Yabba Dabba Nooo [video] [locked to New Hires but accidentally opted Kokichi in to this one post]

[acroodawakening]

[cw: mention of death arenas, and a little blood.]

[He briefly got an explanation on what the little lock thing means. In a little while it'll make him hopeful because ongoing locked communication is a great thing if you want to rebel. Right now he's bristling with too much annoyance to find anything heartening.]

[He turns the comm on and spends a good half hour with it first, figuring out the interface. It's not as intuitive for him as it might have been for some others, but he gets there. The hover mode is neat. That's a new one. Again, when he is less pissed off, he'll be excited and want to know how it works.]

[Right now he needs to vent somewhere and if the Rig staff can't see the locked posts, only other people trapped here like him will see it. If the other New Hires sell him out and tell the staff he's faking the stupidity thing, they're all doomed from a lack of cooperation anyway.]

Hi.

[The young man on the screen is noticeably small, compared to the bunk he's sitting on. In his world? He's taller than his some of his family, lanky but muscular. In other worlds, where people are absolute giants, he's small and wiry in comparison. Guy is only 5'4" and his entire frame matches that. It isn't like he's a teen or an adult with stunted growth, he's just a tiny fully grown adult, complete with muscles that make the top part of his coveralls fit a little tightly.]

[They didn't give him back his hair tie, so he's using an extra bootlace for that and tying a little ponytail on the top of his head as he speaks. His hair is on the coarse end and otherwise it just sticks up all over.]

I'm Guy. Guy Crood. [Really, it was official, the last name.] I'm sure this Jorgmund is just super, I really am. I am just so happy to be here. Because I got kidnapped from my perfectly nice world with stunning natural wonders, and my family, and a farm with all the food I could eat, to a broken nightmare city where they made us repeatedly fight to the death and brought us back to life, as a way to terrorize and control their slaves with a show of power.

And then! And then I had the stunningly good fortune to get away from that world because of a bunch of magic dust, and then I wound up here! In a rolling tin can. [He knows what cans are. A lot of arena food came in cans.] With lightning in my stomach they can trigger any time to make me do what they want.

Not only did I not magically get sucked back home instead - to my family and my beautiful, wonderful mate, who all probably think I got dragged off and eaten by a predator - I also got pulled away from all my friends who are trying to survive in said gruesome death matches in the other nightmare future place.

[He holds up a finger.]

Actually, excuse me for a second.

[He is visibly shaking with anger over his circumstances and he starts exorcising those feelings by standing up and repeatedly kicking his locker in, denting it.]

[In between kicks, he keeps talking, his voice halfway between annoyed and conversational.]

I'm sure you're all very nice people! I look forward to getting to know you!

[He finishes his little attack by punching the locker so hard he splits his knuckles open. Then he sits down again, just letting them bleed.]

So, first question: Do they make us kill each other here?

Second question: If not, then who do they make us kill, because you don't put electricity in people's stomachs unless you want them to do something horrible.

[He adds brightly.]

...that they probably excuse as some kind of unfortunate, sad necessity because the modern world is just so complicated after you blow it up, how could someone from prehistoric times possibly understand? Look how evolved they are, they've probably got penicillin and everything!

Comments

video

[trialbyliar]

"Make us kill each other"? What?! That's so scary!! Who could even think of something like that?

[ bruh ]

[71lines]

I mean. The Village of the Bloody Mist. The first Chunin exam I was in. I hear things about the Village Hidden in the Rain. I heard something about some deep sect ANBU folks...

It's pretty common. Are you sheltered or something?

[trialbyliar]

Oh, you're talking to me now?

[Hey there, buddy.]

Re: video

[acroodawakening]

People who want to look powerful.

[trialbyliar]

Huh.

[The shocked expression quickly falls away, like maybe he was just playing up that reaction. He doesn't really care enough to keep up the bit; he's actually crazy curious about this.]

So like, what kind of death game are we talking about? What happened?

[walkingballpit]

Hi yourself.

[ There’s a lot to unpack, but Robbie is incredibly curious because not a lot of New Hires talk about multiple worlds and time travel. This is something like familiar ground. ]

Question one is definitely no. They don’t make us kill each other, and I think we’d all object to that even if they zap us.

[ Or he hopes everyone else would object as strongly. It’s not just naïveté or idealism. Robbie hopes everyone’s smart enough to realize that playing executioner for Jorgmund probably wouldn’t make them less expendable. ]

Question zero that you didn’t ask but I’m answering anyway - your fam might not know you’re gone. Mine didn’t, when I got pulled to the world I was in before this one. There’s no reason to think time moves any differently in this part of the multiverse.

[71lines]

[She just hasn't been approached with a lucrative enough contract yet.]

[acroodawakening]

That's -

[He looks like he's about to get fighty about something, anything, because he's in a fighty mood. Instead some of that angry energy deflates slightly.]

That's good to know. Both of those things, yeah.

[He drags the non-bloody hand down his face.]

What do they make us do instead? They mentioned missions and fixing things but future language is always code. People just... they use wishy washy language to describe evil things. Because people are too cowardly to admit to themselves what they are.

[walkingballpit]

Yeah, I get it. It’s easier to breathe when you know they’re the same as you left them. Even if it’s not good, it’s not worse.

[ It definitely helps to know that no one is off fighting Eternals without him, stopping an invasion with their face, or building nuclear powered automated hover-strollers without supervision. He’s not sure what kind of predator Guy’s worried about, but it seems like a comparable relief. ]

All the things they’re too cowardly to do themselves with less gear than they’d give themselves. Because they’re evil and wishy washy. Be careful to only say that where it’s locked, and even then... the locks are only as strong as we are.

[video]

[bringinghopewithme]

[boy there's a lot to unpack there. Whole lot of terror and trauma out on understandable display.

Time to maybe monitor this . . . Possibly-younger-than-he-looks person to see if anyone takes that pain as an invitation to twist a knife.]

Number one, not yet. Number two, we'll see.

My turn. How prehistoric are we talking? How many generations have your folks been farming?

Re: [video]

[acroodawakening]

[Guy does not in fact know if his Bunny is alive or not. If he is, he probably got released before the arena, in which case, it's easy to not see someone during the rush at the beginning and then after everyone spreads out.]

[Or...he's dead.]

Bunny, you're here too?

Are you okay? Did they hurt you? I never saw you get out after Penny - after -

You shouldn't have tried to stop them from taking me.

[video] [locked to Guy]

[bringinghopewithme]

[Bunny's first response is just a short video of him looking confused, analyzing the words, trying to pick up if this is a crude attempt at manipulating him or if Guy believes what he's saying is the truth.

His second response is locked to Guy.]

We're not on the same page here. I've never met you before. Tell me everything you think I oughta know.

[Video]

[kingofneworleans]

[Remy has his glasses on mostly because his eyes fuck with cameras from time to time. Though it's not always a bad idea with new people because the eyes can cause some consternation.]

[But he listens through the rant and the questions before he puts on the comm, triggering it to float while he starts fiddling with a deck of cards.]

Ain't tried to get us to kill each ot'er, yet. Ain't tried to get us to kill anybody else, yet, neither. In fact, dey kin'a weren't none too happy wit' us when we were tryin' to stop some killin' happening. [The shuffle pauses for a moment before resuming.] Not dat we killed dat salope, neither. Banished her some place else. Which may mean we only kicked dat can down de road a bit, hard t' tell.

Re: [Video]

[acroodawakening]

Okay! So I'm only fluent in English because of various shades of horrific brain meddling, so I didn't catch all of that.

[He squints as he tries to parse it. "Dey" is "they" probably? "Dat" is likely "that."]

What's a salope?

[Audio]

[fuckcable]

[ The accent changes entirely and the pronunciation of salope isn’t quite the same. ]

Za’s vid, a salope is a puta.

[Video]

[kingofneworleans]

[Remy gives him a half smile.]

Don' worry. Mos' people'd say dat my English ain't so great, neit'er.

Salope ain't a word dat you'd use in polite company. Generally means a...woman of ill repute. Or jus' a bitch, depends on de use. In dis case, it's de secon'.

Video

[scavengineer]

They aren't having us kill each other, and they haven't tried to make is kill anyone yet. Although I wouldn't put it past them to try the latter eventually.

[Gadget is in the library, and the books around her make her tiny size extremely obvious.]

I'm Gadget, by the way.

Re: Video

[acroodawakening]

You are...a tiny talking mouse person.

[At least it's shaken him out of his anger and panic a little.]

Re: Video

[scavengineer]

Yeah, that's a pretty common reaction. If it helps any, I can't normally talk back home. I mean, I could talk, I wouldn't be able to effectively communicate with others if I couldn't, except maybe by writing or sign language...[She trails off, realizing she was babbling]

Sorry, sometimes my train of thought gets a little off track. My point is I could talk, just not in a way where most humans could understand me.

Video

[monkey_wrench]

Don't go giving them ideas. If they get enough of us to spare I wouldn't put it past them to pull something like that for kicks here.

Re: Video

[acroodawakening]

That's why this was locked.

Ooooh boy, if this place avoids that whole thing, even with the lightning chest thingy going on maybe I can finally catch my breath.

I even got culled for an extra mini arena. My luck back in Panem was bad.

[monkey_wrench]

Hey, I don't know what you might have told them off-line. Kicking and punching lockers 'till you hurt yourself, isn't really the kind of behavior that screams "I'm a subtle person".

[Though, considering Jack was also the kind of person to kick and punch walls, and was very unsubtle, that may just be projection. And at the very least, there's no judgment in his tone over it. Or, well, not much.]

Culled? Was that just bad luck, or did you do something that got to them?

[credit_not_blame]

Geez, if I'd known that's what you were worried about, I'd have gone more in-depth when we talked.

[Hey look, it's the girl who told him about the secret locked network! She looks sympathetic.]

You want me to drop by with something to clean up your knuckles with?

[acroodawakening]

[Guy doesn't answer right away because he went on a little field trip.]

[When he comes back and answers, he holds up his hand, which is now bandaged with something leafy.]

Bunny took care of it.

[His eyes are red-rimmed and his face is blotchy like he's been crying.]

[credit_not_blame]

[Stacia smiles in relief. She'd been a little worried when she hadn't gotten an answer.]

Bunny's better at actually treating injuries than I am, so that's probably for the best. Since everyone else has covered your big two questions, anything else you want to know? I could still come by, if you don't want to do it over the comms.

[Sometimes you want a person to talk to, not just a picture of a person. And he looks upset.]