i'm running low on serotonin ( july catchall, ota )

[skaikru]

Who: clarke griffin + you
When: all of july
Where: throughout the ship
Summary: fitness, reading trashy fiction, unfortunate lies & even less fortunate truths, murderboarding, angst, sigil shenanigans, and more!
Warnings: blood probably. perpetual cw: the 100. will update as necessary



i. early to mid-month out and abouts ( all over )

( this is to be the month of self growth. sure, clarke still inevitably hunches her shoulders to brace against whatever new curve ball may be thrown their way. she half expects the rain to turn from water to acid at a moments notice, or this to be the lead up to another monstrous storm sent their way from a god less reasonable than pirate jenny. she is constantly, perpetually waiting for all the food onboard the ship to disappear, or else the faucets to stop working. if the air circulating throughout the ship suddenly turned noxious and they all fell to their knees choking on their own blood, she wouldn't really be surprised. and if someone snapped and went on a killing rampage, well. that'd actually make the most sense, being most in line with the captain's insistence he needn't do much to worsen their circumstances — they'd inevitably do it for him.

but she can't just sit still in the bowels of her cabin, occasionally chat with ruby, and just wait. so, begrudgingly — because this feels a lot like accepting that this is her life now — she sets about a routine. all for the benefit of the fight, but still seemingly banal. from july 1st - 14th, you can find clarke a number of places.

up on the sports deck, running laps to the point of exhaustion in the pouring rain. also in any given stairwell, bolting between levels of the ship (and potentially eating shit on a descent, gravity and momentum don't mix well). otherwise, in the gym absolutely failing at pull-ups, but stubbornly reaching up to grasp the bar again and again and again until her hands blister. likewise, if you're anywhere around publicly practicing martial arts, hand to hand, or close quarter weapon combat, congrats, you've got an audience now. clarke will stop virtually whatever she's doing to very obviously stare for a few moments — curiosity mixing with some sort of envy, but then folding back in on itself to become dread. that was a skill she'd never learned, always relying on environmental factors to get a leg up, or guns. and the more time they spend on this ship, the more people who show up, the more trials they're put through, the more it feels like at some point she will have to learn.

at the same time but on the opposite end of fitness, catch her reading a bunch. self prescribed homework after they've caught on to the captain's unoriginality and reliance on old world books and movies. she'll be spending a lot of time in the library, tucked away at a table with a whole stack of random fiction genres in front of her, one book splayed open with her right hand in the crease, and a stack of paper and pens at her left hand to take notes on. most notably she's probably reading some science fiction, high fantasy, or a classic like an off-brand version of the box car children.

the library surroundings get a bit suffocating after a while, so she may curl up on a couch in the lobby to read the rough equivalent of flowers for algernon, or else laying on her belly across the stage of bellona theatre to deadeye at the disjointedly written, all too real apocalyptic horror of the road. and of course, no meal is complete without a cup of orange juice and flowers in the attic.

there really aren't words to describe how much she hates this portion of the research.

more towards the middle of the month, there may be an occasional sketch break — phone open to sneakily taken pictures, and painfully recreating the sigils she'd broken into ebalon's room to rifle through. this is more a secretive indulgence, clarke most likely posts up in tauva or else some back corner of playback thinking no one she knows incredibly well will come looking for her there. if stumbled upon, she's quick to slip the notebook closed. no poker for her, she's underaged, but this poker face though... at least n=in this venture she's probably so invested she's forgotten to eat or drink for two or more hours, and can lie of her own accord. )

ii. early to mid-month curse shenanigans ( wherever you want )

( there's a distinct lack of bloodshed and no sign up sheet for another expedition, but it's still apparent from pretty early on that something's wrong. it literally took one conversation where she'd let wanheda slip through her teeth to someone she'd really rather not have mentioned it to yet for clarke to try to guard her tongue. not that it does any good, she's not figured out the connection to water and, yanno, humans sorta need water to survive. sometimes in the depths of study, she might have forgotten to eat or drink for a while and thus speaks unimpeded, but working out in the rain is still a daily occurrence. freely accessible clean ("clean") drinking water along with the varieties of tea, soda, and juice the ship has to offer has been one of the few things clarke's enjoyed taking advantage of after coming from a resource bleak world. and showers — oh god, she's come to love showers — are novel and thoroughly enjoyed. so let's open up the lines to chaos and some unwilling truths or ridiculous lies falling from her lips before she ever realizes.

some ice breaker truth options:

a. you may ask "hey clarke, how you doing?" and be answered in turn with blunt honesty —) Awfully, actually.

( b. or cheerily greet her with "what's new?" ) I really miss my mom.

( or c. "hey, you doing okay?" ) No, I could really use a hug.

( and for d., lies — specify and hit up this prompt to get a specifically tailored fabrication. )

iii. mid- to late month ( mostly cabin 108, maybe skulking about )

( and as brute honesty usually does, it gets to be too much. overwhelming, leaving her feeling too vulnerable in the face of too many unknowns. going into each new conversation feels like rolling the dice as to if she's going to ruin a relationship without a filter to gentle her thoughts, or else a game of poker where each hand lost could lead to someone she'd really rather not knowing her weaknesses.

...the lies don't bother her nearly as much. they're just inconvenient, and occasionally embarrassing.

so for a few days between july 15th and 19th, she sequesters herself in her own room. maybe occasionally harassed by someone who cares to come check on her, usually trying to communicate in person with hand gestures and silent shakes of the head, but that tactic is eventually ruined with word vomit no matter how hard she tries. so there's a lot of social hedging here, a little clarke griffin leave of absence except for when she emerges to gather food, or occasionally run the circumference of the sports deck around four am.

but solitude isn't necessarily a bad thing. it's here that she makes the connection between water exposure and the curse enacting. can parse out that it's a coin flip if one was forced to give whole truths or compelled to lie regardless of how small the lie would be. and it's here that she wonders if it could be... weaponized. )

iv. late to end of month ( all over again )

( and thus the game becomes to avoid water while also confirming her hypothesis and testing the boundaries of this curse.

so, end of the month you'll find a rather rumpled, un-showered clarke griffin prowling around the ship again, spray bottle in hand and ready to piss a few people off in the name of answers. she had just been saying how convenient it would be to know everything about a person, the same way friday gets snippets and the captain seemingly knows all when he cares to remember. and, well. here's the chance, right? people are about to get misted in the face with tap water for the greater good.

it's a simple set up. anyone, regardless of if she knows them already or not, will get approached and asked — ) Hey, what's your name?

( and after receiving an answer, surprise squirt squirt to the face. congradulations, you're wet now and again being asked — ) What's your name? ( — so she can gauge if you're telling the truth or a lie. (this isn't an infallible plan; someone could lie the first time, get hit with the truth portion and give a completely different answer the second time, and she'd probably write them off as being cursed to lie. but the kinks can't be worked out in one day. it's still at least a start.)

liars are dismissed, usually without apology.

but those detected to be truthers... again, there's choose your own adventure style options.

a. ) What are you?

( b. ) What have you lived through?

( c. ) How many people have you killed?

( d. ) If you were told to kill people here, would you do it?

( near the end of the month, and i mean like the VERY end of the month, july 29th and onward, she'll figure out showering is still an option provided you wait an hour after. usually does it right before going to sleep so like, if you throw pudding at her, she's rocking that shit in her hair until the next day but is at least mostly clean.

but it's just more of the above, only this time she looks a little less a mess. she has new questions, though. )

( e. ) What's more important to you, immortality or morality?

( f. ) Have you ever been to war?

( g. ) What's the worst thing you've ever done?

v. i wildcard

( y'all know me, easy peasy lemon squeezy. hit me with something not listed here, tweak my starters a bit to suit your needs, or hit me up at inb4circlejerk to plot or ask questions. combine i & ii prompts at will. this post will also be used throughout the month to start closed threads, but all these prompts above are ota. )

Comments

i. theatre

[opheliac]

(while clarke is down below on her tummy on the stage doing what she does, up above in the rafters there's a self-made deck she may or may not noticed. and up there, lies jinx who surprisingly hasn't said a word and kept quiet this entire time while clarke's been in this area.

well, except for the occasion of loud sniffing noises from her. almost similar to one would have if they have a cold of some kind. there's not a lot of sound of movement up there, either. which anyone that knows jinx is... rather strange. sure, she gets quiet moments but a lot of times, she is hyperactive and ready to just do or say something. but today, she's just quiet.)

[skaikru]

( as involved in the book as clarke's gotten — it's real, all too real, there's too many times that the man chews over his circumstances that strike the chords of her heartstrings — the theatre is ultimately a pretty silent room. she can hear her own breathing, nearly her own heartbeat. every rustling turn of the page is cacophonous. so of course sickly sniffles ring out like the gong of a bell. there's that eerie prickle of knowing you're not alone in a seemingly empty room, but devoid of any immediate threat to her life, it's more like two ships passing idly in the night; two passengers passing time between tragedies and hardship.

she'll leave whoever else is here unbothered for a time. eventually glance around and try to pinpoint where they are, arch her neck to scan the ceiling and spot the obviously manmade deck, admire the ingenuity and commit it's presence to memory just in case that ever becomes something important to know.

but she's engrossed in the story. returns her eyes to the page and, for some unbidden reason, starts to read aloud. )

He woke before dawn and watched the gray day break. Slow and half opaque. He rose while the boy slept and pulled on his shoes and wrapped in his blanket he walked out through the trees. He descended into a gryke in the stone and there he crouched coughing and he coughed for a long time. Then he just knelt in the ashes. He raised his face to the paling day. Are you there? he whispered. Will I see you at the last? Have you a neck by which to throttle you? Have you a heart? Damn you eternally have you a soul? Oh God, he whispered. Oh God.


They passed through the city at noon of the day following. He kept the pistol to hand on the folded tarp on top of the cart. He kept the boy close to his side. The city was mostly burned. No sign of life. Cars in the street caked with ash, everything covered with ash and dust. Fossil tracks in the dried sludge. A corpse in a doorway dried to leather. Grimacing at the day. He pulled the boy closer. Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever, he said. You might want to think about that.

You forget some things, don't you?

Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.

[opheliac]

(as clarke reads, jinx listens and tries to keep all of her sniffling and clear throating to a minimum but she can't help it every so often. she shifts around finally but nothing too loud and if clarke decides to look up, she will spot a leg dangling off the edge and one single long blue braid too.

she is lying somewhat on the edge of the deck; hands resting on her stomach while looking up at the ceiling.)

[skaikru]

( she doesn't look up again just yet, but the rustle of movement above her head that isn't summarily followed by something being thrown at her, or a shout to shut up, is all the permission she needs to keep going.

a few passages she scans in silence, but at the next hook that catches her attention clarke pipes up again — )

They bore on south in the days and weeks to follow. Solitary and dogged. A raw hill country. Aluminum houses. At times they could see stretches of the interstate highway below them through the bare stands of secondgrowth timber. Cold and growing colder. Just beyond the high gap in the mountains they stood and looked out over the great gulf to the south where the country as far as they could see was burned away, the blackened shapes of rock standing out of the shoals of ash and billows of ash rising up and blowing downcountry through the waste. The track of the dull sun moving unseen beyond the murk.

They were days fording that cauterized terrain. The boy had found some crayons and painted his facemask with fangs and he trudged on uncomplaining. One of the front wheels of the cart had gone wonky. What to do about it? Nothing. Where all was burnt to ash before them no fires were to be had and the nights were long and dark and cold beyond anything they'd yet encountered. Cold to crack the stones. To take your life. He held the boy shivering against him and counted each frail breath in the blackness.


He woke to the sound of distant thunder and sat up. The faint light all about, quivering and sourceless, refracted in the rain of drifting soot. He pulled the tarp about them and he lay awake a long time listening. If they got wet there'd be no fires to dry by. If they got wet they would probably die.

( and... huh. a break in reading, pondering to the room at large, but also her silent companion. )

Think that's what this could be about? With all the rain this last weekend. It didn't seem deadly but, who's to say...

[opheliac]

I mean, the weather's gotta change sometime, right? If it was just sunny forever, wouldn't it mess up the whole balance of things?

(or perhaps the ocean and the sky aren't truly real. it was something she thought over when they were at camp with literally no sign of wildlife. it could be quite possible here as well.)

[skaikru]

( oh, so it's jinx? that tracks along just fine with their last tree-top meeting, and quietly clarke's — surprised — appreciative of the lack of acorn flicking this time. she does shift ever so slightly here now, rolls onto her back so as to better look at the loft and dangling feet over the side of it. not a face to face, but still a proper conversation. )

I'm pretty sure the only thing capable of tipping the scales here is the Captain. It's been sunny and mild this entire time, there has to be a reason for the sudden change, right?

[opheliac]

Exactly. Liiiike I said, everything will be crazy unbalance if you don't make it rain sometimes.

(is she even listening to her? she is literally giving her the reason to why and still asking. silly blonde. one of the many things she learned about the captain from a few conversations is that sometimes, things just happen. and that sometimes, there is no hidden meaning or some deep discovery that needs to be figured out. things happen because it just does.)

[skaikru]

( listening and believing are two very different things, and the latter falls by the wayside in the face of the perpetual unknown. she'd talked to the captain several times too, and while clarke had walked away from those interactions with the impression he was a lazy, unoriginal, careless sort of not-man(?), she also fully believes him to be a full blown narcissist.

i can literally manipulate the cosmos. i have complete power over matter to a subatomic level. the reorganization of reality is like breathing to me. of course i want a cool knife.

quiet, mumbled; ) Hm... No, there's got to be a reason.

( and then more directly towards jinx as she picks the road up off her chest to parse through pages again; ) Want me to keep going?

[opheliac]

Sure! I dunno what the story's about but I don't mind 'em. 'Sides, Shredder and Fishbones love a good book. But I never read to 'em 'cuz too busy.

(Shredder and Fishbones are the two shark-like things she has with her up on the deck. clarke isn't able to see them her being so down below but they're there.)

[skaikru]

( clarke's almost set to dive back into the road, maybe give a brief the other girl the brief summary from the back of the dust jacket, but — jinx, ya can't just go tossing about names like shredder and something-bones and not expect a paranoid apocalypse youth to ask questions.

clarke blinks up at the rafters again, pretty sure she'd only clocked the presence of a single person up there, and suddenly doubting her situational awareness skills. and mildly concerned. )

Who?

[opheliac]

Oh! — Let me introduce ya to 'em!!

(she rolls off to the other side and temporarily disappears from clarke's sight. what returns is her rocket launcher -- peering down at her.)

Meet Fishbones!

(jinx grabs the handle to make his mouth moves. when he speaks, she gives him a dopey voice:)

❝Hello, it's nice to meet you!❞

(she props him a little awkwardly as she poofs off again up there to grab the next friend. looking down is a plushie shark and she makes it wave down with its flipper.)

Aaaaand THIS is Shredder. He doesn't talk much, though. He's the silent type.

[skaikru]

( hey jinx. real quick. what in the absolute fuck —

off the back of a rather banal question, clarke suddenly finds herself staring up at a rocket launcher — terrifying, with no forewarning, and she's sitting bolt upright with a blanket of alarm shrouding her features until — and a...stuffed...animal.

both of whom apparently have names, and both of whom apparently enjoy a good book.

why is this her life on board this boat, why can't she just go back to where things made a shred of sense and the imminent threat of death was at least one she understood. eventually when the adrenaline spike of being faced down with a rocket launcher starts to settle: )

You know — ( this is ridiculous, right? but — ugh, her shoulders drop a bit. )

...alright. Well, the book's about a father and son in the middle of desolate ashy apocalyptic wasteland, trying to walk to the sea.

[opheliac]

Huh. Are they gonna get eaten by sharks?

(because why would anyone just walk to the sea without a boat or proper gear? surely, they will get eaten by sharks most definitely. jinx sets the plushie down and then props fishbones back up -- she appears to make him look as if he's super interested about the "eating" part.)

cw: gross cannibalism, infanticide & torture basement all mentioned

[skaikru]

( she seriously doubts that's where the book is heading but. )

I don't know yet. Anything could happen, we'll just have to see how the story goes.

( and with that, right back into reading aloud specific provocative passages that speak to clarke as a person. this one in particular, reminds her of chocolate cake and unopened boxes of crayons in her own apocalypse. )

On the outskirts of the city they came to a supermarket. A few old cars in the trashstrewn parking lot. They left the cart in the lot and walked the littered aisles. In the produce section in the bottom of the bins they found a few ancient runner beans and what looked to have once been apricots, long dried to wrinkled effigies of themselves. The boy followed behind. They pushed out through the rear door. In the alleyway behind the store a few shopping carts, all badly rusted. They went back through the store again looking for another cart but there were none. By the door were two softdrink machines that had been tilted over into the floor and opened with a prybar. Coins everywhere in the ash. He sat and ran his hand around in the works of the gutted machines and in the second one it closed over a cold metal cylinder. He withdrew his hand slowly and sat looking at a Coca Cola.

What is it, Papa?

It's a treat. For you.

What is it?

Here. Sit down.

He slipped the boy's knapsack straps loose and set the pack on the floor behind him and he put his thumbnail under the aluminum clip on the top of the can and opened it. He leaned his nose to the slight fizz coming from the can and then handed it to the boy. Go ahead, he said.

The boy took the can. It's bubbly, he said.

Go ahead.

He looked at his father and then tilted the can and drank. He sat there thinking about it. It's really good, he said.

Yes. It is.

You have some, Papa.

I want you to drink it.

You have some.

He took the can and sipped it and handed it back. You drink it, he said. Let's just sit here.

It's because I wont ever get to drink another one, isnt it?

Ever's a long time.

( and in that same measure clarke will keep going. in the end, if jinx is willing to just sit and sniffle for an hour or two, no there's no sharks eating anyone. the father coughs up blood. people appeal to them for help, and they almost never do. it's too dangerous. they pry open a locked door hoping to find food, but just find gaunt human beings who'd been corralled for slaughter. the father has a pistol but no bullets; it's amazing how often that vestige of old world power manages to get them out of deadly situations. the beach is ultimately grey and the child is disappointed. they see other people, including a pregnant woman; then the next morning a camp cook fire surrounded by blood, and the woman is no longer pregnant but also not carrying a baby. the dad gets shot. the dad dies. the boy mourns his father, is taken in by another family and they have a dog.

and then the story abruptly ends.

clarke slowly closes the pages of the book, uncomfortable enough for a cold sweat to have gathered along her spine where her back is pressed against the stage floor. )

...sorry, Jinx. ( she'll eventually mutter into the rafters above. ) The sharks must have all died too.

[opheliac]

(while clarke is down below feeling uncomfortable and such, jinx is the polar opposite. the story didn't phase her at the slightest nor any tear had shed. in fact, she is smiling with some sniffles.)

That's alright! Y'know, normally I wouldn't be into anything that's soooooo long. But this story had a lotta stuff I like in it. And hey, maybe the next one will have some sharks rippin' people apart like paper.

[skaikru]

( alright, this time she can't contain the shock and awe-fulness. )

They ate a baby, Jinx. What the fuck is wrong with you?

[opheliac]

Uhm, helloo? It's a story, lighten up. Sheesh! — All the books in the library are fiction. So they ate a kid, how's THAT any different than someone on board that's a cannibal, hmm? We have someone whose into that and we're all livin' normally like it's no big deal.

(because really. it's almost like the fact everyone is okay with a skeleton made walking around and treating like THAT is normal. and here she thought she was coco crazy.)

[skaikru]

Things in stories are rarely ever just fiction. Authors write what they know or what they learn about, there's almost always a basis to be found in real life.

( it's not like discount cormac mccarthy invented cannibalism or infanticide! he just made it... extra... sad. that's the real clashing point here, clarke is saddened by words on a page that evoke a visceral picture of humanity at it's lowest and can very clearly track what must have happened in the world for people to end up that desperate. and meanwhile jinx is all but laughing. )

— and if you're talking about Mizuki, he'd never eat a baby. That's ridiculous.

[opheliac]

Or they just have a wild imagination. Probably somethin' you're lacking on. (because so far, clarke is always miss serious big pants and she has YET to see the woman have any fun? in fact, does the woman even smile? laugh? she hasn't seen it.) — And as for Inky, I mean... DO we know that? What do we reeeeaaallly know about him?

(of course, jinx knows almost little to nothing about mizuki and she... isn't interested in learning about the guy. she doesn't have hatred towards him or anything like that. no, no. she's just a sourpuss when it comes to him.)

[skaikru]

( yeah well, it's not as if you've said or done anything funny around her to earn a laugh, jinx. don't worry about clarke's capacity for imagination, it's constantly up and whirring, spinning up new horrifying visuals about what they could possibly be forced to do in the future.

meanwhile, with the utmost confidence and conviction: )

Yes. I do, at least.

( absolutely, 10005%, completely sure mizuki would not eat a baby. please don't let her down on this jelly, her heart can't take it. )

He's an open book, Jinx. ( friendship bias, but whatever. ) If there's answers you feel you're missing, I'd wager you just haven't asked the right question.

[opheliac]

Aaaaaaaand you're boring me.

(so she flips back up in the deck where clarke can no longer see her while tugging along fishbones. a small cough and a sniffle is heard but nothing much else after that.)

[skaikru]

Yeah, it's mutual.

( except not, clarke's going to be walking away from this interaction a great deal more perturbed than bored. maybe flat out fucking confused at the lack of emotional empathy before she inevitably swirls around the term psychopath and finds it fitting.

but for now — she's finished the book. jinx and fishbones and whatever the stuffed shark's name was all got a storytime, and her back hurts from being pressed against the hard surface of the stage for the past hour. she's moving to sit up, shoving the road underneath an arm and collecting whatever else she'd brought along (three other books, a notebook and a pen, a pack of gum) and eventually slide off the raised platform into an aisle of theatre seats.

this conversation is finished, this reading session is finished. but that had been a chest-thick cough, and a wet sniffle so — clarke pauses to cast her gaze upwards at the rafters one last time. )

Feel better, Jinx.

( then, towards the exit doors and out of the suffocating relative-silence of the bellona. )