#this is contextless rambling I’m sorry

[vakarians-babe]

paranoia? you mean parannoying.

[dystopiagnome]

What are like. All the quadrants you're thinking for your AU?

So this would be the end goal without going into much or any details really.

Now I have an unfinished gif and explantion in the terms of how it went down within the gif so consider it like part one of what I am able to jot down and mantain in my little circus clown brain with no correction of typos before it made me a lil' dizzy .-.

[tacittherapist]

We open on a familiar scene: Rose perusing media on her laptop. Yes, she’s doing the narration thing and concurrently performing the actions described within the narration. Don’t judge her. If a certain pointy-spectacled too-much-hairspray anime blowhard can do it, so can a depressed goth nerd. Some semblance of rain pours outside: a faint cloud of cosmic dust they’re passing through pelts her windows with sawdust-sized particles. Her eyes glaze over as she goes through her old chat logs.

tacitTherapist [TT] started trolling carcinoGenetics [CG].

TT: Karkat. Let’s talk. I know you have time because I’m currently watching you sitting on a couch in the aftermath of yet another homoerotic tussle with Dave.

CG: ‘HOMOEROTIC’ YET AGAIN MEANS NOTHING HERE YOU RUSTPANNED SHITWEASEL.

TT: I’ve been thinking lately.

CG: OH, REALLY? WOW!! INCREDIBLE LALONDE, YOU MIGHT BE ONTO SOMETHING THERE.

TT: Don’t interrupt me. I’ve been thinking about our situation.

CG: WHAT DO YOU MEAN ‘OUR SITUATION?’ ‘OUR SITUATION’ AS IN HOW THIS ENTIRE FUCKING STRUCTURE IS IN LITERAL AND METAPHORICAL SHAMBLES?

CG: LET’S PUT ASIDE THE NEAR CONSTANT ANTAGONIZING BY DAVE’S PREPUBESCENT THINLY-VEILED WAILS FOR HELP CLEANING UP HIS OWN OVERFLOWING SPIRITUAL WASTEPANTS AND PERHAPS ADDRESS THE FACT THAT YOU AND MARYAM HAVEN’T SPOKEN FOR OVER THE EQUIVALENT OF SEVERAL WEEKS?

CG: NOT TO MENTION TEREZI IS STILL MISSING, ALONG WITH A SMALL PORTION OF OUR EVER DWINDLING RATIONS THAT YOU POMPOUS GODTIER SHITSTAINS APPARENTLY STILL PILFER DESPITE NOT EVER NEEDING TO EAT.

CG: OH, AND THERE’S A HOMICIDAL CLOWN LOOSE IN THE VENTS. THERE’S THAT TOO.

TT: Yes, all of those things are items I considered.

CG: OH GREAT. FUCKING GREAT. LET ME GUESS, YOU’VE CONJURED ANOTHER CRACKPAN SCHEME TO SOMEHOW MAGICALLY -- SORRY, ‘MAJJJJJJYYYYKLY’ WHISK ALL OF THIS SHIT AWAY?

TT: No. Our situation is bleak, Karkat.

CG: COLOR ME FUCKING SURPRISED. OUR SITUATION IS BLEAK? HOLY SHIT LALONDE, I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS IS WHAT YOU SPENT DAYS IN ISOLATION FORMULATING IN THAT ALL-SEEING MIND OF YOURS.

TT: I do have a proposition. And if you’d be kind enough to quit hammering your clumsy sausage fingers upon that poor phone for even a second, you might even get something from this conversation.

CG: ...

TT: Ellipses wholly unnecessary Karkat. Take your fingers off the buttons.

TT: I have a plan to alleviate our circumstances. It’s risky, but better than sitting here for another few years.

TT: Yes, I know you use sweeps and I’m a totalitarian bigot for not using it here.

CG: YOU PREEMPTIVELY ADDRESSING IT DOESN’T MAKE IT LESS TRUE.

TT: Karkat. Fingers off the buttons or I magically disassemble your phone again, and this time I won’t help you reinstall the macro you use specifically to hide Dave’s long rambling text walls about the economy.

TT: Now then, I haven’t received a vision in several months. I can only presume this means the game is testing my mettle by withholding this power from me.

TT: After weighing the factors behind our predicament, I’ve ascertained that there are two latent states to our position, and the game in general.

TT: Moving and stillness. There exist no states outside of those two. Both a successful and a doomed session move; they may only take on the states of ‘successful’ and ‘doomed’ after having progressed to their ultimate conclusion, after all. A null session, by contrast, stands still. Forever locked into a state that is neither successful nor doomed.

TT: If we were to translate our position into one of these two states, we would be null. This is arguably worse than a doomed session, as demonstrated by the slow malaise gradually overtaking everyone’s moods for the past few months.

TT: Obviously we missed our target somehow. Whether by some small deviation in our course, or a slight miscalculation by Sollux, we are definitely not reunited with Jade and John, who were supposed to have crossed paths with us some months ago.

TT: So instead of sitting here, waiting for one of us to miraculously drift into the other, I propose we recalculate our trajectory.

CG: HOW. IF YOU HAVEN’T NOTICED, SOLLUX FUCKED OFF TO TRAIPSE ABOUT THE AFTERLIFE OR AFTER HALFLIFE OR WHATEVER THE FUCK KIND OF NOT DEATH NOT LIFE THING HE HAS GOING ON WITH MEGIDO. SO WE’RE A LITTLE SHORT ON TELEKINETIC POWERS TO GIVE US ANOTHER PUSH.

TT: Incredibly telling that you refer to everyone by first name when you hold more affection for them over everyone else. It’s really not subtle here, Karkat.

CG: FUCK YOU.

TT: Yes, we no longer have psychic powers at our disposals. But I’ve done some detailed calculations on our current path and where we need to be.

TT: There are a number of small cosmic bodies about to pass us. If we simply jump onto one in particular, we should be able to correct our course and meet up with the others to get our session restarted.

CG: IS THAT WHY ALL OUR NAPKINS HAD INANE CLUCKSCRATCH ON THEM?

TT: Yes, but no more inane chickenscratch than all the penises you and Dave drew on them.

CG: OBVIOUSLY YOU KNOW I CAN’T GO ALONG WITH THIS.

TT: Why not?

CG: WELL FIRST, I’M NOT ABOUT TO TRUST NAPKIN MATH. SECOND, IF THIS ISN’T A ONE HUNDRED FUCKING PERCENT CONFIRMED THEORY, I WON’T CHANCE OUR MORTAL LIVES ON A HUNCH THAT YOU GODTIER ASSHOLES FIGURED MIGHT HELP US STARVE TO DEATH EVEN FASTER.

TT: Dave has no hand in this. You’re the first person I’m telling.

CG: WAIT, WHY?

TT: Because I need you to get everyone on board. You’re still the de-facto leader.

CG: THAT’S A LOAD OF HORSESHIT AND YOU KNOW IT.

TT: Your continued denial of this simple fact is more evidence to the contrary.

CG: SO WHAT? YOU WANT ME TO SINCERELY PEDDLE THIS IDEA THAT WE JUST HOP OFF OUR HOME FOR THE PAST TWO SWEEPS BANKING ON THE HOPE THAT WE JUST MEET UP WITH EGBERT AND HARLEY?

TT: Well yes, but I was thinking you’d make it a bit more palatable to everyone else. That’s more your specialty than mine.

CG: YOU REALLY HAVE TO BE FUCKING WITH ME RIGHT NOW. ABSOLUTELY FUCKING WITH ME. THE VERBAL DIARRHEA COMING OUT OF YOUR MOUTH RIGHT NOW CANNOT BE GENUINE.

TT: We’re both typing on phones right now Karkat.

CG: YOU KNOW WHAT I FUCKING MEAN, ASSHOLE. IF YOU CAN’T EVEN CONVINCE ME THIS WILL WORK, WHAT MAKES YOU THINK I CAN CONVINCE EVERYONE ELSE IT WILL? YOU’RE REALLY NOT GIVING ME THE HARD SALE HERE.

TT: I know this, but please just hear me out. Our food will run out in three weeks at most, and that’s if both Dave and I curb the hunger pangs with something else to distract us. Yes, we won’t die, but you will likely suffer more antagonizing at the hands of a Hungry Dave.

CG: NEVER. *EVER*. ****EVER****. CAPITALIZE HUNGRY BEFORE DAVE LIKE THAT EVER AGAIN.

TT: Deal. On the condition you get everyone else on board.

CG: NO DEAL. FUCK YOU AND FUCK THIS DEAL. YOUR PLAN IS A FAT LOAD OF SHIT AND I REFUSE TO EVEN CONSIDER THIS A LEGITIMATE CONVERSATION GIVEN YOU’VE BEEN HOLDING ME AT METAPHORICAL GUNPOINT THIS ENTIRE TIME. I DON’T MAKE DEALS WITH TERRORISTS, LALONDE.

TT: If you could drop the performative morality shtick Dave has been foisting on you for just a moment, what exactly could I say to change your mind? Perhaps you’ll feel differently in two weeks when we’re down to our last few loaves of alchemized bread?

CG: ...

TT: Tell me, does a large ‘JUST’ or ‘HEROIC’ sign pop up when mortals die? I’ve personally never seen it before, but I imagine of the four of your twelve original session remaining, at least one of you must have seen a non-ascended death. Do you think starvation counts as just or heroic? I mean, Dave and I are precluded because the ascension really did remove our need to eat, but maybe if we find one of your quest beds on this desolate laboratory, we might be able to spare at least one of you from eating the others in desperation.

CG: FINE. FUCKING FINE. YOU’VE TWISTED MY ARM. YES, METAPHORICALLY, SHUT THE FUCK UP. I’LL MAKE A DEAL.

TT: Good. Your terms?

CG: YOU HAVE TO GET MARYAM ON BOARD FIRST. IF YOU CAN DO THAT, I’LL TAKE CARE OF CONVINCING THE OTHERS.

tacitTherapist [TT] has stopped trolling carcinoGenetics [CG].

carcinoGenetics [CG started trolling tacitTherapist [TT].

CG: HEY. WHAT THE FUCK?

TT: My finger slipped.

CG: NO IT DID NOT YOU AGGRANDIZING FUCKHOLE.

TT: Did you just call me a ‘fuckhole’?

CG: I’M TIRED AND HUNGRY, SHUT THE FUCK UP.

CG: WHY DID YOU ABRUPTLY CLOSE THE WINDOW.

TT: I don’t know if I can convince Kanaya.

CG: WHY’S THAT? THIS IS THE PERFECT FUCKING CHANCE FOR YOU TWO TO FINALLY TALK. I THOUGHT THIS WOULD ACTUALLY BE EASY FOR YOU.

TT: It’s not that simple.

CG: OHHH WELL EXCUSE ME FOR GETTING MYSELF ENTANGLED IN THIS COMPLEX HUMAN MATING RITUAL. YOU HAVE TO FORGIVE ME IF I JUST MAKE SNIPPY REMARKS EVERY CHANCE I GET WITH CONTEXTLESS DESCRIPTORS THAT ARBITRARILY DESCRIBE YOUR GENDERS.

TT: It’s just not a good time.

CG: HOLY SHIT. YOU THINK IT’S NOT A GOOD TIME? REALLY? WELL I GUESS WE’VE ALL JUST BEEN PLAY ACTING A FOOD AND GRIST SHORTAGE FOR THE PAST FEW WEEKS. HA HA, WHAT A FUNNY AND ELABORATE PRANK WE’VE ALL BEEN PLAYING ON OURSELVES THIS ENTIRE FUCKING TIME.

TT: I mean it’s not a good time to bring this up with her. I’m still sorting out where I stand with her and how I should approach this.

CG: FOR ALL THE “”““CALCULATIONS”“““ YOU JUST PULLED ON ME JUST MOMENTS AGO, SUDDENLY YOU CAN’T NAVIGATE YOUR OWN STUPID IDIOT EMOTIONS?

CG: WOW. JUST WOW. YOU KNOW, DESPITE HER TOTALLY BONEHEADED APPROACH TO VIRTUALLY *EVERYTHING* AT LEAST JADE KNEW HOW TO TACKLE THINGS HEAD-ON. MAYBE WE DO NEED HER HERE RIGHT NOW, IN SOME TWISTED CATCH-22 MOBIUS DOUBLE REACH AROUND AS ALWAYS.

TT: I can convince Dave.

CG: SO CAN A BOTTLE OF FUCKING CIDER.

TT: I mean that as a counter offer. If I convince Dave, you convince the others.

CG: NO DEAL. NOW THE FOOT COVERING IS ON THE OTHER LEGSTUMP, EH LALONDE?

TT: You just used ‘foot’ in the same sentence as ‘legstump’.

CG: YEAH AND I’LL SHOVE MINE STRAIGHT UP YOUR POLYESTER-SWADDLED ASS IF YOU TRY ANY MORE NEGOTIATION. THIS IS MY ULTIMATUM. IF YOU REALLY BELIEVE IN THIS PLAN OF YOURS, IT HAS TO AT LEAST HOLD CONVICTION STRONGER THAN YOUR REFUSAL TO FACE YOUR OWN EMOTIONAL TURMOIL WITH MARYAM.

CG: GET KANAYA ON YOUR SIDE, OR NO DEAL. FINAL OFFER.

TT: ...

TT: Fine. I’ll see what I can do.

CG: GOOD LUCK. SINCERELY THOUGH, LET ME KNOW HOW IT GOES.

TT: Thanks. I told Dave you were talking shit just now, by the way. You should make yourself scarce unless you want an hour-long lecture about how gossip is destroying society and by extension the economy.

CG: FUCK YOU. BYE.

carcinoGenetics [CG has stopped trolling tacitTherapist [TT].

[vikingpoteto]

fictober day #4 - will that be all?

Part  of an original work

(Previous pieces)

Rating: G

Content warnings: customers, supernatural elements to be added, slow burn,and they are roommates (oh my god they are roommates)

Word count: 1549

04. fear

Talking to others had never been an easy task for Isabel Rodrigues. Under a thick layer of clinical anxiety, she had been a quiet well-behaved child who never questioned adults’ orders. Thanks to being the scrawny girl who couldn’t quite keep up and play with other kids, she had been the one outgoing children would pick up on. Due to her taste for art and whatnot, she quickly grew into the asocial teenager that would only find people with similar interests on the internet and that was deemed abnormal by her school peers. And finally the betrayal of the one person she trusted the most made her go from introverted and slightly awkward young artist to a walking disaster that does not know how to interact with people.

She thought she was getting better, really. She had found herself a new home, a new friend and she was even thinking of adopting a dog. Isabel was still an awkward mess most of the times, but she thought she was getting better. But then she got abruptly reminded that people often are more than what meets the eye and she suddenly is back to square one.

“Will that be all?” she asks in her best fake cheerful tone.

The man squints at the glowing menu behind her. Isabel painstakingly keeps her customer service smile in place.

“I guess,” the man finally says, pulling out his wallet. “How much?”

“That will be 20, sir.”

A pause. He frowns at her. “I’m not paying that.”

Isabel’s smile is frozen in place. If young Isabel knew she’d end up stuck talking to people all day long, she’d probably would have made some different choices regarding her education.

“Sir, your order is already being finished.”

“Well, I’m not paying that much. That’s an absurd. Let me speak with your manager.”

Isabel takes a deep breath. Two years ago, that exchange would’ve driven her to tears. She had gotten tougher after dealing with annoying customers for so long. She still feels like crying, but she pushes the urge deep down and tries to defuse the situation as politely as she can.

“Sir, we’re past closing time,” she reminds him. “I was about to lock up when you arrived. The manager left quite a while ago.”

“And now this. When I was your age, I’d be thankful for each and every opportunity to work. And I certainly didn’t complain about it to customers.”

When he was her age. The man in front of her looks like he’s in his mid thirties. Isabel is 24. And she certainly regrets letting this guy inside. She should’ve just said they were closed and kicked him the hell out. She is never in the mood for people like him, but tonight particularly she just wants this to be over soon so she can…

She can what? She certainly doesn’t want to go home. Amaya probably won’t be in there - she never is at night - but Isabel doesn’t want to go regardless.

“Sir…” She starts.

“You know what? Forget it. I don’t want to eat in this filthy place anyway.”

And he storms out.

It’s stupid. She should be used to it by now. Isabel feels her eyes filling with tears nonetheless. It’s so stupid.

So Amaya got into a nasty fight with some random dude. So she isn’t a bubbly optimistic cheerleader 24/7. Isabel isn’t a child. She knows people aren’t cookie cutter characters with two dimensions. She also knows that she can’t possibly know everything that there is to know about her roommate after living together for just a couple of months.

So she is secretly some sort of MMA fighter that gets threatened by some random guy into staying away from someone. For all Isabel knows, Amaya could’ve stolen that guy’s girlfriend. As nice as she is, Amaya can be a bit of a careless flirt.

For all she knows, Amaya could also be a mafia boss - she does look like the femme fatale type - and when the guy asked her if she was going to kill him she was being serious.

Isabel sighs and hurries to turn the closed sign before anyone else thinks it’s a good idea to walk in and order shit. She locks the door and turns to face the cafe. She must now wipe down tables, put chairs up, close the register… Oh, who is she fooling? She sits on the floor with her back against the wall and hugs her knees. She is not doing any cleaning now.

Stupid.

Rationally, Isabel knew people have secrets sides they don’t show to others. Emotionally? Not so much. After what happened, she had promised herself she wouldn’t trust blindly again and what did she do as soon as she put herself together enough to stop crying? She got overly attached to a woman she barely knows and proceeded to have an internal meltdown when she found out there was something - something big and scary - Amaya wasn’t telling her.

Why does it matter so much?

“Hey?”

She startles then curses. She’d forgotten she wasn’t the only one working late. There’s also the cook. Isabel stands trying to wipe her eyes as inconspicuously as possible.

“Mia!” She exclaims. “Shoot, sorry, the guy got mad and left.”

Isabel isn’t a people’s person. She thought there wasn’t anyone worse than her in that aspect. But then Mia joined the staff two months earlier. A girl that looks like a porcelain doll with unevenly chopped blonde hair, Mia barely speaks. Isabel had never seen her smile - or show any emotion for that matter - and she’s always clad in thick clothes that cover most of her pale skin. She draws attention for her beautiful face, but she manages to blend in with the background nonetheless.

Unlike Isabel, Mia doesn’t seem to notice or care that she doesn’t get along with her fellow human beings.

“It was my fault,” Isabel babbles. Mia’s cold stare isn’t doing any favors to her nerves. “I didn’t know how to deal with him and he got mad and…”

If Mia is upset for being held back past closing time making a sandwich for no one, she doesn’t show. She stares at Isabel as she rambles and, when Isabel runs out of nonsense to spit, Mia nods and sits on the counter. She starts eating the sandwich.

For a model skinny white girl, Mia sure can wolf down that double like it’s nothing.

Isabel sighs. She stands and starts looking for a rag to wipe the tables. Crying won’t do her any good right now.

“‘s not your fault.”

Isabel stops on her tracks. “I’m sorry, did you say something?”

“Not your fault,” Mia repeats, deadpan. “That guy was a jerk. I could never do what you do, being nice to shitty customers and shit. I would probably just rip their throats out.”

She blinks once. Twice. Is… is Mia trying to be nice to her? Oh God. She isn’t sure Mia even knows her name, since she always refers to Isabel by “hey you.” What does she do? What does she say?

“You mean you couldn’t be a doormat like me?” Isabel asks with a bitter smile.

She shouldn’t know better than to try to use any type of humor with Mia, let alone self-deprecating. Unsurprisingly, Mia doesn’t smile. Fortunately, she doesn’t put on a worried expression and starts to tell Isabel not to talk about herself like that. She just stays there with her acid green eyes looking for something in Isabel’s face and her unemotional demeanor. She really looks like a porcelain doll - ethereal, beautiful, cold.

“I wouldn’t call it being a doormat,” Mia says finally. “People like to put it like that. As if being kind and patient is a weakness when everyone else is a piece of shit. I think it’s the contrary. If you still find it in yourself to be kind in a world like this, even when all you want is tell people like that guy to shove it, it means you’re stupidly strong.”

And she shoves the rest of the sandwich into her mouth as if she had never said anything. That is by far the longest speech Isabel had ever heard Mia make. Hell, she doesn’t think she ever heard the other woman say more than two sentences in sequence.

“That’s… that’s… Wow.”

Mia jumps to the floor and starts putting away stuff. Isabel’s anxious side starts to think she might have hallucinated that.

Isabel shakes her head to clear her thoughts. People have hidden sides. Those hidden sides might be pleasant in the most surprising ways. So Amaya is a girlfriend-stealing mob boss. She’s still the girl that received Isabel into her apartment and supported her when Isabel was at her messier point. She had been nothing but the kindest person Isabel had met and a contextless fight shouldn’t make Isabel freak out like that.

She should talk to Amaya, like a reasonable person instead of freaking out on her own.

“Mia?” Isabel calls. “Thank you. That was really nice of you to say.”

Mia glances at her. Nods. And carries on with her job so they can just lock up and leave.

For the first time, her silence doesn’t stress Isabel out any more.