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 Posted: Sat Oct 15, 2022 8:58 pm
Quote: The Leaves (6) : With the changing seasons, there are piles of leaves all around Destiny City. It’s a difficult job to try and keep up with them all, and sometimes the allure of these leaf piles is impossible to ignore. Who doesn’t want to relive the childish joys of their youth? And no one’s around to see, right? So why not jump into a pile of leaves? Oh–because, when you do, you jump through one pile and come out of another somewhere else across the city. The leaves all seem ordinary, but there’s a few odd seconds between when you jump into the leaves and when you jump out; it feels like falling, tumbling, somersaulting through the air. It’s not scary, just odd. You see walls of leaves–brown and orange and yellow and red–and they crunch magnificently. Overall, it doesn’t seem menacing, just a bit of trickster fun. If you try to jump in a pile of leaves again, you might wind up somewhere else entirely–or right back where you started. Gilbert... was having an interesting night. That was for sure. He'd finished his later-than-usual shift at the graveyard (funnily enough, not a literal graveyard shift in the sense of the time it took place in, just... literal in that that is where he actually worked). Everything had seemed clear—which was good, because so many people (mostly teenagers) had such disgusting disrespect for the lands made for the dead around this time of year. There was more foot traffic during the day, too, like that did anything for whatever "magic" they wanted to cast or whatever was going through their tiny little brains. He sighed, looking at the leaves he'd raked up and then decided—well, he might as well have a little childish fun, right? The harmless kind. He looked up to the sky as it darkened, spread his arms, and pitched backwards into the pile with a laugh. The leaves covered him completely within seconds, the pile he'd raked being large, and he felt like he was falling for a long time. Then he sat up in a completely different place, once he decided to get out of the pile. "This isn't the..." He blinked at the older man sitting nearby, leaves sticking every which way out of his hair and surely his clothes, and crawled the rest of the way out without shaking them off. "Uh... Where are we, in the city?"
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Posted: Sat Oct 15, 2022 10:46 pm
Parks around Destiny City were a dime a dozen, it seemed, and so much the better for Líanlí. True, one park might have housed far too many people posing too many risks of getting a citation for creating a public nuisance, or busking without a permit, or whatever nonsense some Johnny Five-Oh pulled out of his a** to justify writing up a ticket so he could meet quota. Regardless, though, there was always another park that would have plenty of open spaces, relatively unpopulated, where Líanlí could make sit out in the fresh air, play some music, and think things over without getting random money shoved at him.
(In theory, Líanlí didn’t object to random people giving him money like this. After all, every regular who supported him on Patreon or tipped him for his work on Venmo or CashApp had, at one point, been some random person who’d listened to one or another of his songs—or maybe seen him doing something ridiculous on TikTok—and decided “You know what? I think I want to give this weirdo money. Shine on, you crazy diamond.”
What he minded, in the case of people doing it out in the park, was the assumption that sitting under an elm tree and playing his dizi automatically made him a busker, which in turn meant they could make themselves feel better by giving him money with no regard for the actual circumstances, much less how they could potentially get him into trouble by trying so hard to be helpful.)
Distinctly not on the list of things Líanlí minded—though quite high on the list of things he did not see every day—was a cute little blonde popping up out of a pile of fallen leaves like a daisy. Tilting his head and lowering his flute (vibrant red, with a hand-painted design of black lotus blossoms), Líanlí considered that question.… A lot of potential things it could’ve meant, the poor guy not knowing where they were.… Not all of those things particularly pleasant, either.…
“North-End Park,” Líanlí told the newcomer with a shrug, and gestured down the path a bit, at the bench where one of the many Destiny City Inexplicables would show up sooner or later. “Home to, among other things, a pretty boy with blue hair who likes to sit ‘round about that bench over there, and makes lovely, but funereal-looking, flowers grow wherever he walks.… Not that he’s here at the moment, but it’s getting late enough. He might show soon—or maybe he won’t. Who knows?”
Certainly not Líanlí. He called the odd, magical folk rumored about town “Destiny City Inexplicables” for a reason—namely: he couldn’t explain them for the life of him. Still, he gave the person in the leaves a smile and patted the ground beside him, hoping the invitation to join him came across alright.
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Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2022 8:37 pm
Gilbert blinked. North End Park?! That was... on the complete opposite end of town from where he'd been, or near enough. Certainly far enough now that he'd probably want to Uber home instead of walk, like he usually did. Gingerly, he smiled at the guy and sat down next to him. "You've seen the magical s**t too, huh? And you don't try to say it's just 'strange lights' and 'eyes playing tricks' or 'inhaled gas'?" he asked, head tilted curiously. So many people just... wrote things off. Despite them happening every day, to all kinds of people all over the city.
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Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2022 8:52 pm
“Mn,” Líanlí said with another nod, raising his dizi to his lips once more. Probably not the most polite thing to do, strictly speaking, but he kept it brief. A quick series of notes—sprightly, but in a minor key to better fit the spirit of Halloween Season. The musical equivalent of fussing with a good luck talisman or checking your phone just to do something with your hands.
Mind sufficiently cleared, though (at least for the moment), Líanlí crossed one of his black skinny-jeaned legs over the other and smoothed out the pleats in his black-and-purple plaid skirt. “Isn’t it so annoying when people try to pull that on you? As if none of us can see—like, just six weeks ago, there were those gray spots all over the parks in town. All kinds of other plant life got hit with them, too. So, the building where I live has a community garden on the roof, right? One of the nice aunties on my floor was devastated at what that weird invasion of gray did to the tomatoes she worked so hard to grow. Everybody sees this s**t happening. It’s all over the news. But then, abruptly, start of last month?”
Lianli mimed something akin to an explosion, curling his free hand into a fist, letting his fingers burst free, and then waggling them at nothing. “Poof. Gray spots all gone. Plants come back—within reason, I guess. And everybody moves on like nothing even happened. Like we’re all supposed to listen to the same rational, scientific explanations that work everywhere else when……we do not seem to be dealing with either science or reason?”
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Posted: Tue Oct 18, 2022 10:15 pm
Gilbert nodded enthusiastically, slapping his thighs. "Yes! Exactly! Do you have any idea how many people I dealt with who were devastated over their parents, or grandparents, or someone's graves suddenly having all the grass and the flowers planted sucked dry? I had no explanation, and I completely get their upset! And then, boom, once it's all back to normal, nothing to worry about, right?" He threw his hands up in the air. "It's insanity! ********, it feels good to talk to someone who actually cares. Sorry." He deflated, calming down with a sigh. "Anyway, uh. I was literally just at work in the cemetery over on uhh 53rd, so. Being in North End Park is a surprise. I was just jumping in leaves for fun, I'm falling for wayyyy too long, and then poof, there's a cute boy with a flute in a park that I definitely wasn't anywhere near about three seconds ago." They smiled awkwardly as they realized their mouth had just run without their permission, but the city was pretty queer friendly, so he didn't expect the other person to go nuts, at least.
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Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2022 12:56 pm
Líanlí smiled, and almost immediately felt like a little bit of a heel for doing so. Could’ve come off the wrong way, he thought, getting so smiley when there was such a serious discussion to be had, all about the magic and general weirdness that tended to run amok in this town.…… Never mind the way that this poor lad over here had gotten his work all messed up by the weird invasion of gray. “That’s awful,” he agreed, holding out a hand, but stopping just shy of gently patting the boy on his back. Better to wait for permission or a lack thereof. “Both that they had graves of loved ones desecrated like that, and that you had to be the one to answer for it.”
Shaking his head, Líanlí sighed. “Worst part of it all is, I don’t even think it’s that nobody cares? The Destiny City Inexplicables all running around? You know, the magical people with the improbably fancy outfits? Some of them glow, others have weird trinkets or weapons, a lot of them jump down into dark alleys when you’ve got some weird heebie-jeebies and yell at you to run without telling you what for or from which? They all generally seem to care, for better or for worse. But it’s like there’s all so much going on, all the time, always, that even having magic or whatever they’ve got, what can they even do?” Doesn’t make things better that they send everyone else away, either. You’d think they’d want the help…… “Nothing like this ever used to happen when I was a kid.”
Strictly speaking, Líanlí could have amended that statement with the clarification “back in Massachusetts,” but that didn’t seem particularly important. What did seem important was giving the cute blonde a smile. “D’you have a name, fellow noticer of weird phenomena?”
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Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2022 7:37 pm
Gilbert nodded, leaning back into the hand that didn't quite touch his back. "It was terrifying. I couldn't figure out what to do to. I'm one of the groundskeepers, it's my job to keep it looking nice." He sighed, shaking his head. "Mm. When I was younger, I... Those people..." He shook his head again. He really shouldn't just dump that on a guy he just met, fellow noticer of weird phenomena or not. "Name's Gilbert. And yourself?"
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Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2023 6:36 pm
Patting the blonde’s shoulder, Líanlí nodded—more in understanding than anything else. Even if he hadn’t been through any exactly comparable experiences, he knew all too well what it was like, terror over some s**t that wasn’t your fault. The fear of waiting for someone else to punish you for something you hadn’t done just because no one else had emerged to be deemed “responsible” for it.
And it didn’t feel like being dumped on, but he also didn’t push when the blonde decided to stop talking, only patted him on the back again.
“Líanlí,” he offered, because it was just polite to meet a decent introduction with the same energy (and he had no desire to be rude to this poor kid who’d gotten sucked up into one of the myriad Weird Occurrences that ran amok in this town). “You gonna be okay, after all this today? D’you need help getting back home or to work or anything?”
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Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2023 8:52 pm
"Lianli," he repeated, nodding to himself. "I, uh. I think I'll be fine, I can call an Uber, or something. Nothing else for it, really. Thank you, though." He paused, then smiled widely. "Nice to meet someone who isn't insane. See you 'round, man."
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