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pluviooc2024-03-18 02:45 pm
pluviosamods) wrote in pluviooc2024-03-18 02:45 pm
Entry tags:
TEST DRIVE 02
TEST DRIVE
Hello, and welcome to the second Pluviosa Test Drive!
This Test Drive corresponds to Days 4-12 in the ship calendar, and will run until around the game's next major event. You can get a better idea what's going on in the most recent Game Update which covers Days 5-8. Currently, character IC housing is not in operation yet; it is expected to open on Day 9 (part of the way through the Test Drive period). Otherwise, the ship is largely in the state described on the Setting page and in other game information.
Test Drive threads involving characters who are accepted are considered canon to the events of the game unless otherwise agreed by players/mods. Pluviosa does not do welcome mingle logs nor does it have any kind of in-character welcome information, making your test drive threads your character's arrival to the game setting. That said, mod-run interactions such as formal exploration and/or interactions with the Ship as an NPC are not available on the Test Drive.
It is advised that potential players familiarize themselves with the Premise page, the Rules/Session Zero page, and at least the first few paragraphs of the Setting page. As Pluviosa is a horror game, we especially encourage players to be aware of the content warnings that will be major themes of the game. If you have any further questions, you can ask them on the QUESTIONS header in the comments!
If you're test driving a character, you're welcome to join the game Discord and hang out and meet your fellow players!
You wake up. You remember waking up, right? In another place, another time...
There's blood running down your fingers. Outside, the rain isn't pounding, yet, just a gentle patter...
Or is it?
As characters gain fuller awareness of their surroundings, they will realize that there is, in fact, no blood on their hands (save any that might have already been there). It feels as though they lost focus for a moment and hallucinated, but the hallucination ended with them somewhere else entirely.
There is not actually the sound of rain. If characters are near enough to a window, balcony, or even a hole in the ceiling, they will find that it is cloudless, beaming sunlight outside. The emptiness in the distance rolls on and on, completely absent any signs of life.
That being, of course, because the signs of life are all in here. Characters might wake up on any of the decks on the upper side of the ship - anywhere that isn't the cafeteria or lounge where previous arrivals spend most of their time is free game. This also means, of course, that they have the jungle of plants to contend with...
Most areas in the ship are dark when characters arrive. That doesn't mean that they stay dark. Occasionally, lights overhead flicker on and off for a few minutes at a time.
The problem with this isn't the lights themselves (cool white and kind of industrial). It's the reaction that the addition of the extra light causes the plants in the dark areas of the ship that's cause for alarm. To describe the growth as explosive isn't an understatement - vines, saplings, and even thicker branches surge with growth, pushing outwards towards the distant sunlight and upwards towards the flickering bulbs.
The growth is sudden enough to take all but the most aware characters by surprise, and if they're in the wrong corner of the room, it's very easy to get tangled up, wedged in by a tree trunk, or otherwise trapped against some corner or wall. If you're lucky and skilled, you might be able to cut yourself out from there (or break down the wall you're shoved up against), but otherwise, there's only one solution left.
Yell like your life depends on it, and hope somebody out there can hear you. And that whoever hears is someone who is inclined to help, rather than leaving you there. Or worse.
Oh, and the lights flicker back off after a few minutes, of course. Hopefully you're not waiting for rescue in the dark (with the smell of mold and the general faint dampness of the forest) for too long.
Occasionally, the whole ship tilts.
This is not simply the side to side motion of a ship on the water (or the equivalent motion brought on by the way this particular ship moves); it's an extremely forward or backward tilt that sends things sliding across the floor if they aren't secured by roots or something else. Unlike storm-tossed ships, the tilt is somewhat prolonged - rather than everything sliding back and forth a couple times a minute, the tilt lasts for five, ten, maybe as much as twenty minutes.
Although it's not enough to knock a well-balanced character off their feet, it's quite likely that new arrivals will not be particularly on-balance. And attempting to traverse the ship with the tilt is a tall order... especially when the ship's angle does unexpectedly change... to the exact opposite direction. All that goes up the mountain must go back down, and a glance out the windows reveals that that's exactly what's going on, as the ship progresses across a mountainous landscape without real regard for the concept of mountain passes.
And for characters who have managed to make their way to the "civilized" parts of the ship, namely the cafeteria and the lounge above it... None of the furniture in these areas is secured. The cafeteria carts under the direct control of the Ship don't seem as inclined to go anywhere, but the tables and chairs in the cafeteria and the couches and armchairs upstairs... Well, it's a good thing both spaces are surrounded by railings. Large chunks of tree trunk also still littler the lounge, sliding back and forth and occasionally rolling with great force across the floor.
Better hold on tight.
While wandering around the ship's interior, characters might occasionally hear a person whistling.
The sound always seems to be coming from just around the corner, but it sounds alive in a way that other sounds don't. Maybe more alive, even, than the rustle of leaves, the occasional drip of water, and the sounds of things sliding back and forth across the grimy, leaf-covered floors. The whistler, whoever they are, doesn't actively respond if called out to - but the whistling does pause, as though indicating that the call was heard, before starting up again.
If characters choose to follow the whistling, they're inevitably led to the same place - somewhere overlooking the great gap down the middle of the ship, whether an internal suite's balcony, one of the bridges crossing between the two halves, or one of the hallways that runs alongside it. Once they're there, there's no whistler in sight; however, characters will be filled with the overwhelming urge to look over the edge of the railing and down into the lower parts of the ship.
Exactly what they experience after looking down varies. Some will hallucinate that they've fallen over the side, feeling their balance go haywire and seeing the floor rushing up to them right up until the moment of "impact," at which everything returns to normal. Some will feel a stranger's hands on their shoulders, threatening to push them over with a great shove that goes through them with incorporeal fingers. Some will just hear unidentifiable laughter right up close to their ears, and experience the distinct sensation that there's someone laughing at them, in a haha-made-you-look kind of way.
But whatever happens, when they look up, there's no one there - or at least not anyone that physically close to them. The one good thing about being drawn to the middle section of the ship by whatever prankster this is is that it makes it a lot easier to run into people if you're all drawn to the same, highly visible place.
And at least the other person is flesh and blood, right? Probably.
This Test Drive corresponds to Days 4-12 in the ship calendar, and will run until around the game's next major event. You can get a better idea what's going on in the most recent Game Update which covers Days 5-8. Currently, character IC housing is not in operation yet; it is expected to open on Day 9 (part of the way through the Test Drive period). Otherwise, the ship is largely in the state described on the Setting page and in other game information.
Test Drive threads involving characters who are accepted are considered canon to the events of the game unless otherwise agreed by players/mods. Pluviosa does not do welcome mingle logs nor does it have any kind of in-character welcome information, making your test drive threads your character's arrival to the game setting. That said, mod-run interactions such as formal exploration and/or interactions with the Ship as an NPC are not available on the Test Drive.
It is advised that potential players familiarize themselves with the Premise page, the Rules/Session Zero page, and at least the first few paragraphs of the Setting page. As Pluviosa is a horror game, we especially encourage players to be aware of the content warnings that will be major themes of the game. If you have any further questions, you can ask them on the QUESTIONS header in the comments!
If you're test driving a character, you're welcome to join the game Discord and hang out and meet your fellow players!
ARRIVAL - LIKE THE RAIN
You wake up. You remember waking up, right? In another place, another time...
There's blood running down your fingers. Outside, the rain isn't pounding, yet, just a gentle patter...
Or is it?
As characters gain fuller awareness of their surroundings, they will realize that there is, in fact, no blood on their hands (save any that might have already been there). It feels as though they lost focus for a moment and hallucinated, but the hallucination ended with them somewhere else entirely.
There is not actually the sound of rain. If characters are near enough to a window, balcony, or even a hole in the ceiling, they will find that it is cloudless, beaming sunlight outside. The emptiness in the distance rolls on and on, completely absent any signs of life.
That being, of course, because the signs of life are all in here. Characters might wake up on any of the decks on the upper side of the ship - anywhere that isn't the cafeteria or lounge where previous arrivals spend most of their time is free game. This also means, of course, that they have the jungle of plants to contend with...
LIGHTS ON, SHOW START
Most areas in the ship are dark when characters arrive. That doesn't mean that they stay dark. Occasionally, lights overhead flicker on and off for a few minutes at a time.
The problem with this isn't the lights themselves (cool white and kind of industrial). It's the reaction that the addition of the extra light causes the plants in the dark areas of the ship that's cause for alarm. To describe the growth as explosive isn't an understatement - vines, saplings, and even thicker branches surge with growth, pushing outwards towards the distant sunlight and upwards towards the flickering bulbs.
The growth is sudden enough to take all but the most aware characters by surprise, and if they're in the wrong corner of the room, it's very easy to get tangled up, wedged in by a tree trunk, or otherwise trapped against some corner or wall. If you're lucky and skilled, you might be able to cut yourself out from there (or break down the wall you're shoved up against), but otherwise, there's only one solution left.
Yell like your life depends on it, and hope somebody out there can hear you. And that whoever hears is someone who is inclined to help, rather than leaving you there. Or worse.
Oh, and the lights flicker back off after a few minutes, of course. Hopefully you're not waiting for rescue in the dark (with the smell of mold and the general faint dampness of the forest) for too long.
TILT-A-WORLD
Occasionally, the whole ship tilts.
This is not simply the side to side motion of a ship on the water (or the equivalent motion brought on by the way this particular ship moves); it's an extremely forward or backward tilt that sends things sliding across the floor if they aren't secured by roots or something else. Unlike storm-tossed ships, the tilt is somewhat prolonged - rather than everything sliding back and forth a couple times a minute, the tilt lasts for five, ten, maybe as much as twenty minutes.
Although it's not enough to knock a well-balanced character off their feet, it's quite likely that new arrivals will not be particularly on-balance. And attempting to traverse the ship with the tilt is a tall order... especially when the ship's angle does unexpectedly change... to the exact opposite direction. All that goes up the mountain must go back down, and a glance out the windows reveals that that's exactly what's going on, as the ship progresses across a mountainous landscape without real regard for the concept of mountain passes.
And for characters who have managed to make their way to the "civilized" parts of the ship, namely the cafeteria and the lounge above it... None of the furniture in these areas is secured. The cafeteria carts under the direct control of the Ship don't seem as inclined to go anywhere, but the tables and chairs in the cafeteria and the couches and armchairs upstairs... Well, it's a good thing both spaces are surrounded by railings. Large chunks of tree trunk also still littler the lounge, sliding back and forth and occasionally rolling with great force across the floor.
Better hold on tight.
SOMETHING WHISTLING
While wandering around the ship's interior, characters might occasionally hear a person whistling.
The sound always seems to be coming from just around the corner, but it sounds alive in a way that other sounds don't. Maybe more alive, even, than the rustle of leaves, the occasional drip of water, and the sounds of things sliding back and forth across the grimy, leaf-covered floors. The whistler, whoever they are, doesn't actively respond if called out to - but the whistling does pause, as though indicating that the call was heard, before starting up again.
If characters choose to follow the whistling, they're inevitably led to the same place - somewhere overlooking the great gap down the middle of the ship, whether an internal suite's balcony, one of the bridges crossing between the two halves, or one of the hallways that runs alongside it. Once they're there, there's no whistler in sight; however, characters will be filled with the overwhelming urge to look over the edge of the railing and down into the lower parts of the ship.
Exactly what they experience after looking down varies. Some will hallucinate that they've fallen over the side, feeling their balance go haywire and seeing the floor rushing up to them right up until the moment of "impact," at which everything returns to normal. Some will feel a stranger's hands on their shoulders, threatening to push them over with a great shove that goes through them with incorporeal fingers. Some will just hear unidentifiable laughter right up close to their ears, and experience the distinct sensation that there's someone laughing at them, in a haha-made-you-look kind of way.
But whatever happens, when they look up, there's no one there - or at least not anyone that physically close to them. The one good thing about being drawn to the middle section of the ship by whatever prankster this is is that it makes it a lot easier to run into people if you're all drawn to the same, highly visible place.
And at least the other person is flesh and blood, right? Probably.
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He's too horrified to do anything but let her shove him. He takes the steps back, face twisting up as he watches her struggle.
"No, I think I do get to ask you that!" You're the one who's DYING, he doesn't know how to say. "I thought you cared about that stupid world! I thought you cared about -"
This whole time, did neither of them want to live? ...did he ever really want to die? Destroy the world, sure, whatever - that's what - that's what Jin wanted, wasn't it? It's what humanity wanted, wasn't it? Wasn't it? Why should he care about any of those things?! And he can't even process that sudden newfound clarity, because:
He doesn't want to watch anyone else he cares about die.
He grabs her by the arm, yanking her towards him, sort of. He's probably tall enough that he could yank her off the ground, if she were any shorter.
"We aren't doing this. You don't get to do this! You don't get to just go and die, while I still--"
Why is he the only one still alive?
i guess this is suicidal ideation. oops
"Let go!"
Does she care about the world? Sure, she guesses - it's the thing Addam wanted to protect. It's the thing Rex wanted to secure a future for. (Those don't feel like they matter to her so much anymore, but then...?) Mythra shakes her head furiously, because why should she care right now?
"My core's with Rex, idiot - it doesn't even matter if I want to die or not, after Pyra finishes blowing the damn Beanstalk into space we're just going to pop right back out like nothing even happened!"
With a growl, she pulls herself up further, angling for a downward kick to push herself away from him.
one more tag to go (warning) (threat)
"Sure! If everything goes to plan! But we're not on our world. We're so - we're so far from home, Mythra!" He is only just refraining from shaking her like some kind of doll he's dangling off the ground. "And I can't - you can't leave me here alone!"
It scares him. It scares him? Nothing scared him before. That's new. But he's so full of that fear, so full of terror of the uncertainty that gapes before him, an open maw. She doesn't get to die.
"I don't want to play this game, Mythra. I don't want to hope that you'll be fine - not able to know! You - You -- !"
What else is there to say!?
here we go!
(The thing
in her coreinside her that winces at the jagged edges of his core crystal and the little chip missing from it, the thing that aches for a simpler past she can't fucking remember anything about except the vaguest feelings of the three of them being together - that's the part that wins.)When she speaks, it's... quieter. Calmer. Resigned, maybe.
"Yeah, well, not much choice I have about that at this point," she says, wiggling the fingers of her free hand at him so he can see the way the ether is emptying from her system.
IMMINENT
He's got one hand free. He reaches up to his - fucking - broken core. It's already cracked. It's already in two pieces. So he breaks off a chunk - the bigger? the smaller? he doesn't even look - and he slaps it in where Mythra's core should be.
It's the same shape, after all.
(Does it hurt? He doesn't even know - he's been in pain for almost as long as he can remember.)
Augh
Dying hadn't hurt - it had just been an encroaching sense of nothing. A silence steadily growing. This? Comes with an ache, dull and yet impossible to ignore, as her body accepts the grafted core crystal, backup data from her brain etching itself into the cracked gemstone. It's almost worse than if the pain had been sharp.
The core fires a series of errors at her - Conduit offline, blade network not found, access restricted, missing data in sector ██ - loud enough that she just... hangs in Malos's grasp and lets it do its thing.
"What the fuck," she demands, when she feels like she can breathe again. "Malos what the fuck, you didn't have to do that!"
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Malos has the decency to hold her up while their - his - core sorts themselves - itself? - out, but after that he just kind of. drops her. And then he drops himself, knees giving way, and he joins her on his ass on the floor.
His brain sputters, trying to think through molasses; this is what he wanted, right? For once he can answer yes, yes it was, with complete certainty. It scares him how certain he is, but he knows - for once - that it's him, it must be him, because any echo of a broken, weird resonance that is happening between him and Mythra is full of her frustration and lack of want. So the wanting must be him.
Unable to find his own words, he falls back on another old joke from the old world data; a joke he loved and a joke Mikhail thought was funny to use at every opportunity.
"Guess that's just how it is in this bitch of a - " He can't think of a funny filler. " - earth."
(I had to do that, because it was the only way I could think of that would make it so I didn't have to watch you die, goes unsaid, barely realized, but maybe not entirely unfelt...?)
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If she'd had any reason to doubt Malos - if she'd thought that this was some kind of trick, something like him wanting revenge - it dies a quiet death in the face of everything she's feeling right now. They're not things she'd been feeling a moment ago, so just this once it's easy to untangle - god, he'd been worried about her. She'd landed gracelessly, flat on her ass, not that she cares right now.
"Shit, that hurts. Link feels solid on your end, right...? I keep getting errors."
They're minor errors, and she can't even tell if they're related to the ache, but. It is his core crystal, so he'd know it better.
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He sits here with her, watching his core in her chest feed her ether, and feeling... relieved? Calm? Ways he's only ever felt before when it was just him and Jin, alone, pushing their worries away. ...Weird. ...comforting.
Thank god, she gives him something else to think about.
"Oh, yeah." Malos has to actually double check the errors to confirm - it's been so long since he's looked at them. "Those are the normal ones. Same as always."
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"What do you mean, the normal ones?" she asks, even though she's very quickly putting together exactly what that means. "Are you saying you've been feeling like this ever since--"
Mythra pushes herself into sitting upright, rather than just letting herself slump, to better look at him. (The height difference is worse when they're both sitting down! How is that fair?)
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"Yeah, the normal ones. The 'hey, dipshit, your core is cracked' ones."
Wait, oh, okay. He gets what she means, now, an echo of her guilt - her horror?? - resonating across this shitty emotion bleed. Ultimately, it makes him laugh.
"Yeah, hurts like a bitch, doesn't it? Nice of you to finally join the club! Karma says it's only 'fair' that you have to deal with it too, now."
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"Whatever," she says. "It's not that bad." The errors are more annoying, honestly. She gets to her feet experimentally, even though the diagnostics that are working aren't suggesting any problems.
"Shouldn't we figure out where the hell we are, at some point?"
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But not right now.
"Yeah, I guess," Malos says, not bothering to get up just yet. He casts his gaze around the - room? Hall? It's big enough it could be either, and only investigation will make that clear. "What kind of plants enjoy growing in a tin can, anyway? This isn't like Alrest at all."
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"They grew on the Beanstalk, didn't they?" Though they'd long since overgrown their hydroponic containers, on their climb up - maybe the image that's coming to mind is older. Oh well. "Nothing like this, though.
She sticks her hand out, just coincidentally where he could easily use it to pull himself up, not even bothering to look at him. Not her problem if he doesn't want the help.
no subject
"Yeah, this is a little, how should I put it... too much? This place must've really gone to the pits."
He takes her hand, unthinking, and yanks himself upright. Easy peasy. Then he thinks about it, and quickly lets go of her hand, before she can like, look at him, or something. He hasn't forgotten about wanting to strangle her.
"What do you think? All of our usual scanners are offline - should we investigate the trees, or try and find some kind of signs of life?"
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"Life, I guess," she says, with a shrug. "What's a tree going to tell us?"
Hard to say if they're even likely to find anyone else here, but it's not like either of them is liable to learn much of value from the plantlife aside from there being way too much of it. At least the lighting in the Beanstalk had made more sense for plant growth.
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Maybe how old it is...? That might be useful information, but whether or not an Aegis is good for fetching data on trees is the last thing Malos remembers. So, signs of life it is.
Malos does a brief turnaround to eye the whole of this... hallway, he knows, now. Two ways to go. Hmm.
Eh, fuck it. "This way," he says, picking at random.
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The silence that falls between them as they explore isn't awkward, exactly - at less than half power and without a lot of her usual tools, Mythra's actually paying full attention to their surroundings just in case there is somewhere nearby - but it stretches on long enough, and without anything much to comment on around them, that she starts wishing for something to break it up.
Which is when she realizes -
"Whoa, shit."
She raises her hand in front of her, tilting it to get a better look at the ether lines visible under the glove. They're not teal, anymore - they're darkening, turning a deep shade of blue as Malos's core's ether mixes with her own.
"Guess that makes sense," she says, twisting back to face him and giving him a better view of her full ether lines. The light they're emitting must have been shifting this whole time, but she hadn't consciously noted it. "Wasn't expecting that, though."
get common blade'd, idiot
Right now the only satisfaction he's feeling is that she's not dying. And that she's not going to be dying. Because he's keeping her alive.
...of course he can't tell her that, so when she turns around and points her ether lines out, he picks a joke instead.
"Heheh blue. Lmao."
FUCK YOU (UNLEGENDARIES YOUR CORE CRYSTAL)
Even if it's by a complete loser like Malos.
(If her clothes shift so that they're glowing the same color as her ether, no they didn't. Shut up.)
She snorts with laughter. "God, is that how dumb it sounds when you say it with your mouth? No wonder no one gets it."
HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GET KOSMOS NOW!!!!!!!!
"That's why you gotta introduce it to them slowly," he says, as if giving wise advice. "I got Akhos to start saying lol. It was so easy. Patroka hates it."
Hated it. He's not correcting himself to Mythra, though.
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"Never worked for me," she says, shrugging. "Bet Akhos just picked it up because Patroka hated it, though."
The wave of grief that accompanies his words is - well. It's not a surprise.
She could like, talk about it. She'd wondered a little about his sudden change of heart when it came to her (but doesn't she get it? if she lost everyone except her
brpartner, well...)Instead, Mythra flips her hair over her shoulder and keeps walking.
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Anyway. Malos shrugs. Fine, then. If that's how it's gonna be. It's not like he wants to talk about it, either. He's not sure what he's going to do, now that they're both alive, and they have to face the consequences of their actions, but...
Mythra doesn't get to die. So, apparently, neither does he.
...tangentially, his core - broken, split in half, etc - is struggling just a little keeping up with both of their systems, especially after all this walking and searching and stuff. "Shit," he mumbles. He does NOT want to give, and he does NOT want a repeat of fussing over Mythra from earlier, but also. He knows what it's like when Jin pushes too hard - he knows what it's like when he pushes too hard, and. He knows they can't keep doing this.
"Hey, alright," Malos says. His core is sore, and so are his legs, and he's surprised Mythra's not feeling that, too. "I gotta stop walking. Core needs a recharge."
Whatever. He might as well be honest. Whatever.
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"A recharge?" she starts to ask incredulously, but oh, yeah, okay. This new core isn't fully integrated into her systems yet, but when she queries it she gets a whole new set of error messages. The state of this thing is dire, actually. She'd been so low on ether when Malos had split it, and part of the missing chunk seems to be related to ether generation... No wonder he'd barely used his own power the entire time it had been damaged.
Mythra hates thinking about this (and what it means for their current abilities - can she even summon a weapon? not with these ether levels she can't), so:
"Sure, whatever," she says. "Think there was a bench a little ways back...?" One so overgrown with vines it had been hard to tell what it was, but whatever, it's not like everything else here isn't as well. Or they can just sit down on the ground. The hell with it.
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"What, ground's not good enough for you?" he jokes, but he's making his way back towards the bench, anyway.
...maybe this was a mistake, with how tired he's starting to feel, but. Meh. He's not cracking before Mythra - he can last until they get to the fucking bench. How far back could it have been, anyway?
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they're so stupid we'll never get them to talk
they're SO stupid
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i'm still in agony every time i read this one
me too! thanks!!!
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NOT WHERE I THOUGHT THIS WAS GOING
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with all these past selves it might as well be homestuck-- /dies