JunkMail

---

So I had a question: What age group did you all want the characters? Young, older, or any?

Either way the story still works.

@Ghost Note

I plan to play one young and one old.

So yes.

---

Six posts in.

Two of them are 'yeet' and 'dab' respectively, and if I try to link this RP anywhere the link just says 'reeeeeeeee'

This is my kind of RP.

---

Is it that time of year again?

The Promise - Second Star to the Right, and Straight on 'til Morning.

Archie

---

Archie, please.

“Look, Archie. You’re never going to know if she likes you unless you tell her how you feel. Be yourself around her. And be confident too. Girls like guys that are sure about how they feel. You just need to show her. Get her alone, somewhere peaceful, tell her that you feel something towards her, and ask her out.”

"You guys must be pretty unlucky, huh? I mean, in your first week you came across a murder. I've been here for four years now and I've never experienced something like that. I hope your friend is okay. She seemed pretty upset when she left."

"Is your hand okay? It looks like you should run it under some cold water."

'Hope you make it tonight! There's plenty of booze and firewood. Let me know if you need help finding the campsite.'

It was a silent cry in the dark of his mind, an minute shard of light in the inky blackness that somehow cut through the fog of his consciousness like a knife. It was small, but it was enough to disconnect him from his adrenaline fueled shellshock.

Archie was too close and far too fast to lay on the brakes now with any effectiveness. In a moment of clarity he threw his massive, tree trunk sized arms upwards to brace himself. He collided with the wall with a thunderclap of force, his enormous clawed hands crumpling steel as he transferred the force of his enormous body into the structure rather into Eli and Keaton's tiny forms. He loomed above them now, blood dripping off his mangled jaw and disappearing with a hiss of heat as soon as it came in contact with skin or the cold metal floor. For a moment, the giant was still.

And then there was an explosion, and he felt his battered body rock away from the sudden concussive force. Most of the shrapnel and other refuse bounced off his thick dermal armor, but some of the larger pieces found their way into his arm- which had come down just besides Keaton in a last ditch effort to protect the two from receiving any collateral damage. He had no respite, though- and felt one of his legs get pulled out and away. He cast a look down and away, finding Natalie feebly pulling at the appendage.

She was strong as an ox, but she only weighed a hundred pounds.

Her grip was unyielding, but the minute amount of added weight meant the giant was completely unimpeded. As she pulled away, he simply lifted his leg, and with little effort pulled it back towards his body. Natalie came with it, and very quickly ended up with her legs and pelvis underneath his enormous foot. The giant shifted his weight, the explosion and sudden intrusion taking over again. He faintly remembered this one's scent. This one had been there before. He pressed downwards- Natalie's thick bones withstanding the force but the thick claws of his feet were digging into her now. Even if they didn't break skin- too much weight on her abdomen and the internal damage would be irreparable.

Archie, please.

He remembered her, though.

He remembered stopping her before she hurt herself at the cafe in the street. He remembered curling around her, holding her close.

Holding her hand.

The giant moaned and shifted its weight again, instantly taking the weight away, but did not remove its foot until Natalie released her grip- or was forced into Archie through some other means.

---

In all his years working on The Promise, never had they had a year quite as... dramatic as this one.

Between the constant trouble that a space station of parahumans caused, the breakout, the apparent presence of an antagonistic individual, and now... this, Gennedy had certainly been busy. Busier that he had anticipated. But a small part of him, the darker side that relished the chance to cut lose for once, was finding a silver lining in the situation. Yes, people were dying. There would be cleanup to organize. Funerals to plan. Miles of red tape and paperwork.

But for just a moment he was twenty years younger and back in security.

It wasn't often he got to use his power. All things considered it was always active, but he never got to do much with it. His years of enforcing were mostly over, and he didn't get to flex any muscle unless there was a very specific situation that demanded his specific skill set. A situation like this, one might say. It was simple, really. The terrorists had thus far been using explosives and firearms exclusively. The staff on The Promise were mostly trained in combating parahumans in nonlethal ways. He was functionally immune to bullets, and he was close by, waiting to be announced as he had been every semester. He could act faster than it would take security to arm properly and arrive once more.

The first gunman had not expected him. They were untrained, evidently. He hadn't checked his corners as he had passed through the cafeteria and into one of the corridors that led to The Promise's main hub. With his non-dominant hand, Gennedy redirected the barrel of the gun away from him. Bullets couldnt pierce him, but a shot to the face would still hurt. He stepped forwards and with his dominant arm he launched a jab into the man's masked face- shattering the ceramic and stunning the terrorist. He pulled his dominant arm down and grabbed the stock of the gun, pulling it out and down while he shoved the the barrel upwards with his off hand. This dislodged the gun from the man's grasp.

Gennedy pulled and stepped back, separating the gun from the man's body. He righted the LMG in his grasp, and fired two shots into the man's chest and head. Holding the gun close to his person, he paced into the door that the terrorist had just left from and into the cafeteria- where the final gunman was checking for survivors. From his position, he could see an overturned table with at least two vaguely familiar individuals huddled behind it. Across the room was the advancing terrorist.

He raised his gun, but he was unfamiliar with the firearm, out of practice, and old. The assailant was none of those things- and quickly managed to get a few shots off on him. What they weren't though, was bulletproof. Gennedy felt the impacts on his leg and upper chest distantly- in the same way that a six foot thick concrete wall felt someone's punch. He grunted, more out of indignation than pain, and raised his own gun in spite of the fact that he was being fired upon.

Breathe in. Aim. Breathe out.

Two shots. One in the chest followed by another in the head.

Silence.

He breathed, but didn't drop the gun in case there were any other gunmen in the area. Holding the gun with his dominant hand, he pulled his radio off of his hip.

"This is Hardin. One down outside, one down inside. We have at least two survivors. Loading bay unknown."

Backup would arrive any second now, now that the cafeteria was secured. Gennedy moved over to the two beside the table. Two girls- the one, Amelia, he recognized. The other not so much. He positioned himself a few feet away from them, towards the edge of the table, and kept his gun trained on the entrances from the loading bay. He glanced to Amelia, taking note of her status, as well as Lynn- who was doing notably worse.

"Help will be here any second now." he said, returning his eyes to the iron sights of the gun. "I'm no good with medical, but I can make sure no one hurts you two again. Just stay with me."

The Promise - Second Star to the Right, and Straight on 'til Morning.

Archie

---

It was an odd feeling, knowing that you were hurt but being unable to feel the pain.

It felt like fire, but without the burning. Like there was some sort of constricting, irritating force that made his muscles spasm and lose control of his own body. The inability to move on his own was a feeling that had been so deeply ingrained into him from that horrible night. He remembered the gunmetal pressed against his body. It was cold, and he was wet and tired. He hurt so much in so many places that he didn't even know he had. He remembered the look in the eyes of the man who raised him, too. The fear, the dread, the disappointment. His town was small and abode by tradition more than anything else. The way things were was the way they always would be. Parahumans had no place there.

Muscles moved beneath his body's thin layer of skin, the way the bones stretching with every extension of his legs. The snapping of bones echoed and popped, the ripping of his muscles and the blood curdling chokes for air. The gunshots were distant and right in his ears at the same time. He could taste the blood in the air, along with the brass and lead and gunpowder. He felt the explosions rock the floor, and the screams for help. They were so loud, impossibly so. Most of the remaining gunmen had moved into the cafeteria to continue their onslaught, but two remained in the room to finish off survivors. He heard gunfire, and felt impacts against his flank, like spears digging into his scales- a sensation he had only experienced once before. He roared in agony as the transformation completed. An inhuman, primordial sound that raised the hair on people's necks and rattled souls. The giant stretched its newly formed muscles and turned its attention to the remaining Silent Court in the room.

They fired, but he was too big, too fast. On all fours he covered sixty feet in an instant, his enormous muscles carrying him forwards in a desperate flurry of claws and scales and teeth. His massive claws found purchase in the metal floors, leaving enormous, ugly gouges of torn metal and flooring in his wake. The first man had been flattened outright, the primeval monster trampling him under foot. There was a sickening popping and squelching sound as he was reduced to a wet smear on the floor- his torso effectively flattened. The second found himself coming face to face with the jaws of death.

The giant reptile enveloped the terrorist's entire head and shoulders in his maw. There was a muffled scream that was instantly choked as the power of Archie's jaws forced his teeth through skin and bone vice grip. The pressure was immense, and the the pain was unbearable. Like being caught in a giant bear trap that rent flesh and shattered bone. Out of desperation the man failed wildly, kicking and screaming as he struggled to get out and away. The monster was unfazed, and shook the person like a rag doll. Archie couldn't remember much after that, but he remembered feeling his teeth slide shut. He remembered seeing legs and no body, cast in the vapors of half images.

He did remember the explosion, though. Right in his face. The vest, the deadman's switch. The heat hurt, but he could take that. It wasn't hot enough or long enough to breach his scales. But the force? The force rocketed his jaws apart in unnatural ways and sent him- all four thousand pounds of him, reeling back.

He hit the floor next to Eli, the force of his body weight shaking everything around him. He was alive- badly injured, again but alive. His lower jaw had been destroyed, and what was left of the mandible hung limp at odd twisted angles. His upped jaw was mostly intact aside from a spiderweb of burn marks that caked the entirety of his hard palate and throat- of which the skin was torn open where the jaws met his neck. He gurgled, but didn't falter for long. A distant part of him knew that there would be more in the cafeteria. More of the terrorists with guns that could hurt him like they had before. But that part of him was washed away by the pain. Everything with a heartbeat in the room could hurt him. Everything.

He turned his glowing white eyes to the closest living things in the room. Eli, Keaton, and the girl. He roared, his mangled, disheveled face and halfway exposed throat splattering blood and burnt tissue in their general direction.

He would be upon them in an instant.

The Promise - Second Star to the Right, and Straight on 'til Morning.

Archie

---

Archie nodded, but didn't look away from what was left of his fries at Natalie's promise to tell him more. Although, the edge of his lips quirked up just a little. He hummed gently, and payed with his student ID. "We should go soon. Cara will probably be annoying us." he explained as he slid out of his seat and allowed one of his hands to fall onto her shoulder in comfort. "Lets get going. I'm sure they'd be happy to have people help setup."

---

Nothing prepares a person for a rocket launch.

Sure, there can be special training programs one can undergo to try to condition their bodies to withstand the forces they are subject to. Special machines meant to simulate the acceleration, or sudden lurch of the all powerful engines roaring to life. But at the end of the day nothing can perfectly match what it is like for a person, mentally. All someone knows, all they've ever known had been right on the pale blue dot called earth. To agree to take a journey to the stars meant not only that they were putting their lives on the line, but also that they were leaving everything they had ever experience behind for something new and exciting and strange.

The launch is like the world's greatest roller coaster, the suspense and buildup feeling distant but immediate all the same. The feeling of your body being pressed into your seat immediately overwhelming one's thoughts of home and family and familiarity as the heart beats twice its normal rate to try to pump blood to the brain in an attempt to you conscious. Some aren't able to stay up for the whole flight, usually the less conditioned and less fit end up blacking out. Those that do are rewarded with a feeling of weightlessness when the engines finally cut. The launch itself had been daunting, minutes passing by like they were both hours and seconds at the same time- but the float? The float feels like forever.

To see the planet one once called home shrinking outside is a distinctly minimizing feeling. It had only been five minutes, but now one is further from home than they ever had been in their lives.

Then there's the sudden jerk when the launch pods are captured, the acceleration and artificial gravity forcing one back into their seats and throwing them forwards at the same time. Suddenly you're spinning, and the earth and stars are gone, and there are flashing lights, and one's mind is almost certainly screaming they you're going to die before you could do anything truly meaningful. That the screeching of brakes doesn't sound right. Part of one's mind does ask if this is it.

But it isn't, one realizes when they see the smiling faces of their peers, when they feel the overwhelming desire to relieve themselves... that this is just the beginning.

Of the end.

The doors haven't opened yet, but the sound of celebration outside pierces even the thick metal hull of the launch pod. The Silent Court sets to work, the strongest of the group assisting the others with righting themselves on their shaky legs and arming them. Taking the launch pod had been relatively simple, they had come quickly, by surprise, and with overwhelming force. They hadn't the people to hold the fort down for long, but just long enough to sever communications and to launch the pod. Those that one had spent so much time with likely laid down their lives for the success of goal. Now that responsibility fell on everyone aboard launch pod three. Words were so treasured to them, having been repressed so much by their neighbors and their leaders in an effort to make the problems appear nonexistent, or at least better than they seemed. So when the eldest member- an older man spoke, everyone listened.

"Today we must scream."

The court gathered their armaments, large machine guns with high magazine capacities and large destructive ammunition. When the doors finally opened, a woman stepped through. She was smiling, but the excitement died in her eyes as the realization of what they were dawned upon her. These were no students. She had barely been able to scream when she was peppered with impossibly loud gunfire. Her body contorting in the dance of death as it reacted to the force of bullets tearing through her. She fell unceremoniously, dead before she hit the floor, but the tip of the spear wasted no time. They marched forwards, stepping over or on her body as The Silent Court began fulfilling their last and greatest journey with red hot lead and fury. Brass, bullets, and blood filled the launch bay.

Today, they hid no longer.

Today, they roared.

---

Archie's had felt like something was wrong before the doors had even opened. He couldn't place his finger on it, but his mind kept thinking back to when he was captured. He could smell the gunpowder and adrenaline in the people around him then. Despite being literally a planet away from that he kept thinking back to it. When the doors opened, the smell of gunpowder and adrenaline had poured into his nose and he knew that something was wrong. The screaming, and then gunfire, and the sudden searing pain in his shoulder had all but confirmed that. Something was very, very wrong.

The floor of the hangar was cold, but it had a warm, slick, liquid-y feeling to it that was wetting his shirt. He couldn't quite place it. He was hurt, he knew that, but he couldn't feel that side of his body much so the sensation of anything was weird. He was dazed, and he could hear muffled screaming but the burning in his chest seemed more important. It felt... weird. Like he was there but he wasn't. This wasn't like his other changes. They always hurt. Was he dead?

He laid on the floor staring straight ahead for what felt like a while but couldn't have been more than a few seconds. He saw people jerk and fall, some managing to hobble up or move. Some didn't. Amidst the chaos he saw Lynn got shot twice in the chest, the force of the bullets just about taking her off her feet. One landed home on Amelia's upper body, where her neck connected to her shoulder. She fell, and he couldn't see the damage and if it was fatal or not. His eyes flashed to Eli just in time to see a round enter and exit her left calf.

He heard screaming. He wasn't sure if it was his own.

The Promise - Second Star to the Right, and Straight on 'til Morning.

Yeet

GRIM

K A S. L.
G R Í M S D Ó T T I R

More? More. _______________________________________________ Kasper/Kasandra Liev Grímsdóttir _______________________________________________ June 9th | 22 | Caucasian _______________________________________________ Allegedly Single| ⚧ | Pansexual _______________________________________________ College Drop-out | Student _______________________________________________ Physical Profile ___________________________________ [+] //Basics: • Height | 5'11" • Weight | 138lbs • Build | Lithe, Gaunt • Hair Colour | naturally Auburn, currently Mauve • Eye Colour | Green Miscellaneous Items ___________________________________ [+] //Every Day Carry: • A small tin box of hand rolled cigarillos • An old metal lighter found at a thrift store • A US quarter with two tails sides

A p p e a r a n c e D e t a i l s Kas has always stood out in a crowd; A little taller than average, gaunt despite their huge appetite, a distinct sense of fashion, often changing hair colour, meticulously applied makeup, the works. It's always been hard to get a read on them and if you did not know their face well enough, you could see them the next day and mistake them for someone else entirely. Their strong jawline, piercing emerald eyes, full lips, and stern brow are the only easily identifiable constants for most people that see them. Kas often rotates through an array of loose and tight-fitted pants, button ups & jackets, loose fitted hoodies, boots and dress shoes. All lend themselves to a constant of covering as much skin as possible. Seeing more than Kas's face and hands is a rarity and in almost every outfit they at least two layers on their tops, regardless of weather. They manage a consistent look of someone that spends a large part of their morning getting ready, even when they only have a few minutes to get from their bed to wherever someone is expecting them (something that happens very, very often). If you were ever to see beneath Kas's clothes, you'd see slim slender limbs, sharp angles, and hardly noticeable curves. Their faint auburn body hair is almost invisible and their skin is smooth and unblemished, noticeably free of even the most mundane birthmarks. Even more curious then would be the wrappings around their chest given how the rest of their body seemed free of any markings. Their body language is open and expressive. As long as you're not completely socially deaf you'll know pretty quickly how Kas feels about you. A broad-chested, grinning, Kas where a touch of their hand comes as easily as a laugh or a follow up of conversation stands in stark contrast to the uncomfortable Kas. A Kas whose hands stick to their pockets, their eyes wander, their presence is.... not present. When they feel good, they are larger than life and fill a room in spite of their diminished form. When they feel sour, you'd be lucky to be able to spot them if you were in the same room as them. Though if you made them angry? Well, you'll know.

_{P e r s o n a l i t y}

Kas has a wall of exuberance and utter confidence that's up most of the time they're in public. There a problem? Not when Kas's around. Doubt? "Do you know who I am?". Kas outwardly operates exclusively with big dick energy. The saying still waters run deep would apply well to Kas, if it weren't for their still waters being choppy and splashy as hell.

Beyond the facade, there is more to them then a constant ooze of confidence and self-assuredness. They're a lover and they long to find the connections they've been sorely lacking most of their lives; Friends, lovers, found family, whatever they can get. They're a superficial social butterfly who remembers every name and, more often than not, every bit they learn about someone. In a conversation they're present and eager, hungry to learn more about you. Though when the conversation gets turned around and they're supposed to talk about themselves, it gets a little... rough. Their gut instinct is to lie, to avoid talking about themselves, to just dodge any questions with little deflections.

So then, it should be no surprise that this secretive person has a self-destructive streak. That they often smoke, fully aware of how bad it would be for someone whose body won't cleanse all the damage done the next time their power is used. That they're a little too willing to use their power, should the situation call for it. In the face of death being almost trivialised they've developed a sort of complex. Life has no meaning or more specifically: Their life has no meaning.

_{C h a r a c t e r S y n o p s i s}

At Risk
The label hung over the Grímsdóttir family not long after they greeted their child into the world. Kas's parents had planned to name their child once they finally met them, but now that the risk that they might lose their child hung over their head they could not bring themselves to name their child. For much of Kas's first few years of life, they were called "my sweet", "my love", "little thing", and "Red" given the red head of hair they were born with. Only once the testing on Kas's genome was dialed back from weekly to monthly, from monthly to semi-annually, and then by "Red's" second year they were told they could come in yearly for observations. Finally, Kas's parents felt secure enough to name their child and finally they felt safe that their child would remain theirs.
Low Risk
Kas had a loving upbringing. A father that worked hard to play the stay-at-home father and contract artist, a mother who did.... Business things. Neither Kas or her father ever really got it, but whatever it was exactly Mom did, she was damn good at it. They had a comfortable lifestyle, one that afforded them some luxury in a country where living (if we ignore the frigid wasteland it was most of the year) was already fairly comfortable. Kas's father always encouraged them to try new things, to never be afraid to fail, and to follow their passions. This quickly turned into fighting people for exercise, making terrible art all the time, and trying to make clothes that would turn them red looking back on themselves.
Minimal Risk
With nearly 13 years without any sign of meta-development, the Grímsdóttir family was able to move to Ireland following a lucrative job opportunity for Kas's mother. In Ireland, Kas flourished and took advantage of the climate that was positively balmy compared to home. Making friends, even with their spotty English and even spottier Irish was a snap for a young and energetic Kas. What the lacked in words, they made up for with the energy they brought. Kas almost never said no to new experiences. Sure, they might have had a brief (read: the entirety of their high school career) period of hooliganism, but it was all in good fun. Kas snuck out for drinks at the local pub that aggressively did not card, they shuffled through boyfriends and girlfriends (often more than one at a time), they made bad art that they were beyond proud of, they wore ugly clothing that they made themselves, and they would put on enough makeup to make a clown blush. They lived like an idiot, but boy did they live.
False Flagged
Shortly before going off to uni, Kas was informed at the clinic they went to for testing that it was likely a false flag. Their genome may have matched with some at risk activators, but they were 18 years deep into a life without any parahuman experiences. They were normal. As normal as they could be anyway. They'd still be required to come in for testing on a bi-annual basis, but at this point it was clear. They were no parahuman. Kas took this as the best possible sign for things to come and went on to attend Uni on and off for a few years, taking semester gaps here and there to get a breather and refresh themselves creatively with personal projects to keep the flame alive that was getting treaded on a little more every time they had to take an art-history class. In their second to last semester they broke their leg in a kickboxing competition and shortly after developed a staph infection that left them stuck in a hospital when they should have been working on their finals. And then...
Activated Genome
Everything fell apart.

_{A b i l i t i e s & S k i l l s}

_//Abilities:

Superhuman Ability | Per Mortem Celluar Restoration ~~ Man vs. Self
Advanced healing factors should be no surprise to most that are familiar with meta-humans. Though there's always something a little different for everyone and in Kas's case, it's been conveyed to them that their variation is... perhaps more than a little different from others. Their body is unremarkably different from most people, a little sickly skinny for their height sure, but nothing too unusual. When they are injured, the wound clots and heals over hours, days, weeks just like everyone else. A cut might take a few days, a broken arm six or so weeks, the flu a week and some change. Where things get interesting is what happens when their body begins to experience cardiac arrest, respiratory arrest, or a cessastion of of major brain acivity. In the stages of imminent death, an exothermic reaction occurs within their body as all damaged and destroyed cells are rapidly regenerated. The process is violent and sudden and the more severe the damage, the more intense the exothermic reaction. Due to complications from an infection during a stay in the hospital, Kas experienced cardiac arrest and when they came to they found their broken leg fully healed and their body free of infection. The personal cost of this power activation for a (relatively mundane) death had been the loss of a few pounds. The external cost had been the nurse who had the misfortune of arriving just in time for the reaction, their body horribly burned by the activation of Kas's power.

Limitation(s) | Too little too late and sometimes too much
The power can only activate once death is imminent. Only one the light has left their eyes, their heart has ceased to beat, their lungs have taken their last breath, and their brainwaves have dissipated can their power activate.

Then there is the matter of fuel. Kas has to stick to an incredibly high calorie diet if they want to always have enough fat to burn to fuel these violent revitalising reactions. Just a simple revitalisation is enough to burn several pounds in an instant. Something more severe; missing limbs, a crushed and warped body, full body burn. All of these are going to siphon huge amounts of energy out of Kas Unfortunately for its master, this power has no way to pull its punches. It will burn all of the energy it needs to repair them, even if the state it leaves Kas in is worse than their state before death.

Weakness(es) | A candle burnt at both ends eventually goes out
Horror comes in many forms and for Kas, the greatest of all is one where they cannot find death. A vegetative Kas would remain trapped in their body until they died of other factors. Could they depend on someone to pull their plug? What if someone wanted to hurt them? A severed limb wouldn't kill them if it was treated right. What about space? What would even happen to them if they were dumped out into the void? Would their power just reset over and over again? Would it burn through all of their fat, wither their muscle, dying and being reborn over and over until their body was reduced to a withered husk? At least they had that natural defense if someone wanted to kill them, that the activation of their powers might kill or at least drive off whomever wanted to hurt them. But something like space? Like starving or dehydrating to death? At that point, all their power is going to do is ensure it happens for good.

Not to mention their power doesn't make them any naturally better than anyone else. They were mostly just... well, a human. Just a human that could violently explode back to life.

It's a complete mending/restoration of damaged/absent cells. Like how an infection killed them and when they came back their leg was fixed. If they had liver damage from drinking, but died of a hand grenade near the face, they'd come back with a refreshed liver and a new bit of face meat. It doesn't reset things like age, but the constant refreshing would help them live longer since it's also purging all of the things that would normally kill most people (e.g. cancerous cells, heart disease). But they still age and with age things will start to fall apart despite their powers best efforts to keep them alive. Who knows how long they have, but their time isn't infinite. And once they hit a natural end of life, their body will enter the same kind of death spiral they'd likely experience if they were jettisoned out of a Paradise airlock. Death, regeneration, death, regeneration, death, regeneration until their own power has done the job of the withering on its own.

_//Skills:

Polyglot | Due to Kas's upbringing, they are a native Icelandic and English speaker, full professional proficient at Swedish, and limited professional proficient at Gaeilge.
Kickboxing | Their father thought it'd be empowering for Kas and signed them up at a young age to take kickboxing lessons at what Kas was convinced was the only place that taught it in Iceland. They've stuck with it since they were six and while they have over a decade and a half of experience, their fragility doesn't do much for what they've picked up over the years.
Walk, Walk, Fashion Baby | Kas picked up their androgynous style when they were young and, since finding clothes that fit them just right was a pain, started learning young to make their own clothes. This quickly extended beyond learning about what makes good clothing to body care and makeup skills to always keep them looking exactly they way they want to look. Even if, sometimes, the look they choose is lazy af.

_{O T H E R}

Kas's accent is a mess. The only language that sounds right when they speak it is Icelandic, and even that sometimes gets a little mix of the Irish accent they started to adopt after moving to the Emerald Isle as a teen. Their English is a battleground for their mother tongue and the Irish accent they learned English in.

@Marx

Accepted! Feel free to move him to the CS tab at your leisure. Looking forward to reading him!

The Promise - Second Star to the Right, and Straight on 'til Morning.

Archie

---

"Hey, Archie. I'm....I'm sorry. Taking a break was a mistake and I'm sorry if it hurt you. I don't think it even fixed anything or made anything better. I just didn't want to burden you."

"And can we, like, I dunno. Carry on? Like, as boyfriend and girlfriend? I'd like that."

At that Archie suddenly became more articulate than ever, "I, um, it – uh, you, I, um, er, uh, well… um, what?"

Somewhere behind him, someone dropped a platter of food.

Despite the conversation at hand, the sudden noise had startled him. A part of him was grateful for the distraction, because it meant that he could channel all of that nervous energy that was now building inside him into something that was more socially appropriate than a heart monitor going off. God, whenever it started beeping he felt like one of the occupants of the nursing home.

"Shoot, let me help you."

He slid out of the chair easily, shifting his attention quickly from the hard task of sorting through how he felt to the easy task of helping the waitress collect the empty plastic cups that had rolled his way. This was certainly a surprise, and not at all the conversation that he was expecting. But at the same time, what exactly HAD he been expecting here? She had wanted to see him, and she hadn't seen him in a while so it wasn't exactly unreasonable to assume that she'd hit him with something heavy like this but he just hadn't thought that she would ask him to be an official relationship after going several weeks without seeing him. And for what, so he wouldn't see her in a rough way? So she wouldn't burden her? Since when did she get to decide what did and didn't burden him?

It stunk, and he wasn't sure how to take it.

He collected the last of the three cups that had come his way and passed them to the apologetic but thankful waitress. He sighed, but wasn't sure what to make of the situation. He wanted to say yes, but after just... not talking to her for so long he wasn't sure if he wanted that yet. He had seen first hand what happened when two people who cared about one another just chose not to communicate with one another. He sighed and took his seat next to her again. Archie focused on the counter for a long moment, trying to decide how he wanted to respond.

"I'm... not sure that's a good idea right now." Archie said finally, giving Natalie an apologetic look. "It's not that I don't like you, or want, well, that." he explained. His shoulders bobbed with his words, and his hand reached out to rest on Natalie's. "I'm not like, opposed to it, just, for not seeing someone in a few weeks it doesn't seem right." He hated doing this, because it felt like he was letting her down in some way. She very obviously wanted to BE with him, and he did too but he just couldn't commit to that when Natalie's reasons were a lack of trust in him. He understood her fear for the future and for how dangerous The Promise was turning out to be, but he'd rather have someone that trusted him to have their back than someone who couldn't trust anyone at all in that sense.

"I accept the apology, and I'd like that too but-" he said, grasping for words metaphorically, "I think we should see each other more before becoming boyfriend and girlfriend. I've lost a few too many people for a fair-weather relationship." His phone buzzed, and he slipped it out of his pocket to check the message. Another alert, just a reminder that the pods would be arriving in the next hour or so. They'd have to go soonish. He'd have to let Eli know that he'd be on his way soon. He cast his eyes up to Nat and gave her a lopsided smile. "I hope that's okay. I still want to see where this goes. Whatever this is."

Public Role Play: A food critic comes in and thoroughly dashes a young chefs dreams. No smut. No fetish. Just humilitation.

hello yes i'd like to play shadow the hedgehog but with really stinky feet

The Promise - Second Star to the Right, and Straight on 'til Morning.

garbage time