call to Tether is no longer subtle— it is urgent. Even characters who resist connection may optionally feel the biological/spiritual pressure to Tether. Those who remain untethered may begin to feel destabilized, sensitive to The Murmur, and/or experience the subtle beginnings of Succumbence.
• Tokens may have unintentional magic surges in times of distress OR the awakening of "comfort zones". Small, warped spaces where reality thins into dreamscape, resembling meaningful memories (a childhood room, a stage, a battlefield). These zones offer eerie familiarity, but not safety from the weather.
• They may feel watched by something divine, but dispassionate— like being studied under a microscope.
• They may feel a need for proximity so great that the body physically aches. In worst case scenarios, you may even fall ill the longer you ignore your body's cry to dissipate your building magic. Tethering will immediately resolve this.
OPTIONAL OFFERING EFFECTS:
• An Offering's new instincts and transformations may begin to surface. Fear of fire. Yearning for music. It will all depend on what you're becoming. One thing that may be shared is a fierce protectiveness toward nearby Tokens.
• They may sense that something is weighing their souls against an invisible scale— not to punish you, but to categorize you. You have the inexplicable feeling that it is also the same thing that is shaping you.
• They may feel compelled to nest or anchor themselves near a Token's comfort zone or with a Token— circling the space like a sentinel or beast returning home. Tethering will make you whole, calm and seen.
ᛗ
Missing pieces find me
( content warnings: uncanny doppelgängers, possible visions of murder, violence, self harm. )
Winter has settled into everything with soft snowfall. Into your joints. Into the breath you share with others in the dark, or by an impromptu fire with scraps. Into the way your name sounds now when someone says it soft like a secret, or a warning. You've learned to ration warmth like a dwindling supply.
You've grown used to the rhythm of this place: the creak of half-dead buildings, the hollow crunch beneath your feet, the subtle hum that coils through the threads between you and the ones you've chosen to keep close throughout the month. The ones who understand that survival isn't just about staying alive.
But lately, something else has begun to settle in. It's not loud, and certainly not obvious. A shift, like a door left open too long. And that, Dear Vessels, starts in your reflections.
You see it in the fractured edge of glass, or in water that should have frozen weeks ago. In any surface slick enough to cast back your image, you may look, and it looks back. You move, and sometimes it moves too— but not quite right. A second too late. A second too early. Sometimes not at all.
And then it smiles, or frowns, or spits.
It is just enough to be wrong. Unnerving. Just enough to slip under your skin like splinters. You tilt your head— your reflection doesn't. You blink— it watches. And then you turn away. You tell yourself it's the frost. The tension. The light. But when you glance back, it’s still watching you.
Other vessels are seeing it, too, even if they don't say it out loud. They pause at windows. They look into still water a beat too long. They touch their own faces like they're checking for something missing. Or added. Something extra.
At least your reflection isn’t hurting you. Well. Not yet.
NOTES:
OPTIONAL TOKEN EFFECTS:
OPTIONAL OFFERING EFFECTS
You've grown used to the rhythm of this place: the creak of half-dead buildings, the hollow crunch beneath your feet, the subtle hum that coils through the threads between you and the ones you've chosen to keep close throughout the month. The ones who understand that survival isn't just about staying alive.
But lately, something else has begun to settle in. It's not loud, and certainly not obvious. A shift, like a door left open too long. And that, Dear Vessels, starts in your reflections.
You see it in the fractured edge of glass, or in water that should have frozen weeks ago. In any surface slick enough to cast back your image, you may look, and it looks back. You move, and sometimes it moves too— but not quite right. A second too late. A second too early. Sometimes not at all.
And then it smiles, or frowns, or spits.
It is just enough to be wrong. Unnerving. Just enough to slip under your skin like splinters. You tilt your head— your reflection doesn't. You blink— it watches. And then you turn away. You tell yourself it's the frost. The tension. The light. But when you glance back, it’s still watching you.
Other vessels are seeing it, too, even if they don't say it out loud. They pause at windows. They look into still water a beat too long. They touch their own faces like they're checking for something missing. Or added. Something extra.
At least your reflection isn’t hurting you. Well. Not yet.
NOTES:
• A shimmering surface of any kind could reflect two vessels at once but their reflections are fighting. There's blood between them . . .
• At night, the moon above is bright, ice blue and full, with its edges tainted by a splowly spreading crimson. Characters may notice that in reflections, it is completely red and the tendrils from within spew out. A double take will have this reflection of the moon disappearing.
• Characters (especially those who may not be able to see the reflections) may notice and hear their comrade's reflections laughing or speaking to them— they may even respond and try to carry conversation. Note that it's the reflection that's doing this sporadically, and not the real person.
OPTIONAL TOKEN EFFECTS:
• Tokens may notice their hands glowing in thier reflection, but not outside it. After a few moments, the same magic curls up their arms. Their mirrorselves are trying to access their magic for them, so best redirect anything if you want to avoid possible friendly fire.
• They may realize their reflection is always watching their Tether, even as they sleep. It tilts its head, comes crawling with a knife raised, drives it down— then it's gone.
• They may see their mirrorselves practicing violence on nearby objects, anything they could get their hands on.
OPTIONAL OFFERING EFFECTS
• Offerings may wake to burning, superficial claw marks on their sides. Their reflections will be found licking their fingers.
• They may notice their reflection becoming violent with their nearby Tethers; pulling them by the hair, biting into them, prying at their eyes, etc.
• They may see their reflections pushing into existing wounds and feeding, wherever they are.
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The year. It was October 31, 2018 before I woke up here, but...
[ But a five year difference definitely means there's some weird shit going on here. ]
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...what is "The United States"? Like liquids, solids, and gasses?
[ What is democracy. ]
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Okay, it's not like he's entirely mentally unprepared for the idea that some of them are coming from very different world situations here. He and Crichton had been trying to untangle where their world histories diverged and all --
-- but oh my god states of matter is not it, bro. ]
The United States of America. It's a nation. The one we're standing in now, almost certainly. [ He hasn't actually found anything confirming their location yet, since he's pretty sure the New York Times is one of the ones that's easy to find nationwide in America. So finding it here wouldn't necessarily narrow things down. He moves to the next stack of papers. Wall Street Journal. That's...also distributed all over the place, he thinks? ]
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That's a long name. They must've wanted it to sound important. [ Ivan watches Megumi glance at another newspaper without flipping through the first. If he's not interested, then he must be searching for something specific. Well, okay. Why not help him? He climbs over the counter like a spider, in order to rummage through the inside of the small structure.
Magazines line the back wall in plastic displays. ]
Cosmopolitan. "You, Reader, Should Get Back With Your Ex."
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[ Not that Megumi is anywhere close to the target audience.
But the next thing he examines is a couple stacks of tabloids, and those are more helpful. New York Daily News, New York Post. Even if those might be available in other places, he can't imagine they'd be selling enough of them out of state to bother stocking that many. ]
Okay. I'm pretty sure we're in New York.
sorry
He has the issue open in his hands, paging through makeup advertisements and fashion spreads inquisitively, while the boy he is "helping" does all the actual work. At a glance, it looks like this is a magazine entirely dedicated to accessorizing human pets. It's really fascinating. Is this the type of publication all of those photoshoots Unsha had him pose in were for?
Meanwhile, Megumi is making real discoveries. New York begets no reaction from Ivan, other than a smile he pulls on thinking he's meant to acknowledge this information as a positive thing. ]
Is that good...?
[ Listening, but distracted. Iconically contributing nothing to this important investigation and conversation. ]
no subject
[ Six of one, half a dozen of the other.
Knowing the date -- or at least, a cutoff line the date must fall after -- and the place isn't immediately useful, but it's something to file away for later. ]
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Start making a map.
[ If navigating an utterly danger-filled urban environment is the concern, Ivan is at least accustomed to that.
He reaches for something that was already in his pocket well before he ran into this other person. It's a little silver compass, though the needle seems to be pointing off in a random direction that isn't due North. ]
If we do, won't this be useful?
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And for that, a compass -- ]
Very useful.
[ Much more useful than Cosmo. ]
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But if the immediate area is all Megumi plans on exploring, Ivan could absolutely contribute a list of which buildings to avoid on account of they're full of mutant bats. ]
Hm, how much do you plan on moving from place to place?
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[ There's a priority list in his head. Start with the building he woke up in, since it's got the foundations of a decent home base. Try to get what he can out of it supply-wise and start a stash, then scope out the surrounding neighborhood, assess threats and see what else might be useful.
But after all that... ]
I don't think we're going to figure out how we got here or what's going on unless we commit to exploring.
no subject
How we got here? [ ...what's going on? ] I already have my answer to that.
[ No hesitation, no suspense: ] I passed on — I'm sorry if that comes as a shock. I hate to bring about any bad memories for you, but it's what I recall.
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That was what I thought at first, but the more I see, the less I'm sure.
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I'd be interested to hear what's made you question it.
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[ But really, the one that's clinching it right now? ]
And the fact that the wounds that should have killed me have been healed, but only partially. [ Shouldn't most concepts of the afterlife either keep them exactly as they were at the moment of death, or let something like that disappear completely? ]
no subject
At the Garden, he had to be careful letting on how much he'd learned about beliefs besides the Great Anakt.
Now, however. ]
Even when they lived on Earth, I don't think humans could ever really agree what was supposed to happen after death. Some believed they'd enter the beautiful domain of God. Others... ahaha, I remember reading one story about a man who was cursed to push a stone forever.
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[ It's almost reflexive. He's used to being the one who has to fill in the blanks for his less scholastically-inclined classmates. ]
It's true that there's no real consensus. But there's a logic to most depictions. People continuing to exist as they were at the moment of death, or reverting to their own ideal self or how they perceive themselves. Or if they're somehow injured, it relates to something deeper -- their own flaws, or a punishment for their deeds.
None of those really fit my injuries. It's more like somebody wanted to make sure I didn't die, but didn't have the time or inclination to fix things any further than that.
no subject
Unmade holes in his body, restarted his heart after it had surely, surely stopped. Only fictitious gods have the power to do that in Ivan's mind, or segyein playing god. ]
. . .
[ Still, Ivan appreciates the clear and careful thought behind Megumi's analysis. He's the type of person who's nice to have around for clarification. ]
Then I suppose the next question is what were their intentions—? Are we serving some purpose to them, picking through trash?
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It only makes sense to keep an open mind until they have more evidence of -- well, anything at all. ]
I would guess that we are, but we'll need more information to know what, or why it's us. [ But the dream before they woke up here...and the weird insistence of everything around them to look at her. Who is she and what does she stand to gain from having their attention? ] I think to understand what they want from us, we need to understand how we've been changed.
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That doesn't leave Ivan much else to discuss. ]
The only thing I remember after dying is dreaming. In that dream, I grew so many limbs I couldn't make any sense of how to move my body any more. It felt real enough that I thought it was going to be my eternity.
[ ...is something like that why Megumi seems confident that they've been changed? ]
How lucky I am that it doesn't seem to have stuck.
no subject
[ And that, to him, says something big has to have been changed, because cursed energy is a fundamental part of human existence, in his world. ]
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I'm afraid I don't have any clue what you mean...
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[ And he's not really trying to teach Supernatural Bullshit 101 here, he's just trying to clarify that something seriously weird is going on. ]
Think of it like something changing about your sense of sight. As if you wake up here, and you still see things, and they're mostly the same, but the colors have all gotten shifted around. Blue things are red, red things are green, purple is suddenly orange.
That's...kind of what it feels like, but it's metaphysical.
no subject
Hm, I understand, I think? That must be disorienting. I hope you'll still be able to get by without it. Haha, not that I speak as though it'll be easy for myself, exactly. I only know a few skills for surviving out here.
no subject
...are you getting by so far? [ Like. He absolutely gets why someone might assume it's every man for himself, and Megumi is adamantly not a kumbaya, let's all be besties type, but he also isn't callous enough to just let people die.
Unless they're unrepentant shitlords, at least.](no subject)
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wrap soon?
sure thing!
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