Time won't fly, it's like I'm paralyzed by it

[klawful]

Who: klawful Karkat Vantas | givehead Dirk Strider | Open to All
What: Memory share from December's event
When: Throughout December
Where: Mostly in memory share locations

Content Warnings: Severe isolation, depression, suicidal ideation, physical/mental child/sibling abuse, emotional abuse, extreme themes of xenophobia/discrimination/hate crimes, dysphoria, graphic smashing of baby aliens, insect-like aliens, post-apocalyptic scenarios, spoilers for Homestuck??

𝕐𝕆𝕌 𝔸ℝ𝔼 𝕂𝔸ℝ𝕂𝔸𝕋 𝕍𝔸ℕ𝕋𝔸𝕊 𝔸ℕ𝔻 𝕃𝕀𝔽𝔼 𝔽𝕌ℂ𝕂𝕀ℕ𝔾 𝕊𝕌ℂ𝕂𝕊.

1. Enter The Signless - (CW: Baby death/discrimination)

(You awaken in a dark place filled with cocoons. Small, colorful Alternian troll wigglers have begun to crawl out, plopping down onto the ground. The cavern around you is massive and glittering. There is tension crackling through the air, and the more your eyes adjust to the dark, the more you realize the ground is smeared with colors that match some of the wigglers. A nearby lime-colored wigglers falls out of its cocoon with half of its legs missing. An older troll moving by stops to smash the wiggler with one fell swoop of a club. What's left of the wiggler is scraped into a bucket and the troll moves onward, navigating the complex tunnels. You were not seen.

You should probably get out of this freaky place. But there's something wiggling against your foot. Look down, and you will see something even you know is out of place. A vivid, bright red wiggler, smaller than the others. There were rust-colored wigglers moving about, but this one was candy red with small, stunted horns. Its eyes weren't even open yet. It couldn't quite get onto its legs, stuck on its back.

Maybe you're about to help the lil guy out. Or maybe you're about to ditch ship. Either way, a tall, elegant troll steps out from behind nearby rocks and instantly freezes the moment she sees you. She speaks in a smooth voice, in a deep, clicking language that begins to readjust into comprehensible words through the power of the memory-)

Who are you? (She demands, her voice spiked with hostility.) Step away from that wiggler. Now.

2. Enter the Shameful Blood (CW: Death of children, themes of bullying/harassment, discrimination, violence)

(You are at the edge of a forest with gnarled, turquoise trees. Tall purple grass brushes against your legs and in the sky above, there is a pink moon. It would almost be beautiful if it weren't for the sound of screaming and snarling heading towards you. There is a gang of young trolls, which, to the human eye, might look like a bunch of eight-year-old kids, but you know, with grey skin and a variety of horns. Most of them were wearing shirts with blue-colored symbols on them, and sprinting ahead of them was a boy with two oversized horns jutting out of the side of his head and a brown Taurus symbol on the front of his shirt.

One of the trolls leading the chase was covered in brown blood and was howling. They got to the kid, grabbing a hold of one of his horns and yank him backward, pulling him to the ground. The group descends, savagely attacking the young troll and it's clear that this isn't just bullying. They were fully intending to kill him, screeching in their distant language.

They would have likely succeeded if a sickle didn't come sailing out of the air and slice one of the heads off of one of the taller bluebloods. It falls to the ground with a thump and the others immediately stop. Crouching in the grass was a very young Karkat, wearing a heavy hoodie and baggy pants. The brown blooded troll sees his means of escape and takes it, already crying, and sails past Karkat without a word.)

I'm gonna execute every last one of you fuckers. (Karkat announces this loudly, his young voice scratchy and squeaky. He holds up his other sickle.)

You will pay for your crimes! (The bluebloods don't look impressed. The leader of the pack crosses her arms over her chest and snorts: "Wow, it's the closet case. We're so scared, Karkat.")

You should be, bitch! I just literally killed one of you!

(The girl sends an indifferent glance to her fallen companion before she rolls her eyes. That was Jaycee. She was a complete idiot. A wiggler could have killed her!)

Then why was she on her team? I thought you only wanted strong trolls on your team. (Karkat was rearing up to fight, stomping towards the trolls. The girl troll started to roll her sleeves up. "Dipshit. Everyone knows a team should be dispensable. You gotta have the lower ranks to weed out the morons like you."

One of the other companions got bored of the talking and whipped Karkat's sickle right back at him. It caught him on the shoulder, which instantly made him gasp and flinch back. Not out of pain though. Something raw and fearful entered his eyes and he dropped his other sickle to snap his hand over the injury. Suddenly, he didn't seem so eager to fight. The leader of the pack smirked wickedly.

"I think it's time we see what color you really bleed. Get him." With a snap of her fingers, her pack descended. Karkat fled into the woods. Do you help the poor kid out?)

𝕐𝕆𝕌 𝔸ℝ𝔼 ℕ𝕆𝕎 𝔻𝕀ℝ𝕂 𝕊𝕋ℝ𝕀𝔻𝔼ℝ 𝔸ℕ𝔻 𝕃𝕀𝔽𝔼 𝕊𝕋𝕀𝕃𝕃 𝔽𝕌ℂ𝕂𝕀ℕ𝔾 𝕊𝕌ℂ𝕂𝕊.

1. Last Man Standing (CW: Isolation, depression, neglect of a child, apocalypse/alien invasion)

(This memory presents itself strangely. You are in the middle of an ocean on the roof of a beautiful highrise apartment. Seagulls coast along the waves. It is peaceful. A small blonde boy sits on the edge of the roof. The memory flickers, the passing of time rapidly sped up, the sun rising and setting again and again. You begin to see the boy's life unfold, following him inside his apartment.

He can't be any older than eight. There are no adults. Just a tall robot and an intimidating-looking puppet that he occasionally speaks to. Most of the time, he is silent. He wakes up. He eats processed food from cans or things he has gardened on his little roof or fish he has gotten from the ocean. He showers for a long time. Sometimes, he does nothing all day, just staying in bed, staring out his window. Some days, he sits on the roof and stares out at the ocean, silent. Alone. Other days, he trains. He fights with a katana and it's evident that he is no ordinary boy. He moves too fast to see, clanging metal off of practice robots. He works out. He dives into the ocean to salvage metal from the fallen city of Houston.

Sometimes he hides when alien ships glide over his home. Sometimes he spends hours at a record table, making shitty mixes and listening to music. Other times he watches movies and tries to replicate human speech in stilted, awkward sentences, somehow still managing to speak with a Texan accent.

Other days he just sits and stares at his hands, doesn't eat, doesn't do anything. Some days, the robot cannot engage with him at all, and they both stare, they both stay still. The robot does not understand the emotional needs of human children. Time passes. The boy is alone. He remains alone.

Time finally slows down when he is about ten and you can finally engage with him. The world feels real around you. He is sitting on the roof, his glasses off and in his hand. He's tinkering with them, frowning hard. His blonde hair is windswept and chaotic, nothing like the perfect spiked mass he would later come to be known for. His katana is on the ground nearby, and a few seagulls are chilling around him. Do you approach this child and potentially be the first real contact he has ever had with another sentient being?

At least it's just a memory. Takes some of the pressure off, huh.)

2. Beat the Apocalypse to the Punch (CW: Graphic abuse of child/sibling, apocalypse scenario)

(This Dirk is from a different time, a different variation of earth. He's a grown man, thirty, and has managed to grow a little bigger than the Dirk from Trench. He got to about 6'3 and his body was stacked with muscle. You see a similar time-lapse, of him finding a blonde baby in the heart of a crater and deciding to adopt the baby through the bizarre circumstances. You see his egotism in believing that he found a special baby, a baby only he could raise. There are good memories. Memories of Dirk teaching the baby how to rap, making the baby mini sunglasses to match his own.

But there are bad memories. Memories of him testing the kid's reflexes and progressively subjecting him to more and more psychological and physical torment all in the name of "training." He fights with his brother constantly, pushing him into a "strong kid." He rails on him with a sword and there are several times where Dave winds up cut and bleeding, bruised and busted, trying hard to choke down tears. Dirk is impassive. He is indifferent. He just sees this as a time to grow. Tells Dave to buckle up and get better.

"You will die without me." He reminds Dave of this regularly, "This world will kill you. You have no idea what's out there."

The thing is, Dirk was kind of right. Dave jumpstarts the literal apocalypse one day when he decides to pop in the beta of a stupid game called Sburb that he and his friends decided to play. The entire world is on fire, literally, and Dirk knows he has to deal with this shit. He deals with it.

The city of Houston, Texas is burning. Literally burning, comets on fire shooting down and exploding all around them, but the biggest meteor is taking its time so Dirk takes his. Dave's screaming about needing to do something, but Dirk ignores him. He fights him, whoops his ass into the ground because he fucked up and wasn't ready for this. Dave's battered body left behind says as much, but Dirk loves his brother. He loves his brother so fucking much that he launches off their highrise and through the air. This is not a normal person.

Dirk is not a normal person.

He never was a normal person.

He cracks the meteor in half with his sword. Dave might not understand, but Dirk is trying to save his life, the life of his friends. He knows this is just the beginning, but he hopes it buys his brother some time.

After that, he splits through space and reality. Everything distorts, but Dirk doesn't waiver, and you have no choice but to follow the memory through. You both wind up on a giant spinning record. Dirk's taking the only breather he knows he's going to get. He's sweating, but unphased, polishing his sword with a piece of felt he had tugged out from his pocket.

He doesn't even glance at you, but he speaks up:)

This is about to get real ugly. (Do you ask about his brother? Prepare for a real shitty fight? Just watch him die? Let's see!)

OOC/WILDCARD:
If you want me to write up any specific memories from Homestuck, let me know! I can be reached through a PM on one of my accounts or @ clussy on Plurk. Thanks! These memories are intended to be directly interacted with. The first memory for Karkat is technically of his ancestor that eventually influences Karkat's existence, the Signless, but is intended to be a lore-centric prompt.

My bois will arrive eventually in the prompts after your character has seen these things unfold. I wanted characters to have a raw exposure to the memories first before Dirk / Karkat could interject or distract from the core memory.

Comments

[wannasmash]

The muffled echoes support the theory that the tunnels are maze-like. He doesn't have time to get lost in them.

He scoops up the wiggler, who is small enough to cradle mostly in one arm. As his training dictates, drilled into him until he can do it in his sleep, he supports and protects the wiggler's head with his hand. He holds his other forearm across as an extra shield, near the fussing child's mouth. His arm bracer can be chewed on in a pinch.

Midoriya ducks into the tunnel after her without a word. He doesn't make a sound beyond the breathing he tries to steady, scared he will draw enemies to them, despite the other noises in the caverns. He can feel the tiny, soft pats of his tears falling on his hands, and probably on the small, struggling life in his arms too.