hugtopia_logs | ♥ November Intro Mingle Log

♥ November Intro Mingle Log

a house lit by sunset colours, with orange-leafed trees around it and a tiny pumpkin by the wall

November 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 is 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 around the 10th, with a proper event coming soon after applications are processed. 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.

❥ PROMPT I: Awakening

When you awaken, you're in the last outfit you remember wearing, (up to) three of your belongings laid nearby or your animal friend curled up by you, waking as you do. A stone slab is not the most comfortable place to sleep, but once you're awake, a humanoid-looking robot comes into the room and explains that you're in Havenwell, then 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? Strike up a friendly conversation, get to know your neighbours! It seems as if you may be here for the long haul.

❥ PROMPT II: Buddy System

two fingers together with smiling faces drawn on

With all the changes and the fear of a secondary attack lingering, the natives are a lot more protective of their newest arrivals. When new characters begin to appear at the temples, they receive the welcome speech, get their communicators and the simple map of the city, and a warning to stay away from the walls. Then 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, "It's dangerous to go alone, so please show our newest resident around. Please be buddies!" They wait until they're certain the pair is going to be moving off together 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: Virtual Research

a virtual first-person view of hands reeling in a fishing rod

After the attack, every part of the city is on repair duty and the means the Entertainment District as well. As new arrivals wander the city, they might be called into one of the numerous Virtual Reality cafes. These cafes vary in layout, but most have areas for the natives to plug directly into the machines and other areas which have older looking virtual reality helmets that allow flesh bodied people experience the games. For those who need assistance with their sensory inputs, basic options like audio descriptions of visual scenes, enhanced audio and descriptive speech, closed captions, and crude mobility chairs are available. A handful of cafes have other options like direct visual or audio cortex stimulation to simulate vision or hearing, or suspension tanks to allow simulated movement, but these are currently unavailable due to damage.

All of these facilities are, unfortunately, under repair. The direct plug-in systems are easier for the robot natives to fix because they can do the most important part of it - testing - by themselves. But for the helmets and other interface systems, they need your help. Naturally, they'll pay you for the work, but they need the offworlders to play the available games and record any areas where they find glitches. Playing with a partner increases your chances of finding and fixing any issues, so feel free to log in for free for once and test any of the following games:

Big Bass Fishing

A (un)Familiar Experience

Robot Crossing

Pick and harvest as many Aellyn vegetables and fruits as you can before the timer runs out! The more you pick, the better your score. Work together with your partner to clear the field in any way you can. Strangely, once you finish clearing a tree or a field row of their bounty, they seem to magically refill when you turn your back. Strangely, when the timer runs out? It flashes 00:00 and the game...doesn't? Stop? In fact, the fruits and vegetables just keep multiplying and multiplying and if you don't hurry up you might just get buried in them all!
With a partner, use the giant slingshot to launch comically large fruits into a garden patch of other colored fruits. Match a line of 3 or more similarly shaped fruits to clear it from the field. The more fruits you can clear, the higher your score - aka welcome to Fruit Crush. Stack lines of 6 or more to get shining clear diamond fruits that clear the entire row and snag yourself some bonus points. Or they should, but whenever you clear away a matching set, the fruits explode, sending fruit bits and juice everywhere - most notably on you and your partner. Still, the game is going on and it looks like it won't stop until you finish, so good thing it's all a computer game, right? Sure feels real though - reeeeeeally sticky.
You and your partner(s) are given a magical golden pumpkin and it's your job to grow it into the largest pumpkin possible. Why? There's a county fair of course and the largest pumpkin wins! But how do you grow this pumpkin? Well, for whatever reason? This pumpkin is already the size of a grizzly bear and it just won't stop growing! You and your partner better find a way to stop it from growing out of control or you might get (virtually) crushed! You could do a song and dance routine together to touch the pumpkin's soul to teach it moderation or calm its insane vegetable puberty. You could hold hands and share stories and entertain the pumpkin until it feels satisfied that it's grown enough. You could just hack and slash at it in an attempt to reduce its unwieldy bulk. The possibilities are endless and so is the pumpkin's growth, so you better hurry!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[wow!! rude. he is a very strong man, with real muscles and everything. ~~somewhere~~]

We fight them anywhere we have to. They can't handle bright lights, so at night people have to stay in lit areas or havens. Sometimes we get hired to hunt the ones causing trouble for the ones who have to live outside of big cities, though.

[ Something he said appears to reassure her. ] That... explains your hands. [ More than just training.

She leans forward.

Softly, she begins, as if stating an observation, or, perhaps, as if in awe. ] ...You fight them outside the safety of the city, where those who cannot remain. You protect those havens--... no, they are havens because of you. [ And only sometimes-- his words-- does he take payment. ]

Those havens are filled with light.

[ Thus: ]

...The light of the world... you protect it.

[ Finally, her smile returns. ]

Noctis... You are a hero.

Edited (i have to rearrange the words to pyra-speak) 2019-11-07 04:23 (UTC)

[God. Is she trying to kill him? Because it's working. His eyes are wide as she finishes speaking, and he can't help staring at her. He's been called many things, but hero? He hasn't even done anything to verify what he's telling her is true.]

I mean... it's a job. I mostly just do what I'm told...

[Is it heroism or just an unfortunate destiny? He kind of gets dragged around by the gods to do whatever they need him to, and the whole point of his journey is revenge and retribution. Not the most heroic of tales.]

Told... by whom? Your clients? [ It said airily, almost, as if she's dismissing how he's dismissing it all. Gold only does so much. She's known heroes before-- heroes who are long dead, in her world-- so she believes that their motivation comes from something far greater: ultimately, the want to protect the world they adore.

She tilts her head, her earrings swaying gently as she does. She continues to look at him, genuinely in awe. Her hands lifts his up again. Human hands, she notes once more. Calloused hands. Hands that have fought others, monsters. That she could be holding the hands of someone so strong is... ]

By securing that light, you've granted others the ability to walk beneath the stars.

[ Is there nothing more selfless than that? ]

[He has no words in response to that, not truly; she's not wrong, but it feels wrong to accept it as such, either. He's doing what he has to, not just to get by but to support his people. The kingdom fell and he's all that's left of the royal family, and he may be a lousy prince - or king, whatever - but responsibility isn't a meaningless word to him. He had to do something.

But if he said any of that she'd probably just fire back something more wild and hopeful, judging by the record so far, so instead he says,]

Are you some kind of inspirational speech writer on your world?

[ Her fingers twitch in his, and she giggles softly. Shaking her head to the contrary, her short hair mildly sways along.

A non-answer like that... he must humble. ]

You have doubts?

I don't know. I guess so.

[He doesn't sound especially humble, just kind of overwhelmed. He grew up surrounded by a lot of people putting the pressure on his shoulders to be this or that, king or Chosen, whatever- but if given the option he knows what he'd have picked. A simple life, peace in his home, maybe actually trying the whole marriage thing after all. No more wars or gods or dying loved ones.

He brushes his free hand through his hair, glancing awkwardly away.]

If someone told you your whole life that your destiny's to do something heroic, is it still heroic when you have to follow through on it, or is it just a job?

[ She watches him as he asks his question, an open-ended question, she wagers, and one he might have asked himself many times before. The glance away, the hand sifting through his hair— it gives away that he is uncertain as to his answer... or perhaps not completely dedicated to it, if he has one at all.

Her brows delicately knit with a tinge of worry. Could this mean that he... ]

Before I... answer. [ If what she will say can be considered an answer. ]

Are you asking... because you have a destiny? [ A pause, and she decides to give him an obvious bail-out, in case the question is too personal: ] Or are you asking for a friend?

[Geez. Ask a hard question and get one in return. Not like he didn't deserve that, but the question makes him hesitate, which… might be an answer in and of itself. He's just been hiding his identity for so long now that the thought of being open about it with a stranger is daunting as hell.

Her company has been nothing but reassuring thus far, though, and… more than that, this isn't home. There's no Imperial Army here to chase after him, just Verstael who seems to have no interest in continuing their war right now, and Ardyn who is… complicated. His excuses for not being honest are flimsy at best.]

...For… me. I think. It's what I grew up hearing. Everyone's counting on me, but it's not like I had a choice, you know?

[ This young man has a fate, which is somehow tied to fighting against the daemons in his land that emerge during the night. He is paid for some of his efforts, yet she realizes the error in her assumption to his words of being told what to do: originally, she had thought he meant he was subject to the orders from vendors of beasts' bounties. Now, she wonders if he has a higher calling.

These curiosities, she keeps to herself. ]

[ Her expression lowers for a moment, dropping to where she holds his hand. It sounds as if he feels trapped, and right now... his hand is caught between hers. A human hand, a mortal hand, caught between two hands that belong to someone who is not.

On what authority does she have to speak about fate and destiny and the future?

... ]

[ Her answer to him comes as two questions softly spoken, somber, and as still as the ocean right before dawn. The first, for the past: ] If you had never heard of your destiny before, would you still have made those same choices to help others?

[ Perhaps he'd go about it differently. Perhaps he'd be even more motivated, if it were all by his own will. Perhaps not. She doesn't need to hear his answers if he doesn't wish to give them.

The second, for what is to come: ]

If you had the power to change the future... to change your destiny, would you?

[ She settles back into silence, patient for what he might say next. ]

[That's a good question, and he leans back on the bench, glancing away from her to stare off at nothing as he thinks about it. Would he?]

It's not like I mind helping people... it's just that it would be better if they didn't have to be saved at all. If the daemons were gone, I could just live a normal life, like everyone else. That's what I'd choose.

[He looks down, the fingers of his free hand curling in the fabric of his pants.]

I'm... supposed to bring back the light. That's the big destiny. It's cryptic, but I'm sure it means to get rid of all the daemons. I guess in the long run it's the same as what I want, anyway.

[In other words, yeah, not changing that. Surely he can have a normal life after the world is saved, right?]

[ She looks upon his face. Eyelashes, long and thick. Hair, a tussled mess, just barely smoothed down by his hand earlier. Lips, curved down into a troubled frown. Everything, a blue so dark it reminds her of midnight.

So youthful, so trapped.

Yet within his cage, he extends his sword-arm to banish those shadows of the night and secure the brilliance of the havens, with or without an ordained destiny. That speaks to the beauty of his heart, that his choice will remain the same to bring that light to others.

...Yet leaving it at that is merely pushing the true issue away.

His troubles come from the notion of having no choice, of being trapped within the cogs of a greater machine, the fatality of entropy, and the machinations of something beyond. His plight is human, his desire autonomy. ]

The power to.... claim the future, [ One hand leaves his, while the other remains holding. ] to shape your destiny as your own, [ Her remaining hand fans out; now, they touch palm-to-palm. She overlays her fingers with his. ] and to change whatever fate you have or that of others...

It must exist in at least one of these many worlds of ours, don't you think?

[ Despite the question, she doesn't sound even sound hopeful-- no, instead she sounds especially certain.

At that she smiles, and her fingers curl to interweave with his. ]

I hope you find it. [ That he may call all of his choices his own, that he may feel free, that he may even nap as he pleases. ] I hope you find it, [ She repeats. ] so that the light you gift the world... is something you know that comes from your own heart all along.

[Her words cause him to glance over at her, taking in the gestures of her hands, the way her body shifts, the cadence of her voice. She's not just blowing smoke. This whole time, every word has been said with such wild sincerity. It's humbling, in a way. And familiar.]

You... remind me of someone.

[He glances down again, although this time it's with a small, nostalgic smile.]

I hope that's how it goes, too. It would be nice if everything we worked for wasn't just for nothing.

[And it would be nice to have... some kind of happy ending, somewhere. With Luna, with the guys, with his home.]

[ Hand still holding his, she gives his a small squeeze.

Yet she’s not quite satisfied. While he expresses his hope, he still sounds so... negative. Why would he think that his efforts would be in vain? ]

“Wasn’t just for nothing”...?

[ She gives him a look. How ironic that the light he gives is not reflected back to him, so that he might see how brilliant it is. ]

[Wh... what is that look for. Should he be worried? He's a little worried.]

Isn't that normal? Anybody would want that, especially if you're living kind of a hard life. Like in books and stuff- you want it to have a good ending, so everything you had to go through was worth it.

[Struggling to be casual, he shrugs his shoulders. He's heard enough of Gladio talking about this or that book that even without being an avid reader, he can recognize a satisfying trend. Plus comics and video games follow the same kind of rules about storytelling... whatever, he just likes the ones where the good guys win and the bad guys go to hell where they belong. That's how the world should work.]

[ She shakes her head, the motion far more final and succeient than any words: that's not what she means.

Rather, ] You have your answer, Noctis.

[ "It's not like I mind helping people.... That's what I'd choose." Thus, she sees no difference between his choice and his destiny to secure that light, and that is all. The only question that remains is...

She lets her words permeate between them, and then that look eases like frost in late morning. Her hand holds his tightly, as if imploring something of him. ]

I... think the question now changes. To what lengths would you go, to ensure others are all safe in your world? [ To secure that light, as it were. ]

What lengths...?

[That makes him frown, forces him to pause and consider for a long moment. He's already done a lot- already been through a lot, not only to reclaim the weapons of his heritage, to forge the covenants required, to follow this cryptic ordained path he's been shoved onto until he reaches... the end? Whatever that might be?

Would it be easier to decide whether or not he'd go to those lengths if he knew what they were to begin with?]

I want to say I'd do whatever it takes, but... I don't know. I've heard some things that worry me. [There's been loss that he can barely stand. There might be more. Already, it feels like too much.] I don't want to sacrifice anyone for this. I don't want people to die. And I don't want to die, either.

[He sighs, a little frustrated, and sinks further in his seat.]

Sorry, that's not really an answer. I don't think I have one. Not right now.

[ ...It's a sufficient enough answer. He wants to help, he wants to ensure that others do not perish, he wishes to be there with them at the end. Such an answer is not selfish or too much for which to ask.

It is a good answer; and quite like his hands-- weathered, thoughtful, experienced-- it is a human answer.

She has also obtained an answer, of sorts, to her own private wonderings about him with this line of questioning. What these are, she keeps to herself. They do not effect him. ]

[ With a satisfied sigh, she runs her thumb over his knuckles, and-- ]

[ --she scoots closer, tightly and determinedly gripping his hand in both of hers again. ]

You know what this means don't you?

Edited 2019-11-09 01:13 (UTC)

...I... no? Not really?

[The last time someone asked him that (in very recent memory, besides) he got the most clung-to surprise hug he's ever received. Please pardon his sudden caution as he shoots her a puzzled glance.]

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OMG RIGHT ACCOUNT THIS TIME

how darrrrre

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