[MU] - OCTOBER STORYTELLING

[lifeaftr_mods]

This Storytelling is prefaced with another oddity; a snow-white ape with a set of dark antlers flowering out from the crown of their head has hunkered down before a great stone door - the same as the one that some may have seen in the monkeys' compound, or that older inhabitants may have seen in the temple set upon the island's mountain. The symbol rears out from the stone with glaring impenetrability.

The Storyteller eyes it for a brief moment before turning to face the dreamers.

"It seems we are at an impasse," they say, matter-of-fact as ever. "In the end, certain consequences cannot be avoided. This symbol limits my influence and keeps me out from whatever lies within. And therefore, by extension, all of you."

Can you tell where this is going, islanders?

"If there is something hidden in the chambers of this island - my home and yours - then it may be dangerous. It may be helpful. And it must be evaluated." Their tone brooks little to no argument. Mostly, as it happens, the latter. "It is for this reason that I have brought you here somewhat earlier than usual. You may need to arm yourselves for what approaches."

May is the pivotal word there, but with so much of the future steeped in uncertainty, caution is surely the wisest course of action - even the necessary one.

"Tell your stories. Keep faith with one another. Beyond these doors, my reach cannot save you, but that does not mean you are helpless."

On that solemn note, the dream warps, slowly settling into the warm light of a large campfire.



It is time, once more, for you to tell a story. The setting will be familiar for oldcomers, and newcomers will recognize it from the introduction they received in their dreams. This too is a dream, and the ink-black dark is illuminated only by the bonfire surrounded by log seats. And seated around the fire are your fellow islanders, many of whom doubtless know the drill by now.

One by one, you will each have the opportunity to share your stories, as stories possess a certain undeniable power. Newcomers can tell whatever tale they wish, but for those who have been in LifeAftr for at least one Storytelling, only stories of their time in LifeAftr will count down the road. The story need not be long, or conventional, or even verbal; as long as the Storyteller knows it has been told, it will qualify.

If you prefer to keep your mouth shut, that's always an option, though you're more liable to benefit if you do. Perhaps you'd rather not relive any of your history, varied and variegated as it must be. Or maybe you're something of a compulsive un-truther, prone to embellishments and long, fanciful tangents. As long as the core of the story is true to its spirit, you are free to spin your tale however you like.

So choose well.

Comments

OOC || FORM

[lifeaftr_mods]

Reply to this comment, having filled out the corresponding form, if you wish to participate in the Storytelling for non-compulsory AC. Non-compulsory AC allows for IC rewards such as Item Requests, but is not mandatory - though it will ICly benefit your character to try and participate, even if they're not the storytelling type.

Remember that those who have already undergone one Storytelling cycle must tell a story of their time in LifeAftr in order for it to count. Newcomers may tell whatever stories they like!

<b>Player Name:</b> <b>Character Name:</b> <b>Character Journal:</b> <user name="NAME"> <b>Number of Offerings:</b> List character's number of offerings here. A maximum of THREE STORIES can be told each Storytelling. <b>Offering(s):</b> Describe the story related here. A link to a past game or a wiki will suffice if you'd rather not write it all out, but it is helpful to note if your character was an engaging or enthusiastic storyteller, plainly unwilling and undetailed, or anything else of note! <b>Public/Private:</b> Is this story told for all to hear, or to the Storyteller privately? Please let us know!

Re: OOC || FORM

[want_to_belong]

Player Name: Eisah
Character Name: Prompto
Character Journal: want_to_belong
Number of Offerings: Prompto will talk about learning to weave and learning to build.
Offering(s): It's not the most exciting of tales, but the real notable thing is that this time Prompto is not very enthusiastic about it. He mostly just wants to get through it and let the next person speak.
Public/Private: Public

[unpurify]

Player Name: AB
Character Name: The Batter
Character Journal: unpurify
Number of Offerings: 1

Offering(s): The first story is about the Batter's foray into learning about flowers, taught by one Ren. It's a curious topic for him as the Batter's world does not have flowers, save for a few pictures in an old book. However once he gets to a certain part in the story, the Batter's explanation about the flowers' apparently ability to make one's 'heart warm' falls flat.

Yeah, he's still bad at this. Although it may come off like the Batter doesn't understand it himself to begin with.

Public/Private: Private

Re: OOC || FORM

[ratsinadaze]

Player name: Azazel
Character name: Gobbet
Character journal: ratsinadaze
Number of Offerings: 2

Offering: Gobbet is offering two stories today - the first is the tale of four shadowrunners who took on a Yama King. CW for light body horror ahead! Also spoilers for Shadowrun: Hong Kong.

She leads by explaining that the whole city had been plagued by terrible nightmares of gaping maws and rows of teeth and how everyone shared the exact same dream. Gobbet continues on to explain what the Walled City was and how the bad qi in that place was creating the nightmares. She describes fighting through hordes of fleshy spirits made of tooth and gore to reach the monster called Qian-Ya, the Queen With a Thousand Teeth. She describes the queen as strikingly beautiful, dressed in elegant robes with a silk veil covering her face.

"Never trust a pretty face, buddy." She warns. "She turned real ugly real fast - six gross, flailing arms and this huge jagged maw that ran down her throat and chest, full of row upon row of crooked, gnarly teeth. She was all bloody and lanky, surrounded by her abominations and looming over us like a storm cloud. And it was just the four of us that stood between her and the whole of Kowloon. Maybe even the world."

She describes how an Ork named Ace tricked the Queen into going back to her own realm and taking her minions with her. According to her, she escaped the battle covered in bites and bruises, and claims she nearly died in the fray. As she says this she shows off a variety of scars on her midsection and shoulder.

The second story is one the Storyteller is probably getting tired of. She describes the battle field as a sea of snarling, raging monkeys with spears and wooden guns aimed right at her and Shepard. She may be fudging the numbers a bit when she says she dodged no less than five coconuts and when she shows off her spear she claims she wrestled it from a monkey with her own two hands, insisting she didn't find it on the ground on her way out of dodge.

In general, she's a full-body storyteller. She stands up, arms moving, facial expressions changing to meet the mood. She's enthusiastic and eager to share, albeit she takes a little artistic license in some descriptions. It's hard to tell which ones are inflated numbers and adjectives that sound good and which ones are real - they blend together pretty believably for the most part.

Public/Private: Public

Re: OOC || FORM

[caduceusoncall]

Player Name: Azazel
Character Name: Mercy
Character Journal: caduceusoncall
Number of Offerings: 2
Offering(s): Learning about old friends long gone.
The Great Ape Escape
This time she's a little more muted and tells the stories objectively, with little extra descriptors. She does take a detour to tell the Storyteller some backstory on her fallen comrades back home, just talking about what they did and who they were.
Public/Private: Public, she doesn't care who hears.

Warning for Danganronpa major spoilers in general.

[despairing_hope]

Player Name: Nica
Character Name: Komaeda Nagito
Character Journal: despairing_hope
Number of Offerings: 2
Offering(s): Killing School Trip and Ultimate Despair. He tells them as if reciting a fairy tail enthusiastically. He does it with show as if practiced in telling tales. He'll start with Ultimate Despair, and then move on to the killing school trip. However, there are pieces left out.

He will have an IC thread with both of them.

Public/Private: Public

[jinglejangle]

Player Name: Nick
Character Name: Jesse McCree
Character Journal: jinglejangle
Number of Offerings: 3, because GO BIG OR GO HOME I GUESS??
Offering(s): A story of his recruitment into Blackwatch. The story starts with McCree talking about how what a normal, calm day it was before everything erupted into chaos and gunfire.

He'll go on to talk about having a standoff, before eventually being captured and bundled off to place McCree doesn't know. He'll insist he still doesn't know the location to this day, but it was there that he met Gabriel Reyes. The man offered him a difficult choice that McCree deliberated over for almost a solid day before making his decision. Interestingly, this will be the least detailed of his stories, but it's still told enthusiastically.

A recollection of an Overwatch Halloween party, in honor of the spooky season. He'll mention it being one of the first times it felt like he was part of a real family.

He'll detail everyone's costumes - McCree himself went as a notorious vampire hunter - before getting on to the "best part". Part of it is a story in a story, which is surely the most powerful kind of story?, as McCree recites the story told be Reinhardt Wilhelm. (There will be a brief aside to describe Reinhardt, a hulking mountain of a man McCree calls way too kind and way too gullible.) The story is about a man named Junkenstein, who was obsessed with recreating life. Spurned by the lord of Adlersbrunn, Junkenstein would make a deal with the Witch Of The Wilds.

The Witch Of The Wilds was fond of making deals, and had a powerful servant in a soul-collecting headless horseman. She would give Junkenstein the missing piece to bring his greatest creation to life. However, once the beast was given that spark, it left on a rampage towards Adlersbrunn.

The best part, McCree insists, isn't the end of the story. The best part is the way Reinhardt, who had been insisting this story was Definitely True, toppled over the table when Gabriel Reyes entered the party dressed as the Headless Horseman, reducing the table into splinters. A simple story with not a lot of action, but one McCree believes to be an important moment in establishing him as part of the family.

His last story, because boy does McCree like to fucking talk, will be about his meeting with Genji Shimada.

Genji Shimada, he'll say, is a man who was dealt a very poor hand in life. Perhaps one even worse than the one McCree was playing with. Born to a powerful, influential family, Genji was the antithesis of what the Shimada's stood for. He was a loose canon, but still just as dangerous as the rest.

Then, Genji Shimada was murdered. McCree doesn't know who did it, or how, and he figured it was never his place to ask. What he does know is that the man went from being an infamous playboy in the city of Hanamura to a valuable Blackwatch asset. He'll skim over the lifesaving procedures that made it happen, but there's the implication that none of it was pretty and not all of it might have been on the up-and-up. It hasn't been too long since it happened, he'll explain, but Genji didn't enjoy that transition one bit.

The story will end with McCree going thoughtful and somber, and saying he doesn't know how Genji is going to move forward. Rage and vengeance will only take a man so far.

That story is the most subdued in the way it's told, with a lot of additions explaining normal, day to day life among the Blackwatch agents.
Public/Private: The story about Reinhardt's storytelling will be public, the other two will be private.

[postictal]

Player Name: Zero
Character Name: Tim Wright
Character Journal: postictal
Number of Offerings:
Offering(s): 2

Tim's first story is probably familiar to plenty, seeing as he's far from the only person who stormed the compound the way he did. He's frank about the kind of reaction he had to most of the islanders' capture - it wasn't particularly merited, but he had an axe, and ample reason to use it. From the morose tone to his voice, it's clear he's not proud of any of it. Any mention of Brian is suspiciously omitted.

His second story is considerably more reserved in addition to wholly private - for the Storyteller's ears only. It details his interactions with Brian upon the latter's arrival, along with the associated distress and relief seeing his first, only friend again after a final meeting that wasn't tumultuous so much as it was intensely destructive for them both. It's not much of a narratively satisfying story, but it's clear that it's occupied his attention since it happened.

Public/Private: The first is public, but the second is private.

[achievementhunter]

Player Name: Bird
Character Name: =)
Character Journal: achievementhunter
Number of Offerings: They're going maximum overdrive here with three stories, fight them.
Offering(s):

STORY ONE is about a child and a wolf, who journeyed through dangerous lands to quell evil at it's source. They speak about the Lungblossom that attacked them, hallucinations affecting both child and wolf to the point where the wolf even attacked the kid, who then dispatched of the horrid creature before leaving their canine friend alone, to come to their senses.

STORY TWO is about a foolhardy child who attacked someone who laughed at them- only to eat dirt when the laughing demon proved more than their match. It's told in the same style as the first, in a rather fairytale-esque manner, with a clear moral to the story; don't rush into things without thinking Chip and Max.

STORY THREE is again, fairytale-esque. About a wolf in sheep's clothing...which I'll be detailing down below =)

Public/Private: All of these stories are public!

[hyperlit]

Player Name: Zero
Character Name: The Drifter
Character Journal: hyperlit
Number of Offerings: 3
Offering(s):

The Drifter's first story details their joint rescue mission in the wake of the abduction of Lup. Their narration is clear and direct - if they have regrets with how they were more or less forced to bring Ren along, they do not show it. Most reassuring is the ending, in which they note that everyone escaped more or less intact, Lup included.

Their second story is of a reasonably gentler subject matter. It details the making of a new friend. While the circumstances of that meeting were violent, the small similarities between two strangers were enough for them to be grateful that they met at all, and that the child had managed to escape the compound without grievous injury. They stress their new friend's compassion and earnest nature, as well as their regret that he arrived under such calamitous circumstances.

Their third and final story assumes a much more formal and almost reverent tone as their sprite notes their meeting with what could only be a god clad in white fur. Certain parallels are drawn between the appearance of this god with the one they recall - a coat of brilliant white, shot through with color, radiating with life and energy to contrast the slender, sedate, coal-furred jackal of death whom they served and fought for. They make it plain that they owe her their life for her speed and skill in dispatching the apes that menaced them both.

Public/Private: All are public!

cw: mutilation/eye gore and child abuse

[demonpuppy]

Player Name: Casey
Character Name: Chip Abaroa
Character Journal: demonpuppy
Number of Offerings: 2

Offering(s): The first story, Chip frames like a horror tale they overheard before, but in reality is entirely about their last interaction with Foster van Denend. They had been woken up from sleep late in the evening, sometime around midnight when Grant finally closes up his shop for the night. There was a lot of noise going on down in the shop itself and Chip very quickly ran down to see what was going on, afraid that a burgular had broken in. What they actually, found, however, was Foster kneeling over Grant with a silver knife, struggling with him until he manages to break loose of the werewolf's grip and stab him in the eye. Chip does not remember what happened after this themself, only that when they came to they were struggling in the grip of a woman they had only seen in the shop once or twice before, and that Foster was stabbed several times and bleeding all over the floor--and the knife Foster had been weilding was in their hand. Chip's story reframes the motives, painting Foster as a righteous paladin come to stop the crimes of a werewolf that he'd thought was working alone until the demon that had been truly behind everything comes in and brutally murders both men. It's told with about the level of finesse and sublety of lead brick, and Chip spends...a lot of time detailing the gruesome way the demon pulls apart both men by body and soul.

The second story is much more open in it's origins. Chip had just been sent home from school for acting out in class--they don't quite detail why, other than that the kids had been picking on them yet again and 'they couldn't take any more of it'. They had expected that both their mother and step-father would be home, but it turned out that their mother was out at an interview, and didn't arrive home until evening. So they are forced to tell their step-father on his own, and he, as usual, doesn't take it well. It starts with the usual verbal abuse (what Chip describes as 'reminding me why he shouldn't even let me out of the house') before dragging Chip forcefully to a closet and locking them inside for close to an hour. When he takes them back out, it is only to tell them to sit in the middle of a magic circle he has set up, and not one that Chip recognizes at all, outside of the exclusively white magic paraphernalia, all looking new enough that they must have only recently been bought. When they do, their step-father starts the ritual, which Chip guesses must have been a possession-banishing spell. Obviously it causes them a great deal of pain, but when they try to get out of it they are hit and held down by their step-father. They struggle against his hold, biting and kicking and scratching, and finally lash out with a curse of some kind that makes their step-father choke and clutch his chest, ceasing the spell and falling down. Chip is terrified, and runs to their room to hide under their bed. Here Chip falters, before admitting that they were actually hoping he had died.

Public/Private: The first is public, but the second is told only to the Storyteller--for several reasons, but the most genuine of which is a half-terrified attempt to see what the Storyteller thinks of them and their 'crime'.

[aurabble]

Player Name: Karma
Character Name: Jaune Arc
Character Journal: aurabble
Number of Offerings: 1
Offering(s): Jaune will be telling his account of waking up and what happened during the battle at the compound, but his story will be vague and noticeably more bitter, with no attempts to be entertaining like he's tried with his previous ones.
Public/Private: Public

[scourgingstars]

Player Name: Nao
Character Name: Ardyn Izunia
Character Journal: scourgingstars
Number of Offerings: one!
Offering(s): Ardyn's telling the story of...talking to the Storyteller, in his continued quest to be passive-aggressive to everyone up to and including gods.
Public/Private: Public

[thisisourfuture]

Player Name: Sam
Character Name: Hinata Hajime
Character Journal: thisisourfuture
Number of Offerings: 2
Offering(s):

Story one - Stories and Gods

He tells the first story in a slightly shaky tone. By events, his stories are told after Komaeda tells his. The tale is about a story tired and upset by slaughter meeting an ancient god. Both have perceptions of the other that don’t hold up when they start to talk. Together they find some small understanding that might be the foundation to a better future.

The meaning is made fairly clear, by working together and communicating answers can be found.

Story two - The boy with all the luck

The second story is told softly as if saying it loudly or in a normal tone is beyond him. Given what he's learned tonight it's hard to blame him. He talks about a boy he met who has all the luck. In his telling, he works out the details of the murder case of that boy. He pours over the details. Putting them together and trying to sound remote but failing at it.

In the end, pieces are missing but at least he has some solid details and maybe Storyteller understands people a little more too. Or got something out of it.
Public/Private: First is public, second is private.

[greatcleavage]

Player Name: Dragon

Character Name: Roy Greenhilt
Character Journal: greatcleavage
Number of Offerings: 2
Offering(s): Roy's first story is a cautionary tale about discovering the fustercluck -- about the immense power and monstrosity it emerged as, about the despair and panic they felt as it menaced them, about how nothing could touch it, and about how only though luck and some quick thinking did the group manage to escape unharmed. It's a cautionary tale, one that gives plenty of credit to his comrades on the exploration, but also one meant to say DO NOT MESS WITH THE FUSTERCLUCK.

Story number two is the story of the apes -- a story Roy takes absolutely no joy in telling, and one that he makes absolutely clear disgusts him from beginning to end. Roy wants it known that the whole situation is absolute misery -- that they did what they had to, but for terrible reasons. The apes may have forced it, but that still doesn't forgive their slaughter. The people who helped and saved others deserve all credit and all respect, but no one is a hero for slaughtering those apes. No one should be happy about it. And no one should give up trying to find ways to make sure that never happens again. Roy has opinions on all of that, is the point of this story.
Public/Private: Super-public.

Character Name: Maridian
Character Journal: seesbosscrotch
Number of Offerings: One story
Offering(s): Maridian is telling the story of how people helped him fillet and cook tiger sharks. He is ridiculously enthusiastic about this story because he is just as enthusiastic about cooking in general, and he makes the whole thing sound like an epic adventure. And he's been on epic adventures, so he knows what they sound like.
Public/Private: Public

Re: OOC || FORM

[prettypurpleparlor]

Player Name: Echo
Character Name: Muffet
Character Journal: prettypurpleparlor
Number of Offerings: One.
Offering(s): In contrast to the darker tone of most of this round's stories, Muffet tells a silly, gentle little tale about how they named the snaplings. She's not as upbeat as she might have been, but she's calm and gentle in her manner, not bitter. She knows how bad things got, and how much worse they might be getting soon, but her lamenting won't change what happened- so instead she'll just remember something kinder, to give herself a little bit more strength, and keep on going. How else do you make things better, after all?
Public/Private: Privately.

[maku]

Player Name: Claire
Character Name: Karin
Character Journal: maku
Number of Offerings: Karin will be telling the story of how the god of her world, the Shinju-sama, came to be. Creation myths for everyone!
Offering(s): Karin recites the story of the Shinju-sama for everyone, with a kind of religious fervour that is honestly sort of weird, coming from her??? She seems incredibly proud to be reciting it though, particularly once she gets to the part about the Shinju-sama's 'chosen Heroes'. She's also going to have an IC thread for this!
Public/Private: Public

[souris_keteer]

Player Name: Melissa
Character Name: Mickey Mouse
Character Journal: souris_keteer
Number of Offerings: Going for three!
Offering(s):

The first story will be the harrowing adventure of Mickey, 2 girls, and a gigantic weird wind-sucking thing. Mickey struggles with the details of this story, since he still has no idea just what it was trying to kill them, but he does his best, and praises the other two women for their bravery. He wants to warn everyone on the islands about this... thing, and at the same time he feels bad for not being able to fight it.

The next two stories are much more light-hearted, and mostly intended for laughs/put everyone at ease.The second story he makes up a fable about a little thief who tried to steal from everyone in the 'village', and every time he did, a 'little creature' warned him not to. So when the thief tried to steal from the creature's house, he fell into a trap. The creature hadn't been warning him just to stop out of morality, but because he didn't want the boy to fall into the trap. Never steal kiddos. This is based off the newcomer Max trying to steal Mickey's things and getting completely embarrassed.

Lastly, Mickey is willing to make himself the center of jokes by telling everyone the time he ate a mysterious plant and immediately lost consciousness, and how Muffet was the one to wake him up and lecutre him. This one is made with a few exaggerated details for silliness, as he wants the story to make people laugh.

Public/Private: All public.

[stoleyoursweetroll]

Player Name: Snap
Character Name: Severs-the-Threads
Character Journal: stoleyoursweetroll
Number of Offerings: 2
Offering(s):
Sev's first tale is a legend from her own world, and one known to all who call Skyrim their home. Though she lacks a lute of any sort, an a capella performance is still enough to convey the mighty tale. In her low, husky voice, she begins to deliver in solemn, clear-ringing tones:

Oh, there once was a hero named Ragnar the Red...

Though her time at the Bard's College didn't offer much, her natural skills with speech and the few tips she did overhear come in handy. The solemnity quickly gives way to cheek, her delivery livened by animated gestures and emphatic ruffling and puffing of her feathers.

Her second tale is a recounting of her first moments awakening in the monkeys' compound. Much like the first story, she recounts this in the poetic style traditional to bards, skalds, and others who keep oral tradition alive. This retelling is much less tongue-in-cheek and animated than the first, and seems to end rather abruptly: the verse stops with the choice between escaping and doing battle head-on with the apes.

Public/Private: Public

[requiemofsunshine]

Player Name: Lirance
Character Name: Kanaya
Character Journal: requiemofsunshine
Number of Offerings: 2
Offering(s): The first story is one that she's sure the Storyteller has heard several times before: the escape from the cages. It's told without embellishments and a little hesitantly, since it's her first telling.

The second story is the battle with the Black King in her Sgrub session. Despite all of her friends being max leveled, he was a monstrously powerful foe that they barely defeated him in time. They were only able to win by the efforts of an army of robots, a stoner, and a power-gaming faerie god.

Her story telling stops and starts, trying to figure out ways to explain bits she hadn't mentioned before or are just very, very stupid (Aradia's many time clones), but she gets more into it and is starting to enjoy herself.

Public/Private: Public

[justribbing]

Player Name: dawn
Character Name: Sans
Character Journal: justribbing
Number of Offerings: One
Offering(s): A rambling, humorous tale that begins with a surreal dream about growing talking flowers with a stranger who had no face, which got interrupted by a veritable beanstalk of a guy who hauled the dreamer and himself out of range of a rampaging lungblossom, under whose hallucinogenic influence they were both almost made into fertilizer. Once they parted ways, this hapless loser ran into another stranger, who was seconds from blasting him into powder with some kind of cannon. However, with the revelation that they were both just looking for allies in a dangerous situation, it seems even the most tense of encounters can have a happy ending.

The moral falls a little flat, but it's not so much the story as the telling of it that makes a difference -- Sans manages to be funny for the amount of un-funny puns and jokes he peppers the story with, going so far as to add or embellish on details just so he can line up another bad joke.

His aim is purely to entertain and get people's minds on something else, even if it means an audience groaning loudly at his terrible jokes.

Public/Private: Public

[immortalflower]

Player Name: Kalyn
Character Name: Ouse Kurosawa
Character Journal: immortalflower
Number of Offerings: 2
Offering(s): Two stories: The first is a short tale called The Shadowborn. It talks about a girl born of a ghost father and a living mother. Just a short, scary story.

The second one details Ouse's home and how she'd watch people commit suicide and how she became the last Immortal Flower.

I'll be writing both of these out, but Ouse has a soothing, calm voice as she tells her stories, even if they sound horrifying.
Public/Private: Public.

Re: OOC || FORM

[esper_magic]

Player Name: Lucy
Character Name: Terra Bradford
Character Journal: esper_magic
Number of Offerings: Terra's gonna talk about two of the people she met here who left an impression on her
Offering(s): Two stories! One about the time she 'slept' with Noctis during the thunderstorm a few weeks back, and one of being utterly confused by her conversation with Karamatsu at the last storytelling event. She's not as reserved or hesitant as she was in the last time she attended a storytelling event though, but she's pleasant about it now.
Public/Private: Public! Although she will approach the Storyteller privately and mention that she and Mercy were planning on having a 'potluck' thing on the beach somewhere (they haven't hammered out details for ..obvious reasons) and he was welcome to join if he wanted. (Which may be a little AWKWARD later, but Terra has no issues with him, so... oops?)

IC || STORYTELLING

[lifeaftr_mods]

If you wish to thread out the relaying of your story so that other characters may react to it, you may do so here!

A lot of major Danganronpa spoilers in general. 1-3. C/W: Suicide mention.

[despairing_hope]

[Ultimate Despair]

Ah, a story? I'm not sure I have many good ones to share. The ones I've read are better than any I could tell, but I doubt that sort of thing would work, would it?

[He pauses a moment to think and then smiles, it's a bit sad, but also a little happy that he could think of something to share.]

Once, there was the end of the world. It wasn't exciting like you might think though, at least, it wasn't something like god coming down and smiting the earth, or even something like the oil in the world drying out and tribal societies forming in the australian outback. It wasn't even like the natural elements rising up in backlash. It was rather simple, it was all caused by a girl. A girl... that was the worst human being to ever live. To ever have lived, and ever to have died.

[His voice cracks a bit at the hint of a laugh, he gripped his left arm where a woman's hand with red nail polish seemed to be attatched at the end with bandages around his wrist.]

Super High School Level Despair they called her, and as the name suggests she was truly disgusting.

[He dug his nails into his arm but smiled as he did so.]

This despot of a human being managed to end it all, bring humanity to it's knees. How did a single person do that? Well, she was smart, clever, and manipulative. She also had powerful allies. Everything worked in her favor.

[He paused a moment, but only a moment before interjecting an imagined question.]

Ah, but she didn't have luck, so don't think that at all. She wasn't lucky. She was simply calculating. When you think about it, she was very boring! Predictable and pathetic. But then, only such a pathetic creature could cause such despair. If someone truly amazing destroyed everything, it would be more awe inspiring, wouldn't it?

[He laughed again.]

The most despairing thing however was what she did to her school. An institute of Hope! She muddled it, like a blackness, a sickness enveloping all that was good and turning it to Despair. None escaped untouched, and some were perverted, twisted into compatible puppets of her liking. In this... she sealed the words fate, she sealed the fall like the tower of babel, the world fell to pieces. Could it be put together again? Could the Kings horses and the Kings men mend it at all?

[She shrugged, he didn't know yet.]

Who can say? But, even in such deep despair, hope still can be born, in fact even in such darkest of times can the true brightness of a worthy Hope be born. Will it shine? We'll have to see.


[Killing Game]

I spoke of the end of the world, right? But, I should also tell the tale of the best school trip I ever had. I never got to go on most of my school trips. They usually ended in something unfortunate. If I did get to go it would rain, or an accident would happen and the train would never get to it's destination. Once there was weather problems and it was cancelled. Another time I had to go to the hospital right before. And one time a classmate had a fatal accident. It got to the point where I wondered if I should even bother. But, one school trip was worth remembering, I made friends and had a lot of fun.

Now, it might seem a bit strange that it was a Killing School Trip, but I feel like that isn't that important. After all, it brought us all closer to each other! And without it, I would never have met some of the people I did. Hinata kun for one, I'm glad I met him there. We even got to solve the murders as a pair, I wouldn't trade it for anything.

[He clapped his hands together with a legitimate happy smile.]

Even though a few things were a little... what's the word...? Perhaps a few things went a little badly. But, in the end it was definitely worth it. In the end... it definitely accomplished what it needed. I would definitely do it all again if I had the choice!

I would definitely kill myself again too, if it would amount to something important.

come hear laurent lie through his teeth

[crosslaced]

((ooc disclaimer: i cannot promise tagbacks :c ))

And now for a tale of hope.

That attack was hardly enjoyable, but enough has been said about that- so this tale is of something good that came out of it. The night after the attack, my neighbours reunited with a close friend.

[His tone becomes something candid, confessional. The blonde doesn't stand up for his story, continuing to sit with one knee drawn up to his chest, staring into the fire.]

As far as I know, she’d been left behind in a world full of strife- you can probably relate. Many of us want to go home for our own reasons. Many of us have people waiting. Now picture this: after a long, hard fight- after being ground down till your body feels like the twilight, filled with darkness- [here, he tapers off into a short silence-]… you see someone you've been waiting for, and it's like remembering that in the dark there’s still the moon.

It sounds like a far-fetched dream, but it came true for someone that night. Of course, their celebrating kept me up half the night, but who can help feeling happy when they see a glimmer of the moon rising?

[He smiles a bit, despite himself, looking quietly wistful- but to an experienced liar, his eyes are stone cold. They have not shown a flicker of life throughout the whole story; a blue like an iceberg, impenetrable to the light of the stars.

Otherwise, he’s impeccable.]

We've got shit lighting and everything is awful, but at least the stargazing is good. Sometimes.

[want_to_belong]

Yeah, I can think of worse things than living on the island, even with monkey attacks.

[Prompto himself had been notably sullen throughout the storytelling, despite this tale of a great reunion. Probably because he found out about other grim news from home.

Which made staying on the island all that more appealing.]

I mean, once we get stuff built it's not really gonna be that bad.