Very funny, Desai. I just thank God you made me a teacher and not a student.

Though it was a very good call to end it before he got here.

...And now I have pets. ...I'm not sure I can keep these.

When; December 1; early evening
Rating; PG
Characters; Yuri Lowell [notflynn], Natalia Luzu Kimlasca Lanvaldear [imperialwill], Flynn Scifo [srslynotguy]
Summary; Natalia, concerned for Leon who hasn't shown up for work, encounters Yuri and, consequently, Flynn. She then goes totally BAMF and owns some serious ass. I can feel you all judging me, by the way.
Log; ( it's just the way the game is played )

When; Sunday, November 29th; the other side of Anne's action post.
Rating; PG
Characters; Neil Perry Todd Anderson
Summary; Since gaining their small, female roommate, Neil and Todd have been lacking the sanctuary that their apartment used to be. Frustrations have built up steadily, and on this particular evening, Todd's gone out, leaving Neil to handle Anne. When he returns, behold, their young charge is nowhere to be found. Again. Their first fight may just be looming.
Log; ( It had not been the best month... )

When; December 1st, midday
Rating; PG-13
Characters; Leon Magnus [roseofseingald] and Yuri Lowell [notflynn]
Summary; Leon's looking for Yuri to put a stop to his actions, but he gets a pretty rude surprise when Yuri starts to look like Marian.
Log; ( a delicate, nearly transparent creation of somebody's soul on the screen )

Called by some the season of death...

Another evidence of his cruelty. But not here. And has fallen and will again.

[Film || Viewable to All]
Part the First, Part the Second, Part the Third, Part the Fourth, Part the Fifth, Part the Sixth
[//end film]

[Addendum || Viewable to All]
I had thought that I wasn't going to be cursed today, that perhaps I would escape after having endured only one day of this weekend cursed. But apparently the City has other ideas. It looks like I have been cursed, and my memories--my own, private memories--have been splashed across the Network.

It was bad enough being a doll, being stiff, having to be carried about, and having my clothes toyed with. I can't decide if this is better or worse. It's trying, certainly, but at least I'm myself, in my own shape, and not temporarily mad.

For all that we carry these colourful coins in our pockets, I think sometimes that the currency of this City is really memories. Memories are thrown across the Network, the 'deities' take memories in trade, curses create new memories or erase old ones for a day or two, people who come and go from the City sometimes gain or lose memories--either of the City or of their own worlds. Everything here is fluid: the curses change the City, and the City changes us, even down to our very memories.

Very well, then. Shall I call it ironic that this memory is the one put up on the Network after I was a doll yesterday? Although I don't think anyone else will quite see the irony. The girl who died in the fire--Rebecca, I think her name was--was very fond of dolls. Perhaps she was too fond of them. And she was fond of some very eerie dolls at that, ones that seemed to real, too life-like. One who think some of those dolls must have been alive, or perhaps they would wake up again very soon. But she was a crooked little girl with a crooked little love. She was a broken doll herself.

And Merry accused me of keeping her hidden away in the house, like a doll kept on a high shelf. Perhaps she understood better, then, why I so wanted to keep her safe.

And perhaps she understood that there was more and worse that could have happened to her. The dolls one worries most for, one keeps covered by a glass. The birds whose songs one likes best, one clips their wings.

She still knows so little. She still understands so little. But, then, she is still a child.

As much as I miss her, there are many times I'm just as glad that she isn't here anymore. She's waiting for me at home--for us both--though she doesn't know it.

Then again, I do still have all her dolls, her dresses, and her ribbons if she should ever come back. And her room could still be her own.

Her picture is still in the Hall, though. At least Riff's is gone again. I'll take what I can get, City. Sometimes that's all one can do: grab at what one can, at what one needs most, and hold to that.

There you have it, then, City. I've tried to remove that film from the Network, but it refuses to go. And of course it won't, because it was a curse that put it there, and it's a curse that keeps it there. I'll leave it be. It's doing nothing but frustrating me trying to get rid of it. I'll carry on as usual, do as I please--as much as I can, of course, with the City still mad for another day.

Riff, we'll have to start on Christmas shopping in a few days. We may be in the City but, believe me, Christmas is still celebrated even here.

I'll just be grateful that it was only this curse and this memory and nothing more or worse. Or more revealing--

~C.

[ooc: IDK, Memory Theatre seems popular today. Actually, this is ironic because this is the end of the story involving Cain, Merry, and a creepy little girl who liked making dolls out of people. Cain was a doll yesterday and thought of this particular event. Little wonder, then, that this might come up. Maybe I should have done a Riff memory. I didn't want to reveal too many of Cain's secrets. Either way, this is rather revealing of the relationship between the Hargreaves siblings. But do you get to see the whole story~? No. Isn't the City cruel like that? Why were they in that house? Who was that other girl? You might never know.]

A few moments of violence.

How interesting.

It isn't a pleasant thing to wake up stiff and somewhat confused in one's own bed--especially when one's own bed seems far too large. Larger than it was when one went to sleep before. I've endured that before, and I half expected to find myself with a tail and whiskers again.

I've had just about enough clambering about for one day, I think. It was amusing at first, of course, to see the world a hundred times larger than it should be. Even when the City turns me into a child again, the world doesn't seem so big as this. I suppose it's a bit like the times I've been a cat, but I am glad to have hands rather than paws, even if they are as small as paws. At least I have thumbs, even if my Network device is obnoxiously large.

I'm a doll, of course. I've been changed into a porcelain doll, not so unlike the ones I gave to Merry time and time again.

Although, at least I seem to be a boy doll, and I do have more joints than Merry's dolls ever did. It isn't such a bad thing to be for a day, not by comparison to other curses. I can still move fairly easily, though I'm a bit awkward and some of my joints keep dislocating themselves. When I knelt, for example, to start typing this, my knees completely detached. I'm strung all through with elastic. It's not painful at all to have my joints coming apart, though it's more than a little disturbing to see. Oddly, my hands move like my own hands, though a little stiffly, and I can speak and move my eyes. I've been turned into a doll, I know, but apparently not entirely a doll. If I have a tongue, teeth, and a voice, but I seem to be strung together, I wonder what's become of my innards. For that matter, I wonder if I've a brain in my head. I wonder what I look like when I walk about. Perhaps I move something like He-Who-Kills does. I'm stiffer than I am ordinarily, but I'll take that over being immobile and sitting on a shelf.

If that crooked little girl with her monstrous dolls could see me now, I wonder what she'd think. Perhaps I understand now more of how Merry felt when she claimed I treated her like a doll--But it was to keep her safe--Even I'm trying to keep myself from breaking--Would she have been made a doll too if she were here today?--If that's your point, City, I don't find it amusing--

I've endured this once before, but it's been quite a long time--perhaps a year ago or more.

I think the stairs were the worst. The cats seem to go up and down the stairs far more easily than I did. I had to take them step by step, climbing down each. It was undignified, really, but it worked. I'll call it an adventure, I suppose. But perhaps the cats have an easier time of it because they're not made of porcelain and cord. Well, perhaps Noir is, but even he seems to trip up and down the stairs as easily as flesh-and-blood Kassandra.

I, meanwhile, am having a far more difficult time of it shaped like this.

It is interesting to see the world from this sort of angle, especially with the City cursed into madness again. I'd thought we were done with all this madness a few days ago, but apparently that wasn't the monthly weekend of madness. Instead, we're having that now--today and, presumably, tomorrow. You're as fascinated and mad as ever, City. Still, I'll stay out a while yet, I think, before I try that climb back up the stairs again.

Unless, of course, Riff, you could carry me back up--if you're not cursed out of your mind, of course. I'm sure I don't weigh very much in this sort of shape. In fact, you could carry me around as much as you'd like--or as I'd like, depending. I do like being able to get about on my own, but perhaps I ought to find easier ways to get about. It's the difference between walking in the rain and having a carriage.

Riff, I'll call for you when I'm ready to come back upstairs again. If nothing else, I think it would be quite amusing to think of you carrying about a doll, or me--or both, as the case will be this time.

~C.

[ooc: So...rather than being a cat or a child this time, Cain woke up to find himself made of something more like porcelain and looking something like this (although with dark hair like his own, of course). I sincerely apologize for raiding the Dream of Doll website for that picture. Basically, for the day, Cain is a charmingly articulated, distinctly creepy, but strikingly beautiful ball-jointed doll >:3 Please be nice. He's about 24 inches tall now and trying not to break himself, thank you. Be nice, all you children, if you want to play with such an amazing talking doll~]

[ There's a brief silence before a child's voice comes through the communicator. ]

Whoa! This... this doesn't look like home. Is this a story...? But I didn't write anything like...

[ Footsteps echo. ]

Mum? Dad? Charon...? Raetsel....?

What the... Why's there something heavy in my...

[ A loud tapping follows, and a bit of static - he seems to have found the device and started poking at it. ]

What's this thing? I've never seen anything like it... I bet Charon could tell me!

[ He suddenly sounds almost elated. ]

Wooooow! Just wait 'til they all see this place!

[ And the footsteps break into a run as the feed cuts. ]

[ ooc: Haven't done this to him in a long while, so have an age-reversed, angst-less 5-6 year old Fakir! With living parents and 100% more happy! I'll probably keep him like this for both days. And yeah, he's just run off from the Opera Abandoned courtyard. >>; ]

Thank you to everyone who's played with him, but Fuuma's been retired from community gameplay.

I'll leave this up as a contact post, if you would like to talk in the future ♥

When; The 24th of November
Rating; PG
Characters; Inara Serra only_fell (cursed and 5 years old) & Priestly notverypriestly
Summary; Inara is cursed and suddenly 5 years old. Priestly plays baby sitter.
Log; ( I'm a Princess. Mommy says so )

Aha~ how Kaspar cries. How Kaspar trembles.

Did you think to escape Samiel twice? Perhaps I should give you to my hounds...

[ooc: Comment log for Hellsing, Angel Crew, Lady, Video Post for everyone else. Alucard is shadowy and creepy, Rip is weepy, let's all have fun.]

HMD [A - K]

Those who gave their names or nicknames on their applications and the Taken Character List as starting with A through K, please post here.


How's My Driving?
[PROCEED]

IT'S HERE, IT'S HERE! HMD, HMD! HOW'S MY DRIVING? PRETTY GOOD, RIGHT? AREN'T YOU THANKFUL?! GOBBLE IT UP, POLYCHROMATIDS~!!

Welcome back to our more seasoned members, and welcome to you first-timers.

HMD is the gamewide chance for feedback on playing here in polychromatic.

And here's our philosophy on HMD: praise--it's all well and good (we all love it, yeah?), so if you want to give praise, love, ♥s, whatever, go for it! It's especially great to say what you ♥ so much about a character. For example, how they acted during X curse or Y plot was great, or how they adjusted (or didn't?) to the City was fascinating. But we all know, constructive crit is best when you're looking for advice on how to improve. What we really encourage here are questions. It gives you the chance to maybe understand something, (and maybe you think it makes sense after all now), and the player a chance to explain. For example:

"How did Gary get from Point A in canon to Point B in Poly? It didn't quite make sense to me."

"What started this whole fascination of Sue's with the bananas?"

And then you find out that there's a long, involved story that goes back six months involving the aftermath of a curse, a lizard, a pound of potatoes, a watermelon, three French maids, and a pogo stick. And then it all makes perfect sense.

Or perhaps it doesn't, but you've started a dialogue about the things you perceive versus the things the player perceives.

As decided by community vote, anon is not allowed here on the main HMD post, and IP logging is on. Sorry, Anon. However, we encourage posting a link to your own, personal, anon-enabled crit thread(s) if allowing anon is something you want to do and are comfortable with. But keep in mind that we moderators can't police those crit threads: not only are they anon, but they are on your own journals, and there are dozens of them. But we entreat members of this game to be polite and courteous, logged in or not. We will be watching the main post for any unrest, however, so keep that in mind. (We like to watch.) Let's all keep ourselves like civilized people, and have a decent time. Remember, no road rage in HMD.

To keep things organized, please post your comment in the following format*:

<b>Player name:</b> <b>Characters played:</b> Character :: Fandom :: Character LJ <b>Personal concrit link:</b> <b>Anonymous allowed/encouraged? Y/N:</b> <b>Other comments?</b>


The general disclaimer, as usual, applies:

By choosing to post here on HMD, you may receive comments you don't necessarily enjoy. By posting here, you accept that this could happen, and you're basically okay with it. We will be monitoring this post for abuse and will shut down any instances of abuse we see. However, constructive crit, comments, or questions you just don't like do not count as abuse.

Whew. Now that that's all out of the way, have at it, polychromatic!

*Please remember our requests regarding sparkles, images, embedded media, and other bits of coding. A little variation on the comment form is fine and tasty, and putting things like gifs or videos behind links or in collapsed threads is fine too, but please consider the loading time for others with slower connections. And take it easy on the placeholders: HMD isn't going anywhere.

And because it's apparently traditional for HMD posts to go up in the middle of the damn night, here we are. =_=v

HMD [L - Z]

Those who gave their names or nicknames on their applications and the Taken Character list as starting with L through Z, please post here..


How's My Driving?
[WTF?!]

IT'S HERE, IT'S HERE! HMD, HMD! HOW'S MY DRIVING? PRETTY GOOD, RIGHT? AREN'T YOU THANKFUL?! GOBBLE IT UP, POLYCHROMATIDS~!!

Welcome back to our more seasoned members, and welcome to you first-timers.

HMD is the game-wide chance for feedback on playing here in polychromatic.

And here's our philosophy on HMD: praise--it's all well and good (we all love it, yeah?), so if you want to give praise, love, ♥s, whatever, go for it! It's especially great to say what you ♥ so much about a character. For example, how they acted during X curse or Y plot was great, or how they adjusted (or didn't?) to the City was fascinating. But we all know, constructive crit is best when you're looking for advice on how to improve. What we really encourage here are questions. It gives you the chance to maybe understand something, (and maybe you think it makes sense after all now), and the player a chance to explain. For example:

"How did Gary get from Point A in canon to Point B in Poly? It didn't quite make sense to me."

"What started this whole fascination of Sue's with the bananas?"

And then you find out that there's a long, involved story that goes back six months involving the aftermath of a curse, a lizard, a pound of potatoes, a watermelon, three French maids, and a pogo stick. And then it all makes perfect sense.

Or perhaps it doesn't, but you've started a dialogue about the things you perceive versus the things the player perceives.

As decided by community vote, anon is not allowed here on the main HMD post, and IP logging is on. Sorry, Anon. However, we encourage posting a link to your own, personal, anon-enabled crit thread(s) if allowing anon is something you want to do and are comfortable with. But keep in mind that we moderators can't police those crit threads: not only are they anon, but they are on your own journals, and there are dozens of them. But we entreat members of this game to be polite and courteous, logged in or not. We will be watching the main post for any unrest, however, so keep that in mind. (We like to watch.) Let's all keep ourselves like civilized people, and have a decent time. Remember, no road rage in HMD.

To keep things organized, please post your comment in the following format*:

<b>Player name:</b> <b>Characters played:</b> Character :: Fandom :: Character LJ <b>Personal concrit link:</b> <b>Anonymous allowed/encouraged? Y/N:</b> <b>Other comments?</b>


The general disclaimer, as usual, applies:

By choosing to post here on HMD, you may receive comments you don't necessarily enjoy. By posting here, you accept that this could happen, and you're basically okay with it. We will be monitoring this post for abuse and will shut down any instances of abuse we see. However, constructive crit, comments, or questions you just don't like do not count as abuse.

Whew. Now that that's all out of the way, have at it, polychromatic!

*Please remember our requests regarding sparkles, images, embedded media, and other bits of coding. A little variation on the comment form is fine and tasty, and putting things like .gifs or videos behind links or in collapsed threads is fine too, but please consider the loading time for others with slower connections. And take it easy on the placeholders: HMD isn't going anywhere.

And because it's apparently traditional for HMD posts to go up in the middle of the damn night, here we are. =_=v

When; Thanksgiving Day (November 26th), all day, any time
Rating; G? PG at most?
Characters; Anyone! Everyone! You!
Summary; No one should be alone for the holidays.
Log; ( That's why the door's always open. )

voice;

....You've got to shitting me.

[Pause, oh the truth settles in. Someone hears a ticking.]

No. No, no, no, no! Goddammit, I've been here for too fucking long for this to just--- I don't believe this shit. Fucking son of a bitch, City. You'll be sorry, you hear me? You'll be sorry you decided to pull me back to this shit hole.

I really believed for a little while.... You made a fool out of me. I was right there. I was home, I was this close....

[Shattering glass and the device gets switched off. Guess who is back from her brief, brief trip home. Ask her about it. I dare you.]

Private to Boy Blue;
I want my apartment.
end;

[Sasuke is seen moving forward as if he was heading somewhere, before coming to a stop to glance at his surroundings as he realizes where he is]

...The city again? [The irritation in his voie is evident as he speaks, and he pauses for a few seconds as he recalls what he last remembers] I suppose my plans will be on hold for the time being then.

( Private || Unhackable )

[ooc; So Sasuke is back in the City again without a canon update and right after he checked the network to see how long he was gone for from when the button curse was going on, so the private section was included a bit later from the actual post. Pretend this was earlier since he was supposed to be back before the curse ended since I wasn't around much to post this before now.]

So are the 'deities' quite through with us now? I'll admit, I wasn't cursed, but that didn't make the City seem any less mad to me. It was like one of those wretched weekends when every curse I've ever seen seems to happen again--but all at once. I think most everyone here has endured at least one of those weekends, even if not everyone was cursed during it. I'll still count myself fortunate that I wasn't cursed. I suppose whoever had the box with my name on it didn't press their button. Perhaps they couldn't, with paws or claws or no hands at all. Perhaps it was a race after all, and the winner is the one who pressed the button and cursed the other first.

But it seems as though it's all over now. A few people whom I know went home seem to have returned. I knew the 'deities' wouldn't keep their word on that promise. Or, rather, they kept their word, but not as we'd like. I did say not to trust them.

I suppose we'll slide back into our usual routines now, recover from these curses, and carry on.

A few people have told me that Thanksgiving is tomorrow. I knew it was coming up, but I never celebrated it before I came to the City two years ago. I know full well about harvest celebrations, even being in town like I was, but those were much earlier than this--that was after the grain was got in, usually. I suppose it's just the time and place and things that are grown. I've had enough Americans explain it to me. I think I quite understand it. It makes perfect sense to me. And who could really refuse a good dinner with friends or with family in this cold part of the year?

I suppose what I really mean is that here's something for which we ought to be grateful: these curses have ended.

[Private to Riff || Unhackable]
I know full well that I cursed someone by pressing that button, Riff. He or she could have been struck by anything. Now that the curses are ending, it's beginning to come out more about what curses were striking who and how. I know some were horrid--think of the one that struck Sam.

But all curses are horrid, really, in their own way. If they aren't painful, they're annoying, or maddening, or make one think one is mad.

Should I count myself fortunate that I wasn't cursed? I don't believe in luck, you know. But I wasn't cursed, and I'll be grateful for that.

More than that, Riff.

I've not told anyone here about my collection here, you know. When I arrived, Rue ordered Fakir--or perhaps he did it himself; I can't recall--to strip my room of anything and everything that could be used as a weapon. The opera house had enemies then, and terrible ones. I understand entirely why they wanted to protect themselves against me, a stranger. I had only a few vials hidden in my coat then, but I started rebuilding from those in secret. Princess Rue knows something of it now, but she's the only one. If I was to be trapped here, I wanted my collection, all the same. You've seen how it's grown now. Some of them I've found in the Underground or strange shops, one I had obtained for me as payment for doses of opium and laudanum that I made in the City's laboratories, one the 'deities' themselves brought by as a souvenir of a visit they made to our world.

So, Riff, I've had another one returned to me because of pressing that button.

I wouldn't leave and abandon you here, not the way you've left me so often. And I doubted that the 'deities' would really make good on that promise anyway--and that's been proved true. I've no real use for money, not with my situation as it is and my savings as they are. There's some good that's come from my having been here for so long. So I wanted something from home, something of mine. And the 'deities' brought me back the cantarella.

I had something like it for a while now, but not the real cantarella, not my own. It's here now, locked up with the rest of my collection, kept secret and safe.

Shall I be grateful? It was the 'deities' who brought it, at the cost of someone enduring a curse, and I escaped entirely.

Well? Shall I be grateful?
[//end private filter]

[Private to Rosella, Sam, et. al. || Unhackable]
Rosella, how is Sam? I'm sure the doctors are taking very good care of him, but I would still like to know. I'm sure he's still in the hospital, of course, but if he's well enough, I'd be glad to speak to him too, of course. I wonder, though, if you won't keep his Network device away from him to make him rest. I have the feeling that you could be both a very good, but very strict nurse. I'd be glad to pay another visit too, of course, if he's receiving visitors.

And my offer still stands, too: if you should like, do come and stay in the opera house as my guest. I know you'd much rather stay with someone than by yourself in the Warehouse, even as protected as the Warehouse is. I'm sure there are any number of people asking you to pay a visit, so add me to the list if need be.

Do let me know, and do give Sam my good wishes.
[//end private filter]

Admittedly, there is a very real chance we'll be cursed again, even as soon as tomorrow. Of course we will be cursed again, but the question is whether we'll be cursed tomorrow or the day after. I recall once on a Thanksgiving when everyone was made to list the things for which they were grateful. There are worse curses than that, even as annoying as that might be. If we're to have a curse on a holiday, even a holiday that isn't mine, it had best be a mild one.

I hope we'll be given a few days' rest after all of that. There's no certainty of it, but I would be grateful for it.

~C.

[ooc: So Cain ended up pushing the button on the box he received. Sam was cursed with a reprise of the SAW curse (sob), Cain's been trying to help out Sam and Rosella in the aftermath (ironic), though he doesn't know that he cursed Sam (crai), but he did get one of his favorite rare poisons from home (secret). So he's...well, he'll get his later, I'm sure, if the truth ever comes out ;3; The Rosella & Sam filter is open to Rosella, Sam, and their friends and acquaintances that Cain knows they know--their mutual friends, basically. If you're not sure if you're in the filter, drop a line.]