londoncallingrpg | looking for london

Commissions were one thing, and Em had gotten comfortable with the process from the initial conversation about what the client wanted all the way through to delivering the final product. She did her best, one piece at a time, and only taking the work when she felt she could do what she'd be promising to do.

This wasn't any different, right? But sitting in her room, staring at her signature at the bottom of a contract to design a London-themed tarot deck, or worse the deposit check they'd given her for supplies and such, she couldn't help feeling like she was in over her head. This wasn't one piece; it was seventy-eight. Seventy-nine if she included a Happy Squirrel, and eighty if you counted a design for the card backs. But it was one piece, all seventy-eight, seventy-nine, eighty paintings being parts of the whole.

She had some ideas, but she needed more. She needed to see London with new eyes. Not only the parts she'd seen and remembered already. She needed to come up with something that wouldn't speak only to her, but to anyone who'd use the deck. The thought of wandering all over London alone to see what she needed to see made her stomach churn even more than the scope of the paintings she'd agreed to do. She didn't think she would be the only one who'd have a problem with that, and she couldn't ask the boys to go with her all the time. And Jag would want to, if the alternative was her going by herself.

Rather than stew (no pun intended) over the problem, she went to the kitchen for some chop vegetables, boil water meditation. By the time she put the tartiflette in the oven, she thought she'd come up with a solution.

The boys and Dutch she talked to in person, but she also sent texts or emails to pretty much everyone in her contact list, asking if they would be interested in helping her with a project. What she was looking for was people willing to show her something of London. Whether that was an iconic landmark or some hidden quirk you really had to look to see. Where they went when they had an afternoon free or a tourist trap with the queues to go with it. Prime nightlife or private retreat.

She got lucky. Not only were friends willing to help, but some introduced her to their friends to expand the circle even more. The messenger back she carried almost everywhere always had a sketchbook or two in it, but in this case, the phone's camera was more helpful. With plenty of reference photos, she could hole up in her room and paint for weeks.

~*~*~*~

"Thanks for helping," she said, not quite meeting their eyes as she smiled with her gratitude. "Everybody has such different ideas about London, I never really know what to expect."

[Open to friends or friends of friends, which should be most characters, I think. If you want to thread and there isn't an obvious connection, hit me up via email or slack and we'll figure something out.

Threads can be anywhere in London your character might take Em. If you need ideas, Visit London and Londonist are good for more obvious things, and Hidden London has more weird, wacky, trivial stuff. Just specify and/or link in your TL, so I know where they are.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

prodigalflame

John shrugged. Em wanting to do the wallflower thing wasn't his problem, and he didn't judge her for it. "Well, don't go in. Or go in, and be like a tourist, or an ethnographer. Gawk at the 50s decor and the weird, wonderful freak show that is the people who go there. It's not like they aren't used to people coming in and taking a lot of photos." Everyone seemed to take photos of everything, these days. Bobby was even taking photos of his food.

Another shrug, a more awkward one. "Helps me get out of the house." He didn't like the notion he was doing her a favour: he was a bit too old school quid pro quo for that. "I'd be rather here than marking, trust me."

From:

offthebeatenpath

Sometimes Em could see similarities between John and her Pyro. More often, though, it was the differences that screamed out at her. And sometimes, she just didn't know what to make of him. She wasn't sure which it was that had her mutter softly in French and reach for the door. "Come on. You said the food was good."

From:

prodigalflame

John's eyes narrowed a little at the muttering, but then he shrugged. Water off a duck's back. It wasn't like people being frustrated with him was a novelty. Walking inside, he immediately took account of the exits, the counter (beer on tap!), who and what and where. Standard operating procedure.

Settling into a booth that was near enough to the exit to allow him to see anyone coming in or approaching the diner/cafe/whatever, John pulled out his wallet, clearly intending to pay for both of them. There were already menus provided, so he handed one over, before standing: "You want a drink?"

From:

offthebeatenpath

John chose the booth Em would've, which really meant the one Dani or Nina would've chosen, and it was still habit to leave him the side with the better sightlines, even though she'd been taking that more herself lately. She focused on the menu rather than pull out her cards the way she wanted to, but glanced up to answer, "Whatever you're having's fine."

From:

prodigalflame

There was always something secret about Em that irked John. It wasn't shyness, not exactly, although that was a part of it. He had a bad enough time coping with Bobby's middle-class-ignore-stuff-bullcrap, and though Em didn't drive him to the flashes of scalding anger that Bobby did, there were times he wanted her to fucking express something.

Shaking his head a little, he sauntered to the counter/bar and ordered two half-pints of alcoholic cider. Not everyone had his particular relationship to alcohol, but hey, Em should have spoken up, right? Settling her glass down on the table in front of her, John slid into his seat, and ran fingers through his hair. He could almost feel the blond, as well as the gel in his spikes, a constant reminder.

It wasn't fair to take his bad mood out on Em, though. "Sorry. I'm in a crappy mood. How can I help? I'll focus on that."

From:

offthebeatenpath

The cider reminded Em of the Ballnagown; she'd often ordered Angus' cider or perry while there, although he was justified taking pride in all his brews.

"You say crappy mood, and I start wanting to fix it. So okay, something else to focus on. The tarot relies on shared or accessible symbolism to put a lot of meaning into single images. I'm a French woman largely raised in the states and most recently from Scotland, tapped to create a London themed tarot deck, and you said you liked this place because it counters some of the stereotypes of English culture, yeah? So what is it you see here? What stands out? Or how does it make you feel?"

From:

prodigalflame

John's eyes widened a little bit, leaning back in his seat as if the idea of fixing made him uncomfortable, arm stretched over the back of the booth.

"I'm not exactly English myself," John responded, his open palm a dismissive gesture. But moving his hips in a little closer in the seat was a sign that he was engaged, at least. "Scottish, if you go far back enough on Mom's side. All I knew about English people was the Beatles and awkward dudes in films and good villains. Lots of stiff upper lip and suits. This isn't that..."

He took another sip, moving in closer, warming to his theme as he looked around. "This is bikers, and booze, and rock, and the 50s, but in ways that were harder than they were back home. No umbrellas or tweed. They know what they wanna be." John shrugged: "I like that."

From:

offthebeatenpath

Em listened, genuinely interested in what John was saying and knowing it could help her put her images of the cafe into the context of the tarot. She nodded when he finished, thinking about the road less taken and truths in unexpected places, but her mind kept slipping to other cards: the Tower and the Devil, and the time Lorna asked about the Hanged Man.

She rocked her glass along the table, and couldn't bring herself to look at John when she quietly said, "Bobby told me... about Alcatraz."

From:

prodigalflame

A mix of feelings came over John in the moment after those words were said. Defiance at first, resignation, and then a slow, wry affection at Bobby. Because of course he told. And if he told, well, then for the first time, John really started to believe that his fiancé both knew who he was and that it was all good.

"I tried to kill him," John acknowledged, just as quiet, with a bit of a shrug. "...A few days before, I blew up a building because I thought Rogue was in it and I wanted to hurt him. It was a big week."

Taking a sip of his cider, he leaned back in his seat, retreating from her, manner guarded but not hostile. "What do you wanna know, Em? Why I did it? If I was in my right mind?"

From:

offthebeatenpath

The tarot had taught Em long ago, not to ask questions if she wasn't prepared to get an answer, but what about when she didn't care what the answer was? "I'm not sure my knowing why matters. You did it. And now I know that." She shook her head again, mostly at herself, and not knowing how to put feelings into the right words.

"You and Bobby've both said you've paid for it and aren't the same person you were then. I'd even say he's done a better job forgiving you than himself, which either makes him a better person than us or means he's got a more warped relationship with guilt than... anybody I know. And that's saying something."

From:

prodigalflame

"Bobby knows what I'm capable of," John agreed, after a careful pause and another gulp of cider. The unspoken thought was that Em should, as well. John didn't really know how it went down in the X-crowd, but considering they tended to look for the best of people, the last thing he wanted Em to think was that he was some kind of redeemed goody-goody kumbaya type. People making assumptions about him could be a very stupid thing.

"And he's more complicated than you'd think," he added wryly, with a bit of a shrug. For all that things weren't going so well between them, the idea of telling Em, of getting it all out, receded as a possibility. John understood that he got Bobby in ways Em clearly didn't, and a part of him wanted to keep it that way, to horde his special hold over his fiancé.

From:

offthebeatenpath

Em drank some cider, using the time to discard replies that were more about her Pyro than this John and Bobby, or ones that overstepped the boundaries of what could be considered her business. That didn't leave much she could say.

"Jag's right." She stood, downing the rest of her glass. "And I'm not as complicated as Bobby. Thanks for the drink, and sorry about dragging you out here." She set the empty glass on the table and headed for the door.