IC CONTACT

[allgotrabies]

Hey, it's Annie, you know what to do.

Comments

[hauntedcalamari]

[His heart's not quite in it, but that's not his temp's fault. And while Ben is really bad at following dramas as they unfold on the network, he has a vague sense she might benefit from some cheerful normalcy. That's what he's gonna do.]

Hey, you get me this month, apparently. Thoughts, objections, thrown objects?

[allgotrabies]

[She's normally full of jokes and teasing. But she's not normally a demoted warden and murderer.]

Hi. Yes. I mean, no, no thoughts or anything. Have- have you done this before?

[hauntedcalamari]

Kind of out of practice. Renfield was mine. But yeah, I did my share before that.

[allgotrabies]

Okay. [A small nod] Good. Because I don't know what I'm doing.

[hauntedcalamari]

Oh. Well. If you wanna workshop that, we can hang out and talk it over? Or you can just tell me if there are any things you want and then to get lost.

[allgotrabies]

You know what happened- what I did, right?

[hauntedcalamari]

I caught the gist? Enough that you don't have to update me if you don't want to. Honestly I hate staying on top of the network when it gets fighty.

[allgotrabies]

People have been pretty good to me about it. Better than they should be, if you wanna know the truth, at least that's how I feel.

Tess threatened to kill me if she sees me, though, so if I disappear that might be what happened. I'm not too worried though.

[hauntedcalamari]

Well, if she doesn't do it too quickly, let me know. I may not be good for much, but physical altercations are easy.

[Mirroring her energy here.]

[allgotrabies]

What do you do at home?

[There are a lot of fighters here, but they have little in common when it comes to their roles at home, which is what makes it so interesting to her]

[hauntedcalamari]

Uh, be a ghost. But since I'm not one here, I can grow fighty tentacles, well, whenever. Good for breaking up fights.

[allgotrabies]

[Wait

What]

Say that again? You're the ghost of a...squid?

[hauntedcalamari]

Ghost of a...

[sigh]

Super hero. But I kinda got the short straw on powers. One of my brothers can, like, throw buses. I got spooky extradimensional tentacles.

[allgotrabies]

[She isn't sure what she thinks of heroes anymore but she tries to push that away. Give Ben a chance, at least.]

Nah if it was me, I'd take the tentacles. You can be way more creative with those.

[hauntedcalamari]

[Ben is extremely sure that heroes are dumb. She's good.]

They don't take directions all that well. You'd think getting stuff off high shelves would be easy, but nah, it goes flying half the time. They struggle with ,well, concepts that work for humans but not squids.

[allgotrabies]

"I wish we could get a squid to come like, teach you their tricks." It's not impossible here, right? "Can I ask how you became a ghost?"

It seems roughly fair: inmates are here because of their deaths and wardens get to know why.

[hauntedcalamari]

He doesn't guard a lot of stories closely. Anybody who wants can find out all they want about all the weird shit in his life, sibling drama to world-ending catastrophe (which is actually more sibling drama). But he's picky about dying. "Sending fifteen year olds out and telling them they're heroes is a bad idea. When we won we were extrajudicially executing petty criminals, and when we lost... I'm amazed I'm the only one who didn't make it."

[allgotrabies]

She frowns, aware that he's being vague. She normally doesn't pry, figures the past is the past and everyone has a right to wall theirs off. But if they're permanently paired he'll see everything about her, including the two secrets she hoards. So she persists.

"How did you lose?"

[hauntedcalamari]

He sighs a little and shrugs. "I'd have a hard time recreating the last little bit. It was... messy. I know one of my brothers thinks he fucked up. Dad weighed him down with the whole team leader thing, another cool move to pull on someone whose facial hair wasn't really working yet. And I'm only as present as I am because another brother's power is 'ghosts.' So I haven't gone to a lot of effort to figure out the details."

[allgotrabies]

"That's a shitty thing to do," she agrees. Leadership in packs is not bestowed by someone else, it's earned, it's taken, it's fought for. And it's often temporary. But putting that on a kid?

"Wait, so you mean it's your other brother that lets you talk to everyone? Or can you only talk to him?"

[hauntedcalamari]

Ben makes a face. "Only him. Bad system. He was actually here for a while, don't know if you ever ran into Klaus?" With the gap in his own barge tenure he's completely lost track of who did and didn't turn up before. "But that's one topic I didn't mind not getting into with people in general. Dying's gross. Most ghosts never get to leave that moment. I'd rather stay away from it."

[allgotrabies]

"Yeah, the name's familiar, but I don't think I ever got to talk to him. Must be nice being here, though, huh? Everyone sees you, can talk to you." Another ghost question: "You can touch things, right?"

[hauntedcalamari]

"Oh, yeah, free heartbeat with every warden job offer. I'm basically alive while I'm here." Which explains some of Ben's rather casual attitude to barge politic type issues. Being alive seems like reasonable compensation for anything after being insubstantial so long.

[allgotrabies]

"And you're not running wild and free, doing crazy shit? Bruh! We've gotta get you some adventures."

[hauntedcalamari]

"I do adventures." Dorky ones. "I mean, insofar as a magic cruise ship with a holodeck allows." They're talking a lot about him here, but it's a fair offering. She's stuck and he's not. "And we have art and music and all that good stuff."