humiliatious | Cursed Night Market

Welcome

You’re not sure how you got here, but you don’t seem to mind. You feel a pervasive sense of calm with regard to your environment. You have entered what appears to be a night market. Perhaps the concept is familiar to you, or perhaps it isn’t. Colorful stalls, glowing with lantern light, line the path before you. You know what you need to do to return to where you came from. Investigate the various stalls - buy and sell what you have, until you’re able to purchase a path back. The merchants will take any currency that you have on hand. If you don’t have any, you will find some coins of an ambiguous nature in your pocket.

Rare Items

The first stall that you encounter boasts that you can buy and sell rare items. After trading a coin, the merchant hands you something - insists you take it. You don’t recognize the item, but the person behind you does. It is something extremely dear to them. If they check their person, they will find the item missing. If you attempt to return the item to them, you will find that you are unable to. Helpfully, the merchant offers that the person the item belongs to must tell the buyer a story about the item before it can be returned.

Fortunes

The second stall you encounter claims to buy and sell fortunes. Trading a coin, the merchant will relay to you a fortune, but, as you listen, you realize that it isn’t your fortune at all. With a cackle, the merchant explains that you must deliver the fortune with the person behind you. Neither of you can leave the booth until you have revealed to them their future.

Memories

The third stall you encounter claims to buy and sell memories. You can choose to sell the merchant a memory you would like to forget, or you can ask to buy someone else’s memory. Selling your memory will transfer it to the person behind you. In return, you will gain one of their memories. Buying a random memory will instead cause you to forget one of the people most important to you. In some instances, you might feel a great urgency to find someone, although you don't know who it is.

Dreams

The fourth stall you encounter claims to buy and sell dreams. Trading a coin at this stall will cause you and the person behind you to be transported into a shared dream. The dream may be about the highest point in your life or the lowest. It may also be about a close friend, there or gone. It may reveal your greatest desire or your greatest insecurity. Or any number of other things!

OOC notes

Suggestions on prompts: if you’re going to write one where someone will be seeing/receiving something from your character, it’s helpful to describe it in detail in the brackets in your TL. I know some of these prompts are probably a little confusing, but, I mean…it’s roleplay. Just fuck around. No one’s gonna police how you do things here.

Please feel free to top-level, tag in, and share this meme wherever you’d like - it is open to anyone. The four stalls mentioned are prompt suggestions, but you can go crazy and have any stall do basically anything you want. Please see/use subject line CWs. This musebox doesn’t have a dedicated rule list because it’s just for my personal shit, but please be kind, follow standard RP rules - just be nice! Do the right thing! If you have any questions, hit me up here.

code by Flyleaf ❖ inspired by event code by 10billionghosts ❖ background via unsplash

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[There's a way home. Sunny doesn't know what it is, and he hasn't asked. He's wandered around the market for hours now - lost, scared, but not all that eager to find a solution...

[He's perceptive. He doesn't have to ask people questions if he can hear what they're saying - and he heard something. It's not a stall, but a person. Sunny commits the appearance to memory - glasses, brown hair, Japanese. He searches the market with fiddling fingers, eyes uncertain and searching...

[And then he finds him. Sunny approaches. He swallows down a lump in his throat, anxiety peaking.]

Excuse me...

[ Being outside of Tokyo, outside of the Metaverse, outside of the comfort of his Palace with the collective unconscious at his fingertips is unsettling, to say the least. The only assurance Maruki has that his life's work hasn't crumbled back in their true reality is Azathoth's docile serenity at the base of his skull. Surely, if catastrophe was befalling their ideal world, it would not be silent. They would be tearing holes through the fabric of reality together to fight their way back.

But they're not. It's fine. Just a strange night market, just a series of stalls with promises that almost mock him.

And a boy, short and slight, approaching him like he needs his help.

That's how most everyone approaches Maruki, after all.

His eyes are warm, his smile gentle. ]

Hi there. What seems to be the trouble?

[ Surely there must be some; he looks ready to fall apart. ]

[Sunny is always, ever about to fall apart.

[But there is a promise in this man's name, and he has nothing left to lose - nothing. He just wants it all to be over. He'll ensure that one way or another, but if the rumors are really true...

[He has to build up the courage to ask. His voice remains quiet, unsure.]

I...I-I heard you...can help...

[More, Sunny.]

Help...fix...lives...?

[ Warmth floods every cell of Maruki's body like radiant golden light. That gentle smile turns positively beatific. ]

You heard correctly. My name is Dr. Maruki. Do you want to come tell me what's troubling you?

[ The collective unconscious is lost to him here. He can't fix anything from the boy imagining it alone, he does need to ferret it out. But if he's eager for help, then it shouldn't be hard. Maruki gestures toward one of the benches beneath a string of lanterns, starts to walk off in hopes that he'll follow. ]

[Sunny can't seem to answer, but Dr. Maruki doesn't make him; he begins to walk, and Sunny follows. Standing before the bench, he anxiously fiddles with the hem of his vest for a few long moments before quickly sitting down.

[He has no idea where to begin. He looks to Maruki, as if searching for that answer.

[Pathetically, all he manages to come up with is:] Something...something...terrible...happened...

[ Ah, it's always that way, isn't it?

Maruki nods and hums a sympathetic noise in his throat. When nothing else comes, he draws a deep breath and folds his hands together in his lap, as if in prayer. ]

You don't have to tell me every detail, but I do need to know what happened. I'm sure it's difficult to talk about... It may even feel impossible.

[ It's only the gentlest possible push. He hates to see anyone hurting; hates it more now that he sees it so rarely. ]

But it will be the last time you'll ever have to think about it. I can promise you that.

[It does feel impossible. More than. Sunny can't even think of the right first word. "My sister--"; "I killed--"; "There was a--"; "We had a--".

[It's not enough. Can't be, right? What does Dr. Maruki need to know? Will he only take away what Sunny gives him? He couldn't recount the whole thing if he tried. Sometimes, he still barely remembers it at all. He went so many long, long years, never even realizing - not allowing himself to.

[His heart beats wildly in his chest, and his breath is already coming in short gasps. He can't possibly think of her words - can't calm down, can't focus - when he's thinking of her - the stairs - the violin - his anger - his fear - his dread - a crack - a crunch - silence - silence - silence--

[Sunny's eyes are wide. He looks at Maruki like a mirror, a monster. His hand grips the fabric of his vest over his heart.]

My sister. [Impossible. Impossible. His voice barely makes a sound. He can't, he can't...

[He shakes his head - bites his lip. He wants to run; takes a half-step back.]

She...she...she...she--

...fell...

Hey. It's okay. You're safe here. There's no need to be scared.

[ Gentle, gentle; his tone couldn't possibly be any softer, any more soothing.

The distortions of his heart have never closed him off or made him cold to anyone's suffering. The opposite, really. He feels every bit of Sunny's pain as if it were his own, and his eyes are deep, warm wells of sympathy as he tries to catch Sunny's frightened gaze. ]

Let's try something else. Okay?

[ He brings his folded hands up in front of his face for a moment, presses his lips thoughtfully to his knuckles, then extends them out toward Sunny. ]

What would make you happiest? If that never happened to your sister? Or... something else?

Cursed Night Market

bites u (third sem pls)

deep breath bear with me thirdsem maruki takes such a different brain

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