[ Action, Voice, and looooooooooove ] .039

[markofthebrave]

[Backdated to yesterday, after her conversation with Suki, Katara has a brother to kill. Confront. Comfort? Whatever.

She looks high. She looks low. She looks... lower. Someone is coming down the stairs to your mancave, Sokka.]

[Meanwhile, this morning, Suki is feeling... less depressed and Sokka is still away from the house and everything feels wrong. Katara's a few steps short of miserable, because this is not the way things are supposed to go. She attends school, finishes some afternoon errands, and just... stares at the journal system for a while. A lot of people still seem to be very happy, and she does not want to bring them down, and she doesn't want to expose Suki or Sokka to anything but...

But.]

...is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that some people are acting... not like themselves?

((ooc: Katara's first post chronologically goes to savethelastchip. Tag as you will!))

Comments

[ voice ]

[savethelastchip.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, I've been noticing it, too. [ Shikamaru and Temari-san are more or less the same, but something just...feels off. And Chouji is a man of hunches. ]

[ voice ]

[markofthebrave]

[Oh, Chouji. She's so glad to hear that.

...and it's especially nice to heear from you, as well.]

I'm not sure if I should say 'I'm glad to hear that' or not. I don't like this.

[ voice ]

[savethelastchip.livejournal.com]

Well, it's always good to know you're not just imagining things, at least. [ Far be it for Chouji to stray from endlessly maintaining that everything will work out, of course, but this is Katara.

Which has had incredible significance for all of about ten seconds now. It still counts. ] I don't like it either, though.

[ Messing with Shikamaru is a Grade-A offense. ]

[ voice ]

[markofthebrave]

[She sighs. And suddenly, talking through the journal is not enough.]

Do you want to - I mean, would you mind meeting up so we can talk?

[He won't say no... right?]

[doubleppk]

Not completely, but it certainly wouldn't surprise me.

[markofthebrave]

What do you mean, 'not completely?'

[doubleppk]

There's a few things off, but some people I'm not sure if they're being bizarre or I'm just being paranoid.

[markofthebrave]

Well, I guess the more people who are acting strangely, the greater the chance it's something that will go away eventually.

[Her little world has been rattled and Katara wants this fixed. ASAP.]

[markofthewise]

[Sokka is still in the basement, although now he's more out in the open, sitting at his own work bench, even though he's not doing anything. It's dimly lit down there, as only the electric light he managed to wire down here is on. Some various bits and pieces of his so-called 'inventions' are lying out at some half hearted attempt to distract himself, but he isn't feeling it. He keeps playing over the last conversation he had in his mind - over and over. It's been a long time since he's felt this much guilt over something. And unlike previous times where he blamed himself for things out of his control...

This was really his own doing.]

[markofthebrave]

[Sad and woebetieded as you are, brother dear, Katara hardly pauses to spare a moment for sympathy. She finishes coming down the stairs, sees him sitting in the near-dark and just...

What on earth had he done?]

Sokka. What happened.

[markofthewise]

[How does he even answer that? He doesn't even turn to face her, as it is.]

... I told Suki about me and Fenimore. [There's a sort of hint that it's obviously Fenimore, because obviously his own sister would know about that.]

[markofthebrave]

[Well, there went her preplanned speech, because what.]

You and who?

[...seriously, what?]

[Voice]

[derek-bliss.livejournal.com]

...been hearing a few...unusual things, yeah. Nothing I want to get into, though.

[Voice]

[markofthebrave]

...well. At least it's not just me.

[Voice]

[derek-bliss.livejournal.com]

Judging from the discussions...[and...other things] I've heard, I'd guess it's another experiment of some sort.

[Voice]

[markofthebrave]

Some of it's got to be.

[She's just hoping that hers isn't.

Sokka's? Yeah, he's out of his mind.]

[voice]

[simplestgift]

Nothing more unusual than almost everyone I know finding love all at once.

[voice]

[markofthebrave]

Oh, is that all. [Sarcasm: Sokka's not the only one who has it.]

...did it look like the people who were falling in love made sense? I mean, had they been in love before?

[voice]

[simplestgift]

[Jack and Jilly? There's a sort of poetry to that one, but otherwise...]

No sense at all. It happened very fast.

[daisy023]

Unfortunately, ma'am... You may have a point.

[She doesn't want to go why she agrees with her, but she knows she is not like herself in many ways.]

[markofthebrave]

You've seen it too, huh?

[Please be paying attention to this post, Suki.]

[daisy023]

...More like felt, ma'am.

[Daisy knows she isn't supposed to have a sexual drive.]

[Voice]

[endgames]

They're acting... happier, I've noticed. If you can even call it that.

[Chouji leaving after speaking over the journals alerted him that something might be up... but it just seems to be Katara. There's nothing too suspicious about that.

This is actually the first time he's looked at his journal in the past two days though, so he'll speak as he catches up.]

Would have to second what everyone else has been saying. It's sounding like an experiment.

[Voice]

[markofthebrave]

[Katara's shrugging on her parka to go meet Chouji, but the journal's still opened and when she hears Shikamaru she comes over to respond.]

I think that some of it has to be. [Like Sokka and Suki. Do you see that furrow in her forehead of constant concern and worry? Because she's forgotten that it's there. Seeing them like this - the closest thing that she has to a home be ripped apart - is really bothering her.]

But do you think all of it is?

[Like... you and Temari, for example?]

[Voice]

[endgames]

It's hard to tell. Some of these people were in relationships to start with, from what I can see. We'd have to talk to a lot more people to figure out if they were acting strangely.

[There's the sound of pages turning, and just that for a while. Now that he's looking for something in particular, he is noticing a few tells in the discussions therein. Brief hesitance in early stages of the conversation, for example, when he would expect a reply to come more naturally - especially if their relationship was as close as they would seem to later indicate.]

It could be that it's effecting some more subtly than it would others.