Although ocular & brain implants are the means of communication nowadays, a messenger service still exists in this world. Mostly everyone uses LINE nowadays even if the need for cellular phones is null. Characters may have already recognized the interface to be somewhat familiar with the similar shade of green and same old slogan.
It happens the first time, and several times throughout the week as your character goes about their new routine. The sound of machine-like whirring, deep within their cranium, like a computer that’s in the midst of processing some new information. Then, there’s the familiar ping of a new public message, and whatever you were thinking about at that point of time will be plastered on the network, for all to read and react to. Daydreaming about ponies at work? Having a fun night out at a club? Regretting said night out at the club? Falling into a deep depression about how your life has turned out so far? It doesn’t matter when or where, because the system doesn’t discriminate. You’ll soon find the thoughts you were having during those moments posted on the network and it won’t be possible to delete.
"The system is updating … ... The system is updating … "
That’s the only explanation SYNTHIA will give when prodded or asked to take down a post. She’s not too helpful at this moment.
"Yeah, sorry. She gets temperamental like that sometimes. I can’t really do anything about your business being out there. But it’s pretty funny, right? Looks like you got hella wrecked last night. Good for you."
Welcome to our first Network Mingle! This is a TFLN-inspired mingle that’s been tweaked to make it completely canon to the game. Due to a glitch in the system, random thoughts that characters might be having throughout the week will be registered as network posts and posted in public for all to see and respond to. This can happen at any time as they wander around the main base or different Neo Tokyo locations!
HOW TO PLAY: 1. Write out prompts (example below) for others to respond to. These can be thoughts they’re having in bed, at work, while intoxicated or what-have-you. You can look up shower thoughts or TFLN as inspiration, but remember that this will be game canon so it has to be written in your character’s voice. 2. Go around and respond to others! 3. ??? 4. PROFIT!
Participation in this mingle isn’t obligatory, of course. If you don’t want your character to participate, you can simply assume the glitch did not affect them.
We also have a code below for fun, but please don't feel pressured to use it. As always, a regular text thread works out just fine! Most importantly, have fun!
(Please remember to put warnings for NSFW/triggering content in the subject header.)
（ there's no reaction to the jibe — delusional is indeed a word that describes his actions just as well. why refute it? he lifts one shoulder in a faint shrug, accepting the statement. it seems the man has remembered his teeth, but he recognizes it as a gauntlet thrown from the back foot. kakashi feels rattled, uncertain and out of step.
is he hoping to see a glimmer of the same, or is this the snap of a cornered beast? sympathy is a slow, venous crawl through him, set aside as soon as recognized.
dry: ）
I'm certain you may be able to imagine a scenario or two in which there is benefit not to revealing one's hand early. （ mr 'this is probably a clone, actually'. ） Given the surgeries we have been subjected to （ a touch to one cheekbone ） there is doubtless no way to conceal the Sharingan from LILITH's administration — but I imagine it will not be made more broadly known beyond them. However, until we can be certain there is no one here with the resources and power who is willing to attempt to exploit it, there is strategic value in limiting the amount of known users among the Outsiders.
（ if kakashi wishes to take it as cowardice or selfishness, of the wilful use of sasuke as one uses bait in a trap, he won't protest it. the truth is more that he has always found it easier to protect his brother from the shadows.
the chance, of course, is low. he has not yet met an outsider with power to rival he or sasuke. but those that dwell in neo-tokyo are largely unknown. yet, given that the denizens of this world were able to summon them against their will in the first place he is not going to accept low as non-existent. the sharingan has caused too many problems in their own world not to anticipate some amount of repetition possible here. if he's mistaken — then his caution will have been unnecessary. if he isn't...
mm. ）
Surely you have not become so foolish as to think the Sharingan my only means of dispatching monsters, Kakashi?
（ this is said pointedly, following kakashi's gaze to his sword. ）
( familiar is the sardonism in the tone itachi addresses him with. if he weren't inoculated by years of acting similarly, it might irritate kakashi. he's aware that they're currently engaged in a battle, though one far subtler than another fought with weapons and techniques.
the trick is to be myself, he thinks. wrapped up in the melodrama of the anbu, he might've pursued itachi's every judgement of him, but control over his will now is far more difficult when they've grown legs of their own. sasuke's well-being is on the line and his dissent from what itachi has become will be known. hopefully, his beliefs will outlast him. )
If you're likening massacring your clan to "dispatching monsters," I guess I have become foolish... I never would've made that connection.
( that sword is cursed. looking at it together with itachi feels inherently wrong, like walking the riverside of an ancient battleground. kakashi suspects that if their eyes took too long to divert from it its blade would show them the faces of those it cut down warped by years of use.
he'd admit confidently to being cowed by it. it terrifies him. )
I understand taking precautions. ( seeking eye contact once more, itachi is given a flat reply, indicating calm acceptance of their inevitable alliance. despite everything. ) The exploitation of kekkei genkai has always been a trend, and this world's commanders-in-chief are already using you and Sasuke as weapons. I've kept my sharingan hidden as well.
But there are going to be major time constraints if the simulations are anything to go by. The longer we dawdle, the more people will die.
( the faster they deal with the kaiju, the safer they'll all be. his priorities lie in protecting ino and sasuke, but he won't let innocent natives die if he can do something to prevent it. )
（ but there is no defensiveness in the statement, no correction. nothing that suggests sentiment lurks beneath a gaze as cool and still as water. he has played this role for years, and stepping back into the looming shadow of it costs him nothing that has not already been stripped down to nothing. to be shinobi is to endure anything unflinching — which kakashi knows as well if not better than he ever learned at danzō's side.
perhaps this conversation would be going differently, if sasuke had chosen to warn kakashi of his presence. perhaps another will follow that grants context. but the idea of telling kakashi the truth — which he would disbelieve as surely as one would disbelief rain rising from the ground — is not currently an option to him.
why didn't you come to me? one simple statement, and yet it revealed a yawning wealth of guilt he had not thought to look for, or imagine. it was uchiha business, he had thought then — and he had cut kakashi ruthlessly out of it. despite being a permitted carrier of their legacy, despite having been partnered through his life with two uchiha, and eventually coming to mentor a third. itachi had not possessed the foresight, then, to imagine that he might shoulder the responsibility for that night himself.
he should have known better. ）
I have no intention of permitting people to die needlessly. Nor do I plan to be precious about the Sharingan to the point of causing casualties by inaction — if it is needed, I will deal with consequences afterwards. I will not be idle.
( four words they both expected to be spoken are before itachi's tea has cooled from steaming. )
I don't believe you.
( the wind-like whir of some distant machine sounds loud in the silence that follows them, but kakashi listens hard, strains to, as though he could hear itachi's true thoughts in the nothing that remains of their bond.
arrhythmia would be enough, able to focus his chakra to his nose to smell the change it'd make in the body's natural levels of perspiration. or his ears when all it'd take is an odd hitch of the breath. or his eyes, tempted by the ease at which he could read one blink too fast or one blink too slow.
itachi remains as unreadable as he was the night kakashi last saw him. )
You were better off dead. At least then... you couldn't do any further damage to your family name... to Sasuke. ( here, he appears to fold when no information is derived that he wasn't previously aware of. quarter is relinquished in a single step, his back tripping the motion sensor that triggers the door—the only shield he can put between himself and the demon on the floor—to open and encase him in its frame. )
Sandaime-sama told me to take care of him for your father's sake. And I intend to keep the promise I made to them both that day.
( partially shadowed again in the dim light of the hall, the pronounced crimson of his left eye is made more prominent. for all of kakashi's goodness, there is also his badness. his darkness. the corruption he confronts daily. what reminds him to continue his retreat from the friend-like shape of one more regret are his own words shared with a lonely boy who'd finally begun to believe them.
"well, we aren't the lucky ones... that's for sure. but we aren't the worst off.
both you and i have found precious companions." )
Compromise that again, Itachi, and I'll kill you.
Edited (i typed "back" like 17 times) 2024-01-03 02:01 (UTC)
How lucky for us both that my participation in the coming battles will not require your belief.
（ his tone is dry — but it is a dryness like a desert burnt to glass. amusement is evident in dark eyes, and itachi only lifts his cup to kakashi as the man all but scrambles backwards out the door.
one day, perhaps, he will ask forgiveness. but for now he only says — ）
( unable to dignify the dismissal with a response, he lets the door slide shut, waiting until he's in his room—far from itachi—and never far enough—to close his eyes.
i'm in this situation again, he thinks. caught up in affairs everyone tells me aren't my business. the right thing to do clashes again against what he believes sasuke would want. how is he meant to reconcile that?
"if only" haunts him, but it's repeated like a mantra. if only the sandaime were alive to give him counsel. if only minato hadn't assigned him to the anbu. if only rin had trusted in him. if only obito hadn't pushed him out of the way. if only his father hadn't left him alone.
if only itachi had—
all lack blame because blame he assigns to himself.
if only he'd been wise enough to stop the sandaime's death. if only he'd been strong enough to stop minato's. if only he'd been perceptive enough to stop rin's. if only he'd been fast enough to stop obito's. if only he'd been old enough to stop his father's.
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synnet2023-12-12 05:58 pm
no subject
is he hoping to see a glimmer of the same, or is this the snap of a cornered beast? sympathy is a slow, venous crawl through him, set aside as soon as recognized.
dry: ）
I'm certain you may be able to imagine a scenario or two in which there is benefit not to revealing one's hand early. （ mr 'this is probably a clone, actually'. ） Given the surgeries we have been subjected to （ a touch to one cheekbone ） there is doubtless no way to conceal the Sharingan from LILITH's administration — but I imagine it will not be made more broadly known beyond them. However, until we can be certain there is no one here with the resources and power who is willing to attempt to exploit it, there is strategic value in limiting the amount of known users among the Outsiders.
（ if kakashi wishes to take it as cowardice or selfishness, of the wilful use of sasuke as one uses bait in a trap, he won't protest it. the truth is more that he has always found it easier to protect his brother from the shadows.
the chance, of course, is low. he has not yet met an outsider with power to rival he or sasuke. but those that dwell in neo-tokyo are largely unknown. yet, given that the denizens of this world were able to summon them against their will in the first place he is not going to accept low as non-existent. the sharingan has caused too many problems in their own world not to anticipate some amount of repetition possible here. if he's mistaken — then his caution will have been unnecessary. if he isn't...
mm. ）
Surely you have not become so foolish as to think the Sharingan my only means of dispatching monsters, Kakashi?
（ this is said pointedly, following kakashi's gaze to his sword. ）
no subject
the trick is to be myself, he thinks. wrapped up in the melodrama of the anbu, he might've pursued itachi's every judgement of him, but control over his will now is far more difficult when they've grown legs of their own. sasuke's well-being is on the line and his dissent from what itachi has become will be known. hopefully, his beliefs will outlast him. )
If you're likening massacring your clan to "dispatching monsters," I guess I have become foolish... I never would've made that connection.
( that sword is cursed. looking at it together with itachi feels inherently wrong, like walking the riverside of an ancient battleground. kakashi suspects that if their eyes took too long to divert from it its blade would show them the faces of those it cut down warped by years of use.
he'd admit confidently to being cowed by it. it terrifies him. )
I understand taking precautions. ( seeking eye contact once more, itachi is given a flat reply, indicating calm acceptance of their inevitable alliance. despite everything. ) The exploitation of kekkei genkai has always been a trend, and this world's commanders-in-chief are already using you and Sasuke as weapons. I've kept my sharingan hidden as well.
But there are going to be major time constraints if the simulations are anything to go by. The longer we dawdle, the more people will die.
( the faster they deal with the kaiju, the safer they'll all be. his priorities lie in protecting ino and sasuke, but he won't let innocent natives die if he can do something to prevent it. )
What's your level of involvement going to be?
no subject
That is not the comparison I was drawing.
（ but there is no defensiveness in the statement, no correction. nothing that suggests sentiment lurks beneath a gaze as cool and still as water. he has played this role for years, and stepping back into the looming shadow of it costs him nothing that has not already been stripped down to nothing. to be shinobi is to endure anything unflinching — which kakashi knows as well if not better than he ever learned at danzō's side.
perhaps this conversation would be going differently, if sasuke had chosen to warn kakashi of his presence. perhaps another will follow that grants context. but the idea of telling kakashi the truth — which he would disbelieve as surely as one would disbelief rain rising from the ground — is not currently an option to him.
why didn't you come to me? one simple statement, and yet it revealed a yawning wealth of guilt he had not thought to look for, or imagine. it was uchiha business, he had thought then — and he had cut kakashi ruthlessly out of it. despite being a permitted carrier of their legacy, despite having been partnered through his life with two uchiha, and eventually coming to mentor a third. itachi had not possessed the foresight, then, to imagine that he might shoulder the responsibility for that night himself.
he should have known better. ）
I have no intention of permitting people to die needlessly. Nor do I plan to be precious about the Sharingan to the point of causing casualties by inaction — if it is needed, I will deal with consequences afterwards. I will not be idle.
no subject
I don't believe you.
( the wind-like whir of some distant machine sounds loud in the silence that follows them, but kakashi listens hard, strains to, as though he could hear itachi's true thoughts in the nothing that remains of their bond.
arrhythmia would be enough, able to focus his chakra to his nose to smell the change it'd make in the body's natural levels of perspiration. or his ears when all it'd take is an odd hitch of the breath. or his eyes, tempted by the ease at which he could read one blink too fast or one blink too slow.
itachi remains as unreadable as he was the night kakashi last saw him. )
You were better off dead. At least then... you couldn't do any further damage to your family name... to Sasuke. ( here, he appears to fold when no information is derived that he wasn't previously aware of. quarter is relinquished in a single step, his back tripping the motion sensor that triggers the door—the only shield he can put between himself and the demon on the floor—to open and encase him in its frame. )
Sandaime-sama told me to take care of him for your father's sake. And I intend to keep the promise I made to them both that day.
( partially shadowed again in the dim light of the hall, the pronounced crimson of his left eye is made more prominent. for all of kakashi's goodness, there is also his badness. his darkness. the corruption he confronts daily. what reminds him to continue his retreat from the friend-like shape of one more regret are his own words shared with a lonely boy who'd finally begun to believe them.
"well, we aren't the lucky ones... that's for sure. but we aren't the worst off.
both you and i have found precious companions." )
Compromise that again, Itachi, and I'll kill you.
no subject
（ his tone is dry — but it is a dryness like a desert burnt to glass. amusement is evident in dark eyes, and itachi only lifts his cup to kakashi as the man all but scrambles backwards out the door.
one day, perhaps, he will ask forgiveness. but for now he only says — ）
Shall I say, 'you're dismissed', Copy Ninja?
no subject
i'm in this situation again, he thinks. caught up in affairs everyone tells me aren't my business. the right thing to do clashes again against what he believes sasuke would want. how is he meant to reconcile that?
"if only" haunts him, but it's repeated like a mantra. if only the sandaime were alive to give him counsel. if only minato hadn't assigned him to the anbu. if only rin had trusted in him. if only obito hadn't pushed him out of the way. if only his father hadn't left him alone.
if only itachi had—
all lack blame because blame he assigns to himself.
if only he'd been wise enough to stop the sandaime's death. if only he'd been strong enough to stop minato's. if only he'd been perceptive enough to stop rin's. if only he'd been fast enough to stop obito's. if only he'd been old enough to stop his father's.
if only he'd been enough to stop itachi. )
no subject