[Audio] @ SuprNerd - open

[moderatelymaladjusted]

[The first few seconds of the recording is just Quentin breathing, fast and shaky at first and just before he speaks, the breathing evens out. The whole speech will be said fast and jerky, like the words are just spilling out without thought.]

What the hell? I can't be the only one who's thinking this, but just what the fucking hell? What the hell just happened? This place, oh shit, this place just-- did any of you see things? Hear things? Fucking feel things? And why? Just, why? I thought we were here to help, to find a way to solve this-- this whole puzzle and suddenly there's something here that made me think I was losing--? That's just-- it was just to fuck with all of us?

What the hell? That's what I want to know - just, what the hell? Is this hell? Is that why?

So, if you're listening to this, lady in the lighthouse? Fuck you! Seriously. Fuck. You.

Also, someone took my hoodie and I need that, so please bring it back. Thanks.

Comments

[pearlstrings]

By serving as a reminder that this isn't personal and is unlikely to be an attack from a single individual but is instead, a pattern repeating through time, continually affecting this space.

It challenges a myopic perspective.

[moderatelymaladjusted]

Right. So, it's comforting for you to think that this isn't personal. That there's no one doing this, it's just this town's version of the flu? Do you really believe that?

[pearlstrings]

You're coming from a strange standpoint to ask about belief. I'm drawing upon the evidence.

Thus face we can confirm that the spirits have been encouraged to interact with us on a limited understanding of generalized human customs from earth. This interaction is not always appropriate or accurate, like their gift giving. The seasons have changed. This feels appropriately festive, don't you think?

We can confirm that there are creatures destroying worlds.

We can confirm that this world was not always shrouded in darkness and that these creatures that are drawn to light.

There's little reason to accuse someone who's priority is on finding a solution. I suspect that you dislike her on principle, on the basis that she can perform the resets. But we are all capable of 'killing' one another without her interference and that threat is far more present. Causing this would be an enormous waste of time.

I understand that you're having an emotional reaction to your own history and trauma. But reactions like this come as a detriment to the group. You need to think of more than yourself. We're relying on one another for survival. This is not a helpful contribution.

[evulsed]

[ the irony is that Vanitas believed that too, at first ]

If there was, what would you do about it?

[primordialerebus]

[ About half an hour later, another message pings in. ]

Found it!!! Be right there!

[ And if he looks outside, there is indeed a small figure holding a bundle of stuff peering through the windows. ]

@keeper; text

[beaconkeeper]

:/

This wasn't me.

[webshoots]

Look, I know I told you I needed a plan that was more than 'let's go into the woods and see what happens', because — I've seen horror movies, I'm the guy that gets killed like, one hour in and people only vaguely feel sorry before because I'm the definition of average, anonymous white dude. Honestly, it's amazing I've lasted this long with only a broken wrist.

—But overplan and we hit the same issue. As long as you've figured out something for when the what happens, that's — that's enough.

I'm so going to regret saying that.

[moderatelymaladjusted]

Yeah? Who, then?

[moderatelymaladjusted]

I have half a plan and it's enough. But I could use a tracker for it, just in case.

[moderatelymaladjusted]

[Quentin, who has been pacing the living room at the cabin and being a general pain in the ass of Eliot for the past day, opens the door with a sharp yank and blinks out in to the darkness.]

You found it? Hello.

[moderatelymaladjusted]

The same thing I've been doing for weeks now, only faster? And what are you doing?

[moderatelymaladjusted]

You're drawing upon hearsay. Who told you the spirits wants to communicate? Who says they don't understand us perfectly well, and are doing the things that they do on purpose?

How? Have you seen them? Because all I've seen, is someone telling me that they are coming and that it's on us to stop them.

And how how did you do that? This whole world could have been created to be dark. You have no idea if it ever had a sun. It could have had two, three. Or none. Gods do stupid shit like that all the time.

Oh, fuck you. I'm having a reaction to being forced to see things that aren't real and I'm not doing this to be helpful? I'm doing this because what just happened? Sucked balls!

[webshoots]

[ not

filling

peter

with

confidence. ]

Sure, why not.

Invincible, room 2-0-8.

@jtodd

[mind_blown]

hey.
good call, some1 should start a lost & found
u feel better now?

[pearlstrings]

Yes, it did.

But the grief is never going to stop. It doesn't matter whether you're forced to see something or not.

We can't afford to be this self-centered.

[beaconkeeper]

The forest spirits? I thought that was pretty obvious.

I couldn't pull this kind of thing off even if I tried. How the hell could I make you guys all hallucinate stuff??

[evulsed]

Watching you drown.

@ action

[moderatelymaladjusted]

[It's going to be a few days from Quentin's angry and frustrated network post and until he finds his way to the Invincible. He stomps through the hotel like a man on a mission, tablet tucked protectively in to the pocket of his newly-found hoodie. He heads straight up to room 208 and knocks on the door with a frown on his face.

He's looking like someone who hasn't been sleeping well, dark circles under his eyes and his hair greasy and sticking to his face, too short to get tucked behind his ears and too long to not just flop in to his eyes when he moves his head.

But he knocks, jaw set in a stubborn clench.]

[moderatelymaladjusted]

No

[moderatelymaladjusted]

It does matter. It matters a lot? How can you not see it? It's grinding us down and for what? Shits and giggles? How would seeing something like this help us? It's just another roadblock, another distraction.

Maybe there's no quest at all, and this is just purgatory.

[moderatelymaladjusted]

How the hell can the forest spirits make us? Magic? This is all just hell, and we're too stupid to know better? You're bored and you control everything? If I knew how, I wouldn't be this angry!

[moderatelymaladjusted]

Yeah, have fun with that?

[evulsed]

What's next, Quentin?

Are you going to head straight for the Lighthouse and make her pay?

[webshoots]

—Just a second!

[ peter's not expecting quentin — or rather, he is, but he's not entirely expecting him to turn up announced, so the knocking at his door makes him freeze. there's a moment — habit, more than anything else — where he checks to make sure he doesn't have anything obviously spider-man-y sitting out in plain sight: suit, no; webshooters, under his clothes, it's fine—. ]

Oh, hey. [ beat. ] Quentin. [ peter can't quite keep the surprise out his voice, and he pauses, just for a moment, as he takes in quentin's apparance: he's aware that the last week (had it only been a week?) had been rough on all of them, but quentin looks terrible. ] Come in.

[ he pushes the door open a little more for quentin before turning to head back into the room; there's a breath of a pause and he shoots a quick glance back at quentin before— ] You look about as great as I feel. [ it's not an entirely accurate statement: peter's felt worse, way worse, but he certainly doesn't feel great, and there is something to be said for the way that the darkness feels oppressive, for the way that peter hadn't entirely believed he hadn't just been cracking up, something to be said for the lack of routine and the fact that peter honestly can't remember the last time he'd had a good night's sleep.

the room itself doesn't entirely look as if anyone's lived there for four months: sure, the sheets on the bed are are dishevelled mess, and the desk is a scattered, untidy assortment of paper, some books, his tablet, and his tablet poking out from underneath a pile of veritable and miscellaneous this and that, but other than that, there's not a whole lot of personality to the room.

(unless you count an almost-finished cup noodle and the remnants of a cup of coffee as personality.)

peter gestures towards the chair at the desk, before opting to sit on his bed, and he runs a hand through his hair before speaking. ] —So.

private| voice

[pearlstrings]

[It's a decision he doesn't make lightly.

To say that Bruce values his privacy is an understatement. It is one of the most valuable things he has. A certain amount of his life has always been lived out in the public, ensuring that the murder of his parents was a spectacle witnessed by the entire city. That by extension, Bruce himself would never be without an audience. It's cruel and it's senseless, that the death of the Waynes would be the front page of every paper, but that the people he's had to bury since haven't warranted a second glance.

He hesitates for a very long moment.

He still hasn't decided what he thinks of Quentin. His intentions seem usually good but his response to them is too personal, it limits solutions and results to his personal worldview and experience and that puts others in positions of vulnerability and danger. And now there's this. Where he shouts his outrage across the network and then talks to Bruce about distraction, unwilling or unable to see the contradiction.]

You don't see it when you close your eyes? Or before you go to sleep?

[The voice that comes across the feed doesn't sound angry or even disappointed. The subject of the reply is personal but his tone isn't. There's something tired and quiet in his inflection, a betrayal Bruce can't scrub away completely.]

It isn't a distraction if you don't allow yourself to be distracted. We can't undo what's happened, but we can decide what the experience means for us. To practice seeing outside of pain.

The people here with us are our responsibility.

The last time we spoke you were interested in a collaborative effort to examine and understand this place. But you won't be able to help anyone if you don't look away from your own grief. Carry it, but look forward.