citynet | text post; un: peerless

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svsss: shen yuan

text post; un: peerless_cucumber

Has anyone been cateloguing the mood-altering effects of the ice cream?

I do not think all of the flavors we've been offered can alter the eater's mental state, but unfortunately it seems the rainbow sherbet induces

[Fuuuuuck he can't even type it out without wanting to spit up blood...]

amorous effects. I've also observed that the chocolate makes people weepy.

If anyone else has observed or experienced an additional effect, or if you have information that contradicts my own conclusions, please leave it in a comment on this post. It would be well to have a central list, so people can more easily avoid ~~getting roofied and making out in public with their best friend~~ unwanted disruptions to their day.

[OOC: People are also welcome to have seen Shen Yuan making out with "Liu Feiyu" in the park and comment on it, though such interactions will inevitably carry a content warning for internalized homophobia on Shen Yuan's end!]

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Of course the ice cream drives people batty. Of course. Dunno why I expected otherwise.

Oh thank heavens, someone responded. I need to tell you something of VITAL importance! This can't be suppressed anymore, the people absolutely have to know!!!

Well, don't hold back on my account.

I

[oops, he hit enter too soon out of all the excitement!]

I have REALLY shitty taste in literature.

Just SHOCKINGLY bad for someone of my social class and educational level. HORRENDOUSLY BAD. I read the worst kind of low-brow, anatomically improbable, badly-paced poorly-written, lowest-common-denominator crap --

AND I LIKE IT.

[Guess who didn't learn their lesson, and got into the strawberry~~]

Right.

So would this be an effect of the ice cream, or were you just naturally going to pop if you didn't tell someone you like barely legible pornography.

I just wanted to see what the other effects were

Nobody was reporting in, but I didn't want people to be caught unawares and it's been NEARLY FOUR YEARS since I got to eat any ice cream, since I transmigrated into an unbelieavably shitty amateur porn novel where it doesn't EXIST!

I DIDN'T EVEN MANAGE TO GET LAID WHILE I WAS THERE, SIR!!! SEX POLLEN AND HEAVING BOSOMS GALORE, AND I DIDN'T EVEN SEE A SINGLE TITTY! HOW PATHETIC CAN ONE PERSON BE???

Anyway anyone who values their dignity should stay away from the strawberry, that's the pink-stuff with little red fruity bits for anyone who doesn't already know.

You would not fucking BELIEVE how much money I spent on shitty webnovels in my first life, it's a good thing my parents were rich or we'd have been out on the street for how much money I wasted sieving through piles of dreck for one good description of an original creature that wasn't a rip off from Final Fantasy!!!

Right, okay, you got transported into a book, but it was a terrible book about heaving bosoms that you didn't actually see.

What's a final fantasy, then?

Oh it was SO shitty, landmines and dropped plot threads galore! The only worthwhile thing about it was the protagonist, and even he only existed to be an authorial punching bag and a coathanger for internet-bound incels to hang their vicarious fantasies of banging all the hot chicks they could never approach in real life.

I hated it so much, and yet I just couldn't stop reading...And then it killed me and I wound up transmigrating into the plot! If the author ever shows up here I'm going to earn myself a permanent set of shiny handcuffs due to my completely irresistable need to throttle him and/or beat his head in with a very large stick. How that's for a heavenly pillar, Airplane??

[Wow Shen Yuan, you need to calm down a little. You're going to frighten Binghe.]

Anyway. Final Fantasy is a video game franchise from my native world. The production company was on the brink of backruptcy back in the...80s? I think that's right, but it's not like I can look it up. But they poured their remaining funds into one final game, a sort of last hurrah, if you will. And since it was an adventure story set in a fantasy world they called it Final Fantasy, because they really thought it was the last game they'd ever get to make.

And then it turned into a smash hit and sold for millions of dollars, so they went ahead and spent the next thirty years making like fifty more games under that title. It's all very ironic.

A book. Killed you.

I mean, there are stranger ways to go, I'm sure.

You sure your adventures in Wonderland weren't a concussion induced fever-dream?

Afraid I never much got into video games outside of ruining the economies in mobile games. You know the ones with the pretty pictures which are basically casinos with the serial numbers filed off?

If you absolutely MUST bite my style for pedantry, then TECHNICALLY I died of food poisoning while I was too busy ripping the book's ending to shreds online to call the hospital.

It turns out that while rage-vomiting might be a real thing people can do, doing it that much in the span of only a few hours is more likely to be an indicator of a more serious problem. And this, children and random thread-stalkers, is why you should always keep careful track of the expiration dates on your refrigerated goods and the age of your leftovers, especially if they contain cooked rice or dairy. Don't be like me, it's a thoroughly unpleasant way to go.

You played gatcha games, though? I never really got into those, too busy reading and verbally eviscerating shitty erotica online. How does one go about "ruining" their economy?

If they're in the fridge, how come they expire? Aren't refrigerators supposed to keep things fresh?

I don't really play, no. Not the way they're intended anyway. And I couldn't tell you, it's a trade secret. Can't have people coming in spoiling my fun.

Well aren't you deliberately mysterious. That's hardly fair is it, when I've been spilling my guts to you for the last twenty minutes? Even if it was only metaphorically, thank goodness for that >_>;

But YES, food will eventually expire in the refrigerator! The cool air only slows down bacterial replication, it doesn't stop it completely! Didn't they cover that in your grade school health and safety class, and then again in middle school and high school?? This is supposed to be very basic information, that's why it's so embarassing to me personally.

Don't worry, not about to go sharing your secrets. Your doing enough of that yourself.

What makes you think I've ever been to a single health and safety class? Besides, biology wasn't my department.

Popping your clogs because you didn't realize you were sick because you were too busy ranting about how bad a novel was is middling levels of embarrassing. At least you were passionate about something. Let me say it could always have been worse.

[He is in this picture and fucking hates it, thanks.]

yeah don't eat the chocolate. tastes great, but your mood's terrible and you'll say a few things you'll regret, probably.

"You'll say a few things you'll regret" could apply to several flavors on offer, it seems.

I would steer clear of the strawberry and rocky road as well, if you value your dignity.

honestly i'm not sure how much dignity i have at this point. but, every single time i think i hit rock bottom i discover new and exciting ways to drain a few inches from that well, so maybe i've got more dignity to lose?

what's up with those two?

Part of me feels like I should be happy that it's not just me publically embarrassing myself, but...honestly it just pisses me off :/c Just when you're starting to get used to this place, they pull something like this and knock us off-balance all over again. Pisses me off.

[You can tell he's really mad because he's dropping the loftly formality schtick.]

It seems like the strawberry makes you confess an embarrassing secret, while the rocky road makes you say the opposite of whatever you really think? Only it's not the exact opposite, it's more like you just have to try your hardest to persuade someone that you hold whatever opinion is the most opposite to your real feelings. I think that was the effect, anyway. I only have a single data point right now, so if more people report in maybe it will become more clear.

my roommate had one which made him really mad. he said and did a few things he also regrets, so it's not just you or me. if he doesn't beat me to it i'll see if i can get the flavor from him.

maybe that's why we're here. whatever's running this city got bored and needs something to watch, so it picked a bunch of random people and set us loose to see what happens.

That's my theory as well. This is all entertainment for some kind of all-powerful cosmic sadist.

Ugh. Not much we can do about it, if that's the case. Thank you for the information; if you can get the flavor from your roommate, that'd be great. Hope you're both doing okay.

neither of us died so it's not like the worst thing happened. all's well that ends well?

so here's a question. let's say you're right and we're just entertainment for some all-powerful cosmic sadist. what do you think they'd be like? not asking seriously, just for fun.

Hm...all the answers that spring to mind are things I hope they're not. I hope they're not some kind of computer program, I think one of those would be harder to bargain with than an organic being. Not impossible, of course [He managed it with a System a couple times, after all] but trickier.

I think they're probably capricious and arrogant, to have pulled so many people with here with so little regard for our opinion in the matter. But they also know something about humans, to have imitated a human city so accurately and set us up to live so comfortably. But our comfort is only one of their priorities, else why would they put things in this city that torment us?

I'm sorry, that's not a very fun answer. I'm afraid I have a hard time distancing myself enough from the question that I can think about it unseriously. Perhaps they all very, very small, and have been sharing this city with us the entire time? Like the mice from Hitchhiker's Guide, only presumably less cute.

[What's a hitchhiker's guide? Can computer programs really do this all, all Sylvain knows is Minesweeper and the various devices in the city, he comes from a land that uses horses and candles to light up rooms, what the heck is this, what the heck is that. This city is normal to this guy? Is he the only one who finds it profoundly off? (Well, besides Dimitri.)

So many questions. Unsure how much weakness he's willing to reveal over the network. This is the vibe.

This is the vibe, and, once again, it's on loop in his head.]

it's fine if it's not fun. nothing you need to apologize for. i spent an while sobbing because i ate too much chocolate so this is more fun than that.

this place is comfortable to you, huh? i mean, besides the horrors and the murders that happened last month.

[Dipping his toes in, so to speak.]

That's really too bad, though. I hope you've drank some water since then, crying can be very dehydrating.

[This man is a career fusser and if he even get a HINT that Dimitri needs looking after he will take the job without bothering to ask if anyone else is doing it first.]

But yes, aside from those...it's obvious to me that our captors were using, if not my native world, then one like it for a template. There aren't any distinct landmarks that I could point to and say, "this is definitely London," or "this is definitely New York," but the food, clothing, and housing units we've been given still look like a modern city from my world, probably somewhere in the Anglosphere.

Which probably doesn't mean anything to you if you came from a world that doesn't share those cultural touchstones, I apologize. XD;

[What the fuck is an XD;.........it's fine, it's cool, he can handle this, if he doesn't figure it out in this conversation (or cave and ask) he can force Dimitri to help him figure out what an XD; is. Is it an acronym. Should they pronounce it?]

no it's okay even back home i didn't get much chance to get out of the country.

[Actually? Now he thinks about it?]

actually i guess that's kinda a lie. i grew up on the border but the people on the other side of the border didn't exactly get along with my family so it wasn't like i could sight-see and enjoy myself.

point being: a lot of this is new to me and i couldn't get out much. you're teaching me something new and that's nothing to apologize for, at least if you ask me.

That's a good attitude to have! Still, it should have occurred to me that not everyone would be as comfortable here as I am; my own roommate came from a different world, although he adjusted so quickly to using the phones and the appliances in our apartment that I suppose I just forgot. I regret being so glib.

Still! I'd be happy to answer any questions that you have about the technology or architecture, especially if it will help you live here less uncomfortably. And maybe in exchange you could tell me a bit about your world? Well, exchange isn't really the right word, I'd help anyway. I'm just really curious about all the places everyone here came from..

dunno what to really say about home. faerghus is where i'm from, and it's a half-frozen stretch of dirt but it's also my half-frozen stretch of dirt. it's cold, it's desolate, the food sucks compared to here, and sometimes it's hard to find a place to have fun.

but you can kinda say the same about here, huh? it's not cold, but it's desolate, and sometimes it's really hard to find a place to have fun. you have no idea how much i've been missing books, of all the things.

Oh no, I know exactly what you mean! I've been missing books too...I used to have such an enormous library, and going from that to this...it's a blow, I'm not going to lie.

But come now, there must have been some things you liked about Faerghus, apart from familiarity. Didn't it have anything going for it?

i guess so? i mean, most of my friends are back home so that's one big thing faerghus has going for it. i'm not alone here so i know i'm pretty lucky having a roommate i can trust, but it's not like all of our friends are here. and dimitri and i have stuff to do back home, so there's that.

most of the stuff i miss are things i never thought i'd actually miss, like snow, stars, and being actually cold. funny how that works isn't it?

Oh, you know Dimitri?

I've sparred with him a few times, he's quite good. It's always nice to have a friend who can hold their own in a fight, don't you think?

But no, I think it's pretty normal to miss the sights and sensations of home, even the things you might have found annoying at the time. My Qing Jing Peak was very peaceful, but there were some days I felt completely sick of the sight and sound of bamboo. And now? I'd give almost anything to find even one of those stupid little stalks in a jar at the grocery store XD

wait hold on a second, i know we were talking about something else but this is more important you sparred with dimitri???

blond guy, right? not another dimitri maybe there's a second dimitri around i haven't met

???

Admittedly I don't know everyone in the city, but I did spar with a blond man named Dimitri, yes. We go to the same gym to work out.

Is that a problem for some reason?

nah if anything i owe you for this, thank you. you kinda saved me from a few gym trips of my own.

[It's the most tactful way of saying 'thank you for exercising my prince' that he can think of, like Dimitri's a big dog that needs regular walking.]

Oh! Well, you're welcome, I guess XD;

It was a good spar, I wouldn't mind doing it again sometime!

you have NO idea how glad i am to hear that. i'm so glad. he likes that sort of thing and i'm not so good at it, so i wasn't sure if he'd be able to find people in the city who can keep up with him? but by the sounds of it he has.

you have no idea how big of a favor you'd be doing me if you challenged him again.

It'd be my pleasure, honestly! And you know, I'd be happy to provide you with some pointers as well, if you'd like to improve your own martial arts. Not everyone needs to be on Dimitri's level, of course, and it's fine if your interests lie elsewhere. But I used to teach these things professionally, just so you know. So if you'd like to improve, my proverbial door is always open. ^^

you work as a teacher? don't take this the wrong way but i never would've guessed. i don't mean that in a bad way. you just didn't seem like the type.

[Why are all of Dimitri's friends teachers is he that grade-starved in this desolate world.]

I'm not offended but I would like to know what you mean by that, all the same! Is it because I've relaxed formality? You aren't one of my students yet, after all!

Admittedly I came by the job in an unusual way, but yes! One of my jobs in my last world of residence was teaching martial and scholarly arts. I can also teach you how to play the guqin, if we can find or make one somehow. Or how to paint or play weiqi -- either of those might be easier to get the supplies for, honestly.

you kinda remind me of one of my professors? only a little, trust me, there are a lot of differences, but they also weren't someone who got their job in a normal way.

meanwhile, there's another guy here who's apparently a history professor, and i figured him out right away. he seemed like the sort of guy who put up with a lot and was very tired of it.

anyway, guqin? weiqi?

Oh, that's sort of interesting.

Honestly teaching wasn't a career I'd ever seen myself taking up, but once I was in it I discovered I actually really liked it...? But it helps that my disciples were all pretty good kids. I don't really know what I would have done with a less cooperative crowd who didn't already want to learn anything.

But I do enjoy explaining things to an interested audience! Case in point: weiqi and guqin.

Weiqi is a board game popular throughout the southeastern continent of my native world; it's also called go or Chinese chess. It's played by placing black and white stones on a grid and attempting to capture territory; the player with the most territory wins. And guqin is a musical instrument, made from a carved wooden board strung with dried catgut or silk strings. It's not entirely unlike a cross between a guitar and a harp or lyre, although it predates both by several centuries.

Weiqi and guqin are considered two of the four Scholarly Arts; the basic skills a gentleman needed in order to recieve recognition in the imperial court. The other two skills were painting and calligraphy; in addition to magical and martial arts, my school focused on training young people to master these skills so they could comport themselves with grade and dignity as adults.

[Shizun can't see this unless he developed telepathic powers all of a sudden, but, there's Sylvain. He's sitting there for a long moment. He's reading this. He's rereading this.

He then looks up and out at nothing in particular and the darkness stares back at him. Sighs. Looks down again.]

are those fighting classes still on the table, teach?

[Yes the unlikely teacher forced into a position in which they're responsible for the development of youths, helping them become better people, might be a little too familiar and he might be a bit homesick at the moment, what of it, what of it.]

Oh?

Well, of course they are! I'll send you directions to the gym Feiyu and I like to use, unless you'd prefer to meet elsewhere?

But, if I might ask...what changed your mind?

dunno, call it an impulse? not much to do around here that's fun, so why not get beaten up by some guy with a stick? shortly before i got here i was enrolled in a school and you made me miss it, so maybe it's just trying to find the closest thing to back home where i can.

or maybe i'm a masochist?

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