Concrit post for:

Nanako Kuroi (notaleftover) @ polychromatic
Clow Reed (i_themagician) @ polychromatic, hypnagogy, toujourshotel

Anon is ON, Screening is ON, IP logging is OFF.

It's been one year, three months, two weeks, and three days since I arrived here quite intentionally. I suppose that's shorter than some have been here but longer than many, and I've yet to leave even once. I don't keep it a secret that I am deceased, but while the fact that my life is over doesn't bother me at all, there are some aspects of being dead that do.

Somewhere in Xanadu there is still a cherry tree which is perpetually in bloom. I first saw it soon after arriving in the City, and at the time I didn't know much about it besides the fact that it was the second oldest living entity I had met. It immediately struck me as symbolic of the City, and even knowing what I know now I still think that - albeit in a much less idealistic sort of way. Death does not constitute so much a departure or ending as it does a change of plans.

That in mind, I've often wondered what other late citizens think of their position. As much as I miss home, to hear people speak of going back or having some sort of purpose they must fulfill as though their desires are universal, I feel rather isolated from them. It's one more way in which I cannot relate to most other people here, and I was wondering if others felt similarly. Do any of the dead share the desire to go back? Do you feel like you have unfinished business, or are you more interested in moving forward to whatever lies beyond here?

( filter: friends )

[ooc: friends filter is pretty loose; if you are interested enough to bother asking, you're probably on it. ♥ EDIT: I suck. Date of ceremony corrected, sorry for any confusion. Also, I'll be in and out all day, so replies will be slow/sporadic o/]

[ THE BASEMENT EXPLODES.

Now what? ]

[ooc: Couldn't think of what else to say that wasn't horribly repetitive, so HAVE A FOURTH OF JULY EXPLOSION. KEYWORDS RELEVANT. Fourth-wall at will~ /o/ /gets out extra accounts to commentspam everyone else now. ]

At exactly 7:45 pm yesterday the sun did whatever it is that the sun does here on the solstice, which makes it officially summer now. The question of or not the celestial bodies here even exist is still up for debate, but pocket dimensions can be tricky things. I wonder what world we're borrowing the sky from? It certainly looks like Earth's - perhaps some of us are closer to home than we realize. Whatever the case, it's strange to watch snow fall on a summer's day. The sky is the wrong shade of blue and it's not dark until ten o' clock; it's entirely surreal if you're paying attention.

Not that I'm complaining; the snowball fight was fun, and I managed to get the furnace replaced at a very strange hour of the night. I forgot that the City does this, so I ended up putting it off until the last minute - how irresponsible of me. I hope nobody else has been caught unprepared? That could be dangerous, with so many already ill.

I'm not affected by whatever is to be going around today, it seems. My own father must have understandably declared himself relieved of his duties and hasn't seen fit to visit. It's not what it sounds like - I think it's more like a rite of passage. When you get to be a certain age and have become an entirely different person from the one your parents created, having re-made yourself bit by bit, I think it is permissible for their responsibility for the whole mess to be waived. At least, in my father's case I feel that this is so. My mother still has some things to answer for. Even so, I will honor his memory today because if I did not have him to look up to at some point I don't think I'd be where I am now, for better or for worse.

Belated thanks go to Sherlock Holmes and anyone else for humoring an overly-curious child last weekend. I'd especially like to thank Dr. Brennan for being dense as usual so very frank. ♥ I learned what I needed to, but I still think there is something to be said for the subtle and cryptic approach.

That said, I have some things to see to today. With Negi gone, the Bridge of Birds has lost a co-owner and at least half of its flailiness. I'm going to miss him, but I am also going to panic slightly because I have no idea what I'm doing with a store. When he was here, our ineptitudes complimented each other such that things ran smoothly at least three-fourths of the time, with only occasional disasters. I couldn't expect to replace him, so I don't think I'm going to try. Umi, Syaoran - you will very likely be getting some more responsibilities in the future.

( action for Sakura (open to anyone else in that apartment, though) )

There's a lot of tall buildings in this city. We're looking for the deity offices, but... I wasn't expecting there to be that many places to look. Has anyone been there before?

[ filtered from Yuuko | very hackable ]

What's the longest anyone's been here? It sounds like we might be here a while, and I want to have something to tell Chouko know how long it'll be.

... Just in case.

[ Once upon a time, there was a beautiful... king. With skin as white as snow, flowing hair black as ebony, and eyes as blue as the sky. This was not the king of a desert city, but just your normal, run-of-the mill fairy tale king with a golden crown and fur-lined robes, just... prettier. One day, he was sitting on his throne and gazing into his enchanted mirror (which was of the hand-held variety, far more convenient and portable than the wall-mounted kind!), reciting the rhyme that he did every morning after breakfast but before getting down to that whole "ruling the country" nonsense he was supposed to be doing. ]

Mirror, Mirror in my hand,
Who's the cleverest in the land~?

[ Unfortunately, his majesty has forgotten to put on his spectacles and so is quite oblivious to the fact that this is not the enchanted mirror or even a mirror at all, but actually a network device. ]

[ It's bright in whatever room the camera is in - the windows are flung wide open, and everything seems to reflect light. The mirror, the walls, the dust particles floating in the air. It's almost blinding, but if you stare into the glare for long enough, you might almost make out the figure of a man seemingly made of sunlight. He approaches the camera and seems to be about to turn it off before being distracted by something.

-- A shiny thing. A beautiful crystal pendulum hanging from the window, throwing rainbows and orbs of light all around the room. There's a voice, but it's distorted what with having no physical source. ]

... Who knows when that might be useful.

[ He takes it down from where it's hanging, his very proximity to the thing causing it to glow and shimmer beautifully. It disappears into the incorporeal pockets of his robes, somehow, as a cloud apparently covers the sun. The glowing specter becomes all but invisible as the transmission ends. ]

[ A blue Spartan peers out from behind a building, spying on his red target unseen. The other player suspects nothing, and is in fact stupidly standing in one spot, sniping at people. And he's right within throwing distance, too.

The blue Spartan takes out a glowing object and chucks it in the direction of the red guy! ... But he misses, the thing bounces off a tree and hits his helmet. And sticks there.

Commence useless and panicked flailing for about five seconds before Clow's head explodes. ]

***

[ A little over ten minutes later, the same blue Spartan is throwing a standard grenade at who-knows-what. It bounces off a wall instead and hits him in the head, knocking him out cold before he blows up again. ]

***

[ Ten minutes after that, this guy has a rocket launcher. Which, by the way, is not a short-range weapon, as Clow figures out by attempting to fire at someone who jumps in the nick of time. Instead he hits the wall and - you guessed it - explodes. ]

[ ooc: for the lulz. Reply with action and Clow will fail to kill you! ]

[ a rustling of sheets, but slow and lazy - like someone rolling over who isn't quite awake yet. ]

Nn... the day's half over, isn't it? No reason to bother getting up, then, is there?

[ siiiigh ] I don't even feel like getting dressed.

... And Yuuko claims to be able to cook. [ more rustling - pulling the blankets up over his head and potentially going back to sleep. ] There's nothing I couldn't just do tomorrow...

[ The device is on the floor, but fortunately so is its apparent subject - a thin (but strong!) tendril of hair pulling a wrist. The hand attached to that wrist twitches in pain as the thin, somehow sharp strands cut into its flesh. There's a pained gasp. ]

You're forgetting the 'quarter' part! [ If it sounds like a battlecry, that's because it is. That hand clenches into a fist and there's a lot of snapping of hair offscreen before a pair of scissors come into view and daintily snip the visible tendril of hair. ]

... As well as the horses, I would think. [ Clow sits up, putting him completely out of view of the camera. The device, not sensing any motion, goes into voice mode after a few seconds. The screen goes black on any video players you are using. ]

But we'll find out about that soon enough.

( voice/action // filtered against Kurotsuchis )

It looks like I picked a cute time to come to Japan; there seems to be some sort of festival going on for "Kodomo no Hi," which I think translates to "Children's Day." My Japanese still isn't all that good, but it's likely not to be an issue seeing as most of the natives don't exactly go out of their way to strike up friendly conversations with foreigners like myself.

It's a nice day today. Hopefully I can get to the festival without things becoming too awkward.

( Action for people at the festival~? )

[ooc: Affected, of course, but in an odd way - his memory has reverted back to when he first came to Japan, which could have been around this time period. Who knows. And, no, he's not fluent in Japanese yet so if that's what your character is speaking he'll probably respond very clumsily. |D ]

[ It's a funeral, obviously; the location is recognizably the cemetery, and there's a large black casket (made for an especially tall man, apparently) draped with light pink flowers just about to be lowered into the ground. Standing all around are somber-looking people dressed in black - you know the deal.

Some of them aren't necessarily as sad as they look, however.

It's a good thing no one ever looks up at these things. If they did, they might find the "deceased" in a tree above them watching the proceedings with a gentle smile on his face. Not a ghost - an entirely corporeal and intact form of the man who's supposed to be in that coffin - which might cause one to wonder who is in the coffin if Clow is not. ]

[ooc: Soap Opera cursed! This is the set up for some serious dramaz, believe me. >D Feel free to have people notice him at this point, either on the video feed or in person.]

[ The video begins with some static, the device having been activated on being dropped. From the unique vantage point of the floor you can see a Chair, a cat who is hiding under the Chair and not looking too pleased, and a hand (which is mostly healed from the knife incident). Someone has been doing the 'hold something so that you wake up when you drop it' trick, although not necessarily for purposes of dream recording in this case. ]

Nn... Wake up. [ Not that you have a clear view of the person in the chair, but he leans forward in it and sighs.

Then, the whole picture starts to shake. Not too much at first, and then more and more vigorously. Clow gasps and leans over the camera to rescue a teacup before it falls to the floor. Manages to take a sip from it, too, as he watches stuff fall off the walls and the bookshelves. The Chair slides around a bit, even with him in it. (Whee!) ]

So much for not doing anything today.

[ ... Not that he sounds too disappointed, until a bookshelf falls over on the other side of the Chair, just missing it. The only way you can tell, from the point of view of the camera, is the heavy crash and the cat running off frightened as a result. Clow seems more concerned about the cat than the bookshelf, and actually gets up to follow her. ] Persephone!

[ The transmission ends a few moments later, when the sidetable falls on the camera. (There go the scones!) ]

[ ooc: backdated to nooooooon, obvs.]

I don't think I'll ever get tired of all this rain, but if it persists for a fourth or fifth day I might consider building a boat. Not to throw anyone into a panic (this rain is a lot like the one we had last year and, no doubt, the year before), but you never know.

There was a concert yesterday, but I missed most of it. Apparently the brass section took the strings hostage and the woodwinds had to go and get them. I hope the clarinets and flutes showed those trombones who's boss; that will teach them to hit the piccolo player in the back of the head during her solo.

... Everyone else is behaving doing alright, I hope?

( backdated actionspam, anyone? )

At first, it's dark and you're vaguely aware of the sensation of floating steadily upwards. It takes a while, but you start to make out shapes in the gloom, obscured by clouds of dust or vague, indistinct shadows. As the light brightens, you look up and realize that you're underwater, not far from the surface at this point. You swim upwards, even though you don't seem to be wanting for air, but when you breach the surface you notice that you barely even make a ripple. In fact, you're suddenly sitting in a rather shallow but wide and perfectly circular pool, which you emerge from completely dry. Next to you is a large copper isoscoles triangle, and if you were to stand up you'd notice that it forms the gnomon for an even larger sundial whose demarkating lines lie outside the pool. If you looked at it from above, it'd almost look like a sun. A garden surrounds the sundial, and then a forest of flowering trees, but you can't see beyond that.

Clow is sitting at the edge of the pool, his back to you. When you look at him the first time there's a brief flash of an image - a key going into a lock, locking it, and then withdrawing. Obviously, he doesn't seem to notice you for a moment, but then he turns around and smiles.

"Well, fancy meeting you here~."

[ooc: Yes, it's interactive, but the environment will change at the whims of Clow's subconscious. Unless you're really good at lucid dreaming (he's not) you'll probably be subject to whatever his twisted mind throws at you. Unless maybe you happen to find that key. ]

[ The video cuts on shakily and with a bit of static, as the device was activated by being casually tossed onto the kitchen table. Clow laughs mirthlessly as he turns his back to the camera. ]

... And here I am making chocolates. [ sighs. ]

[ He doesn't bother giving any context or elaboration to that thought, because apparently he was talking to himself and doesn't self-narrate because he's not a main character. Something's obviously on his mind, though, because he's not... you know, singing or doing anything dorky like that. This is very serious business cooking.

... Except for the part where, while staring off into space, he absently flips a knife up into the air and catches it by the handle. ]

Ow! [ Especially when, one time, he doesn't catch it by the handle and cuts himself. It goes flying and knocks the device off the table so it stops recording. ]

I know what this sounds like coming from me, but I wouldn't mind a repeat of that last curse.

( Action for Holic crew + Blunder Twins )

I had a good day yesterday, though I suppose the same can't be said for everyone. Would it be insensitive of me to observe that partaking in mind-altering drugs appears to have been an optional part of the curse?

Somewhat relatedly, I've kind of been wondering whether or not events like we had on the first really count as curses in the same way that yesterday did. If they don't, does that mean that Godzilla showing up that one time also wasn't a curse? Is a curse just anything explicable that happens, and if so would something not be a curse if it could be explained in some other way?

I'm wondering because I think it will be easier to understand curses if they are defined as something other than 'something we don't understand.' If that makes any sense.

Oh, I should probably just stay away from the network at this time of night, especially when I've been drinking like I have.