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

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

( 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.

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( older and grumpier than him??? WHO KNEW IT WAS POSSIBLE )

That's my point, though. You can use your other senses to invalidate the pervasive one. It's not easy, I know, but it can at least help.

( that said, ) You smell through taste? That's rather unusual.

[Not that unusual. He's like a lizard, Matt.]

And I find it unusual that you humans can barely smell at all. Doesn't mean I go around commenting about it.

[At least he doesn't actually sound offended. Just kind of exasperated. It also comes with something of an explanation:]

I'm a Raksura. Smell comes through tasting the air.

Edited 2019-10-16 15:45 (UTC)

( unusual for a HUMAN, ok!!! Matt's sense of taste is ridiculous, but not even he smells with his tongue. )

A raksura. I'm afraid I've never heard of that, though I can guess that's not human. I don't mean to offend, I shouldn't have assumed. In my world anything sentient was human, but things are different here.

Yeah, I know, none of you humans do. We don't have humans where I come from, just a couple hundred or so species of groundling, sealing, and skyling.

Raksura are a shapeshifters who live in a forest of mountain-trees. One form looks a lot like you people, the other has wings and a tail and a lot of spines. One of you people already mistook me for some kind of forest spirit in that form.

That's fascinating. A completely different world. What was it called? If you don't mind me asking.

( he means that genuinely. Matt is a bit on the skeptic side, though since arriving in Beacon he's softened that take substantially. being surrounded by forest spirits, an afterlife, and magic will do that to a guy. )

Wings and a tail and spine. I'll have to keep an ear out for that, though if you see the guy with sunglasses and a cane, you could just let me know you're there. I'd appreciate it, I'm not sure I'd be able to understand what I was hearing.

We call it the Three Worlds, but it's only one... what do you call it, planet? It's only one planet. As far as I've heard, nobody's ever thought about there being other worlds out there besides earth, sea, and sky-- other planets.

[He considers with a funny rumbling sound that comes through the tablet as clearly as his voice. It doesn't sound like it could come from a human throat, but it's not really like the growl of an animal Matt will have ever heard, either. Alien!]

So you hear instead of see? Like how I smell? Will you hear the shape of me? Or would you need to touch it to really know what I'm shaped like?

Other worlds was more of a science fiction concept than an actually realized idea, at least in my world.

( unless heaven and hell counted. and it probably shouldn't, since not everyone believed in them, and Matt has no actual proof they exist. besides the angel running around, anyway... )

Not quite. I used to be able to see, I lost my sight when I was a kid. I have the rest of them, still, and I have to make the most of what I have left. ( the reality is he probably could get a sense of Stone's size through the rest of his senses, he's just not about to admit it. ) Touch might help, but I find asking to touch people is a little personal.

What? Why?

[Says the guy who is used to Abora climbing all over him, sitting in his lap, regularly shoving and swatting and hugging people.]

Sounds boring. And lonely, if nobody touches anybody around here.

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. )

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

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.

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.]

( 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.

I'm several hundred turns old. I died of old age. I can call you kid if I want to.

[He's teasing. Mostly.]

( Matt laughs. clearly he's not put off by it. )

I suppose that's fair.

( reminds him a little of Stick. which can be an unflattering comparison most of the time... but not always. )

You're... Stone, I'm guessing?

Yeah, I wasn't very creative with the name I put on this thing. Not like some of you people.

What does yours even mean?

Hell's Kitchen.

( truthfully, that's not creative at all, not for Matt. it just isn't his name, that's the only points he gets for uniqueness he gets. )

That's where I'm from. It's a neighborhood in New York City.

Don't know where that is, but I'll take your word for it. What's it like there?

[Look, Stone likes hearing about other people's homes as much as he likes talking about his own.]

It's a huge city. Millions of people in not a lot of space. Constant noise, bustle, traffic, people. It's got a distinct heartbeat, and it's from the huge variety of cultures that have been drawn there. There's nothing like it.

( Matt is a private guy, but there's a couple things he enjoys talking about. how much he loves his city is one of those things. )

Millions of people.

[Stone sounds vaguely skeptical. He can't really even comprehend a number of people that big.]

I think the largest city I've ever been to had, I don't know, a couple hundred thousand. And that city seemed big and crowded.

( to be fair, even living in the middle of New York, it's a hard number to truly conceptualize. )

I know it isn't for everyone. The crowds, the hustle, the noise. I miss it, though. That sounds crazy, but it's the truth. I liked the crowds, the noise, the energy... all of it.

I like cities. There's a lot to watch, lots of food everywhere to buy or beg off people, and it's easier to blend in when everyone looks a little different.

Just that sounds bigger than any city I've ever heard of.

It sounds massive, and ... it is, I suppose, if you look at it on paper.

Living in it, you don't feel the size or the scope. Or at least, I didn't.

Someday I'd like to see a city that big.

[A pause.]

Though I'm going to guess I probably won't get that chance. Since we're dead, and this world seems pretty empty.

They say never say never.

( but, uh, yeah. if they really are dead and this world is a few years from destruction... the likelihood isn't great. )

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

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