stresstokens (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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etrayalogs2024-11-02 05:18 pm
stresstokens) wrote in etrayalogs2024-11-02 05:18 pm
[ OPEN ] recuperation & reconciliation
WHO: riz gukgak & YOU!!
WHEN: post-fear event onwards!
WHERE: throughout etraya (shops & diners, hospital, training grounds)
WHAT: in the wake of the fear event, riz gets to work on getting stronger, smarter, and trying to be a better friend (outcome: undecided). I'm down for anything! if you'd like something different, feel free to take up the wildcard or ping me on discord/plurk!
NOTES\WARNINGS: discussions of violence & paranoia
a. around town.
[ Riz is not doing well.
Riz is, it must be said, rarely doing well. He's the sort of kid who never learned to relax; no matter what, he always seems to be worried about something, the indefatigable machine that simply sprints from place to place, problem to problem, existing on a diet of convenience foods and coffee when left to his own devices, rarely sleeping. To some, he seems no worse than normal; the deep purple shadows underneath his eyes and the propensity to get startled easily and the tell-tale tremble of his hands from too much caffeine just being a part of what makes Riz, Riz. The only other oddity is the fact that he seems to shy away from his own reflection; whether it's a mirror, a pane of glass, or even a metal napkin receptacle, it gets covered up, avoided, or otherwise pushed out of sight.
But he's doing what he does best, which is pretending none of it exists in the first place. Perhaps you catch him late at night at the coffee shop, whiling away the wee hours of the morning with a cup of coffee approximately as large as his head, scribbling wildly in a thick notebook, his square spectacles sliding steadily down his nose. He startles when someone else comes in, jolting in his seat and knocking his cup askew -- possibly spilling it all over your shoes. ] Shit -- sorry, sorry! I wasn't expecting anyone here!
[ Or maybe you run into him during the daytime, at the grocery store shoving an absolutely obscene amount of beef into a shopping cart far bigger than he is, at the clothing store hunting down clothes for himself in the petit section (or childrens section but, well, beggars can't be choosers), or scarfing down food at an alarming rate in the diner. He's a man about town -- and a man who doesn't particularly want to be home too much right now.
Or perhaps you run into him somewhere else entirely, wandering around Bangsan Market, fingers drumming on his elaborately tattooed forearms. ] Okay. Let's say, hypothetically speaking, you just had the worst month ever. What kinda gift would cheer you up...?
[ Or are all gifts meaningless when you don't have to spend any money on them? Hm. Troubling. Very troubling. ]
b. first-aid refreshers.
[ In the wake of everything that's happened and with no handy Cleric nearby, Riz has made the decision to freshen up on his first-aid skills. You can spot him at the hospital loading an obscene amount of materials into his briefcase, which appears to be able to hold endless amounts of supplies; gauze, bandages, needles and thread, antiseptic and antibiotics, and ice packs and heat packs all make their way in.
Otherwise? He's in a public place like the diner, with an enormous tome on first-aid in front of him that he's frowning at in-between applying his expertise to a suturing practice kit he has laid in front of him, his nimble fingers hooking the needle steadfastly through silicone skin. If he notices he has an audience, he might glance up with a sheepish sort of smile, the knitting of his brows off-setting the row of razor-sharp teeth. ] I figure I should get some practice in while I still can. [ He glances down at the wound kits in front of him with a frown. ] I still haven't got the wound packing quite right, I don't think.
c. training.
[ First-aid training is one thing. Riz is dexterous and nimble and has a great attention to detail, all things that have led to him being a dab hand at figuring out how to deal with battlefield injuries. The physical part of the equation is something else, and something he's decided to dedicate himself to, his own exhaustion be damned.
His gunwork is fine. Great, even. He hits his marks with the consistency and precision they require. It's everything else that he's lacking in. Which is how you might spot him doing laps around a field, in a rare showing of having changed out of his usual stuffy suit-and-tie number, and... honestly, not doing that great. When he finally stops, hands braced on his knees and taking a swig out of a bottle of water, he looks like he might keel over.
Otherwise, you might find him on the training grounds, staring dubiously at the weights (he picks one up with both hands, slams it back down again, dubiously walking down the rack as the weights get smaller, and smaller, and smaller...) and looking over at the rest of the gym as though it contains any answers for him. Strength isn't his strong suit, he knows, but maybe he could be stronger? Or, perhaps, you see him with his rapier out, doing the same drills he'd been taught all those months ago at Aguefort Academy. If you pop in and look interested, he may well flag you down and ask, ] Hey, you here to train too?
d. friendship tour.
[ The last task on his to-do list is the hardest one of them all: trying to get better at being a friend, and not just some mechanism made for solving mysteries. It's clear that his brain has been failing him these days, which leaves one more option: trying to become a better friend.
If you're one of Riz's friends or acquaintances, whether he runs into you by chance or he texts you directly, Riz is going to be approaching you to check up on you. It's time to talk. About feelings. Not his own, obviously, but he's checking in on you -- with maybe some food to help ease the blow, or an offer to just get wonderfully, fabulously drunk. They deserve it. ]
e. wildcard!
[ hit me up for anything! you can find me on the discord or on plurk @ wisdombitch xoxoxo ]
WHEN: post-fear event onwards!
WHERE: throughout etraya (shops & diners, hospital, training grounds)
WHAT: in the wake of the fear event, riz gets to work on getting stronger, smarter, and trying to be a better friend (outcome: undecided). I'm down for anything! if you'd like something different, feel free to take up the wildcard or ping me on discord/plurk!
NOTES\WARNINGS: discussions of violence & paranoia
a. around town.
[ Riz is not doing well.
Riz is, it must be said, rarely doing well. He's the sort of kid who never learned to relax; no matter what, he always seems to be worried about something, the indefatigable machine that simply sprints from place to place, problem to problem, existing on a diet of convenience foods and coffee when left to his own devices, rarely sleeping. To some, he seems no worse than normal; the deep purple shadows underneath his eyes and the propensity to get startled easily and the tell-tale tremble of his hands from too much caffeine just being a part of what makes Riz, Riz. The only other oddity is the fact that he seems to shy away from his own reflection; whether it's a mirror, a pane of glass, or even a metal napkin receptacle, it gets covered up, avoided, or otherwise pushed out of sight.
But he's doing what he does best, which is pretending none of it exists in the first place. Perhaps you catch him late at night at the coffee shop, whiling away the wee hours of the morning with a cup of coffee approximately as large as his head, scribbling wildly in a thick notebook, his square spectacles sliding steadily down his nose. He startles when someone else comes in, jolting in his seat and knocking his cup askew -- possibly spilling it all over your shoes. ] Shit -- sorry, sorry! I wasn't expecting anyone here!
[ Or maybe you run into him during the daytime, at the grocery store shoving an absolutely obscene amount of beef into a shopping cart far bigger than he is, at the clothing store hunting down clothes for himself in the petit section (or childrens section but, well, beggars can't be choosers), or scarfing down food at an alarming rate in the diner. He's a man about town -- and a man who doesn't particularly want to be home too much right now.
Or perhaps you run into him somewhere else entirely, wandering around Bangsan Market, fingers drumming on his elaborately tattooed forearms. ] Okay. Let's say, hypothetically speaking, you just had the worst month ever. What kinda gift would cheer you up...?
[ Or are all gifts meaningless when you don't have to spend any money on them? Hm. Troubling. Very troubling. ]
b. first-aid refreshers.
[ In the wake of everything that's happened and with no handy Cleric nearby, Riz has made the decision to freshen up on his first-aid skills. You can spot him at the hospital loading an obscene amount of materials into his briefcase, which appears to be able to hold endless amounts of supplies; gauze, bandages, needles and thread, antiseptic and antibiotics, and ice packs and heat packs all make their way in.
Otherwise? He's in a public place like the diner, with an enormous tome on first-aid in front of him that he's frowning at in-between applying his expertise to a suturing practice kit he has laid in front of him, his nimble fingers hooking the needle steadfastly through silicone skin. If he notices he has an audience, he might glance up with a sheepish sort of smile, the knitting of his brows off-setting the row of razor-sharp teeth. ] I figure I should get some practice in while I still can. [ He glances down at the wound kits in front of him with a frown. ] I still haven't got the wound packing quite right, I don't think.
c. training.
[ First-aid training is one thing. Riz is dexterous and nimble and has a great attention to detail, all things that have led to him being a dab hand at figuring out how to deal with battlefield injuries. The physical part of the equation is something else, and something he's decided to dedicate himself to, his own exhaustion be damned.
His gunwork is fine. Great, even. He hits his marks with the consistency and precision they require. It's everything else that he's lacking in. Which is how you might spot him doing laps around a field, in a rare showing of having changed out of his usual stuffy suit-and-tie number, and... honestly, not doing that great. When he finally stops, hands braced on his knees and taking a swig out of a bottle of water, he looks like he might keel over.
Otherwise, you might find him on the training grounds, staring dubiously at the weights (he picks one up with both hands, slams it back down again, dubiously walking down the rack as the weights get smaller, and smaller, and smaller...) and looking over at the rest of the gym as though it contains any answers for him. Strength isn't his strong suit, he knows, but maybe he could be stronger? Or, perhaps, you see him with his rapier out, doing the same drills he'd been taught all those months ago at Aguefort Academy. If you pop in and look interested, he may well flag you down and ask, ] Hey, you here to train too?
d. friendship tour.
[ The last task on his to-do list is the hardest one of them all: trying to get better at being a friend, and not just some mechanism made for solving mysteries. It's clear that his brain has been failing him these days, which leaves one more option: trying to become a better friend.
If you're one of Riz's friends or acquaintances, whether he runs into you by chance or he texts you directly, Riz is going to be approaching you to check up on you. It's time to talk. About feelings. Not his own, obviously, but he's checking in on you -- with maybe some food to help ease the blow, or an offer to just get wonderfully, fabulously drunk. They deserve it. ]
e. wildcard!
[ hit me up for anything! you can find me on the discord or on plurk @ wisdombitch xoxoxo ]
no subject
Trying to hold onto a point said and stay afloat, so he doesn't just shut down, and drown. ]
We can get books. We can [ the tiniest pause ] learn together. The wiring and tech here isn't the same, so... I need to learn, too. If we're gonna keep running into robots.
[ It's not enough to let his magic do the work: he needs to understand to a degree, and even with magic, it had been Adaine's contribution that helped him with making the drone in Moorecroft. It had been Aelwyn's magic that had helped him with the souls stuck into the mirror shards. Granted, the last one had less to do with electronics as it had to do with pure magic, but he was still out of his depth. He nearly had no real way of getting Adaine and the others free.
But he looks at Riz, then regrets it when he looks back down, grabbing at one of the fries. Like he hadn't meant to look at him at all. ]
You learn magic--if that's okay to say. You get gadgets. [ ... ] You're good at it.
[ Is it too much? Is fluffing Riz up really useful in this instance? Gorgug thinks he remembers Riz saying it's okay to learn details about his future not relevant to cases or happenings around them, but Gorgug still isn't sure. He feels the apprehension, and stuffs another fry in his mouth.
Resists the urge to shoe a fistful of them into his mouth instead. ]
no subject
[ Ignorant of Gorgug's abject agony, Riz instead latches onto what he can do. As uncomfortable and strange as things still are, a quiet, tentative overture of peace, he's a man who likes things in itemized lists, graphs, straight lines, things he can do to be useful, to be good. That's what half of all of that shit they talked about was about, right? Riz hasn't been useful here. This is a way to be useful, an avenue he hasn't explored in his insistence on attempting fruitless investigation after fruitless investigation.
He can learn the principles of technology here. He's good at the book stuff - actually digging into the mechanics of things and being able to make it work is another thing entirely, something reserved for not only Gorgug's skill, but his passion for it in a way Riz absolutely lacks - and he can at least provide statistics and insights. It's a start. A mission, even. A part of him wants to dart out of the lab immediately and go scrounging around for some, get started, prove that he's taking it seriously and this isn't just him verbally meandering --
His shoulders rise, then fall with the stifled instinct, reaching out to grab a couple of fries for himself as well. ]
I'm all right to hear stuff about, like, future acquired skills. I couldn't hang around you and Fabian otherwise, [ he says, glancing appraisingly at him. ] But I dunno -- I don't think it counts as learning magic if all I'm doing is using the stuff that was already made for that? Otherwise just using a crystal is like performing magic.
[ Everything in their city runs on arcanotech, after all. Learning how to use more devices like his father did is just spywork, he thinks. ]
It's okay, I -- [ I'm useful in other ways, he almost says, because he's been saying it to every other person here who wants to learn about their world. Yes, Adaine is an incredible wizard, yes Gorgug is huge and strong and clever around arcanotech, and yes, Fabian can somehow channel energy through dance in a way that can make everyone around him faster, smarter, stronger, but he's useful too. He's a detective, and a Rogue, and every party could use one of those. His pause is so brief to nearly be imperceptible as he trucks on. ] I don't mind not learning magic the way you guys learn it, [ he says instead, hastening to brush past it. ] Uh, what kinds of gadgets do I get? Rogue classes must have sped up.
no subject
So maybe Gorgug shouldn't put his mouth in it right now. He should ask Fabian if he remembers, when he's fairly sure of the answer there, and the right answer would be to ask Adaine. Adaine would know. Adaine and Riz always talked shop the best.
(What would Adaine do right now? She would tell him to stop wallowing. To get better if he actually wants to. And doesn't he?) ]
Um, well- you're looking for the rogue teacher. I know that much. And I know you program a lot into your watch? But I don't know the specifics.. except the holographic technology. I was studying that too, for my classes. And invisibility.
[ He's not touching at the food, not even picking at it. It's all right at front of him, but what he thinks he should focus on is Riz. In this conversation. ]
We can do that too, here, now? If you want to work on your watch and make any changes. I've got some books here that might show you something close how it works. I can go look?
[ He's got artificer books, after all. And hell, when it came to Riz's arcadian watch, they were always doing guess work. It's High Heaven technology. But they didn't do too bad once they nearly broke it a few times. Riz was even working to tinker the spells in them easier over time! ]
no subject
It's not terribly obvious when Riz does this sort of thing, because it's just a Riz thing -- to either avoid eye contact or make intensely uncomfortable eye contact, for his eyes to glaze over while he's thinking, to fall silent and strange as his mind pulls at different threads.
He snaps back to attention soon enough. It's better to think about contingency plans and arcanotech and conspiracy theories instead. He snaps back at attention, thrilled to grasp onto what is -- well, what's familiar. It's like his Dad said. Sometimes, people show love through their work. And this is Gorgug's work, work on something that's really, really important to Riz. That's how his Dad talks to him. Or... will talk to him. He hopes. ]
Hey, yeah! That'd be really awesome! [ He glances down. ] My watch is super rad. It's cool that it gets, or, that you can make it even radder. Did you, um, want me to put the rest of this away for later?
[ There's gotta be a minifridge or something around here. Where else would he keep his energy drinks? ]