[Open Log] Ch-Ch-Cherry Blossoms

[vianca]

Who: You!
What: Cherry Blossom Festival
When: April 10th - 18th
Where: All over town & campus. Wherever you find a cherry tree. Probably even up there on that mystery island for whatever reason, if you're so inclined.
Rating: Flower power.





Pink is everywhere. No matter where you look, you're sure to see the signs of soft pink and white blossoms. There's a fresh spark of life filling the air and just beckoning for everyone to come outside and enjoy the sweet scents of spring. Well, except for you, people with springtime allergies. They just want to make you miserable. But perhaps for everyone else, it was a wonderful amazing time to be had.



There are wonderful spots for picnicking! Frolic inducing atmosphere and the space to do it! Every so often you will see vendors selling treats for the event! Cosplayers taking advantage of their natural environments for photo ops! Hot date spots! Blossoms! Sparkles! Everywhere! Even when it rains.

This log is completely open! You can do whatever you'd like with whomever you'd like whenever you'd like. Just start up a thread and go!

Have fun! Don't forget to add your character to the entry tags! ♥

Comments

[lovesthepain]

Entranced as he was by babby's first cherry blossoms, Harpuia had been spending an awful lot of his free time outside. Having had time to appreciate the flowers themselves, he had begun to explore the festival itself. Civilian festivities like this were never really something he had the time to indulge in, and being able to people-watch with so many excited faces going by... it was kind of nice, truth be told.

Though one face in particular did catch his eye. When Harpuia had met Rock, he had been in full armor. With the blue metal traded in for a traditional yukata, the difference was staggering -- truth be told, Harpuia was a little unsure if this was the robot that he'd met on his arrival or just an ordinary human. He hesitated, a little thrown off by the sight.

[megabuster]

Rock, on the other hand, was much less thrown off. After all, he was used to it. He was built to look and act as human as possible. If there was any doubt as to who he was, the smile on his face and the wave to the Guardian said it all. "Harpuia! Here to enjoy the festival?" he asked, little aware that this was Harpuia's first time enjoying not only the festival, but an honest to goodness natural spring.

[lovesthepain]

"I suppose I am," Harpuia answered, "though I hardly know where to start. This is... outside what I'm used to." A little bit of an understatement, maybe, but where did one even start? The sheer mood whiplash between coming from a barren world in abject crisis and arriving in a breathtakingly verdant celebration took some adjusting to, even if he had been used to the idea of a life this carefree.

[megabuster]

Oh yeah, his ruined future... "I guess this might be the first time you've been to something like this, huh?" he asked. "I can show you around if you want! There's a lot of fun things to do and see here. Games to play, food, and there's even fireworks later!"

[lovesthepain]

"I... would like that," Harpuia had to admit. Things like games weren't exactly up his alley, but opportunities to try something for the sheer fun of it were few and far between for a Neo Arcadian war machine. If he was going to live somewhere peaceful from now on, then it was his duty to at least try to adjust.

Not only that, but... being asked to spend time with a predecessor of Master X was an appealing offer. It would be a lie to say he wasn't curious about Rock. He looked remarkably human, and the way he talked... "You mentioned food... don't tell me you can eat?"

[megabuster]

"Well... kinda? Sorta?" he replied. "I mean, it's a lot more efficient to have raw energy, but in a pinch I can convert some biomatter into energy."

"Ah, but they can handle energy for robots too!" Rock added. "Lucca showed me this really neat trick they can do where they actually freeze an E-tank into a slushie!"

[lovesthepain]

Remarkable -- Rock may have been three hundred years behind the technology of Harpuia's era, but in a lot of ways, he seemed to be much more advanced than they were. A robot that could eat! That much was miles outside what Harpuia's hardware could handle, but he had to admit the thought that robots had been accounted for too had him curious.

Though that wasn't the only thing that had him interested, per se. He hadn't had much time to learn many of the names or faces around here, but if there were people important to Rock, then Harpuia felt it part of his duty to know of them. "Forgive me, but who is Lucca?"

[megabuster]

"Hm? Oh! I guess I didn't mention this before," Rock replied. "Lucca's my girlfriend."

He could eat, and he had a social life. They grow up so fast.

[lovesthepain]

oh good i hear she's great with robots from post-apocalyptic futures named after figures from greek mythology, harpuia said

"Oh," Harpuia blurted. A girlfriend? A surprise to Harpuia, but not a bad one. Not the kind of thing that Harpuia was especially used to thinking about -- his own lifespan had been spent as a weapon of Neo Arcadia, not so much as a citizen of it -- but for Rock to have such a normal, happy existence here was... reassuring, somehow. "What's she like?"

He realized as soon as he'd asked that it might have been an impudent thing to ask. He still wasn't entirely sure how he ought to view Rock -- as someone deserving of the level of respect he'd show Master X? As someone he had no particular relation to whatsoever? Whether or not he had any place asking personal questions of Rock, though, he genuinely did find himself curious.

[megabuster]

Fortunately for Harpuia, Rock was not Copy X. He had no problem talking about things like this with his friends, which he obviously thought of Harpuia as. "She's really great," Rock explained. "She's a scientist and engineer, and she works on building robots too! She gets really excited about technology. She can also control fire! We've been seeing each other for a few months now, and it's been a lot of fun. I never had a girlfriend before, but Dr. Light did want me to learn to better interact with humans, so it's been a great experience!"

[lovesthepain]

Goodness, Rock, did that imply Lucca was a human? Not an impossible prospect, considering Reploid/human relationships did happen in the world Harpuia knew. Considering how humanlike Rock seemed to be, it certainly didn't seem to be out of the question.

"She sounds very nice," Harpuia concluded. (Bonus points were given for dating someone who sounded immensely intellectual, just between you and me.) "I can hardly speak for Dr. Light, but it seems to me that you fit into human society remarkably well."

[megabuster]

Ironically enough, if he had known that, Rock probably would have felt more confident about his own situation. He didn't really think that kind of thing happened, and knowing that it actually DID happen in the future would have been reassuring. Rock was a pioneer in more ways than one.

"She is. I'll definitely introduce you some time!" he declared. "I'm glad to hear that... I haven't exactly had a normal life most of the time, what with dealing with Dr. Wily."

[lovesthepain]

...Who? Knowledge of the period known as the Robot Wars was largely sparse and patchy; X hadn't even been known about until his capsule had been uncovered years later, and nobody had even known what had happened to Rock himself -- Harpuia had been altogether surprised to meet a robot who called himself Master X's brother for a reason.

"A normal life can be a very difficult thing for a robot to have," Harpuia admitted, looking around him again at the sea of excited faces and vibrant petals. "I'm afraid the name Dr. Wily isn't necessarily a familiar one to me, though. Who is he?"

[megabuster]

...Hm. It wasn't something Rock didn't care to talk about, but he had been having such a nice time, that the thought of Dr. Wily was like a specter hanging over the proceedings, as if even talking about him would summon the mad scientist to ruin his day.

"Dr. Wily is a mad scientist, bent on using robots to conquer the world, regardless of who gets hurt along the way," Rock explained. "He once worked with my creator Dr. Light, but he decided he wasn't getting enough credit, and turned to evil."

[lovesthepain]

"Ah." Centuries stood between Harpuia and Rock's lifespans, but the story was nonetheless a painfully familiar one. It underscored the fact that had shaped much of Harpuia's existence, and his understanding of the value of reploid life in comparison to human life:

As long as robots have existed, they have been tools of war, and it was inevitably humanity that was put in danger by it.

"You need not say more than that. We... may be more similar than I had believed."

[megabuster]

"Maybe..."

Rock thought back to the conversation he had with Zero. The Guardians were Zero's enemies. They had done things Zero couldn't condone. But they had fought to protect humanity... There was a lot about the future Rock didn't understand, and felt perhaps he shouldn't know, for the sake of his past and their future. All the same, the questions gnawed at him. He wanted to ask Harpuia about it. But he decided for now, the questions could wait.

"But he never succeeded, not completely," he added instead. "I asked Dr. Light to upgrade me into a combat robot so I could stand up and stop Dr. Wily's schemes, and no matter what he threw at me, I beat him."

[lovesthepain]

Rock had been in armor when Harpuia had met him. That he was a combat robot wasn't a great surprise. Still... "That sort of repurposing is a heavy duty to take. It takes incredible courage to volunteer for something like that, and more strength than most robots possess to keep your former self from slipping away."

All the more reason it was nice to see Rock so at ease and happy here. The cycle of warfare robotkind had been immersed in since their birth could easily swallow it's soldiers whole.

[megabuster]

Rock knew full well what Harpuia meant. It was something he struggled with at first, having to violate his pacifist ideals to do what was necessary. But he liked to think he had a handle on things, at least well enough to know when to fight and when not to fight. Things were still complicated, but they were complicated in a way he could live with.

"I know," he answered. "When I first went through with the upgrade, I felt so different... like I was violating my beliefs, that I wasn't... me anymore. But I've been lucky. I had my father, I've had my sister... I've had friends to support me."

[lovesthepain]

Friends... as abundantly no-fun-allowed as Harpuia may have behaved, he at least understood that. For everything his life had been and all that he had surrendered when Neo Arcadia had repurposed the Guardians to serve as generals, he had never once faced it alone. Even up until his last moment of life, two of the other three had been right by his side.

As for the rest of it, though... father? Was that supposed to refer to Dr. Light? Who was this sister -- another of Light's works? Surely Dr. Light had made plenty of robots over his career, so what made that one a sister unit? And there was, above all, Rock's relation to Master X. Brotherhood... not necessarily unheard of, but an elusive concept for a reploid to pin down. "Your father and sister... an interesting choice of words."

[megabuster]

Rock shook his head. He'd heard that more than once before, but it never felt odd to him at all. He could see why others thought so, though. "Dr. Light built me as an assistant for his work in robotics," he explained, a smile on his face as he reminisced about those closest to him. "But more than that, he built me and my sister Roll to be like his children. They've always been there for me, picking me up when I fall, fixing me when I'm damaged, cheering me up when I'm sad... So even if we're not a flesh and blood family, they're still my family, and that's what matters."

[lovesthepain]

Harpuia still wasn't sure he understood, truth be told. Were they only family because that was part of the intended function their creator had designated for them, then? Having only a single creator, rather than a team... was that enough of a bond to make Dr. Light a parent even if he had never specifically built children?

No, of course not. What did that say about Copy X and Dr. Ciel?

Sharing a creator in common guaranteed nothing, especially not in an era of mass-produced reploids. Dr. Light had surely built more than just Rock, Roll, and X -- were they excluded from the family? DNA data hadn't necessarily been discovered by then, so it guaranteed nothing. Even if it were shared... was that supposed to mean family? Ought he have looked at Fefnir as a brother? At Master X as a... well, no, that was ridiculous.

Whatever the case, he most certainly hadn't been built to be anyone's child.

"Two of the reploids who served beneath me were brother units," he admitted, "but I've never known anything else like the family you talk about. Those sorts of bonds don't do combat robots any favours. When one falls, the others tend not to last much longer."

[megabuster]

"I understand," Rock replied. "Not many robots have the kind of... circumstances that I do. I know I'm different. But you know... If you're related to X, then that kinda makes you family to me, doesn't it?" He smiled. "So now you DO have a family."

[lovesthepain]

Did Harpuia look a little flustered by that? Yes, definitely. The concept of having a family... it would be a lie to pretend there wasn't appeal in that, but it felt audacious to claim that degree of familiarity with Master X, let alone his siblings. The DNA data he was made from had always seemed more like a responsibility to live up to than something that entitled him to anything.

That said, though, Rock had the kind of face that was very hard to say no to, especially when the suggestion he was making was so earnestly warmhearted. He may not have known Rock very long, but it hadn't taken much for Harpuia to decide he didn't want to disappoint Rock's hopes in the least. "I had never thought of Master X in that light," he admitted, "but if that's how you see me, then I'll do my best to live up to it."

[megabuster]

"I'm sure you will!" Rock said with a big smile. He reached out and took Harpuia's hand, leading him away towards the snack booths. "Let's start off by getting some of those E-tank slushies! Trust me, you'll love it!"

[lovesthepain]

This... being family thing. This was very new to Harpuia. He had long ago learned to conduct himself with the straight-backed, steely aloofness of a soldier. In all things he did, he represented Neo Arcadia, and that was a belief he took very seriously. There was no dignity whatsoever in being led around by the hand or getting slushies.

But as much as Harpuia tried to limit himself to being a Neo Arcadian machine, he did still have an altogether noisy, uncontrollable heart somewhere down there, and it wasn't one that hated the thought of having ties. As flustered as he looked about this, he didn't resist. He almost sort of looked a bit happy about it, perhaps. "That... sounds nice."