lostcarnival | the terrible horrible no good very bad week

Entry tags:

the terrible horrible no good very bad week

Who: Strange & OPEN!
Where: mostly the carnival, with a Wismuth prompt
When: D17 and onwards
What: Strange has had a run of shitty days/decisions and is coping like a champ (he's sulking)
Warnings: mild drug & alcohol use, Strange's general asshole tendencies

sulking at the training grounds
Over the past few days, Strange learned that the closest thing he could call to an enemy was back and she had poisoned his best friend, found out his other close friend was kidnapped and enthralled, got dunked in a lake, got his emotional support gem stolen, got dunked in the ocean, made a kid cry, discovered he had a fun new phobia of sentient pineapple beasts, got gum in his hair, and received harsh truth bombs from at least two different people. And only half of this is his fault! (Maybe five-eighths. Strange'll fight it if anyone says three quarters.)

To top it all off, apparently the entire universe is in danger of ending and Creation's decided to fix that by giving people fun magical powers but apparently the universe doesn't think he's good enough! Like what the hell, Creation? As if his self-esteem wasn't already weirdly low thanks to the fact that he got beaten up by plants and the previously mentioned harsh truth bombs.

So, Strange is coping with pyromania. At least four of the practice dummies are currently on fire and have been on fire for the past half hour or so. Strange is in the process of casting a spell to set a fifth ablaze. Anybody who remotely approaches the training ground is getting an amazing death glare courtesy of Strange, as well as a grumpy "What?"

sulking part 2
Alternatively, there's an abundance of purple smoke hanging out near the top of one of the game trailers in the gamer's circle. Can smoke sulk? Undecided, but there's certainly something sulky about this smoke. It's definitely lingering around the top of the trailer and not moving in a manner that's reminiscent of sulking.

welcome to the plot
For the most part, Star Guardians need to sleep too. As does Strange But considering that Strange lives a comfortable life as the man with the world's most erratic sleep schedule, his is variable as hell and he's wide awake at around ten pm, when most people should be getting ready for bed. He's wide awake as he bangs on the trailer door of each inhabited trailer, hoping that someone's in.

He doesn't waste any time. Whenever anyone answers their door, Strange bluntly asks, "Did you get those odd powers like what Noa has?"

Fuck it, he knows about pillars, he can still be useful.

wismuth
Staying at the carnival and not getting out of bed just sounds like a really good plan right now. Except Strange is a nightrunner and when you're rooming with the deputy nightrider, you can only wallow in self-pity for so long. Scrying can only do so much so he's hitting the pavement. As he walks the streets (wearing a slightly ridiculous baseball cap), Strange keeps his senses open for any sort of magic: guardian, harbinger, fae. He's already gotten his ass whooped twice, any sort of large spikes of harbinger magic he is staying the hell away from. But it's the smaller things, the after effects that he can at least try to dispel.

And so, that's why Strange is standing next to an ATM that's currently spitting out cash, muttering something while debating if he's actually got to put his mouth on that thing or not. Thankfully, the machine sputters to a stop and the spell breaks before Strange has to actually kiss the box.

"I don't even know what this is," he complains, to anyone listening. Foggy modern AU memories can only go so far and did not extend to ATMs. But look at him go, stopping the horrible...money spitter outer machine. Greatest magician of the age, everyone.

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Strange also looks like a goddamn mess. His hair is sticking up in every direction, he's slept in his clothes, and he smells way too much like whatever floral soap he used to scrub off the scent of pineapples.

"I'm not either," he grumbles. Because while part of Strange badgering everybody is to tell any and all Star Guardians that surprise, you're part of saving the world now, the fact that Peridot's not one either is...refreshing? It's nice to know that there's another person stuck in normality with you. It's also nice to know that Peridot seems to hate all of this as much as he does.

"I've got a bottle of faerie ale and a joint's worth of faerie weed if you want to share either and complain about things." Friends introduce friends to their horrible coping methods. And considering that Steven's evil, Amethyst's evil, Connie's MIA and Lapis is MIA, Strange has a feeling Peridot might want alcohol and/or hallucinogens. At least, he knows he would.

Normally Peridot wouldn't see the point in partaking in such substances, but. She gives so little of a shit about anything right now that it just takes her a brief pause before she grunts, "Yeah, okay," and opens the door the rest of the way. Complaining sounds ideal, whether she partakes in the offered substances or not.

She leaves the door hanging open behind her and assumes that he'll take that as invitation to follow her in. Where she heads next is to the living area, tromping her way there with her shoulders sagged and her tail dragging limply on the floor behind her. Then she kind of just. trods up to an ottoman, pauses, and then flops forward, draping herself over it face down while Pumpkin and Fleshy both watch with concern from the associated armchair.

"Give me thirty seconds or so." Because technically the joint and booze are in Strange's trailer. And considering how little Peridot seems to want to move, Strange has made the executive decision that they're going to get drunk and/or high in her trailer. Thankfully, there's a mirror in this trailer somewhere, whether it's the bathroom or one of Peridot's morps. Strange vanishes through the mirror then reappears around fifteen seconds later with a joint in one hand and a bottle of booze in the other. He also returns to the concerned stares of Pumpkin and...some creepy weird fleshy critter.

Getting fucked up in front of the pets, alright, he can work with this.

As he sets the bottle of faerie ale near Peridot's prone form, Strange starts conjuring up a little flame to light the end of the joint. And so, the complaining starts. "I can't believe Lambert got that magic," Strange grumbles. "He whines about how he's not a magician every time I ask for clarification on one of his spells." He scoffs, though it's more out of grumpiness than outright maliciousness.

"I suspect he's set something on fire or broken something already."

Peridot doesn't react at first when Strange sets the bottle down and starts talking, but when he finishes complaining about Lambert, she makes a really loud scoffing sound into the ottoman and then lifts her head abruptly.

"Lambert? At least Lambert is trustworthy. You know who ALSO got selected for those powers?" She's grinning unpleasantly, even though there is absolutely nothing positive to her mood at the moment. She'll tell him before he even gets a chance to take a guess.

"Jasper. Cloddy, cruddy, huge jerk JASPER was chosen to fight the Void! Over ME! LIKE I'M SUPPOSED TO TRUST HER, WITH RESCUING LAPIS? OR STEVEN?"

Sorry Strange it just got really loud in here. Pumpkin and Fleshy are both cringing.

"She's the one who likes to punch things, correct? Steven's got those terrible little fruit monsters—no offense, Pumpkin," said with a little nod in the animal's general direction. "All she'd do is smush them to death."

Which, alright, if Jasper can step on every pineapple monster in Wismuth then she might have her uses. But how could that work for rescuing people?

"She'd need one of us with her to even accomplish anything remotely tactical," Strange grumbles. He's only had like one conversation with Jasper but if Peridot is shittalking Jasper, then Strange will join in the shittalking. He takes a small puff of the joint before offering it to Peridot. Strange still has Wismuth and chickengate on the mind, let's start things slowly.

Edited 2018-02-15 22:59 (UTC)

Pumpkin just barks and wags her weird vine tail, apparently taking no offense whatsoever at the comment. She knows she's vastly superior to Steven's other creations. Peridot tells her so all the time!

Peridot looks at the joint and considers it for a moment, before shaking her head no. Fae weed does actually affect her (and unlike with standard alcohol she doesn't need to mimic an organic to get the effects of it, thanks to it's magical potency), but... she's tried it before. The first (and last) time that she took a hit, she wound up spending the next 36 hours just totally fucked up. And by the time she finally reclaimed her sobriety? She'd gained her first set of physical changes. So yeah, she's not really willing to risk that again.

What she will do is slide off the poor piece of furniture that she's currently misusing, and pick up that bottle of faerie ale, considering it thoughtfully. She takes a breath, shaky with anger. "Basically. That's what I had to do during that awful hunt, when we..." Pause. Well. When they murdered the hell out of Lamboart. But hopefully Strange doesn't need her to specify that. "I had to accompany her to make sure she did things properly. And she HATES Steven and Lapis. Like, really, really, REALLY hates them."

As Peridot shakes her head, Strange shrugs. Hey, more for him then, and sucks to be Peridot who'll inevitably end up dealing with a giggly magician who's got the munchies.

He remains quiet as Peridot continues her explanation. Thankfully, Peridot doesn't have to specify what happened during the Hunt. So she ended up murdering the hell out of someone also: Strange stabbed the hell out of Susan-dragon. It sucked. A brief look of disgust flashes across Strange's face, more about the Hunt and the fact that it had to happen in the first place than about Peridot getting her murder on.

If Jasper can't kill someone properly, then what's the chance she'll actually be helpful in saving all of creation? "Creation really has no idea what it's doing if it leaves something this important to people like her."

And not to people like us is stated but not implied.

"Pretty much," Peridot agrees. Then she pops the top on the ale bottle and says: "I'm going to drink some of this now."

Soon as she says that, she changes into her dragon form, bottle still clasped in her claws. Gotta be organic really get the effects of that sweet sweet booze, right? The dragon form is, uh. Pretty large. And takes up a good portion of the living area, but she doesn't care. She is NOT drinking as a bat again.

Holy shit, large drunk dragon. As Peridot shifts to dragon form, Strange finds that he really doesn't have that much space anymore. There's a frown as Strange looks around before adjusting his position slightly, as he leans against Peridot's tail.

What to complain about next...Strange takes a puff from the joint before the complaining starts.

"I ran into Childermass and Steven. I put up a hell of a fight against both of them but that Harbinger magic is annoyingly powerful."

The dragon lets out a rude, humorless bark of laughter. “Yeah? I ran into Steven too. He tried to dissipate my physical form, and then he chased me, and then he stabbed me.” Peridot ends that thought on a scowl, and then tips her head back and pours a good quarter of that bottle of ale right into her open mouth.

"He attacked me with pineapples," Strange scowls. 'Pineapples' is said with a tone of utter disgust. Strange shudders slightly, before taking another puff. The smoke from the joint is holographic, shimmering in the light.

Strange is so wrapped up in his grumpiness, he doesn't even remember to tell Peridot that the faerie ale hits HARD. If it's powerful enough to get a faerie drunk, it'll get the dragon hammered.

"Did he use those vines to stab you? They sting something fierce." As he bitches, Strange leans back slightly, using Peridot's tail as a back rest while he starts to stare at the ceiling.

"Yeah," she confirms, scowling; her voice is a bit gravelly from the burn of alcohol. "He ripped my wing open. It was pretty much the most horrible pain I've ever been in," she says like she's recounting a particularly boring day of work or something.

"I am so sorry," Strange responds, absolutely horrified. To have an injury like getting a wing ripped open would be horrific in itself but to have one of your closest friends do it? Absolutely awful.

"But you feel better now, correct? Did you see the medical tent or is this a gem thing?"

"It was fine once I stopped channeling the transformation spell and changed back into my basic form," she says, shrugging like it's no big thing, even though it absolutely was. Gotta look tough. "I did bleed for the first time in my life though. THAT sucked. I don't know how you humans deal with it."

Edited 2018-02-19 03:08 (UTC)

"Do you want to hear something terrible?" Strange starts. He's not waiting for an answer, Peridot is indeed going to hear something terrible as Strange launches right into said terrible thing with all the gusto of a teenage boy about to tell someone something gross.

"Sometimes humans regularly bleed for no reason."

"I know that," the dragon snorts, rolling it's eyes. "I spent a solid month as a human, remember?" She goes sort of crosseyed for a second, contemplative. Is it just her, or is the room rocking a bit...? "Although I guess that does raise the question of why you'd have any experience with that--"

"I had nosebleeds when I was younger," Strange idly responds, as he sinks further into Peridot's tail. This...well, it isn't really cozy, but he doesn't want to move. He just wants to sit here, leaning up against Peridot's tail, and maybe get something to eat. Did she have anything to eat here? Wait, probably not, she's a gem. Dammit.

"Though I haven't had any since I was seventeen. But I didn't know the Portland Peridot had them as well. That's—"

Oh.

Ohhhhhhhh.

That's not the only way someone can have random bleeding.

"How old were you in Portland, again?"

Actually, if Strange bothers to look hard enough, he'll find a stockpile of various squashes gourds and melons set aside for Fleshy's benefit. Other than that though, there's nothing, unless he likes the taste of stale gingerbread houses for some reason.

"Uuuuuummmmmmmmmm..." Squinting uncertainly, Peridot tilts her head towards the ceiling, as if that might help jog her memory. This turns out to be a bad idea for the increasing sense of dizziness that she's developing. "Mmmm-- Blgh. I think I was like... Thhhhhirty-something? Prrrrrobably?"

She was not, in fact, thirty-something.

"I mean. I THOUGHT I was thirty sommmaazz, it's not like I was ACTUALLY that old. I was still ME, I just didn't know it. Obviously."

He will 100% end up eating one of those stale gingerbread houses in an attempt to stave off the munchies.

The idea of Peridot being thirty something is enough to give Strange the giggles. He doesn't know how old she was, but he knows she definitely wasn't thirty something. There's a good fifteen seconds where he's just giggling like a moron before Strange starts talking again.

"Naaah," he responds, with a slightly dopey grin on his face, powering through his fit of giggles. "I thought I was thirty something. You were probably twenty something." There we go, A+ logic.

"Still, that's old enough."

"Pcchhh. Whatever. Human ages are stupid anyway," the dragon huffs dismissively. "It's not like any of that was really real anyway. Doesn't count." She twiddles the ale bottle between her claws and then adds at mumble: "Am I supposed to drink all of this?"

Strange reaches up to take another puff from the joint, but is distracted by the existence of his hands for a good few seconds. Like the world's most drugged out bird, he tries to catch a glimpse of himself in the mirrored scratches on his wrist before riiiiight, Peridot had a question. He should answer that.

"Drink as much as you want," he simply answers, as he continues to stare at his wrist. "And when you start to feel sick or woozy, then you stop."

Things like 'moderation' and 'knowing your limits' are for chumps.

"But you're right. Human ages are stupid. Humans are stupid in general," says the only human here.

Well. If Strange says it's okay...

Peridot downs the next half of the bottle in the blink of an eye. She hiccups.

"Nyeh-heh-heh. Heh. Yeah. Humans are idiots," she snickers, head swaying unsteadily. "With your measly lifespans and you... your..." What's another thing that humans do. Um. "Your... waste excretions."

Strange should be defending humanity against Peridot. But he doesn't want to and that takes effort and honestly, he just kind of wants to lean against her tail and not move right now. The ceiling's cool, he can stare at that instead.

"And we get hurt all the damn time!" Strange briefly complains, with a sigh. "It's ridiculous. I should just get it over with and ask the Ringmaster to turn me all into mirrors."

...All... Mirrors...

"Nuh-- Oh my stars,"

Peridot looks floored, for reasons that will soon become clear. Strange, you just blew her mind.

"Hey! Hey." She puts a hefty paw on Strange's shoulder and shoves him lightly, trying to make sure she has his attention, because she has an extremely important question to ask. "What do you think-- Listen. What do you think would happen... if you were all mirrors, and you tried to teleport yourself through your own mirrors?"

...holy shit his mind is blown. Strange just gets this dopey expression on his face because he's never really considered teleporting himself through his mirrors before.

"That sounds amazing. The problem's always been size, my current patches are too small for someone like you or me to travel through. But if the mirrors were larger or I had someone tinier..."

Though hey. Wait. They're in a cabin with two small animals. As inspiration hits, Strange groggily pushes himself off of Peridot's tail to look over at Pumpkin and make certain the gourd's still there.

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