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

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

♥ 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!]

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[Is a mix of all three ever nice, really... Let's maybe keep the fucked up weird stuff away?

The first point doesn't even make him blink, but Shinji sure did follow it up with Something Else, huh? No gravity was one of those things that was cool in theory, but he's pretty sure that if it were like that for long, it'd be a huge pain... But forget that, because? Because????]

When you say "alive" do you mean your steak is a cow, or that you have a living slice of pizza? [He's not sure which would be preferable... Probably the first, even if it meant he went vegetarian for a week, or whatever.

As for the singing: horribly embarrassing, but not the worst. Doesn't deserve follow-up like this food debacle.]

[Sometimes fucked up weird stuff is inevitable, but at least it's rare that things get truly terrible.]

Like if your sandwich sprouted little bug legs and ran off. [As if to emphasize the point, he holds his hand up and wiggles his fingers a bit. Creepy crawly. It was weird! Super weird!!] You'd still get the food you were after, just with an extra helping that could skitter off.

[The look on his face takes on a faintly fond look after the explanation, though,] There's an orange at our house that stuck around after all of that. Other than being kind of... odd, it's harmless.

[He stares for a beat before flatly going,] That's fucked up.

[It's fucked up!!! Don't grow creepy crawly bug legs? A shiver runs down his spine as he imagines all the little wolf spiders that kept an eye on him for the White-Faced Bear hiding beneath that imaginary sandwich he'd mentioned, scuttling it back to the forest. Fucking gross. The idea of making one of these food critters into a pet doesn't do much to endear them to him.]

Won't it get moldy?

[Fair enough, the whole point of this tangent had been "weird stuff is prone to happening", Cliff thinking something like that is creepy is about what Shinji expected.]

It hasn't yet. [In the specific case of Bug the orange, it's easier to find something like that charming if your partner thinks it's cute. Hardly the weirdest thing Shinji's seen, either.] I think the robots were trying to figure out exactly what was up with then in the research towers, but if they've learned anything, they haven't publicly said so yet. They've probably got their hands full with other things anyway.

[Sorry, Bug, his imagination just won't let you be cute. Maybe reality will prove otherwise someday, but even if he tries to cartoony it up in his head, orange with legs is just Bad. We're going to say he's blissfully unaware of the annoying orange, though, so it's not as horrifying as it could be...]

Right, I saw that on the map. What are they "researching"?

[He's picturing mad science and vivisection...]

[Who knows, there could be some mad science happening! They're very good at keeping it under wraps, if that's the case though.]

Mostly the weirder phenomena, I think? When I was in there before, they were examining some plant and animal samples that turned up outside the city's walls when the barrier expanded. [It's not his area of expertise, exactly, but give him another second to think over what he might know about the towers, and...] Oh! Right, they might be the ones in charge of fine-tuning the food so that it tastes right, too. There was some kind of taste-testing open-house they were doing at one point.

[Hm, considering how much mad scientists like to pontificate, maybe these research tower geeks were on the up and up...

But the explanation could be twisted into "animal testing" if you were cynical enough, which as a teenager, is in Cliff's wheelhouse. Seeing as he can turn into a wolf, he's not real huge on that... Food, though, that's good science at work.]

Because they're robots and couldn't taste shit before, right? [That'd be his guess.] Nothing suspicious when they let you in before? I guess that's where the break-in shit happened and you couldn't get in again now?

[Not like Shinji would be able to reassure him that animal testing wasn't happening, either. Alas.

Cliff's first point gets a quick nod from Shinji,] They wanted feedback from us to make sure that they were getting everything as close to right as possible. [As for what he says next...] Ah, you heard about that. [Not a total surprise, but he didn't necessarily expect it from someone so new. That's fine, though, better to know now than be in the dark for who knows how long.]

It didn't seem suspicious when I was there, but anyone helping out was really just doing grunt work. The break-in was pretty recent, I doubt they're looking to open back up to the public in any capacity any time soon.

[Kaito was very helpful!! And fuck authority, etc. etc.]

I guess not seeing anything suspicious is better than nothing... I get why someone would try to raid the place, but you don't have to worry about me doing that shit anytime soon.

[Just in case his interest was taken the wrong way, it was good to clarify.]

You said something about a wall? Or barrier?

[If there were any place to raid, the towers would definitely be the most appealing in theory for sure.]

It just kind of feels like a dangerous thing for anyone to have done. [Not that he would have expected anyone to get hurt, given the very pacifistic nature of the natives, but it sure did a number on the reputation of the offworlders. It was a big risk! And for what?] Nobody's said what sorts of information they got out of it, if there is any. [Does that mean nothing scandalous? Or nobody feels comfortable going public with the information yet? Who can say, but please don't let yourself get in that kind of trouble right away, Cliff!

But, moving on,] Both, a wall and a barrier. The barrier's kind of like a protective bubble around the whole city, [here he glances up while making a short arc gesture with his finger - the barrier is all around them,] and the walls are just a physical structure around the city's perimeter.

[Well, yeah. And it would have been even more dangerous if these research towers were full of supervillains. Sometimes you just gotta.

He pushes aside the disappointment about no one having heard anything yet, instead looking up at the sky. They're in a giant bubble?]

What's out there that it's supposed to protect us from?

[The sky above them, the weather, it's all artificially generated. Which puts any any instances of dangerous or weird weather in a strange context if you think about it for too long, so let's not for now.]

A really inhospitable environment, basically? [To sum it up succinctly.] Breathing in too much of the air from outside makes people sick, and there are some dangerous looking creatures lurking around out there.

There were a few offworlders who got permission and equipment to explore outside a while back, though. Shared some video footage of it, too, if you wanted to see.

[It would be very easy to just pull it up on his communicator, no sweat!]

Edited (Shh.) 2021-08-11 15:29 (UTC)

[He'll think about it too long if he wants to!!! It is pretty suspicious. Good thing Shinji hasn't actually brought that point up, saving the people of Havenwell even more squinting from Cliff.]

Huh... [Strange, but...not unheard of. It sounded a bit like the Outlands, with its magical mists that could change people and make them sick, if they were properly used. The blight zone...] Sure, yeah.

[Ruining your own infrastructure and distressing the citizens just to play a prank on some aliens seems like maybe not the wisest thing to be doing, but also maybe not the most outlandish thing Shinji has ever heard.

But for now, they are here to watch videos. Shinji's pace slows a little bit as he pulls his communicator from his pocket. He'd recently revisited the post in question, so all it takes is a little scrolling, a couple of taps on the screen and...] Ah, he we go. [He holds the device out to Cliff so he can take a look for himself, specifically at the video of the skeletal behemoth fight he's pulled up.]

[who can resist a good prank]

Holy shit.

[THAT SURE IS...A VIDEO... Even taking part in a few crazy battles at the magic school working to thwart the apocalypse, there wasn't anything quite like that. White-Faced Bear vs Giant Serpent wasn't the same, either.]

...Alright, I'm cool with the barrier and walls, now.

[Yeah... yeah.]

There's another video attached, but it's a lot more mundane. No giant creatures being taken down. [Much less interesting to be paying attention to while walking, that is.] I can send you a link to the whole post if you wanted to look at it later.

Sure, I'll definitely take a look at it.

[Later, even if it doesn't sound like it'll be very interesting. It was better to know what was going on, since he had the opportunity. After a moment of hesitation, he offers out his own communicator to tap against.]

I've pretty much got it figured out, I think, but there's nothing on this level back in Oklahoma. Is this really all you need to do to add someone? And you aren't going to get, like, credit card information? Not that I have one.

It's pretty strange, isn't it?

[He lifts the communicator in his hand to carefully tap against Cliff's, giving it a moment to rest there to make sure the information is traded between them successfully.]

I never saw anything like it before coming here, either, but it's always worked just fine the few times I've done it. Nobody's tapped into my bank account so far, so your money should be safe and sound too. It'd be awful to steal from someone who just got here, anyway.

There's not even anything to steal. [Except for some little trinket and cigarettes that are both in his pockets, but -- ] It's too hot to want to mug me for my hoodie.

[He is...dying. It's so hot. Besides that, Shinji really doesn't seem the type. Cliff brings his phone back to look at the new contact. Wow... It worked...]

That's pretty cool.

[You can... you can take that hoodie off, if you want, Cliff. Shinji's not looking to swipe it, and probably nobody else is, either. But if you want to roast, that's on you.]

It's odd, but it's really handy. [It's novel for Shinji as well, considering how much of a process it had been to add contacts to his own phone back in his own world. So simple, so neat! While he has the contact information open, he'll go ahead and pass along the post in question to Cliff.] You can get in touch with me with that, too, if you ever need to.

[No... The hoodie is important and so are the things in his pockets. He needs them as close as possible so he can protect them.

And hey, there's the post, wow, everything is so easy and cool when it's future robot technology?]

Thanks... [Maybe he shouldn't feel so distrustful of everyone here, but also what's up with everyone generally being pretty nice for no reason? Weird.] Have you been here a long time?

[Sweat it out for personal security.

Havenwell sure did grab a selection of generally nice and helpful people, huh? Shinji's been doing his best to try and be at least one of those things in his time here, which, give him a moment to put a finger on how long it's been...]

Just a little over two years, now? [Time sure flies, gosh.] I showed up with the first batch of people they brought in.

[Dang... It's not the first time he's heard that, surprisingly, but still...]

That's such a long time. I'd probably have gone crazy by now.

[It is a long time! He's sure it doesn't feel quite so daunting for him than it might for some other people, though.]

It's been pretty wild, [he can't deny that some truly maddening things have happened, but even then, his own world prepared him well for swallowing bizarre circumstances. That's... a kind of heavy topic to be throwing at a newbie, so he keeps that thought to himself.] I honestly don't know if I would have been able to get through all of it without having a few people I can trust around.

[Cliff's seen some weirdness, but it's all pretty recent, for him. If he was any more used to it, he'd think that was a problem.]

Anyone from home...?

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