open: a new challenger appears

[forceofnature]

Who: Viridi & You!
What: Arrival
Where: Multiple places
When: Who even knows
Content Warnings: Small angry children, slight referential humor that extends beyond the Fourth Wall



[A: Arrival, Takoba Beach]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH --

[Scenic Takoba Beach (maybe scenic isn't the right word), usually a treasure trove for scavenging inorganic objects of dubious value, plays host today to a new and unusual prize washed up on its shores. This one is organic. Fleshy. ...And loud. Very loud. Extremely, unreasonably loud.]

This is not happening! I already made a world, and it's fine besides that one little speedbump I'm taking care of; I don't need to return to the primordial void! Chaos isn't even referenced in the instruction manual -- it's kind of just assumed we did it on our own!

Pandora! Pandora, is this one of your weird games that are only funny to washed-up old hags? Let me tell you, it's not!

[The small girl rolls over a few times like a noodle, exerting only as much effort as is needed to flip herself over. ...One gets the awkward sense that she's inhabiting a new and exceedingly flabby body. After a moment or two of struggle, she eventually sits up with a great groan of effort and makes a horrifying realization.]

I have to walk?! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuu --

[B, all over]

[Whenever she stops throwing her tantrum and manages to roll her way towards civilization, Viridi can be found stomping all over this ridiculous world (slowly, with great effort and lots of breaks), harshly judging literally everything she sees.]

[Underneath a tree casting a fake-looking shadow as if the sun were directly over it:] Terrible!

[Holding a 'burning' piece of paper that never burns:] Sloppy!

[On covering the distance between Mt. Silver and her apartment in twenty steps:] Totally incompetent!

[On finding literally anyone who will listen to her whine:] What did all y'all do, hire this place out to contractors on the cheap? I've never seen such shoddy workmanship in my (extremely, super-long) life. Cannot believe what a dump this is; at least we had things planned on Earth.

Do you losers even have gods here? If you actually had someone in charge, ahem, me, you could have had an actual livable world by now instead of whatever nightmare seventh circle of hell this is supposed to be.

F minus minus.

Comments

B - Messiah, the City of Tears

[gitgudprincess]

"I simply assumed whatever higher being is in charge here is wildly incompetent."

[Says the half-spider demigod who has made little-to-no effort to improve things herself. Hornet has been watching this child stomp around yelling at the sea for an indeterminable amount of time now, and she must say she has a lot of good points. Good enough to stay Hornet's hand from launching her off the city, at least.]

"Near as I can tell, they didn't even design anything themself. It's all stolen from other worlds."

[forceofnature]

I'll say. Look at this!

[Viridi drops a rock and it falls normally halfway, then gently floats down for the rest.]

Unbelievable. It's like they stopped programming these applications halfway.

[She kicks it away with a scoff before she turns to the person who's spoken up.]

...Huh. You, on the other hand, are pre-tty interesting. I see... evolved insectoid? Definitely arthropoda, maaaaaybe... chelicerata. I love what you did with the antennae. Very glam.

[gitgudprincess]

[Hornet leans back a little. The commentary on her species is... unappreciated, to say the least.]

"I'm a bug. That's all you need to know. And you're a... human?"

[She's been around enough of them to have a pretty solid understanding of what humans look like. Still, it doesn't hurt to ask.]

"I'm not from around here, if it makes any difference to your ranking of this world's construction."

[forceofnature]

Ew, gross, never say that again.

[Viridi puffs herself up to her full size, which is... perhaps half an inch bigger than she previously was.]

I am Viridi. Goddess of Nature! Ruler of the Earth and All Living Things, thanks.

You know how sometimes, when you're young and naive, you get what you think is a really good idea and you're just so enthusiastic and you do things without really thinking, then it bites you in the butt 3000 years later and you regret everything? Like, I don't know. Nobel and dynamite. Haber and chlorine gas.

Yeah, that's humans.

A

[starshower]

You sure do, just like the rest of us. Unless you want the waves to sweep you away back into the void.

[Tifa's voice rings out from behind, only after letting Viridi vent her frustrations to no one. She's spent the better part of her day(?) fishing around Takoba Beach for any useful items she can bring back to the Wall Market food stalls, with some success. She has a sack thrown over her shoulder, lumpy with an assortment of cookware and decorations that she lets down to offer a hand instead.]

I can carry you in my sack if you'd prefer that.

[She's joking. She won't actually do that.]

[forceofnature]

[Viridi thinks about this for about ten seconds.]

Yes. Carry me.

[She's not joking. She reaches up both arms and frowns at her feet as if she's never used them before in her life.]

I swear, if I have to excrete waste, I will scream even louder.

[starshower]

[Tifa will grab Viridi's hand and help her get to her feet, but that's as far as she'll go. For now.]

I should hope you're not gonna excrete waste at all. Least not here.

[Does she... mean...? Not that she can here, but that's news for later... Or maybe she can figure that out herself.

Tifa instead hurls her sack of goodies over her shoulder again and bumps the back of Viridi's foot gently with her own.]

Come on, one foot in front of the other. Stick around here any longer and you'll just become a punching bag for the tin can machines that live around here.

[forceofnature]

Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn.

[She makes a noise that sounds like the dying grunts of a wounded buffalo as she's pulled to her feet. ...The noise does not abate despite the fact that she's upright now.]

But I hate this!

[Viridi: Goddess of Tantrums]

I haven't had to use a human body in years. What is it, just like... opposing muscle contractions?

[She takes one step.]

B - around Heavenly Blanc

[king_in_dreams]

[Noct looks up at Viridi from where he's sitting on the ground, one of the potato-chocobos grazing nearby.]

Uh... sorry... what?

[He actually turns around to look back over his shoulder, sure she's talking to someone else.]

[forceofnature]

What -- don't ignore me! Did you just let me go on for five minutes without listening?! I put a lot of effort into that rant, and it was wasted! Good tirades don't just make themselves!

You need to pay attention when your betters are speaking!

[It actually feels like she's capable of going on until the heat death of the universe without anyone listening at all, but that's probably besides the point.]

[king_in_dreams]

[Noct just blinks at her, clearly not nearly as impressed as he should be. One of his superpowers is definitely the ability to just stare blankly.]

Aren't you, like... five?

[She definitely looks like she's about five.]

[forceofnature]

This corporeal manifestation is ten, thanks!

[...]

Yes, there's a difference!

My real age is... I don't know. How old is the Earth again? When do all you eggheads invent radiometric dating?

It's like a few billion years give or take a... few billion years. Cut me some slack, I'm bad with numbers.

a.

[bachagain]

[ what the heckie...... normally leo'd be concerned about a body washing up on the beach, but given this weirdo (this word is less an insult and more a pleasant observation when it comes to his opinion) makes it very obvious she's okay... he skips past that.

instead he'll approach this interesting(ly loud) girl with an expression mixed between confused and amused... and crouch on down beside her.

a normal person would just walk away, probably, but nope. not leo tsukinaga. ]

Wahaha, well, you don't gotta! You can keep rolling around like that while continuing to say funny things. No one's telling you you can't!

[ basically: keep being weird, says the weirdo. ]

[forceofnature]

Augh, ew, get your toes away from my face. This nose is not having its first scent here be toejam.

[Viridi does indeed roll over a few more times to remove herself from his offensive presence.]

Are you trying to be funny or something? This is a serious emergency, I don't need to be dealing with your human humor while resolving this disaster.

[She's resolving it by screaming about it, in case you were wondering.]

How are you even here? There shouldn't be life in a place like this.

[bachagain]

[ hahahaha, there she goes. leo could defend the state of his feet.... plus state the fact that he's wearing boots so, like, if she could smell him that'd have to be pretty impressive--

--but he won't. viridi's saying a bunch of more interesting stuff, after all. he will, however, shuffle a couple steps closer (in a weird crouching-bunny-hop manner) so he's not having a conversation a weird distance away... plus he's curious if she'll roll away again. ]

Are your eyes like your legs and not working? [ wow. blunt. but he says this like it's a very honest question, and not at all an insult as he props his cheek up on his palm, his elbow resting on his knees. ] I'm alive and I'm here, so obviously I should be here! 'Cause I am!

[ galaxy brain, truly. ]

Now that that's one thing outta the way, what's the disaster you're talking about? If you said it already while screaming, I kinda lost track of it!

[forceofnature]

Watch it, buddy. My eyes are better than yours will ever be! Bet you were the guy who couldn't see why they called it Cinnamon Toast Crunch. What I mean is... how did a place that didn't even fill in all the gaps of its own existence yet evolve sentient life?

[Viridi finally drags herself into a sitting position with extraordinary effort.]

And this whole place is the disaster, nuts-for-brains! Don't try and pretend any of this is normal.

B All over

[blue_eyed_obsession]

[The first assessment cut through the air so sharply, that it got Kaiba's attention almost immediately. When he found the source, he decided that rather than interrupting her succinct tirade's he would follow along quietly from a respectable distance for a while to see just what else she might do for an encore. The stranger seemed to take exception to everything she touched or looked at. Somewhat ironically he found himself agreeing with her more than not, silently of course.

When she finally noticed he was there she got wordier and he felt the need to defend his own contributions to the void]

None of this had better be in reference to the cave system walkways... I handled those myself. [Not all alone you didn't, Seto. You might have spearheaded it but it wouldn't have been completed without aide]

As for the rest of it... I doubt that any of this was planned. It's as ramshackle and imbecilic as you already stated. [Then with a smirk and a shake of his head] .. but I fail to see the need for any Gods- unless they're Egyptian and in card form, of course. If people were smart, they'd see that I should be the one to straighten this place out.

[forceofnature]

I don't know what you're specifically referring to, but if you were in charge of them, I bet they're definitely shoddy, Mr. Grown Adult Who Drops References to Children's Card Games Unironically.

[Making Friends is Viridi's special talent.]

And of course this place needs gods. Every place needs gods - it's self-explanatory. You end up with this!

Chaos in its beginning state was almost exactly like this. We cleaned it up and made a working world out of it.

DANG RIGHT UNIRONICALLY! I love it.

[blue_eyed_obsession]

Awfully short-sighted to try and make an enemy out of me so early in the game, then again.. [Motioning to her stature with one free hand] .. you are in fact short. Maybe it fits. [Duel monsters was a global phenomenon in his dimension, played the world over by those of all ages. He wouldn't be shaken]

[Kaiba's too]

I contend that it doesn't. You can't compare everything to a poorly coded simulation.

Yeah well you can forget all that, your services won't be needed here.

B

[realway]

Uh... sorry?

[ says ahsoka, not at all sorry, stopped in the middle of her way to heavenly leblanc for a cup of strong tea. so much for that though. she doesn't say a word until the girl is finished and then, slowly, puts on a smile. it's the sort of patient smile you give a young child throwing a tantrum in the hopes of placating them. she's dealt with younglings before - it isn't so different. ]

It seems like you're new here. Don't worry if you're overwhelmed by everything. Let's slow down, ok? [ she lays her palm flat over her own chest. ] My name is Ahsoka. And you are?

[forceofnature]

Ugh, don't talk to me like that. I'm not a child. I just look like one. ...And act like one. It's mostly a character role; my maturity is actually just unfathomable to you mortals.

[Viridi frowns. She would be much more annoyed if it were a human speaking, but this person is clearly some sort of rubber forehead alien.

Wait, wrong series.]

My name is Viridi. And I'll have you know I was making perfectly cogent complaints.

[realway]

[ huh. well, that makes things more complicated. mainly that, despite her claim to maturity, ms. viridi is being very childish even for her not-age. ]

The buildings you see before you formed from our collective will. As do other things, like plants and animals. I agree it isn't... perfect, but life takes on the shape it does for a reason.

B

[anciently]

I'm sure some people here have their own gods. [ Hello! Aerith turns, surprised to hear the irritated voice, though she smiles hesitantly and offers a wave. ] It sounds like you're pretty mad about all this, huh?

[ Hey, she gets it! ]

Sorry I can't take you to my leader, or anything like that. We all kinda showed up at the same time, and as far as we know, nobody else lived here before us. Nobody who's still around, anyway.

[forceofnature]

What, why are all of you people just calmly smiling and nodding about all this? Are you lobotomized? Is that what happens here? They bring you to a half-world that's unfinished then they scoop out your brains so you don't rock the boat?

Well, not me!

I am rocking this ship so hard it's gonna capsize and we're all gonna drown!

[...]

Metaphors aren't my strong suit.

[anciently]

Hey, rock all you want! I fully support you. [ She actually laughs, affable and amused. ] It's not that we're just accepting it... More that we're trying to figure out as much as we can about this place so we can all go home. But, it's a pretty slow process, and we're also trying to make the most of it in the meantime. Know what I mean?

[ Plus, Aerith especially is a master of appearing cheerful when she's really feeling otherwise, so this is nothing new. ]