( open. )

[construing]

CHARACTERS: gwen; you
DATE: first week of perdition's rest
WARNINGS: nerdery probably
SUMMARY: catch-all

SALOON.

[ performers wanted, huh? the times that spider-woman would break onto a television set to show off for the cameras have long since been left in the past. spider-woman, consummate performer that she is, is not a gimmick. she can't afford to be.

gwen, however, wouldn't mind some comped drinks. ( the comped board is how she knows she's not in new york anymore. )

it doesn't take long to rig. drums and their like are ubiquitous everywhere. human or not, everyone likes to wail on things. she manages to borrow one, rig together two more, borrows a line of bottles which she fills to different amounts under miz poppy's skeptical eye, arms herself with sticks then takes the stage.

it's not quite a drum kit and the event is definitely not a rock show. but gwen plays. she adopts jazz infusions, incorporates rock leanings or mixes both depending on requests. she shows off: tossing the sticks high to beat the skins with her hands before catching them; drawing recognizable tunes from her line of bottles; listening to songs hummed or sung to her by the qorral once or twice, then evoking them with flair from her drums.

she plays for the rowdy and mellow alike. she volunteers herself for those who'd like musical accompaniment on stage. she drinks and takes requests and is as relaxed as she ever is, more at home behind the instruments where they take the focus: she only facilitates the music. ]

CHURCH.

[ gwen stacy ( wearing a massive cowboy hat because of course, she got one ) is on the roof. how did she get up there, you might ask? the old-fashioned way, actually. by climbing ( and not the wall-crawling way, either. ) her backpack sits with her as she sits on the edge, her feet gently swinging in the cool evening air. her head is turned up; she studies the night sky, the unfamiliar constellations.

pavitr would be feverishly drawing star maps. peter, version ham, would have found pork somewhere probably to her eternal disgust. gwen's fingers trip across the wristband of the dimensional travel device. she misses them. pavitr and peter, billy, anya, everyone else. it feels weird. being stuck in an alternate universe without the spider-crew. just her and ( a ) spider-man.

so many times she felt alone. for the first time, she is alone. gwen fiddles with the sleeve of her jacket.

when she hears someone underneath, she looks down. stranger or friend get the same greeting, ] Nice night.

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE.

[ what it says on the tin! or ask for a starter and I'll get that to you :'> ]

Comments

( closed | jin )

[construing]

[ uncovering more info on their stalwart employers? sounds like a job for your overly curious neighborhood spider-woman. late enough in the day that only tendrils of sunlight fight the encroaching darkness, gwen swings across the fracking equipment. with phone in hand, she snaps pictures: of the machinery, of the ground, of the holes. ]

“What are you doing there, son?” “I’m digging a hole to China, dad.” [ gwen whistles under her breath. ] China and half the solar system. This planet’s gonna be a donut.

[ environmental concerns have to be briefly put on hold. hopping off her perch ( and falling an impressive amount of feet without harm, ) gwen straightens and looks around. her fingers curl around the edge of her hood, pulling it away from her face. her phone she switches from camera to flashlight. ]

If I were an old abandoned record, where I would be?

tumbles in

[pummelling]

Hey, what wh--

[Bright light in your face in the shadowy dusk from someone he hadn't spotted falling neatly from the sky? Jin's reflexively pointing his bow at the source, poised to fire in case of a threat, but, well, shooting on instinct worked real well last time: Spider-Woman escapes projectile-less today. He raises an eyebrow and lowers his weapon, eyeing her with curiosity.]

It's you. Unicorn lady.

[Close, Jin, it's spiders and she's a '-woman'.]

You're Audentes too, yeah? What're you doing out here?

[construing]

[ it's so sad that she so often has some manner of weapon pointed at her, her reflex has become raise hands and be overly sarcastic. ]

Come on, man, really? I got spiderwebs on my elbows and my hood. How do you not get the spider vibe?

[ because that's the priority here.

she drops her hands after he lowers his weapon, neither moving closer nor back. she avoids bullet on the regular so arrows don't figure all that high on the list of possible dangers. neither does she think he's another itchy trigger finger mcgee. his hands are far too steady. but still. better show she's not a danger. ]

I'm guessing I'm out here for the same reason as you. Enjoy the wildlife. Snap some pictures. Discover old, lost data discs. You know. The usual.

[pummelling]

No, you... when I was a kid. I was leading a unicorn to safety, and you told me I was going the wrong way.

[he's still a little bitter about it tbh.

fortunately, gwen's caught him post-trigger fingers: having to deal with alastair for several weeks now has cooled him down a little. he's prepared to snark right back until the mention of the data discs catches his attention:]

Enjoyed the murderous wildlife more than I've wanted to, don't have a camera. Tell me about the data discs. You find anything yet?

[construing]

Oh, hey! You finally grew into that bow. [ :)

and yes, she sounds all too happy to meet a familiar — "familiar" — face.

in the running as least thanked superhero/vigilante, gwen does not expect a thank you and she skips right past the blithe "you're welcome" that would normally follow the lack of. she swings the light around, careful to avoid jin's eyes. her blue-soled feet exhale little puffs of dust when she walks. ]

Not yet. Figured I'd do a little snooping first in case any had been unearthed. But it looks like we'll have to do a little digging ourselves.

[ — get it? since the qorral did most of the digging? yeah, he gets it. ]

( closed | peter )

[construing]

Man, for a real life western, there’s a little less crime than I was expecting.

[ this is spider-woman. ]

I mean, don’t get me wrong. There’s more than I’d expect considering the population is what? 600? Something less than a thousand? Your crime statistics are a little skewed is all I’m saying.

[ this is spider-woman, doing a handstand on the back of a metal horse while she kicks the rider off. ]

But for real, [ she continues, coming around in a crouch to regard the others — six total — all armed, all mad at her. everybody’s a critic — ] every movie played it out like there was a shootout every day at high noon. Whoa!

[ one man yells something obscene when he opens fire. gwen hops over him. she picks him up and tosses him in the air. a webline glues him to the rock wall behind which the group had been hiding. gwen wags a finger in his direction. ]

Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?! I should wash it out with soap. Actually have you guys even heard of soap? Because wow. Anybody could smell you a mile off.

[ just in case she hadn’t pissed them off already by interrupting their little robbery-planning self-help bonfire. ]

[webdesigned]

( this is weird. and when it hits him, the reality of it? it's going to be even weirder. that's the thing though, about the suit. Spider-Man isn't a thinker. he's action, movement, any second he's standing still is a missed opportunity and he's always done his damnedest to not miss any, though he's failed a time or two.

his missed opportunities are really what makes it weird, having some version of Gwen zipping around with spider-senses, a mask, and webshooters. that in one world she got a better path than the one he'd ended. there's some hilarious symphony to the coincidence of finding each other in another world, but when pocket parker had met Spider-Woman, it hadn't taken much to put two and two together.

it seemed obvious to use what they had in common to their advantage. and now, two spiders against six bandits? doesn't even seem fair. )

Just made them easier to track, if a little hard to stay downwind.

( he sitting quite comfortably on the hind-quarters of the metallic steed of one of the bandits, much to said bandit's surprise. he tries for a blow and it doesn't work out the way he'd like, getting succinctly dropped to the floor instead, and when the bandit tried to retaliate with a buckshot, his shotgun goes spiraling through the air and off into the desert, never to be seen again. )

I guess Sheriff Holladay keeps things mostly in order, so I'm sure she'll appreciate a bit of a break. I know I would.

[construing]

You say that like we have any idea what breaks are.

[ because they don't. because they never, ever get one. but what's comedy but tragedy plus time? this entire "fight" is a tragedy for the bandits, and a minute was enough time for it to be hilarious. with half their count down, the others panic. one is frozen. one tries to shoot them because, hey, the first fifty bullets didn't work, but he clearly has the magic one. the third and only smart one tries to turn his ride around.

a webline catches him in the back. a tug and he goes flying. ]

Over to you, partner.

[webdesigned]

Conceptually they sound kinda nice?

( Gwen is right, even during his time in ALASTAIR, Peter still hasn't managed much of a "break". even in Oska, he can't be idle; superpowers basically wrung all the lackadaisical teen out of him. he's always got to be doing something, always got to be helping someone; the last break he took was way too long and people suffered for it. he's working overtime to make up the difference, even if he can't quite help the city that mourned Spider-Man's absence when Peter Parker was too busy mourning for Gwen Stacy.

partner. that manages to make his heartbeat flip around uncomfortably, even if nobody will know it but him. he likes the sound of that. the man with the lucky bullets ends up shooting into the air, when a well placed web knocks his gun skyward. and the hand-delivered bandit gets an almost comfortable pile of webbing to land in, even if he can't escape it once he lands. )

Is it wrong that I was kind of hoping for more of a challenge? Kinda, right?

( he was, though. )

Church

[sekimorinashi]

[ It's not difficult to find a member of Audentes. The locals don't look very different from humans, but something about their own stands out even if they're all from very different places and lives. Something about the way they carry themselves, perhaps.

Or maybe Tsukuyo just making an assumption about how it most likely wouldn't be the locals sitting on the roof of a church like that. It's probably just because it's a little strange.

Not that she's judging.

She looks up when Gwen speaks, and pulls her pipe from her lips to blow out a puff of smoke. ]

Yeah, it is.

Whatcha doin'?

[ It's not an accusatory question. She's genuinely wondering. ]

[construing]

Stargazing.

[ a simple answer for a simple question. gwen tips her head up again, taking in the starry night. to someone raised in the light ( and sound and air and — ) pollution of new york city, this many stars is something right out of a textbook. she kicks her legs idly, and points at a collection of stars. ]

I'm not crazy, right? That one looks like a raptor.

[sekimorinashi]

[ She looks up too, trying to follow where Gwen's pointing. Which is easier said than done. ]

It's pretty hard to find the right spot in the sky.

[ It's quite vast, after all. She doesn't think she finds the right stars. ]

[construing]

Well, it's — See that star? — It's about — [ this is going nowhere fast. gwen sighs, shoulders slouching. ] Yeah, they're a little tough without a reference.

Anyway, there's totally a raptor in the sky. I'm calling it the Big One.

wildcard!!

[weatherscience]

[ However nice the selection of hats in the store, Nami isn't there for them. The store's clothing selection isn't much to look at, but the accessories are nice enough; she's currently got a pile of belts, some hair ties with fake flowers on them and something that seems to be a pearl-decorated gun holster laid out on the counter next to her.

She holds out one of the belts, one of brown leather with leaf-like indents, holds it to her waist and twirls to face the person closest to her... aka Gwen, probably there to buy that obligatory cowboy hat. ]

What do you think? I feel like it would go well with most styles... hm, now I only need to find a good dress to go with it!

[construing]

Oh, uh…

[ sure, ask the girl who prefers to rock the overly casual stained sweats look on her down-time. gwen tries to look like she knows what she's doing. or, at the very least, awake. ]

Yeah, it looks good. I like the leaves.

[ see, easy. problem solved. she can normal girl when she has to. her dad will be so proud. ]

[weatherscience]

Yes, they're cute, aren't they?

[ She nods -- she's taking it. Gwen gets to witness the most intense haggling of her life for the next minute and a half, a hurricane in the shape of a young woman, and if her haggling style is less "start low, raise the price little by little" and more "start with demanding 50% off, add ten percent every time the shopkeeper refuses", it seems to work through sheer tenacity and so Nami walks away from the counter one belt richer, having paid only 30 percent of the original price.

For a second, it looks like she might pass Gwen, but then-

she stops. And stares. ]

That... you're here for clothes shopping too? Great! You can come shop for a dress with me. [ A step, a quick tug on Gwen's arm, and yep... she sure isn't listening to any kind of excuse here. ]

[construing]

[ it's a little like staring at a train wreck. kind of incredible, very painful, and impossible to look away. the shopkeeper slumps against the board as if he had just run a marathon, and gwen feels a twinge of sympathy.

that twinge promptly becomes brief panic when she becomes the focus of the woman's attention. ]

Oh, I wasn't — Whoa!

[ gwen stares at her trapped arm in silent disbelief. this is why she and her spider-sense need to have a talk. things like this. and it's not that she's being dragged around. she could just pull away. going back to the train analogy, she's almost 97% sure she could stop a crash before it happened. but it's the principle of the thing.

also gwen stacy is a skinny college student with almost no upper body strength to speak of. she's not spider-woman. so. you know. she gives her arm a little experimental tug. ]

wildchurchish

[secondnature]

[The good thing about where they are is that between the aliens travelling all over with their strange eyes and mining practices and their robotic horses, Keith doesn't need to hide any of his Voltron technology. It occurs to him that that might change along the way, but his paladin armor can stay. He's not wearing most of it right now, but the downtime gives him the opportunity to test the limits on his rocketboots. With Goo around last mission, he didn't get too many opportunities to do that.

His actual testing is rather athletic and involves a lot of leaping around the roof tops, slamming down with a lot of noise, and probably ... probably ... being shouted at by a few people. For noise. At night. That's rather obnoxious.

He comes to a final landing on the church just behind Gwen, and by then, his landing is less of a crash and more of a graceful setdown. He crouches, glancing up toward the blonde hair ahead of him as the night air seems to be less brisk with his sudden stability.]

I didn't expect someone else to be up here.

[construing]

[ spider-senses make it hard not to take notice of her surroundings. even if she lacked those, the amount of noise he was causing — and the shouts and lit windows that marked keith's path— makes it real easy to follow along with…

she doesn't actually know what he's doing. maybe it's his way of reconciling sleep? to each their own, not that she can judge, she who dresses up like a spider and carries around a police radio to know where the crimes, accidents or just general dangers are happening in a city of 8.4 million. because that's both normal and well-adjusted. then wake up late, scramble to school or work, probably run out of school or work when another warning breaks —

she shouldn't be judging anyone is the point of this. when he touches down behind her, she gives his observation a small shrug. ]

It's a free country. Planet. Whatever. Usually, people don't care where you're climbing as long as you're not making noise.

[secondnature]

[Oh, yeah, Keith immediately takes that as a pointed remark. There are still a few people outside of their various establishments looking up at their roofs because of some of the noise he had caused. It's late. It's Keith's fault. He'd come up with some kind of excuse, but frankly, the only excuse he has is that he didn't get a lot of opportunities to train in Oska with all the bug mess going on.

It's not much of an excuse, for that matter.]

I wasn't trying to make noise. [That's point number one. Is she the one with the stupid phone dependency? It looks like it. Ugh.] I also didn't think that it was my roof to claim. That isn't even what I said.

[construing]

[ ah, back to this game. what seemingly innocent statement will offend the guy in red next? ]

Do you take everything literally or do you just like being offended? Because that's not at all what I said either.

Saloon

[scarredhorns]

[Nyuu couldn't fight and she didn't know how to heal, but she could sing. She wanted to be productive to the crew, somehow, so when she saw that the saloon was looking for performers, she figured she might as well give it a shot and make the crew look good.

But she has to sit down and watch Gwen first, amazed and delighted by how she wields the drumsticks. Nyuu sings along with the crowd or applauds with them every time Gwen finishes a song, finding that it helps loosen her up more, slowly making the tremble of her hands go away. This would be her first time performing for a crowd that wasn't composed of only her five friends.

Eventually, Nyuu makes her way towards the stage and timidly asks Gwen:]

Um, could you play along with this?

[She sings a short excerpt from the song she was planning to perform softly, enough for Gwen to hear but not enough to give it away to the audience.]

[construing]

[ wow. that is some very pink hair. the ears are a little much for gwen's tastes, thanks ariana grande, but they look cute on her. ]

Yeah, no problem. [ gwen leans back on her seat. it helps that it's a song that sounds familiar. at least, she's pretty sure she's heard it before. where is going to drive her crazy for the next few hours, but.

she waves the sticks. ]

Do you want me start you off? I like your hair, by the way.

[scarredhorns]

[Horns, actually! But they certainly did look more like ears and she's glad that they don't seem to bother anyone she's met so far. Back home she was told to hide them or else she might get taken away somewhere to be experimented on.]

Please. Oh, thank you! And I've enjoyed watching you play. [Nyuu smiles brightly and gives Gwen a quick bow of her head before taking her place on stage. She can feel herself trembling all over again, especially when she sees most of the audience staring at her horns curiously, but she tries to look confident.]

[construing]

Take a deep breath, [ gwen suggests only loudly enough for nyuu, and perhaps those sitting right up close the stage to hear. if nyuu looks back, she will see gwen wink her way. ]

You got this.

[ she counts off, and starts to play. ]