(no subject)

[secondchances]

Sometimes I see people doing this about "future" stuff they learn about, but I think it's time to shake it up a bit. I feel like I've accidentally taken a history class. Not complaining, of course. I didn't pay attention in school.

[Written:]

Things I've Learned About the Renaissance (in the past ~10 months):
- Wine is preferred over water (it tastes BAD and you can't convince me otherwise)
- Getting dressed takes forever because you have to put on layers, sleeves, and tie things. Zippers probably brought people to tears when they were invented. Not just because of accidentally zipping up bits.
- Various Italian words, mostly inappropriate and/or used to hit on people
- Dances are weird and make me a little dizzy
- Fresh pasta is a thing
- Showing too much skin is Very Bad and makes big brother unhappy [So gone!] Pants for women = weird!
- Bankers are just as boring as they are in my time
- Don't call da Vinci "da Vinci" because that is wrong
- Popes can have the cutest daughters
- Medicine is pretty much leeches and opium
- Cardinals are not all old men with wrinkles
- "Italy" isn't really a thing yet, just a bunch of city-states (or something? I forgot. Sorry!)
- Something about chaperones... dating is complicated
- Insert more stuff I should remember

[Tap tap. This is Steph not talking about nightmares or crazy cats or bumps to the head or depressing things that have occurred in the past 30-something days.]

fifty-ninth labyrinth

[lord_wizard]

[He'd woken up this morning to find a month of memory crashing violently into place. Names and faces - friends and strangers alike - all treated to the uncouth, uncultured, ungainly little wretch of a prostitute he'd been before Malkar had gotten his claws into him. That the castle had stopped shy of that milestone was a small favor, but not enough of one for him to forgive the trespass. Not this time. He could bear every other embarrassment - being turned into animals and even a woman - was better than having his past stripped bare for all to see.

And as he paged through the journal to better place what had happened, though he remembered every moment of it vividly, the significance of the date clicked in his mind.]

I will have been in the castle for two years today.

It seems the castle chose to ensure I remembered this by marking the day in a rather dramatic fashion, though I'm not sure how I could ever forget...

[His tone is particularly bright and hard as he speaks. That's the closest he's going to get to mentioning the loss - at least publicly]

( Those who encountered him during the loss who knew him before )

[That done, he checks himself in the mirror again, perhaps to assure himself that he's back to normal. Rather than pushing it away, he embraces the old anger - wraps it about himself like a mantel - and turns to head out to town.

Time to replenish his missing liquor stores. He was going to need it]

((ooc:Loss end! Feel free to encounter him on the way out of the castle or in town. But beware...he's in a MOOD))

09 | In Which Howl is Generous... to an Extent [Dictated]

[strangewonders]

Well, that was an interesting little sojourn, wasn't it? I'm certainly grateful to have my wardrobe back, however. Proper shoes are not a thing to be taken lightly.

For those who were interested, I'm afraid I wasn't able to ascertain just how the castle goes about pulling us into these different worlds. I suspect it's a much larger problem than I originally anticipated. Of course, it happens often enough that I should be able to try again.

( Filtered to Chimera )

045 red letters

[eat_me_beat_me]

[If anyone were to venture by the duck pond today they would rather see a rather unusual sight. The surface of the pond is dotted with origami cranes of all different sizes. If one tries to get a better look they may notice that the pages are all covered with drawings. It's a bit difficult to tell what they were with all the folds but there's a bookcase on one wing and a neck reveals a glass pedestal.

Nora lays on the grass nearby staring up at the clouds. There's an open sketchbook by her side, missing most of its pages. If the remnants of torn paper are any indication the torn pages are floating nearby. She sighs, watching the clouds floating overhead. The Doctor went home. Now Del. She never even got a chance to give the Doctor her planned redesign for his TARDIS. And now she never would. it's easy to be angry or depressed but what's the point? That's what it wants, right? Well she's not going to give it the satisfaction. The Doctor wouldn't have wanted her to. Slowly she starts dictating, slowly reciting lines that have been floating around her mind all day...]

Seasons pass
Days slipping away
In the revolving door masquerading as a castle
One, three, a hundred, a thousand?
No knowing how many days til you're thrown back
Like a spent star falling from the heavens
So another can take its place

Terror, confusion, pain, ennui
An all you can eat buffet of emotional turmoil
With an apathetic cherry on top
Once one dish empties
Another slides in to fill its place
A never ending cycle of gluttony and greed
Parading before our slothful eyes
But pride goes before a fall
All it needs is one last push
One breath to send the pieces toppling to the floor

I can hear it
Whispering in the dark corners of my mind
Peering into my soul
My very being
Pulling me apart bit by bit
Trying to find which string to pull
The one string to unravel everything
And leave me 'baa'ing with the rest of the sheep
A quivering mass of regret and pain
Broken like a long forgotten doll
Left in the corner since christmas

The more it tries
The louder I'll scream
Raising my voice above the whispers
Shoving back harder with each push
One cog in a meaningless system
Refusing to spin
And so I'll sit
Rusted
Trying to turn in the wrong direction
Fighting against the flow of movement...

[her voice trails off, unsure where to go from there. That's the problem with dictating poetry, you can't go back and edit or rewrite. Oh well. It can stay unfinished. Almost fitting in a way. She sits up and picks up the sketchbook, looking at the drawing on the top page - concentric spirals she'd planned for the walls of the TARDIS - she pauses for a moment before tossing the whole book into the water with a satisfying SPLOOSH. the surface ripples, making the cranes bob and bump into one another.

Time marches on.

She smiles.]

((OOC: Open for journal or in person at the duck pond.))

471 ❀

[ino]

[Ino's out at the edge of the forest, doing what looks to be some rather complicated target practice. She's taking a break right now, but there are a couple of targets nailed to nearby trees. All of them have tons of knives stuck in them, forming a pattern that resembles a certain symbol.

But while she's taking a break and leafing through the journal, she's noticing something. She was kind of expecting people to be pissed about the enemies they had to fight, the illusions that were cast on them ... hell, she was even waiting for people to be mad at her for not warning them in advance about these things.

But no, all she's seeing is entries talking about the clothes and how awful they were. After everything that was already said to her about them during the past week, it's really starting to grate her nerves ... so she'll dictate one simple sentence:]

Seriously, the next time I see someone complaining about the clothes everyone had to wear the past week, I'm going to punch them in the face. Hard.

[aaand a little bit later]
( Zelos )

[ooc: Open over the journals or in person! I will be a bit slow until later tonight ♥]

2nd Check-In; Dictated

[holyrabies]

Okay, so, I'm starting to notice that some of you guys... Don't know what a zing is. Which makes me kind of sad, really, because everyone should know about zings.

So, for those of you who don't know, I'm gonna explain when a zing is.

A zing is when you see someone for the first time, and they see you, and you feel... Something! This feeling... It's like... Well, a zing! I really don't know how else to explain it. But being someone's zing is, like, really important and special. Zings should stick together for life, especially because you only zing once.

I guess it's... Kind of like a soulmate? But it's not. It's a zing.

Have any of you ever zinged?

❀ sixty ... is that an attractive man statue for the lobby?

[iamdamnloyal]

[Harmony is standing in the lobby with her journal open and staring, quite openly, at the statue that's near the main staircase. She's gone by it a few times this month, but today she realized that she knows who it is.]

I know we're all really busy with our lives and the crazy things that happen here do sort of blend together... but does anyone know how long this statue has been in the lobby?

[She tips her head to the side and leans her body as she looks at it from a different angle.]

I think I know who it is... and I think his eyes are following me.

Tatu [3] -- Dictated

[circleoflife]

Thanksgiving is a holiday in the USA and Canada when people give thanks. It is celebrated every year on the fourth Thursday of November in the USA and on the second Monday of October in Canada.

[A pause, and then:]

Although not as famous, the first "day of Thanksgiving" actually took place at Berkeley Hundred, Virginia in 1619 - a year before the Mayflower brought the Pilgrims to Massachusetts.

The Pilgrims were early settlers on the east coast of North America. They traveled from England on a ship called the Mayflower and made their new home in what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts, 380 km northeast of what is now New York.

Many of the Pilgrims died during their first winter in North America. They were cold and did not have enough food. The following year, though, the Native Americans, who were from the... Wampanoag tribe, helped them grow crops. At harvest time in the winter of 1621, they were very thankful that they had a good crop of food to eat during the coming winter. They thanked God and the Native Americans for teaching them how to grow the local foods.

[The careful, deliberate tone then drops to something more conversational. It's easy to tell that Mufasa had been previously reading from a book.]

Do you find yourself thankful for the food that is supplied here, Paradisa? As I've come to understand, the food here has seemingly no origin-- either you can simply wish for it to your heart's content, or you may retrieve it from the... [Give him a moment to remember the word] Ah! Refrigerator.

It is easy to forget the value of things when they are provided to you at no cost. [And what, indeed, provided the food in the first place? But that was a topic for another time.] Food, shelter, good weather, even entertainment... and friends and family, as well. It is not as though we no longer enjoy these things-- we merely forget to pause and realize how lucky we are to have them.

I've a couple of questions for you, Paradisa. What is it that you are most thankful for? And what is it that you intend to do this Thanksgiving?

[Dictated]

[lightbranded]

 [It had taken Will a very long time to figure out why he kept feeling so weak.  To understand the pattern.  But at long last he thought he had figured it out.

The castle had taken away his ability to be alone.  And he could not bear this alone any longer.  It was time to seek out a solution.]

Hullo?  This is a bit of an odd question, but I am wondering if anyone would be willing to take on a roommate.