[open]

[iustitia]

» WHO? Terezi + OPEN
» WHEN? 5/28
» WHERE? mess hall, hallways
» WHAT? fixing the food replicators, chalk drawings on the walls
» WARNINGS? none

[MESS HALL]

[When Dave messaged Terezi about the SORD..... being stuck in a toilet, Terezi had been overcome with the looming feeling of dread that she was next. What stupid creation that she'd alchemized in her youth would come back to haunt her? The FOLLY OF H3R OWN HORR1FY1NGLY S1NC3R3 HUBR1S had a lot of unbelievably moronic skeletons in its closet.

So, when all she found was a package of chalk in her ablutionblock cabinet and a user manual for the food replicators under her nug cushion, she counted herself lucky. Things could have been so much worse. Thank you, shitty screaming space ghosts. Thank you for taking pity on her.

Manual: OPEN
Tools: ACQUIRED
Now she's in the mess hall, getting ready to throw down with one of these dodgy pieces of shit. She is here to fix replicators and chew bubblegum, and she doesn't have any bubblegum because the replicators are too fucked to make her any!!!

Too bad these instructions doesn't make any fucking sense.

She's pried the front panel open and set it aside, exposing its guts of wires and parts. Every tool Terezi could find, wheedle, or borrow is neatly laid out before her on a towel. She doesn't know what half of these are for or if they're even going to be useful, but better safe than sorry.

She takes a deep whiff of the innards of the machine, fixing the colors in her mind, and consults the manual. Unfortunately, it's like an automotive repair book: technically, it tells you everything you need to know about fixing your car. Unfortunately, you need to already know how to fix your car to get the most out of it. Double unfortunately, Terezi has never been elbow-deep in robo guts in her entire life.

This is going to be an Ordeal.

She takes another sniff at the replicators and in the most wondering, amazed voice, she says:]

I have... no idea what the fuck is happening in here.

[HALLWAYS]

[It's been such a long time since Terezi has had some good Alternian chalk. Sure, the fact that they're dyed with wiggler blood is pretty fucked up, but it lends a certain... je ne sais quois to the quality. The smoothness of the lines. The lack of dust. The vibrancy of the taste! You can't get much better than this. She needs to stretch her creative wings and fly, you know?

There's all sorts of chalk drawings on the walls: a map of the much beloved Can Town, the soft pastels of her home forest, an incredibly shitty and elaborate dragon, and the courtroom of the troll justice system that is clearly the centerpiece of her work.

With the reluctance of a dog being told not to eat the cupcake that's just fallen on the ground, Terezi pulls the bright cherry red chalk from her maw and gets back to work on His Honorable Tyranny. No court is complete without a horrifying monster to act as judge over the proceedings and threaten to eat all the criminals, as well as the lawyers.]

Comments

Hallways

[veristitalian]

[Jasnah comes around a corner to the sight of the chalk drawings and startles visibly. for a few seconds, she thinks it must be another strange effect of the station, that the walls are bleeding images at them- but no, she can hear the scrape of chalk ahead of her, the shift of someone's footsteps. She turns, and takes in Terezi adding the last touches on the creature with the gaping maw, the spread horns.

It's not impressive, but it sure is... impressively... committed? She certainly isn't shying away from self-expression.]

What is all this?

[She eventually wonders, when she's done taking it in.]

[iustitia]

[Oh! A visitor! Terezi turns and jams the chalk into a pocket of her jumpsuit, and then wipes her hands off on the pants leg. Colored dust smears into the fabric. She has not once cared about proper appearances in her entire life.]

You're going to have to be a little more specific! There's a lot of this going on here.

[She grins, wide and easy, and gestures to the walls. Terezi is nothing if not proud of her (awful) work.]

[veristitalian]

What is the scene describing?

[She asks, looking over the courtroom imagery, almost able to see it- but justice in Alethkar doesn't have this exact layout, so Jasnah isn't immediately sure what she's seeing.]

And what's that figure, with the- carapace? Protrusions about the head?

[iustitia]

Oh! This this. Gotcha!

[So, the picture she's currently scribbling on the walls, not the stuff that's finished. She clears her throat -- not that she needs to, but it's for show -- and draws herself up, ready to explain.]

This is a picture of the esteemed Alternian courtblock. As you can see -- [she points to the red monster that Jasnah asked about] -- His Honorable Tyranny judges the proceedings. No verdict can be issued without his screechy blessing.

Mess hall

[tumang]

[ Amos is just up for a bit of terrible-bland-tasteless breakfast, probably a protein bar at best, when he spots Terezi and her fabricator. Reminds him of the other day, Kara playing around with them, Amos helping out because fuck it, what else would he be doing? Might as well try and make the food more palatable, as well as keep him busy.

But now Kara is nowhere to be found anymore, the food still tastes the same, and so when Amos hears Terezi's voice, he walks closer, leaning in to peer at the insides of the machine, until he spots the book by her side. ]

Is that a manual?

[ Well now, that changes everything. ]

[iustitia]

[Terezi turns her head and looks up. And up and up and etc etc etc. He's tall, and she has to crane her neck at a very strange angle to get a good sniff at him, but once she does, her face lights up in a smile of recognition. Hey, she remembers this guy!]

Yeah! When I woke up yesterday, it was right under my pillow.

[She hefts the manual up for him to look at.]

I want to fix up these crummy machines. Maybe they're not broken? But they probably could do with some kind of tune-up, you know? I'm tired of it being a coin flip if I'm going to get something edible to eat! I thought that the book would make more sense if I could check out the replicators for myself, but as soon as I got the casing open, it got real clear real quick that it's not going to be easy.

[tumang]

They're not broken. At least, they're mostly not broken. [ Amos agrees immediately, taking the book from her and taking a look before sitting by the bunch of tools she's got lined up, the replicator spilling its guts on the table. He's never been much for user manuals, always preferring to turn things inside out to see for himself how they work, or listen to Naomi's instructions, but his tinkering with Kara didn't really change much, so.

Maybe this will. ]

Pretty sure it's mainly about fixing the amount of flavoring that gets injected in every meal. So, finding the right tubes going to the right valves. Maybe switching a few. Possibly a few of them have been eaten away, which is why it's not always delivering the right amount.

[ He turns to the weird little troll, remembering their first meeting. He noticed her sniffing things a lot. ]

You're good with your nose, right? Can you pinpoint if there's something that smells like it's less used than something else?

[iustitia]

Oh!

[Terezi tilts her head, "looking" at machine guts with this information in mind. Now that she knows what to pay attention to, she can get a little clearer picture of what's going on in there. So, it's the tubes that she should be paying attention to? That... makes sense, actually.]

Well, I'm not exactly a barkbeast. I'm sharp, but not that sharp! But I can give it a shot. Don't expect too much from me, though.

[Before the trolls were wiped out, some legislacerators went out into the field with their dog-like guardians, and they could sniff out contraband and illicit goods. That's a level of sensitivity Terezi can only dream of -- she can pick up things most other people can't, but she's no bloodhound.

There is a hint of something, though, now that he's given her some direction. It's not something she would have thought to focus on before. The colors of a few of the tubes are just a little fuller. They don't seem worn down from use, and there's a heaviness to them, a stronger scent, like the flavoring has been sitting there for a while.]

Hm... [Hesitantly, she points to the first three tubes on the lefthand side.] I think... maybe these?

Mess Hall

[magneticfields]

[ It hasn't occurred to Erik that the reason the food is so terrible is because there is something wrong with the machines. He had just accepted it as another part of life in this terrible place. He doesn't know if it's morning or evening when he goes to the mess hall, or if it matters. Everybody has established their own schedules of sleeping or not. None of the food resembles anything close enough to use that as some kind of measurement of the progress of the day.

One of the young people is doing... something. She has everything set up as if she's going to do some kind of repair on it, but she's sniffing it.

So. This is happening, apparently. ]

Is everything smelling alright in there? I was hoping to get something similar to a cup of tea.

[iustitia]

Uhhhhhh. I don't know!

[She gives the replicator another sniff, not realizing that's what he's asking about. She just sort of assumed he was asking if there was a burning smell, or some other kind of indicator that it was busted. It doesn't occur to her that she's going to need to explain her "sight."]

I think it's okay? Mostly it's just kind of old and musty in there. [She holds a grey hand out towards the machine's innards, sighing.] Honestly, I'm not sure how things are supposed to smell in here. I'm a little out of my depth! I thought this manual would help, but it's way more complicated than I thought it would be.

[magneticfields]

[ She keeps sniffing the thing, but he doesn't question it. It's odd, but he's seen weirder. Her appearance doesn't phase him, either, as his conception of what a person can look like is a bit broader than most. Perhaps she's also a mutant. Could he be so lucky? He doesn't recognize her, but he hadn't recognized the others, either.

But even more exciting than that is the prospect of a manual. ]

You found a manual?

[ He crouches next to her, suddenly very interested in the book she has. ]

Is it just for the replicator or does it have other systems in it?

[iustitia]

Yeah! It was just... under my pillow when I woke up this morning. I know for certain it wasn't there when I went to sleep last night, too! Your guess is as good as mine as to how it got there.

[Ghosts. Spooky space ghosts. That's the only guess she has.

She scoots over so he can take a look at the manual. Maybe he can make more sense of it than she can.]

I flipped through it earlier, and it's just for the replicator. There's got to be more manuals around here for other kinds of equipment, but this is the only one I've got.

hallways

[oculusriffs]

[see, this is the sort of outer space shenanigans that he prefers, and that he is, dare he think it, even a bit nostalgic for. the drawings on the walls, the careful city planning behind every single alleyway of Can Town, the renderings of weird Alternian societal norms.]

[so he pretty much skids to a halt and turns on a heel to head in Terezi's direction once he realizes what she's doing, plopping down unceremoniously next to her. he is pretty bruised from his earlier mishap with the sord..... but none worse for the wear.]

Looks like you've hit the jackpot.

[iustitia]

Jackpot, lottery, basically every single silly gambling game known in existence!

[She puts the red chalk back into her mouth, the stick dangling like an especially dusty, red cigar belonging to a hard-boiled, chain-smoking troll detective who indulges in vice. But instead of being like, you know, cool about it, the portrait she paints is just kind of gross.

Perfect.]

Any luck with your gaper problem, or did I steal it all for myself?

[oculusriffs]

[good old tz. Dave reaches for the package of chalk, his permission to borrow a piece assumed, and wondering if he should think up something new or if he should adorn the walls of this space station with something more classic.]

Problem's solved. Didn't even have to break the toilet or any bones or anything.

Was the chalk the only thing you found?

[iustitia]

[Dave. Please. He is always permitted to touch her chalk. She would never dream of denying him that.]

There was a book, too! A user manual to the food replicators. But the chalk is the only thing from home that I've found. [She drops her voice into a jokingly ominous tone:] For now.

I wonder if there's any rhyme or reason to what gets brought here? It all seems pretty random, but we both got stuff that's ours, you know?

But then again, who knows why anything happens here. Ghosts are like barkbeasts and they just sort of do things arbitrarily.

hallways

[potentite]

[Jake leans down trying to look closer at some of the drawings, hands on his knees.]

Goodness, that fellow looks rather ornery, don't you think?

[iustitia]

Haha, you have no idea!

There's this famous case about the dangers of not knowing your stuff in the courtroom! So this legislacerator apprehends her target and brings him in. It was supposed to be iron-clad. Cut and dry. Basically as easy as you can get! As the legislacerator was presenting the case, she flubbed some of the details. Just a minor mistake, but a mistake nonetheless.

[She taps the giant red monster, smudging some of the chalk, and smiles fondly at him.]

His Honorable Tyranny took offence to her incompetence and devoured her on the spot.

[potentite]

Good gravy, he ate her? [True, he looks like the sort to eat someone but that feels over the top.] Just for one eensy-weensy mistake?

hallways they finally meet in person,,

[mirrortide]

Nice morp.

[Your art is fantastic and Lapis is Clearly An Expert Artist.]

What is it though? [Wait, can she ask that? Are you Allowed To Do That? Nevermind, doesn't matter because Lapis is doing Just That.]

[iustitia]

Morp?

[morp. moooorp. morrrrrp. mor-puh.

Morp.]

Are you talking about the one I'm working on? It's His Honorable Tyranny! He presides over the Alternian courts. He's a very important figure.

[mirrortide]

A morp can be anything you make. [Lapis Expertly Decrees.]

So he's like a Diamond, then. Where's the Zircon for the trial? Or I guess it wouldn't be a Zircon for you. [WHATS THE NONGEM EQUIVILENT...]

MESS HALL

[fragmento]

That makes two of us.

[ he watches intently, arms folded — his eyes narrow as he thoroughly examines the scene before him. it is uh, not the most comprehensible. ]

Toss me that book of yours. What exactly are you trying to accomplish here?

[iustitia]

I'm trying to fix these food replicators! Half the time they spit out something inedible, and I'm getting pretty tired of it. If I'm going to be stuck here, I at least want to get something decent to eat.

[It's uh. Not going very well so far.

She turns her face towards him and flashes him a cheeky grin.]

Ask me politely and maybe I will.

[fragmento]

Again, that would make two of us. Christ. They may as well starve us.

[ he raises a brow. ]

I'm doing you a favor, why should I...!

[ he throws his hands up. ]

The book. Give it...to me.

[ #etiquette, mastered. ]