Entry tags:
Truth Meme
Truth Meme

Somehow, there is kirin on you.
Most likely, it is the fur of the kirin that was caught in the environment of wherever you’ve been; there is a stray hair on you because one was on the seat you sat on upon the train or because it blew onto the brim of your hat in the wind.
Or it may be because you met the kirin—a playful ungulate moose-sized spirit who prefers not to speak—and engaged with him and gave him a pat, or a scratch behind an ear. Maybe the kirin nosed or licked your hand because you made him laugh (it’s an adorable ‘keh keh keh’ sound).
Unfortunately for both you and the kirin (who had not meant to trouble your day like this, truly), this exposure to his dander has only one reaction, and it happens to 100% of Star Children: you are compelled to tell the entire truth. About what is less specific; you are compelled simply to announce things about yourself—your life, experiences, thoughts, opinions, feelings. No matter if it’s something silly and inconsequential, deep or secretive, life-altering or commonplace. Some may choose to do this by employing Foxi and their relic; others by finding people to exchange truth with to face to face.
When you have met the kirin’s subconscious desire for four hours, you will be free from the truth telling and the recipient of 24 hours of good luck. The good luck will be sometime in the next year rather than in the next day, and you may have no idea where it came from, but you’ll know a lucky day when you have it!
- This meme is game canon unless marked otherwise at the start of threads! Threads can be used for spoons and application samples.
- Assume all characters involved on this meme are affected.
- Characters will compulsively state truths about themselves/their feelings on the network or in-person. Top-levels may include either/both options.
- Please include prompts in your top level.
- All questions will be answered with complete and total honesty. No special abilities, half-truths, or omissions can avoid sharing all of the truth.
- Meme is open until the next truth meme!
- After one month, you may use the kirin mechanic generally in game. It can be one-sided! All truth-telling characters must consent.
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There was an amused expression on his face as he listened to what she had to say. "This is a change. Usually I'd expect a scathing insult or threat of bodily harm by now."
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Ava crosses her arms a bit protectively over her chest, feeling oddly vulnerable that she can't seem to stop herself. "I don't know why I'm telling you this. I would prefer you not know it."
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"Seems like you're in the sharing mood. Anything else you want to get off your chest?" He was curious to see if this open book attitude would continue or if Ava would clam up again.
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Ava takes a small step back, guarded, except her mouth doesn't seem to get that memo. "I'm pretty awful. And not worth knowing." And it stings a bit, that it comes out as the truth. At least the way she perceives it so, reinforcing itself in her mind. "I don't know how to fix it."
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"I've met people way worse than you." Wilson and Vanessa Fisk immediately sprang to mind as well as a number of people he'd killed or helped capture while working as a sniper for the FBI. "There's no real way to fix it. I should know. You just get used to being alone."
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"I don't know what anybody needs. I don't know how," Ava continues with a tone of having long since given up. "How to be a friend. I've never had any, I wasn't brought up that way. The only thing anyone's ever needed from me-" Ava bites down hard on her tongue, clearly doesn't want to be saying this, but she can't stop, has to give the full truth no matter how hard she's trying to fight against this.
"Is my ability to kill. That's all I've ever been worth. And I'm afraid of anyone knowing that about me." A pleading look, that he doesn't go repeating it. "Being alone is like choking on emptiness, yet it's familiar. Far less terrifying than allowing anyone to get close and realize the truth."
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"You too huh?" Dex gave a bitter laugh. "No one has ever given a shit about me except for the skills I could use to kill someone with. People just use me for that and then throw me away like I'm garbage." So he got it, that sense of self-worth being based solely around how skillfully one could kill a person. He knew how people judged others when they heard that, so he'd keep what Ava had told him to himself. "If you let people get close, they use what they know against you. I can count on one hand the number of people who have actually liked me for who I am during my entire life. And they're all dead now. I'll stick with being alone after that."
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"That sounds very sad and lonely," Ava replies, before she can really help it. It's not the sort of response she'd have offered if not for being compelled to overly share. She bites her tongue, looks uncomfortable. "I don't want anyone to know how sad and lonely I am. Because I want to appear competent and independent. Don't want anyone thinking I'm so vulnerable and easy to take advantage of." She covers her mouth, shakes her head, and physically turns away. Fuck. "I should tell you to go away but I don't want you to. There's so few people that understand, what we've been through."
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He paused for a moment. Honestly, it wasn't the worst thing in the world having to tell the truth, given she hadn't told him anything that really hit him where it hurt. Not yet anyway. It was possible that would change. Dex sighed for a moment, running a hand down his face. "....Do you want to come inside for some lunch?" If they were going to be stuck like this for God-only-knew how long, at least it could be with each other instead of anyone else who might use what they heard against them. Or, even worse, laugh at what they heard.
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"That's... more accurate than I want to admit. But what do you mean like you and me?" Because even if they've clearly operated in similar lines of work... "You don't seem all that abnormal to me. Beyond the intense staring." Which she's realized she doesn't find quite as offputting to be at the receiving end of as the first time they met, now she knows to expect it.
"Actually I was hoping you would offer to feed me again, after that soup." And oh it feels weird to say, when she hadn't consciously realized herself that it'd left her craving more. "Sorry, I-" she hesitates. "Don't eat all that well or regularly and-" Ava cuts herself off again, hates how she keeps saying things that aren't what she wants to, digging herself into this admission deeper instead of brushing it off like she intends. She opens and closes her mouth again, clearly struggling with not knowing what's about to come out next. Yeah, coming inside seems best, and she takes the offer before he can rescind it.
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Anyone else he would have felt even worse about revealing this information to but Ava seemed to understand what it was like not to be normal, so at least he felt like she wasn't going to run for the hills or judge him too harshly the way he felt almost everyone else did. If nothing else, he could always just kill her if she tried to use what he'd told her against him.
He wasn't surprised to hear Ava saying she had poor eating habits. At least getting them lunch would give him something to do for the next ten minutes. "C'mon then." He took her over to his trailer. Inside, there were two notable things which gave clues to Dex's personality: everything was in a color scheme of black, white, and grey. There was no color to be found anywhere or indeed any personal touches whatsoever. The other was how clean everything from top to bottom was. It barely looked like anyone lived there with how pristine every surface was and how everything was in its place, with nothing carelessly tossed off to the side.
He went into the kitchen area and looked to see what he had in the fridge before turning his head back to look at Ava. "Do you want anything in particular?"
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There is one thing she notices though, and it's his delivery. "I'm not really familiar with those conditions to understand what you experience. You... didn't want to share that information with me, did you?" Ava responds with a tinge of regret at seeing his demeanor shift, for having phrased her question in such a way that he had no choice but to respond. "I'm... sorry, I'm really not trying to take advantage of whatever is causing this," Ava insists quietly. "I prefer honesty, but not at the expense of-" a small gesture. "Your privacy."
But he hadn't changed his mind, inviting her inside. And she doesn't change her mind following him, when perhaps most normal people wouldn't feel comfortable being alone behind closed doors with a man that just admitted to being a psychopath, because perhaps she's a little off herself. Whatever, she's capable of protecting herself.
She does curiously look around the place, stricken immediately by how organized everything was. Not a single thing out of place, and maybe that is a symptom of how he is, she wonders. Nothing at all like her own place back home, full of sentimental belongings of her long dead parents that she couldn't bring herself to get rid of. Or her trailer now, devoid of much of anything at all but some blankets, books, and jars of plants she was trying to grow. She keeps her hands to herself, fidgeting nervously. Feeling as if she might disrupt things with her very presence.
"Oh. If you don't have more of that soup, anything. I'm not too picky," which is mostly true. She's eaten whatever's been provided for her for most of her life that she's ignored her own preferences. But, she's compelled to continue. "Unless it's too chewy. Or too sour. And I'm not really all that fond of mushrooms because they taste like spongy dirt. Or raw vegetables." She makes a bit of a face.
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With everything so neat and tidy, Dex was able to find everything he needed within seconds of looking for it. He probably had the cleanest kitchen to be found in several universes.
"I feel like I'm listening to a five-year-old make commentary on what they want to eat." He couldn't help but tease her just a little bit. But he'd still make her lunch regardless. "I'll make something new." He needed to keep busy after that unwanted confession he'd just given to her. He got out a whole heap of various supplies including bread, meat, and cheese before he started to put together some Dagwood sandwiches. He pointed a knife at her as he chopped up lettuce. "Also, you're going to have some vegetables on your sandwich and you'll like it. I'm not having you die of scurvy on my watch."
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Ava doesn't think it's reflective of anything wrong with her to know the truth and act accordingly. Even if everyone else was willing to gaslight her, right up until the reveal that the agency that had been exploiting her turned out to be shadow ran by fascist terrorists...
He doesn't invite her to sit, so she doesn't, hovers nearby in the kitchen instead. But not too close either, not wanting to loom into his space. Her eyes keep drifting to every surface, every detail, before her attention returns. "That's not really fair, you asked. I just never had anyone care about my actual preferences, except Bill." Which feels weird and sad. "And I've been dying of much worse than scurvy, I just don't like how they're all stringy."
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"Then let's start right now," he said in response to the notion that no one had cared about what Ava had actually wanted in her life. "Do you have any preferences on meats?" He asked her. If she didn't, Dex would just put all of them on Ava's sandwich the way he was doing with his.
"Who's Bill?" But then he had a more pressing question upon hearing her refer to 'dying' in the present tense. "You're dying?" He asked, giving her a long look over. He'd noticed she hadn't always looked the best when they spoke, sometimes as if she'd been sick or unable to take very good care of herself. But Dex had thought at worst maybe she had some sort of chronic illness.
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"I hate bologna," Ava responds automatically, without having to put much thought into it at all. The rest of the meats don't make too much difference to her. Not enough to have ranked them in any order of preference.
"Bill is... my adopted father, that found me in the orphanage when my parents died in the accident. He took me back to SHIELD, where he was a scientist in the Quantum research division. He thought they'd help me." Which ties in well to his follow up question, her expression darkening slightly. "My abilities are actually a rather unpleasant condition, that's actively destroying my body's ability to remain intact. I was dying, up until the moment I arrived here. Supposedly... it won't get any worse." But her tone implies she doesn't fully trust that arrangement either, given what happened with SHIELD's false promises.
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Dex noted the preference on bologna and went about putting everything else on the bread. He finished making two very large and full sandwiches that would have done any deli in NYC proud. Then he put a pickle off to the side on each of the plates and took one over to slide it in front of Ava before going over to the fridge. "What do you like to drink?"
He listened as Ava told him a little bit about her background while they ate. What he heard pinged some of that limited empathy that he was capable of, given how unfortunately similar their circumstances were. It was one of the only ways she would have been able to. "You too, huh?" Was he referring to having an adoptive parent, being an orphan that had happened because of an accident, or both? He didn't bother to say anything else that would make his question less vague. "What happens if it does get worse?"
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She pokes a bit at the sandwich, hungry despite the subject matter. "This looks much better than anything I throw together myself," she admits. Even having watched him make it, she's not sure she could fully replicate such a sandwich without her desire to just call it good enough halfway through. The little pickle off to the side such a small detail, one she'd dismiss as not worth the effort, yet feels extra special. "Tea, if you have any," she responds automatically. "Water if you don't. I'm actually perfectly fine without tea, if it's too much to prepare. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be fussy. I would have just said water, if I could." God, she feels so annoying about having to explain her entire thought process behind something that should be relatively simple, accidentally making it more complicated than she intended.
She chews on the sandwich for awhile just to shut herself up. Chews to put off having to answer. But eventually she has to. "My body will rapidly deteriorate, my molecules would fail to realign with reality, and I would be torn apart bit by bit until nothing else of me existed."
cw: suicidal ideation
...Of course, he was thinking this as he fixed Ava food and opened up with her about some of his trauma, so clearly that wasn't going well. "Exactly. He's a psychopath of a different kind. I've always wanted to do what he did and hurt or kill whoever I wanted but I didn't. I tried to be a good person even though it was a struggle every day. Then I saw him doing it and getting rewarded for screwing over every single person that crossed his path just so he could achieve his own goals."
He realized he'd forgotten something and got up to get a bag of chips before setting it down in front of Ava. "I like creating food," he explained. "It still requires accuracy just like shooting a gun. Just of a different kind." Fortunately, he didn't see anything wrong with Ava clarifying a couple different ways what she had initially meant. When Ava said she'd like some tea, he stayed up and looked in his cabinets before he found a tin with a couple different basic kinds in it. He set it in front of her. "I'm more of a coffee drinker but here you go. Knock yourself out."
"That sounds--" He almost said 'hard' but he couldn't, not when that was just a platitude and lie he'd spouted off so often. Instead, he took a bite of his sandwich so he could tell the truth without having it come out as sounding completely cruel or callous. "--like a truly shitty way to die. I'd just kill myself or go out fighting someone else before I'd let anything like that happen to me."
cw: suicidal ideation
"People with power will always get away with much worse, and we will always be vilified for trying to push back. The same government that made me a killer, now considers me a fugitive and a criminal to hunt down because I got away. Utilizing the same tactics they taught me to use against their enemies, but for my own survival." She huffs out, clearly shares in that bitterness. She takes it out on the chip bag, tearing it right open with a small 'thank you.'
"Never really learned to cook. A lot of tasks that require concentrated hand-eye coordination for long periods of time get a bit exhausting," Ava admits. "Though my hands are more reliable than they've been. Less things slipping through them. Just when I'm nervous or distracted." A wince, at that last part sneaking out too. But she manages to make tea without any incidents, though it's obvious the way she handles cups that she's trying to be extra careful. "I have specially designed gloves, but... then I can't really feel things. I like getting to feel things. The textures. Temperature," like the warm mug in her grasp. She feels like most people take that ability for granted.
"It was a horrifying way to die," Ava agrees. "I thought about it, taking the easy way. But I wasn't ready to. There's still so much I've never gotten to do. I wanted so badly to finally live."
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"I try to find things to keep my mind occupied. It's dangerous when I get bored." That wasn't hyperbole. Without a purpose, the voices and buzzing came back, along with all the dark ideas that made him think hurting other people or killing them was the only way to center himself again. "You'd get a kick out of shopping for clothes then with how all the different clothes feel."
"What haven't you gotten to do?" He asked curiously. She did seem rather sheltered all things considered from what he'd learned about her so far.
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She nods along, can understand getting restless without much to do, even to the point of it turning dangerously so. "I was left alone for long periods of time. Got used to being bored," she bites into her sandwich, chips adding an extra crunch. She looks delighted by it. "I don't care much about clothing, other than the practical purpose of keeping covered. I don't think I'd look good in anything fashionable." She stares intently at her sandwich, really hopes the truth doesn't prompt him to confirm that she's indeed a bit hideous.
"Much of anything, really. Never been to a theme park. Or a beach. Or gone camping. Never been on a vacation. Only sightseeing I did was from transport vehicles during missions. Never attended school, though sometimes I sat in on Bill's lectures. Never been to a dance, or a date, or ki-" Ava shoves so much of the sandwich into her mouth all at once to prevent that from turning into more of a confession.
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"I doubt that. I think you'd look really pretty in a dress." Then he just sort of sunk down further into his chair as embarrassment took over and he realized once again he'd just blurted out exactly what he was thinking. That was it, he was officially gonna hunt down the kirin, shoot him, and mount his stuffed head over his doorway. Only then would Dex feel better about this whole clusterfuck of a situation.
At first, he wasn't sure what Ava was desperately trying to keep from saying by filling her mouth with food when she'd been right in the middle of a sentence. Then the first part of the word and the second missing clicked into his head. He wasn't about to laugh but a slow (and slightly evil) smile did come over his face. "I didn't quite catch that last word. What was it?" That faux innocent tone wasn't going to fool anyone. Dex clearly knew what he was doing.
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But it's the deliberate baiting that she takes the most exception to, an annoyed muffle around a large mouthful of sandwich. Normally she wouldn't talk with her mouth full, but this damned spell is making it impossible not to respond. "KISS." She tosses the rest of her sandwich down on the plate, face burning with shame. Can only interpret that smug look on his face as cruel mockery at her expense. "OKAY? I NEVER KISSED ANYONE. IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT TO HEAR? YOU WANT TO LAUGH ABOUT THAT? THAT THE WEIRD SHELTERED FREAK IS SO REVOLTING?"
The teacup hits the ground, shattering with a splash of tea across his too clean kitchen. And then she's vanished.
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".....Ava?" He called out cautiously as if she might suddenly reappear just as abruptly as she had disappeared. He honestly sounded a little bewildered, trying to figure out how that had all gone so very wrong in the span of about two minutes. Dex was also really hoping she didn't have the sort of homicidal instincts he possessed, where she'd try to stick a knife into him for the apparent grave insult he'd said.
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