february catch-all.

[recreatable]

Who: verso and friends
Where: around
When: february
What: catch-all things!

Warnings: will update if needed!!

Comments

OPEN.

[recreatable]

[ I'm so sorry I'm not strong enough to write open prompts. HOWEVER, feel free to shoot me a starter or ask for a custom one!! A non-exhaustive list of places he can be found and things he'll be doing:

• Riding the Rail — attempting to haggle for a ticket, ending up as your seat neighbor in a train car, trying to pet the resident cat but unfortunately treating her more like a dog, being fascinated by Jeffries the droid, sharing some nerdy train facts if you're unlucky enough to be nearby.
  
• Playing piano at various establishments across Panorama, as well as occasionally busking on the street with his Casiotone electronic keyboard.
  
• Driving his moped with absolutely no regard for traffic laws. What are stop signs?
  
• Responding to basically any help wanted ad because he doesn't know how to manage his money.
  
• Going sadness drinking on the 22nd of February.
  
• Pilfering wine from the mansion across the Chocolate River, with no regard for leaving some to share.

Feel free to PM me to work out any details/ask for a custom starter around any of these things, or just tag in!! Prose and brackets are both fine, I'll match you. ]

moped time beep beep

[diametrically]

Unlike Verso, Cassian had been fortunate enough to arrive here with the knowledge of how to drive a car and a basic understanding of the rules of the road. Hardly a stickler for rules himself, it's really not a big deal at the end of the day if others aren't as familiar. Most of the time, new fluxdrift will learn what to do or not do in the city limits and if they were in a diffusion zone or outside city limits most of the rules were more like guidelines anyway.

And while he does have that level of understanding and willingness to let most things go, like say, cutting him off in traffic without signalling or a slower driver in the left lane, Cassian isn't immune to flares of what we'll call road annoyance. It would take a lot to get him to a road rage state, and 9/10 times most situations can be dealt with an angry little honk or a passive aggressive drive around.

But in the instances where Cassian finds himself in that rare situation neither of those things will work. What is that situation, you may ask? How about finding himself at a four way intersection with clear stop signs and no one else around - until there is. Cassian does everything by the book. Stopping at the line, looking around and then driving...right into a man on a moped.

There's a moment where Cassian curses before bolting out. "Hey! Are you okay?" he asks. Though it's clear that there's concern, there's also a vague prickle of that road annoyance creeping in because, seriously? Didn't he see him?

[recreatable]

If Verso were capable of coherent thought in the moment between Cassian's vehicle colliding with his moped and him hitting the ground, he'd think about how he should really try to get these horrible things outlawed. Or at least walk around in full body protection: a helmet, shin guards, elbow pads, the works. He might be immortal, but it still sucks to get mangled.

He's not capable of coherent thought, though, so all he thinks is fuck.

The collision sends him flying off the moped and skidding down the street. It's not the first time he's felt the scrape of asphalt down his body, and he's beginning to think it won't be the last, either. By the end of it, he's face down in a heap, right knee bent the wrong way. For a moment, nothing hurts. And then everything hurts as he takes a sudden wheeze in, all of the nerves on his body on fire. Distantly, he can make out the muffled sound of a man coming closer, asking a question.

Still face down in the gravel, he groans, "I hate these things."

I must gather all the Clairs, Wine at the mansion, also Jennifer English voice hilarity

[sharranselunite]

While Shadowheart still utterly hates cars, she has seen the benefit in learning how to not break down for enough time to get elsewhere, which has brought her to this mansion. It required going through a disturbing river made of goop, which would have to try far harder to bother her than simply having a few corpses, but she sees the mansion and focuses solely on it. She's been pilfering whatever she could scavange out in the Fringes, but specifically has been looking for more clothes, as what she has is used and drab.

She's been exploring the other rooms to gather a few things she can take in a bag, some of it possibly useful for her friends, and it's fairly full when she decides to check out the cellar. She senses she's not alone on her way down and snaps her fingers, flames bursting into her palm as she steps down. Green eyes fall on the man there who seems to be taking all the wine that he can, and she tilts her head, amused. She is a woman with long white hair braided and pointed elf ears.

"How many of those do you think you can actually carry? At a point, you're going to drown yourself."

i am happily gathered!!!

[recreatable]

—Ah.

There's several bottles in his arms already, clinking together when he moves. He'd figured it would be far more cost-effective to... liberate these bottles from their previous home than to attempt to purchase wine somewhere, and they seem to be of decent quality. It hadn't occurred to him that someone else might have had the same idea.

"Not a bad way to go, I think," he says. Drowned in wine, that is. If he were capable of dying, that's what he'd choose.

Then, bragging, "I am pretty strong. I can carry more than you'd think."

help wanted!

[argumentiste]

There are plenty of things one could say about Panorama and its strange lawless ways but having a shortage of jobs is never one of them. Alisaie has come to realize that it's a small blessing given the circumstances around their arrival. No one she's encountered thus far has been able to avoid the inevitable debt associated with their vehicles and while some of chosen to deal with it through illegitimate means there are still many others who pursue what society deems as legitimate ways.

Unsurprising to no one, Alisaie had taken up the legitimate way - to the extreme. The Scions don't seem to know how many jobs she currently holds for she is constantly on the move at any given hour of the day. One could argue that she should slow down. Learn a little about "work life balance". But Alisaie has only ever had one speed and that is go. After all, though she is close to paying off one car, she and her brother come as a package deal and therefore double the debt.

It is unsurprising then when an older haggard man walks through the door of the coffee shop she's been unwittingly been promoted to assistant manager in title only with the help wanted ad in tow. And since she is the assistant manager, it's up to her to complete the interview. She lets out a breath as she sits down for the first time that day before breaking into a bright smile. With introductions out of the way she wastes no time beating around the bush. "Right," she starts, "Do you have any experience as a barista?"

[recreatable]

It's kind of humiliating being interviewed by a teenager. Verso's never held a traditional job before—unless you count performing at the opera house—but he's certain that one's superior is meant to be their peer, at the very least, if not senior to them. To be fair, there's very few people who are his peer or senior, but the fact that she isn't even an adult makes an embarrassed flush creep up the back of his neck.

But he does really need a job, even a temporary one. Turns out playing piano doesn't actually pay that much. So, he does his best to act as if this doesn't feel like playing pretend with his younger sister, sitting up straight and listening politely to her questions.

The first one is already a doozy. "—Ah." That's probably all the confirmation she needs that no, he has no experience. "Not, uh, professional experience... as such." Or any experience at all. He's barely even tasted coffee in the past 67 years. "But I'm quite familiar with the, er, concept of coffee."

piano!

[catharses]

On this particular night, at whatever establishment they're at since Sunday makes an attempt to vary where he goes throughout the neighborhood though he ends up at where he plays a couple nights a week often enough, he's seated at a table not far from the stage area. By himself, though with a glass of wine and a journal it seems he was writing in at one point.

Not anymore since some time ago he set his pen down to rest along the book's spine to listen to the music being played instead. Devoting his full attention to it, rather, since he was listening before that while writing as is also his usual habit and as someone who enjoys music. Getting to hear a variety of music and talents makes it worth it every time, and all the more so when whoever's playing is talented.

Like tonight, though as the song ends the bar's patrons clap politely but not to the level Sunday thinks is deserved. That's enough for him to turn to frown out at no one in particular because - really. He was going to let his appreciation be known as it was but all the more reason to now as he looks back to the pianist. "For what it is worth, I would not take that reception as any level of critique." Sunday might be a little offended on the other man's behalf even if it was a decent amount of applause. "Saying you play quite well would be quite the understatement."

[recreatable]

Yeah, the lukewarm reception is— disheartening. Not exactly uncommon since starting to play here, though. Verso had quickly learned that playing the classics got him nearly no reaction at all, and playing from the sheet music he'd managed to scrounge up from the music store got him mild applause at best. Piano doesn't seem to be the instrument of choice here; the patrons prefer things that are... louder, more electronic in sound. Things that his snobbish sensibilities will absolutely not allow him to play.

At least there's one fellow music enthusiast here— Verso glances over from where he's sat on the bench, trying not to look too dispirited.

"Well," he says lightly, "they say all the best artists are unappreciated in their time."

Given that he's immortal, though, one has to wonder if that means he'll be unappreciated forever...?

PIANO!!

[godfragment]

When John ducks through the door of the rundown piano bar - robes brushing the frame, eyes glinting gold in the half-light - the reactions are muted at best. The bartender gives him a nod without breaking stride. A regular at the end of the bar lifts his glass in greeting. This is, unmistakably, a place he belongs to now.

Only the newcomers notice.

One woman midway through her first drink pauses, glass hovering near her mouth, eyes tracking the slow, fluid drift of his tentacles with something like startled awe. A man beside her pretends very hard to be fascinated by his phone. Neither says anything. Panorama teaches you quickly when not to ask questions.

John moves deeper into the room, drawn by the piano like iron filings to a magnet. He glides closer than courtesy strictly requires, the hem of his yellow robes whispering over the floor, the prehensile tendrils that frame his face settling and lifting in time with the music as if they know it already. His head tilts, just slightly. For him, the bar's low murmur fades into a distant, unimportant thing.

When the song comes to its end, John reacts immediately. He claps.

The sound is wrong in a way that makes heads turn: deep, resonant, layered. Not flesh on flesh, but something broader-- palms meeting with a hollow, bell-like echo that rolls through the room and then gently dies.

[recreatable]

It's easy to ignore the things around him when he's playing—easy to get caught up in the time signatures and clefs of the sheet music he'd purchased, a song that sounds a bit strange to his ears but he has been informed is more 'modern' and 'what people want to hear'. Given that it isn't one of the classical melodies he can sleepwalk through—has sleepwalked through on at least one occasion—he's more concentrated than usual, eyes on the keys instead of the patrons.

The song reaches its conclusion, and a sound rings out. Verso glances up, and—

He jumps a little at the sight. Fuck. The emotional aspect of the shock peters off after a moment—odd creatures aren't rare to him, although there's something a bit wronger with this one, for lack of a better descriptor—but the physical lingers just a little longer, a prickling at the back of his neck. He breathes out, shaking it off.

That was probably impolite. In his defense, he didn't expect to get jumpscared by a slightly-too-close Eldritch being in the piano bar. "...Thanks," he offers.

sadgirl hours

[carmesi]

( it doesn't get any easier with every passing year that she gets to be one year older than pietro ever would be. there's little consolation as the clock strikes midnight, and though she holds her breath with every passing second, nothing abates the weary crash of grief that overwhelms her. that, together with the upsetting thought that people she cares for can leave any moment from this world makes every subsequent minute suffocating.

she's told no one that it's her birthday, even as it loomed close, and so find herself even lonelier, still, deciding to make her way to one of the establishments she is familiar with: the food is decent, there's a variety of drinks, and sometimes they have pleasant entertainment.

tonight, there's a man playing at the piano, and wanda's lured into sitting close by the piano, hearing notes similar to tchaikovsky songs she loves.

and what would be better praise for a musician, to see someone so focused and enthralled as they play? avoiding the distraction of food and drink at her table, as the notes from each key lift emotions from her heart? wherein the musician's notes are enough to bring tears to spill from weary, green eyes, down the curve of her cheeks, untouched?

it's her birthday — and wanda knows for a fact that this is the best gift she could find in the entirety of panorama. )

SADGIRL DONT CRY!!!

[recreatable]

[ It's flattering, at first. Deeply so. There aren't a lot of what Verso would call music enthusiasts in Panorama—although admittedly his definition of 'music enthusiast' is on the snobbish side—and most of the time, his playing is nothing more than background music as people mill about, drinking and talking. It's rare that anyone stops and really takes in the music.

So, yes, he's flattered by Wanda's close attention to his performance. But then the attention gets... a bit intense; he can tell her eyes are watering even from his peripheral vision, can hear her sniff. Verso understands the concept of being moved by the music, but this seems a bit of an extraordinary case.

He deftly sounds out the last few notes, then pauses, contemplative, before committing to the decision to pivot on the bench and face her. 67 years of dealing with crying people who aren't ready to face their own mortality, and he's still not very good at this. He clears his throat. ]

Hey.

[ ... ]

Everything okay?

sadness drinking -- lmk if this is okay!!

[recitations]

[ She's been making her way through as many of the — ah — establishments in Panorama that she can; sometimes with company, sometimes with not. Today is firmly a "by herself" kind of day, slipping into one she's taken to visiting a little more often than the others. Their wine tastes better. She can't explain it if she tried. ( It may have something to do with the fact that she came here absolutely smashed a few months ago. )

Either way — she's here now, working through her second glass on a bar stool. Beside her in a man who is many ( many, many... ) more drinks in. Hardly looks like they're in any kind of mood to talk about why, either. And ... normally she'd respect it, but the bartender is starting to give the him second glances and thinning their lips. The tell-tale signs of being cut off.

He doesn't look like he wants to be cut off right now.

So the next time Verso calls the bartender over and the bartender looks like he's about to ( gently ) turn him down, Aria opens her mouth. ] It's fine. I'm with him. [ You know, as two strangers who haven't spoken a word to each other. ]

not okay. blocked, reported, called the fbi.

[recreatable]

[ Verso isn't actually familiar with the concept of 'being cut off'—it's been a fair few decades since he's done any drinking around actual people instead of alone, by himself, in a ramshackle hut. (Which is very cool and not at all pathetic of him.) So, when this— bescaled stranger steps in, he isn't quite able to ascertain why; he tilts his head, eyebrow raised. ]

Are you?

[ The bartender frowns. "Look, if you two don't know each other, I'm going to have to cut you o—" ]

You are, [ he says quickly. Obviously, the bartender looks relatively disbelieving, but. Oh, well. Aria has officially taken responsibility for this guy, which means it's no longer his problem.

A moment later, glass refilled, Verso shoots her a sidelong glance. ] My hero.

choo choo

[soulshard]

[ It's Ardbert's second time on the Rail, and his only hope is that it will be a little less eventful than the first ride. That isn't to say that he's ever been bothered by some extra excitement, but the scenarios that the cosmic storm shuffled them into had left him with far too much food for thought.

Thus far, everything seems more or less normal. The speed at which the train runs and the unpredictable landscapes which whip past them will never get old, but eventually he decides to go get a drink from Jeffries.

Or that had been the idea, anyway. There's a man ahead of him, staring with unfettered fascination at the serving robot. ]

Ah. [ Ardbert announces himself, stepping up next to the man in hopes of being some help. Not that he's the best choice to explain such things. ] Your first time seeing something like this?

[ Jeffries looks between the two of them, but grabs for two glasses without skipping a beat. ]

[recreatable]

Is it that obvious?

[ At this point, Verso is fairly convinced he just has the stink of ancientness on him. The phones, the televisions, the— Jeffrieses. There's very little technology here that he doesn't look at with awe and delight, even the things that other people seem to find mundane. How spoiled they all are, to watch plays on those little screens whenever they want! ]

It's an intriguing little machine.

[ Totally self-sufficient, capable of interaction like a living thing, but decidedly not a living thing. Verso reaches out to tap Jeffries's metal hull, which makes a hollow sound. Politely, Jeffries moves out of his reach. ]

This is called a Jeffries?

wine! also ffxiv hat-trick apparently

[unsunder]

[ Emet-Selch doesn’t go looking for diffusion zones so much as he happens to find himself in them. Such is the case with this grand old house and the bizarre river he has to cross to get here – the place wasn’t here when he came this way a few hours ago, and now on his way back to the city, it’s now in his path.

Well, some of these wretched places have proven to be worth exploring, and he doesn’t have any particularly pressing business waiting for him, so explore he does. He pokes about the mansion for a time, noting that it seems perfectly ordinary. Comfortable and well-stocked, even.

Past experiences mean he does not trust any of it for a moment. The beds are left alone, the fridge untouched.

Eventually, his wanderings take him to the cellar, when who should he spot with his hand in a mass of nebulous goo he can but assume was once a wine rack but a familiar face? Odd. He’d thought Verso had vanished, disappeared off the map.

He watches him root around for a moment, leaning against the door frame, arms crossed. ]

Have care nothing removes your hand from your wrist for your troubles.

[recreatable]

Ah, I'm not too worried about a potential mangling.

[ Wouldn't be the first time Verso lost a hand. Probably won't be the last, either. He's already gotten brutalized by three separate vehicles since arriving, one of them his own. It's only a matter of time before he starts losing limbs. (Ah, well. He'll just stick it back on.) ]

If there's anything that's likely to maim me, it's those cars.

[ But he digresses. Verso pulls his hand out of the pile of cosmic goo, wrinkling his nose and curling his lip at the residue it's left on his sleeve. No matter how hard he shakes, it seems determined to stick. ]

I think this ooze poses more of a threat to my shirt.

sadness drinking if this works!

[crimebaby]

[ livio's not normally one to drown his sorrows, particularly because his metabolism means he can't really get drunk easily. but wolfwood's disappeared, back to being dead, and he finds himself at a bar, nursing a gin and tonic. it's doing nothing but dulling his senses, but not enough that he doesn't notice the man next to him, also deep in his cup. he debates saying something, but in the end just awkwardly raises his own glass to verso's. hey, buddy.... ]

CLOSED.

[recreatable]

[ Custom starters below!! ]

LUNE.

[recreatable]

They'd fallen into a bit of a routine out on the Continent, late-night chats to fill the long stretch of hours between sunset and sunrise when everyone else was asleep. Verso has continued that dynamic here in Panorama—mostly messages sent back and forth over what he's been taught is called 'texting', but the occasional call, too. They've never actually met face-to-face during these nights yet, though, not until he invites her out for a late night drive. Or perhaps cajoles her out is a more apt description.

It's not to go anywhere in particular. Out of Panorama proper and into the Fringes surrounding it. An excuse to show off his moped, and to not have to worry about traffic laws. It's mostly sightseeing and idle chatter until they drive past an eerily familiar mansion, just as out of place as the manor on the Continent. It's distant enough, past a river of what resembles thick sludge in the darkness, that he has to slow down and then stop entirely to squint at it, uncertain if his sight has betrayed him.

"You're welcome to pinch me," he says to her behind him, perplexed and a feeling a little bit of— dread? It's just that it's so similar to the manor, right down to the strange and out of place appearance. "Make sure I haven't fallen asleep at the wheel."

[savante]

Lune had accepted the invitation easily enough, only to then come face-to-face with the terrifying fact that Verso does not, in fact, own a car. So she had to climb onto the moped behind him, and there’s the vague, terrible feeling that they’re both going to crash and die: she suspects that a near-century of immortality has made him too flippant about basic things like speed limits, or road safety, or checking his periphery.

So riding behind him is even more nerve-wracking than riding with Sciel, leading to her maintaining a strangling-tight grip on the man, almost squeezing the breath out of his lungs on particularly reckless turns. At one point Lune had delivered an aggrieved wail into his shoulderblades, “Why did you both have to choose motocyclettes—”

but then he eventually slows down, the moped purring to a halt. Lune lifts her face and tilts to the side, peering over Verso’s shoulder, to the manor on the other side of the river.

A cold chill down her spine. The strange surreality of finding an ornate mansion in the middle of nowhere, looking so different from the rundown mass-housing of the Blocks, and exactly the same way they used to trip over it on the Continent.

She obligingly reaches under his coat and pinches his side.

“I see it too,” she says, warily. “I don’t think it’s identical, but…”

But it’s already too similar, too close for comfort.

JASNAH.

[recreatable]

It's late enough that most respectful people are tucked safely into their beds, but not so late that the streets are empty yet. Dark, certainly, with a steady downpour of rain from the sky, but there's still a few people milling about on the streets with their umbrellas up. A young woman and her friend leaving the bars, arms linked, giggling as rain puddles splash on their shoes. An older man on what appears to be a pensive nighttime walk. A couple people on their commute home, and a few more on their walk to the night shift.

Perhaps Jasnah is on her own pensive walk; perhaps she has nowhere else to go, with nowhere that feels truly secure; perhaps this storm hardly fazes her after a lifetime of contending with the highstorms on Roshar. No matter what her reason for heading out into the night, she's about to regret it.

It's only once she heads out far enough out of the residential areas and closer to the storefronts and nightlife that she'll see him: her would-be vehicular manslaughter victim. Maybe, though, she won't even recognize that it's him at first. For one thing, he isn't covered in blood. For another, he's even more bedraggled than he'd been the day they met, completely drenched from head-to-toe. He sways faintly, then stumbles into a deep puddle that soaks what appear to be some very nice new loafers. Feet squishing, he steps to the side and stares miserably down at his feet while the rain continues to pour down.

SCIEL.

[recreatable]

A few days after finding the strange manor out in the Fringes with Lune, Sciel gets a knock at her door. (She made a grave mistake, letting him know where she lives!) It's early in the evening, the night still very much young and ripe for all manner of adventure and/or silly French drinking. After all, it's only fair that Sciel get to enjoy the spoils of their nighttime exploration, too. It's a disaster trio, not a disaster duo.

So, when Sciel answers the door, there Verso is: posing oh-so-casually as he leans against the doorframe, a bottle of pilfered wine in hand. A red—not a variety he's familiar with, but a nice find all the same. He lifts the bottle by the neck, canting his head toward it.

In lieu of greeting: "I've been told you put away several of these the night before leaving for the Expedition."