ioduanlogs | Skating board is for cool kids only.

Characters: Gene Khan, Jackie Ma, Miles Upshur, Aly Haskell, and y'all
Date: throughout April
Location: Aifaran and environs
Situation: Standard mucking about. Jackie's depressed, Gene's paranoid, Aly's got half a death wish, and Miles is driving local priests away! So, a normal Tuesday for these nerds.
Warnings/Rating: Will be added as necessary

[A] | Gene | throughout Aifaran | throughout April | open
Gene's finally gotten over being shy - shy! Rare, for him - and is out and about in Aifaran. He's still worried that Nick Fury is going to pop in from nowhere and haul him off to a SHIELD cell, but it's just as likely that he'll pop back to Earth.

Earth. Not home. It'd be a disturbing distinction if he hadn't come to terms with Konryu being more of a home to him than Earth had ever been long ago.

First point of order, rank the teahouses. Things have changed in the past five hundred-some years, so of course he has to stake out the best places for ~~brooding~~ thinking. With the best tea.

Second point of order, get...eh...friendly with some of the other Dreamfolk. The locals, he's been able to connect with easily. His fellow Dreamfolk, though...not so much. It's a personal failing, and he knows that, but it's one he's working to correct. So...A for effort? He seems to look like he knows what he's doing, at least; he certainly looks at home in Aifaran, more so than one might expect.

[B] | Jackie | throughout Aifaran | throughout April | open
Despite the heartbreak of having Brigid back for such a short time and losing her again, Jackie has to keep going. He's lost her before, and this is just...it's his life now. He could wake up any day to find anyone else he knows gone, and he knows that at any moment he could 'no longer dream in Aifaran' - or, to put it more bluntly, disappear back to being a strung-up disemboweled corpse in North Point.

The Dreaming's anchored him in Konryu for a while, but he knows that may not last forever.

He takes a lot of time to speak to shopkeeps and make himself known throughout the city, because he's trying to get the Golden Koi started again. Another iteration of the bar he'd started in Keeliai, named after the restaurant that had always been a safe place to him back in North Point. A little piece of home, one that he'll hold onto as best he can.

He might be walking alone, but he's certainly not averse to company. He's friendly enough with the denizens of Aifaran, and he's stopping at many of the local cafes and teahouses throughout the month, making friends and potential future business partners.

[C] | Miles | throughout Aifaran | throughout April | open [Faith 2]
Oh, boy. Miles is getting pretty p.o.'ed about getting cornered by a Sabonile priest, but since these guys haven't tried to kill him (yet), he's not going to hit the guy. And just as the guy's really beginning to spin up, he stops and gives Miles a strange, apologetic look, declares that he can't preach what he doesn't believe in, and just. Leaves...?

Fine by Miles, but that's a new one on him. Maybe he has a new anti-religious aura. That'd be cool. "What the fuck just happened?" he mumbles to nobody in particular.

[D] | Aly | look up. no, further up. there. the rooftops. | throughout April | open
In an attempt to get her frustrated energy out, Aly has taken to the skies! Or as much as she can, anyway. She can't fly, as much as she's tried, but she's pretty agile. She's running around day and night like a little ruffian who thinks she's Batman. Watch the skies for a blur! Or watch your head, because sometimes she doesn't look too well where she's landing.

[E] | Aly | down by the piers | April 7 | closed to Devin
Aly's agile, but even the most agile runners miss a step.

And so it happens.

Unfortunately for her, she misjudges distance - again! - over a gap between buildings. And especially unfortunately for her, it's a gap over water.

Her stomach and heart seem to fall faster than the rest of her, and a choked squawk tears itself from her throat as she tumbles. Everything else she could deal with, broken bones she could take, death she could deal with again, but water? No!

There were two ways to kill a Flame: Suffocation, and drowning. And she doesn't want to drown.

This time, there's no Princeps to give her a gentle push to the other side with some mastery of air, and she hits the water like a stone.

[F] | Jackie | the Dreaming Bridge | April 6 | closed to Valdis
Jackie's been doing his best to keep it together, but after he makes the announcement over the Lae (he'd phrased it as a question, but he knew in his heart that it was really an announcement), he needs to go somewhere quiet. He finds a little-trafficked lounge in the Breakwater wing and sits down, his head in his hands. He can't go back to his room, because Chase may be there and ask what's wrong, and he doesn't want to explain.

There's pretty much one person here in Aifaran who's familiar enough to him, unless she leaves, too, and he'll be all on his own again. He'll need to go find her. He doesn't like the idea of being entirely alone again; it had been bad enough when they'd thought only a year would pass. Here, everything was so different, he feared that he'd give in to his old habits and patterns and turn back to crime, because it was easier.

I'm not that guy anymore. He hoped not.

Hit me up at

Chatvert if you want another starter!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

In the common room of the Dreaming Bridge, Tony is sitting on a couch. Well, if you want to be generous with your definition of 'sitting.' More like he's lying upside-down on it, with his back on the seat and his legs on the back, and his feet propped up on the wall.

He's looking at his yimo, swiping through online job listings. "Ugh." He drops his hands to his chest and sighs. From his upside-down perspective, he looks over at Gene and pouts. "This sucks."

Gene, who's quite used to this way Tony drapes himself over furniture, isn't even batting an eye at that.

"No kidding." Before they'd left Konryu before, they'd had jobs, and stable ones. And then they went home, and now they're back, and unemployed.

"At least now I get to be a productive member of society again," Gene says, with barely a spin of bitter irony on the words. "Find anything?"

Tony shrugs. "More odd jobs. The usual." The same kind of stuff they've been getting by on so far. But Tony isn't satisfied with 'the usual.' And, normally, he'd be champing at the bit to do something, to make a mark, to make progress.

But... He'd gone from being the heir to the biggest technology company on the planet, to being the pseudo-owner of a small technology company that was sort of named after him, to being an academic researcher slash tinkerer, to being... unemployed. Right at the beginning again, starting from scratch again.

It's not demoralizing, because nothing demoralizes Tony for long (even the apocalypse), it's just... annoying? demeaning? frustrating? Yes and yes and yes, but that's not really it.

What it really is, is that he's bored.

He's bored of running around in the same circles, of starting over again, of building a decent hydraulic press for the third fucking time instead of doing anything actually interesting.

Going home for a few weeks had only made it worse, because he'd been reminded of how good he has it back home, and how many exciting projects he has waiting for him.

Truth be told, he's in a bit of a funk. And certainly none of the job postings on his yimo are inspiring enough to pull him out of it.

"Look, there's bibiru-sitting," Gene says, and snickers. "That's right out for you. Nobody in their right mind would let any creature depend on you for long. You can barely even depend upon yourself. Lucky you have me around."

If left to his own devices, Tony would eat dry cereal for a week straight...if he remembered to eat.

This sucks. Still, he's trying to be a little positive about it? Which is weird, for him. He doesn't particularly like that the dynamic's reversed.

"Maybe you can find something at the Opara Core."

Tony's upside-down pout turns into an upside-down glower. Don't be rude, Gene.

"Yeah, once they get over me hacking the Xa Xa servers," he mutters.

You'd think they wouldn't hold such a grudge, given that it was done for the greater good and in the spirit of public service or whatever.

"Go and tell them you're sorry." Gene pauses. "You don't have to mean it."

It's fruitless, because Tony won't apologize, even insincerely. Probably.

"I have no idea what I can do," he says. "I don't have a particularly useful skillset."

"I don't think saying 'sorry' is going to put be back at the top of their application pile," Tony says, and not without some justification. Sorry or not, his little stunt hadn't left a great first impression.

"Why don't you get a job at Klaus' cafe? That looks like a nice gig. Or restart the Dojo. I mean, we've still got the whole crew here."

"I guess I could restart the Dojo," Gene says. "I was pretty good at teaching, right?" His students hadn't had any complaints. "I'd have to see how the competition is in the city."

Then he smiles. "You could get a job at Klaus' cafe, too. You could make them a very nice espresso machine." Just...put that breakfast machine away.

Tony relents on his grumpiness, a little, and smiles. "Actually, you are. Way better than me. There's a reason the College didn't make me teach regular classes." It's because he rambles like a lunatic about things that only he could possibly understand, and doesn't realize till forty minutes in that he lost everyone two minutes in.

"But I'm not working as a barista." Aw... so much for that coffee shop AU. "I look stupid in an apron."

"I think you look cute in an apron." Gene pauses. "And maybe you'd be good at making coffee. Just. Stay away from the food. Please."

He gets up and sits next to Tony, then nudges him with his shoulder. "How about you go into business for yourself? Make little things and sell them? Just little useful things at first, to get some start-up capital. Little robots?"

Don't let him make AI! DO NOT!!!

Edited 2018-05-05 20:07 (UTC)

That makes Tony grin. "I think the Egg-o-Matic 9000 would look cute in an apron." TONY NO.

"I've been thinking about it. A repair shop would be the easiest way to start. I'd have to get space for a workshop, though. I'd need a loan to cover the deposit and first month's rent."

It's so weird how hard it is to make money when you don't have any money to start with. Is this what it's always like for normal, not-rich people? Man, that must suck.

"I'm pretty sure Klaus would reject that on principle." Your breakfast machine is efficient but terrifying.

"Okay...I mean, it should be easy enough to get that kind of loan. I'm sure Dreamfolk start businesses all the time." But due to their ephemeral nature, the loan might have some hazard interest attached to it or something. Hmm. Gene doesn't really know how finances work.

"I'd have to do the same, unless there's already some sort of dojo that I can teach at in the meantime."

"I think he'd be okay with it. He seems like an open-minded, equal-opportunity kind of guy." Why can't a robot get a job, huh? What are you, Gene, some kind of robot racist?

Fortunately, Tony does know how finances work, and can probably secure them very favorable loans once he gets over being low-key resentful of the fact that he has to apply for a loan in the first place.

"You know what? Screw this. I'm tired of working for other people. I ran Stark Solutions on my own at home, I can do it here, too. And if it flops, what are they going to do about it? Send debt collectors after my assets in another universe?" Tony snorts. He picks up his phone again, and changes his search from 'job opportunities' to 'business loans.'

Skating board is for cool kids only.

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