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[grice]

Who: falco grice, others, and you!
What: a catch all for the month including a player plot, general prompts and event prompts in the comments, all open!
When: december; date will be in the header if any!
Where: waves hands at too many places

Content Warnings: possession, violence, gore, self harm, child death, war imagery, child soldiers, racial oppression, genocide, forced experimentation, torture, mutilation, gun violence (against children)


see below for open prompts of all kinds! if you have any questions or would like to plot something specific, hmu at liberos!

Comments

[grice]

That’s good. I wouldn’t want that for anyone.

[ and yet it still feels like some far away dream he’s trying to reach for while he’s still the one in a pit of combat. once the heat has helped his last sheet of photograph, falco begins to adjust them back into the frame. amazing. ]

. . . Thank you, sir. For saving my photos.

[eudaimonikos]

I guess not.

[It just means getting used to combat here. Sure, there's folks around here who don't fight still, but Michael's strong and hard to kill. He feels like he ought to fend for himself.

He won't say any of that, though. It feels like it won't help.]

Sure, no problem.

[grice]

[ he still wouldn’t want it for anyone, even here— though it’s probably too much to ask for in deer country. people either catch the train running or get caught by surprise. he doesn’t know which is worse, supposes both are equally bad . . .

he just had to have a solid base. ]

What’s your name? [ he could leave it less than that, but falco wasn’t really in the mood to be alone so soon. when someone’s finally gotten around to speaking to him and vice versa, he can’t help but to hold out for as long as he could. ] I’m Falco.

[eudaimonikos]

Michael. Nice to meet you.

[He seems content enough to remain where he is, at least, though he's withdrawn his hand and stopped radiating quite so much heat.]

[grice]

[ a nod in turn; the feeling is mutual. ]

Do you usually welcome new people, Mister Michael?

[ for staying by the shore, is what he considers. ]

[eudaimonikos]

I don't know about usually, but I do it a lot. It's something I used to do back home, as part of my job. I've been trying to be out here more this month, since I'm...good with the cold.

[Fire squids are very useful for breaking up the frozen water and shepherding smaller squids to shore!]

[grice]

[ without truly asking for more depth, falco’s mind already rolls out plenty of possibilities— none of which are probably true or one he judges from, but it’s something he does. fan out possibilities. good thinking juice. ]

You’re good with people, too.

[ coming over to check on him, helping him with his photos, hell, feeding him time and conversation. michael didn’t have to be here. ]

[eudaimonikos]

Thanks. I've learned to be.

[Demons aren't really social creatures; maybe it never would've come naturally to any of them. Either way, Michael doesn't count the years when he was just good at manipulating people.]

I know ending up in a new world can be rough for people. I can't really make this one any better, but it helps to have a nicer welcome.

[grice]

Thank you.

[ for the consideration, and that he’s part of it at this point, stranger or not. ]

This is the third place I’ve been to. It’s going to be . . . A month, now.

[eudaimonikos]

The third?

[It's not so unusual for this to be the second - there’s a lot of others who were in Deerington, too. But Michael doesn't remember Falco from the dream, and even so the third place is an anomaly.]

Like this, with the multiversal displacement and all that?

[grice]

Yeah . . . First it was in California, [ ca-li-for-ni-a, he’s not american and he’s from a much older time than 1961, ] then it was on an island called South Sister. Then Trench.

I don’t think one was better than the other.

[ they were all horror shows. ]

[eudaimonikos]

California?

[The hell's going on in California? Some alternate one, he's sure, but still.]

That's a very odd coincidence. Wonder if something about it favors travellers. [.....] That's too bad, though. If you liked your home.

[It's not quite a question - he knows enough to know he oughtn't ask. But, you know, he also knows that not everybody does. Lots of folks didn't go home after Deerington.]

cw for war/child soldiers and oppression imagery

[grice]

[ it gets falco to pause and mull over his answer, because . . . saying he loved his home and wanted to go back was a lie. he wanted to go back because of responsibility and worry, not because it was great. he settles with what still ties him there: ]

I have people I like from home.

[ but, marley? living in an actual internment zone when he wasn’t being used as fodder on the battlefield? he could live without that. he could live without some people spitting on him in the streets and so much more, but that freedom, for the time being, wasn’t the reality he lived back there. ]

It’s not the best place for us, but— we’re trying to make it better.

[eudaimonikos]

Sometimes that's all you can do.

[Michael can sympathize. His own world wasn't exactly the best place either. It's gotten a lot better, but he's sure it's never going to be perfect - the work can't ever really just be done, right?]

But it's good that you're trying. Everyone should try to make their worlds better - and you seem...young, too? [How young? No clue, he's shit with human ages. But he's seen a lot of young humans step up around here, so...]

[grice]

I’m— twelve.

[ he’s gone out, back to home, and out again. the pause is there because of the time— he’s been jostled back and forth so much, he’s not so sure he’s still twelve at times. ]

But I’ll be thirteen in a couple of months. It’s close to the end of winter.

[ february, to be more precise! ]

[eudaimonikos]

Oh my god. How have you even had time to learn how to shoot?

[Oh, maybe that was rude? He's right, though, he's so right. Aren't humans in some kind of blob stage for several years to start off with, too?]

I'm like a billion years old. Humans go so fast sometimes...

[grice]

Ah, well, yes—

[ it was a horrid thought, but it was one that rang true— if you take them in, old enough, say eight? they’ll do fine. falco did (although a rifle he has to shoot is pretty much the size of him). ]

A billion—? [ he doesn’t look it, is the first thing that comes to mind—! ] H-how can you keep track, Mister Michael?

[eudaimonikos]

Oh, I don’t really. Years, as a unit of time, are a human thing, pretty new. But they say the universe is - what, ten billion of them? Thirteen? So it's that.

[Logically! But he doesn’t tend to track the years much, it seems a tad pointless. Except as an excuse for birthday parties, which he does like.]

[grice]

[ color a boy curious! because that is, like, beyond what he can think to really comprehend. he’s never even seen a billion— falco just knows it’s an almost u countable number.

the next question that chips his curiosity is one that asks more permission than it does to know: ]

Can you say what you are, if it isn’t human?

[eudaimonikos]

Yeah, it's not a secret or anything. Wouldn'tve said anything if it was - I'm a demon.

[Despite not being a secret, it doesn’t always come up in conversation? Sometimes it's better to get it out of the way early on though.]

[grice]

[ demon. falco has learned plenty about the supernatural— demons were generally negative creatures, or at least, they were thought to be that way. falco had a strange one in him, and demon had been an easier word to label it as than using its actual name. names were dangerous, especially when it involved the silence.

falco’s energy had gone quiet and tense; he didn’t know what else that could entail, and the word itself feels uneasy—

but mister michael has been kind to him. he helped with his photos, has been talking to him. he tries his best not to treat him differently, and instead, considers a question that could clear things up for him better. ]

What kind of, ah . . . Demon?

[eudaimonikos]

[Michael hesitates for a moment. He's not oblivious to that reaction. Also, he...isn't really sure how to answer the question?]

We don't...really have subtypes, where I'm from. [But he's met demons from other worlds who are pretty different, so he can just describe his deal?] But we live and work in the human afterlife. No religious stuff, no real involvement with Earth. I've been there a few times, but those were unique circumstances.

[grice]

[ at the very least, at least, the tension doesn’t escalate. it remains, falters, but doesn’t get worse. ]

Everyone goes to the same place?

[ no separation. no heaven or hell or good or bad. just. an equal afterlife. ]

[eudaimonikos]

Well - no, not directly. But we've been instituting a lot of reforms lately, so that's basically the goal now. If people need to, they can work on themselves for a while back in the Bad Place until they're ready to come over to the Good Place. Not everyone really needs to, of course, I've lowered the admission requirements a lot. Still can't just throw everyone together right away, though...and if I'm honest, I think nearly everyone can benefit from a little time for self-reflection.

[Aaaaaand maybe that's slightly too in-the-weeds, but Michael's very involved in all this stuff; he can hardly help but give a lot of detail.]

I do think they could change their name to "Purgatory" or something. It'd be a little more descriptive of their new role. But I don't really have much say in that, and the changes weren't super popular to begin with.

[grice]

That sounds . . . [ wow. not even a snippet of what falco was imagining. was it even true? why would he be lying in the first place? the enthusiasm, even to explain it, like a life vocation— it’s true, falco decides. ] really helpful, Mister Michael.

[ the tension settles, eases with some sort of peace of mind that had brought. it didn’t mean all worlds, worked that way, but— it was still something to consider. the afterlife was always a mystery. ]

And everyone goes there? When they die?