kaisou | video; UN: dabi

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video; UN: dabi

[ Cut image is gonna be to a rather odd looking individual with more--are those tattoos?--than he has normal skin, and apparently just as many piercings.

He's got what looks to be a playful look on his face, but what with the uptick of a sigh he lets loose, there's clear annoyance here. ]

Here I thought I already had all kinds'a social media on my phone. [ the guy's voice is deep, like the bottom of a volcano. ] But this one's new.

Ever hear aboutta thing called Marie Antoinette Syndrome? Where peoples' hair suddenly turn fuckin'. White? Due ot stress or some shit?

I ain't stressed, but turns out it might be real.

Anyway. You can call me Dabi.
Gonna' use this opportunity to announce the opening of my shop, Troublebound.
I do tattooing and body mod shit.
If it's your thing, we can talk. I do good work, just look me up on Insta and Snap.

Look forward to working with ya.

artist of the used art here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Pink.

What, did they accidentally put some reds in with their whites."

He gives a dark rumble of a laugh, the sound tittering between his ribs as he slowly grins.

"Seriously though, that ain't natural, at all."

"Oh, it gets better than that. Apparently, everyone she knew who doesn't have the Libra app thought that her hair hadn't changed color at all."

Did he want to know about the weirdness censor going on here? Well, he's finding out anyway.

"So, wait. Hold on, back up. You're tellin' me her hair turned pink, but people who ain't got this whack app don't see the weird colour change bullshit?"

like

what?

"This sounds an awful lot like a cult, I don't drink kool-aid."

"You know those stories where there's a whole secret magical world normal people don't notice? Pretty sure it's basically like that."

This is the best explanation she can think of. And no, it doesn't really make it any better.

It doesn't make it any better. Honestly, he'd think she was fucking with him, but he's already seen ash and his weirdass fairy wings and elf ears.

It was hard to tell if that was just some weird filter, but the chances of TWO people fucking around with him...

He's gonna... squint at ritsuka a moment.

"I mean, it's kind of weird to have shit like that right under yer nose and not notice at all.
I'm 25, you'd think I'd notice shit like if magic was real by now."

"Well, yeah, but..."

This guy's obviously really new, and unlike her, hasn't been thrust immediately into a situation where there's no choice but to get used to the strangeness fast. So while on the one hand Ritsuka kind of gets it, on the other, well, she'll just have to improvise.

"There's spells for things like barriers, but also illusions to hide things, and even affect people's memories. I don't know how much of all of those are used here of course, but stuff like that can keep people from noticing all sorts of things, so there's probably something like that going on.

"And for some reason, when this app shows up, the people who get it are able to see through all that even if they couldn't before. Since it somehow installs itself and no one's found a way to get rid of it, obviously something's pretty weird about the app, too, so that's probably part of it too."

Super new. So new, he's really sitting here in a bucket of doubt about all this magic and nonsense people keep claiming exists.
He hasn't gone outside yet today, so the sky being a mess of green northern lights hasn't come into his view, and all he has now is... all these people on this app telling him magic was real.

And now there's this girl to add onto it. Talking about magic and illusions, like it wasn't just some fucked up RPG game.
Dabi's... eyes are widening a little, his eyebrows going up in a 'you seriously expect me to believe this' sort of way, but...

His hand moves to touch his chin, his eyebrows furrowing...

He did try to delete the app and it didn't work at first...

Hm.

"You're not pulling my leg at all, are you.
I'm sittin' here trying to figure out the most clever way to call you goddamn insane, but.
After seeing one of my clients with goddamn fairy wings and having you claim this shit.

...You sure this ain't just one mass hallucination. Something.

Goddamn."

Changing his world view wasn't... easy.

"There's the spirit vein in the sky, too, you should be able to see that now."

In case he needs more confirmation.

"And believe me, people couldn't have just been hallucinating some of the things that have happened around here." Especially recently, but she's not going to get into detail on some of it. "But it's definitely possible... I didn't know there was magic or anything in my world either until a couple years ago."

She'll just casually drop that otherworlder thing there without thinking.

"The hell, the sky?"

She now gets a whole progression in the video call where the white-haired zombie looking man gets up, crosses the room, and swings open his blinds.

...and how he pauses, staring out of it like aliens were descending down on them.

...After a good two minutes of making sure he WASN'T hallucinating this, too, he finally goes back to where he has his phone propped up for the video call. A hand scrubbing over a part of his face where there weren't a half dozen piercings.

"....Alright. So.

Hard to deny shit I'm seeing myself. You got me.

What the hell am I supposed to do with this knowledge, now."

"I guess that's up to you? Weird stuff happens around here sometimes, but if you want to keep on doing things like you were before you can."

Assuming the weirdness lets him, of course.

"Though you should probably at least learn what you can about the stuff going on here so you know what you're dealing with. I know a little, but I haven't been here very long, so I dunno how much I can explain."

"...Okay, I can suspend disbelief long enough to maybe start to believe that maybe magic is real.

But the way you're talking, now, you're making it sound like you're from a different world. I doubt you're saying 'been here very long' in the way as 'just arrived to Kaisou'.

You really expect me to believe other worlds exist now, too?"

She did let that slip, didn't she? Oh well, he'll need to learn one way or another.

"Yeah, there's a bunch of people here who came from other worlds. Some of them are basically just other versions of Earth, but there's others that are completely different. It seems like it has something to do with the spirit realm acting like a connection point between worlds, though so far no one's figured out why that's happening or how to reverse it."

That last point being of particular interest to people like her, who have unfinished business back home.

"And if you think having an app install itself on your phone like that is weird, for those of us who came from other worlds and didn't even have a phone at the time, we somehow ended up with one when we got here. With the app already on it, of course."

Hm.

Hm, hm hm.

He has thoughts. Many a thought.
Hand goes to his chin as he leans back in his chair, heavily tattooed arms moving to cross over his chest as he gently thumbs over the line of piercings on his face. thoughtfully humming as he really tries to... suspend disbelief and believe everything she's saying.

It's hard.
It's really hard.

He makes a frustrated sound.

"You really ain't selling this in a direction where it doesn't sound like a weird cult, babe. For real, the more you talk the more I feel like I've signed up for something without having actually read the contract.

It's kind'a fucked up if you think about it."

He grins. Crookedly.
For someone who's claiming to be upset, he. Doesn't sound upset?

"So, how do you feel being isekai'd."

"Well, yeah. I don't think most people want a strange app from some shady company suddenly making their life weird. Of course it's messed up."

Possibly to her credit, Ritsuka's not even going to try to convince him that it's not utterly unbelievable. She might be used to some pretty crazy stuff, but she's come to at least start to realize that her experiences are far, far from normal. And speaking of crazy stuff...

"Oh, it's sort of happened before, actually, though not quite like this."

And this is why there's no point trying to avoid sounding crazy.

"At least you get how messed up it is. Most other people are being all 'oh its totally normal, you just aren't used to it, get used to it!' and all that jazz. Like a guy is supposed to just accept everything at the drop of a hat."

He rolls his eyes.

And now he's refocusing on Ritsuka.

"It's happened before. Ain't your first time hopping between worlds, you mean.

You do know how crazy you sound, right, Doctor Who?"

"I think people say that because so far, no one can do anything about it. So it doesn't help to constantly worry about it."

That said, while she might've slipped up a bit earlier in the conversation, something about his tone in that last bit gets her taking this a little more seriously.

"If it's possible for people to come from other worlds to this one, it shouldn't be strange for it to be possible for people to sometimes go between those other worlds, too.

"But if you don't believe me, you can go see the gates to the spirit realm for yourself. Or talk to someone who can turn into a bird and back. Or use some kind of magic or another. It might sound crazy, sure, because as far as you knew before all that kind of stuff was just made up, but that doesn't mean it isn't real now that you're aware of it.

"There's other people here who just woke up someday with that app on their phone and things suddenly all weird around them, why not see what they have to say? They can probably help you out a lot."

He has to think about it.
He doesn't want to think about it, and it's almost annoying to be given all this crap on a saturday morning when he was just honestly looking forward to a day off, but here it is.

Being given all this information he didn't want--maybe didn't need, and being forced to change his worldview simply because this was his world now. He'd have to come to terms with the fact that his whole world was going to change; that the supernatural was real, and he was somehow involved with it.

When he'd... partially, maybe rather not have to.
His fingers card through strands of white hair as he gives a low sigh at her last sentence. "I ain't no scholarly type. Never have been. If the supernatural is weird, then I'll just have to learn to deal with it, won't I."

He sighs. As if all of this has him SO put upon.

He plucks up his phone.

"You're a real optimist, though, aren'tcha. I can feel it in the way you talk--like you're trying to peptalk me. You some sort of team leader?"

Ritsuka is all too familiar with the feeling of being suddenly thrust into a strange world she'd never dreamed existed with effectively no warning. Which is why she both sympathizes... and knows quite well indeed that the weird doesn't just go away on its own.

"Pretty much, yeah." Which is likely what almost everyone responding to this post has been telling him, but sometimes it takes hearing it more than once to get the message across.

That said, Ritsuka's, well, a little surprised by that last bit.

"You think so? I... don't think I'd say I'm really much of a leader, though."

He doesn't like it. It's gonna' take him a while to like it, he figures--it's UNCOMFORTABLE, to be honest.
Unreasonably so.

Like being thrown into a new profession and being expected to be able to pick up and keep going like nothing has changed.

He sighs.

"I do. You have that air about you. Like you're used to cheering others on or something. Pickin' 'em up when they're down, etc, etc.

Am I off the mark?"

He doesn't necessarily have to like it, just accept it. Sometimes life just throws a curveball at you. Or something much weirder.

In any case she has to pause and think about that, she's not really used to people saying things like that to her. Especially people she's only just met.

"... I guess I never really thought of it like that?" How to explain this without invoking even more insane-sounding explanations... "Where I'm from, I'm not really a fighter or anything, but I help direct and support people who are."

Which, arguably, makes her just as much of a warrior as any of them, yet she was genuinely surprised when Tezcatlipoca called her one.

"Yeah, see. Help and direct. I was right. You don't need to be a fighter. Support is just as important a role as offense is, you know."

He says it to her in a way that suggests she might be stupid--but it's nothing personal--it's just the way he talks, sorry Ritsuka.

"Guess it'd be hard to notice unless it's pointed out to ya."

"Well yeah, but--that's not necessarily being some kind of leader?"

She doesn't take any offense at the tone. Mostly just because she's the type who isn't easily bothered by that sort of thing. Maybe also because she is a little dumb sometimes when it comes to seeing her own capabilities.

"Sure it does. Being a leader don't mean you throw yourself into the front lines, or that you gotta be there at the head of everything. Bein' a leader means you're better at supporting everyone who might need you. Bein' able to keep up their morale and shit."

He gestures, vaguely, with a hand.

Not his fucking fault she's goddamn blind to it.

"...But yanno, it's also a common trait for people in leadership roles to be really dumb, too."

Somehow, this conversation had managed to turn from trying to help the new guy to talking about her, and Ritsuka isn't quite sure how that happened. But he... kind of has a point? She can't think of a good argument against that reasoning, at least, even if she genuinely doesn't feel like it should apply to her.

"Well... I hope you can find a way to deal with all the weird stuff for yourself, anyway."

That last jab pretty much just slid right off. It's not that she didn't notice it, mind, but Ritsuka's used to occasionally dealing with people who are practically incapable of expressing anything in a non-negative manner.

And she knows it's probably true, anyway.

video; UN: dabi

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