sticksandbones | [OPEN] a 32 year old man has a teenage-boy-style mental breakdown

Who: whoever wants to come watch flamebringer be sad ig
What: a bitch has canon updated
When: Partly before, partly after the Fammeet
Where: Grove/Neo Eden
Warnings: arknights politics (country ruler deaths, mentions of military shit), some misogynistic language thanks fb, homelessness, t. terrorism?? chapter 15 was rough y'all

i. closed to ezell (pre-fammeet)

[Flamebringer wakes up from a dream that lasts approximately three years but actually encompasses one overnight rest, and the first thing he notices is that his brain is quiet. Too quiet. When he tries to reach out for the Myriad Souls, even if they were somewhat distant here, they're just... gone.

Just like on Terra.

Fuck, Theresa really had done it, hadn't she? And that's fine and well, maybe now he'll calm the fuck down because his emotions won't be 67% influenced by a bunch of furious dead Sarkaz trapped in Originium, but the silence is fucking with him.

He wakes up too late, Ezell appears to be already awake, and Flamebringer slowly rolls out of bed and tries to think through it all. The Myriad Souls are gone, Theresa was finally put to rest. W goes by Wis'adel now. Vina rules Victoria. Theresis died and Kazdel is technically leaderless again (unless Manfred can fucking get it together, but Flamebringer isn't sure he wants Manfred ruling the country considering just how much trouble the General and Theresis had gotten Kazdel into in the first fucking place). He's pretty sure Hoederer was killed in action, not that he liked the guy much anyway — but the book he got Ezell that Hoederer wrote is going to haunt him now until he can confirm he either does or doesn't have some dead man's novel sitting on their bookshelf. Some psychotic bitch death-stared Kal'tsit out of existence and Mon3tr gained sentience and the landship is gone—

The landship is gone. Hundreds dead. And Flamebringer doesn't entirely know who.

He grits his teeth so hard that he feels the Oripathy crystals across his jaw pull at the skin, stomps out of bed, and proceeds into the bathroom to have the angriest shower of his life.

...

He goes to find Ezell in his Neo Eden apartment, after Flamebringer has finished bleaching an ombre into the ends of his hair in his own apartment bathroom, shirtless and thankfully wearing pyjama pants and carrying a piercing needle and a lot of body jewellery. Why he's having a teenage-boy style mental breakdown he doesn't know, but he needs to do something with his hands that isn't fight club for once. This is a marked improvement from usual.]

Hey. [Leaning in the doorway. Hi Ezell.] Can you do me a favour?

ii. closed to the AK cast (pre-fammeet)
my mod statement is i don't care if you playercest on this one since we're 3 people in a cast of 9 but if you do that you revoke your rights to use it for AC/BAC ok thanks

[Everyone is getting an ominous text message, but unfortunately Flamebringer only wants to talk to certain people, and any other messages about it will go ignored.]

hey rhodes islanders. we need to have a discussion NOW. meet me at the abandoned subway station, there's an issue.

[This is... ALL he sends RIP y'all's anxiety. The abandoned subway station is covered in graffiti, smells distantly like cigarette smoke and abandoned underground building musk, and Flamebringer is laying across one set of stairs while leaving the others completely open for foot traffic. He won't say anything until the others arrive, though, so if you got here early you get to watch him smoke. By this point he's fully finished dyeing his hair and piercing his entire face, so clearly it's bad...?

When everyone shows up, he finally picks himself up and stands against a nearby wall.]

What's the last thing any of you remember from back home?

iii. open - post fammeet, grove or neo eden

[Immediately after the meeting that SilverAsh calls, Flamebringer simply goes to touch grass. That's the best way to word this, anyway; he lays down in the grass at the Grove, or the fake astroturf styled grass at City Park, looking up at the sky and sort of just... sighing.

He misses Lena and the kids. He hopes Ingrid at least managed to grab Suzuran before the Landship blew up and left them all homeless. Maybe if he's lucky, everyone got out. All Flamebringer remembers is the sudden evacuation order before Originium shards started growing out of the ship, and he'd been so close to the helm of it that he wasn't given leave by the others to go back inside and see if he could grab anyone else. Realistically, between Misery and Logos, they probably dragged everyone they could out. Realistically, Lena and the kids are probably safe, but part of Flamebringer can't help but wonder anyway.

It's not like he has a means to call them.

And it's not like Kal'tsit made it out alive either.

As nice as it is for Siege... Vina, whatever her name is now, to offer Rhodes Island space, Flamebringer isn't sure he wants to be back in Victoria after the Kazdelian Sarkaz under Theresis destroyed a good chunk of it — he thinks the first tea-drinking snobbish Viccy who looks at him funny might get a fist in their eye. And last he knew, when those memories came surging back, they were headed to Laterano of all cities, where the Sarkaz are perhaps the most hated.

He's not having a good time.

Maybe he'll just stay in the Grove forever at this rate.

...

Complete and utter mental breakdown aside, if Flamebringer spots anyone else at all, he's going to sit up and pretend he's normal. Oh look at him he's polishing his sword he's so fucking normal right now wheeeee—]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Well this TOTALLY isn’t a super incredibly alarming message to receive or anything…

There being “an issue” could mean just about anything, though Sesa wrongly assumes it’s involving Mephisto, at first. Obviously he won’t voice that until they get there and actually see what Flamebringer has to say for himself, but…the anxiety welling up in his chest makes it difficult for him to think.

He’ll show up, of course. He’s with Elliot, because he wouldn’t have it any other way.]

To be honest…my last memories are rather uneventful? I was just…going about my usual work on the ship. Nothing particularly exciting going on.

[ Enciodes is also very alarmed, but he seems collected as he joins in with everyone. ]

Gnosis remembers more than I do, personally. Though, he has told me we had a bit of a scuff with Victoria. So take that as you will.

[The face Flamebringer makes when Sesa says "I was working on the ship" girl you might be DEAD—]

Everyone gets in a fucking scruff with Victoria these days.

[Well... hopefully not anymore, but. Ugh, fuck, okay, where does he begin?]

I don't know where to start. [Mizuki obviously lives on the landship. Gnosis and Enciodes don't, for a blessing. Passenger and Sesa do. Thorns apparently went out to sea, but he knows for a fact he saw Elysium walking around the landship days before the attack, so that might upset that guy. And thank fucking god Ezell was off to Kazdel...] You guys know about the war between Kazdel and Victoria, and Victoria and the Tarans and Dublinn?

[Surely they have to, because REED'S FUCKASS SISTER joined Rhodes and he cANNOT get over this fact.]

That whole fucking mess that's been going on. [...] I got some new memories, I guess. Guess I didn't remember as much as I thought when I originally came here.

Good news first: Theresa disbanded the Myriad Souls, so my head's finally quiet. And Siege — Vina, whatever her name is — took the throne in Victoria, so the war's stopped. [He gestures to Enciodes with a flat hand.] Might be good for you, since Victoria will stop trying to annex Kjerag under her rule. ...and W goes by Wis'adel now. Sarkaz name shit, just roll with it. I think little Amiya finally has the proper title of Lord of Fiends, but that kid's too young to rule.

[He is COMPLETELY glossing over the fact that the whole Theresa issue was initially started by the Doctor, something he's known for years now... he's just keeping his mouth shut. It's not worth getting into the weeds about. Still...]

...as for the bad news... well, here, let's start with the good-bad news: Theresis is dead, and don't get me wrong, he needed to die, but that leaves Kazdel in the hands of General fucking Manfred. [Surely Ascalon is thrilled. Or maybe she's found it in her heart to forgive him; it's not Flamebringer's business.] So, for now, we're yet again leaderless. I'm pissed about that.

...bad-bad news: Hoederer might be dead, I don't have the knowledge to confirm or not. Worse news... [He glances at Mizuki and sucks in a breath through his teeth,] ...Kal'tsit's dead, and Mon3tr has gained some amount of sentience.

...

And the landship blew up. We're talking hundreds dead, hundreds more gravely injured. And no, I don't know who made it out alive other than the Elite Operators, myself, Amiya, and the Doctor.

[This is the part that, through everything, hurts the worst.]

[Following Flamebringer’s tale, there is…a suffocating silence that follows. Nobody says a fucking word, to the point where you could hear a pin drop. The color has slightly drained from Sesa’s face as he struggles to process what he’s just heard. There is…So much to unpack here, between Theresa, Theresis, the whole fucking status of Kazdel…

But more than anything. Kal’tsit…Sesa immediately looks to Mizuki, the concern etched into his features. And then, of course, there’s the revelation of the landship. That is what has Sesa really mired in his silence, leaning towards Elliot a little more suddenly.]

I…

[He’s speechless, for once.]

Yeah. I fucking know. How do you think I felt, living it, and waking up back here?

[Did he really leave at all? Sources say no, these are all memories he got back, but three years of memories have caused a massive migraine. In that timeline, there's no "him and Ezell". There was just Flamebringer pinning him to the wall, and that's... all. That's the only thing that happened. Ezell went off to Kazdel, and Flamebringer just... continued to Be Himself.]

We're headed off to Victoria, which is the last place I as a Sarkaz want to be. I already had to deal with Rockrock saying slurs the second she came aboard, and she at least got over herself. Can't say the same for the rest of the people there, and I don't fucking blame them. Doesn't make me willing to deal with it. And I think, before I woke up from whatever this dream was, that we were going to head to Laterano too. Shitty day to be a Sarkaz, I guess.

This isn't about me, though. We just lost a lot, collectively. Thought I'd let you guys know... maybe if you get memories back, you'll be less shocked.

[Sesa honestly, genuinely, can't imagine it. Yet...knowing what he knows now, he feels sick to his stomach. Uncertain. Afraid, even, despite being worlds away from the Terra he currently knows.

He has to just...sit there, bringing a hand up to rub at the space between his eyes, just at the bridge of his nose.]

No, it...it's alright. It's as bad, if not worse, for you...given your situation, and the fact you just had to live it. Thank you for telling us Flamebringer, genuinely.

I'm...honestly unsure what to think. It's all a...b-bit of a shock, understandably....

It's fucking insane is what it is. Didn't know how else to deliver the news other than to do it like this.

[Ezell got the news ahead of time due to Flamebringer shoving like, ten thousand piercings into his face and having a clear breakdown. That's not the best way to deliver news. Nor is this, but it's at least better than what Ezell got.]

Maybe Siege will fix shit in Victoria, I dunno. [It's the last comfort he has.] Maybe the Doctor and Mon3tr will kill that fucking lady that killed Kal'tsit, too.

[Somehow. Maybe.]

No doubt that the Doctor is already planning something as we speak.

[But even they couldn't have been prepared for this kind of devastation. Sesa is still having trouble conceptualizing it...much less accepting the very real possibility now that he might actually just.

Be dead, back home. He has no way of knowing if he was on the ship or not, and Elliot...

...

He finds himself leaning a little closer to the Liberi, subconsciously.]

Is...there anything we can do? You're the one who just recently had to live this, after all...

[OPEN] a 32 year old man has a teenage-boy-style mental breakdown

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