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Some time ago for romantic purposes Karkat came into possession of a large holographic video display. He has been nursing an idea for a while, but the weather outside in mock-Scotland has been too grotesque to make it feasible.

Tonight, however, the grotty mist has finally stopped and when Karkat rises with the moon he discovers weather that is almost practically tolerable, especially once he deploys a firepit and spreads a tarp over the damp ground.

He fiddles with the projector a bit, finally managing to project the king-sized screen he wants over the lake. The first romcom he cues up is Pretty Woman, and he grunts with satisfaction as he plops himself into an stuffed husk he hauled down from his room and the familiar opening begins to unfold.

Welcome to the drive-in. The second film in the triple feature will be Grosse Pointe Blank, followed by My Best Friend's Wedding.

[OPEN THREAD! Feel free to use the setting with or without tagging Karkat, he will out here all night marathoning cheesy romantic comedies. Feel free to suggest movies that will follow Pretty Woman, and I will update this post with a list of the ones this cranky sumbitch has approved that people can reference playing.]

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[OOC: Ack! Where did that week go?]

"Humans judge people on how they look," Teresa remarks, sharing the one thing she knows above all about humans.

"I suppose they have to, without the ability to detect auras. It keeps them alive."

...this doesn't help understand why the shopkeepers are judging the young lady with the hair.

(Karkat is wearing a black corderoy jacket with his sign stitched on the arms in red; he folds his arms, coincidentally letting his fingers fold over the embroidery.)

"TROLLS CARE MORE ABOUT WHAT'S ON THE INSIDE. BUT NOT," he adds hastily, "IN ANY ENLIGHTENED OR HEART-WARMING WAY."

"I ALWAYS THOUGHT AURAS WERE A MADE-UP THING THAT WASN'T REAL." He doesn't sound skeptical, just resigned and a little disgusted. Sort of, it figures.

Teresa's sign is on clear display over her armor. She supposes it means nothing anymore, but it still is the only way she has of writing her name.

"Sometimes they are the only way of telling a real person from something that wants to eat your guts," she says mildly. "Yoma care about what's on the inside too, you see."

That was a joke. He may laugh if he wants.

He does, short and ugly. That's pretty much just the way he laughs, though.

"SO PRESUMABLY THAT IS NOT WHATEVER THE THING IS THAT ISN'T HUMAN THAT YOU ARE," he says, "UNLESS IN YOUR OPINION YOU ARE NOT A REAL PERSON, I GUESS."

"DEFINITIONS VARY."

"I GUESS WHAT I AM ASKING HERE IS IF YOU ARE LIKELY TO TRY AND EAT MY GUTS? AND/OR INCLUDE ME OUT OF THE REAL PEOPLE CLUB."

Edited 2013-03-15 19:03 (UTC)

Teresa continues to smile because she's pleased she made a joke and it made someone laugh. This never happens!

"I am half-yoma," she says. "On my world, that would make me not a real person. But don't worry, I'm not going to eat you, or anyone here.

"Do you call yourself a person?"

She doesn't care to apply labels to anyone.

This conversations has quickly ratched up several levels of interestingness! He raises his eyebrows. "I CALL MYSELF ALL KINDS OF THINGS," he says, meaninglessly.

"BUT LIKE I SAID. DEFINITIONS VARY. ON MY WORLD, I PROBABLY WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN IN THE CLUB. IF, YOU KNOW, THEY HAD KNOWN WHAT WAS ON THE INSIDE."

Edited 2013-03-15 19:25 (UTC)

"Why not?"

He doesn't seem particularly dangerous to Teresa. Obviously there are the horns and the grey thing, so maybe that's it?

Shrug. "MY WORLD HAD A PRETTY FUCKING STRICT HIERARCHY BASED ON BLOOD COLOR. MINE WAS SO GODDAMN LOW IT FELL RIGHT OFF THE SPECTRUM, THAT'S ALL. A MUTATION."

Some things he doesn't mind using the past tense for.

"Oh."

Well, that's both stupid and makes sense, given what she thinks of humans.

"That is ridiculous."

"YEAH, NO SHIT. ALTHOUGH IT IS NOT HALF AS STUPID AS SOME OF THE REASONS HUMANS FIND TO CALL EACH OTHER NOT PEOPLE, FROM WHAT I GATHER."

At least there were legitimate biological differences between hemospectrum castes.

"Where I come from it was just whether of not someone was part-monster," Teresa says. "I suppose that's relatively understandable."

"THAT DEPENDS ON WHAT YOU CALL A MONSTER."

See again: definitions vary.

"Yoma," Teresa says. "We only had the one kind."

"HUH. ALTERNIA WAS MONSTER GODDAMN CENTRAL. YOU COULDN'T THROW A ROCK WITHOUT HITTING AN ENRAGED MONSTER OR AT LEAST, IT WAS PROBABLY ENRAGED AFTER YOU THREW A ROCK AT IT."

"Did they like to eat people?"

She clarifies that last: "or anyone who considered themselves people?"

"YEAH THEY WERE MOSTLY GENERALLY INDISCRIMINATE ABOUT THE STUFF THEY ATE, EXCEPT FOR THE CUSTODIANS, AND EVEN THOSE REALLY ONLY EVER GAVE A SHIT ABOUT THE KIDS THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO BE PROTECTING. IF THAT."

"I MEAN, OBVIOUSLY IT DEPENDED ON THE SIZE AND THE DIET OF THE DANGEROUS BEAST IN QUESTION BUT BY AND LARGE."

"That sounds more like my home than any world I've visited from here," Teresa says. "We only had one kind, but we had a lot."

"AS SOON AS WE CAME OUT OF OUR COCOONS WE WERE KIND OF TURNED LOOSE IN AN ENDLESS LABYRINTH FULL OF THEM AND BASICALLY EVENTUALLY ONE WOULD ADOPT YOU OR ONE WOULD EAT YOU," Karkat says with the callous resignation of an r strategy species.

"AND THEN FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE, OR ITS LIFE, YOUR LUSUS WOULD BE SORT OF A GUARDIAN AND VISCERAL MENTOR. IDEALLY YOUR LUSUS WOULD PROECT YOU FROM ALL THE OTHER MONSTERS, AND ALSO ALL THE OTHER TROLLS, UNTIL YOU WERE OLD ENOUGH TO TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF."

"SOME OF MY FRIENDS HAD CUSTODIANS WHO WERE LITERALLY HOLY TERRORS TO FUCKING DEAL WITH BUT I GUESS I KIND OF LUCKED OUT. I MEAN, PHORCYTES WAS HUGE AND HARD AND SMELLED TERRIBLE AND WOULD DRAG HOME DEAD SHIT AND EXPECT ME TO BE EXCITED ABOUT IT. AND HE WOULD HACK OFF MY HAIR WITH HIS GIANT FUCKING CLAWS WHICH I THINK IS WHY MY HORNS ARE STILL KIND OF NUBBY. BUT HE WAS PRETTY MUCH ALL RIGHT."

The last time Teresa encountered a child being raised by a monster, the child was traumatized to the point at which she couldn't speak.

That was Clare.

"Why would they do that?" she asks, casually. "Raise another species' child?"

"I DON'T KNOW, IT WAS JUST THE WAY IT WAS. IT IS PRETTY WEIRD TO ME THAT HUMANS ARE RAISED BY ADULTS, I NEVER SAW AN ADULT TROLL IN MY ENTIRE LIFE."

"WE HAD SOME PRETTY ELABORATE SYMBIOTIC SHENANIGANS GOING ON ON THAT PLANET, MOST OF OUR TECHNOLOGY WAS ORGANIC AND WE WERE JUST GENERALLY PLUGGED TIGHT THE FUCK INTO EVERY ASPECT OF OUR PLANET'S BIOSPHERE."

"ONE PIECE OF IT WAS BLOOD COLOR, NORMAL ANIMALS AND MONSTERS HAD RED BLOOD LIKE HUMANS, BUT SPECIES WHO WERE IN THE SYMBIOTIC LOOP HAD BLOOD COLORS LIKE US. AND A LUSUS WOULD NEVER PICK A TROLL OUTSIDE OF ITS OWN BLOOD COLOR, THAT WAS LIKE A RULE."

"WHICH HANGS A HUGE FUCKING QUERY HOOK OVER MINE, I KNOW, BUT I CAN'T HELP YOU THERE, HE HAD TOO MUCH ARMOR. I NEVER SAW HIM BLEED. SO I DON'T KNOW IF HE WAS A FREAK LIKE ME OR JUST... GOT CONFUSED AND THOUGHT I WAS NORMAL."

He's clearly got some emotional stuff going on, but he doesn't seem to be traumatized to the extent Clare was. So maybe it works for them?

Honestly, Teresa thinks he's probably got a better deal. If you don't have real parents, you can't watch one of those parents kill and eat your family.

This is the story of thing that happens to people on Teresa's world.

"Are you dead?" He's using the past tense, like she is. "Like me?"

That's... a complicated question, but not the reason for the past tense, in any case. The reason for that is: "ALTERNIA IS."

He always has to brace himself for pity after that revelation, but maybe she will be different. She seems pretty unusual.

"Oh."

Teresa has absolutely zero attachment to her world. She's not sure she'd understand it. She accepts the answer like he'd told her that he moved house.

She adds, "that's one way to kill a lot of monsters at once."

"PRETTY MUCH," is all he has to say that.

Including a bunch of monsters who thought of themselves as people.

Some humans are just monsters who think of themselves as people. Teresa only cares about a very few of them.

Well, one of them.

And that one doesn't think of herself as human. Her personhood is up for debate.

Teresa doesn't have a lot to worry about, it makes her particularly easy going.

When there are some loud off chord notes from the movie, she looks back at the screen, to see something going on with a piano.

"There's one of those things in the bar," she remarks. "Is that what this is for?"

It's worth pointing out that Teresa isn't exactly sure what the two humans are doing. She could guess, but that's not really something warriors get up to.

(At least, not something Teresa has ever thought about.)