towerofanimus | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Characters: John Egbert and YOU
Setting: Floor Eighteen
Format: Either or
Summary: John gets his creative juices flowing in preparation for the HELLA SWEET tabletop session that might be starting soon. (Backdated to before the Hitori Kakurenbo event.)
Warnings: None

[In the study hall today, you may find one little John huddled over a table. He appears to be scribbling something on a paper in front of him; there's a large stack of clean white sheets sitting next to him, and the surrounding walls and floor are covered in pieces of crumpled-up paper. There's also one other one, sitting nearby, that he keeps looking back at -- like it's a reference. Should you happen to uncrumple one of the papers and look at what's on it, you will notice that there's only one thing on it: a drawing, in some state of development, of a strange-looking character with glasses and an outfit typical for the main character of a shounen anime -- from warrior to mage to thief, this character of his apparently has one foot in everything. And the 'reference' is one of these as well, though it's clearly several years old; even though John still draws in a not-very-good manga style, there's some visible improvement.]

[Look, ma, little Johnny's learning to draw. And he's not exactly looking where he throws the papers that he scraps, so passers-by could have paper based, roughly circular missiles falling upon them at any time -- or they could just be stopped by the giant mess.]

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[ Noticing the drawings! Link is not the best artist in the world, but the Hero of Time does happen to notice as they're passing John all the paper canonballs, so... ]

... These are not bad.

[ Link was more a creative sculpting and wood worker; drawing wasn't their strong suit unless stick figures battling dragons counted.

But hm, some of these designs do feel vaguely familiar. ]

--Huh, what?

[John looks up suddenly, as if he had been snapped out of a trance, and chuckles at himself.] Oh! Thanks. I'm trying to design a character but I can't get him to look right...

A character? Hm...

[ Link has never heard the term used, but if they had to guess, it's meant for fiction. ]

I am not a particular expert on the subject, but what sort of things do you have in mind?

Woah Egbert, you done assaulting me with paper yet? You don't understand how lethal papercuts are. I could be dying from your dangerous fluttery projectiles.

[Dave is casually floating over to you. Guess who's sporting his God Tier threads? Yeah, this cool kid.] So what are you drawing exactly? Or are you just casually making the world's largest pile of crumpled papers?

Oh, well, I don't know exactly what job he's going to have, but right now I'm leaning towards giving him a sword or something, even though I don't know what setting I'm going to put him into yet. You know, like the Legend of Zelda?

[It's worth noting that he still hasn't looked over enough to get a good look at you, Link.]

Gee, sorry Dave. I didn't realize that your almighty god-like powers didn't work on paper cuts. [But he looks up and gives Dave a big grin anyway.] Me and some friends were thinking of starting up a Dungeons and Dragons campaign in the Tower here, so I thought now would be a great time to start redesigning my old character!

I'm offended. You should be more sensitive about my weakness to those stinging cuts. I thought my best bro would understand, but apparently not.

[He sits next to John.] Isn't that a game for nerds? [He grabs the current piece of paper John is drawing on. What, you wanted him to ask? Oops.]

I dunno, I tried it a few years ago and that didn't work out, but it always looked like fun. [He pretty much expected Dave to grab something away from him, so it didn't come as a surprise.] And there are a group of people here who made a custom campaign that went just like our Sburb session, so I got to talking to them and now I think it's a thing that's gonna happen!

[It's not that bad. Dave hands it back to him after looking at it for a minute or two.] Do you seriously want to play a game that's just like the Sburb session? Isn't that a little masochistic of you? Never pegged you as one of those types.

So, is it like a board game? What exactly do you do? [Asserting himself as King of I have no fucking clue how to play.]

Oh, no! No. [He laughs out loud. NO WAY would he play out that tortuous conga line, even if it was just a game.] I meant we would make some other kind of story.

Uh, kind of! Like I said, I never really got off the ground with it, but. Basically, all the players sit around a table and roll dice and read the rulebook to determine what their characters do. There's one guy called the game master who basically 'scripts' the game, and he manages the rules while the other people act as their characters. He can make you fight monsters and things, too. You can pretty much adapt it for anything!

Okay, good. I would be pretty horrified if you up and decided that you wanted to replay all that bullshit.

So this character you're drawing is for that game? How many people are allowed to play? [It's not like his interest is piqued or anything! He just wants to be informed so he doesn't seem like he knows jackshit.] So it's like a fantasy rpg on a board.

Yeah, that would suck pretty hard. But at least we'd kind of know what to do!

As many people as you want, but it would get pretty crazy if you have too many. Do you want to join? [BEAM BEAM BEAM.]

Yeah, pretty much. You calculate damage and outcomes by rolling dice, and the game master starts the events instead of a machine, but otherwise it's pretty much just like that! ...Or any other kind of genre, really, fantasy RPGs were just what typical D-and-D is the most like.

You couldn't pay me to replay whatever shit we went through, just putting that out there. No amount of seducing could convince me of playing that game again for fun.

I'll think about it. [Except it's John, and he's so easily swayed. Just consider it a yes.

That and Dave is grabbing one of the blank sheets of paper and looking for a pencil.] Okay, yeah. I get it now.

Oh, you gonna make a character? [John watches excitedly for a moment, and then offers Dave the pencil he had been using. It was kind of worn down, but hey, perfectly suitable for drawing.]

There isn't a lot to do in this tower, and my turntables didn't fit that trunk we got. At least I'm guessing that's the case. On the upside, I have a shitton of apple juice sitting in my trunk.

[Dave wasn't an amazing drawer, and one would think his art skills are pretty terrible based off his comics. But he wasn't actually all that bad at drawing. He...just didn't really draw much since they started playing.] Yeah, I guess.

Right? And I found one of my old rulebooks in the bottom of mine. You can borrow it if you want. [And then he falls silent, watching intently as Dave starts drawing. Neither of them are very skilled, obviously, and John at least makes no attempt to pretend that he is, but that doesn't matter as long as the character is good. Right?]

Assuming that I would actually read it. [He rolls his eyes, ignoring the fact that John can't even see him do that. Dave was mostly scribbling right now. He didn't really have a character in mind at the moment.]

So, catch up time. What have you been up to since the last time we talked? [John, if you died during the Vday fiasco, he will have to beat up whoever killed you. B|]

[No, fortunately he somehow managed to stay alive during that period. ~~Mostly because his mun is terrible about plots, ha ha ha...~~]

Not much! Like you said, there's not too much to do, I've mostly been sticking close. [Also, he may or may not have held an entire conversation with the Wind Waker and not realized it at all.] How about you?

[How does he answer this? 8| Ugh, John asking the worst questions as usual.]

Just getting used to this place, that's all. Ain't nothing really. [Wow, that was a lie if he ever heard one. But John is easy to trick right? Hahhaha... There's no way in hell he's telling John what happened.]

[Yes, Dave. Yes he is.] Oh, alright. Well, even if we're... not in the safest of places, at least we all know where each other is, right?

[He almost feels bad that John is this easy to dupe. But dying Daves weren't worth mentioning in the Session, it would do no good here, right? Wow that's some messed up thinking.]

Yeah. Hey, we've gone through some nasty shit already. We can get through this place too, right? They ain't seen what we can do together. Which, by the way, this Tower is overdo for some intense Bro shenanigans, you know what I mean?

[Seeing John hard at work, Yosuke would have come over to check things out either way. Getting bonked on the head by a paper ball is only further incentive! And so, John's roomie takes to hovering over his shoulder, looking down at his work]

Huh, I never had you figured for an artist.

[Wherever there's a pile, there's an obnoxious little devil waiting to get his zone on in it. And, well, John, you have certainly got a decent mound of paper balls going there! Hope you're not too surprised when one of your less-familiar alien pals takes a flop right into one, sending scraps and crumpled balls flying.

Oh, you mean this little wonder pile didn't come out of nowhere? Sure enough, there was a boy hastily scribbling on sheets of paper, then tossing them, discarded, onto the floor. Curious, Gamzee wraps his fingers around the edge of the desk, pulling himself up just enough to peek over the side.]

How big you be all plannin' to make this pile, motherfucker?

[ Eh...? ]

You're... referring to the Princess?

[ Staring... Link is a little. Confused. ]

No, I'm referring to the video game. [John finally turns in his seat, guessing that the person was just a lot older than their voice suggested -- and stopped dead.]

...Oh. My god.

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