S72 | mental link

[sistershoggoth]

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

TELEPATHY PERMISSIONS

Annie is a lot of things. She is not entirely just a human, her consciousness is also the consciousness of an alien planet: where she is life and death, growth and decay, all of nature and the ocean and all of the things that survive in those places. She's every rock down to its individual atoms. A casual observer is unlikely to get that far in their understanding of her, but those who get closest to her and end up sharing dreams with her will have a chance to understand this granularity of her other-ness. At a further distance, the inside of Annie feels very expansive, a large and lightless space which observes. There is always a sense like she is getting closer to you, a subtle invasion of privacy, space, autonomy. She doesn't do this on purpose, it's just what's in her. There's definitely a sense that she could swallow or drown you, in herself. The big black emptiness she feels inside is rarely in line with what she's presenting externally, it's very dissonant. It's worse when she's actively analyzing you. Better when she's totally dismissive of your existence. This is what lurks in the depths of Annie, but her human side is there. Her humanity is strained by the enormity of what she is secondarily aware of. She's not entirely sane, nor stable. Her mind is extremely active, and her imagination particularly vivid. She comes with a great deal of noise and color, which is a total smokescreen for keeping the more otherworldly aspects of herself in the periphery. This only kind of works, her other nature tends to expose itself regardless and her mental voice is not merely one voice, but all those voices coming together, which gives them a warbling, underwater like quality. She's a recovering, and often relapsed, addict and alcoholic. She is always trying not to feel something, and always wishing to not really be herself. The noise and color also tries to cover up this, she is always trying to ignore her own strain: pain, anxiety, sorrow. When she is drinking, much of the sensory onslaught of her is muted, a way of clouding herself: a murky swamp that she wallows in. When she is using... everything is amplified and she is particularly sprawling and out of control.

Comments

(frozen comment)

[somnifacient]

[To Noctis, these are two very different situations. A loud alien rock concert is decidedly not the same as having sex with another broodmate.]

(You realize that the rest of the brood could... feel that, right?)

[So. Awkward. And Noctis hasn't perfected the art of mental barriers, so one can only imagine how very real it was to him.]

(frozen comment)

[sistershoggoth]

( Ugh, so? Just give us a round of applause then. )

[ For Annie this is about as awkward as hearing your roommate doing it on the other side of a wall... Aka not at all. ]

(frozen comment)

[somnifacient]

(I'm not giving you a round of applause for scarring me for life.)

[It's an over-exaggeration, certainly, but it gets his overall point across.]

(Listen, it's not like I care if that's the kind of... "fun" you want to have with other people here. Next time, though, try not sharing with the entire class. How am I supposed to sleep now?)

(frozen comment)

[sistershoggoth]

( So flippin' rude. I'm a dream, ok. )

[ Except for being a tiny scar-riddled ooze machine with a semi-hostile alien presence in her head. ]

( And if you fuckin' quip back that 'yeah, a nightmare' I will personally come strangle you. )

(frozen comment)

[somnifacient]

[The 114th King of Lucis, in all of his eloquent grace, responds as a man fitting of his title should.]

(An. Actual. Nightmare.)

[He ain't scurred of you!!!]

(frozen comment)

[sistershoggoth]

[ She shows up in his doorway, a fresh compression bandage wound around her chest, hair plaited back neatly, barefoot in a pair of athletic leggings. They'd been in the showers anyway, why not clean up. It is literally the least trashy she has ever looked. ]

So what's up, you just mad that I took your princely psychic v-card?

[ She throws a candy bar at his head. ]

(frozen comment)

[somnifacient]

[He turns to face her, not at all surprised by her presence since he could literally feel her encroaching arrival.]

I'm not mad, I'm just- [A candy bar flies at his head, but Noctis catches it before it slams into his nose. He looks at it and-- No, he's not gonna get distracted by it right now. He drops his hand to his side.] -it's just really awkward. And kind of embarrassing. I'm going look at you two, and all I'm going to visualize is....

[Sex. Stuff.]

...you know.

(frozen comment)

[sistershoggoth]

[ She looks thoughtful for half a second as she comes to land on the bed beside him with a bounce. But then she turns on him with that mean grin of hers. ]

You're blushing. What, were you saving it for somebody?

[ Possibly that dead girl he's never going to marry. Sad trombone. ]

(frozen comment)

[somnifacient]

[oh my god annie]

That's- [None of your business? Not a line of conversation he wants to take right now? Way too embarrassing to talk about? Pick one, or all of the above.]

Not at all the point I was trying to make.

[He's not looking at her, pointedly just tearing into his candy bar now.]

(frozen comment)

[sistershoggoth]

Somebody's kissed you, right? You're not, like, totally a pure blushing princess, right?

[ This is payback. ]

(frozen comment)

[somnifacient]

[What did he do to deserve this?]

Sure. ...In school or whatever.

[Crinkle, crinkle, goes the candy bar wrapper. He balls up the torn paper in his free hand.]

Stop making this about me, though. Like I said, that's not the point.

(frozen comment)

[sistershoggoth]

If you don't wanna talk about your buddy manhandling the shit out of me, we're gonna have to talk about you.

[ That's not real logic, she just wanted to make sure she hammered it home for him one more time that she just had a whole bunch of fun. ]

I figured you'd have like private tutors and body guards to keep the fuckin' commoners from laying it on you.

[ She doesn't actually figure that, she is just forever fucking with him. ]

(frozen comment)

[somnifacient]

[As he takes a bite, he tosses the balled up wrapper at her. She definitely did not have to use the word "manhandling", ugh.]

I had those too. But my dad had me attend a school in the city.

Not that the "commoners" ever did stuff like that to begin with, you know. Mostly everyone just stayed away from me.

(frozen comment)

[sistershoggoth]

[ She lets the wrapper hit her, one eye squinting closed like it might actually hurt, but she's also cackling. ]

So who kissed you, huh? One of your guy friends on a dare? No judgment from me, I went to fuckin' girls school. I can still count on my hands how many dudes I've fucked.

[ Thanks for that, Annie. ]

Nyx is number eight.

(frozen comment)

[somnifacient]

Can we please stop talking about you and Nyx sleeping with each other? [It's said with exasperation, but even as he cries foul, Noctis moves to sit close to where she is, at the edge of his bed.]

But anyway... I don't remember. Some girl in high school. [He realizes that sounds questionable, so he makes an addendum.] I'm pretty sure someone dared them to do it.

[Which sounds... even worse, if one really took the time to think about it. And so he finds himself having to make yet another supplement to this.] I didn't really socialize very much, and I think a lot of my classmates were intimidated by me. [A sideways glance at her.] I bet you were popular type, though, weren't you?

[It's an assumption, and maybe he's wrong, but that's why he frames it as a question.]

(frozen comment)

[sistershoggoth]

[ She blinks at him. Popular? She contemplates that. ]

Nobody was fuckin' popular at the academy. We had to outdo each other, all the fuckin' time. I was a bully and a drunk. Maybe popular with the other fucked up girls, but everybody's funny when you're high.

[ She tilts her head at him, giving him a look of 'better topic than the sex, huh?' ]

(frozen comment)

[somnifacient]

[...No. Maybe not a better subject than the sex. But they're here now.]

That sounds... awful.

[He breaks off of a piece of his candy, awkwardly offering the little square to her.] Sorry for bringing it up.

(frozen comment)

[sistershoggoth]

[ She takes the piece of candy and shoves it in her mouth. ]

Better or worse than the lonely prince?

[ She's just making fun of him again. ]

So, long story short, lonely misspent youths.

[ So that they could grow up and sacrifice their lives for their worlds. Delightful. ]

(frozen comment)

[somnifacient]

[She might be making fun of him, and he certainly feels no offense (it's been so long since those days), but Noctis still wants to clarify.] It wasn't as bad as it sounds. I eventually made a friend. And the people who took care of me -- who trained me and tutored me -- ended up being like family too.

[He shrugs though. He can't complain about his youth. He doesn't want to; his father did his best with what he could work with.]

If it ever got lonely, I just told myself it could always be worse.

[The part about growing up and sacrificing themselves for their worlds, though? Yeah, there's no getting around that part.]

(frozen comment)

[sistershoggoth]

Oh my god, Noctis.

[ She complains noisily, flopping backwards, with a wuff. ]

Don't be so fuckin' good all the time, it's annoying.

(frozen comment)

[somnifacient]

[At first he just blinks in confusion, caught between being offended or being amused. He ends up settling somewhere in-between.]

What's that supposed to mean?

(frozen comment)

[sistershoggoth]

Ugh, just whine about how unfair it is, so I'm not the only one whining.

[ C'mon bro, let's whine together. ]

Or go back to complaining about how the very thought of my snatch gives you nightmares. Anything but your cute silver lining bullshit.

(frozen comment)

[somnifacient]

[Please don't talk about your snatch that way, Annie. Noctis is 100 percent unsure how to respond to that, so he chooses not to.]

Fine. My mom died when I was still a baby, and my father was too busy juggling a war to really have time to spend with me. Is that better?

(frozen comment) cw: kind of body horror?????

[sistershoggoth]

Definitely.

[ She kicks her feet, more than happy to play 21 miseries. ]

Urban legend has it I ripped my way out of my mom. Got kidnapped by alien bitch asap, she raised us to take over the planet 'til she got in this shitty fight with another alien and just trashed the place instead.

[ It's his turn again. ]

(frozen comment)

[somnifacient]

[He's not sure he can "win" this game, but he can certainly try.]

The man who could possibly be my great-great-great-times-a-hundred grandfather, or uncle, or something, manipulated me and my friends, killed my fiance, blinded my chamberlain, put me in a Crystal for ten years, and then tried to kill me.

[What a happy family!]