[OPEN] Scream, it makes no sound, I could testify

[closureisformovies]

Who: Alice Dyer (closureisformovies) & you!
What: Catch-All for Alice
When: Late August, Early-Mid September
Where: Town hall, oak & iron, empty pockets, around
Warnings: Possible Blight discussion, others as they come up



1. Explaining how time has bled me dry [town hall]

Those who work in Town Hall probably know Alice as the cheerful, tallish woman who spends the vast majority of the work day chattering and making jokes of varying levels of quality. She's the kind of person that's always talking to someone and it never seems to meaningfully impact her work, as she continues to be a pretty damn decent clerk despite all her many complaints about the concept of working at all.

But after the Blight mess is all said and done, Alice seems... a little off. The first few days are the worst; her work suffers and she's clearly still frayed around the edges, but given the fact she spent a lot of the time holding down the Town Hall shelter on her own it's excusable enough. She even perks up a little, after the day Gerry picks her up to drag her straight to drinks, but she never quite gets back to full form and if you look closely enough it's hard not to spot. Her jokes are more strained, she chatters a little less, and she keeps making stupid mistakes she wouldn't have before.

And her weird behaviour is especially obvious when Dahlia's around. Wonder what that's about.

2. You say I'm vacant now when it's justified [oak & iron]

Typically Alice stops by the O&I twice a day: once, in the morning, to get coffee and breakfast before she heads into work; second, in the evening after dinner to drink and hang out where the people are. This pattern remains much the same even when her behaviour shifts elsewhere, though the observant might notice she's drinking more than she usually does in the evenings and staying longer in the process.

It's in the evenings, especially after a couple drinks, that she's at her most social, inserting herself into conversations or joining people at tables with empty seats. Maybe you're one of the lucky people she jumps in to talk to, maybe her loudmouth charm has caught your attention, or maybe you just want to tell her to shut up. Either way, she's around. Soaking up the ambient energy, trying to ignore both her own chronic loneliness and the panic that's been threatening to consume her every waking moment since Aster walked into the office.

3. If you called my bluff, I could lose your love [empty pockets]

Alice joked about something like this a couple months ago, but it's only now with her mood in the gutter that she decides to go for the drastic measures: subjecting innocent people to her attempt at stand-up comedy.

It's not exactly a polished routine or anything, and anyone from the 2010s onwards that's at all internet savvy is going to recognise some of her humour as blatantly ripped from tumblr, but she is genuinely very quick on the draw and has plenty of her own material (even if it is, also, tumblr-flavoured).

And she has fun. Despite everything, she has fun.

4. And I know I'd be fine [Wildcard]

Hit me up to plot something or just throw something at me. She's out and about.

Comments

2. Vacancy

[pineapplesalmon]

After a particularly long day the day before at the farm, César's moving a little slower than usual, taking his time to get in. He's under strict orders to never overwork himself from his girlfriend, five farmhands, and literally anyone else that knows his tendencies to burn the midnight candle once he gets started.

So instead of being in and out for his coffee, he takes his time to sit at the counter and chat with various staff members he's befriended because of Magne. It's nice to talk to them and also fill them in on how Magne's doing now that she's moved on to own a business of her own. He's seen Alice around, but hasn't had a chance to even introduce himself, his brain too full of what he needs to do for the day.

"You're fairly new here, right?" César asks quite suddenly. "I'm César Salazar, Magne's boyfriend, one of the farmers."

[closureisformovies]

Alice blinks a couple of times as if processing that he's actually talking to her, before answering: "I mean. Going on five months now, so depends on your definition of new, buuuut... Alice Dyer. Clerk at town hall."

[pineapplesalmon]

César facepalms and laughs at himself. "... I'm not the most observant man, sometimes. Too much on my brain. I've been hear nearly nine months. You'd think I'd notice."

[closureisformovies]

"Honestly mate at this point I've basically trained myself not to notice anything I don't want to, so, y'know, can't judge too much." She's joking but also she's not. Keeping her head down and just not paying attention to anything she doesn't want to deal with is how her life goes.

[pineapplesalmon]

"That's fair." César drops his palm and leans on the counter a bit. "I try to introduce myself since I'm a farmer, and I like to know if everyone's getting what they want or need food wise."

[closureisformovies]

"I'm probably eating better here than I was in London, if we're bein' frank about it. You do not eat healthy in London when you're paying for a city centre flat on a civil service salary," she says with a half-joking half-dismissive snort. "This place is practically gourmet."

[pineapplesalmon]

César winces very sympathetically. "Civil servants are never paid enough. You have to deal with us—" He waves at the crowd in general. "—in some other form or another. Anything you miss from home, though?"

[closureisformovies]

"See, my office really didn't have to deal with the public. Not really. Which didn't make it any better."

Well, not unless you count the fact the stories come in live from internet scraping of people posting on the internet.

"I mean. I miss my usual beer, and junk food. Nice as it probably is eating healthy for once, I'm a modern girl, I like my creature comforts. Including the internet and delivery."

[pineapplesalmon]

"That's my point exactly."

César sighs. "I really could go for my favorite beer right now, too. I miss computers." Which sparks an idea, and he blinks. "... wait. I'm an idiot."

He leans forward, beaming a bit. "You can actually order food from home, if there's something you're dying for especially. It's just not something you can do often. And sometimes it requires cooking."

[closureisformovies]

Alice squints a bit. "Yeah you're gonna have to elaborate on that one. We're trapped in like, a bubble, or whatever."

[pineapplesalmon]

"The skeleton pirates that settled on the island are capable of passing through. And will trade outside food for citrus or citrus-based foods." César pulls out a lime, a lemon, and a small orange out of his pants. "Here, some pocket citrus to get you started."

His eyes are twinkling with mirth.

[closureisformovies]

"...are you just carrying around multiple whole citrus fruits in your pockets to offer people?"

[pineapplesalmon]

César nods, shoulders shaking with laughter. "People's expressions are hilarious."

[closureisformovies]

"That's even more nuts than some of the gags I've pulled on people. Respect."

[pineapplesalmon]

"And they get something they like out of it after I have my fun." César prefers that, obviously. "You can either get takeout or ingredients to make things. Most of my citrus are going into foods to prevent scurvy, but there's always room for trade or special occasions."

[closureisformovies]

"How's a skeleton pirate even get this stuff? Is he just gonna stroll into my local Indian place in all his skeleton glory and order a korma?" Beat. "Well, is is London, they probably wouldn't even notice."

[pineapplesalmon]

César needs a moment to laugh about that picture. "Honestly, if a skeleton pirate walked into my restaurant and ordered something, I wouldn't put up any fuss. Seems a bit dangerous and way over my pay grade."

[closureisformovies]

"Honestly, mate, you would be surprised the amount of people who don't have that much common sense," is a little more honest than her half-joke about the state of London life. So many cases come through the system where people make basic horror movie mistakes, it used to drive her nuts before she taught herself to not care as much. "So many people just have to poke the spooky thing."

Unfortunately for her this seems to include her bestie.

[pineapplesalmon]

Alice can literally watch as César starts going through the various files of cases of people dying to EVOs because they were absolute idiots that he remembers. He lets out a sigh. César is still mostly in a good mood, but....

"... You know, there's times where people have to shelter in place during attacks. A lot of bosses told them to keep working since they were already there."

[closureisformovies]

"I think you just skipped over a whole bunch of internal context to that one, mate." She's seen and probably done it before. "I mean, don't get me wrong that's probably what my boss would tell me to do if some monster tried breaking in, but..."

[pineapplesalmon]

"I did, but only because I don't want to sidetrack the conversation with a ten minute explanation of what's happening on my earth." César knows when he'll tangent... sometimes. "The fights with our 'monsters' would usually remain outside. Just evacuate the ground floors so people can't be seen. They're mutated humans or animals whose mutations were extreme enough to create aggression out of fear or anger. I've gotten fairly good at telling those apart."

[closureisformovies]

"Right so your world's got the sci-fi horror show, whilst my world's doing its best impression of an horror horror show. Like, if monsters actually exist back home," yeah keep up that denial, girl, "they're spooky for the sake of being spooky and nothing else."

That's absolutely not how things work but Alice really doesn't want to know how things work, so. Flippancy is the coping mechanism of choice.

[pineapplesalmon]

"Wrong genre. Superhero. My baby brother's a teenage superhero." César jokes in a flat tone, but only mostly. "Although he wasn't left to deal with everything on his own like most teenage superheroes. He's a part of the same international government agency that responds to such emergencies, and has adults that handle all the adult stuff while he does what only he can do. Things have finally calmed down enough that he'll be going to high school in the fall, so now he gets to still do the whole balance school-and-saving-the-world thing."

A pause, then. "So what sort of things does your world have to deal with?"

[closureisformovies]

"...is superhero not sci-fi?" She can't even be that surprised by superhero teenagers being real somewhere, this whole sprawling multiverse of bullshit being real is nuts and she's got to roll with it or lose her mind. "Anyway if any of it's real, we've just... got lots of weird spooky horror bullshit popping up randomly. Everything from haunted dolls to evil tattoo artists cursing your very flesh to like, bigfoot but evil, probably."

[pineapplesalmon]

"Superheroes sometimes have magic, so not always. I'm mostly being pedantic; mine would be sci-fi." César shrugs with a wide grin. "I mean, you're here. So it's likely real. Ordinary folks don't often show up here, I'm learning."