[The real miracle is that he remembers not to fall on it when he yeets out of bed after it. Or step on it. Tamamori regards it suspiciously, but he does move it to the side with one foot. He'll deal with it later...
The posters are intriguing. Some, like the movie posters, he can at least guess at what they're all about -- it's a strange feeling -- others, like the video game posters, he just mistakes for movie posters. It's fine. Tamamori will check the polaroids.
Is his dream self there, or is he now just a ghost in the background of some dramatic tale of student woe?]
Mm, isn't a week a bit short for this sort of dream...
[ his dream self is sure in one of the polaroids, smiling pretty brightly, though tamamori's cameo is kind of strange. it's a little wavy, quite literally, like his portrait is infused in water or something with the way it ripples.
the other person in that particular polaroid seems happy to be there, too, at least. ]
............ I see. It's certainly not Meiko, so my imagination must have made up a girl acquaintance. You know, this is what happens when you provoke a fellow's imagination and then don't give him just desserts for his efforts.
[Tamamori tells this to the Polaroids, though it's more of an aside and he isn't particularly serious about it -- even he can tell that there's a lot of things here he might want to pay attention to, and while he's used to wandering alien landscapes of his own making (and sometimes those of others), this isn't any story he's familiar with at all.
He's going to retrieve the thingamajigger on the floor, haphazardly poking at it without any real idea of how to open it or find more information on it.
He's also going to retrieve the notebook, reflexively, because written information is generally more reliable to him than visual or even auditory information. Which of these things in his hands is easier to process first?]
[ maybe someone out there is listening to tamamori...
anyway, the phone lights up when he turns it over. a minute or so's passed but he can also see a notification from sage.
the notebook is a bunch of notes about finance that tamamori may not be able to make sense of. it's just a lot of shorthand and abbreviations; clearly meant for the owner to understand and quite possibly not anyone else. ]
[They better be, but he'd be complaining and going on even if nobody was listening -- he really is used to just talking to himself sometimes, sorting things out when he's by himself in some space.
Ah, this thing is encased in some weird picture, too -- it's whimsical and kind of a great way to decorate, he thinks? better than the generic tablet he's got so far -- so Tamamori turns it over and over just to get a good look at it. Being able to read all of this is... a relief, we'll be real. A novelist being unable to read really is the pits even if he can get by with what few Japanese books were available outside dreamland.]
A sage, and a dream of a banker? I could have done better than this, myself. A man with money may be able to buy all sorts of luxuries, and amazing meals, and more books and paper and ink, but he cannot simply buy more time... [this is just nonsense muttering, he's going to lunge for the bag next, is there a wallet in it] But nevertheless, he may be a useful alter ego.
[ tamamori lunges for the bag and discovers...a wallet! congratulations. a sloth wallet. why does this person (tamamori? who knows) like sloths so much, we will never know. maybe. anyway, while there may not be cryptocurrency, there is some regular currency as well as some credit cards, and an ID.
the ID photo is the same as the polaroid; it has tamamori's picture with the same distortion. ]
[..... animal themes...... technically he can't say anything about this but since when has Tamamori ever shut up due to lack of standing. He continues muttering about the unworthiness of whatever his dream self has decided to be, or might be in the future, or is thinking about being, as he pockets the wallet and settles the bag next to him.
Is there anything else interesting in the bag? Snacks? Other devices? Small animals? Secret compartments?? This bag is probably a bit more fancy and elaborate than he is used to, also, but at some point you just go with the flow when the flow is Money From Random Containers.
Okay, a couple more checks: IS HE ACTUALLY DRESSED? I know there's clothes on the floor, are there even clothes on his person. Also, what are the notifications visible on the phone, he'll finally bother to pay attention.]
no, i'm kidding. tamamori is thankfully dressed in whatever he was wearing when he dozed off before this!
in regards to the bag: the large pouch has text books, a water flask, maybe some old receipts or something. and in the small pouch, there's a dorm key and some sort of spray. it's pepper spray, to be exact. ]
[The good news is that he doesn't go to bed in his skivvies.
The other good news is that he is probably wearing something,, though he might not necessarily be wearing pants. Are there pants here he can pull on, some people might hesitate to grab other people's random floor clothes but nah. First of all this is a dream and second of all Tamamori has things to do, places to go--
Once he's dressed he'll finish his look-through of the bag. Double-checking the phone again for notifications!! And!! Okay, the phone may save us from him playing with pepper spray. The jury is out.]
[Successfully pulling on these pants without falling over or falling off the bed: achievement acquired. He ends up flopped sideways. Thinks about going back to sleep. But he has a wallet and he has a mystery device with mystery messages on it, so he should at least take a look outside the room and spend some money...
Also, before I forget, is there any sign he has a roommate?
Other than that, he is going to poke the phone, yes. Can he. Unlock the phone with wild mass guessing or is he stuck reading notifs.]
Hmm. These are smaller, but they still come with no instructions. Terrible design.
[You know what. He's going to rummage through the roommate's side, too, distractedly while he's bullying this poor phone -- since this is a Dream™ then there is no logic saying he has to stay on his side of the room. Similar to his own? Any bags? Pictures? Signs of who the heck he's sharing space with?
I'm also going to assume that he has Incredible Luck™ and manages to get the password, though even Tamamori has to give the thing a suspicious look when it's that simple.]
A banker with no sense of security... What kind of banker are you, Tamamori!!
[He is not a banker. At all. But more importantly: what treasure troves of incredibly unsecured information has he gained access to. Is there a phone wallpaper. Can he wildly misfire e-mails by hitting the screen too much.]
[ actually, yes, there are signs of who he's sharing this space with. and while there isn't a bag around, there sure is a calculus textbook on the bed, and there's a single polaroid taped to their side of the wall.
and yes, he can misfire emails, 100%. time to accidentally send memes to your professors, tamamori. the phone wallpaper looks like this. feel free to play with the phone however you'd like, tama. ]
[Does it look like anyone he knows. The polaroid, I mean, he wouldn't know a calculus textbook if it whacked him over the noggin at twenty thousand paces.
You say accidentally send memes, but Tamamori is just that meme where you can take a picture of your soul (obviously) if you press the home button and the power button at the same time. He manages this. He takes a screenshot of the HOMESCREEN LLAMA. He sends it to three professors, two contacts, and whoever was messaging him. RIP Sage!]
I wonder...
[I'm going to force him to check the actual messages before he's distracted again. Please. What has been sent to him before the llamapocalypse.]
[ first, the phone. after the start of llamapocalypse, tamamori looks at the text. the message reads: ]
😄 party after finals be there, alright? your drinks are on me also lol? llama?
[ reading that, though, doesn't really make him feel appreciated at all. in fact, something about it just makes him feel kinda...hollow?
but now, the polaroid. tamamori absolutely recognizes who's in the polaroid; they have the same ripple effect as the one on his side. but before he can do anymore phone shenanigans or rip off the polaroid or what have you, someone enters. the same someone he recognizes in that very polaroid. ]
[ ryouma just stands in the doorway with the keycard in one hand and his bag dangling off of one shoulder. sure didn't expect to find anyone in here. ]
Surely this unsatisfied feeling is from receiving an entirely typed message, with no handwriting nor flourishes to identify the owner except an alarmingly round face. Though it looks fairly happy. Or maybe he's just hungry??? Or maybe it's just that he's being offered alcohol instead of Calspi. This person has no taste.
Tamamori is still processing all of this, and very slowly pecking out a reply:]
L L A M A
[Yes, that's all he sends. Good luck, Sage.
Then Ryouma comes gallivanting in and he squawks and drops the phone. He is still on Ryouma's(???) side of the room, but Tamamori looks very suspiciously between the Polaroid and the non-Polaroid. And:]
Of course I know. This is nothing but a very strange dream, and you are invading it by suddenly being my roommate. I was just off to try out my dream money in this dream university. Why are you here?
[ it's a fair question? he also holds up the keycard in his hand. ]
Apparently, I live here?
[ he doesn't seem to care that someone is rummaging around on his side of the room because that's technically not his stuff. he heads right in and kicks the door shut behind him, tossing his bag down on the bed after pocketing his phone (and the knife). ]
The tests they've given us so far come with instructions! And, this isn't the room I went to sleep in (this would be the second time, but that's not important)! AND, there are people here in these pictures I don't recognize at all, possessions I don't recognize, and in fact, you are the only thing I've recognized since I've falsely woken up.
Therefore -- this must be a dream. The course wasn't a dream, so there is no reason this one couldn't be.
[This isn't how logic, deductive reasoning, or anything else works. But possibly it is how dream logic works. Why not. Tamamori huffs and picks up the phone and goes to stuff it in his bag, and then holds up his own keycard like?? EQUAL AUTHORITY UNDER THE DREAM LAW.]
... Hmm? Are you planning to go to sleep to try to wake up?
[Tamamori re-opens the door, I guess, because he was planning on going out anyway.]
No, I came here to see if anything in here would give me any clues about what's going on. I woke up in the middle of the lecture hall about to take a test on something called "calculus"? Never heard of it, so I left. I'm supposed to go eat pizza now, I think?
[ is there anything around in this room, he wonders? ]
Maybe the test is to see how well you think on your feet?
All I know is that all our dream-possessions are here, so you might as well take all of your dream-things before we go to eat your dream-food. [what's pizza] And if you really want to know what calculus is, there's a very boring-looking book there about it.
[Tamamori had not cracked the book. But it didn't sound like something he'd want to read anyways.]
There is a person who doesn't understand the nature of llamas, who seems to be holding some sort of party. I'm not interested in their drinks, but if there's extra food, I may have to drop by.
[Did he just invite himself to two parties (they're the same party).]
[ ryouma's side is significantly tidier than tamamori's. it's neat and things seem to be folded and placed in their proper areas – clothes in the drawers, textbooks on the shelf save for the calculus one, snacks neatly stacked under his bed. the wall's also got some posters that fit the aesthetic of his phone case and pocket knife! neat. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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The posters are intriguing. Some, like the movie posters, he can at least guess at what they're all about -- it's a strange feeling -- others, like the video game posters, he just mistakes for movie posters. It's fine. Tamamori will check the polaroids.
Is his dream self there, or is he now just a ghost in the background of some dramatic tale of student woe?]
Mm, isn't a week a bit short for this sort of dream...
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the other person in that particular polaroid seems happy to be there, too, at least. ]
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[Tamamori tells this to the Polaroids, though it's more of an aside and he isn't particularly serious about it -- even he can tell that there's a lot of things here he might want to pay attention to, and while he's used to wandering alien landscapes of his own making (and sometimes those of others), this isn't any story he's familiar with at all.
He's going to retrieve the thingamajigger on the floor, haphazardly poking at it without any real idea of how to open it or find more information on it.
He's also going to retrieve the notebook, reflexively, because written information is generally more reliable to him than visual or even auditory information. Which of these things in his hands is easier to process first?]
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anyway, the phone lights up when he turns it over. a minute or so's passed but he can also see a notification from sage.
the notebook is a bunch of notes about finance that tamamori may not be able to make sense of. it's just a lot of shorthand and abbreviations; clearly meant for the owner to understand and quite possibly not anyone else. ]
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Ah, this thing is encased in some weird picture, too -- it's whimsical and kind of a great way to decorate, he thinks? better than the generic tablet he's got so far -- so Tamamori turns it over and over just to get a good look at it. Being able to read all of this is... a relief, we'll be real. A novelist being unable to read really is the pits even if he can get by with what few Japanese books were available outside dreamland.]
A sage, and a dream of a banker? I could have done better than this, myself. A man with money may be able to buy all sorts of luxuries, and amazing meals, and more books and paper and ink, but he cannot simply buy more time... [this is just nonsense muttering, he's going to lunge for the bag next, is there a wallet in it] But nevertheless, he may be a useful alter ego.
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the ID photo is the same as the polaroid; it has tamamori's picture with the same distortion. ]
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Is there anything else interesting in the bag? Snacks? Other devices? Small animals? Secret compartments?? This bag is probably a bit more fancy and elaborate than he is used to, also, but at some point you just go with the flow when the flow is Money From Random Containers.
Okay, a couple more checks: IS HE ACTUALLY DRESSED? I know there's clothes on the floor, are there even clothes on his person. Also, what are the notifications visible on the phone, he'll finally bother to pay attention.]
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no, i'm kidding. tamamori is thankfully dressed in whatever he was wearing when he dozed off before this!
in regards to the bag: the large pouch has text books, a water flask, maybe some old receipts or something. and in the small pouch, there's a dorm key and some sort of spray. it's pepper spray, to be exact. ]
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The other good news is that he is probably wearing something,, though he might not necessarily be wearing pants. Are there pants here he can pull on, some people might hesitate to grab other people's random floor clothes but nah. First of all this is a dream and second of all Tamamori has things to do, places to go--
Once he's dressed he'll finish his look-through of the bag. Double-checking the phone again for notifications!! And!! Okay, the phone may save us from him playing with pepper spray. The jury is out.]
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the message from sage is still there! would he like to read it? ]
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Also, before I forget, is there any sign he has a roommate?
Other than that, he is going to poke the phone, yes. Can he. Unlock the phone with wild mass guessing or is he stuck reading notifs.]
Hmm. These are smaller, but they still come with no instructions. Terrible design.
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and honestly? he can honestly probably figure out the code through guessing. the password is literally 1234. ]
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I'm also going to assume that he has Incredible Luck™ and manages to get the password, though even Tamamori has to give the thing a suspicious look when it's that simple.]
A banker with no sense of security... What kind of banker are you, Tamamori!!
[He is not a banker. At all. But more importantly: what treasure troves of incredibly unsecured information has he gained access to. Is there a phone wallpaper. Can he wildly misfire e-mails by hitting the screen too much.]
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and yes, he can misfire emails, 100%. time to accidentally send memes to your professors, tamamori. the phone wallpaper looks like this. feel free to play with the phone however you'd like, tama. ]
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[Does it look like anyone he knows. The polaroid, I mean, he wouldn't know a calculus textbook if it whacked him over the noggin at twenty thousand paces.
You say accidentally send memes, but Tamamori is just that meme where you can take a picture of your soul (obviously) if you press the home button and the power button at the same time. He manages this. He takes a screenshot of the HOMESCREEN LLAMA. He sends it to three professors, two contacts, and whoever was messaging him. RIP Sage!]
I wonder...
[I'm going to force him to check the actual messages before he's distracted again. Please. What has been sent to him before the llamapocalypse.]
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😄 party after finals
be there, alright? your drinks are on me
also lol? llama?
[ reading that, though, doesn't really make him feel appreciated at all. in fact, something about it just makes him feel kinda...hollow?
but now, the polaroid. tamamori absolutely recognizes who's in the polaroid; they have the same ripple effect as the one on his side. but before he can do anymore phone shenanigans or rip off the polaroid or what have you, someone enters. the same someone he recognizes in that very polaroid. ]
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Oh. I didn't think anyone was in here!
[ wait. ]
Do you know what's going on right now?
[ perfectly normal question right. ]
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Surely this unsatisfied feeling is from receiving an entirely typed message, with no handwriting nor flourishes to identify the owner except an alarmingly round face. Though it looks fairly happy. Or maybe he's just hungry??? Or maybe it's just that he's being offered alcohol instead of Calspi. This person has no taste.
Tamamori is still processing all of this, and very slowly pecking out a reply:]
L L A M A
[Yes, that's all he sends. Good luck, Sage.
Then Ryouma comes gallivanting in and he squawks and drops the phone. He is still on Ryouma's(???) side of the room, but Tamamori looks very suspiciously between the Polaroid and the non-Polaroid. And:]
Of course I know. This is nothing but a very strange dream, and you are invading it by suddenly being my roommate. I was just off to try out my dream money in this dream university. Why are you here?
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[ that's the response. nothing more, nothing less. L L A M A times are upon us, clearly.
the time now is a little after 3:00pm. ]
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[ it's a fair question? he also holds up the keycard in his hand. ]
Apparently, I live here?
[ he doesn't seem to care that someone is rummaging around on his side of the room because that's technically not his stuff. he heads right in and kicks the door shut behind him, tossing his bag down on the bed after pocketing his phone (and the knife). ]
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Therefore -- this must be a dream. The course wasn't a dream, so there is no reason this one couldn't be.
[This isn't how logic, deductive reasoning, or anything else works. But possibly it is how dream logic works. Why not. Tamamori huffs and picks up the phone and goes to stuff it in his bag, and then holds up his own keycard like?? EQUAL AUTHORITY UNDER THE DREAM LAW.]
... Hmm? Are you planning to go to sleep to try to wake up?
[Tamamori re-opens the door, I guess, because he was planning on going out anyway.]
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[ is there anything around in this room, he wonders? ]
Maybe the test is to see how well you think on your feet?
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[Tamamori had not cracked the book. But it didn't sound like something he'd want to read anyways.]
There is a person who doesn't understand the nature of llamas, who seems to be holding some sort of party. I'm not interested in their drinks, but if there's extra food, I may have to drop by.
[Did he just invite himself to two parties (they're the same party).]
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[ sigh. ]
Who dreams about this sort of thing anyway? Dream-school isn't any more exciting than real-school.
[ please do not get him started on the dream-thing thing!! ]
Might as well go together, I guess?
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redirecting + time skip!
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