Video | welcome, hallo, buenos días, ohayō, etc, etc! | UN: Newt

[groupiedrifter]

[Newt comes shuffling into view on the screen, holding a cup of coffee in his hand with a bag of what seems to be Sour Patch Kids harrowingly hanging out from beneath the pinky finger of the very same hand. Disheveled but more than happy to provide his services after dragging himself out of bed, he taps his knuckle on the chalkboard beside him — one that used to be Hermann Gottlieb's, may he rest in peace (in a not dead way — may he rest in peace on a beach or something while wholly alive and thriving).]

Noticed an influx of new and kinda-new faces over the last few days or weeks or whatever.

So here's my handy dandy welcome board! Recently updated, to keep with the times.

Read it over and get a feel for how this place goes; I'm gonna finish off this coffee before I take any questions.

[As he takes the world's most obnoxious-sounding sip and burns his tongue, here's the board in question:]



[And then, after a bit of time, he turns the board over to the other side:]



[No worries, current crew, if you can't get one of those introduction papers in person!

Because he's attached them in file format, too.]



[And in case you wanted a text format copy:

Name:
Age:
Birthday:
Favorite color:
Favorite food:
Favorite subject:
Favorite toy:
Favorite animal:
Favorite candy:
Favorite activity:
Favorite place:
Favorite book:
Favorite TV show:
Favorite movie:
I am good at:
I want to learn:
Least favorite subject:
Place I want to go:
If I could make one wish, it would be:
If I could have one superpower, it would be:
This is what I want my teacher to know about me:

(Have at it — threadjacking is encouraged).]

Comments

text / un: solnishka

[peasant]

did you not pen this yourself?? it has your unique touch.
blaming me for your inner musings is a bit odd and maniacal, nikolai.

[ravkas]

i think the fact that our unique touches have blended together so seamlessly says great things about our shared future.
you say odd and maniacal as if you don’t like that about me.

[peasant]

well, it's better than the brand of odd and maniacal i'm used to.

[ not to name names. aleksander. ]

i didn't know your favorite color. i'd say that's an unfortunate omen.
what other things don't i know? do you sing terribly off-pitch in the bath?
i'm afraid that's my deal-breaker. i can only stomach so much.

[ravkas]

i'm better than what everyone's used to.

we have time to get to know each other. isn't that the fate of all royalty? you light the fires as you go along?
i have never sung off-pitch in my life, alina. i have a wonderful singing voice. i've also been complimented on my dancing by one of the leads of the royal ballet.
however, since you did bring up the bath, feel free to describe a favorite activity of yours during such a time.
i don't have any deal-breakers.

[peasant]

my ideal bathing pastime involves drowning kings that ask that question.

[ for the sake of her own sanity, she lets her mind glaze over the rest of nikolai's self-fellating ramblings. it would be too easy to fall into the snares those set, of meaningless banter that leads her on a circular trajectory, no closer to any genuine answers — but her curiosity lies elsewhere.

( or, perhaps, her gnawing, cannibalistic guilt. if he has no dealbreakers, he cannot claim to be blindsided by any of her pitfalls. ) ]

none? am i meant to believe that?
everyone has their limits. yours might be women with two left feet, or redheads.
perhaps orphans who aren't fit to be queen feature somewhere on your list.

[ravkas]

you'd have to invite me into the bath for that. i accept, by the way.

[ it's a bold statement, to say nothing she could do would put an end to the vows they might one day take. but kings and queens have had peculiar marriages for the sake of politics and survival since the beginning of time. he's more concerned that she will cite "true love" as a reason to run off with a certain handsome tracker. as if love has anything to do with anything. ]

we can dance and work on your left feet if it bothers you.
there's nothing to be done about your parentage, but then the same could be said for me.
i wouldn't have given you that giant rock if i didn't think you would make at least a passable queen, you know.

[ a beat, in which he considers saying something vapid and less revealing, but it feels like poor strategy. ]

i wouldn't have asked just anyone. i haven't asked anyone else. frankly, i have dreaded the task until i met you.
and i still dreaded asking because i thought you might punch me. and worse, say no.

[peasant]

oh, passable. you hold me in such high regard.

[ written word dulls the sharp knife's point of sarcasm — and the slice of irritation beneath, besides, a red and raw scrape across her confidence. funny, that; two years and some change ago, she would have shuddered under ravka's lofty expectations. would have recanted their worship. but in the face of nikolai deeming her adequate, at best —

her insides twist, something darker coiling at the brazenness of that disrespect. she ignores it, charges forward without examination, for fear of what it may say of her growing comfort with power. with fealty. with the anticipation she will be obeyed, admired, acknowledged. ]

i've already punched you once. i'd never be so unimaginative the second time around.
you know, when you say all that, you almost make it sound like you were always expecting you would one day replace your brother.

[ravkas]

our predecessors don't hold a very high bar for us to meet.

[ in truth, he thinks alina is exactly what ravka needs — raw, unpolished, and born outside of the gilded walls of the palace. and grisha. but learning which fork to use at dinner won't kill her, either.

the accusation takes him by surprise, not because it isn't true, but because he isn't expecting it from her. ]

i was. vasily would have run the country into worse ruin than my father. i would be complicit if i sat idle and watched that.
are you asking if i would have killed him for the throne? it's a moot point now. don't tell me you would have preferred him.

cw: allusions to sexual abuse

[peasant]

worse than your father is a high bar for vasily to have met.

[ vasily had lorded his shadow over her like a python, waiting to squeeze her into compliance — but king pyotr had been a different breed of monster altogether. a creature of old lore, slithering into the beds of unsuspecting women — reigning over their bodies and their nightmares, more than he had ever reigned over ravka in its entirety.

the mere memory of it sets her on a course toward sickness, sloshing around in her stomach. she swallows down the nausea, forces herself to confront that one accusation that's underlined her responses — ]

if that's what you assumed i was asking, i'm certain i already have my answer.
but you know i have to ask. were you?

[ intending to. there's shockingly little amount of judgment, just yet; had she not deposed the darkling just the same, ruthless and efficient at the end? vasily's greatest crime had been his foolishness, yes, but it's as nikolai says — the whole of his family has been complicit. vasily would have only been another fist pummeling grisha into the dirt.

his was no great death to mourn, in the end. ]

[ravkas]

[ it's a burden he'll carry to his grave, the lantsov name and the legacy it carries. and it's not even mine. he's already made mistakes — allowing his father to skirt a trial that would have seen him hang is a decision he has to live with now, knowing daily he chose what served him best and not what was right. even he, after everything, doesn't have the mettle to watch his parents die.

he doesn't know, exactly, what the right thing is to say. he hadn't spent a great deal of time mourning his brother's death. he mostly mourned what might have been — the idea of a brother that actually liked him, a brother he could look up to. and yet, if it came down to it, would he have been able to put a bullet between his eyes? if it came down to vasily or ravka, what sort of king would he be if he couldn't?

what sort of king would he be if he could? ]

there are other ways to get what you want than cold blooded murder. i'm very innovative, after all.
i can't help who my family is, alina. all i can do is try to be better than them.

that's what i want with you, sunshine.

puts my hand over this timestamp

[peasant]

[ there are other ways to get what you want. this is proof, isn't it? sweet words with a molten warm center. flattery that would threaten to swoon her, if she were anything akin to the frilly dolls that line nikolai's court, eager to be the king's furniture if it would earn them a single scrap of attention. that's more precarious, she thinks, than cold-blooded murder. at least spilled blood is gruesomely honest, unable to lie about what it is.

but this — this feels as honest as the golden masks and heavy perfumes of the court, heavy and concealing. like presenting her with a gilded version of what her life could be, until she's mistaken painted copper for true gold. alina's stomach roils, seasick from all her failing attempts to chart nikolai's intentions.

she swallows down the bad taste in her mouth. aims for something diplomatically casual. ]

then we'll try.
though i imagine it's not hard to do when the bar is below ground. you may want to set your sets higher.
i've never known you to lack ambition.

[ if he were aware of her overactive mind's ongoings, it would sound like the pointed thing it is. as it stands, she lets it read as she wants it to read to him: a stated fact. a possible compliment.

in the end, he's not the only one who knows how to get what they want from this. ]

i do not see it

[ravkas]

[ his goals are all ravka. he doesn't have the luxury to stretch himself to other ends, much less to make this into something it isn't, which is what? love? it's far from that and will likely never be that. but nothing is ever impossible, and that foolish little notion is what he can't seem to rid himself of. he doesn't want to be his parents. he doesn't want to wake up one day with a full head of marvelously gray hair and realize that his wife can't stand the sight of him. ]

installing onto the throne a grisha queen who allegedly consorted with the darkling isn't ambitious enough? i'm rather impressed with us.

[ that sounded far more witty in his head. ]

where's your room, by the way? i feel like we should know these things about each other.

blows u a kiss

[peasant]

allegedly.

[ her bones want to jump out of her skin, having that so publicly broadcast — until she remembers, with crystalline clarity, no one knows aleksander by such a title here. another of his nasty stains wiped clean on the slate.

still, there's an adamant punctuation behind the singular word, laying that rumor to rest and burying it. allegedly. she would much rather sit in the ground with it than admit any basis to it, beyond malicious courtly gossip, and nikolai —

nikolai, of all of them, should know better than to flippantly parade rumors. ]

it's first room on your left when you enter the southwestern wing. [ very casually, ] mal's been bunking in the extra bed.

[ nailed it. ]

[ravkas]

[ a joke, an unfunny joke, because why would it be funny? why would the actions of a man who nearly destroyed them both be fitting to bring up? nikolai has to laugh at all of it or he will go mad, but that doesn't exactly mean everyone else must bear the burden of his humor.

small regret.

he's very cheerily about to announce that he will show up with sweets, but the following sentence dampens his plans considerably. are they or are they not separated? only the saints know. ]

that must be comforting.

[ ??????????? ]

i'm off to do some exploring. if i find myself in the southwestern wing, i'll pop in to say hello to you both.

[peasant]

[ ????????? ok weirdo. nikolai's definition of comforting might as well include stepping into baba yaga's household, or fraternizing with the monster under a child's bed, if living with mal — mal, who has made it known she isn't a fixture in his life any longer — is what he calls comforting.

still. she isn't going to air her dirty laundry, the way nikolai has. next she knows, he'll be drying her underwear in the sunlight room for everyone to gawk at, with how little regard for privacy he has. ]

i wouldn't bother if i were you. if you're looking for mal, he spends most of his days in the sunlight room.
good luck on your adventures. try not to drown without your boat.

[ well. it's a suitably awkward end to a doubly awkward conversation. ]