[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

[moonbound]

[His bro's a vampire, you're in good company. And Ken does better with body language half the time anyway, so he's cool with the shrugging.]

Well, he uses bows, crossbows, darts. As for me, I wouldn't know. I mostly just bite things.

[Surprisingly effective for him.]

[chronomancer]

Yeah, I guess those are similar enough? But then there's the difference in weight and arc, as well as speed and wind resistance when you're aiming. Plus the kickback. Most people don't stop and think about the kickback and end up breaking bones as a result. It's almost funny.

[In as much as other's misery is funny I suppose. LET'S STOP TALKING ABOUT SHOOTING THINGS, or he'll never shut up. Eridan headtilts a little.]

Must be helluvva fast, to pull off close range like that huh.

[moonbound]

Faster than a human anyway. And quite a few vampires.

[...yeah Aya may have told him to be discreet but you're obviously not a human thing so it's all good, right? Right. Totally. Yes. If Omi were here he'd be getting hit with a rolled up newspaper.]

[chronomancer]

Depends on the human.

[Said Eridan darkly, thinking of his moirail, her entire rotten paradox family, and their fucking rad flashstep skills.]

Don't really like short range, myself. If I can help it.

[There's a pause.]

There's always the shovel, though. If anything else fails.

[moonbound]

[He headtilts, thinks it over. Bizarre tower, bizarre people, you're probably right.]

Well, in my world anyway. 'Course, there's a lot of people out there.

[...huh, he's only been here a few days and already the 'my world' thing, this is a bit over the top. But he's learned to adjust to new circumstances before.]

...shovel. Well, if it works.

[chronomancer]

Mine does.

[This is not a very sane smile, please excuse the unhealthy amount of batshit crazy hiding in there.]

Trust me. It's all about technique.

[moonbound]

[Dude he regularly rips throats out with his teeth and voluntarily donates blood to a vampire that regularly starves himself, his sense of self preservation and sanity isn't all there himself...]

Well sure, hit anything over the head hard enough and it'll go down.

[...this barely even strikes him as a weird conversation to have with a total stranger.]

[chronomancer]

I prefer one hit wonders, but that might just be the sharpshooter in me.

[Another shrug.]

You can get pretty clean, decent deaths if you know your angles well. Admittedly less messy than a exploding skull, but sometimes not nearly as satisfying.

[If you don't take him out of this tangent, he'll keep going alright. Notions of weird and sanity are all but neat pretenses at this point in time.]

[moonbound]

[He's probably the worst person to manage that. Unless, of course, he isn't--his attention span is kinda off, and he can switch on a dime once he figures one line of conversation has run its course. He slides to sit on the floor, looking up at Eridan curiously.]

So...what are you, anyway?

[chronomancer]

[Eridan watches him sit down with a bit of a critical eye, shrugging somewhat.]

A troll.

[There's a small pause.]

Actual alien though, not the. Troll things in human history thing. Whatever those are.

[moonbound]

[He doesn't like chairs, man.]

Big, not very nice, to humans anyway. I've never had a problem with one personally. Don't really talk a lot, but I've seen one throw a huge rock a good mile and a half like it was nothing. It was pretty awesome.

[chronomancer]

['s okay, just noteworthy. Eridan is kind of detail oriented.]

Yeah, no. I'll give you big, in general, and not very nice, to anyone. Not really, I guess. You need to be not nice when the whole shtick of the race as a whole is running a galactic empire but, yeah. Most of the ones around here are pretty okay, though.

[Except for the douchebags.]

Mass extinction does that, I guess.

[moonbound]

[He's got a lot of weird little details like that.]

Yeah, no galactic empires involved with the trolls I know. They mostly stick to themselves, up in the mountains.

[The mass extinction thing though...not awesome. He looks...really sympathetic, actually. Not that he can really, completely, understand the feeling, but sudden dramatic shifts in your lifestyle and surroundings accompanied by the killing of almost everyone you ever knew, he's got that down. His head dips and shoulders hunch, echoing body language that's more natural in his other form.]

...what happened?

[And now you've got on a topic of sads. You're welcome. At least you're off the guns and mayhem.]

[chronomancer]

[...this is a topic of sads, but he's not gonna talk about it with someone he just met. Sorry, bro. You're gonna get the abridged, morbid humor take on it. Eridan shrugs.]

Rocks fell, everyone died.

[There's a pause.]

Well okay, rocks fell, monstrous horror from beyond got mad and screamed, and then everyone died. It's almost funny when you think about it, really.

[moonbound]

[He wouldn't have understood the full version anyway. You would've just gotten confused puppyface. He doesn't really understand the abridged version either, if the tilt of his head is any indication. HOW COULD A ROCKSLIDE KILL AN ENTIRE SPECIES WHAT...ROCKS FALLING?

...he's only three years out of the mountains himself, he doesn't always understand turns of phrase like this.]

...okay.

[chronomancer]

Really big rocks.

[Because that makes it clearer.]

[moonbound]

They'd have to be, wouldn't they?

[Yup, still think you mean literal rocks.]

[chronomancer]

[But there WERE literal rocks involved!]

Giant rocks hurling from space. It's ridiculous when you think about it.

the incentive i'm giving myself to finish my work is icon time until then REUSING ALL THE ICONS

[moonbound]

[HE DIDN'T KNOW THAT WAS A THING. Giant space rocks man. Does that mean the moon's gonna up and kill them all?]

...I guess.

[His science education is sadly lacking. As is his education in general, really. His friends have been working on the 'teach him shit as we go along and it comes up that he doesn't know about it' theory. He makes a mental note to ask Aya later.]

that's a good incentive! Good luck with your work!

[chronomancer]

Eh. What's done's done anyway.

[Except he's Eridan and he'll never ever let it go, but of course he's not telling you that. Or anyone else who doesn't already know. Man, he's such a filthy fucking liar, it's a miracle you can't smell the bullshit on him, wolf-boy.]

So it's not that terrible, I guess.

[moonbound]

[Sadly his magic nose does not extend to detecting lies, at least with scents he's not familiar with. He doesn't know your tells, man.]

...can't say I know anything about giant space rocks, whatever they're called, but it sounds pretty bad.

[chronomancer]

[He's got no tells. Really. Except he's got all the tells, which is why he's got no tells. It's Complicated.]

Asteroids is the word you're looking for.

[Eridan offers half a smile.]

I guess it's pretty bad for those stuck there while it happens. But it's not on my top ten worse ways to die. Pretty effective on the genocide area though.

[moonbound]

[Everything you're involved in seems to be Complicated, Eridan.

Filing that away. His vocabulary expands every day! Pretty awesome considering he started out practically nonverbal.]

...it's kinda fucked up that you have a top ten.

[chronomancer]

[It's hard, okay. It's hard being a melodramatic self-pity black hole and nobody understands.

Eridan snorts and shrugs at him.]

You die as much as I do, and then tell me you don't end up having your top tens about pretty much everything.

[moonbound]

[Aya might! Y'all should sit down and talk sometime. Potential vampire angstbucket, actual vampire angstbucket, it'll be great.

...if your definition of 'great' is the exact opposite thereof, of course.]

I dunno, my top tens usually involve living-thing stuff. There's accepting shit that happens to you and then there's that, man.