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[polarvoid]

WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, CHARACTER NAME/ALIAS. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 018.07.154.55 *** CHARACTER NAME/ALIAS has joined 018.07.154.55 <Daisy>This is Basil! I'm not around right now, but if you leave a message I'll get back to it as soon as I can. <BANNED USER> SCREENED MESSAGE. UNSCREEN? Y/N -- sample for when you ban someone <USERNAME> First sentence of message. <USERNAME> First sentence of message.

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post-event

[unholey]

[Well... apparently a time loop happened. Although from Fugo's perspective, it feels more like a time skip. A lot of things seem to have gone wrong, but one of them is that Basil's birthday fell into the void of the week that they spent looping the same day over and over.

And even though Basil has said he didn't want a whole party or anything, because he doesn't feel a year older yet, Fugo had plans to pass him along a small present.]

[Well!! Whatever!!! This birthday was a temporal mess anyway!]

[In the day following that debacle, Basil will find pushed under his door a small envelope. Inside is a small sunflower pin, carefully crocheted from embroidery thread, and a note. The note reads as follows, written in Fugo's thin, sharp lettering:]

Buon compleanno!

Happy birthday, Basil.
Sorry this is a bit late. But it's also a bit early?
Spring will soon be here. Until then, I hope this helps brighten your days.

- P. Fugo

[polarvoid]

[Basil...isn't expecting anything for his birthday, least of all an actual gift. It's extremely nice of Fugo to think of him, even with the timeloop messing things up. Basil will thank him in person, of course, but more importantly?

Fugo may notice that from this day forward, he isn't seen without it. He has it pinned to his shirt, or jacket, all the time. Just like his flower hairpin.]

CAT. || between intro and modplot ig

[flammadecinis]

[Alisha is driving Rosso nuts lately, so today's solution to her crimes is to take her out on a walk around Lake Dala. It should be fine. She usually stays by his side anyway if they go out for a walk, it's at home where she's destructive, so he's not all that worried. If anything, she'll take off to scratch a tree or something and come right back.

...

Or so Rosso thinks, seconds before he watches this tiny catblob yeet herself into a hole that's dug far ahead — she quite literally sprints on her tiny legs toward it and throws herself into it — which leaves Rosso a short few seconds to try to catch up and drag her out.

She is, unfortunately, way too deep by the time he gets there. He can see her little catblobbutt wiggling in the darkness, but he can't reach her to yank her by the tail and pull her out.]

Alisha...! I swear to fucking Elria, I'm gonna get you a fucking leash...!

[polarvoid]

[Basil's room is still being worked on.

Ever since he pretty much...exploded in his bedroom, he's been waiting for his new bed to get set up in there. The cleanup had taken quite some time just...on its own, but fortunately the old bed took the brunt of the damage, and apparently a lot of the people who have been here a while know how to get blood out of wood. Can't imagine why!

In the meantime, he's assured Fugo that he doesn't actually mind being outside all that much right now. Though he doesn't sleep through the night out here, mostly because he's too afraid of being alone outside right now, he has been retreating to his burrow near the Palazzo to take naps occasionally during the day. That, and with as sore as he still is, it's...nice to just be somewhere he feels safe.

He'd actually been just starting to doze when something round suddenly plops into the hole, right onto his chest.]

E...eeah-!!!

[Basil screams, a muffled shout from inside. All Rosso will be able to see is Alisha being moved about as Basil struggles to get up, occasional flashes of bright green and purple in the dark.]

W-what is it- get- get off-!

<rindragon> 3/5

[worldisyours]

[Sometime in the afternoon on the 5th, Basil will receive a short series of messages on his laptop.]

hey basil, its rindo
thanks for yesterday! just thought i should give u an update
i didnt go to the community center in the end. someone i know from back home found me not too long after we talked and i guess im living with her and her housemates for now
so i have a roof over my head at least

<daisy>

[polarvoid]

[It's one of Basil's change days, but it's early enough that he isn't in too much pain yet. He's itching at this point, though it does mean he's more inclined to stay in one of his burrows outside, letting the cool earth and mud soothe his scales. He brought his laptop out there with him, so he wouldn't just be sitting in a hole doing nothing, so he sees Rindo's messages as they come in.]

Oh! I'm glad to hear from you, Rindo. I didn't know you knew anyone here, but that's the best case scenario. They'll keep you safe.

truth event | cw: mild gore -> suicidal ideation, homicidal ideation, omori+st4 spoilers!

[zoomingupthathill]

[ It takes Max a day or so to realize what's going on, and she does because of Basil.

Since their heart-to-heart in the woods, when she realizes they share more than a few maladaptive coping mechanisms, she's made an active effort to reach out to him. It's never anything big, just asking if he wants to tag along when she goes into the city, or if he has plans, or how his flying is going. Things like that. What she promised herself was, if she noticed him shutting himself up, she'd stop it. Whatever way she could, she wouldn't let him be alone.

So when he starts not coming out of his room after the strange violin music fills the air, she gets worried. The first day it may not be anything, but the second? She goes to knock on his door and try to get an answer out of him. Calls his name, and opens her mouth to ask if he's okay, and then, apropos of nothing— ]

I used to pray that—

[ Max shoves her hands over her mouth and backs away from the door, eyes wide. It's muffled but she's still talking, oh god, why is she still talking, she practically chokes on her pawpads as they effectively gag her. One, two, three struggling clops of her hooves, before she races down the hall, slams her door, and buries herself under her headphones.

It's just a reactionary response. But it fixes the issue. So, like Basil, that's where she stays. Shut up in her room, isolated from the world, in fear of turning herself inside out against her will. Again.

That's almost how she stays through the week, but of course her plans change.

Of course they don't go well.

Max returns to the Palazzo on the night of the 20th. Her car needs to air out, the interior soaked. Her legs are missing chunks from them, a consequence of the mutant fish getting too close. Her beloved Walkman's a waterlogged lump, and she prays her cassette is salvageable. But, she should be grateful. Eddie and Nanami got her home in one piece, and that's all she can really ask for.

She hasn't fully dried off yet when she drags herself up the stairs, under the pretense of getting some rest for the first time in twenty-four hours. Max wants to be alone, she thinks, wants to lick her wounds in piece. She's somehow paler than before, and her body feels both too warm and too cold, like the fevers she'd get in Hawkins at winter's start. Everything seems to hang loose on her, and her tail drags across the floor. Everything feels heavy. Like her muscles tensing up. Seizing. Max knows in trying so hard to help others, she's doomed someone to be her next meal. She should be on her way to talk to Fugo and arrange something. She should fall into her bed and cry out whatever liquid's seeped into her sodden form. She should at least wrap the bites on her legs, which irregularly ooze purplish-red sludge instead of blood.

But she does none of those things.

Just like at the start, she finds herself at Basil's door.

Max can still hear the music, louder than ever now. It doesn't compel her out the door back to the lake, however. Maybe it compels her here. But, she wants to foolishly believe, at least in some way, that this is in part her choice. ]

Basil?

[ A weak knock at the door. Her voice is scratchy, like she has a cold. She doubts it'll carry. ]

Basil, I—

Please let me in. I- w-want to- [ Something aches in her bones. ] I need to see you.

[ If this damn thing wants her to tell the truth, fine. She'll tell the fucking truth. ]

omori spoilers from here on, will tag for more specific heavy cws, cw: hallucination, dissasociation

[polarvoid]

[It's almost funny. Basil had no reason to realize what the true effects of the music were, at first. He didn't have the same sort of sudden realization that Max had, but rather...a slow drip, painful and arduous, that worsened as the days went on. Because unfortunately for Basil, the sound of a violin is not at all pleasant to his ears. The music, jaunty and upbeat, does not ring that way when he first hears it.

No, when the first tones came to him even through his closed window, Basil had been shocked awake, upright in bed by the strings that sang a sad meloncholy at him. It thrummed a melody that vibrated in his veins, settled like a stone in the pit of his stomach and festered.

For what Basil feels is guilt.

It is far from a new emotion. He feels it, ambiently, every single day of his life. He's able to push it aside more easily here than he could back home, due to the fact that he's currently so divorced from the source. Most people here just see him as Basil...nothing more. He is not connected to tragedy, unless you count being here one. He may still be guarding a secret close to his chest, and it may have already slipped through the cracks a few times...but it's little enough that he's been able to manage it. Katurian has not brought it up again, Kaito was extremely quick to brush it all off as a nightmarish hallucination. It wasn't great, but it was manageable. Basil could handle it.

...but on the second day of the siren song's assault, Something appeared.

For the first time since Basil's arrival...he can see it. He can see it very clearly, situated in the corner of his bedroom...watching him. That ugly, massive eye, looking down on him and asking the question: why? Why did you do it, Basil? How could you? How could you hurt your friends? How could you hurt him? Hurt her?

Logic dictates that he would want to leave his room to escape it, but he does not. He instead remains huddled in his room, curled up on the bed as the pressure mounts, like a balloon steadily growing in his skull. Because the truth is...the truth? For some time now, Basil had been...wondering. Hoping that maybe, just maybe, Sunny would come to him and they could maybe...do something. It isn't a massive hope, nor has it over-ridden his desire to keep the secret entirely, but it's there...under many, many layers. Hope against hope, perhaps. Recent events had all but destroyed the possibility of course, leaving Basil more distraught and in turmoil than ever before...

And that is what this melody latches on to. The idea that there IS no way out. There is nothing he can do.

...except to tell someone else. Anyone. Someone, anyone, please help him-

He'd been in one of these states of disassociation, sometimes in his room at the Palazzo, sometimes in his room at Grandma's, always with Something watching him, when he'd heard a voice beyond his door that startled him so badly he's sure his heart stopped. He barely registers it as Max- just as a young voice, around his age- and part of him isn't even sure if it's actually there. He'd sat and listened for a long time, but when nothing else came...it was back to the cycle. The music seems to just be getting louder and louder, making him feel ill. He barely leaves to eat, or drink, he just...

Wants it to stop.

But then...

Basil lifts his head from his knees, refusing now to look in the corner because it's still there, lurking, and he's almost gotten accustomed to its presence at this point. He thinks he heard something just then, like before (how long ago was it? An hour? A day? A week?), and he's almost ready to ignore it when...it continues. And the voice- her voice- is just enough to pull him out of his stupor.]

M...Max...

[He sits up a little more, the soft bioluminescent glow of the flowers growing from his horns the only thing lighting his room, currently. They're gladiolus. They have been ever since the music began.

No. No no no.

It's so hard to fight it. It's so hard that Basil is starting to feel a real, physical ache from the force.

He can't.]

T...the door....it's...

[Unlocked. It's always been unlocked.]

<purevanilla>

[purevanillacookie]

Hello Basil! I recently came into possession of a few seeds from home, and I would love to share some with you, as I promised those months ago. When you have a moment, please let me know the best method to get them to you!

<daisy>

[polarvoid]

[It's been a terrible, terrible month. So many awful things have happened to Basil in quick succession that it's a miracle he's managed to handle it all. He's left feeling rattled and overwhelmed, and the only reason he hasn't completely fallen apart is because he's not been alone for it. If Max hadn't been there...

He's been trying not to think about it. Trying to put the entire last two weeks out of his mind, focusing on simpler tasks. Watering his flowers. Remembering to eat. Remembering to eat.

Things like that.

But then he receives an unexpected message from Pure Vanilla, and in spite of everything...it does inspire some joy. It's just a little flutter of it, but it's there nonetheless. But when he thinks about all of the stuff that's taken place at the Palazzo in the last couple of days, and how uncomfortable even his own ROOM has been making him...]

Can I come see you?

E-vite!

[i_am_emmet]

[When the message is opened there will be an invitation to a surprise birthday party for Ingo on May 22nd, with the location to the train house in it at 9PM. There is also a note about being able to bring friends if you want, contact Emmet if it will be more than 2 people!]

[Also, 'SURPRISE PARTY' is bolded and underlined, and there is also an amazingly ugly ASCII artwork of a Litwick.]

<FLY> (06/23)

[jumpie]

hi
u ok?

<daisy>

[polarvoid]

[Shoyo? Basil is just waking up when he receives this message (he's slept a bit more than usual since the Tree Episode, it wore him the fuck out), so he takes a little while to respond.]

Hi.

I'm okay...just a little tired.

How are you doing?

<needlenoggin>

[oleaeuropaea]

[Sometime on July 4th, a handful of hours after Basil and Vash parted ways, he'll get a notification!]

made it safe. :)
didn't find anyone matching their descriptions :(
plenty of folks made it out without me seeing, though, so maybe there's still a chance?
hope you made it back home safe!

<daisy>

[polarvoid]

[Hearing that none of the others are here....is such an immense relief. Basil can't help but feel mildly guilty thinking that, but...it's the truth.

They're better off anywhere but here.

That said...]

I did, thanks to you. I hope you were able to find somewhere to stay?

[Basil got lucky, he was invited into a home pretty much on day one. He would have been in the apartments alone otherwise.]

<Nobori>

[offtracks]

Good morning, Basil!
May I ask you something?

<daisy>

[polarvoid]

Oh! Good morning.

Yes, of course. What is it?

<silverfeather> backdated to 7/4

[familyproblem]

[It strikes Gladion, somewhere between "deciding he needs to send a message to Basil" and "actually sending a message to Basil", that it's maybe not really appropriate to (as he had originally planned) thank him primarily for how he helped the twins.

Which is unfortunate, because that's a much more comfortable type of message to send.]

You came by to help while I was out of commission, I've been told.

Thank you.

[This just makes him feel like a dork for not having a more comprehensive thank-you planned out.]

<daisy>

[polarvoid]

[Basil had been coming by fairly frequently during the time Gladion was a fern. There wasn't much he could do other than offer advice and check up on his condition, but he did those things regularly regardless. Plus, he wanted to be supportive for Ingo and Emmet however he could. Thus...helping. And of course, Basil encountered...the "orb" that was Gladion during the Flatwoods incident. The Plorb, if you will.

He hadn't heard about his condition since then though...so when he receives a message from him (!!!), Basil is sure to respond as soon as he sees it.]

Oh, Gladion! I'm so happy to hear from you...how are you feeling? Are you doing okay?

[Then, a brief moment later:]

Of course. I was worried when I saw what had happened...so I wanted to try to help if there was anything I could do.

super backdated don’t mind me (after the Thing)

[jumpie]

basil?
don’t gotta reply but i just wanted to say i’m sorry

[ it’s one more thing he didn’t know about. ]

[polarvoid]

[Oh, Shoyo...

Basil feels. Very bad about how things went at his party, or...the lack thereof. If he'd known this was who he meant when he said he had a roommate...]

You don't have to apologize.

I'm sorry.

[It's so infuriating. Sunny would hardly look at him, much less say anything. It's like that day he and Kel came to his house never even happened. Not that that day was anything positive, but at least...they were there.

They were there at the lake, too. With Aubrey. Did Sunny forget all of that?]

We ruined your birthday.

july 18th, night

[zoomingupthathill]

[ Something passed through her and it's the straw that's broken the camel's back.

No longer can Max put it off. Not after her encounter with Trish.

Her scaly knuckles rap on Basil's door sometime reaching evening. Her claws want to rake down the wood instead, but she keeps them curled to something like a fist. ]

Basil? Are- are you in there, I'm- I need you.

[ Faerie lie aversion. It can cause its own complications. ]

cw: self depreciation, emotional dysregulation

[polarvoid]

[When Max comes by, Basil is in bed. He's curled up on his side, not sleeping even though he technically could...but instead he just lays there, feeling. Pretty damn bad, actually.

It's been a rough couple days. Between the new changes and all of the trouble that's been causing, Basil has felt a bit...isolated, to put it simply. Back home that was an intentional thing- he isolated himself on purpose- but here? He really feels it, when he's alone. And...Sunny's continued behavior notwithstanding, it's hard for Basil to not notice that Max- the one person who has been with him in his corner this whole time- has been...or at least it feels like she's been avoiding him. Not completely ignoring him outright, but there have been times when she's definitely brushed him off, or opted to go someplace on her own when Basil might have come along with.

He doesn't feel like he needs to be with her all the time, or even some of the time. They're often apart, doing their own thing...but...he doesn't know how to explain it. It's just been different, and it hurts especially now that he's stuck in this deer body, craving the social aspect and yet not having an outlet.

Did he do something wrong? Was his behavior at Shoyo's party finally too much? Did Max realize that he's...he's just...

He grips his pillow harder, curling up around it with his face pressed against it. He lays there like that for a long time, almost long enough to completely space out, when the sudden knock on his door startles him into sitting up immediately.]

...Max?

[It's scary. It's the same thing she'd said the day that awful violin poured into his bedroom and smothered them both. Yet, that doesn't stop him from all but tumbling out of bed, tripping over his own root-feet in his haste to get to the door and open it.]

I-I'm here- [He breathes, and- oh- he can't forget that she is the one who is a Gargoyle now. The sight of her is enough to almost take his breath away, his ears drooping over his shoulders.] What's wrong, did something happen...?

Sep 22nd, Post-event

[cratecrasher]

[Bright and early, Crash rushed out into the direction of the Palazzo as fast as he could, shifting into the faster travel form as he went.

While he considered knocking on the place's front door, the minotaur stopped to peer about at the mud, still wet and soft beneath his claws. Surely it wouldn't be rude if he walked around to check for dragon tracks or a freshly dug pangolin lizard burrow, right?

Still in his travel form, Crash decided to do just that, sniffing and snorting with a decent nose that mostly smelled water and mud, and swiveling his ears for a sign of where Basil might be. He is of course worried about the poor kid, for obvious reasons.]

[polarvoid]

[By now, the oddity of the month has passed and Basil's memories of what happened are...fuzzy, at best. Not completely eradicated, but it's all like a bad dream...or maybe it's only bad because he wishes he could go back to the person he was in it. Happier. Far less burdened by the past.

But now he's here, back to normal, and not feeling terribly great because of it.

It's early enough that it's still dark out. It has to be, otherwise Basil would be turning to stone immediately, being out here as he is. He knows he's pushing his luck given how swiftly dawn approaches, but he just wants to be out here right now...alone, among his holes in the ground. Maybe even if the sun rises and he gets caught, it won't be so bad. He'll just sleep in one of the burrows until the evening. Back to being fully nocturnal, and all that.

As Crash approaches the shoreline, he feels the vibrations of his hooves through the mud. It prompts Basil to stiffen and shrink back, far more nervous and fearful than he was before...but this burrow isn't deep like a Pooka's might be. It's little more than a hole in the ground, and should Crash's sense of smell be good enough, he shouldn't have trouble finding him.]

<FLY> (late september)

[jumpie]

sunny hasn’t come back to the apartment since last night

<daisy>

[polarvoid]

[This evening is normal. Relatively. Basil had just...been in his room. Listening to music, actually, which is something he's picked up more thanks to Max. He gets a message, not thinking it's going to be anything special.

But when he reads it...his body temperature spikes immediately. He feels smoke hiss out from between his teeth before he can stop it.]

what?!

what happened?? did he tell you where he was going?

backdated, immediately post september event

[zoomingupthathill]

[ Max can't sleep.

The sun will be rising soon, but Max can't sleep.

Part if it is how much she's wondering, waiting for the world to start turning how it always has again. Part of it is how offput she is, how she's wondering, how much is wrong with her, what doesn't she remember?

But mostly, it's because right when she thinks she might never be able to sleep over the cacophony of thunder and wind, the storm screaming outside as the heavens baptize the world in harsh rain.

It feels wrong in her bones. As she looks out her window at the forest, she can feel that this isn't good. How connected she's felt to it since she returned from whatever limbo she was stuck in—Max knows, this isn't...okay. This isn't good.

She still hates those fucking trees.



Ultimately, she's mesmerized. Max watches the storm until the moment it all stops, and the fog rolls away like always, and the sun emerges. It stings her eyes, but she's not focused on that, instead feeling something like a glassy film wash over her mind. Max has to sit down for a moment, consciously acknowledging the haze that's setting over her.

She doesn't feel any different. That's what Max settles on, at least for the moment. The only thing that's changed, she...

Doesn't want to think about it. Instead, her ears perk up, trying to catch the sound of any movement from down the hall, as she rushes to Basil's room without sparing more than a moment. ]

cw: disassociation

[polarvoid]

[Max may not feel any different, but Basil...feels like he's woken up after a long, long dream.

And what a dream it's been. Actually, he might have assumed that's all it was, if he wasn't startled by the state of his bedroom upon "waking". His polaroid camera- the one Nanami gave him, anyway, not his- sits on the bedside table, and all across the room are polaroid photos that have been hung up carefully on twine and little wooden pegs. It's exactly how he might have decorated his room when he was younger, though it's more likely the photos would have ended up in an album...which he's lacking at the moment.

It's not the fault of his previous self, who had been more than happy to take them. But seeing the polaroids, seeing all these images staring back at him of people and places he barely remembers...it's terrifying.

When Max enters Basil's room (she'll have to let herself in, he doesn't respond to any knocking), she'll find the Gargoyle standing in the epicenter of disarray. The photos have been torn down from the walls, string and the little pegs scattered. The photos are on the floor too, but they haven't been destroyed. They've just been dismantled in Basil's confusion as he stands there facing the window, his back to the door.]

oct event before the sacrifices

[flammadecinis]

[Rosso is nothing if not a responsible pet owner. Sure, Alisha will be fine on her own for... as long as it takes Rosso to get back from death, assuming he does at all, and because of that it means Dachie will be fine, too. At the same time, it would be fucked up to die and leave both pets to wander the ruins of the city forever.

That brings Rosso to Basil's door the afternoon before the sacrifices are set to begin, holding one (1) catfox and one (1) very round owldog.]

Hey, kiddo, [he says, standing in the doorway,] you like animals, right?

[polarvoid]

[Survival has been the name of the game for the better part of the month, and Basil...feels like he's surviving only barely. If it wasn't for the Palazzo residents, he's honestly not sure where he'd be, or what he'd even be doing period. The Palazzo itself had been wrecked to the point of no longer being safe to stay in, but fortunately Max just so happens to have a car that is magically enchanted to be indestructible. It made going on hunts for supplies in an apocalyptic wasteland a lot easier than it has been for most people, of which Basil can't help but be thankful.

But it's hard, still. He's never been through anything like this before, and the finality of it all really does make it feel like the world is going to end.

The shelter they've found likely isn't much. It's not a permanent sort of home because it couldn't be expected to be one, but what matters is that it's safe, and Basil trusts that anyone trying to barge in and cause them harm won't leave this place intact. Yet Basil can't rest, knowing that in just a few hours from now, a large portion of the Peninsula is going to die.

The guilt threatens to eat him alive, but he's too afraid. So afraid. He and Max promised each other they wouldn't leave the other alone, and so he remains.

His ears perk, eyes widening a little with recognition when Rosso appears at the door. Basil looks as nervous as ever, but a little more gaunt than usual. The flowers that usually grow on his horns are all dead now, just a few withered leaves left.]

Mr. Rosso? [He blinks, looking from the little creatures in his claws to Rosso and back.] Um...y-yes, I do. I remember Alisha...

[He doesn't remember the Dachie, but it does look very similar.]