Michael Mell (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
retrobeats) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
awashlogs2018-09-23 12:59 am
retrobeats) wrote in awashlogs2018-09-23 12:59 am
Entry tags:
do you remember the 21st night of september
WHO: Michael and you!!
WHERE: all over Chroma
WHEN: throughout September!
WHAT: memory share event, plus some more general month-wide prompts
WARNINGS: nothing yet, but i will warn accordingly for anything that comes up!
ONE: BA DE YA DANCING IN SEPTEMBER
[ note: these prompts are OTA and pre-event-11! ]
( a: and when we put on our cloaks and tell warlock jokes we're the coolest kids in the school )
[ who's that sitting at an empty table outside what may have been a cafe or tavern in a past, pre-monochrome life? that would be one Michael Mell, who seems to have covered the entire surface of the table with all his worldly possessions. it's all spread out enough across the table that you can easily see things that look like extremely sketchy, rudimentary maps or floor plans for places with a lot of corridors and dead ends, along with a handful of pages of handwritten notes, weighed down under the corner of an open hardback book.
Michael seems utterly engrossed in whatever it is he's doing, but if you come closer or otherwise grab his attention, he'll look up and give a lazy half-wave, absently clicking the end of his pen. ]
Hey, how's it hanging? So since you're here I got a quick question, do I go with something straightforward for my first boss encounter, or do I throw caution to the wind and go totally wild with it?
( b: arrives a month late to a quest with a slushie )
[ alternatively, on and off throughout this month, you may come across Michael sitting beneath a tree in Flavo. it's not his usual haunt, but it's quiet and out of the way, which is exactly what he's after for this particular endeavour.
approach him, and you will discover that this particular endeavour seems to be… flower crowns, specifically the making of. he's got a whole bunch of flowers arranged in semi-neat piles around him, and he's half-singing, half-humming a few random bars of assorted songs as he works.
wait, wasn't this last month's quest? does he even know? does he even care? maybe you should check that he knows there aren't any quest goodies waiting for him for finishing these. ]
TWO: THNKS FR TH MMRS
[ Michael is a pretty tactile person, but he also has a knack for staying out the way of people he doesn't know well yet (or straight-up doesn't care to know yet), so you may receive a Michael memory one of two ways! for those he's more comfortable with, you'll be hit with a memory as soon as he makes physical contact with you. for acquaintances or those he's not so familiar with? eye contact will be enough! he's also a red which means those memories are going to come with his unfiltered thought commentary, i am so sorry. let me know when tagging in if you would prefer a memory on the happier or sadder end of the scale! ]
( c: one night and one more time )
[ for the first couple days of this whole thing, before it becomes clear what's happening, how it's happening, and that it's definitely gonna be a medium-to-long-duration thing, Michael can be freely encountered out and about around Chroma, where it will be all too easy to get into some kind of situation that will end in forced accidental memory sharing. you're most likely to find him hanging around Ruga, but he can also be encountered in the library or anywhere else your heart desires, including doing either of the things in the non-event prompts above if you wanna have your cake and eat it too! ]
( d: even though they weren't so great )
[ so after swapping a few memories with a few people and realising that this forced oversharing thing is actually impossible to manage because there is no way to predict what kind of contact is gonna set off whoever's memories, Michael decided to heed his more asocial instincts and just hole up at home until everything blew over.
joke's on him, because after a couple days of getting increasingly antsy to the point of it being unbearable, and another day of trying to be stubborn about it anyway, he finally has to call uncle and venture outside once more. (apparently talking to your petrified roomie doesn't count as being around people, who knew?)
so, in the latter days of the memory sharing chaos, Michael can be found trying to find a loophole in this latest magical town-mandated bonding activity. namely, sitting near the border of Ruga and Bluo, on one end of a rickety-looking bench on the main street that winds through both districts. there's a handwritten sign stuck onto the bench next to him that reads:
FREE SILENT CHILL ZONE
beat those old chroma blues!!
(no touching/talking/eye contact/etc necessary)
it may be noted that Michael has both his hood up and his headphones on over his ears in an attempt to enforce that rule. he's also got a notepad open on his lap to keep himself occupied during this attempt at making some kind of interaction-free, oversharing-free "sitting and kind of at least trying to enjoy the company of others and not go nuts" zone. decide to brave the potential for awkwardness and sit, and he might even dare to try and slide a note over to your side of the bench.
on the other hand! any attempts to break the silence to talk to him, even to ask him what the heck he's doing, will be met with one hand shooting out with a fingersnap to form a "hold that thought" gesture, not even bothering to look up from where he's hunched over his notebook. ]
Yeah, no, I'm gonna stop you there. [ look, talking isn't his invasive forced oversharing trigger!! ] You saw my sign, right? I stuck it up for a reason, trust me.
WHERE: all over Chroma
WHEN: throughout September!
WHAT: memory share event, plus some more general month-wide prompts
WARNINGS: nothing yet, but i will warn accordingly for anything that comes up!
ONE: BA DE YA DANCING IN SEPTEMBER
[ note: these prompts are OTA and pre-event-11! ]
( a: and when we put on our cloaks and tell warlock jokes we're the coolest kids in the school )
[ who's that sitting at an empty table outside what may have been a cafe or tavern in a past, pre-monochrome life? that would be one Michael Mell, who seems to have covered the entire surface of the table with all his worldly possessions. it's all spread out enough across the table that you can easily see things that look like extremely sketchy, rudimentary maps or floor plans for places with a lot of corridors and dead ends, along with a handful of pages of handwritten notes, weighed down under the corner of an open hardback book.
Michael seems utterly engrossed in whatever it is he's doing, but if you come closer or otherwise grab his attention, he'll look up and give a lazy half-wave, absently clicking the end of his pen. ]
Hey, how's it hanging? So since you're here I got a quick question, do I go with something straightforward for my first boss encounter, or do I throw caution to the wind and go totally wild with it?
( b: arrives a month late to a quest with a slushie )
[ alternatively, on and off throughout this month, you may come across Michael sitting beneath a tree in Flavo. it's not his usual haunt, but it's quiet and out of the way, which is exactly what he's after for this particular endeavour.
approach him, and you will discover that this particular endeavour seems to be… flower crowns, specifically the making of. he's got a whole bunch of flowers arranged in semi-neat piles around him, and he's half-singing, half-humming a few random bars of assorted songs as he works.
wait, wasn't this last month's quest? does he even know? does he even care? maybe you should check that he knows there aren't any quest goodies waiting for him for finishing these. ]
TWO: THNKS FR TH MMRS
[ Michael is a pretty tactile person, but he also has a knack for staying out the way of people he doesn't know well yet (or straight-up doesn't care to know yet), so you may receive a Michael memory one of two ways! for those he's more comfortable with, you'll be hit with a memory as soon as he makes physical contact with you. for acquaintances or those he's not so familiar with? eye contact will be enough! he's also a red which means those memories are going to come with his unfiltered thought commentary, i am so sorry. let me know when tagging in if you would prefer a memory on the happier or sadder end of the scale! ]
( c: one night and one more time )
[ for the first couple days of this whole thing, before it becomes clear what's happening, how it's happening, and that it's definitely gonna be a medium-to-long-duration thing, Michael can be freely encountered out and about around Chroma, where it will be all too easy to get into some kind of situation that will end in forced accidental memory sharing. you're most likely to find him hanging around Ruga, but he can also be encountered in the library or anywhere else your heart desires, including doing either of the things in the non-event prompts above if you wanna have your cake and eat it too! ]
( d: even though they weren't so great )
[ so after swapping a few memories with a few people and realising that this forced oversharing thing is actually impossible to manage because there is no way to predict what kind of contact is gonna set off whoever's memories, Michael decided to heed his more asocial instincts and just hole up at home until everything blew over.
joke's on him, because after a couple days of getting increasingly antsy to the point of it being unbearable, and another day of trying to be stubborn about it anyway, he finally has to call uncle and venture outside once more. (apparently talking to your petrified roomie doesn't count as being around people, who knew?)
so, in the latter days of the memory sharing chaos, Michael can be found trying to find a loophole in this latest magical town-mandated bonding activity. namely, sitting near the border of Ruga and Bluo, on one end of a rickety-looking bench on the main street that winds through both districts. there's a handwritten sign stuck onto the bench next to him that reads:
beat those old chroma blues!!
(no touching/talking/eye contact/etc necessary)
it may be noted that Michael has both his hood up and his headphones on over his ears in an attempt to enforce that rule. he's also got a notepad open on his lap to keep himself occupied during this attempt at making some kind of interaction-free, oversharing-free "sitting and kind of at least trying to enjoy the company of others and not go nuts" zone. decide to brave the potential for awkwardness and sit, and he might even dare to try and slide a note over to your side of the bench.
on the other hand! any attempts to break the silence to talk to him, even to ask him what the heck he's doing, will be met with one hand shooting out with a fingersnap to form a "hold that thought" gesture, not even bothering to look up from where he's hunched over his notebook. ]
Yeah, no, I'm gonna stop you there. [ look, talking isn't his invasive forced oversharing trigger!! ] You saw my sign, right? I stuck it up for a reason, trust me.
no subject
Thanks. [The books get set gently down on the table as Izuku slides into one of the empty chairs.] I don't mind reading here on my own, but it's nice when you have company, too. What are you looking at?
[It's inevitable, now that they're sharing a table, that Izuku would look up and meet his eyes right then.]
no subject
this was such a bad idea. where is he keeping these SQUIP things anyway? you crane your neck a little, trying to get a peek in between the shoeboxes behind the stock guy in front of you. who, incidentally, has to be the creepiest, scariest stockboy known to humankind. doesn’t this place have any other staff? managers? anybody? do they know he’s selling shady-sounding nanotechnology to high-schoolers in the back room? how long’s he been running this thing?
you’re dragged back to full focus on reality by Jeremy fumbling in front of you, pulling a wad of crumpled bills from his pocket. Scary Stockboy, as you’ve dubbed him inside your head, asks if it’s four hundred, and as Jeremy verbally stumbles his way through answering you think, huh. didn’t Rich ask him for six? i KNEW that asshole was scamming him!
and then Jeremy’s having the same thought, except out loud, and aw no, buddy, you’re not losing an extra $200 to this creep on MY watch! you give Jeremy a tiny, quick hit to the small of his back, just in time for him to get the memo and backpedal. “uh, four hundred? wow! well, if you insist!”
Jeremy hands over the money, and Scary Stockboy pulls out a box of ladies running shoes. wait, no. out of the box, he pulls a small ziploc bag, and inside the bag, so small you have to squint to see it--
that’s it? doesn’t look like much.
“just so we’re clear,” Scary Stockboy is saying, “this is untested technology. and it’s not exactly legal. which is why you’re paying for it with cash in the back of a shoe store. i take no responsibility for what you might do with it, or what it might do with you.”
what the hell does that mean, you think, at the same time as Jeremy says, “what might it—“
the stock guy just cuts right over the top of him, ‘cause apparently he’s also super rude as well as super shady. “to activate, take it with mountain dew.”
what the hell? okay, you think, enough’s enough. you’ve kept your mouth shut up to now, but this just keeps getting weirder and weirder. you open your mouth, and as soon as you do the stockboy is looking straight at you through his sunglasses and yelling: “I DON’T KNOW WHY!” you jump. “just… something about mountain dew. and, this is important—“
there’s the sound of someone calling out from the front of the store, and Scary Stockboy saying something about being SOLD OUT, oh wait, you’re here for shoes? he turns back to the two of you and tells you to scram.
“w-w-wait!” Jeremy splutters, “you were saying, something important—“
“oh yeah.” the stockboy puts a hand on each of your shoulders. stranger danger! stranger danger! “all sales final,” he says, and shoves you both back out of the backroom before sweeping off to his actual legit, legal customer.
you look at Jeremy. he looks at you. you think that was the shadiest thing i’ve ever done and i really hope this works the way you want it to and i REALLY don’t like this and i guess now there’s no going back. and without saying anything, you leave the store together. ]
no subject
And then Izuku blinks, remembering what he just saw, and gives Michael one of the most concerned looks he can muster at the moment.]
Um. [That about sums it up.] What exactly did your friend just buy?
[Because he agrees with memory-Michael, that was so, so shady.]
no subject
he puts his face in his hands with a groan. ] Oh no. That all looked hella incriminating, didn't it. This sucks.
[ god, where does he even begin?? it's not like he can pretend that didn't just happen, especially when Izuku's being so direct about it! he lifts his face again, glasses askew, and says in a flat tone: ]
Would you believe me if I said it's a supercomputer that's supposed to help you be cooler?
no subject
Incriminating memories aside--and there's a lot he could say about how the whole thing went down--Izuku just looks at Michael again. This time, though, it's all bafflement.]
How would a computer manage to do that? [Okay, yes, he's curious.] Was it for both of you?
no subject
[ the reply is sharp and immediate. you couldn't pay Michael to put something like that in his mouth. he's fine just the way he is, thanks.
in any case, he sighs shortly. ] Anyway, I don't know exactly. It's some kinda quantum nanotechnology? I think it's supposed to implant itself in your brain and... I dunno, talk to you or something.
[ Jeremy's relaying of whatever Rich's sales pitch had been was not the most detailed thing in the world. but it's not like Michael's googling in the week before he woke up in the well had turned up much either - rumours and dead-ends, mostly. you know, super red-flag-raising stuff. ]
no subject
[The more Michael describes the pill, the more dubious Izuku's expression seems to get until his brows are pinched together.] Um, that sounds really suspicious. K-kind of like brainwashing or mind control...
What happened to your friend after he took it?
no subject
he's touched all the same. ] ... Thanks, Izuku.
[ but his face falls again at the question, somewhere between bitterness and worry. ]
Your guess is as good as mine. We thought it didn't work at first. Which is what my money was on happening? I mean, I thought the whole thing was some sorta scam. [ he fidgets with the bracelets on his left wrist as he speaks. ] Then he spent a whole week totally blanking me like I wasn't even there, and then I woke up here. [ beat. ] Wait, no, not the whole week. There was like five minutes where--
[ he abruptly cuts himself off. ] Anyway, ignoring me aside he's just been acting - shady. Like, not himself.
[ which does sound a whole lot like brainwashing or mind control, but... Michael's not so sure he's completely sold on either of those. those five minutes where Jeremy wasn't ignoring him, he'd just seemed - confused more than anything else. like he genuinely hadn't seen Michael all day. ]
no subject
Wait... five minutes what? [Izuku leans forward slightly, eyes wide. He might not know what Michael's world is like, but now that he's seen that snippet of his life, Izuku's worried. He can't help it! There's something about being inside someone's memory that makes you even more invested than usual.] What happened, Mell-kun?
no subject
--well - that's just it, nothing. I mean, not really, it was like--
[ he pauses a moment to gather his thoughts. he really doesn't like thinking about that moment - it leaves him with his stomach somewhere down in the region of the underworld - but Izuku knows about as much about the SQUIP now as Michael does himself. and maybe a second opinion might help? ]
He'd been acting like - like I didn't exist literally all day, right, and then all of a sudden out of the blue he comes up to me like he was suddenly seeing me for the first time all day, and-- I dunno, call me crazy if you want, but it didn't seem like it was fake? [ he'd... honestly like to think he knows Jeremy well enough to know when he's trying to fake something. he's a better liar than Michael is, but only because he's just as anxious when he's lying as he is at literally any other given time. Michael knows most of his tells. ] Then he suddenly just started - staring off into space like he was looking at something I couldn't see, and then he started blanking me again.
[ he looks away, feeling the urge to just... pull his hoodie up over his head and stay there. ] I dunno, it's silly and small. But at the same time it doesn't feel small?