♋ PCG 20

[crusthatecean]

[Action, 1338 Benny Road]

[Karkat wakes up unable to shake the memory of his dream. He has nightmares regularly, a combination of sleeping without a recuperacoon and everything he's been through since he began playing Sgrub. But something about this one felt more real and vivid and awful, and he remembers it more clearly.

But he wakes ordinarily, only to watch the news and hear his own name, among others, listed. He remembers. She told him she would erase his existence, and he said yes. That memory combined with the news spooks him; Mayfield is clearly doing something, and he doesn't know what to think. So when the television shuts off, he'll go looking for his housemates to try to calm his nerves.]

[Phone, later]

All right, this is Karkat. No, guess what, this is actually Karkat. I'm here. You can choose to believe me or not.

Is anyone else who supposedly disappeared still here? Let's discuss this latest Mayfield fuckstorm like the rational conversationalists I know we all aren't.

[Filtered to Feferi, Tavros, Eridan, and Sollux]

And I especially need to talk to all of you. Now. Don't give me any shit about whether or not I'm the real Karkat. If you are here, answer me now.

I can't believe a single one of you complete drooling panrotted fucking assholes.

[Filtered to Signless.]

You.

((OOC: Karkat has been erased, so he will seem like a fakey fake doppleganger!))

Comments

[crusthatecean.livejournal.com]

Okay, let's all throw our hands in the air and just let our friends think we've vanished forever. I am fine with accepting a life where everyone views me as the equivalent of a door stop. Sure.

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

Fine with me. I'd think it was fine with you too.

.....

How would you prove it to them, then? The town's done something so their immediate reaction is to view us as some type of stupid clone. We'd have to find some way to actually change whatever kind of weird brainwashing the town is doing. Which, as far as I can tell? No one can do. So unless you have a better idea to break through their programming with nothing to go on, I'm not sure what you're expecting.

[crusthatecean.livejournal.com]

It's not. Don't take this evidence of my own self-important insecure shit to mean I have an actual death wish.

I don't know how to prove this, but at least it's someone to fucking talk to.

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

Yeah, sure, whatever.

Yeah it's great. You're talking and I'm talking and we're just having a great old party talking about nothing.

I'll assume you had a dream too, and that it was probably identical in at least the basic message and tone.

[crusthatecean.livejournal.com]

Manipulative beefgrub designed to play on our most obvious fears and insecurities to provoke us into pointless sacrifice?

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's pretty spot on.

I'm wondering if it really was insincere though. Looks like they plan to make us go through it, just not immediately.

[crusthatecean.livejournal.com]

They did say something to that effect.

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

......

I'm curious. How long exactly have you been here?

[He fights back the desire to say "supposedly". As much as he's saying people aren't clones? He's having as hard a time fighting back the urge to scream it himself.]

Specifically, were you here for the insane nightmare festival that happened in late March?

[crusthatecean.livejournal.com]

No. I've been here for about a quarter-sweep now. The first event I was really around for was the one where we were assigned someone to kill.

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

Pretty much just missed it, then.

.....

Look, what I'm about to tell you is all conjecture, but....

During March, the town pretty much broke out into this massive free-for-all fight. During it, people ended up being able to get inside the Dairy, and found that it was what was supposedly powering the town. And what it was using for power? Were the souls of the people who'd been droned here, or the consciousnesses, or the memories, if you prefer.

They tried to play it off as a prank after the fight finished, and that they were screwing with us the whole time, but....

[crusthatecean.livejournal.com]

[The concept makes him feel sick; he wants to say he doesn't believe in souls, but then what are dreambubbles?

The thought that they could be doing that to Equius and Nepeta, that it might happen to Tavros and Feferi and Eridan and Sollux, makes him both frightened and furious.]

And you think that's what they want with us now?

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

....I think it's a big possibility.

They had a lot of souls in there, but even that's a finite resource. I dunno why they pulled this crap instead of just perma-droning us but, hey, whatever rocks their boat I guess.

[crusthatecean.livejournal.com]

Because Mayfield, as always, just wants to fuck with us and everyone else?

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

...Well. Got me there.

[crusthatecean.livejournal.com]

There's nothing to say both theories aren't true.

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

No. There isn't.

And that's the part that really pisses me off. This place gives cryptic a whole new meaning.

[crusthatecean.livejournal.com]

I know. I'm through trying to understand what it wants, but if it has a plan for us, it's even more crucial we communicate with each other. If this isn't a random attempt to psychologically antagonize us, then it's a systematic attempt to isolate us, and it would appear that isolation is a condition they need to create to serve their ends.

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

Theoretically, that makes sense. If we stick together, and I'm not saying that's a bad idea, they can't do that.

At least not that way. The thing if the people here really want to create an isolation condition, they're going to create one. I'm up for trying, but in the end if that is what they want it's kind of futile.

[crusthatecean.livejournal.com]

Obviously, but we don't need to start from a defeatist perspective. We can at least try.

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

Defeatist is kind of what I do.

But yeah. I'm tired of not even bothering any more. If you actually think of something worth trying, I'm up for it.

[crusthatecean.livejournal.com]

I will. Until then, keep in touch if you notice anything unusual.

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

I will, but here?

There's a good chance you may not even need me to tell you by the time I notice it.

[crusthatecean.livejournal.com]

I know.

[godisachild.livejournal.com]

.....

So, you know, I'm not going to ask why you did it and whine at you about how you shouldn't have and all that jazz, but the whole dream schtick they just pulled?

Are things really so bad with whatever is going on with you and yours or wherever you're from that it was worth it?

[crusthatecean.livejournal.com]

We're getting personal, aren't we? Breakthroughs everywhere.

[He sighs.]

I think the proper measure of who agrees to this kind of thing has to be self-involvement to high enough levels to cause your ass to spontaneously revolve around your head like a tiny, beautiful solar system. Badness aside, what kind of egotistical nooksuck really believes their existence is meaningful enough that whether or not they live is the difference between catastrophe and a holly jolly human holiday for all forever?

Guilty as charged, apparently.

But to answer your question less condescendingly, it's not that, really. It's just that it's better me than any of them.