004. [Video]

[preybeforemeals]

[ACTION FOR THE TG HOUSE]

[Tsukiyama has been told in no uncertain terms that he had better not just lie around in his room and act like his life is over due to recent events; there were enough issues with said events to keep him busy for a little while, at least, and he'd actually been doing fairly well for the first day or so. But once the immediate problems were fixed, that left him with a good amount of nothing to do with himself and an upheaval to be responded to, and so clearly, he did the rational thing and decided eventually to respond to it by...

...Well, lying around in his room, acting like his life is over.

Yep.

Granted, there were two problems with this that he did not foresee while in the midst of preparing for a 72-hour angst-ridden lie-in; the first was that his fuzzball of a sheep that he got from Labrys is both too young and too...benignly stupid to understand that he is not, in fact, literally dying. As such, she took to lying on his chest about halfway through the morning of Day 2; this got a bit alarming when he realized that she was doing this with the intention of being the most adorable defibrillator on the planet should her services be required, and she was not about to leave him alone because by god, her services may be required about thirty seconds after she was set on the floor for the fiftieth time.

The second unforeseen complication was Meridiana's...dear Tropius of a starter, who came with the perk of making sure that he was going to have something to eat while in the midst of dealing with the shards of sorrow and darkness piercing his motherfucking soul; unfortunately, she also came with the drawback of not seeming to comprehend that man cannot live on bananas alone – or if she did comprehend it, she quite simply did not seem to care.

...There's also the fact that it's very, very hard to be suitably tragic with a fluffsheep nuzzling into you and a leafy dinosaur trying to get you to eat fruit. And apparently no one in this house does the whole "giving him the attention he rightly deserves" thing right, anyway, and he's been largely left alone for the last three days. And really, who the hell even does that anymore.

So. Tsukiyama can actually be found downstairs today, draping over furniture in the study like an asshole with all the curtains drawn because no one goddamn understands. It's a lot of generally being effectively dead of angst and misery, but hey, at least someone's actually making use of the fainting couch once in a while.

Because we have a girl here from the Victorian era and as such there is a literal fainting couch.

Because of course there is.

God, that thing was a great investment.]



[VIDEO]

[Well, whatever was going on earlier, it seems that the aggressive not-fainting and a few hours free of the looming bananasaur has done something for his mood; whether it's a good something or not has yet to be seen.

Either way, he seems surprisingly sane in terms of how he's presenting himself today, the usual bright colors and patterns replaced with a longsleeved white...thing and an open black vest over it; given that that's actually a perfectly rational thing for a person to be wearing, it can probably be assumed that his pants are made entirely of lies, shame, and disgrace, but thankfully those aren't able to be seen on the video. He looks like he's sitting on a set of stairs of some sort, obviously indoors; they're nice, polished-wood, but that's about the most that can be said for his surroundings.

He's got his free hand resting on an absolute fluffbeast of a sheep, who seems determined to not do anything but firmly plant her face in his side like she was headbutting him at one point and just kind of decided she liked that position; he's not quite petting her, but the gesture is...sort of there, at least. The other hand is holding the camera out in front of him, and he seems more than steady enough today, even if the smile isn't looking quite...right.

Appearing on the network so soon after everything the last week has decided to be is probably a bad idea, or at least one in poor taste. He doesn't care.]

Ah, it's been a little while, hasn't it? I've missed speaking to you.

[...as...overfamiliar as ever, though, apparently.]

This place surprisingly isn't bad, once you get used to it! It still trends a little too close to parody for my liking, but c'est la vie – that's something you become accustomed to over time, and besides that it comes with almost enough perks to make this little excursion worthwhile.

That's assuming it's an excursion in the first place, though - and when I first arrived, I was under the impression that everyone was hoping that's all it was. But it seems that isn't the case...? As strange as I find it to do otherwise.

So tell me, amore, because I'm curious – if you want to stay, is there a particular reason for it? Even if your situation is terrible, it seems a bit too much like relying on escapism to want to just remain here forever, if you ask me.

Comments

[text]

[grapeeater]

[He's... honestly not sure how to work with facial expressions for this one, so he'll just... respond via text.]

Maybe it is escapism. But this place is a second chance for some people.

[video]

[awesmazings]

Well...I do miss home, but I've been here long enough that I've met a lot of people that I know I would miss, if I went back. But I guess that's not the only reason to want to stay, cause they could just as easily go home at any time too.

I wouldn't want to leave my Pokemon, either. Like, they're so smart, really...they're almost like people themselves, yaknow? Some of 'em you can even talk to just like I'm talking to you now. I'd hate to leave them behind...

And...sad as it is to say, for some folks this place is better than home. I dunno, I really don't think it's a bad thing for someone to want to stay because of that.

action;

[occultigen]

[Meridiana has noticed, of course, that Mr. Tsukiyama has been a little bit...scarce, lately, though admittedly she hadn't really dwelt much on the notion at the time. For one thing, the house was decidedly more peaceful and quiet than when Messieurs Tsukiyama and Banjou were doing battle with the IKEA, and for another thing, she'd largely had her hands full herself with her small army of adorable fluffy things, also a two-foot blue razzledino. And perhaps she'd lost track a bit of dear Tropius, but surely it wasn't as though the poor thing could go far through the house, much less make it all the way upstairs to potentially bother anyone.

Surely.

So suffice to say, it's a considerable shock when she's coming past the study and happens upon Mr. Tsukiyama spilling over the fainting couch with all the drapes pulled in the middle of the day, and all things considered the bit that clearly knocks her figuratively off-kilter about all this actually isn't the conclusion that something must clearly be very wrong with Mr. Tsukiyama; her brain actually never even makes it that far because she's permanently stalled out on the jarring disbelief of the firmly-held social conviction that men aren't supposed to faint.

Hence, the look on her face somehow manages to end up considerably less "call a doctor; something is terribly wrong" terrified and far more into the realm of "nothing about this situation is as it is supposed to be, and therefore what the actual shit".]

...Mister...Tsukiyama?

[Do you just have the world's most massive of hangovers right now because what the hell.]

[VIDEO - LOCKED]

[deaftly]

[Today's video comes from the standard windowless room Naki's usually in, the only difference is that this time he's sitting at a desk and is currently messing with that poor Ditto. It looks like he's in the very early stages of molding something, but it doesn't look like anything recognizable yet. The video is also locked today, for reasons Naki is about to reveal. (You should probably be proud that he remembered to lock it before starting in on you!)]

Okay, you know the last time I contacted you and asked what the fuck was wrong and you tried to play it off like you had no goddamn idea what I was talking about? Let's skip all that and cut straight to you telling me what the fuck's up. This isn't even "I think something's wrong with the Americano" this is legitimately "something is really fucking wrong" so tell me what it is.

[The words are harsh as usual, but they don't sound angry. The only other difference is that Naki is pointedly avoiding looking at the 'Gear, instead focusing on the Ditto (who is still making that c: face).]

[video]

[whitehairedprettyboy]

Ah, Mr. Tsukiyama. It has been a while. I trust you've been well. [ You certainly seem to have acquired a somewhat more decent fashion sense, he doesn't say - though maybe it only seems that way now that Cecil has unequivocally usurped the title of Worst Fashion in Johto. ]

As to your question... well. Not all of us have very much to look forward to, should we return home. Apart from the fact that I wasn't saddled with these silly creatures to look after, I can't think of one aspect of my life back home that was in any way preferable to my life here.

action;

[irenicly]

[Oh, for fuck's sake.

This is not what Banjou wanted to see coming home from buying groceries. Tsukiyama being out of his room isn't an improvement. If anything, he's worse off now than he was. Banjou's face twists and he has to force himself to calm down long enough to put away the groceries to prevent Tsukiyama from being hit in the face with a bag of frozen peas.

The brief calm of not being around Mr. Angst over here is short lived, however, as Banjou returns to stare at Tsukiyama. His fist is shaking, but he's not paying attention to it right now.]

What the hell is this?

[video]

[enjoymyatelier]

[...ah, it's this man. What disaster is he wearing this time?

...

he's glad he can't see the pants. As for the question...]

...Honestly, I'd love to leave at some point, but I have too many affairs to put in order before I do. Even if this place is silly, it's real, and I'm certain that anything I learn here would benefit me enormously back home.

....with that said, there's that pesky issue of not remembering anything when you do, which is really the worst part of it.

[video]

[defyingfrigidity]

[... Hm. The fact that Elsa even needs to think about this is somewhat... worrying.]

Honestly, a part of me would love to stay here. It's... it's nice, being treated as just another normal person. Making friends and not having any sort of serious obligations to fulfill.

But as much as I'd like to stay, I can't. I have duties and responsibilities back home I just can't abandon. It would be extremely selfish of me to do so.