Lost Carnival Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ringleaders) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
lostcarnival2018-02-12 11:45 pm
ringleaders) wrote in lostcarnival2018-02-12 11:45 pm
Entry tags:
- !event,
- 9s,
- @wismuth,
- alphys,
- amethyst,
- carly nagisa,
- ginko,
- gongenzaka,
- hinawa,
- inquisitor lavellan,
- jinx,
- john childermass,
- jonathan strange,
- julien delacroix,
- lambert,
- lapis lazuli,
- miko nakadai,
- nui harime,
- papyrus,
- peridot,
- renzo shima,
- steven universe,
- tallisibeth (scout),
- tyki mikk,
- yugo,
- yukio okumura,
- yūya sakaki
⇨ INVASION!
Who: Everyone! But especially HARBINGERS!
When: S2:D16-22
Where: All over Wismuth!
What: As the Harbingers reveal themselves, those among the carnival that Creation has chosen will start to discover new powers within themselves. It's because they're magical girls, yo.
Warnings: Harbingers being assholes.
When: S2:D16-22
Where: All over Wismuth!
What: As the Harbingers reveal themselves, those among the carnival that Creation has chosen will start to discover new powers within themselves. It's because they're magical girls, yo.
Warnings: Harbingers being assholes.
HARBINGERS OF VOID↴ On Day 16, the Harbingers begin revealing their new selves... in the form of wreaking havoc on the city! CY-Ren isn't looking for mass panic or serious structural damage - instead she wants constant annoyances and distractions, of the sort that will keep those that might be on her tail distracted from her true plans. However, when Creation is faced with the threat of twelve new Harbingers, it will have to fight in kind... ► HARBINGERS: Your job is to use your powers to create messes for other people to clean up! CY-Ren gives no specific instructions outside of a general framework... flex your powers! See what you can do. Don't destroy the city or anything, but give Creation a run for its money. She needs these civilians alive for her later plans. ► STAR GUARDIANS: Twelve members of the carnival have been chosen by Creation to fight in its name, even if they don't realize it yet. When confronted by the Harbinger's chaos, their Sparks will make themselves known in whatever form is appropriate to the character - and they will be asked if they are willing to use the power of their soul to fight the darkness. How this scene plays out can be flexible, but essentially they will find themselves faced with the question: are they willing to fight for the preservation of life? If they say yes, their Spark will emerge, and they will be able to trigger a magical girl transformation, as you do. ► CHARITY CONCERT: While everyone else is busy with the sudden rise of the Harbingers, CY-Ren's PR team is releasing a statement -- they will say that new information has revealed that there had been bomb threats made against the canceled concert, which are now being blamed for the damages. CY-Ren will make a personal statement, saying that in order to apologize for the failure of her previous performances, a new free to attend event is being planned for the near future - people who had tickets to the previous event and had to go home early get top priority! |
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He didn't even have the courtesy to be sufficiently unrelenting about it. In fact, he actually allowed Foster to escape.
Truthfully? He's angrier that Herbert didn't drag him to the Void kicking and screaming than he is that Herbert forced his cure into him the same way. Which means that he mostly looks aggrieved, watching 9S go ass over-teakettle on his own heels--though he does notice that the man gives new meaning to the phrase 'buns of steel.'
"I don't care who you serve." He stands over the android, stares down at him--
"Mankind, the Ring Master--it's still part of Creation. The Void... is Nothing, the antithesis,, the... the animus to Creation's everything--it devours, obliterates, destroys. It is the inevitable." He's having a hard time focusing on his thoughts, having to explain this--Herbert left him like this, left him unsettled, unstable, uncertain, unclear--
"But humanity persists. Life... persists."
It is hard to imagine those last two words delivered in a more disgusted tone. Then, in a fashion more along the lines of stating the obvious, he tries again:
"You serve Creation. I serve you ."
wheezes at buns of steel
The problem is, he doesn't care who mankind serves -- the often wrote about gods in their records -- 9S' allegience is first and foremost with mankind, not their gods. Still... Foster's a human by 9S' definition, but he's even harder to understand than the other humans he hangs around.
What's so bad about life?
Caring about living -- even though sometimes he wonders what the point of it all is -- is the reason 9S is here now. In heels. Flat on his ass on the pavement. He's too surprised to get up.
"What? No no no, that's not right! A human can't serve an android!" That's just wrong!! Wrong!
I saw my chance and I crafted my whole tag around the ability to say it
But they don't. They don't, because they live for nothing, in a different but not unrelated way, so does he.
"Then I'm not human," he responds, his tone pressing down on 9S where his monstrous body, thankfully, does not--though he steps forward, one foot landing between 9S' heeled feet in glamour, one hoof to be heard on the pavement in reality. "I'm not even a person. How could I--how could I possibly be a human being?!"
People... people are born already growing, born to potential, to life and emotion and and choice. People feel things. They grow instead of rot, they experience joy and hate pain, they have.... lives, and even if they choose to turn their backs on what they can be, turn their backs on their very lives and waste them, it was their privileged choice to do so.
He's absolutely never been a person.
This is simply the truth. And Herbert uplifted him not from his disease, from death but from laziness, complacency. He was getting careless, idle--he took for granted what he was, and what he knew.
He won't make that mistake ever again.
no subject
Also please don't step on him Foster he is but a delicate metal man, even if he doesn't technically need delicates. 9S backs away -- not intimidated, but certainly uncomfortable -- before carefully getting to his feet.
"How aren't you a human being?" He can't quite keep the incredulity from his voice; he's never heard of a human rejecting their humanity. "Just because you're like--" 9S gestures to Foster's... everything. "--doesn't mean you stop being human."
Why is this coming up in conversation so much? He just had a discussion with Cole about this very topic! A human is something you're born. It doesn't matter if the body changes, the humanity is still there. The humans of the Carnival don't stop being human just because they grow a few wings or, in Foster's case, get a new butt.
"And you don't have to be a human to be a person." Otherwise that would mean 9S isn't a person. But he is a person, no matter how replaceable he was back home.
no subject
And with that, he kneels--his forelegs folding, equine knees on the pavement, his human torso leaning forward, putting him right in 9S' face.
"Do you understand? This has nothing to do with what I look like. I'm simply not a person, and therefore I can't be human." It's so offhand, so blunted, that it's like he's explaining this to a small child.
Suddenly his back end hits the ground, his fore rising--one leg and then the other splayed wide to lift him up, his bear paws planted flat on the street.
"Let me. Serve. You!"
His eyes are wide, whites visible, his face creased in what might be anguish and might be excitement. His tone could be interpreted either as a plea or as a command--but if he has to beg, he will. He will grovel, crawl, do and be anything, pay whatever price.
Because the worst 9S can do is say no.
no subject
"Hey, wait a minute!"
Irritation leaks into his voice as his expression twists into a frown. Sure, he might be serving mankind, but he doesn't have to enjoy being talked down at, as if he's slow or something.
"I get that." Not all people are humans is the most obvious thing to someone like him, a non human person. "But why aren't you a person?"
That part of Foster's logic makes little sense to him.
Foster: [MUFFLED SCREAMING INTO HANDS]
He's already gotten tired of 9S' pedantic insistence on questioning his every word. He's explained himself more than required already, with no answer from 9S except more of the same question.
"Trash is trash," he snaps, though more blunted than edged.
"Would you grant personhood to garbage? To a disease?"
He picks up one hoof like he's going to advance on the android again, but this time he doesn't. Instead, he cocks his head sideways, lining one eye up squarely with 9S' face and looks the android up and down--as close to the way a bird might size something up as possible with binocular vision. But still there's something desperate about it, made moreso when he presses again, stronger this time, more emphatic.
"Answer me!"
no subject
"Do you really see yourself that way? That being, um," wow this seems wrong to say, "trash makes you less of a person? Humans do terrible things," not that he's witnessed it himself, "but that doesn't stop them from being human. Or a person."
TW: imaginary eye gore
"You're not--you're not listening. It's fine, it's fine, it's fine, you don't have to, you don't have to listen, if you don't believe in trash then so be it, I can't stop you."
It's a very different... kind of desperation than 9S might have gotten 24 hours ago, and different still from what he'd get 24 hours in the other direction as well. He's so full of rage right now that even baldfaced misdirection cannot hide it, but even now he still can't come out and say it.
"I did nothing to become trash--nothing was done by me, do you understand? It has nothing to do with what I've done." His voice drips loathing, but the pain in his head has exploded now, increasing not by degrees but exponentially; he presses a palm over his eye with such force that the heel of his
pawhand digs deep into the socket and even that doesn't hurt nearly as much. Which is a shame, because he'd love to pull his own eye out now--or just keep pushing on it until it gives way--either way to crush it, obliterating that bloodshot ball of viscous fluid and feel his blood and pain running down his own weeping, laughing face....!no subject
"Alright, alright!" he tries to say in a placating tone. "If you really want to serve me, you can." Even if it feels incredibly wrong. It feels wrong to even say it. "We can work together...?"
He's not entirely sure what Foster's aim is here, other than to... serve him. For some reason. But if it'll make him stop being so damn mad -- he can't help but feel like he's failing to live up to his purpose -- then he can agree to having some extra help.
no subject
Then it sinks in, and despite 9S' efforts, appeasement has an effect directly opposite of actual his answer. Foster doesn't relax so much as he deflates in a weird mixture of relief and defeat, releasing all at once his pent up pressure of madness--possibly shifting it onto 9S in the process.
He stares at 9S' raised hands silently through his uncovered eye, the base of his palm still pressed painfully deep into his bruised socket.
"....work together...." He repeats it quietly. It's not something he... does, often, or has ever even tried to do. (Not) taming the cloak of death was less about working 'together' and more about having witnesses, with a dash of enthusiastic nihilism on the side.
"Is that really what you want to call it?" he asks, looking a bit pained--but with a tone of reproach, like the interests he's looking after in questioning it aren't his own but 9S'.
no subject
That sure was a big... the change in mood is near palpable. 9S almost relaxes, but the quiet, subdued response sends an uneasy shiver down his spine. He's never encountered anyone quite like Foster at all. Androids are not humans, but their behaviour is close enough that he can see slivers of familiar android behaviour in the Carnival members.
But he can't see that in Foster. Its like he's a complete unknown to him. Both fascinating and terrifying.
Curiosity leaks into his question. "Why do you want to serve me anyway?"
He seems kind of desperate to, too. Ok not just desperate but near driven to the brink of self destruction if not. Its really kind of unnerving, actually.
no subject
Normally pain is effective, an answer, filling and enhancing him, sharpening, realising him by means of physical sensation, physical affliction. That's what's so attractive about it for him. The aversive qualities are terrible and invigorating. But headaches are harder--he feels them, but they're debilitating and oppressive, there's no way to be absorbed in it or by it.
It's messy, and his answer is shortened by it.
"There has to be a reason for me to exist," he replies curtly. Something as wretched and pointless as he is must have a purpose, otherwise he wouldn't exist--but he must also have a purpose in order to justify, to allow or be allowed to continue existing. He pulls his hand from his eye at last; it's still swollen and bruised and now red from pressure.
"But call it whatever you want. Tell them you finally found a use for me."
9S finally receives a smile.
no subject
He can understand that; 9S' entire life has revolved around that concept. A reason for existence, a purpose. From the very moment of his birth, he was thrust into war. But taken away from the war, he didn't know what to do while he no longer has a purpose.
It hurt.
It was so painful, he didn't know what to do and threw himself into all the activities made available to the Carnival on the moon with reckless abandon. While he was drugged, he could forget for a little while. But ultimately, it didn't ease the emptiness he felt through his entire being.
If it weren't for Cole and Rita, he might have considered entering Sleep Mode and never waking up.
9S' expression twists in sudden empathy. "A reason for existence, huh? Yeah, I get that." He nods. "Alright, you can come with me. That's what you want, right?"
no subject
He must have, because there's no other way to interpret this. His face creases pathetically in consternation and defeat. "Yes. Yes, that's..."
He's so frustrated. It's not what he wants. Or it is, but that's not the question, and he doesn't like giving such a.... such a wrong answer. He hates being asked what he wants because it's never been about what he wants, it's not about what he wants, he hates that question because every answer is a lie.
"Please." He tries again, desperate to get off that one wrong, misleading question--
"Don't ask me. Just... just use me."
His tone is... not very agreeable.
no subject
But Foster's words are almost an order from a human. The human wants him order him about, to treat him like he's not a person.
He can't he can't he...
9S clenches his fists and looks away.
"Fine." Resignation colours his entire demeanour, from the slump in his shoulders to the tone of his voice. "I'm looking for the other Harbingers. Tell me how you can help."
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But Foster is positive that once 9S gets used to it, he'll find it easy, and enjoy it. He's just.... so tired, so weak and uncertain and sick now, he's so... he's so...
Why... is it always like this?
"Give me.... two hours."