feonixe | CMO 2018 EDITION

There's a moment where Doll simply takes it. No jerking away, no startle, no surprise, just lets her hug, silent as ever, and passive.

And then the kid blinked a few more times, and she could feel their chest expand again with another breath. The hard plastic shape of them under their soft shirt hinted at the shape of hidden ribs... and then there was even the subtle contours in the center of their back over what might've been a spine as they turned to face her, leaning a little against her front.

Doll's little arms snuck up around her torso in return. The device had been dropped to the table beside the keyboard; small fingers clutched at the fabric behind her.

There, the big toy exhaled again. It wasn't in feeling air at her chest through the obvious holes in the plastic mask-like face, but the change of their torso's shape, the way what seemed to be plates shifted under her hands, trembled a little with interruptions that weren't entirely sobs just yet, a prelude to crying as Doll stared into her shoulder, face buried.

A quicker breath in, a little hitch in it, still fighting off crying on some level....

What if they couldn't get back home? Would they never see Tanya again? Would she be okay without them?

Never see her again?

...And another choked-feeling attempt at breathing, pressing their face against her shoulder more, eyes going dark, arms and hands closing around her more firmly. They didn't seem to have much strength, but neither were they using all of it.

The room felt slightly cooler. Maybe not enough to make much difference -- a degree or so Fahrenheit, at most -- but subtly off from how it had been when they'd entered the room. Or maybe it was the lighting, the way it seemed to wash the colors out subtly and make the shadows just a hint darker than they had been five minutes ago. Probably imagination, that, a psychological effect due to mood? No swift change, and possibly not a change....

The screen of Doll's little gadget dimmed, where it sat, and then shut off.

She just holds the Doll, and waits.

There isn't much that needs to be said, she thinks. She knows how distressed Eve had been when separated from her, it's a mark of how loneliness can cut and even kill. Thus it's important that she gives this kid (?) the support that she can, because this world isn't familiar with alternate realities and she's not about to let someone else be hurt because of inhumane policies.

So she'll wait, petting Doll on the back once or twice. The device falling doesn't escape her attention, but she can't move - so Eve will pick it up, and put it on the table so it wouldn't get stepped on.

It takes a long moment, the thin plastic child leaning against her with their meager weight, torso shaking a bit more with silent crying. The shadows continued to gather, the barest hint of a chill in the air -- but that finally faded as the little figure's tame fit ran its course. Another sob, and they jerked subtly.

A hiccup.

The kid might have been a bit more subdued than some, even in having a cry over their situation, but if their behaviors kept overlapping humans' this much, maybe they wouldn't be all that difficult to read, in general?

Another hiccup, and they drew another hitching breath, letting go of Crim to bring a hand back up around to their face to wipe at their eyes. There didn't seem to be any tears, certainly no wetness on Crim's clothing, despite there being a shine to where they'd have been at the rim of the eye holes, yet Doll used the back of their thumb and the hem of their sleeve to quickly get rid of even that.

One more small hiccup, and a more careful breath in and out, and Doll looked back up to her, eyes a little duller than before. They curled their hand in a fist and moved it in a circle over their chest a few times. The gesture clearly had some sort of meaning to it, the way Doll paused again after, uncertain and relaxed their hand again. Maybe they'd just take their other hand back too...? Unless Crim wanted to give them another hug or something, anyhow. They still didn't seem to be much more than perhaps mostly calm now, still trying to get over their reaction. Embarrassed, perhaps, the way they looked away again....

She's willing to wait. For however long it takes for the child to calm, because she remembers - both her childhood, and the pain of her doll, crying out for solace. It's the least she can do, for someone who's fallen into an unfortunate situation not of their own fault.

Crim lets go when Doll does. She doesn't know what that gesture means, but she can understand that Doll is trying to tell them something. That much is enough.

She gives Doll's hand a slight squeeze, careful to keep her smile calm.

"Are you hungry? I can fix something up."

Doll gives her hand a little squeeze back at that, a hint of a smile in their eyes, despite not being happy overall. Another deep breath, making themselves calm down.

And then she asked that, and Doll blinked, looking back up at her. Their brows came together in a confused frown, and their eyes flicked between hers, trying to figure out if she was serious, maybe. They lifted their other hand again, and tapped the area of their face where a mouth would be if they had one, and shook their head a little, watching her for a reaction. More of a smile made its way into their expression again, and after a second, their shoulders shook a little.

But then the kid leaned forward again to give her another hug, and it was pretty clear that it was laughter. They could probably use it, after the fit of crying they'd just had. Maybe it wouldn't have seemed quite so funny to them if it hadn't been for that, but question was apparently absurd enough that it was doing their mood some favors.

They let go again and made another absent wipe at their eyes, a brief gesture before a more deliberate one: hand held flat, touching their fingertips to their chin and then pulling it down and tilting it toward her, not entirely like what someone did when blowing a kiss. They pointed to themselves, then started to make some other gesture, only to hesitate, unsure, and looked around. Their little device was pretty much right where they looked, after they'd missed the table in dropping it, and they smiled more as they picked it up, looking to Eve and repeating the gesture with touching their hand to their chin.

Thank you.

"Thank you" seemed to fit how they used that gesture there, didn't it? Probably?

They pressed a button to turn the little thing on, and its screen glowed once more, a little keyboard appearing to one side that they started tapping buttons on quickly.

haven't had a tea party in forever i don't eat

She's not sure how to react at first, frozen with her mouth slightly parted in a gesture equal parts surprise and curiosity. On hindsight, perhaps it is a strange question - but what if Doll had some other mouth? Or was just disguising its mouth? There were so many possibilities.

Her eyes light up a little as she cast a glance at the device, and then at Doll's face, a slight chuckle slipping out.

"Right, I should have thought of that." She notes the gesture that it had done. Now that she has seen Doll sign more than once, the fact that it was sign language is beginning to dawn on her. "So... do you drink, or something like that? If you need something to sustain yourself, I can try to find it."

Ghost (???) food is probably nothing like that serum that she has to feed Eve. And speaking of Eve, the homunculus has been regarding Doll with an empty, quiet gaze - the same curiosity in Crim's manner, though much less subdued. There isn't much to do, so it's also just waiting.

There were upsides to the rather cartoonishly exaggerated look of their face. For all that their eyes weren't like a human's, for all that they were lacking a mouth and eyelids and even eyeballs, they were very expressive. The big doll was just about an open book here, at the moment. They shook their head, still smiling a little... though with another sigh in calming down again, the expression seemed sadder, coming back down from the fit of humor from the initial question. They typed again, hesitating only briefly.

i'm Tanya's doll plastic she's human i bring her things to eat and drink sometimes but toys don't need to unless it's batteries but i'm not that kind of doll

They turned the screen to make it easier for her to see what they'd written, as though she hadn't surely read it all as it was being typed, and looked up to see her reaction. This explanation cleared everything up, right?

...Yeah, no, it probably only raised more questions.

Edited 2018-05-24 12:43 (UTC)

She reads the text with an increasing curiosity, though as with all her previous words, there's nothing reprimanding about her tone.

Maybe Doll was sustained by its summoner. That would mean that its constitution might degrade now that it's separated form whoever created it... and that it isn't aware of such a limitation by itself.

"I see... Okay, but if you feel ill or anything weird, please let me know."

Maybe she can ask some more questions, but it seems intrusive at the present time.

Doll nodded; there wasn't any reason not to, if they did. They paused just after they did, frowning slightly in thinking over something, but then shook their head to themselves and looked up again, to Eve. The act of bringing their sleeve up to their face again to wipe off the last of the seemingly imaginary tears' traces didn't seem to be a very conscious one for the odd child, but they did it and then held the little device back to them to type something else. Crim could probably read it easily enough despite not being explicitly shown the screen:

android? or cosplay? or what?

They turned their little device so Eve could more easily read it, watching for their reaction.

Crim has her back turned for now, checking out her work, so she doesn't read the message immediately. Eve regards the small device with interest, aware that it's being addressed - but it doesn't talk either, merely tilting its head at the statement. It then moves to Crim's side and motions to the device, indicating that there's a question that only she can answer.

"Oh, he's a homunculus. Kind of like an android, but made with alchemy. No robotic parts."

Did that make sense?

Doll blinked at that, and looked between the two, eyes slightly wider.

A homunculus?

But--

No. No no no no. Just because this was a different world than Doll's didn't mean that it was that world. That world was a work of fiction. And even if its author had figured correctly about how things worked, didn't mean that they'd have gotten all the details. Surely Amestris was fiction. Surely the events had been fiction too. And even if they weren't, this was an island; Doll had seen the map, and it wasn't the same place. Even if multiverse theory were being proven correct right then and there... it was a one-in-infinity chance, was what that meant, right?

Eve and Crim seemed friendly enough, besides. So it was best, Doll decided, to try shelving such assumptions, and to try figuring things out on their own instead.

They frowned a little again, thinking on it, and typed.

so artificial/engineered organics? cloning + magic = Eve?

Edited (that thought process deserved to go into the tag too, I think.... XD) 2018-05-29 11:25 (UTC)

For the most part, the two adults (?) are patient while Doll susses out his thought process - though when the device is presented, it gets Crim to tilt her head a little.

"Something like that. It's really complicated, though. Eve is the first one ever made."

She turns to pet the homunculus on its head, and it smiles - just a little, though it's more out of a lack of expression than a lack of emotion within. Though once she returns her hand to her side, she turns to address Doll again:

"He's a little frail health-wise, so try not to bump him or anything."

Doll nodded, smiling a little more back, and eyed Eve again.

No red circuitry-looking lines, no suspicious tattoos, at least that they could see....

No, if anything, Eve's rather mild demeanor, plus Crim's warning about him being physically fragile, just reminded Doll of the pretty things adults usually kept up high on their shelves, or inside glass cabinets for display. The toys that weren't meant to be played with.

Except maybe gently... Eve couldn't really be content to do nothing all the time, right? And when Doll's human, Tanya, didn't feel up to doing much -- when she was ill, usually -- there were still things she could do.

Doll held their device up again after a moment, where they hoped both Crim and Eve could read it easily enough:

quiet things? reading, art, writing, watching cartoons, video games?

Doll would be lying, to claim a lack of interest in Eve. Surely this angle of investigation wouldn't be amiss? The plastic kid kinda wanted something to take their mind off being stranded in another world right now, so they'd fish for leads there.

Honestly, Doll's thoughts aren't too off the mark. Being the first of its kind, Eve is not suited for anything outdoors - its joints are more frail than that of a human's, so it is forced to stay inside the house for its own safety. Even a small fall could break something - while Crim could fix it easily, it still felt pain and it's an experience best not repeated.

Eve tilts its head after reading the device, answering with a nod. Though Crim speaks for it as usual, perhaps an indication of how familiar they are:

"Yeah, that's what we usually do. He likes to read, so I've been bringing back books. I'm sure he doesn't mind spending time with you."

Doll is impish but not too exuberant, so Eve can probably keep up. The homunculus tires easily, mostly due to its constitution.

Not too exuberant? Wait until there's the right inclination and opportunity around, and Doll'll be proving just how not fragile they themselves are.

But until then, reading would do. Arts and crafts were always welcome pastimes!

I was translating a book so what about mystery stories?

Where was it Crim had set the things Doll had tumbled in with, again? The kid glanced around for it even while holding up their device to make the offer.

Edited 2018-05-31 02:28 (UTC)

Doll and Eve are opposites in quite a lot of ways, and not just in personality. It's cute, almost - and it also meant that Crim trusts Doll to treat Eve gently. The homunculus is fragile not just physically, but in its manner; while it is tenacious most of the time, it is somewhat afraid of strangers and had a tendency to cry.

"Oh, that sounds cool. What are you translating it to?"

There's also the issue of language comprehension across worlds, which leads her to wonder if people had secretly crossed over the realms without publicising it. Or maybe there was another reason they could understand each other.... all very interesting.

"I put your stuff on the counter." Still in the bag that they came with, arranged neatly, so Doll will have no issues finding everything inside. "You two can use the living room, if you'd like?"

Japanese to English

Doll held the reply up for her quickly enough -- and it at least did make sense, that as Doll was writing in English for them, they must know English. So the plastic kid wasn't too concerned about it, really. Not enough to pause to consider whether the languages would have the same name, and therefore the answer hold any meaning. They nodded back and smiled a little more, gesturing to Eve to come, and then headed to grab the bag in question.

It was only after exiting the room and walking down the hall to look for the living room that Doll paused to reconsider the language issue. If this was a different world entirely, with different geography, then that meant, logically, that there was no England... and therefore the language wouldn't necessarily be called "English", even if it was functionally the same language. Or was that some sort of dimension-hopping magic at work? Maybe passing from one to the other automatically switched around Doll's knowledge of languages? Did it do that to their translation dictionary too? To what they'd written so far? Or did they just gain another language and not realize it?

Oh. Oh, wow, this definitely needed to be looked into.

Doll's eyes had widened a little as they played those possibilities over in their mind, and they looked back to Eve, raising the bag a little. Books, yeah? They needed to check out the books, asap. Time to go spread them out in the living room and see what they could see!

Japanese, huh?

That gets a slight pause from Crim, though that language is known by a different name here so she doesn't make the connection immediately. Maybe, Eve would recognize the script later, and bring it up proper.

"If you need anything, I'll just be here." Crim nods, letting Eve follow in Doll's wake to see what they should do next.

Doll gave her a nod and a quick thumbs-up before heading out of sight, ending up with Eve and the things they fell into the garden with in the living room in short enough order. They spent a minute pointing out to Eve that the manga was read right to left, and then pointing to the various speech bubbles, and the corresponding pencil-written text in the notebook: it was an ongoing effort to translate it without making a mark in the book itself.

It was slightly inconvenient to have to go back and forth between the book and the binder's lined pages, but on the upside, the story wasn't exactly the most dialog-heavy, in the prologue. There was a scene involving a small village while it was dark out, some sort of magic, and a figure that was probably not a human, but was hidden in shadows, and then someone getting hurt. The first real chapter opened up with a few police officers getting out of a car in this little setting, in broad daylight this time, so likely the next day, and meeting with someone to check over the crime scene.

And of course, they end up calling in their consultant, the main character pictured on the front of the book, and the story really got started.

It had highly detailed artwork in a realistic style, if black and white, and it seemed to be written for possibly teenagers, if not adults, rather than much younger children -- but Doll didn't seem all that much like a teenager, and their handwriting, though carefully precise, rather agreed with that idea. Still, it was an interesting mystery story involving the supernatural, ghosts or youkai and the like, and Doll had gotten most of the way through it already; they opened the binder to take out the last page or so that they'd copied lines onto, to work on that with their translation dictionary, though it would be fairly obvious to Eve, if he wanted to watch, that Doll already had a somewhat decent handle on the language already, only really referring to the thicker book for some of the more complicated-looking characters, breaking the kanji into the simpler kana.

And Eve might well find Doll's choice of bookmarks interesting -- the kid had tucked a bit of colorful origami into their spot. It barely peeked out from the top of the pages, but it was shiny, a color-shifting metallic thing... which turned out to be a unicorn, if it were investigated.

Eve pretty much follows all of Doll's instruction, reading silently as Doll pointed out each page and its corresponding dialogue. While it doesn't speak, it appears to comprehend these words at least; nodding along as they followed the plot into adventure.

All things considered, it is quite an impressive undertaking. Once they reach one of the last few pages, it gives Doll a thumbs-up - both for effort, and also the acknowledgment of time shared together.

The origami unicorn catches its attention next, so it would point to the piece of folded paper once it seems polite to. How exactly was it made? Who made it? All very curious questionns.

Unfortunately for Eve, Doll hadn't finished their translation efforts before falling across realities -- but at least Doll's able to work on the last bit of what text they'd copied out while Eve catches up on what was done so far, even with Doll peeking over to see Eve's reactions to the book so far, and to make sure that if the other had any questions, they'd notice.

And then almost to the climax, most of the way through the mystery, Eve finds a unicorn.

Doll was sitting contentedly after replacing the last few lined pages in the notebook to watch Eve enjoying the story and perhaps even reread some of it themselves. They smiled more and reached for the device they'd set down between the two of them for ease of access, just in case, and typed a simple word: unicorn. A brief pause to glance up at Eve, just checking that they'd read it, and then the toy switched functions on their little device to bring up an image -- a painting, it looked like. A high fantasy, magical sort of woodland scene with a young lady dressed in a long light blue dress, a tiara on her head, some sort of fairy herself with giant rainbow-tinted insect-like wings, sharing a sweet little nuzzle with a unicorn. In the picture, it was a bright white horse with a wild, luxurious mane with multiple colors' highlights in it, well fitting the image's otherworldly theme.

The paper version was a much tamer, much less detailed little paper toy thing, its own impressively-colored finish aside.

Doll looked up to Eve after loading the image on the screen, and their hand went to a pants' pocket to pull out a few pieces of similar paper: shiny squares in various colors, one a pearly white, another a rainbow black. A few that bore something of a glittery look, one that was simply rainbowed. Doll took a shiny pink square, set it in front of them, and made a quick series of motions, folding it and unfolding it, tucking it around, turning it over, pulling out then-hidden pieces....

....And then picked it and the unicorn up and held them up together to recreate the scene: a winged humanoid figure, missing face against the missing face of the unicorn that'd been tucked into the book.

Doll reached down to tuck both pieces' feet into the crack of the book, so they'd be held together like that, facing each other, and then typed, origami.

They looked back up at Eve again, smiling. Did that explain things well enough?

Edited 2018-06-05 07:51 (UTC)

It's ordinarily a bit hard to judge Eve's response towards things, considering the homunculus' limited expressions - but it makes an effort to convey acknowledgement nevertheless, nodding as Doll types away on their device and tries to communicate. It does not have a device of its own, so it either has to write, or demonstrate by way of its actions: slender fingers pick up a piece of paper left lying on the table, and it tries to mimic the movements that Doll had done...

.... only to find that the paper doesn't quite obey it the way it obeys Doll's touch. Eve gives it a few tries before unfolding the paper again, a slight frown on its pale face as it regards Doll with a confused look.

Doll watched what Eve did with the piece of paper, then took another to put it in front of themselves. A look back up to Eve, and down to the paper, and Doll made a simple, slow, deliberate fold, turning it into a triangle, and glanced to Eve, checking that the other was following so far.

Another fold. Turning it over. Fold, unfold.... Doll looked back to Eve briefly at every step, just to see if the other were watching, or even following along for themselves, so they knew how to pace what they were showing.

It wasn't the hardest pattern, honestly, and Doll was careful to make their motions clear, using the top of their fingernail to lightly press the folds into sharpness and pointing out which lines and points were being used as guides by which to match parts of the paper up for the next steps....

And in short order, Doll had made a butterfly.

They held it up, taking it gently by the head, their other hand putting two fingers under its wings, and "flew" it over to sit it on the book as well, then looked up to Eve again with a smile.

Origami butterfly, get!

Eve isn't a fast learner, so it takes the homunculus a few tries to follow each step - but when it does get the step right, its motions are very careful. It holds up the butterfly in its hands, turning it over once or twice.... there's a bit of confusion in its eyes, and then understanding.

It sets the butterfly next to Doll's - and it doesn't smile, but its eyes crinkle a little, artificial skin shading mirror-glass eyes. A smile, as much as it can make. Then, it lifts a finger, traces letters out on the table in lack of a pen:

thank you

Doll smiles more when it clicks for Eve, and when thanked, turns their body a little more to face Eve, to put the side of a hand, flatly-open palm up, fingers together, against their lower chest, and dip their down head slightly -- it's a more subdued mime of taking a bow, but if Eve has seen a more pronounced one, perhaps with a stage performer involved, or even the lesser head-only bow, the smaller gesture is surely rather self-evident. The toy takes their little device, still sitting there on the table roughly between the two of them, if slightly set aside for space reasons, and sets it where Eve had used a finger to write. They point to Eve, and then to the device, giving a nod.

Eve was welcome to use it too.

With that being the seeming end of that, Doll reached for another piece of the paper, and looked to Eve again. A little gesture to the butterflies they'd made, and a head-tilt in question. Another? Practice, and learn this somewhat simple design a little better?

Or Eve could use the device too, to ask Doll to demonstrate something else. In comparison to the butterfly, the fairy maiden and unicorn were madly complicated designs, but surely there were other simple ones, if a repeat of the butterfly wasn't going to hit the spot?

Almost absently, Doll pulled out another couple sheets of the thin square paper, perhaps more than a dozen, it was hard to judge, and added them to the few still on the table, for more color and finish options. Patterns, colors, glossy, matte, rainbowed, plain, iridescent, metallic, pearly, sparkly, solid....

Edited (phrasing) 2018-06-18 07:20 (UTC)

CMO 2018 EDITION

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

doll is so cute wtf

actual child, tbh

STILL CUTE

:3

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

KICK ME IF I DISAPPEAR FOR TOO LONG AGAIN, PLEASE?