INTROS + MONTHLIES

[trainmasters]

Who: Everyone
When: Day 59, morning
Where: the Aurora

[It's morning, though you might not know it from the darkness that remains outside. But there is an annoouncement on your Chain to brighten up the day regardless:]

WELCOME NEW HEROES

[This round's newbies are waking up in their rooms, in the usual nondescript undies or team pyjamas. They'll get their basic welcome message and a prompt to view the IC Guide.

As you go out to greet them, you might find that the entire train has been decorated! By whom is not readily apparent, but there's streamers and heart-shaped balloons adorning all the hallways and many of the additional cars besides which. It's festive!

You know what else is festive? The candy hearts sitting in bowls around the place. They all have generic, cute messages on them like "I ♥ You," "Be Mine," "Text Me," "Forever," etc. Try one out! Though you might find they carry some effects when you try one out....

♥ Pink Hearts These hearts will cause an empathetic bond! For the next few minutes/hours/rest of the thread, you'll find yourself connected with the nearest person in arguably the most intimate of ways....

♡ White Hearts You just can't help it after you chomp down on one of these hearts-- you've got a song on your lips bursting to come out! You may even feel up for dancing. Go forth and be your best, most musical sellf!

♥ Green Hearts You know what that person you're talking to RIGHT NOW needs? A hug!!! At least, that's the urge you'll get the moment you pop a green heart into your mouth. Although handholding also seems to get rid of the compulsion, so hey, there's options!

♡ Blue Hearts The very next thing you say after you eat one of these bad boys comes out in poem form! It doesn't have to be good poetry, mind you. Limericks, haikus, anything goes! At least it's mercifully brief?

And so it goes. Enjoy your icebreaker and make that fresh meat feel welcome!]

[[OOC NOTES: As the monthly prompt, the candy hearts will continue until next month's placements. If you have any questions, please ping the mods via the q&a. Thank you!]]

Comments

[schrodingerscockroach]

....okay, if that has to do with Darkness, I think Malice is a different thing. Because that's not the only thing that causes Heart Games.

[Pauses.]

Because it was....a Heart Game....

[terribletwos]

But what caused it? If it wasn't a wielder?

[schrodingerscockroach]

A trial runner. This....time?

[Why does that concept sound so FAMILIAR?]

[terribletwos]

This time? It's happened before?

Where do these runners come from? And where are they now?

[schrodingerscockroach]

Maybe? That....the concept should be alien, but it's not. And usually when it's not, it means I've experienced it.

[And boy....boy, does he hate that thought.]

[terribletwos]

You're not sure?

[ Wait, didn't he say something about lost memories earlier? Also, there's another place that can manipulate hearts like this? ]

[schrodingerscockroach]

Memory loss is weird. It's not like everything is gone, it's just everyone personal. But you can't know what you don't know.

But Heart Games...feel like a thing I know?

[terribletwos]

... I know something about that.

[ Make that a LOT about that. ]

[schrodingerscockroach]

Experience with memory loss?

[terribletwos]

That's part of what makes what I used to be so complicated.

[ Lack of memories, memory loss AND manipulated/fake memories. ]

[schrodingerscockroach]

Oh?

[terribletwos]

... I didn't have them for a while. And it took a bit before I could really form them. I used to write in a journal to make stuff stick better.

It didn't help when the memories I started getting back weren't really... mine.

[schrodingerscockroach]

[And there's that...feeling.]

[Crawling up the back of his neck.]

[My name is Leonard Church.]

[He shakes his head.]

What....are you?

[terribletwos]

[ While Roxas has been pretty open up to this point, mostly for the sake of empathizing with the guy who just had his heart futzed with, this question brings up the walls in a major way. With his guard back to max, there's only one response he can give to that. The only one that matters. ]

Roxas.

[schrodingerscockroach]

....

[He sighs, rubbing at the back of his neck. Head, get on straight, he has a NEWBIE.]

Of course you're Roxas. What you are doesn't change who. I'm just asking what in case it's like....relevant. For safety or understanding.

Like if you were a vampire, that's good to know so I know it's bad if there's sunlight. What is just to help understand where you're coming from and if case there's a danger to you present.

I'm not gonna judge you based on what you are. You're Roxas and who is always more important than what.

[terribletwos]

[ Roxas gives him a more guarded look, assessing... ]

I don't know what a vampire is.

[ He sighs and lets his gaze drift to the side, his voice growing quieter. He's never had to explain it before. It was always explained to him, and only in bits and pieces over time. ]

They called us Nobodies. The shell that's left when a heart is separated from the body. If the person is strong enough, that shell becomes a Nobody. Usually, the original person disappears.

This time... it was different. So I wasn't like the other Nobodies. I could wield the Keyblade.

But I still wasn't... whole. I held half of someone else. Sora.

[schrodingerscockroach]

Undead. Can't go into the sun, drinks blood to survive.

....gotta love when someone names people and is a completely asshole about it. And I'm guessing trying to make it a pun. Something wrong for someone doubling down like that.

I'm guessing that's why you don't have emotions at first? Have to...learn? How to feel again?

So Sora....didn't lose his heart completely or something?

[terribletwos]

[ Roxas shrugs at that. ]

I don't know who came up with it. I guess it doesn't really matter.

I had to learn everything.

[ He's still learning. ]

Axel said I was like a zombie.

[ Don't ask how he knows what a zombie is but not a vampire. KH man. ]

He lost it. But he got it back. I guess I showed up in between. [ It's not like he remembers... ] We didn't know about each other for a while.

[ There's a longer pause before makes his next comment. ]

Naminé once told me we weren't supposed to exist. She's like me.

[ And probably stuck in the same place as everyone else. Right after just getting her second shot at life... Xion too... He clenches a fist, as he thinks about it. There has to be more he can do! ]

[schrodingerscockroach]

[There's that. Feeling again. Crawling at the back of his head.]

[He shakes his head again, rubbing at his temple.]

Starting from scratch can do that. Been a few people here who were kinda like that. Something not quite human, memories being very important for how they act, that sort of thing.

[Though that....that line about supposed to exist.]

That's bullshit right there. If you weren't 'supposed to exist,' then you wouldn't exist. If the world somehow allows it to happen, then that's supposed enough.

Plenty of people exist for messed up reasons. Or weird reasons. What matters is what the person decides to do with themselves after they're alive.

[terribletwos]

I only just got all my memories back.

[ He gives Dusk a hesitant look. He's still getting used to the idea of being his own person again. He had all but convinced himself that he and Sora were the same. And that felt... fine.

Until Sora said otherwise. ]

It didn't matter at the time if it was true... Sora needed me. I felt that.

[ It's strange to see someone else as upset as he had once been over that phrase. Everyone else had just accepted it. ]

[schrodingerscockroach]

All the more reason you were supposed to exist then.

People need each other. It's how it goes. Just because you have a magical? Soul? Connection doesn't change you were two people.

Just means you were pretty brave because it sounds like you took a big personal risk. [Context clues are your friend.]

[terribletwos]

[ Roxas shakes his head. ]

You don't understand. Sora needed me to wake up. I had to go back to him.

[ Minus that part where he lost it after his best friend got killed and tried to take back his life anyway but these things happen. ]

I wasn't expecting to come back like this. And I really wasn't expecting to end up here right after getting this replica.

[schrodingerscockroach]

...no, I stick by that. It's a sucky deal, but you made the decisions you did.

And you got lucky to see the other side.

[terribletwos]

I had some people to help with that.

[ Some unexpected ones even. ]

[schrodingerscockroach]

Usually the case. That's why it's never a bad move to make friends.

People will watch your back and you can watch theirs.