♥ 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]

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.]

[scourgingstars]

I don't know!

[He snapped that before quickly struggling to collect himself. Something hurt about the frustration he was struggling to repress, and it was a familiar sort of ache he didn't dare allow to the forefront.]

I wasn't thinking clearly, I've only been off the island for a month or perhaps two, I've no way to even comprehend the passage of time at this point. He offered to help in keeping Verstael away as best he could and laid forth some manner of apology for what his worthless ancestor did, and I just...hadn't any other idea what to do or where to go.

[carbungle]

[...His dad... is way too damn trusting. He is so talking to Cor later. Still, at least someone's making headway, even if it's only by an inch.]

Whatever your reasons, you still took the offer. I don't think that's meaningless.

[Maybe it won't do a damn thing in the long run, but for now, it's something. It means he made at least one decision that wasn't isolating. Or Niflheim.]

[scourgingstars]

I hardly find it any great meaningful thing, either.

[carbungle]

Yeah, why am I not surprised?

[Noctis throws his hands in the air in surrender. He tried! No one can say that he didn't try!]

[scourgingstars]

What exactly is it that you expect? That I am simply supposed to be able to function or care to try in a world I know even less about than you? That I should understand my reasoning for every little thing I might do when I fail to even understand why or how I am still alive?

I've been in solitude for longer than your precious Insomnia has even been a concept, so do forgive me if I can't simply adapt to living as though naught has even transpired.

[carbungle]

You throw away any suggestion I've got like you know better, even though you don't know anything about what the world's like. You say you're a monster and a daemon who deserves to be stabbed but you're pissed at your brother for doing it. You say you don't want to choose a side but you're living with Lucians to avoid the Niff. So no, I don't expect anything. Like I said, I don't even know you.

[He barely knows the version of his time, and he sure as hell doesn't know the one here.]

I don't know what to expect. You're a walking contradiction.

[scourgingstars]

I'm well aware of that much. But I....don't know what I want or what to do about any of this. No matter what course of action I take, another is bound to contradict it until I find the right one.

I don't give a damn about either kingdom or empire. But given the choice, I'll at least coexist with the one that at minimum pretends to treat me as though I'm not a mere weapon.

[carbungle]

I can guarantee you're not gonna find one with zero conflict, if that's the kind of "right answer" you're looking for. It doesn't exist.

[He may not have lived thousands of years, but he's seen enough to recognize the reality of their world. Peace isn't easily achieved.]

[scourgingstars]

...I know. But their war isn't mine to fight.

[carbungle]

I never asked you to! Why do you think I said to leave the empire!?

[He doesn't give a damn where Ardyn goes- he can hide in the Solheim ruins for all he cares. But he knows where the man ends up staying and that's where he has a problem.]

[scourgingstars]

And you think that's so different? Would you have me return to Insomnia as their weapon instead? What else would you have me do, if not avoid Verstael and the empire by following along with our own miserable bloodline?

[Ardyn made a sound like a hollow, half-manic laugh--as though the situation were so far beyond absurd that he wanted to laugh about it but didn't remember how.]

Don't look at me with that face and regard me as though I should be utterly mad for having no desires or an erratic direction. I hate everything about this situation. I hate that the Lucian bloodline carried on while I languished for eternity, I hate that Niflheim only let me out because of what I could do for them, and I hate that I know nothing of what I am meant to do!

[The half-frantic note in his voice quieted after that, Ardyn running a hand through soaked violet hair; his hands bearing matching scars lancing through his palms.]

...If you should have some idea of what to do--you certainly speak as though you do--tell me what the right course of action is. Tell me what place there is in this or any world for the unworthy cast aside by blood and gods alike.

[carbungle]

[Noctis glowers at him for a long moment, not responding- not really having one, at least not besides what he'd already suggested, and feeling frustrated by that limitation. Much as he'd love to have all the answers, he barely has any for his own life, let alone someone else's. And certainly not someone who's meant to be an enemy, nor one who hates his home and his family- both of which he loves very much, whether he says it or not

The situation is complicated, but sometimes the right answer in the heat of the moment is the simplest one: he can't deal with this now.]

You hate a lot of things, [is his response, finally, his voice growing muted as he glances away.] Maybe that's why you stayed with them.

[And then he turns and walks out into the rain, intent on getting as much distance as possible between himself and this man. He's too pissed off and confused to do anything except make this worse than it already is.

Cor and his father sure have their hands full.]