lifeaftr | January Event: Fade to Black

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January Event: Fade to Black

JANUARY EVENT: FADE TO BLACK

Who: Anyone and everyone!
What: Your true self comes to roost
When: January 21st - 23rd; January 25th - 28th
Where: All over!
Warnings: Dark subjects such as violence and self-destruction are likely to come to the forefront - please mark your content accordingly!

Down in that Darkness

This log is primarily for the Shadow and Light portions of the event, for ease and convenience. Your Shadow can be either the Persona-inspired sort - a "brutal, bitterly honest recreation of a character's worst flaws, darkest fears, and deepest secrets" - or the edgier, more laughable variant. The Lights, on the other hand, will do their utmost to convince their real selves of their best qualities, no matter how little they want to hear them.

Remember that the Shadows will be present from January 21st to January 23rd, and the Lights will be present from January 25th to January 28th.

On January 25th, we will post a separate log for Rejection Rooms!

Some useful links, for reference:

[ ♆ ] OOC Event Post
[ ♆ ] Rejection Room Sign-Ups; remember to note your interest in these as soon as possible!
[ ♆ ] Deaths Page; death penalties have been reduced for the duration of this event, but still do let us know if your character dies regardless!

Event Timeline

[ ♆ ] January 20th: The monthly Storytelling occurs.
[ ♆ ] January 21st: Shadows of both initial variants appear.
[ ♆ ] January 23rd: Shadows of both initial variants disappear.
[ ♆ ] January 25th Lights and Rejection Rooms appear.
[ ♆ ] January 28th: Lights and Rejection Rooms dissipate. Those still trapped in their Rejection Rooms by the event's end will suffer a character death.

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"What are they to you?" [The tip of its hard light blade indicates the Drifter, spitting gobbets of pink into the dirt as they fight back another poorly timed coughing fit. They look, the Shadow thinks, suitably pathetic for the point to be made.]

"You do not know them. Not really. Is this all a matter of principle, for you? A kindness?"

[The Shadow dashes left in an attempt to meet her mid-strike. It doesn't work out precisely as well as all that when she goes right instaed, but its blade is a blur, a humming radius of cyan meant to try and keep her at bay. The fist meant for its neck instead clips its shoulder. It hisses, softly.]

[In a flash, it's drawn its rifle, and lines up a shot for her abdomen.]

[It's not exactly the shot she wanted- she can't stun if she can't hit any pressure points, get into intimate areas, but at least it connects. Part of her is hoping this will be as weak as Drifter, as the warnings she got in the trial of Patience that they would need to be handled with care. Looks like it won't be that easy... but that figures. Of course not.]

Yeah, it's called I fucking hate watching assholes beat people up.

[However, she isn't experienced with guns, and has no idea what they pull out or the kind of damage it can do. She goes to dodge on reflex, but it's going to scrape through the edge of her side as she twists, instantly leading to a yell of pain between gritted teeth as she slaps a hand over the wound.]

Fffffffuck, you dick!

"That has more to do with you than it does with them. Are they just the backdrop in your need for violent release?"

[The bullets from the guns found in Buried Time move a good deal slower than most - slow enough to be evaded, with the right timing, if one is lucky and light on their feet. The rifle's shots are among the fastest, though they're far from the most devastating.]

[The Shadow seems very interested in Beau's failure to dodge the projectile in full. It cocks its head with a low hiss of something cold and scornful - almost like laughter, if it were the sort to bother with such a thing.]

"You appear to have some problems adapting."

[Oh, laughing at her is possibly the worst thing they could have done. She abandons the hand at her side quickly, eyes focused right on them.]

You're the one who's gonna have a fuckin' problem!

[She surges in again, going first for the face and then ducking at the last minute to surge into their stomach. Her aim is to hit four times, calling on that reserve of speed and power she learned from the monks for situations just like this. The blows come fast, quicker than once a second, so if they don't want to get pummeled they'll need to escape her reach.]

Beat up someone who actually wants to fight you!

[It moves with a sharpness that borders on inhuman. It isn't human, but neither is the real creature it emulates. The tint of its skin is that same vibrant cobalt, its eyes that same dark-pitted obsidian.]

"You always want to fight, don't you?"

[She is not unlike the Drifter in that regard. She's fast, too - disarmingly so. Several blows strike home, causing the Shadow to stagger, winded. It whips out its blade again, a cyan whirlwind hissing through the air in an effort to counter.]

[It's an attempt to get her off its back, first.]

[It's so strange to see them move like this. She's enjoyed before the simplicity in the way the Drifter surges through movement, but this just feels clipped in a way she can't describe. She doesn't like it. Maybe she doesn't like anything about this. Beau would like to spare a look back to see how the real Drifter is doing and make sure she's not defending a corpse, but especially as they're whipping out actual-ass swords, she needs to keep her attention focused.

The blade comes up and she pulls back almost halfhazard, arms pressed into her chest with a curve of her back, before grabbing her staff over her shoulders to bring it down before they get in another strike.]

Hey, you're the one who started this, not me!

[They're not down for the count just yet. Not really. They're shaking their head, trying to clear the static and fuzz from their brain, trying and failing to stand. The Shadow isn't worried about them, just yet. It doesn't have cause to worry about a half-dead smear on the ground.]

[The blade meets wood with a satisfying grind of wood to hard light. The Shadow spins, sweeping a vast arc aimed at her abdomen.]

[It sounds like it's enjoying itself.]

"Never start a fight you can't finish."

Edited 2019-02-24 07:59 (UTC)

[Oh c'mon little buddy don't expire here. She sucks in her gut, a step-step just out of reach, hearing the buzz come too damn close.]

You kidding? We're just getting started!

[She grabs her staff in her right hand and sweeps it towards them while using her left hand to aim a punch right at their face. Maybe she can take out some vision here.]

[Coming at it from two sides? That's just unfair. Only the Shadow is allowed to cheat, obviously.]

[It has to choose. It can block one but not the other, so it parries the staff and takes the hit from the hand. It rolls with the momentum, allowing the driving force to press it into a pseudo retreat. For half a second, it swerves back.]

[Then it plunges forward, sword swishing for her legs.]

"You have stamina. We remember.

"But you have no moderation."

[Oh is that cheating? She has not even begun to start real cheating.

She grins when the punch connections, but it's wiped quickly as the other words hit her ears. The Drifter doesn't know it- the real or the shadow- but that's not the first time she's heard that phrase. Nor the second, or third, or any amount she's bothered to keep count. It was echoed all through her training, all the times the monks beat her into the floor, every time they degraded and broke her in the name of training. Of success.

Beau sees red.

She leaps to avoid the shot, and throws herself forward to beat them right in the head, a one two swing.]

Fuck you, asshole!

[Oh. that seems to have struck a nerve, hasn't it?]

"No patience, just like us." [It keeps talking. Unlike the Drifter, it seems to be very readily capable of using its words, and it never shuts up. Dodging, weaving, trying to stay one step ahead of her. It doesn't always succeed. One clout crashes into its helm, causing its vision to explode with erratic starbursts.]

[Perhaps, if it can incense her further, it will be able to tempt her into doing something extraordinarily stupid.]

"You rush headlong into danger, with no regard for your own well-being. Do you not expect anyone to care, if you die, or do you just not concern yourself with their concern?"

[If the Drifter is paying attention here, her rejection room suddenly makes a lot more sense, huh?

Beau kicks herself into going as fast as she can, swinging in hits left and right, even as her arms start to ache. Now he made it personal. Or well, more personal than it already was, in stepping in to save a friend from an assailant.

Man, fuck this shit, she's gonna have some words with that island after this.]

You wanna talk or do you wanna fight, huh! Hit me or go down, you fucking coward!

[She sure seems like she's still listening, though.]

"Do you not expect to be missed?"

[The answer to that query seems to be that it wants to do both. The Drifter is all fight and no talk. The Light is all talk and no fight.]

[The Shadow, as luck and fate and convenience would have it, is both, and it relishes it. It staggers whenever she lands a hit, but it is as persistent as its real-life counterpart, swinging a blade back at her to counter every strike.]

"Do you not wish to be?"

[Lucky. Yep. That sure is one word for it. The words are cutting, but the fact she's landing blows at all is lessening the anger blinding at the back of her head.]

Stop trying to fuckin' manipulate me! This isn't important and you know it!

[But she's screaming, the words tearing from her throat in a way that makes her feel raw. Her arms are aching, but she won't stop her pace, the step-step-swing pace she continues to slam into them.]

I'm sure as hell not gonna miss your shitty ass!

"You claim that you aren't important, then."

[Shuffling back, step for step - it's in relative retreat. Its blade hums, bright and blitzing, but it isn't attempting to cut her open, kill her. If it is, it isn't doing a good job of it, but it is the Drifter's darkest self and even at their worst the Drifter is nothing but intent, unalloyed and brutal and unrelenting.]

[It has a goal. It is achieving its goal in the most efficient way possible.]

"No wonder the two of you have so much in common. You think of yourselves as collateral first."

Don't put your stupid fucking words in my mouth!

[She's tired, but they're retreating. They're getting away from Drifter, they won't kill them-- that's what's important. Everything else she can deal with later, from the ache in her arms to the twist in her spine. It feels like the monks over her shoulder, the target in front of her more experienced, the call of again! against overtaxed limbs. It was for moments like this; it always was.]

You don't know a goddamn thing about me! You don't know shit about my life!

"I know enough."

[The Shadow is flagging, but it doesn't seem to care. It considers the injuries that are inflicted upon it, and presses on regardless. It either does not experience the pain of that sort of injury, or it has the ability to push past it. Perhaps because it knows that only one thing can truly kill it.]

"I know what they are. A self-sacrificing, dying thing that does not terribly mind committing themself to the service of something that will kill them, because they will do all that they can to leave the world better than they found it.

"To leave you better than they found you."

[She wants to end this. She wants them to stop running their stupid fucking mouth, to make them leave and get away from everyone. With a yell, Beau jumps into the air, attempting to kangaroo kick the shadow before landing in a backflip. She wants them on the floor, she wants them under her fucking feet--]

What's so goddamn bad about that! Huh!

[Dairon's words echo through her head, the mantra she felt the last time she was beaten and bruised at her feet, that she must do good, that she must bring good, that her nature will be her undoing.

This is better than most stuff she's done here, she thinks. And it'll feel amazing to smack them down.]

You got something against saving the world! You got a problem maybe you could've helped instead of just complaining!

"Will it hurt, when they die?"

[Her kick snaps its head back, and it cannot rebalance itself quickly enough. Something cracks sickeningly in the Shadow's middle when it falls. It coughs wetly, spitting gobbets of pinkish blood into the sand. There's an unnatural angle to its posture when it rolls upward again, a peculiar hunch to its shoulders. Something vital inside it is damaged, and it moves as though it does not feel it.]

[Perhaps it doesn't.]

"When their illness claims them, and they leave nothing but the bitter memory of their presence?"

Will it hurt when I fucking kill you??

[She surges her staff forward, no sharp point to stab but still aiming to jab it into their chest, pin them down with her haggered breaths. She's tired, she's so tired, but fuck them and fuck this and fuck everything.]

At least people will want to remember them. At least they did something people care about! Not like you and your bullshit!

[The wood strikes home, sinks in deep, and it spits a foaming spurt of bright pink. Its blade is a bright spritz of cerulean, buzzing out at her face in retaliation despite its injuries.]

"I am something that cannot be killed. I am something that cannot be forgotten. I am something that cannot be dismissed or shut away.

"But they will be."

Edited 2019-03-19 05:02 (UTC)

[She'll take any hit they give her, any spit in her face or blood on her skin as she shoves them to the ground, puts a foot on their chest, panting as she holds the staff in their torso.]

Don't tell me what to fucking do. Die or don't. But never goddamn touch them again.

[The Shadow wraps both hands around the staff and, incredibly - seem to try to be yanking it in deeper in its refusal to let go. Its breathing is harsh and labored and it leans forward, grinding its body down along the length of the wood in a slow, painful drag that must be excruciating.]

[But it speaks through it, regardless, the words wrenching and brutal.]

"I don't have to. They are already dying without my help."

[She has a choice here. Beau has killed many, many things- people who wouldn't get out of her way, people who attacked her, people who happened to just be in the wrong damn place. Qualms about this sort of thing are a little beyond her. But she's supposed to not be doing that anymore. She's supposed to be helping people, to stop getting pissed and hit something instead of dealing with it.

But you know what? Fuck that. This fake nearly killed her fucking friend and they can eat shit for it.]

Then they don't need you making it worse! Fuck off and die already!

[And she reaches down, grabbing them by their mantle to finish the drag up her staff if that's what they're so intent on. Fuck this. She just wants it to be over.]

"I am them. They are me.

"You think I'M making it worse?"

[The Shadow laughs, harsh and crackling, shooting a spurt of misted, pinkish spray into Beau's face. The sound is wheezing; something in its chest has collapsed and snapped inward to pierce whatever it possesses as an excuse for lungs. Each breath is a whistling wheeze.]

"They will stop finding ways to kill themself when they are DEAD."

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