[Jaunt Week 1] Check-In Time...

[helborn]

Casper here. Check in if you're yourself, now.

[His tone is uncharacteristically clipped and short.]

Comments

[thornsofmalkav]

It's Thorne and the answer is... sort of? I'm half-Infiltrating again, as a centaur weaver named... well, Thorn. With no 'E.' Just look for the hugely gravid black and cerise mare.



... you know, I thought I was done with being knocked up on Jaunts. Seriously, this is the stupidest reoccurring theme.

[helborn]

No idea what gravid or cerise is.

... Also I think Delauney may or may not have been hitting on me.

[thornsofmalkav]

Right. SAT words there. Uh, pregnant and a certain shade of pink, respectively.

And, I mean, he doesn't know you've got a boyfriend and as far as I can tell, he's just regular infiltrating, so he'll actually bone dudes he's not in love with now. And, like, the sexual mores here are pretty... loose. 'What's monogamy, can I eat it' kind of loose.

[helborn]

[That... actually knocks him out of his anger a little bit.]

... Oh. You uh... gonna be okay?

[He's awful with medicine, especially when it comes to animals, please don't ask him to do anything...]

But. Um. I'm already the weirdo with half of a leg missing, I don't need to make things worse for either of us.

[thornsofmalkav]

... fuck, I hope so. Pregnancy is a dangerous proposition here--more for the children than the mothers--but Thorn-the-weaver is playing it as safe as she can. Like, she got a centaur friend of hers to be the father instead of one of her regular lovers, because the likelihood of dangerous birth defects--as opposed to minor, mostly cosmetic ones--drastically increases in cross-breed matings and... wait, is Shiro her babydaddy? Fuck, I think he is.

Sorry. Tangent.



... and why would... oh. Right. Uh, for all its other flaws, Home society is like the opposite of homophobic, Casper. Nobody minds dudes fucking dudes or ladies fucking ladies. Really.

[helborn]

Awkward.

[Anyway.]

... No. I meant in the high school ‘of course the weirdos end up together’ sense. I hadn’t even thought of the other possibility consciously so either I’m too angry or my anxiety about that is getting better from Traveling. Not sure which is better right now.

[thornsofmalkav]

Oh! Well, it's a moot point, right? Because you're monogamous and have a boyfriend already, even if he's out of ambit. Don't feel bad you turned him down. He might be the town weirdo, but he's not actually lacking for lovers.

[Private]

[helborn]

[Time to lock this down.]

... He’s been gone a long while, Thorne...

Private x2 protected

[thornsofmalkav]

[She'll just... beef up the protections on the conversation, then.]

... and he could always pop out of a dungeon tomorrow.

I mean, shit, if you want to fuck Anafiel, you can. I am the last person to stop anyone from boning d'Angelines or people with d'Angelines in them... but it won't last past the Jaunt end, Casper. Not because there's anything wrong with you, but because Anafiel has his own issues and one of those is his inability to do casual with other men.

protected 5evar

[helborn]

... I'm too angry to bone anyone right now, even if I wanted to. We still never got to... that point. Besides, he's clearly having his own rough time and I don't want to complicate things, especially if we disappear after this. I mean... he's hot, but it's complicated.

Besides, I know Laughs could. ... But I don't think he'd want me to stay hurting. It's not like I'm replacing him, but... I torture myself enough, don't I?

[He's not sure which one of them he's trying to convince.]

Re: protected 5evar

[thornsofmalkav]

Believe me, I know. I know.

But look... having a Jaunt fling with Anafiel-and-Branch is probably a bad idea, no matter how cute he is, but he's not the only person to find comfort with. There's other people here with compatible genders and sexualities that think you're adorable and won't try for anything you aren't willing to give or reject you once they're themselves again. [Dryly.] I know. I'm not-married to one of them.

[helborn]

... Not when they look at me like that. Not when...

There's a reason I'm always wearing long pants. I know the look. It takes time to get used to, but I don't know that people here will.

[thornsofmalkav]

... sorry. I meant 'here' as Liminal Space, not Home. You... might have to wait on that comfort.

[leftbehindagain]

That sounds like roughly as enjoyable a reoccurring theme as 'dead older sister.'

[thornsofmalkav]

Oh Jesus. I guess you've got that going on again, huh.

[leftbehindagain]

Sure do, but given the circumstances here it's not that much of a surprise.

[thornsofmalkav]

Yeah.



I still don't know why--it's not like it's anything I have experience with as myself.

[leftbehindagain]

Who knows. [It could be something that she wants on some level, but that's speculation better left for one of her actual partners.]

At least it won't be a surprise if I'm skeptical about the reincarnation theory, because she sure hasn't come back.

[thornsofmalkav]

[It's such a living thing, the begetting of new life. Maybe it's only that.]

Yeah. I guess there's that. [Not really something to be happy about.]

[leftbehindagain]

['Happy' is an overstatement, for sure, but built-in doubts will make it easier to get in on tearing this thing down while being a known quantity in the community.]

For actual bright spots, I should have some rice wine and hard cider by now. I doubt anything made here is going to be alcoholic enough to hurt a fetus, but if you don't want to chance it that's understandable.

Either way, find me after this mess if you need a drink. I expect most of us will.

[thornsofmalkav]

Yeah, I'm gonna be careful about that, sorry. Once I'm myself, though, I'll def take you up on it.

[leftbehindagain]

That's fair. It's a fraught enough prospect without bringing fetal alcohol syndrome into things.

[thornsofmalkav]

Seriously.

[leftbehindagain]

[After the conversation about the midges:]

What's a Truman show?

[thornsofmalkav]

It's a movie about a man whose entire life was filmed as a television show--and he doesn't know it. Starring Jim Carrey--he's actually pretty good at dramatic roles.