InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Screw the rules, I have money!"

Matt Murdock (ninjaattorney) wrote in somerealityrpg,
@ 2021-01-28 14:27:00

Entry tags:

active: matt murdock

Who: Matt Murdock & OTA
What: Sometimes you wake up in Goodland and you can't read floating Entity Greetings and you need an assist
When: Thursday afternoon
Where: Not too far from the Villas
Warnings: ...just go watch Daredevil

It almost felt too good. Matt couldn't quite make himself relax. So many lives lost. While he knew he had done the right thing in not taking a life, plenty had been killed for him and because of him. Karen and Foggy had done their best to convince him that things were alright. Fisk was back behind bars, Matt's greatest secret was safe, and somehow despite everything, so were Foggy and Karen both.

That didn't keep his heart from racing or his stomach from churning.

It might be a bit before he was able to relax again.

He could tell the moment something changed, but he couldn't quite grasp what it was. Things felt different. It still sounded like the city he knew and loved. Traffic, constant chatter, the ringing of nearby cash registers, someone yelling at a man for cheating on them. But the air weighed differently. The smells weren't the same. It was like he had walked through a door, only he knew he hadn't.

Matt froze, trying to adjust to his surroundings. He wasn't that far from his friends, if he tuned in, he should still be able to hear Foggy laughing or Karen's giggle. But he heard neither. He didn't hear the elderly man in the Bodega on the corner scolding his son for whatever stupid choice he'd made that day.

The panic didn't set in immediately. All of his senses were still working as normal. Or as normally as his ever did. It didn't feel like a medical emergency. Just not...right. It was disconcerting and he made his way to the nearest bench, probably quicker than he should have, in an effort to sit and think this through.

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aracelypenalba
2021-01-28 08:11 pm UTC (link)

Aracely was on her way back from her second trip to the corner store, idly sucking her milkshake through the weird cardboard straw that they were using now. The city was humming around her - she still wasn't entirely sure what was up with all the people who didn't live in the apartments, never having picked up any stray surface thoughts that might have answered questions like whether they'd come from other worlds too, whether they had their own networks, whether they knew about the weird things like magic and werewolves and superheroes.

Suddenly there was something off, though, something that didn't fit properly. She stopped, ignoring the woman who barely managed to swerve around her with a snapped insult as she tried to track down where it was coming from.

There was a person sitting on a bench, looking like he didn't quite know what he was doing. She tilted her head curiously, staring at him for a moment before changing her direction to head over. "Hi! Are you confused and upset? You seem confused and upset!" She took another suck of her milkshake, listening to the hollow sound as the level dropped towards the bottom of the cup.

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ninjaattorney
2021-01-28 09:55 pm UTC (link)

He felt the woman approaching and tensed slightly. No, not a woman. Teenager. Definitely a girl. He could smell the frozen treat in her hands, and he could almost feel she was just as concerned about him as he was about her.

Matt offered a small, crooked smile. "Interesting phrasing. I'm definitely confused. Not quite upset yet." That was on his list of things to do once he wrapped his head around the confused. "This is going to sound like the dumbest question ever, I'm sure. But where are we?" Could he have gotten turned around somewhere? Matt knew the city better than just about anyone, but it had been a really tough few weeks. Maybe he was having an extra off day.

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aracelypenalba
2021-01-28 10:33 pm UTC (link)

'Interesting' was a word that Aracely had heard a lot, honestly. She'd heard people describe her in a lot of ways at this point, though, and it had never really fazed her. Things people said just weren't that important, she figured. "I don't think it's super dumb," she assured him consideringly. "I bet the scientists have lots of arguments about it! They're pretty smart. I think last time they said something like a pocket in reality? But mostly it's like New York, but if New York was different, and sometimes it really is different. We were just in Thailand and there were cafes for everything, and a ghost skyscraper. That's a skyscraper full of ghosts, not a skyscraper that's a ghost. I checked!"

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ninjaattorney
2021-01-28 10:40 pm UTC (link)

That...wasn't the answer he expected. At all. In any possible way. "Huh. So I didn't just wander to the Upper East Side."

Her explanation was insane. There was no way. That physically wasn't even possible. Yet somehow, a part of him knew. He knew she wasn't lying, her heart rate was totally normal. She might have just fully believed the tale she was spinning, but honestly, it made as much sense as anything in his life at this point. Danny Rand existed and that should have been proof enough of the impossible. "Any idea how one finds themselves in a pocket dimension?"

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aracelypenalba
2021-01-28 11:08 pm UTC (link)

"I've never been to the Upper East Side, it might be like this! Probably not, though." Deciding to settle in - this guy seemed like a new arrival, and sometimes it took people a really long time to understand new situations - she perched on the bench next to him, rattling her now-empty milkshake cup with a grimace before pulling out a bag of M&Ms. "We got kidnapped by an Entity! Normally there's a letter but maybe he forgot? Or she, I don't know, we only sort of saw him once from a distance when he was floating in the sky fighting another entity and it was hard to really see anything. I bet he gets busy though. Some people think maybe he didnt actually bring us here, that was just an accident, and he's just trying to look after us like if you found a cardboard box of puppies on the street or rescued someone out of a shipping container in the desert." She said the last brightly, no hint that it wasnt just a random scenario she'd pulled out of thin air as an example.

"Anyway he gave us this whole big building to live in. That's mostly what the letter says, so you dont really need it, and there's like a message board you can talk on like how at home we have the Forums. Oh... except it tells you what apartment you're meant to be in too. It didntmatter so much for me because all the kids who don't have parents or guardians or grown up friends live in the same place, but you're old. So you probably heed to find that out. Maybe your roommates got told you're coming and you can ask about it."

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ninjaattorney
2021-01-29 12:07 am UTC (link)

She was definitely a talker, but that was okay. It gave Matt time to listen. There was a strange mix of sounds around him. The majority was mindless chatter. Very few seemed to be having actual meaningful conversations. He couldn't help wondering if it was somehow related to this greater being the young woman was describing.

"A letter?" Unhelpful, really. Tuning in as much as he could, he reached under the bench and found a slip of paper. "Kind of thought it was just trash, really." Except it was perfectly clean and smelled new. Which was good, since he had just used his hands to pick it up. Well, he wasn't some big name prissy attorney. "So you're here with no adult watching out for you?" Fuck, did he know that feeling well.

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aracelypenalba
2021-01-29 02:15 am UTC (link)

His musings about the seeming banality about the people around them unknowingly mirrored the thoughts that repeatedly made ccurred to Aracely; sometimes she wondered if she thought about it so much because it would be easy for her to find out more, if she listened closer. She knew how people felt about that, though, how simple it was for her to know what they were thinking and the things they didn't want anyone else to know, and so it was better if she kept practicing not doing it - that way she wouldn't slip. It might not matter if the people weren't really real, but then maybe they were. Maybe when the building turned into places like camp they went to different camps, and that was why they didn't seem to be around when everyone from their building went somewhere new. No one else seemed to be too interested in the whole thing anyway apart from occasional throwaway comments.

She shrugged easily at the question he actually asked out loud. "Well there's Frigga, and Ernie. They supervise us. We used to have different people but most of them left and Black Widow went to live with Hawkeye. Before here I just lived with Kaine and he's not good at supervising anyway. They make me go to school here and he didn't. He's a good champion though even when he's grumpy. One time he turned into spiders and ate a werewolf. It should say on there what apartment you're in! I think it's a number and a letter, what does it say?" She leaned closer to watch him open it, wondering who he'd end up with. She wasnt really sure how the Entity decided that - sometimes it seemed entirely random, and sometimes people ended up with their friends. How did it even know that stuff? Unless it spied on them before they came here, maybe.

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ninjaattorney
2021-01-29 09:58 am UTC (link)

Still. A group home type situation. He knew he shouldn’t feel badly, he didn't know her life or how well adjusted she was. But she was also fairly young and wandering the city by herself, drinking some sort of...smoothie? Maybe a milkshake. It was definitely icy and fruity. It just always hurt a little when he realized there were kids not being watched over.

Black Widow and Hawkeye were names he knew. And he wasn't fond. He forced his features to remain neutral but he didn't exactly enjoy it. Of course he'd find some sort of pocket universe and still end up with the likes of them.

But the important part of what she was saying made him laugh. "This greater power wasn't exactly looking out for me here. I can't exactly read it." The young woman hadn't noticed his disability yet, which was not the worst or even most socially awkward thing to happen to him. "They don't offer these in braille, I guess." He wondered if his phone would still work. He had so many modifications on it that would be more than a little annoying to redo.

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aracelypenalba
2021-01-29 10:34 am UTC (link)

Not listening in on thoughts or not, it was pretty easy to notice the man's sudden shift in mood, though it was hard to tell what it was he was reacting to; she wasn't even sure she could remember exactly what she'd even said, not all of it at least. She blinked at him curiously, then brightened when he explained the problem with the piece of paper. "I didn't even know you were blind! That's so cool! I've been working really really hard on not reading people's minds all the time but I didn't know I was that good!"

Blithely she snatched the letter out of his hands, scanning all the boring stuff until she found the bit she wanted. "It says 2-K. I don't think I know who lives there. I didn't even think the letters went that high but maybe it got bigger again. If it was just making the floors bigger probably only the people who lived there would notice. I think you can make the network read stuff out so you can hear it, people post by talking to it instead of talking sometimes if they come from places that don't have phones and computers and the internet and things."

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ninjaattorney
2021-01-29 10:57 am UTC (link)

His eyebrows lifted over his dark glasses, but not at her not noticing his blindness. She could read thoughts? Creepy. But at this point in Matt's "career", it almost seemed par for the course. "Well, looks like you nailed it, then."

Well. Now he had a place to live, at least. He just had to figure out the rest of the life in front of him. Maybe the magic sky thing knew he needed a vacation? "Most phones and computers have screen readers. I wouldn't have made it through law school without them. And voice to text, though refining those so they don't give really strange options takes some work."

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aracelypenalba
2021-01-29 11:17 am UTC (link)

Law school? She wrinkled her nose, trying to think if they'd had any lawyers before. Maybe a blind lawyer was another one of those people that didn't fit the idea that the Entity picked them for how useful they'd be. Or maybe he had a secret identity! It briefly occurred to her to see if she could check, but she let the idea slide past, too pleased with her accomplishment still to really consider it. "I don't know if we have the same laws here," she told him, sliding down a little in her seat. "I'm not sure what all the laws in real New York are either though. Or in Houston! Mostly we just did whatever we wanted and people were happy because we stopped the city from blowing up and being robbed by Santas and kept beating up the traffickers and taking their money away. People have been police before though so I guess there must be some laws or they wouldn't have anything to do either, and there's not lots of gangs running around. Oh, and there's parking wardens! So I guess there must be rules. You could probably still be a lawyer person if you wanted."

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ninjaattorney
2021-01-30 12:05 am UTC (link)

It was probably ridiculous, but Matt actually sighed with relief at her comment about there not being gangs running around. Parking laws he could do. He didn't know if he was quite ready for another sound of Corrupt Cops and Mob Bosses. Like cowboys and Indians, only even worse and slightly less racist?

"Well, if I'm here for the long haul, I'm going to have to find something, I guess. Whether lawyer person or not. But I'm honestly not sure what other beneficial skills I have." So. She wasn't from anywhere normal then. "I've learned that even letting people who just stop the city from blowing up do whatever they want isn't always the smart thing to do."

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aracelypenalba
2021-01-30 03:33 am UTC (link)

"That's probably true," she admitted without reluctance or hesitation. "Annabelle and Wally say Kaine makes bad life choices. He's not always very good at being a hero but he likes it even if he pretends he doesn't and sometimes yells at people for being stupid. Maybe that's why the Entity hasn't brought him here yet. I haven't seen him in forever." She sighed, realising that by now she'd probably spent more time without him than she had with him. It was a weird feeling - with the connection that let her feel his presence in the city around her she'd almost never felt alone. Reading minds or picking up people's emotions just wasn't the same.

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