thenearshore | [log] i'm hellbent baby

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[log] i'm hellbent baby

Who: Chikusa Kakimoto, and various members of his CR
What: So a bunch of teenagers and kids play some romantic visual novel games...
When: Some vague time after training
Where: Temple Li Tieguai
Notes: First of all, post order is a myth, just start out with your character playing one of the game in the top levels I've prepared below and people can react to things as they happen. Don't worry about cohesive story, just go wild with tropes. Threadjacking is fine with me, go wild. Secondly, while some characters were definitely invited (Sanada, Minako, Davesprite), if your character has CR with Chikusa or the others in any way, you're definitely welcome to jump in. Just hit me up on plurk or PM this journal, and we can BS a reason for coming... even if that reason is just party crashing. Third, feel free to make a top level for whatever if you want to do something besides playing

It is done.

Finally, at long last, Chikusa is free from the self-inflicted hell of being forced to do the whole household's chores for a week. It's been a week of pure suffering, where Hakkai hasn't let him get much relief at all, but it's finally over with. Now, at long last, he can get to all the things he actually wants and needs to do.

....But the problem, Chikusa has found, is that after a week of hard work, his brain doesn't want to get to any other kinds of hard work... even if it's hard work that he actually wants to do. His life is fucking suffering.

For a good chunk of his morning, he stares emptily up at his ceiling, wondering what he should even do... but an idea comes to him while flipping back through the BBS- his story that he's working on, to be more exact. Oh, right... He said he would look into visual novels, didn't he? And that sniper anon...

It takes a little bit to get up regardless, and then some more time to take the cupboard money so that he can go down to the Far Shore... but that's fine. That's enough time to text some people he knows while going down to the Far Shore to get the appropriate game system and games.

And thus, that's how a small group has gathered in Hakkai's living room, a bunch of games spread out on the coffee table while Chikusa finishes setting up the game system on Hakkai's shitty old television.

"So just pick whichever one you want to try, I guess... And we can figure out who plays first after."

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[...The premise of this game sounds weirdly familiar. It's kind of a shame Hiyoko left so long ago so he can't show her this, but as it is, he's definitely not missing that Very Intentional Eye Contact here.]

Yeah, your thoughtfulness is appreciated, though I'm pretty sure I'm getting some kind of deja vu here and we should probably start playing before I think too hard about it.

I think that's just you being a bird...

[But whatever, let's get this started.]

You don't have a last name, right... [Because the game sure is asking for one.]

If that was it then I'd be having deja vu literally all the time.

[And on the note of a last name...well, Davesprite's remembered by now that he had one once upon a time, but he doesn't really want to get into that can of worms.]

I feel like for the purposes of the game being picky, we can just temporarily change my name to Dave Sprite.

[What a radical change it is.]

Davesprite... Sprite.

[Because, yes, that's what he's putting into the name screen. He's pretty sure it's funnier that way.]

Yeah, sure, let's go with that, I'm almost a spy with that name.

[Except that joke would probably work better if it was Sprite, Dave Sprite, but never mind.]

[Listen, almost a spy is plenty good enough for the two off them, so Chikusa forges on. When did this become him pressing buttons and asking for Davesprite's input? Don't worry about it. Chikusa skips through a lot of the 'prologue' as it were, which is just to get through a lot of the character introductions. The friendly friend who mysteriously seem to go missing, the creepy school doctor, the arrogant rich new kid, the popular flirt...]

Anyone catch your eye yet.

[Davesprite skims as much of the intro as he can while it's getting skipped, just to get an idea of what's going on. And particularly to get an idea of the characters, because that seems kind of important in a game like this.

He does, at least, have enough information to answer that question when Chikusa finally brings it up.] I'm gonna skip over creepy doctor guy mostly because that seems precisely like falling to your knees and begging the visual novel gods for a bad end, and I dunno how long I can stand the arrogant and popular cliche storms even for the sake of comedy, so let's go with mysterious best friend turning love interest.

So you wouldn't go for my route in a game... I'm hurt.

[Is Chikusa self aware to know he comes off as creepy to some people who aren't the willfully friendly types, and 'poison expert' is close enough to doctor? Listen. He's very aware. Moving on. That's the end of one day, at any rate, so Chikusa continues on...]

[And it's club choosing time, after some shenanigans and bickering! Most of them, funnily enough, to do with a lot of the birds already met. Except for Mister Popular, who didn't get introduced with one, and...]

...There's no Going Home club. This is bullshit.

[Also Mystery Best Friend seems to avoid clubs, but, hey. Probably something to do with him being mysterious.]

I mean, you're usually not being actively creepy to almost tryhard levels, so. It'd depend on the framing, that shit's important. [Clearly he's not going to take creepy doctor route when the creepy doctor is so flagrantly...well, creepy. He's here for a good time and a long one, preferably.

As for the club choosing, Davesprite eyes the options briefly.] So that aside, which one do we think stands the highest chance of us having a romantic comedy scene of tripping over mystery best friend while they're doing whatever their non-club mysterious best friend shit is that they do.

[That is a very simple question... and yet it has Chikusa staring blankly at a corner of Hakkai's shitty old television for a nice solid minute. Eventually, he blinks out of it, and looks over at Davesprite.]

...I've never gone to school before.

You don't need to have gone to school, dude, you just need to have a certain grasp of the cliches of high school romance bullshit in media. Considering you're the one who floated these games in the first place, I kinda figured you had a working knowledge.

[If not, then they're probably both going to be flying blind, because while Davesprite has picked up some of the finer points of anime cliche while he's been here, it's still not nearly as versed as his knowledge of western ones.]

...Oh.

[Shit... Shit, he should have paid more attention to the specific school cliches when he was reading instead of just carelessly ignoring them for a better understanding of romance in general. He's been writing a cop romance, he though high school didn't apply!]

[Another beat of silence as he has a silent clusterfuck spell behind an impassive face before snapping out of it.]

Photography club...?

[That sure is a telling pause before he actually answers, but Davesprite just rolls with it at this point.] Photography club it is, at least I actually know some shit about that so it shouldn't be completely uninteresting.

[By "something" he mostly means hipster selfies, but still.]

[Odd pauses are, at least, nothing new with Chikusa. That's something. For now, relieved that he has at least something vaguely right, Chikusa goes with that answer. Blah blah blah, some more flavor text- Oh. Hey, there's Mysterious Bestie, coming over and surprised at the MC's choice of clubs.]

["I didn't know you were interested in that kind of thing, Davesprite-chan. Even childhood friends can have secrets, ha ha. But then, I guess this means we won't be walking home together from now on like last year, huh...?"]

[Oh shit, it's dialogue option time!]

[ > "Are you sure you can't join the club with me?" ]
[ > "Aren't you the one who disappeared on me yesterday after school?" ]
[ > "Even if we don't walk home, we'll still be friends!" ]

[Chikusa leans back and surveys their options.]

...The middle one isn't typically a 'cute protag' thing, right...

[Because that's what he would've chosen on his own. However, from reading his shoujos, Chikusa suspects that would lead to a bad end.]

Yeah, no, not really. [They're going to have to control their sass on this one if they want to get the mysterious bestie to notice them.

Eying off the boxes, Davesprite eventually points to the first one.] Let's try obvious number one, that looks like the "taking the initiative" option where the second is "dick move bro" and the third just seems like we don't really give a shit.

[Which, while he figures that's the option Chikusa would take if the second one were taken out of the picture, is not ideal when it comes to actually getting the ending they're gunning for.]

...I mean, maybe he's an M-type, and he's into being stepped on.

[You never know. It's a game about birds. Chikusa feels like conventional logic might have to take a back seat. Then again, maybe it's really just the birds. Whatever. Obediently enough, he goes to choose the first option.]

["I didn't think it meant that much to you! I would if I could... Still, if it means a lot, we can go shopping in town. A club means materials, right?"]

[...Chikusa thinks that's a good thing? He thinks that's a good thing. Still, he squints a little, cautiously.]

...We're probably still on friend level and so it's not a date, huh.

The FCC aren't going to come for your ass if you say "masochist", you know. [To someone like him, a term like that mostly just sounds like a vague attempt to disguise what's obviously being talked about. And if you're talking about being stepped on, then you might as well throw all pretense out the window anyway.

Davesprite squints at the response as well, though it's pretty much impossible to see behind his shades.] Probably. We don't want to be the gender-reversed version of that guy who assumes that since we're going out to hang and do something completely innocuous with a lady friend that it's definitely a date, that shit's creepy.

Too many syllables...

[Trust him, he's counted. Sometimes, his reasons for speaking are very very simple and driven by his desire to do as little as possible. It's the life he's... kind of chosen for himself. Let him live it.]

And I guess... although I don't know anything about that with my dating life. [Him and Ken have totally just done normal things together, but it's still a date. He admits his lack of knowledge there.] ...I guess we are gender-reversed, huh.

...I'd be the prettier one.

It's three syllables. That's the same number as it takes to say syllables and only one more than the thing you said instead, dude.

[As a proud wordsmith, Davesprite is of course going to get right up in his business about word choice, even if he knows Chikusa is a level of lazy that even the lazy gurus would have to acknowledge.

Though he shakes his head immediately at the idea that Chikusa would be the prettier gender-reversal.] Nah, you'd be the skinny nerd with no chest. So basically the same as you are right now. Meanwhile, I have all of this beautiful natural bounty going for me.

[He does a broad hand gesture over his ruff and wings.]

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