#im love my clown son and doctor under wraps friend

[neigma]

Volume 14 is out and you know what that means!!

First up, the first clown I immediately loved, Karako Pierot!

(We don't have to call him Whomst Isthis anymore!)

Ah, a calming walk through the dangerous, possibly man-eating foliage of Alternia

Oh? But whomst is this (ha) coming up the path?

It's a clown boi!

Who gets so startled when he sees us that he jumps a literal foot in the air and gets his horns stuck in a tree branch

This boi only speaks through honking and I'm not sure how we can interpret what he's saying??

Before we get him down, the necklace he's wearing is actually some kind of dog tag with his name (Karako Pierot) and the message "if found return to Bronya Ursama"

It seems Karako was one of the grubs Bronya protected!

(A good while ago, I'm assuming)

Anyway we help him down (avoiding the many knives on his belt as we do)

We barely even get a moment to talk with him before a drone shows up

(Which apparently talks like SHSKKFJSJ which I imagine sounds like radio white noise)

If you're like me you jump in to protect your proto-friend, standing in front of him and "acting natural" (which goes by the loose, comedic definition in this case)

Eventually the drone leaves, and Karako looks grateful!

But then, because apparently we don't get a moment of reprieve in this route, some seadwellers show up!

(We finally get some fish and they're 1. Downright assholes and 2. Not shown at all)

(One of them even used a lot of ocean themed puns but as far as I know Meenah is the Condesce and Feferi probably isn't even out of the mother grub yet)

The seadwellers' insults eventually piss Karako off so much that he jumps up to fight them with some w i c k e d looking knives

(They could probably gut a fish... or three... I'll see myself out)

I chose to grab Karako by the coattails because n o fighting seadwellers is b a d

He's still getting worked up though, and eventually he releases a honk that I'm pretty sure means highblood rage chucklevoodoos

And that seems to be what happens: we get lifted into the air while the seadwellers run screaming into the deadly plant life and... well, die

And on our return trip to the ground we black out

We wake up to find Karako standing over us and, like we did just before the drone showed up, he holds out a hand to shake in the name of friendship!

Up next, Marsti Houtek!

We're walking through the city near where we first crash landed when we pick up on an argument happening nearby

In an alleyway covered in graffiti, we come across Marsti getting yelled at by some anonymous purpleblood for cleaning up said graffiti

If you're like me and you choose to get involved right off the bat, you get clocked in the face for your troubles

But if you go with the second option of actually staying out of other peoples' business for once in your goddamn life, you walk on by: nothing to see here

And there goes Marsti running past us with the purpleblood in pursuit

He's not in pursuit for long because we just h a v e to get involved and trip him so he's eating pavement

Then we're dragged into another alleyway (hey isn't this that one scrapped background? Huh) by Marsti and the purpleblood leaves

Over the course of our conversation with Marsti there are some bits of dialogue on our part that makes it seem like we're at least somewhat aware of the fact that we're the protagonist of a video game who is just as likely to die as to make a friend

This whole time we were helping Marsti clean the graffiti off the wall, and once that's finished, we suggest a location (uptown or downtown) to clean with her next

If you're like me and choose downtown, we cycle through a few previous locations we helped to make a mess at before settling on a certain vacant lot that is deja-vu-inducingly familiar

(Observant players will recognize it as the same vacant lot where Boldir fucking d i e d in that one bad ending that got really mysterious)

When we arrive at the lot, Folykl is there!

But no Kuprum in sight (she says she sent him to get takeout)

At this point we take the chance to start riffing on Marsti, which just makes us seem like an asshole

(In our defense, we apparently thought Folykl would join in on the riffing)

After we're chastised, Marsti takes an interest in Folykl and her voidrot, commenting on how the dirt and grime doesn't actually help that much

Apparently Marsti is interested in being a doctor but has decided to lay low for death-avoidant reasons

Before we leave Marsti gives Folykl advice on how best to deal with her voidrot, and though she seems dismissive of it, she does seem to actually be listening

Throughout every conversation with Marsti we've been trying to help her find something she's passionate about because cleaning clearly isn't it, but in the end we support her decision to lay low, bonding over our mutual need to help people

And thus, friendship!

To round this off, quirks!

Honk!!

(The above translates to "I stan one (1) clown boi!!")

And Marsti is an amazing, sassy person who uses an adorable little text face at the end of every sentence and I love her -_-

I love these two, and I think it's interesting that this is the only friendsim pair thus far that was released together in the troll call!