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)
lostcarnival2018-03-10 07:09 pm
ringleaders) wrote in lostcarnival2018-03-10 07:09 pm
Entry tags:
- !event,
- 9s,
- @wismuth,
- cole,
- commander syrlya,
- doll,
- foster van denend,
- inquisitor lavellan,
- john childermass,
- joker,
- jonathan strange,
- kirigakure shura,
- lambert,
- lauren,
- miko nakadai,
- nui harime,
- papyrus,
- peridot,
- renzo shima,
- rita mordio,
- steven universe,
- tallisibeth (scout),
- tanyuu karibusa,
- tyki mikk,
- yukio okumura,
- yuzu hiragi,
- yūya sakaki
⇨ WISMUTH ENDGAME
Who: Everyone!
When: Evening Day 27
Where: The Wismuth Super Dome, Round 2
What: On the verge of creating a world ending army of Harbingers, CY-Ren and her followers are challenged by the carnival and the Star Guardian team. It's time to stop.
Warnings: Singing
When: Evening Day 27
Where: The Wismuth Super Dome, Round 2
What: On the verge of creating a world ending army of Harbingers, CY-Ren and her followers are challenged by the carnival and the Star Guardian team. It's time to stop.
Warnings: Singing
THE LAST REQUIEM↴ CY-Ren's planning of a charity concert has been well received - news of bomb threats and harassment from fans have painted her as a victim in the media spotlight, and her generous attempt to make amends is getting plenty of attention. She's been busy spinning things for as much focus as possible, and the threat of potential danger has the news focusing in on the proceedings. The date is set for Day 27 in carnival time. You won't want to miss it! ► BUILD UP: In the last couple days before the concert, CY-Ren will be reaching out to all of her Harbingers, regardless of where they might be at the time - yes, this means that even if you ran off, she'll come to find you! (Unless you're in the carnival like Taako, then you're fucked.) She'll tell you that her plans are coming to head, and that if you help her with one last task then the planet will be on its way to destruction. There are multiple ways you can aid her: you can help amp up her performance as evil backup singers/musicians, or you can set yourself up around the perimeter at specified locations, using your sparks as a beacon to her magic. She's certain that she's perfected her musical formula, this time - when the concert gets underway, all those present with the capacity to be a Harbinger will awaken, and the end of days will begin. ► THE CONCERT: By the time the concert arrives, the Star Guardians will have the idea that there's something unnatural about the way the new Harbingers were made - this isn't how it usually happens, and that sets them apart from someone like CY-Ren. Maybe that means that they can be pulled away with less drastic measures as well, given that the Void didn't have the full right to their souls in the first place. Anyone coming to help (and those who aren't Star Guardians will be encouraged to come as well, given that if they are making attempts at friendship, super powers aren't required) will gather in the area early, determined to stomp this one out before it can get too far. ► HARBINGERS: This is when they will be encountered by Harbingers guarding the perimeter, as well as a small army of void creatures defending CY-Ren's last performance. Star Guardians will become aware through the power of Creation that the Harbingers on the perimeter must be neutralized in order to disrupt the concert - CY-Ren is feeding on their negative energies, and it will make it too dangerous to attack her directly. Confrontations with any Harbingers can be worked out on an individual basis via plotting - just make up a location around the concert and have your Harbinger providing a beacon of their own design. As the concert ramps up, however, the excess of Void energy will cause the newly made Harbingers to destabilize - mentally or magically, their powers will be harder to control, and their negative emotions will be running wild. However, with that instability, there is also room for a breakthrough - for someone to blast the darkness from their Sparks with friendship and light. Now is the time to reach out. ► STAR GUARDIANS: If a Harbinger is successfully turned away from the darkness, they will briefly regain control of their Sparks, and be able to manifest as a Star Guardian for the first time. This will allow the Guardians to outnumber CY-Ren's forces. Their look and powers will still be based around the same Spark, but purified by Creation and aimed towards positive things. Time to win. ► DANCE OFF: Given that the Spark of Music and the Spark of Dance are colliding, it is perhaps not a surprise that this all manifests as a big ass musical number. As CY-Ren and Noa have a music battle, everyone present (even if you aren't a Star Guardian) will find themselves magically inspired to join in. You can dance, sing, or anything in between - the more people who support Noa's side, the stronger she will be. There will be a megathread for this part of the conflict, and at this point any unturned Harbingers will awaken and be able to turn their Sparks towards the light. As CY-Ren begins to lose power, what the players do with her will be up to you. |
STEVEN UNIVERSE | OTA
BEACON TIME (Partly Closed, Partly Open)
He isn't excited, but he isn't scared either. He refuses to be scared. He's spent so much time being afraid lately - both on his homeworld and in the carnival. In the end, the complications that have arisen as a Harbinger have only proved his feeling more concretely - people will always find a way to hurt him. They'll lie to him, they'll betray him... they'll leave him.
He can't take this anymore. Can't it just be over with? He'll show them all. He'll leave them, first.
Tonight, Steven is running beacon duty. Even after fleeing the penthouse, he couldn't say no when CY-Ren asked for his help. He knows that none of this was her fault, and he said he would do what she needed. Which means that, currently, he's sitting on a massive leaf, far up the stem of a building-sized rose - the dark flower bud has only just started to bloom, revealing enormous crystal petals that glow a brilliant pink. The light itself is a beacon to the darkness of the Void, and walls of vicious thorns protect it from the outside.
Meanwhile, Steven sits up top, withdrawn and melancholy, wishing he could disappear. If he could choose to be gone already, he would be.
[OOC: The successful redemption is closed to Joker and Peridot, but if you want to just have a run in with him while he's pulling his bullshit, I am down for that!]
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Joker is already airborn when he spots it, after an uncomfortable run in with more than a few people he knows, so it's a simple matter to twist through the air for a change of course. Frankly, he's not half sure he has any damn clue on what he can do. He's not a Guardian, although he suspects that's worked to his advantage, and he doesn't have any particular magic, let alone any that will help him with this kind of nonsense.
...But it's still Steven, down in there. He's still just a scared and miserable kid. Joker can't deal with magic... but he knows he can deal with miserable kids. There's a part of him that never left the streets of the East End, after all.
Besides, barring that, he has a bottle of water and some over-the-counter sleeping medicine tucked away on his person that he lifted from the store he's had to stay at for the last few days. Whatever works, right?
Yet with such a spectacle alerting everyone and their deceased grandmother as to where the boy is, Joker can't be particularly surprised that he spots a flash of green out of the corner of his eye which doesn't belong to the rose. "Peridot!" he calls out as the two of them travel up through the air, to the same place. Right, Steven was upset about her reaction, wasn't she? "I've been with 'im the last few days-" Yeah, that explains why he's been absent at the carnival. "So just follow my lead, alright!?"
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...And then in comes Joker.
Even mid-flight, she can't help but shoot him an incredulous look over the frantic beating of her wings. There's probably a million other scenarios where Peridot would be perfectly willing to do exactly as he says and let him take point. But THIS? Absolutely not. It's too personal of a matter, like this Steven they're dealing with? Someone who she has been straight up worrying about non-stop since he disappeared during the last concert? To her ears, it sounds like Joker is coming out of nowhere and daring to act like an authority on something he actually knows next to nothing about, and the perceived arrogance of it is kind of flooring her.
"Follow YOUR lead?!" she calls back to him, face scrunched up in offense. "WOW, THANKS, but I think I know how to talk to my own best friend," she says tartly, and then tries to surge ahead.
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Up on a big leaf, close to the blossom, Steven is standing now, and yelling at them angrily. His eyes are settled on her, a little bit teary, like her presence alone makes him upset.
"Leave me alone, Peridot!"
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...Which he's half glad for as that vine comes shooting upwards, and Joker hastily flaps backwards with a swear bitten down against his tongue. That it's not aimed for him is good luck, although he feels a little bad as it swipes towards Peridot. There's nothing to be done for it, however... Although now he can't help but wonder what it looks like to Steven that they were flying up to him together. Should he try and clear himself before any unfortunate assumptions are made...?
Truly, the dilemma: distance himself from Peridot, throw her under the bus, or what?
On one hand, it's the possible end of the world, and Steven is most important. Worst case scenario, and she won't even have long to be pissed off at him. Besides, he thinks they can both agree that Steven is important.
On the other hand... She's his coworker on the Supervisor team. Not only is she a supervisor, but she's the tech supervisor, aka the group his Performance interacts with probably the most.
Decisions, decisions.
...Well. Steven didn't yell at him, yet, so maybe he can play this off. Still trying to flap upwards, away from the attacking vine, Joker calls up to Steven. "Steven! I lost track of ya! I'm comin' up, is that okay?" Because, well. He is flapping upwards.
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There's a surge of jealousy as she watches Joker power on ahead. Why is Steven okay with him showing up, but not her? None of this is going the way she was expecting. She didn't expect Joker to show up here, and she certainly didn't expect Steven to be so opposed to even talking to her.
Shaken, but not deterred, she growls to herself and keeps going upwards anyway. "I'm not going anywhere!" she shouts ahead like Joker didn't even say anything, "I want to talk to you!"
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He allows Joker to come up with less complaining, but he doesn't seem actively interested in communicating with him either. Instead he just frowns at the two of them, stepping partly behind the stem of the flower.
"There's no point now," he shouts, his tone sinking with despair. "It's almost over, anyway..."
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At least, that's what he's banking on- Steven still being Steven no matter what's been done to him. It's an easy thing to say that you don't care, he knows, but actually doing it, even with whatever the Void has done, well... Ha. That's harder.
Looking over his shoulder, he calls to the gem. "So, Peridot, you don't yell at Steven, and Steven-" He looks back down to him. "You don't hit her with giant vines, or anythin' else. Does that seem fair?"
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She flaps the rest of the way over and thumps down on the leaf, and when she straightens up she waddles closer, looking agitated with her fur all standing on end. "Steven you never gave up on anyone before all this, so I'm not going to give up on you!"
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His emotions are spiking even more violently than they have been the last few days - something about the concert being so near has him completely on the edge, and it seems like Peridot might be positioning herself to push him right off.
"DON'T TELL ME HOW I FEEL!" he practically screams at her. His voice breaks with frustration and helplessness. His vine arm is growing long and cruel looking, in a way that will be particularly familiar to Peridot.
"It's too hard!" he pleads. "I can't do it anymore."
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"I know it's hard, Steven," he calls back, eyeing the vine arm warily and carefully. Who knows what might set the boy off. "It's been too much bad stuff, right? We all have our worse memories- even Peridot, although if I tried ta ask her about it right now, she'd say the opposite outta spite, probably. So we all know how hard it can get, how it is!"
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This whole situation is so uniquely frustrating. Truth and logic turned on it's head, shes' the one trying to rein Steven in, instead of the other way around... The urge to keep shouting until she gets through to him is a strong one, but she tries to remember what Yuya mentioned: Try to remind him he has friends, that there are good things that make the bad things worth suffering through.
"I'm not going anywhere this time Steven," she calls up to him. "And I'm... sorry I ran away before." Even though he's the one that freaked her out first, she thinks. Freaked her out, and also stabbed her. OK yeah it's hard for her to make that part sound convincing considering she's still pretty upset about the whole incident herself, but hey, she's trying her level best here. "You're still my friend, Steven. So just... come back down here so we can talk?"
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"You're not my friend!" he yells back, staying in the air, wrapping his arms around his waist like he's sick to the stomach. The tears in his eyes have only gotten thicker and harder to see through. "You're just friends with the person you want me to be! The one that... that keeps going no matter what, who trusts people even when they don't deserve it. Who acts like he's not afraid when he is pretty much all the time!"
He looks away from her, a tear breaking free, and scowling at nothing.
"Joker's right. Everyone just hurts and hurts each other."
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"Even if it's by accident," he says, still agreeing, because agreement right now will let him get closer. "Sometimes even on purpose, and ta people who matter." There's a brief pause before he decides that there's no point in holding it back. Either it'll help, or the world will end and it won't matter. One way or the other.
"I mean, when I was a kid, probably not much older or younger then yerself, I didn't know my pa, and my mum one day just up and left me. Didn't care that I wouldn't have anywhere or anyone else. Bloody hopeless, miserable feelin'." Glancing back, he tilts his head up a little to Peridot.
"Ever feel that way yerself? Miserable and hopeless?" She doesn't have to give details, but if she could just confirm things, it might calm Steven down.
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"Yeah, when I first got stranded on Earth and I was positive that the Cluster was going to form and destroy us all," she replies, not taking her eyes off Steven. "Or if you want a more recent example, that night a few weeks ago when I found out four of my friends had disappeared without a trace after that concert went COMPLETELY CRACKED."
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"I know, okay," he says, miserably. "Everyone's messed up... If I was the only one, then maybe... maybe I wouldn't have to do this."
He doesn't hold eye contact.
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"Yeah," he says simply. "Everyone gets hurt at least once, livin'. And I don't think there's anyone who's only had it happen once." Waiting a beat, he continues, trying to peer around the vines to Steven. "But, y'know, if my mum hadn't left me, I wouldn't have met Doll. I wouldn't have met anyone in my family, who I'm workin' in the carnival for."
He jerks his head back towards Peridot. "And, by the sound of things, Peridot gettin' stranded is how the two of ya met, right?" Another pause before he looks back to her again. "...Or wrong?" People's business back in their home is usually something he keeps his nose out of. Right now, he's only guessing.
....He'll say nothing about the concert kidnapping. There's no saving that one.
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Even bad things could have a purpose. That it was never too late to turn things around...
His heart hurts, and he puts his normal hand over it, wincing and flinching back from Joker's touch. The feelings make him feel cornered, like he did when the Void was pressing in on all sides of him, turning down any kind of hope he tried to offer. Over and over, over and over, until there was nothing left but-
"I can't," he whines, closing his eyes and shaking his head. "It hurts too much. And if I make it stop, I'll just be hurting everyone else who ever cared about me..."
He's seen the suffering caused by his mother's death. How it had been what she wanted, but the devastation it had wreaked regardless. He'd seen the cost of Pink Diamond's death, whose end had been necessary for the happiness of others. There was nowhere to move, nowhere to release the pressure.
He can't see a way out, and he feels like he's drowning.
"I can't do it," he pleads, and it's like the helplessness of it all is breaking him down, bit by bit. "All of us have to go, or none of us!"
A tremor goes through the rose, its thorns growing longer, and its vines growing taller. Steven's own arm is covering his body in thorns, like it's trying to protect him from the world.
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Every single scrap of pretense gets tossed out the window. Instead, Joker grimaces at the sight of the thorns, concerned at how worse rose and arm alike are getting, but there's no helping it. This is one of those things where it's likely to get worse before it gets better.
"Ya don't have ta do it- ya don't have ta keep doin' so much, and helpin' so many people. Ya can take a break from it. Because ya have other people with ya too- like Peridot, and me! So ya don't have ta go!"
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"Steven!"
Seeing this, she moves without thinking. She launches into the air, beating her wings with all her might until she closes the gap between them and haphazardly throws herself at him, entirely heedless of the thorns. She bumps into his side and wraps her wings around him in a hug, bracing for some kind of retaliation but holding on for dear life anyway.
She refuses to let him shut her out like this.
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But she's still here.
Something about all of this just makes him curl in on himself, like his heart is hurting him so badly that he's going to collapse in on himself. There was a time when he believed that things could get better, didn't he? A time before that empty place, before everything he wanted had been torn down in front of him. Before he had spent what felt like hours, or days, crying out for help, when no came.
He can feel Peridot's need to hold onto him, and Joker's sincerity. It's so hard, but just for a moment, it feels like there's something far away that he can reach out to. Something that will reach back for him.
Like he doesn't have to go.
"I don't know what to do," he says in a tiny voice, the rhythm of his wings faltering. He's been holding himself aloft with his floating powers mostly, but as they start to fail him, his wings aren't doing enough to keep up, and he gradually starts to fall.
1/2
That's the kind of things you have to strive to keep on living for, honestly. Even in all the hurt, little things keep people afloat.
"Just trust us," he says, his hand smoothing out over the wild vine of an arm, nudging past the various thorns that have grown there. "Rely on us. Peridot hasn't left ya, and neither have I. So let's stay, alright? We- "
2/2
Joker abruptly changes his grip as he realizes that he's not rising but instead Steven is falling, his fingers scrambling to get a hold of the boy somewhere, anywhere. Steven has wings, but it's clear that he's too distraught to remember them.
Hopefully he can be forgiven if his speech gets a little rushed. "We can make it through bein' if we're all together! Even if yer hurtin', we can be there ta help, whether durin' or in the aftermath! So just stay with us!"
WHOOPS SOMEHOW I DIDN'T REALIZE IT WAS MY TURN!?
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