CAMP ALPHA: for everyone who wanted a crossover between summercamp and Ghost Adventures

[indigo_league]

Who: Everyone who came to Camp Alph
Where: The Ruins of Alph
When: July 18th-21st
Summary: This is a log for all the camping shenanigans your heart desires! For part 2 of the event, there will be a second log to keep the ensuing seance situation separate from the all-purpose ruin-exploration adventures. Participation in part 2 will be entirely voluntary, so feel free to tag on part 1 as long as you like! For more information about this event, check out the info post over here!
Rating: PG-13
Log:


Been to the Ruins of Alph before? Are you an old hat at this stuff? Well turn everything you thought you knew UPSIDE DOWN because EVERYTHING. IS DIFFERENT NOW.

… Or at least, that’s what the flyers being passed out under a canopy of cheap Celebi balloons that are bobbing around in the breeze say.

One thing’s for sure, there sure are a lot more tents than normal. By the time most of you casuals get there, the entire picnicking area, usually quite spacious, has been turned into a small tent city. And the excited atmosphere is palpable.

The crackle of the Ruin Rangers’ walkie-talkies mingles with that of the ghost-hunting equipment toted around by excited Hex Maniacs, burbling Unown are drifting here and there to blink curiously at all the new people and Pokemon suddenly on their turf, and chatter from Legend Seekers of all ages (really, of ALL ages-- everyone from Youngsters to Veterans have apparently been swept up in the Seeker-mania!) rings out as stories and speculations are swapped.

There’s lots to do, plenty to explore, and (according to word on the grapevine), more than enough spooky rituals to perform once the night falls.

Will you solve some tile puzzles and fall into an underground chamber? Stick to the main group and make s’mores? Befriend a floating letter (or twenty-four)? Go directly against the advice of the tired-looking Rangers and play One Man Hide-and-Seek in the dark?

Or, most importantly, will you start a small-scale riot in order to keep the loud static boxes away from the tents where you’re trying to sleep?

Comments

oh boy oh boy

[cyan_maid]

[She hadn't even seen anyone else when she'd fallen - just the single J, always hanging around for her. Somehow, it always knew where she'd pop in next. It was kind of amusing, really - if it kept on for much longer, she would be tempted to ask if it'd like to come home with her. The J Unkown bobs a little at her words before perking up somewhat as Dirk opens his mouth.

And, honestly? A chill goes down her spine when she hears that familiar voice. She doesn't hunch up or freeze, but there's no disguising the twitch downwards to her mouth as she turns to face him.]

...So actually being sincere with someone you've known for years is above you, yet you'll stoop low enough to go camping? Well! Color me surprised.

[The Unown bobs closer to her, eye blinking. Uh-oh. What's it walked into this time?]

How tall was Adult Jane? This narrator will never say.

[uber_marionettist]

[It's somewhat disconcerting to be reminded of the disparity--or lack thereof. Funny thing about growth; how much you grow and when you gain those inches is incredibly variable. Dirk, for example, just happened to stop growing after everything wrapped, and for the most part, everyone around him kept going.

He's built himself up anyway, adding muscle (and some scar tissue) instead of height, but he still had to grow the scruff to avoid seeing his own adolescent face in the mirror well into his twenties. He adapted.

So being embarrassed by something as petty as standing nearly eye-to-eye with the teenage doppelganger of a grown woman? Nah.

That would just be pathetic.]

Who's being insincere?

[He crosses his arms smoothly, presenting a stony front; he holds his expression steady. Perfect.]

I thought we'd agreed we don't know each other.

lol

[cyan_maid]

Not now, no - but once, at some point, we did.

[Ha, her point still totally stands.]

This isn't too childish for any of your selves to stand?

[uber_marionettist]

I'm here for business, not pleasure.

[The ambiguity inherent in his delivery is what elevates the line from being merely tedious or inappropriate to something a little more nuanced.

Damn, but she's desperate to drag him down with her. Jane's insistence on running her jibe into the ground is the real gold medal winner for childishness. Dirk almost chooses to enlighten her to that, but the window of opportunity was already closing by the time he opened his mouth.

Taking too long on it would be fatal error and make him out to be the childish one, hung up by his pride on a petty accusation. So he doesn't, and in not doing so, the ways that not saying something could bite him in the ass become retroactively obvious.

For example: not acknowledging her could very well lead into a feedback loop, at which point he'll be forced to acknowledge her point so belatedly that it makes him look like a drooling moron. Or worse, like he was avoiding her on purpose--and the potential outcomes for that are possibly worse, since that then implies he's afraid. Either of looking childish, or even just of her.

Why does he care? He doesn't. He just can't fill all this empty noise with nothing. And Jane makes it worse. Talking to Jane--irrelevant, (un)familiar Jane--turns the glass shard mosaic of his thoughts into discord as the splinters grate and grind against each other, granular fragments falling into cracks he can't see. It fucking hurts, a headache like no other.

So if she hears a whistling sound, that's the doppler effect as his overthinking shifts into overdrive, calculating his reactions and her potential responses at speeds that make precise steering impossible--except that the interaction he's having is at such an infant stage that he's got nothing to fuel his speculation. Rather than the polished blur of a shinkansen, his train of thought most resembles a certain gif of a claymation dog on a toy track.]

The setup's gimmick is its own trope, shit's so blazingly obvious this might as well be the Hindenburg. Which means it might just be glaring enough to actually produce something. And if it does, I want to be here for it.

[Pause for effect.]

Not like my time can get any more wasted around here.

[cyan_maid]

Oh, what a shame, everyone's probably going to have smores later.

[I mean, look, smores should be everyone's business. It's just an opinion, and she's happy to let it drop there - it's a banality, an observation, a bit of icy flippancy to remind her that herself isn't welcome in this situation.]

...But so, then, your business is...you're expecting something weird and big to happen? You wouldn't be wrong - most every event that this world gets caught up in sifts something odd to the surface.

[Translation: You're not wrong for looking for something game-breaking here, or whatever, but I'm not going to tell you the cool shit I have seen.]

[uber_marionettist]

[The narrowing of Dirk's eyes is slight, and he doesn't like that it's something he feels himself do more than something he chooses to do. At least it's pretty hidden.

Less hidden is the downturn of his mouth, and he'll just have to live with having his face read.]

Okay. I see what you did there--what you're doing, ongoing--and I'm not loving that. Not the s'more thing. That's all you, putting on that sugary-fake tone, pretending the sweet you just served isn't definitely hiding cyanide or crushed glass.

I'd say I ain't taking a bite, but I guess I am. And I'm gonna do it with full awareness of what I'm eating, just chewing my mouthful of nasty while looking you dead in the eye.

What do you get out of this? For real. You talk to me or I talk to you, you get your feelings hurt, I bounce. Then you leave memes in my inbox before we both ignore each other for however long before the cycle of stupidity begins anew.

[cyan_maid]

[...

What does Jane get out of this? Is it just her lashing out for Dirk's cruel words? Is it some kind of barbed resentment for a friendship being abruptly torn from her when she didn't expect it? Is it that lingering sense of loneliness that echoes in her head when it's just her and her Pokemon in a house that used to be full of people?

It's likely a bit of everything. And Jane knows this, though she doesn't let herself linger on it too long, especially not now. Besides, her sensibilities have been insulted.]

Alright, first of all? What the hell. There is nothing harmful about any sweets I have to offer, literal or metaphorical. I wouldn't stand someone messing with food, why would I do it myself?

[How the hell do you enjoy making food for people if it hurts people? What the shit.]

Second of all? That's none of your business, and I'm surprised you give a darn enough to ask.

[uber_marionettist]

It is my business because this conversation is happening and I 'give a darn' only as far as asking gets us both to the end of this conversation faster.

If I didn't cut you off, we would continue in this manner pointlessly for the next ten fucking minutes, so I'm putting an end to it. Like so.

[He raises his hands, as though in demonstration, and then allows them to fall again. It's fairly dramatic, but it doesn't actually demonstrate anything.

That is the point.]

What. Are you getting. Out of this.

[cyan_maid]

...

[I mean. When he puts it so simply, she kind of doesn't want to even explain it to him.]

You know, you've clarified your reasoning, and even though it is quite a concise clarification, I still find it none of your business.

[boy you think you're getting what you want that easily]

[uber_marionettist]

[Dirk stares at her. It's not an ambiguous act, even with the opaque wall of his shades between them. He holds his stare there for a minute, maybe less.

If she's not going to answer him, then what could have been a resolution is clearly just a time sink, a black hole of distraction that he could spend all day on, wasted effort and energy.

And here he'd actually hoped he could just be done with this already. Over, with nothing left over from it to clutter the back of his mind or present him with yet another obstacle later. But she's not having it. She's not ready.

Fine.

He turns away, putting his back to her and his mind, for all intents and purposes, back to the ruins.]

[cyan_maid]

[...

She tsks softly, glancing back to the floating J Unown, clearly the superior conversationalist.]

I swear he wasn't always like that. Sorry you had to stand by during that, it was probably terribly awkward.

[Yes, fuck you, she's going to talk to this Pokemon now.]

[uber_marionettist]

[Good job. Real mature.

More like 'real transparent.'

He ignores her with an aggressive indifference, refusing to acknowledge her or move on before he's good and ready.]

[cyan_maid]

[Boy if you're not going to be part of the conversation then you can just deal with her walking away with a floating letter as she changes the subject.]

So do you live down here, or do you come up to the surface sometimes, we're having a whole campout thing and I notice you don't have a mouth, but...

[Literally nothing is stopping Dirk from trailing her, or demanding he do so. The option is just there, if he wants it.]

[uber_marionettist]

[Honestly? He's not that desperate for the headache.

Not right now. The pressure building in his skull is just shy of his limits, the kind of expansion in a cramped space that strains him, that he can feel in the cracks of his thoughts.

Some of which follow her, restless and dissatisfied; they circle and pace and loop back on themselves, a cognitive ouroboros. He doesn't waver. Exhaustion leaks in, and he lets that drown them. And perhaps later the coldness of his heart, if he even has one, will ice everything back over.

For now he turns his back on her fully, and walks away in the opposite direction.]