☂ | Video

[gigue]

[Vanya is so woefully anti-social media it's laughable. She has no idea how Instagram or Twitter works, and she deleted her Facebook years ago, after a failed attempt to reconnect with people she went to school with. It's okay; they didn't really notice. Friendship is a thing she struggles with even in person, and when you add the interpretation fogginess of the internet, well...point is, why make a bad situation worse, right?

She doesn't really have a choice, here, and hey, she hates it. Holding her communicator in hand and trying to prepare some kind of message, knowing that it's likely to go entirely unanswered makes her want to just throw the whole thing in the trash.

There's nothing to do for it but hold her nose and dive in; V would rather be swimming, and she hates swimming.]

Does any--

[No, that's dumb. And it's already recording. Shit. She exhales, tries to smile; it doesn't really reach her eyes, and doesn't linger long.] I guess...I'm trying to figure out how jobs work, here. [So much of what they told her fell on deaf ears - and she is trying really hard not to think about the irony of that, or she will start crying right now - and now she's starting to feel the panic of living someplace brand new, with very few resources.]

I got assigned to the-- [She pauses, struggling to remember before it comes to her:] Make It Rain Casino? But I can't - I can't perform.

[I lost my violin, she wants to say, or I think I killed a lot of people, I can't ever play again, but both of those thoughts make her want to delete this whole thing.] I guess if anyone has any openings, anywhere, or can point me at a...a job board or something...

[Well, this has been a hideous part of her day. She tries and fails to smile again, and decides to just leave it alone.]

Comments

video;

[deadlycurves]

They assigned you as a performer? Are you ser- [He scoffs and shakes his head. He really hates this place, and the way they take digs at people with their initial job assignments.] Wow.

video;

[gigue]

[Hey guess who's gonna take that wrong and assume he's scoffing at her instead of the Powers That Be??? She wants to snap back at him, but the witty thing isn't coming to mind fast enough. Besides - it's been safer for years to just stop trying with him.]

I wasn't - I was never going to do it.

video forever tbh

[deadlycurves]

What? [He blinks and asks dumbly, not realizing for another beat or two--] Oh. No. That's not what I meant. [Another.] They're assholes about the jobs. I fuckin' hate it. [Honestly? Vanya is easier to talk to when they aren't in the same room. Maybe that's an asshole thought to have, but with this empathy thing he's got going on, it's just the truth. She's a flurry of emotions, all mixed up and mashed together in ways that don't even make sense.]

[gigue]

[Okay, wait. Wait. What is she supposed to do with this.]

Oh.

[But also: ???????????????????????????? What does she do now.]

...Do you...know anywhere...?

{ we are buried in broken dreams, we are knee-deep without a plea

[numberthree]

[ Allison knows that pain. Her video snaps while she's still in the middle of her face being momentarily scrunched. The camera feed swings disorientingly for a second as Allison is turning the camera to have better access to the keypad for her half of this. She's used to leaving the camera up, but she still types hers. They pop up as text messages at the bottom of the camera screen. ]

All the first jobs seem like a joke.

My first one was a gossip columnist, which you can probably guess how that went.
Your first job was in a music store, so maybe that might be a thing to look into?

[gigue]

[She reads your first job, and there's probably some philosophical or psychological term for how that feels, but all Vanya knows is that it feels weird. She was here, and she doesn't remember. She started to live a life here, and it's just - blank. It shows in her face, a little, but mostly she just looks blank.

It's a lot to process.]

Maybe...[It would be better than performing, sure, but she's leery of it: her hearing still isn't right, and everything feels so...much. Part of her wonders if there are side effects of coming off her medication so fast that were just buried under the weight of learning about her power.]

What do you do now?

[numberthree]

Modeling. Again.

[ It's funny how she didn't feel chagrin or a single bit stupid about saying that to anyone else living in the house when it happened, or since, but writing it to Vanya reminds her of too many sharp thrown and bitten words. About what she did. About being called unfair. Being one of the most famous people in the world, once upon a time, before it all happened. That she tries to press down as she frowns and admits what she might as well, because it'll come out sooner or later anyway. ]

This place gave me a really stupid power and when it came out during one of the Swear-In fights some fan caught it on a video and I had a few agencies tracked me down in the next week.

And, really. We needed more than the little money going into paying for the house so far at that point, with Five no working and Ben not here, so I said yes. [ There's a pensive kind of shrug to it, even if there's just the faintest furrow between her eyebrows, too. ]

[gigue]

[She doesn't say anything, not even a quiet oh, because she's afraid it would come out very judgmental. She could say a lot of things, here, and a lot of them jump to mind: oh, of course you are. Obviously you're modeling. Obviously you're paying for that insane house.

Vanya bites her tongue, quite literally, until the temptation passes. Or at least lessens, because it doesn't fully go away.]

What power?

video

[ct_7567]

From what I've been able to tell, the occupations the government assigns to us has very little to do with our actual skills. Changing careers seems to be more common than not.

What is it that you do?

video

[gigue]

I was-- [She stops, because was is hard to swallow. There are a lot of things she really doesn't want to be feeling right now.] I played with an orchestra. Violin.

[It's a weirdly decent fit for her, really - if not for the fact that she kind of used music to try and kill her family and also maybe the world.]

video

[ct_7567]

Right. And? Is that what you wish to do again?

[girlybruiser]

[ This girl seems rather antsy, but Haru can't fault her for feeling that way as it's clear she's new. So she offers Vanya a warm and welcoming smile to try and help her feel at ease. ]

I noticed the Memorial Centre in Heropa may need some secretarial help. I'm not entirely certain if there are positions available, but you are welcome to speak to Jaime Reyes about it. The last time I was there I noticed he seemed a bit overwhelmed with the donation bin.

[gigue]

[The warmth is welcomed, though Vanya's tentative in showing it. Off screen, she picks at the hem of her sleeves, shoulders rolled in. She might as well be incapable of sitting up straight.]

Thanks. Is it - do you know what commuting is like, here? I'm supposed to live in-- [Remembering the names of these places is harder than she'd like to admit,] Maurtia Falls.

[girlybruiser]

We have access to the Porters, so traveling between cities is instantaneous essentially.

[ Though it depends where exactly she lives; further away from the Porter or closer to it? ]

[stuckintime]

There is nothing keeping you from getting another job other than what you've been assigned.

[He's never shown up for a single day at his assigned job as it was the most ridiculous thing ever.]

Where are you at now?

[gigue]

[It's like with Ben: she still feels glad to see him, because it's only been a week since he came back. Almost seventeen years missing, then mourning, then moving on, and now Five is here, too. It's a bizarre kind of coincidence, and she's maybe a little relieved.

(But only if she doesn't think too hard about it. If she's not careful, she can see it under his skin, a flash of his face at the Icarus, in pain, dying.)

Vanya looks away from the camera.]

The apartment they gave me. In Maurtia Falls.

[stuckintime]

Directions? I have alcohol.

[It's the best way to adjust, really. It was what he had done during his first days on this Earth, at least.]

video;

[desmodusdraculae]

I know my bar is looking to hire another waitress, but... it's an acquired taste.

video;

[gigue]

...What do you mean?

Re: video;

[desmodusdraculae]

I think the patrons couldn't figure out if a bar called "The Crimson Mist" was supposed to be a vampire bar or a roadhouse-style dive bar, and so it wound up being both.

video

[choosetruth]

What job would you want?

[Georgia tilts her head, frowning under her sunglasses.]

Not that they would ever take that in consideration when making their job assignments, but call me curious.

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[gigue]

[Hey that's a fun question. Vanya shrugs a little: she can't fault someone for curiosity, but she kind of wants to all the same.]

I don't really know, I've never done anything else. I just - I can't perform anymore. [And it kills her a little, maybe more than a little, to say it.]

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[choosetruth]

Why not?

[Georgia tilts her head, staring unblinking through her sunglasses.]

Injury?

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[obediences]

[ There's that predictable jolt of worry when he sees what her job was; then the relief, at seeing her considering a change. Something else. And he knows he's still the last person Vanya would want to see a message from. Suspects she won't even respond. Has to try an olive branch, anyway.

A lot of us haven't liked the jobs they assigned us. You can change it.


Good luck.

text

[gigue]

[There is no force in the world that could get her to reply to this. She sees his ID come up and her vision blurs while she reads the text. It's only three sentences. He's being nice. It's more of an effort than she's made.

None of this filters through, though: there's no room for logic right now. Her ear is throbbing, and the sudden, constant pain is giving her a headache, and she can hear her heartbeat again, it's all she can hear--

--he put her in that cell, he'd have left her there forever, she was going to die in there, I can't breathe in here but no one was there to listen, no one stayed, no one stayed--

A hairbrush flies off her dresser and dents the wall. The sound barely reaches her, but the movement makes her flinch, and as she stares at the hole in the plaster, the pounding in her head starts to fade. Everything gets put on hold for a while so she can, quite literally, crawl under her bed and curl up to pray it doesn't happen again.

She doesn't respond.]