[OPEN] How much of it's genetics? How much of it is fate?

[chronomancer]

Characters: jade!Eridan & YOU! 
Setting: Workshop
Format: Starting with action, but I'll match you.
Summary: Eridan emerges from his self-imposed exile for a while to clean his rifles.
Warnings: Eridan's deadpan. Potential violence if he gets pissed; lots and lots of rifles. Gamzee. Gory, ironic death via Gamzee. Goddammit, Gamzee.

[He started off with one. And then he doomed himself a few times. And well. It wasn't like he could just let them go to waste, when they started piling up.

Laser rifles need a different type of maintenance than the usual kind, but it's still maintenance in the end.

So there's a sullen troll, half hidden behind a pile of guns, carefully cleaning one by one. It's a methodical and repetitive process, but it's not like Eridan seems to mind too terribly. He's just minding his business, but hey. Maybe if you ask very nicely, he'll give you one.

Maybe.]

Comments

[chronomancer]

[So long as you don't hug him, you won't have to notice the fact you can probably count his ribs. 8)]

...the here bits don't really outweight the there bits.

[He shrugs yet again. He's kind of a chronic shrugger.]

And I'm kind of an asshole most of the time, too.

[papshooshing]

I'm an asshole all of the time. Don't try to make asinine points, bulgesucker.

[ he'll yank on your ear next. ]

Truth is, I'm not judging and you should step the fuck off and stop being so harsh on yourself at the same time. And if you have a fuck up like me telling you this, then you know that you should believe it.

[chronomancer]

[If you break it, you buy it, Karkat. Eridan sighs a little, hunching forward.]

...if you say so, Kar.

[Yeah, so not convinced. Mostly because you're the furthest thing from a fuck up he can think of. So yeah.]

[papshooshing]

Say it like you're trying to convince me...

[ just going to... kick at with foot. lightly. more of a shove than a real kick. ]

[chronomancer]

...I'm not really good at being convincing.

[papshooshing]

Well you're going to have to learn or I will fucking indoctrinate this shit into your thick head if it's the last thing I accomplish here.

[chronomancer]

...do you have to?

[He looks so unexcited about the prospect he might have discovered the true meaning of anti-excitement.]

[papshooshing]

Deal with it.

[chronomancer]

[Eridan lets out a very loud sigh.]

Alright. Alright. Anything you say.

[papshooshing]

Are you going to be agreeable?

[chronomancer]

[He smiles a little, inwardly laughing at the irony.]

I'm always agreeable, Kar.

[papshooshing]

Ampora.

[ his super perception is kicking in. ]

[chronomancer]

[Another sigh.]

Yes, Karkat, I will be agreeable to anything you want.

[There's a small, spiteful pause.]

Though I want it on record that I am always fucking agreeable, it's just that no one bothers to fucking ask.

[...bitter, who's bitter, haha, not him. Ever.]

[papshooshing]

That's the point, Eridan Ampora. Maybe you don't fucking get that yet, but...

[ reaching over and gonna just grab an ear. ]

You're you and that's all that you fucking are and all that you should be. Not some doormat or a goddamn support character.

[chronomancer]

Ow.

[The ears are not detachable!]

Okay, okay!

[Pause.]

But...

[papshooshing]

But what.

[ c'mon man. backbone. get one. ]

[chronomancer]

...but being a doormat and a support character are kind of what a Time player is.

[He sighs a little.]

Your Aradia was just smart enough to be dead while she did it.

[Real smart, Eridan envies her that a lot.]

[papshooshing]

Fuck the game. What does it know.

[ no, really. ]

I'm a Knight and I did absolute jack shit. Besides. Time players aren't passive, now are they?

[chronomancer]

...actually we kinda are? In the great scheme a things, I mean.

[Oh hey, RAMBLING TIME.]

How you go about it is entirely up to you, but in the end the point is to keep the goddamn timeline stable so all the pieces make it to the end of the board in time, pardon the pun, I'm trying to quit. In comparison to everyone else, we are really passive in that we are usually too busy setting up the stage to really get involved with anything else up until the Black King fight. And by then I promise you it's been way longer for us than it's been for anyone else, so it's a habit and it kind of changes the way you think.

[Pause.]

Unless apparently you're dead while doing it, and I fucking wish I had known that. Though the prospect of coming back with wings is not that appealing either.

[Secretly, he just wants to die for good. Whoops.]

[papshooshing]

How is that passive? You're actively engaging in a crucial aspect of the game. Without your role, we'd all be fucking sunk.

Tell me, Eridan Ampora, how in the fucking human conception of Hell, does that make you a doormat? Passive isn't the same as supportive, fuckwit.

[chronomancer]

[Don't yell at him, he'll flinch away. You're of the few people he still flinches away from instead of snarling back. :C]

Because you need to learn to let things happen. You're not engaging your aspect, you're engaging the shit getting in the way of your aspect.

[There's a pause.]

You're suppose to sit back and let people fuck themselves over, instead of engaging them and trying to help.

[papshooshing]

[ he's not completely screaming. maybe voice is elevated. Karkat rubs at his face. argh this is so difficult. ]

No shit. I get that. There are morons that have to die because it's the thing that has to happen. Big fucking whoop.

[ only he does kind of care about that. shhh. ]

Eridan, you're saving more people than someone with a more "active" role like me. Just because you're not the one out front with the goddamn weapon doesn't make it any less true.

I think I would have, honestly, preferred a role like that than what I got handed.

[chronomancer]

[Eridan snorts at that, shrugging.]

I've yet to meet anyone who doesn't completely fucking hate their assigned role.

[Pause. Because his Karkat and that Vriska.]

And well, who wasn't completely fucking batshit crazy, I mean.

[Not that he's not completely fucking batshit too, but he's good at pretending.]

[papshooshing]

I think Nepeta and Terezi were fine with theirs. Aradia adores her fucking role. Then again, I think she just likes everything right about now.

They aren't exactly shithive.

[chronomancer]

Well.

[Terezi. Man. Terezi. HE'S GOT THOUGHTS ABOUT HER, but Karkats tend to not take nicely to thoughts about Terezi. So yeah.]

Never really met them, myself. Except Aradia. And I think Aradia doesn't count, what with the dead thing.