it's been the ruin of many a poor boy [open.]

[awooligan]

♥ Who: Clifford Norman, OTA!
♥ Where: wherever tbh...
♥ When: August 1 and general early August.
♥ What: Cliff arrives to do typical intro log stuff and be frustrated.
♥ Rating: uhh PG-13 for language? and probably underage smoking at some point.

[ a. the wrong world. ]

[He’d had the plan to move out solidly in mind until recently, but…somehow this wasn’t quite what he’d pictured. After being led to housing by the welcome wagon, Cliff had waited out the helpful robot before slinking away from the open street to somewhere he can quietly freak the fuck out in peace. Even in the alternate reality he suddenly had a second life’s worth of memories of, he’d only heard stories about some corrupted-but-harmless AI, nothing like a whole society….not that that’s his biggest issue right now. He doesn’t know nearly enough about science or magic to figure out why the hell he remembered two versions of his life or why he was a wolfboy from the middle of nowhere with shitty father figures in both of them. That just doesn’t seem fair?

He sighs and runs his fingers through his hair, shakes his head like it will disperse those thoughts, and sets off again. Maybe if he got the lay of the land, he'd have an easier time getting a handle on things. At least he can feel being an Animal Person, and know that if he wanted to right now, he could be a wolf before his next step hit, and that’s knowing more than nothing! Along that thought, he was wearing Oscar’s hoodie and he had that bag of gummies he'd just started. Undeniably real. But the hoodie had existed in that other world, too, even though he'd never gotten tangled with “just some guy” that was a magnet for trouble. And…]

Huh. Well, that was the most unbelievable part of all that.

[In his pocket, the push of his finger against a figurine’s ear assures him that it is also pretty damn real. Didn’t hate that, no matter how confusing it is. The circumstances surrounding this place and that other one, though...]

Christ. You save a guy’s life a couple times and they want to upgrade you to saving two worlds?

[Because he didn't have enough of a headache.]


[ b. the wrong foot. ]

[Contemplating his newly realized existential crisis, he doesn't have the mental fortitude to figure out who’s in charge and kick their ass. Instead, the redhead resigns himself to pretend-scrolling through his not-an-earth-phone while his eyes -- more animal than human, if someone were to inspect them -- and scowl do the job of telegraphing his mood for him even from where he's hiding under his hood.

It could be that simple, just his glare accidentally finding someone who didn't deserve it and a miscommunication running wild from there, or it could be that while he's pretending to be distracted by his phone, he's actually distracted with his thoughts enough that he comes too close to someone passing the other way and bumps into them. He jolts back with tight fists and an arm lifted like a shield between himself and the stranger. As ready to fight as he might seem and sound, it's possible to notice that he's on guard rather than being aggressive.]

Hey, watch it -- !


[ c. the wrong attitude. ]

This sucks.

[Cliff plops onto the bench with a truly impressive sigh. That feeling before he’d woken up… Even with as much as he loves his mom and brother, the fact that he still had to hold a part of himself back means that it had been so completely, overwhelmingly alien. Comforting and safe in the moment, but now?]

Fucking tired of people messing with my head…

[This really, really sucks.

Miserably, he notes that he should be rationing the few supplies that had come with him, but he deserves the sugar, dammit! Cliff drags the bag of gummi bears out and starts to eat them with the enthusiasm of a man on death row. He starts each one by biting its head off.]


[ d. the wrong...card?! ]

[idk man it’s the wildcard option, hit me up if you want to work something out!]

Comments

[awooligan]

Awh, hey. I bet you're a great safety buddy.

[just what kind of underground fighting ring was this, though -- ]

That friend around here anywhere?

[pinkmin]

I'm good at first aid.

[Even if all she had on her at the moment was a big pouch of so many bandages. Vianca shook her head some more.]

No, she's not.

[awooligan]

See? [A great safety buddy!] That's useful to have around. Not everyone's good at patching themselves up.

[Or could heal a little faster than regular humans, bruises disappearing completely over a day.]

Bummer, it sounds like we would've gotten along.

[Just ignore that Cliff doesn't actually...like fighting... It sounds rowdy, so it sounds fun.]

[pinkmin]

[Hmmmmm. A steady look was sent Cliff's way as if the little girl was sizing him up.]

... I don't think Eli would have liked you. You're nice.

[Pause. A small frown.] Though maybe that means she'd want to fight you so she would like you.

[awooligan]

[This time it's both funny and embarrassing.]

I'm only nice to kids, and only if they aren't being a pain. I don't know if she was your age or not, but I think I could probably handle her trying to fight me.

[pinkmin]

A mean person wouldn't be nice to kids at all.

[Because they were, you know, mean. She'd encountered plenty of those. Eli was almost one-- Vianca was pretty sure she wanted to be one.]

I think she was closer to your age... [Squint. He didn't look that much younger than her.] But you'll need to bring an antidote!

[awooligan]

[Wow, just let him be mean? Cliff scuffs his foot on the floor as he thinks it over.]

Antidote... So she's got poison? [Not a fan of that.] If you're my safety buddy, you're the one that needs to have it stocked, anyway.

[pinkmin]

[She blinked, a bit surprised. She was? His safety buddy? She was the safety buddy???? That quickly led to her puffing up a little, nodding vigorously.]

... Yes! I used to keep some with me, but they weren't with me when I woke up here. [She wondered if she'd be able to get her hands on some pecha seeds. Would the berries be helpful here with the outside sickness? A mystery. There was a potion shop though...!]

She's an Arbok, so she's got lots of poison. Um... [She spread her arms out a bit, realizing he might not know what an Arbok was.] A big snake.

[awooligan]

[Who else is he supposed to trust to be his safety buddy around here? Gosh.]

An Arbok? [isn't that one of them older video game animals that wasn't lucky enough to be popular like the yellow mouse or the little fox

"Big snake" is a lot more descriptive, if unsettling.] Well, I already fought a big snake and kinda lost, so I guess that's that, huh? It was huge, though.

[pinkmin]

[Gosh!]

[Also yes.]

Hm... well she might have wanted to fight you as a person, so it might work out.

[awooligan]

[He opens his mouth to ask a question, but quickly snaps it shut as he rethinks. If he asked about this snake girl being an Animal Person and she wasn't, then he'd probably have a lot to explain. Hell, even if she was, he'd really rather not ask Vianca and tip her off that he wasn't fully human. How would someone normal put it...]

What do you mean, "as a person"?

[pinkmin]

[Luckily for Cliff, Vianca's standards of 'normal' were very different. She did have to consider it a moment, giving him another thoughtful look. They were both testing the waters here. She'd managed to gain a lot more confidence in herself, but it was still important to get a gauge with new people sometimes...!]

My school had a lot of non-human students and faculty. It had options for students to have human forms to make school life easier, if they wanted them.

[awooligan]

[...............]

It wasn't called Daybreak Academy, was it?

[IT SURE SOUNDS LIKE HIS CRAZY MAGIC SCHOOL FROM HIS OTHER LIFE]

[pinkmin]

[Almost!]

It was called Smash Academy, in Final Destination City.

[There had been a few other schools there, but Vianca didn't remember a Daybreak Academy.]

[awooligan]

[Like...like that other video game...the one he had to play a lot with his little brother who would never accept defeat...

He almost hopes so, because] What the hell kind of names are those?

[pinkmin]

[She could 100% believe that a video game based on her school had made outside the city into the other worlds. That's just the kind of thing Crazy Hand would have been all over, probably.]

... I don't know, truthfully. 'Final Destination' was more of a hub world than anything 'final.'

[awooligan]

[Well, it is Crazy Hand.]

Great, so it doesn't even make sense.

[Guess not everything can be as on the nose as Podunk, which Cliff stubbornly believed was an exceedingly normal place despite what he'd seen. Podunk was just Podunk!]

I've got a better idea of your school, though. I know a bird that went to a school like that.

[pinkmin]

Ohh, a bird. [She nodded. She knew several birds.]

Did they attend that Daybreak Academy?

[awooligan]

[Yeah, a bird... Sigh, that's just How It Be, huh. He has to smile, just a little, at how absolutely unphased she was about it all. Of course she wouldn't be!]

Yeah, Tobias. He's a red-tailed hawk. [And Raven, a raven, who swept in without warning and left just as abruptly... He hadn't met them in the same life, and they were nothing alike. Maybe if Raven had had a Daybreak Academy, things would have been okay.] That was pretty much the only school that guys like that could go to. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, talking hawks didn't exist. Was your school a secret like that?

[pinkmin]

[Tobias... the red-tailed hawk... sounded very similar to some books... Golly.]

Not really? [She had to think about it.] Some people were surprised by it when they arrived, but a majority of students came from their worlds to attend because they had heard about it somehow.

[That cool not quite AU, not quite jamjar life.]

[awooligan]

[Golly!]

...That's hard to imagine... Going to a different world on purpose. Could you go back whenever you wanted?

[pinkmin]

[Nod nod.]

Most people were able to take trips back to their home. [Barring the weird happenings that started up towards the end there, but she wasn't sure how to phrase what she wasn't sure of.]

My garden was in the city though, so I did not have a different home to visit.

[awooligan]

[Cliff nods, a little relieved for these kids he's never met and likely would never meet, though he'd deny it. It had nothing to do with him!!

And then, a smidge too late, her words really register. The garden meant she didn't have any other home to visit?

...]

You must really like gardening.

[yeah that has to be it...please]

[pinkmin]

[To be honest she hadn't even really felt like the garden was still hers to return to after a while.]

It feels like I should be better at it, but I just started.

[She turned, looking over at the planter beds that were spanning the length of the shop windows.]

But I managed to grow these. It is a good step.

[awooligan]

[Nope. Nah. The "just started" only has to do with her age and nothing more than that. Definitely not supernatural. Nnnnope.]

You're doing a lot for yourself, huh? I don't garden and I'm not much of a reader, but if you need help with something, you can text me, you know? I'll do what I can.