thearena | [ota]

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[ota]

WHO| Karkat, the Signless and YOU!
WHAT| Mutant camping, and food sharing if anyone's hungry
WHEN| All through week one
WHERE| Various less-shitty houses around the residential area
WARNINGS| Nothing as of yet; will be updated or marked in-thread

For the first week, Karkat and the Signless wander the rows of houses. Many of them are empty of anything useful, but occasionally they find a can or two to add to their small stock of rations. In a few of them they find bugs hiding somewhere dark like they found in the first one, and on those nights they have to worry at least a little less about running out of food. Once they even manage to trap and take down one of the dogs -- it isn't exactly appetizing, but cooking it as thoroughly as Signless insists on to make sure it's safe to eat masks at least some of the taste.

Mostly, they use the (less dilapidated) houses with fireplaces as overnight camps. The faint glow of their fire can be seen through the grimy windows, especially when it gets dark.

[As a note, the mods have said humans probably shouldn't eat bugs as they'll suffer pretty bad side-effects. If your non-troll character shows up and wants some of their food, it's probably best to have it happen on dog night.]

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"Guy," Signless said, visibly brightening (because who else had hair like that, honestly). It was good to see yet another one of the people he cared about still safe, even if it was still early in the arena and there was plenty of time for that to change.

"You think so? It hasn't given us much trouble yet. Just a lot of visitors."

Alright. Maybe Joly had been trouble. Maybe he was still grappling with Karkat's frighteningly logical suggestion of using their nightly camps and more resilient stomachs as traps. Somehow, he thought Guy might be on Karkat's side, so he resolved not to mention it for now.

Karkat, however, is favoring Guy with an utterly disgusted look as he fishes out some of the strips of dried dog. "Here," he growls, shoving at the human. "You can have these. The roast bug and cylinder produce is ours."

Just because he'd given Signless his blessing to pile Guy too didn't mean he was happy about it.

"Just be careful. There are things out there. Ones shaped almost like people. I don't know if they're attracted to the light or not but you might want to consider playing it safe and covering the window until you know."

It was their choice, though, and he didn't hesitate any longer, coming into the room, taking off his very full pack and settling next to them, laying down his spear on the floor.

He eyed the dog meat and looked tempted to eat something fresh. Normally he was fine with meat, but he was being careful this arena.

"Ah, save it for yourselves. After what happened with the food in the death lizard arena, I'm not eating any arena stuff until I absolutely have to - I wanna wait and see if it does things to people first. And I got a lot of sponsor gifts. I was actually going to see if you guys wanted some extra."

He took out two cans of meat rations, nudging them on the floor towards them both. One can to take care of his friend, but the other was something of a peace offering.

Edited 2014-05-28 07:08 (UTC)

Oh. Hm. He'd been lucky enough not to have seen one of those yet, though no doubt they'd passed in the fog on occasion. Maybe covering the windows would be a good idea, at least for the rest of the night.

"That's very generous of you," he said, though he didn't move to take the can just yet. He realized very well that the one for Karkat was a peace offering, and he wanted him to choose to take it on his own (it was never too early to start building a good relationship, or at least a truce, between his moirails).

"And probably smart, though so far we haven't suffered any ill effects from hunting and eating the bugs." You know what, there was no reason not to warn him. "You shouldn't. They're poisonous to humans."

Karkat stares at the meat ration angrily, but common sense takes hold of him and he grabs hold of it. "We accidentally killed that Jolly guy from Planet France," he explains. "Then we chucked the body outside. Roland was able to eat the barkbeast thinksponge, though, so barkbeasts are probably okay."

Edited (fucking lowblood slang) 2014-05-29 01:16 (UTC)

"Good to know."

He tapped a finger against his knee. Boy, this was awkward. So very awkward.

It seemed like Karkat was regarding everything he did with pent up anger and disgust, and while the idea he'd gotten of trolls so far was that this was partly because their default state of existence was on the cranky side, it was bound to be uncomfortable over the long term.

"Sooo, are we gonna talk about this?" he asked Karkat. "Or is it the kind of thing where you'd prefer to quietly hate me in private? Or occasionally public? I'm open to the possibilities."

His tone wasn't mocking or hostile. It sounded more like he was trying to navigate the situation to the greatest comfort of all parties involved.

To be fair, Signless had warned Guy that Karkat would be prickly and purposefully trying to dislike him just out of sheer... Karkat-ness. But him taking the food was a good sign, a small victory in what was going to be a much longer war.

"You probably should discuss it, at least a little," he said, nudging Karkat's shoulder with his own. At least he was here to intervene and mediate if they needed it, but for now he'd just watch.

"Discuss what?" Karkat says, grumpily. "Have a tearful discussion about our feelings and turn this into a fucking pale threeway? Look, I get you're with him. I told you I'm fine with it." And he was. Sort of. He'd been two-timing with Gamzee, it's only fair Signless get to do the same with Guy. "Look, I'm going to check the nutrition block for more cylinders. You guys can have your fucking reunion, just as long as nobody's eaten anyone's fucking leg by the time I get back." He pushes himself up to his feet.

(There were some things he'd seen while surfing the capitol internet late at night that were absolute fucking proof that all humans were cracked in the thinkpan.)

Edited (THE REAL TAG, THE OTHER WAS A GAGTAG) 2014-05-30 07:48 (UTC)

"Well, I was just thinking - " Then his brain caught up with the leg thing. "Wait - what?"

But Karkat was already trying to trundle away.

"I don't want us to be friends," he blurted out quickly. "At least, I don't want to force it. But I'd like to get to know you to try it, no tearful discussions required. We can always decide to just -" He made a cutting motion with his hand to single them just cutting ties and going back to barely tolerating each other. "That's what I want to talk about. No feelings or, ah, threeways - just friends. Seeing if it's possible."

Edited 2014-05-30 08:57 (UTC)

... Well, okay, maybe Karkat taking the can wasn't as good of a sign as he'd hoped. Considering they'd had to go through this exact same thing with the Disciple, and considering he'd tried to impress on Karkat both then and since then what his particular approach to romance did and did not entail, it was a little aggravating to see him not even trying. They'd have to have a talk about that, later, once they didn't have company.

For now, he just gave Karkat a Look. How he responded was going to directly influence the exact tone the later discussion took.

Karkat stops in his tracks when Guy speaks, then winces when he sees the force of Signless' look. With a great heaving sigh he sits back down. "Fine. I'll hang out for a while. But the minute this turns into talking about our feelings, I'm out until you're done." He still has some standards.

"Thanks for the food," he adds, peevishly.

"You're welcome," Guy said softly. He scratched the back of his neck and tried to think of something that might be common ground.

"So, uh, one thing I was thinking about seeing if you were interested in is, well, Signless doesn't like to kill people and gets in trouble sometimes, right? Maybe if someone ever attacks him, if we're both around we can try to bond over stabbing that person a whole lot."

He mimed stabbing someone. "Just. All the stabbing. Together. We could at least try it. That's something we could maybe have in common, right?"

His expression was so very earnest.

Signless was beginning to realize he had a type, and that type was men with bad hair who had a unique approach to making friends.

"I don't know if I should be touched at the sentiment or despair over the both of you," he said, but really, it was at least a little flattering to know Guy would stab someone for him (Karkat, he'd already known, would stab just about anyone).

If the statement wasn't about Karkat's own moirail, he'd have congratulated Guy on his pale romanticism. Coming from... oh, not a hivewrecker, exactly, but someone Karkat hadn't ever really wanted to share Signless with, it's a bit irritating. Even if he knows Guy means well (not that that's worth anything) and is trying to engage with him on his level.

"What about intentionally poisoning people?" Karkat asks instead.

"Not really my thing, sorry," he admitted, "buuut I don't really judge how most people do things in the arena if they're not trying to be sadistic and are just trying to find their own way to get by."

He shrugged.

He was friends with Venus, among others who were pretty homicidal. He knew it was all part of playing the game for them. It was something he wouldn't allow to happen in front of him, naturally, but he didn't go out of his way to hunt them down. They weren't like Azula.

"Why, you thinking of tricking people into doing what happened with that Jolly guy? 'Cause that'd probably work - not everyone is as careful about food as me."

"It had occurred to us," Signless admits. "A lot of humans might not realize trolls can handle food they can't. And it would be a nicer way of doing it than other possible options."

His tone and expression clearly say that he's not really thrilled about the idea. He just doesn't like the idea of being complicit in murder, no matter the methods or circumstance.

"Only for strangers," Karkat says. "It's an asshole way to kill anyone you know." He shrugs. "I'm for it, Signless doesn't like it." They'd been debating the subject ever since they'd accidentally got Jolly.

Guy breathed in a deep breath as he thought about it, and exhaled, scratching his chin.

"I wouldn't be able to do it, but then that doesn't...fit. Aside from not wanting to see it, if I want to kill someone, I make it quick and I like it to be by my own hand. It fits the whole 'noble' and honest thing they have going for me, anyway."

Azula had been the exception but she'd been too skilled for him to fight her without the poison. She'd nearly killed him the first time and had poisoned him first.

"But if someone is dumb enough to eat something just handed to them by a stranger, and they don't even know if their type of people can stomach it - when we've even had poisoned food in arenas before?" Anyone could access the old footage. "Eeeeh, I hate to say it but you might be doing them a favor because they're not gonna last long if they're that reckless. I'd at least wait a week, though, let 'em at least have their time so they're not considered 'boring' this arena."

That was a true death sentence.

"At least give them some time to be 'entertaining' so they have a chance of coming back. But if you do it and they're the types that'd take you up on it - they're not going to last long, anyway. Those are the people I usually just outlast."

He stared them both down. "You'd have to both be ready to be seen as cold, though. Untrustworthy. They'll make it look worse than it is. Just keep in mind how they might twist it - it's different than just stabbing someone in the back."

That could affect them adversely the next arena. If it was something like the mini-arena that depended more on cooperation with strangers...

Edited (ignooore meeeee) 2014-06-02 00:59 (UTC)

"That's exactly what I don't want," Signless admitted. He knew it was stupid, especially when his reasons were far more personal than worrying what the sponsors would think, but he didn't want to be seen by the public and his fellow tributes as cold. As cruel. As the kind of person who would kill someone who posed no real threat just because it was easy.

"They don't know what to do with me anyway, right now. If they latch onto this and start trying to build me up as having gone cracked in the pan from the stress -- as having been broken into showing some cruelty that was always there..."

He shrugged helplessly. It would be a perfect narrative, he knew: the kind pacifist, driven to giving up all his ideals by the mental and emotional stress of the arena, first killing for mercy and then killing for convenience until he was just like the rest of his violent race. He'd just never be able to live with it. It would ring too close to true for him to write it off as pandering to the Capitol fans, no matter how much he knew he needed to separate his public and private selves for his own sanity.

"Ugh," says Karkat. "That's stupid. The whole point of you is that you're weird. If they try to make you seem like everyone else..." He sighs dramatically. "Fine. You win. We won't do it."

It's too bad, because it really was a great plan, but for some stupid reason or another, having Signless be just like everyone else--or even people treating him as just like everyone else--makes him feel weird and gross.

"And I know this probably sounds soft but just like there's an upside to stabbing people in the neck and taking their stuff," he said very matter of factly, "there's also an upside in not burning your crossing logs with people to cooperate with. If you ever want someone as an ally and they might be willing to help you with something for a little bit of food, it'll be a lot harder to win them over if they think they'll drop dead if they eat anything you've handed them."

He shrugged. "There's a price you pay when you choose certain ways to survive that might make it harder to survive later. As much as being nice to most people that I can be nice to is just something I want to do, it definitely doesn't hurt that it makes people want to help me - or at least not stab me. You always have to be careful about choosing what paths to block. Maybe blocking one will keep a koaleopard from chasing you, but it could also block you off from a river where you can get a drink."

"That's what I've been saying," Signless said with a nod. Still, he reached over and gave Karkat a bolstering squeeze to his shoulder. The last thing he wanted was for Karkat to think he was completely siding with Guy over him when Karkat was already so wary of him.

"It's a good idea, Karkat. Really. I'm just not made for culling, and even if we can frame it as a mercy, that hasn't worked out well for me before. You can do it, but I won't want to be around for it. I'll just... stay in another block, maybe."

Karkat sighs. "If it's just me I'd rather cull with my knives," he says. "Jumping out at someone and shrieking at the top of my airsacs. It makes for better tv." Which made for increased likelihood of resurrection. And despite everything, somehow, he still wanted to keep living, to keep trying. It was probably a troll thing, he thought. Clinging hard to life when there was no real reason to, because dying would be giving the fuck in.

"Oh yeah, they love that stuff. And it is clever," he acknowledged, because it was and Karkat had almost seemed to be looking for approval, "but we all just have to find the right balance. Whatever that is for us. And for the people we keep close."

Fighting to live was, apparently, an everybody thing, and that said something didn't it? That so many of them fought so hard, hoping for something better when it might never come.

"Have you considered using poison on your weapons?"

It was good for the people that were hard to kill. Just a tiny nick and they were either gone or wound up weak as a Macawnivore kitten.

"I don't know if it would work exactly the same way if it wasn't being eaten, but it's a thought."

Maybe that was a good compromise. Then Karkat could fight as he liked, still using his admittedly very good idea, and the Signless wouldn't have to feel quite so gross about it.

"At the very least you could try it?"

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sleeplessinalternia - 2014-06-28 04:06 (UTC) - Expand

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