video; un: ushiromiya (cw: mentions of house fires, arson, murder)

[entreats]

So for those not in the know, our house burned down last month.

[ What a way to open a post, right. And yet Ange manages to say it with something very close to a pokerface. Those who know her well may see something at its edges though. An annoyance that starts to bleed more and more into the girl's tone as she speaks on. ]

And not in the 'dumb accident' sense. No, it's because apparently it's socially acceptable in this place to come to someone's house and set it on fire, before bringing your friends inside to start murdering its inhabitants. [ Okay, yes. At this point it's not thiny veiled annoyance anymore. This is obvious annoyance that she doesn't bother to hide. ] And before anyone asks me if I'm alright— I'm fine. Totally fine. I mean, I half-turned into a beast back there, but it's clearly cool. It's fine.

[ It's clearly not fine. The sarcasm is thick.

Though Ange seems to realise that's not why she was supposed to make this message, and manages to snap herself out of passive-aggressive-ville for just long enough to sigh and sound a little bit more neutral as she speaks on. ]

Anyway, we want to rebuild the house, but that's obviously something we need help with. None of us are exactly architects.. I think. I've learned to not question weird Remnant hobbies. [ You never know what those Remnant people are capable of. ] Not to mention we'd need help with the actual physical rebuilding itself too.

We could use help from a lot of people, so if anyone would be willing to help, that'd be great.

Comments

[entreats]

Sure.

I mean, as long as it's not too much effort for you?

[ Sure, Michael must enjoy doing it if it's what he did back home. Not like demons really have to make a living, after all, so she figure they mostly occupy themselves with stuff they actually like doing.

But she also imagines-- ]

You might have other stuff to deal with, after all. [ Who doesn't in this place, when everything is being so constantly chaotic in the dumbest of ways.

And occasionally the most horrible of ways. ]

[eudaimonikos]

Nah, I need to keep busy.

[he sort of beasted out and is trying to avoid thinking about it, but like, don't worry about that!!!]

[entreats]

[ Yeah, Michael, that's.. sounding mighty suspicious.

At least Ange understands that not everyone wants to talk about everything. Does she ever. But on the other hand, it's really hard to not get worried when he's wording something in such an ominious way.

So even though she can't ignore it, she opts to not push him either. A middle ground, like: ]

Is there anything you want to talk about as to why you need to keep busy?

[eudaimonikos]

[There's a rather long silence. Michael doesn't particularly want to talk about it. But, then again, Ange is one of his closest friends around here. It's sort of weird not to tell her at all, isn't it?]

I turned into a beast recently.

But it's fine. Didn't even have to die to fix it.

[entreats]

That's good to hear. That you didn't die, I mean.

[ It feels a little casual to reply to that, but then again.. the way Michael writes it here, mentions it, is rather casual as well, isn't it? What if that's on purpose, and he's just trying to hide his hurt?

.. it's hard to tell, Ange thinks. Especially when Michael isn't exactly your standard person.

And he's just close enough of a friend that Ange doesn't want to leave him hanging with just that. She pauses, trying to find a good medium between showing her concern, while not being too overbearing about it. ]

The same happened to me last month. [ Hence what she was complaining about in her initial message. ] It sucks, doesn't it.

[eudaimonikos]

Oh, I'm sorry. I hadn't heard.

[He has been hiding in his room not talking to anyone really for a little bit now. Which, in retrospect, probably wasn't great!]

It does suck.

[entreats]

It's fine.

[ In regards to him apologizing, that is. He doesn't have to. Ange didn't know he turned into one either until he just said so, after all, so they're on even ground here. ]

I just wanted to say that I get the feeling. Even though I didn't get all the way to full out beast, I was so close that I just didn't feel like myself anymore. It's as if I was just.. gone for a bit.

[eudaimonikos]

Yeah, I don't remember actually being the beast very well.
But I felt really off before that.

Not the way I did the last time I had corruption bad. It was different this time - I think that's why I didn't realize.

[entreats]

So you didn't corrupt first? [ It's not exactly impossible. Ange knows it. After all, her own near-turn into a beast also hadn't been accompanied by corruption, or any signs of it before she had already started to change entirely.

It's almost eerie, how almost the same thing would happen to both of them, and within pretty much the same month on top of it.. ]

It just suddenly happened?

[eudaimonikos]

I'm not sure.

I did feel off for a long time beforehand.
But it wasn't like the last time I corrupted. That time, I had a lot of energy, grew some horns, wanted to torment people.

This time I just didn't want to talk to anyone. Holed up in my room for weeks.
Which is weird for me, I guess, but it felt reasonable at the time.

[entreats]

[ So it is different from her own case then. Though it makes sense - Ange is pretty sure that for her it happened because she was overdoing it with her powers, but Michael is pretty used to his own powers, right? ]

It almost sounds like you have two entirely different sets of corruption symptoms.

That's so odd. I've never heard about anything like it before with anyone else I know.

[ Then again - it's not like Ange just goes around asking people about their corruption symptoms, so it's entirely possible it's the case for more people than just Michael. ]

[eudaimonikos]

I haven't talked about it with many people.
Maybe it's a different strain or something.

[entreats]

Do you want to talk about it with other people?

[ She figures the answer is probably 'no.'

But that's not why she's asking. ]

It might be good to look into.

You know, so you know how you can prevent things from going that far next time around.

[eudaimonikos]

No one comes to mind.

[So - yeah, no.]

Maybe.
I thought I knew that already, I kept track of all the symptoms from the first time.

[entreats]

[ Harsh, Michael.

Though she can understand it. It sounds more like he doesn't want to really talk about it in general - which is relatable, since Ange would also rather shove her own near-beast-incident under the rug. But she knows that it's exactly that sort of thing which causes these dumb things to repeat all over again. ]

Sounds like it's time to keep track of both sets then.

[ Just in case. ]

And maybe hope it stays at that? I can't imagine how annoying it would be if your corruption specifically took on a different form every single time it escalated. It would make it entirely unpredictable.

[eudaimonikos]

That'd be a pain in the ass.
I mean, sometimes I feel shitty, I don't think it always has to be corruption-related.

[Now he's gonna be really paranoid about it!]

[entreats]

For sure.

[ Sometimes you've got to be able to just have a bad mood without it meaning you're three days away from turning into a monster, right.

.. right? ]

I don't know if it'd help, but if you ever need someone to check up on you and see if they can tell whether there's something related to corruption going on or not, you can always ask me. I know I'm not exactly a specialist. [ FAR FROM IT.. ] But I at least know you, so there's a chance I'll be able to tell whether you're just having a bad mood or acting in a way that's corruption-irrational, you know?

[ It feels better than nothing, anyway.

Or better than constantly having to be on guard and paranoid about it by yourself. It's not something Ange minds doing for a friend if it'd help him. ]

[eudaimonikos]

It's probably worth trying.

[He's thinking along the same lines. Maybe it won't work - probably won't, if he gets irrational before he can - but it's better than nothing.]

I can do the same for you, if you need it.

[entreats]

I figure we all need it in this place.

[ Ange is not dumb enough to think she's above it, even though the only kind of corruption-related stuff she had to deal before was a near-instant beast transformation thanks to using way too much of her blood magic..

But it's only a matter of time before the regular corruption gets her, surely. ]

So I'd appreciate it. If these dumb Pthumerians often only make stuff harder for us, then all we've got to keep ourselves out of trouble is having each other to rely on.

Please ignore the fact that's just about the sappiest thing I've ever said. [ P-Please!! It's too embarrassing, even if it's true. ]

[eudaimonikos]

Of course.

[Michael's a sappy motherfucker now that he has the chance, but he certainly lived most of his life in a situation where one couldn't be. He gets it.]

You're right, though.
Maybe we should have better systems in place.

[Or at least do mental wellness checks on our friends every so often? Though he can see that getting pretty draining.]

[entreats]

It sounds hard to really deploy a full-scale system for that sort of thing here though.

[ After all, things are already wild enough half of the time. Who would be able to keep an eye on that chaos? ]

I don't think everyone out here would exactly love having a buddy system. Especially since some of these edgy people we've got running around. [ Look, usually Ange "edgelord" Ushiromiya wouldn't be the pot calling the kettle black.

But now a bunch of them burned down her house and tried to murder her, she feels like she's earned the right to judge them more. ]

[eudaimonikos]

That's true.
God, they're irritating.

I'm a demon and even WE grew out of that phase pretty quick. A lot of this would've been considered really tacky back home even before the reforms.

[entreats]

See, this is exactly why I like demons. Even when some of them are a little annoying, at least they usually have some sense.

[ Some a little more than others. Michael ranks pretty high up on the 'having sense' ladder in Ange's mind. ]

I find this belief only confirmed when every single demon I run into here has been incredibly pleasant, you definitely included, while it's always other beings that end up annoying me.

[eudaimonikos]

Well, I can't lie - my kind did go through an edgelord phase.
But that was millenia ago. I honestly missed out on most of it.
Just got stuck in a giant bat form for a little bit.

[Michael being who he is, it hadn't entirely appealed even then. But you know, it was early on - he'd been too eager to please to really think too hard about any of it.]

[entreats]

[ .. give Ange a moment to consider this new information. ]

Are bats edgy?

[ Do they count as edgy now.

Ange may not fully be on top of the latest Hot Topic trends, if not just due to having attended a secluded boarding school for all of her formative teenage years. ]