The Initiate Fraysong ♑ (Young GHB) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
carnagecarnival) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thearena2014-12-20 10:11 pm
carnagecarnival) wrote in thearena2014-12-20 10:11 pm
Entry tags:
Can I get an amen? For all the bleeding and the prayin?
Who| Initiate and Open
What| Milling about the arena
Where| spaceport upper levels
When| Week 0 to the end of week 1
WARNINGS| body horror (missing horns), violence against aliens? talk of death. Language.
NOTES| Explanation of how the chucklevoodoo/Fear power works can be found here.
What| Milling about the arena
Where| spaceport upper levels
When| Week 0 to the end of week 1
WARNINGS| body horror (missing horns), violence against aliens? talk of death. Language.
NOTES| Explanation of how the chucklevoodoo/Fear power works can be found here.
Xenomorphs
The doors snap shut ever so fast. He starts each time. Even though it feels long now as though it's been since he was Avoxed, the flinching ain't yet all gone. Especially when Terezi or whoever else gets caught on the other side of where they's meaning to be, and he has to reach on through with the holy chucklevoodoo, tell them to meet him wherever all else, quietly keep the fear up and around both himself and them so they ain't got to face no beasts unexpected.
On the flip side is Terezi, her seer visions showing him them most feared dead ends, allowing him to find by default what's best. They avoid the worst of threats that way. It won't last forever though. Her fear builds and he knows almost before she does that his death is coming swift and there ain't being no ways what to claim avoidance of it.
As though he can somehow prove her visions wrong, when all ever the Xenomorphs come, he wastes no time in dispatching them. It's almost a relief, in the oddest sense. That Alternian part of him is still there, for all it's been broken and buried. That Alternian part of him wants the cull what no other part will give, except for when it ain't being neither tribute, capitolite, or otherwise being a person. When it's the Xenomorphs, he can let his own snarl out and tear the beasts to pieces. There's no holding back because the fuckers is strong. It just so happens, he's stronger, and so he grins at them as they circle, growl rumbling over his breath, proving, that for all he looks it without his horns, in the dark of space, he ain't human.
Star Watching
When all strifes get to end, when he finds himself with all broken bodies around, his eyes turn to the windows. Grand and expansive, he takes in the sight of the stars, the dark abyss of space. This was to be his future, when he was old and damn near ready to plough into the motherfucking rot bliss, to become old and damn near decrepit. The result of total Alternian war, of thousands on thousands of his kind put to waste and the Empress's command that no more would an adult troll grace the gruff of Alternian soil.
He looks at the stars and decides they're beautiful. Beautiful just as they are sad. He can imagine himself growing cold out here. He can imagine it right the motherfuck now.
It's an incredible sight, them all feeling so close and distant at the same time, but... "Ain't worth it."
Chucklevoodoo
His energy leaves him fast with the ache in his skull, rooted up in his missing horns. It has him drifting, either sleeping by the wall, or otherwise losing himself in some sense in the swath of fears, nightmares and daymares, what mill about him. In those latter times, he navigates the world on two planes, eyes all a-flash as he seeks and searches out them what he knows, just seeing if there are things what need be said, or simply to see if they're alive.
Then there were them other times, when he grew too tired to carry on, and too tired to hold the fear in. So used, is he, to simply letting it all roll out of him. And so it does. It creates a miasma thick in the air of voodoo. It infects those motherfucking unfortunates what stumble to near. It digs in, hungry for them dreams, and leaving mares in the wake. It makes every corner one worthy of double-take, every movement worthy of twitch and flinch.
In his presence, paranoia runs high.
Zero Gravity
He was... he was almost dreaming pleasant. He's had a good dream just once before in his life, even as he fretted about, waiting for his voodoo to take over the dreamscape. The crowning of Enjolras. He saw Sigma in the form of his younger self. He'd danced with Terezi and talked of a place after death, a waiting bit before the Carnival where those dead could go into bubbles of dreams.
He felt, on some level, almost certain he'd just about reached past the minefield of endless daymares, horrors unspeakable and terrors unceasing. His finger tips had just grazed the edges, touching upon it, before, suddenly, he was ripped away.
And when he awoke, he found the ground far as well.
He makes an exclamatory noise, flailing helplessly in the air. No gravity. No motherfucking gravity. This was ridiculous. How was he supposed to get anywhere, he couldn't just swim, there was no traction.
"NO. No. YOU KNOW THE FUCK WHAT? Fuck this. FUCK SPACE. This is stupid." He huffs and tries as best as he can to reach some solid surface-- a wall, a ceiling, a floor even, anything he can propel himself off.
The doors snap shut ever so fast. He starts each time. Even though it feels long now as though it's been since he was Avoxed, the flinching ain't yet all gone. Especially when Terezi or whoever else gets caught on the other side of where they's meaning to be, and he has to reach on through with the holy chucklevoodoo, tell them to meet him wherever all else, quietly keep the fear up and around both himself and them so they ain't got to face no beasts unexpected.
On the flip side is Terezi, her seer visions showing him them most feared dead ends, allowing him to find by default what's best. They avoid the worst of threats that way. It won't last forever though. Her fear builds and he knows almost before she does that his death is coming swift and there ain't being no ways what to claim avoidance of it.
As though he can somehow prove her visions wrong, when all ever the Xenomorphs come, he wastes no time in dispatching them. It's almost a relief, in the oddest sense. That Alternian part of him is still there, for all it's been broken and buried. That Alternian part of him wants the cull what no other part will give, except for when it ain't being neither tribute, capitolite, or otherwise being a person. When it's the Xenomorphs, he can let his own snarl out and tear the beasts to pieces. There's no holding back because the fuckers is strong. It just so happens, he's stronger, and so he grins at them as they circle, growl rumbling over his breath, proving, that for all he looks it without his horns, in the dark of space, he ain't human.
Star Watching
When all strifes get to end, when he finds himself with all broken bodies around, his eyes turn to the windows. Grand and expansive, he takes in the sight of the stars, the dark abyss of space. This was to be his future, when he was old and damn near ready to plough into the motherfucking rot bliss, to become old and damn near decrepit. The result of total Alternian war, of thousands on thousands of his kind put to waste and the Empress's command that no more would an adult troll grace the gruff of Alternian soil.
He looks at the stars and decides they're beautiful. Beautiful just as they are sad. He can imagine himself growing cold out here. He can imagine it right the motherfuck now.
It's an incredible sight, them all feeling so close and distant at the same time, but... "Ain't worth it."
Chucklevoodoo
His energy leaves him fast with the ache in his skull, rooted up in his missing horns. It has him drifting, either sleeping by the wall, or otherwise losing himself in some sense in the swath of fears, nightmares and daymares, what mill about him. In those latter times, he navigates the world on two planes, eyes all a-flash as he seeks and searches out them what he knows, just seeing if there are things what need be said, or simply to see if they're alive.
Then there were them other times, when he grew too tired to carry on, and too tired to hold the fear in. So used, is he, to simply letting it all roll out of him. And so it does. It creates a miasma thick in the air of voodoo. It infects those motherfucking unfortunates what stumble to near. It digs in, hungry for them dreams, and leaving mares in the wake. It makes every corner one worthy of double-take, every movement worthy of twitch and flinch.
In his presence, paranoia runs high.
Zero Gravity
He was... he was almost dreaming pleasant. He's had a good dream just once before in his life, even as he fretted about, waiting for his voodoo to take over the dreamscape. The crowning of Enjolras. He saw Sigma in the form of his younger self. He'd danced with Terezi and talked of a place after death, a waiting bit before the Carnival where those dead could go into bubbles of dreams.
He felt, on some level, almost certain he'd just about reached past the minefield of endless daymares, horrors unspeakable and terrors unceasing. His finger tips had just grazed the edges, touching upon it, before, suddenly, he was ripped away.
And when he awoke, he found the ground far as well.
He makes an exclamatory noise, flailing helplessly in the air. No gravity. No motherfucking gravity. This was ridiculous. How was he supposed to get anywhere, he couldn't just swim, there was no traction.
"NO. No. YOU KNOW THE FUCK WHAT? Fuck this. FUCK SPACE. This is stupid." He huffs and tries as best as he can to reach some solid surface-- a wall, a ceiling, a floor even, anything he can propel himself off.
no subject
"Labyrinthine making motherfucking lost of you? OUGHT GET SOME CARTOGRAPHICALS, YO," He says in that same taunting deadpan. He can't help it. It just sort of comes out, Terezi forgive him.
He goes on to explain in terse answering. "Chucklevoodoo. YOU HEARD ON IT? You know what it can do? EVERY MOTHERFUCKING INDIGO'S GOT FOR IT. I'm making offering. YOU AIN'T KNOW SHIT. I do. CAN GET MY TELL ON MOTHERFUCKING TELEPATHIC. I can feel what you fear. GET A HASHING OF THE WICKED SHIT WITH NO VERBIAGE SLUNG AUDIBLE. All's what's needed that you not freak the fuck out."
He raises his brows, looking Karkat over. "AS LIKE YOU JUST DID. Ain't so much intricacies up in that is there?"
no subject
"Well sorry they don't make maps for your shitty tongue maze," he snaps back, too much himself to hold back on it, either.
To his credit, he does listen when the Initiate goes on into his explanations, though. It's... not really what he expected. He might have heard the term before, but any telepathic junk like this has been a secret to his mind. A sharing of info. It's a lot to ask when he doesn't trust him, but between the wall slam and the carnage strewn around, there's little doubt he'd die anyway if hurting him is what he wanted.
"This is ridiculous," he mutters, but crouches down anyway - not to sit, but lower, nearer his level. Sitting is harder to get up from, and he'd rather not let his guard down entirely. "What do I do? Just... tell you what I'm afraid of? Think about it? I've never done this before."
There was immature shit Vriska would pull, but her mind control worked differently from this.
no subject
"LET THE FEAR WIN MOMENTARILY," He continues. "Just give enough that it may be drunk in. CAN HANDLE AT FOR THE REST. After's just some daymares, paranoias, nothing what won't serve a motherfucker well up in arenas none anyways." He shrugs his shoulders. Daymares and lingering paranoia, totally no big deal.
But really, considering his other option was just staying on in the dark of what this place was being about, he thought this pretty generous.
The flash comes back, along with that creeping fear. He lifts a brow.
"YOU DOWN OR MOTHERFUCKING AIN'T YOU?" For if he is, he's letting the voodoo loose and he's reaching on in.
no subject
"I'm... scared of being weak," he manages. That should serve answer, shouldn't it? And he's not going to let him go with the digging route. "I'm scared that something's just going to come along and completely wreck my shit, despite all the other stuff I've fought off in my life. That's not weird, is it?"
It hit him earlier in the arena, right at the start: he could have been killed, down and out before anything else, if not for Feferi saving him. It bubbles up in mind unbidden, and he wants to tamp it down and away and not let him at it, but... What is this? It's fear either way, isn't it? Fear of trusting a clown this much, fear of letting him at his mind, fear that this is a trick and he'll be dead anyway. He's scared regardless. This whole place scares him. He's scared to be powerless and not know what the fuck he's doing or how to change the life he's fallen into, and he's scared it will all be irrelevant if he even tries, because what if he's just some doomed offshoot?
His arms cross over his chest as it all swirls in mind, all the inadequacy it's representative of. He can't say it all, but he condenses it as he can in the statement: "This whole place freaks me the fuck out."
Is that good enough? How is he supposed to do this? What if he just sounds like an idiot after all of this? He hopes fiercely that this is going to be worth something, that he's not just throwing his husk before the proverbial howlerbeast to devour.
no subject
He doesn't like the way it sounds so damn familiar.
He doesn't need every little bit what Karkat says aloud, he only needs what is drawn up by the words. There's a thousand little layers there, more than enough to open the door and step on the fuck inside. He breathes it in deep, tasting it all. Then, in place, he lets the voodoo free to seep on in.
Powerlessness. There's Dennet, demanding Cruentus and Penny leave the avoxes be, saying that they can't do that, as Holly the avox bleeds out upon the floor, and the other new-made avoxes stare down. There's people demanding he hush, for if he shouldn't--
District three, Terezi's and Albert's district, blown to pieces. Cecil making his final broadcast before his avoxing, confirming its destruction, confirming everyone dead.
There's the arena held within the mall, tinted with that strangling fear of disobedience casting blur. Fear of failing to do everything as commanded and told, fear of being a person, fear of being noticed. Steve Rogers speaking out over the people, saying as they need not cull one another, and the explosion of gore to follow (all while thinking, how to clean it, more than anything else). Fear of being watched always, at all times, only Brainy's anonymous avenues saving grace-- leading to the execution.
Inadequacy. Spending near a sweep watching others come and go, dying in arena and never coming back. Of others coming back with no memory. Of the other deaths along the way, like rebellion letting loose these same Xenomorph creatures upon them, being recruited for their cleaning out by capitol and watch tributes and victors alike fall to the their teeth and tails, claws and more.
Inadequacy in Terezi and more being taken away for the murder of Penny, knowing she was in torture and unable to do anything. The single chance to plan being none more than the passing of goodbyes and knowing of what maws they were walking into willingly without a single plan. Making desperate on the run and hide, breaking into the security and running fast as the bullets rained down. Finding Terezi already a burn upon her face, a dark 'round her eyes and a shake in her bones. Fleeing with her into the woods and lasting a goddamn week only for it to mean nothing at all, as the tracking chips inside led peacekeepers right on to them.
Weakness. Watching the other dragged away. Being strapped down in that stark white room and-- A throne in which tributes are chained, bought off for a dance like prizes. Fighting in the arenas and always, always falling.
Betrayal of trust. Reading upon a paper tha the rebellion unleashed the xenomorphs. Seeing upon a screen as Ariadne is executed painfully, and the sound of another saying there is no rebellion, lying, leaving Ariadne to die. The faces of Kevin and Alex Murphy, both of whom had minds tapped into.
He shows all these things in quick sharp flashes. Then;
no subject
It comes in such a rush of faces, things, and places he's never seen or known. It's almost too much, and being so unused to the flood of another's mind into his own has him shaking before the end of it; but Karkat is nothing if not tenacious. He holds on and he grabs at the pieces inasmuch as he can, trying to retain them, trying to call out sense of what he can. General information means more than the details: rebellion, injustices, the power of the Capitol to turn so much against them, the betrayal of what hope they do have.
It teases up more things in his own mind, like how Dave mentioned his jailing, or the sharp knowing of what a statement Brainy's execution was meant to be, or how cruel the humans here could be when Linden told him of how they used to do this to their own. And maybe it's trollish in a lot of ways, downright Alternian if by other selections and purposes, but it's not right. He can't accept it as so.
He shudders all over again for the strange not-hearing of the Initiate's words in his mind. There's a sound to it wholly unnerving, and the layers of it make it feel like it should be harder to understand than it is--but perhaps by the directness, it comes through too clear to mistake.
"Fuck. What do I...?"
What does he do? Can he just think at him and have it be heard? He can't say too much; it would be a problem to have it heard by the Capitol. He wants to fight back, and to undo all this, but how is he supposed to communicate it? He's overwhelmed in the whole experience.
no subject
There were allies a plenty. He knew very few of the tributes were willing to align themselves with the Capitol. Some of those from the Capitol hardly wished to.
Because there were still all too many risks about the world. Risks where it never got being certain who all would pay. The districts. A loved one. Anyone at motherfucking all, or all of them the fuck together.
They only needed their foot in the door.
no subject
But as he goes on, the rest is easier. Playing the part he could have guessed even without being told. It's obvious they have to go along to some degree if they don't want to get hauled off and avoxed or worse. By the end his expression has hardened into resolve beyond the haze of fear. That he can't shake entirely with the way this works, but Karkat is nothing if not someone who can push determination through when the potential reward is worth more than the risk. He would have died a gutterblood if he never became a leader; he can risk himself again if it means helping people here.
"I want to do what I can," he says firmly. But 'our lot', the Initiate says, and that draws question. Though he can't voice the question clearly, he hopes his meaning comes through when he asks, "Who...?"
no subject
This time, he forces down locations, place all over the capitol, grafitti covered, as where motherfuckers can meet up in. He shows the cameras all elsewhere. He shows the speakeasy, where if a motherfucker had ability to whisper up in, could let them get away with saying more than would be feasible otherwise.
Like Terezi, Dave. He hopes that all would still define no motherfucking seadwellers, but if speaking such clearways causes outburst of protest, what little cover this all offers in the now would be blown. He's not so sure Karkat wouldn't. Not yet anyway.
He waits for sign of comprehension.
no subject
"I understand," he says, more solid than he was before. "I'll do my damnedest." Not for the Initiate, not really, but for the people he cares about. But even then, he wouldn't put him down as deserving the scenario they've been thrust into.
Whom he'll trust with what he doesn't know yet, but there's time enough to figure out which bonds will serve how. For now, he has something to drive his hopes.
no subject
The capitol can't know he's a source anymore than they already do. It ain't just about his ownself, it's about keeping his allies safe. If they avoxed him again and forced him to show them each and every rebel when fresh under order and conditioning...
Well, he doesn't want to think about that.
Just as he's sure a proper dosing of fear will too, just to shake some of that determination for the meantime. Though nothing will quite sell it like making Karkat's eyes flash like his ownself's.
no subject
But it's necessary, is the thing. To refuse would do no good, would only draw danger--and besides, if Initiate is truly an enemy, it's not like it would be a surprise.
So even as he lets his nerves rise up unsuppressed, he nods his agreement. He doesn't dare say a thing, but he's as ready as he can be for what's to follow.
no subject
He settles into Karkat's pan and lets the voodoo spread like a poison. Bring to rise but not to cut, he makes it to be. Then, with proper grip gone and grasped he reaches and takes hold.
No expression, comes the first come first command. Clear faces looked all the more absent. Bow your head.
Clear faced, head bowed, eyes lit to flash. He lets Karkat see and feel it all, just so as the motherfucker's aware. He extends control to place words on his tongue for one final touch. If there's a falter in his own expression, a moment where as he swallows hard, it shouldn't show on cameras. Say, "Yes sir".
Finally, he releases his hold. Karkat's eyes cease their flash.
Out loud, he says, "THAT WILL DO."
no subject
Or, well, nothing that violent in effect--but Karkat nonetheless lacks the kind of handholds necessary to resist. His mind is easy and pliant, and not one drop of hesitation comes before his face smooths like an ironed sheet. His head dips, nigh reverential, and it's strange to look through the flash of his own eyes without being able to see what's happening to them. He hopes under the worry that the Initiate will keep his word, that this is it--
"Yes, sir," easy and obedient.
--because dear squelching horrorterrors, it would be a daymare to have to watch himself do worse.
But it ends, just like that, and it's not even acting as he blinks and sucks in his breath hard with the return of his own control. The reminder does just what it needs, though. This is a farce, this is something to pretend.
He swallows thick, before barking out, "What the fuck?" He tries his best to look confused, as wary and mistrustful as something in the arena would merit. The latter isn't hard. "You--you have me... sit down? What happened? Why the hell is my butt parked amongst the fresh slaughtergore of a bunch of alien corpses? Do you think I like whiffing up a sniff node full of death stink?"
That sounds good, and irritation is easy to pull. That's right, he doesn't know how he wound up sitting, and everything is gross and awful. Which it is, honestly, but it was easier to ignore when he didn't need it for a prop.
"Either you get to the point of this or I'm leaving, Makara." And he rises up shaky-kneed to his feet.
no subject
"Ah! THE POINT! The point, the point, the motherfucking point," He says in sing-song. He taps his chin like he's thinking hard on what all it is. Then, he points up in eureka.
"YES, THAT'S RIGHT!" He exclaims. And then in sudden perfect deadpan, says, "Don't call me Makara."
He lifts a hand and waves. "SO MOTHERFUCKING LONG!"
no subject
So he shakes his head, mutters a 'goddamn clown', and turns to head on his way. Mostly. He does give one wary look backward once he's further down the hall, but then his attention is all on moving forward.