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souljammed2016-01-22 12:10 am
soulmods) wrote in souljammed2016-01-22 12:10 am
Entry tags:
TEST DRIVE MEME.
 Prompts Arrival: So you've just arrived in Nyoi-Cho. Congratulations! You must be so excited about having your wish granted. Or maybe you're upset that the result wasn't quite what you expected? If that's the case, then that's too bad! There are no take backs and no redoes, so you're stuck with what you have! Maybe you should have been more careful about how you worded that wish... Oh well. There's no use in dwelling on it. You're a magi now, and that means adjusting to a whole new lifestyle! Maybe one of the townspeople can help you out. Only... they're acting a bit strangely, aren't they? They're all too happy to show you around, but there's something unsettling about the way they're behaving. Almost cheerfully dissonant. Any questions about the history of the town are met with blank stares and brief silence, before they plaster a smile onto their faces and change the subject. Any attempts to tell them about your duties as a magi or anything else that relates to the magical will get similar reactions. Isn't there anyone normal here that you can talk to at all? Home Improvement: The houses that the magi are given access to really are something, aren't they? There's almost no limit to what they can do! Why don't you create the house of your dreams, or maybe recreate and relive your favorite childhood scenes? Invite some spectators over to marvel! A Corrupted Soul Gem: You neglected to take care of your soul gem, and now you don't feel quite yourself anymore. You feel like you're losing your sense of self - all you seem to be able to focus on is your old regrets and past failures. What's happening to you? A Day in the Life: Everyday hero by day, magician by night! You've got a busy day ahead of you and no time to waste! Maybe it's school, or maybe it's work, maybe it's both! Being magical doesn't make you exempt from paying those shopping bills! May Day: Uh-oh. This magical girl stuff looked easier on TV. You're in some serious trouble! Or maybe you see someone else who is! It's time to pull up your socks and show them what you have. Be the hero you've always wanted to be, or give in and be that damsel in distress. There's no shame in needing a little help now and then. A Successful Mission: Congratulations! You met up with your first Nightmare, and you fought valiantly. You even mastered that tricky power of yours! What sort of power did you get? Is it a useful one, or is it not so useful? Maybe you've mastered it beautifully, and now you're showing off to all of your friends. Maybe you're having a hard time keeping it under wraps, and now you're wreaking havoc across the town without meaning to! A Dreadful Nightmare: You had an absolutely horrid day. As you drift off to sleep, your mind dwells on all the injustices you've had to endure. In response, your bed swallows you up, and your room shifts into a horrific Nightmarescape. What sort of Nightmare are you? What kind of Nightmarescape do you create? Hopefully your fellow magi can stop you before you cause too much damage! Wildcard: Feel free to use any information from the FAQ or the World Info page to make your own prompt! |
Karkat Vantas | Homestuck | The Games CRAU
A. Arrival
[When he first appears, stuck on a narrow street he's never known, he can't quite believe it. The Psiioniic had predicted his death - fire, falling, an area he couldn't escape - and some part of him had been too certain it would happen even as Kyuubey appeared in that space between worlds and offered him a wish. He took it, of course. Stop the fire, save everyone, and the rain that had come down out of nowhere had done it, but the pain he felt after... He half wondered in that slip of time before he lost consciousness if he had died anyway, if his taxed brain had just made up something ridiculous to spare him the real thing.]
[But here he is, safe and alive, if a little singed. He smells of smoke, grey jumpsuit dusted with soot, and his eyes are exhausted, dark circles ground into the topography of his face by months of poor sleep and the tendency to wake at the slightest noise.]
[He had to take the offer. He had to save people if there was the chance. He'll have to help save them here, too. But in this moment, the difference - new world, new people - is still too overwhelming.]
[He covers his hands with his face, and his breath rattles in and out.]
Fuck.
B. Home Improvement
No! No, no, no, no!
[Karkat has come stumbling out of his house to slam shut the door, and he kicks it after, grimacing frustration down at the little gem that stands in place of a knob.]
How the hell am I supposed to go in and get rest if my own special maaaagic hive cannot keep its shit together? One home, one coherent design, something I'm comfortable with. Is that too much to ask? Have I angered the yappy fur weasel god? Or am I just the naive pus fountain that catches on last that no, Karkat, the punishment wheel never stops! Not even when there's no one to watch it anymore!!
[He might be yelling this at the house itself. The house, for its part, remains impassive.]
[Karkat groans and sinks to sit before it. He'll keep glaring until his head settles, or until something else interrupts him.]
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[ Kanay is here. Just standing at the edge of the lawn ring on the sidewalk looking past the shrubbery or what have you to the other troll looking like he is ready to tear out his horns over something or other.
So pretty much standard operating procedure for one Karkat Vantas as far as Kanaya is concerned. But that doesn't mean she's not actually concerned because she is. Just more so situated on the fact there hey, it's Karket, right here, in front of her. ]
Hi Karkat.
!!! KANAYA
[Karkat gets up and turns around because he knows that voice, and the face and horns he sees after--yeah, that's her.]
Kanaya? God, it's been--
[Ages. Going on a year. But how does he just go and say that? Rose is here as well by her implication, and for all they weren't close Karkat feels a pang for missing her, too.]
--It's been a while. Which probably makes precisely zero sense to you, but the constant, complicated merry-go-round of bullshit that is my life has no breaks and merrily trashes the recommended speed safety limits.
[He rubs a palm over his face. No, seriously, is there a manual for this? How did Nill manage?]
KK!
How long is a while? Because I guess you could say it's almost been an Earth month since I've seen you, but I also saw you just before we ended up having our horns handed to us by her royal fish bitch.
[ More specifically Kanaya ended up lasered by her highness, but tomatoes-red seeded vegetable.
She moves a little closer, inside the lawn ring to get a better look at the shorter boy, as if trying to figure something out. ]
Karkat's such a jumbled up mess right now
[He sees the way she's looking at him. His hands curl up at his sides, nails pressed to palms.]
Longer than that. The last I saw you was before Gamzee murdered me.
[And he has to look different. No older despite the time, but his eyes are so tired, and he doesn't have his old outfit anymore. It's still the grey jumpsuit from District 13. He's too new to have replaced it with anything more fitting. It's the kind of thing that says on its own that there's a lot left to be told.]
[But he thinks of Nill still - will be thinking of her for a long time - and how she had been so careful not to tell him about the other places she'd been until she could make sure no one else could observe her part of the conversation. And what about here? He got a wish, and he's been brought to save more people, but he's too jumpy after the Capitol to dump everything blindly.]
[After a too-long pause, he gathers his words and asks her plainly.]
Is it safe here?
[Even if she can't answer straight, he's spent too long learning to read and give signals to get past the cameras. If there were a hint, he wants to think he'd catch it.]
how unsurprising haha. also i totally had to rewatch game over haha
That reaction to her... it's not missed, but it is not commented on. Not directly anyway. Some part of her has to wonder if he's mad at her though, for some reason. ]
That was the last time I saw you as well. [ She bites her lip a little, thinking deeply. ] If it makes you feel any better I made certain that Gamzee was thoroughly dismembered before I ended up being the victim of the Condesce's lasers myself.
[ At least they are working off the same timeline. Or so Kanaya has to think. It's not been that long for her since that all happened (she still hasn't even spoken to Rose about any of the difficult subjects they really need to discuss in regards to their relationship) but she could have no idea just how much Karkat changed. Aside from the slightly older, more mature look to her.. he still seems to be Karkat.
Though that question catches her off guard, looking around. ] I think so. At the moment at least.
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[Dave, him, now her and Gamzee, and he still counts Terezi as too likely on the list. It doesn't much lift his impression of things as doomed.]
[But she says after that it's safe, or safe enough, and he nods. His breath is shaky.]
God, I need to sit down. Here, come inside. My disaster hive should tell you a little.
[He turns and touches the gem on the door (red as blood, shaped as a drop) and steps in through the open door, making sure to hold it open after for her. He's not really looking at her. Should she follow, though, the inside certainly says something.]
[He hasn't forgotten where he used to live. Alternian style shows through, familiar greys and twelve-paned windows, but it blends and clashes against others things. There's an elevator stuck against one wall, modern and human as anything, while next to it a dull hallway--half like the meteor, half something else but just as simple--leads further into the hive. There are sleek, stylish chairs next to a squashy, trollish couch, settled atop a colorful rug straight out of the meteor. And if she does come inside, Karkat will let the door close and head straight over to sit in one of the chairs.]
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I see. [ She falls a little quiet, finding herself a little at a loss for words at the moment, only nodding and following Karkat inside. Of course there's a lot she wants to say, but she's not sure what should even come first. Not to mention she finds herself a little blindsided by the interior.
That's not to say that it's all that different from her own. A mix of the meteor and her hive on Alternia. But the other things, the almost unfamiliar third style, she can't put her claw on. ]
It's nice. [ The words come out flat, obviously she doesn't know what else to say. Nor has she realized she can sit too. ]
...Is there a matter that's bothering you, Karkat? I mean, apart from being some form of not-dead that we both seem to find ourselves in, or the fact that we both made wishes with a strange meowbeast and wound up here? [ If he's here, she knows he must have made a wish too. ]
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[He looks back at her finally. It's not what he'd call it, and not what he expected. It feels like a mess to him, not neat enough, all indecisive. And sure, she sounds flat--he hears that tone just fine--but it's less than he expected, somehow. He's not really sure what the right expectation is.]
[The rest, though... His breath runs out in one deep rush.]
Yeah. Yeah, yes, there is absolutely--
[His arms come up and spread, indicating the place around him.]
Can I just say everything? Everything's bothering me. It's been a year for me, Kanaya, and I'm not--I'm not just from our timeline and that's it. I was--I've been somewhere else. Some other planet, some Earth, for a year and some months with only some of the people I knew and a bunch I never did, and now the little wish weasel has brought me to another, and I am kind of freaking out!
[He's started shaking around the shoulders, but he pays it no mind.]
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[ Her's is only slightly better, but at least she recognizes the different styles inside of her own magical home, as opposed ot here where she finds herself stumped.
But clearly there's something bothering Karkat. Clearly, because he goes off on a short tirade that she knows is short because he could have easily gone much longer than that if he really wanted to. Still, she doesn't miss that shaking in his shoulders, and unlike him, she does pay it mind. Without thinking about it she takes a few steps to plop down in a chair next to Karkat's, putting her hand on the shoulder. Presumably as some kind of reassurance? At least it's not a pap. ]
That sounds like something that makes sense to freak out about.
he'll be less of a disaster eventually (probably), he's just super overwhelmed right now
[Her hand on his shoulder should feel the shaking even better, for it doesn't stop under her touch. Letting it stay makes for a good medium between the impulse to run or latch on. Every part of the life he knew has just been ripped up and away from him, and he hasn't seen her in so long, but who's to say he couldn't lose her, too?]
[His hands cup his face as he tries to control his breathing. Don't panic, don't panic, she doesn't deserve to deal with that.]
Everyone's gone--or not gone, but not here, and no one knows anything about what happened there. And I knew this could happen, but I stupidly thought that somehow fate would spare me having to get whisked away a second time when I am possibly the only person my friend even told about this. And of course you don't know the first thing of what I'm saying! I would make more sense if I had put my sponge through a meat grinder, but here I am babbling away in my knit together shitshow of a hive that can't decide between two worlds when I'm not in either of them anymore, and I can't go back because now I have to save this place too.
haha it's so perfecttt
Only she's not good at helping people in this kind of situation, the one where she knows nothing about what happened and can only try her best to be understanding and kind. She thinks about the kind of person that Porrim would be, trying to emulate her, not even realizing that she's found a familial-like role model. ]
I can do my best to remove any and all meat grinding appliances from your hive if that will help. [ She really doesn't know what to say here.. but she knows it isn't that. So Kanaya tries again. ]
It sounds as if you went through a particularly difficult period that I can't say I understand, but I am here. If you know. You want to talk about it.
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[But talking about it... Talking. How does he really do that? He doesn't have the multiple world experience Nill had been through to get used to it, and right now everything is still so heavy and fresh. It hasn't sunk in fully that he's away from it - truly away, not just the not-the-Capitol away that came when he was brought to District 13. It probably won't for a long time, and he wonders distantly how much he can trust this hive, if he won't fall asleep in one block and wake in a panic because some mismatched aspect made him think even for a moment that he might be in the Capitol again.]
[It would be hard, though, to hide how much everything affected him. He takes in a deep breath then lets it out slowly.]
I was in a place called Panem. There were a bunch of us, not just trolls or even the humans from the Earth we made, but people from all different worlds. And they--there was this game, the Hunger Games they called it--they put us in that. And all of us, we had to survive for weeks against... traps, animals, monsters, environmental hazards, but--but also other tributes. That's what they called us, tributes. They made us fight each other, and whoever was the last one alive won, and got out--and then they revived us all and made us do it again, and again, for everyone watching in Panem, until the rebels finally got enough traction to start a war against the Capitol.
[By the end his arms are crossed tightly over his chest, and again his gaze is off somewhere besides her.]
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At first it didn't sound all that different from the game we all played, but I think I can understand the important differences. Sgrub's mechanics appeared to prioritize working together from the very beginning where this Hunger Game did not. I can see how that would be more difficult.
[ Really though, a game where they have to fight monsters, and sometimes came back to life and being involved in a war.. that's not too different. ]
I imagine... that for you it must have been difficult. To leave you this way. Not that you are all that different. But you know. I'm not explaining myself well...
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Sgrub had other quests and goals. If there were other ones in this, it was always for some better survival tool or weapon. The point was always killing each other for their entertainment. The war was partly because of that, but also other political shit about how the Capitol was treating... these people in the rest of Panem. But I guess it doesn't matter anymore now, does it?
[And he shudders on that thought. He had over a year to get used to that place, and he says the words with no conviction. They're going to keep going without him - a fire stopped is not a war ended - and he wonders, fleetingly, if he could have wished for that if he'd stopped to think longer.]
[He looks at Kanaya properly.]
You've been here longer, right? Tell me the basics.
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Karkat isn't the same way. He's damaged, a lot like how Kanaya later realized Vriska was too, but in a different way. He never had a ton of confidence in himself, even when he wanted to be leader he also tried to give it up just as quickly. But this is different than all that. Things happened that Kanaya can't begin to really understand the pain it left on her friend.
So the best thing she can think to do right now is just put her arm around him, to hug the boy closer to her. ]
I'm relatively certain the Universe you were in must still exist. Therefore, in the grand scheme of things, it still matters. [ Does that help? She can only hope so. ]
That's not as easy to sum up as your story. I think it would be easiest to start at the point of saying we are all "Magi" who have magical powers that we are supposed to use to protect this city from Nightmares. Nightmares in this case being creatures that appear at night inside barrier not unlike dream bubbles.
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[It doesn't make the loss of his friends hurt less, but he never got a choice in coming to Panem, either.]
[Her certainty has his lips pressing flat. It's not a smile, but neither is it a frown, and the faraway look of his eyes is more contemplative than rejecting. He doesn't disbelieve her - he has no reason to think it gone - but he'll wonder still in time to come how it might have gone on without him, whether what he fought for and did might help any now that he's gone.]
[He pushes the thought back down as she goes on.]
That fur noodle was saying something about that before I lost consciousness, but I don't think I heard everything. But magic? I thought he wanted me because I've got training and survival experience. How does it work?
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aaaa that outfit is really cute
i know right?!
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home improvement
Oh.
It's Karkat.
Yeah, okay. That makes way more sense. ]</small. House malfunctioning?
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[And while the voice isn't one he recognizes, per se, when he looks he does know the shades. And the face is--hm. Similar. Not Dave, no, but with the shades it slots together: Bro, standing at a kitchen counter, mashing doritos for the most terrible idea for cupcakes. Whoever this is is too young for that, and Karkat debates a second - new session, or brought here early in life? - before finding his tongue to say anything else.]
Yes.
[It's stiff and awkward, and he doesn't look much better. He's never met this one so he can't judge if that tone speaks to familiarity or casualness, and he doesn't want to judge wrong.]
It won't settle into anything coherent.
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[ Dirk gives his head a shake. ]
Must be broken. [ he stops, brow furrowing. ] Don't you love a few houses down?
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[Wait, wait, he's not reacting like he's been gone. What does that mean? Did the other him disappear so quickly he hasn't realized yet?]
[Despite everything (namely the discomfort), something hesitant and sympathetic edges into his eyes alongside the rest.]
... No.
[A swallow.]
I'm not the Karkat you know. I haven't been here any longer than a day.
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That doesn't bode great, if he's being totally honest. He knew this happened in Waverly Bay, but not to anyone he knew. Not to anyone he cared about.
And he's almost positive he saw the alternate timeline Karkat earlier.
He cocks his head uncertainly. ]
So, what. Are you the Karkat from my timeline?
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Unless you're talking about a Karkat who died without meeting you, I'm going to guess no. And considering all the chaos that was going on, I have been pretty damn certain that my timeline is as doomed as doomed gets. If not for--for other things, I wouldn't be alive at all.
[His posture shifts, and his arms fold together.]
Even if through some twist of fate you do mean that one, I'm not the one you know.
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[ He nods his head in the direction of the house. ]
There's a different Karkat here from the new alpha timeline.
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[He has to wonder how he's certain that the other timeline is the right one, but--]
Here? As in still here, right now, living and present in a hive down the street?