🍇 the fall is colder, but its warm all the same 🍇

[graftage]

WHO: Steinbeck and...you!
WHAT: Open prompts and closed starters for the fall!
WHEN: Fall time baby!
WHERE: Everywhere
WARNINGS: will update as needed, but its steinbeck, what do you expect

bingo

Comments

[graftage]

Ha. Of course. Anything they can't control, they want to subdue, and if they can't do that, they'll tear it apart. All because it benefits them.

[He doesn't know the last time he's been open about things like this. John Steinbeck is a carefully made paper-mache man, made to survive and bow his head and not look twice - to tear it apart, even for a moment, to reveal the churning feelings underneath....]

[Well, its like a breath of fresh air.]

[He grabs a lamp off of a nightstand, hefting it in his hand.]

Don't you just wish you could topple "false gods" like that?

[He throws it down at the area where she threw down the sheets, watching it fracture with a loud crash.]

Give them a taste of their own medicine.

[tot]

[ funny that he should say that... ]

I have; just for a little while.

[ uta's voice will sound distant for a moment as she casually knocks over a vase and watches it crash to the ground. there's a song that's bubbling under the surface but she holds back. once she starts singing, there's only really one result, and it seems like there's plenty left to "remodel". she'll give her head a shake before she walks some way to the closet and pulls open the door.

her eyes spot a neat row of glass vials that she immediately picks up. ]

There are people who get so scared when you show no fear to those kind of "false gods", but they need to learn that there's nothing to fear. [ a crash as she throws one of the vials at the wall. the sweet fragrance faintly filling the air. ] They only have power because they've given it to them.

[ did anyone expect that this would be the result of a "date"? probably not, but here they are. bonding?? ]

[graftage]

Have you?

[Even though his attention has been kept to the destruction happening around them, he turns to her with that, walking closer to stand directly behind her with a lowered, pleased tone.]

I congratulate you. That's a real feat. I'm working on taking one down on my own. [He turns away at the crash of the vials instinctively, nose tickling with the perfume, before he reaches over her shoulder to yank out a few of the pieces of clothing hanging there, uncaring if they're ripped. The sound of it is pleasing to his ears.] What a world it would be, if everyone understood that they can have power, too, and that the ones on top have been cheating them this entire time.

[There's a chocolate box on one of the shelves - he takes it, glancing it over, before opening it, starting to drop one by one on the floor to smash under an unforgiving foot.]

[tot]

[ even as he comes behind her, she doesn't flinch and instead just looks up at him in a bit of wonder. no one had congratulated her for what she managed to accomplish, but she hadn't been looking for approval to begin with. she watches him destroy the robes and hurls another vial against the wall. ]

...and how is your progress towards that? I'm sure there are people who aren't supportive of that kind of action.

[ yet another glass vial shatters against the wall as uta watches steinbeck while thinking over his words. ]

I'm not sure if it'd be a perfect world, but there would be plenty of people who would be happier to be treated as the people they are and not property or objects. Families wouldn't have to be split up...

[ and to punctuate that statement, she'll throw her last vial particularly hard against the wall leaving an extremely satisfying stain on the wall from the oils and shattering noise with very few large fragments left behind. though after an extended exhale, uta chuckles to herself. ]

I might have failed in what I wanted to achieve, but I've left my dream in the hands of someone I trust.

[graftage]

Ha. Slow going, but I'm using what he left behind. The people he abandoned.

[And he, he was abandoned too, wasn't he...?]

[But he chooses not to focus on that thought. The vial shatters, and he watches the stain dripping down the wall, as if it could be blood. He's seen his fair share of that.]

Families...that's right. None of that. [He reaches into his pocket, pulling out...a knife, which he flicks open with a well-practiced air.] Honestly, I just want a world where families don't have to worry about going hungry, just because some sharks thought they'd have their fair share over others.

[And he drops the chocolate box to turn on his heel, slice down the nearest wall. He glances over his shoulder, his expression almost boyish, his gaze certainly not.]

Have you? I'm sorry to hear you failed, but...that's good. You think your dream will be realized?

[tot]

[ abandoned...

uta know a thing or two about being abandoned; the pain and the betrayal of it. a feeling of resentment and anger that bubbled deep within her and something she only recently was able to quell. it's kind of unfair how there's much that she can relate to. ]

I'd say that sharks are better than those kind of people. At least they'll try to completely devour whatever they sink their teeth into.

[ she almost wants to suggest to call them monsters but...even some monsters know a thing or two about finishing what is started. maybe it's why she's not too unnerved by steinbeck's actions or his expression when she meets it. ]

You don't have to apologize. Unlike you, I probably moved too fast, but I think so. If there was any person who could realize my dream, then it would be him.

[ her voice is a little fond. bittersweet. ]

[graftage]

That's true. Nature is understandable. Meanwhile, man's just the cruelest animal.

[What other animal on this earth would lie, steal, cheat, create a system like this where only a select few get to reap the rewards? Even if in nature its about survival of the fittest, all of this feels infinitely worse. Purposeful.]

Aw. [He can tell how much she cares, just by that statement alone.] I hope he does. What's he like?