apocalypsehowcomm | September Catchall

Who: Shiroe and you!
When: Between September 12th and the start of the September Event
Where: ADI Library, Bonnie's (kitchen and bathroom),
Summary: Catchall
Warnings: Discussion of burn scars in third (bathroom) prompt, may also tie into self-esteem/depression discussion

ADI Library
Shiroe's been doing research into the folklore and legends of Gloucester, ranging from haunted places kids dare each other to go to the historical rumors of witchcraft. It's been long hours of work, squinting at books and articles. However, he's been neglecting himself a little in the process, leading to him falling asleep at his seat in the library. Someone might want to wake him up before he drools on that historical newspaper clipping, perhaps...

Bonnie's (Kitchen)
A small collection of energy drinks has been accumulating in the fridge in the kitchen at Bonnie's. For someone who's new to America (and perhaps a few years behind the present day), all the varieties and flavors are exciting. Regardless of your reason for entering the kitchen today, you find a certain Enchanter, trying to find room in the fridge for a couple more, including a Reign White Gummy Bear and a Bang Cotton Candy.

"I doubt it actually tastes like cotton candy. Which is good, I think the circus might have soured me on it." He hasn't looked up to see who's in the kitchen with him, just heard footsteps and decided to engage.

Bonnie's (Shared Bathroom)
The burns from Pyre's slap have mostly healed, but it seems there will be some scarring, three small puckers from where Pyre's fingertips first made contact before hot wax hit the rest of his face. Shiroe's leaning into a mirror, examining those scars quietly, trying to figure out how he feels about them.

He's never taken particular pride in his appearance, so it shouldn't be a big deal, right? Riiight?

If that's the case, then why can't he stop looking at the scars, even when someone else walks into the bathroom?

Wildcard

darkersolstice or darkersolstice#9463 to discuss any closed prompts you want or any questions you have!

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Ouch, dude, it's bad when even Jeff can pick up on things. Maybe it's because he's so used to trying (and failing) to pretend things are fine, too.

"It's okay if it is a big deal, you know," he shrugs, in an attempt to help. Insecurity is normal! "I mean, I don't always like what I see, either."

Shiroe gives Jeff's reflection in the mirror a mild little glare. Which is, in his mind, kinder than giving that glare to Jeff himself. "It shouldn't be important to me. It's not like there's any reason why my looks should matter."

Of course here, he's literally stuck wearing the same thing every day. Grey turtleneck, grey-green pants, boots. There's no pizzazz. No attempt to appear more put-together. It's the MMORPG problem of wearing clothing with good stats and not trying to match, except now he's in the real world.

He meets that glare by directing his own reaction to the mirror: a tilt of his head, raised brows, and... then he starts fussing with his own hair, trying to make something respectable of it. "Why? What makes you different from everyone else?"

"Because, literally everything else about me is what should be important. My intelligence, my ability to observe, my strategy. That all matters."

He pauses, turning on the water in the sink, washing his hands.

"Before I was pulled into Elder Tale, I was something of a shut in. Nobody saw me, and I didn't see anybody. And in that time, I really...let myself go. Let my hair grow long, wore big slouchy clothing because it was comfortable. It didn't matter if I was a slob."

What he was, if he were more honest with himself, was depressed.

Seemingly satisfied with the state of his hair and dissatisfied by the continued lack of anything trippy in the mirror, Jeff takes a step to the side, does a 180 on his heel and leans up against the wall beside the sink. There, now they can talk face-to-face, and he doesn't have to keep getting distracted by the mirror.

"Yeah, but that's not the only stuff that matters. You're not a brain in a jar, dude."

He frowns a little, and though he isn't wise enough to know how to really talk about these kinds of things with any finesse, he can at least pick up on the fact that it sounds like a deeply unhealthy way to live--

--according to the guy who doesn't eat enough, doesn't sleep enough, and tries to mainline any drugs he can get his hands on.

"That sounds fucking miserable." He tilts his head curiously. "There wasn't anything you wanted out in the world?"

"Well, yeah. I wanted out of the world. I started playing MMORPGs as a form of escapism. I wanted magic, I wanted to feel...empowered. I chose a class that really necessitated playing with other people, because I didn't know how to make friends in the real world. Even so, in the game, it took me a while to find a group that I wanted to play with, that I could respect."

But that's all in the game. He still doesn't really have real-world friends, or didn't before he was sucked into Elder Tale. Maybe he got coffee with a member of his raid party, or met a few of them at the bar. But did that count?

Shiroe, arguably, has never had a 'real life'.

In a lot of ways, Shiroe might as well be an alien to Jeff. Even with his own vices and escapism, he can't imagine a life like that, boxed in and consumed by fantasy worlds. It's always been the opposite for him: he'd drown himself in others' bodies, if he could. The less time spent alone, with his thoughts and insecurities and fears, the better.

Extrovert, meet introvert.

But, he gets it, kind of. Sort of. Wanting magic. There's a lot of blanks back home that wish they possessed what the Gifted have. Fuck, even other Gifted people wish their magic was bolder, brighter, more explosive. So many give up or coast by on little tricks, because they'll never be able to achieve the kind of magic seen in movies and comic books and, he supposes, sure, video games.

Maybe it's less about magic. Maybe it's more about wishing the world were more exciting, or that it made sense the way a story makes sense.

"And now you're here, which is, like... not the game, but not the real world, either, right? That sucks, I guess." Deep, Jeff. Super profound. "Do you miss it?"

"What makes you say this isn't 'the real world'? It's an Earth, even if it's apparently not the same one I'm from."

He's curious about how Jeff's approaching everything. For him, treating the circumstances he finds himself in as his current reality has been useful, even when that meant accepting 'when you die, you respawn in the cathedral' as real, a real law of the universe like gravity.

"I meant it's not your world, dude. Or mine." He shrugs again, looking down at his nails as he idly picks at them, just to have something to occupy his hands. "We don't even exist in it, if you think about it." Not on paper, not through connections with the people of this world. "We're like... ghosts." He laughs a little, stained with an uncharacteristic note of bitterness. "Or hallucinations."

Then he looks at Shiroe again, seeming to catch his own unhappy slip a beat too late, and smiles, slipping back into a sunny mask.

"Anyway, man, I hope you, uh, you know. Find reasons to keep coming out here."

Edited 2021-09-21 23:32 (UTC)

The sunny mask is almost as unnerving as the words that came before.

"We're real, as real as anything in this world. Foreign, yes. But this is our reality, and we can affect it. We inevitably will."

"You don't have to convince me," he says mildly, perfectly agreeable, in spite of his earlier words. There's a finality to it, as if the matter's tabled for now.

"Anyway, I'm fucking gross, so I gotta--" He jerks a thumb in the direction of the showers. "And relax. You really don't look bad."

September Catchall - Counteraction Rising

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