video; @fromTV

[spellslots]

[Oh hey, it's Taako, wearing Taako clothes and a pointy hat. Obviously it's Taako.]

I, the great Taako Taaco desire to learn new and exciting languages because I have a need to show everyone how smart I am behind this undeniably gorgeous face. You should teach me all your strange languages, as nothing is beyond my immensely powerful abilities.

[He's grinning, faux fanning himself like he's just too hot for this feed.]

Since I have all of your undivided attention, you must know that all my stunning good looks and amazing magical powers all come from the fact that I have a really small dick.

[And oh hey, it’s Taako again, except this time it’s just his voice off-screen:]

Hey dingus, have you seen my pho... ne..?

[It’s a very telltale trailing off, the way someone who has caught their shitty sister in the act of Pretending To Be Them™ in front of the entire fucking network.]

Gimme it, now.

[There’s a surprised shout and then a lot of cackling as the phone is pulled up and Taako #1 is running off to the other side of the room to get as far away from Taako #2 as possible.]

OH NO, AN IMPOSTOR! Save me! I’m too beautiful and sexy to die!

[Luckily, at least one member of this family remembers they’re a wizard, and the phone is mysteriously plucked from Taako #1’s hand and returned to the real Taako, who turns the phone to face him so everyone can see how done he is.]

What’s up, chucklefucks, I’d like to introduce you to my complete asshole of a sister who I hate more than anything in this world.

[From behind the phone, now;]

RUDE.

Don’t start shit you can’t finish. [He sticks his tongue out in her general direction, then turns his attention back the camera.] I’m for real about the languages thing, I’m bored and wanna learn new shit, she just jacked my idea before I could come ask. Do not believe her about the dick thing, though, that's fake as hell.

[With the alarming sound of encroaching footsteps, Taako quickly shuts off the feed.]

[ooc: Lup = red, Taako = purple. They're both the worst]

Comments

[umbrastaff]

Huh. We'll, my brother has been her for some time, so that's an outlier at least.

[Still, pretty weird... and also really uncomfortable to possibly be part of some 'brother arrival deal', considering everything.]

Still. Weird.

[alchemyfreak]

Very weird.

[Weird enough that he wants to look into it, but how does one even go about doing that?]

I wonder how many others there might be. If this place brings us in because we feel displaced, what are the chances that we're all sharing that same feeling with a sibling?

[umbrastaff]

I mean, it makes sense. How displaced are you not gonna feel if your sibling's not there?

[alchemyfreak]

[That... might have struck a nerve. He hadn't seen Al in over a year, and Al had shown up trying to follow him - or at least, some version of him - through a completely different portal from their world.]

My brother and I came here from two different realities, so I'm not sure that applies to us.

[umbrastaff]

Really? Is... that possible?

[It was a more worrying thought, really.]

Not just from different time periods?

[alchemyfreak]

This isn't my first time being dragged through one of these portals, I haven't seen my own world in something like five years now.

[A pause, as if to figure out how to continue.]

Al's... From our future. Two years after the day I disappeared, and he never once noticed me missing because we don't- it's like time stops while we're gone, or we're just... copies of our true selves, still living our lives like normal back home.

No one notices that you're not there.

[umbrastaff]

That's... rough, my dude.

[There's a pause. What he's saying is honestly terrifying, that there were other selves impersonating them back at home - or did their selves just... split into two?

Either way, Lup makes a face.]

Ugh.

[alchemyfreak]

If you think about it for too long.

[He doesn't really seem all that bothered, but you get used to these things after awhile.]

Sometimes people would leave... and come back with their memories of that place in tact, still. They experienced the things people from their future told them happened - so we know it's true, that it's like we're frozen in time, somehow. We don't know why- or how... but if it's the same here as it was in Purg, when we go back our lives here won't even be a memory.

[He wanted people to know, he wanted them to be prepared for this happening. For the chance that someone you knew today may not remember you tomorrow - but he already expected the eventual backlash, there was going to be someone, somewhere, that didn't want to know this crap. When that time came, he hoped to be ready for it.]

video; @fromTV

[spellslots]

[He's been paying half-attention to this while fielding other responses, but this particular line of discussion catches his attention.]

Are you for real, about the memories? Cause I knew we'd go back to when we left, they told us that, but...

[But he didn't know about the memories not remaining and that raises a variety of implications.]

[alchemyfreak]

Completely. This is the third place I've been dragged into and the other two were consistent on that fact, if nothing else.

[spellslots]

Well, fuck.

[There are good and bad things to this, and he's not sure how to feel about it at all.]

What about like, physical changes? If I lost an arm or whatever here, would it still be gone when I pop back through the portal?

[alchemyfreak]

It's as if this place doesn't exist.

[He has to be careful how he words this, he's still trying not to let out too much information about his automail to complete strangers.]

For instance, someone that .... Came through the portal without their arm could get a prosthetic here, but when they go back- their arm will be gone again.

[Or made out of shitty gun parts, you know. Whatever, canon. It definitely wasn't fully functional.]

If they came back here after that, they- may or may not return with the prosthetic from this world, but they definitely won't have it at home. So, no... If you lose an arm here, your- home world self wouldn't even notice.

[spellslots]

[softly, but with feeling:] Fuck.

[He knows he's already said that a couple times, but it bears repeating, as Taako pinches the bridge of his nose.]

I guess I don't have to worry about spoiling shit for anyone behind me in the timeline, but this is fucked up.

[He's going to go back and forget Lup all over again, which is pretty much the worst thing. He'd rather lose an arm.]

[alchemyfreak]

Right.

[His voice is softer now, almost sympathetic. He knows it's hard to hear, he had to hear it for the first time once, too. He witnessed it more than once.]

It's like I told my brother, any lessons we learn here won't do anything to change our future. I'm still going to go after him when I return to my world, I can't stop that even though I know now that it gets me killed-

[He stops there, seeming to realize he very nearly said too much. He didn't like to tell strangers too much about the stone, or Al using it - and adding that he pulled him back from death generally raised questions.]

[spellslots]

[Taako sets the phone down so that Edward gets a lovely view of the ceiling (there are glow in the dark star stickers on it, he's an adult), because he doesn't want to hang up, but he also needs a second to just handle... all of that, without broadcasting it to the entire network. He had his suspicions, about whether they'd remember anything, about whether they'd keep any changes, but hearing it confirmed is hard.

He doesn't miss what Ed says, but, well, going back home to get killed is pretty much what he's expecting, too, so it doesn't feel like that big of a deal.]

The places you went before all this shit, did they have something like the portal?

[umbrastaff]

[She's been listening, and gives Taako a concerned look.]

[spellslots]

[With the camera not facing him, Taako takes the opportunity to quickly lean over and rest his head against Lup's. He doesn't say anything, now isn't the time for it, but there's a lot they're gonna have to talk about later.]

[alchemyfreak]

[Ed's fine with the new view, he was blind for three weeks in a previous world - so people got that from him more often than they probably should have considering he defaults to video.]

Not that we could see, we were told the gods brought us in. In the first world though, they didn't seem to really have any control of it - it was more like... The place itself had whims of it's own.

[Regarding more than just who came and went.]

This place claims we're pulled in as a favor to us, the last place claimed it was a favor to them, and the first place claimed it was punishment for our sins... There are differences and similarities between all of them.

[spellslots]

That doesn't sound like the kinda shit that gods would pull.

[It's not that he doesn't believe what Ed is saying, just that maybe these particular gods, well, weren't. It's easy for someone powerful enough to call themselves a god, regardless of their actual divine status.]

And I mean, I never really got the impression this place was supposed to be a favor to us, just that we got pulled in cause we were feeling outta place.

[alchemyfreak]

It gives us the opportunity to find somewhere we don't... I don't know what else you'd call that.

[He's frowning now, because- mostly he called them gods for convenience sake. That's what they called themselves and he didn't really have any other reference to go by.]

I've never really been one to believe in any gods, once something gets beaten into your head enough- you start sounding like everyone else. We didn't have anything that powerful where I came from originally, who knows what they really were.

[spellslots]

[He still takes some issues with the phrasing, but it feels more like semantics than anything, so he doesn't bother fussing about it.]

We've got shit you'd call divine, or celestial, however you wanna phrase it. Sounds more up a liches alley.

[Rather than gods.]

It's all just bullshit, really. I'm not really into the whole "blah blah the people and portal are evil" crap, but I'm fucking ready to be done with this.

[alchemyfreak]

[An eyebrow quirks at that, because what the fuck are liches.]

Liches...?

[At the last part, Ed just shrugs.]

They don't seem evil, here... They weren't in the last place either, they just needed help- and when you're that desperate and have that kind of power...

[Some of them were evil, he didn't wind up blind by accident - not the point though.]

I'm not sure what to think of this place, yet. The similarities don't make anyone evil, but it does raise questions about the story we get on arrival.

[Ed doesn't add that he's fine staying here. Al's goal is to take him and go home, but he's perfectly content to remain, if he has his brother with him. He doesn't imagine anything much worse could happen than already has.]

[spellslots]

Magical beings, look it up.

[It's not... completely dismissive, but he can't be bothered to explain it right now when it doesn't seem that relevant to the conversation.]

And what's the point in lying. Like - you think they decided to make up an entire fake history just to fuck with us?

[alchemyfreak]

[He's not too bothered by the concept of staying on topic, so he shrugs it off.]

Everyone always takes it to such an extreme. I just think they might be... omitting some things.

[Like that there's some sort of other power in control here, and no one's talking about it.]

Either way, I'm hoping to find out.

[spellslots]

I think everyone here's way too fucking paranoid, but each to their own.

[He's paranoid about people on a one-on-one level, but he doesn't get why so many people seem to have conspiracy theories about this place.

He's never letting the breeding stables thing go. That was wild.]