Welcome to CERES' new dating experience -- ABOMIDate (Catchy, huh?). They've found that they're a little concerned with everyone's ability to... connect with denizens of different species, and in a place like Cerealia that is full of aliens, that's a Big Problem! After all, it's pretty clear by now that there are a lot of things about your friendly neighborhood aliens that you just know nothing about. What else do you not know? That the greeting of a Faswwg is face licking? That feathered species require mating dances to woo? That [REDACTED] needs [REDACTED] to [REDACTED]? So clearly, the way to fix this problem is...to practice dating other species!
Namely eldritch abominations! In CERES' experience, eldritch abominations really sum up the full interspecies dating way of life and provide you a variety of different species (and orifices) to enjoy.
So it's time to put on some proper music -- no, not that, that's not right. There, that's better. Anyway, time to put on some sexy background music, and woo the monster of your dreams!
 [ horrifying noises of nightmares and despair ]
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PHASE I [ 8 00 ] Welcome to the new and improved Abominable Dating, CERES’ brand new virtual dating experience! The first thing you will see will be a character select screen, because CERES wants you to get to the dating part right away. Don’t worry, there are a lot of beautiful and handsome candidates to choose from so feel free to jump right in! There’s this fellow, or this dashing lass and even a hidden character who is... not really all that hidden if they’re right there to be picked, but there you go!
You have to pick one. There’s no other option, I’m afraid.
And once you do, you’ll end up in a room with your date, dressed up in beautiful, date-like clothing. Unfortunately, everyone else who picked that date will also be in the room with you, also dressed up and prepared for dating.
This is awkward.
It gets even more awkward when your date decides that you look like a great main course. Watch out for those claws/teeth/limbs/etc! Maybe you can work together to take down your starving date, sad as that sounds.
PHASE II [ 1000 ] No dating game would be complete without stat boosting sessions. Regardless of how you feel about your current date, you’re locked into the game now (and hopefully not while covered in the blood of your date themselves, though they just come back even if you managed to kill them), and the game is picking a stat it thinks you need to work on. Either your intelligence is deplorable, your charisma is totally lacking, or your strength is at noodly-arm levels. That’s pretty bad. (It doesn’t matter what your actual intelligence, charisma or strength are, the game might be making things up at this point.)
Because of this, you’re going to be automatically tossed into a mini-game to increase those stats! This will be fun, absolutely. Nothing but Fun here in ViViD. So regardless of what the game thinks you’re lacking, it’s going to throw you into the same mini-game -- eldritch abomination make-over sessions.
You'll show up at a row of dressing rooms, each marked with a sign above the door reading NO INTELLIGENCE or NO STRENGTH or NO CHARISMA in bright red letters. Choosing the right one (embrace your shame) will reveal your initial date to you. They bat their eyelashes in greeting and growl out a very sultry, Will you help me, senpai?
Time to get to work!
You won’t be able to leave the mini-game until the monster is completely satisfied with its makeover, so it’s time to really tap in to your inner fashion sense. Of course, the fact that you’re all trying to apply makeup to the same monster might make this hard, but you can surely all get along, right?
Right?
PHASE III [ 1800 ] At first, you were on a date. Finally, you, your monster, candelight. Everything was going right until... well, you made a bad dialogue choice. They asked you what your favorite food was, you accidentally picked "Italian" (or maybe picked it on purpose which makes this even worse!) and then things went dark.
When you wake up, you'll find yourself in a cage. The room is dark and dank and there's no light other from the crack of a door somewhere up a flight of stairs. You're in a cage in a basement and there's a key glinting on the table right across the room there. Is it for your cage?
Welcome to the Yandere Route.
You might not actually be alone though. The cage isn't terribly big but there's enough room for someone else and if you shift around a little, you'll bump into them. Maybe you should share some woes of the eldritch horror dating experience. Maybe you should try and find a way out! Who knows? But there's one thing for sure:
You're both extremely naked.
Good luck!
PHASE IV [ 1830 ] You did it. You’ve gotten to the end of the game, or nearly. You’ve earned up enough affection points somehow. Maybe it was through the eldritch abomination following you around to trying to eat you or maybe it really, really, really liked your makeover. Maybe there was that thing and the cage and some weird pictures it took -- who knows! But now it’s time for the inevitable scene.
The confession scene.
Except... well, ViViD can’t do confession scenes very well. You'll find yourself there in the schoolyard, dressed in the appropriate school uniforms but...
For one thing, there’s a heavy shower of rose petals. A heavy shower. They’re everywhere. They might get in your mouth and face, they’re pooling around your knees, it's a rose petal flood and you're about to drown!
For another, the eldritch abomination you chose to romance is getting closer and... closer. And closer. And that sure is a lot of teeth, huh? Is it coming in for a kiss or to eat off your face? It’s... really hard to tell with all the rose petals, isn’t it?
To make matters even worse, you can’t move -- you’re locked into the scene until it comes to its proper conclusion. The game is stuck and you're here, suffering through it all. Well, you're suffering unless someone comes and rescues you, but who in the world would interrupt a touching scene like this to do that?!
BONUS [ why o'clock ] You know you have to get dressed up nicely for your date. It's an important one! Third date means third base, after all. So, you’re shoved into a closet, and surrounded by tons and tons of choices to pick from. You're spoiled for choice!
But, well... no matter what you put on, or even if you just elect to stay in your regular clothing, it changes as soon as you step out of the closet to meet your date.
Don’t worry, you look adorable.
It can’t be taken off, of course. So you’d better get comfy, because you’re going to be a pink dinosaur for your third date and... your fourth date. And your fifth. Hell, you might still be a pink dinosaur when it comes time to confess! How... cute.
[ Remember to apply proper warnings on threads with sensitive or inappropriate material and do let a mod know if your thread careens off into maiming or canoodling so we can lock the log. ] |
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Maybe. It made sense when he said it. A faithful replica until the very end... it's not like I'd have anywhere else to go. At least, that's what I thought.
[ before he ended up here of all places. he frowns when she trails off though. ]
What couldn't be it?
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I think he would have liked it if had been true. [He didn't seem to bear his replica any ill-will, after all - really what she hopes to say is that she's sure Riku meant well.] I would have been happy to be in the same place as the two of you, too, in the end.
[Because at least it would have been somewhere as opposed to nowhere, which was the fate she'd expected for herself instead. On that note, she shakes her head, but says,]
That this might be the afterlife. But that wouldn't make any sense - even less than the rest of this does.
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in any case, his frown turns confused. ]
Do we even get an afterlife?
[ generally speaking. he knows namine is special, but she's still a nobody and he's still a replica. once they're through they're, well, through. ]
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That's one of the reasons it wouldn't make sense.
[She makes an attempt at a smile, though it falls flat. Sobering further,]
I always wanted to think that it would be different for you, though. You do have a heart, after all, even if it's... [A hesitation as she tries to find the gentlest way to say it.] ... You know.
[Artificial.]
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his expression darkens when she hesitates, a flicker-flash of anger and bitterness as the line of his shoulders stiffen. what good is a fake heart anyway? just one more reminder that he's not good enough and never will be. ]
I don't need it, [ he says, eventually. ] But you gave it to me. These memories, even though they're fake...
[ they're all i have left, is what he wants to say. but he remembers the look on her face whenever he swore to protect her -- that sad expression, the way her shoulders seemed to curl into her body. he doesn't want to burden her anymore. ]
So, if this is the afterlife, [ he shrugs again. ] It's not so bad.
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[And she knows what he wants to say, and in her head completes it. Some small portion of the look that he too remembers sneaks into her expression, but she fights against it even though his anger and bitterness still draws forth the same unhappiness for his sake that it always did. She would have said, 'They're yours to keep,' but it would have been bittersweet. Instead, she chooses to say nothing on the subject at all, turning her eyes momentarily earthward only to bring them back up when he speaks again. A tentative attempt at a smile comes with her,]
Mm-- you're right. It could be much worse. [The barest of pauses; an idea occurs to her and she seizes upon it, expression one of unmistakable epiphany.] There could have been more monsters. Or--
[She casts about briefly for something appropriately ridiculous. Her experience with humor is painfully limited, but in that moment she feels the need to try, because there have been too many unhappy subjects brought up already and she always regretted not having had the chance to make things even just a little bit easier for him while he was - properly? - alive. (Ironic, that someone like her should have the notion to feel bad for him.) It feels stupid at the same time it feels necessary. She's never actively tried to make a joke before, and finds it more difficult than anticipated.]
Or-- flying monkeys? ... Really angry ones.
this thread is making me tear up so much i hate everything 1/2
it only serves to fuel that desire to forget. but he doesn't have that luxury and the unfairness, the injustice of it all, it weighs down on him. he doesn't think he'd ever stop hating the organization (if they ask how i died, tell them: still angry), and the bitterness has seeped so deep in his bones that it's likely become a part of his dna.
yet with it comes the exhaustion of being angry, of being bitter. at the end of the day, he's grown tired of it. but how can you cast off something that's become such a big part of you? ]
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but she's trying. and shouldn't he try too? the organization is no more, they're not in the castle -- they're nothing more than blank slates right now. they can write their own story. ]
You know, there's a story about that, [ he starts, his free hand coming up to rub at the back of his neck as he tries to remember. ] Flying monkeys. Don't remember what it's called, but they live in a castle. A green one.
GENTLY PROVIDES HANDKERCHIEF
[It isn't for lack of the capacity to be, though she would surely claim that as the first and only necessary reason. Rather, for someone like her, who has spent so long in the minds and hearts of others, it is very difficult to muster hate. She knows too well what causes people to do the things that they do, and even if she doesn't agree with what they choose, she can never quite look beyond the why of it. She cannot truly hate because she cannot stop seeing a person where most would see only an enemy.]
[Naminé never had it in her to be angry with the Organization for what they did to her - although there was plenty of righteous indignation at what they did to others, to him and Riku and Sora and Roxas and Kairi
and Xionand all the rest of the worlds. Yet there was never the desire to destroy them for it, nor to take vengeance; there was only fear, only sadness, only-- sympathy, because no matter how cruel they were, they were real, once, and they wanted to be again.][She knew what that was like.]
[And it's so tempting - more so than she would ever dare admit - to think of how easily she could take away all the anger and bitterness that he has. She could make him new all over again, like she did before. Nothing but sweet, happy memories full of light and life and freedom, with wonderful childhood friends and the promise of a better future. It would be so much easier, so much more comfortable, and he'd never have to be sad again.]
[But she has outgrown such possibilities. It wouldn't be right, wouldn't be fair, and, older and wiser, she balks at the idea of such egregious violations without their absolute necessity (and even with it).]
[So instead, she can only try to fix it in as many other ways as necessary until it works. Her lips press together in an almost nervous line as she awaits his response, only for a smile to bloom brightly on that same mouth when he laughs. A better outcome than she could have hoped. The mention of the story in question makes her give an almost surprised little,]
Oh--! That's right.
[Things have a tendency to leak into her subconscious when she isn't looking - memories of memories, things she's learned without realizing it. (Sora pulling the same trick on Riku, making light of things to ease a serious issue, is however still fresh in her mind, for as far as her awareness is concerned, it happened not so long ago at all.) Pausing a moment, she attempts to tug at those fragments of memory, nodding at his further description.]
Yes, I think that was it. With the really mean--
[-- Oh. Oh, right, that's probably why that story came to mind. She makes a valiant effort not to wilt and manages to succeed for the most part, finishing with a lame,]
... lady.