skaikru: (pic#11920580)
clarke "no chill" griffin ([personal profile] skaikru) wrote in [community profile] come_sailaway2022-07-03 10:52 pm

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

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 [plurk.com profile] 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. )

saltwaterlungs: (Bering Sea)

II C

[personal profile] saltwaterlungs 2022-07-06 04:14 am (UTC)(link)
"Uh."

That wasn't really the answer Darcy was expecting from checking in on Clarke after they'd run a couple of sprints. She was expecting more of a 'yeah I'm fine' or 'I could use a water break'. She doesn't really know what to... do with that? Aside from looping an arm over Clarke's shoulder to bring her in for a bro-y sort of hug.
saltwaterlungs: (Caspian Sea)

[personal profile] saltwaterlungs 2022-07-07 05:33 am (UTC)(link)
"Why are you confused about this? You literally just said 'I could use a hug'."

Darcy pulls her arm back, already a little embarrassed that she'd let her tough image waver because she... misheard?

"Okay, well, I'm definitely going to have to work harder to make you think I'm tough again," she says without noticing how much she's divulged, "so whenever you're ready we can go again?"
saltwaterlungs: (Bering Sea)

[personal profile] saltwaterlungs 2022-07-10 04:46 am (UTC)(link)
Clarke's turn to hit Darcy out of nowhere with a question that skewers her like a harpooned whale.

"Uh-" she tries to thrash against it a little, trying to respond with something like 'why would you ask that' and instead coming out with "because you're cool and tough and competent and I care what you think of me?"

Darcy briefly considers jogging away to avoid whatever conversation Clarke is trying to initiate. She'll die for Clarke, but she's absolutely not willing to open up for her.
saltwaterlungs: (Mediterranean sea)

[personal profile] saltwaterlungs 2022-07-10 05:10 am (UTC)(link)
The flush of life back into the tips of her ears is as embarrassing as it is instantaneous. Clarke saying she thinks highly of her out of nowhere is... It's a couple of things, mostly a bit gratifying, partially confusing. She'd had a messy breakdown in front of her, been stubborn enough to deny painkillers and needed to be scolded like a child being told to take cough medicine.

"No idea why, but thanks. And don't be hard on yourself, ehn? I don't think I've seen you like, not know what to do. Or- you pick a plan and stick to it, you don't hesitate. It's a good quality. You'd make a good fencer."
saltwaterlungs: (Tasman Sea)

[personal profile] saltwaterlungs 2022-07-11 06:26 am (UTC)(link)
"I nearly have enough people who want to learn sword fighting that I could probably just run a group class, ehn? Not that I would, someone would probably get stabbed and it would be terrible."

But she gives an up-nod, "I can run you through at least some of the basics, in case you get a sword. I know a thing or two about boxing, too, and some kind of basic self-defense shit that one of my Krewemates taught me. Anything to help keep you safe, ehn?"
saltwaterlungs: (Caspian Sea)

[personal profile] saltwaterlungs 2022-07-13 06:13 am (UTC)(link)
"If someone's close enough that you can't shoot them, your options are probably stabbing them, choking them, or praying, since you don't have magic. The only time I ever killed someone from that close I kind of took his head off. Usually I do it from a distance with magic."

A small shrug, thinking she's just been pragmatic about self defense and not just confessed to at least one murder.
saltwaterlungs: (Coral Sea)

[personal profile] saltwaterlungs 2022-07-14 05:06 am (UTC)(link)
"Get a better God, then."

It's sharp and pointed and the effects of the rain have not altered her answer.

"Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered: let them also that hate him flee before him. As smoke is driven away, so drive them away: as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God," she quotes, "a good God is a wrathful one. A real God wants blood."

Spoken like a good Catholic.

Darcy gives a broad shrug at Clarke's confession, answering in turn- "it's not like it helps that much. My magic couldn't hurt the Captain, but your lobster cracker thing did. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather have them than not have them, but the most I use my powers for regularly is pranking people. They're useless without knowing how they work. And you probably don't need to be able to do it to know how it works. A lot of referees don't actually play the sport they ref, ehn?"
saltwaterlungs: (Caspian Sea)

[personal profile] saltwaterlungs 2022-07-17 04:04 am (UTC)(link)
"And all I learned from that was that he's an asshole who bleeds. You cracking him open showed what's actually inside him. We can't really count our victories by how much we hurt someone who can choose not to get hurt. Yours gave us more information to work with."

It was maybe a little embarrassing to admit, but she affirmed with a nod, rubbing her arm absentmindedly.

"Not really. Not in the same way that Palamedes or something knows how his works. Literally all I know is that it's ghost shit, and how to like... do it. I don't have any like, theoretical knowledge that might be useful, and sometimes I can't even control them. So, like I said, they don't help much."
saltwaterlungs: (Coral Sea)

[personal profile] saltwaterlungs 2022-07-20 04:30 am (UTC)(link)
"Mm nm," she corrects, "wrong meaning. I can use them, and I'm pretty sure I'm doing everything I can with them, I just don't know how they work. Like- I can run, I can't list you the muscles of my legs, ehn?"

It's a good point. Hell- she could even probably ask some of her closer friends for pointers. Her Cold-Wind manifestations came about at least partially from thinking over Skulduggery's wind elemental magic, and Undine was all about water magic. She aims for something dismissive, and ends up with-

"Palamedes kind of makes me feel like an idiot. Most of the smart people here do. I'm not... good at learning anything that isn't like, practical, and I never have been. So I don't usually bother. Everyone just gets frustrated and it's not worth it."
saltwaterlungs: (Indian Ocean)

[personal profile] saltwaterlungs 2022-07-23 11:42 am (UTC)(link)
"Oh my God, I get it, you're better than me," Darcy snaps, because honestly, admitting she can't do something only to have Clarke flex by knowing it was just embarrassing.

But worse is the fact that Clarke is, as usual, right. She's been avoiding Palamedes out of stubborn belief in her own stupidity and a fear of failure, nothing to do with the actual dude himself.

"I'll text him or something. Promise. And there's different flavours of frustration. There's frustration when you can't do anything about something, and then there's worse frustration when it's something that you could do if you just didn't suck so much. Ehn? Flavours."
saltwaterlungs: (Sargasso Sea)

[personal profile] saltwaterlungs 2022-07-28 05:12 am (UTC)(link)
The immediate apology defuses Darcy. She's used to flying off the handle as a show of force more than anything back home, but repeated butting heads with Skulduggery and others has finally tempered her with some amount of caution. At some point, Clarke started being a friend, and Darcy's coming to realise this means she can't always be fighting with live weaponry. Sometimes a mistake is a mistake, and it's not worth risking the friendship over.

"It's fine. Don't worry about it."

She can't help the surly tone, however.

Clarke's assessment of her own frustration however earns her a gentle elbow at her arm.

"You don't suck at friendships. At least you had some before getting here, ehn? Like that dude you snuck off with at camp. I basically just had my team and my Krewe back home, and they like, had to put up with me."
saltwaterlungs: (Bering Sea)

[personal profile] saltwaterlungs 2022-08-02 05:05 am (UTC)(link)
At some level, Darcy was expecting Clarke to reaffirm her worth. It was one of the weird things about this place that the people here were willing to do that, and especially for her. So she had her response planned out in her head, that no- Terre Mere and Kael really did just put up with her, they weren't friends in the way that Avery and herself were, and they didn't like or respect her like he did. They were nice enough, they helped her, they weren't mean or cruel, but you can tell when someone's only around you out of obligation. That's one thing she learned from her mother.

Only Clarke instead affirms that she cares for her, and it's just a little bit off what she was expecting that it catches her off-guard.

"I care about you too. I've probably got like, a low-level crush on you that I'm never doing anything about, obviously. But thanks for saying it, anyway," she said, intending to catch herself and explain the situation with her Krewe.
saltwaterlungs: (Caspian Sea)

[personal profile] saltwaterlungs 2022-08-02 06:13 am (UTC)(link)
"Don't do what?" she asks, finding no clear connection between what she thought she said and what Clarke responded with.

"And I'm sorry too. I feel pretty bad about lying to Mizuki, but I was like, super fucking pissed that you snitched after I actually managed to do a tactic for once. I try not to be a bad loser, but I won that one."

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