route_1065 | my heart's not fluttering or anything

Who: Hamsteaks,Team RWPY, & Dipper
Where: GOLDENROD INN, specifically Dave and Karkat's room but possibly others as well? It depends.
When: 3/5, afternoonish/evening/well into the wee hours of 3/6
Summary: A certain travel party largely consisting of traumatized teenagers initiates a team building exercise, AKA sleepover. This is clearly the best idea ever and will in no way backfire at all.
Rating: PG-13 for, uh. Homestuck vocabularies.
Log:

[Despite having been in their immediate vicinity for three weeks, Karkat had somehow managed to avoid talking to most of the people in their group for any significant length of time. A lot of it was personal preference because yes, he was still intermittently freaking out about being a human surrounded by humans, but the fact that he'd blown up at two of the other party members and probably guaranteed that Jade or Dave or both would be auspisticizing between them for the foreseeable future (oh god please no) didn't help matters. He'd rather stay in his damn room or hide in the local bookstore than deal with any of that bullshit.

Unfortunately, maintaining his busy schedule of staying the fuck away from other people as much as possible was untenable, especially when his best friends were also their friends and he literally had no excuse to keep putting it off—unless he could say he needed to take his Pokemon on a walk? Do people even take Pokemon on walks? Would Dave even buy that when neither Merope nor Sharru have shown the slightest amount of interest in going on walks? Well, okay, no, Dave might not even care, but Jade...

Either way, the moment his roommate decides on the impromptu movie night, sends out texts to inform the others, and begins putting together a Sweet Throh and Hella Sawk flyer for their door to mark the occasion (why is he friends with this moron again) is the moment Karkat's fate is sealed.

They're going to have a sleepover, and everyone is invited.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Dipper is not a romance fan, and those games are above his age range. Let the crazy, older kids do those things. ~~Not that he doesn't want to and he's technically almost a teen.~~

So this kid is going to be sitting by himself, journal out, taking down some notes from his previous journey through Cianwood. Kid wants to go back to the Safari Zone for sure. ~~Bother him, please, and get him out of his bubble.~~]

Salutations, Dipper! What are you writing?

[Technically she is not sneaking up on him. She's approaching him from the front and sitting down beside him.]

Popcorn?

[He's still absorbed enough to jump a bit. First instinct makes him cover up his writing with his tiny little body.

Then he remembers this isn't Gravity Falls and sits back up.]

H-Hey Penny! Just notes on all the different Pokémon and possible real animal equivalents and such... Popcorn?

Popcorn!

[She offers him the bowl of popcorn she was totally carrying all along and that her player absolutely didn't forget to mention in that first tag, nope.]

Oh, neat! So it's like you're working on a Pokédex all your own!

[Of course he's going to have some popcorn. What kid wouldn't?

And gosh it's nice to talk to someone who seems genuinely interested in what he has to say.]

It's more like taking notes on things the Dex doesn't cover. Like differences in environment, eating habits, and so on that can affect how a Pokémon acts with or without a trainer. Even things like why some have "shiny" fur and others don't.

So more an actual wildlife guide, then!

[The 'dex is pretty useful, but in her experience mostly for figuring out how to properly battle.]

That sounds like it'll take a lot of work. Are you going to try covering every species, too?

Wildlife guides never mention the magical properties of any species.

[Seriously. Animal guides back home would be great if there was magic involved. Or at least the paranormal.]

I'll stick to types first, and then go from there. There's... a lot of Pokémon.

Does most wildlife actually have magical properties, though? I mean, there's no magic on Remnant but books about the Grimm still talk about the unusual things they can do. ...Though I guess maybe they don't exactly count as typical wildlife?

[Wildlife typically doesn't dissolve upon death, at least.]

Oh gosh, yeah. There's... I don't know how many, but at least a few hundred?

Grimm... as in the Grim Reaper? You have animals named after death themselves?

[That sounds awful.]

Almost 800! This is going to take forever...

As in what? But... "death itself" isn't a bad description of Grimm, I guess. They're monsters that prey on humans and faunus. The Huntsmen and Huntresses' primary job is fighting them!

[...Wow that's a lot of Pokémon.]

...Is there anyone you could ask for help? Oh! Or you could make a survey or questionnaire for people to fill out about their own Pokémon!

Grim Reaper is death. He or it is the very face of death with the skull for a face. [That job sounds so cool.] So you fight them?

.... a questionnaire would be good! That way I can get all sorts of data without that much footwork. I'll still go exploring, but this would definitely give me a better idea of what to look at first!

Oh, they do have a lot of bone-patterning! Like Drei- um, Houndour? But much, much bigger and not remotely as cute.

And we were training to fight them, yes! All of us were.

[She grins at his reaction, glad to have helped.]

That way you'll get a bunch of different perspectives, too!

[He's going to look at you with a lot of admiration now.] What kind of weapons do you use to fight them? What about magic?

I'd just need help weeding out the joke answers from the serious answers... This would be easier with my sister around.

Me specifically? I used a set of swords I could manipulate to function as a single set. But Huntsmen and Huntresses used all kinds of different weapons! Yang had a set of gauntlets, Weiss fought with a sword that could use different elemental forms of Dust to attack, and Ruby fought with a custom made high-impact sniper-scythe. You should ask her about it sometime, she can probably tell you more about our weaponry than I ever could, too.

[If you ever want a full guide to the weaponry of Remnant, Dipper...]

You miss her a lot, don't you. Your sister?

[Several swords? Sniper.... scythe? And Dust? This world of hers was starting to sound more and more fantastical.] Too bad you can't show me here.

Well, yeah, she's my sister. We've always done everything together.

Yes, too bad. I miss it sometimes. But it's much more peaceful here!

[And putting a hand on Dipper's shoulder.]

Don't worry, I'm sure she'll show up sooner or later! I was alone here when I arrived too.

["Peaceful"]

I got here before Christmas! How long am I supposed to wait?

my heart's not fluttering or anything

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