Charmus Jerkus.

Couldn't find the entry in my Latin dictionary, but if we were going by playground rules I'd think all the insults were a backward attempt to hit on me. Except, when he compliments my ass there's just no feeling in it.

[Someone's just amiably on the edge of drunk, chatting into his network device through the background noise of a busy bar.]

So, anyone want to let a Jerkus buy them a drink?

[Pinoko's sitting and having a little snack when she stops to look at someone off-screen.]

Well, I don't know... the lasht time Pinoko drank shomething like that, she took a twain to Honmachi and wound up over the Doc's knee.

What's that? Ooh, it shmells like fruitsh! That's way nicher than all that shmelly beer.

[Then, she grins.] Well, maybe half a drink won't hurt!

[She takes a sip of the clear fruit brandy, then blushes and smiles.] Yum! Thish tashtes really shweet! [She finishes her glass.] How 'bout another?

[Another glass? Really, with her size?]

Hic! [Her head nearly drops onto the table, so she quickly lifts it up and leans her cheek on her hand, smiling sleepily.

She's lazily playing with a clover leaf before dropping it into her glass.] Oopsh. Bye-bye, little clover... [She leaaaans into her glass, shutting one eye and staring into it with the other.] Hope the dwink doesn't dull your magic! [When she moves away, she waves half-heartedly at the glass.]

Phew, it's hot in here... don't you guys have any air conditioning? Pinoko's gonna shtep outshide and get shome fresh aiiiir. Hic!

[She hops down, only her two top ribbons visible to the camera now as she seems to have forgetten her communicator. She takes two wobbly steps away from the stool, then stops.] Never mind, Pinoko's gotta go potty! Oooh, where's the ladies room?!

[She runs off before getting an answer.] Outta Pinoko's waaaaay!

[A few minutes pass and she still hasn't come back for her communicator. Oops.]

[This is the sound of a man who's been sobbing (and puking) his guts out. It's like he put the lime in the coconut and mixed it all up.]

Somebody send some fuckin' help. [GrooOoOaAaAaaaan fuck you I'm fuckin' dyin' crai.]

This place really likes playing with the mind. Send me home only to drag me right back.

It's like a really screwed up game. Anyway....here I am back, from whence I came. Again.

All right.

You've got a hangover?

Here's what you do. Eat a fry-up. Bread, eggs, sausages, tomatoes, white pudding, mushrooms. I'll be making them.

If you can't handle that eat a few raw eggs, drink some fucking water, and have a few slices of bread. Or a banana.

Can't handle that, then just keep drinking the water.

But if you want a fry up, just come over.

[ Short, to the point and very, very dry: ]

Happy first anniversary, Merlin, says the City.

[ And that's it, because only a few days after said "anniversary", a curse drove Arthur to kill him. He's not very happy about it. ]

[The images on the screen right now might not be entirely safe for work, children or Michael sensitive viewers, given that Kira records from inside the strip club he works at - in a managing position - and the current curse has people lose even more inhibitions there than they normally would.]

Hello, boys and girls.

[A good-looking man in his late teens, dressed in dark clothes with a wicked smile and a strip club as a back-drop. Inviting, ain't it?]

Since everyone seems to be enjoying themselves here, I figured I should inform a wider audience of the possibilities we offer.

Come to She'ol, I can guarantee you a good time.

[Because who doesn't want to come when the Devil's asking you to the lowest circle of Hell?]


( some private filters )

( Alexiel's communicator is sitting on the edge of her bathroom sink. The picture is obviously skewed. This is a video that no one was meant to see.

As she stares at her reflection wearing little more than a bath towel, she reaches up and touches her cheeks. There is a strange light in her eyes and, for those who are sensitive to such things, a pulsating, powerful aura surrounding her. She raises a hand and the towel begins to slip, revealing more of her pale skin yet, at the last second, she comes back to herself enough to grab it with her free hand. Her upraised hand is soon pressed against the glass of the mirror. )

Am I meant to seek you endlessly? ( She doesn't shed tears, however the emotion shaking her voice is obvious. ) You will never know.

( Waiting in the City is slowly grinding against her self-restraint. She moves in a way that suggests she is forcing herself to bury all of the negative emotions her appearance causes her to feel.

So like him. Twins.

There really is no telling what she sees in the mirror. Are they nightmares? Visions?

To have this body and not be able to reach him is torture. This is a side she never wanted anyone else to see. With a quick swipe of her hand, she knocks her communicator away from her and the screen goes black. )

[[ooc; HEYO Trigger Warning for violence and self-destructive tendencies and cray. Though they are mild and fairly in-explicit. Also I am very late, so I am not backdating this. She's just been out fighting drunks since Friday. o7]]



[She's been... missing, since Friday. Since all that talk and thought of traitors. She's fairly predictable, that Carla. Something gets under her skin and she takes to scratching herself bloody. It's not the first time nor the last time she'll show up on the network with pink teeth and bruised eyes.]

He was eighteen when I fucked him over. [No, she has never cared if anyone wants to hear her talk, or if anyone understands her at all. It's all about her, about her release, her confession, her pain. So self-centered.]

He was always an idiot. He would have been locked up eventually, and I didn't want to go with him.

[There had been no such justifications, at the time. Isaac Crew simply hadn't been useful to her anymore.]

So I paid some little high schooler to squeal about him and that was it.

[It hadn't precisely been a lie. Isaac Crew was guilty of statutory.]

And then he got out and shot me in the head.

[She used to cringe, admitting her own death. She's been back and forth across the line of living and dead and in between too many times now. That's why she's crazy. That's why her face is bloody and her teeth are grit and she has her device in white knuckles talking to no one in particular for everyone to see.]

He held his fucking Chinese made handgun to my head and I laughed at him until he kicked me and I kept laughing until he broke my ribs and I kept laughing until he shot me in the head, the fucking idiot.

[She's laughing now, her usual hytserical half-sobbing sound, face lost in the tangles of dark hair. Eventually, she gets a handle on herself, silent with head bowed until she mutters,]

Merry fucking Christmas.

[And she's done.]

[voice]

[ There is a kind of careful neutrality in Lin's voice right now. ]

Roommates: I am escorting Korra down to the station to answer a few questions.

And then I am going to yoga. [ She needs to relax. ]

[filtered to police force]

Got another stabber coming in. Woman at the hospital reported it. I thought we should at least follow up, make sure it was curse-related.

I can't work this one for personal reasons, anyone want to take it?

[ ooc: Korra stabbed Chekov, Uhura reported it, and Lin's bringing her in. Yep. ]

[This is, in fact, an accidental video. Good morning, City. You know the best answer for a hang-over? Keep drinking, and continue to drink Marie Delacroix shall. She usually sticks to white wine, but she drank all that some time yesterday. What she has now is a tall can of beer that she pounds back like a champ before she's flicking a cigarette to life.

She most assuredly has work today, and she while she looks very tired, she moves about the apartment, disappearing in and out of shot without a grumble or a stumble.

Another beer is obliterated before she leans down to grab the device off the table to toss into a purse. She observes the recording light and scowls promptly.]

I will never understands zhis place's obsession with invading one's privacy.

[Now if you will excuse her B|]

[Chekov has been maintaining radio silence since the fifteenth. The rampant alcohol-induced misery in the City, however, prompts a network post.]

Celebrations yesterday, vomiting in the streets today. It feels like the first of January.

My father has told me many ways to cure a hangover--some of the ways are ridiculous--so I will share his better suggestions. Drink pickle brine; the potassium, magnesium, and electrolytes will help. Mineral water is good, too, as is kvass, but I don't know there to find that in the City. If these don't help, jump into a very cold body of water. The cold should be enough of a distraction to make you forget your other miseries.

[There's an uncertain pause.]

Also, I have a question.

I realize that, normally, actions taken during curses are to be forgiven. What if a cursed action is encouraged or preceded by uncursed actions? Say--and this is only an example--two friends have an argument, and that becomes a fight. Maybe the fight is somewhat violent, but not so bad until the curse takes hold and one of the participants does something extreme. When uncursed and cursed are close like that, how do you know where one turns into the other? Is there a time when a cursed action is not forgivable?

[He clears his throat. It's a troubling topic, which is why he feels a need to end on an entirely different note.]

Pickle brine for hangovers. Remember that. You heard it from a Russian, and a Russian never lies about these things.

[background noise might lead you to identify the location as the Subway Panic, the clattering of... hooves might identify the owner of the device before the voice does- there are only so many equine citizens in this place.

And this one just got back.]

No way-

[A muffled series of "oof", "excuse me", "pardon me", "excuse me!", as she fights through the rush of people in the station, fumbling with her phone.]

Am I back in the City-

Is this the City?

[Utsuho is talking to herself in some random alleyway. Her arm cannon is glowing, and trickles of bright golden fire are hissing out of it. The bricks on the building wall nearby are starting to melt into magma-like slag -- yes, melt.]

Everyone got sick yesterday, and I'm not really sure why. Today they're all saying they have the hangover, but really, it doesn't look much like they're hung over anything. But hey, at least if I sleep on the roof I can't smell the puke in the alley anymore.

So...apparently I'm in a place with the worst name ever. The City? The City of what? At least in Gensokyo we have real names for things.

So this is the City, and there are gods here that curse people...just because they want to. So they're kind of like the mountain goddess, only they're way more angry about everything. Which is hard, because really, Kanako gets mad about everything. And you can't go home until the gods let you, so I'm stuck here.

I need to find some good rocks here, and set up some suns, because it's really cold out. I guess right now I should just warm up.

[She aims the cannon now, and the fire blasts out in rippling waves that form up into a sphere as if by their own will. It's a tiny little star, fusing hydrogen and everything, just sitting there right in the middle of this alleyway. For anyone who sees it in person, it's incredibly hot, and the pebbles on the ground around it are rattling slightly closer, as if it has its own gravity well. Surely this isn't quite obeying usual stellar physics, but it definitely looks like a sun.

And then she just walks right next to it, crawls under it, spreads out her wings, and lies on her face in the alley with the sun above her and the video device leaning against the wall, which is rapidly becoming a sort of...trembling glassy layer above the remaining brick as the sun scorches it up.]

I wonder where I should go now. I'm kind of lost.