diademlogs | february catch-all.

[ 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. ]

[ Custom starters below!! ]

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."

Edited 2026-02-06 19:31 (UTC)

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.

Edited 2026-02-06 19:48 (UTC)

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."

Edited 2026-02-06 21:25 (UTC)

It turns out the fear gets worse when there isn't a large-scale war to blunt it. Something about the neon light in her motel room that refuses to shut off — paired with the eerie solitude of a single moon hanging in the sky — renders the night inhospitable. Somewhere between the gut-punch of homesickness and the fluttering, frightening absence of immediate responsibility, her mind reels. Her cogs have nothing to grind against. No resistance. No purchase.

So she walks. Tonight, at least, she tells herself she's taking stock of the architecture. Can she identify era-defining characteristics? Can she tell — by instinct, by stomach, by an educated guess — what styles of windows and rooflines belong earlier or later? It becomes a small, self-contained puzzle she can worry at in the back of her thoughts.

All this despite the rain. The downpour is unending, yes, but gentle compared to anything but the Weeping back on Roshar. So she tolerates it. Perhaps she even welcomes the inconvenience and the discomfort. As if the irritating, flickering drops on her cheeks and down the back of her neck are strangely life-affirming. The rain is more familiar by far than the in the ghoulish cast of fluorescent light reflected on wet pavement.

She's thinking about weather patterns — about how they shape buildings, and dictate the orientation of walls — when she sees him.

Him.

She doesn't know it's him at first. But there's a slight sway to his movement that tugs at something unpleasant in her memory. As though she scorched it there the first time she watched him regain his feet after the accident. The sight alone makes her stomach lurch. Her steps quicken. And —

— he stumbles.

Jansah stops, frowning. No. Now she reads his posture as something else entirely. Stupefaction. Sodden and sulky.

Storms. Jasnah approaches — not close enough to be mistaken for friendly.

"You," she says. Almost pitying. Up close, the smell of alcohol reaches her. Ugh. Had he been drunk then, too? When she'd hit him? Explains a lot. "Stay out of the road. Unless you're eager to be peeled off it once again."

It's been a busy...however long it's been since she'd passed out mid-fight on the Continent and awoken to find herself victim to a combination of medical and automotive debt. The time, distributed between Dome fights, city exploration, and striking up conversation with just about everyone she's come across so far, has been a blur such that she couldn't tell anyone who asked when she'd first come to this shitty motel. It's nice that it doesn't matter, then: Sciel merely dances through her days with a refreshed verve, availing herself of the opportunities she's never had and may never have again.

(Verso had been right to think as much. It's more complicated than that, of course, but...to some degree, he'd absolutely been right.)

She'd just returned from a quick spin around the neighbourhood — she knows it fairly well by this point, but there had still been a few storefronts she'd yet to wander into — when the knock sounds.

"Coming!" And very shortly after, Sciel opens the door and brightens immediately...because of some combination of the company, the bottle, and the absolutely ridiculous pose he's striking in her doorway.

There's a stretch of silence in which she snickers, crossing her arms.

"...Depending on how many you're picturing when you hear 'several,' you might be underestimating me." Her eyes drift up to the wine and back as continues to block his entrance. "I can only hope you're here to see that in action?"

Not that one bottle is going to get either of them drunk, but. The night is young. She can work with this. And so Sciel finally steps aside, gesturing for him to enter even as she continues to smirk at the display.

Don't worry, Jasnah, there is no way to mistake you as friendly!

Verso is consumed with frowning at his shoes. He's fairly sure they're suede; at least, that's what the man selling them had said to convince him to pay full price for them. Even in his inebriated state, he's thinking of how the water is going to stiffen them. Fruitlessly, he tries to shake them off, but given the fact that it's still raining, it does absolutely nothing.

He glances up after, tilting his head as he squints at her, trying to place why she looks so familiar. Then— ah. Yes. It had been daytime when they'd last run into each other (or run over each other, in her case), and she looks different in the dim glow of the streetlamps, but there's no mistaking that sharp tone of voice.

"If you recall, I peeled myself off last time."

Oh. She recalls. Vividly. Sleep hasn't come easily — it never does — but when she does manage to collapse from exhaustion in the wee wee hours of the morning, she's had one or two nightmares shaped horribly around the sight of him. Odd angles and scraped flesh.

He — whoever he is — is both more and less put-together tonight. And Jasnah? Well, she might look differentish on account of a slightly more camouflaged outfit — something akin to a long wool coat. Only one glove, though, on the hand hanging down by her side. Her freehand holds onto an umbrella, which she now tips back — risking rain — to get a better look at him.

"Fine, then. Unless you're eager to peel yourself off the road once again."

She amends her statement with all the cool indifference of a teacher indulging a toddler: we'll say it that way if it means so much to you.

Massively hypocritical, given her own pedantic nature.

Edited 2026-02-06 22:10 (UTC)

Oh, Sciel. He has to appreciate how pleasant she is. Verso's had more than his fair share of rough encounters in Panorama—shockingly, not everyone here finds him charming and entertaining—but Sciel can always be counted on to be there with a fond smile and an up-for-anything attitude.

"You got me," he admits, holding his hands up in surrender (or holding one hand up, anyway, and just lifting the fingers that aren't holding onto the bottle on the other). "I was curious to see if you'd chug the whole bottle in one go."

And he'd wanted to spend time with her. As wonderful and impossible as it is to be outside the Canvas, it's strange, too. Sciel is a familiar face, a harbor to return back to when the waters get rocky. A friend, if he's allowed to claim that; it's been a long time since he's had a human friend to call his own. Longer still that he's had one without an expiration date.

A couple steps into her room, and he swivels on his heel to face her again. "I thought I'd split the bottle with a fellow wine aficionado."

Hm. He doesn't like that tone! It calls to mind another similar tone, condescending and parental, tsking and tutting as he calls Verso boy like he's still an unruly child after 100 years. As if to prove that he can do what he wants, actually—it's not a phase, Papa, this is who I am—he takes a couple steps closer to the curb.

"Well, you aren't behind the wheel tonight," he points out. "You have nothing to worry about."

In fact, Sciel is in rare form. The opportunities that this little excursion affords them has her positively exuding vibrancy, brightening even the dim, sad room she'd first brought him back to when he'd found her at the Dome.

"If I would? Or if I can?" Two very different things, as he may come to learn. Once he's clear of the threshold, she closes the door by pressing her back to it until it shuts with a satisfying snap, and she meets his eyes — and his offer — with a grin.

'Wine aficionado' might be generous as he extends the label to her, Sciel thinks, given her expertise really only extends to consuming it in vast quantities. But...also, who cares?

"I'm glad you had the thought. Saves me the trouble of finding something to get up to tonight." A pause, and then her grin shifts into a warm, pleased press of her lips. "And...it'd be nice. Spending time together outside the Paintress' line of sight, for once."

That doesn't mean she won't needle him for the dark and personal, though! Some things can, and will, continue to exist outside the Canvas.

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?

...Y'know, it likely says something about where the indifference ends and the empathy begins in how she glances up and down the street, as if checking for oncoming traffic. Like, she's not about to be buddy-buddy with the guy but her morality does seem to include not just standing by while someone plays chicken.

(Wow, unsatisfying when a chicken is actually just a chicken.)

Jasnah takes one step forward, circumnavigating the same puddle he sloshed into at the beginning of this little encounter.

"Statistically speaking," she explains, "I can't be the only bad driver in the city."

There's a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat like he doesn't quite know what to make of that. It is nice to be outside the Paintress's line of sight. And yet— there's a faint sense of melancholy that creeps in when he thinks about Lumière and the Continent. Best to distract himself from that.

"Technically," he says, "this is our first time together unchaperoned." You know, outside the Paintress's line of sight, and all. With a mock-serious expression: "You should know I expect you to be on your most gentlemanly behavior."

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."

He shifts on his still very wet feet, but doesn't move yet. As she comes closer, it becomes abundantly clear that yes, he is drunk, very much so. The scent of alcohol mixes with something else that smells vaguely of leather and pine; the latter should be pleasant, but when mixed with spirits, it's mostly just overwhelming.

"Statistically speaking," he parrots, "you're the only one who's run me over."

Yet.

Verso shoots her a sidelong glance, eyes a little bit glassy. Whatever he's planning on saying, it seems to take a moment for it to make it from brain to mouth. Finally: "—You called me a name."

She takes another step, sincerely agitated about the prospect of him fleeing into the street. And all for what? Some petulant tantrum because it happened to be her who passed by tonight? Her lip curls in a sneer. She breathes in.

Storms, but he's a noseful. Him — wine and cologne — and the petrichor of the road swirling into something queasy and too different. But if it's so different, why is she thinking about finding her uncle passed out behind the stables in the mud? In his violets.

Like this man. Deep, deep in his violets. She's about to say something scathing when his question catches her off-guard.

"Unlikely," she snorts, "Whatever your name is, I don't know it."

"Bright lord," he says, very much making it into two separate words. "That's what you said."

He crosses his arms, staring back out into the street. A bit of rainwater has collected on the asphalt, and the glow from the streetlights reflects off of it. Out of everything that happened after being hit with her truck, what he remembers most is her attitude. She hadn't liked him. He doesn't care, shouldn't care, but that awareness niggles at him—

Glancing back her way: "Were you making fun of me?"

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."

Oh.

Alright, fair point, she had indeed called him brightlord. But that had been weeks ago! Since then, she's gotten much better at sorting out phrases that are distinctly Alethi or Rosharan. Dropping them from her speech. It's been clumsy, she's not practiced at such subterfuge, but she attempts it for moments precisely like this one.

If she feels some small pique at his assumption that she'd make fun of a man she'd just killed, she buries it with the reminder that he doesn't know her at all.

"I assure you," she answers — carefully. "I was not making fun of you."

She should just leave it there. Right? Right.

"That's what we would call you. Where I'm from."

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?"

—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."

Similarly, he thinks oh. Well, he feels a bit silly now for being bothered by it for so long. He'd be walking down the street, or playing his piano, or talking to Lune or Sciel and it would creep in: what did she mean by that? Humiliating, really, to know that he's been irritated by... nothing.

Well, maybe nothing. 'Not making fun of you' is hardly descriptive.

"Ah," he says, swaying forward just enough that he looks like he might stumble off the curb before he catches himself. "That's your word for very durable men who take being hit with a truck with grace, then."

Obviously not, but even wine-drunk, he's inclined to talk himself up.

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."

february catch-all.

OPEN.

CLOSED.

LUNE.

JASNAH.

SCIEL.

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moped time beep beep

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

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help wanted!

i am happily gathered!!!

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