well, my heart is gold

[taraincognita]

WHO: Tara Markov and You!
WHERE: Heropa
WHEN: Throughout June
WHAT: Tara goes to jail, moves in, and generally is less of a fuck-up.
WARNINGS: None; will add as necessary


[ she’s sure most people her age welcome june with fervor. for regular people, june signifies the end of the school year and the beginning of summer. they like to go to beaches, and hang out with friends, and all of that shit that tara has only ever had the opportunity to do a few times in her life. all of those times, too, it had been a lie.

this year, for tara, june marks the first time that she finds herself in prison, and the first time that she finds herself with a home in this weird universe.

what a shitty month. ]

a. doing (rock) hard time

[ heropa’s juvenile detention center is better than she’d expected.

granted, tara’s standards are pretty low. you’d expect a king’s daughter, even a bastard like her, to be more used to living the high life. but to tara, the stone walls and luxurious furnishings of her father’s castle seem more like bits of a dream, not memories of a life that she’d once lived. that hadn’t been hers, anyway. not really.

her cell, on the other hand? it suits her just fine.

it’s small and spartan, and in this respect it reminds her of the room she’d inhabited while living as slade’s apprentice. the familiarity is comforting, in a really fucked up way. that’s probably one of the things that she should be talking about to her mandated therapist, but everything that tara has told her has been a lie, so far. which they probably know; they have her file, after all.

she’s found that the worst things about juvie are the following: she doesn’t see enough of the outdoors, adults keep telling her what to do, and she’s fucking bored. the last one, however, is solved when she’s shuffled into the visitor’s center--wearing heropa’s juvie uniform and holding her arm tightly to her chest. it’s in a cast, without any signatures. her eyes narrow as she searches for her visitor. ]

b. out and about

[ here’s the thing with being suddenly thrust into a situation where you have a home. tara has very little clothing, and almost nothing in the way of furniture--and even though jaime has insisted upon giving her money, she feels oddly guilty about it. sure, he’s technically her guardian, or whatever. she isn’t even planning on betraying anyone this time. but letting someone take care of her feels...weird. almost as though she’s betraying the part of herself that revels in having to fight to stay alive.

whatever. she’ll steal something later, to be a little bit more self-sufficient.

currently, though, she can be found squinting at some sheets, looking...utterly clueless. And maybe even a little angry about having to buy things like sheets. ]

What the heck does thread count mean?

c. wild card!

[ did I miss something? feel free to hit me up with any kind of starter! ]

Comments

Closed: Residents of Heropa 001

[taraincognita]

[ it’s been awhile since tara’s visited; probably for the first time since the whole cactus thing...escalated. she figures she owes charley jr. a visit, and it would probably be a good idea to check in with the other people in her life, or something. still, she feels kinda guilty about hurting archie during that last...whatever it was, and she doesn’t want to bother anyone.

this, naturally, is why she decides to hop the fence to the backyard with the pool, instead of taking the front door. ]

[h2no]

[THANKS FOR NOTHING CHILD GUESS WHO'S ASLEEP ON SHARPEDO FLOATIN' IN THE POOl]

this is a serious thread.

[taraincognita]

[ she throws a rock. ]

WE ARE SERIOUS RPERS

[h2no]

[it misses archie, but sharpedo is woken up by the splash.

in a panic, it fires off a water gun at tara.]

the epitome of Seriouness

[taraincognita]

[ tara dodges; after being attacked by archie's startled pets a few times, she's pretty used to this. she gives sharpedo a sheepish little wave, and then holds both gloved hands up, hoping to prove that she's no longer a threat. ]

Uh...sorry. I was just here to say hi to Archie.

Closed: Residents of Heropa 015

[taraincognita]

[ here’s the thing: she can’t get used to actually sleeping in this house. tara’s been living with jaime and his roommates for almost a week now, and she can’t sleep for more than a few hours. though it’s nearing one am, she decides to pad down to the kitchen. having the freedom to fix herself a snack in the kitchen and watch the tv is weird. it feels fake, like it did while she was the titans, and she doesn’t want to let herself get used to it.

still, going downstairs and grabbing a bag of chips is infinitely preferable than trying to sleep and staring at her ceiling. it’s definitely better than the prospect of actually falling asleep and letting her nightmares cause tremors. she parks in front of the tv, and is trying to decide between 16 and pregnant and the brady bunch when she hears someone coming down the stairs. ]

...Who’s there?

[lempereur]

[ Well, here's Yusuke's thing: it's been a long couple weeks. Between people arriving from his own world, secrets coming out, and having to pull both himself and his friends together, he's exhausted.

But that doesn't mean he's sleeping.

He's an artist, and for better or for worse, this world is rife with inspiration, so much so that he doesn't have space for all his paintings in his own room. Tara may have already noticed the nightmare fuel hung on the wall separating the living room from the kitchen, a large, dark scene of disembodied, decaying hands dragging foxes into a surrealist hell by their tails and snouts. It really livens the place up.

And now, it's a smaller portrait, of a tall, ill-defined figure climbing into a pot of boiling water. Not happily, exactly, but as if he's accepted that he has to. He's too busy trying to visualize where it should go to bother with other people, much. ]

It's Yusuke. No need to worry.

[ His initial introduction when she arrived, in all likelihood, was polite, but distracted. He's just working through some things. ]

[taraincognita]

[ she stares at him, quirking an eyebrow. there's something weird about this guy, but kind of familiar at the same time. he's aloof. she figures that's the right word for him. tara, for the most part, has done her best to keep to herself. ]

...Your art's weird.

[ she thinks raven would like it. she hates the thought. it makes her vindictive, makes her angry; and so, she throws a childish insult yusuke's way. in the background, a sixteen year-old girl named autumn is fighting with her boyfriend about the cost of bottles. wild. ]

[lempereur]

[ Is that really how it has to be, Tara? He was more than happy getting along with all his roommates, but if she seems set on insulting him right out the gate, she'll get an icy glare in return, at least until he's back to divvying up wall space in his head. ]

How strange, I cannot recall requesting feedback.

[taraincognita]

Sorry. I tend to be mouthy past midnight.

[ she's probably not sorry, but at least she's realized that pissing off her housemates is a bad idea. ]

Is painting, like, your thing?

a.

[pale_blue_arrow]

[Brendan is torn between being tired and being furious. This is his default state of being, but it's amplified by the fact she broke a road open and half of it fell on him. His healing factor kept him alive and intensive sleep sessions knitted his bones back together so he can get around. At that point, he decides to talk to Tara to hear out her half of the story. There are rumors, shit made the news, he knows the official score, but he wants it from her mouth.

Because he feels sorry for her based off of his own issues and Archie vouching for her, he comes bearing a gift, the only thing he could think of they'd let past their security. Fair enough, she is in juvie.]

Hey. I'd've brought you books but hell if I know what you like. How're you holding up?

[Even he's not a big enough asshole to demand answers from a tiny, injured girl right off the bat.]

[taraincognita]

I don't read a lot.

[ she'll take the butterfly, hold it to her chest, and stare at him, suspicion written clear across her face. she definitely looks beaten up, though the nanites have been doing their job; she's been healed some, at least. ]

Why are you here?

[pale_blue_arrow]

You dropped half a road on me. I wanna know your half of the tale before I go getting ready to go to war with you - verbally, I don't put people in harm's way for nothing. 'M hoping you don't, either.

[He's bruised up and limping and his sympathy levels are running very low, nearly gone, but they're there enough. He looks at her expectantly, waiting for some kind of response.]

Besides, Archie's worried 'bout you. Has been for a while before this, too. If you were in a fix you coulda told him, he'd've helped you.

[taraincognita]

...I stole a dude's cactus and antagonized him on his blog. I thought it was a joke. He decided to try to murder me, and I don't like people trying to murder me.

[ she seems petulant, almost. she didn't think she'd get into a fight. she didn't realize it'd be a big deal. she was just being friendly. ]

Archie doesn't have to worry about me. Could be worse.

[pale_blue_arrow]

Understandable. But you could have killed people with that stunt of yours. I don't like it when people nearly kill kids and babies and people who had no stake in all this.

[This is not acceptable on a multitude of levels - that someone tried to murder her, that she responded to it this way, that she doesn't seem to give a damn about who she hurts.]

He worries regardless of who needs it. Tell me, though - if you'd killed somebody, would you even feel a little bit guilty about it? At all?

a

[deadtective]

Yo, dumbfuck.

[well, that ought to narrow things down a bit. even without the blase greeting, Hazel stands out in the bleak prison scene - from her riotous shirt to the unsettling bag slung across her shoulder, she draws the eye pretty easily.

any attention, outright or from the side of guards' eyes, doesn't seem to bother her any. she's waiting on the other side of the screened table looking mildly bored, as if she visited young psychopaths in prison all the time. maybe she did, knowing Hazel.]

HAZELS FASHION A+++++++++++++

[taraincognita]

...You look like a human disaster.

[ says the human disaster. she's surprised that hazel is actually visiting. guess this walking corpse really does care, in some way, shape, or form. enough to come bother her in prison, at least. ]

Seriously, like, a tacky supervillain. And trust me. I've seen some pretty tacky ones.

[ she fought mumbo. ]

you ever want a fun time, go check out her outfit page sometime

[deadtective]

This was a Christmas present, actually, but if you wanna go start some shit with Kaneki then don't let me stop you. That oughta be a good laugh.

[for real, record that shit so Hazel can laugh her ass off about it later. she couldn't even say if he'd get upset about someone talking smack about the gifts he thoughtfully picked out for friends or just crumble over being uncertain how to handle the midget trying to start a fight with him.

either way, Tara's attempts to be cranky about her visitor don't seem to be working so far. she hefts her bag onto the table as she continues speaking, rifling through it for something. there's a lot of plasticky crackling going on in there from the sounds of things. suspicious.]

Nice to see they're at least making you brush your hair in here.

I HAVE IN THE PAST IT FUELS ME

[taraincognita]

Fuck off. I brush my hair.

[ she does it with her fingers. they're good enough.

tara definitely looks cleaner, though, by virtue of the fact that she has to. there's no dirt on her face. even the cast on her arm is clean. ]

Seriously. The fuck are you doing here?

yeah i've heard rage will do that to a person

[deadtective]

The door was open so I figured I'd take a look around.

[what a total bullshit excuse. as Hazel brazenly continues to bullshit she finally finds what she was looking for in her bag - a nice fat bag of chips. she gives it a good shake as if to underline its fullness before opening it was a satisfying pop.]

Why, you got a problem with that?

b;

[itssacrifice]

[Andrew is pushing his cart down an aisle near the sheets, said cart loaded with a few household appliances he's yet to pick up in the past few months he's been in this world. Most of it is kitchen appliances; a new cutting board, some shiny new utensils, a set of two pans differing in size. He cast's a glance at the sheets, wondering if he should start budgeting for a third set of sheets for his bed when he spots a blonde girl staring blankly at the bundles of sheets neatly stacked on the shelves.

Well...he's seen that expression before. On his own face even. That's the thing about being abducted by aliens for most of your formulate years, you never get the chance to learn how to make a home the way a regular person does. After Stormwatch disbanded Andrew had been set adrift to figure it all out for himself.

Pushing his cart towards her, he reaches out and grabs a set of pale blue sheets that are marked with a 300 thread count.]

Thread count is the difference between feeling like you're sleeping on a bed of clouds or a bed of nails. Never pick a set that's under a 200 thread count. Unless you like experiencing pain and discomfort when you sleep.

[taraincognita]

Oh. I mean, I can sleep on pretty much anything, so I should probably get the cheapest one, right?

[ it's jaime's money, and that makes her feel uncomfortable. it's not the same as living with slade and the titans. she earned that. it's not the same as stealing, either; as far as she's concerned, not getting caught makes it a job well done. ]

[itssacrifice]

[The expression on his face makes it clear that no, she should not get the cheapest one under any circumstances.]

Trust me, I've done plenty of rough sleeping. Enough to know that when you have the chance to be comfortable, you need to take it. If money is an issue I can help you out.

i accidentally deleted this. i am so sorry.

[taraincognita]

Nah, I mean. I have money. It's not my money, but I have it.

[ she shifts, uncomfortably, staring back at the sheets. ]

I dunno. This is weird for me.

no problem!

[itssacrifice]

[Not her money? There are a couple different ways he can take that...]

Your...parent's money? I'm sure they'd want you to buy the best quality. There's no point buying cheap when you're likely to be back here in a couple weeks needing sheets to replace the ones you just bought.

[He starts taking a couple different sheet sets down that are in different colors and around the same price range.] So...are you more a tea leaf green or earthy brown?