jennifer. (
munchie) wrote in
deercountry2021-09-06 10:42 pm
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you took everything from me
Who: Jennifer Check & everyone who wants to be involved in this maneater
What: Event stuff! Open to all.
When: All of September
Where: Everywhere
Content Warnings: Cannibalism/eating humans, violent death of monsters, themes of abuse of minors, mention of weight loss, vague allusions to eating disorders, skin picking, body horror gif. All prompt warnings applicable.

“It had gotten to the point where it seemed like nothing matters, because I’m not a real person and neither is anyone else.”
I. The River of Regret
(There is a girl on a boat who looks on the cusp of death. She's the closest thing to "skin and bones" you have seen: she's pale, her hair limp and lifeless, her blue eyes vacant and glassy. You can see the shadow beneath her cheekbones, her eyes, and she doesn't seem to care or notice that you're sharing this boat ride with her.
Jennifer is empty.
She has always been empty, but now more than ever, she watches the water slide past, and she's too tired to think. Her eyes are bloodshot, but literally, streaks of blood pooled against the whites. Her lips are chapped and split, a cluster of dried, rough skin on her cheek. Her other is spattered with blackheads. She irritably picks at one until it bleeds. She drops her hand into her lap.
The smell of rot doesn't surprise her or make her shift. She does rub a finger under her nose. Rotten meat wasn't appealing to her the way fresh meat was. She squints over the river and sees the first body. A blonde girl her own age, nailed to a twisted tree. Jennifer immediately looks away, and finally, at you. She seems to remember who she is, where she is because her jaw tenses up mildly. She sits up a little straighter, but there's exhaust to the motion.)
Someone decorated for Halloween early. (She knows it's a real body. It's just a real body she refuses to acknowledge. But the ones coming up won't be so easy. That's in a few moments though. For now, she can pretend to be unphased. Even if she's pretending poorly.)

“You cut up a thing that's alive and beautiful to find out how it's alive and why it's beautiful, and before you know it, it's neither of those things, and you're standing there with blood on your face and tears in your sight and only the terrible ache of guilt to show for it.”
II. Bloodsport
(Jennifer has had better days, but if she's being honest, she's had a lot worse. She's standing there in the middle of a gladiator-style pit in her cheerleading uniform, looking both out of place and woefully unprepared for the staggering troll-like monster slamming an iron-wrought hammer against the ground. It looked like an extra on the set of the Lord of the Rings, complete with a leather loincloth and all. It slams the hammer down closer and Jennifer trips out of the way, falling right on her ass, which really, is when she starts to get pissed off.)
Would you - (She starts to snark only to have the troll lean down and scream in her face, misting her with a fine layer of troll drool.
Yeah.
That's fucking it. She wipes her hand slowly over her face before spitting onto the ground. She tips her head to the side at the monster and climbs to her feet.)
I've never been a fan of facials. (She slams into the troll's round gut and halfway there, her jaw rips open to reveal long, clustered fangs that tear through the skin like butter. It was tougher than eating a boy, but she has no problem pulling out mouthful after mouthful of the troll's stomach. She grabs onto whatever hunk of flesh she can to steady herself and relishes in the troll's screeches of agony. She couldn't eat this, but that didn't mean she didn't enjoy the ride.
The troll lands with an enormous thump. Jennifer stands up on what's left of its chest, covered head-to-toe in blood, her cheerleading uniform totally ruined. That's when she notices you.)
Oh. Sorry. (She rubs her hand across her mouth, which now lacked the fangs and ripped skin.) I would have called dibs if I saw you.
OOC: I can totally introduce Jennifer pre-destroying a monster too! I just figured I'd provide the Theatrical Approach for a general OTA.
III. OPEN SEASON
I've posted Jennifer's plotting post here. I can make personalized starters for those interested and if you're interested in some of the other things mentioned, like her working on the dive bar and the Growing Pains, feel free to throw me something for those instead! Alternatively, I'm open to having Jennifer come across your character doing something too!
What: Event stuff! Open to all.
When: All of September
Where: Everywhere
Content Warnings: Cannibalism/eating humans, violent death of monsters, themes of abuse of minors, mention of weight loss, vague allusions to eating disorders, skin picking, body horror gif. All prompt warnings applicable.

“It had gotten to the point where it seemed like nothing matters, because I’m not a real person and neither is anyone else.”
I. The River of Regret
(There is a girl on a boat who looks on the cusp of death. She's the closest thing to "skin and bones" you have seen: she's pale, her hair limp and lifeless, her blue eyes vacant and glassy. You can see the shadow beneath her cheekbones, her eyes, and she doesn't seem to care or notice that you're sharing this boat ride with her.
Jennifer is empty.
She has always been empty, but now more than ever, she watches the water slide past, and she's too tired to think. Her eyes are bloodshot, but literally, streaks of blood pooled against the whites. Her lips are chapped and split, a cluster of dried, rough skin on her cheek. Her other is spattered with blackheads. She irritably picks at one until it bleeds. She drops her hand into her lap.
The smell of rot doesn't surprise her or make her shift. She does rub a finger under her nose. Rotten meat wasn't appealing to her the way fresh meat was. She squints over the river and sees the first body. A blonde girl her own age, nailed to a twisted tree. Jennifer immediately looks away, and finally, at you. She seems to remember who she is, where she is because her jaw tenses up mildly. She sits up a little straighter, but there's exhaust to the motion.)
Someone decorated for Halloween early. (She knows it's a real body. It's just a real body she refuses to acknowledge. But the ones coming up won't be so easy. That's in a few moments though. For now, she can pretend to be unphased. Even if she's pretending poorly.)

“You cut up a thing that's alive and beautiful to find out how it's alive and why it's beautiful, and before you know it, it's neither of those things, and you're standing there with blood on your face and tears in your sight and only the terrible ache of guilt to show for it.”
II. Bloodsport
(Jennifer has had better days, but if she's being honest, she's had a lot worse. She's standing there in the middle of a gladiator-style pit in her cheerleading uniform, looking both out of place and woefully unprepared for the staggering troll-like monster slamming an iron-wrought hammer against the ground. It looked like an extra on the set of the Lord of the Rings, complete with a leather loincloth and all. It slams the hammer down closer and Jennifer trips out of the way, falling right on her ass, which really, is when she starts to get pissed off.)
Would you - (She starts to snark only to have the troll lean down and scream in her face, misting her with a fine layer of troll drool.
Yeah.
That's fucking it. She wipes her hand slowly over her face before spitting onto the ground. She tips her head to the side at the monster and climbs to her feet.)
I've never been a fan of facials. (She slams into the troll's round gut and halfway there, her jaw rips open to reveal long, clustered fangs that tear through the skin like butter. It was tougher than eating a boy, but she has no problem pulling out mouthful after mouthful of the troll's stomach. She grabs onto whatever hunk of flesh she can to steady herself and relishes in the troll's screeches of agony. She couldn't eat this, but that didn't mean she didn't enjoy the ride.
The troll lands with an enormous thump. Jennifer stands up on what's left of its chest, covered head-to-toe in blood, her cheerleading uniform totally ruined. That's when she notices you.)
Oh. Sorry. (She rubs her hand across her mouth, which now lacked the fangs and ripped skin.) I would have called dibs if I saw you.
OOC: I can totally introduce Jennifer pre-destroying a monster too! I just figured I'd provide the Theatrical Approach for a general OTA.
I've posted Jennifer's plotting post here. I can make personalized starters for those interested and if you're interested in some of the other things mentioned, like her working on the dive bar and the Growing Pains, feel free to throw me something for those instead! Alternatively, I'm open to having Jennifer come across your character doing something too!
I
Then there's the corpses. It's not the first time she's seen one--not even one in a tortured position like this--but it still makes her tense, a metallic little groan from her hand as it clenches around her knee before she relaxes it.]
Can't say I like their style. I'm more the cobwebs, fake eyeballs and shadow dogs type. Hyperrealism doesn't do it for me.
swoops in a week late.
Me neither. It's like trauma porn except worse.
(She pulls her hand out of the water and flicks her fingers. She glances back up at the corpse, catches sight of the matching BFF necklace around Needy's neck. She grasps her own and tugs, tugs, tugs.)
I like haunted houses. My best friend was a real screamer and would always cling to me like a baby. (And Jennifer loved it.) This place is so dramatic. Like ugh, we get it, you found extras from Cannibal Holocaust. So edgy.
I am sorry this is so late. I didn't get a notif for it.
And her metal hand isn't creaking either, nope.]
I don't know what they are expecting out of this. For all we know these corpses are zombies that will drag us to our watery doom. Pretty sure they've done that before. Or well, before in Spooky Small Town Hellscape, not Gothic Cult Town Hellscape.
ii.
After a life of hearing about or watching people getting eaten by things much bigger than them, seeing the tables turned in a way ...
Well. It reminds him of Eren in a fucked up way.
He has his omni-directional mobility gear's blades plugged in and drawn. )
You looked like you had it covered. Wouldn't wanna step in the middle of ... all that.
( He sounds more derisive than he really feels, but only because the sight of her covered in blood makes his skin crawl a bit; he's imagining what it'd be like to be covered in blood like that. At least Titan blood smoked and evaporated ...
But when there's a great monster — bestial, quadrupedal, claws bared and jaws wide as Jennifer's own — barreling towards Jennifer with a terrible howl, he launches the hooks on his gear into its chest.
Then he's rocketing forward to swing up and around towards its back, before he zooms down and in with his blades.
Cutting into its neck and spine delivers a far cleaner kill than the one he just witnessed. )
It's no Titan, but its killable. I couldn't ask for more.
( Can he pump any more sardonic tone into his words? Probably not. )
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(She smiles bloodily at him, and then gives him a brief glance over. He was on the short side, she thought, but she was vibing with the bondage gear. She's good at killing, but she hasn't really gotten in many fights, so with the incoming beast, she jerks around on the troll, surprised.
Only she doesn't have to meet the other end of that grisly creature. There's a sharp whipping noise and she almost doesn't understand what she sees. It reminds her of something she once saw at a circus, only with far more grace and lethality.
It's honestly kind of badass.
Though Jennifer preferred the bloodshed. What can she say? She was a Tarantino fan. Plus, it was good for her skin apparently. She bounces off of the troll and lands effortlessly on her feet, smirking. She didn't know what a Titan was exactly, but she didn't have to know. She understood killable and that was the important thing.)
Those are pretty cool-
(She's about to compliment him, but there's two more trollish creatures plowing their way, almost as bestial as the one Levi just took down. She stares over at them, and then at the guy, and for the first time in her life, she thinks she might be on an even playing field:)
You take the right, I take the left?
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( He nods at Jen.
Hange would be positively flipping their lid, if they were here. Cheering the both of them on.
Right before he takes off towards the right one, he feels a pang. It's anger and its grief, but he takes it out on the creature in front of him.
He sends his blades into its eyes and then promptly zooms down and around its back. Another spinal cord cut. )
I. River of Regret
I don't care about that! I mean, I do, it's sorta cool looking if you were looking for a full on immersive experience, but whatever! You look like you're in a lot of pain! What do I do to fix this?
[Luz brought her eyes up and saw the girl, and then the smell hit her nose. Oh boy. It was a good thing the flesh was not burning].
Urp-ugh-I...S-someone you know?
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But one thought kept circling back to her: did I kill her and just forget?
She rubs at her side, grimacing. It felt like she was on her period only infinitely worse.)
Shut up, for starters. (She grouches with no real zest.) There's nothing you can do.
(Or, at the very least, Jennifer didn't want to eat this girl. She was starving, but she wasn't that starving.)
Not unless you've got the Backstreet Boys in your back pocket anyway.
(Jennifer doesn't respond, staring back up at Needy. She thinks about lying, but Needy's face made her stomach clench up. She felt like she was gonna hurl.)
It's my ex-bestie.
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[But Luz still whispered it because she didn't know if she needed to keep her voice down while Jennifer was like this. Sure they got a rocky start, but Luz wasn't one for giving up so easily].
Don't be ridiculous. The Backstreet Boys are on tour last time I was on Earth! I couldn't shrink them into my pocket even if I was able to!
[Luz was half joking, but she'd been in the Boiling Isles and been on the receiving end of a shrinking spell, courtesy of Tibbles Grimhammer. She knew it was possible].
What made her your "ex" bestie? Did she sell you out? Did you have to eat her? I'm just going to keep guessing worst case scenarios until you give me the real one.
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You don't need to shrink a boy to eat him, Luz.
(She drawls this, almost sounding bored about casual cannibalism. But man, it would be convenient right about now. Jennifer's eyes cut to Luz, glinting with...something.)
I would never eat her. (She literally snarls the words, something like an animalistic growl escaping from her. She's not normally so out of sorts, but it was harder to control when she was hungry. She sits up primly, trying to regain some sense of dignity.)
She killed me. (Flatly. She stares over at Needy, her lip twitching.) Because I ate and killed her boyfriend.
(Was it better than Luz was imagining or worse? The corpse seems to become a little less detailed, a little less Needy looking, and Jennifer glances away, frowning.)
Typical teenage girl shit. You know.
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Always with you and the eating. Why eat a Backstreet Boy? They even went and sang a whole song about never breaking your heart!
[Sometimes humor really helped to still some of the panic in the girl. In this case it was...not really helpful, but at least was easing some of her tension, bit by bit].
Somehow eating and killing her boyfriend doesn't sound typical of the teenage experience. Why'd you kill him anyway?
[She KNOWS why she ate him, that was made abundantly clear. Also, how was Luz constantly befriending people who saw murder as a viable option? When was THAT a thing]?
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(She will shove this girl out of the damn boat. Except not really but only because she simply did not have the energy for it.)
Why not? They're cute and probably terrible people. (A perfect combination.)
I was hungry and he was in the way. (She doesn't clarify what he was in the way of. Truth is she was jealous and the demon had no clue what to do with that emotion except absolutely destroy what was making her feel that way. Jennifer still doesn't really understand, but the place they were in seemed to because next thing she knows, she can see Chip's body dangling from a tree. Still in his prom tux. She gives an indifferent sniff.)
He wasn't even that good.
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[By which she means thank you for saying it as nastily as you did, because Luz was trying to at least figure out what this had to do specifically with Jennifer. They weren't seeing any of her regrets, which she was personally fine with, but there definitely seemed to be more to this story than just some people eating. She'd leave off talking about the Backstreet Boys for now though].
I kind of doubt that he was that inconsequential. Well, maybe he was, but it wasn't him that was important.
It was her, wasn't it? And not just because she was your friend and that she killed you. I doubt we're here because this place wanted to give you an annoying memory.
( I. The River of Regret )
the smell of death and blood is pungent and he makes a face but otherwise doesn't really react until he hears someone else's voice. at first, he thinks it might be one of these dead bodies being made to talk but when he glances around, he sees it's someone that's very much alive. )
I think I prefer shitty little pumpkins.
( bodies are kind of messy to clean up an dispose of. )
this is so late im sorry hh
But he's talking at her. To her. To her? Around her?
No, it's to her. She rubs at some crust forming at the inside of her eye and looks away from the corpses.)
I like the stupid sheet ghosts. You can't fuck those up no matter how talentless you are.
(She slowly looks back over to the corpses and tries to sound bored:)
That doesn't even look like her. They got the cheekbones wrong.
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( that confirms that what she's seen is something familiar and not just some run of the mill demon or whatever that deerington sometimes liked to throw at them. )
Friend of yours?
( there was some familiarity there. )
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(It's easier when she puts the 'ex' in front of it. It made it sound like something she wasn't as ruffled by as if it were just a normal best friend.)
We had a falling out.
(Which sounded like a typical thing for teenage girls, but with Jennifer's occasional glancing over, she can't help but speak up in her own defense:)
I didn't do that, by the way.
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( kind of a weird thing to just out and out tell him, isn't it? he frowns and glances at her. )
You got a guilty conscious or something?
( isn't that the old saying? )
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(Except she absolutely did have a guilty conscious when it came to Needy.)
If anyone should feel guilty, it would be her. (Did Needy feel guilty? Probably. She was a big enough dork to feel bad about killing her best friend.)
You ever have a best friend? (She eyes the guy skeptically. She didn't know too many guy friends who got that close.)
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( he makes a face and shakes his head. not because he hadn't had friends but he rarely let people that close. )
I don't think I've ever had a best friend. That's too close for comfort for me. I'd rather keep people away.
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(She manages to sound both sincere in her line of questioning as much as she sounds like she's mocking him for admitting as much. The funny thing is she's really feeling both at the same time.)
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( he shrugs a shoulder. )
Not a lot of people like me and that's by design.
( he has a charming personality. )
II
And now he's in an arena watching a cheerleader murdering and eating a giant troll. Because that's just how his day is going. He's definitely not getting involved in that- no thanks, absolutely not. He's got some alchemy bombs on him if he needs them, but she looks like she's got this pretty damn handled herself.
It's only when she turns that he recognises her as the girl from the network. A nervous laugh spills out from him as he waves his hands in a go-on kind of gesture. The sort you make when you're offering someone the last slice of pizza.
Except the pizza is a horrific troll that's now spreading blood and viscera everywhere. ]
Oh! No, no. It's cool, it's fine. You go right ahead. I'm good. A...girl needs her protein??
Re: II
She rests her hands on her hips in a kind of self-satisfied way, positioning her foot upon the troll's head like those tacky hunters who posed with their kills.)
My flow is mega heavy this month.
(Just as she leans down to start gorging more on the body, she hears something thumping across the ground. It skitters around the troll, over the organs, and heads straight for the Dork.
And Jennifer's not exactly the protective type. She doesn't feel some sudden horror that this boy was about to be a meal plan for whatever centipede-looking monster was moving across the ground. But she is competitive and she did feel like she could rip apart the whole world. For now, ripping apart another monster would do.
She floats directly up into the air and then with her feet pointed down, drops. It's not dissimilar to how a hawk might hunt, cutting through the air with intended lethality. She breaks through the centipede's back with ease, chopping it effectively in half. The front half, unfortunately, keeps going.)
Move it! (She snaps at Varian, just in case he needed the emotional incentive to, you know, not be eaten by whatever the hell was heading for him.)
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He does move the fuck out of the way of that thing, he has some alchemy bombs in his backpack, but he's prioritising not being in the line of fire of the thing that wants to eat him before putting any sort of offensive up.
Besides, it looks like Jennifer has that handled. What with the floating and the swooping and everything. He moves as fast as his legs will carry him- which isn't far, he's short and he only has one of them. But it gives him enough time to scoop out a bomb, hucking it at the head end of the monster. Pink goop explodes on the ground in front of it- tangling the head part. It's still alive and writing, but it's at least stuck.
Varian's trying not to panic. There's a lot of blood everywhere and it's really making his head feel weird- but he's on guard now, glancing around in worry, if there's one, there's probably more. ]
What is even going on?!!
no subject
Jennifer's not exactly expecting a bomb hurled into the field. It startles a little scream out of her. She winds up with a bit of that pink goop on her, which, thankfully, she's not too bothered by. She was already covered in monster gore.
She doesn't eat this monster. Mostly because it struck her as disgusting and now that she's fed off whatever troll thing she just killed, she wasn't that hungry. But the carnage was a nice dessert.
She bounds off of the monster, leaving it writhing. She lands next to the guy and gives him a bloody grin.)
I think we're in hell, baby. (She glances him over but in an assessing way.)
How many more of those bomb thingies do you have on you?
no subject
He definitely wasn't expecting her to just land by him and he lets out a startled yelp because wow okay she is just very covered in blood and that's making him more than a little bit nervous. Jeez, she's scary. Sorry about the goop, Jenn- try not to touch it, you'll never get it off.]
Thaaaaat about tracks. [The hell thing, Deerington was like that and he's learning Trench isn't much better- he shifts his backpack on his shoulders.] I've got a few, also some smoke bombs, some ice bombs, one that explodes. Enough to keep us alive for a little while longer if more of those things show up.
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He watches in horror as the girl fights the troll, certain that he's going to watch her die right in front of him only to meet the same fate himself, when things take an unexpected turn. Her jaw drops. Her teeth grow sharp. And she...starts eating the troll. It's gross, disgusting...and he's absolutely relieved that she's more than she appears. And then the smell hits his nose. Blood. Which should be disgusting, but now he finds it strangely tantalizing. He wants to race forward, join her, devour...
No. No, no, no, no, no. He doesn't want that. He can't want that. Then more blood is spilled, and any self control is lost. He's not even aware of what he's doing when he races over to the now fallen troll, latching onto a part that's already been torn up a bit, and biting down, tearing into it and devouring blood and flesh. It's somewhat difficult to tear through the latter, but he's doing his best, not even noticing Jennifer's comment about 'dibs'. He's too caught up in his feeding frenzy.
And then the clouds, which had been threatening to rain for the entire fight, finally decide to let loose. First a few drops hit Luca's skin, making green scales rise up wherever they touch, but as the rain picks up scales suddenly ripple down his arms and up his face, spreading across his entire body. His long, finned tail emerges, and his teeth change, becoming sea monster teeth. He doesn't even seem to notice he's changed, he just keeps feeding. Until he has his fill, and he lifts his head and sees what he's done. And he's horrified. Shrinking back from the body, he looks at Jennifer, horrified.]
I--I didn't mean to--I've never done anything like that before.
no subject
(Jennifer's looking at this boy with silent respect. Or whatever he technically was. Whatever he was didn't seem dissimilar to what she was and so far? She hasn't met anyone like her. She's on her own kill, staring at him with calculating eyes.
Jennifer would refuse to call what she was feeling as empathy. But she couldn't help but think back to when she made her own first kill and how violent that had been. She had been merciless. Brutal. The only difference was she hadn't felt the shame this kid seemed to be feeling. She floats off of the troll and lands on the earth in front of him, staring down at him coolly with detached eyes. He was way too young for her to even sniff at. She's never been great with kids either, often too blunt, and more likely to flip off a screaming toddler than politely ignore them like everyone else.
She's not repulsed or scared by his appearance. She stares at it curiously, reaching a hand out to just touch one of his - hair things. She just as quickly drops her hand. The rain was already starting to wash away the blood on her face and neck.)
There's nothing wrong with it. (She pulls her now soaking hair away from her face, scrunching it together and letting it flop over her shoulder.)
If you need to eat, you need to eat. There's nothing wrong with being hungry.
(She leans down slowly, staring at him intently now.)
Listen, Black Lagoon, where we are right now, it's dog-eat-dog. So, do you want to be eaten or do you wanna make a sushi platter out of whatever the fuck crawls out of that gate next?
no subject
He doesn't show much of a reaction when Jennifer reaches for one of his blue head fins, but he does look up when she brings up the danger they were in. He might not know what she means by 'Black Lagoon' or what a dog is, but he completely understands not wanting to get eaten.
He stands up.]
I don't want to be eaten.
[And just in time for him to decide that, too, as the doors open up, and a pair of creatures that look like some sort of sharp toothed goblins rush in, going straight for the pair of flesh eating teens.]
no subject
That's how we'll survive this then.
(If he could grasp that basic survival concept he'd be fine. If he got hung up on the morals then he'd be worse off than the monsters they just obliterated. She glances over at the oncoming monsters and then down at the kid.)
Just do what feels natural. That's how I deal with it.
(And with that logic, she bounds up into the air in an inhuman jump before landing down onto one of the monsters. There's a painful shriek as she tears into it. She could have killed it quickly, but Jennifer wasn't interested in efficient killing as much as she was satisfying killing.)
no subject
Got it.
[He doesn't 'got it'. He realizes right after saying it that he has no idea what feels natural. To him, natural was always 'swim away and hide in a cave', and he has no way to do that here. There's a whole new set of 'natural' feelings he's been having since he got here, though, and they seem very different from what he's used to. It was easy to slip into that mode when the smell of blood sent him into a feeding frenzy, but now that he's just fed, he's not sure if he can slip right back into that state of mind.
His moment of hesitation gives the remaining goblin a moment of advantage, as it runs up to Luca and pounces on him sending him tumbling to the ground. For a moment, Luca struggles in the goblin's grasp. He feels the rain steadily pelting his face and arms, keeping him in his sea monster form, and he panics as he looks at the goblin's grinning face above him and wonders what he's going to do.
Luca's heart is pounding, he's trembling, and the goblin then decides to grab a fistful of Luca's headfins, lifting his head and slamming it into the ground. That's when Luca's instincts finally kick in.
He doesn't know what's happening, but all over his body a thin coating of slime is secreted. Luca has no idea what it is. It's never happened before, and Luca's first impulse is to take another shot at wiggling free.
He shoves the goblin off easily, and that's when he starts to notice that the goblin is starting to look a bit disoriented, like he's having trouble getting up. Unable to coordinate his limbs to climb back to his feet, the goblin whips around and bites Luca on the leg. Luca cries out and jumps back, but the creature doesn't seem to like the results much better. Seeming to suddenly realize its mistake, the goblin immediately releases Luca's leg and starts spitting out Luca's green blood. Luca takes advantage of the moment, kicking the goblin back away from him before hurrying back, standing there to watch the effects of his toxic secretions.]
Um...I think I'm poisonous now.
[And now he notices the smell of more fresh blood is filling his nostrils, and he realizes it's from Jennifer's kill. He knows what she told him to do, that he should just follow his instincts, but he fights it, wanting to know if he can fight it. It probably doesn't matter for this goblin, but he might need to fight this urge later, and he wants to know that he has control.]
ii
Whatever. Next one's mine.
i am here far too late ,,but so ready for this duo
God. She loved girls. She floats off of the troll, dropping down onto the ground in front of Clarisse, looking smug. She knew this game. She was the goddamn queen of this game.)
Maybe if you moved a little faster...
(It's a clear taunt, her eyes sparkling with excitement. Needy was always a total wet blanket. This chick? Yeah. She could roll with this. There was already another trollish beast, this time on all fours, that was sprinting out into the arena. She spares it a glance before looking at the girl.)
I'll let you take this one. Let's see what you've got.
HELL yeah!! also cw eyeball injury
She's dealt with Cyclopes before, and this thing is... well, similar enough, size-wise (and probably intelligence-wise?), so Clarisse decides to handle it the same way. It's not as quick as Jennifer's kill was, but there's no denying she knows what she's doing, with the way she rushes the troll and baits it into striking, only to dodge at the last second and dig in with her spear, going for its sides and limbs with savage ruthlessness.
By the the time she has the troll down on its side, she's covered in splashes of its blood. She drives the spear into its eyeball, kicks it in the ribs just to make sure it's dead, and then turns to Jennifer with a breathless laugh. That was fun. ]
no subject
(She pitches her voice babyishly and it was almost hilarious given her current bloodied appearance. She does want to see what the girl does though, so she doesn't move a muscle, instead watching. No one had been like her back home, so it's her first time seeing another super-powered human in action.
It was cool as hell. It gave her a rush almost more intense than feeding itself, but maybe it was just because the gore was contagious.
Even with the competitive nature, Jennifer was at her heart a cheerleader, and so when the chick brings the monster down? She gives a loud, vocal 'HELL YEAH!' with an enthusiastic punch to the air.
But of course, when she strolls over:)
Not too bad on the execution. Even if you did use a turbo-toothpick. (She flexes her hands, cracking her knuckles.)
I guess not all of us can use our bare bodies to kill with. (She flips her hair and grins. But there's something like a massive spider already crawling out and she looks briefly repulsed.)
Ugh.
(She almost regrets mocking the spear now. She did not want to put a fucking spider in her mouth. She glances sideways at the girl.)
How do you feel about tag-teaming this one? I hate spiders.
no subject
Don't diss the spear. [ She would start going on about how it's actually a super versatile weapon, Jennifer, seriously, it beats a sword any fucking day of the week, but... giant spider. She'll save that speech for another time, then. ]
Sure, sure, I'll help you take care of it, princess. [ She gives Jennifer a grin that's somewhere in between flirting and teasing, and then she wastes no time in going after the massive spider. With the spear, thank you. ]
i
[Michael plops down into the boat, courtesy of a cloud of ravens, and is immediately deeply affronted by this. His old dream guide was a crow or something, doesn't that get him any credit here with the birds?
Well. They're gone. Whatever. He sits up straight, habitually adjusting his bowtie. He's dressed more in his usual Good Place style right now, since he figured out how to make a couple outfits magically. Honestly, he feels sort of out-of-place dressed this way here; he may dip his toes into the local fashion later. But none of that's really important - this is just to say that yes, he still does look sort of like a prissy librarian or something.
At Jennifer's prompting, he glances over and winces a little at the corpse. Yep! That's real! But she's already dead. Nothing to be done. Though seeing that sort of thing gives him a pang, these days, he doesn't feel bad about ignoring it to focus on the living. Or...presumably the living? God, this girl looks half-dead herself!]
Are you alright? You look terrible.
cw: explicit menstrual joke
My uterus is shedding in clumps and I'm sitting on a boat with a shitty Mr. Rogers impersonator. I haven't eaten in like forever and all I want is a Crunchwrap Supreme with NSYNC as the filling.
(Does that answer your question, old man??? He's definitely overdressed compared to her old, worn jeans and plain tank top. Jennifer had noticed the guy looking at Needy's corpse, and she does feel weirdly grateful that he doesn't actually bring it up.
Though it does make her wonder what kind of man she was sitting with to not react verbally to a mutilated corpse of a dead girl. She keeps on staring at him, unblinking, and finally asks:)
Are you a pervert or something? (In Michael's defense, Jennifer wonders this about pretty much any vaguely male-feeling person she's ever met. He doesn't actually seem like he's a pervert.)
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Hey, just asking! We're in the same boat here - the same tiny, kidnapped-by-birds boat...Crunchwrap's a Taco Bell thing, isn't it?
[He's been to a Taco Bell! A real, Earth Taco Bell! He even ate something there, because really how can you not, so...let him think for a second.
Briefly, he's visibly distracted as they pass the flayed body of another woman. She's not...someone he recognizes, exactly, but she does seem a bit familiar. He frowns at the sight for a moment before refocusing, turning away to stare at the bow of the boat in obvious concentration.]
I, uh...I went to one of those combination Taco-Bell-and-KFCs once! Have you seen those? It's just two restaurants mashed together! [How weird and delightful! At this point, he thinks he's picturing a Taco Bell Food Item about as well as he can; he snaps his fingers and produces...well, it's a burrito? Of some kind? He turns to offer it to Jennifer.] Ah! Here, try this? Probably won't help with your organ problems, but there's definitely meat and cheese.
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Haven't seen one but I've heard of them. I always figured their bathrooms would be nightmares.
(She stares at Michael. Stares at the burrito, and then rubs at her temples.)
I'm sorry, but am I high right now? Or did you just summon a burrito out of thin air?
(Despite her own unusual circumstances, she was extremely new to the bizarre and unusual.)
I can't eat that. It'll make me puke all over you. Like, for realsies. I don't think either of us wants a boat full of barf.
no subject
[But Michael most certainly does not want a boat full of barf, so he looks thoughtfully at the burrito for a moment and then takes a bite of it himself. What? There's no reason to just throw it away.]
Mmm. I overshot the quality on this.
[He's used to making Good Place-quality food, when he makes food, not really...Taco Bell.
But despite being pretty enthusiastic about Taco Bell/KFCs, he sobers and goes quiet after that. Because as they're progressing, there's clearly more bodies strung up along the shores of the river. Michael's gaze flicks deliberately over each of them, but none are alive. Anyone could see that even at this distance. They're well beyond any help he could provide. So it's like, fine for him to just chill in this boat and eat a burrito, right? He's sorry to see they're dead. That's not even something he has to remind himself to feel anymore; he is sorry. But he's not sick to his stomach with it, and certainly not at the sight and smell of gore. He's...okay?
...maybe not. It feels weird. Especially because some of the humans look...a little familiar? Maybe it's not their faces, he tells himself. Maybe it's just what's been done to them. Basic dismemberment, flaying, various sorts of pulling and gouging. It's all the sorts of things they cover in basic training. He's done all of those a million times. Left plenty of humans looking just like that.
Michael's quiet, watching the display go past. He does take another bite of the burrito though.]
Closed to Peter Graham (Cw: cutting of skin/splinters/nails in skin)
This place wasn't bad. It was just filthy and filled with heaps of metal and debris. It looked like someone might have once held some sort of ritual because there were a lot of dusty candles too. Even the air felt dusty. Jennifer stood alone in this graveyard of a building, listening to the rats scuttling around, listening to the pipes creaking. There was a narrow set of stairs in the back, and when she went up them, she discovered what must have once been someone's studio apartment.
There was a kitchen with a fridge filled with maggots. Rats sat bundled in the sink and she gently picked one up, kissing the back of its head before simply carrying it around with her. Other rats started to follow her, intrigued and captivated by the new Lady of the Place. Her owl omen, Lilith, fluttered above in the rafters, occasionally hooting ominously at the rats as if to threaten them from getting too cozy with Jennifer. Lilith could be as jealous as Jennifer, after all.
There was a rotten mattress on a collapsed wooden headframe. Barely any furniture. She stopped at a massive spring line window that stared out onto the streets. Most of the glass had survived the years of abandonment, but there was one panel that had broken that was exactly level with her eyes. She stared out of it, listless, watching the streets. She doesn't expect to see a boy looking back at her. She doesn't feel like he's real, honestly, too lost in her own thoughts to see the flesh and blood right before her very eyes. It was probably for the best. If she had, she might have decided he'd make a good, quick snack.
She stares from the depleted building, no doubt looking more like a haunting ghost in its window than a teenage girl who was Going Through It.
She even glides away from the window rather than walk, and the rats follow her.
A moment later, if the boy was still around, he would no doubt hear a massive crashing sound followed by the sound of something heavy and wooden splintering apart.
In the lower portion of the building, Jennifer was snapping apart massive hunks of wood while her small rat army gathered up around her to watch. There was no way a girl her size could break wood so dense without even breaking a sweat, but there was a bit of heavy breathing. She wasn't as strong as she could be and it was intense labor, but this place was perfect, she had decided. It needed to be hers.
The trick was just clearing it up first. She doesn't move like a teenage girl cleaning up. There's something feral in the way that she hunkers down on all fours to root through the debris, not seeming to care if nails poked into her skin and tore away flesh. She didn't care that she had sizable splinters sticking out of her arm. She just moved, worked.)
cw: seizure-like associations
It is beautiful here, though: the buildings a grand display of architecture, the streets glittering with various shop lights and the jewelry decorating many of the passerby he comes across. It could be easy to relax a little bit, if he let himself, but Peter well knows not to let his guard down, even when things look shiny and safe.
He quietly makes his way to the building, and... it's almost an entirely different world from most of this place. Quiet, dark, neglected. Even from the outside, he can tell this is a space that hasn't been used in quite some time. The boy waits, hesitating for a bit, dark brown eyes slowly glancing up the side of the place. He'd known it would need some fixing up from the information he'd seen about the plans to turn it into a club of sorts — and that's why he's here, to help — but he's wary to go in, feeling anxiety prickle in his throat, making it feel tighter.
That's when he sees the girl. A fleeting thing, a pallid face and empty eyes looking out at him from the upstairs windows. Peter blinks, his heart painfully skipping a beat as he gives a soft little gasp to himself; she looks like a ghost standing there. For a long moment, his mind insists that she is — maybe because Peter is so ready to accept the concept of being haunted by ghosts. But she must be the one he's supposed to be helping, and in the next moment she's gone again. His heart still shudders a little.
A few moments later the crash comes, and that's what prompts Peter's slow caution into something faster. Oh, fuck— did something fall in? Is she okay?? The boy rushes inside, but he's careful once he's in, stepping around debris and pieces of metal, sneakers making soft scuffling sounds against the cold dusty floor. He hasn't exactly assimilated to any of Trench's styles, still wearing some of what he came here with — teeshirt and jeans and a warm jacket on top of everything. Dingy Converse. Wide-eyed, he looks like a dumb, nervous highschooler or maybe a college student. Not a threat, not on the surface.
....But there's something else living inside of the young man's body. Something very ancient and very strange, something stirred to the surface by what it feels. There's an oddness to the air, to what's in this old place; the demon ripples in response to it. A second breath flutters from the boy's throat as he moves, and finds the girl up ahead, following the loud snap of wood.
She's crouched there like an animal, like a wolf more than a girl, or... something else. Insect, something bent and cold and searching. Peter freezes. Afraid, but he asks right away— )
Are you okay?
( It's the natural reaction, the natural worry. Even as he says it, he's noticing... details. How there are large pieces of wood jutting out from her skin, how there's.... nails. Jesus Christ. Nails tearing at her skin as she moves. She's— something is very wrong. Alarm hammers up under Peter's sternum; he tries to move closer to help her, she's hurt, but the thing trapped within abruptly catches him, forces him from approaching the girl.
It's a sudden thing with no warning, and a little violent. The demon hitches inside of Peter, forces a sharp, reedy sound like a hiss from his parted lips. The tall, thin body shudders sharply with a convulsive, jerky movement. His head thrusts backwards for a moment; it looks like someone's yanked him by the hair.
His pupils start to dilate, making his eyes look strange, half swollen with black. The boy (is he only a boy? Or something else entirely) stands there a few feet back from her, body giving little convulsive spasms, mouth working more strange sounds. Soft hisses, gasps, whimpers, as the demon tries to keep him from moving closer. Whatever she is, she isn't only a girl, either. )
Re: cw: seizure-like associations
But it's not just Jennifer who's startled. Much like Peter, there's something else, and it's that thing that rises to the surface. Jennifer's eyes flicker from a pretty, natural blue to something encompassing and white - a stark contrast to Peter's blackened eyes. Her head jerks up and the sound that comes out of her throat is not possible for any teenage girl to make: it's more of a ferocious growling roar than it is any human sound.
Maybe it's a response towards the strange, jerking motions. Maybe it's just a response to Peter. Maybe it's both.
The demon inside of her is on guard, not sure whatever this being before it is going to challenge it. It's not Jennifer hunched on all fours. The demon sinks back onto her haunches, her hands planted firmly on the ground, and with her sharp, starved angles she looks more like a gargoyle than a girl. The accidental wounds are slowly closing up. They would have closed up faster had she fed recently.
No, neither of them were just children anymore.
The rats surrounding her begin to screech in excitement rather than terror, and above her, Lilith cuts through the air to land on a nearby hunk of jutting metal. There's some electric friction in the air, growing overwhelming, impossibly so, until at last Jennifer stands up like a human and relaxes her body. But her eyes remain white and intense. The rats settle around her and one by one, they all fall silent. It's somehow much louder than when they were shrieking. They stop moving and slowly begin to sit up, watching the two demons, waiting.)
What are you doing here? (She's not asking Peter.
She's asking whatever creature's lurking within Peter. Asking what that thing is doing in this boy. Jennifer knew why her own demon was inside of her. But this? This was the first time she met someone else who was possessed. She almost hates that it's a boy - except hate maybe wasn't the right feeling. She was surprised and she hated to be surprised. What had this boy fallen victim to?)
no subject
The air changes as abruptly as she had — tense and tight, like static. Paimon's no stranger to such things; his own energy is unbearably loud when it's unchecked: a cacophony of bright lights and sounds and languages, none of which could be considered human. Some of that energy rises to meet hers, reacting to it, and it's an uncomfortable buzz, two like ends of a magnet abrasively meeting each other. But he doesn't move from where he stands, just keeps Peter there and waits, watching her as she moves from her angled crouch to stand; they face each other now. The screeching chorus of rats dies, and there's silence.
As her own loud static energy flickers down, his does too. Paimon at his core has always functioned through reciprocation: a mirror of energy, give and take, exchange. Her eyes stay white and his stay black, their pupils impossibly blown, glittering with some alien, Other awareness. He does not blink.
'What are you doing here?'
The demon tenses, staring at her with his inky gaze. He's still such a lost thing in so many ways, but he's aware of his own power now. He knows what he's capable of, if she should try to attack him. But as tense as he is, he's very curious of this entity before him. Something... same? Same, in ways.
After another long moment of staring, the thing finally speaks. It's... oddly, forced, strained; what he is was never really meant to speak through a human's vocal chords, and sometimes this body reminds him of that, when it's so tense. His tongue twitches, the thick muscle like some creature struggling to move. There's a gag-sound, and then he manages to snarl his way out of his host's fluttering throat. It hurts, sometimes. )
This body... was given to me. ( It's almost a territorial claim; his eyes flash. He's encountered other demons seeking open flesh to sink into back in Deerington, and made sure they knew this host was his. But it's also.. another type of answer to her question: that's why he's here. He was given this body. A demon of his standing — amongst Lucifer's top four kings — could not simply take any body. It would have to be prepared for him, made capable of housing the sheer force of his spirit. Peter, specifically, was sacrificed to him. )
....Is this a trap? ( Did she lure his hapless vessel here under the guise of needing help with this building? His painfully human (...technically no longer human; we're all squids now) vessel, the boy who's still so young and soft and still so wounded by his guilts, who tries to help where he can as though that could ever make up for what he'd done... He would be an easy target. The girl-thing may have coaxed him here with every intention to harm him, not expecting that something else with claws of its own would be lurking beneath the boy's naivety, his wet doe eyes. )
iii. post-bloodsport
And here he is with naught but a handkerchief to show for it. He's still got some splatters he'll have to deal with on exposed skin and hair but she needs it far more than he does. He offers it out to her. ]
If you're feeling like tidying up. [ Pause as he looks her over. She looks like a teenage girl but he saw her change. Even if he hadn't there's something about her that niggles at the back of his mind. A sure thing to listen to when it comes to working his kind of job for as long as he has. ] That was impressive back there.
Bit ugly with all that but still impressive.