Eda Clawthorne (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
edalyn) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
apocalypsehowcomm2023-07-19 10:50 pm
edalyn) wrote in apocalypsehowcomm2023-07-19 10:50 pm
Log | July Catch-all | Open
Who: Edalyn Clawthorne + maybe you!
When: Throughout July
Where: Around Gloucester + the ADI
Summary: Eda helps with a Christmas party, has a bad experience with candy, checks out the Wolfe seal, and fights geese. Eda also starts to look increasingly tired and miserable.
Warnings: arachnophobia, body horror (including one instance that isn’t but potentially looks like self harm), animal attacks, possible harm to geese, supernaturally induced depression/anxiety/loneliness, mental/physical health degradation, emotional breakdowns
Holly Jolly
a) It's finally happened.
This place has officially broken her down.
Edalyn Clawthorne has compromised the last of her remaining standards.
Because she used to draw the line at novelty costumes.
Unfortunately for her, Pam looked sad. And Eda may or may not feel just a little bad about stealing certain access codes. So here she is, delivering people little gifts that she really, really hopes aren't cursed. Someone is going to have a hell of a lot to answer for if they're cursed. But it's fine. Probably.
She's also dressed like an elf. And, perhaps more notably, in witch form. While she's been trying to avoid unnecessary magic, sometimes she has to burn some power off. And since it seems that's going to get her in less trouble than it used to, she's decided she could use a break from having to duck under every doorframe.
Which means she also looks, more or less, like an elf. With a long fluffy weasel tail. It seems that she's stuck with that whatever she does. At least there are worse fates—she’s pretty sure she makes it work.
Perhaps you catch her in the act of dropping a little gift off for you, or perhaps you simply pass her in the hallway and get a look that dares you to say something.
b) The fact she’s still dressed this way later, at the actual party, is less Pam’s fault and more Raine’s. They insisted she should participate in the local customs. And also bribed her about it. Unfortunately, she’s weaker to their charms than she’d like to admit.
Which leaves Eda, still dressed like an elf, eating whatever a roast beef pizza is, and looking deeply awkward in this restaurant. If nothing else, the decorations are fun–she likes the shiny objects, at least. And might be caught batting at a plastic icicle like a cat once or twice.
Her own ‘gift’ is sitting on the table near her as she eats; a tiny mechanical ornament of an old bearded man who appears to be fishing. She assumes it’s festive for some reason that would make sense to a human. If it has a matching partner, she doesn’t know what that would look like.
A New Spin
cw: arachnophobia, body horror
Given the incident with the chocolates, Eda should probably realise that it’s a bad idea to eat unattended candy around the ADI.
But she’s also been getting most of her sweets–and the occasional cooking ingredients as well–from Bumble Gum for months. The shop may have strangely mixed opinions from the humans, but she’s yet to find anything supernatural about it. In fact, it’s nice to finally have some food that wouldn’t be out of place on the Boiling Isles.
And if there’s often something just slightly spiteful in the way she crunches down on candied spiders, in particular, well, that’s just a little bonus. They’ve simply become a creature that she’s less fond of since getting here.
Either way, she’s hardly thinking when she idly begins popping fried, sugar-coated spiders into her mouth. She’s entirely surprised by the sudden feeling of more limbs than she normally has.
When she looks down, even turning around trying to see her whole back, she doesn’t see anything. Even when she tries to move the phantom limbs and feels them move. She’s on the ADI grounds, so it isn’t a matter of glamour. But whatever it is, she doesn't like it. She slowly puts down the rest of the spiders with a slightly shaky breath.
Murderous Geese
cw: animal attacks, possible harm to animals
Eda tends to spend a lot of time in or near the woods—the ones that aren’t part of Dogtown at any rate.
By now, much of the local wildlife knows to avoid her in much the same way they avoid free-roaming cats. She’s a menace and, at this point, ultimately a fact of life.
Some things are braver, of course. She’s used to getting yelled at by various birds.
The loud hissing still startles her, though. Even for geese, the flock stepping into her path seem especially bold. She’s relatively sure they’re unusually toothy for Human Realm birds, too.
She hisses back. This can only end well.
Accidental Archaeologists
Eda’s last visit to Hammond Castle wasn’t exactly a great time, and she’s definitely planning to give any taxidermy she happens to see a wide berth.
But on the other hand, she’s a little worried about people digging up anything Dogtown related, especially after the rash of artifact incidents. Wolves have been a running theme around here, too. Even if it’s spelled a bit differently from the towns.
Eda can be found with her nose near the glass of the new display, peering suspiciously at the wax seal.
A Breakdown
i. my nerves are wrecked and coming unwound
cw: supernaturally induced depression/anxiety/loneliness, mental/physical health degradation
Anyone who knows Eda particularly well may start to notice something by the mid-point of July. Even people who only know her in passing may start to notice by the end of the month.
In short, she doesn’t look good.
She starts to seem worn, unusually tired. Then again, that could be said about a lot of ADI employees in the wake of recent revelations and missions.
The circles under her eyes become more noticeable over time, like she’s not sleeping well or as often as she should—or perhaps simply not getting enough rest even if she does.
At first, she actually seems slightly more talkative. Willing to engage and spend time with people more often than is usually characteristic for the oft-prickly woman, even now that she’s made friends here.
There’s an almost desperate edge to the way she grasps at connection.
And then, eventually, that changes.
Eda becomes more withdrawn, and more secretive. Notably anxious, and quick to insist that she’s fine in a way that she’s been, until recently, learning to stop doing.
ii. does everybody have it together or are we all pretending?
cw: prev + emotional breakdowns
At some point, you might spot her suddenly breaking down in tears, when she thinks there’s no one around to see it.
Huddled behind a building, or perhaps a shelf in the archives, if she thinks everyone else in research has gone home for the day. Nothing in particular seems to set her off, as much as she just… in the middle of whatever else she was doing, cracks.
She sinks to the ground and buries her face in her arms, muttering something that sounds a lot like I can’t keep doing this.
iii. i rip myself apart at the seams / i find one weak spot and start unraveling
cw: prev + mild body horror, not actually self harm but could appear that way
Or, perhaps, you catch her doing something that might or might not be more concerning to most people.
Eda seems distant as she idly picks one of her hands apart, joint by joint.
The segments separate cleanly, bloodlessly, with little pops. She doesn’t react like there’s any pain when she does it. Despite the nature of what she’s doing, her mannerisms appear more like an anxious habit than anything else; akin to fidgeting, just in the strangest possible way.
Watch long enough without disturbing her, and she’ll start putting it back together, reassembling her fingers with a practiced ease.
When: Throughout July
Where: Around Gloucester + the ADI
Summary: Eda helps with a Christmas party, has a bad experience with candy, checks out the Wolfe seal, and fights geese. Eda also starts to look increasingly tired and miserable.
Warnings: arachnophobia, body horror (including one instance that isn’t but potentially looks like self harm), animal attacks, possible harm to geese, supernaturally induced depression/anxiety/loneliness, mental/physical health degradation, emotional breakdowns
Holly Jolly
a) It's finally happened.
This place has officially broken her down.
Edalyn Clawthorne has compromised the last of her remaining standards.
Because she used to draw the line at novelty costumes.
Unfortunately for her, Pam looked sad. And Eda may or may not feel just a little bad about stealing certain access codes. So here she is, delivering people little gifts that she really, really hopes aren't cursed. Someone is going to have a hell of a lot to answer for if they're cursed. But it's fine. Probably.
She's also dressed like an elf. And, perhaps more notably, in witch form. While she's been trying to avoid unnecessary magic, sometimes she has to burn some power off. And since it seems that's going to get her in less trouble than it used to, she's decided she could use a break from having to duck under every doorframe.
Which means she also looks, more or less, like an elf. With a long fluffy weasel tail. It seems that she's stuck with that whatever she does. At least there are worse fates—she’s pretty sure she makes it work.
Perhaps you catch her in the act of dropping a little gift off for you, or perhaps you simply pass her in the hallway and get a look that dares you to say something.
b) The fact she’s still dressed this way later, at the actual party, is less Pam’s fault and more Raine’s. They insisted she should participate in the local customs. And also bribed her about it. Unfortunately, she’s weaker to their charms than she’d like to admit.
Which leaves Eda, still dressed like an elf, eating whatever a roast beef pizza is, and looking deeply awkward in this restaurant. If nothing else, the decorations are fun–she likes the shiny objects, at least. And might be caught batting at a plastic icicle like a cat once or twice.
Her own ‘gift’ is sitting on the table near her as she eats; a tiny mechanical ornament of an old bearded man who appears to be fishing. She assumes it’s festive for some reason that would make sense to a human. If it has a matching partner, she doesn’t know what that would look like.
A New Spin
cw: arachnophobia, body horror
Given the incident with the chocolates, Eda should probably realise that it’s a bad idea to eat unattended candy around the ADI.
But she’s also been getting most of her sweets–and the occasional cooking ingredients as well–from Bumble Gum for months. The shop may have strangely mixed opinions from the humans, but she’s yet to find anything supernatural about it. In fact, it’s nice to finally have some food that wouldn’t be out of place on the Boiling Isles.
And if there’s often something just slightly spiteful in the way she crunches down on candied spiders, in particular, well, that’s just a little bonus. They’ve simply become a creature that she’s less fond of since getting here.
Either way, she’s hardly thinking when she idly begins popping fried, sugar-coated spiders into her mouth. She’s entirely surprised by the sudden feeling of more limbs than she normally has.
When she looks down, even turning around trying to see her whole back, she doesn’t see anything. Even when she tries to move the phantom limbs and feels them move. She’s on the ADI grounds, so it isn’t a matter of glamour. But whatever it is, she doesn't like it. She slowly puts down the rest of the spiders with a slightly shaky breath.
Murderous Geese
cw: animal attacks, possible harm to animals
Eda tends to spend a lot of time in or near the woods—the ones that aren’t part of Dogtown at any rate.
By now, much of the local wildlife knows to avoid her in much the same way they avoid free-roaming cats. She’s a menace and, at this point, ultimately a fact of life.
Some things are braver, of course. She’s used to getting yelled at by various birds.
The loud hissing still startles her, though. Even for geese, the flock stepping into her path seem especially bold. She’s relatively sure they’re unusually toothy for Human Realm birds, too.
She hisses back. This can only end well.
Accidental Archaeologists
Eda’s last visit to Hammond Castle wasn’t exactly a great time, and she’s definitely planning to give any taxidermy she happens to see a wide berth.
But on the other hand, she’s a little worried about people digging up anything Dogtown related, especially after the rash of artifact incidents. Wolves have been a running theme around here, too. Even if it’s spelled a bit differently from the towns.
Eda can be found with her nose near the glass of the new display, peering suspiciously at the wax seal.
A Breakdown
i. my nerves are wrecked and coming unwound
cw: supernaturally induced depression/anxiety/loneliness, mental/physical health degradation
Anyone who knows Eda particularly well may start to notice something by the mid-point of July. Even people who only know her in passing may start to notice by the end of the month.
In short, she doesn’t look good.
She starts to seem worn, unusually tired. Then again, that could be said about a lot of ADI employees in the wake of recent revelations and missions.
The circles under her eyes become more noticeable over time, like she’s not sleeping well or as often as she should—or perhaps simply not getting enough rest even if she does.
At first, she actually seems slightly more talkative. Willing to engage and spend time with people more often than is usually characteristic for the oft-prickly woman, even now that she’s made friends here.
There’s an almost desperate edge to the way she grasps at connection.
And then, eventually, that changes.
Eda becomes more withdrawn, and more secretive. Notably anxious, and quick to insist that she’s fine in a way that she’s been, until recently, learning to stop doing.
ii. does everybody have it together or are we all pretending?
cw: prev + emotional breakdowns
At some point, you might spot her suddenly breaking down in tears, when she thinks there’s no one around to see it.
Huddled behind a building, or perhaps a shelf in the archives, if she thinks everyone else in research has gone home for the day. Nothing in particular seems to set her off, as much as she just… in the middle of whatever else she was doing, cracks.
She sinks to the ground and buries her face in her arms, muttering something that sounds a lot like I can’t keep doing this.
iii. i rip myself apart at the seams / i find one weak spot and start unraveling
cw: prev + mild body horror, not actually self harm but could appear that way
Or, perhaps, you catch her doing something that might or might not be more concerning to most people.
Eda seems distant as she idly picks one of her hands apart, joint by joint.
The segments separate cleanly, bloodlessly, with little pops. She doesn’t react like there’s any pain when she does it. Despite the nature of what she’s doing, her mannerisms appear more like an anxious habit than anything else; akin to fidgeting, just in the strangest possible way.
Watch long enough without disturbing her, and she’ll start putting it back together, reassembling her fingers with a practiced ease.
no subject
And... that's a good point, that probably was the worst way to make them not worry. She really wasn't at her best, not in the words she was choosing or in any other aspect.
But their next comment hurts, and she does her best to hide just now much with a little huff.
She glances at them again, before squeezing their hand, running her thumb along the backs of their claws in the way she's come to do when she's trying to calm one or both of them.
"Well, first off, you are not going to lose me, dear thing. I'm tired and this place is getting to me a little. Neither one is the end of the world. I've survived a hell of a lot worse than a bad week or two." It's true, though the stress she's currently under is becoming constant in a way that doesn't make it any easier to handle.
no subject
"Of course you have. You have been made to endure so much more than this, Eda. I suppose it scares me though, that you have spoken so freely to me of past hurts and traumas, but find it so difficult to speak openly about what is going on now. Perhaps because of that, it feels so much more insidious than it actually is."
no subject
"It's not that it's worse," she says, her tone firm. It might be wearing away at her, but that much is true. It isn't as drastic as other things she's been through, even here.
"Oh but it's not just up to me. And it's—I don't want you getting into any trouble for what might be nothing."
It isn't nothing, she knows that much already. But she and Raine also haven't learned anything quite solid enough, that changes anything enough that it feels like time to share it yet either.
no subject
"I hear you. I will drop it, then. But if you should like to speak on it or anything else, you know that I am not difficult to find, Eda. Just - Please be well. And safe."
no subject
There's a slight hesitation before she goes on. The struggle between how lonely she is, the constant ache in her chest, and the cold tinge to it that tells her that it's because no one's actually interested anyway.
But she hasn't fed the medallion today, and so the more genuine of the two, after a moment, wins out.
"Look... I can't necessarily tell you what I'm researching yet. But I do want to—I dunno, talk about other stuff. We could get lunch?"
Wait. Were they already supposed to do that today? Or was that tomorrow? Dammit. It was getting harder to keep track of things.
no subject
"Lunch would be most lovely. Do you have the time to go now? I have missed our weekly dates."
no subject
But she's lonely, and she knows she's not the only one who is, either. She gets up to stretch, cracking her back briefly and then putting on her best attempt at a cheerful smile. It's still tired, but it's better than nothing.
no subject
"What are you feeling like, Eda? The cafeteria? Or perhaps, something outside of ADI?"
no subject
"I could use a break from this place." This is true in a way that runs so much deeper than anything an hour or two in another part of town can fix, but that won't hurt.
While the effects of the medallion can't be ended early, as far as she can tell, she can still try to distract herself. Remind herself, at least on a rational level, that there are people in her life. It's probably better than not bothering to try.
no subject
"Then somewhere else we shall go."
Rue is contented to take the lead, walking at pace at Eda's side, as they make their way towards the front of the building. Even with their worry over the secrets Eda is keeping from them, Rue manages to strike up a completely harmless conversation.
"Is there anything in particular you'd like? I am most fond of the soups and salads down at the café, but I believe there's a new diner that I have yet to try."
no subject
"Well, a change of pace sounds good right about now." Whether the food is actually good or not, she suspects that anything new will be easier to focus on than something she's used to. Even if she's hoping the food is actually good, too. She should probably be eating a little more often than she has lately.
no subject
The walk isn't too far, just a few blocks away from the coffee shop they've frequented in the past, one of those very old-timey diners that has a million things on the menu and it's always that same sweet older woman on shift. Even newly opened, it feels like it's been here forever, already a few older city-folk perched on the stools at the bar. Rue guides Eda to the back, to somewhere more sturdy and out of the way for them to sit.
"It's quite kitschy, isn't it?"
no subject
That, and she was right about getting away from work for at least a bit helping. She seems visibly more relaxed, if not back to her usual self.
"Better not turn out to be evil," she adds under her breath as she begins to scan a menu. Her tone makes it sound like a joke, but after Bumble Gum you never know.
no subject
"That is the last thing we need, certainly." But it really would fit how things have been going as of late. "What catches your eye?"
no subject
"Hard to go wrong with a steak." It'll make the owlbeast happy, at the very least.
no subject
At least there is that.
Once the server approaches them, Rue points out a glamoured paw at the menu. "The chicken caesar salad would be lovely for me, thank you. And perhaps a glass of iced tea."
no subject
"So," she says, as the server leaves.
"As much as I love talking about me..." Once again, the quip sounds almost like her usual self. "I'd rather hear what you've been up to."
no subject
"Nothing quite important. I have been doing some work with Nia, some education, if you will, but truth be told, mostly I have kept much to myself. I was worried when you did not show up for our standing lunch date. I thought something might be wrong."
no subject
"Like I say, things are just... a lot. What are you doing with Nia?" she asks, just as glad to jump on a new subject. That, and she really is curious what Rue would be trying to learn from everyone's favourite Hunt avatar.
no subject
They hardly know what to do.
"She's been educating me on American politics, on a federal and local level. It's both fascinating and terrifying at times."