APRIL CATCH-ALL; Mostly the view is beautiful

[burger_king]

WHO: Jughead Jones and YOU
WHERE: Mostly Maurtia Falls, but also other places
WHEN: Throughout April
WHAT: A lot of stuff, mostly mundane!
WARNINGS: Riverdale nonsense, teens being teens. See individual threads for individual warnings.

Prompts under the cut, hit me up at reveillez if you want me to write up a starter


01 - So in this room separated from the world

[ Annabeth hooking him up with a job at the library probably ranks as the third best thing to happen since he arrived. It's quiet, solitary work and between the shelving and cataloguing he has more time to work on his own projects than he knows what to do with. So what if he has to answer a question every now and then, or dig out some forgotten text book from storage if it means spending hours browsing the psychology section, digging out every book he can find on serial killers and then taking ample notes during whatever downtime he finds himself with. Research for a fun project, sure, but also a way to dull down the homesickness a touch — this is basically what he did back in Riverdale, only he didn't get a paycheck for it.

He can be found among the shelves, or at the check-out desk, engrossed in something gross. ]

02 - I'd sell you my own values for the sake of others

[ The last couple of years, Jughead probably spent more time in Pop's Chocklit Shoppe than anywhere else and although that particular diner is out of reach, everything else stays the same. He'll settle in at a booth after work with a cup of never-cooling coffee and his laptop, typing away until well into the night. This is when he does his best work, when everyone else has gone home to their normal lives with their normal problems. Maybe he doesn't have a school paper to write for or the half-written novel on Jason Blossom's murder, but there are other things. Other novels. Other stories. ]

03 - So hold this glass cos' it keeps cutting me

[ Some things never change but one thing has absolutely changed in the past couple of months - he never had powers back home. Practicing at the Meadows was a good idea in theory but an awkward plan in practice and so he's resorted to mostly empty parking lots around Maurtia Falls. He'll set out whenever he's got some spare time, lining up water bottles and taking notes on how many he can keep a certain color for how long, if he can switch it up, where his limits lie. Eventually he should move on to something bigger, perhaps, but for now bottles are fine. It's not like this power is good for much, anyway. Not saving the world any day soon.

Curious onlookers are welcome to join him or just ask what the heck he's up to out here on his own. ]

Comments

[burger_king]

[ If they hadn't already had such a fruitful conversation, Jughead would be weary about this guy - too clean and proper, that's usually not a good sign in his world. Luckily he knows Quatre just well enough to lay those assumptions aside. ]

Hey. Quatre, right? [ He meets the greeting with a lopsided smile. ] Settling in okay?

[fource]

[He smiles in confirmation when Jughead says his name, though it drifts away with a sigh and a heft of the newspapers in his arms; they're dated between the 18th and the 27th.] It's been... eventful. A little hard to focus on getting used to the world.

[It's too serious a topic to make a joke about scoping out the diners. He frowns, asking in sincere concern] Were you alright, that... day? Days?

[burger_king]

[ He frowns at that, closing the laptop and settling in for a conversation. There's space on the other side of the booth, if Quatre wants to have a seat. ]

It wasn't great, but I made it out okay. [ Better than some. ] You? You came in at an interesting time.

[fource]

[He takes it once Jughead closes the laptop, though he flashes him an apologetic look as he sits down.]

So I've heard. I hope it's not like this all the time. [He manages a weak smile, but there's more sadness to it than nervousness. It's just his luck that he'd come straight into another nuclear threat, right after resolving one at home.] We managed to stop it, which is what matters. I'm just worried about what comes next, especially since we're the only ones who remember it. [He rests his stack of newspapers on the table as if in illustration.] ...Not to bring too heavy a subject to the table.

[burger_king]

My first two months here were mostly uneventful. so I definitely think you just had bad timing. [ Not that it's Quatre's fault, of course, but things couldn't have coincided in worse ways. ]

And don't worry about it — I'd rather talk about something than pretend nothing happened. [ He leans forward, elbows on the table. ] It's weird, isn't it? If we're the only ones who remember it, did it happen in the first place?

[fource]

I hope so. [He doesn’t think it’s particularly likely that they’re at the end of the bad timing, though; Jughead’s already touched on the reasons for that. He nods somberly, thumbing through the edges of the newspapers.] It may as well not have, as far as everyone else in this world is concerned—so there’s a company out there that was willing to launch a missile strike on civilians, and we’re the only ones who know about it. I can’t even tell if the government is just trying to keep it quiet, or if they honestly don’t know either.

[Maybe it’s paranoid that he jumps immediately to “the government is actively trying to suppress the truth,” but old habits die hard.]

At least most of us remember.

[burger_king]

[ Hey, Jughead's right there with him. He trusts this government even less than he did the one back home, and that's saying something - there's so much they're not being told, so much shady business he hasn't even scratched the surface on yet. Better err on the side of paranoia than get burnt later. ]

There is that. [ Not that he knows what to do with it. ] Have you talked to anyone who doesn't?

[fource]

Not in depth, but a coworker of mine didn't seem to know what I was talking about. I'm certain that he's also an imPort. [Luckily most of the people involved in solving it seemed to remember; he's not sure how he would have handled it if Duo didn't.] I didn't want to press the issue. I suppose it has to be... her whim, why some of us forgot, but it's unsettling either way. It's just one more thing to have to consider.

[burger_king]

[ He nods, taking it in — as far as he's concerned it's always better to know than not, but at the same time... that week? If everyone forgot about it, he's not sure he could be all that sad. There's something else that catches his attention though. ]

Her?

[fource]

Lachesis? [he responds instinctively, before it occurs to him to wonder if Duo's information was common knowledge. Certainly there were other people here from The City, but considering that no one else had ever mentioned it to him when he arrived, he's suddenly not sure.] Ah, did you hear the woman who spoke to us each morning before the day repeated? I've heard that it was the... goddess, or AI, responsible for the Porter and for our presence in this universe.

[burger_king]

Oh. Oh.

[ Yeah, he missed that information. He heard her, but in the chaos and being separated from Betty he didn't dig into it as much as he could've. It doesn't help that he's been here just about two months. There's a lot to catch up on and he's barely gotten through the surviving aspects of it. ]

Where did you hear this from?

[fource]

[Definitely overestimated how widespread that knowledge was. He covers his surprise with another glance down to the newspapers, fiddling with them for a moment. Duo had asked him to keep their connection quiet, for both their sakes; it seemed overly cautious to Quatre, but he trusts Duo's judgment of the situation implicitly. Thankfully, there had been that one comment on the network...]

Do you remember when everyone was pooling information on the missile? Someone said that the voice who spoke was Lachesis. It makes sense, if you think about it. She's able to adjust reality enough to bring us here, so why not manipulate it to this extent?

[...Is Lachesis even common knowledge? He needs to ask Duo how much he's supposed to know.]

[burger_king]

[ He should probably pay more attention, or dig deeper into this whole investigation thing than he has. Feels kind of bad to be this out of the loop but what the heck. You gotta start somewhere. ]

This is the first time I hear about her. [ He has been talking to people, but Lachesis never came up. ] Most people seem to direct their displeasure towards the government, but this makes more sense.

[fource]

[Man, he really needs to double check what's common knowledge; he has no idea if just mentioning this information could lead him back to Duo. Too late now.]

The government is more responsible for our day to day situation, but... have you heard of "the City?" That's the only name I've heard for it-- an alternate world that also had imPorts and a Porter.

[burger_king]

[ Definitely too late. Jughead did so much amateur sleuthing back home, chances are good he'll dig into this first chance he gets. ]

No. [ He shakes his head, slowly. ] So it's... an alternate world to this one? Like a... another dimension?

[fource]

I think so. From what I understand, Lachesis-- like the fate from Greek mythology-- brought imPorts through the Porter into that world. [And for some reason, Duo had stressed that she was pretending to be Tony Stark; Duo liked to complain about Tony Stark a lot, so Quatre figures that wasn't particularly relevant to the rest of the history.] Eventually that universe ended, and she brought the remaining imPorts into this one, after changing the history of this reality to give it the Porter technology. More imPorts came into this world as most of the imPorts from the old world left, until most people have only ever been in this one. ["Except Tony Stark," as Duo would say.] ...Who knows if it's relevant any more. But I think this is the first time anyone's heard from Lachesis in a long time. Possibly not since the transfer to this universe. I don't think she's supposed to be actively involved in the Porter in this world; she just set it up and stepped back.

[burger_king]

[ He listens, frown deepening as Quatre gets into it. This changes a lot, honestly. He thought he had something figured out at least but hearing this? He wasn't even scratching the surface. He reaches for the laptop again, opening up a word document so he can take some kind of notes on this. ]

Do you have any thoughts on why she set up the Porter? I've been under the impression that there's no reason to it, but if it's an active choice...

[fource]

[Slowly, he admits] Well... one theory that I heard was that the first one, in the City, was... to bring people in to fight her war against her sister. Atropos-- the fate that represents death. That’s supposed to be why the old world ended-- Atropos destroyed it, and Lachesis brought the imPorts into this one to escape. [Which has all sorts of unpleasant implications for why they’re here.] …But it’s been years since this was supposed to have happened. I don’t know if anything that was true in the City still applies here.

[burger_king]

So... if people were brought into the City to fight a war... does that make us a reserve army? It would explain the whole registration thing - innocent enough on the surface, but we could be signing ourselves away for a purpose we know nothing about.

[ That's... chilling. ]

[fource]

Yes. Exactly. [Strangely, he's more confident talking about this part than everything about Lachesis. She was an unknown, a wildcard, something nearly impossible to conceive of. The overreach of government authority and the slippery slope of war, though... he's very familiar with that. He's too biased to ever think that registration was "innocent," even on the surface, but at least he's aware that his position comes from his own experiences so far.] How much do we really know about this government's intentions? How much does the government know about its own actions? Either they aren't aware of the true purpose behind the Porter and they're either being manipulated or trying to use us for their own agendas, or... they are. All of the options sound troubling to me.

[How about those conspiracy theories in the middle of a random diner.]

[burger_king]

And nothing good will come out of this.

[ He sighs, but despite the bleak topic at hand he hasn't felt this at home since he arrived. Discussing conspiracy theories at a diner is kind of what he does best. ]

Honestly, I don't know much about the government here. The Import ambassadors pop up from time to time, but I've also lost track of how many elections there's been in the three months I've been here. I doubt they know much more than we do.

[fource]

[He nods.] I can't imagine they would bring the ambassadors in on much more than we already know. We can elect anyone, and they can't count on convincing each person to keep things from the rest of us. With that and how quickly they leave... [He frowns again.] You've been here for longer than I have. Do they actually have any power?

[burger_king]

Honestly? I have no idea. In my experience, even in local politics it takes a long time to get anything done and with how fast the turn-around is, I doubt anyone even gets the seat warm before they're Ported out.

Then again, I haven't looked into it as much as I should.

[fource]

[He nods, considering it.] I suppose we'll both see, won't we? But I'd rather keep an eye on things myself than hope that they have some control over these things. If the government decides they want to use us for something, I don't know that they'll be in a position to do anything about it. That goes even moreso for Lachesis herself.

[burger_king]

Agreed. To be honest, I don't have that much faith in government to be begin with, even less so here. [ Easily corrupted, looking out for monetary interests rather than people in need. ] We'll look out for each other. That's the only way to do it.