★ blind the masses with a grin, stir up the media

[liedol]

⭐ Who: Ai and you!
⭐ When: End of May through July
⭐ Where: Various prompts around Yumemigaoka and the Dream Sphere
⭐ What: An Ai catchall for the next month! After a suspiciously well timed vacation out to Hokkaido, Ai's back in Yumemigaoka and ready to catch up on everything she missed. I'm also down for doing closed/private prompts so hit me up on Discord if you'd like to plan something!

Comments

[trickyjedi]

You JUST missed the biggest storm of the year.

Also a huge public facing DU event, but I'm sure that was just a coincidence.

[Ben does not think that was a coincidence.]

[liedol]

You guys all managed totally fine without me though, right? I was so confident you'd knock it out of the park, you didn't need me to hang around and be here.

[ Ai gives him her Prettiest And Most Innocent Smile. Come on, you can't be mad at her when she's practically got puppy eyes like that, can you? ]

Besides! This was everybody else's time to shine. Isn't it polite to give up the spotlight now and then?

[trickyjedi]

Some how, people were more interested in meeting Dreamer Ai-Doll than meeting Dreamer Saber, but I persevered.

[He literally can’t, even when he knows damn well it was all on purpose. It’s a problem. Goddamn puppy eyes. Time to scan over the startling array of candy and baked goods rather than continue to make eye contact.]

[liedol]

[ Ai gives him a brief and definitely not at all making fun of him little round of applause. ]

And now you've gotten your name out there, you'll start picking up some fans of your own! Maybe next time we have a public event, it'll be you doing autographs instead of me.

[ never mind, she's definitely making fun of him. but she's willing to let him off (for now) and change the topic to snacks. ]

You think there'll be enough to go round to everyone? I did my best to pick up as much as I could but it feels like every time I turn around, we've got another new face who just started work.

[trickyjedi]

I think…

[Ben spends a moment to select something made of shredded coconut and chocolate for himself before finishing.]

…I’d say you got plenty.

[it’s like when someone gets donuts for the break room. You grab your favorites while you can and be thankful you’re not the guy stuck with half a plain cake donut.]

[liedol]

I sure hope you're right. Office politics can get scary if you're not careful. I still remember the pink post-it wars...

[ She's casually grabbing some rice cakes for herself even as she says it, so maybe she's not quite as concerned as she's making herself out to be. ]

Apart from the anniversary, how are things going, anyway? A whole month is a lot to miss when things go topsy turvy as often as they do around here.

[ and yet she still went............ ]

[trickyjedi]

Pretty quiet, honestly.

[munching on his snack while he thinks…]

Oh, I did run into a figment that seemed self aware and could talk. That’s a little unusual.

[liedol]

[ And by contrast, that's surprise enough to get Ai's ricecake to pause halfway to her mouth. ]

You did? [ she sounds genuinely befuddled. ] Are you really sure it wasn't just a lucid dreamer from this side?

[trickyjedi]

Might have been, I suppose.

[naturally, it was hard to be certain of anything in a land made of dreams.]

I thought he was a torment at first. I would have dispatched him without a thought if he hadn’t started talking.

[liedol]

Good thing he was feeling talkative, then...

[ contemplative ricecake munch... ]

What did he have to say when you talked to him?

[trickyjedi]

Mainly that I'm not very observant, since I've never noticed him before.

Quite embarrassing, really.

[liedol]

So even if he wasn't a Torment, he was still tormenting you pretty bad!

[ get dunked on ]

Could he have been one of us? People take all sorts of forms on the other side.

[trickyjedi]

It was a C+ tormenting at best.

[A light dunking.]

No, I don't think it was one of us. It didn't feel like a Dreamer, if you take my meaning, and I've learned to trust my instincts in the Dream Sphere.

[liedol]

Things on that side get weirder and weirder every day... [ And yet, she's a little unfazed? Past a certain point of bizarro land dream logic, it only gets disconcerting when things aren't weird. ] Whereabouts did you find him? Maybe I could go try talking to him myself...

[ i promise she won't recruit this one as a trainee. probably. ... hopefully. ]

[trickyjedi]

It’s the Dream Sphere, it would be stranger if it wasn’t weird.

[Ben unintentionally echoed AI’s thoughts.]

He was just wandering the Slumbering City. I finally cornered him at the train station to Fury Peak.

[liedol]

So you'd say he's easy to find?

[ that's her Ai Has An Idea face ]

I wonder if we could talk him into signing onto the DU somehow...

[trickyjedi]

If you see him, he’ll stand out. There aren’t a lot of giant bug men in the slumbering city.

[liedol]

Maybe he's a trendsetter? This isn't the start of a new giant bug man era of the Dream Sphere, is it?

[ just imagine the paperwork... ]

[trickyjedi]

That would be absolutely fascinating. The Dream Sphere has remained relatively stable, if weird, the whole time we’ve been exploring it, but that’s only been for fifty years. Who knows what actual long term trends are like In there!

[Hes a nerd. I’m sorry.]

[liedol]

Oh, don't say that. The last thing we need is a big explosive change when we've only just starting getting to grips with things over there.

[ she is Once Again imagining the paperwork ]

[trickyjedi]

Oh very well. I hope the incoming invasion of bug-men doesn’t throw our routine off too much. It would be most inconvenient.