roguesquadron | hurt/comfort meme

hurt/comfort meme

the hurt/comfort meme

It is in times of distress that hope is truly found. How you handle those periods of duress is a mark of character. Whether you're the one in pain, providing sanctuary, or even if that ache is mutual, hurt/comfort is all about empathy. Connecting with the people around you.

Instructions:

→ Post with your character (note name, canon [if relevant], and preferences in the subject line).
→ Others reply by either generating a number between 1-21 for a prompt, ~~or go off script, I'm not the boss of you~~.
→ Go forth and connect.

Options:

o1. injury: somehow, you've been injured. the severity, whether a mortal wound or "just a scrape" is up to you.
o2. sickness: thinking of calling out of work today? chances are you've got a common bug...or worse.
o3. fear & anxiety: careful where you throw that "scared to death" nonsense...it might just be an omen.
o4. loss of senses: you're missing one of those fundamental six senses, whether it's your sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste, or the Force.
o5. despair: the idea of hope looks more and more like a pipe dream right now.
o6. breakup: and we are never ever ever ever getting back together. ever.
o7. makeup: but you called me up again tonight...
o8. rescued: it's time for one of you to get your damsel in distress on.
o9. bad romance: i knew you were trouble when you walked in.
1o. loss: one of you has just experienced a loss of some kind; can you cope?
11. insanity: for whatever reason, "reason" is lost to you. you're seeing and hearing things. sometimes dead people.
12. tired/insomnia: is it the caffeine or the fact that you never leave your damned senatorial office? whether it's just lack of sleep or lack of energy, this exhaustion is bone-deep.
13. addiction: something's got you hooked, and you might just need a helping hand to give it some distance.
14. nightmares: okay, now you're definitely seeing dead people. do you dare go back to sleep?
15. blackmail: you've been caught and the evidence is compromising. do you seek help or vengeance?
16. separation/homesickness: whatever it is, the nostalgia's got you missing something (or someone) awfully.
17. betrayal: your trust has been violated, but is it a real or imagined slight?
18. stranded: you're stuck. maybe someone crashed your only ship for the 50th damn time. are you sure this isn't reality tv?
19. sins & guilt: the weight of your past deeds is like holding a world on your shoulders. maybe it's time to seek some help, atlas.
2o. secret: loose lips sink spaceships.
21. wildcard: "take your script and shove it, meme."

[adapted and remixed from here.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

We should still check. Just because it's been swept prior to the time the meeting was supposed to happen doesn't mean it's still clean.

::Checking will take him mere minutes, so they don't really lose any time.

The place he saw to try is only minutes away so it isn't long until they're able to settle in at one of the outside tables. He gives Ezra a little grin before he starts looking at his menu.::

Don't go choosing the most expensive thing now.

I know that. [Just a touch defensive.] Look, you asked for suggestions, and that's the best I've got. Anywhere else is a shot in the dark.

[Picking up a menu, he finds his own seat, one that puts his back to the wall of the building. Some cautious habits just never leave you, no matter how long you've been off the streets. As he scans the card, he wrinkles his nose at Garth'zel's comment.]

Expensive stuff isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's usually just hyped up more than it's worth, and they never give you enough. Doesn't always taste that great either.

[Look, most of his experience with expensive food comes from the garbage bins behind fancy restaurants. His opinions might be a little skewed.]

I'll have a bantha sandwich and a meiloorun fruit salad.

[Not the cheapest, but still what he considers reasonably priced things. Especially once you consider the size that bantha sandwiches usually come.]

And a cup of juice. [A beat.] Please?

::Garth'zel raises an eyebrow slightly.::

I wasn't criticizing.

::Calm down, kid. He was just stating what needed dealing with once they finally went there.::

A lot of it is simply eaten as a status thing, yes. It shows off wealth and sometimes power. I mainly keep track of such things for what they may have to tell me about individual people.

::It's given him useful insights on his fellow Sith. Who were more interested in the trappings of power and wealth than it actually using it for something worthwhile.::

Nerf stew for me and Corellian ale.

::After the droid's left with their orders, Garth'zel steeples his fingers together and looks at Ezra over them.::

What do you know of Taris' history?

[Ezra eyes Garth'zel doubtfully at the denial of criticism. Too many people would have definitely been criticizing him there for him to be willing to believe that just at his insistence. Not when he doesn't really know the man.

He'll let himself be distracted from that topic, though, and from the topic of what wealthy eating reveals. He could tell Garth'zel a thing or two about what he picks up from what other people order for food, but that in turn might reveal a little too much about himself. Garth'zel doesn't need to figure out that Ezra used to be (and sometimes still is) a pickpocket.]

Taris?

[He shrugs, noncommittal.]

There was a plague here once that made it dangerous? I don't know a lot more than that.

[He kind of quit going to school around the time that he got orphaned, so history isn't one of his strong points.]

Why do you ask?

::Yeah, Garth'zel doesn't recommend trying to pick his pockets. It's not liable to end well.

He snorts at the description of the plague.::

"Dangerous" is an understatement. It turned people into man-eating monsters. Just one bite was enough to infect someone. Assuming they lived long enough, given if a rakghoul is trying to take a bite out of someone, it's because it intends to eat them. The nekghouls were worse though, because they could use the Force.

Thanks to an orbital bombardment, all this used to be in ruins. The Republic let what was left of Taris rot until somewhere around my lifetime. Then someone decided it was time to try to rebuild.

::You may not have asked for the history lesson young man, but you're getting one.::

[Ezra grimaces at the description, eyes sliding to the left as though to make a quick scan of the streets. He may not have asked for a history lesson, but he's not one to ignore a threat when it's mentioned.]

Did they get rid of them all? Or do those things still exist?

[It occurs to him after he asks that Garth'zel might not know. He has been frozen for the past three thousand years, after all.

Still, Ezra can't imagine deliberately coming to a world where you knew something like that existed without bothering to ask any of them had cropped up.

Besides, he must have brought them up for a reason.]

::Hey, Ezra's the one who mentioned the plague, Garth'zel was just saying what the plague was.::

Taris was still well-infested with the things in my time. Although they're apparently under control now. Hopefully wiped out entirely. It sometimes cropped up on other planets but fortunately, the rakghoul plague generally got stamped out quickly on them due to not getting much of a foothold before being noticed. It was still a mess to deal with, mind, but was considerably easier to clean up than here.

::The droid arrives with their food and Garth'zel stops talking for the moment to get started on his food and drink. Ezra probably won't be paying attention to anything that wasn't his own food for the next few minutes anyway.::

[What, the rakghoul are the reason why Garth'zel asked Ezra about Taris's history to begin with?

(Yeah, Ezra's jumping to conclusions there.)

Garth'zel is right that the food is going to distract Ezra, though. Three days of living on what food he could steal or scrounge up from the garbage means he's reaching eagerly for the sandwich the droid brings him.

It isn't until he's halfway through it that he finally pauses, swallowing.]

So, why'd you come here? If it was infested in your time, what made you think coming here now would be a good idea?

::Right. Ask him something when he's in the middle of a mouthful of stew, why don't you? He finishes chewing and swallows first before answering.::

I wanted to see how it changed. I spent time reading about the major shifts that happened since my time, of course; but reading about them is quite different from seeing them for myself.

[Whoops, sorry about that, Garth'zel. Ezra's about as observant as any teenager when it comes to things like that.]

Ah.

[Well, that's more understandable, then. Garth'zel hadn't been coming back to a world he thought was still dangerous, but to a world that no longer was. With all of his friends and family dead, along with any other acquaintances or reasons to be attached to any one world, curiosity was probably as good a reason to travel as any other he might have.

Ezra falls silent as he considers that, scooping a spoonful of fruit salad into his mouth, then chewing while wrapping the other half of his bantha sandwich back up. He hadn't been kidding when he told Garth'zel that he could eat a lot, and he could probably finish the bantha sandwich easily. However, he didn't know where his next meal would be coming from. Best look to the future and save some of this now.]

Well- [He pauses to swallow.] -I guess the history doesn't mean as much to me. I just want to get off this rock.

Knowing something about the history of a world can be useful.

::The chiding is gentle. Really.::

It helps give insights into what the people on it may be like. It takes a certain kind of person to be willing to reclaim a polluted monster-infested world. I'm sure plenty of those qualities have been passed down to their descendants.

::He takes a sip of his drink before continuing.::

Moreover, it helps to steer clear of potentially saying or doing the wrong thing. You wouldn't announce a love of Trandoshans on Kashyyyk, would you?

::Garth'zel rather hopes not. That way lays either a pummeling or suicide by wookiee.::

[Ugh, it's like he's getting a lecture from his Master. Ezra makes a face, only barely restraining himself from rolling his eyes.]

Come on, give me more credit than that. I'm not an idiot.

[Because you really would have to be an idiot to say something like that to a Wookiee.]

I just wasn't expecting to get stuck on this world.

[Whiiich brought him right back to the reason he was. His mouth thins at the memory of being left behind.]

::Good, because he would prefer not to have an idiot for an apprentice. That way lays needing to find a new one entirely too soon.::

How did you get stuck here?

::He's not going to let that opening pass him by, nope. Time to get to work.::

[Ezra's shoulders hunch at the question, and he moodily pushes his spoon through the bowl with his fruit salad. He knows he shouldn't talk about specifics, and he won't, but he's been sitting on this for three days now. A teen can only bottle things up for so long.]

Things happened. My crew had to leave. I wasn't on board, and they didn't have time to wait. Now I'm just waiting for them to come back for me.

There's no emergency plan for what to do if something like that happened?

::That seems to lack a certain amount of foresight to him. What is this kid supposed to do, wait on this planet for the rest of his life?::

How long have you been waiting?

This is the plan. Lie low and wait until things cool down enough for someone to circle back.

[They just... hadn't had the funds to load everyone with money on the off chance that one of them might get left behind. It wasn't deliberate negligence, he has to remind himself.

Even if it still sucks.]

It's been three days.

Waiting for them to come back is all well and good, but what if they can't? How are you supposed to catch up? Stow away on a ship that might go somewhere you might be able to rejoin them?

::He sees so many problems with this plan. Along with just waiting here.::

[Ezra scowls, temper rankling at the criticism he's reading into that. He leans back in his seat, crossing his arms defensively.]

Well, what else am I supposed to do? Steal a ship and fly it off to find them myself? Hope that I can fly whatever I get my hands on?

[Yes, he can manage the Phantom, but flying a shuttle is a far cry from flying a whole ship.]

You look like a sulking teenager.

::It's said almost absently as he takes another bite of stew. He was just about done with his own food and starts keeping an eye out for the serving droid.::

Is there at least a planet for you all to meet at for if worst comes to worst and they can't return to pick someone up?

[He probably sounds like a sulking teenager because he is a sulking teenager, but what teenager likes to be called out on that? Ezra bristles now, glaring.]

I'm not sulking! It's a legitimate factor! And sure, there's a planet we do most of our work around, but they're expecting me here, not there.

::Garth'zel gives him an even look.::

Settle down. Yes, they may be expecting you to be here, but for how long? Surely they'd expect you to find your own way back to them if they can't return?

Does it matter?

[Yes, Ezra's grousing. No, he doesn't care.]

I can't exactly afford to book passage, and almost no one flies to that world. I'd still be right back to the problem of stealing and flying a ship.

::Ah, there's the droid. The bill gets asked for and Garth'zel just raises his eyebrows at Ezra as the droid shuffles off.::

How do you think I reached this planet? I'd prefer not to be limited to the schedule and destinations of a passenger ship.

::Not to mention, hiding his lightsaber would be a touch more complicated. Forget quick escapes if they're needed.::

[Ezra eyes Garth'zel at that comment, not sure what he should be reading into it. It almost sounds like a hint of an offer, but that just wouldn't make sense. Seriously, who'd offer a random kid they just met a ride out to a planet that hadn't even been named yet?

And what kid with any sense would accept that offer from someone they just met?

He's definitely reading too much into what's probably just a comment about being prepared for contingencies.]

Yeah, well, I'll have to remember that for the future.

[He's only being slightly sarcastic there. The guy has been nice to him so far. He doesn't deserve the full brunt of Ezra's sour mood.

Sighing, he finishes off the last few bites of his fruit salad, tucking the other half of the sandwich into the satchel on his belt while he chews.]

You ready to find somewhere else to talk?

Soon.

::The droid returns, and after a quick glance at how much he owed, enough credits have been handed over. Then Garth'zel drinks the last of his ale and stands.::

Now we can go. After you.

::The kid is the one who knows where they're going, after all.::

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