all the single mingles

[wooliefrand]

WHO: Sheep!
WHERE: The Pasture!!
WHEN: Day 88 Moring/afternoon

[HELLO LOVELIES HOPEFULLY YALL HAVEN'T BEEN GETTING INTO SHENANIGANS. But even if you have oh well!!

Daisy and Coco have prepared a light brunch for anyone who ventures into the cafeteria: fish, french toast, parfaits, juices and milk and the like! Yummy!!

BUT OUTSIDE there is Blossom doing shit with blood again!! You may have spotted her hiding (very badly) behind a bush watching Stormy and the Lady Demon talking about Something in the morning, but that aint any of our business.

NOW, Blossom uses her blood, does some basic dark arts, and. . .poof! These Things start popping up from the ground! On trees! On bushes!! They smell super sweet--and are sweet and tangy if you eat them, too!

If you end up sniffing them or their pollen, or eating one like a little freak, you will:
1) Be compelled to SMOOCH someone! This can be a BIG SMOOCH or just a cute friend peck on the cheek or such.
Or 2) if you manage to RESIST the smooch you'll have an extreme urge to go APOLOGIZE for something instead. Why?? Dont' worry about it.

this is the closest yall will ever get to having mistletoe.

Anyway Blossom is taking an armful and waddling off goodbye--

maybe something else will happen later idk yall be wilding. SMOOCH-OLOGY FLOWERS WILL BE AROUND TIL, IDK NEXT TIME I POST A MINGLE.

speaking of feel free to use this as a gen mingle too. Weird shit is always optional.]

Comments

[wants_the_phd]

All of us have different tolerances for different things. Some people died and were completely fine. I didn't die but I still had big feelings about it. What matters isn't the objective level of hardship, but how it impacts us on a personal level according to our personalities and experiences.

I'm not asking about Charon or Lethe. I'm asking about you. But if you still feel selfish, tell me in secret. I'll keep it between us. I give you permission to care about yourself, just this once.

[spinebuddyandme]

[ Presses his forehead to his knees, then turns his head to look at her, somewhere between intent and resigned ]

I'm really scared this is how it's always gonna be. A bad game gets called, and Lily thinks we've figured out how not to hurt anyone, and we try not to hurt anyone. But even if we manage not to, it keeps...going so badly. This is the worst it's ever been, but the last few bad rituals have all been hard on Lily.

I'm scared that there's actually no way to save everyone. That I'll always have to choose between Lily and everyone else.

[wants_the_phd]

What have the last few rituals been like for you guys?

[spinebuddyandme]

The last few have been regular ones; the kind that aren't trying to pit us against each other. The last few actually bad ones?

[ Takes a deep breath and glances off into the middle distance ]

Sometimes we've managed to avoid dealing any damage to the other flocks, but we end up sick or hallucinating. Or, like, one time we took damage in every single round, and when the ritual ended we found out half the flocks we were hoping would be spared had been taken out. There was one time Charon just dropped dead in an early round. Another time he and I got forced to attack Bluebell and nearly killed them.

... It's like this place always finds a way to make the worst possible thing that could happen...happen.

I wish i had more icons that were "neutral listening" without smarmy smiles

[wants_the_phd]

What do you consider to be the worst possible thing?

Re: I wish i had more icons that were "neutral listening" without smarmy smiles

[spinebuddyandme]

It depends on the ritual. The worst worst thing would be dying while the eye's open, but it can be having to hurt someone else, or something awful happening that you never had any real hope of preventing, or any other messed up thing a demon thinks of.

[wants_the_phd]

[she considers this.]


At home, you worked so hard and put yourself into countless perilous, life-threatening situations constantly... just so random civilians would be okay, right?

Am I correct in thinking that seeing other people get hurt and being helpless to stop it is more emotionally painful than actually getting hurt, yourself?

[spinebuddyandme]

...Yeah. Back home, when it came down to it, I didn't think twice about giving up my life when I thought it'd protect people.

Something like that won't work here.

[wants_the_phd]

So intentionally hurting people is antithetical to who you are as a person, especially if it's for a cause like protecting yourself. But if you don't hurt other people, then you might be causing other people on Lily to suffer.

Does that sound right?

[spinebuddyandme]

Yeah...that about sums it up.

[wants_the_phd]

What's it like for the others on Lily? Do they feel similarly?

[spinebuddyandme]

I'm not sure about Kevin and Cepheus, but I don't think it's the same for Charon or Lethe. They'd both play a lot harder if they weren't worrying about me.

[wants_the_phd]

Have they spoken about their philosophy behind it or why they want to play that way?

[spinebuddyandme]

A little. They both want everyone on Lily to be able to live with the way we play, so they don't talk about it a lot. But...I'm pretty sure they just want to play to keep us safe as much as they can. And a lot of the time that means playing hard enough to win and earn some instant healing.

[wants_the_phd]

Man. That's a tough one.

Charon and Lethe want to keep you all safe emotionally, which sometimes means sacrificing your physical wellbeings. And you're all trying to keep everyone else safe physically, which sometimes means sacrificing yourself emotionally when things don't go how you hoped. And then you have to contend with other flocks who are trying to balance their own needs but coming to different conclusions than Lily about what that means for them.

It's also tricky because everyone has a different threshold for what "hurt" means. Some people can tolerate physical pain, but getting their head or heart fucked with is devastating. For others it's the opposite, where they have emotional fortitude but can't deal with pain at all.

So, your idea of doing the bare minimum of damage might be something like torturing someone mentally but leaving them physically unharmed, when they would have found it easier and less complicated to just get stabbed. For others, their version of kindness might be a swift death instead of drawn-out torment that doesn't kill them but hurts a lot.

Even when you're doing your best to be kind and mitigate harm, it's hard to tell what the best way to do that might be. Especially when so many people here are, like you, well acquainted with combat and familiar with receiving pain.

[spinebuddyandme]

[ As she goes on, he slouches lower and lower over his knees until he's resting his chin right atop them, sullen and weary ]

When you lay it all out so plainly, it really sounds like there's no good solution to any of it.

[wants_the_phd]

I think sometimes there is. There have been some rituals when I thought we were all about to eat shit for real, but everyone did their best, and things turned out okay.

Then there are other times when everyone did their best, but it still turned into a shitshow, the way it was designed to be.

Maybe, in the end, "our best" is all we can really do.

[spinebuddyandme]

I hate that answer, but I can't think of anything better. I just wish that the stakes weren't so high.

[wants_the_phd]

Yeah.



What do you think is easier to deal with: physical or emotional pain?

I asked Charon about it and his answer was different than mine. I wonder which is more common. ...And even more than that, I wish I had a list of who does better with what.

[spinebuddyandme]

... I guess...when it comes to me I'd rather take physical damage unless it's gonna kill me. It doesn't make sense to fuck yourself up mentally when we can just get magically healed here.

[wants_the_phd]

That's what Charon said, too. Same reasons.

Me, I'm the opposite. Mental stuff I can get over, but I have no tolerance at all when it comes to pain. Even if it's temporary. I'd rather have my metaphorical heart turned inside out.

[spinebuddyandme]

Really? I feel like I'll need years of therapy to get over some of the mental stuff this place can throw at you. Can you really just shrug it off?

[wants_the_phd]

I think it'd be oversimplifying a little to say I just shrug it off. It's more like I've found good coping strategies that work well for me, and that helps me process things quickly so they don't continue hurting.

Like this. [She gestures between herself and Ananke.] This conversation we're having. I already feel a lot better now than I did at the start.

[spinebuddyandme]

That...makes a lot of sense. Your coping skills must be more advanced than mine.

[ ... ]

Do you know if the rest of Rose feels the same way?

[wants_the_phd]

No clue. I wanna ask 'em now, though.

I don't know if my coping skills would work for you, but I'd be happy to talk with you about stuff like this any time.

You're easy to talk to.