gocirclegogo | I'M NORMALLLLL PLEASE DATE MEEEEE

I'M NORMALLLLL PLEASE DATE MEEEEE

[SUCH A WONDERFUL DAY! Full of snowbanks and sunshine and ~ROMANCE~. Victorian gents wander around with their ladies. Victorian hobos holler at prostitutes for discounts. Forgetful idiots swarm flower shops for last-minute attempts at getting flowers before they go home and get murdered by their wives.

IT'S VALENTINE'S DAY, YOU BASTARDS! Spam your fellow taggers! Play hard to get and stop responding to everyone but your personal favorite! Sob and eat ice cream while watching your inbox stay empty! CELEBRATE WITH ALL OF YOUR SPIRIT!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

「YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME?」

[And her father gets the full force of the presence it's taken Michi how much time to barely tolerate. Tossing a blood-stained screw in one hand that's appeared from nowhere. The maids are still pinned in place - it's not one of theirs.]

「CALLING SOMEONE A LIAR IS CRUEL, DON'T YOU THINK? JUST LIKE IT'S CRUEL TO IGNORE YOUR DAUGHTER AND PRETEND YOU LOVE HER. BUT YOU CAN BE HAPPY NOW! SHE WENT TO SLEEP STILL THINKING YOU LOVED HER. WAS YOUR WIFE AS LUCKY?」

[He sighs, then scoffs, and frowns just ever so slightly -- if it weren't Kumagawa I probably wouldn't point it out. The heart in his throat pounds heavy, like the bass in a dubstep song. I don't feel like making a more culturally relevant simile so you're just going to have to deal. Inaudibly, he chokes on the heart -- it gets back down with some work, but there's nowhere for it to fall. His stomach's already dropped.

In the land of literal speech, he adjusts his tie slightly, once, twice, three times. It's a clear nervous gesture. His knees buckle a bit beneath Kumagawa's presence, but. She doesn't get that recovery speed just from her mother. He never actually goes down.]

My wife's not dead and neither is she. How do you know her? What do you know about her?

I'm not ignoring her. All this is for her.

「I NEVER SAID YOUR WIFE WAS DEAD.」

[That moment afterward where he stands and tosses his screw can mean any number of things. That silence implies that Michi's still dead. It also implies he knows what happened to his wife.

But that weakness left in the open is wonderful, like blood in the water, like the warping undertone in house techno, and every single small motion is noted. Highlighted. Organized by what's a better path to aim at, which one works faster, the best combination of buttons to make the system overheat.

The ones that keep order are the easiest once. Even their buttons are in a lovely line of despair.]

「I'M THE ONE WHO PROMISED TO SHOW MICHI-CHAN A WORLD THAT LOVES HER. DO YOU SEE THAT WORDING? THAT MEANS YOU HAVEN'T DONE IT! MAYBE YOUR ACTIONS ARE FOR HER! BUT DOES SHE KNOW THAT? YOU'VE MASTERED THE ART OF TERRIBLE FATHERS! DID YOU LEARN UNDER MINE?」

「AH, BUT IT'S POINTLESS. TRYING TO SPEAK TO A DEAF MAN IS JUST A WASTE OF TIME.」

[And then he laughs, shaky, low like... I don't even know how to keep the similes going. Tom Waits vocals? It took him a bit, but he's realized he's started to show too much, so he tries to rein it in -- but there's only so much you can do with a dead daughter and some shitty brat pointing out all of your insecurities.

But it's fine. Shut the feelings off.

He's looking around the room for something -]

I'm listening.

[Shaky like a faulty amp connection? Opera vocalists singing to high? My tolerance for the theremin?

Okay let's drop the metaphor.

Shut off your feelings all you want Daddy, he's looking. Looking for weapons or for escape, but it doesn't matter which. Because it means he broke eye contact. And when he looks back, the monster has started to move. Walking in a casual, but slow, circle around him. It's only when he's on the opposite side can you realize he's getting closer.

It's completely casual, but his aura means you are entirely and 100% convinced he is hunting you, and it's only a matter of time until that feeling chokes out the world. It's already starting to.]

「BUT ARE YOU REALLY? YOU SAY YOU LISTEN, BUT YOU DON'T HEAR ANYTHING. YOU SAY YOU CARE FOR YOUR DAUGHTER, BUT DO YOU REALLY UNDERSTAND HER? YOU PRETEND YOU FEEL NOTHING, BUT YOUR HEART'S BREAKING. ISN'T IT? SAY... IF YOUR HEART REALLY DOESN'T FEEL ANYTHING, I HAVE A QUESTION! I SEEM TO BE A SLAVE TO A WOMAN I LOVE, HA HA! SO, HOW DOES IT FEEL TO KNOW THE WOMAN YOU LOVED NEVER CARED FOR YOU AT ALL. I WANT TO SEE IF WE FEEL THE SAME WAY.」

[I like the amp connection one, but it's dropped.

He doesn't reply at first. A normal, paranoid and handsome Victorian man would probably keep a gun on his person. Those exist and they are useful and he doesn't not own one -- but guns are for human enemies. Not monsters.

So instead he looks away a second time, cursing himself in so many different languages, and grabs a sledgehammer.

You might ask what it's doing outside the toolshed or how the foppiest fop that ever left the house in a shit mood because he chipped a nail opening the door managed to pick it up so easily, but it's really better left unsaid. Despite the way he feels -- he's pissed he's terrified his heart aches for his daughter and the only woman he ever loved -- he keeps his calm expression.

Even that habit comes from somewhere.]

I already knew.

[And he swings, trying to sweep his legs out from under him. Only, you know. It's a sledgehammer, so.]

[The oddest part, really, is that he gets hit. Bones smash like toothpicks and there's no monster coming from his shadow, or claws from behind him tearing him apart, or that black acid in the air becoming physical rather than emotional.

He smashed the legs of a teenager. Good job.

Okay no. I lied. The oddest part is that he gets up. That presence actually is physical now, and it's enough to make a soul collapse on itself just from that alone. But it's not alone. The movements are slow and jerky, like a puppet on broken strings, and that metaphor keeps working because the movements are wrong. Broken legs can't be stood on. Spines don't bend that way. Eyes aren't supposed to have things writhing in them.]

「HA HA HA! OF COURSE YOU KNOW! WHAT I'M ASKING IS IF YOU UNDERSTAND. THINK, YOU STUPID MAN! THIS IS WHAT I MEAN BY LISTENING? ARE YOU CAPABLE OF HEARING WORDS OR IS YOUR ONLY TALENT BREAKING EVERYONE YOU TOUCH!」

I knew, I understood, she never loved me. I made a mistake.

[He's making a mistake. Murder is illegal. That was only applied to humans, though, and no human ever made him feel that way. The writer would point out the lack of romantic intent in this section of the thread. She's just leaving the line unchanged because she can. It's not murder if it's not a human, just this thing that, down to his very core, honestly and truthfully terrifies him. He'd admit that.

But it's still wrong, isn't it? Just as wrong as this boy is.

Oh well. Swing, batter, swing.]

[Congratulations, Michipapa, you just killed a teenage boy. That feeling's still there like he's done something terrible and that presence remains about to rip him apart. Reality itself might've warped there.

But it gets cut off with the flash of a teenage girl's smile that feels more like the boy's he just killed, but the presence vanishes right after. It's almost like he never destroyed a monster.

It's like he killed a teenager. And now he can have fun finding a really confused and unharmed daughter in the shed and realizing he really did only kill a single teenager.

PS: The maids are just pinned through their clothes. Totes unharmed. Gj daddy.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'M NORMALLLLL PLEASE DATE MEEEEE

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject