A few moments of violence.

How interesting.

It isn't a pleasant thing to wake up stiff and somewhat confused in one's own bed--especially when one's own bed seems far too large. Larger than it was when one went to sleep before. I've endured that before, and I half expected to find myself with a tail and whiskers again.

I've had just about enough clambering about for one day, I think. It was amusing at first, of course, to see the world a hundred times larger than it should be. Even when the City turns me into a child again, the world doesn't seem so big as this. I suppose it's a bit like the times I've been a cat, but I am glad to have hands rather than paws, even if they are as small as paws. At least I have thumbs, even if my Network device is obnoxiously large.

I'm a doll, of course. I've been changed into a porcelain doll, not so unlike the ones I gave to Merry time and time again.

Although, at least I seem to be a boy doll, and I do have more joints than Merry's dolls ever did. It isn't such a bad thing to be for a day, not by comparison to other curses. I can still move fairly easily, though I'm a bit awkward and some of my joints keep dislocating themselves. When I knelt, for example, to start typing this, my knees completely detached. I'm strung all through with elastic. It's not painful at all to have my joints coming apart, though it's more than a little disturbing to see. Oddly, my hands move like my own hands, though a little stiffly, and I can speak and move my eyes. I've been turned into a doll, I know, but apparently not entirely a doll. If I have a tongue, teeth, and a voice, but I seem to be strung together, I wonder what's become of my innards. For that matter, I wonder if I've a brain in my head. I wonder what I look like when I walk about. Perhaps I move something like He-Who-Kills does. I'm stiffer than I am ordinarily, but I'll take that over being immobile and sitting on a shelf.

If that crooked little girl with her monstrous dolls could see me now, I wonder what she'd think. Perhaps I understand now more of how Merry felt when she claimed I treated her like a doll--But it was to keep her safe--Even I'm trying to keep myself from breaking--Would she have been made a doll too if she were here today?--If that's your point, City, I don't find it amusing--

I've endured this once before, but it's been quite a long time--perhaps a year ago or more.

I think the stairs were the worst. The cats seem to go up and down the stairs far more easily than I did. I had to take them step by step, climbing down each. It was undignified, really, but it worked. I'll call it an adventure, I suppose. But perhaps the cats have an easier time of it because they're not made of porcelain and cord. Well, perhaps Noir is, but even he seems to trip up and down the stairs as easily as flesh-and-blood Kassandra.

I, meanwhile, am having a far more difficult time of it shaped like this.

It is interesting to see the world from this sort of angle, especially with the City cursed into madness again. I'd thought we were done with all this madness a few days ago, but apparently that wasn't the monthly weekend of madness. Instead, we're having that now--today and, presumably, tomorrow. You're as fascinated and mad as ever, City. Still, I'll stay out a while yet, I think, before I try that climb back up the stairs again.

Unless, of course, Riff, you could carry me back up--if you're not cursed out of your mind, of course. I'm sure I don't weigh very much in this sort of shape. In fact, you could carry me around as much as you'd like--or as I'd like, depending. I do like being able to get about on my own, but perhaps I ought to find easier ways to get about. It's the difference between walking in the rain and having a carriage.

Riff, I'll call for you when I'm ready to come back upstairs again. If nothing else, I think it would be quite amusing to think of you carrying about a doll, or me--or both, as the case will be this time.

~C.

[ooc: So...rather than being a cat or a child this time, Cain woke up to find himself made of something more like porcelain and looking something like this (although with dark hair like his own, of course). I sincerely apologize for raiding the Dream of Doll website for that picture. Basically, for the day, Cain is a charmingly articulated, distinctly creepy, but strikingly beautiful ball-jointed doll >:3 Please be nice. He's about 24 inches tall now and trying not to break himself, thank you. Be nice, all you children, if you want to play with such an amazing talking doll~]

[ There's a brief silence before a child's voice comes through the communicator. ]

Whoa! This... this doesn't look like home. Is this a story...? But I didn't write anything like...

[ Footsteps echo. ]

Mum? Dad? Charon...? Raetsel....?

What the... Why's there something heavy in my...

[ A loud tapping follows, and a bit of static - he seems to have found the device and started poking at it. ]

What's this thing? I've never seen anything like it... I bet Charon could tell me!

[ He suddenly sounds almost elated. ]

Wooooow! Just wait 'til they all see this place!

[ And the footsteps break into a run as the feed cuts. ]

[ ooc: Haven't done this to him in a long while, so have an age-reversed, angst-less 5-6 year old Fakir! With living parents and 100% more happy! I'll probably keep him like this for both days. And yeah, he's just run off from the Opera Abandoned courtyard. >>; ]

It's funny when you realize all it took was one little thing to happen to completely change your attitude.

Sometimes I wonder what everything would be like had I not spoken to Yuki that one time... Actually, it was more like yelling. I did that a lot when I was little, hard as it is to believe. I would get so angry and yell at everyone, adults included. No one was able to control me.

Had it not been for that day with Yuki, I don't think I would have spoken to as many people as I have here. I am pretty sure I still would be that angry person I used to be, fighting with everyone and anyone who could fight back. I was very destructive. I wouldn't be on good terms with anyone. I'd be hating everyone for no other reason than because I could.

It just goes to show you that it isn't easy to just forget something someone says. Sometimes the littlest things can really bother you.

I have to wonder if people who are often angry now just haven't met their own Yuki. It would calm them down a lot, I bet.

Aha~ how Kaspar cries. How Kaspar trembles.

Did you think to escape Samiel twice? Perhaps I should give you to my hounds...

[ooc: Comment log for Hellsing, Angel Crew, Lady, Video Post for everyone else. Alucard is shadowy and creepy, Rip is weepy, let's all have fun.]

voice;

....You've got to shitting me.

[Pause, oh the truth settles in. Someone hears a ticking.]

No. No, no, no, no! Goddammit, I've been here for too fucking long for this to just--- I don't believe this shit. Fucking son of a bitch, City. You'll be sorry, you hear me? You'll be sorry you decided to pull me back to this shit hole.

I really believed for a little while.... You made a fool out of me. I was right there. I was home, I was this close....

[Shattering glass and the device gets switched off. Guess who is back from her brief, brief trip home. Ask her about it. I dare you.]

Private to Boy Blue;
I want my apartment.
end;

[Sasuke is seen moving forward as if he was heading somewhere, before coming to a stop to glance at his surroundings as he realizes where he is]

...The city again? [The irritation in his voie is evident as he speaks, and he pauses for a few seconds as he recalls what he last remembers] I suppose my plans will be on hold for the time being then.

( Private || Unhackable )

[ooc; So Sasuke is back in the City again without a canon update and right after he checked the network to see how long he was gone for from when the button curse was going on, so the private section was included a bit later from the actual post. Pretend this was earlier since he was supposed to be back before the curse ended since I wasn't around much to post this before now.]

So are the 'deities' quite through with us now? I'll admit, I wasn't cursed, but that didn't make the City seem any less mad to me. It was like one of those wretched weekends when every curse I've ever seen seems to happen again--but all at once. I think most everyone here has endured at least one of those weekends, even if not everyone was cursed during it. I'll still count myself fortunate that I wasn't cursed. I suppose whoever had the box with my name on it didn't press their button. Perhaps they couldn't, with paws or claws or no hands at all. Perhaps it was a race after all, and the winner is the one who pressed the button and cursed the other first.

But it seems as though it's all over now. A few people whom I know went home seem to have returned. I knew the 'deities' wouldn't keep their word on that promise. Or, rather, they kept their word, but not as we'd like. I did say not to trust them.

I suppose we'll slide back into our usual routines now, recover from these curses, and carry on.

A few people have told me that Thanksgiving is tomorrow. I knew it was coming up, but I never celebrated it before I came to the City two years ago. I know full well about harvest celebrations, even being in town like I was, but those were much earlier than this--that was after the grain was got in, usually. I suppose it's just the time and place and things that are grown. I've had enough Americans explain it to me. I think I quite understand it. It makes perfect sense to me. And who could really refuse a good dinner with friends or with family in this cold part of the year?

I suppose what I really mean is that here's something for which we ought to be grateful: these curses have ended.

[Private to Riff || Unhackable]
I know full well that I cursed someone by pressing that button, Riff. He or she could have been struck by anything. Now that the curses are ending, it's beginning to come out more about what curses were striking who and how. I know some were horrid--think of the one that struck Sam.

But all curses are horrid, really, in their own way. If they aren't painful, they're annoying, or maddening, or make one think one is mad.

Should I count myself fortunate that I wasn't cursed? I don't believe in luck, you know. But I wasn't cursed, and I'll be grateful for that.

More than that, Riff.

I've not told anyone here about my collection here, you know. When I arrived, Rue ordered Fakir--or perhaps he did it himself; I can't recall--to strip my room of anything and everything that could be used as a weapon. The opera house had enemies then, and terrible ones. I understand entirely why they wanted to protect themselves against me, a stranger. I had only a few vials hidden in my coat then, but I started rebuilding from those in secret. Princess Rue knows something of it now, but she's the only one. If I was to be trapped here, I wanted my collection, all the same. You've seen how it's grown now. Some of them I've found in the Underground or strange shops, one I had obtained for me as payment for doses of opium and laudanum that I made in the City's laboratories, one the 'deities' themselves brought by as a souvenir of a visit they made to our world.

So, Riff, I've had another one returned to me because of pressing that button.

I wouldn't leave and abandon you here, not the way you've left me so often. And I doubted that the 'deities' would really make good on that promise anyway--and that's been proved true. I've no real use for money, not with my situation as it is and my savings as they are. There's some good that's come from my having been here for so long. So I wanted something from home, something of mine. And the 'deities' brought me back the cantarella.

I had something like it for a while now, but not the real cantarella, not my own. It's here now, locked up with the rest of my collection, kept secret and safe.

Shall I be grateful? It was the 'deities' who brought it, at the cost of someone enduring a curse, and I escaped entirely.

Well? Shall I be grateful?
[//end private filter]

[Private to Rosella, Sam, et. al. || Unhackable]
Rosella, how is Sam? I'm sure the doctors are taking very good care of him, but I would still like to know. I'm sure he's still in the hospital, of course, but if he's well enough, I'd be glad to speak to him too, of course. I wonder, though, if you won't keep his Network device away from him to make him rest. I have the feeling that you could be both a very good, but very strict nurse. I'd be glad to pay another visit too, of course, if he's receiving visitors.

And my offer still stands, too: if you should like, do come and stay in the opera house as my guest. I know you'd much rather stay with someone than by yourself in the Warehouse, even as protected as the Warehouse is. I'm sure there are any number of people asking you to pay a visit, so add me to the list if need be.

Do let me know, and do give Sam my good wishes.
[//end private filter]

Admittedly, there is a very real chance we'll be cursed again, even as soon as tomorrow. Of course we will be cursed again, but the question is whether we'll be cursed tomorrow or the day after. I recall once on a Thanksgiving when everyone was made to list the things for which they were grateful. There are worse curses than that, even as annoying as that might be. If we're to have a curse on a holiday, even a holiday that isn't mine, it had best be a mild one.

I hope we'll be given a few days' rest after all of that. There's no certainty of it, but I would be grateful for it.

~C.

[ooc: So Cain ended up pushing the button on the box he received. Sam was cursed with a reprise of the SAW curse (sob), Cain's been trying to help out Sam and Rosella in the aftermath (ironic), though he doesn't know that he cursed Sam (crai), but he did get one of his favorite rare poisons from home (secret). So he's...well, he'll get his later, I'm sure, if the truth ever comes out ;3; The Rosella & Sam filter is open to Rosella, Sam, and their friends and acquaintances that Cain knows they know--their mutual friends, basically. If you're not sure if you're in the filter, drop a line.]

God, why would they even

Biology students, there's been a change in the syllabus. We'll no longer be doing dissection today. I'm not cutting open a sea horse We'll be watching a video instead.


[ooc: For those of you in Hatori's biology class, he has a tank of sea horses who press themselves up against the glass in adoration every time he walks by. Feel free to have noticed.]

Ack! It was supposed to last longer! Some magical box. Hmpf. I should have known there has to be a small print clause.

...Hello again, City.

[There's a 17-years old girl dressed in a puffy princess gown on the steps of the Opera Abandoned.]

In less than a week's time I will have been here two years. In that time I've seen a lot of curses. I've seen war curses and torture curses and age curses, and curses that change the whole City. Once half of us were on board the Titanic. Once it was the fifties all over again, except an idealized version of the fifties. I've seen curses where people turn into their darkest, most forbidding selves. Once we were all in a school of magic.

I've never seen anything like this. I mean there have been things; like the City that was the opposite of this one, that have lasted longer than a couple of days. We got invaded, two years ago, by Aliens, when the Deities all left the City. But nothing where we've inflicted curses on ourselves. Or even had the choice.

Maybe pushing the button's the easy thing. It might be the thing we long to do, even. It might be altruistic not to, or maybe it's that we just don't want to feel guilty.

I don't know. I don't know your reasons for pushing or not pushing. I'm not pushing because I'm not a god and I never want to be one. It's not my place to decide another's fate like that. I've fought in wars, but everyone I've fought was there because they volunteered for it.

None of volunteered for this.

I guess that two years ago I might have been a little different. Maybe a little more naive. Maybe a little more idealistic. But I wouldn't have pressed the button then, or now.

And if you did? Then it's your choice, and I'm not condemning you for it.

Rukia? Oi, RUKIA. RUKIA.

Goddamn it.

[ ... ]

Hey, has anybody seen Rukia around here? Short. Black hair. Never shuts up? She hasn't turned up since yesterday.


[[ooc; Somebody pushed Rukia's button, which sent her into the Bizarro City. /o/ ICHIGO IS TIRED OF LOSING HIS RUKIAS.]]

[video]

[chibi!Tatsuki is poking the screen hard, in your face. as usual] HAH!

I see you can't get enough of me yet! Alright! Well, I'm back! Who of the gang's still here? And where's my ice cream?

[ooc; Hiyori pushed the button. Look, she's more of a midget now. Going for your ankles, Hiyoriii! Chibified Tatsuki remembers her last time in the City, when she wrecked havoc and became queen of the playground. And demands tribute, and a long haired sissy and a cat. In that order. (Also, if replies stop coming in, then internet really decided to fuck me up. So I'll apologize if that happens and backdate tomorrow! BUT CROSSING FIGNERS)]

[Who is that adorable little Tapir in the video? The bishi eyes and blue-grey hair should give it away, as well as his voice once he starts to speak. Lawl deep voice coming out of a cute stuffed animal]

... So it seems it's my turn to be affected by a button-zona. Do the button-induced-curses last for just one day or several..? Because I cannot do much with these.. hands. Not to mention my shortened stature-zona..

[He examines his stubby Tapir hand-paw-things-idk]

.....

I suppose it could be worse-zona.

[He mutters something else to himself as he goes to turn off the device. Something along the lines of "If I ever see that damned Tapir again..."]


[OOC: Cursed thanks to Grell. IKEMEN BEAAMM-ZONA~]

[ voice | mostly unhackable ]

Obviously a part of me wants to press it. Sometimes being here for so long makes an elf desperate. Three years and the chance to go home? Who wouldn't? But I don't...

[sigh.]

Can't leave Artemis. Or the police. Sometimes I wonder if this place has become just as much a home to me as Ireland. Maybe that's enough of a warning sign that I should leave while I still can.

[a long, long pause; she's staring the box. When she speaks again, it's a very low murmur.]

But even so, I don't think I could have any of this hanging over me.

[And yet, something in Holly's tone suggests that she's uncertain.]


[ PUBLIC: ]

... I wonder what would happen if I shot that blasted box.





Before I can change my mind.

( private;;unhackable; )

Two things: what's the status of the human matchstick?
What's the deal with the usual suspects around here?

[voice post]

[oddly it's a young child's voice] Hello again City. I'm looking for Rosette-chan or Autor-chan or Vash-san or Yuuko-san or Watanuki-san or Ishida-san please. Or if my Grandfather is here, I'm looking for him, too.

Thank you.



[ooc: Timothy pushed the button, so you get...chibi!Doumeki. For roommates, he's just wandering out of his bedroom at this post.]

Pushing a button to get one of those three things?

That sounds way to simple, but then again maybe it depends on how you look at it.

[ooc; As if he wouldn't press it. He's been wanting to go back to get his revenge so it's not like Sasuke cares about the fact someone gets cursed because that? He'll press it at some point today, so just pick whether this is before or after he pressed it. He'll be gone from the City for the curse duration, but without much of a canon update]

I've been here for less time than most of you, and I already know that nothing good'd come out of pushing the button. I mean, yeah, sure, I might be given a prize, or taken home - but do I really want to do that at the price of someone else's safety? Sanity? Life?

The answer is not.

I would not have said no to the money, I guess. The job hunt continues. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to try it again. Does anyone know who I should direct myself to in order to get employment at the hospital, please? I am a hardworker, I have steady hands, I have had an excellent intructor--the best alive--and I learn fast. If you have any other questions, I'll gladly answer them.

So, aside from...all this. I hope that those I spoke to during the statue invasion were left unscathed.

[private to Ino]

Red or green, Pig?

So I've one of these famous boxes too. It appeared at my door the moment those monstrous angels vanished. I almost wonder if they didn't deliver the things, but that would be too clever for the 'deities'.

I've not done anything with it, but I keep toying with it. It's sitting next to me even now and I keep looking at it. It's so simple and so plain that it almost seems malevolent, somehow. It ought to be benign, but a box containing one red button, and a cover to protect it--there's something sinister in that. What does the button do? Everyone's asking themselves that. And yet, we know it:

'Salutations, Citizen. Presented to you is the chance of your lifetime in which you may receive 1,000 Indigos, a precious souvenir from home, or the chance to return to that home. All you need do is press the button and a single individual whom you may or may not know will be cursed. No harm will come to you if you do. No harm will come to you if you do not. Make haste because this offer expires in five days where in this box will become obsolete. We know what rests deep in your heart, Citizen. Choose wisely.'

I think it should be clear to anyone who reads the letter that accompanies a box that all of this must be too good to be true--at least the last prize is far too good to be true.

Think about how the 'deities' seem to run this City: everyone is brought in and kept here, and we're told, vaguely, that our presence sustains both the City and our own worlds. So why would they for even a moment consider letting us all leave and stay home unmolested?

It reminds me of the time that the 'stewards' tried to take over the City. They said that they could take us home too, with their ships which could fly over and through the City's barriers. It was a lie, too. They wanted us on their ships so they could use us to power them. We trusted these creatures more than we trusted the 'deities' and even they lied to us. So why would we trust the 'deities' now?

But do think about it: they could very well send us home, but for a minute or two minutes, and then we'd be pulled back into the City again. None of us is ever really free from the City, even if we forget it in our own worlds. Even if we all go home someday, we could still be pulled into this place again and again and again. There's no real escape from it. So they could keep the promise they've made with these boxes and these buttons and send us home, but it wouldn't be the promise as we interpret it. One can never trust them, that's one thing I've learned in the time I've been here.

As for the other parts, I've seen things arrive in the City from home thanks to these buttons. Indeed, I met one such thing. Whether these things will vanish when the time limit on these buttons ends, I don't know. We'll find out, I suppose. I've not heard of anyone choosing the money, though. Somehow, the other two options are more enticing, somehow: glimpses of home are more welcome than money from the City itself. We're more interested in escape than in enjoying ourselves here. I shouldn't be surprised if someone were to have chosen to go home. I wonder what really became of them, though. I suppose they did go home, but we'll have to see if they ever do return.

It's the consequences of all this that makes one wonder, I suppose. It's such a passing reference and it seems nothing of importance: if one pushes the button someone else, somewhere in the City, will be cursed. Does that bother us? Should it? Rosella likened it to the power the 'deities' themselves have. Most people I've seen on the Network who give it some thought, though, seem to be far more worried by this power than the 'deities' ever do. The 'deities' curse without concern. And we seem to be fretted by it.

However, I know that part of it is true. I've seen people cursed with any number of curses already. It's like those wretched weekends when we're all struck with something different for two days and there's nothing but pandemonium in the City. But perhaps we'll all have to take our turns at being cursed. I suppose it's a matter of whether we push the button before we're cursed or not. It's a race, then, and we've only five days in which to decide.

That would make the most sense, wouldn't it? We've been given these buttons, we'll curse one another, we'll all suffer, but perhaps there's some reward in it. It's the same thing the 'deities' have only done, but with a variation on that theme. Nothing really changes in the City, but there's sometimes a new box in which it's put. I'll have to take my turn at being an animal or a madman again. So shall I take the reward in anticipation of more and worse? I might as well, if I'm to be cursed too.

I know what I'd want if I were to push this button.

~C.

[ooc: So here's his logic: he doubts the deities will really send anyone home for keeps, since that's just too good to be true and would destroy the City. So anyone who goes home will probably come back eventually. However, he has seen proof that things are brought into the City from one's own world (he met Lero yesterday). He also figures the money reward is probably true too. The home issue is too good to be what it seems, though. He'd rather have something from home. And he figures that this whole ordeal is like a grab bag weekend: everyone will have their turn to push the button and to get cursed. So, feeling like he'd like to have a little enjoyment when he's going to be cursed later (or so he assumes), he's going to push the button and get some of his collection brought into the City. He'll be pushing the button momentarily...]