video | un:thewrench

[in_theworks]

[when the feed clicks on, Wrench shifts to one side and then the other in it, as if he's looking at himself in a mirror -- and all things considered, he may very well be. either way, though, he stops after a beat, and addresses his adoring public in earnest, the mask jumping back and forth between (>_-) and just a flat out (-_-)]

Sooooooooo, I may have made a terrible life decision. I don't feel any different, but uh ... you know that floor in the lighthouse with the creepy warning about wishes and making them? Yeah.

[yeah, he really went there. for the next 24 hours he's a cheap knock off of Peter Petrelli from Heroes]

Anyone wanna come help me figure out what my maybe-probably new super powers are?

Comments

[in_theworks]

Some horror movie level shit.

[it wasn't that bad, actually, but it was still unsettling, all the same]

There were a bunch of unconscious dudes in there, who looked like they'd met with the business end of a zombie.

[and because everyone keeps giving him shit for calling them zombies and because this might be serious, he corrects himself]

Lost a fight with the undead.

[downswing]

So depleted of energies they succumbed to endless sleep?

[in_theworks]

You know, I didn't actually think of that.

[if only because it looked to him like a zombie attack, not a vampire attack, say, but. well, who knows how the undead actually work? all he has to go on is fiction from his world]

Yeah, maybe.

I'd go back and, like, IDK, try and figure it out, but I don't wanna press my luck.

[downswing]

Your first thought was assault. Instinct often best guides us.

[in_theworks]

Okay, yeah, when you put it THAT way ...

[then he did think of that. yay!]

Wonder if it was the mermaids.

I mean, IDK if they're capable of draining someone like that, but they're also the creepiest thing around here.

Besides the weird death-rebirth cycle thing, but that kinda stopped, once we got close to the lighthouse.

[downswing]

That we witness.

[in_theworks]

Look, dude, if you're gonna give me nightmare fuel every time we talk, you can at least tell me what I should be having nightmares about.

[what do you think is out there, apparently unseeen?]

[downswing]

We have no evidence the cycle does not affect us internally.

[in_theworks]

So -- what?

You think we're all gonna start having strokes? Heart attacks?? Diabetes???

[clearly, that last one is the most horrifying]

[downswing]

( The most chipper: )

Not improbable.

[in_theworks]

Why do I even talk to you, man?

Don't answer that.

Well, at least old man!me seemed to be in good shape, still

[he's thinking of the version of himself he saw in the mirrors, while they were activating the towers in Taravast. that was -- unsettling, to say that least, in several different ways, but like he said. at least he was still in shape? maybe he won't have a stroke??]

[downswing]

You are... resilient.

[in_theworks]

Aw, that's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me.

[possibly literally, in this context]

[downswing]

I pity you that truth.

[in_theworks]

Could be worse?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[downswing]

Your clan have no care for you?

[in_theworks]

[okay, maybe he was exaggerating. maybe that was the nicest thing anyone's ever said to him here. his friends back home were always good to him. more than. there's just one problem]

My clan's not here, dude.

[and he really hasn't let anyone close enough to see beyond his bullshit]

[downswing]

A sect is a body purposed to serve the same goal and precepts.

Here, we are a sect.

[in_theworks]

There's a difference between working together and being friends.

No offense, just

Yeah.

[you have not yet unlocked his tragic backstory. he wouldn't consider him 'clan' or 'sect' or whatever yet. the closest people to that, at this point, are Hermione, Slick and Emilia]

You wanna be friends, we're gonna have to move past 'I say something stupid, and you find a way to make it creepy,' first.

[downswing]

( W... wait. )

To be a sect is not to share friendship.

I do not wish to be your friend.

[in_theworks]

Oh.

Great.

Thanks.

[cool, cool. just step on the soft boy]

Then what was with the whole sect pep talk, when I mentioned my clan wasn't here?

[downswing]

To show kindness to a companion is not to befriend him.

It is to bear respect.

[in_theworks]

Man, your world is WAY different than mine.

[you can work with someone and not respect them -- hell, most people don't respect the people they work from, back home. it's all toxic office culture. it's why he hasn't had a real job in, like, ever, or at least one of the reasons]

Not that that's a bad thing. I can do mutual respect or whatever.

[downswing]

Are we so avaricious that we cannot spare sprinklings of respect?