nobody said it'd be an easy ride

[faceblocks]

Who: vi and various people
What: catchall both open and closed eisdamme or eisdamme#7495 if you want some other thing/any thing.
When: august
Where: various places

Content Warnings: needles, being sick because alcohol, parental death, prison, drugs, disease, murder, mental/emotional/physical abuse, tba

the rest of the starters will follow tonight. pls be patient i am melting.

Comments

training wildcard: [jun, makoto, open: all month]

[faceblocks]

[vi sometimes spends her free mornings on the beach, and when she's not carrying a sparkler and looking at squids (or learning the rules of beach volleyball) she's likely sparring with someone. the beach is kind of ...not the best place to be, lately.

sometimes she hangs for a while after fighting - quiet or chatty, and that depends, too. she has started to carry a small first aid kit with her - she's still building it, don't judge. but it's there just in case.

she has taken to climbing and vaulting around cellar door - though it's not uncommon for her to do the same in crenshaw, or even willful machine. sometimes she watches the crowds - always a bit of a laugh to interrupt a pickpocket - or to retrieve something from a thief. she doesn't always intervene, though.

ooc: really, it could be anywhere, switch it up if you want.]

[icanhearscreams]

[Jun takes a leap after he watches Vi take one and totally misses it, falling a short distance to the ground on top of some trash bags. He hisses in pain and looks up at Vi, wincing as he rolls off of the bags and tests his legs to make sure they're okay.]

[... Yeah, he's fine. Just his pride is hurt.]

Not fast enough?

[faceblocks]

Nope, but you'll get it. I fell a shit ton of times when I was little. Where I'm from it's just---

[rather than continue to explain #justzaunthings and maybe make him self-conscious she backs up, makes the same leap, and lets herself fall onto the bags just as jun had. lets out a whistle, slides off. backs up again and turns to him:]

---you're gonna fall a lot. But you can work that in, you can [and she's going to borrow bakugou's words here] you can make falling your bitch. You can make it work for you.

[another attempt at the leap, and she "falls" but leans into it, turning that fall into a roll - right over those bags and landing on her feet.]

A fall is just a landing if you do it right.

[icanhearscreams]

Okay... so how do I do that? Or at least make that kind of a landing without breaking my legs?

[He's... aware that this course of action is likely to leave him with broken bones at some point, but better a broken bone than dying again.]

Or my back. It's a roll of some kind, right? How do I do that?

[It looks so simple, but he's aware that moving around your center of gravity isn't always the easiest of tasks.]

[faceblocks]

[ignore the dirty ground, jun. or don't - it's not that dirty compared to some places. besides, they clearly do not care about falling on garbage. vi crouches down into a squat.]

Try to land like this, with your legs bent. If you're up real high it's better to roll, yeah.

[she stands back up, and bends to place her palms on the ground.] I'm gonna tuck my chin in so I'm basically looking up my own ass. If it feels like that, you're probably doing it right. Just ...pick a spot behind you and look there. [and she rolls forward, head tucked, using her shoulders and not her back. vi makes it looks easier than it is, but it's not hard.]

Now you. Maybe straddle a bit so you don't knee yourself in the face? I've done that before too. Sucks.

cursed(?) statue shenanigans [closed to saeri: midmonth]

[faceblocks]

[vi gives little thought to the carved seahorse she retrieved from the glowing roads beneath the sea. it's been at her side and pocketed like a worry-stone, and her thumb has made good use of it, too.

it's brought her a small amount of luck, the way she sees it. every pthumerian's a practical joker, it seems - but so far none of the jokes are funny. well, the part where carver kept freezing beers made her laugh a little, because if that's the worst thing happening? come on. there had been an inexplicable incident at ursula's with half of her inks launching themselves at the wall, two instances with her sketchbook doing near the same, one with paper frogs - but there have been no further events with anything moving of its own accord, wether or not she was thinking about it.

if she's somehow more impulsive she sure doesn't know it - between silco's arrival, the mutable, chaotic state of the ocean, a fresh crop of more angry bullshit coming from the ocean besides the angry bullshit ocean itself - fuck if she can tell how much more transparent she is. how her filter's eroded little by little just like the finer details of the seahorse's face that make it seem somehow "off".

maybe it's impulsive, but hadn't saeri said she should stop by? that girl did not strike her as someone to just say things they didn't mean: not that way. besides, she'd finished the drawing, and meant to give it to her in person, not leave it in her work area with a plate of cookies as per plan a.

this ...is a different plan. vi is here, cookies are here, her sketchbook is here. where is here? she doesn't know. she had not asked saeri where exactly she lived. so she's ...outside. and fires off a message from her omni:]

hey im outside

[saeri can look if she likes, but vi will not be seen. she's only just stepped out of the rookery door.]

[inkedspell]

[Saeri lives in so many places, really. The Carriage House doesn't stay in one place anymore. It moves around the streets of Willful Machine and she doesn't care about the looks she gets from some of the locals for it. Others give a couple calls of greeting, used to her by now. Today she's found a nice, cozy little alley way between two bigger buildings, which actually was big enough to fit the whole double-decker carriage into. Nothing else is getting in along side it except maybe a person walking but hey, the streets have been flooding and she's looking for higher ground. She'd already been caught in the waters once and that was enough for her. Besides she was busy working. A lot of working. Maybe too much working, but all she wanted was to keep studying and designing and her brain couldn't seem to shut off enough for her to even sleep.

The text surprises her, but in a good way. A way that seems to pull her out of that the obsessive frenzy she's been in for a few days now. Seeing Vi's handle was enough to make her realize just how caught up in her work she'd been and for how long. At least she had remembered to shower that morning--and had to stop herself from drawing ruins all over the inside of her tiny stall--but god the upstairs was a tornado of ink and paper everywhere. Shit.

She all but jumps down the stairs, something that Vi could likely hear from outside, brushing her hair out of the way, the curls a wild cloud around her head. Her fingers twitch, a moment of hesitation, before she opens the door with awkward flourish.]

Hey.

[faceblocks]

[vi does not yet hear because her dumb ass is a district away, but she can fix that real quick, and she will, once she realizes the idiocy of her own message. which implied that she was outside at a place of significance - like, probably saeri's door. good gods, vi get your shit together - and not just drawings and cookies.]

i mean i just got out
of my place
stepped out
side
where are u
give me a landmark and i can be there in
quick


[she's already on a rooftop less than a minute after sending the message - it's not like she has to worry about breaking her omni, and her belongings are well-stowed in her backpack. so maybe she just needs to get 75% of her shit together.]

[inkedspell]

[The fact no one was outside when Saeri threw open her brings her up short. So short she maybe shut the door, opened it again, and still didn't see anyone. Then her omni reacts and she reads Vi's messages and she kind of maybe freaks out laughing in a hysterical way that makes her cover her hand over her mouth and sit on the steps of her Carriage House. When she finally gets ahold of herself she responds back.]

I can't believe you would tease me like that.
Better make it up to me.
I'm in the alley between the tailor and the clock shop.

[faceblocks]

[oh - okay, yeah, she knows that one. she knows willful machine initially because of viktor, but she trains there often - watches chaos from the rooftops - and has scoped out that tailor's shop to see how it stacks up against sansa's skillset.]

not teasing
just an idiot
i brought the goods

[several minutes later, she's spotted where she needs to be, and lands squarely in front of the door that had recently been opened twice. what. a coo. fucking. house. honestly, it reminds her of something from her homeworld - so many things in this place do.]

guess who else is in the alley between the tailor and the clock shop 😉

tattoo things: [open: all month]

[faceblocks]

[two days during the week (a perfectly respectable every other day tues & thurs situation) vi can reliably be found at ursula's ink. she's in and out at other times when the mood suits, or if she has an appointment: she always shows up early for appointments.

presently, one will find her in her corner station next to a large window, her inks and tools carefully set out, and a (growing) neatly bound portfolio on the other end of that table. it's full of nearly all blackwork, some similar to what's on her skin, as well as geometric shapes, and an assortment of creatures both of trench and not. fancy a nightmare steed? she's got several of those in various stages of completion, and a few pieces of portraiture that are not compiled in the book scattered about. you might recognize some of the portraits. (it's d. they're all d.)

vi will busy herself until she sees a face, familiar or strange. don't worry, if you're afraid of needles, she's got that covered, too: she's a vileblood, and she doesn't charge extra if you need a bit of numbing up. she's got a small sign that says as much, but it also comes with a warning. best not to lie about broken skin, etc. - because you could die. and she will not be held responsible for that. there is a form to sign. it is very professional.]

Poor Luz art nerding it out!

[imaglyphwitch]

[Luz had popped in to see Saeri, and look who it was! Luz remembered intimidating but cool Vi popping in their home to tag it, and she was really glad that Reaper wasn't there to want to kill anyone trespassing. It was one of those stupid Trench monthly things, but out of talk, Luz found that Vi was still gathering her thoughts about the kind of world she was living in.

And here she was, making tattoos like Saeri! And with Vi, you can already see that she's quite familiar with this art].

Hey Vi! So you do this too? I just thought you really liked the ink! They look good!

art nerd high fives her

[faceblocks]

[vi looks up from her sketching (not d this time, it's vines and leaves), pleased to see a friendly face.]

Hey, Luz. [nodding] Yup, I do this, too. And thanks. Did 'em all myself. Turns out I'm a lot better at this than I am with spraypaint.

[a wink, and she stretches out her arms - the right one now has a new addition - a pipe.] Saeri did this one.

[just to be sure:]

Everything going okay with your friends out on the ...farm? [she doesn't know if they're luz's friends, but she'll assume.]

Re: art nerd high fives her

[imaglyphwitch]

[Luz couldn't help but stare at the tats, of course. To her it was just another way of artistically expressing yourself, and Vi seemed to have so many stories in the ink all over her arms. She happened to see the sketchbook too and now she was absolutely aghast with wonder].

Are we allowed to look through the book? I'm really curious about what you have there! And yay, go you!

[She brightened when she heard the mention of Saeri of course: having a dear friend come back was still the highlight of the past few months of people leaving].

I love it! Is it dedicated to someone?

Oh, you mean the barn? Yeah, everything's going pretty good! Actually, I recently wound up inheriting a whole new house!

[faceblocks]

[she's never unwilling to show them off, and she's especially fond of the new one - of its meaning, the protection it gave her, and the artist who inked it.]

Oh, sure. [she reaches for her book and hands it over readily, gesturing to a chair as she does so.]

It's great, isn't it? Yeah, it's for my family back home. [complicated but short answer:] My dad used to smoke one of these. It's got stuff in the ink to help keep corruption away.

That's the one. And it's good to hear that. Those Trenchies apologize yet? [because they should.] Another house? You giving up the old one or keeping both?

[thunderingcourage]

[It had been mentioned once or twice when she'd asked about ways to honor and remember someone that still a part of you. And so the idea of a tattoo had been in Makoto head for most of the month and she found herself unable to get it it out. The idea of a tattoo wasn't something that Makoto was afraid of, and neither was the idea that it might hurt, she would have been able to handle even before. But now with her own Vileblood there were days she didn't feel anything at all.

And towards the end of the month, Thursday the 18th, with the corruption levels and the stress it was one of those days. She'd left Snow-White in charge back at Flour and Bloom and made her way over to Ursula's Ink. It wasn't until she knocked and was walking in that she actually realized she'd heard of this place before from Sarona.]

Hello? I wanted to ask about getting something done.

[She had a few different ideas, but she didn't really know how it worked either.]

[faceblocks]

[vi looks up from her break of staring out the window - really she's just enjoying the view - but she's happy to see a potential customer, especially one that she recognizes and likes. that's always a plus]

Hey, you. [casually glossing over not remembering makoto's name - possibly because she never got it at all.] Ask away. What do you have in mind?

[thunderingcourage]

A tiger, with roses. I'm just not sure where, I want to be able to see it when looking in the mirror but want it to be kind of private.

Or if you would be able to do that.

[Plus there was the matter of what she would need to give for it as well. And how long it would take.]

It's for someone that was special to me.

[faceblocks]

[to her omni:] Show me images of tigers. Close ups on the faces, and throw some some full body pictures in, too.

That sounds cool. I can do that, no problem. Do you want the tiger in color or in black and grey? Same question for the roses.

[she turns the omni over, and now it's projecting a selection of tigers onto the wallspace behind her tattoo chair.]

Do you want it snarling, or something else?

family dinner : [closed to rookery crew + falco and ?allen?: late august]

[faceblocks]

[OOC: I AM MOVING THIS TO SEPTEMBER BECAUSE AUGUST IS SURE SOMETHING.]

too many shots [closed to qrow early am 8/9]

[faceblocks]

[it's a little early for this sort of thing to be, say, expected, as the sun has barely dipped below - and only the first touch of shadows has begun to kiss the streets of cellar door. the temperature here - a fickle thing, vi finds - has chilled significantly, but just now she's not concerned in the slightest. can't feel it, even though she's jacketless.

oh, she'd been pleasantly warm for a time, when the fire in her throat had spread to her chest and unfolded in her belly - one petal of 'i don't give a fuck' at a time - before the number of shots consumed has exceeded her own age and threatened to double it.

what's definitely doubled: her vision.

it's full stumble ahead for her, hands up and a mumble of 'sorry, shit, sorry' for each of the three people she's managed to bump into in the last few minutes. the fourth had been a food cart.

one foot in front of the other is suddenly very hard. the ground she hits is also very hard, but she doesn't feel that, either - and her palms go out too late to truly catch herself. elbows scrape on stone, and she steps on the hem of her tunic as she tries to get up - to right herself.

but nothing's right at all. she cannot remember the particulars of it - she's momentarily forgotten everything other than trying to stand on two legs, bending down and stumbling again as she brushes the gravel off of the front of her leggings.]

serious talking about serious things: [closed to viktor]

[faceblocks]

[a few days pass - she's sent her own message back to silco, drank about it, regretted both things, and received another message that she's honestly not sure how she managed to reply to with any manner of civility. any wounds she might have incurred after finding silco on the beach have faded completely, but there's a wary watchfulness about her now, a recklessness she is trying very hard to keep the tightest of lids on.

so far so good?

before she even sent the message she'd made sure her room was tidy enough - bed half made, and there are still. crumbs. but not on anything important.

he will find the rookery to be perhaps at odds with what one might imagine for vi's living quarters but, that aside it's a splendid building.

she will greet him at the door with a tired smile, red-rimmed eyes and a ready hug.]

[mehanizovati]

[it's been a long first week, though it usually is, viktor's found. more so with the virus going around, the 'curse,' the hours he's putting in to trying to help but having little he can do but test the blood and offer amateur transfusions.

he's not a fool, he knows it's all an attempt at distraction as work usually is for him. from the surgery coming up maybe, more so from silco and the shockingly, annoyingly complicated feelings every damn conversation with the man bring up.

it's good to see vi though, even through the flutter of concern. the hug is good too, and it reminds him of jayce and the man's ridiculous, easy affection. he hugs back, stepping away with a quirk of the lips.] You look like hell.

[dry. he looks just as sickly as ever so he knows it's pot and kettle.]

[faceblocks]

Back at ya, Fussy.

[she might not be such an easy hugger if not for the way they'd been introduced - but it's amplified in the wake of recent knowledge of viktor's faulty lungs - there's relief and anxiety in seeing him, and she's too tired to put up a wall. not that she wants to do that, anyway.]

Shit, stairs. I wanted to give you something. Besides a hard time and a panic attack. It's upstairs.

You okay with a shit ton of stairs?

[mehanizovati]

[viktor snorts, pleased despite himself at the ribbing.] I have something for you too, and stairs are fine, as long as you don't expect a race up them.

[dry, and he pulls something out of his bag to deposit in her hands. it's food because of course it is, in this case an assortment of pyshki, aka just donuts.] There was a month where the palebloods were all obsessed with baking for whatever reason. Miss Stone- or Stark I suppose it is- could tell you of it. Very odd. I know too much about baking now and it is a curse as far as I am concerned.

[meaning he made her donuts because vi deserves donuts, enjoy. he's moving in further, expecting to be led to where they need to go.]