JUNE - JULY TEST DRIVE MEME

[indigo_events]

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Comments

John Egbert | Homestuck (Meat Epilogue)

[cyclonely]

Action
John isn't looking a gift horse in the mouth, exactly. The nice momly lady (maybe actually somehow his mom here, based on what he remembers about Pokemon) gave him a backpack sylladex with a bunch of free stuff in it, and she didn't have to do that. He actually kind of embarrassingly teared up when he found the packed lunch inside it (though if it happens in the forest when nobody is around to see it, did it really happen? Probably not. Nobody needs to know John Egbert cried over onigiri shaped like little seal faces.)

The problem he's having, here, is it's been kind of wet all day and the sun is starting to set and all he has for this situation in his backpack is a sleeping bag and nothing else. It's not as if he has any hidden wilderness survival skills: he hasn't done anything like that since, well. The world ended. Alice, his Swablu, is sitting at the base of a tree the rain hasn't soaked through yet and watching him with quiet interest as he rummages in his backpack.

"I guess I could set up this clothesline and hang a towel over it...somehow?" he says to the bird. Alice responds with a high-pitched peeping noise and lifts himself up and then down on his feet, settling back down like a ball with a face. "You have no idea either, huh. You would probably be just fine in this tree. What if we trade? You get me inside that Poké Ball and I will take a nap." Predictably, Alice cocks his body sideways in confusion and John sighs. "Yeah, that isn't something that works, is it. I will just have to..."

He trails off at the sound of someone approaching, turning towards the sound.

"Uh...hey," he says carefully to the newcomer. "Listen, can we do the battling thing tomorrow? I am kind of busy right now with my...tent." He lifts up a clothesline and a bath-towel indicatively. "I'm sure we can work something out."


Text
so i get that a lot of stuff here is going to work in a weird way because that is just how the game functions but i still have an important question.

do i keep the poke ball in small mode for small pokemon? does it even work to catch them if you don't expand it first? i saw one of those...flower babies yesterday and i was too worried to try and catch it because it is basically the same size as the ball and i think that might kill it if i throw it expanded, but, uh. if it doesn't work not expanded that would be like i am throwing a rock at a flower baby and i'm pretty sure that's animal cruelty!

the poke balls don't hurt in general, do they? it's hard to tell, sometimes, because i am throwing them pretty far.

ACTION

[insidescoop]

Carly until recently was ambling down the road at a fairly good clip- Hei is pretty good at this carrying thing, and seems like a strange cloven hooved motorcycle the way she's run at times.

But it's approaching evening at this point, so the clopping has lessened to an even trot.

And then a stop, because...uh.

Huh.

"Eh...." Boy. Wow. "...That...doesn't really seem like a tent..."

John if she were in your shoes she'd have just balled that thing into a pillow and curled up in a tree honestly.

[cyclonely]

Ok, well, she's not...insisting on a battle anyway so maybe she's not a local game person? His shoulders relax a little, even as Alice shyly hops to hide behind his legs.

"No...it is pretty much the closest thing I have, though. I just started playing today." It feels strange, to be able to say he's playing a game again. "I didn't think the next town would be so far away." Ah, shit, it's really been a long time since he met anyone new. "Hey, uh, I'm John. Are you also doing this Trainer thing?"

[insidescoop]

"P....playing..." Carly laughs a little nervously, adjusting her glasses. "Y...You know, even though something's game like, that doesn't really...make it a game, I don't think..." She's spent too long with Dirk to really take this rolling over. Shit's Real Guys.

Anyway. "Mnh...sort of? Mostly I'm just trying to get as many teleports registered as I can~! Fast travel~" she cheers. "...Though, right now I'm just getting Hei-chan used to carrying people."

...

Oh yeah names. "Oh, uh! I'm Carly on that note! Carly Nagisa, nice to meet you! And if you think this route's long, just wait...some of these roads take a whole week of walking..."

[cyclonely]

Is he wrong about her also being a Player? Is this, like, a game where nobody knows it's a game? That would be novel! He tries something else just in case. "Don't get me wrong, I am not saying it's not real. It's just...real and also a game, you know?"

He nods like he knows what she's talking about. He hasn't read his Guide yet. As far as he'd been concerned, he already knew about Pokemon. Increasingly, he's finding out he's forgotten a lot.

"Geez, a week..." It always took, like, a matter of minutes on the GameBoy. Funny to think of that translating. John wonders if someone was playing as him and taking minutes for years of his life. Someone else he'd like to theoretically trade places with. "But this one doesn't, right? How long did it take you to find Hei-chan?"

[insidescoop]

"Ehhh..." She wobbles a hand. "I mean...if a bunch of different worlds exist, it seems more likely that one is 'game-like' than an actual 'game'..." There's a nervous laugh as she continues. "Saying it's just a game sort of makes it feel like everything around that was already here is somehow less real, you know? Even when you say it like that..." she adds a little sadly.

"...Ah- anyway. Hei-chan? I got her from an egg!" she replies. "The pokemon I have... ...well, they're everywhere really! I found Kushi in the same city I'm living in now~" Carly cheers, the spider in question slowly creeping up her head. Her hair quickly falls out from the partial ponytail that was there, and she flusters. "Ah- h-hey!! Kushi..!!"

"Tik tik..!"

[cyclonely]

"Maybe," says John. He should leave it, probably. It's hard to, though. He still feels raw. "I think sometimes games can be more real than things that are supposed to be real, actually."

Carly is doing a pretty good job of distracting him, though. "An egg? That must have been a pretty big egg..." He's never been one to be really startled or grossed out by bugs (which, considering his new planet is a good thing) but this bug is...pretty cute, actually.

[insidescoop]

"It's still not the greatest word though..." It just feels not great. "I kind of want to live here, and calling it that just seems..." Ehhh.

But! Not the point! Eggs.

"Mmnh, nope! Only about this big!" she gestures. "It just glowed and exploded, ka-pow! And then there was Hei-chan.... ...though she did grow a little after coming out," Carly laughs, patting the goat's head.

[cyclonely]

John shrugs and nods, and picks up Alice to hold him around his chest so the bird can stop anxiously hopping around his feet. It would be a stupid thing to argue about, so he's letting the conversation drop, as weirdly strong as he apparently feels about it. Maybe all of Rose's weird babble about Relevancy and Truth and stuff really stuck with him more than he realised for barely following it.

"OK well I will have to remember that so that I won't get freaked out if I find an egg and it explodes!" He lifts Alice slightly up and forward to indicate him to Carly, as he remembers the second half of his manners. "This is Alice, by the way, he's the only Pokemon I have right now."

[insidescoop]

Sadly, Carly has spent the last two weeks with Dirk NOTHING IN GAMES MATTER Strider, so she has a few very, very strong feelings in opposition to the idea of the place being a game.

But!

She gives a thumbs up. "Perfect then~! And ah!" Carly adjusts her glasses and dismounts from the skiddo, coming over immediately. "Aaaahhh~ Cute~ They're like a little cloud...~"