citylogs | currently open prompts, might make some closed ones for people

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currently open prompts, might make some closed ones for people

WHO: Sylvain (laidtocrest) & you?
WHAT: Various and sundry TDM-adjacent prompts and/or a catch-all so everything can be caught.
WHERE: Various places. Some ice cream themed prompts so probably at least one place is the ice cream parlor? But I can come up with other things.
WHEN: August
WARNINGS: Will be updated with warnings.

A. Why should the bank vault oversharing just happen in July?

[Sylvain's steps slowed as he entered the building, as he'd gotten used to the gray of the city, and it wasn't as if he'd never seen color before, but it's still quite...well. A Thing, caps intended, to go from gray to teal and pink and over-saturated colors that shouldn't go together, but it does.

He's still trying to decide what he thinks about the situation. Food, potentially tasty. Music, strangely familiar? But, while he weighs his options (does he want the normal looking chocolate ice cream, or the weird pink ice cream that doesn't seem like it's strawberry), why not small talk?]

So...what'd you get from the bank?

B. The real reason why I'm writing this, tbh.

[Sylvain's sitting in a car. No engine. No fuel. He's got a cup of mostly eaten chocolate ice cream with him. He had taken it to go. This had been a mistake.

He's sobbing, leaned over the steering wheel, carrying on like he just received some horrible news - like someone had died (again) - just very emotional right now. Lots of feelings, so many feelings that he had to immediately hide in something (badly) and start sobbing again.

This car isn't going anywhere, much like his life.]

C. I was going to make a darker joke for this, but then decided against it.

[Regardless, in a sudden nihilistic spree Sylvain's in the process of ~~strategically looting~~ ~~pilfering~~ getting neat shit from a store, which really does bring up the question of where their waste goes, huh? He's suddenly got questions about toilets which is terrible, because he was in the middle of doing something.

Back to that something. That something is this: a shopping cart, a generic store, and going through rows of balls. He considers two basketballs, weighs one, weighs the other, considers the texture of them, puts one into his shopping cart, he reconsiders, and switches it back again as he feels like Dimitri would prefer the one that hurts more if they accidentally clock each other in the face with them. Makes it feel more...real. True to home.

Other things in his shopping cart include two lacrosse sticks, because even if Sylvain has no idea what lacrosse is, he feels like Dimitri might feel better with them for...reasons. They're shaped in the right way, in certain respects.]

Probably says something I'm getting stuff to hit each other with... [Philosophical questions, he and Dimitri can explore the world of sports together, somehow, even if they don't understand most of these things.]

D. Wildcard...?

[PM me if you want a prompt, or surprise me.

I'll also err on the side of caution and admit that I'm possibly walking into another workplace disaster on Monday, so I might be slow? Might be okay. (Much Happened last week, caps intended, I don't mind telling the shitshow story but this isn't the venue for it.) If I am slow and you want to know what's up or plot/handwave, go ahead and give me a nudge and we can work something out. It's cool.]

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See...

[In fact, Sylvain is going to lean against some shelves and try to get comfortable, because now he's got a guy who use as a soundboard as he determines the best way to get Dimitri to bludgeon him black and blue for funsies.]

I came here to find some balls for sports, and then the sticks and things made me realize that maybe I could challenge my friend to a duel this way - you made me realize I could put in some more effort. But I'm really not sure the best way of going about it? I could ask someone on the network to make me a spear, like you suggested, but I'm kinda worried people might think I'm just gonna go stab people or I might encourage another round of...well. You know.

[Murders. Does he have to say it?] But the handcrafted spear idea's a really good one. I'm torn.

Well... I think as long as you're putting in an effort for a friend, it'll show through quite well. But if the idea is that you need the validation of having done a good job, if only from yourself... Well, I suppose making one yourself is an option, but a weapon is a rather precise thing. You'd need a few shots at it for the results to be usable, unless you just happen to be a natural.

[ Midnight has every reason to believe that Sylvain's a natural at something. Keeping an open mind, here. ]

But I think you'd rather like to fulfill your promise in a way that gets to the actual fighting part of the promise, and not just the trappings.

[ And that leads into the reputation and the damage thereof that comes from asking for a weapon... Sylvain's the mindful sort, then. Huh. ]

Then you ask through a third party. Anonymously, or you tell someone else to make the request. [ ... Hm. ] I wouldn't mind, come to think of it.

[Sylvain looks at her for a moment, and then, with a shrug, goes back to the taste testing spoons and grabs a few, because if she wants to stand and watch what strange effects or possible risks the items inside post to people who are trusting enough to try them immediately, why not be the canary in the coal mine for the intimidating yet strangely hot lady?

He takes the first spoon, and heads to the other pink tub, and takes a spoonful of ice cream that he shoves into his mouth, eats, savors the flavor.]

Tastes like somebody once encountered a strawberry but kind of forgot what it's supposed to actually taste like.

[Yes, he's fully prepared to go through every last flavor and describe the flavor, what about it.]

You sure?

[And yes, Sylvain does sound surprised that someone wants to help him out of the goodness of their own heart, what of it? Not...offended, but surprised, yeah.]

I'd hate to have you go out of your way, plus, I wouldn't want people to think you're gonna go out and murder people with a spear. I'd feel bad if something happened to you because you were trying to do me a favor. But, I can't lie: it would be helpful. If nothing else, so Dimitri doesn't know I'm putting in effort until I've got something to show for it.

You wouldn't have heard of it. [Sylvain says this with (miserable) certainty, conviction, even: he wouldn't have called it a bad thing to begin with, and he still doesn't think it's a bad thing that nobody knows who he or Dimitri are, but as time passes it does get lonelier and lonelier.

Things nobody needs to know, but might slip out by accident one day...or five minutes from now depending on how things go.]

I'm from Faerghus. It's a half-frozen patch of dirt, but it's my half-frozen patch of dirt. Not much is there, the food sucks, it's impossible to find anywhere to have fun at sometimes, but we've got the clearest skies I've ever seen and our forests are never ending. So's our snow, but you get used to it.

[Sylvain leans against the car, arms crossed, staring at some patch of ground or rock or whatever else.] I miss getting woken up in the middle of the night by something like an owl or a screeching fox. Isn't that...I'm not sure what. Who misses hearing a fox screaming like a woman died in the middle of the night?

[ Wow, can't believe this redheaded kid is just throwing himself into being a guinea pig. She is starting to get vaguely concerned for the mindset of guys in this city. ]

That's kind of the taste you get with most strawberry-flavored things. Like it's a suggestion.

[Here for a good time not a long time. Anyway. More importantly.]

So it's not just me. But what's the point in calling something strawberry flavored if you can't even have it flavored like strawberry? Wouldn't it make more sense to just...make up some kind of flavor, like...uh. [Fuck if he knows.] You know. Instead of saying it's strawberry when it's just a suggestion.

[She knows. Clearly. Smart woman. Intelligent. Hot in a frightening sort of way.]

[ Midnight shrugs, sets down his throw pillows, then picks his planner out of his pocket, opens it, and begins to write himself some notes. ]

I'm not all that concerned about my image. Moreover, I love a surprise. I'll see what I can come up with. There are a few people on my radar I think would help before I'd have to ask the populace at large, but if it comes down to that, it really wouldn't put me out of my way, believe me.

[ Sylvain. Sylvain, please. Your love of ladies. ]

My district focused on flavors, you could say, and I can think of a thing or two some of the chefs might say about that. [ And not in the best of ways. ] And maybe here this was the closest taste they could get to strawberry. Though if you miss the fruit that much, you could also just go find a bunch of strawberries somewhere else.

In that case, I'm taking you up on that, I appreciate the help, and I definitely owe you one. No rush, just if you can when you can. Need to know anything else or was what I told you enough?

[Because if it's enough, great, they can next make plans to having a memorial drink to Gregor, wherever he might be.]

[It's easier to appreciate someone's charms when she gives off the impression of being completely and totally disinterested and possibly even offended if he made a pass at her? It's complicated. Feelings are complicated.]

It's not that I miss the fruit so much as...I don't know, a lot of the food here's better than back home so I guess I was expecting more of the same with something called strawberry. Like some kind of nice sherbet...though, putting it like that, if I wanted sherbet I probably shouldn't be trying ice cream.

[It's fine. Next flavor. It's a go, he takes a nice scoop from a fresh and new spoon, and-]

...

[He's double checking the label, hold on.]

Do birthday cakes taste like this? [??? not any birthday cakes he's ever had, and as a noble he's had a birthday cake in the past

He has a concern. Even if it's not a bad flavor. Just odd.]

[ Gebura watches this proceed with her arms folded over her chest. Well, it's true that sherbet and ice cream are probably different enough, but it's his newest reaction that snags her attention, her brows furrowing.

Huh.

Unlike Sylvain, she is definitely not a noble. ]

... I don't know. I've never had a birthday cake.

[ Is that supposed to taste different from a regular cake? ]

I haven't heard of many things until arriving here.

[Not just many things either. Most things here was a first for her. Ice cream, cares, air conditioning. RUNNING FREAKING WATER! This is all a far cry from most of everything she once had.]

A fox making noise is a good sign that an area is safe and plentiful. [Or, safer for human habitation.]

It's not odd at all to miss the sounds of the forest. Or it's animals. It can be comforting sometimes. [And other times foreboding. But in this case, she'd rather take the sounds of things you can't see over the silence. The staring shadows that dart around the corners from a distance. The confusing signals from the voices.]

...You miss your home then?

[ Midnight shakes his head and waves Sylvain off as he puts his planner back in his pocket, scooping up his throw pillows from where he deposited them on the floor. What a dutiful kid, honestly. ]

You owe me nothing but your friend's height so we can make a weapon suited to him. Wouldn't want to go through days of planning just to give him something too long or short.

[It takes him a moment to comprehend her question, and another to think about it, and a third to stubbornly wipe the tear-tracks from his cheeks as he stares at a bit of pavement because he's feeling stupid, so very stupid, but then Sylvain nods...more to himself than to her, the slow nod of having realized something so very obvious and knowing that he should've admitted it to himself sooner.]

Yeah. Yeah, I guess I am.

[He looks again at her.] I don't know why. I mean, we're not starving here. One of my friends is here, and he's someone I'd follow 'til the end. I'm a lot luckier than a lot of people are, and that's not even getting into what waits for me back home. The rest of our friends are back home, and, sure, I love 'em and miss them. I keep on walking around and thinking things like...

[He gestures to a store. One, over yonder. A convenience store.] That place has meat: Ingrid would love it if she was here. Stuff like that, and then I get depressed they're not here. But all my life, I wished I could...I don't know. Feelings are complicated.

[But, you know what?] Sorry. I know I already said this, but I'm not normally like... [He gestures to himself. Take it all in, Senua, this mess of a boy having a breakdown in a car because of ice cream, volunteering information instead of being the listening ear.] I didn't even tell you my name. I'm Sylvain.

[On one hand, there's an implication there, an implication that Sylvain carefully takes and sorts away to examine later, at leisure. It might be nothing; she might hate cake. She might've had birthday sherbets instead.

On the other hand, fuck if he knows, when he had a specific birthday cake (3 times in his life total: his birthday was regularly celebrated but cakes weren't usually on the menu) they were just...cakes. Normal, average cakes for a noble boy born with a silver spoon stuck up his ass and well aware of it.

So. In the service of this, he takes another spoon, spoons in a bit of birthday cake ice cream into a cup - not too much ice cream, but enough for a decent sample size - and walks on over so they both can take a look at it.]

It kinda tastes like batter, and- look, there's some weird colored flecks in it.

[Nonpareils were apparently invented in the 17th century, so it's to be decided if Sylvain's aware of what sprinkles are or not.]

Those are sprinkles.

[ She at least knows what they are, though she had no idea that birthday cake was meant to be a certain flavor and not just Cake Someone Gave You On Your Birthday If You Lived in a Nest. ]

Mostly for decoration more than taste. I guess batter makes sense, since it's the closest consistency you could have to ice cream rather than cake itself.

It's quite alright. You're correct. Feelings are complex, but I don't believe it's odd to wish for home. Or your friends and family.

[It's a feeling she knows far too well.]

When you don't have something you're used to- love, when it's gone, the feelings of longing become near unbearable.

[And when it's gone, as in truly gone, then-]

And I'm Senua, well met.

[Family evokes a weird noise from Sylvain, most likely, a sort of laugh-sob-sigh mildly choked noise, but you know what? She doesn't need to know the finer details. Senua's been kind enough. He can't even muster the energy to try to make a sleazy pass at her (for the purpose of keeping her at arm's length) she'd been kind enough as is.

What a weird thought.]

Thanks. I mean...really, feels like I've been crying for days. [Sniffle. The 'cried so hard he accidentally dehydrated himself' headache is starting to settle in.] But enough about me. I'm not that interesting. Tell me about your home? [And then, he says this like it's an incentive, trying to muster the teasing tone something like this needs.] We could be homesick together?

[Like a really stupid support group!]

[He'd be horrified if he knew how responsible Midnight thought he was. Utterly horrified. If this was a more populated jamjar with more NPCs to act as buffer he'd be debauching the shit out of everything.]

Oh...yeah. He's about... [Sylvain gestures. About thus tall. Few inches shorter than Sylvain.] Spear doesn't have to be anything fancy - in fact, the less fancy, the better. Dimitri used to break everything back home. The school we were going to had a running tab with- uh, with his family for damages.

[This will lead to a philosophical question down the road, in which Sylvain looks at something proudly labeled as flavored like ice cream, and he'll ask himself...what does something that's supposed to taste like ice cream actually taste like? It's never just ice cream, it's ice cream flavored like something else.

But that's a philosophical conversation for later. For now he just goes...]

Huh.

[And promptly starts eating the ice cream, wandering back to the ice cream case. Look, what's the use of scooping out a little bit of ice cream if you don't eat it and volunteer as a guinea pig.]

So...have you ever had ice cream? [Starting to feel like the answer is no.]

Once or twice. Maybe three times.

[ Probably one of those times was a colleague trying to get her to enjoy one whole coffee drink and having to sweeten it to dramatic proportions. ]

It wasn't really anything I felt like spending my money on. [ When she started actually having money.

But look at Sylvain, he is clearly having a good time. Good for this lad! ]

You certainly look like it.

[She quipped, taking note of his little sniffle, and tear-streaked cheeks. Poor guy must have been at it for a while now! Why he wasn't napping from exhaustion is a little dizzying for Senua herself. But it's fine, no need to worry!

My home? I don't have a home.

[Not anymore, at least! What he sees is what he gets. Which is, a woman with blue paint made from woad, an empty scabbard, and some really bitching braids.]

It's all gone by this point.

[Sylvain's eyes water with fresh tears, which he immediately hates - his headache is definitely present, he'll need to chug some water and maybe take a nap after whatever emotional thing this had been, and he stubbornly wipes his eyes with the back of his hand and wills them away as best as he can (an effort is made) because...because. Because he's got a headache. Because his eyes hurt. Because it's not like he's got a right to get upset, but-]

Sorry about that. If I-

[No, no, moving on.] Something like that happened to a friend of mine. Now I wish you could meet him. You'd probably like him? I've only known you for...however long all of this is, but I get the sense you really would.

[Dedue's nice, patient, tends to flowers, and also has an incredibly traumatized friend who hears voices, not that Sylvain knows any of this, Dedue might not know about the voices thing, but still, commonalities.]

[He can't get his slut on for safety reasons/the fact all of the women are kind of intimidating and he feels like he's in danger and not in a good and sexy way, he can't really drink unless he wants to be sad and alone or knock back some vinegar, probably, the one adult he was starting to confide in vanished mysteriously never to return, his issues don't matter here so it's starting to become hard to not gain some perspective on them and he hates it...

But ice cream. Ice cream won't betray him.]

Well...it is free, and you do have a goof like me testing it out for you, just saying.

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