IC Inbox for PSLs & Game Contact
Sep. 1st, 2020 12:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
youngtimer
NeverAcorned - Standard UN || HoratioV - Fog/Lighthouse UN || 5ofDiamonds - Casino Business || Odyssean - Anonymous/Sock UN
WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, NEVERACORNED. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 208.52.15.25 *** NEVERACORNED has joined 208.52.15.25 <NEVERACORNED> This is the private channel for Horatio Hargreeves. Leave me a message and I'll reply as soon as I can. If this is related to the Lucky 38, please start your message with a '38' so I can prioritize. <NEVERACORNED> Spammers will be banned, IP tracked, and have their index fingers broken. Have a nice day. :) | ||||
<Aquila'sShadow>
Date: 2021-12-31 03:42 am (UTC)Thank you for the gift and please apologize to Dolores for the delay. I had hoped to make the test run earlier so she would be finished for the holidays but since when has anything gone according to plan here? I'm glad the quality is to your liking. It will only take a few days but we should probably start soon before ryslig complicates things again. I can pick her up tomorrow so she will be finished in time to celebrate the new year if that works for you.
Other than overworking herself over the holidays, Annie is doing well, great actually. I'm sure you will hear from her soon. Thank you for being there for her.
Nattensmas!
Date: 2022-01-02 07:15 am (UTC)You like sweet things, don't you? :)
When the bottle is removed, Horatio will see another piece of tissue in a different color. Should he unwrap this one, he will find a Monster World-styled figure of Celeste.
You like spicy things, don't you? :)
A note is taped to the lid of the box.]
Thank you for everything you've done to help me this year. And to help Atem, too. I'm grateful for it all, even the incessant meddling that you and Celeste took part in to push me and him closer to each other. I'd be remiss if I didn't express utmost gratitude for that.
I sincerely hope that you enjoy these gifts to the fullest. I know you're very fond of these three things!
-Ryou Bakura
[...Bitch did you just--
Yes. Yes he did.]
<HoratioV>
Date: 2022-01-03 10:57 pm (UTC)S'okay, here is hers!
Date: 2022-01-03 11:08 pm (UTC)"Whether you call it Christmas or Nattensfest, I hope you enjoy it with your family as I plan to with mine. Let's get cocoa and coffee again at the first place we talked, sometime: I'm feeling nostalgic. Maybe after our next spar? ~ Horatio"]
<HoratioV>
Date: 2022-01-03 11:12 pm (UTC)Speak of the devil, actually, Annie just messaged me. We're going to catch up. Thanks for letting me know. She's my sister at this point, there for me just as much as I am for her, truth be told. Sometimes she reminds me of my actual sister from home, Allison. Always up for gossip and spreading rumors to see what kind of trouble she can get into.
As for Dolores: how does the first week of January or so look for you?
sorry this took so long, wanted to do it justice
Date: 2022-01-04 01:23 am (UTC)he knows Atem plays his little mind games with the humans: that he has certain ones he marks to toy with, to target, to make them answer for certain behaviors and actions. hell, he's helped Atem raid Amanda's old trap workshop for the materials necessary for some of his games. it's fun. but it only ever has to do with the humans ... he can't understand why Atem would suddenly turn that judgement on a fellow monster. but then Gabe says "he got bright", and Horatio understands. it was the Nephilim, something about the temporary changes Atem had told him about, that had made him react so recklessly.
but being cut apart like that, awake - Horatio's gut tightens, twists, and turns. he'd first met Atem not long after he'd undergone that himself, at Daniel's hands. why, WHY would he even begin to consider doing it to someone else? he wasn't sure if Mana's little follies could explain that one away. that was beyond the pale. Horatio isn't sure he knows which "Him" Gabriel thought he was back with, but he can circle back to that if the moment arises, or ask later when things are calmer.
for now, he decides, as he finally closes his fishmouth long enough to swallow so he can speak, there's only one thing he wants to know.]
What are you going to do?
cw: eye trauma mention
Date: 2022-01-04 02:12 pm (UTC)[It sounds so simple. It doesn't let on that there's been research that went into this, a hoarse argument with Montgomery while the latter still had Gabriel's blood on his hands from stitching his wounds and eyelid shut to try and save his sight to stop him from bringing his fury to bear on everyone Atem knew and held dear, the research journals pored over in the dark office in the depths of the Prison, the workput into constructing the closest the peninsula could get to a modern artificial heart - but none of that is important now. That was business that would be dealt with entirely between him and Atem.]
I won't kill him - God knows I only kill people if they're stupid enough to try and get in my way or trying to kill me - but I will make him feel every single inch of what he did to me. What he made me relive. Hell, I won't even blind him, which is far greater a kindness than he deserves.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-06 01:21 am (UTC)he's going to vivisect Atem. Atem, who already died by that once: twice, if you counted the parasitic infestation that he himself helped end, hands covered in a new friend's blood.
Atem Is Not Going To Be Okay after this. But at the same time, he recognizes why Gabe needs to do it: and that he would have very similar thoughts, himself, if someone had tried that shit on him. Regardless of the way he personally feels about it, of how he knows it will go down on the other end, he can't be angry. He can't stop him, or speak out against it - not only does he have no right, but it's neither his place nor his business.
Instead of any other, broader reaction, Horatio nods slowly, his jaw and mouth pressed as he finishes breathing in.]
When?
[he just ... doesn't want to be there. or anywhere near wherever it's going to happen. so that if any of their friends come to him and say "you know Gabriel. DID YOU KNOW?" he has plausible deniability and will not have to choose a side.]
no subject
Date: 2022-01-06 03:35 am (UTC)[There's the edges of that old, clipped way he'd spoke when he hadn't been here long. When Lux was still a name he hid behind. Strictly business. Horatio might be good at keeping his face straight, but Gabriel's been doing it longer. Reading people. Watching how they move.
And since he'd become a manticore, reading it in the way their heart thrums and how anxiety scents the air.]
The New Year. I'll not give you enough information to risk your friends accusing you of being complicit.
<a.dyer>
Date: 2022-01-06 05:53 am (UTC)The only difference between my normal panic and this was I had to keep it together. Pizza is not a bad idea. I need to not be where I'm mostly living just to do proper self-care.
That reminds me. Have you met Maribelle yet?
no subject
Date: 2022-01-06 08:59 pm (UTC)Still, this is a serious matter, so Celeste tucks that thought away for now. Their apartment is actually... way more normal than Atem and Ryou's. The strangest 'thing' would be the kotatsu Souda engineered in the middle of the living room, complete with a mahjong board neatly put away. There are lots of board games, card games, and books. But it's a very average apartment.
Celeste sets the kettle on the stove and starts digging for their most caffinated tea.
They really should pick up coffee, if Five drinks it.She remembered Bethan, and that little girl, Gosalyn. Bethan because she'd lived on the eighth floor once, and her similarities to Mukuro always made Celeste alert around her. Gosalyn for the opposite reason: she was one of the children in Ryslig, which meant Celeste had that uncrushable instinct to keep an eye on her.
When he mentions collapsing under the weight of his grief, Celeste's hands finally pause over where she'd been preparing mugs and sugar.]
Oh, Five.
[She almost never calls him that. She's trying to address the more serious part of him, that part that she can almost see standing over his shoulder, lashing his own back.
She puts her hand there instead.]
Come sit down.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-07 03:32 am (UTC)... Um.
[he's suddenly not quite sure what to do. sit down, yes, that's painfully obvious. but a chair, or ... The Couch and all its implications of closer proximity? because after that hug, he's realized he wants more of that. especially from her. he's not sure why that's so abundantly clear to him all of a sudden.
only ... he is. he's absolutely sure. everyone else he cared about is gone. and she's still here. and he's realizing he cares more about her than any of them - no, fuck it, if Gabriel could see it the last time they spoke, he may as well be plain about it, even if it's just in his own head.
he loves her.
he loves her, and she's making him tea, and listening to him, and worried about him, and asking him to sit down.
this .... is not a situation he has ever been in. Mom didn't count. Mom had been programmed to do those things. Celeste is anything but programmed. Haltingly, he moves toward the couch and sits down]
'Kay. I didn't - um. I don't know what happened. I just ... collapsed. Next thing I knew, it had been a month. Noa said it had something to do with a Fog-created artifact that was destroyed on the ground the graveyard was built on...
[is he rambling because he doesn't know what to do? absolutely. he's even picking at a loose thread on his sleeve. fastidious, in-control, matter-of-fact Horatio is a few words away from falling apart, and from some corner of his mind he's watching himself and screaming 'stop that, just shut up, she's going to eat you alive if you keep this up'...]
Which, I mean, you wouldn't think that something magical could leave anything behind, but the more I think about it, the more it makes a sort of sense, because nuclear warheads do the same thing, right? It's just entropy ... only ... with magic ...
<Aquila'sShadow>
Date: 2022-01-12 04:16 am (UTC)Yeah that sounds like Annie.
[Sometimes Altair wished she got into less trouble though.]
I'm glad Annie was able to find someone like that here, you too. Family is hard to come by.
Sounds good. I should have her finished before arrivals then.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-13 02:58 am (UTC)[even when he's planning a little quid pro quo for a close friend, Gabe is honest and considerate. Javert is cut of the same cloth, he thinks: they're Considerate Monsters, unwilling to hide their monstrosity, but equally unwilling to let it make them barbarians. he can only hope he's becoming another example of the same. those signs of anxiety and stress Gabe was sensing ooze away to an almost eerie calm: old assassin habits of his own coming back into play]
I should probably go let Celeste know I'm not chilling out in the sea of stars ... Fog only knows how she's been about my absence.
<NeverAcorned>
Date: 2022-01-13 03:00 am (UTC)Maribelle .... is .... the doll, right? I came over that one time, but that was about it. I still don't quite get what's going on there.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-13 08:22 pm (UTC)Go - you owe that girl dinner for napping that long.
<a.dyer>
Date: 2022-01-14 05:53 am (UTC)Like, I know it should be okay but my heart physically hurts. I have this thing where I lose people. I still haven't figured out how to lay to rest Lucius being gone.
Yeah.
Altair doesn't like it if I leave for too long without bringing her with me. She IS harmless, but she is also super creepy. Only the Ring Spirit seems fully okay with her. He treats her like she's a toddler. Which she pretty much is sentience-wise.
ULTRALATE HOLIDAY NATTENSFESTING
Date: 2022-01-14 01:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-01-15 05:36 am (UTC)Instead she settles next to him and watches him fret with that particularly blank expression when she’s reading someone as intensely as she can. It’s probably very disconcerting, that amount of focus.
Grand Bois notices it too. Giving them both a glance before settling back again into his normal demeanorWords just flow out of him. In a rambling, wandering, I’m-freaking-out-please-don’t-mention-it kind of way that Celeste has very little experience with. So instead she takes stock. He’s trying to explain what happened instead of talking about how he’s feeling, as if ranting endlessly about the facts of the situation will make him feel less scared. He’s hiding behind theory the way she hides with lies.
So silently Celeste lets him talk himself in circles a little and when she sees his anxious hands pulling at the thread on his sleeve, she weaves her fingers between his instead. Not forcing him to be still, necessarily. Not if he doesn’t want to be.]
That makes sense. I’ll admit I don’t know much about either, I was not exactly given a normal education.
[But, because he wouldn’t let her wallow nor turn away from her feelings, she would pay him that courtesy. Even if she has to turn all of her focus to the carpet as she says it.]
You frightened me, disappearing like that… Komaeda is gone. I thought she’d taken you next.
[Her voice is not small when she says it, instead lacking in any emotion or vulnerability at all, the defensiveness of it immediately betrays her instead.]
january 6th or so | <CheeryCherry>
Date: 2022-01-16 09:23 am (UTC)Hello. This is Riley.
I know the timing is terribly late, but I wanted to apologize for the party. You caught me in a very strange time, and honestly I probably shouldn’t have even gone. I didn’t mean to sound dismissive or rude.
<NeverAcorned>
Date: 2022-01-17 05:07 pm (UTC)Hi, Riley. It's okay, I could kind of tell it wasn't your thing and that you probably just went because of how Celeste worded that invitation. I probably owe you an apology for interrupting your reading, too, but social tact isn't exactly one of my strong points.
If big gatherings aren't something you like, would it be easier to talk over coffee somewhere? I really would like to get to know you. We have a lot of the same friends, which means there's got to be something else we have in common.
no subject
Date: 2022-01-17 05:39 pm (UTC)no - she's not only respecting him, she's ... trying to comfort him, even now, in her own way, in whatever way two people who don't know how Real People work do.]
No - no, I'm -
[he turns a little on the couch, angling himself towards her, turning his heart toward her. somehow, he trusts she won't rip it out of his chest and eat it whole. he reaches for her other hand and takes that, too, squeezes them both. it seems they both need to be reassured]
I'm right here. With you.
<NeverAcorned> cw: family death discussion/toxic behavior
Date: 2022-01-17 06:00 pm (UTC)So what you're saying is, you need to bring Maribelle with you? That's fine. Dolores will look after her.
[which basically would translate to 'Maribelle will probably play with Dolores and dress her in things and smear makeup on her and dump tea on her face and Dolores will take it in stride, and Five will perceive it as her being A Patient Woman. everything's fine here.]
no subject
Date: 2022-01-17 06:02 pm (UTC)[thank you for adding another small heart attack to his upcoming itinerary, Gabriel, he needed that.]
Give my best to Monty.
<a.dyer>
Date: 2022-01-17 08:35 pm (UTC)What?
I'm so sorry. Your Dad totally needs therapy. Honestly all I need when I'm feeling low is company. I'll be okay.
Hopefully Dolores likes tea parties. Maribelle defaults to that when she isn't following me around.
I'll be over soon.
[ That is absolutely what will happen. Maribelle is basically a forever child-like being. Annie has just come to accept this is part of her life. ]