sheets all on the floor just like an ocean ...

[headandhand]

WHO: All y’all!
WHAT: Your regularly scheduled NAPs event for the month
WHERE: Fort Pillowtown
WHEN: Oct. 7-10
WARNINGS: Please use these if applicable!


Look at all of these bright, shining new faces! There’s even a few less bright, less shining faces - maybe even a few folks without faces - but hey, this city welcomes all types. Chances are, if you’ve just arrived, you're seeing some pretty crazy things, unless you're used to an eye-blinding amount of neon, robots, weird-ass technology, magic, and an omnipresent police force...and hey, if you are, congrats, you're gonna settle in juuuuust fine. But for the rest of you, the Head knows this has gotta be pretty overwhelming, right?

Well, since your quaint individual processing units are probably having a hard time, why not link up with another one? By which the Head means...

Hello, new citizens of Dualis,
and welcome to your monthly Network Adjacency Protocol~!

NAPs are a monthly community networking event similar to the Earth concept of speed dating! Two citizens (new arrivals and old hands alike) are placed at a table together with a handy cue card of queries to help break the proverbial ice. Ask queries and receive results, or ignore the card and yeet yourself straight into a brand new friendship! But don't be too shy, you've only got ten minutes together, and if you just sit in silence for the whole ten, the Network Admins are likely to come supervise and try to repair the uplink through a mild shock to the ol' central nervous system. You might find yourself saying all sorts of unintended facts about yourself if that happens...probably better to just make friends, right? Who doesn’t like friends?!

This month’s event is held at a new, super-comfy all-ages establishment called Fort Pillowtown. As the name suggests, it’s a large indoor space filled wall to wall with permanent pillowforts. There are a variety of sizes, shapes, and colors, with each individual fort constructed of gauzy hanging sheets, strings of soft lights, warm blankets, plush toys, a mini television with on-screen menu for choosing movies to watch and video games to play, and yes, lots and lots of pillows. Snacks and drinks of all sorts are available for purchase, as are whimsical onesies and comfy slippers to wear. Board and card game sets are also available to borrow or buy. Sounds like a dream, right?

So pull up a pillow pile, get to know your new neighbors, and enjoy a well-earned and comfy chill-out session. And hey, if you end up napping at NAPs, rest assured that it’s absolutely allowed.

Comments

[skyward_eyes]

Yeah. When they aren't evil hell-beasts trying to kill you.

[What? Nida definitely needs to deal with that fear of his.]

There used to be knights in our past. You'd cover them with armor. It was a good way to fight monsters, until we learned how to harness magic.

[merged]

[ It's not obvious at all that he thinks they're atrocious feather beasts. ]

Sounds like they were used a lot like horses were in our ye olden days but luckily we never discovered magic, just industrialized.

So, what, you fall off one too many times? Bit as a kid? [ Forgive her. She imagines that encountering chocobos would be like encountering a horse in her own world: at a zoo or a farm, where they're sometimes dicks but not a tried and true danger as long as you practiced proper precautions. ] You sound like you'd rather fry them than ride them.

[KFC. Hey, it still works. ]

[skyward_eyes]

Oh, we industrialized too. But magic was something our world inherited from our creator. Hyne. He was a massive dick. And no, I don't fall off of chocobos. They attack me. For no reason.

[So yeah, every chocobo he's ever met has tried to rough him up. Boko will no doubt live up to that too.]

And in my defense, chocobo is very tasty.

[merged]

[ That is the most peculiar trait to be stuck with and she can only offer a brief look of sympathy. Maybe he offended them in a past life. ]

They look like giant chickens, so I fucking bet they're good. [ But that's not what really caught her attention. She doesn't like to discuss religion. Hell, she looks down on those that hold any genuine belief in some benevolent deity, but he says it like fact. And maybe it is. Maybe there's proof in his world.

She's pretty sure she's proof in her own, not that it's a good thing. Because it seems all gods are massive dicks. ]

Do you believe that about magic and Hyne or whatever?

[skyward_eyes]

Their eggs are massive. Great for food. Some people do artsy stuff and clean and decorate them as lamp shades and the like. And the down makes great beds.

[wait, she's asking about Hyne? Nida shrugs.]

If you're asking whether I'm a devoted member of the Church of Hyne? No. Not in the slightest. Worshiping a dead god seems stupid. More than that, ninty-five-ish percent of all of our creation stories involve how he was destructive and tried to kill us and we warred with him for our own sakes. However, there is no denying that there are those women with magic powers no one else has. That only monsters fallen from the moon have. Daughters of Hyne used to be an affectionate term for them. Our protectors. Our leaders. Now? They tend to destroy things.

[merged]

So an ostrich with neck feathers. Huh. [ She'll have to sketch that out one day, see how similar they'd look.

It's not close to The Order's creation stories, not even a little, but women with powers no one else has? She can relate. ] Why is it always women? [ It's rhetorical but history has not been kind to women, not in any world she's heard yet. ]

So, what do you call them now? [ She fears he'll say witch. ]

[skyward_eyes]

[And face feathers. And TONS of feathers everywhere. Thick and nice. But they would be nice only if the birds didn't attack.]

No clue. When A sorceress dies, her power passes on to the next nearest woman. One Sorceress can take on another's powers, of course, concentrating the magic and making it stronger.

[Oh yes, they're definitely witches. But Nida has a very different feeling about witches now.]

Sorceresses.

[merged]

[ Heather can't say she likes the word sorceress much more than witch, both feel as if everything about them was negative—wrong. She wants to hear how he feels about them. ]

And what do people do to them when they find out? [ He spoke of destruction. Did they lose something getting whatever magic they get? Does power beget hunger? ] People used to burn witches alive only a couple hundred years back in my world, mostly women, probably not a single witch among them.

[skyward_eyes]

[Where they're from? That type of magic leads to insanity without a proper anchor for it.]

My boyfriend, he was a witch. And very good.

[merged]

[ Nida doesn't answer the question and she fears the worst—they probably kill them. Hell, it's not like they could be blamed. Even she's capable of destruction on a massive scale under the right circumstances (and with the right desire). ]

He was? I've never met a witch before—or, I mean, another witch before; that's what they liked to call me.

[ And then she suddenly remembers that Nida's boyfriend is gone. She feels an uncomfortable flash of sympathy. She remembers his post. She doesn't know if she should ask about him or if the wound was still too fresh. ]

I'm kind of shit at it myself, though. To be fair, I only really found out right before I got here so I've got a pretty good excuse. [ She says it like a joke; it's not. And she's not as weak as she thinks. Hell, she knows she's not as weak as she says. ] ]

[skyward_eyes]

[Evasion was the best option he could have for it. He was a SeeD. The force was created to hunt Sorceresses. Not that he knew. And one of his best friends now was one. Things change.]

Can you do magic? If not, you'd not be a witch by the concept of my world. I mean, I'd like to know the difference. Learning not to fear magic beyond paramagic would be nice.

[And beyond the magic tattoo he wore.]

[merged]

I don't think I've ever thought of what I can do as magic, honestly. [ Magic, even when demonized by the religious, has mostly positive connotations in her world so it's difficult to call it such. ] But I can make things happen. Move shit with my mind. Start fires.

[ 'make things happen' is as much of an ability of hers as moving shit telekinetically or pyrokinesis, not that she lets on to that much. ]

Does that mean you feared what your boyfriend could do? [ A little forward, maybe, but with a sincere curiosity. ]

[skyward_eyes]

When we first met, his powers had been sealed. I knew him as a man before I knew him as a witch. And even here, where he had some of them back, I loved him for who he is. I didn't worry about what he could do.

[Nida smiles softly to himself at the memories of the man he loved and lost. He was... getting used to it. Slowly.]

He used his power for good.

[merged]

[ She doesn't know how he's holding himself together. In his shoes, she'd still be a mess; a vindictive mess. ]

Good can be pretty subjective. If he came from my world, it wouldn't matter how he used his power; he'd be evil regardless. [ It was just a matter of fact, like how witches—sorceresses—were regarded in his own world. ]

Do you fear magic because that's what you were taught? [ Or does he have some experience in his past? ] That's why I did. Still do. [ That and the fact her powers are a precursor to worse things. ]

[skyward_eyes]

In my life time, there have been multiple wars started by sorceresses. So no. I fear them because of how my life is. How many people I know who have been orphaned because of battles that never should have been fought.

[No, Billy's not evil. And Heather probably isn't either. That's just what Nida believes.]

[merged]

[ To Heather, that sounds like life. What world doesn't suffer war? Or tragedy? Or blind abuse of power? In her world, that's just men. She knows better than to say anything, though, because his views are valid, even if she wants to combat them just for the sake of women she doesn't even know.

Maybe it's a subject too close to her heart. Maybe she applies herself and story to those sorceresses. ]

Makes sense. [ She understands, she means, even if it's in a disconnected way. ]

There are a lot of people here with magic here, at least from what I've seen. They might be able to help you with that fear. [ She'd offer her skills but she has no skill; it's all just raw, uncontrollable fire. ]

[skyward_eyes]

[Probably better not to defend sorceresses who orphaned him to his face. But she doesn't and so there isn't a lot of grief here.]

Are there really that many people with true magic? Billy told me that Wanda's powers probably aren't that, so can't look at her for that.

[And he trusts Rinoa, as a Sorceress. But he sighs.]

Magic isn't bad. It's how it's used that is bad. I trained with something like magic growing up. I don't fear magic. I fear corrupt Sorceresses.

[merged]

[ Heather can't help but want to defend. She's made children orphans. She's made parents childless. She's torn apart families and left them to rot. It's hard not to want to defend them because there's always reason.

Except it's not always because of tragedy or prejudice and she can forget that. ]

....What corrupts them?

[skyward_eyes]

Some say it's the magic. Some say it's the fact that their power derives from fragments of the soul of our dead god, Hyne. No one knows for certain. More Sorceresses are good than bad, don't get me wrong. But when they're bad...

[He shakes his head.]

There's this crater in the northern country of Trabia. MASSIVE. Like a meteor hit. A woman was showing her force, and she killed so many people.

[merged]

[ Heather can't offer much insight into magic or into what corrupts, not beyond her own experiences, but she wants to try. ]

...being so different, that can corrupt, too, especially if the world fears you and you fear you, too.

[skyward_eyes]

Adel wanted to take over the world, Heather. That's very different. She wanted to dominate all.

[merged]

[ That's not far off from what Heather herself wanted, though, perhaps, what she wanted was worse; she'd wanted the world to burn. ]

...Witches in my world were persecuted for nothing. They were blamed for crop failure, for storms, for the deaths of children; illness and disease. Wolf attacks. People turned to them for healing but turned on them the second they had nothing to blame for their problems.

I'm not trying to excuse that bitch's awful acts, all right? [ It's just hard for her to disassociate these two types of things. Different worlds, different magic, but still she feels this pang of sympathy. Maybe she just wants to believe this Adel wasn't awful to begin with and that she was turned this way. ]

[skyward_eyes]

And one of the Sorceresses in my world took in orphans of the other crazy bitch's war. The woman I see as my sister is a Sorceress, who fought to free my home down after my parents died. I'm not saying all Sorceresses are evil. But don't assume that I dislike all magic users for nothing. I dislike some and very specific ones.

I wanted to dedicate the whole of my life to one. Hell, if I wasn't gay and she was single, I'd ask the Sorceress I know out.

[merged]

That's... actually pretty impressive for you not to hate them all, you know? [ She's got some experience in that, though she still holds onto her hatred as if it were a torch in the dark. And, in a way, it is. Though, it will no doubt lead her to a path of destruction if it's not one day quelled. ]

[skyward_eyes]

Rinoa and Billy helped me learn to be better about it. A year ago I wouldn't have been this good about it.