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pluviosa2025-01-31 10:10 pm
pluviosamods) wrote in pluviosa2025-01-31 10:10 pm
Entry tags:
EVENT - Ripple and Warp IC log (part 1!)
ripple and warp
Hello and welcome to the IC log for Pluviosa's Fourth Wall event, Ripple and Warp!
In addition to providing information about how characters arrive on the new deck (whether they're existing passengers or not), this post also serves as a place where Fourth Wall characters can post top-levels without joining the game community.
Further information on Fourth Walls in general and the other accompanying OOC updates to the game can be found on the OOC information post here. This post also serves in lieu of a regular between-events Test Drive.
Finally, you may now start sending in your applications to keep your AU, CRAU, and so on characters around after the Fourth Wall! Be sure to note the minor changes to the Applications page (namely, the addition of an "AU information" section).
Without further ado - How did you get here? And more importantly, where is 'here' anyway?
Whether or not characters remember falling asleep on the evening of Day 37, they wake up somewhere different on Day 38, lying on a couch in an almost-familiar room. The couch is similar to the ones in the lounge, though those with keen noses will note that the cushions don't smell the same - there's no scent of your fellow passengers, or of the faint hint of an unknown, arid place that first accompanied the clean furnishings the Ship dragged out.
The room isn't one you've been in before, either, but it's still clearly on the Ship somewhere - there's the familiar motion of the legs moving, and the overhead emergency lights (the only source of light initially in the room) are the same as the ones in the hallways on Fern that the Ship has been working so hard to restore. However, that doesn't mean that it's hard to see - indeed, considering the contents of the room, the low lighting might be a blessing in disguise.
It's full of mirrors.
Not only the sorts of mirrors that character would expect to find, the ones that have been missing from the Ship's bathrooms and other expected places, though there are certainly plenty of those in the room - but the walls, the door, and the ceiling are also all mirrors. Mirrors hang on a portion of the larger furniture in what appears to be the living room of a suite. It's not as dramatic as it could be, but aside from the couch characters wake up on, it's pretty close. The floor, at least, is not reflective mirrors, though it's not much less shiny - instead of the usual hotel-esque carpet of the suites, there's seamless stone tile in stormcloud grey, slight variations in the color indicating marble. And all of those reflective surfaces are perfectly clean - although it's possible to find dried spots of decay on the backs of the mirrors, overall, it seems as though time doesn't have claim on this part of the Ship, much less the Growth.
And of course, where there are mirrors, there are reflections.
Some of them - probably the majority - are normal, perfect mirrors of the person the character expects to see. Some of them are distorted, but in a normal, mundane way - funhouse mirrors among the panels on the walls, making you wide or skinny or warped.
And then some of them show reflections of you that are distorted, not as in bent, but as in there being something different about the you that's in them. Different clothes; different hair; different age; different species. Added scars, or missing ones; limbs missing, or replaced with something else. A completely unknown you in the mirror.
For the most part, these altered reflections act the way you would expect, imitating the movements of the rest of the reflections in the room. But sometimes they don't. Sometimes they climb out of the mirror - and whether they're friendly or not remains to be seen.
There's a note on the mirror-topped table next to the couch. In backwards writing that needs to be held up to a mirror to be read easily, it says:
For those who are new around here, the method of arrival is... a bit different. This applies equally to characters who are just here for the fourth wall (alternates of existing characters etc) or those who will be apped as permanent residents - there isn't a distinction to these categories until the end of the event.
These characters arrive with a first sensation of being pressed against a hard, glass surface - not unlike the whispers of sensation that haunted the existing passengers over the last few days. The difference is that this time, the glass you're pressed against isn't a horizontal floor or bed - it's vertical or at least mostly vertical, and you can tell which way is down.
Or, put another way: Newly arrived characters start their boatride on the wrong side of the mirrors that are packed away into the unknown deck. They are facing towards the real world side, the way they would if they were reflections made physical, but turning around and looking behind them is nearly impossible.
Indeed, there's a growing pressure forcing them against the glass barrier. It grows harder and harder to breathe, almost like drowning, or being crushed by water pressure -
Until, just when you think you can't survive any more, something gives way, and you stumble out of the mirror into the real world. It's not the glass breaking - it's more like forcing your way through a soap bubble or the membrane that sits inside an eggshell that separates the hard pieces from the white. Water, too, cascades down out of the mirror with you, splattering all over the floor, but it's just water, and it doesn't seem to have left more than a bit of surface dampness on you.
However, when characters turn around, they will find that while the glass is still in place and unbroken, the mirror will no longer reflect anything - not even the shine of light cast on the glass - rendering these mirrors completely black. This reflectivity stays on the puddle of water around your feet instead, which aggressively reflects the area around it even if taken elsewhere - even if poured into a cup. In motion, it's too transparent to be taken for mercury or silver, but when pooled undisturbed, it does not ripple in response to the motion of the ship. Only the actions of characters or other forces can cause ripples. Otherwise, it appears to be normal water.
Characters who are alternates of each other might come out of the mirrors while they're literally being reflected (a certain surprise for those who are on the normal side of the mirror doing the looking), but they might also just appear in rooms all by themselves, or in the presence of someone else they know (or think they know). Those who don't have any immediate connections among the current passengers are more likely to appear in some empty room, but ultimately this is left to player discretion.
Not all reflections are as potentially friendly as those played by those of us on the player side of the screen, however. In addition to the "deeper" reflections played by real humans, who have or at least appear to have personalities and histories of their own, there are also "shallow" reflections. Unlike the Fourth Wall arrivals, shallow reflections can't be of characters who aren't present at the time - they only appear in response to characters looking into mirrors (whether those characters are existing residents or new arrivals).
The shallow reflections come out of the mirrors just like the Fourth Wall arrivals, but there's always something a little off about them. Some of them stay reversed like a reflection; some of them don't make any noise when they move and cannot speak; some of them come out of the mirrors with the funhouse-esque warped reflections and stay that way. Like their more 'real' counterparts, the mirrors the shallow reflections come out of turn completely flat, unreflective black; unlike their counterparts, they don't really hesitate in striding out, much less stumble and potentially collapse.
What do they want? To shove whoever they're a reflection of into the black mirror they came from. What happens if they succeed?
You die. I mean, probably. There's no way of knowing unless one of them does succeed, after all. If you want your character to die in this fashion, please let the mod team know. While we cannot guarantee that interesting things will happen to all characters (and those who are only here to visit for the Fourth Wall are not eligible), this may have permanent consequences for your character, take them out of play for longer ICly than a typical death, or impact other characters in the game beyond the typical levels of emotional harm. Or some combination of all three.
Fortunately, the shallow reflections only have physical strength on their side - they do not possess any powers of those they take the shapes of, and they can be killed in largely the same way as unremarkable flesh and blood humans. A killing blow causes them to collapse into the same hyper-reflective water as described above; the mirror they came out of remains black.
The deck itself is open fully to character navigation. Like the lab specimen storage of Zinnia, this deck - whose name is not posted anywhere for characters to find easily - is clear of any signs of Growth, and manages to feel chilly even if you get up to the top deck where the sun is shining.
Or... Should be shining. Regardless of the weather on other deck dimensions, the skies above this deck are
always, at best, a cloudy, half-stormy grey. The air above hangs tense, like the clouds are waiting for something to happen. Unlike the other instances of Ship weather, you don't need Neuvillette's particular affinity with water to sense it - any character with empathic or telepathic powers will be able to feel the sense of looming, helpless frustration in the clouds.
The most notable feature of this deck, of course, is that it's full of mirrors. Indeed, it's not only the mirrors that are missing from the suite bathrooms, the public restrooms by the cafeteria, and so on - there are far more mirrors than the Ship would reasonably need to outfit the decks it has, even including the multidimensional nature of it. Mirrors hang from the walls, and then more mirrors lean against those, or against the other furnishings, or even against each other (since some of them are standing mirrors), and the groups against the walls are often five or six panels deep with the largest at the back the side of the glass panels of the Ship's sliding glass balcony doors. (Yes, those are also replaced by mirrors, reflective in both directions.) Tabletops are reflective in their own rights, and then littered with even more, antique-looking hand mirrors and makeup compacts and those little circular mirrors sold in bags by the dozen at the craft store, only an inch across.
Considering all the reflective surfaces, it might be a good thing that there is only emergency power supplied to this deck - enough to keep the guide lights on and ensure that the sliding doors (though not the elevators) are working, and that whatever system pumps water through the faucets and showers is still going. The water is all cold, however, and there isn't any food available on the deck so far as characters are able to find. In the place where characters are used to finding the cafeteria, there is instead a terrifying mirrored bar filled with empty bottles and glasses as well as - well. Take a guess.
With the exception of the sliding glass doors in the suites, the glass of windows and so forth seems to be what it should be - though it's more reflective than seems natural, too. Like Zinnia, the cleaniness of this deck means that characters have full run of it, all the way down to the lounge on the bottom of the Ship - which is the only place that isn't completely clean on this deck. The super-reflective water that pours out of the mirrors seems to have flowed down here at some point, where it sits, unaffected by the motion of the Ship, about an inch deep across the entire floor. This water is the only feature down in the bottom lounge - there is no furniture, in contrast to its Zinnia counterpart.
And on this floor, at the very bottom, and only this floor, the reflective water has the smell - only the smell, not any other qualities - of fresh blood.
The Ship will not answer characters here - although the terminals in the residential deck that can normally be used to communicate with it (in whatever limited capacity) are present, their screens are (of course!) mirrors, and unresponsive. There's also no signs of drones about, not even the basic roomba-like cleaning drones; there's no evidence that they've been here recently, either.
A follow-up log, in which the Ship manages to make contact with characters wherever they are, will be posted later (mod goal time is 2-3 weeks from now). That log will take place on Day 40 and will bring with it food (for everyone who has gotten very hungry by then) and drone assistance, but whether characters actually manage to escape at that point or later on on Day 42 is left open to the opinions of you, the players! Both current players and visitors will be able to vote in a Discord poll on the matter, to be posted in the Discord announcements channel tomorrow (after you've had the chance to sleep on this post and let it cook in your brains a little).
Happy playing! Questions can be asked on Discord or added to the usual questions header below this post.
In addition to providing information about how characters arrive on the new deck (whether they're existing passengers or not), this post also serves as a place where Fourth Wall characters can post top-levels without joining the game community.
Further information on Fourth Walls in general and the other accompanying OOC updates to the game can be found on the OOC information post here. This post also serves in lieu of a regular between-events Test Drive.
Finally, you may now start sending in your applications to keep your AU, CRAU, and so on characters around after the Fourth Wall! Be sure to note the minor changes to the Applications page (namely, the addition of an "AU information" section).
Without further ado - How did you get here? And more importantly, where is 'here' anyway?
existing characters
Whether or not characters remember falling asleep on the evening of Day 37, they wake up somewhere different on Day 38, lying on a couch in an almost-familiar room. The couch is similar to the ones in the lounge, though those with keen noses will note that the cushions don't smell the same - there's no scent of your fellow passengers, or of the faint hint of an unknown, arid place that first accompanied the clean furnishings the Ship dragged out.
The room isn't one you've been in before, either, but it's still clearly on the Ship somewhere - there's the familiar motion of the legs moving, and the overhead emergency lights (the only source of light initially in the room) are the same as the ones in the hallways on Fern that the Ship has been working so hard to restore. However, that doesn't mean that it's hard to see - indeed, considering the contents of the room, the low lighting might be a blessing in disguise.
It's full of mirrors.
Not only the sorts of mirrors that character would expect to find, the ones that have been missing from the Ship's bathrooms and other expected places, though there are certainly plenty of those in the room - but the walls, the door, and the ceiling are also all mirrors. Mirrors hang on a portion of the larger furniture in what appears to be the living room of a suite. It's not as dramatic as it could be, but aside from the couch characters wake up on, it's pretty close. The floor, at least, is not reflective mirrors, though it's not much less shiny - instead of the usual hotel-esque carpet of the suites, there's seamless stone tile in stormcloud grey, slight variations in the color indicating marble. And all of those reflective surfaces are perfectly clean - although it's possible to find dried spots of decay on the backs of the mirrors, overall, it seems as though time doesn't have claim on this part of the Ship, much less the Growth.
And of course, where there are mirrors, there are reflections.
Some of them - probably the majority - are normal, perfect mirrors of the person the character expects to see. Some of them are distorted, but in a normal, mundane way - funhouse mirrors among the panels on the walls, making you wide or skinny or warped.
And then some of them show reflections of you that are distorted, not as in bent, but as in there being something different about the you that's in them. Different clothes; different hair; different age; different species. Added scars, or missing ones; limbs missing, or replaced with something else. A completely unknown you in the mirror.
For the most part, these altered reflections act the way you would expect, imitating the movements of the rest of the reflections in the room. But sometimes they don't. Sometimes they climb out of the mirror - and whether they're friendly or not remains to be seen.
There's a note on the mirror-topped table next to the couch. In backwards writing that needs to be held up to a mirror to be read easily, it says:
Thanks for visiting! I'm sorry I couldn't be there to meet you, but there's just so many people here today!
I wonder if you'll get a chance to meet the real you?
Good luck!
new characters and visitors
For those who are new around here, the method of arrival is... a bit different. This applies equally to characters who are just here for the fourth wall (alternates of existing characters etc) or those who will be apped as permanent residents - there isn't a distinction to these categories until the end of the event.
These characters arrive with a first sensation of being pressed against a hard, glass surface - not unlike the whispers of sensation that haunted the existing passengers over the last few days. The difference is that this time, the glass you're pressed against isn't a horizontal floor or bed - it's vertical or at least mostly vertical, and you can tell which way is down.
Or, put another way: Newly arrived characters start their boatride on the wrong side of the mirrors that are packed away into the unknown deck. They are facing towards the real world side, the way they would if they were reflections made physical, but turning around and looking behind them is nearly impossible.
Indeed, there's a growing pressure forcing them against the glass barrier. It grows harder and harder to breathe, almost like drowning, or being crushed by water pressure -
Until, just when you think you can't survive any more, something gives way, and you stumble out of the mirror into the real world. It's not the glass breaking - it's more like forcing your way through a soap bubble or the membrane that sits inside an eggshell that separates the hard pieces from the white. Water, too, cascades down out of the mirror with you, splattering all over the floor, but it's just water, and it doesn't seem to have left more than a bit of surface dampness on you.
However, when characters turn around, they will find that while the glass is still in place and unbroken, the mirror will no longer reflect anything - not even the shine of light cast on the glass - rendering these mirrors completely black. This reflectivity stays on the puddle of water around your feet instead, which aggressively reflects the area around it even if taken elsewhere - even if poured into a cup. In motion, it's too transparent to be taken for mercury or silver, but when pooled undisturbed, it does not ripple in response to the motion of the ship. Only the actions of characters or other forces can cause ripples. Otherwise, it appears to be normal water.
Characters who are alternates of each other might come out of the mirrors while they're literally being reflected (a certain surprise for those who are on the normal side of the mirror doing the looking), but they might also just appear in rooms all by themselves, or in the presence of someone else they know (or think they know). Those who don't have any immediate connections among the current passengers are more likely to appear in some empty room, but ultimately this is left to player discretion.
shallower reflections
Not all reflections are as potentially friendly as those played by those of us on the player side of the screen, however. In addition to the "deeper" reflections played by real humans, who have or at least appear to have personalities and histories of their own, there are also "shallow" reflections. Unlike the Fourth Wall arrivals, shallow reflections can't be of characters who aren't present at the time - they only appear in response to characters looking into mirrors (whether those characters are existing residents or new arrivals).
The shallow reflections come out of the mirrors just like the Fourth Wall arrivals, but there's always something a little off about them. Some of them stay reversed like a reflection; some of them don't make any noise when they move and cannot speak; some of them come out of the mirrors with the funhouse-esque warped reflections and stay that way. Like their more 'real' counterparts, the mirrors the shallow reflections come out of turn completely flat, unreflective black; unlike their counterparts, they don't really hesitate in striding out, much less stumble and potentially collapse.
What do they want? To shove whoever they're a reflection of into the black mirror they came from. What happens if they succeed?
You die. I mean, probably. There's no way of knowing unless one of them does succeed, after all. If you want your character to die in this fashion, please let the mod team know. While we cannot guarantee that interesting things will happen to all characters (and those who are only here to visit for the Fourth Wall are not eligible), this may have permanent consequences for your character, take them out of play for longer ICly than a typical death, or impact other characters in the game beyond the typical levels of emotional harm. Or some combination of all three.
Fortunately, the shallow reflections only have physical strength on their side - they do not possess any powers of those they take the shapes of, and they can be killed in largely the same way as unremarkable flesh and blood humans. A killing blow causes them to collapse into the same hyper-reflective water as described above; the mirror they came out of remains black.
??? deck
The deck itself is open fully to character navigation. Like the lab specimen storage of Zinnia, this deck - whose name is not posted anywhere for characters to find easily - is clear of any signs of Growth, and manages to feel chilly even if you get up to the top deck where the sun is shining.
Or... Should be shining. Regardless of the weather on other deck dimensions, the skies above this deck are
always, at best, a cloudy, half-stormy grey. The air above hangs tense, like the clouds are waiting for something to happen. Unlike the other instances of Ship weather, you don't need Neuvillette's particular affinity with water to sense it - any character with empathic or telepathic powers will be able to feel the sense of looming, helpless frustration in the clouds.
The most notable feature of this deck, of course, is that it's full of mirrors. Indeed, it's not only the mirrors that are missing from the suite bathrooms, the public restrooms by the cafeteria, and so on - there are far more mirrors than the Ship would reasonably need to outfit the decks it has, even including the multidimensional nature of it. Mirrors hang from the walls, and then more mirrors lean against those, or against the other furnishings, or even against each other (since some of them are standing mirrors), and the groups against the walls are often five or six panels deep with the largest at the back the side of the glass panels of the Ship's sliding glass balcony doors. (Yes, those are also replaced by mirrors, reflective in both directions.) Tabletops are reflective in their own rights, and then littered with even more, antique-looking hand mirrors and makeup compacts and those little circular mirrors sold in bags by the dozen at the craft store, only an inch across.
Considering all the reflective surfaces, it might be a good thing that there is only emergency power supplied to this deck - enough to keep the guide lights on and ensure that the sliding doors (though not the elevators) are working, and that whatever system pumps water through the faucets and showers is still going. The water is all cold, however, and there isn't any food available on the deck so far as characters are able to find. In the place where characters are used to finding the cafeteria, there is instead a terrifying mirrored bar filled with empty bottles and glasses as well as - well. Take a guess.
With the exception of the sliding glass doors in the suites, the glass of windows and so forth seems to be what it should be - though it's more reflective than seems natural, too. Like Zinnia, the cleaniness of this deck means that characters have full run of it, all the way down to the lounge on the bottom of the Ship - which is the only place that isn't completely clean on this deck. The super-reflective water that pours out of the mirrors seems to have flowed down here at some point, where it sits, unaffected by the motion of the Ship, about an inch deep across the entire floor. This water is the only feature down in the bottom lounge - there is no furniture, in contrast to its Zinnia counterpart.
And on this floor, at the very bottom, and only this floor, the reflective water has the smell - only the smell, not any other qualities - of fresh blood.
The Ship will not answer characters here - although the terminals in the residential deck that can normally be used to communicate with it (in whatever limited capacity) are present, their screens are (of course!) mirrors, and unresponsive. There's also no signs of drones about, not even the basic roomba-like cleaning drones; there's no evidence that they've been here recently, either.
A follow-up log, in which the Ship manages to make contact with characters wherever they are, will be posted later (mod goal time is 2-3 weeks from now). That log will take place on Day 40 and will bring with it food (for everyone who has gotten very hungry by then) and drone assistance, but whether characters actually manage to escape at that point or later on on Day 42 is left open to the opinions of you, the players! Both current players and visitors will be able to vote in a Discord poll on the matter, to be posted in the Discord announcements channel tomorrow (after you've had the chance to sleep on this post and let it cook in your brains a little).
Happy playing! Questions can be asked on Discord or added to the usual questions header below this post.
Darkness | Stupid Mario Brothers (YouTube series)
[[ OOC: he might be a dick.... he might not be... we will see!! - but anyway come closer i can be so normal and so sincere about this guy from the whacky LARP fanfiction series i grew up with--
feel free to interrupt him in the middle of any of his prompts! i'm willing to make whatever work >:3 ]]
--
1 [GIVES YOU HELL]
"Hey, quit pushing! Don't you know who I--"
His face is shoved into the glass, making the indignant "am!?" come out squished and incomprehensible. He grimaces against the glass, certain that his smushed expression must look absolutely stupid. One might even say comical, he's sure. Eyeroll.
"I see how it is," he seethes, still squished. "Everyone just loves making fun of Darkness! 'Who cares about him anymore, he's not a REAL villain anyw'-- Oof!"
With one final shove, he stumbles out of a. ...mirror? Where is he? Why is he surrounded by mirrors? The mirror he fell out of is solid black, which is. Interesting. Some kind of... Dark World B.S.? Putting his hand back on the glass proves it has no give. Well, fine. He didn't want to go back in there, anyway!
He catches his reflection in another mirror, and whirls around abruptly to face it. His outfit looks fine, his face is still Mario's, but why. WHY. is he STILL WEARING. Mario's HAT. on his HEAD.
He reaches up and snatches it, proving it real. "I thought I got rid of this thing AGES ago!" He snaps, throwing it to the side with significant force.
Maybe it hits someone in the face as they were going past, or approaching to investigate the shouting.
--
2 [LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR]
As he wanders through the ship, let it be clear: he does not really look like the Mario that everyone is familiar with here, on the Ship. He's much taller, he's clean-shaven, and he has real world proportions - even before you get to him wearing all black, or the dark circles of his eyes. So he might have been able to enjoy getting by without anyone realizing he shared Mario's face...! Except for the fact that every other mirror shows him with that damn hat.
He gave up destroying said mirrors after the third. It was a losing battle, and there were better ways to spend his energy.
Case in point: the shallow reflections that step out of the mirrors after him. Clearly talking to them is pointless - and clearly all they want to do is attack him - so Darkness gives up trying to be a good guy, and starts killing. They fall around him like swatting flies.
"Ha! Too easy. Though I can't say I feel great about cutting down my own face..."
In the distance, he sees someone else. In the distance, he sees their reflection step out after them.
"Ugh. So much for not being a hero."
He slaps the reflection with a burst of dark magic strong enough to make it instantly collapse into water. ...and then, maybe, he'll try and leave before the person he rescued notices him. Maybe, if he’s quick!
--
3 [HEADS WILL ROLL]
There's a face that isn't his in the mirror.
Darkness backs up, double takes. Alright, sure, correction - it's not Mario's face in the mirror. But that face - that face -
That's Nox Decious. Except it isn't. Except it is. He's unmasked. His scars look - wrong.
Darkness sees his own eyes on Decious' face - and recoils.
As if he took Decious' form instead of Mario's - as if! - as if! - he could stand seeing that face in the mirror any longer after a thousand years of suffering it - as if he didn't choose Mario's face because it was - it was Mario or Decious - so it wasn't really a choice at all, now, was it! -
He yells, wordless. He yells, and grabs the mirror by the top of the frame. He yells, and he throws it. The whole mirror.
It connects with other mirrors, and then the floor, with a deafening CRASH.
HEADS. WILL. ROLL.
The sound makes Thancred wince more anything. This guy isn't happy. And he understands all too well.
Thancred's resorted to pointedly ignoring his reflections that look immediately incorrect. He doesn't need another panic attack. The crooked smile and eyes that aren't his still linger in the back of his head if he thinks about it too hard.
Anyway. "Ow."
A shard of the broken mirror happened to nick him square in the jaw, and his gloved palm immediately comes up to staunch the blood.
"Guessing you didn't see me there." Thancred laughs. He doesn't say anything further, wanting to gauge the man's reaction.
YEAAAAAA
Darkness stands there over the mirror shards, breathing so heavily that his body is shaking with the effort. His head snaps up to Thancred as soon as he hears him, and his already strained expression turns into an even sharper snarl.
"No, I didn't," he spits. "I was sort of busy."
no subject
Thancred puts his hands up placatingly, taking a large side-step both over the shards and slightly away from Darkness.
"I don't mean you harm." He smiles, sensing the animosity in the air. "Was simply in the area when I heard..." His smile turns to a wince, head motioning to the mirror that has since been shattered.
no subject
Darkness considers Thancred for a minute, decides this guy probably isn't any kind of threat to him - even if he had meant him harm, Darkness would like to see, uh, anyone manage to pull it off. As far as he's aware, now, he can't seem to remain dead. Well, random guy, random location, might as well make... connections.
"Well, yes, of course, makes perfect sense," Darkness says, filling the silence. He makes a show of shrugging, rolling his eyes. "I'm simply tired of these mirrors showing me... faces I'd rather not see. That one was - was downright offensive."
Yep, he's definitely just offended. That's why his heart is racing and his head is pounding and it's hard to breathe.
no subject
He sees that the guy is panicking, but he'd prefer not to test a man with obvious violent tendencies, so he just smiles sympathetically. "Whatever it was deserved to be smashed, I'm sure."
Thancred is trying to be genuine. But the edge of wariness is probably skewing his tone a bit.
U know what. Gambler who also has some identity issues(bodies hit the. FLOOOOR)
It cries out, wordless and distorted but definitely his voice. Aventurine whirls around, his shields already slamming into place around him, eyes wide.
"Who's there-" That thing, once bleeding gold, melts into a pool of silver. He caught a glimpse of it...ah. Him if Acheron didn't decide to take him to the void, if she left him to die, perhaps.
He catches more movement, and spots the figure of...someone running to hide. Maybe. What the...
"What, no demands for a favor after saving my life? My, how chivilrous of you, stranger~" he calls out, hoping to provoke some sort of answer. If this is another threat, better to know what he's up against...
and if this is a well meaning passenger? Well. He always liked seeing the new arrivals around here. It's fun! Like a gacha machine. What sorts of people will the ship pull time and again?
YESSSS someone who knows mario. jumping (heh) right into it
"The last thing I am is chivalrous," Darkness snaps, and then. "Oof! Dammit, I was supposed to be getting out of here!"
The gig is up. He doesn't care enough about this to run through the hallways, away from someone else. He sulks his way back out - no, sorry, he stomps - no! He walks, like a normal person, like a normal confident person, back to the person he saved.
"Whatever, you're welcome for the rescue, can you tell me where the hell we are?"
He's not wearing the Mario hat, but in the reflections around him, he is - and if the hat isn't black it's red, and if he isn't wearing the hat then his hair is red, and every reflection around him right now is just. SCREAMING. Mario. It doesn't help that there's a funhouse mirror one near the floor that is capturing him at the perfect angle to recreate the more classic Mario shape, and that that one's wearing hat and overalls in iconic Mario style, as well. He really should consider an outfit change, but dammit, Mario's right about one thing - overalls are comfortable and have great utility!
time is fake. It's totally not been 3 days. yeet. (Aven's being more of a brat than I'd expected-)
He's even stomping back over like a sullen teen. How delightful! Aventurine's smile only grows.
"There you go. Wasn't so hard, was it?" Maybe teasing the person who just helped him is a bad idea. But he is genuinely grateful. And entertained. Those can both coexist. He hums, tapping his chin in exaggerated thought. "I don't know, can I tell you? Hmmm...I just woke up on this mirror floor myself, so..." He looks around. Mirrors. Mirrors. More Mirrors. "It's a room on the ship I didn't know existed, so..."
He trails off when he sees the flickers, glimpses of red and blue in the mirrors. One where he's even squashed down. Into a very familiar shape.
He blinks. His smile dims slightly, but an eyebrow goes up.
"You...wouldn't happen to be. Erm. Related to a guy named Mario, would you?" He's seen his own sister in some mirrors. Maybe it's like that...?
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Darkness literally rolls his eyes and mimes talking motions with his hand, clearly unimpressed by Aventurine's chatter and enough of an asshole to mock him about it. Blah blah blah, that's all he hears.
"Hey, you were at least able to tell me we're on some kind of ship--"
And that smugness is lost, instantly, as soon as this guy says that damn hero's name.
His face goes on an impressive journey of first rage and then despair and then calming back out into sharp irritation. His teeth are gritted in anger but he does not yell, and he does not smash his fist into any of the mirrors, even though he's more and more tempted every second they stand here.
"No. I'm not- He's nothing to me," Darkness insists, with a hiss. Then he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Look. I get it. I know I look just like him. But it's not my fault that if I wanted to have a face at all, I had to borrow his!!"
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"Yep! A haunted ship that travels on legs! Hope you enjoy the ride because you're not likely to get off any time soon!" Aventurine replies cheerily, spreading his arms as if he were showing off the place.
Of course, then the new guy's expression changes. Like. Alot. It's kinda impressive to watch.
Now he really struck a nerve...
"Ok. Strained family relations-" Nope, not that. Aventurine blinks. "Borrowing...his face? Uh. Is that something people normally do in your world?" he asks, tilting his head. It sounds like something a Fool would do. But this guy is way too cranky to be a Fool...then again, maybe it's an offshoot of the Mourning Actors?
Still, to smooth things over a bit...he shrugs. "I mean, I didn't see the resemblance until the funky mirrors decided to reflect it. Even now..." The gambler squints, leaning in a little. "Grumpy as you are, you really look nothing like him!"
where's your picket fence love-- (listening to the song now lol)
AND WHERE'S YOUR SHINY CAR!!!!!!! (success >:3c)
Insert dramatic eyeroll here. He may be seething, but he certainly isn't giving off any actually violent vibes.
"I got rid of that thing for a reason. The last thing I want is to be compared to HIM any more than I already am!."
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You can watch as the realization hits him, and his eyes widen, almost comically. He has a name. But he will admit, to himself, that it's kind of a dumb name. He hesitates for a second, makes a blustering noise, and then says: "Darkness. My name is Darkness."
He never considered being somewhere where someone would both genuinely care about that name and also, not already know him.
That said: "You know what? I would love if you set the hat on fire," he says, with glee.
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He rummages in his sleeves until he produces a little metal device, which he channels spiritual energy into and produces a little jet of flame, which he aims at the offending hat. Which... is a little wet, so it takes some effort to get it alight, but it's not like he's short on spiritual energy, so he just torches the shit out of it until it decides to burn properly, and then realizes that he's holding a thing that is on fire and drops it on the floor to burn itself out. "Hat be gone," he says, inanely. "So, uh, you just get here? I haven't seen you on the Mystery Leg Boat before."
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"Oh, good. I was afraid you were going to call me 'cringe'."
This man is still far from intimidating, but he does steeple his fingers together and giggle like a supervillain as he watches the hat burn. "Yes! Yes! Now that's a weight off my shoulders. Thanks, Beida." Sorry for going straight familiar, but he's taking you literally.
"Legboat...? What a dumb name for a place. Anyway, I fell out of one of these mirrors."
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The finger steepling giggling is actually kind of hilarious. “You’re welcome. For the record, calling me just my personal name implies that we’re like. Besties.” If he wants to do that, Shang Beida doesn’t care enough to argue about it, but he figures at least the guy can be informed.
“I mean I think more technically it’s just called the Ship, but that’s very nonspecific. The Ship said it wasn’t called anything other than Ship. I have been calling it Mystery Leg Boat, because it is a ship with legs and no one knows shit all about why we’re here, so it’s like, descriptive.” He pauses. “You fell out of a mirror? Huh. That’s a new one. I just woke up here, like over a month ago, in the rain, and also the plants and there were no mirrors. I don’t know why there are mirrors and no plants now. Endless mysteries here on Mystery Leg Boat, including why and how we’re all speaking Magical Mystery Language.”