theafflicted | 3.0 - week three

3.0 - week three

WEEK THREE

Last night might have been exhausting for any number of reasons - maybe it was the emotional

toll of dealing with those ghosts, or maybe you stayed up too late after watching Jim Shrok. Who knows, but Saturday is over, even if some of you haven’t quite left it behind and half spirits that are still hanging on, tethered to you and weighing you down…

But that’s not going to stop a new week from starting. There’s no breaks in an eight week course.

There’s very little fanfare to the start of your third week of the course, though it does seem like the fog has lifted even more. It’s a bit more of a trek down the abandoned streets of Estelline, but surely a mile is walkable? Or you could grab a bike or try to hotwire one of those cars in the mall parking lot… Whatever you plan to do this week is up to you. All you know is you've got some new locations to explore.

As always, Florence and Lorelei are available.

SUNDAY MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY

TASK LIST

( OOC Note: Luci, Mutsu, and Mae will each receive a small roomba! Congrats on the successful egg drop. It's a tiny little friend that cleans extra well, though this also means its trash compartment is a little smaller so it'll need to be cleaned more often. )

FULL NAV

(CODE)

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[Idia feels like he's been doing... OK! The events of Saturday were going to make things change a little. Still, he was doing his best in little ways. He braved the cafeteria this morning to bring Cater some breakfast. They had a quiet afternoon (barely speaking is peaceful, isn't it?). Things weren't perfect but, well, they weren't about to snap at each other over nothing.]

WB~ [upgrade one, more spoken net lingo]

[... and silence. Which, well, Idia assumes he's doing great with silence. He's not saying anything about how Cater must have found someone and had a great time chatting in the laundry room. He's not making any painful comments. Like, if he asked if it were time to take more of the pain medication, that would be totally overbearing, right?]

[So, yeah! Silence Success!]

[Sure, they weren't going to snap at each other over nothing, but the silence was... oppressive, in it's own way. Every once in a while, Cater found himself thinking that it was because he wasn't worth talking to, or that Idia clearly must disdain (or, worse, pity) him for the unsightly way he saw him on Saturday, and that getting him breakfast was some insistence that he put on a cheery face.

But that thought was stupid. Right?

Which meant he wasn't worth spending time with, because who would, and--

And it had been easier to just walk out and do laundry alone rather than let the whispering of the clinging ghoul rile him up into lashing out.

But now there's not really anything to distract him with, so he unceremoniously flops (backward, don't want to reopen injuries...) onto his bed.]

So, like, have you figured out how to hack the tablet, yet?

[Silence... fail! Small talk: go.]

[Ghouls aside, Cater was the one in a more vulnerable position. What had Idia done, aside from maybe admit that he was a terrible judge of character and still wanted to know someone who-]

[Well, it's not even like he knows what Cater thinks of him! He'd like it to be good? He has assumed it was bad but maybe they're at neutral? It's a mess to think about which is part of why he's been avoiding thinking about it.]

Ah, well... it's not like there's necessarily a lot out there...

[the whole state of the internet was sketchy but at least there were still content farm videos to teach him about picture frame hacks]

... Um, I'm... [embarrassing to admit but c'mon, idia, open, compromise!]

... messing around with making my own application...

[Well, it's not like he... dislikes Idia? Back home, there would be an easy answer for his thoughts about him - he was a rare, cool sighting, who would get tons of clicks because he was a rare, cool sighting, and also looked interesting.

Here, though?

Here, the reality is... muddier. He doesn't want to think about it and come to some painful conclusion, so he just... hasn't been.]

But if anyone could find something, it'd be you, right?

[Content farms were ubiquitous, even here.]

Eh? An app? There's enough on there to do that? What kind?

[Genuine... interest??]

[Idia was safer because, in essence, what you saw was what you got. He might complain about how others might treat him but he never really tried to hide the fact he was a nerd who would rather be somewhere else. Compare that to having everything to hide...]

If I thought a solution to our problems were out there, I'd have cracked it.

[Instead it just never quite felt worth it. The things he'd have to do would involve Florence and the Instructor and digging into those files was a lot riskier.]

... eh, well, I- I'm having to make a lot of it from the ground up... but... kinda like a...

[the little wobbly lips of "do I say this??"]

... like a little idle... RPG...

[That's the problem with thinking about Idia - he has to come to terms with maybe possibly being jealous of the fact he can simply exist as he is - gremlin self and all.]

But instead it's like... if you look too hard, it'll just get us in some kind of trouble, you think?

[Because. Honestly. He'd give up on it, too, in that case.

...He just wouldn't pivot into making an app from the ground up, either, though.]

Seriously? [(Affectionate)] Can I see? Ah- is it even see-able, yet?

... it's not like we know yet... in the very beginning, we all assumed that if we were going to get hurt for not participating it would be through the school, but now there's this external force, and...

[... it's a mess. Either way, he's shocked out of his pessimistic mumbling by Cater's eagerness.]

Eh, haah, the... the game parts are just using placeholder assets so i- it's not really good to look at... um...

[... this is where a normal human would offer to show Cater what is done. But, but- it's embarrassing! What if he thinks pixel art is lame?!]

[It's such a mess, and it's not like they know where the next threat will be coming from - other than "in the next class", but that's just an educated guess.]

But you, like, had to make the placeholders yourself, too, right? Isn't that super cool? Cay's way too dumb to do anything like that, yanno?

[But art in general is cool? And pixel art is totally retro-chic right now?]

The placeholders aren't really impressive! [he holds his tablet up defensively and, maybe a week ago, that would have been it, but-]

["Cay's way too dumb to do anything like that, yanno?"]

[Something about that comment is different to him than it would have been before. He's not as likely to just accept "too dumb." Not without proof.]

... o-okay, fine, come over, I'll sh-show you the placeholders don't do it justice...

[... because the placeholders are literally just big squares of color that take up the appropriate space. As he starts it up and clicks through things it's like a cubist wet dream. It does have all the pieces of an application- but with none of the finish work that makes it actually glow.]

Eh? Really?

[He wasn't expecting Idia to actually let him see, like this. So, yeah, he takes a second to collect himself from the surprise before shuffling over and actually sitting next to him on the bed, peering down at the tablet.

And the mess of squares of color.

It's incomprehensible at a first glance, but the longer he looks at it, the more he thinks he kind of maybe understands a little.]

Hey, hey, tell me what's going on.

[See! See!!! He's expecting that to be the end of it and yet Cater comes over next to him and is looking,]

[and asks for an explanation? He was expecting it to just be a one and done...]

... Um, well, see, I press this to enter combat. [teal square]

Then i- it's a three-person party, with the enemies over here...

[So, blue, a checkerboard, and yellow versus five black cubes.]

Mhm mhm...

[The more Idia explains, the more it starts to make sense, and the more recognizable the little squares become.]

And they... fight. What happens when they win?

[Oh, wait, also-]

Who are the characters gonna be? Do I know them?

Um, well, there's two currency drops, experience and gold, then a randomized chance for items or equipment...

[He's at least considering that he shouldn't go too in-depth about the numbers. Cater was interested but he was still a normie. Some normies didn't even understand EXP!]

[... but Cater knows him enough to suggest that he's making the units based on characters.]

Th- That- um- the characters- the characters are- ... u-undecided!

[he blatantly lies with the checkerboard box there]

Mhm, Mhm, makes sense.

[He sure has heard those words before.

Anyway - he asks about characters, and Idia immediately gets flustered, which, you know, makes it pretty obvious he's lying about them being undecided. Especially with that checkerboard box.]

Eeh? Are you sure~? That one totes looks like a stand-in for Hien... You see it, too, right~?

[Uhhh, uhhhh, deflect!]

... w- well, you know, isn't it rude to assume that? M'lord Static is more than just his eyes!

[He did not say "you are wrong" tho.]

[Aha! Bingo!]

Well, yeah, but like. If you're gonna use something distinctive as a placeholder, it'd be that, right~? So, so, who are the other two?

[uweeeeeeeh... he be bulli...]

Th- That, um, uh... [sweats in awkward nerd]

... this is... Sir Sabo... [he points to the yellow]

[maybe if he identifies those ones Cater will have mercy and not make him explain that the blue square that matches his hair is obviously him??]

[Gentle friendly bulli!!!]

Mhm, mhm~

[So, Hien and Sabo, and it's pretty obvious at that point that the blue one is meant to be Idia - it matches him, after all! But... there's one more person it matches, too, so. The friendly bulli continues.]

Oh, so that last one must be Shizu-chan~ There's always a cute girl healer in these kind of games, right~?

B- But you don't put the healer out front! If M'lady Shizuku were to be harmed in combat...!

[he denies it before even thinking because, well, that's not good game design!!]

... sh- she would be cute though...

Ooh, so this one is where the position, like, actually matters?

[Huh! Neat! But that means-]

Aren't you totally a support class, too, though?

[For a normie to call him out like that...!]

... W- Well, you- you didn't ask me t- to show you an effective set-up! Sometimes the tutorial does things you shouldn't actually do!

[weh weh, he bulli'd]

[Normie is gonna continue to call him out!!]

Oh, or are you not a support~? A samurai character totally isn't support, is he? He'd be like woosh~! slash~!, and kill the enemies super fast, right?

... a r-real master should know h-how to play multiple roles...

Woaah is the Idia-character multiclass~?

I'm not that embarrassing as to make the unit based off of myself horribly OP!! I'm not that far gone! Not that far gone!

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magicam - 2022-07-03 05:07 (UTC) - Expand

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