♥ September Intro Mingle Log

[hugtopiamods]

September Intro Mingle Log
Welcome to Hugtopia, and to the city of Havenwell. This mingle is meant for new arrivals to get settled and meet the other inhabitants. New characters should be the only top-levels but everyone should feel free to tag around and make new friends. Who knows, you may find that Perfect Hug in here. You can use the prompts here, or create a wildcard of your own.

ICly, this takes place from the 2nd to the 16th and then we'll have a shiny new event post up for you all soon after that date range. The prompts below are optional, but are a way to get you started if you wish. To help you create your own prompts, please take a look through our Settings and FAQ. Click on each prompt's title to see the text. If you have any questions, feel free to direct them to the FAQ or to the Mod Question thread below.

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❥ PROMPT I: Awakening

When you awaken, you're in the last outfit you remember wearing, three of your belongings laid nearby or your animal friend curled up by you, waking as you do. It's not the most comfortable place to sleep, a stone slab, but once you're awake, a humanoid-looking robot comes in and explains you're in Havenwell and leads you out of the room and into the main portion of the temple where a welcoming committee of similarly humanoid-looking robots hand over a clear smartphone-sized tablet, some starting funds, and explain their dilemma. Then they release you into Havenwell to pick your new home from free housing in the city and give you the chance to settle. It might be a bit disorienting, but thankfully there seem to be a lot of robots and even some non-robots around. Maybe ask them for help?

❥ PROMPT II: Buddy System

With all the changes going on, it might be hard to be a new arrival to Havenwell. The natives understand! Sort of. When some new arrivals begin to appear at the temples, receive the welcome speech, get their communicators and the simple map of the city, they get taken to the front of the temple by a helpful robotic priest. Rather than turn the newcomers loose right away, they pull someone seemingly at random off the street and push the two people together with a cheerful, "Here's your guide to Havenwell! It's dangerous to go alone, so be buddies!" before going back inside.

They try to place a new arrival with one of those who previously arrived, but who can keep track of all that, right? Characters may find themselves thrown together with an actual veteran or with another new arrival who only came here a day or even just an hour before them! Good luck helping each other out, offworlders, and don't lose your buddy!

❥ PROMPT III: Weather Wildcard

Havenwell's weather is generally so well controlled, with beautiful blue skies and temperate climes that it's hard to remember that there's a whole world out there that might not be so nice. Every so often, however, the controls break and something not so nice and temperate comes through. Pockets of unpleasant weather happens all over the city at random intervals and new arrivals might find themselves and others caught without warning. Is that a snowstorm with green snow? Sure is. A windstorm that only seems to affect three streets? Yup. Did a deluge of rain just pour the equivalent of an Olympic sized swimming pool of water on you? Uh-huh, sure did. A deep cold fog that suddenly rolls in and blankets your entire area? Yeeaaah... hopefully there's someone around to help you get about and find shelter or just dry off and get away from it all. Good luck, offworlder.

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Comments

[carbungle]

Didn't think you were the sort to give up that easy. Guess you are different.

[The Ardyn of his time oozed smugness and self-confidence it was practically slime on his boots. It betrayed any humble words he spoke. That man made it seem like he could go anywhere and do anything he wanted.]

[scourgingstars]

Why bother trying?

[And unlike the chancellor's smug and audibly punchable tone, Ardyn's voice was practically flat for how exhausted and despondent he sounded.]

The world as it is now is not mine. I've no place to belong, no calling to fulfill, the only person I ever loved is dead, and my entire purpose in life was all for nothing. I see no reason to care for the world or anything within it.

[carbungle]

That's stupid.

[It's perhaps a little callous, but what does it matter? They're essentially strangers, and it won't do him any favours to call it anything else.]

When you lose something, you don't just give up. You start over or you take it back.

[....

oh. Maybe that's why he's--]

...A-anyway, the world's a big place. Find a corner and make it your own. Go raise chocobos, I hear that's fun.

[scourgingstars]

[Oops, accidentally motivation.]

Not interested. I'll outlive them all anyway, what's the point?

[carbungle]

So what's your plan, then? Just gonna bum around Gralea and listen to that guy monologue about science?

[That sounds so unbelievably boring.]

You'd outlive everyone there, too. At least chocobos are better company.

[scourgingstars]

I don't know. I don't want anything to do with the raving madman, but my choices in what actions to take are--or perhaps were--limited.

[carbungle]

[Noctis is quiet for a long moment, lost in thought. He's not going to come up with the perfect answer, here - he's not sure such a thing is possible - but if there's a chance of turning the tides in this way, of drawing the man away from the Imperials, maybe... maybe something could change. He doesn't know how, but there's a lot he doesn't know, apparently. Can't hurt to make an attempt.]

Did my- [dammit.] ...did the king know you were "Adagium"?

[scourgingstars]

...No. Or if he did, he's an astoundingly good actor, which I find slightly less likely. I know not what my brother passed down as the origin or nature of Adagium, but it sounds rather as though having a human level of sense and reason was none of it.

[carbungle]

I don't know about that, but I'd never even heard of it until you told me.

[Between that and Noct's admission that Lucis has fallen already, it might indicate his chances of eventually going unnoticed increase over time.]

So maybe stop telling people about it?

[scourgingstars]

And if I did? I would still be a monster regardless.

[carbungle]

You don't look like one, so unless you tell people that too then they'd probably never know.

[scourgingstars]

I fail to see how that matters. Why don't you just go about denying being human while we're at it?

[carbungle]

No one's ever asked if I'm human, so I've never had to say one way or the other. I don't tell people I'm a prince, either- doesn't mean I'm denying it, just means I let them assume otherwise so they don't try to stab me for it.

[If it's safer for him, and it doesn't hurt them, what's it matter if they don't know?]

[scourgingstars]

And maybe some of us deserve to be stabbed for what we are, have you considered that much?

[carbungle]

What'd you do, then?

[Because so far he hasn't really confessed to any great sin except... being what he is. And since Noctis doesn't know what that means, it actually means very little.]

[scourgingstars]

Is that a question you often ask daemons, or do you just kill them?

[carbungle]

I don't talk to daemons, because daemons have always tried to kill me first.

[scourgingstars]

That isn't the point.

[carbungle]

Point enough in my mind. But if you want to give up and not even try, then whatever. It's your loss.

[scourgingstars]

And why is it you even care so much? You've no reason to.

[carbungle]

I don't, I-

[He cuts himself off with a muttered curse, turning away to scuff a hand through still-damp hair. It's not that exactly, it's just that everything's messy and complicated here, and he's still working things out, and... ugh.]

I don't know you. But I know what you become, and that's bad for Lucis. And I do care about Lucis. So... I don't know. Maybe getting you to come around would be better for everyone, not just you.

[scourgingstars]

...I see.

[His answer was short and noncommittal; of course it was like that. Noctis had more reason to care for the kingdom than the corpse upon which its foundation was built. Just like Verstael only cared for the daemonic weapon and not the unwilling vessel carrying it.]

[Or at least, that was what it sounded like to a mind Ardyn knew damn well was irrevocably twisted.]

Spare me your sympathies. If you think acting as though you care in the faintest about my fate is going to save your kingdom, don't bother. Take it up with Verstael and the rest of the empire. I don't want anything to do with a single one of you, so Lucis and Niflheim alike need not suffer my mere presence.

[Barely repressing a scowl, Ardyn pushed himself off the wall and started to leave, ignoring the rain entirely. It wasn't like he would catch a cold; he barely even felt it.]

I didn't ask to leave that damn island, and were it up to me I might still be there. So just leave me alone.

[carbungle]

[Noctis practically snarls at that, gesturing at Ardyn's retreating back.]

At least we have any sympathies to spare! At least some of us are trying! We're not asking you to murder a whole country of innocent people, unlike them. Quit judging us on the past and think about the future.

[He turns away with a scowl, shrugging his jacket back on and getting ready to ditch this place on his own terms- and in the opposite direction. Why did he even bother? He's sure as hell not going to be the one to fix this. Nothing's ever so easy.

Take it up with the empire. Right out of the mouth of their future chancellor. What gall. His last words and mumbled, barely audible if at all.]

You're the one who talked to me...

[scourgingstars]

[Ardyn stopped in his tracks, hands curling into fists out of sheer frustration.]

Do I look like my brother? I'm not the one that should be expected to murder anyone, much less a country. The guards were an accident, I didn't-

[He scowled, forcing himself to stop. It wasn't his fault, he'd barely even been aware of what was going on until it was too late to do anything else. He remembered the impact of blades, of his own sword manifesting in his grip, and-]

[Maybe they're right after all, said an almost gleefully mocking voice in Ardyn's head. Familiar--painfully so, but a voice not his own. Maybe you really are destined to be some murderous lunatic.]

...I have had nothing but sympathy for far too long, and it's because of that I no longer even have a future to speak of. I expect neither you nor any other human to comprehend the matter, and I won't waste your time asking you to.

[carbungle]

[He ignores the comment about the Founder King. Ardyn doesn't trust him about the future- that's fine, he doesn't have to believe the other man about the past, either. Some of it may ring true (the name, the age, the details he shouldn't know yet does) but he doesn't have to buy in to all of it as unbiased.]

If you're so against it, then why are you living with- [my dad-] -with the others? If you wanted to be left alone so badly, you could've just done it here. So you're a monster, or a daemon- we live with robots and whatever the hell else showed up now. Nobody cares.

[He's not even sure he fully believes in that part of the story, either, but if it's true then so what? He hasn't done anything yet. That's why his focus is trying to prevent a repeat of whatever awful history made it all happen.]