milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Karkat knows perfectly well that if he wants to get anything accomplished on a project he should hole up somewhere and turn off Trollian. He only works on things in public so he has the pleasure of grousing about being hassled while he's busy. Today he is applying that technique to his ongoing screenplay.

He is not actually banging words into his laptop at the moment; instead he has a largish holographic display set up and is studying it, occasionally moving symbols around. It looks a bit like this, although his version is still in progress.

He's...

What the fuck is he doing, exactly?

(Signed in as always under carcinoGeneticist, 626262)

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Dunno. But it looks rather fascinating, at least to the massive green fellow who's peering at the display from the other side of the table.

(Yes, Fawkes can read backwards writing, and upside-down if he has to. More than a hundred years of imprisonment with only a computer terminal for non-abusive company means you learn to entertain yourself any way you can.)

Karkat is staring at the grid with a twisted mouth; when he begins to seriously cogitate, though, he looks through it, though, and becomes aware of the looming shape on the other side of the thin slice of photons. His eyes widen and he doesn't-quite-wobble on his chair.

"JEGUS, YOU SCARED THE SHIT OUT OF ME, FUCKING LURKING BACK THERE."

"My apologies," rumbles Fawkes, as politely as someone physically incapable of an 'indoor voice' can manage. "I didn't want to interrupt before I had some idea of what I was looking at."

"YEAH, WELL, GOOD LUCK WITH THAT," Karkat snorts. "IT'S A SHIPPING CHART. I'M WORKING ON A SCREENPLAY AND I HAVE TO WORK OUT WHERE THE TAINTCHAFING HELL THIS PLOT THINKS ITS GOING."

Fawkes has to think about that for a while. 'Shipping', in his admittedly limited experience, involves transporting cargo. The word 'screenplay', however, has a vague familiarity to it.

"This... would be for a film?" he finally hazards, once he remembers where he saw it in his terminal's databases. "Or a television program?"

"A FILM," he says. He considers. "THE GODDAMN THING MIGHT WORK BETTER AS A SERIES, BUT IT IS ALREADY ENOUGH OF A WASTE OF TIME, I AM DEFINITELY NOT GOING TO CHURN OUT A MILLION OF THEM."

"THERE IS NOT ACTUALLY ANY CHANCE OF MAKING IT, IT IS JUST FOR... FUN."

Look how much fun he's having.

Fawkes nods. One does what one can to keep busy; he's familiar with the idea. "I see," he says. "Can I ask what a shipping chart is needed for? It seems like the kind of thing that you'd need if the film were being made."

He's still thinking in terms of supplies, but he'll catch on eventually.

Karkat looks at him sideways. "I AM TRYING TO WORK OUT ALL THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THE CHARACTERS AND CHART THEM THROUGH THE MOVIE AND FIGURE OUT WHERE IT ALL ENDS UP. TROLLS HAVE FOUR KINDS OF ROMANCE, IT GETS COMPLICATED."

Ah. So it's an abbreviation, then, from the end of the word rather than the beginning. Well, that's peculiar, but so are many other things.

"I see," he says. "I can imagine it must be quite a headache. It's not a subject I'm familiar with- romance, that is, any kind. Whether trolls are involved or not."

"I GUESS IF MY SPECIES LOOKED LIKE YOU I MIGHT REPRODUCE ASEXUALLY TOO," Karkat says with a nod, then adds: "NO OFFENSE. DON'T TAKE IT THE WRONG WAY, I AM JUST AS HAPPY AS NOT TO RUN INTO SOMEONE WHO ISN'T JUST THE USUAL PINK MONKEY."

"No offense was taken," says Fawkes. "I was a human, once- although not one of the pink ones. I don't remember anything of being human, though. My kind aren't born, but made. I don't think most of us are even capable of romance."

"WOW, THAT'S FUCKED UP," Karkat says. "I MEAN, IN GENERAL, BUT ALSO BECAUSE THERE IS A CHARACTER LIKE THAT IN MY STORY. OR A COUPLE OF THEM, SORT OF."

"Really?" says Fawkes, interested. "How does that work?"

There's a pause.

"I should probably introduce myself, before I forget. My name is Fawkes."

He nods. "KARKAT VANTAS."

"IT IS KIND OF THE MAIN PLOT POINT OF THE MOVIE, THIS SORT OF MAD SCIENTIST HAS BEEN EXPERIMENTING ON OTHER TROLLS TO DEVELOP HIS OWN KIND OF SUBSPECIES OF WARRIOR DRONES. ONE OF THE MAIN CHARACTERS WAS EXPERIMENTED ON AND HAS TO REGAIN HIS ABILITY TO RELATE TO OTHER PEOPLE AS PART OF THE RESOLUTION. OR HER, I HAVEN'T DECIDED YET. AND THEN THERE ARE ALL THE ACTUAL DRONES, AND ALSO SOME SENTIENT SPACESHIPS."

"Interesting," says Fawkes. "I've read some of the data that was pulled from the computers in the place where I was created. They originally used the humans who lived there for that kind of experiment."

"The rest is completely different, of course. Unless your warrior drones are brutish, unintelligent types who eat other trolls, anyway."

"YEAH, PRETTY MUCH. ALTHOUGH THAT DOESN'T DO A LOT TO DISTINGUISH THEM FROM THE GREATER MAJORITY OF REGULAR TROLLS. THEIR MAIN POINT IS THAT THEY ARE ACTUALLY DISPOSED TO FOLLOW ORDERS AND NOT PRONE TO COMPLICATING THINGS WITH EMOTIONS ABOUT EACH OTHER."

"I see," says Fawkes. "That part is different. I don't think they were interested in emotions at all when they did the original experiments. That was just a side effect."

"How do the sentient ships figure into this?"

"THEY DON'T REALLY. THAT PART IS NOT ACTUALLY SPECULATIVE, IN THE PAST THE TROLL EMPIRE USED TO USE TO TAKE TELEKINETICS AND TURN THEM INTO BRAINS IN JARS TO BE THE ENGINES FOR SPACESHIPS. NORMALLY YOU DON'T THINK ABOUT THEM AS CHARACTERS IN A STORY, JUST PROPS, BUT IT STRUCK ME AS A KIND OF COOL AND UNUSUAL DIRECTION TO TAKE THINGS IN, AND FRANKLY IT TIES OFF SOME QUADRANTS IN THE BACKGROUND WITHOUT HAVING TOO MANY FUCKING CHARACTERS CRASHING AROUND. THE MAIN CHARACTERS HAVE A SHIP AND A NAVIGATOR THAT ARE FLUSHED FOR EACH OTHER."

"BUT ONCE YOU INTRODUCE THAT KIND OF PLOT POINT IT TAKES ON A LIFE OF ITS OWN A LITTLE BIT," he adds, studying a corner of the chart now devoted entirely to ship shipping.

"It does sound as if it makes things more complicated," says Fawkes. "Maybe that would be a better subject for another movie."

His tone is as tentative as he can manage; this is really not his territory at all, and it shows.

"YEAH, I DON'T KNOW. THE THING IS IT GETS COMPLICATED NO MATTER WHAT, YOU NEED A MINIMUM OF SIX CHARACTERS FOR A FULL TROLL RELATIONSHIP POLYGON AND A PERFECT EIGHT-SIDED ROMANTIC PRISM ALWAYS FEELS A LITTLE ARTIFICIAL. OF COURSE YOU DON'T HAVE TO TIE EVERY QUADRANT OFF IN THE END BUT I DECIDED TO SET MY STORY OUTSIDE THE EMPIRE WITH A BUNCH OF MUTIMERCENARIES SO IT'S NOT LIKE THEY HAVE A TON OF OPTIONS."

"NOT EVERY RELATIONSHIP IS A MAIN STORYLINE, SOME OF THEM HAPPEN IN THE BACKGROUND OR JUST ARE ESTABLISHED AND STAY THAT WAY."

Fawkes nods. "I don't know much about the first part of what you've said," he says, "but I understand the rest. Some things do seem to belong in the background, instead of being explored."

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