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7♥ You are lucky enough to gain an education - where? In what did you excel? many things can be educational. not just in university. all monsters start in a shape like people, before time sands down the similarities. a lot of monsters *tell* themselves they're people, or close enough to it for they have a sense of theatricality about it. a need for buildup and dramatic tension that gets in the way of the extortion part. maybe i'd seen it before. maybe i was-- if i excelled, maybe i'd still have a name. but i learned a lot about watching my words, and watching exits, and knowing when it's time to disappear. and i'm still here after disappearing from there, so that counts for something, right? Ningyou fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Aug 7, 2021 |
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Aug 6, 2021 04:17
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 21:31 |
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J♥ Your homeland is particularly known for something. What is it? Would you believe that they advertised, once upon a time? Hypercurated websites playing to outsiders' fantasies of an older world, social media run like a nightmare-domme Denny's twitter (a tray of poisoned pastries in a people-shape, a joke here and there about sewing the self back into some button-eyed maid and maybe there was a point where it stopped sounding like A Bit, but she's so Hashtag Relatable). Filming incentives, but never anything so pedestrian as a tax break. They tried focus groups. The website was "unnerving," people said. Their social media presence was "a little creepy," people said. (And that was *before* she got banned over elaborate, messy Twitter beef. Did you read that article last year?) So they got quieter. There's still talk, though. "It's a place where you can become someone else." Most people don't take that literally, and tourists don't often get more than a taste -- bad for business, right? -- but for the adventurous and the dedicated and the desperate, it offers something you simply can't find anywhere else. Sometimes it's simpler than it sounds. A passport with an RFID chip sewn in with little lies and a promise that You Don't Need To Worry About Me, Officer. A name that isn't my name, but a name that's good enough for now. Funds, papers, two tickets for safe passage. A little bit of volition can buy a lot. Ningyou fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Aug 7, 2021 |
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Aug 6, 2021 21:43
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5♦️ What keeps you going? What do you fight for? Well, if I stop, then something will catch up with me. ♪ That's. half a joke? I suppose I don't have to run as far or as fast anymore. They say people are lucky to live here, and maybe in a way that's true? After all that time in my homeland, the ordinary menace of an unfamiliar place feels like a relief. they say that a society like this makes it difficult for the monsters i knew to freely operate. something about an Always Online society, or a surveillance society, or maybe just a society that lost its love for fairytale nobility with baroque personal mythology and bespoke gowns that evoke bright colors on a dart frog. i don't know if it's true, but it's a nice idea. I keep going because I'm afraid to see what happens if I stop for too long, and because--because maybe if I keep going long enough, I'll stumble onto a new name, or maybe I'll just make one myself. That's something to fight for, right? The hope that things might get better if I hold on long enough?
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Aug 7, 2021 21:02
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J♦️ Your very existence causes disruption in the established social order. How? I was supposed to stay. I left my partner in this rotten little pas de doux hanging. There's a rhythm to these things. You panic and you scurry and you plead and you cry every tear you have left and then, when the dread's at its most suffocating, you're shown mercy. (of a kind.) she'd have offered me a new life in her service. a new role. a new name, written in reshaped skin and whispered into my heart. (or you find a clever enough out that you amuse them. they don't have to play by any rules they don't make up, but sometimes it's fun for them to play along. sometimes it's a nice change of pace.) I wasn't going to resign myself to that out of some learned-helplessness sense of The Way Things Are, so now i'm here. ....here, I suppose I'm less prey and more of a neighborhood stray. They don't treat me like a liability. It inspires kinder instincts, food and fussing and protectiveness. Sometimes I think I could get used to it, you know? Sometimes, I like to think that--that maybe i inspired others. That I'm not the only one who ran, that the story spread and someone else declined to be a supporting character in some noble's grand story. That things will change, back home. ....it's not stupid to hope for that, right? Ningyou fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Aug 8, 2021 |
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Aug 7, 2021 23:38
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5♣️ Someone you know has been impacted by your Rival's works. Who, and how? ....do you tell yourself you're making the world a better place, or that you're *saving* lost little things who'd be doomed on their own? there's--there was someone i met just recently. i suppose it's silly for me to think i was the only one who got out, right? she said the Lady of Summer cultivated her and brought her to bloom. she didn't say how she came to be here, but I *knew*, and--and, and she said she still has trouble internalizing that she's *people* and not just something to spruce up the Lady's workspace, and-- she spends a lot of time in the city park. she says it feels like home. that she misses home, even if she shouldn't. that she wasn't anyone important, that she wasn't in the Lady's way, she just.....caught her eye. and now she's-- i almost stayed. i thought--i thought, 'maybe we'd be good for each other. maybe we'd Get each other in a way no one else could. or--or maybe she's a snare, and she'd *keep* me, and *you'd* keep me, and i'd at least have the certainty of knowing i couldn't run any longer.' but but i should keep going.
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Aug 8, 2021 01:13
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6♣️Where is someplace you absolutely do not want to confront your Rival, and why? Ugh, you're all such egomaniacs! You can't imagine anyone not wanting to be graced by your presence, anyone not wanting to be swallowed up by your sheer sense of self-importance, anyone not wanting to be subsumed into your story. it's the mortifying ordeal of being known, not the comfort of being known. They're wise to your tricks, here. there are places where the world gets...fuzzy. abandoned superfund sites carpeted in dreaming-flowers, places where reality's a fraying blanket ripe for reweaving. (or unraveling.) places that respond to a strong will. So, you know--it's frightening, thinking of stumbling into something like her in one of those places. It's frightening thinking of drowning in her undiluted herness, drowning in her overwhelming sense of proper roles and proper places and How Things Ought To Be, and moreso in a place conducive to that. But I left all that behind in the old country. Right? So--so I won't have to worry about--not that I'd ever be tempted to ask, but-- I left that behind. I'm okay. I'm safe. I won't be tempted. Ningyou fucked around with this message at 03:57 on Aug 8, 2021 |
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Aug 8, 2021 03:25
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8 The end of your rivalry is coming, one way or another. How do you feel? i don't assume any worse than you deserve. it's a learned response, learned over and over and over again, so--so it's not like i'm being unfair, right? i had to leave the first safe place i'd found in weeks because-- there was a change in the air, a look in their eye. murmurings about how *sad* it all was 'til i finally cornered someone and asked and-- oh, you must be soooo scared, all alone without your mistress. that's why you look so hackles-up and underfed, right? a little bit pity, a little bit excitement, stumbling questions about the particulars of being a noble's pet. a breathiness like they imagined themselves getting some magical contact high from being in the same room with me. a gradual understanding that gosh, it'd just be terrible if this stray wasn't reunited with her rightful owner, right? and now i'm somewhere else. so thanks for teaching me never to let my guard down, i guess. i guess i feel like--i'm trying to hold onto that. the guardedness, the fear, the sickly pain in my gut. because after we're done, if it doesn't go my way......well, i'll feel however you want me to feel, right? Ningyou fucked around with this message at 06:23 on Aug 8, 2021 |
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Aug 8, 2021 06:19
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Q♠ You happen upon your rival in a brief respite from your conflict. What do you say to them? i'm in another city, now. in another life this place might feel cozy, picturesque, like something out of a television show. but now it's just another point in the journey, another way to put space between us. i don't know what to do. --- Poor, sweet little stray. Do you not want an end to your worries? i haven't been sleeping much, because when I sleep I dream of her. of that, of whatever she--whatever she infected me with. it's a lie, right? they don't show kindness like that, not without a price, not without fine print. they don't--they don't *care*. fae are fickle and a life as one's favorite toy has an expiration date. and who knows how things would go when she gets bored of me? --- it had to catch up to me sometime. after a few days, it starts to feel like disassociating, like not being sure if you're awake or asleep and maybe you start to question if you're even *you* and-- i'm twitchy and ragged and i probably look like i'm on the verge of crying from all the-- it's fine. it's fine. it's fine! it's fine. i found a cafe. i don't know why i chose *that* cafe, i don't know why i took a moment to rest, but--maybe i had a feeling. i asked for something sweet, something soothing, something to help me stay awake. and it was sweet, and it was soothing, but i woke up on a wide, soft sofa to the feeling of one arm around my waist and another petting my hair. I don't--I don't know what I said. i went a little feral, a little frantic, a little trapped-animal but too weak and worn to do anything about it. maybe i just said 'please,' or 'let me go,' or-- i could ask you. i could ask you, because you just know better, don't you? but-- but i can't trust you. i can already hear what you'd tell me. 'dear, sweet little stray, you said OH HECK OH GOLLY WHAT A SILLY MISTAKE IT WAS TO EVER OPPOSE YOU, GUESS I BETTER RESIGN MYSELF TO AN ENDLESS EMPTY EXISTENCE AS YOUR ADORING PET WITH NO INTERNAL LIFE OF MY OWN AS RECOMPENSE FOR THIS BIG GOOF.' do i have it right?
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Aug 8, 2021 19:41
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 21:31 |
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3♠ What awful defeat have you suffered because of your rival? Don't you get it? It's not--it isn't me anymore. it doesn't fit anymore. i'm changed now, i'm something else now, and i wouldn't know how to go back--to my old life, to my old name, to the idea of being People--if i wanted to. and for you to scoop me up and stroke my hair and offer everything i was crammed into a ring-box with a smile and a will-you-be-mine? for you to pretend that fixes anything? it felt cruel. it made me want to break down and sob right there. maybe i did, a little. maybe i'm not strong enough for this. maybe the best i can do is shivering and scooting and keeping a little distance, like a puppy coaxed out of a rainstorm but too proud to let herself go full housepet just yet. and maybe i--i won't give you too much credit, okay? for all your magic, for all your power, you're not everywhere. i won't let myself believe that this is some grandiose drama you orchestrated from the start, that there was no escape from the happy ending you'd written yourself. i made my own dumb choices, and had my own bad luck, and--and maybe it feels good to hold onto that speck of agency, you know? but there's no pain or loss that hurts as bad as realizing what i've been shaped into, bit by bit. nothing worse than a stray who wants to nothing worse than the thought that i might want to be yours.
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Aug 8, 2021 22:10
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