lifeaftr | February Event: Just One Mist-ake

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February Event: Just One Mist-ake

FEBRUARY EVENT: JUST ONE MIST-AKE

Who: Everyone who ends up on the floating islands
What: February's event
When: February 15th to February 20th
Where: The floating islands above Ensō
Warnings: Mark as needed!

Sky High

Those curious floating landmasses far above Ensō have only grown more prominent in the coming days. Whether you've chosen to explore the islands purposefully or have ended up there via a mana pool malfunction, you'll doubtless discover their unique properties soon enough. You might even take advantage of their impressionable nature to mold them to your own desires, shaping pieces of the places you once knew, or maybe a place you wish you could be.

Either way, the repercussions to using the floating islands as your modeling clay will be evident by the time midnight rolls around, each night, and the islands impose a regular reset cycle to wipe away whatever changes have taken place, including that peculiar, almost volcanic texture that seems to affect the lands sculpted by your mentality. Just make sure you're not caught outside the depressions in the shape of mana pools centered on each island, lest you bear some unpleasant consequences for a day.

If you haven't signed up for a Reset Penalty and wish to, you can still do so here!

Check Your Wishlist

But of course, it's not all doom and gloom. It's quite the opposite, in fact. If there's something you've been wanting, simple or complex, something that has been making its way into the texture of your thoughts with a frequency that's almost noteworthy, the islands will attempt to see to it that this wish of yours, this yearning, is satisfied in some way or another. Some of the effects will be temporary. Some won't.

Regardless, at some point during the event, if your character visits the islands, the possibility is there.

If you're interested in a Wish Request, let us know here! Remember that filling out this form is required if you want to take advantage of the islands' "giving" nature.

Event Timeline

[ ♆ ] February 15th: The floating islands appear
[ ♆ ] February 16th: The mana pools begin malfunctioning, and characters begin ending up on the floating islands
[ ♆ ] February 20th: Monthly Storytelling occurs, along with a vote as to the next land adventurers will brave. Upon waking, the Storyteller returns everyone to Ensō, and shrouds the islands in cloud once more

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

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Despite the flaws in her system, she's taking this part time gig seriously, like there are benefits, a 401k, a good retirement check on the line. She has her tiny eyes plastered on his hair, occasionally brushing some out of the way when she hears anything out of the ordinary aka wind or a marble hitting the other treasures in her bag. It's safe for her, but not Taako and she's gotta look out for him. Out of nervous habit, she begins to weave the strands into small half braids, which has the added benefit of allowing her to see the world.

"I don't hear them. I don't think they're here." Yeah, she's looked. Yeah, she's listening for them. The only appearance from her world has been the safe area covered in water and flowers. Some of the lotus blossoms still remain on the island, random bits of modern technology and a car or two might be around, but no ghosts. Hopefully. "It's not scary yet."

And if she can keep her dumb brain in check, spooky phantoms shouldn't appear at all. Hopefully. But Taako needs to have a backup plan should the need arise. "Do you know how to hide from them? You can fly away, but you can't go too far-you have to make sure the bunny can find you this time."

It's not scary yet. That's pretty ominous, Ren. Didn't really need to tack a 'yet' onto that one, and then bring up the time your ol' Uncle Taako got super dead in a cave. Ren, please. That (not) said, it's very endearing how seriously she takes looking out for him, though he kinda hates the idea of her feeling that sort of responsible over his dumb ass. Or maybe more hates that she takes to it so easily? Hiding from ghosts really just shouldn't be a fact of anyone's life, actually, while the topic of Ren's former life is on the docket.

"Uhhh, I could, maybe I need a refresher on hiding from ghosts," he says, curiosity at war with wariness in his voice. Maybe there weren't real ghosts anyway? He can't believe he hasn't thought about that already. Ren could be talking about plastic bags, here. She tries to eat garbage, and thinks he's a good person with a dope, spicy heart, after all. The possibility is there.

But as plausible as that is, it feels...very hollow somehow, and his ears belie his over-casual tone, tensed forward with anticipatory trepidation. It's less like he needs the info and more like he's bought tickets to a horror movie; he doesn't know the specifics but he knows the genre for sure. Which is why he both does and doesn't want to ask why hiding from ghosts is even necessary. "I've met some ghosts, but I feel like maybe ghosts are different where I come from. Like, they're in robots usually, for one thing."

That sounds fake. Ghosts and robots are two separate entities and he must come from a wild world if the two mix like that. She knows ai ghost Shin had some kind of possession ability and could work himself into machines. The thought Taako had to deal with things like that, maybe even multiple ones, is scary. What a world. One wild ghost man was enough for her.

"You run from them too. If they're in robots, they want to hurt you." And if they don't and simply want to chat about the weather, her bad. It's better to be safe than sorry and those ghostbots will forgive her one day. She's gotta make sure her uncle's okay, if he ends up whisked back to his world, which is-

Something she really doesn't want to think about yet. And she's not going to-it's finally ghost lesson time and she needs to impart this spooky wisdom on him in case they run into some world specific issues. The best option is to fly away, but he might not understand what scary noises to listen for. Don't worry, Professor Ren, ghostbuster, is here.

"You can hear them sometimes. They cry or laugh and when you blink they're in front of your eyes. You have to run very fast." Speaking of, maybe she'll stop doing that. Keep her eyes opened and peeled for as long as possible. So far so good. "Or their arms come out of the wall and mirrors. Then you run again. You have to run from the ones that look like dogs. They're not like Shiro. You run away from the slow ones in a group too-they can still reach you with their-"

That's when she momentarily twists around, forsaking her sacred guard duties to poke through his hair and wiggle her fingers in front of his face. It's a jellyfish? They have weird tentacle finger things. Watch out for them. Either way, the trend is obvious and the refresher unnecessary because the idea here is to run away at all times. "If you can hear them and they don't show up when you blink, then you hide for a long time. It's safe that way."

Holy fucking, what the fuck. Hey Ren? What the absolute fuck. That sounds like some kind of ghost hell, and for the millionth time, Taako marvels that Ren is even still alive. Or maybe she isn't, maybe this is all a weird afterlife? Like, considering. He rules that out on general principle.

Taako listens dutifully to this helpful little tutorial, ears pinning back gradually and dumb feathers fluffing like there's an unseasonable chill in the air. He's not really sure what her weird gesture in front of his face is supposed to signify, but he knows it's nothing good, and he blinks, squints at it in incomprehension. At least this kind of explains a lot about Ren's general outlook. Unfortunately, 'sorry about all the ghost bullshit in your former life' isn't in Taako's emotional or verbal vocabulary, especially not on short notice. That's more of a custom order kinda deal. Yikes.

“Alright, I'll uh, keep that all in mind? I guess? Thanks for the, the rundown. On ghosts.” It kind of sounded like a one size fits all strategy, but he can appreciate simplicity. “Why-- I guess if everyone was uh, gone, there'd be a lot of ghosts, that's just math, huh. Why were they so...aggressive, though? I mean, I met some pretty shitty ghosts, but not all of them were like that. I worked with a ghost, she was chill.” Probably not the ideal time to bring up Lup's technical undead status, though maybe it'd be best to mention that before it comes up organically. Or maybe never, how 'bout that option. “Your ghosts sound like they all got ghost-rabies.”

The bristling feathers are a sign that he's taking her impromptu training seminar with the seriousness she would hope someone would. It makes he want to reach back to pat them down, whispering it's okay, but if birds are anything like cats, they don't appreciate being touched when they're nervous. And since her uncle's a bird right now, she has to follow proper bird law, which is distantly related to cat law, and she is an absolute expert in that.

"They weren't happy-when they died, they were very upset. You could feel that kind of thing from them." Or at least she could. They were embodiment of emotions, filled with resentment and anger and a bitterness she got a taste of whenever she couldn't move away in time. "I knew a 'chill' ghost too. She still looked like a person and taught us baseball in our dreams. She didn't have ghost rabies." But she was only around for a short time before evaporating with the redeemed ai-antagonist. Not many chill ones appeared after that.

She whips her head around to check behind them, guarding the perimeter like a good security guard, ignoring the formations of broken concrete and flowers starting to bloom. She's doing her best to not think about it gosh and she rests her chin on his shoulder. What a bad guard. "Did the ghost help you make pretty things? And 'trade'? Did you work in a store?"

That sure is a lot of things Ren just said. Just, so many. Went right from 'ghosts are unhappy about dying' which sure, that tracks, right on into 'looked like a person and taught us baseball in our dreams.' But at least there's apparently some precedent for chill ghosts, in her mind? Lup isn't a ghost OR chill, but whatever, it's a foundation. Not that Lup's gonna beef it, so who cares.

Guess it's backstory o'clock, huh. It's actually kinda wild, how little about his original existence is known to her or most of the other island randos; he's just a tired shopkeeping elf, as far as general public knowledge is concerned. Ren has always been a little freer with random and sometimes terrifying details of her past, but that doesn't do a lot to solve any real mysteries, and he still tends to err on the side of not prying. Ren's freedom is somehow very important to him, and that includes any secrets she wants to keep, or escape from. That's definitely either cowardice or respect, one of the two.

"No, I worked on the moon," he answers, an amused lilt to his voice. Duh, Ren. "Actually, the moon was mostly for downtime, but semantics." He waves a hand, carefully opposite her chinrest. "I met the ghost on a mission to...find a thing. She helped fight a lot of much less chill ghost-robots, so we got her a job on the moon. Seemed like the least we could do, since...stuff."

The details don't need to spoken aloud-to her it doesn't particularly matter what he did in the grand scheme of things. Terms like thing and stuff don't explain much, or anything, but it's enough to form images in her mind of his previous life. A tall man with a hat playing on the pretty moon that glowed so bright, gleaming like the heart inside him. He has magic, he could work up there, finding stuff and doing things and not worry about being stuck on the world under him.

The explanation is more of an indication he understands the differences in ghostly personalities-that's the real takeaway. Offer career help to the ones that are willing to be kind and stay away from possessed ones that try to hurt you.

"Did you look down?"

Is the first question out of her mouth. It's curiosity that drives her to ask. There's no way he could see them, in the same way she couldn't make out his form, his sister, or the kind ghost that helped him with his work. She doesn't expect him to answer with a we saw you. It's a passing thought, if anything. A comfort there might have been someone out there after all, even if he wasn't on their planet. He was safe on the moon the whole time, cooking and making incredible things with his magic. "Seto and I always looked up at you and I sang to the moon for a long time. Could you feel our hearts from up there?"

It was a throwaway revelation, just a fun tidbit of Taako Trivia (tm) to impress an urchin who is admittedly very easy to impress. He didn't plan for it to go like this, as usual; his steps slow, like maybe that caution will carry over into whatever he says and stop him from fucking up too badly. Don't wanna step in it literally or metaphorically, is what the slackened pace and slicked-down feathers say.

However compelling her mind's eye image of Taako frolicking productively on the bright-shining moon, the scene she paints of two feral children singing sad noises at the sky is just as poignant and he doesn't know where to put that. It's sad? Probably sad and beautiful? Mostly sad? And he wasn't actually there and he can't feel hearts and if he does it's usually because he's trying to spare himself something because most hearts aren't worth feeling and his certainly isn't. Is he supposed to say a nice thing here? Son of a bitch.

The truth is there isn't always someone looking kindly down on wayward urchins, no matter how charming and good at survival they are. He got unexpectedly lucky, which is not a thought he has often; luck isn't where his successes come from, generally speaking. Guile, willpower, okay well maybe some fate and divine interest, who's counting. Maybe this shitass island is her unlooked for luck. What a responsibility rollercoaster that would be.

There's probably no diverting this runaway train now, he's a benevolent moon genius loci, whatever, fuck. "There was a lot going on, we maybe didn't know if we felt any hearts. Lup was an umbrella, that probably factors in, somewhere." Reel it in, Taako.

"But we...had the surface in mind. That's what we were--" He struggles, verbally and with his hands, because this is a lot to commit to, and some of it's bound to be bullshit. "We were trying to fix things," and it all went VERY sideways, several sideways, but that's not the point, "In a lot of worlds. Maybe not yours. But maybe yours. Definitely yours in the future, probably?" He's not sure what point he's trying to make, here, but it's time to figure it out. Can he stick this landing? "Point is, we were out there somewhere, definitely."

Disappointment has never been an item in her emotional baggage. Her life had been planned from day one, cradle to grave, and she never had the passing thought that things should be different, that they could be changed, and simply went along with it. Even after being given a taste of freedom and holding onto it as tightly as she could, disappointment didn't exist. She didn't put faith in enough things to be disappointed by them. Seto had been the only person prior to this island and while he made her sad, upset, and happy beyond belief, she can't recall feeling like this feeling of-

Discontent? A feeling she knows is misplaced. An honest answer for an equally honest question, giving her the benefit of avoiding pieces of false hope she's already learned to ignore. But it's still there, for a second, that disappointment. That shaken bit of faith she knew she had placed in the elves, because they resided in the same place of her heart that Seto did. But she couldn't feel them either. Didn't know any pretty moon could hold onto equally pretty people.

But it's still disappointing to know her heart didn't reach them, even after all the experiments meant to do otherwise, but it's an overpowering sort of comfort to know they were out there at all. They were kind-if the elves had any inkling they were on the surface, they would've come down to say hello and sell treasures made out of moonrocks and magic. That she's sure of.

She grips at the fabric on his shoulder, tempted to let him know there was nothing worth fixing-that they shouldn't waste their time on her world, and instead find the one person would be alive by the time they made it there. But it doesn't matter right now. She doesn't need to think about it because they're here. Seto's here and she can deal with pushing that thought away. "It's okay. I know your hearts reached other people from the moon and I can feel it now, even when I'm far away from the tent. If you close your eyes, I think you can feel mine too. That's how it works."

And while she'd be content to leave it that, Taako had thrown in a weird bit of information into his explanation of past events. It's not entirely out of the norm-Taako can turn people into animals apparently? Why not items too? There's a second where she repeats umbrella with various different inflections, until she mentally deciphers that, yes, he meant umbrella. "Was it raining on the moon? Is that how she plays with water?"

All these allusions to hearts and feeling them, sprinkled throughout the other weird and heartwarming shit Ren just says like that's fine, he's just been assuming it's a platitude, or at the very least just, a placeholder for something nebulous and feel-y he'd have to take her word for even on a good day. Sure it means something to her, but he just glosses over it, it's shorthand for something good but not like, real-real. Not literal. Taako doesn't feel hearts.

It's just that her grip at his shoulder is very earnest, and doesn't feel much like the punctuation to any kind of non-literal platitude. 'That's how it works' feels pretty ironclad. Taako isn't as skilled as Ren at picking up new lingo, he'll have to be forgiven for being slow on that front, but he's finally starting to wonder. He'd ask about the mechanics of it for sure if the question of umbrellas weren't suddenly so pressing.

As much as he's never dug into the heart feeling talk, Ren has apparently let any umbrella-based razzing pass her by just as much. Which, honestly, good choice. He barks a laugh at the 'playing with water' comment, because man, wouldn't that have been better than the reality.

"No, uh-- See, you know how--" Mmm, nope, that's a great way to make a child terrified of umbrellas forever, your fave is problematic and got herself vored by one. "Your aunt went off on her own and-- Got lost for awhile. Like me. We sure don't have good luck with caves, do we. She had to live in the umbrella for awhile, and I didn't even know she was there. So I guess I'm not actually any good at feeling hearts, if that's a thing."

He feels. Not good? About saying that? And maybe a lot of the other things that got said? It's weird to feel bad about something he's not even sure is a real thing, but here it is. She wouldn't be telling him that it's okay if it actually was, they have a shared language, after all. "That's on me, don't feel bad. Maybe I'll get better at it."

The casual way he speaks makes the situation almost sound comical. Lost in a cave, trapped in an umbrella, maybe played hide and seek until Taako could feel her heart and let her out-if the memory of Lup's distress wasn't so crystal clear, even after all these months, she might be willing to remember this moment as just another whimsical adventure, a fun little mess, they had gotten themselves into.

But she can't, because Taako had played hide and seek in a cave once. Because she had seen and felt the grief in that temporary separation. Because she wonders how lonely it was to be trapped in an umbrella with no one around to feel her heart.

There's a second where she raises her tiny hands, palms hovering over his ears, like she's going to make good on her promise to hide him after all this time. He doesn't need it, probably, it sounds like it's a worry that he's over. But he likes to hide far too much for her to let it go and she reaches up to tug his hat instead, making sure it's secure over his head.

"You can feel hearts. It's different and-," Despite her talk about the ease of doing it, it's no longer as simple as standing around and letting the few emotions that remain reach you. Here, it's not easy at all. Here, she can't feel hearts the same way. Here, the one aspect of her that made her a useful tool is gone, and it's for the better, she's realizing, but it's difficult to not rely on that innate ability. "I can't do it like you can. You know how to say 'Hello Ren' and 'You're my apprentice' to make someone's heart happy." Her little fingers graze across the garbage glued to his hat, knowing full well he had done it quietly please her. "You know what rock piles feel sad and how to hold someone's hand so they can smile again. You're 'better' at it here, so it's okay."

Well, she's not wrong on that front, Taako is definitely better at feeling hearts here. Inasmuch as that's a real thing, which he's still very much on the fence about. It's been...surprisingly easy, to find his way to all that, even if he's still by no means 'good' at it. The island is full of obnoxiously endearing idiots, and he's working with a lot more than he had before he got his memories, it's all mostly slotting into place without any real effort, exactly how he likes emotional shit to work, to be honest. And Lup's here to kick his shit up between his shoulderblades if he lets it go too much.

But there's absolutely no doubt that Ren has played some part in it, too. Her life sounds so much more nightmarish than his own upbringing, shitty as it was, both in reality and in a stupid voidfish'd fiction. He barely knows anything about it, and it's just. All bad, every off the cuff glimpse she lets fly. And Ren is just as guileless and perpetually ready to help as, as he doesn't remember ever being, pulling his hat down protectively and twisting his heart. Did he ever know how to be like that? No, right? Probably not.

It's stupid and he can't unvoidfish any of that formative awfulness for her, because for her it's just, real, over and done, the way the past usually is. So without really ever thinking about it a single time in so many words, he's done the next best thing, as much as he can. Still no unexpected and unlooked-for siblings for Ren, but she can have some shitty elves. Good luck not having them, they're pretty well in it to win it.

Also she still has zero idea what the word apprentice means, and that's priceless, as well as way more fun to dwell on than any of that. He's not sad, you're sad, shut up.

"What can I say, I've been learning from the best. Like," oh no, "A good--" It is nearly impossible to stick this landing with a straight face, and he fails miserably, barely getting the words out through his snickering. It's still a horrible sneeze of a non-word, and he's still impressed by it therefore. "A good apptaakotice."

Noises used to scare her. The unknown sources of distant cackling, laughing, crying-all would make fear course through her body and send her running for the metaphorical hills. It was dangerous to put faith in anything new and the elves have, almost twin-handedly, changed her entire perception about the world around her. Laughter is a way to spread happiness, a contagious method of bringing a smile to someone's face and she finds her own lips quirking upwards at the sounds coming out of his mouth.

Once upon a time, she found safety and warmth only in the sound of a cat's meow or Seto's voice and now-

Every bit of Taako is among that. His presence is all she needs to feel safe. Everything about him makes her smile-his voice, his laugh, whether it's booming or quiet, the touch of his hand, the silent solidarity he offers whenever he's in the same area as her and now, the soft use of this new word. Its meaning is unclear, but she doesn't need to know the exact definition to feel the affection trickling from it.

"That's right. That's what you are-you're my good apptaakotice," Makes sense. It's fine. It's a good word she's going to use with increasing and terrifying frequency. Everyone's a -tice, you're a -tice, they're a -tice, the appstorytellertice, we're all doing our best. "And I'm learning from the best, like a good apprentice."

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February Event: Just One Mist-ake

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