There are materials enough in every mind....

[biiowiired]

Who| The Ψiioniic biiowiired & YOU
What| Psii can't sleep and tries to fill in time he would normally spend coding. See Psii doing more than one activity if you wish. Also there are tribbles.
Where| Anywhere in the Tribute Tower. Pick a specific location if you wish.
When| jan 03 and after. Pick a date and put it your subject header.
Warnings/Notes| language (always with Psii), hypomania, talk of death, attempted animal harm (thanks Jason), mention of buckets in relation to troll reproduction (it's canon i swear)

Whether Psii wanted to admit it or not, he only holed himself up half the time. The other half, he needed conversation, some sort of social contact. Psii was a troll of opposites and extremes, avoiding people only to pester them two hours later. After resting from the mental trials of dying for the first time, he finally left the stifling confines of his respiteblock, thoughts racing.

He couldn't sleep, weighed down by the experience of dying only to come back still a slave in Panem. He couldn't code, the Peacekeepers being on the lookout for hackers. He couldn't speak his mind, when even his outspoken preacher friend told him to lay low. So Psii careened down a sleepless path of quietly frenetic activity with whatever else he could get his hands on. At all hours of the day and night he could often be seen doing two things at once to stave off perceived boredom, heavily shadowed mismatched eyes flicking back and forth with equal attention. His lip curled around his fangs in deep thought.

He was a rodent spinning its wheel and going nowhere fast.

Reading; anywhere

He would sit in the common area, the bar, the rooftop garden, surrounded by piles of books from the library. He was rapidly familiarizing himself with the flora and fauna of this planet. Know thy enemy and all that. He'd also checked out e-books and videos, though he opted to insert them in his communicator rather than hog the television in the common area. It chattered information away, mostly general overviews of past arenas.

Psii was mostly interested in what environments and hazards the Gamemakers preferred, rather than individual track records. Suspicious of everyone though he may be, he wasn't ready to turn on his fellow Tributes unless they attacked him outright. He'd seen infighting among slaves in squalid conditions, but it was more useful to work together, at least temporarily. Anyone with half a brain could see that, even without being a fucking genius like him.

He'd hear footsteps nearby and stop drumming fingers on a book to point to some video or other, his words lisping out rapid-fire, "Look, they had an arena in a retail complexth, what the fuck...."

Drawing; anywhere inside

He procured some paper and began to frenetically scribble equations and fractals in red and blue pen. He had enough math and physics to occupy himself without showing too much intelligence. Flight patterns and gravitational calculations were ok, but programming languages were not. He wasn't going to be arrested and executed like that hacker Brainiac. He spent too much time laying low under the Alternian Empire to be caught by mere humans. His hands would tremble slightly, mirroring his head filled with thoughts shouting over each other even without prophetic voices muscling their way in.

Soon he had a growing pile of intricate but ultimately useless chicken scratches strewn about him. He could come up with new codes in his head, but no way was he putting down on paper what could get him caught.

Knitting/weaving; anywhere

His interest in fractals and geometry lead him to knitting, weaving, anything he could teach himself with minimal tools. This also kept his hands steady whenever they would be hit with shaking from his racing thoughts. He perched his communicator on a table to display some tutorials and got busy creating anything but clothes. His interest lay in repeating loops of shapes, not wearable couture. Fashion was Dolorosa's deal, not his.

A simple but oddly soothing esoteric yarn atrocity grew from clever scarred fingers to cascade over his knobby knees to the floor. He could see himself making a hobby out of this, if only it wasn't so useless to him. Perhaps he could find some way to work a code in it, but he hesitated to risk that.

Tribbles; anywhere inside at night

Psii was on his way towards the living blocks. Everyone else was asleep, but he was still on a nocturnal clock, awake as a live wire. It was quiet enough that any untoward noise would be noticed, even by someone who wasn't as paranoid as Psii. A soft coo ululated from the wall.

"Mother Grub'th thecond thphincter, what ith it now...." he groan-whispered to himself.

He stepped lightly to the room on the other side of the wall. Something sat in a corner nearly out of sight next to some crumbs. Certainly no one without nightvision would have noticed, but for the cooing. The furry ball didn't run when he appeared or when he took a step closer. He blinked, then looked around trying to find someone to quickly wave over so they could explain this mystery to him.

Gaming; District 9

Psii missed his husktop with the besotted ache of a stranded lover. His codes, his games, his porn was on there. Though he was hesitant out of pure spite to do what the Capitol provided for him, the siren's call of technology pulled him to the gaming consoles in his district's common area. The heart-racing virtual combat and hidden strategy of a first-person shooter should occupy his over-active mind. He fired up the highest-rated game he saw and wrapped long grey fingers around a controller, adjusting to a shape that was similar-but-not-really to ones he'd used at home.

"....Wow thith shit'th primitive. What kind of two-bit engine are they uthing for thethe graphicth?"

Comments

reading, rooftop garden, jan 4th

[ka_sera_sera]

Roland doesn't come up here very often. This is where tributes go to grieve, to wear their sadness in privacy because, artificial as it is, this place is still almost beautiful. He'd come here after Cuthbert had died for good, can pick out the spot by the edge where he'd sat and thought of his oldest friend and watched the sun set. It's rising now, but the look of it in the sky is similar enough.

Dawn and dusk are strange times for Roland, the look of the sky just then having strange associations. When he looks out a window at the wrong time, wakes to find himself drawn to the roof only to see the sky looking exactly the same as it had in that dream...

Well, he can be forgiven for being a little distracted, can't he? His mind wouldn't have wandered so far that he wouldn't have noticed if something truly important had happened. The look of that sky isn't enough to overcome all his old reflexes, surely. So that must be alright.

"What?" He blinks, focuses, realizes there's a person right there with noise coming out of the machine on their wrist, and determinedly ignores his unease that both those things had gone so unnoticed. He goes back over what'd been said, frowning. "I don't know what that is, but it can't be so strange. They've set arenas in all sorts of places."

[biiowiired]

Psii should really go to bed, but it wasn't unheard of for him to stay up into the day when every other troll turned in, firmly tamping blackout curtains against the harsh Alternian sun. This time, though, he wasn't on a coding binge. Those were unavailable to him now, and he tried to drown his anxiety with two books in his hands and several in his lap. He was out of the way, and quiet except for his communicator. Though tall, he didn't make much of a disruptive resident. He grew up literally and figuratively keeping his horns down in cramped blocks.

He almost didn't see the sun coming up, until his old instincts mistakenly yelled at him to pay attention. But he knew the sun wouldn't burn him here, and ignored the niggling feeling that persisted anyway. Then footsteps approached, and a familiar voice spoke. Psii shaded his eyes against sun rays feebler than he expected and looked up at Roland. His brows raised mildly.

"....You're the athhole from the training block. Hi." He allowed himself a small smirk. "Are you going to throw sharpened culling implementth at me again, or regale me with exthaggerated thtorieth about all the arenath you've been in?"

Just because he was Signless's matesprit didn't mean Psii had to be sugar sweet.

[ka_sera_sera]

Roland takes a silent, frowning moment to figure the phrase - a longer moment, he knows, than he'd usually need - and then snorts. He half-turns from the troll, eyes focused away, and takes another couple steps toward the skyline, in no mood to put up with the verbal pricks of a verbal prick who seems determined to try and annoy him.

"Those say it all, don't they?" His hand gives a quick, jerking wave toward those books he'd glimpsed. "If you'd have your fill of exaggerated horseshit you need look no further. Though there are better places to sit while you dig it out." He pulls his gaze back just enough to raise his eyebrows at the troll, pointedly. There are times Roland couldn't give less of a shit that someone's trying to piss him off. There are even times when it amuses him. This, right now, is neither.

[biiowiired]

"Actually, I'm curiouth to hear exthaggerated hoofbeathtshit from another Tribute, not from people thitting thafe on the thidelineth fondling themthelveth over our videoth. Look at thith guy," he said, jabbing his finger through the projected image of an announcer with orange beehive hair. "Am I really going to take the word of thomeone with hair like that when I'm living in a communal hivethtem full of firtht-hand witnetheth?"

He set the two books down on top of the others and leaned back on his hands, also raising his eyebrows.

"I got here firtht. Admire the view on the other thide of the roof if it botherth you tho much." He shrugged. Roland wasn't Psii's friend, so he was spared Psii's more incessant pestering. So far, most of his questions about arenas had been pelted at Signless.

Tribble hunting in the Common area?

[voiceinthephone]

Psii wasn't the only night owl roaming around as a certain night guard was hounding for Ny-Quil or anything to knock him out. So many years surviving at the Pizzeria left Gray with night terrors and falling asleep during the day. So for him to spot anyone else, much less a sentient dust bunny, was an achievement in his endurance.

"Huh?"

After meeting Karkat, trolls were still a learning experience for Phil, so he was wary to approach Psii with his usual self.

[biiowiired]

Psii was quickly realizing that human alcohol wasn't the best sopor slime substitute. He himself would have to find actual sleep medication soon. Being awake all day was messing with his natural night rhythms and doubling his usual amount of daymares—which was saying something.

What an intelligent response, clearly worthy of his attention. He sighed and rolled his eyes (hard to tell, but for the cant of his head). Humans and their love of the sun. Why couldn't they sleep at normal hours instead of milling about like creepy shadow droppers?

"Yeah, my wordth exthactly. Look at that. Free coo machine, or venomouth hairball?"

[voiceinthephone]

One look at the Tribble and Gray rubbed his eyes for a moment, "I was going to suggest a baby Mogwai but that would be too much for this world." After hearing Sandy's story about chestbursters, the last thing the tower needed was Gremlins running around. Wow, he actually gave that thought merit, he's DEFINITELY running on fumes. "What the ever-loving God is that?"

Alcohol was an amazing sleep aid if caffeine wasn't involved in any way. He signaled Psii to edge through the wall, while he discarded his drink to capture the creature.

[biiowiired]

"Don't athk me. By the way, you're going to get yourthelf killed uthing thuch bathic capturing techniqueth," said the troll who grew up on a planet where everything tried to maul or crush anything that moved. "You could at leatht wear gloveth or get a blanket tho it doethn't tear through your thoft human thkin with it'th razor-sharp fangth or releathe burning athid or coo uth to death."

Psii remained where he was, convinced this human had no sense. He was only half convinced this thing was harmless. He'd not let someone rush to their death if he could prevent it. He was in the habit of protecting people, douchebags and idiots included. The Tribble continued to trill contentedly.

Tribbles

[whatisay]

Jason's seen Psiioniic around a few times, but as that's not his Tribute, he's done little more than silently bemoan that none of his own stock have shown the slightest interest in the arts yet. It's not that Jason gives a sweet damn about drawing or knitting, it's just that it would be something to dangle in front of Sponsors and market, and the most he's got is a comely blonde who can supposedly make cookies.

At least it doesn't seem like Psii's creating any masterpieces, and Jason can comfort himself a little bit with that. He's mostly ignoring the guy as he passes through the Tribute Center lobby to start work before the sun rises, but then the troll has to go and make sounds and Jason overhears whether he likes it or not.

"Oh, is it another one of those? Tell the Avoxes to write up a report and they'll get an exterminator in here." He walks over and reaches a foot out to squash the Tribble like a bug under his heel.

[biiowiired]

Psii's hand shot out, gripping his foot hard enough for a troll, but harder than necessary for a human—not that he cared. Psii didn't know this guy, he didn't owe him anything.

"Hang on jutht a minute, chucklefuck," Psii drawled. "After a long night of bathing in arena blood and/or being trollhandled by fanth wearing too much makeup, maybe a thoothing coo machine ith jutht what we need. What ith it? Do they eat fingerth? Thpread ditheathe? God, it'th not even moving, how pathetic...."

Maybe if it was fanged or venomous Psii would agree they needed to be exterminated—and eaten. Trolls were mostly predators, preferring a diet high in protein. What was more, Psii grew up surviving his caste's slavery by the skin of his teeth. He wasn't picky. But a creature with no discernible defenses was too pitiful. Maybe Psii wanted to see what it would do. Maybe he wanted a coo machine to distract him from his worries. Maybe, despite his species' ruthlessness, he felt bad for it.

[whatisay]

The reaction is as immediate as if Psii had set sparks to magnesium. Jason wrenches his foot away, nearly losing his balance from the force of it.

"Don't touch me." Were this his own Tribute, Jason would have backhanded Psiioniic already. As it stands, he glares and sneers with a loathing that clearly stems from more than just the one action. "Tribute."

He spits the word as if it were a curse before looking back to the Tribble.

"It's vermin. Get over your sentimentality. All it does is breed, and it's not even good for that."

Gaming; D9 Common Area; January 6th

[groundassault]

Being thrown into the middle of a death match, that was nothing new for Ric. Dying and waking up, that had been a little more unusual, but it wasn't like he hadn't heard of that before - he knew some guys, and girls (not so final death knows no gender boundaries). It was the inactivity that was getting to him; hadn't taken long to figure out that hacking was off the table, television just wasn't the same without Star's commentary to make it more entertaining, there were no cases to investigate, and it wasn't like he knew anybody well enough to have a beer together and give them shit. He'd say it was fucked up that periods of peace made him nervous about what horrible thing was going to happen next, but considering where he was? He'd say it was justified.

Even he had his limit for how much time he could could spend staring at the ceiling and sulking - brooding manfully, he brooded manfully - about the latest in a long line of weird shit that happened to him, so Ric grumbled to himself, pulled his shit together, and went to go see if he could at least find a little human company.

Human, that he didn't find, but when you were a mutant hanging out with other mutants, dating an alien, you didn't get that picky about it. Gaming consoles weren't really his thing, give him a computer and a secure server just waiting to be cracked open any day, but it was still something. He watched the... whatever he was... already playing for a second, smirking, before speaking up. "I've heard that one. First it's the graphics, then there's lag, then your controller is broken. There's nothing wrong with manning up and admitting it's user error." Hey, he didn't say he wanted to get along with the human, or not-so-human, company. Just that he wanted it.

[biiowiired]

Nothing like snarky banter to lift his spirits, and God, did Psii need it. He was high-strung even without being forced into a second round of slavery and dying for the first time in the last arena. He was always assuming the worst of the future. Left to his own devices without anything productive to do, he was working up a fine spiral of anxiety and restlessness.

He slowly leaned back, indolently propping his elbow across the back of the couch. His widening smile could cut glass, but that was mostly the effect of his fangs. His fingers twitched on the controller, and his character cycled through various weapons as the camera panned around.

"The graphicth are shit, but at leatht it'th not lagging. 'Uther error' my ath, I haven't even done a round yet. Thtep right up, you could be my firtht," he drawled.

He should really control his eyebrows, they were waggling right off his face.

boarding the tribble train

[a_minute_younger]

Gary was planning to be good tonight, he really was. No roaming about town into the early hours of dawn, no twelve-hour video game binges, no midnight runs to the other floors. He's in his pajamas, even, when he comes creeping through the darkened halls that Psii is leaning halfway out of, as he has been since the lights went out. The sound of cooing is what's drawn him here.

"Bruiser?" The teen is tiptoeing, but he's not exactly keeping his presence a secret. "Is that you, you adorable little dipshit?" Gary lowers his voice to a mumble. "Last time I take you out for a walk. Fucking hell..."

There's another coo of the tribble and he perks up. That sounded close. "Bruiser?" Gary quickens his pace, zeroes in on the room where the calls are coming from. Unfortunately it's pitch-black in there and Psii is still near the doorway. Gary runs straight into him.

"Jesus!"

[biiowiired]

Psii heard a voice calling a name that wasn't his, and ignored it. He didn't expect someone to run into him full tilt with all the grace of the blind. He hissed through his fangs and shoved the person away on reflex. On Alternia, sudden contact nearly always meant someone was after his life.

Luckily, the exclamation of surprise let Psii know this was an accident and not an attack. No one clumsy enough to run into him was going to harm him. He put his claws down and refrained from screeching loud enough to wake the dead.

"I'm not 'Jethuth', I'm Psii! God, the latht blind perthon I met wath tho much more capable...."

[a_minute_younger]

Gary weakly swats away the hands pushing him out of the room, more out of principle than actual protest. At least the proximity lets him rationalize what's going on here--this is the work of a person (or one of those people who think they're an alien, anyways), not, in fact, the work of some kind of specter lurking in the shadows. Gary reacts accordingly.

"Ah--geeze, man!" There's more purposeful swatting aimed at any lingering limbs by his person. Gary's just going to quietly ignore that Psii thinks he's blind. So rude! "What are you hanging around in the dark for? Who does that?"

Tribbles

[infinitemayonnaise]

Nitou's been roaming at night lately. Between the trauma that was his first Arena and the fact that he's more comfortable bedding down in a tent than a fluffy Capitol bed, sleep hasn't been easy.

But that's okay, because that means he can prowl around the Tower in search of a good midnight snack. He's in the process of getting back to his room with his snack of the hour, a sandwich he's in the middle of squirting a bunch of mayonnaise on top of, when he hears that cooing noise. Though he'd really rather go back to his room and eat the sandwich, he's got to investigate. You just don't let mysterious cooing go uninvestigated.

He spots the Psiionic first. (Okay, he spots a shadowy shape in the dark, but that shape wasn't there earlier, so he's assuming it's a person of some sort.) "Hey, you're not doing all that cooing, are you?" he asks as he takes a bite of that sandwich he's carrying around.

[biiowiired]

He turned, all horns and fangs and pointiness. Not exactly a soothing sight, but maybe the dark might save him from looking like a total fright to a human. As for Psii himself, he was leaning on one leg and looking slightly exasperated instead of predatory.

"No, I don't make thoundth like that. I'm more like—" Psii buzzed a low, purring trill, soothing in its own right, but obviously bug-like. The tribble cooed back from its spot on the floor below and began inching its way towards Psii. He hesitated, then tentatively picked it up. He turned it over, but it did not appear to have legs, eyes, or even an ass.

"It'th thith furry thing. Lithten." He held it out.

[infinitemayonnaise]

Nitou's dealt with weird monsters before...mostly through fighting them and then magically eating them. But he doesn't have Chimera inside him demanding food, and the other guy isn't exactly jumping out as being some kind of threat there. He's cool with the horns and fangs for now.

He is, however, thoroughly confused by that weird buglike trill, because that is not at all what he expected. "Uh..."

But he takes the furry ball and listens to it as instructed. "Weird." He's flipping the ball this way and that, trying to figure out what's going on here. "You got any idea what it is?"

gaming, d9. the 3rd?

[reassures]

Well, Psii thought they might be seeing a fair amount of each other at night, and he was right. It's nearly 4am, and Nill has been trying and failing to sleep for hours, which is about her issue every day since she got back from the Arena. It's just rare that anyone else is actually awake at this hour - usually the only person around for company is Linden, and that's only on the rooftop, and Nill hasn't been the best at doing that as of late.

Needless to say, Nill looks tired and sleep-deprived when she wanders out of her room, but she goes to the living room almost immediately, and takes a seat nearby to look over the graphics that are apparently awful. After a moment of looking it over she frowns.

...He's right, actually. She's seen better graphics than that, and she would have expected nicer from the Capitol. Maybe they didn't prioritize games like this much.

[biiowiired]

For Psii's part, he was used to advanced Alternian technology, and that included video games. He wasn't exactly surprised that these planet-bound humans couldn't match it. Four in the morning was like a human's early evening for Psii. He was wide awake, and noticed someone enter the room almost immediately.

"Nill!"

Psii never expected to meet the people in his visions of death, though he knew people (including him) would be coming back. It was weird. It was like seeing the rainbow drinker or shadow dropper incarnation of a friend—not that Psii knew her well enough to call her a friend—but without the creepy undeadness. She was very much alive. The controller lay forgotten on the couch.

"Are you ok? You died—Well, we all did, but not in the thame way."

Karkat had been in the vision, too. It unsettled Psii, seeing a face so similar to Signless's in distress. He didn't blame him. What a terrible way for Nill to go.

[reassures]

Nill had certainly caught her fair share of brutal deaths from unintentionally listening in on Psii's head. She tried not to, honestly, but more emotional things were difficult to keep out, even if Psii wasn't exactly the one that was emotional in that regard. Despite it she had never considered that he would catch glimpses of her death. It wouldn't have mattered much if he'd seen it before it happened - she was doomed the moment she and Karkat ran into the xenomorph that stabbed her.

But Nill knew that he was still alive when she died. She'd watched the rest of the Arena for the most part too, in between smoking copious amounts and drinking as needed. She'd seen Psii and the Signless at the safety bunker. He was at least in part responsible for the Signless's victory.

Thankfully she had enough foresight to bring her notepad out with her.

I'm sorry you saw that.
I'm fine.

She's sort of not, but that's only really half because she had died. Otherwise she's coping for the most part.

Tribbles

[carnagecarnival]

He's just making on walking by. All this time and he still runs on night timing too. It'd be hard not to, what with getting reset every damn death. Other than that, he's approaching fine again, horns back and all.

Approaching, but maybe not so close as he thinks, when he sees the Psiioniic a second too late and the Psiioniic sees him and he can't just turn around.

He spots the tribble. His face goes from antlerbeast in frontal vehicular lighting to entirely blank. Mostly because he can't reconcile quite how he feels seeing this troll holding a tribble. Again.

[biiowiired]

Having convinced himself that this fuzzy creature wasn't going to bite his hands off, Psii had taken to just standing and listening to it purr. He was half-crouched to pick it up before he knew it. He shouldn't have let it lull him into a false sense of security; he was in a communal hivestem filled with gladiatorial slaves. He didn't look up until a tall someone was too close to avoid.

At the sight of Initiate, Psii froze too, shoulders tensing. Then, slowly, as if sudden movements would set off a predator's instincts, he bent further and scooped up the furball. His arms circled tight, clutching the fuzzy coo machine to his chest as he quickly rose again. He'd already dealt with one asshole trying to kill the tribble(s) he found. He didn't need another, even if tribbles were technically pests.

"It'th mine. You can't have it. Or eat it."

Upon closer inspection, he'd seen it had stripes. Yep, definitely keeping it. If he couldn't have bees here, this was the next best thing.

[carnagecarnival]

It's the most promising reaction he's managed to pull from the Psiioniic since he got here. Still of fear, still not exactly welcoming, but less angry. Less fit with threat. So far.

His hands go up, palm empty, meaning no harm. "NO. I wouldn't. GOT SOME OF MINE OWN, ACTUALLY," He assures, quick. Got the first of theirs togetherlike, by Terezi's gifting to them.

And that's when he realises the tribble he's seeing is being exactly the same. Stripped black and yellow, like the huamn's bees.

"She got you that one, Terezi did. LONG TIME AGO. Made all motherfucking purchase lain down at with Pasha. IF ANYONE TRIES AT TO TAKE IT, CAN BE CALLING ON FOR THEFT. That tribble ain't no one's but yours."