catch-all;

[pundemic]

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.



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.]

Comments

w;

[divulsion]

[For a time she thought she would reply to his network post with a question. Would he mind someone stopping by to observe rather than participate? She didn't want to give others the impression that it was what he would welcome, however, so she'd stayed quiet. Resolved to simply drop in instead. If he didn't mind, it would give her a chance to observe his skills, see what he was teaching others, his style and handling in working with others. That in turn might paint a clearer picture about the man he is, something that Wanda is still keen on doing as he's not a man inclined to divulge his life story easily.

She arrives dressed for the occasion just in case, however. Leggings and boots over skirts and heels, a loose tank top over something more restrictive or fitted, and a zip-up hoodie she bought in town a while back, before the storm.]

This is quite the set-up you have here, James. [He gave her his first name first, and unless he says to do otherwise she'll call him by it.]

[diagenesis]

[He cannot remember the last time he failed to stand for a woman coming into a room. Flint is by needs less partial to that detail, but it pained him every time he ignored it. Manners are a thing ingrained, learned at his mother's knee, and then his grandfather's, and then Admiral Hennessy's, though he was quite a bit taller than knees by the time the Navy laid its claim to him.

James joined of his own volition. No press-ganging in a time of war, as it was with Billy. He'd have made a life of it if they'd had him, but for one simple profanity.

He nods to her as he gets to his feet, and tries not to think of Miranda.]

Miss Maximoff. Pleasure to see you again.

[divulsion]

[Wanda's not someone who was raised with the same sort of manners that he was. The expectations of both herself and Pietro are different in her time and country than his. The things her parents focused on were similar enough. Good table manners. Pleases and thank yous. Giving up bus seats to the elderly or infirm. For Wanda, graciously accepting when someone opens a door for her despite being fully capable of doing so herself.

She has no expectations of him when it comes to his manners, but she finds she likes it more than she expected to be given such courtesies. His standing and the nod of acknowledgment earns him a nod in return as she joins him near the table.]

And you. [Her gaze flicks down to the paper on the table, before it rises to look him in the eyes once more.] What is this you're working on? May I? [She'd love to pick it up, to examine it in more detail.]

[diagenesis]

[He smooths out the edge of the chart with the heel of his hand, and then nods to her.]

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.]

e;

[prisonking]

[ Michael's not alright. He hasn't been alright for a long time. Maybe never.

He knows she's there before she speaks. He heard her footsteps echoing through the stairwell, and felt the silence, the weight of her gaze, as she stops. Hesitates. He expects her to turn around, to go back the way she came. Pretend she never saw him. He hadn't seen her. It would be easy to forget this moment had ever happened.

But she doesn't leave. She stays. She speaks. He can hear the concern in her voice, real or forced, it's there.

He wants it to be real. Even as he scrubs the tears away from his eyes with the cuff of his shirt, erasing his shame, his pain, the evidence of his weakness, he wants her to care. For someone to care. Anyone.

Solitary confinement was less lonely than this place.

Michael turns his head, looking back over his shoulder, and lies. Like he always does. ]

Yeah, I'm fine. Just taking a breather.

[pundemic]

[She recognizes that little snuffle he makes when he lifts a hand. She can honestly, genuinely say she doesn't think she's ever seen a man cry. Honestly, she's not really sure she's ever seen anyone cry. The Apocalypse sort of does that to you, she supposes. People don't have tears left for the little things, and by now everyone's so used to death, to dying, there's just this sort of... cold indifference that sinks into your bones and chokes you out from inside.

But that doesn't mean she can't care. He's a guy, bigger than her, with all the advantages in this narrow little stairwell, but she comes closer. Wary, all her weight balanced on her back foot, her hand on her pistol and the other raised towards him like she can possibly hope to fend him off if he goes violent in a hurry.]

Didn't look like a breather to me.

[She says it in a soft, neutral tone. She's not trying to show him up or anything, or even force him to talk. Just acknowledging that it's all right not to-- well, be all right.

Finally, eventually, she's standing beside him on the landing, and she takes a deep breath. Sits down beside him. She can't walk away from someone that's hurting. She won't. Nobody deserves to be alone.]

Hey. You don't have to be fine if you aren't. My name's Ellie, what's yours?

(d)

[signifies]

[ Ellie, he doesn't actually go here. Clark comes and goes, sometimes sticking around if she's upstairs, but otherwise he's out.

She's lucky this isn't one of those times. Clark's sitting cross-legged on his assigned bunk, reading a comic book he picked up from the library (it has a hero with a red cape who can fly) when she knocks. ]

Yes, come in.

[signifies]

( wildcard option for flint if that's okay )

[ When he's not in the forest or around the housing block, Clark likes to spend his free time in the library. He sees James from time to time. He's often in the science section, picking up books on the inventions that have come to pass since his century. They nod to each other but don't often sit together.

When they do, Clark finds in him a curious nature, and a deep understanding of what's around them. He doesn't often meet people who know their place in the world, or seem to be so secure in it.

He suggests books from time to time, but one really catches his eye to the extent that he borrows under his own card and takes it with him to deliver personally.

Clark knocks at his door when he can hear the man inside, and the room is otherwise empty. ]

James? It's me.

[divulsion]

[There is art in precision, however. Wanda doesn't know it by drawing in her own hand like he does, in building anything with her own hands, but she knows it in her powers. The satisfaction that comes from hitting her targets precisely, the awe she gets in how some are torn apart, how some explode. There's beauty in giving form and limitations to something like a toxic gas, knowing that it won't harm others. So perhaps his chart does not have sweeping lines and intricate illustrations, but as she looks over the chart she can appreciate the flawless detail.]

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?

[diagenesis]

[His mouth twitches in something like amusement, and he takes a moment to smooth down the edges of his moustache. Well, he's let it go long enough. Eventually, she'll either put it together herself - and she is far and away intelligent enough to do it - or she'll ask him. As amusing as it has been, chasing each other around the wellspring of the truth, he opts to spare her the trouble.]

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.

[diagenesis]

(ayep all good by me.)


[James is a wellspring of solitude, in this place. He rarely troubles himself to seek out company, though he does not go out of his way to eschew it. He is a man unmade by circumstance. James McGraw is not James Flint is not James Barlow, yet he persists in being.

Cobbling together a new existence is not as easy as sitting beside Mr. Gates at a tavern and conjuring up some childhood horror in which to cloak himself. Mr. Barlow is a widower, a carpenter, a navy man. Someone who is tired. Someone who is honest.

Yet every man he's ever been loves to read. He cannot cut away that part of himself. Could not ever, he thinks, and so even here he persists. He is sitting on the couch, one arm draped along its strangely textured cushions, Don Quixote propped on his thigh, his other hand braced between the pages. He shifts when he needs to turn one. He is not slow to read, nor does he - like so many of his contemporaries - need to mouth words aloud as he goes.

He pauses, though, at that knock and the words that follow. Lays a red ribbon between the pages and takes his feet down from the coffee table as if the ghost of eighteenth century propriety has somehow followed him here.]

Enter.

[pundemic]

[She slips inside. Wary, a bit. Her attention tracks: windows, escape routes, places to hide, and then she gives him a smile.]

Clark, hey. You know... you got me thinking about this whole baking thing. So I gave it a shot.

[She holds out the wrapped plate of cookies. They're maybe a tiny bit burnt, but they smell good. She's too concerned with wasting ingredients not to have done a decent job of it her very first time.]

You wanna give them a try? See what you think?

[divulsion]

[Wanda is used to playing it cool, knows how to manage to stay mostly expressionless through a conversation no matter how someone might try to throw her off balance, goad a reaction out of her. At least, when she's trying, which she usually is around Flint.

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.]

[diagenesis]

Be that as it may, these stars are not familiar to me.

[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.]

[divulsion]

[Wanda isn't given to talking about the things that grieve her, not even to the teammates she's come closer to over the last several months. There are times in which she'll mention things in passing. A story about Pietro. Their parents. Something she used to do in Sokovia that she's reminded of.

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.

[signifies]

[ Clark has made sure there's at least one open window. It serves the purpose of giving her somewhere she can use to escape, and in case he needs to get out of this room in a hurry.

He could smell the cookies, but he hadn't thought they were for him, specifically. Clark expects the unspoken contract of social interaction-- things like civility, not personal consideration. He's not used to being on the receiving end. It's very sweet of her, and he hopes she didn't feel obligated.

Clark closes his comic book and sets it at the top of a stack, getting up. ]

I'd love to. In the kitchen?

[signifies]

[ So that's where Don Quixote went.

The door clicks shut softly behind him. Clark smiles, reflexive politeness, true, but James holds the record for longest conversation Clark's had with anyone here besides Ellie.

It helps that James doesn't feel the need to fill up silence. Clark doesn't honestly mind, but he was never much of a talker. ]

Hope I'm not disturbing you. I found a book I thought you'd like to read.

c;

[advanced]

[He's often out in the forest just to get away from the multitude of people, give himself some thinking space. He sleeps out here sometimes, even if it's dangerous, because there's less chance of someone coming across him at random.

It's the smoke from the fire that catches his attention first, and he very carefully scouts closer. He sees one tripwire and figures there must be more, so he shimmies up a tree instead and approaches that way, dropping nearly soundlessly down beside her when he sees who it is.]

That's not how you make arrows.

[Hello, Ellie.]

[pundemic]

[To her credit, she doesn't scream.

What she does do is fling herself sideways onto the dirt beside the fire and kick a burning hunk of wood directly at whoeverthefuck that is. Her gun gets drawn in the same breath and she--

-- Recognizes that asshole, damnit.]

Jesus Christ! You scared the shit outta me!

[The fear reaction is obvious: wide eyes, fast pulse. Her hand is steady on the gun, but that's experience and training, not any lack of abject terror. You miss your shots, get ready to be a whole lot more terrified, after all.

And she still doesn't entirely trust this dude. But she shoves herself up onto her elbows, and then her knees, and then her feet all without lowering the gun.]

Are you fucking following me?

[pundemic]

Unless you wanna get crumbs in your bed, then yeah.

[She says that with True Teenage Sarcasm, and a bit of a roll of her eyes as she picks her way carefully through the living space and off to the kitchen.]

Kinda crowded in here.

[She is suddenly very grateful for her lack of roommates.]

[diagenesis]

[It was obvious she'd been close with the brother she spoke of, but losing a twin is an exquisite, especial grief. He served with a set of them once, and upon the death of one the other went all but mad, tried to climb over the bow of the ship to get at a retreating Spanish galleon. They had to keep him drugged to the gills with opium until they could reach a port and dispatch him back to his family. James honestly doesn't know if he survived the trip or not.

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.

[diagenesis]

[[He laces his fingers together between his knees and gives a shrug so minute it's signified only by a slight twitch of his thumbs to register his indifference at the idea of having been 'disturbed'. Of those souls he's met here, Clark is far and away one of the most pleasant.

He cants his head to the chair directly opposite his position, tacit permission to sit.]

Oh?

[divulsion]

[In so few words and such a simple gesture, he proves to her that she was right. The hand at her shoulder is warm, heavy enough to have presence and meaning. He doesn't claim to understand her pain, and expresses his sympathy short and sweet. Without any overdone emotion or some attempt to draw more out of her. Relieved, it's easy to offer him a small smile in response, a nod in acknowledgement. She reaches up to lay her fingers over his, just briefly, before dropping it away once more.]

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.

[signifies]

Yeah.

[ He leaves it there and follows her. She'd be able to guess part of the reason he spends so much time in his forest shelter. ]

What are these? Gingersnaps?

[pundemic]

Yeah. Turns out-- [She hops up onto the counter and lets her heels kick against the cabinets below.] -- Molasses survives the apocalypse pretty well. We'd get cookies sometimes on, you know-- holidays, or birthdays. If the cooks liked us, anyway.

[Ellie was a consummate troublemaker, a loner and largely, a Little Shit. She wasn't really liked by anyone until Riley. And Winston, him too. She takes the cover off the plate and steals a cookie for herself.]

Little taste of home.