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

[ Time for a troubled look. Maybe he speaks from a place of youth, for whom the fragility of time and loss has not quite hit. Knowing that he must have seen his fare share of battles, however, she dismisses this thought. Perhaps he is just that shy of saying such things, then. In which case, encouragement is due.

"For no reason". Shouldn't loving them be all the reason?

Finally, she looks away from him, off to... the walls beyond, the faint shimmer of the barrier just above it. ]

When you might leave this place... will you be able to say it them again? [ Or for those he loves of other worlds here, will he have any other opportunity to say it? ]

[That makes him flinch, very nearly pulling away. He doesn't like to think about that. Doesn't like to let his mind linger on the inevitability of leaving this place, of losing what he has here. He's only been in this world for a few months, and already it feels as if so much has changed. He's grown closer to those he never had much chance to before, he's seen new sides to people he grew up with, he's met new friends who don't care or aren't intimidated but his position like most were, back home. He's learned of his future failures, of a horrible fate that he has to prevent at all costs. All of those are treasures, gifts, he never knew that he could have.

Still, he winces and lifts a hand to his forehead, as if stricken with a sudden headache. Walk tall. Don't turn back. The marks of the gods hidden under his bracer sit heavy on his skin, reminding him that he's supposed to stay focused on the path ahead, on his duty as king and Chosen. He should want to go home.]

It's... it's complicated. Doing it now would just make it harder to leave.

[ She feels the flinch in his hand, and she turns to look as he brings a hand to his forehead. He is in pain.

She's missing something, here. A piece, an important piece. A reason that he remains conflicted, for surely, surely, surely if one has family here, if one has both loved ones and friends, surely they would wish to tell them what they feel. She's never quite had a true family before, let alone loved ones, until recently-- and when she had realized she had them, it was far too late. Corpses and ghosts make no families, found or otherwise; they make graves.

Then again, she is not human in the first place; perhaps the concept of family and love eludes her still. In which case she's not only missing something, she's understanding something about his ordeal wrong.

Now she looks upon him with worry. He seems so helpless.

Again, he is in pain. ]

...Noctis.... What am I missing?

[He's quiet again for a long moment, merely shaking his head. Why's it so hard to say? To her, to the one he needs to, even to himself. A fear of the future, of screwing things up, of losing what little he has in an attempt to get more. He doesn't know the rules, here. He doesn't know what can change. That's what makes it frightening: is it better for it to be meaningless, or to risk creating a future worse for everyone? What should he be hoping for, as one whose fate is tied to that of his own world? He doesn't even know how that's going to work out, so he doesn't know what change he should be hoping for, either.

Finally he lowers his hand again, his lips tightly pursed.]

My father's here. Younger, though. 25, maybe 30 years. He doesn't know who I am- he doesn't even know he'll have a kid yet.

[So yeah, he could say he loved him. But how much would it matter, coming from a stranger?]

Back home... he died around a month before I got here.

[ This is the piece, a discrepancy in the times from which those in the same world have been pulled. A father without a son, and a son without a father, reunited by fate.

How Noctis had been able to met his father alive-once-more without immediately giving himself away, she doesn't know, but she sees the conflict in his eyes and hears the hurt in his voice. Noctis' lips are tightly pursed, but it seems that he wants to reunite with him. ]

[ There is a bench within a void.

A bench with Pyra and Noctis, the world crafting up from around them like bricks toppling upwards in reverse. The image of the young man is frozen in this void, expression caught in silent helplessness and conflict. His expression is crafted to match that of his in reality: he is lost, he doesn't know what he should do from here, although his want to do something is obvious. A tinge of fear mixed with that uncertainty in his eyes, perhaps, is the only projection onto him by the artist of this illusion.

Someone else sits just on the opposite side of the bench. Silently, she leans her back against the construct's shoulder while Pyra continues to hold onto the illusion's hand.

"Only a month, huh..."

Her voice breaks the silence of the void. Tired and spent, the sound's echo is no more than a murmur. ]

[ Pyra's hands, both in reality and within the scape, tighten upon his.

She waits, she listens.

To Noctis, her eyes shift with sorrow for him. ]

[ "He never got a chance to mourn."

The mindscape shatters-- ]

[ --and Pyra is left staring at Noctis, wide-eyed with the insight presented by her other. She herself hadn't noticed, caught up in wanting to help him in some way. That, however, is no longer the issue.

She whispers, and her hand lifts to him. Fingers dust at his cheek. ]

You've never... gotten a chance to properly mourn, have you?

[ Grieving... It is nigh impossible when one is duty-bound. That he hasn't properly grieved perfectly explains why he doesn't know how he should approach meeting a deceased family member, for he has never truly processed that death in the first place. She assumes this, because she too knows that feeling. She knows of feeling trapped by grief. She still is--... and she would never wish that on anyone.

Now confronted with family and the promise of reconnecting, he's stagnant as light in the arctic. ]

[His gaze shifts downwards, to her hand on his cheek, silently taking it in for a moment as a wide-eyed, conflicted expression crosses his face. He could deny it, pull away and shrug it off. He could leave. This conversation hurts, a twisting dagger he's been trying to ignore for months now. He's in public. This isn't the time or the place.

At the same time, her words resonate with him in a way he hadn't expected. When's the last time he cried for his father, for Insomnia? Since they'd slain Marilith, a few moments of quiet in the middle of nowhere with the corpse of a childhood nightmare at his back? Is once enough to grieve the untimely end of the only parent he's ever known? He'd come close a few times, but the burden of the crown - the one he'd always felt ill-suited for - and his duties had always dragged him back from that edge. His marriage had been meant to save his father as much as Lucis itself, to aid in the treaty, to merge their countries in peace after so long. If there was no war, there'd be no wall. If there was no wall, his father could rest. He would no longer be slowly dying as the Crystal and the ring drained his life day by day. Instead, it was all for nothing, a ruse to get him out of the city and safe as their people suffered. As the woman he was meant to marry was there inside those walls, struggling to escape. As his father died, betrayed and alone.

In the end he doesn't withdraw, but his eyes shift away from her instead, staring off down the road with a distant look on his face.]

...No.

[What more can he say? It's a simple truth.]

[ "No."

This is the answer she should have expected. One month is nothing, it's but the span of a breath when reeling in sorrow. The loss, the pressure, the exhaustion that comes with fighting said pressure to keep it all at bay, focusing on what must be done next, never stopping, never letting it surmount to the point of succumbing-- she's felt it for herself, before.

She blinks once, twice, and she finds that she no longer can see him, for her vision has misted. The hero she had called him is no illusion, but like the tears that gather in her eyes, that image is now blurred. His burden is shrouded in sorrow. ]

[ This young man cannot meet her eyes in his grief. Is he ashamed? Is he guilt-ridden for feeling that grief at all, when he has a destiny which to attend? As he's turned away and she cannot read his expression, she may only guess or project; but knowing what this feels like...

Pyra's fingers leave his cheek.

He might think this is the time and place.

He might be far better at concealing his emotions, at keeping it all in.

But moved as she is by him and his plight, she cannot. ]

[ Abandoning her hand upon his, she pulls him closer: one hand going to his back, the other to behind his head, and she gently pulls him into a quiet embrace, slowly letting his forehead rest upon her shoulder. Like this, his expression-- his sorrow-- will be hidden if need be.

Like this, she will let him mourn.

Like this, with a shaky, quiet, and broken voice, she tells him exactly what she's told the one with whom he shares a face: ]

Y-you have... all of my sympathies.

Edited 2019-11-10 03:22 (UTC)

[She just... keeps on surprising him, one after another, and he's apparently helpless against it. He's too lost in his thoughts to resist her pull, and before he knows it, he's being hugged, arms wound around him to draw him in and pillow his head against her, so his shock and pain are hidden from the rest of the world.

He doesn't move at first, frozen in place- initially, his body is tense and resistant, like an animal on the edge of bolting, her arm on his back dragging to the forefront old memories and instinct too deeply ingrained to fight. (People don't touch him there. They don't try, or they know better.) Gradually though, slowly, the tension eases and very tentatively a single hand lifts to approach her shoulder, hovering there for a series of long moments until finally the softest of contact is made. It's the touch of awkward inexperience. For most of his life he has not given nor received very many such embraces.]

...Why... are you doing this...?

[He doesn't understand. They've only just met, he's supposed to be a prince - a king - he's supposed to walk tall and be strong and be so much, so much more than he is. Baring his heart to a stranger and weeping in the street isn't very kingly, and yet.

The sound of her voice... there's that resonance again. Painful, familiar. The voice of someone who does understand, maybe.]

[ Because he seems lost. Because he is in pain. Because she cannot stand to see him in that sort of pain, when she knows how much it hurts. Because he seems like he needs it. Because he seems as if it's been one month too late that he has needed it. Because his choice to help others is the same as his supposed destiny, which is proof of the goodness and light within his heart. Because she hopes that this is the first step to mourning, that he might reconcile the death of his father... so that he might forge a bond with his father once more, here and now.

Her hand strokes up and down his back tenderly, eventually resting between his shoulderblades. The gesture is sisterly, or perhaps maternal; whatever it is, it is brimming with compassion. ]

[ She too, is there.

He will not feel it, he will not see it-- for this is all within the mind's eye-- but her hand is upon his shoulder.

This, is the most she can do before she returns to her slumber. ]

[ She draws a breath, her shoulders shaking slightly. ] It-.. it is painful.

[ The fine tremble in her voice is unmistakable. There is no one of her world here, and no one knows of her purpose or duties. She has no shame in letting emotion escape her. ]

But it is so much more painful... to never allow yourself to mourn. [ To keep it all inside, she means. ] Or to experience it alone.

[ Architect, no, she would never want anyone to suffer alone. It would be better had it been one of his friends or family members to do this, she thinks-- far better, since she is a stranger. Yet she hopes that this may serve as the start to him opening up to his grief. ]

[There it is again. Easier to see this time, through the cloud of his own half-buried grief, through the ache in his chest and the lump in his throat. He blinks rapidly, fighting stubbornly against the damp sheen in his eyes. This gesture, kind and caring despite their unfamiliarity. He has no memory of ever having a mother, but it reminds him of the softer hands he'd once had in his life: the attendant who cared for him when Ignis was still too young, who let him rest against her at the end of a long day, who gave her life for him, whose name had been lost to him after the attack and in the aftermath he couldn't bear to ask, too frightened of what else he might remember. Luna and her mother, who had gently and sweetly welcomed him into their home when terror and trauma had wounded him body and soul, when the daemon marked him and trapped him in a starscourge dream, when he'd needed kindness more than he ever had in his entire life. He knows this. It's been a long time, but he knows it.

His hand on her shoulder tightens a little, his voice hushed and uncertain.]

You too?

Mm. [ Us, too, she thinks to herself. To Noctis she only nods, and he will feel the affirming shift with her head.

He's warm, he is fragile. He's strong, he is rain after dark. His hand upon her shoulder burns with a mortal weight she might never know, but nonetheless respects and honors. In turn, her arms tighten slightly around his back, holding him.

She does not elaborate further of how she has come to understand grief, of what or who she has lost, because this is not about her. His wound is fresh, and besides: he is uncertain about his future, whereas she has already decided upon hers. She cannot tell him to take his time to grieve for long, not when his father is here. There is no telling when any of them might leave. She can only hope to encourage him. ] One day...

One day after you are able to tell him that you love him, I would like to hear about him from you. [ Mourning and grieving through many stages with sadness and anger being predominate, but at the end-- at the end is accepting and honoring. She looks forward to when he will achieve it. ] About how much of a father he was to you.

[ A pause, and her embrace lightens, her hand patting the back of his head, smoothing down his hair. ] ...And can still be to you.

[ Because he is here. ]

[Food for thought, that one. His only response is a quiet noise to acknowledge her words- not an agreement, but not a denial either. He could tell her now, perhaps, but his words would be stilted, burdened by the complex and incomplete relationship left in the wake of his father's death. He loves his father, he does. He loves his wisdom and determination, his quiet strength despite his failing body, his loyalty to others and the loyalty that others lay at his feet in return. His gift to Noctis, a life free of the restraints of the Citadel palace, an attempt at normalcy rather than the stuffy, out-of-touch existence of a prince.

But that love is balanced harshly against his criticism of the king's decision to save him, to shelter him from this fate the gods had ordained from him, from the Niflheim betrayal. To lie to him and tell him to leave and marry Luna, all the while knowing she would be brought into the city that very day. The deception hurts, and not knowing for certain why, not being able to find out... that hurts, too. That maybe his father didn't trust him to follow through on his destiny. That maybe he'd be unable to accept his role in all of this, that maybe he'd stay and fight and die out of stubborn pride and a need to protect people rather than his own life.

That maybe his father's right about all of that.

He can't get any of the closure he needs from the man who exists in this place, not as he is. But what he could get... it isn't nothing. It can't be nothing.]

...I'll... give it some thought.

[Telling him. Being honest with him. And maybe, eventually, he'll be able to talk about the man he'll become someday.]

[ It's a good enough answer as any.

When he's ready, she loosens her arms from around him, her hands coming to just over his shoulder as she searches his expression. Her own eyes are misty, sincere in her empathy for him, and slowly her smile returns to grace her lips. Closing her eyes, she tilts her head to rest her forehead against his, one hand at the side of his face as she closes her eyes. She inhales when he inhales, she breathes out when he does the same. Synchronized like a dance, the exercise in mourning comes to an end at last. What remains is the exhaustion of sorrow, as is usual.

She murmurs: ]

What you've told me today... I will keep secret.

[ Remaining like this for a few moments more, she draws away. Back to hand-holding it is, only this time the warmth in their touch is far more palpable than before, as it is not just for the purpose of providing sustenance for the Four. This first embrace is always the most difficult, and admitting that there is a need to mourn just as much, but he's managed through it; she hopes more will follow with those far closer to him.

In the end, he did not need to declare anything aloud, for this is enough. ]

[Something about that breathing technique is familiar, too, though he can't quite place it and gives up trying after a couple of breaths, instead closing his eyes and following her lead. It's calming. It works. And as he opens his eyes again, as she pulls back, he can't help staring at her in surprise again, marveling at the whole of her. He didn't know people like that existed in other worlds. As if he'd found himself another Oracle, someone who knows exactly what to do and how to handle him as if she'd done so for years. It's daunting, it's fascinating. It would be unnerving if he didn't feel so... undeniably better right now.

She didn't fix anything. He's not broken. But it helped. That's an unusual accomplishment, as of late.]

...Thank you. [His voice is quiet, but sincere. For the hug, for the words, for her kindness, for her willingness to keep quiet while he decides.] Maybe... it'll be okay.

[He lifts his free hand to wipe unsubtly at his eyes, erase any trace of maybe-tears away while they're still out in public view. It's fine. It could be fine. His own world kicked enough new complexities and dangers upon him after each success that he knows not to become too eager, but a slice of cautious optimism won't kill him.]

[ Again, it's as good an answer as any. He seems like he is less in pain right now as well. Will he actually speak with his father? Her condition for learning more of his father from him is that he will first tell his father that he loves him. She hopes this will come to pass.

She also hopes, that he will take to heart of what she had mentioned before: that there does exist a power to change fate. He needs only to find it.

Seamlessly she moves on, so that he might be distracted from his own trace of tears, and that no more come when he is no comfortable showing them. ]

You know... I've learned from someone here-- a young man with blonde hair and freckles-- [ Prompto, actually. ] that there are three things that make a home.

Can you guess what they are?

Edited 2019-11-10 22:17 (UTC)

[Noct's brows lift at the description. Blonde hair, freckles? Yeah, that sounds familiar. He hopes the conversation went okay for him. This woman's short red hair and soft voice make him think of Kaname, and for Prompto, that might not be a good thing right now.

Still, it sounds like they had a good talk. And considering the sort of comfort he'd just received? Prompto had surely needed it, too.]

Friends and family, for sure.

[For a guy like Prompto, who had so little of either for a long time, that's gotta be the most important.]

[ She nods. ]

A home, he said, is where he feels safe, comfortable, and loved.

[ Thus, as Noctis has answered, it means with friends and family. ]

...Do you have a "home" here, Noctis?

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