Ava Anatalya Orlova (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
krasnaya_vdova) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
riverviewlogs2018-01-23 01:01 am
krasnaya_vdova) wrote in riverviewlogs2018-01-23 01:01 am
You understand, I got a plan for us [open]
who: Ava Orlova & Company
what: January Catch-all; TDM prompts
when: Late January
where: Around
warnings: Monster fighting?
I. Lunch Dates [Open to anyone! Feel free to handwave having met her / made arrangements]
[It's actually sort of nice, even if it's weird. Knowing people. People that aren't Sana, and yet who seem to actually want to be around her. She finds it strange more often than not.
But while her social calendar is never the most bustling, she does find herself of not-infrequent meetings for coffee and pastries, or a light lunch. Conversation, sometimes she brings her sketchpad, sometimes she lets her company pull her out onto the town. Usually either settling into a bar for a few drinks, or walking the streets window shopping. She knows the streets of the city blind-folded, but the stores she frequents have little to do with fashion.
She's always there early. Usually sipping at an iced coffee in a too-big military jacket, watching the flow of the crowds and the people as she waits.]
II. I Have a Bad Feeling
[Ava knows this is a bad idea from the get-go, but here she is, in one of these robots, doing her absolute best to not short out the controls. She's working the weapons, which is probably the better option, and at first things actually seem to be going smoothly. She actually manages to work together with her partner, even if she's never really what someone would call a team-player.
But the further into the fight they get, the harder it is for her to keep control. Her adrenaline spikes and then something's sparking and she's cursing as half the panel goes dark which does not help her regain her calm.]
Just uh- I can fix it. [Something else sparks, and her eyes glow blue by the dim light as she tries to get the cover off. The metal looks hot to the touch, but she hardly seems to notice. Things are probably going to go downhill from here.] Just give me a minute.
[Good thing they weren't in the middle of stampeding ginormous insects or anything, right?]
III. Put Down the Bug Rebellion
[Really: fuck the robots.
And honestly, this is easier. She's just on the ground, on her feet, with twin blades of bright blue energy. There's a stampede of giant bugs, and she's five five of energy and blue eyes. She's a storm made flesh; red hair, copper and fury. When she stops choking her powers down, it feels like the pulse of the world slows to something she can breathe.
This is where things make sense. The ground under her feet -- or sometimes, the hard carapaces of the insects she's working on pushing back -- and the race of adrenaline in her veins. Her focus is laser, aware of the situation, but zeroed in on the closest threat or putting herself so that the right target is the nearest threat. Pierce already knows, and she's not going to sit on the sidelines. She tried the option that didn't make a spectacle and that was a fucking mess, so here she is instead.
Whatever warnings people might have given her about not heading too far ahead completely forgotten. These things are pretty durable, but her very skin crackles with energy that fluxes in waves.]
Don't get too close--
[An easy call to whoever happens to push near her as they work against the bugs. And there's a darkness to the words, no matter how lightly they carry on the air. She is Not Safe. Do Not Touch. Energy Hazard, Can Cause Injury.]
IV. Pavane for a Dead Princess
[She likes dancing, she's realized. There's a struggle to it for her, mostly with certain songs, with a code written into her memory she never feels like she can entirely escape. She doesn't let that stop her, though. There's a place in town with a studio room she borrows as many days a week as she can manage it. It's a simple space: mirrors and wood floors, dim lights, a piano in the corner, but she just hooks her iPod into the speaker system. Classical music, but generally not ballet pieces.
Her pointe shoes are bright red, but mostly she wears white, with a light grey sweater. She's graceful, elegant, agile and quick on her feet, almost fluid as she moves. She jumps and the short gauze of her skirt flutters and she almost seems to float for a moment too long before she lands. The red of her ponytail like a contrail of her motions.
The door is left ajar, so curious passers-by, might hear the notes of the music that she's dancing to. This isn't scripted, just movement, space and music, what she can choreograph in her head as she moves. Finding a balance somewhere between her body and her thoughts, what she can intuit, what it feels like. Something that you can't hold onto, and only experience.]
V. Wildcard!
[ Leave me whatever, or hit me up at![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
natalia_vdova! ]
what: January Catch-all; TDM prompts
when: Late January
where: Around
warnings: Monster fighting?
I. Lunch Dates [Open to anyone! Feel free to handwave having met her / made arrangements]
[It's actually sort of nice, even if it's weird. Knowing people. People that aren't Sana, and yet who seem to actually want to be around her. She finds it strange more often than not.
But while her social calendar is never the most bustling, she does find herself of not-infrequent meetings for coffee and pastries, or a light lunch. Conversation, sometimes she brings her sketchpad, sometimes she lets her company pull her out onto the town. Usually either settling into a bar for a few drinks, or walking the streets window shopping. She knows the streets of the city blind-folded, but the stores she frequents have little to do with fashion.
She's always there early. Usually sipping at an iced coffee in a too-big military jacket, watching the flow of the crowds and the people as she waits.]
II. I Have a Bad Feeling
[Ava knows this is a bad idea from the get-go, but here she is, in one of these robots, doing her absolute best to not short out the controls. She's working the weapons, which is probably the better option, and at first things actually seem to be going smoothly. She actually manages to work together with her partner, even if she's never really what someone would call a team-player.
But the further into the fight they get, the harder it is for her to keep control. Her adrenaline spikes and then something's sparking and she's cursing as half the panel goes dark which does not help her regain her calm.]
Just uh- I can fix it. [Something else sparks, and her eyes glow blue by the dim light as she tries to get the cover off. The metal looks hot to the touch, but she hardly seems to notice. Things are probably going to go downhill from here.] Just give me a minute.
[Good thing they weren't in the middle of stampeding ginormous insects or anything, right?]
III. Put Down the Bug Rebellion
[Really: fuck the robots.
And honestly, this is easier. She's just on the ground, on her feet, with twin blades of bright blue energy. There's a stampede of giant bugs, and she's five five of energy and blue eyes. She's a storm made flesh; red hair, copper and fury. When she stops choking her powers down, it feels like the pulse of the world slows to something she can breathe.
This is where things make sense. The ground under her feet -- or sometimes, the hard carapaces of the insects she's working on pushing back -- and the race of adrenaline in her veins. Her focus is laser, aware of the situation, but zeroed in on the closest threat or putting herself so that the right target is the nearest threat. Pierce already knows, and she's not going to sit on the sidelines. She tried the option that didn't make a spectacle and that was a fucking mess, so here she is instead.
Whatever warnings people might have given her about not heading too far ahead completely forgotten. These things are pretty durable, but her very skin crackles with energy that fluxes in waves.]
Don't get too close--
[An easy call to whoever happens to push near her as they work against the bugs. And there's a darkness to the words, no matter how lightly they carry on the air. She is Not Safe. Do Not Touch. Energy Hazard, Can Cause Injury.]
IV. Pavane for a Dead Princess
[She likes dancing, she's realized. There's a struggle to it for her, mostly with certain songs, with a code written into her memory she never feels like she can entirely escape. She doesn't let that stop her, though. There's a place in town with a studio room she borrows as many days a week as she can manage it. It's a simple space: mirrors and wood floors, dim lights, a piano in the corner, but she just hooks her iPod into the speaker system. Classical music, but generally not ballet pieces.
Her pointe shoes are bright red, but mostly she wears white, with a light grey sweater. She's graceful, elegant, agile and quick on her feet, almost fluid as she moves. She jumps and the short gauze of her skirt flutters and she almost seems to float for a moment too long before she lands. The red of her ponytail like a contrail of her motions.
The door is left ajar, so curious passers-by, might hear the notes of the music that she's dancing to. This isn't scripted, just movement, space and music, what she can choreograph in her head as she moves. Finding a balance somewhere between her body and her thoughts, what she can intuit, what it feels like. Something that you can't hold onto, and only experience.]
V. Wildcard!
[ Leave me whatever, or hit me up at
no subject
Schmidt disappeared - presumed dead - and Zola had plenty of time to read books while the fragments of HYDRA lingered in the minds of those who had once been under the wing of it. The new leadership of HYDRA had decided on a different design where a sense of community and secrecy had prevailed, where those who belonged were family. They were the family where one's true beliefs could be shown, and yes, it had it's issues and many agents had to be killed in the beginning for taking matters too far, but it had been built on a sense of belonging. We have your backs if you have ours. If you need to sacrifice yourself, you will be remembered and revered like the fallen soldiers you are. Never are you forgotten by the wide arms of HYDRA.
It had been a different way of doing business, and it had worked. Loyalists were more willing to serve for that sense of belonging. They were more willing to make sacrifices, and here and now, Pierce believed much the same. Like his own children, there was a time and a place to take a hard line to behaviour, but otherwise, the wide reach of HYDRA's arms would always come back to embrace those that were loyal, to sweep in those that teetered on the edge. Family and religion intertwined and proven successful.
He nodded his head, finally stepping into the room itself, not the corner to but because the conversation had turned to almost welcoming tones. He moved next to the door and leaned on the wall, giving her as much space as he could in case she decided to dance once more.]
And that's why the Red Room produces the hardiest agents, but they are also highly isolated. They don't integrate well because in the end, they were taught based on fear and violence. [He returned his hands to his pockets; he knew much of Red Room politics and techniques with their agents. Catch them young, train them, turn them loose.] It's also why the Soviet Union eventually failed. They, like the Red Room, pushed their population on fear and through too much propaganda. Both of those only work when the people see something of value to gain.
[He knew a little of her parents, and until recently, he hadn't cared either. Parents who offered up their healthy children for questionable experimentation was a limit that he stepped on a few times. He didn't respect that; he preferred the method of the child making the choice if it had to come to that. Then their decision could be held over them when it was necessary.]
I imagine you were young. You spent much of your life overseas in the United States, it seems. Tell me, how did you enjoy the STRIKE teams? They treated you well?
no subject
She kept giving him enough rope to choke himself with, to push that line enough for him to feel like the villain she knew he was, and yet he always stopped short. The vague references to the fact that he might go looking for Bucky was as close as he'd come, and so they kept circling. She kept letting him talk to her, and now the place they were was sharp and soothing all at once. He talks about the Red Room, and he's not wrong. Ivan was nothing but venom and it was always isolating always alone, because there were no friends in the Red Room, not when the other little girls where your competition as surely as they were fellow prisoners. When the girl in the next bunk could be told to kill you or you her-- bonding was never a good idea.]
Some people still fall into that Machivellian idea that it's better to be feared than to be loved. That if you can normalize torture you can create agents capable of anything.
[She doesn't bother arguing the point about the Soviet Union, because he's not really wrong. In the end, people are always willing to suffer more for those that they love. There needs to be something they value, something they cherish or eventually the pendulum swings. He leaves that answer murky, and instead pokes at a sharper subject, that admittance that they both know who raised her, that they knew where she was kept.]
They locked me away in a box in Washington, DC for five years. They fed me on military rations. Taught me history and politics, and never let me see the world.
[She's made these accusations before, but she's less of the child she'd been then. She remembers, understands more. She's not fourteen and lonely and temperamental where all she wants is freedom. It hadn't all been bad. It hadn't been the Red Room.] Am I suppose to call that treating me well? They wanted me hidden and secret.
[She can't even hold onto that anger anymore, not really, not crisp and fierce and like something she can strike back with. It's not that simple. She doesn't like facing this, but she knows that if she doesn't he'll see the truth of it anyway. She shrugs her shoulders and her expression becomes sharper. Family is a hard thing for her. What her parents had done to her. The total lack of those sort of figures in her life. STRIKE had been something, though, to someone that had never had anything. And even knowing they'd been HYDRA she can't completely erase it.]
I guess it was better than what my mother did to me.
no subject
He understood what she was doing as well, and he was better at the game of words than she was. He could teeter on the edge and never truly step off the cliff. He kept the balance, knowing where his goals lay. That was what happened to be the most important in all of these encounters: knowing one's over all goal.]
That's because it's easier and it takes less time. It's also natural for any living creature with a nervous system to respond to pain, to want to avoid it, to learn from the lessons it is teaching them. Love is fragile, and it can easily be broken. That's why no one entirely teaches with love; there are far better models: power, respect, loyalty, reward based systems. People want to know they are getting something out of their efforts.
Also, if you normalize torture, you lose humanity. The cost-benefit is questionable on that front.
[Ah yes, they probably hadn't known what exactly to do with her. She was an asset that had much time to grow and learn, but... well, she likely had been a teenager and they were tough on anyone. The full scope of her potential hadn't been realized either, if he had to guess as to the reason for the secrecy for so long.
He still smiled all the same.]
If I can guess, military rations likely had been all they had. And as for not letting you see the world, what would you have wanted to see and do? Have you managed to see those things now that you're older?
[He tilted his head slightly, watching her.] You resent most being someone else's secret.
[He had no comment on her mother. It wasn't his place to conjecture about it, and he more was interested in her reactions to what he had already said. Was it that resentment that drove her to this quiet studio? Or was the studio a product of her upbringing? Isolated, alone, no one taking note of her.]
no subject
She had a goal both times that she tracked him down, but when he's the one edging into her space, she's left trying to put one together, to figure out what angle to play. She ends up reacting more than pushing, ends up more honest than elsewise, because lying is always a pretense, a part that she plays. She's been lied to too much in her life for it to really be natural. Deception is not her favored battleground.]
And which do you prefer?
[It was an important question, it mattered. It shouldn't, but what he said to her, the way he said it, that mattered to her. She listens to him, not in a way that implies obedience, but she lets him talk and she listens to what he says, which is perhaps his best weapon. And she can't help thinking that he's not wrong, exactly, but still--]
Coney Island, there's this place in Queens that has the best milkshakes, movie theaters, ice skating, fencing, dancing... I wanted to feel like a person instead of someone's asset. I've done things. But it still feels like my world is so small compared to everyone else, sometimes. Or like I'm too old, and everyone else seems so small.
[They tried, sometimes, but someone had wanted her kept secret and safe and quiet. Natasha had claimed it was for her own protection, but they'd thought Ivan was dead so what had they been protecting her from? The pieces didn't add up, she didn't quite understand. What purpose had they had for her?]
no subject
And this was a potentially interesting topic of conversation, not too revealing but a slow build to parts of his character that were clearly underestimated by many. Those that thought they knew him assumed too much and gave him too little credit on what he could accomplish. It was in his favour, so he had no reason to contest so far.]
I don't enjoy limiting my options, Miss Orlova. Not all systems work for the individuals, so they need to be tailored. Not everyone wants the same outcome after all.
[Much of HYDRA indoctrination was about finding out individual needs, breaking them down, molding them but also using their base to earn loyalty and respect. Their recruiters and trainers had very specific skills and each one could be assigned a group of people that had common goals and threads of weakness to pull. The power of belief was never to be underestimated.
Ah, now there was quite the list of adventures not taken. Some weapons couldn't be trusted in public, their triggers not known enough, but she had had education and the rudimentary company of hardened men. Likely they had done the best that they could, but they were also human; surely one or two had made certain she was comfortable or at least entertained in some way. They were willing to take necessary risks after all.]
And do you want those things now? Of course, Coney Island doesn't exist here, but the activities and opportunities surely do. There is no time like the present to live your life, unless you are held back by something or another.
[What had been was useful for what could be here, an in to exploring her limited world that had once been far too afraid to engage him entirely. Repeated exposure could eventually change that opinion; perhaps they could even be allies with a common purpose. He needed a refurbished asset of his own, and she would be interesting.]