tiredcharmer: (Uhhhhhh)
tiredcharmer ([personal profile] tiredcharmer) wrote in [community profile] diatu2020-01-13 09:38 pm

White Mourning [semi-open]

Who: Tyzias, her depression, and you!
What: Tyzias comes out of her self-imposed exile.
When: Early January
Where: The Campus
Warnings: Depression, minor dysphoria, implied suicidal ideation
Notes: The warnings are serious. If you're triggered by any of these topics, please don't open the cut text.


Caustic Echo (open)
After the Third Calamity descended upon Diatu and Tyzias was forced to reveal her true nature to save it, she disappeared.

Well, that's not exactly accurate. She got healed, made her excuses, walked to her room, locked the door, and didn't come out for eight days. There were no responses to any knocks at the door, and any attempts to force an entrance were met with stalwart automatic warding magics.

Eight days later, the goddess emerges from her room. And boy howdy she does not look good. Tyzias wears the exact same clothes that she did during the final battle, bloodied and torn and rumpled and dirty. Her eyepatch is only half-on, revealing the mess of scar tissue and dark mist seething underneath. She shambles forward with undeniable intent and a blank expression on her face, which is covered with an abomination that's half-five o'clock shadow, half-full beard. Looking at the damn thing is liable to make someone depressed all on its own.

Then Tyzias reaches her destination: a fountain in a secluded courtyard. Carelessly, thoughtlessly, she retrieves one of her numerous blades and dips it in the water. Normally Tyzias is efficient and precise with her movements whenever she has a weapon out, with the sort of caution you'd expect a master of the craft to have. Now it's like she doesn't give a damn whether she hurts herself or anyone else.

She dips it in the water, then begins hacking away at her face. Bit by it. Millimeter by millimeter. The beard slowly begins to disappear.

Sometimes, Tyzias flings the sword away (it inevitably sinks hilt-deep into a wall), and collapses against the fountain, not crying. There's a very distinct lack of crying that's almost unnatural. It's a void where crying should be.

The work takes hours.

Volumetric Shit Compressor (open)
gone bustin' - tyzias

That's what the hastily-scrawled note on Tyzias's front door reads. What it means is anyone's guess, unless said anyone is an expert on Earth pop-culture and is familiar with the undead situation in the caverns.

For several days, Tyzias is a ghostly presence around campus, stalking the hallways at random times, picking at tiny portions of food, and tossing used swords and other weapons away. Then she vanishes again.

Somebody stalking her, or passing by the entrance of the catacombs by chance, may find Tyzias performing a complex key ritual at the barrier to enter—after all, she was the one who designed the current security system.

Then, once inside, she rips and tears. Decayed gore and dried blood and disturbingly solid ectoplasm spatter the cave walls as Tyzias mechanically and recklessly annihilates the undead horde. She gives no thoughts to defense, of dodging, simply taking the attacks as they come and continuing with her assault until everything in the room is double-dead. Tyzias uses every weapon available to here like a club, smashing through her foes with absolutely no technique.

In fact, when you approach her on one of these missions, she just

Reaches out

Clamps her fingers around a zombie's head

And squeezes

Until it bursts like a ripe melon.

This probably isn't healthy.

Rigorous (Self) Critique (Closed to Yuume)
When Yuume finally arrives for her scheduled research session with Tyzias, she's a sight different than the ghost that was flitting around the campus just a day prior. Completely clean-shaven, smiling gently as she sketches some notes, knee jittering up and down... she's possessed by an almost manic energy that's the polar opposite of what she's been like for more than a week now. (Not that Yuume would know that, considering that they met over bulletin a mere day prior.)

Tyzias swivels in her chair and offers a two-fingered salute to Yuume, grinning crookedly. "Yo. Are you Yuume?"

Some Kind of Superstar (Closed to Seto)
A Duel Monsters card flies at Seto seemingly out of nowhere, with unerring aim and accuracy.

Tyzias emerges from the shadows, filled with that same manic energy. "Alright. How 'bout we do it properly this time? I think I owe you that after you helped save everyone's collective ass, mine included, on Christmas Eve." There's a hint of irony in that last phrase that's impossible to decipher the meaning of.

Finger on the Eject Button (Closed to Close Friends and Family (including Sophie))
Tyzias sits atop the clocktower, legs dangling over the abyss as she looks out over the campus with an unreadable expression. In Tyzias's hands is an old and battered textbook, its title barely legible through the wear, tear, stabbings, slashings, burns, and forces that it's been exposed to, even if one can read an alien language such as this. The spiked gavel on the cover, stained as it is, reveals its purpose: a receptacle of law. Wind skims the voids keeping classmates apart, as if grazing the hollow of a cut reed. A familiar note is produced: it's the one Desolation plays to keep its instrument in tune.

It is a day like any other in Tyzias's life, except something is missing now, and has been for weeks. Her hope, her dream, the one thing that kept her going this past sweep, is extinguished like a candle in the face of a wrathful gale. Her present conundrum is only the latest the latest sleight of hand in the repertoire of an unseen riddler, one to engender a sense not of mirth, but of lack. Their coarse schemes are those less of a prankster than a common pickpocket. Their riddle is Absence itself. It is a mystery dispersing altogether, like the moon's faint reflection, with even one pebble of inquiry dropped in its black well. It is the most diabolical riddle of all.

"Absence diminishes little passions and increases great ones, as wind extinguishes candles and fans a fire."

Tyzias needs help. But who will be the one to give it?
blue_ice: (and that's the tea)

[personal profile] blue_ice 2020-01-14 06:06 am (UTC)(link)
Seto, who knows a thing or two about throwing cards like weapons, makes a valiant grab---but his fingers aren't quite quick enough when he's startled, and it smacks against his chest. He blinks and looks down at it.

And who does he see when he looks up, but Tyzias, seemingly back to...normal? Whatever the baseline for normal is there. He's not quite sure. But he takes the card between his fingers.

"I did what anyone with a self-preservation instinct would do," he answered, deflecting out of habit. Compassion was gross, after all. "But if you're serious...fine, I can work you into my busy schedule. Just give me a few minutes to learn the new rules."

He laughs. It seems his attitude toward her has noticeably improved, despite the comment about the experience not meaning much.
blue_ice: (ghost of a chance)

[personal profile] blue_ice 2020-01-15 01:30 am (UTC)(link)
"...you play while driving?"

Yeah, he's just going to stare. Because with some of the idiotic duelists he's known, that sure sounds like a recipe for an accident.