Dave Strider (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shenunigans) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thearena2015-02-16 12:48 pm
shenunigans) wrote in thearena2015-02-16 12:48 pm
Entry tags:
On the tough guy style I'm not too keen. [OPEN]
Who| Dave Strider and OPEN (plus a mingle prompt)
What| Various escapades of a Texan ass deep in the cold powder of anti-Satan.
Where| Through the forests, around the caves
When| Week 3
Warnings/Notes| Naughty words
A. Valentines Rewards:
Of all the commercialized affection days Dave has lived through, he's never gotten gifts quite like this. Or any gifts, really, but that's all in the past. His requests hadn't precisely been sincere, so he isn't disappointed when two parachutes drop down in front of him. One contains a themed scarf that he doesn't remember asking for, but he enthusiastically clucks to himself as he winds it around his neck. If Caesar Flickerman is watching, he doesn't want him to think he doesn't want his face wrapped snug around his body. The day only increases in hella-ness when Dave is also presented with what can only be described as a gargantuan bag of doritos.
For a while, he walks around under his five layers of jackets, blankets and scarfs with the bag tucked under his coats, open and kept in place against his chest with sheer force of will. Every so often he'll reach into his shirt, pull out an orange chip and eat it in a way he imagines to be inconspicuous.
Eventually, his travels take him upward and he uses a knife and sheer force of will to haul himself up onto one of the higher branches so he can pull the bag out and eat from it as much as he likes. He could say he's surveying the surroundings while he does this, but he'd be lying.
B. Snow Trekking Acrosstheuniverse:
Generally, Dave hates snow. Snow is overrated, Winter Wonderland is a barren wasteland of death and misery. Currently, Dave loathes snow. It's precisely crotch height and he is literally balls deep in shaved and flaked misery. It's a bad day to be 5'9, but he's thankful not to be any shorter than that right now. Maybe it would be easier to walk if he weren't wearing everything wearable, but then he would be cold.
The snow is making it damn near impossible to see anyone and he deeply regrets stepping off for some personal time. The isolation had been good. Briefly. Now he's surrounded by nothing but white as far as the eye can see, like he's in the middle of a suspiciously crowded Nickelback concert. One would imagine that the fact that he's entirely alone would be a relief, but he can't help thinking someone might spring out at him at any minute.
After a few minutes of aimless trudging, he gives in to temptation and starts to haphazardly sculpt what may be the world's ugliest snowman. Ugly stick arms, ugly rock nose and yet, he seems so empty. Dave stares into the white abyss of his snow friend's eyes before he very carefully pulls his own shades off his face and places them onto the snowman. He puts his hands on his hips, stroking his chin as he ponders.
"It's like looking in a mirror." He murmurs, then he takes a long step back before springing himself forward to violently and inelegantly pummel the snowman like a dog with a balloon. He stands up slowly and plucks his shades out of the snow, dusting them off before sliding them back on like nothing happened.
Snowball Fight: (feel free to do open prompts with this one)
It's a long walk back, but Dave finally feels like his numb legs have begun to lead him to a slightly more populated area. It's not necessarily a good thing, but it's leading him back to the meeting place he and Karkat had agreed upon. In retrospect, there wasn't much about that particular tree that differentiated it from the rest of them. Dave is in a constant state of sniffling, his nose is pink and his legs are damp and cold from trudging through snow all day.
There is no sense of Christmas cheer in him, but when he sees someone ahead of him struggling through the snow, he feels an overwhelming urge to pelt them with some snow. This is partly because he thinks it's someone he knows and entirely because he is near delirious from being cold and exhausted.
He scoops himself a sizable handful and with an exclamation of hup that is louder than he intended it to be, Dave starts a snowball fight mid-Arena.
What| Various escapades of a Texan ass deep in the cold powder of anti-Satan.
Where| Through the forests, around the caves
When| Week 3
Warnings/Notes| Naughty words
A. Valentines Rewards:
Of all the commercialized affection days Dave has lived through, he's never gotten gifts quite like this. Or any gifts, really, but that's all in the past. His requests hadn't precisely been sincere, so he isn't disappointed when two parachutes drop down in front of him. One contains a themed scarf that he doesn't remember asking for, but he enthusiastically clucks to himself as he winds it around his neck. If Caesar Flickerman is watching, he doesn't want him to think he doesn't want his face wrapped snug around his body. The day only increases in hella-ness when Dave is also presented with what can only be described as a gargantuan bag of doritos.
For a while, he walks around under his five layers of jackets, blankets and scarfs with the bag tucked under his coats, open and kept in place against his chest with sheer force of will. Every so often he'll reach into his shirt, pull out an orange chip and eat it in a way he imagines to be inconspicuous.
Eventually, his travels take him upward and he uses a knife and sheer force of will to haul himself up onto one of the higher branches so he can pull the bag out and eat from it as much as he likes. He could say he's surveying the surroundings while he does this, but he'd be lying.
B. Snow Trekking Acrosstheuniverse:
Generally, Dave hates snow. Snow is overrated, Winter Wonderland is a barren wasteland of death and misery. Currently, Dave loathes snow. It's precisely crotch height and he is literally balls deep in shaved and flaked misery. It's a bad day to be 5'9, but he's thankful not to be any shorter than that right now. Maybe it would be easier to walk if he weren't wearing everything wearable, but then he would be cold.
The snow is making it damn near impossible to see anyone and he deeply regrets stepping off for some personal time. The isolation had been good. Briefly. Now he's surrounded by nothing but white as far as the eye can see, like he's in the middle of a suspiciously crowded Nickelback concert. One would imagine that the fact that he's entirely alone would be a relief, but he can't help thinking someone might spring out at him at any minute.
After a few minutes of aimless trudging, he gives in to temptation and starts to haphazardly sculpt what may be the world's ugliest snowman. Ugly stick arms, ugly rock nose and yet, he seems so empty. Dave stares into the white abyss of his snow friend's eyes before he very carefully pulls his own shades off his face and places them onto the snowman. He puts his hands on his hips, stroking his chin as he ponders.
"It's like looking in a mirror." He murmurs, then he takes a long step back before springing himself forward to violently and inelegantly pummel the snowman like a dog with a balloon. He stands up slowly and plucks his shades out of the snow, dusting them off before sliding them back on like nothing happened.
Snowball Fight: (feel free to do open prompts with this one)
It's a long walk back, but Dave finally feels like his numb legs have begun to lead him to a slightly more populated area. It's not necessarily a good thing, but it's leading him back to the meeting place he and Karkat had agreed upon. In retrospect, there wasn't much about that particular tree that differentiated it from the rest of them. Dave is in a constant state of sniffling, his nose is pink and his legs are damp and cold from trudging through snow all day.
There is no sense of Christmas cheer in him, but when he sees someone ahead of him struggling through the snow, he feels an overwhelming urge to pelt them with some snow. This is partly because he thinks it's someone he knows and entirely because he is near delirious from being cold and exhausted.
He scoops himself a sizable handful and with an exclamation of hup that is louder than he intended it to be, Dave starts a snowball fight mid-Arena.
no subject
"After that, I was on a planet composed primarily of lava, scaffolding and useless, miniature crocodiles." He huffs out a sigh, craning his head backward in despair. "I'd trade my first born for something like lava right now, I'm not even joking." And then he tilts his head back, regarding Albert curiously. "You're from somewhere cold, aren't you? Forged in ice and snow or whatever?"
no subject
He shrugs at the question. "I'm from Germany, probably before you were born. The winters get very cold, especially when you live somewhere with no heater. After that, I was a cyborg for seventy years and had no body heat at all. I'm used to it."
If Dave's going to be flippant, Albert can be too.
no subject
"German and a cyborg? You're an Arnold Schwarzenegger reference waiting to happen." Of course he's acting nonplussed, but he sincerely looks impressed about this. "So were you like Robocop?" He thinks on that for a moment. "Like a less fucked up Robocop?" Sorry, Clara.
no subject
"Yes. Sort of." He breathes out slowly, putting the rest of the jerky packet aside. It's in Dave's easy reach, but the German's lost his appetite. "What little mind control they tried didn't work the way they wanted, but physically I was almost completely remodeled. Just a brain left, really."
And some other bits, but he's not going to go into the gory details.
no subject
Dave flinches ever so slightly at the explanation. He's not sure what he expected, but evidently it wasn't that. He keeps his expression intent nonetheless, but he seems to have sobered his demeanor some.
"Do you mind if I ask why they did that? And, uh. Who they is?"
no subject
He settles himself into leaning against a nearby tree, folding his arms across his chest as he thinks of how to explain and of how strange it is to be speaking on it willingly. Once upon a time he didn't even want to acknowledge that it had happened and he'd skate over the subject whenever possible, but there's something in him now - maybe age, maybe the Capitol having gotten it wrong so many times whether on purpose or not - that has him wanting to set the record straight.
"Black Ghost was a shadow organization of war profiteers and black market scientists on the version of Earth where I am from. In the 1950's and 60's they began to kidnap people from around the world, mostly those who wouldn't be missed like gang members, soldiers in war zones, vagrants and the like. They used these people as experiments for a new sort of weapon - cyborgs. I was one of those they kidnapped and the fourth subject of the project to actually survive." He rarely things of how many others there were even before they'd been given zero zero designations. How many subjects in the D series before Jet, how many in A through C, none of which had survived.
He never knew any of their names, never met most of them. Only the ones he'd escaped with. All the rest were lost as barely footnotes to history.
"They wanted to turn us into the ultimate fighting machines and then auction us off to the highest bidders, forcing an arms race that would hopefully trigger World War III."
no subject
Eventually, he stops fussing and moves to sit, resting his chin on his foot as he listens to Albert's explanation. It warrants a twitch or two that betrays even his stone face and it takes a moment for him to process it properly. He feels a twinge of sympathy, followed by uncertainty in how to express it.
He opts to reach out and nudge Albert with his foot, which as close as he gets to distant affection. "You really went through it, huh?" He murmurs, lifting his head up a little. "Guess it makes all this-" He gestures vaguely. "-Nothing new to you. Right?"
no subject
"It's not surprising, no. Not always because of that experience though. I grew up during World War II and the Cold War. Did you ever get to that in school?" He's not sure if he needs to clarify further.
no subject
"Lil' bit. Kinda hard to wedge it between the lecture on industrial sized freedom and what it means to you. That's the ones with the Nazis and Communism, right?" He says curtly, not too willing to admit that he hasn't studied past the seventh grade. "Didn't think you were that far back in time, actually."
no subject
He doesn't want to explain how he's actually a clone, how he doesn't know what time he was reaped from because no one seemed to know the year post-apocalypse. How everything that happened from waking up on Mocawa until Panem is still too raw and painful to talk about and perhaps worse than some of what Black Ghost did. It took him decades to be able to speak frankly about what was done to him in the 60's, things that happened a year or two ago are still too new.
He's not ready.
"What year are you from?" He's curious as to when the world was to have ended.
no subject
"2009. I missed a lot, I've heard. Something about Lady Gangnam Style and Vines? It's all a rich tapestry of things I probably could have expected." He flourishes a hand as if to gesture at said tapestry. "It's kind of comforting in a way. That Earth kept going in a predictable direction? Not so much here, but other Earths. That's good." Dave's feet scuff in the snow, just to make a point of how uncertain he is about his own claims.
no subject
"I think it's more people that are predictable in general, but it is something of a comfort. Underneath, humanity doesn't change." Not even here. Underneath the strangeness of the Capitol and all the technology of the future is still basic human instincts. Greed and fear are chief among them, but there is love too, and the social constructs of gossip and such things. Everything seems to have changed but nothing really has but the shell of culture.
"May I ask what happened in your universe?"
no subject
"That's deep." He adds helpfully, but there's an agreeable tone to his voice. "It's still depressing to know that every artsy, guilt-mongering apocalypse movie was a little bit right. Thanks, Al Gore." He glances up at the sky, as if expecting him to be there, then hesitates to look back at Albert.
"It's a long story. Like, hellishly long. What part in particular are you angling for?"
no subject
"Considering I don't know the story at all I can't begin to guess. Maybe a Reader's Digest edition? Again, if you don't mind."
no subject
"Alright, well. I don't mind, but a lot of people don't really seem to believe it. Their eyes glaze over and they scrunch their faces like they're pretending to try to understand and then I say something innocuous and we change the subject." He explains, scuffing his feet before he inhales. "It started with a computer game. I didn't want to play it, but my friends peer-pressured me into it. The set up was kind of like.. Sims? Do you know Sims? Anyway, it was a game and we were able to guide each other through the beginning because it has some amount of control over you." He wiggles his fingers, like he's illustrating a puppet master. "The game destroys the world with meteors and shit. Sends you to your very own personalized planet and super-magic powers and together you're meant to progress through it and create a new universe. Through the whole thing people kept trying to contact us to talk, to troll if you will. Even before we started playing they were hassling us- turns out those assholes were the very same grey assholes we know and love. With the horns and the obnoxiously complicated social standards."
He takes a deep breath, aware that he's rambling but also aware that it's the only way to tell the story. "Something went wrong with their session, someone went rogue and some things glitched, the rogue asshole made it to our session and murdered our guardians for character development. My Bro and technically my Mom though I didn't know she was my Mom at the time but then I met her again later- anyway. Our session was glitching too and we were never going to make it if we didn't work together, which is unfortunate because trolls are trolls. Anyway, some events lead to me dying and resurrecting as the highest achievable tier for me- which is Knight of Time by the way- then a few of us convened on an Asteroid hurtling toward the next story arc. That lasted about, uh. 3 years? And naturally when things were starting to happen I came here."
He follows it with a shrug, just so Albert knows he's done. "That is the heavily edited version. A lot happened, I mean. A lot. If we were to condense everything we all did into one story it would probably be a choppy, unreadable mess that trumps the word count of three bibles taped together."
no subject
Kids.
But he'll get nowhere by calling Dave a liar, or at least a very talented and imaginative weaver of fiction, which amounts to the same thing. After all, who's to say that this universe doesn't exist separate from his? After all, Bucky is from a separate reality where things are very similar to his and then there are people like Shepherd or Iron Bull from places or even realities that bear no resemblance that he can find. Even literary come to life here, Samwise and Eponine as examples. So what's not to say that Dave really is from the same insane video game reality that Terezi apparently created.
Or something. He remembers having some sort of similar revelation the last time they'd talked, at the birthday party.
Albert pinches the bridges of his nose for a moment, trying to dispel a budding headache. "That's quite a story, even abridged. This is how you became so knowledgeable about time travel, then? This 'Knight of Time' thing?"
no subject
"Yeah, it has that kind of effect on you." Sympathy is sincere in his tone, along with a sort of amused tone. It's hard enough to believe he's lived it, some days. It would be easier if it were an elaborate fantasy and not an all-consuming existence that he will probably have to go back to at some point.
"That is exactly how that came to be a thing. I am all about alternate timelines and universes and setting up my own death for tricky time-shenanigans. It's a wonder why I do absolutely fucking awful here." He places his hands on his hips like he's about to give himself a stern talking to. "Maybe sixth times the charm, eh? Might be our lucky month."
no subject
It's all too complicated and frustrating to share, and there are eyes and ears everywhere in the Arena. He can't say any of it.
"I certainly won't stand in your way, if you're trying to win this thing."
no subject
"Yeah, well, I'm not going to push you out of the way either." He smirks weakly, just thinking about it makes him so damn tired. He had a drive to stay in and help his friends out when he started here, but he's getting so exhausted that the idea of winning is less and less repulsive to him. He just can't imagine killing anyone for it, which is the kicker. "With the way things are going, looks like you don't have to stab too many people to get the crown." He says that outloud, seemingly unaware that he hasn't verbalised most of what he'd been thinking about.
no subject
Most of them. He has to remember Black Tom is still in the Arena.
"I'll watch your back if you watch mine?"
i'm about ready to wind this up if you are c:
"You got it. I'll be watching that broad, manly span of German pride for all the missiles. It's kind of a big target. Gotta be careful of that." He polishes that off with a confident nod, not addressing the fact that he just went into some strange detail there. Sometimes he likes to fling himself down a side road.
yup! Wrapping up is cool
He just had to make it weird. Teenagers.
"Right. Well. Speaking of being targets, despite our light hair, the clothing is something of a giveaway against the snow. We should probably move along before someone decides to use us as target practice." Gamemakers or otherwise.
no subject
He hops back, brushing himself off as best he can and readjusting himself. "I'd say keep frosty, but." He waves his hand in a circle through the air before freezing it so he's sort of waving at Albert. "I'll see you around. Or at crowning, maybe." With that, he steps off and back into the snow, wading roughly in the direction he thinks he came from.
and done
Almost as if this was as simple as running into someone in the park instead of in the middle of an ice age deathmatch. It's strange and a little frightening what a person can get used to.