Video: New Game+

[coralroot]

[There's a teenage girl with tanned skin and shock white hair on the network, pressing her face into the camera. Then she backs up a little, and two things are immediately noticeable about her:

1) Peeking out from her sleeves are the hints of some extensive tattoos, the kind that probably take up the entire arm.

2) She's wearing armor - a breastplate, gauntlets, and greaves - that looks like it was harvested off the carapace of some kind of oversized monster beetle? As opposed to being made of leather or metal or some other sensible material. ]

Hey, this thing's on! Okay, first of all, WHY IS IT SO COLD HERE? I'M FREEZING MY TITS OFF, YOU MONSTERS!

[It is, in fact, fairly crisp and cool but not exactly freezing.]

Second: Okay, uh, so I've actually never had any kind of living space to myself before? It's kinda scary. And I know you've probably known me for all of two minutes but I have useful skills! I can cook. I can tell you if that spot on your genitals is just a rash or if you've got some nasty shit. I can stab things? I used to have a voice in my head telling me - I mean, I can catch bugs and put them outside!

I kinda want to get food right now, so I'll be in... Caihong? If you guys wanna meet in person.

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[peacewithouttyranny]

Freezing. Really. Is it that cold out there?

[Because it doesn't feel like freezing to him. Granted, he's an alien robot and she's a human, so what can he say. But humans being out of the cold for too long is bad for them, right? Maybe he should lend a hand or something... Or a place? He could bring food at least.]

Where are you at Caihong, specifically?

[Though his appearance may be intimidating, he can be nice and helpful. Or at least trying to be nowadays.]

[coralroot]

Uuuuh, hold on.

[ She shifts the camera a little, and Soundwave gets the outside view of a street corner and a noodle shop next to one of those arcades that have the crane games and - well next to her is a bag full of random plushies, so she seems to have at least done fairly well for herself?. ]

[peacewithouttyranny]

[Seems like it. Since she seems new, he's low-key concern for her Chroma though, considering she played that arcade game.]

It may take a while for me to arrive there. Go ahead and grab yourself food in the meantime.

[coralroot]

[It's okay, she high fived some random strangers! So she's probably not gonna die, but she might be slightly shaky despite the food.

Whenever he finds her, she sits at a table with a bowl of noodles and some fried dumplings.]

[peacewithouttyranny]

[Good. Because he doesn't want to meet up with a crystallized person after making the effort to find her.

Anyways. Surely enough, he found the street she's at and the noodle shop after some searching. The 7'5" tall Cybertronian enters the shop and scans the place for the white haired girl. Spotting her, he approaches with heavy metal steps and clears his throat to get her attention, so to not surprise her.]

Greetings. You're that person looking for a place to stay?

[coralroot]

Uuuuh, yeah?

[she shoves some noodles into her mouth, slurps those up, then shoves a dumpling into her mouth and talks through that. She seems somewhat fazed by the giant robot thing that's as big as two and a half Nakaris, but then again, she's from a world where the most advanced thing she found was an old timey steampunk not!Polaroid thing.

Look, she's sorry. Kinda.]

Thanks for answering, by the way. You wanna pull up a chair?

...you CAN eat, right?

[peacewithouttyranny]

[Honestly, if he was compared to a steampunk not!Polaroid thing, he'd be so confused before feeling offended by the comparison, because that'd be new.]

No, I can't.

[Well, he can technically, but he doesn't feel like materializing his human avatar right now. Plus, he's standing right here, so even less reason to. He does pull up a chair and sits on it though. How the chair doesn't break apart from under his weight? That's a mystery~

Back on topic!]

I thought I should respond seeing that you were... freezing out there. I have my place if you wish to warm up. But is there a reason why you can't live alone, however?

voice; un: beauregard

[flurry_of_beaus]

Nope. Nope, nope, nope. You can't start off a sentence about voices in your head without following through.

No judgment here.

[ Yet. ]

[coralroot]

I mean, it's gone now, so like... I dunno.

[ Yeah, that's evasive as shit, girl. ]

What'd you think it was?

[flurry_of_beaus]

Well, I don't know. Could be anything. Could be psychosis, could be a friendly god, could be an ancient power trying to use you as a catalyst to rise from the murky depths and conquer the world.

1/2

[coralroot]

Like fuck I know what it was. It was droppin' in and out sometimes, but I kinda... uh.

[ HOW DOES SHE EXPLAIN THIS WITHOUT SOUNDING LIKE AN IDIOT ]

2/2

[coralroot]

Alright don't panic but I kiiiiiiiiiiiiinda let them use my body sometimes. As like...like, they were controlling it? So it was a sorta meat puppet situation.

[ NAKARI HOW DOES ANYONE NOT PANIC WHEN YOU SAY THAT ]

A lot of the stuff I did was me kinda just blacking out at the time.

[flurry_of_beaus]

[ There's no PANIC, just, uh, a long pause of consideration. Serious consideration. ]

One, meat puppet is a gross way of explaining it, good job.

Two, what kind of things did they do when you blacked out?

[coralroot]

...so this one time, we were fighting an angry ghost version of one of my friends' dead aunt - long story - and one of the other girls in our group got skewered to death.

But then it was like, NOPE, that never happened? And we were back at the cave.

And also, everyone was still alive.

[ TIME LOOP nope it was just save scumming ]

[flurry_of_beaus]

...Well that sounds... useful.

And you didn't have to give anything other than your, uh, body, sometimes?

video | un: stormflower

[sleepinglotus]

It's nearly winter.

[Weather changes, dear. Also put on a sweater if you're that upset.]

Unfortunately my home is quite full at the moment, otherwise I would offer space.

[Except maybe not because she mentioned something about voices??? He's concerned, but it's not showing much on his expression.]

[coralroot]

[ Weird, but she's just going to take this how it comes. ]

I mean, I can, it's not like I'm gonna die or anything, but...

[ She slurps up some more noodles. ]

It's just weird, yanno? There was always my dad and my stepmom, plus my grandparents and my uncle and cousin and my little sisters, and then after I had to leave home I still had my teammates...

[ She sounds...somewhat sad? Look, funny thing about human cultures, Soundwave: there's a fair number of examples where large, loud, clannish multigenerational extended family households are the norm. ]

[coralroot]

...this kept happening.

[ She seems more...solemn about that, but when you've seen a thousand timelines that all end in your friends dying, I WOULD FUCKING WONDER. ]

I mean, I thought we were cool, I thought this entity or whatever it was was gonna help me shank the bitch that cut my mom's head off, but no, you get stuck in a time loop that ends with "oh look Nakari, which one of your friends is gonna die this time?" and then they get distracted by kidnapping this guy's stupid chickens-

I'm sorry, I- I just don't know where I'm going with this.

[ TL;DR: The player kept fucking around with dumb sidequests and getting Nakari's friends killed. ]

[peacewithouttyranny]

[That's a whole lotta people, huh.]

Basically, you aren't used to living alone.

[Blunt. But, he can get behind the reasoning- he's not used to being alone, either. It's why he adopted a kitty in the first place, though the conversations he had with it were mostly one-sided.]

I have space available in my apartment, if you like to take the offer. The only occupiers there is me and a kitten. [...] You mentioned you used to have a voice in your head on the network. Care to elaborate?

[Is this something he should be concerned about???]

video;

[hunksmash]

... Whatcha gonna eat?

[coralroot]

[ Hunk is sent a picture of a bowl of noodles and a plate of some fried dumplings/potstickers/gyoza/whatever you wanna call those puppies. ]

[hunksmash]

Ooh, good choice. That looks amazing!

If they've got soup dumplings, too, you should give 'em a shot. Or those big, steamed buns!

[coralroot]

...yeah, okay, see, you're telling me about something I've literally never had to experience in my life.

[ Ren. Ren. She's from a tropical region, the only weather changes she's immediately familiar with are "wet" and "not wet." ]

[coralroot]

...yeah, thanks. I've always wanted a cat.

It's kind of a long story.

[ Look, the voice was...a Trip. ]

[peacewithouttyranny]

You can play with her if you wish. I'd imagine she gets lonely without me around in the apartment.

Would you care to share it? Though, if you do not wish to, I won't push it. [He's naturally still curious, but he knows his boundaries]