sticksandbones | But if all you give me is enough to fight it…

Who: Mizuki and... you!
What: Mizuki apologizing and some fluff before event drops-
When: After gardening
Where: Yes
Warnings: none yet

I. It's a mess I won't make anymore (Open; The Inn)

[ There's a note posted up on the wall of the inn in blue pen. It's neatly written at first, with curly handwriting, but it starts to wobble towards the end. ]

I don't know how to get everyone together, as these sorts of things aren't usually my forte. I suppose I could go to each of you individually, and it's what you all deserve, but I'm not an emotionally strong sort of person. For that alone, I'm sorry.

I want to apologize to those of you affected by the hallucinations of the flowers. I should've handed out antidotes to all of you before anything like this happened. I should've been more careful about the toxins. I should've done a lot of things.

I'm sorry.

- M

[ Mizuki will hole himself up in his room for a day or so after this. Apologizing… hard. Talking to people… hard. Hhh. Anxiety— ]

(Update: BB has thrown away this note. If you would have liked to reply before she did so, that's a-okay, of course, but just a heads up~.)

II. Like a thousand times before (Open; Wherever)

[ You may catch him in better spirits later, though. He's happily applying stickers to the doors of people he knows with some sort of association he has with them. He has a variety of them, so it's not hard to match colors or themes or whatever else he sets his little heart to.

His own door is smathered with blue stickers and ocean waves. He's also spelled out "M I Z U K I !" with blue stickers, too. Maybe you'll confront him mid-stickering your door or someone else's door? Maybe you saw the stickers and just sort of knew… ]

III. And in the times that I wish I was younger (Open; Wherever)

[ There's a jellyfish holding your hand! Where did he come from, he wasn't there a second ago— ]

If there are memories so bad that they can send you into miserable states just from being slightly reminded from them, do you think there are memories so good that they can do the opposite…?

[ Hey, what the fuck— ]

IV. With hunger to be somebody (Wildcard)
(hmu via PM or Discord if u wanna plot something out w/ me!!! I might get back on plurk… soon…)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[It's okay, Gnosis is also not good at emotions, luckily he's like 👍 to the note and then leaves it alone for a few days. And then suddenly when he's in his room there's a Mizuki holding his hand while he's at his desk and by Kjeragandr if you've ever wanted to see Every Feather He Has stand up in alarm, congratulations—]

A simple "hello" would suffice. [GOOD GOD] But to answer your question, yes, I believe that would be the case.

[ F… fluffy… He won't touch, that's not polite, but know that he's thinking REALLY hard about it. ]

Hello. [ Sorry, Mizuki's brain is not working at full for the moment. He's distracted by, you know, life. ]

On average, bad memories are harder to forget than good ones. I would even make the argument that… mmh… the "severity" of the good memory would still have to far outweigh that of a traumatic one. So then, what is the "scale"? And, furthermore, why are people predisposed to being miserable like that to begin with?

I don't understand…

[Lord he went to school not for psychology.]

Honestly, I don't know the psychological reasons behind people being predisposed toward misery. In general, my understanding is that the larger the event, the more it affects the psyche... I suppose it would have something to do with how trauma rewrites the brain's chemistry.

Rewrites it, huh… In that case, if there's a very large good event, then that should change things, too, right?

…

What would you consider "good", Mister Gnosis?

[What a loaded question...]

A good event, for me, would be seeing my hard work brought to fruition. I simply don't aspire for much else.

[Some 20-years-late validation for the fact that his parents did not murder Olafur and Elizabeth would be a good event for him, too, but that will never happen; Gnosis has stopped looking forward to the day they actually figured out what happened.]

I care about scientific progress and little else. [Factually untrue, but go off.]

Is that what makes you most happy…? Hm. I don't think that's something I could just give you, but I can certainly try my best.

[ Maybe going up and asking the Trader if she has anything akin to "scientific progress" might work…? It doesn't occur to him instantly that there's not really something to be given in that regard, but Mizuki's brain is basically only working at about 0.1% right now because all the noise is making it hard to do anything more. ]

Is it just progress or does… anomalies interest you?

[...hm.]

Anomalies interest me, yes. This place interests me from a scientific standpoint, for example, [vague gesture around them, he means the Grove as a whole,] though it's not a solvable issue right now. I've always enjoyed putting pieces together.

[Like he's trying to do now, with the photographs and all, though he's not getting anywhere with it.]

[ How about the beginnings of the Profound Silence and just how the Seaborns managed to do it? How about how the tides don't match what the pull of their moons should be, implying there's something off about them? How about the collapsals and the lengths all the governments go through to keep them out of common knowledge? How about the state of evolutionary progress within himself and how he can so quickly adapt to the area he's in if you give him enough time due to his Seaborn nature?

All things he needs to keep secret. All things he can't talk about. How sad, when he thinks it would make someone very happy to hear. All the same, Mizuki nods. ]

I can work with that, then. I'll be sure to make you happy, too, then, Mister Gnosis.

[Please do not tell the fucking horrible science bird about the fucking Collapsals. He and SilverAsh will scheme to break into the Columbian government just to get more information you know this—

Gnosis nods and thinks to himself, it's polite to return the offer of a favour... so.]

What is it, then, that makes you happy?

[Might as well get to know his coworker, right...]

[ Oh, he wasn't expecting Gnosis to return the question, actually? Especially because Mizuki is perhaps one of the happier people at Rhodes Island… He hums. ]

Well, a lot of things? I'm relatively easy to please, I think. I mean, even now, I'm happy. I like talking about philosophy and psychology with people, for example. That makes me happy. Um, I also like video games, and anime, and manga, and cooking, and helping people, and riding the world of evil and devouring people who seek to snuff out the innocent people who offer the world so much beauty, and talking with all the people at Rhodes Island, and holding people's hands.

[ All normal things, really. ]

Um… there's probably a lot more, actually, but I think that's all the ones at the top of my head, anyway.

But if all you give me is enough to fight it…

III

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