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Summer Festival in the MGU
Wherever you are, whoever you are, one minute you’re at home minding your own business and the next you’ll see a shower of sparkles before you blink and find yourself teleported elsewhere.
The elsewhere, it seems, is an open grounds lined with stalls, pathways and gardens. Lanterns light up the pathways in soft glowing oranges and pinks, and even though it’s evening the weather is warm and enjoyable for a fun summer festival.
As you set off to explore, you’ll find that there are countless stalls with every type of treat you can imagine from a variety of cultures (including some from your own home worlds, strangely), all of which smell delicious and enticing. There are other stalls available with different carnival games as well. Go ahead and give it your all! Win a prize for that special someone, or just keep trying out of sheer stubbornness. Other stalls seem to be selling wares such as clothing, household items, flowers, and other things that can be given away as gifts. It seems that every time you look around, a new stall opens, almost as if this festival is responding to your every wish.
Speaking of wishes, there’s a small cluster of bamboo trees nearby as well, tables set up with baskets of arts and crafts supplies to write your wishes on the colorful paper and tie them to a branch. It’s a sweet thought, no?
And of course, what’s a festival without fireworks? Every now and then fireworks will light up the night sky, bursts of color in fun shapes such as stars, hearts, faces of people you know, whatever! Sparklers and bubble wands can also be found to play with throughout the evening near the viewing gardens. Flowers bloom and cover the area, though the paths lead to several small alcove-like areas and gazebos for those of you who wish to have a little romantic privacy. No matter where you are though, you’ll always be able to see the starry night sky.
Do try to play along and enjoy yourself for the evening. It’s only when the last firework bursts several hours later that you can actually leave anyway. Have fun!
[ooc: you know the drill, past mg characters from any of our past games, please don't make me list them again but go nuts.]
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But now for some reason... he doesn't feel much different than Sora when he sees them. He's glad Sora had people to rely on, and people who looked out for Sora when he wasn't able to be there.
Also STOP, don't look at the poster, and STOP SMILING SOFTLY at their stuff, and especially do not look at the last photo. The teasing makes his cheeks and ears brighten, and he ends up sputtering when he leans to look at what the HECK Sora is even talking about!!!]
N-No, it's not like that. Sora! [He hates it here.] Maya was just... I had to because she made me. [This explains nothing.] She was dating someone else... Not then! I mean, she... was later.
[Why is he so embarrassed, he's dating two dudes.]
That's Hugo. And that's Iris and Annie. They were the other three who got pulled in by the plot hole like me, who had to be dorm leaders. The school had a party. Hugo never wanted to be friends with anyone, or go to anything really. Iris and Annie convinced him to come, but he was sitting in the corner by himself reading.
How about you explain this?
[He shows Sora the picture of Lup and Blanca.]
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likewise, he absolutely deserved to make fun of riku forever, so there's a broad grin as he wiggles his eyebrows teasingly.]
I dunno...you look pretty comfortable for something she forced you into. [he's assessing the faces of the other three though.] ...it sounds like the four of you worked pretty well together. Some of our Leaders were kinda shy, too. Or they were Cloud. [which is synonymous for awkward and kind of shy.] When we had parties and stuff we tried to invite them to spend time with us. During curfews, too. That way they weren't alone when they didn't have to be.
[he peers at the photo of blupca though before shrugging.]
It's blackmail for later.
[THANKS SORA.]
Lup gets all sappy about Blanca, but she hates admitting it.
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[His face gets SO RED even if he's pretending to be mad about being hounded. Listen here, he's still bisexual for good girls unfortunately, so they will remain very cute to him.
Anyhow, he pushes Sora with his elbow in retribution.]
Blackmail? Sora, you can't just blackmail people. [What the HELL kind of puberty has happened to this best friend?! HELP.] Maybe she's just shy.
[Lup is not shy.]
You guys weren't already together for your curfews...?
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but yeah. riku elbows him and he just grins in response.]
I can if I have to! And it's not that big of a deal, it's just funny. Besides, they were both really important to me and Clementine. [mom and dad...important. he makes a face though.] I dare you to call her shy to her face though.
[at the question of curfew though, he pauses.]
But we weren't together. Wherever you were when the doors locked, that's where you spent the night. When it first happened we had no idea what was going on, but as weeks went on we started picking people and places to stay. Usually we tried to stay somewhere on the other side of the bridge where the locations stayed. Most of the time I was with Lup, Taako, sometimes Blanca, and then later Clementine. Other people would stay with us sometimes, too.
...how did it work for you guys then?
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ALSO NO, he will never in a million years tell Lup she is shy. She would bully the shit out of him more than she is already willing to bully him.]
Everyone went back to their own dorms. So it would be me and the rest of Fall Dorm; we could stay in our rooms, or in the common room, but we couldn't leave the dorm building.
At night when we'd fall asleep, a few people who were at risk of being assimilated into the world would get tossed outside. Hugo's team would have to pick who to "save" and kill them. As long as at least one died, the world would stabilize a little. It gave us more time to try to figure out what was going on, and how to stop it.
Even though that team risked looking like the bad guys.
[thinking about how in the future we'll be having to have this entire conversation all over again maybe if we rp them for real]
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That's so weird...we couldn't leave once we were stuck, but we never were forced to go back or anything. We had time to prepare and bring supplies for wherever we wound up. The Leaders would always go to the castle though if they weren't with us.
When we fell asleep, the people who were supposed to kill would wake up along with the people who were gonna die. And sometimes other people were awake, too, to look around for clues. There were six teams, and each team had to kill twice. But sometimes people would start to splinter so we had to take them out before they infected us, too. In a way it was kind of like saving them. If each team didn't kill twice, there was no hope brining back our dead. I know the whole thing was just a test, but at the time we had to make sure we were doing things right. We didn't want to wipe out an entire team either because then that Leader would be in trouble. It was pretty hard at first...but Clementine had a job where she could learn if people had special roles and what teams they were on. She found me first, so we worked together to figure out who was on what team.
People were...obviously mad about the people that were killed, but we didn't have a choice either. It got to the point that we were able to coordinate who was killing, who was voted for and who we could save. Most of the time it worked, but...sometimes it didn't and we lost people anyway. [...] I had a job with my Leader that let me pick items that were supposed to help us. But every item came with a catch that made it hard to use sometimes. And there are definitely people I covered for while we were still figuring things out.
I guess maybe that's why in the end to learn it was just an experiment was so...frustrating. [truly hate this lore dump, it's fine. you get double icons because i haven't re-upped his paid yet.]
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We had roles we could give, too. I didn't know about Hugo or the killers at first. I only made my role to try to help keep people from dying who were innocent. There were a lot of limitations. I was worried saving people would make the world unstable. So anyone Nier told wouldn't be able to be saved, and whoever it was couldn't know they would be. He had to tell me at the start of the week, too.
But Nier is... he's too good, I think. A little like you. [hehe] He was angry about the limitations because he wanted to help everyone, so he started telling anybody he could...
[Riku sounds TIRED. But maybe a bit fond.]
Hugo had the people who needed to kill to keep people from being assimilated. Iris had... they were sort of like detectives. Annie had a role that could make a rule people had to follow...?
But... I get it. Doing all of that work... just to learn it was a game for someone's experimental amusement. It wasn't your fault though, Sora. Even if he was someone you think you might've known.
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It worked that way for us, too. The role that Goat gave Xie Lian meant that he had to pick one person per week to protect, but they couldn't know they were protected or they could die anyway. We had to keep a lot of secrets in the last couple of weeks we were there. Once we all found each other and knew what teams still had to meet the minimum, we were able to tell him who to protect so we could rig the trials and vote for that person. Then we could save them.
[sometimes...you have to cheat.]
...I don't know if I blame him. We should always try to help everyone, shouldn't we? [nier was right and sora's gonna say so. he's never met nier, but kin recognizes kin, etc.]
Let's see...Tiger had the King, who was Emet-Selch. He got to make a rule each week we all had to follow. Goat had the Knight, Xie Lian, who could protect one person a week. Rabbit had the Bishop, Clementine, who could check once a week who was on what team and if they had a special job. Fox had the Rook, Blanca, who could stay awake on Thursday nights to help look for clues about the murders. Wolf had the Pawn, Rufus, who got assigned tasks every week and sometimes would be asked to kill people if they splintered or something. And then Swan had me as the Queen, and I already told you what my job does. We didn't have a dedicated Leader that was assigning killers. All six of them had to go around asking us to make sure we were doing what we were supposed to do.
[but...there's a frown.] I know it's not, but...I dunno. I thought it was finally over, and then we learned it was this guy who was doing tests to try and do something to our worlds? I don't even know what he meant about our hearts being in the same place, so how am I supposed to even find him? [annoying!!!] I know we will, but...I don't want him hurting other worlds before I can get there.
["I don't want him hurting my friends before I can save you again." goes unsaid.]
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Sounds like you all had your work cut out for you.
[But Sora is here. (Haha... "here".......) So that means Sora and the rest managed to do what they needed to do to make things right. Typical Sora. But he really wouldn't have it any other way, honestly.]
Sora... [Stupid best friend. I can't remember if he even has a free hand, but whatever, he puts a hand on Sora's shoulder to offer it a squeeze.] Don't worry. I'm sure we'll find him, and we'll get answers about what he's after, and what he's up to.
He made it sound like it wasn't so bad, but... I don't buy it. Especially if he's using other people to try to run his experiments.
...If he's doing something bad, we'll stop him, too. Just... don't do it alone, okay? I know that's rich coming from me, but... I'm saying it because I know. Sometimes, you don't have a choice to do things on your own. I get it. But if you have friends, it's okay to let them help you.
[Feels stupid. Telling Sora "I love ALL my many friends" Kingdomhearts to rely on friends.]
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It's probably bad if he knew about Xigbar. [...right, wait.] We had to fight everybody in the Organization again. But the last time we saw Xigbar, he said that someone had promised to bequeath a Keyblade to him. I don't think he meant Xehanort, but he must've meant that other guy. He said he didn't have anything to do with the Organization but he implied he knew about the people involved.
[...riku says to rely on his friends, and it's not like sora couldn't use the reminder. they all could. sora usually relies on his friends, but sometimes he does his own thing.]
We'll figure it out. You and Kairi are still together. I trust you guys.