folkmeme | Truth Meme

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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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His first instinct was to wrap his hand around the glass his own drink had been in when he heard the voice from behind him. Then he realized she wasn't able to stab him in the side or cut his throat as she would have very well been able to do without him being able to see her. While his grip remained tight around his glass and his knuckles white, he was able to give her a calm answer. "Third drawer down on the right."

He let the awkward silence hang in the air for about a minute before he went on, his tone now more quiet and subdued. At least she'd know he was telling the complete truth. "...I wasn't going to laugh. I actually thought that was kind of cute, just like you are." That last bit he hadn't meant to slip out but it appeared this compulsion meant everything had to be said no matter how much he didn't want it to. "I was a weird sheltered freak too. I didn't go to a regular school after the age of eight and spent the majority of my time in a psychiatric institute. Which is just a nicer way of saying an insane asylum. I spent most of my time going to therapy and figuring out how to imitate being a normal person. I didn't actually get the chance to kiss anyone until well after I'd turned eighteen."

The third drawer slides open. A couple towels retrieved. The drawer is pushed closed again. An extra nudge to make sure it's completely so, mindful of not disrupting his space more than she's already had. Ava goes about soaking up the worst puddles of spilled tea, an all too familiar sort of practice although the broken cups are usually less of a deliberate act.

"I-" she glances over, expression uncertain. "Don't know how to take that comment." A tilt of her head. "Being cute seems like a term used for... animals or small children." Of which she is neither. "And to be compared to such makes me feel like it's meant to be demeaning. But you don't seem to be using it in that way. So I'm not sure how to take it." She blots up more tea, and then starts carefully picking at some of the larger chunks of shattered cup.

"I think you do a more convincing job of imitating normalcy than I do," she comments, a strange sort of compliment but obviously genuine. "I didn't go to school either. Just had tutoring from various SHIELD scientists. Wasn't raised around anyone else my age, just authority figures. Makes it difficult for me to interact with... peers." And thus can't quite figure out the difference between friendly teasing and outright judgment and criticism.

"How did you end up in an insane asylum? I guess I understand not wanting to kiss anyone there. No offense. All I really know about them is that one movie. One flew over the cuckoo's nest."

Dex let out a small huff, realizing they had both been completely misinterpreting what the other meant. "I mean it as a compliment," he said. At least the forced honesty worked in his favor there.

"I was taught how to fake it well by my therapist," he went on to explain. "She basically had to do the equivalent of emergency triage on my mind once she figured out what was going on with me and quickly teach me the most important things I needed to learn before my thinking got too rigid." The mention of not being around peers his own age sounded similar to him as well. "You don't usually end up in places like that until your early teens no matter how severe your issues are, so I didn't have a whole lot of interaction with people my own age for a long time."

He groaned and put a hand over his eyes. "Don't even mention that movie to me. I hate it. It makes everyone still think psychiatric institutes are still stuck in the 60s with lobotomies and electroshock treatments." He paused for a moment, trying to resist what he wanted to say in regards to her question. This would usually be the moment where her either refused to answer or only gave out a half-truth but neither would suffice right now. So he had to give the unfiltered honest truth. "I killed someone." He glanced over to see what expression might have been on Ava's face after he said that.

"Oh." Ava stares, still just as uncertain. "I do not know how to respond to compliments. I do not often receive any, that are not feedback on my assignment completion. Traits such as my looks are regarded as entirely irrelevant to my overall capabilities and do not fit into my assessment of self. Being cute is..." Ava hesitates, turns it over in her head a few times. "You would have to elaborate." A shy sort of blink, as she continues blotting up splatters of tea.

"Are you faking around me? Who you are. I would prefer you not. I have a difficult enough time trying to discern anyone's real intentions. And as hard as it is to get to know people, it would be disappointing to know that all my efforts went into trying to get to know somebody that doesn't actually exist." A frown. "Unless you prefer not to know me at all." She holds up the stained towel, not sure where to dispose of it.

"Have you ever been electroshocked? I have. They wanted to test out the limits of my abilities." Ava grits her teeth slightly, not exactly happy that she mentioned that, doesn't want to give away her weaknesses. But it's hardly as much of a confession as Dex's. But as desensitized to killing as she is... "Did they deserve it?"

Dex felt it was a damn shame Ava had no idea how to respond to someone thinking she was attractive. "The more I hear about these fuckers, the more I want to use them for target practice. You deserve to feel good about yourself and the way you look." Because Ava was a very attractive woman and it was sad she couldn't even understand that about herself. "Cute is a compliment from me because it means you have this..." He struggled for a moment to find the right words, given he still had to be completely honest. "...this charm about you. It's not exactly innocence, you've seen and done too much for that, but there's this quality you have that I really like. And that's what makes you cute."

Dex chuckled briefly for a moment when Ava asked if he'd been trying to mask as normal person around her. "Considering the first time we met you told me you wanted to gouge my eyes out, I definitely didn't feel the need to put forth the effort and try to pretend to be normal around you." He paused for a moment. "You can just put that in the sink," he told her when she held up the stained towel she was holding.

"No. The kind of thing that's wrong with me can't be fixed by putting an electric current through my brain." He ran a hand down his face when Ava asked if whoever he'd killed had deserved it, even when he'd been so young. "...Yeah, he did." At least in Dex's warped mind he had, given the sense of betrayal and anger he'd felt as a child when his coach had done nothing more than told him the hard, honest truth.

"In this case, I actually prefer that they refrained from commenting on my appearance," Ava responds hesitantly. "But it really never felt... important. How I looked. I wore a mask, I went invisible. I got my job done. Nobody was meant to look at me too closely." A self-conscious sort of shift, under his gaze.

She drops the stained towels into the sink, after double checking that she did a decent enough job of cleaning up. "Maybe that's why it felt so weird, when you were looking at me so intently when we met," though she does sound more relieved than anything, for whatever reason. "But you seemed far more annoyed by me, than... thinking I was cute." Which still feels like a strange word to use, in regard to herself, even with his explanation.

"But I did also observe in addition to your eyes, that you have very desirable facial proportions, and can appreciate that you are-" her eyes progressively widen with horror at what she's saying and unable to stop it. "Strongly built. Good shoulders-" Ava turns away quickly so she can't see Dex right in front of her to keep prompting her overly honest mouth to keep listing off every attractive quality he has. "But you seem the type that already knows it." Because of course he does.

"Not that it helps with your... everything else. Which is. Kind of my point. Looks didn't prevent us from getting hurt, or fix us. Just..." a peek back over at him. Breathes out, because now she can't stop noticing and it's distracting, barely registering that she's paused mid-thought.

"I was annoyed because you're a little fiend who steals Spoons, even if I did think you looked cute from the moment I saw you." Once again, that last part hadn't meant to slip out. Although he didn't sound as nearly as annoyed at the moment as he had been that day when they first met. Maybe he was warming up to Ava a little bit. Just maybe.

Once again, Dex found a fiendish sense of delight in the fact that Ava apparently couldn't stop telling the truth either and it showed right on his face. Since they were equally stuck in this mess together, at least they could both end up getting embarrassed by what was going on. And it was a bit surprising to learn the fact that she was apparently.....attracted to him? He certainly hadn't been expecting that! But he'd learned his lesson when teasing her about never being kissed and refrained from saying anything else.

Instead, he focused on addressing the last bit of what she'd said. "You're right. They don't prevent anything like that from happening. But there's a certain sense of confidence you get if someone says you look good. At least for most people. Because not everyone has that happen to them, so when you're noticed by someone like that, it makes you feel good. And I hope that's something you can understand someday because I think you deserve to feel wanted and attractive." Then, feeling like he'd said too much, he became immensely interested in the grain of the wood in his kitchen table.

"Fiend?" and she sounds more amused than offended, "Actually, I sort of like that." Probably says a lot about her if she has an easier time accepting it than 'cute.' But maybe that's growing a bit on her too. "You threw it at me, don't forget. I could have just taken off with it, but I thought you were- I don't know. Bored and wanting some fun." Pause. "I was."

She listens, truly trying to take in what he's saying even if it goes so much against what she knows and how she sees herself or what good any of it does anyway. "Confidence," Ava repeats, uncertain. "Mine is derived from knowing I have the upper hand in a conflict. Or when I know I can figure out the solution to a complex puzzle or equation." Her hands twist in front of her, absently wishing she had the towel in her grip to take her uncertainty out on.

"But." A glance down at herself, her same old outfit she's always wearing, trying to see through somebody else's eyes what makes any of it appealing. Yet knows he's obviously telling some version of the truth, even if it's one she can't manage to make sense of. "I don't think I can easily get past how monstrous I feel. When I look in the mirror, all I see is something broken. It's... nice, someone sees more than that."

The fact she enjoyed being called a fiend really did tell him a lot more about went on in Ava's head. "If I had been in a different mood, I would have been happy to continue that fight. I like a good challenge and you're one of the few here who can provide one for me." He'd just been too cranky about losing his Spoon to Ava to have enjoyed the bout for more than a few minutes.

He was able to respect how Ava was able to find confidence in her accomplishments even if she couldn't see them in her looks just yet. Maybe he could help her with that down the line. Assuming they didn't get into another angry fight and tried to kill one another.

Both of them were busy not looking at one another but Dex was fine with that, especially when they were getting into such personal and heavy topics with one another. "I understand that completely. That's all I see when I look in the mirror too. A monster pretending to be human, someone who's broken and can't be fixed no matter what I do."

Then he finally looked back up at her. "But my mom taught me that I'm not broken, even if I don't believe it. That my mind just works differently than everyone else's and that's not always a bad thing. Just because you've done bad things doesn't mean you're a bad person. Not entirely." If only he was able to believe that himself.

"Well maybe when you're more in the mood," Ava really has no idea how that sounds. "We can try again. I get restless. Not having an outlet for my frustrations." And she really really has no clue how that sounds either. "And I'm trying to avoid attacking just anyone." Because she doesn't need anyone after her in retaliation when she's just trying to get by the best she can.

"I don't think it's a bad thing, to think differently. My father got criticized for that a lot, apparently. For his ideas, his experiments. Got told he was insane, got called an Egghead and driven out of the scientific community." Ava pauses, fists clenching slightly. "But I always thought he was brilliant. You know, up until he got our entire family blown up." And no, she did not want to add that last part. "But everyone subscribing to the same patterns of thought and allowing others at their churches or on the news or some podcast to tell them what to believe. Those are the people that are broken. Can't even tell you why they think the way they do."

Dex was trying very hard not to burst out laughing at her clear accidental innuendos and only partially succeeding, making some sounds that instead made it seem like he might have been choking on something instead. He had a feeling if he said anything she really would stab him this time. Freud would have had a field day with one Ava Starr. Given how prickly she'd been about not being kissed, he wasn't going to bring it up, but Dex was beginning to wonder if some of her issues might not have been solved just by getting laid.

"Blown up?" He questioned before he could stop himself. The wording just sounded very odd to Dex and he couldn't help but he curious about the accident that had killed Ava's parents and left her an orphan.

"They're sheep," Dex said dismissively. "Content to move in a giant herd all heading the same direction, even if it leads them all over a cliff together." Meanwhile, Dex felt like he was the one wolf among them, able to see clearly what was going to happen to all the little herbivores around him.

She eyes him a bit oddly, not knowing what the issue is. Maybe he's not interested after all, and that's fine. She'll just let it drop.

"Yes, in a lab accident. My father's experiment, he was building a quantum tunnel that went unstable. That's why I am the way I am." Well, the invisible bit more directly, and most of her issues stemming from all of the abuse and exploitation following. Really, it's defined most of her life with one traumatic event.

She gives a hum of agreement. "There's no way for me to ever exist among them. Sometimes I think I'm meant to be alone, forever."

"It really does seem like people either get powers or end up dead when controversial scientific experiments go wrong," Dex mused. Considering how often it happened in their world, there was a definite pattern to be found when people decided experimenting with unstable elements in their projects and go where no man had gone before started in with their experimentation.

"You and me both," Dex agreed. "I just resigned myself to being alone forever back home. Never letting anyone know the real me because it didn't matter." He paused for a moment and looked over at Ava again. "But I feel less alone here than I ever have before."

"It's unfair. And messed up. To experience something so traumatic and life altering, and then expected to use those abilities to the further detriment of my wellbeing. Don't know why anyone would willingly choose this sort of life, nobody sane or healthy at least. It's no wonder the Avengers got torn apart, became international fugitives." She huffs out a sigh. She's still torn on the whole Sokovia Accords deal.

She crosses her arms tightly over her midsection, nods along. "Guess we never would have met, back there. Opposite sides of the country. Funny how it's easier to feel alone the more people there are..." she glances away. "I like when it's just. Us."

"I should go."

"Fair? Since when is life supposed to be fair? If it was, I wouldn't be the way I am either." The genetic predisposition towards his mental health conditions wasn't something Dex would have wished on anyone. He'd had one hand tied behind his back from the very beginning and it had shaped the rest of his life. "But I agree with the rest. People who get involved in vigilantism has a healthy mindset." Considering he'd put on the Daredevil suit to play at being a supervillain, he knew exactly what sort of people did this kind of thing.

"I like that too," he said, the truth easily slipping out again. "When you and me are together." He just sort of sunk down into his chair a little, wondering when this damn curse was going to lift. He wasn't leaving his house until it did. Fuck it, time to become the hermit of Puca Park.

Dex nodded. "You can if you want to. But I wouldn't mind if you wanted to stay longer." Despite the fact she'd gotten really angry, it hadn't turned out as bad as it could have been.

She chews a bit at the edge of her thumbnail, not enough to actually rip through it. "I want to... stay. But I'm also worried about what else I might say, like this. I don't want to end up regretting any of it. And then feeling as if I have to avoid you."

"I don't want to end up avoiding you either," Dex admitted. Despite the fact he still wasn't certain sometimes that Ava wasn't going to smother him in his sleep, he really was growing fond of her. "Will you come back later? Whenever this truth bullshit magic wears off?" He hoped the answer would be yes.

"You... want me to?" Ava sounds surprised. Even after everything, knocking the cup over, the way she's snapped at him, she'd expect him to be far less willing for her to come back.

"I wasn't planning so, until you asked," because being wanted makes all the difference. "But sure. I can."

"I do want you to," Dex said, meaning every word. He found he liked having Ava around, which was peculiar in and of itself given how there really weren't many people around Dex liked at all. But somehow he didn't mind having her presence nearby, even when she'd broken a cup and made a small mess in his kitchen after she'd gotten angry.

Misgivings about this whole forced honesty aside, Ava appreciates knowing that's the truth. Likes that she doesn't have to doubt the sincerity of it, whether he was being polite or manipulative.

Ava nods, and then vanishing again.

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Truth Meme

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