ramblingbard

Alone in the Crowd

Wayne hummed lightly to himself as he walked along the street. He had been expecting - hoping was really too tame a word for it - to have run into someone else lousing about, even if it was an experiment in isolation. If he hadn't, he would have brought his Ipod with him to at least partially distract him - a small part of him anyways - from the lack of other bodies. This was going to be a long experiment.

<See, this is why you shouldn't doddle.>

"Yeah, but I'm betting I'm the only one with candy," he mumbled around a cheek full of gummy fish. The hall was only a few more moments away, after all.

{Strangers love candy!}

A chuckle escaped Wayne as he pulled open the door to the meeting hall.A lopsided grin spread onto his face after he swallowed the mound of mostly chewed candy. His gaze landed right on the girl crossing the room - probably because she was moving and in direct line of sight. "Don't tell me you're leaving already. Didn't this thing just start?" Not that he knew what "this thing" was, but he knew there had to be some fun reason for them to all be gathered. He may have missed everything aside from a faint murmur of something being said while he was outside, but who got the lonely hearts club - or so he was planning to call it for now - together if not for something fun?

The lopsided grin grew a bit; he walked further into the hall. The bag of candy tilted a bit more forward so the lid was pointed toward the woman when he extended his arm toward her. "Care for a sweet? Candy's always better coming from a stranger." It took a lot of effort, but he held back a chuckle; it escaped him through twinkling in his eyes.

Welcome to Saint-Vienne

Name: Christopher McKenna

Gender: Male

Age: 22

Description (photo optional, writing required): Chris has short blonde hair and baby blue eyes. He's just muscled enough to be obvious that he does work out, but not so much that it ruins his attractive features. He is tan, the kind that's year round and helps him look great with or without a shirt on. He's got a few scars from his youth, but nothing visible with a tee-shirt on. He has a small silver cross that he never takes off. He’s about 5’10 and tends to wear jeans and a tee-shirt. One ear has earrings all the way up it and he's got an eyebrow pierced. Two hearts - one pink and one purple - interlinked over his heart and a smallish celtic cross mirrors that tattoo on his back.

Occupation: College Student majoring in Secondary Education, focused on English

Personality: He’s definitely the kinda guy that seems like he’s got a chip on his shoulder. Burned too hard from a past relationship, he’s not an active flirt and the first response to flirting is to be an asshole. Aside from that, he’s generally a decent guy. He likes to have fun and laugh, but tends to be default serious. He doesn’t care for compliments, mostly because he sees them as lead ups to favors. If there’s one guaranteed way to get on his bad side, it’s to ask why he’s a dick in response to flirting or ask about the heart tattoo. He is *mostly* over his hatred for females, and although he’s not ready for anything close to a relationship, he’s at least civil to females around him.

History: Growing up, he was a pretty average kid. He had his problems with rules just like most other kids, especially when his mother died, but when he started learning tae kwon do he started to shape up. As he grew older, he got into other martial and mixed martial arts, and started competing nationally in high school. It kept him busy outside of playing school sports, and helped him stay out of trouble. Of course, his first girlfriend got him into it - a girl his female friends warned him to stay away from because she did drugs *not just pot*, but he was smitten. He knocked her up their junior year, and when he found out - although he wasn’t ready for it - he started figuring out ways to make it work and be a providing father; she swore on her end she would shape up too but that wasn’t the case. She ended up going into early labor during a nasty bender and despite the hospital’s best efforts, his daughter died hours after her birth - three months early. It embittered him toward females for a long time, and it was only after he started going to college and being forced out of his shell by his cousin that he started to forgive females as a whole and focus his disgust toward the one that murdered *in his eyes* his daughter. (He bears the heart in heart tattoo for Sophia.)

Reason for arriving in Saint-Vienne: On a road trip with some friends, their car broke down and he hoofed it to the town with them to try to find a mechanic or something that could help.

Start off items: Lighter, a bottle of Powerade, a couple of power bars, his mother’s cross, a pack of menthols.

Name: Riley McKenna

Gender: Female

Age: 21

Description (photo optional, writing required): Standing roughly five foot four, she might otherwise come across as someone that might cheerlead based on her pseudo-athletic build like a runner of a gymnast - though her bust is just a hair too big for gymnast to come to mind for most. Her blonde hair is layered with chin length bangs, and flows a few inches past her shoulders; she usually wears a colorful bandana rolled up or headband to style her hair. green eyes,Her eyes are a deep velvety green and are naturally almond shaped. She has scar tissue on her upper body that stretches from just above her elbow, up her upper left arm that stretches across her entire back. Although she dresses in form fitting t-shirts, she prefers long sleeved shirts or short sleeve worn under an open sweatshirt or other long sleeve overshirt matched to loose fitting jeans; generally she wears sneakers. Always wears a silver locket that contains a picture of her family from when she was a little girl.

Occupation: College student, majoring in Art Therapy

Personality: A sweet girl, she is friendly and can occasionally be found lost in a daydream. She likes to help people and is usually the first to offer a hand in most occasions. Her cousin has been teaching her a bit more restraint for that, especially after an incident that almost happened her freshman year of high school, and she is a lot more mellow now than in high school when she was very outgoing. She sometimes gets vibes from people or situations, one of those “I don’t think we should talk to that guy” or “I’ve got a bad feeling about this” kind of things, which brought her to be one of the first to try to talk Chris out of dating the woman that nearly destroyed him for life; when she ignored this it usually lead her into very dangerous or bad situations, so she has stopped ignoring it. (Pretty much she gets gut feelings about stuff. If this is a problem, I can remove it.)

History: Life was good when she was young, even better when she finally got a baby brother like she had been asking for. Then the accident happened and her house burnt down. If it weren’t for a fireman, she would have died too; as it was, she lost her brother in that fire and bears the reminder on her body. It took several months to recover from both her smoke inhalation and the burns, but the loss of her brother took her and her parents years to finally cope with. By the time she got to high school, she was a happy go lucky kid once again, and continued into her college years. She never really ever thought of getting into romantic relationships; it was a subconscious thing, not wanting to ever put herself into a situation where anyone might see the scars.

Reason for arriving in Saint-Vienne: On a road trip with some friends, their car broke down and she hoofed it to the town with them to try to find a mechanic or something that could help.

Start off items: A Maglite flashlight, a bottle of water, a few granola bars, her locket with a picture of her parents and her and her baby brother in it, her leather bound sketch pad

Although she would have brought a pencil or pen with her because of the sketchpad, I'm going to go with the assumption that it fell out of her bag at some point on the hike to town.

(As a note, Chris is mostly carrying stuff in his pockets except for the drink - which he's carrying in his hand - and the cross - which he's wearing. Riley has a small messenger bag (like the one I described before) to carry her stuff, aside from the locket - which she's wearing.)

(Edit: as another note, these two are road tripping with Bee's characters. Relationships to be explained either once she posts or in RP.)

Camp Half Blood: Stolen Symbols

Oh, oh no. Don't say that. You'll regret saying that. ;)

Powerless

"Well, I heard some places don't mind if a person's got talent like you," Alex said, offering her a smile. A chuckle started when he realized he was trying to comfort her, and what the hell did he know? He leaned back in the chair, lacing his fingers behind his head and cupping the back of his head with them to give it a cushion for his lounging. "Then again, that's just word of mouth. Lots of people say lots of stuff in places like this. I got real good at puzzles before I came to this one though." A one shoulder shrug followed the latter statement. There weren't as many people talking to themselves here as there were in the last place though. "I'm Alex."

He glanced over his shoulder at his sister then looked back at Veleno. A nod of his head indicated back toward her. "If you can't tell that's my sister, Jenn." He looked back over his shoulder, hands still against his head. "Hey, you should come over and talk too. Doc says it's good for you."

Jennifer's gaze snapped to her brother, partially hidden by a veil of her own bangs. For a second, she considered just going back to what she was doing, but it was Alex asking. Alex wouldn't ask her to socialize then abandon her. Unfurling from her position once more, she crossed the short space between them and quickly curled back up, hugging a knee to her chest with the other curled underneath the upright leg. "Hi," she nearly whispered. A sleeve covered hand brushed at her bangs, but not enough to keep them from falling right back into place to cover all but one eye.

Alex smiled as he turned back to Veleno. "So, what do you like to draw? Anything in particular?" As he spoke, he let his arms drop, one wrist resting on his thigh while his other arm fell across Jennifer's shoulders to hold her close.

Camp Half Blood: Stolen Symbols

Sorry, minutia bugs me sometimes. I annoyed another Mod with picking to death minutia. Whole consistency/continuity thing.

Camp Half Blood: Stolen Symbols

You know, Hellhound, Hypnos doesn't have a cabin before the end of the first series, right? Your guy would be with Hermes Cabin.

Camp Half Blood: Stolen Symbols

Just like every day for the past several years - even before she ever knew the Gods of ancient Greece were still around and she was entangled in the ever building history - Ariel awoke just as the sun kissed the sky awake to the very first hint of grey. She was one of the few, even amongst her half-siblings, to wake so early. It was nice to be one of few awake; not that she minded having half-siblings, but she still enjoyed time to herself. In the dark of new dawn, she dressed and combed out her hair for the new day; showering could wait as it usually did the day after she actually washed her hair least she ruin the silky tresses with over shampooing. Once dressing and grooming were complete, she quietly made her bed - a little preference to always keep her area nice and tidy.

Violin in hand, and her satchel across her body so it rest on the hip opposite the shoulder supporting it, she crept out of the Apollo cabin to at least practice playing her violin. Her sketchbook, a pencil, and an eraser - though it rarely saw use - lay within the satchel just as always. She had considered setting up in the arena to practice, but spotted Adrian on his morning run already. A thought of setting up to draw if he did go to practice, as she had noticed was a bit of a custom for him, crossed her mind but she quickly pushed it out. Not everyone that woke early were morning people and if he was usually in a foul mood on a good day, she didn't want to find out what kind of mood he might be in during the growing dawn hours. Instead, she found herself by the lake, playing a serene melody appropriate for the growing light and waking world.

Before she knew it, the laughter of several nymphs joined in her violin's song. That was how she knew more of the camp was waking, more than the warm kiss of golden light. Still, she continued to play, swaying with the music as it grew livelier, until the familiar voice of one of her brothers broke into the melody, informing her that it was time for breakfast. A smile graced her face as she let her the final stroke carry on the strings before lowering the instrument and bow. "Thank you for getting me," she replied to his otherwise worried remarks about her not being in or near the cabin - though it wasn't that unusual really; in the meantime, she put her violin and bow away and picked up the case.

They walked together to the pavilion mostly because he apparently thought some monster might appear out of thin air to attack her even in the camp. The Apollo table was already filled by the time they reached it, but she never fretted over most of the meats being gone. Someone had apparently saved her a plate of fruits, to which she added a waffle and a piece of ham that another sibling suggested she take for the offering; that was always how it happened though, someone would help her pick out an offering of meat to go with bit of other foods she gave to Apollo as well. With a quick prayer and the offering made, she sat amongst her siblings and listened to their chatter while she took delicate nibbles of her fruit and the other half of the waffle she took.

Welcome to Saint-Vienne

So, when you say big enough to carry a few things plus a little extra...Well, I guess the best way is to describe it because I've got this messenger bag I use for a LARP that I'ma use as an example with what I've managed to carry in it at one time: It's main pocket is big enough to hold like three standard (100 page) composition note books, then a back pocket that can hold like three of those half size composition notebooks, a pouch on either side that's big enough to fit a standard mobile (sure, there's lots of different kinds in various sizes, but the average of all that is what it fits), two small pouches on the front big enough for - say - carrying a standard roll of medical tape in each, two side by side pouches that are about as wide as the average hand but not a lot of give to put much more than maybe a pile of pens or folded paper, and to top it all off the flap/top to it has a pouch that's big enough for a composition notebook.

Not saying she'd have all of that, but the entire bag, flat, doesn't look like it would hold that much - only the size (height, weight, and depth when flat) of a regular 3 subject notebook, but the capacity level is much larger than it appears. Does that seem to be too big, even though it is a relatively small bag? I would link up a picture, but I got it at a surplus army supply store in my area.

(I won't even try to reason in this backpack I use, 'cause if everything's stored properly, I've fit two entire outfit changes, a handful of notebooks, some extra pens, two flashlights, 6 Nerf guns (the hand gun versions), a card game roughly the size of nine bicycle decks, and probably could fit more if I needed anything else. I know that's far too much capacity, but I wanted to check on the messenger bag, because that's roughly the size I was thinking for my female to have. *And yes, there are tons of nerdy in-game LARP jokes people make about my bags and how much I can carry.*)

But seriously, I will ask tons of questions if you don't stop me. Just ask Bee. I love minutia - if it wasn't a concept I would make love to it. ;D

Camp Half Blood: Stolen Symbols

so, just as a heads up since this might start tonight...I'm going to bed in like, maybe half an hour. I won't be back online (aside from via mobile and thus not really able to make a post) until I get home from work about 17 hours from now. Just wanted to give a heads up since I don't know how posting will be and don't want to get left in the dust because I happen to work.

Welcome to Saint-Vienne

Oh, one last question: is it assumed they have a backpack or some form of bag to carry their stuff in, or more like the items are shoved into pockets? (Aside from the general curiosity, my other character's personal item *since I can't figure out other stuff to bring because the only other things I can think for her to bring that make sense are multiple items and clash with other items being brought.)

I swear I'll post my sheets up tonight before I go to bed. That's the last detail needed.