When; Evening of Sunday, November 8 2009
Rating; PG-13 at the very worst. There are children present.
Characters; Konata, apartmentmates, any of her friends/acquaintances who want to come.
Summary; A small party at Kona's place. Games, anime and Pocky.
Log; ( Konata had planned a party to cheer up her friends... )

Everyone was writing stories yesterday. It was kind of like living in a book. I didn't write anything 'cause I'm not so good with stuff like that.

I'm going to spend tonight out under the moon again. It's been so beautiful out there. Even though it's way past full the big yellow orange color is so wonderful that I don't like being inside when I can be out under it.

If anyone wants to join me I'll be down by the river. There's a big flat rock right in the middle that's just perfect for lying on. And then you're in the middle of the water with the moon over you and the stars and the trees and the animals and, oh, it's just perfect!

The anonymity was lifted after midnight. ...That was the first time it happened. I suppose a change could be good. I predicted a plot twist.

Revealing curses yesterday as well. Was I right about the theme? Those affected couldn't hide their actions or inner thoughts of the moment. What would be next? Another of those curses we speak out our mind without thinking?

I want to tell my friends I am-

But enough of the City, I want to ask something maybe personal to some: What sort of fairy tales do you like the most? What is your favorite fable?

[You know how when you're on vacation and you intend to spend most of it reading, but then your relatives insist you should go to the aquarium and "connect with your inner dragon"? No? Really? Well, Hatori does, and he's not in a great mood because of it.

Regardless, he IS at the aquarium in Center City. And the astute observer will be able to notice that whenever he walks by some sea horses, they plaster themselves against the front glass, trying to get to him. Poor little things. Hatori's being so cold towards them. Anyone can feel free to run into him. His icy stare is much worse than his bite.

For those on the Network, there IS a post by him that has the text below.]

Suspicious and bizarre activity aside, this place is at least interesting to see.

Once upon a time there was a family of farmers. A mother, a father and their three sons. One day the parents and the elder brothers fell ill and died, leaving the youngest son alone. The family's town took the boy in, but he heard it repeated often that they couldn't keep him in that time of famine--he even heard it suggested that his family's death was somehow his fault. "Possessed by a fox," it was said because of the color of his hair. So it was no surprise that the boy was quickly sold to a passing slave caravan the moment the chance came up.

( ooc cut for length )

[ooc; I REFUSE TO LET THIS STUPID SICKNESS STEAL ANOTHER CURSE I WANTED TO PARTICIPATE IN!!! *rabble rabble rabble* pretend this was a little earlier Also, dialogue is a bit spliced between licensed release, scanlations, the ova and whatever--because Kenshin's memory =/= carbon, lol]

As nice as everyone here is, I'd like to be released soon, please. I can rest just as well back in my apartment and there's only so many things to write or do in here.

Entry the One Hundred and Thirty-Eighth
In which Her Royal Highness Princess Rosella finds herself in distress, which is normal, and shortly thereafter drops a bag of peas on her head, which is not.
Once upon a time, in a rather strange land known as the City, there lived a princess with quite a bit on her mind--which was only to be expected, really, from living in a place like the City for so very long. She had made plenty of friends in her time spent there, and she had been through many curses, and that made for a great number of things to think about, especially for someone who, to be perfectly honest, often thinks about things too much, anyway.

As she made her way through the aisles of the little grocery shop, listening to the pleasant click of her shoes on the floor and scouring the shelves for the items she wanted, the princess let herself drift into thought. She'd had a lovely evening the night before, attending a surprise party for the eighteenth birthday of one of her dearest friends, and soon there would be another birthday to celebrate, for another dear friend. And of course, Giving Thanks--or rather, Thanksgiving, she quickly amended with a touch of embarrassment--would be coming up soon, as well. Yes, there were plenty of good things to look forward to, she mused, and placed a bag of flour into her basket.

But alas, her thoughts soon turned to other considerations, and these were ones of the not-so-pleasant variety. Many of the people she cared about had seen friends sent home lately, and while she knew all too well that there was really nothing she could do to fix it, she still felt guilty and worried for them. And then there were her own worries--ones that had been piling up, bit by bit, over the course of a few months now, that she had been trying to ignore and determined to overcome. So many calamities had occurred, arriving every few weeks, and while she always did her best to recover from the horrors of those calamities, she was also aware that she hadn't shaken those horrors completely.

As she added a bag of apples to her basket and then went in search of the yeast, she let her mind drift over the memories of the prison, of the loss of her heart, of the cannibals and monsters that October had brought about, and finally to the horror of her encounter with Lolotte in the pumpkin patch. The joy of seeing her family the previous weekend had helped to counter a great deal of the sadness and uncertainty these events had brought about in her, but unfortunately, countering sadness did not necessarily mean eliminating it entirely, and the princess knew all too well how the City seemed to thrive on misery. She had vowed that it would not extract any out of her in the month of October, and she took a measure of rebellious pride in the fact that she had succeeded in keeping her vow.

However, this was now November, and she had no such vow for this month to help get her through.

(And, of course, had she known there was a curse on this particular day, she might've chosen to put these thoughts off for a later time, so as not to broadcast them all over the Network. But alas, it was not to be.)

Perhaps it was just that the coming of winter made it harder to keep her mind on light and cheerful things, she mused, dropping two packets of yeast into her basket. It was difficult to be anything but cheerful in the spring, when the days grew warm and the flowers came out and the whole world seemed to come back to life again. Now was the time for bundling up against the cold and building fires to keep warm--the normal fires, preferably, ones kept to the hearth and not to couches or straw dolls--and with the evenings coming sooner and sooner, perhaps it was only natural to be a bit gloomy. And at that thought, her optimistic spirit briefly surfaced, and she thought that perhaps she'd just have to hang on that much more tightly to the things that did make her cheerful, to combat the gloominess. It may not be easy, she mused, but she had never let things being difficult stop her before.

All these things she considered as she absently reached for a bag of peas, straining on her tiptoes to pull it down with the use of two fingers, and it was then that the princess learned her lesson about why one should always pay careful attention when retrieving heavy bags of peas from very high shelves.

Lord Cain Hargreaves, Earl of Hargreaves, was again at his Network device. It had been a quiet morning, which was a mercy, even if there was, obviously, a curse with which to contend. However, as it hadn't transformed anyone into animals, cast anyone's soul out as an animal, set any mad animals loose in the City, nor any of the other millions of maladies curses so often wrought, it could be fairly easily ignored. A quiet morning and a mild curse were blessings in a place like the City.

But for all the peace and quiet he might enjoy, his mind was not entirely at rest. Cain had in his nature a somewhat unfortunate tendency to brood. It was not immediately apparent, at least not to those who met him when he wanted most to be met: at parties, in parks, on certain streets or boulevards. But he still carried it, and little wonder if one knew the whole of his life. But he said little of that and was asked less, and that was how he would keep matters. For those who knew his father, it might be said that it was something in the blood, but that was a blood tie Cain resented, as he did with all ties he strained against with his father.

Still, he was keeping to himself purposefully, and had since early Friday morning. Since he now had reason to fear retribution for the revels and bonfires of two days ago for which it was now clear that he was, at least in part, responsible, he thought it might be best if he were to keep a low profile. It was a practical matter more than anything. Retribution by the 'deities' (which was a sorry stop-gap name for them, and he insisted on using it only as the nearest shorthand for whatever those creatures really were), if it were to come, would likely be wretched and long-lived. Of course they knew who it was who had played rabble-rouser in the days before the bonfires. And now everyone knew who had suggested making effigies for the bonfires in the likenesses of the 'deities'--indeed, more than suggesting it, he had helped to carry it out. He had been bold behind his mask, almost uncharacteristically. He was bold by nature too, but he was no rabble-rouser. An idea had occurred to him, and the opportunity had presented itself. Perhaps he had only been carried away by it.

But it had still been a bright thing to see those figures burned.

Then, of course, there was the inevitable end to the curse. Such an end is a mercy most times. But the other associated troubles, the revelation of who, exactly had said what where on the Network, would pose a problem. The disappearance of the masks had been less so. A great part of the City was walking around the fires, so what difference would it make who was there? But when the call went up that names were then attached again to the things said, as they were attached to things done, he had decided, or perhaps realised, even as the clocks were chiming midnight that night of the bonfires--though who could hardly hear the clocks over the roar of the fires and the shouts and songs around them?--that it would serve him best to keep to himself for a few days thereafter. He would only attend to the things most necessary to do: he would see to the cafe, he would attend to anything in the opera house, he would send Riff on errands here and there, and he would quietly wash the scent of smoke and ashes out of his clothing.

The fires had been beautiful though, in that fierce way that fires have. There is always something primordial and frightening about them. It is easy to see why some would say Hell itself is full of nothing but fire. All the figures around them were made of smoke and shadows, and the fire burned hot and relentlessly before them all. But above it were the lights and glitter that were half stars and half sparks. The stars too burned brightly and hotly, and the fire answered them, throwing up sparks of its own to match. In that distance, in that sharing of light to light, the yellow stones of the stars and the orange jewels of the fire, there was quiet.

It had struck him the next day that the sheer number of fires he'd witnessed in his own time should have made him reconsider lighting bonfires in the midst of the City. He was no arsonist. He, and anyone with sense, knew well not to risk destroying one's own house in the pursuit of beauty or light or heat. And he could not easily forget the fires that consumed the crooked house in which he'd found Merry, and those same fires that consumed too the crooked little girl who lived there. There were too many fires, and too many fires in too many patterns at that. He would forever see Merry's face across the flames, smeared with soot and afraid. He would forever remember the fireworks and the explosions in the middle of a carnival, like a war in a courtyard, making scorched ruins out of new-built towers and terraces. These places soaked with blood and smeared with ashes would not soon be healed. They would linger like scars, like the scarred memories he carried in his mind.

But he was removed from all that here, if that was any comfort. All of that was held in waiting, attending on his arrival. He could fairly see it in his mind the day he'd return. In his mind's eye, it was something like a train pulling away from a station, or like a stone tossed from bridge. The train moves slowly at first, then gains speed until it is clear that speed is the only thing it has ever known. The stone seems to hang in midair for a moment before dropping, faster and faster into the river below. So he imagines his return: he was find himself back in his own time, and his time will rush to catch up with him and carry him off again. And he will be glad to go, even to such a war as the one to which he knows he must return. A tallying of the days, as he has always kept in his journal, proves that it has now been two years and six months and a handful of days since the City first drew him in, and he is hastily drawing upon the anniversary of his one, only, and very brief visit home. Perhaps it was a favour or a joke of the City to send him home for the span of time in which his birthday would have fallen in the City. Of course he was nowhere near that in his own time, nor was it even in his mind. But there was a knot in that: what age was he?

And that was a thought to entertain idle hours--idle hours of which he had too many these recent days. There is a tedium and a nervousness to lying in hiding and in wait. He has endured it before, whether it be because the City is under attack, because of a curse, or because of one of the once various and dangerous enemies--the ones who forced all those who lived in the opera house to make it less a place for music than a fortress. But it has served well, and he has grown accustomed to waiting.

There is, really, little else to do in the City besides wait: one waits for a curse to end, one waits for the next curse to begin, and one waits to return home. And the waiting is, of course, no easier for one than for any of the others.

And so, as he had done often in idle hours or for entertainment (for the City lacked a great deal), he turned again to the Network, reading, observing, for there is no study more involving than the study of one's fellow man.

~C.

[ooc: MY TL;DR IS THE MOST TL;DR OF ALL TIME. OF ALL TIME. MY TL;DR PWNS YOU ALL. We're going as florid and Victorian and 19th century novel as we can today~]

Will, Geranium, Chapel... I'm so sorry for the mess. This dog... he keeps acting like he's inhebriated. Lazy, too. He keeps falling asleep in the strangest of places.

...speaking of pets. I know a butterfly probably is really flammable, but does anyone know if Night survived? I do miss the little thing.

---

[ooc: Koi has a shaggy old mutt (borzoi) with the personality of Kyouraku Shunsui, his best friend.]

When; Friday, November 06th, around 7ish
Rating; G? PG? Will probably have some swearing just because.
Characters; Anyone that got invited to Ishida's birthday.
Summary; It's Ishida's birthday, and some people in the City decide to throw him a party. Whether he likes it or not.
Log; ( Lalalala INSERT WITTY TITLE HERE 8D )

( PRIVATE || UNHACKABLE )


As yesterday was cursed, it was logical that today would be "normal". I've been fortunate thus far this month, though I will note that it was frustrating trying to work yesterday. Simply because one is difficult to identify at the time, doesn't mean thievery is permissible - nor that I am any less attentive.

And all those who failed to realize that the City would pull some rug out from under them afterward are, frankly, morons.


[ooc: BACKDATED TO LIKE idk afternoon, lol had to cook and.... passed out. AND HE IS STUDIOUSLY NOT MENTIONING THAT TODAY IS HIS BIRTHDAY BECAUSE ... BECAUSE. BUT HIS MUN MAY HAVE BEEN VERY OBNOXIOUS ABOUT IT RECENTLY SRY GAIZZZ]

When; Evening of November 6th
Rating; idk? it's a birthday party for goodness' sake!
Characters; OPEN to anyone who knows Neil and/or Todd who would like to come.
Summary; Todd is turning 18. Did he really think he could get away with doing it quietly? Threadjack, backdate, do whatever you like. LET US HAVE A PARTY. yes.
Log; ( Some people like to rock, some people like to roll... )

Shenanigans.

I fell into a burning ring of fire. It burned, burned, burned, and the flames leapt highter...


[ooc: He's just being a dick, but he saw what you did there with those effigies.]

When; Saturday, November 7th, evening (FORWARDATED WHOO)
Rating; PG?
Characters; Ino Yamanaka and Yuri Lowell
Summary; What starts out as innocent doesn't really end that way. ...Wait, when were they ever innocent?
Log; ( all the dishes rattle in the cupboards when the elephants arrive )

[The screen fizzles to life rather suddenly, and it's fairly obvious that Minato wasn't expecting it. He's sitting on his bed, merely wearing a rather disheveled dress shirt and dress pants, staring at his left hand with a rather warm expression. If you look close enough, you might just see a glint of gold on his ring finger.

There's a moment of silence, which is soon broken as a young cat hops down from the table Minato's l337Pod was perched on. The cat hops up onto the bed next to Minato, sitting down and absently beginning to groom itself. Minato turns and absently begins stroking the cat's fur, ignoring the clearly displeased look the cat gives him.]

Hard to believe it, right Tsuki? We're finally married...

[And then he finally notices his l337Pod and laughs lightly.]

Did you turn that thing on?

[He's grinning as he gets up and grabs the device, shooting an amused look at the clearly disgruntled cat before turning it off.]

When; After THIS.
Rating; PG13, language
Characters; Inara Serra, Priestly
Summary; Priestly hurries to help Inara with her situation by feeding her obscene amounts of food. And probably letting her harass him ... sexually.
Log; ( Popping your BLT cherry since 2009! )

I really am afraid that I'll hurt some of you very badly. And that I never remember it. Sometimes I wonder if it's better if I push all of you away, so it never happens.

What I'm afraid of most is myself. How much more can this body take, I wonder.

[ooc; Lol, affected, but I'm sure there's SOME indications of Hotaru in there, but for the most part, anonymous. And it's sadly something she's been wanting to say for a while]

When; [Remember, Remember] the Fifth of November
Rating; PG - PG13 [let's not burn down the City, please]
Characters; The Master Harold Saxon [neverendingbeat], Cain Hargreaves [misterblackbird], and you!
Summary; "Harold" and Cain have arranged to have a bonfire in Misery Square--complete with five effigies for five certain favorite deities. Come and warm up, throw a log (or a chair) on the fire, set off a few fireworks, and enjoy the warm glow of being Anonymous~ [This is an open log for anyone and everyone who might come to see the bonfire. Jump in and out, threadjack, mingle, and enjoy!]

Log; ( I know of no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot... )

If you consider Tuesday curse, this one is less of a nuisance. Instead of stripping us of our privacy, we are fully unrecognizable. What is this month about? Falsehoods and truths? Identities? Hmpf. As if I care. I am just glad to know that we have left October behind.

Kaoru, Rosella, Doumeki, Jun. I--

...

What is that noise about? There had to be vandalism under the guise of anonymity.

( Private: Thoughts )

Surprise! *loud explosion follows*


(OOC - affected into pulling Jokey Smurf pranks)

So we're all masked and hidden, both in person and on the Network. This sort of ordeal with the Network happened once before when our names were detached from our words on the Network, and we've had masks something like this in the City before. But we've never had the two together, and never quite in such a way. It's a fascinating curse, really.

But it does mean that there is a curse today after all. I should have known, really. At least it's not as bad as I'd expected. I'm still myself, even if I'm not quite myself, nor myself on the Network. It does make one feel a bit freer, doesn't it? That's the purpose of a mask, after all: one is not oneself anymore. But I explained that on the night of masquerade.

I think there should be a bonfire on Bonfire Night after all. There's nothing to keep us from doing it--there are no fires or fireworks shooting through the City. We're most of us disguised and hidden today. I can't tell one person from another, save by their style of writing or trick of speech, but that's the only thing. And isn't that a bit like the sort of mob who would light a bonfire in a City square?

Anyone with matches, interest, or fuel for the fire, come to the Square after sunset. We'll make the bonfire there. And if you've fireworks, bring those too. We'll make a celebration of this yet.

But, of course, to really have a bonfire like this, you'll need a Guy. Another citizen of this lovely City and I have agreed that we ought to make a Guy modeled after one of the 'deities'. Perhaps we should make one for each of the 'deities'. So bring old clothes and straw, if you have any. There's a barn and a stable just outside of town. We can fetch straw from there. There are five 'deities' I think--three women and two men. Surely we can make five Guys for the fire. We'll need a white doctor's coat for one of them, if someone would be so kind as to donate one. Otherwise, well, perhaps there's to be a little more masked trouble this evening. I should very much like to see all five of them there on the fire.

Of course, we may suffer for it. The 'deities' may know who we each are behind these masks, but they still let us act a little differently from ourselves today. Today we can say things on the Network we might not ordinarily say and do things we might not ordinarily do. It's a dangerous thing, this kind of anonymity. There is no responsibility nor any limitation. We may pay for it tomorrow, but it's almost worth it tonight.

So a bonfire for Bonfire Night. I think it would be perfectly splendid. And who would complain about it with the weather as cool as it is? And there will certainly be fireworks eventually. Why wouldn't everyone want to attend? Especially if we're going to be burning the 'deities' in effigy.

There were rumours of rebellion earlier this summer, but those seem to have died entirely. It's a shame really. But it's more a wonder that we've never really risen up against the 'deities'. Are we afraid of them? Are we so certain we'll lose if we fight them? I've actually defended this City, and more than once. I can't believe that I have now. But I've been here for quite some time. One does many things that one can't believe. I suppose this is another one of them for me.

So come to the bonfire and bring your matches and your wood, if for nothing else then for the warmth of it. One can hardly refuse a celebration, really, especially not a rebellious one on a day when no one knows your face. We've some freedom for the moment, and I intend to take it.

[ooc: Cuuuuuuuursed! But also taking the opportunity >:3 You'll notice he didn't sign this entry, for example (not that that really hides him at all). But why not seize the chance, right? So, in short, Cain got to talking about bonfires and the idea came up that maybe they should make a Guy for the bonfires. Namely, a Guy that resembles the deities. Or at least one of them. Laszlo, actually. The dude's an easy target as much as he's on the Network. So! Anyone want to volunteer a doctor's white coat for the cause? :D Anyone want to volunteer anything else? The bonfire itself will be small and not hurt anything in the City.]