theafflicted | 03.50 - week three, saturday

03.50 - week three, saturday

W3 SATURDAY

Another Saturday rolls around. Some of you had an… interesting night, perhaps, but that’s still no excuse to sit out on your lessons. There’s another announcement, another time to meet before your lessons start today. This time is just a bit different, though. This time you’re not meeting up at campus. You’re told to meet up at the park in the Museum District - and, as always, you’re expected to show up. How you get there is irrelevant, but you better try to be on time.

Florence is waiting at the park, and behind them is another dark, ominous orb. Even as far away as you are, you can hear its whispers. It’s calling to you with promises it can show you a new life, a better life, it can make you someone better… But then Florence is speaking, as if they cannot feel the hear the whispers.

“I will be accompanying you on this lesson, as I said in the brochure I handed out on Thursday. I will do my best to assist you.” There is a pause, though their face voice remains emotionless. “It is hard to say what it will be like inside - however, your goal for this lesson is to close this place for good. I may be unable to assist with that personally, so we are relying on you.”

They take a step back, turning towards the orb.

“I would advise you to do what is asked of you while you are in there - and a word of warning. Through our observations, we have noticed something strange. This seems capable of creating replications of those who enter it.” They let that information hang for a moment, before continuing. “We are unsure what these replications are truly capable of, but please be careful.”

Then Florence gestures for you to follow, and they’re stepping into the orb.

THE RINGMASTER

The inside is still the same park, but it has been transformed into a carnival. There are booths with games and food set up everywhere, a large ferris wheel, a tent. It will be a familiar carnival, to some of you, but all the lights are off and there are no people there. There’s a tug, a pull, that draws you towards the main tent - to center stage. Stepping inside you will be greeted by someone dressed as a ringmaster, whose voice is lively and energetic despite how hollow they seem on the outside:

“Hello and welcome! It’s time for your performance! And every good performer wants to do what the people want, don’t they? There’s a list on those little tablets of yours, and you need to do whatever’s asked of you!”

The ringmaster laughs brightly, and it echoes throughout the tent. “The more you do, the more we’ll all enjoy it, and the better chance you will get to stay you! But if you refuse… Well, that won’t be any good, right?”

The ringmaster makes a wide, sweeping gesture with their cane.

“We’re very generous here, though, and realize some things are easier to do with others! That’s why one refusal won’t be an instant loss. We’re assigning task cards, you see. Kinda like bingo cards! Each time you do a task for someone or someone does one for you, you get 50 points! The more you do, the higher the score, and once you reach 200 points, you're capped! But every time you refuse to do something people ask you to do, even if you're at 200 points… you lose 100 points ! And if you don’t do anything, well, you get no points and you lose automatically! You also can’t just sit around doing the same thing with the same person over and over again! Gotta spice it up! The same thing over and over again is just boring.”

There’s a click, and noise starts up outside of the tent. It sounds like the carnival’s come alive.

“Your little tablets will track your points. I really do recommend playing along, because if you fail… You’ll lose something. Something that makes you you! A memory, a precious item, something that makes you who you are and can’t be replaced so easily… Who knows what’s at risk, here! Though who am I kidding, it might be more fun to see what you'll lose. Don't ya think? Maybe you should just give up now and we can all laugh about it!

Anyways, all you gotta do is live until the timer runs out. The timer, by the way, is gonna be at the top of your tablet thingamajigs.”

There’s a tip of the ringmaster’s hat. The timer reads 90 minutes.

“That’s all for now! Go find that pesky little robot who’s been snooping around if you want more answers, because I am very busy.”

THE AUDIENCE

Once the ringmaster’s done with their speech, you’re free to travel around the carnival and explore it. It’s an eerie, quiet place, but… you’re not alone, and it won’t take you long to realize that. Those of you who had seen this carnival before - Miach, Shinei, Herlock, and Xingqiu - probably won’t be surprised when the doubles show up. They’re near perfect recreations of you - but near perfect doesn’t mean perfect. Their mannerisms might be odd, or their movements might be jerky and uncanny… but at a glance, it’s impossible to tell who is the real one and who isn’t.

And this is something that makes these doubles very, very angry.

They want you to fail, and they’ll do anything they can to ensure that happens. They’ll sabotage you - or your partner - all in an effort to make you lose points. They'll taunt you if it seems like you're ready to open up, they'll tell you about all the reasons why being honest is a bad idea. For physical prompts, they'll taunt you, call you a monster... They also seem to believe that if you fail, they’ll get to replace you. They will get a chance to get out of here and be the real one. They’re not always convincing, but they are dangerous, and there’s just as many of them as there are of you.

OOC NOTES

OOC: Here are some important things to note for today’s event:

- A simple breakdown of the rules is as follows:

You cap at 200 points, but you must maintain those 200 points until the timer runs out.
Mutual agreement on completing a task nets each person 50 points.
Getting turned down or refusing to do one makes you lose 100 points.
You cannot use the same person to complete all your tasks. You must have only one prompt per character that you cooperate with.

- The cards know, meaning that they'll know if something is not answered earnestly. Prompts that are answered falsely will not go away on your tablets. They will only go away if they are answered truthfully.

- Failure is NOT a bad end! In fact, we have some plans in the instance where not enough people pass the exercise. If 5 or more people fail the exercise, that is considered a group failure. Those who failed individually will face the consequences of losing the important memory/item/etc.

- We are asking people to make their own task cards. Here is a list of prompts:
You may also add one custom prompt tailored to your character, if you wish.

Please toss the prompts into the textbox at the top of this site. Under "Configuration Options", the card size should be 3x3 and the center space should have Normal selected. All characters will get a total of 9 prompts on their cards. It is okay to have prompts that your character would not do; it would just increase their chances of failure.

FULL NAV

(CODE)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ There are any number of things you could threaten Miach with that would not make her cooperate. Torture her, that's fine. Take her belongings. Isolate her. She's done it all before. But this, this gives her pause. This entire place is trying so hard to have her become something other than herself and after last week's run-in with the emptiness... Miach is not going to let them take any more of her. Even if there is something she is desperate to lose, a solution to all her pain-- she's going to activate that on her own terms. Not like this. Never like this.

She can be found wandering around the carnival with an empty look in her eyes, as she stares down at her tablet and contemplates. Her double is by her side, dancing in a manner rather reminiscent of Miach's usual body language - at least for the first hour or so. After, Miach will be beautifully alone.

Feel free to request her for prompts, of course. (If you want Miach to approach your character, hit me up in the Discord! ]

Edited 2022-06-11 16:59 (UTC)

Have someone kill your double - Shin
Kill someone else's double - Flat
Break someone's bone - Riku
Tell someone your deepest secret - Owen
Make someone angry - Tamamori

Edited 2022-06-11 18:41 (UTC)

[................. It's not hard to hear this guy coming, considering how quiet she is -- but also the rest of the circus is probably loud as fuck, so maybe he blends in. Tamamori is basically doing his own bizarre dance, kind of like a mix between crab-walking and idk YMCA because his arms are flailing about.

He's got a knife, but instead of doing anything particular menacing with it he's just repeatedly stabbing a fat onion and waving the ensemble around.]

Comin' through, comin' through!! Don't turn away, though, because this is the Express Tamamori-sama Crying Jag Teruteru-Bouzu!!

[--indeed, if you look closely, it looks like he's also inexplicably tied some kind of handkerchief or whatever onto the onion to make it look like the head of some weird doll. Okay then. Godspeed to your eyeballs.]

[ What the fuck.

Miach at least knows what a teruteru-bouzu is so she can appreciate the cleverness of the set-up, but she would appreciate it significantly more if her eyes weren't stinging and watering instantly. She blinks angrily. ]

-- that's defeating the point of the prompt in the stupidest of ways. Does this much actually count?

[ Is this crying just yet? ]

Don't be ridiculous, now, there is no point to the prompt! All it says is make someone cry, without any conditions on how to do it or what it's for. Of course, I wanted to avoid making girls and children cry, that's not something a fellow should do...

[Well, in all the confusion, beggars mustn't be choosers -- and he's really mostly trying to avoid both the overly confessional and overly messy parts of his own card, so here he is. Banging onions and knives together like he's about to start a stew.

Tamamori sighs exaggeratedly and stabs the onion a few more times. It's not like she's running away.]

... But bear with it! I don't intend to waste an onion for nothing.

[His priorities.]

[ Miach wrinkles her nose at that and actually does take a step back - she's not running, though, if only because she kind of wants to argue. ]

Is this even a real onion? It could be a metaphysical presentation of one - I am not convinced these sphere-spaces have any permanence, at the very least.

... also I am a girl by most metrics.

You're a girl who's wandered into the range of my Teruteru-bouzu Beam, so I'd say you're a girl with pitiful luck, if anything.

[There's really only so much you can mutilate an onion; and now he'll repel vampires (or was that deer??), or the smell might even keep the doppelgangers away, you never know. Tamamori lowers his Onion-bouzu for the moment, warming to whatever the hell argument this is now.]

If it smells like an onion! Tastes like an onion! [he makes a show of both of those; is licking the knife really what he wants to be doing right now though] And makes tears flow like an onion, does it matter if it's a metaphysical onion? It is an onion in the moment of its being, and the very memory of it is onion-shaped.

[ How can one man smell so much of onion!! Is there an award for this kind of thing?

Miach blinks again, and this time a tear actually does fall because god, this onion is certainly a potent one - as if it was protesting its own metaphysical nature. ]

It certainly fulfills all the purpose of an onion for the sake of your teruteru-bouzo of tears - right in this moment. But that is not quite the question, is it?

It's whether or not this onion can be wasted - and I maintain that if it disappears at the end of the exercise, then even if you were unsuccessful in this project now it would not have been a waste in any real sense of the word.

[He might get points for this, so perhaps that counts as....... bingonion points..... there are layers here. ☆

It's an onion with a lot of presence, though Tamamori is currently running most of the show -- it's a little annoying holding both a knife and onion, so he impales the onion so he has less things to carry; now he's holding a sacrificed onion.]

Mm, this onion has fulfilled its purpose for me right now! But the final goal of an onion is to be eaten, and it is still in fine edible form. [well, maybe not so fine but it is presumably still edible] Therefore! If I could find someone to eat this onion, it would have met the perfect end.

[ That poor little teruteru-bouzo... what a brutal form for it to take. ]

What's stopping you from eating it yourself and bringing about the end you seek?

[Ah. It's the edgy, pretentious kid.

Owen runs into her when her double is gone, and he contemplates her for a moment before deciding to peek over her shoulder and see what's on her list.]

How many of these have you done so far?

[Is she actually the sort of person who can kill?]

[ Ah, there he is. Miach had already played with the thought of seeking him out, so this is convenient enough. ]

Two - your guess which ones, though one is likely obvious.

[ Rest in pieces fake Miach, dumped behind some stall... ]

We~ll, I haven't seen a second one of you around, so I wonder...

[The second one, though... It could be anything.]

What do you have left, then?

Oh? Are you offering to take a square off me?

[ How unexpectedly generous. ]

Are you enjoying this task?

I am. It's fun to see what people are willing to do to each other when given a push like this. So many people are getting violent.

[Heh.]

And it's not sure the violence, of course. People talking about the deepest, most hidden sides of themselves... What they hate about themselves, about each other, revealing secrets they want nobody to know... It's delightful.

[ Put like this, Miach has to agree. She'd long wanted to see what kind of violence impulses could be extracted from their more peaceful companions... It's just the inclusion of herself that makes her feel so negatively about it. Hypocritical, maybe? Well, that is her good right as well.

She gives a thin smile. ]

How about a secret then? You don't seem like you have a lot of sympathy to give.

[Well, she's right about that!]

I would never turn down hearing about a secret.

[Hohoho.]

What is it, then? What have you not told anyone else?

[ It should be pretty easy to tell him - it's just words and she doesn't care what he (or anyone) thinks of her in the first place. But still, the words get caught in her throat for a little moment anyway.

She runs a few steps ahead, just to dramatically spin back around. ]

I'm alive. That's a rather big secret in my world.

[ Before he can say anything, she laughs that one off. ]

But that doesn't count here, I'd say.

I'm not sure that it would.

[It seems like a silly secret to keep - but, well. He only knows bits and pieces about what her world is like. Things about how people's lives are public resources.

So it could be a dark secret, sure.]

So what else do you have to tell?

[ There are two people in her world who would be quite shocked by this reveal, at least. Four if you count her parents, but Miach thinks of them so rarely that she doesn't. ]

I'm not Japanese - though that is also not much of a reveal in a place where they put my birthplace on my profile. What is lesser known though is how I came to be the Miach Mihie you see before you right now.

'I' was born soaked in sweat and spit and all manner of unsavory bodily fluids - a gun in my mouth and something more unspeakable in my body.

[There’s no question to what she’s talking about, nothing about what she says that could be taken to mean something else, no matter how hopeful you try to be about the world.

But she’s right that Owen doesn’t look at her with pity. It’s not that even he can deny it’s a terrible thing to do to someone - but at the end of the day that’s all it is. It’s something that happened. A moment in time that nobody can change. Nothing more, nothing less.]

I see.

[Perhaps a lackluster response, but probably the response Miach was expecting from him.]

So you “died” and came back, and this is the you we get to see… and I’m the only one who knows about this rebirth.

[It makes sense, in a way, to tell a secret like this to someone who doesn’t care. Who has no reason to care about the atrocious things people will do to one another.]

[ 'I see' - Miach remembers responding the exact same to someone else's biggest secret once. She is glad to hear it mirrored back at her - sympathy from a stranger is something she just wouldn't be able to take. ]

You're a little unclear on the timeline - this happened when I was eight. Over and over and over... Days, weeks... I could not tell you now how long it was until they broke into that bunker and one hell got exchanged for a different one yet again.

But I would not call it a death so much as a an additional birth, as abstract as that is - it was, after all, an incident that permanently altered my brain structure.

[ Which she means very literally though it could easily be a metaphor. ]

[He hums. He's not going to bother telling Miach about creatures he knows that die and are reborn again and again, but he's not here to comfort her with flowery words. He's here to listen.]

There's not much difference between a death and a birth, if that's how you want to look at it. They're both supposed to happen only once - but then when they do, it's never what people are expecting.

[He shrugs one shoulder.]

But you've ticked off that box, now.

[ Now that she's talking about it, part of her wants to keep going. Vomit it all up, even if that changes nothing.

But Owen wouldn't care and it would only be cathartic for a little moment. There is no point. ]

I have. Good for me.

[What a wholesome bonding experience........]

Good for you. Always happy to help someone keep from abject failure.

[That definitely sounds sarcastic.]

Now, I'm not sure there's anything you can do for me, so...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

03.50 - week three, saturday

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TAKEN PROMPTS (DO NOT COMMENT)

DON'T CRY FOR US MIARGENTINA

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cw: csa decription, PLEASE TAKE CARE.

cw csa/trauma just to be safe…

cw csa - just keeping this in every header to make flatview safe

Re: cw csa - just keeping this in every header to make flatview safe

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