Who: Qrow & various people What: December catch-all When: Throughout December Where: Around town, in memories, Trench Silent Hill, etc [ooc: starters in the comments! if you'd like something specific, pls hit me up on plurk or discord to plot!]
[Qrow raises an eyebrow. On the one hand, there is a certain moxie in simply thumbing your nose to the Pthumerians and being willing to accept the consequences. On the other, Qrow has been in Deerington and Trench both too long to care for unnecessary trouble. If they stay up here, they are not getting out. He's sure of that much. After a moment, he sighs.]
I mean, if you wanna freeze to death out here, be my guest.
[He's not...moving to leave him behind, though. At least not just yet.]
[When you've got a lot of nose to thumb it sometimes seems like a better option.]
In fairness I don't know if I can freeze to death anymore.
[Is he Ford Pines enough to gamble on it, though? Fiddleford is also the kind of guy who likes to not die, and he can see the sense in taking possible death over definite death. One of his feet taps nervously on the floor. If they fought before either he is misremembering, it didn't really happen, or this guy is being magnanimous enough to overlook it in a life or death situation. Something something gift horse something something mouth.]
If you can't normally, there's no saying Trench won't turn off those powers for this trap specifically. These places hate cheating.
[He's tried to cheat its traps by being a bird at least a few times, and each time he's been punished for his hubris. But Qrow's glad this guy is willing to see sense and this isn't going to turn into a situation like the time he had to drag Jinx through a confusing forest by the ankle for hours.]
Can you fight? Stay behind me, if you can't.
[Looks like he definitely doesn't remember the last snowstorm. Also of note, if Fiddleford were someone who pays attention to such fine details, is the fact that last time, there seemed to be the strong smell of alcohol clinging all over him--someone deeply entrenched in his habit. This time, there's no such thing at all. ]
[Okay, yeah. He definitely doesn't remember. That might be a good thing, actually. Fiddleford, a big believer in not remembering things, would like to maybe get things off on a better foot this time. As better as you can do in Trench, anyway.
As for the alcohol -- well. His memories are hazy. They're jumbled like someone put them all loose in a drawer and then slammed it shut, and that's how he is at the best of times. But the smell of alcohol is one he's familiar with and the fact that he's not smelling it now is something he does note. That also is probably going to help this situation go better than last time.]
I can fight just fine.
[He removes from his back what looks like some kind of harpoon gun made out of all the leftover metal scraps that didn't go into the more normal looking weapons. The important part is that the pointy bit is very pointy.]
[Qrow, a character from RWBY, of course does not so much as blink at the harpoon gun. It looks perfectly normal to him, what are you talking about. Regular guns are boring, anyway. Qrow still can take a significant amount more of a beating than most people in this town due to his Aura, but at least he feels a little more comfortable not having to bear full responsibility for getting this man out safely.
He's tempted to ask the man to give him extra space anyway, because these are the sort of conditions that make him nervous about his Semblance--the unlucky things that can happen within a dark, cramped tunnel that presumably seems to go underground are much worse than the ones possible within a convenience store. But he hates to draw attention to the fact that he's uncomfortable about such things, so he decides to keep it to himself unless things start to get properly dicey down there.]
Crow. [He says, completely unable to hear the Q, but it's fine. He's a little confused but he got the spirit. He fully does not pick up on Qrow's nerves, either, mainly because he's already a little scrombled himself.] I warn you I'm liable to forget it, I'm no good with names. Mine's Fiddleford.
How likely do you think we are to run into... I don't know, rabid mole people or carnivorous cave worms or whatever else would live in a hole in this place?
Well, if it helps, I've also been known to respond to "hey asshole".
[He doesn't really care that much, honestly. He's leaned into his brand, but it's not as though he wasn't named after a superstition about the very thing that's haunted his entire life.]
Anyway, I'd put our odds at about...ehhh, 70/30, maybe. 50-50, if you wanna be generous. Usually the point is some kind of twisted bonding exercise, but they do like to throw in monsters for flavor. Less in Trench than Deerington, though.
[Ah. Another one who's been around since before Trench. His frame of reference for that is Ford, and he's kind of getting the same vibe here. Less stupid, maybe, but the same... desensitization? Like it's just normal, all of this. It's just how things are.]
You know I've noticed that? About the bonding exercises, I mean. It feels like a whole lotta overkill.
[This is mainly because he is the sort of man who needs to have people around him, and so the idea that one might need to be forced into it is completely alien.]
If we do get in a fight you steer clear of the line on this thing. It's electrified and if it doesn't stop your heart it'll give you some real nasty burns, and I'm not the kind of doctor that does medicine.
[He lets out a mildly amused huff, just left of a laugh.]
No kidding. Sometimes the Pthumerians get it in their heads we really need to talk about our problems. This one's actually pretty chill so far. You know, one month I had to deal with burning from the inside twice? There was one where a girl literally chopped herself into bits in our house, too.
[Definitely desensitized. He talks about this like one talks about stepping in dog shit, or having an unpleasant encounter with poison ivy. A pain to deal with, but hardly anything to be genuinely distressed over. Of course, at the time, it was pretty distressing, but it also happened in February. Ten months is an eternity of Distressing Things in a place like Trench, so it's faded into the background radiation of what life in this place is like.]
Anyway, it's pretty hard to actually injure me, but I'm not exactly looking to get zapped, so don't worry about it.
[He hesitates a moment, then decides: ah, fuck it]
I figured, if you were goin' to go swingin' that thing around.
[He nods toward the scythe, which is almost impressively oversized. If he wasn't the king of man he is he'd wonder about how one even swings that with any kind of efficiency, but he is the kind of man he is and mostly he's thinking about how much momentum something that big could build up.
It's deeply unsettling just how easily Qrow rattles off past traumas. Like they were nothing. If Fiddleford were in his shoes he wouldn't be doing that, because he'd have forgotten those things even happened and he'd be happier for it.]
I can't imagine how this is supposed to get me to talk about my problems.
[Harbinger is the least of Fiddleford’s worries, in Qrow’s opinion. He’s a professional, thank-you-very-much, but he doesn’t correct the man because his notion serves his purposes just fine.]
Anyway, something like this happened in March. The spot to climb out of didn’t show up until one of us confessed what we hated the most about ourselves. Other times, there’ll be something in the air that just makes you talk more than you otherwise would, say stuff you’d have rather held back. Or maybe we’ll get trapped somewhere and slowly run out of air until we tell each other a secret or some shit like that.
[He just shrugs, honestly. At this point he’s gotten so used to having his head messed with he no longer questions it.]
Though if this is supposed to be “subtle”, maybe we’ll just be lost until Dorothea or whoever thinks we’ve gotten to know each other well enough and not actually risk death unless we spend days stonewalling?
So you're sayin' there's a good chance we can't get out of here unless we do some sort of back and forth.
[Yeah. Yeah, that tracks for some kind of capricious deity. He hates how sensible it is, actually, especially because it's similar to things Ford has told him and he hates whenever Ford is anything approaching correct. And again to a man who is deeply and desperately in need of other people it seems like so much trouble for something he could do better if he wasn't stuck in a hole.]
How're you meant to tell what it is you're supposed to talk about? Just guess until somethin' seems to stick?
Oh, there’s much more than a good chance. I’d be impressed if we got out of here without knowing at least one thing about each other we definitely wouldn’t have told a stranger otherwise.
[Qrow, himself, is a deeply private man, so those kind of curses are a somewhat targeted attack, really. He definitely would not go out of his way to talk about himself to others without being forced, most of the time. It took him seventeen years even to tell his beloved nieces about his semblance, after all.]
But yeah, that’s the long and short of it.
[He glances toward the other man, considering, and allows something in his expression to soften. All this has felt like a fair enough price to pay for an otherwise comfortable retirement from an unwinnable apocalypse war, but not everyone is in a situation like his.]
We can start easy, if you want. I’ll go first. I’m from a planet called Remnant. Same world as Ruby, Oscar, and Ozpin, if you’ve met ‘em.
[Technically this is not very personal, explicitly, but Qrow’s deepest vulnerability has always been his loved ones. Identifying a few of them is a nod to that; if Fiddleford was a man of ill intention, he’d have just been handed an excellent means to hurt Qrow.]
[Oh. Oh, he should have guessed. He's seen Ruby's similar big ol' scythe, and (assuming it's a real memory) he's seen the two of them in the same place already, interacting. Knowing each other. That tracks. And he thinks he knows Oscar, if it's the one Oscar he's been introduced to through Dipper. Best to clarify, because that might actually speed this process up.]
Would that Oscar be, ah -- Dipper Pines' boyfriend?
[He knows Dipper is gone, but it's still weird to talk about it in the past tense. It's not like they split.]
I'm from the same Earth as him. His whole family. [The part of him that is still a physicist first of course has to chime in with --] Or at least I'm from a similar-enough iteration of that Earth to be getting on with. Infinite universes means infinite Earths, technically. It's probably why I'm thirty years back on the timeline relative to the rest of 'em. Mine's just a jump sideways, or its time runs backwards relative to this place, or -- I don't know. Could be anything.
[Starting simple is appreciated. Fiddleford needs people, true, but he also has issues trusting. He is always hoping for the best and expecting the worst. He'll be friendly, kind, helpful, but that doesn't mean he trusts you. Ford is one of the few people he does trust, and that's because he knows Ford well enough to be able to guess what Ford will do in most situations, not because he doesn't think Ford is dangerous to be around. It's all pragmatism at the end of it.]
That's the one, yeah. Our families were pretty connected for awhile there, what with Oscar and Dipper and Oz and Ford.
[He drops that tidbit casually; none of them are connected by blood, but Qrow never really feels the need to explain that until it comes up. Raven was blood, and it's not as though they've really had much connection at all since she left, almost twenty years now, counting time in Deerington and Trench. The family that matters to him is the one he chose.]
Glad he still had someone from home around when his family went back to the sea. Hard to imagine having to deal with that all at once.
[Emerald and Yang never made it to Trench, after the dream crumbles. He still checks the sea for them, every month. At least he's had the others, all this time.]
Back in Deerington, one of the running theories was that Julia's power had brought some fragment of our souls into her dreamworld, and the rest's still out there living our original lives. Cynthia--uh, the Moon Presence, now--definitely confirmed at least the last part. Dunno if that's how it works for you guys, though, since Julia's dead.
[He rolls a shoulder in a shrug.]
The parallel universes thing's equally possible, though. I mean, all of us are from different worlds, so different versions of the same world isn't that weird.
Edited 2023-01-02 02:34 (UTC)
cw: brain altering, lost time, cult shit, you know the drill
[The names wash over him. Julia he knows, grudgingly. The other he doesn't, or if he was told it he doesn't remember. He's stubbornly refused to learn too much about the history of this place in favor of surviving the present of it, mainly to try and keep the things he needs to prune out of his mind to a minimum. That way nobody will pick up on the discrepancy in his knowledge and ask him about it, not when he's not ready to restart the Society yet. Forgetting names and faces is one thing but there's only so much he can claim to have 'just forgot', like it's normal.
One of those things, though, he figures he's allowed to ask about. It's one of the other names that caught in his brain because he doesn't have any mental notes to attach to it, and that either means he lost them or this is someone he doesn't know yet. The context of it, next to Oscar and Dipper, is also a little alarming because it feels like it's something he should have known if he's inferring correctly what it means.]
In the here and now a lot of the finer distinctions aren't worth gettin' tied up over, anyway. Even if he's not specifically the Ford from my exact reality he's certainly still Ford.
[The way he says that sounds very much like he could have appended a (derogatory) (affectionate) to the end.
Now, there are two directions he could take this conversation. He taps a finger against the harpoon gun while he thinks, but the part of his brain that is now hard-wired to take the riskier option says 'do it'.]
[Qrow tilts his head in a gesture that's perhaps a bit reminiscent of the bird which he shares his name with, as though he's sliding a puzzle piece into place. So this guy knows the Pines family but either not very well, or his arrival was a recent enough development that the matter never came up.]
I mean...maybe? He and Ford broke up a year and a half ago, but it's still--[he trails off briefly and makes a vague hand gesture, as though searching for a polite way to put this.] Complicated? Messy.
[There is a touch of that same exasperation-laced affection there, too, because they're obviously still into each other and they could've patched things up by now if they weren't The Way They Are.]
[Fiddleford stops dead. Yes, they are in a dark tunnel and yes, they could at any moment get attacked by flesh-eating cave worms or whatever, but he has to stop to process this new information that just got dropped on him like a fucking grand piano in a Tom and Jerry cartoon.]
And he never mentioned -- That man spent hours givin' me a thorough rundown on every inconsequential little detail of this place he could think of and he never -- ugh.
[Was it hours? It felt like it. He remembers coming out of the sea and immediately getting a ton of information dropped on him that he barely absorbed, and between Ford and Dipper it hadn't really let up until he managed to get himself out of their combined presence. He closes his eyes and lets go of the harpoon gun with one hand so he can lift it and rub the bridge of his nose. He's going to get a headache. Ford Pines is going to give him a headache, again, and he's not even here.
It's hard to articulate why he's even annoyed. It's not like it's really any of his business, Ford's love life, but if they're friends then it feels like something Ford should share with him. Nevermind that he's been distant if not nasty to Ford for most of his time here. He has a good reason, he's sure, even if he doesn't remember entirely what it was. In his opinion it's on Ford to try and bridge the thirty year gap between them, and he's been doing a mediocre job of it so far.]
Doesn't surprise me it's complicated. Stanford never lets anythin' be simple. That man could get lost on the way from his bedroom to the kitchen. What'd he do?
[He is fully assuming the breakup was Ford's fault because. Because.]
[Qrow can't help a little amused huff at Fiddleford's irritation, if only because if he was in the man's shoes, new to Trench and learning about the breakup for the first time, he probably would've reacted the same way? Oz would absolutely go through a briefing of the "important" things in Trench while trying to carefully slither free from mentioning anything significant that had happened to him personally. Fiddleford's reaction honestly tells him a lot both about their relationship and about Ford in particular.]
For what it's worth, they've both spent all that time trying real hard to convince themselves they're over each other, so.
[Another gesture with his hands, of the "what are you gonna do" variety.]
It wasn't Ford, though. I mean, it probably didn't help to just let it all stay awkward knowing the way this town works, rather than just asking for an apology, but Oz could've sucked it up and apologized already instead of deciding everything's ruined forever to avoid being uncomfortable for five minutes. I told him to just do it months ago and he's still dragging his heels.
[And making shit weird at weddings from bottling everything up!!! Goddamn it Oz.]
So what you're sayin' is Stanford managed to get tangled up with someone as obnoxious as he is.
[That is... a very uncharitable but not untrue reading of things. It also raises some questions, because he had assumed Ford hadn't told him because he was doing his usual 'I pretend I do not see it' shtick about one of his own mistakes. If it wasn't Ford's fault then why not mention it?
He sighs and starts walking again, a little because it's most sensible to not linger too long and a little because now he's got nervous energy he needs to walk off.]
Though frankly he would need someone on the same out-there wavelength as he is if he ever planned to settle down. I always figured he'd just find himself a girl who was into crystals and incense and chack-ruhs or somethin'. It's not like there weren't entire herds of 'em roamin' wild in America in our time who would've all just loved to hear him talk about all the nonsense he likes.
[And somewhere deep down he did want that for Ford -- still does want that for Ford, because Ford is his best friend, and everybody deserves love and companionship even if they are obnoxious and shortsighted and weird. Part of his upset is also now concern, which is further compounding his annoyance because he'll have to act on that concern one way or another and he knows it'll be like pulling teeth to do it.]
I mean, the guy he found was an immortal wizard who ran a school of monster-hunters, so it's not exactly far off from there.
[Not that Qrow has the first idea what chack-ruhs are, but like, he's met Ford. He is Aware of the vibes at play here. The very first time they met, Qrow had gotten a tiny bit of petty revenge on Oz for the issues they were grappling with by telling him about the man's magic being the reason he could turn into a bird, knowing that Ford would chase that tidbit like a dog after a fresh bone. Some months thereafter, Ford had reacted to knowledge of his semblance by asking to do probability experiments on it.]
I dunno if they ever really meant to settle down, our situation was kind of complicated for all that, but...[he shrugs] They made each other happy, I think. While it lasted. Seems like ever since they've been doing that dance where they won't just admit they miss each other so they'll drag it out until the town tortures them enough about it, I guess.
[Meanwhile, Doorway didn't even give him and Break a month to sort it out when feelings entered the equation. Rude tbh.
...Then again, Oz would probably accept being set on fire internally ten times over before willing to talk about having a feeling. The circumstances that drove his reconciliation with Oz were somewhat unique.]
['An immortal monster-hunting wizard who also is in academia' is basically all Qrow needed to say. Yeah. Yeah, that follows so logically. Sounds like a match made in heaven. 'Settle down' was maybe a strong phrase for whatever he thinks Ford would wind up doing; he could never imagine Ford with a little house and a picket fence. Ford will never settle, but if he finds someone who is as restless as he is, then that's fine.]
Sounds right. I don't know this Oz fellow but I know Stanford and I know he can't ever just get to the point of things. You have to read between the lines with him if you want to get anywhere fast, or you have to back him into a conversational corner he can't wiggle his way out of.
Brothers, that makes two of them. Oz is the kind of guy who can't talk about anything deeper than a puddle unless it's wrapped up in several layers of bullshit, possibly including a wholeass fairytale.
[This is a man who wrote an anthology of thinly veiled personal anecdotes masquerading as a collection of fairytales he'd personally curated and then made it required reading for every Huntsman. He's a lot.]
I used to think I sucked at that kind of thing, but it's like the centuries pretty much only made him worse at it.
[This is stated with a similar kind of fond exasperation as before, though. Sometimes you have to learn the person who changed your life and made you a better person is actually kind of a hot mess trainwreck because immortality fucked them up before you can properly forgive them for hurting you.]
No, really. Fiddleford hasn't been here as long as others, but from the glimpses he's got into their lives he's coming to see that no Sleeper is without their past traumas. It seems to be a requirement, here. Everyone has something. Maybe that's why this place is so keen to make them talk about it.
Good lord he has to work on getting the Society set up and running with how many people clearly need it.]
Age doesn't mean wisdom. And if neither one of them's goin' to make the first move -- and Stanford'll never make the first move -- then it seems to me they're stuck where they're at.
That sounds about right. Especially when what counts as a 'first move' for most people is still like ten steps removed from an actual first move with them.
[Unlike the last, this one genuinely is somewhat judgy. Like. There's town fuckery and then there's letting your ex drink your blood to help solve a recurring vampire problem and just going back to not talking after that. He's had more progress with fuckin' Neopolitan, and she literally murdered his niece once.]
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no subject
I mean, if you wanna freeze to death out here, be my guest.
[He's not...moving to leave him behind, though. At least not just yet.]
no subject
In fairness I don't know if I can freeze to death anymore.
[Is he Ford Pines enough to gamble on it, though? Fiddleford is also the kind of guy who likes to not die, and he can see the sense in taking possible death over definite death. One of his feet taps nervously on the floor. If they fought before either he is misremembering, it didn't really happen, or this guy is being magnanimous enough to overlook it in a life or death situation. Something something gift horse something something mouth.]
Probably shouldn't test it now. Alright. Fine.
no subject
[He's tried to cheat its traps by being a bird at least a few times, and each time he's been punished for his hubris. But Qrow's glad this guy is willing to see sense and this isn't going to turn into a situation like the time he had to drag Jinx through a confusing forest by the ankle for hours.]
Can you fight? Stay behind me, if you can't.
[Looks like he definitely doesn't remember the last snowstorm. Also of note, if Fiddleford were someone who pays attention to such fine details, is the fact that last time, there seemed to be the strong smell of alcohol clinging all over him--someone deeply entrenched in his habit. This time, there's no such thing at all. ]
no subject
As for the alcohol -- well. His memories are hazy. They're jumbled like someone put them all loose in a drawer and then slammed it shut, and that's how he is at the best of times. But the smell of alcohol is one he's familiar with and the fact that he's not smelling it now is something he does note. That also is probably going to help this situation go better than last time.]
I can fight just fine.
[He removes from his back what looks like some kind of harpoon gun made out of all the leftover metal scraps that didn't go into the more normal looking weapons. The important part is that the pointy bit is very pointy.]
no subject
He's tempted to ask the man to give him extra space anyway, because these are the sort of conditions that make him nervous about his Semblance--the unlucky things that can happen within a dark, cramped tunnel that presumably seems to go underground are much worse than the ones possible within a convenience store. But he hates to draw attention to the fact that he's uncomfortable about such things, so he decides to keep it to himself unless things start to get properly dicey down there.]
Alright, let's do this. Name's Qrow, by the way.
no subject
How likely do you think we are to run into... I don't know, rabid mole people or carnivorous cave worms or whatever else would live in a hole in this place?
[The possibilities truly are endless, hole-wise.]
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[He doesn't really care that much, honestly. He's leaned into his brand, but it's not as though he wasn't named after a superstition about the very thing that's haunted his entire life.]
Anyway, I'd put our odds at about...ehhh, 70/30, maybe. 50-50, if you wanna be generous. Usually the point is some kind of twisted bonding exercise, but they do like to throw in monsters for flavor. Less in Trench than Deerington, though.
no subject
You know I've noticed that? About the bonding exercises, I mean. It feels like a whole lotta overkill.
[This is mainly because he is the sort of man who needs to have people around him, and so the idea that one might need to be forced into it is completely alien.]
If we do get in a fight you steer clear of the line on this thing. It's electrified and if it doesn't stop your heart it'll give you some real nasty burns, and I'm not the kind of doctor that does medicine.
no subject
No kidding. Sometimes the Pthumerians get it in their heads we really need to talk about our problems. This one's actually pretty chill so far. You know, one month I had to deal with burning from the inside twice? There was one where a girl literally chopped herself into bits in our house, too.
[Definitely desensitized. He talks about this like one talks about stepping in dog shit, or having an unpleasant encounter with poison ivy. A pain to deal with, but hardly anything to be genuinely distressed over. Of course, at the time, it was pretty distressing, but it also happened in February. Ten months is an eternity of Distressing Things in a place like Trench, so it's faded into the background radiation of what life in this place is like.]
Anyway, it's pretty hard to actually injure me, but I'm not exactly looking to get zapped, so don't worry about it.
[He hesitates a moment, then decides: ah, fuck it]
You'll want to give me room, too.
no subject
[He nods toward the scythe, which is almost impressively oversized. If he wasn't the king of man he is he'd wonder about how one even swings that with any kind of efficiency, but he is the kind of man he is and mostly he's thinking about how much momentum something that big could build up.
It's deeply unsettling just how easily Qrow rattles off past traumas. Like they were nothing. If Fiddleford were in his shoes he wouldn't be doing that, because he'd have forgotten those things even happened and he'd be happier for it.]
I can't imagine how this is supposed to get me to talk about my problems.
no subject
Anyway, something like this happened in March. The spot to climb out of didn’t show up until one of us confessed what we hated the most about ourselves. Other times, there’ll be something in the air that just makes you talk more than you otherwise would, say stuff you’d have rather held back. Or maybe we’ll get trapped somewhere and slowly run out of air until we tell each other a secret or some shit like that.
[He just shrugs, honestly. At this point he’s gotten so used to having his head messed with he no longer questions it.]
Though if this is supposed to be “subtle”, maybe we’ll just be lost until Dorothea or whoever thinks we’ve gotten to know each other well enough and not actually risk death unless we spend days stonewalling?
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[Yeah. Yeah, that tracks for some kind of capricious deity. He hates how sensible it is, actually, especially because it's similar to things Ford has told him and he hates whenever Ford is anything approaching correct. And again to a man who is deeply and desperately in need of other people it seems like so much trouble for something he could do better if he wasn't stuck in a hole.]
How're you meant to tell what it is you're supposed to talk about? Just guess until somethin' seems to stick?
no subject
[Qrow, himself, is a deeply private man, so those kind of curses are a somewhat targeted attack, really. He definitely would not go out of his way to talk about himself to others without being forced, most of the time. It took him seventeen years even to tell his beloved nieces about his semblance, after all.]
But yeah, that’s the long and short of it.
[He glances toward the other man, considering, and allows something in his expression to soften. All this has felt like a fair enough price to pay for an otherwise comfortable retirement from an unwinnable apocalypse war, but not everyone is in a situation like his.]
We can start easy, if you want. I’ll go first. I’m from a planet called Remnant. Same world as Ruby, Oscar, and Ozpin, if you’ve met ‘em.
[Technically this is not very personal, explicitly, but Qrow’s deepest vulnerability has always been his loved ones. Identifying a few of them is a nod to that; if Fiddleford was a man of ill intention, he’d have just been handed an excellent means to hurt Qrow.]
no subject
Would that Oscar be, ah -- Dipper Pines' boyfriend?
[He knows Dipper is gone, but it's still weird to talk about it in the past tense. It's not like they split.]
I'm from the same Earth as him. His whole family. [The part of him that is still a physicist first of course has to chime in with --] Or at least I'm from a similar-enough iteration of that Earth to be getting on with. Infinite universes means infinite Earths, technically. It's probably why I'm thirty years back on the timeline relative to the rest of 'em. Mine's just a jump sideways, or its time runs backwards relative to this place, or -- I don't know. Could be anything.
[Starting simple is appreciated. Fiddleford needs people, true, but he also has issues trusting. He is always hoping for the best and expecting the worst. He'll be friendly, kind, helpful, but that doesn't mean he trusts you. Ford is one of the few people he does trust, and that's because he knows Ford well enough to be able to guess what Ford will do in most situations, not because he doesn't think Ford is dangerous to be around. It's all pragmatism at the end of it.]
no subject
[He drops that tidbit casually; none of them are connected by blood, but Qrow never really feels the need to explain that until it comes up. Raven was blood, and it's not as though they've really had much connection at all since she left, almost twenty years now, counting time in Deerington and Trench. The family that matters to him is the one he chose.]
Glad he still had someone from home around when his family went back to the sea. Hard to imagine having to deal with that all at once.
[Emerald and Yang never made it to Trench, after the dream crumbles. He still checks the sea for them, every month. At least he's had the others, all this time.]
Back in Deerington, one of the running theories was that Julia's power had brought some fragment of our souls into her dreamworld, and the rest's still out there living our original lives. Cynthia--uh, the Moon Presence, now--definitely confirmed at least the last part. Dunno if that's how it works for you guys, though, since Julia's dead.
[He rolls a shoulder in a shrug.]
The parallel universes thing's equally possible, though. I mean, all of us are from different worlds, so different versions of the same world isn't that weird.
cw: brain altering, lost time, cult shit, you know the drill
One of those things, though, he figures he's allowed to ask about. It's one of the other names that caught in his brain because he doesn't have any mental notes to attach to it, and that either means he lost them or this is someone he doesn't know yet. The context of it, next to Oscar and Dipper, is also a little alarming because it feels like it's something he should have known if he's inferring correctly what it means.]
In the here and now a lot of the finer distinctions aren't worth gettin' tied up over, anyway. Even if he's not specifically the Ford from my exact reality he's certainly still Ford.
[The way he says that sounds very much like he could have appended a (derogatory) (affectionate) to the end.
Now, there are two directions he could take this conversation. He taps a finger against the harpoon gun while he thinks, but the part of his brain that is now hard-wired to take the riskier option says 'do it'.]
I don't think I know an Oz. Should I?
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I mean...maybe? He and Ford broke up a year and a half ago, but it's still--[he trails off briefly and makes a vague hand gesture, as though searching for a polite way to put this.] Complicated? Messy.
[There is a touch of that same exasperation-laced affection there, too, because they're obviously still into each other and they could've patched things up by now if they weren't The Way They Are.]
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And he never mentioned -- That man spent hours givin' me a thorough rundown on every inconsequential little detail of this place he could think of and he never -- ugh.
[Was it hours? It felt like it. He remembers coming out of the sea and immediately getting a ton of information dropped on him that he barely absorbed, and between Ford and Dipper it hadn't really let up until he managed to get himself out of their combined presence. He closes his eyes and lets go of the harpoon gun with one hand so he can lift it and rub the bridge of his nose. He's going to get a headache. Ford Pines is going to give him a headache, again, and he's not even here.
It's hard to articulate why he's even annoyed. It's not like it's really any of his business, Ford's love life, but if they're friends then it feels like something Ford should share with him. Nevermind that he's been distant if not nasty to Ford for most of his time here. He has a good reason, he's sure, even if he doesn't remember entirely what it was. In his opinion it's on Ford to try and bridge the thirty year gap between them, and he's been doing a mediocre job of it so far.]
Doesn't surprise me it's complicated. Stanford never lets anythin' be simple. That man could get lost on the way from his bedroom to the kitchen. What'd he do?
[He is fully assuming the breakup was Ford's fault because. Because.]
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For what it's worth, they've both spent all that time trying real hard to convince themselves they're over each other, so.
[Another gesture with his hands, of the "what are you gonna do" variety.]
It wasn't Ford, though. I mean, it probably didn't help to just let it all stay awkward knowing the way this town works, rather than just asking for an apology, but Oz could've sucked it up and apologized already instead of deciding everything's ruined forever to avoid being uncomfortable for five minutes. I told him to just do it months ago and he's still dragging his heels.
[And making shit weird at weddings from bottling everything up!!! Goddamn it Oz.]
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[That is... a very uncharitable but not untrue reading of things. It also raises some questions, because he had assumed Ford hadn't told him because he was doing his usual 'I pretend I do not see it' shtick about one of his own mistakes. If it wasn't Ford's fault then why not mention it?
He sighs and starts walking again, a little because it's most sensible to not linger too long and a little because now he's got nervous energy he needs to walk off.]
Though frankly he would need someone on the same out-there wavelength as he is if he ever planned to settle down. I always figured he'd just find himself a girl who was into crystals and incense and chack-ruhs or somethin'. It's not like there weren't entire herds of 'em roamin' wild in America in our time who would've all just loved to hear him talk about all the nonsense he likes.
[And somewhere deep down he did want that for Ford -- still does want that for Ford, because Ford is his best friend, and everybody deserves love and companionship even if they are obnoxious and shortsighted and weird. Part of his upset is also now concern, which is further compounding his annoyance because he'll have to act on that concern one way or another and he knows it'll be like pulling teeth to do it.]
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[Not that Qrow has the first idea what chack-ruhs are, but like, he's met Ford. He is Aware of the vibes at play here. The very first time they met, Qrow had gotten a tiny bit of petty revenge on Oz for the issues they were grappling with by telling him about the man's magic being the reason he could turn into a bird, knowing that Ford would chase that tidbit like a dog after a fresh bone. Some months thereafter, Ford had reacted to knowledge of his semblance by asking to do probability experiments on it.]
I dunno if they ever really meant to settle down, our situation was kind of complicated for all that, but...[he shrugs] They made each other happy, I think. While it lasted. Seems like ever since they've been doing that dance where they won't just admit they miss each other so they'll drag it out until the town tortures them enough about it, I guess.
[Meanwhile, Doorway didn't even give him and Break a month to sort it out when feelings entered the equation. Rude tbh.
...Then again, Oz would probably accept being set on fire internally ten times over before willing to talk about having a feeling. The circumstances that drove his reconciliation with Oz were somewhat unique.]
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Sounds right. I don't know this Oz fellow but I know Stanford and I know he can't ever just get to the point of things. You have to read between the lines with him if you want to get anywhere fast, or you have to back him into a conversational corner he can't wiggle his way out of.
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Brothers, that makes two of them. Oz is the kind of guy who can't talk about anything deeper than a puddle unless it's wrapped up in several layers of bullshit, possibly including a wholeass fairytale.
[This is a man who wrote an anthology of thinly veiled personal anecdotes masquerading as a collection of fairytales he'd personally curated and then made it required reading for every Huntsman. He's a lot.]
I used to think I sucked at that kind of thing, but it's like the centuries pretty much only made him worse at it.
[This is stated with a similar kind of fond exasperation as before, though. Sometimes you have to learn the person who changed your life and made you a better person is actually kind of a hot mess trainwreck because immortality fucked them up before you can properly forgive them for hurting you.]
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No, really. Fiddleford hasn't been here as long as others, but from the glimpses he's got into their lives he's coming to see that no Sleeper is without their past traumas. It seems to be a requirement, here. Everyone has something. Maybe that's why this place is so keen to make them talk about it.
Good lord he has to work on getting the Society set up and running with how many people clearly need it.]
Age doesn't mean wisdom. And if neither one of them's goin' to make the first move -- and Stanford'll never make the first move -- then it seems to me they're stuck where they're at.
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[Unlike the last, this one genuinely is somewhat judgy. Like. There's town fuckery and then there's letting your ex drink your blood to help solve a recurring vampire problem and just going back to not talking after that. He's had more progress with fuckin' Neopolitan, and she literally murdered his niece once.]
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cw: internalized homophobia because 1970s america, unreality/lost time
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cw: arguably self harm, more memory issues stuff
cw: reference to alcoholism
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