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riverviewlogs2017-03-09 05:59 pm
pundemic) wrote in riverviewlogs2017-03-09 05:59 pm
catch-all;
who: Flint or Ellie (but probably not both) and anyone who cares to join them.
what: general catch-all log for the month of March
where: All around!
warnings: Ellie is a foul-mouthed teen with some trauma she'll never bother talking about but that might come up in introspection, and Flint is a considerably less foul-mouthed carpenter nee pirate captain with the same. Both tend to kill things with impunity, so maybe that? Idk. Will change if anything comes up.
notes: There are a variety of starters under the cut. Feel free to PM if you'd like one specifically tailored to you/your character or any scenario you'd like to run. I have a strong preference for present-tense brackets, but I'll match style if it's an accessibility issue no prob.
what: general catch-all log for the month of March
where: All around!
warnings: Ellie is a foul-mouthed teen with some trauma she'll never bother talking about but that might come up in introspection, and Flint is a considerably less foul-mouthed carpenter nee pirate captain with the same. Both tend to kill things with impunity, so maybe that? Idk. Will change if anything comes up.
notes: There are a variety of starters under the cut. Feel free to PM if you'd like one specifically tailored to you/your character or any scenario you'd like to run. I have a strong preference for present-tense brackets, but I'll match style if it's an accessibility issue no prob.
a; anywhere around Quarantine,
[Ellie definitely has a bag full of assorted types of candy that she is Determined To Try, but also: she pays a lot of attention to her surroundings and the people that occupy your space. You look sad? Lost, out of place, upset or any species of alone? Kid, adult, whatever, doesn't matter. Have some candy.]
Hey. You look like you need this more than I do.
b; anywhere around Quarantine,
[She has definitely found a place that's chill about renting motor scooters to minors (she has a permit now and everything). And that scooter has definitely gotten a flat tire. So now she's sitting on the curb with a mess of tools trying to strong-arm the exhaust off so she can get at the lug-nuts behind them. The new tire is on the sidewalk beside her and she is probably cursing loudly at something. Care to help?]c; (for MCU!Bucky) in the woods somewhere,
[She is terrifically shitty at making her own arrows, but loathe to rely on just bullets. You never know when you'll need something quieter, or that you have a good chance of being able to recover later. So. She's. Experimenting. Out in the middle of nowhere, with a shitty fire, and some shitty sticks, and a variety of shitty arrow heads made from a variety of things she's collected. She is sitting down by a fire trying to figure out how to fletch them properly, and there's definitely a ruined pile of feathers beside her.]
Oh, for fuck's sake!
[Yep, she definitely just split that stick halfway down. There is a moment of vehement frustration, and then she throws the damn thing on the fire. It kicks sparks up into the sky, and she huffs in pure exasperation.
Also: be careful of the half-dozen tripwires she has set up around her perimeter, pal. Smoke-bombs are pretty harmless, but boy do they give away a position.]d; (for DCEU!Clark) Clark's floor and shared quarters,
[Being able to cook, being able to find ingredients that aren't 'whatever you can throw in a pot' is probably the biggest fucking novelty of her life. Cookies. She's gonna do it. She thumbs through recipes on her tablet and eventually decides on gingersnaps. Some trial and error, one burnt batch and another decent one later and she is knocking on his door with a plate of them.]e; (for Prison Break!Michael) sad stairwell shenanigans,
[She doesn't like elevators. Like, call her crazy, but relying on something that's just a series of pulleys and counterweights really isn't her thing, so she sticks to the stairs. It's not like they don't have their own problems (narrow corridors, not a lot of exits, etc) but she's more comfortable in them and tends to take them two at a time on principle.
Today, as she's heading down to the ground level she's stopped short by a guy. He's sitting down at the bottom of the steps that lead out to the second floor landing, facing away from her. There's something about the tension to his posture that makes her think he is probably several shades of not okay and she honestly debates with herself about whether or not she should just quietly edge out the door she came in through.
But. Eventually,]
Hey, pal, you all right?
[Her voice is gentle and soft, but she absolutely has one hand on the gun stuffed into the waistband of her pants. Just in case.]z; forests around Quarantine and near the perimeter fence,
[Monsters pose no especial trouble to him. They are fierce and many, of course, but more predictable by half than any one man he has faced down at the point of a sword. He kills them, and having observed some resort to cannibalism he has taken to burning the bodies afterwards. Thick black smoke roils up from this latest pit, and James stands at the edge of it leaning on a shovel. He is dressed simply in all black, with no particular nod towards any one point in time. He has a modern rifle slung across his back, a modern handgun at his hip and a sword at the one opposite, so really: it's anyone's guess where the fuck he's from.
He can be found either killing monsters, burning them, inspecting various parts along the fence and/or cooking a particularly well-seasoned rabbit on a spit that is, thankfully, roasting over a fire made of wood rather than monsters. Feel free to join him at your leisure, but for the love of God don't sneak up on him.
Welcome in this thread: monster fighting! chats, cr building, disagreements about his Monster Murder, etc, all such things.]y; communal living space floor 1, all comers welcome,
[And speaking of cooking. James is not a chef, nor a particularly charitable man, but he certainly knows how to foster camaraderie and the role in which food features to that end.
So: he's made a meal of glazed salmon, several side-dishes and has left a note out on the counter next to it, help yourselves in a neat, calligraphic scrawl. He can be found sitting on his bed with his back to the wall, reading, at any point thereafter. He keeps a chest at the foot of his bed absolutely laden with books, but he's presently working his way through Don Quixote by Cervantes.]x; down by the river,
[He has claimed to be a carpenter, and to that end he has built several things with his own bare hands for use as a sort of... curriculum vitae, should the need for it arise. Presently, he is working on roughing out a single-log canoe. He's burnt out most of the inside, and is currently shaping the interior with a variety of hand-tools. He works simply, with speed that does not seem to be borne of urgency, and he will likewise seem untroubled should anyone join him there.
He'll give an acknowledging nod to anyone lingering nearby, but because he's a Stubborn Prick will likely not instigate conversation without prompting. Godspeed.]v; (for Eddie Thrawn) cutpurses and piracy and thievery oh my
[Flint is not one for indulgences, but the public festival of Sampremi could potentially yield information beyond what he's culled from his own investigations, and so he goes.
He does not mingle. Mostly, he observes. This place has a dearth of the usual suspects he would expect to find in a crowd. No whores, no cutpurses to speak of, nothing that marks it as a place in which civilization has festered. But then, he has not yet had time to survey the jails, nor the local ordinances to see what the penalties are for failing to abide by the laws of men. Perhaps everyone is simply executed, and that would explain their lack.
He is standing beside a stall, having paid for an apple that he is currently polishing on the shoulder of his shirt when he sees it. A young girl. She is looking for a mark, he can tell by the way she looks so specifically at everyone that passes her, and once she sees someone who fits her criteria, she makes a point of stumbling into them. He watches her hands, and true to form she comes away with the man's wallet and turns to hurry off into the night.
James shrugs - neither his business nor his problem. If you don't keep a hand on your money you deserve its loss. But, as it turns out, he is not the only one to have seen this particular transaction. He was about to turn away when he sees the other man cut across the street to apprehend the girl, and it is then that he decides to drift closer. He does not care for thievery but less for men who set themselves above thieves.]w; sailing the ocean blue,
[He has cleared an area on the ground. There are targets set up for projectile weaponry (ranging from bows to knives to guns) and an arena for physical combat. James will be seated at a table he has obviously built, working on building a star chart of the night sky as people arrive.]
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Be my guest.
[It's done more modernly than what would have been afforded to a map of the stars in the eighteenth century. Obviously, then, he has dedicated himself to learning something of the craft here, honing some innate talent. And there is talent here, replete in the way he's added details to the map itself, ascribed shapes to the constellations of the locals. James is not an artist, but he is unerringly precise.]
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This is incredible. [She might say he's a man with hidden depths but he's also a man with hidden shallows and therefore this isn't particularly surprising in that respect.] Did you know how to do this before you sailed across the Atlantic?
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I was a ten-years' man with the Navy. Some of that included some of this.
[He sweeps his hand at the parchment. He was not a charter, in the strictest sense of the word, but he had a passion for it as he did with all things that could be learned or taught by better men. He would change nothing, if he had it to do over. He would choose Thomas over that fucking pit of snakes every time, even with what Hennessy was to him, but there is a part of him that yet yearns for how differently it could have been. He would have been a captain inside three years from that fateful day. The Admiralty may yet have accepted him despite his vulgar education. It was his whole life, once. His assignation to the Hamiltons changed everything.
That the Navy thinks so lowly of loving someone outside of their ideals is telling enough. He leans, hipshot, against the edge of the table and gestures at the map with his left hand. The rings glint.]
An idle way to pass the time. I thought someone might be able to recognize where we are.
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Suffice to say that him sharing that information about himself outright gets a reaction out of her. Her eyes widen, a flicker of recognition of what he's done, followed by a smile she can't quite hide. The game of back and forth, of circling around their stories like sharks, was enjoyable for a while but she much prefers hearing him speak the truth outright. Sharing.]
Perhaps they will, though I expect that a man with at least ten years experience reading star charts may have the best chance of recognizing familiar territory.
[With the door cracked open further, she wants to ask so many more questions about him, but in light of what he's offered it seems only fair first to give back in turn. To acknowledge the end of the game.]
My brother and I weren't terrible at identifying constellations. Likely not as good as you and your crew but learning to recognize them was a way to pass the time at night, when it was too late to do anything but too early to sleep.
[Like Flint talks about his time in the Navy in past tense, so does Wanda talk about Pietro.]
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[As far as accepting the impossible goes, he began a tireless journey down that road long ago when he accepted he could love two people at once in equal measure. Stars are insignificant, when contrasted against that one irrefutable proof.
James leans over the table, tracing lines beneath the rough pads of his fingers. The ink is set, it does not smudge. He traces the constellation Aria to where the north star would be on Earth, that indefatigable point that is the friend to all sea-faring folk, their one constant. But there is no star here that seems to match that description, nothing he has noted as being so singularly unmoving. That, more than the unfamiliar constellations, stirs the sailor in him to unease.
He looks askance at Wanda. Studies her. There is grief in her, wound up, fettered and furled.]
How long has it been?
[Bloodletting. He cannot bring himself to speak of Thomas, or Miranda. But he understands the need.]
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In truth it's not that it's hard to talk about it, even as much as it pains her to think about what she's lost. It's that she learned quickly that she doesn't like the way people look at her when they learned her parents were dead. She hates the sudden outpouring of sympathy, all too often shifting their perception of her. As if she and Pietro are weak. As if they're somehow in need of so much help because they're orphans. Or in Wanda's case, twinless. Cast adrift from her home.
More than that, there are few that she feels can hear what she has to say and understand. Most people her age are...well, perhaps not so much younger than her emotionally so much as they haven't been forced to grow up as quickly as she was. They have their families still, a wealth of relatives to support them. Most of them have never had to wonder how long they might have a roof over their head or how long they can stretch the few groceries they have.
Even though he's told her so little, Wanda can feel deep in her bones that James would understand. It could be that she senses it through her powers, but more likely she believes that it's simply a case of one person recognizing something similar deep in another. Commonalities yet to rise to the surface.
So when he asks, she answers.]
Just over a year. His name was Pietro. He was my twin.
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Flint does not remember the last time he deigned show care or compassion to someone, in recompense for something they have suffered or lost. Eleanor, perhaps. His expression flickers, something tightens in his jaw and his brows draw down in consternation. He lifts a hand, sets it on her shoulder and his fingers flex just slightly.]
I'm given to understand such loss is difficult. I'm sorry for yours.
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Thank you. There are some who would say I should take comfort in the fact that he died a hero of our country, saving a teammate and a child, but I fail to see how I could. I knew him better than anyone. The way he died, the choice he made was no less than a representation of the man I always knew him to be. He wasn't suddenly a better person, one of more value or substance simply because of circumstances.
[What comfort is there to take in how he died when the fact remains that he is gone? She shakes her head slightly, expression a clear indication that she's pushing the memories away. Forcing them deeper where she always hold them safe.]
I'm sorry. I didn't come here to burden you with my grief. I thought I would watch you teach others, see what skills you might have to share.
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But there is something bracing, something familiar in doing it the old way. A known quantity. He likes the act of putting pen to paper, though he has never in his life kept a journal, or anything but a captain's report of the Walrus' activities.
He hms faintly. Accepting what she has said, acknowledging it, but offering nothing further on the matter. She is not interested in his pity, that he knows. So.]
Nothing remarkable. I don't profess to be the best at it, but I can teach a man - [he raises an eyebrow, his mouth quirks up at one corner,] or woman - to throw a punch and take one easy enough.
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The ever so slight quirk of his lips as he replies is mirrored by Wanda, an acknowledgment as he includes women in his statement.]
I've been taught, though it's rare that I've had to do either in battle. [Her powers allow her to be more of a ranged combatant, something she prefers to getting up close and personal.] What about weapons?
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That she next acts about weapons does not confirm his suspicion, but it perhaps tips the scales towards it. He nods to the rack of them he'd brought out for this purpose.]
Some. Swordsmanship was certainly a province of naval officers. Knives, daggers, dirks, all an extension of that. Modern guns are not so esoteric as one might expect.
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You've seen some of the monsters beyond the fence by now, I assume. Which would you say is the most effective against them?
[She doesn't ask which would be best for a beginner, as she assumes he'll no doubt take that into consideration. It's unlikely she'll be without her powers but Wanda doesn't think that it would hurt to develop other skills just in case. She wouldn't have thought she'd find herself taken to another dimension but here she is.]
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The question draws a faint hm out of him.]
Honestly? Until I've done it myself, I can't say. I'm not well-versed in fighting monsters. [His mouth quirks upwards at one corner.] David used a slingshot, perhaps I ought to give that one a try.
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[She has other skills at hand, and she wonders if this talk of weapons and monster fighting might be the best opportunity she has to explain to him what she can do. Without sword or pistol, without slings and arrows. Her powers are strange and immense even by the standards of the Avengers. It's neural interfacing and telekinesis but to a man of his era no doubt it would seem more like magic.
Which might make her seem more witch than warrior to him.
He strikes her as an intelligent man capable of thinking rationally and reasonably, however. The question is if that's enough to cancel out any superstition he may carry with him from his time period, if any, and if their interactions have been enough to stay his hand when she reveals her powers to him.]
In my world there are some who don't use weapons at all. They have powers and abilities beyond the typical capability of a human.
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He has come to know her now well enough to anticipate that its edge will not be set to his neck, but then he has been wrong before, in matters of betrayal.
He does not trouble himself to some elaborate reaction. He merely raises one eyebrow.]
Oh?
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But she knows him enough to know he'll appreciate a more direct approach.]
My country has always been a war zone. Pietro and I lost our parents when we were quite young when our home was shelled. [She pauses a beat.] Like cannon fire but more powerful. The war has never been with Sokovia, it's always seemed to just use our lands as a staging grounds. When Pietro and I grew up we protested the wars, we did what we could to help others in our city but it was never enough.
We were approached by a man who claimed that he could give us the means to affect real change in our lands. To protect our people in ways that we never were capable of. My brother was determined and I wouldn't let him go alone, so we agreed. They took us, experimented on us using an...a very special staff. In the end we were the only survivors of their tests, the only ones with stable but incredible abilities we'd never had before.
[Lifting her hand, she draws the light of that power to her fingertips, watching James carefully. For all she knows he might view this as witchcraft, but he's always proven himself to be enlightened and forward thinking enough that perhaps he won't react poorly.]
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He watches her hands with a sharp, unerring focus, but there is nothing to his expression that gives voice to the thoughts he may hold on the matter. There is a moment's contemplation, and then his eyes flicker upwards, to her face.
On a deeper level, one he does not yet know she can sense, he is curious without alarm. Saliently, there is no fear.]
I see. [A beat.] And what can be done with these incredible abilities?
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Moving her hands slowly, she considers what to show him first. What would he appreciate most of all?]
I can use the energy fields to form a shield, or to pick things up, or tear them apart. I've used it to propel myself or teammates up into the air, and to draw poisonous gas out of a building.
[After a moment, hands making sinuous gestures toward the rack of weapons, she lifts a sword from the rack. The tip she keeps pointed toward herself and the grip in his direction so as to not alarm him, and lets it hover there in front of him to take.]
It's a flexible ability, perhaps only limited by my creativity. You can take the sword if you'd like, try your hand against my shielding.
[She trusts that if he agrees, he won't push so hard as to actually injure her, and at least in this trusts her own skill enough to know she can shield herself against him more than adequately.]
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What she says is rather a lot to take in. Unfathomable, almost. If she had lead their acquaintance with that, he doubts he would have believed her. Now, he sees no reason not to.
To his change in weaponry,]
It's not that I mistrust you.
[He says that in an aside, as he tests the flex of the wooden sword.]
But I believe you know enough of my history by now to understand it's difficult enough for me to lift a sword to a woman.
[He doesn't mind saying it, and considers it no admittance of weakness. Once upon a time he was a gentleman. To his perception, she is defenseless. Not an easy thing to shake regardless of what powers she may hold.]
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She shakes her head, indicating that she doesn't take offense.]
I understand. I should have picked the wooden sword to begin with, perhaps.
[The red energy continues to flow around her hands, small clouds and wisps of color that aren't so strong that the same color reaches her eyes. Not yet.]
It may help to remind yourself that while I'm a woman, I'm also a person who has been in battle before.
[To show him how her shields take form, to give him a target, she draws more power forth to her hands. It lights up her eyes at last as she presses her hands forward in a defensive gesture, and from there her shielding takes shape. In a second the shield covers her from the ground all the way up to above her head, though she only guards her front to start to save her energy.]
You can test the resistance against your sword first if you wish.
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I'm not questioning that, Miss Maximoff. I've known women who were quite formidable with all manner of weaponry.
[Any issue he takes with Anne Bonney aside, the few times he has seen her in a fight he has been rather in awe of her. It is not a matter of sex, at least where competence is concerned. It is the fact that he has never, not even in his darkest moments, struck a woman in anger or for any other reason. It is that conditioning which he must overcome, not anything against women in combat.
Nevertheless, he takes up a position rather more classical than the one he uses as Flint, readies the sword in his right hand and keeps his left slightly up, a form meant to counter another swordsman but ultimately, he imagines, useless here.
He does snap his stance forward, though, with a speed and precision that belies his decades not of practice but of practical use, and rap the sword sharply against where he expects to stop short of contact with her shoulder.
The shield is utterly unyielding. The light blow careens off of it like water on the prow of a ship, and he raises an eyebrow. A faint hm follows.]
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It's a little strange to be separated from him through a shield. She's used to training with Steve and Natasha, and the rest of the Avengers, but realizes as she stands opposite him now that it's been a while since she trained with someone who wasn't part of her team. It's wasted on her, perhaps, to do so with a man from another time and place, from alternate schools of fighting. She's too new to fighting herself to recognize any subtle differences.
She is pleased, however, to have blocked his sword with such ease, and gives him a tight smile.]
If you'd like, the next time I train with the others you'd be welcome to observe.
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May I?
[He'll speak to her invitation in a moment. For now he just wants to touch the shield itself. Things are made real by tactile sensation as much as by the eyes, the ears.]
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Of course.
[The shield shrinks to a more manageable size since she isn't actively guarding against him now. As the purpose is to test her powers and not her agility or reflexes, she very much doubts that he'll make an attempt to catch her off guard so soon.]
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He slides his hands down, pushes against it as if testing its yield, and then he steps back into his own space with a very faint hm being the only indication of his opinion.]
Is it strenuous to maintain?
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