caughtinanetwork | [Accidental Video/Text]

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[Accidental Video/Text]

Ah..

[The video only shows the briefest flash of a face - deep jade eyes with a soft yellow glow, grey skin and black hair that's drenched down from its usual style and curled in wet tendrils around a confused and wary expression. She has been there for some time now, though quietly, getting her bearings, working out what this place might be and whether or not she truly is dead.

The answer to the last - and most pressing - of her concerns appears to be 'no', but of course that brings up a whole new set of questions and problems. No afterlife that she had ever heard of had been anything like this.

A moment later, after giving a clear view of her location - a quiet corner of the plaza - the video feed is ended. It's several more minutes before a text is sent out.]

If It Is Not Too Much Trouble.
I Would Appreciate Some Assistance.

[[ooc: Please feel free to respond however you like! Action is fine too :>]]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

YES, YOU JUST DON'T REMEMBER IT
WHICH IS NORMAL AFTER A LONG PERIOD OF ABSENCE, SO DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT TOO MUCH.
IF ANYTHING IMPORTANT HAPPENED FOR YOU THEN THAT STILL MATTERS NOW, YOU'LL HEAR ABOUT IT SOONER OR LATER.

I Understand.
Thank You.
Who Are You?

I WAS WAITING FOR YOU TO ASK THAT.

[He switches over to video, and soon enough the SFC is held out to a spot where it can show his face, horns, and the symbol on his shirt.]

Karkat Vantas, descendant of the Signless, and yes this is the part where I expect a lot of questions. But before anything else, we're here at the same point in time because of time shenanigans, which are plentiful here. Don't expect them to make sense and you won't suffer crippling disappointment at the laws of reality.

[She's just going to stare at him for a few moments, but he probably expected that, right? Though, perhaps contrary to his expectations, she doesn't ask any questions. At least, not right away. She seems to take in every tiny feature that she can see, then her expression softens, jade eyes warming.]

You look just as he did.

[Yes, he did, so for once Karkat sits patiently while she looks him over. Your adopted child's descendant isn't something you see every day. He does, however, raise his eyebrows when she responds so shortly.]

No shit I do. He's here too, and when he showed up it was like looking into a mirror with awful pants and extra sweeps. We're genetically closer than ancestors and descendants normally would be, anyway, but I'll save the how of that for later.

[Oh, dear. The comment on the 'awful pants' makes her laugh, one finger curling against her lower lip to cover her amusement.]

The poor dear never did have a good taste in clothing. It was not something that I was ever able to teach him.

[Ah, but she's still giving Karkat that soft-eyed look even as she continues speaking.]

There are others here, then?

What even possessed him to want to wear pants that high in the first place? Did he hit his head as a grub and decide to throw common sense and not-looking-like-a-tool out the window at the first opportunity?

[There is a reason he's going to give him normal pants for Christmas. As for the second question:]

But yeah, there are others here. The Summoner, the Psiioniic, the Disciple, Neophyte Redglare, Marquise Spinneret Mindfang, Executor Darkleer--or the Expatriate, whatever--the Grand Highblood, and Orphaner Dualscar, as far as ancestors go. Yes, every one of you is one, twelve total even if not all are here right now, to the twelve people on my team. Out of those, the ones here are Tavros Nitram, who is the Summoner's descendant; Sollux Captor, who is the Psiioniic's; Nepeta Leijon, the Disciple's; Kanaya Maryam, yours; Terezi Pyrope, Redglare's; Equius Zahhak, Darkleer's; Gamzee Makara, the Grand Highblood's; Eridan Ampora, Dualscar's; and Feferi Peixes, descendant of Her Imperious Condescension. No, you don't have to worry about Equius or the others after him. If you did, I'd be dead, not their leader.

[Ah, yes, she likes this youngster. He reminds her of Signless in many ways, not least in his tendency to ramble. Still, she listens. Some of those names are welcome, some are not, and some are unknown to her, but no doubt she will come across all of them given time.

It's the last thing that he says that catches her full attention, however.]

You lead them? Truly?

That's what I said. More in the past than present, since it's not as constantly necessary here, but I'm still the asshole with the drive and utter stubborn determination to rope those nookbiters together long enough, smack direction into them, and get them to perform the tasks needed to get shit done. Not an enviable position when they're a band of idiots and egomaniacs, but I'm the one who did it, and I'm not giving up now.

That.. is very noble of you.

[Karkat blinks.]

I didn't do it to be noble; I did it because I wanted to lead. Ignoring technicalities, I am a natural hatched leader, and they're not going to pry it out of my claws even if I die.

[He has here, in fact, and didn't give it up.]

But we're not getting anything done just talking about that, so back on topic. There's a whole lot I can explain about this place, and about this whole ancestor-descendant business, but it'll probably go over your head if I just do it all at once. Ask some questions.

[She could go on with that debate about nobility, but he's correct in saying that there are other, more important things to think about at the moment.

And with that said, she does have a particular question..]

... How did you know of us?

I didn't until you, personally, showed up here about a half-sweep ago. You look like Kanaya, and when the Signless inevitably came up, the resemblance there and how you found him in his crater more or less made it obvious.

This is the part where it gets complicated, so give me some credit because it's going to sound bugfuck crazy. I cloned you, and him, and myself, and ultimately everyone on my team and all their ancestors. If you want to know how, it's part of this complicated reality-affecting game my team played, and ultimately what made the team happen in the first place. But after I cloned them, they all went back in time via these meteors to take the places they had in the past. The me I cloned it literally the same me I am now, just from a different point in my life.

At the time I admit I didn't know what the extra twelve were, and I thought ancestors were just a bunch of stuck-up bullshit made for highbloods to make themselves look more important. But like I said, you made it clear enough. Even if that hadn't been enough, the ones on my team who already did believe that ancestor business had theirs show up eventually, too.

[It really does make you sound crazy, Karkat, but what else is she going to believe? She takes in everything he says with the air of one well-practised in listening to rambling speeches and remembering it all for any questions that might follow.

Still, it does sound.. complicated, and you're using a lot of concepts she's not familiar with, there.]

I.. think that I will need a moment with all of that.

Take it. Like I said, I didn't even find out the whole implications until later, so I don't expect you to get it all at once.

[Plus, frankly, it's weird as all hell. Time loop cloning! He's glad the most he has to worry about here is incongruent points of temporal origin.]

I am sure that I will come to understand it in time.

[Hopefully. It all sounds so interesting but somehow she doesn't want to try this youngster's patience at the moment.]

The.. game that you spoke of. What is that?

Sgrub. While I can and have explained the whole game in the past, it would take longer by far than what I told you already, and not all of it exactly important right now. The three biggest points are that it ended the world, created a new universe, and the part about the cloning I told you earlier, but even that's bound to be more confusing.

And before you ask, no, we didn't know it was going to end the world when we started playing, but even that was inevitable because of - if nothing else has made it clear - copious amounts of time shenanigans.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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