[audio] @HK; set during the middle of the event! [open]

[catholicisms]

( Matt isn't big on the devices, for a multitude of reasons. he'll answer on occasion but most of the time he observes and doesn't participate. his username might not be familiar, even to the people who have met him. maybe his voice will be; that's the medium he chooses, it just makes delivery easier. )

I am sure we've all heard what is going around, that plenty of us are suffering from hallucinations. I know how real they must look, or hear, or sound.

( he's had at least a little of his own issues, mostly voices in his head. touches he can't explain. Matt thinks he might be getting off a little easier on this round of misery because he's blind. that's a first, but it also means he has a different perspective on the situation.

and while he's generally not big about talking about how he uses his other senses, in this instance? he feels like he should. )

If you don't recognize my voice, my name is Matt. If you don't know me yet, I'm the one with sunglasses and a walking cane. ( hopefully this is obvious enough a cue to imply he's the blind guy wandering around. ) I can't see what you are seeing, any more than anyone else can. But I can tell you that your other senses could help you decipher if what you are experiencing is real.

If you see blood, something dead, rotten, you'd smell it as much as you'd see it. If you can feel things on you, they can't just come out of nowhere. When things come towards you, they leave an audible clue, and it means something if you can't hear it.

The things you are seeing, hearing, feeling — they're terrible, and horrifying, but they also aren't real. Try muffling the sense that is troubling you most. It's already dark here, but a blindfold could help you ignore what isn't there.

( and because he realizes it isn't easy to rely on senses without practice, ) And if it seems real and you need help figuring out what you can trust, maybe I can help.

Comments

[unpredict]

Unlucky.

[ so not primarily sight. it's interesting to see how these affect everyone—kol's got a mixed bag of sight, scent and sound, with sensation sometimes coming into play. he'd rather just have one thing to focus on, although that's possibly just as unpleasant. ]

So how are you muffling your sense of hearing? Clearly it must be working if that's the advice you're offering.

[catholicisms]

Finding the cause is important, I'll give you that.

( and Matt has been looking around, without the actual looking part. still blind. )

That said, people deep in hallucination would only be in more danger if they were out in the woods searching for answers. I wouldn't suggest anyone hallucinating be wandering far from a place they know well.

[catholicisms]

There's a difference between casual touch and the kind of touch you need to understand something you can't see.

( he's got nothing against casual touch, even enjoys it on occasion. running his hands all over someone is sort of intimate, though. Matt doesn't ask it of many people and honestly wouldn't want to do it to just anyone, anyway. )

[catholicisms]

I'd risk the air pollution and lowered life expectancy to go back if I could.

( if anyone finds a portal back to NYC, though, someone let him know. )

Might as well make the most of rural living. I think we're way past suburbs at this point.

[catholicisms]

I'm not muffling it, I'm using my other senses to invalidate it.

If someone were really here, talking to me... there'd be more than just a voice. Their voice would echo a little, or change as I got farther away. They'd make the floor creak, and I'd smell hints of them, as bizarre as that sounds.

( he hates that he knows what Fisk smells like, but, there you go. )

It's harder when you have multiple senses at play, I won't argue that. But if you think it might not be real, look for the flaws in the projection. I find they're there, if you're willing to look for them.

[catholicisms]

( he honestly really hadn't thought about it. it is October, isn't it? )

Sort of like an inescapable haunted house, when you look at it that way.

[sauntered_downward]

This could go on until we figure out a way to stop it. We can't just expect an end.

[song_of_ice]

[He's handled this device long enough to know how to switch from text to voice. So apparently some progress was made for him.]

Any word from our friends? Maybe they have seen something like this before that reset happened?

[pearlstrings]

Can't wait to see what the spirits drum up for Christmas. [A beat.]

Non-denominational winter holidays.


I'm going to assume that the spirits are responsible at any rate. It's a more comforting thought than the constant presence of disembodied hands.

[scarsolderthanyou]

Is there? Huh. Well, consider this blanket permission to find out what I look like by touch if you want to.

[savingthrows]

[ There's a soft sound. Like a chuckle that catches on her throat a little bit,the humour lost in the horrors of their current situation. ]

I understand. Do I... need to worry about you?

[ The concern there is genuine. He can't see, but Eleven knows best that the darkness holds its own monsters. ]

[catholicisms]

That's not usually how things work around here. They get bad, and sometimes they get worse, and then they tend to fade off.

( the rats, the aftermath of the lighthouse ordeal, the corpse flowers... there's a pattern in Beacon of things starting and stopping. )

If things keep escalating, well, those of us that are less indisposed should do what we can to dig a little deeper.

[catholicisms]

I appreciate that.

( it's certainly not the kind of open invitation he gets often. )

It sounds as if you are fairly used to touch, unless I'm reading too much into things.

[catholicisms]

( good for you, Jonny!! that northern boy is growin' up!!! )

I haven't checked in with Robin or Will, no. That'd be an interesting question to ask, though. If it is a spirit causing all this, they might be able to tell us which one.

[catholicisms]

I'm not sure what sounds worse, haunted Christmas or haunted non-denominational winter holidays.

( for a catholic, he's not actually that extra about Christmas. it's literally like the one thing he's not extra about. )

It's unfortunately fairly reliable that the spirits are involved when things go south like this. Makes me wonder if it's entirely intentional, or if there are spirits out there with abilities they can't control.

[scarsolderthanyou]

Kid, Raksura usually sleep three or four to a bed, and when we travel we sleep in piles. When you're as big as my winged form, too, you get climbed on a lot. Or slept on, sometimes. Not to mention I was heavily involved in taking care of the babies in my last years or two, so it wasn't often I didn't have someone in my lap.

[He actually sounds a little. Wistful. Stone misses his big, stupid family. He also misses hugs. But humans are not particularly into cuddling, it seems like.]

[catholicisms]

So far I'm okay. I've been hearing things, but it's nothing I haven't heard before.

( he's pretty good at ignoring Fisk. it's when the hateful things come from a voice that sounds like Karen, telling him through bloodied teeth that they needed him and he wasn't there — or Foggy, with quiet condemnation and disgust as he notes that I told you sooner or later I'd find you dead. I was right, wasn't I?

he's not immune to the hallucinations, far from it. he's just logical enough (perhaps stubborn enough) that Matt can more or less poke holes in the projection. )

[webshoots]

You're going to need to start embracing more flannel for that, Matt.

[savingthrows]

What do you hear?

[ She has to wonder, and the things he hears in the dark that he's heard before. The dark scares her.Consequently, she believes him to be very brave for living in it.

If she couldn't see.... Eleven wonders if she'd always feel like she was back in that small room at the lab, alone and lost in the dark, nothing but the terrors of her malnourished mind for company. ]

[pearlstrings]

I'm not sure we should limit the theories even to that degree. There's so much that we don't know about the spirits.

Did they have greater intelligence before the darkness came? Or were they more animalistic? Or are they avatars instead? Extensions of some other intelligence or impulse?

Where do they go when they aren't in town?

@cuttingedge; audio

[knifecollecting]

Wait.

[It's a moment before she speaks again. She might not have noticed the cane, but...

Crowley wears sunglasses here too. She's pretty sure he isn't blind. Oh no.]

You're blind?

[saibot]

Such things are common in the Netherrealm -- screams of lost souls and demons. But I will admit what is happening is different. I am curious to what is causing them and if it can be stopped.

[catholicisms]

( netherrealm is not a term he's ever heard, though Matt can easily equate the screams of "lost souls and demons" to hell, so that's fine. )

I have no proof it's a spirit, but at this point it seems a safe assumption to make. I don't know what else could cause all this, unless there's some sort of chemical leak causing mass hallucination.

[catholicisms]

( Matt can catch the wistfulness, and while he can't relate to having a big family (or a family, period) he can understand why you'd miss that kind of closeness. )

A bit of a different culture, then. That sounds nice, but definitely not what I'm used to.

( also, belatedly, ) Been a long time since someone called me kid.

[catholicisms]

People from home. Some that I miss, some that I don't.

( and that answer is surprisingly true, considering Matt's aversion to it.

in true Matt Murdock fashion, Matt nearly enjoys hearing the voices of the people he misses — even if they're only saying things that are horrible and hurtful and pulled directly from his self-hating subconscious. Fisk he'd be happy to lose. )