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linkingup2024-09-28 11:14 pm
linkupmods) wrote in linkingup2024-09-28 11:14 pm
WEEKS 9 & 10
WEEKS 9 & 10
AS YOUR BONDS DEEPEN...
- The charity event and the dreamscapes have come to an end... and the Fashion District seems a little better than it once was. Your efforts are being recognized, acknowledged by the environment and by Braphine herself. There's still work to be done - the thinning fog allows you to venture even further into the Office District, where there are stronger foes lurking around the corner and in dark alleyways.
Speaking of Braphine, she is pleased by your progress as a group thus far, and has given characters a little blessing: If there is something you've always wanted to tell someone – whether it be how you feel about someone else here, someone at home, a secret you've been holding in, or something else entirely – but have lacked the courage to do so, you may find the strength to say it now. While the God of Conflict forced ugly truths out of you, Braphine would like ones that come from a place of willingness without fear. This sensation will last until the end of your stay here.
How nice, isn't it? To feel like you're finally starting to get somewhere with your fellow Chosen.
The God of Conflict, however, thinks otherwise.
A LOOK IN THE MIRROR...
- The world around you has seen a few changes. There are the positives, thanks to your efforts in completing commissions and forming connections, both of which aid Braphine.
However…
If you look in any sort of mirror, window, puddle that will give you your reflection, The God of Conflict is there, looking back at you, gazing at you eerily, freezing you and holding you in place.
"Well, well, well. Fancy running into you here, Chosen. Tell me…do you really believe that you're aiding Braphine in her mission? Do you really think any of the bonds that you've made here matter all that much, so much that it'll stop me, in the end? Don't make me laugh. We'll see how much your flimsy little chains hold up in time."
And then, just like that, he's gone…not without another little gift, though. You will be surrounded by 2-3 Nekyia Shadows once he disappears…in the real world. The Shadows, notably, will not attack unless provoked, and the locals will not be able to see them. As always, the only way you can attack them is through using your Personas; as soon as you engage in combat, you will also disappear to the locals like the Shadows.
For those who decide not to fight them, they will simply stare at you as you leave... but they will each briefly flicker into another form: The God of Conflict. But before you can say a word, they’ll disappear.
However, should you choose to engage in battle with them, any harm done to the environment or the locals themselves through the battle will be tangible. If you slam a Jack Frost into a building, it will leave a dent, in other words. The locals will not be able to see the actual fight, but they will notice the weird explosions and damages happening to them and around them. An important thing to note is that, being outside of the Nekyia, you will drain energy faster as you fight them, but you can defeat them with your Personas as usual otherwise.
THE DARKEST BEFORE DAWN.
- So, maybe you didn't spawn a Palace, or even create a weird Nekyia environment like Soujuurou and Joshua have. That, however, does not mean you are free of your Shadow selves.
However, you are trapped with them. If you venture into the Nekyia, every so often when you look over your shoulder, they may be there, watching you, taunting you, following you around, even interacting with people (yourself or others) as if they were corporeal-- blink and you may miss them hovering over your shoulder, and turn the corner and you may just see them in the distance.
What follows your Shadow selves even after you return back to the safety of the dorms are the nightmares... which you find yourself having a little more often than normal. If you happen to stumble into a shared dreamscape, it looks... slightly different from when you last saw it. The nightmares always end the same way, though, even if the dreams are different: your Shadow self is staring back at you, haunting you before you wake up.
For anyone who has already confronted their Shadow selves, however, there is a glimmer of hope. In the Shadow's place is the best version of yourself, reminding you that although this is a nightmare, it does not have to continue forever. You have changed thanks to the people around you. Perhaps this is Braphine's reminder to you that she is still here, and despite her quiet, she's still watching.
Speaking of quiet, though…
…Has anyone checked on Mina lately?
And why does a certain brown cat keep on pacing in the dormitory hallways?
( OOC: A few limitations to keep in mind regarding this prompt:
• Shadows can now appear exclusively in nightmares, in the Nekyia, OR BOTH.
• Since the Dream King has not been vanquished yet, those who want to continue the dreamscape prompt as your nightmares are free to do so (this is optional though). Your Shadows are going to be here regardless!
• In this prompt, Shadows are NOT going to possess any characters. They are haunting you in the Nekyia (and may engage with other player characters, should you desire to go that route)!
• On that note, you can let your Shadows manifest however you'd like – they can yap, they can be completely quiet and stand menacingly, they can appear in quick glimpses and jumpscare you or linger for as long as you're in the Nekyia. They can stick to you or talk to others. Either way, everyone will see each other's Shadows.
• At this time, Shadows cannot be defeated outside of Palaces and mod-run mini-events.
• The same limitations apply to those seeing their best selves over their Shadows. )
WEATHER FORECAST
Balmy weather with a light breeze. Weather looks fair and comfortable for the next two weeks but don't forget to wrap up warmly or risk catching a chill! You wouldn't want to fall sick, would you?
Characters who journey into the Nekyia when it is getting chilly may find that Shadows in combat may be randomly afflicted with Freeze during combat.
Characters who journey into the Nekyia when it is getting chilly may find that Shadows in combat may be randomly afflicted with Freeze during combat.
COMMISSIONS
REAL WORLD COMMISSIONS
NEKYIA COMMISSIONS
OOC
READ ME!!!!
- Welcome to your log for Weeks 9 and 10! Feel free to use this log for any developments that happen during the next two weeks. There will be no log next week.
We're heading into endgame and AC is due 30 September, Monday, at 2359 EST! The boon for this month's AC has been updated as well - please have a look!
For plotting, please feel free to head over to this post on the OOC comm to post your plotting top levels.
For Nekyia commissions, you can assume that the Shadows will respawn until they've been beaten enough times to go back to normal.
Palaces are still going strong - sign ups for Atem (here) and Kirumi's (here) capped palaces are still open, and sign ups for our FFA palace will be going up later today.
no subject
But that would mean acknowledging them.
And that would also mean acknowledging the empty half of the room.
There are more pressing matters to tend to, at the moment, anyway.
Celeste does take the offer to sit on the bed, a polite distance from McGillis - he's not assuming this offer will even pan out until it's happened, so there's no need to sit especially close to him to pressure the man.]
That... is the most likely outcome, in my experience, yes. [But it isn't guaranteed, and he knows if their positions were reversed, he'd want to be informed, so-] The experience is often described as a euphoria, and can also be felt as drunkenness, or like being on some manner of drugs, or some combination of any of these things... whatever would make it easiest to make the bite itself a hazy memory, should I wish to encourage you to forget it ever happened. But most who are at all interested in intimacy feel it as such, because it's an easy connection for the mind to make, I think.
[So. That's a hell of a "Yes, and-" but he doesn't want there to be unpleasant surprises.]
no subject
Still, it's certainly a major disclaimer. ]
Well, I appreciate that you made certain to warn me. I would have lashed out at you if I had not known ahead of time, but I am sure you figured as much.
[ He likes Celeste a good deal, but the sudden loss of control over his own sensations would have made him want to kill him for the transgression. Woops.
The same issue doesn't really apply when pre-warned, at least. ]
no subject
It's a beautiful little horror.]
And you would have been well within your right to do so.
[...But that's treating the gravity of why too lightly, isn't it? He could leave it at that. He probably should leave it at that. He doesn't.]
We've not been sleeping to avoid nightmares. I am not so cruel to inflict one on you in our waking hours.
cw: discussion of rape
A pesky bit of context. Normally I would tell you that it's been been well over a decade since the last time somebody touched me without permission and I'm well over it.
[ That is, assuming he would say anything at all. So far they've splendidly avoided verbal acknowledgement of the trauma he knows they both share. ]
cw: discussion of rape continued
And normally you would know I wouldn't believe you, but we'd pretend I did and would carry on.
[If either of them said anything at all. But since they are saying things now, he won't let acknowledgement go unanswered.]
I'd like to say fifty-some years allows one to be over it, but we know that isn't any more true than a decade.
cw: discussion of rape continued
Reliving it over and over is never going to be a particularly appealing prospect.
[ So truly, fuck this nightmare curse!!
But now that they are speaking about it, he's a little curious to compare atrocious notes. ]
How long were you... in the business, so to speak?
cw: discussion of rape continued
[Fuck this nightmare curse!!!
Comparing notes isn't what they came here to do, but... well, it's certainly one way to stay awake, and with the door open, he has to admit to himself he's been a bit curious as well.
It's not something you ask without extenuating circumstances, but these are absolutely extenuating circumstances.]
Technically speaking... one might say I still am.
[Whether or not any actual intimacy takes place, there's still the consideration that the use of charm and seduction and the promise of intimacy in exchange for the chance at a meal... could count. Technically.
But it's also common, and not a mindset many who act in similar ways take without their unique perspective, so-]
But it was something like twenty years or so without the luxury of choice.
cw: discussion of rape continued
[ 20 years... McGillis sometimes imagines an alternate world in which he hadn't been blonde. In that world, would he have grown up to rule the red light district? Or would he have died one way or another far before reaching maturity? ]
It was only a year for me - until adoption, anyway. My father bought me from that place, so you can imagine how the rest of my childhood went.
[ This makes Celeste the second person to find out about that part of his life - and the first he's telling entirely voluntarily. Dreamscapes helped force his hand with Izou, but this is his choice to tell somebody who will... get it, more than anybody else he knows could. ]
cw: discussion of rape continued
[It is true. He doesn't think on it often, and when he does the reality of this particular situation always ends up diluted - it wasn't the only unsavory thing he'd had to do, so oftentimes he can convince himself it wasn't quite as bad as it was.
It's not true, but that's the magic of distance.]
Mmhm. So you traded iron for gold and mystery patrons for a consistent one.
[It's a rather blunt assessment, but... trading up to a gilded cage and predictable habits under the guise of adoption sure don't sound like "only a year" to him. So. A more pointed question.]
When were you too old?
cw: discussion of rape continued
It fully stopped when I was 15.
[ So Celeste is correct - this leaves quite a few torturous years in between. And even after... McGillis didn't cut contact with his "father" until he was 27. ]
cw: discussion of rape continued
Even if they're well aware it's an illusion.]
Of course it did.
[If understanding could sound like sympathy, though, now would be the time those lines would bleed together. Because that's close enough to when his own "clientele" shifted that he understands the significance. It leaves an unpleasant taste in his mouth.]
And no one would believe you if you told them, because of where you came from.
[No surprises there.]
cw: discussion of rape continued
[ The rumors that reached his ears were only ever about his own nature and character, never touching on the esteemed Iznario Fareed, but... Well, the man takes his favorite blonde little toys with him on political journeys from time to time. His proclivities wouldn't be hard to put together for anybody putting their mind to it.
But that's not enough to make people want to put a stop to it, not when doing so would mean undermining the Seven Stars, the most powerful houses in the world. It's all rotten, decay spreading from the inside out. ]
Which is just as well - in the end, the influence of the Fareed family was of great use to me.
cw: discussion of rape continued
[Not when keeping quiet and looking the other way is easier, more convenient, more beneficial for those ignoring the wrongdoing. It was one thing for Celeste's own plight to go ignored - dirty little street orphans being used and abused was an unfortunate matter of course. For that to extend even up to McGillis's station was... grating at best.
It really is all rotten from the top down.]
The influence of the Fareed family should have been yours without his proclivities.
[...But it wouldn't have been granted without them. It's a mess, truly, but at least where others might have been angry, Celeste is... annoyed, yes, but there's understanding, too, and exasperation. They wouldn't be here as they are without all that had happened, regardless of whether or not it was right.]
cw: discussion of rape continued
I would have lived a life a lot more like yours if it hadn't been for his fetish - and McGillis Fareed would never have existed. McGillis Montag... well, try as I might, I can't quite imagine what he'd have been like in adulthood.
[ If he'd even reached adulthood at all... McGillis sighs and leans back a little, hands bracing him against the bed. ]
Anyway. Long story short, it's been an irritating week for dreams, but that doesn't mean that any intimate context whatsoever is going to set me off. I did have my share of consensual encounters as an older teenager and adult after all.
cw: discussion of rape continued
Hah, and it'd be far too much to hope for a McGillis Fareed without it.
[Because as they've established - it's all rotten from the top down.
And now here they are, come full circle.]
But they've all been entirely on your terms, with you in full control since, no? You have offered me far more power over you than I would ever dare to ask, or have offered anyone myself.
[While he's certainly flirted with the idea of biting McGillis, he does recognize the gravity of the offer, all things considered. Flighty words in public spaces let them keep the idea well within the fantasy of a high gothic romance novel. Here, now, with traumas laid bare, the reality is much more raw and the trust shown with just the offer is almost overwhelming.
It nearly has him leave without touching on it again, if not for the vanishingly slim chance of maybe, just maybe, being able to grant a dreamless rest.]
Perhaps it is selfish to wonder why I deserve that trust.
[Shared trauma and pure, simple understanding doesn't feel like enough, but... maybe that paired with the experiences here is. He's certain it would be for him, were their positions reversed.]
Whatever it is, I won't betray it.
cw: discussion of rape continued
If you betray it, you're dead.
[ There's no threat in the words, it's really just a fact as they both know it. There is no way to offer up trust like this and not retaliate to the fullest should it be broken.
And then, after a short pause: ] You're the only person I've known who gets it.
[ Maybe it's not like that for Celeste - twenty years of sex work will put you in contact with a lot of people who have sobstories like their own. But McGillis has lived among the upper crust, wholly isolated. And even outside of that... the miserable teenage mercenaries he attempted to bond with did not know his specific brand of misery. McGillis has spent his life entirely isolated in this pain.
The only people who share his lot are the other blonde boys from Iznario's boarding school - and those are people McGillis has spent his childhood beating the shit out of, leading to him avoiding them like hell in adulthood.
Celeste is the only one who gets it. Intrinsically understands and accepts, rather than looking at him in horror when even a fragment of the truth is revealed. ]
cw: discussion of rape continued
If I betray it, I am no longer myself, and the man I am now would want you to end me anyway.
[Just like there was no threat in McGillis's words, Celeste's were similarly matter-of-fact. With some, age brings a sharp loss in humanity. Even if he hadn't decided to hold on to aspects of his own, he still would be unsettled by the kind of change in himself that would make him do that sort of harm.]
...Another dubious honor we share, it seems.
[Sure, twenty years of sex work did put him in contact with many others with similar sob stories. That didn't mean he interacted with them. That didn't mean he shared his own. McGillis was isolated among the upper crust, and Celeste isolated himself among the lowest. It wasn't as though finding others to commiserate would help their station, anyway. No, time was better spent crafting masks and clawing upwards so they wouldn't have to recognize themselves in others.
And then they found themselves here.
Celeste is the only one who gets it. McGillis is the only one he's allowed to get it. So they can understand, and accept, and, maybe, just a little bit of the horror can be lessened.]
cw: discussion of rape continued
[ He's betraying himself in new and exciting ways every day, so this one feels... profound and benign at the same time. The hardest to do because of the subject matter, but also the easiest to do because it's Celeste... and Celeste gets it.
So McGillis decides to take this moment to unbutton the collar of his shirt in order to allow for better access to his throat. Don't mind that there is already a bitemark on his collar - that one was made entirely by human teeth and doesn't matter to this specific situation! ]
So we have a trade deal, don't we? You get caffeine and I get to pass out for a few hours. We're both profiting.
how many tags will we not have the cw
[He knows McGillis will have them. One more little benign similarity - their minds are just as unlikely to rest as their bodies.
That collar unbuttons and immediately eyes flick to newly exposed skin with a remarkable similarity to the way one might look at a plate freshly revealed from under a cloche at a fancy dinner. Given the nature of what they are and the position they're in... it's mildly predatory, in an oddly benign way, but even that dissipates as soon as he sees the bite already present, replaced with a knowing, conspiratorial smile as his gaze returns to McGillis's face.
He knows. He knows you know he knows, and that you'll just have to sit with that.
Idly, he considers biting over the mark already present. On the one hand, it would hide this exchange rather effectively, but on the other... it would be an overstep, and would feel like erasing the claim already there. So the thought is filed away to go unmentioned, right next to the surprise that McGillis is offering his neck when he could bite anywhere - certainly somewhere less intimate - with equal effect. He's choosing to believe it's because somewhere there's an affinity for the tropes of drama and gothic romance, even if the only thing gothic or romantic about this sleep-deprived exchange is the vampire bite itself.]
A mutually beneficial arrangement. I will not take enough to do you harm, but should you want me to stop early... I will not fault you for doing whatever you need to.
[One last provision. One last reassurance. One last moment to back out while he shifts on the bed to get closer. A hand goes to his neck, fingers spreading over skin, with his thumb even running over his jaw. Something to lean against while fangs sink too easily, too painlessly into the flesh of the opposite side.]
... stay tuned...
He thought he'd be more excited about it (it really is like in a story!), but after their solemn conversation he mostly feels apprehensive as he bares his throat and tilts his head to give Celeste easier access. He braces for pain and the pain never really comes.
Instead there's a surge of pleasure that makes him gasp out loud - even knowing it'd happen, it's startling to feel it actually happening. McGillis does not often allow his mind to go blank with enjoyment of anything much, so the way Celeste's teeth are tempting him now... Ah, this is awkward. It's good and it's awkward because it's good, and his hands tighten into fists at his side.
But he's going to let Celeste have his fill - because he wants to trust somebody else for just a moment. ]