isleofavalon | You gotta live better than you were though

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You gotta live better than you were though

🧙 WHO: Gokudera and YOU
⚔️️ WHAT: August catch-all! OTA
🕒 WHEN: August
🗺️ WHERE: New Camelot (predominantly)
⚠️ WARNINGS: Language, violence, drugs, mentions of past trauma: self-immolation, slavery

I. Healing Circle After Party

Despite most of his friends helping him, Gokudera has felt very alone since he learned of Yamamoto's absence. It's not the first time he's lost someone he's cared about. He's not being loud about his heartbreak and has seen on the network that others have lost some people important to them as well. But how often do you lose six different versions of your same friend/rival from home?

Gokudera feels a bit numb, and the strangulation he faced before is healed, but... still, there's pain. It feels like it never goes away, and on his own self-reflection, he realizes it's because he's focusing on it. He needs to use his head before his collar gets rid of it, and he can't problem-solve when it feels like his heart aches more now than it ever has before.

He collects yarrow and lemon balm, enjoying the smell and seeming almost to meditate while he gathers herbs. Once he's done, he's looking about for someone to sit with. There is no visible injury on the young man, and whatever he's going through, he doesn't want to talk about it. He'd rather just get on with the meditative healing.

Even burning the herbs seems somewhat traumatic, and so he closes his eyes and takes a steady breath, wondering why and how he suddenly became so wary of flames. The first thing he will share is fear and pain, a sinking feeling starting from the fingers and winding up the muscle of arms and causing a slight bit of panic. Sorry for sharing, but at least no one has to listen to him talk about why an explosives expert is scared of fire, right?

II. Crystal Mushroom

Gokudera gets on the quest board regularly (it's how he makes most of his money, in fact). Some manual labor feels nice, and he enjoys getting his hands dirty, literally, if only to focus on something he feels he has control over. Cleaning is one thing.

Taking care of a drug-dealer's source is another.

But still, work he can do. Gokudera's out to find Wendy, and he's dressed the part of the mafioso he is. The teen's donned a suit and he's come with the intent to threaten with dynamite, or explain that Wendy might find herself with some bad luck. If anyone stops him on his way to find her, he'll be honest.

He's going to beat up some drug-dealer. That's all they need to know. Gonna take out some aggression. Want to supervise? Help him? Hold him back? Talk him out of it?

III. Don't Treep, Man

Gokudera can be found repairing fences, looking out for fairy nests in the farm land, and helping to clean up the orchards. He has no green magic, but it's moments like these that he wish he did. The boy's very eager to be close to real, live trees. Too many years trapped in worlds where everything was either a hologram, or irradiated has him grateful to sit on fertile soil while he takes a hammer to a fence. The sun might be beating down on him a little too hard, burning at his skin, and he may appreciate someone helping him out. The fairies in the area seem to be enjoying his company, though, and are a fun distraction.]

I don't suppose any of you have tips for staying cool?

[The faeries, of course, don't respond, but just keep on gathering blades of grass and taking them back to their nest. Gokudera offers one a nail, looks it over, and then gets up to go make a sort of laundry line by pushing two into the dirt by their nest, tying a string about them, and then leaving a few sweets.]

Don't let the ants get to them, now...

[Few people have seen how tender the boy is towards the fae, and despite what he's been through, he continues to offer gifts, smiles, and any help he can.]

IV. Animal Mage Hunt - Platina Faun

[It's been... an odd couple weeks, and now, for some reason, he's woken up without his normal lower half. Gokudera's not keen on leaving the house, but he has to attend classes, has to escort the Tenth to them. His current transformation is making going out in public especially difficult. He can't wear pants, because he can't fit them past his new set of legs, and his pet leopard keeps looking at him oddly, so he can't stay inside, either. Gokudera can be found napping by the training grounds, eager to spar with anyone who wants a new challenge, or he can be found moving about the forest, foraging for food and stones.

He's keeping to himself, but can also be found walking about the streets of New Camelot, just... trying to run errands as if his cloven footsteps weren't loudly announcing his new features. His bigger concern is whether or not he'll change back. If he does, hopefully it will be in the privacy of his own home, where being without pants is at least acceptable.

Oh well, at least the little stubby horns popping out through his silver hair are cute.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Existence ends when no one is around to perceive it any more.

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Existence ends when no one is around to perceive it any more. <small[That's easy enough. If a tree falls in the forest, and all...]</small>

Which I'm sure would be impossible. I believe there are entities that exist even when we can't perceive them. That the vast number is not anything that we give life in our thoughts or beliefs. It would be so closed-minded to think this place can pull from every world and it just so happens that those worlds are in danger. Doesn't sit right with me...

[Morgan shrugs, idly spinning his empty glass with a flick of his wrist so it balances on one finger for a moment. Just a moment, before he has to grab it to keep it from falling.] Mages can use magick-with-a-k to change reality, simply by believing in the reality they desire more strongly than all of collective unconscious belief can maintain the status quo. So belief does define reality. That's where I start from.

To change their reality. I'm just saying there's more to it than what we can believe or know. It's something much more vast.

[Larry is no longer in the lemonade pitcher, but he's holding it carefully in his mouth before offering more to Morgan, back to his regular size, head cocked sideways so that his mouth is clamped around the handle.]

If my reality changes suck that I have three arms, and your reality changes such that you perceive I have three arms, then reality has changed, yes?

[Thank you, Larry. You're far more tolerable when you're being helpful than swimming in the drinks.]

Yes, but it's only within our scope.

[He's not trying to argue or debate, but just say that there is magic that they can't know about, and possibilities are limitless. Gokudera holds out his cup, and Larry misses as he turns his head pours lemonade all over the ground. The teen gives an annoyed sound and moves his hand to redirect the monster's head.]

this way. Over the cup. Okay. That's enough.

That's enough! enough!

[Cup now overfilled, Gokudera yanks it back and Larry moves over to Morgan to offer a sloppy refill on his beverage.]

[Mindful of how that had just gone, Morgan moves his glass to veeery carefully get some more.]

If we're the only two observing, who else matters?

[Larry veeery carefully tips his head slowly, too far away from Morgan's hand. Oops. Stops, lifts back up, then slowly extends his head out and to the side, tipping it with the lousiest aim imaginable.]

This conversation feels like insanity.

I get what you mean, though.

[He's not going to admit any loss in this debate, but he'll recognize that the other has made some very fair points.]

[That makes Morgan laugh.]

Well, yeah, by definition! What else would you call believing in something so hard that you make it come true? I'm gonna heal your wounds by sticking needles in you, how insane is that?

That's just like saying life in general is insanity. But... yeah. I can see it.

[Good points all around. It's frustrating how amusing it is, and how Morgan is laughing about it. Gokudera was getting a little heated for a moment there, but he's calming down, getting worn out by the topic.]

Considering where we are and what happened to us?

[Morgan shrugs. Life is totally insane! What can you do but roll with it?]

Right. And even life back home.

[Exactly.]

How's this compared to what you were doing back home? [Morgan glances his way, keeping the question casual -- even though he knows it's loaded for a bunch of people here.]

Ah it's been years since I've been home, and back home, I believe I was supposed to be traveling back in time to my home time.

[Gokudera frowns, but just because his answer is complicated. Time travel and changing the future in the future seems so insane. Why not learn about the future and act accordingly to change it in the past before it becomes a problem? He doesn't make the rules, though. He's only a side character.]

Really? How's that work?

[Not that he's surprised or thinks it's impossible. Quite the contrary, Morgan can imagine too many ways for it to work, and wonders which one is the correct one.]

Well, at home, my boss's tutor got sent to the future. He was there for two long, and should have swapped places with his future self. So, one by one we all get sent after him. I thought it was a mission to rescue him, but then it ended up being a mission where we had to save the future. That was a whole ordeal.

[He doesn't mind explaining, but it's just one big mess made of all sorts of little messes. It's a bear to talk about, but... he'll do his best.]

So we saved the future, and were all gathered up to go back to our home time. Poof, I wake up in another world entirely. I spent nearly two years there, then I was brought to another world. I spent about... a year? Maybe less? And then I was in Avalon.

[He sighs.]

It's hard to even remember what home was like, anymore.

That's a hell of a lot of jumping around. I know some people who tripped into one new world, but two is a lot more unusual. [Side effect of living on a nexus world, where showing up is easy and going home can be more difficult.]

And this is my third. Who knows where or how long I'll go somewhere else. I keep a journal, because otherwise I'm sure I wouldn't believe my own memories.

[Plus in that first world, he was getting brainwashed into feeling like a native, his memories altered. Gokudera is very suspicious about what higher power or whatever is putting him in worlds, how long he's there, why he's there, and the absolute headache-inducing insanity of trying to wrap his thoughts about it all.]

I used to do that, a while back... till things settled down a little. It was a good idea. Definitely is for you given the circumstances, I think. [Poor guy. Morgan feels a lot of sympathy for him.]

Have you ever met multiple versions of the same person before?

[Maybe the journal could help out whatever next Gokudera comes along after him if he ever leaves this place.]

Pfft! [Morgan has to lean back his head, spreading his arms wide.] I've met multiple versions of me before.

Really? We’re they very different?

[He likes this turn in conversation.]

Do you ever think if you leave something behind, another you will find use in it?

Like my journal could become a guest book for other versions of myself that come here…

Yes and no. Different enough that I hate one with every fiber of my being, similar enough that I can see how I became that and it scares the hell out of me.

[As lightly as he tries to say all that, it's still heavier than most things Morgan has ever said. Not only would he die before becoming like that, he has people on tap who have promised to kill him before he can.]

If others of us start coming here, I think we may have very big problems.

Is he evil, or something?

[Color Gokudera intrigued.]

How so?

[Other versions of Gokudera would be annoying, but probably not too problematic.]

Evil is too mild a word to describe Stormborn. And that's exactly why we'd have to worry. How many of us would be very different, very worse people if just for one thing going wrong?

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