Trust is earned, not given

[assholic]

Who: Jessica Jones (assholic) & OPEN
What: April's catch-all
When: Beginning of April until at least the 21st (likely also usable for log threads from the event)
Where: Wyver; The pubs, her home with Clark, the arenas. Thesa Station; Visiting the pods to check on her people, the bars.
Warning(s): As this post will also be available for the memory share event, there is a possible warning for discussions and/or graphic descriptions of sexual assault and violence. I'll update which threads need to be warned for. Usual warning of language and possible sexual content. Update: Jessica/Brock's thread has a cw for sexual assault memories.

I: Thesa Station
[When the whole idea of living rustic got a bit too much for her, or when she just wanted to stop feeling like she was being judged or watched by everyone in Wyver, she headed up to the station. She figured she'd get in as much time there as she could, considering how long they'd been locked out from visiting before. Their tech seemed to be iffy at best. Plus, they had better alcohol there that she knew wasn't laced with anything magical, and that right now as an immense bonus.

There was also Trish, and lately, Jess had a lot to talk to her best friend/sister about, and it was killing her that she wasn't there, wasn't really there to give her advice. Or laugh at the shit she'd gotten herself into.

So on Thesa Station, Jessica could be found either hanging around Trish's pod, drinking herself into a stupor, or heading to sleep it off in a corner/cot/room. There's also the wildcard option, if none of those fit.]


II: Wyver
[Despite wanting not to, she still lived in Wyver. She had people down there she gave a shit about, and despite part of her thinking they'd be better off without having to deal with her shit, there was too much going on right now for her to think about leaving them. No one was safe on the planet. Not in either town. But for the moment, even after her... ordeal, she was sticking with Wyver.

That choice might have something to do with the person she lived with, but she wasn't about to tell him or anyone else that.

In Wyver, Jessica could be found working at the Arenas for money to burn, trying to avoid the odd accolades some shops were giving her because of the ring she'd been seen with in public before stuffing it in her pocket, drinking herself into a stupor, and trying not to get herself into more shit than she was already in. That might be a tall order. There's also a wildcard prompt if none of these suit.]


III: Memory Share - (CW: Potential mention of sexual assault/trauma/violence with some of Jessica's memories)
[As if what she'd gone through hadn't been enough, now she was seeing other people's thoughts? Or... memories. The whole thing played like a VR snippet of someone's life, and she felt a growing sense of dread that the next bubble she got caught in would be her own instead of someone else's -- a fact she was bothered by enough considering the immense invasion of privacy that it was, one that crossed a line beyond snooping and taking pictures of someone in the act. This sincerely bothered her, and for the duration of the event, she would be very... unsettled.

(As a large lump of memories from Jessica's canon/past deal with sexual assault/violence/drug abuse, I'd like to make sure anyone who'd like to play with one of her memories is fully understanding of the scope of them and to double check on what people are comfortable with. Please PM or PP me (junglewere) if we haven't already talked about it or it's new CR, or just to make sure we're all on the same page and no one is made uncomfortable or upset by anything threaded.)

This can be a prompt for either people to come across her memories, or her to come across others. Or, there's a wildcard option if you'd prefer.


IV: Wildcard
[Wildcard in general. If none of the other options are what you'd like or you have a specific scenario in mind, please feel free to write your own starter or msg me for specifics if you'd like.]

Comments

[assholic]

Ever think that maybe I'm just tired of having to deal? It was bad enough back home, for fuck's sake. Then I wake up here and 'oh, everyone's in a fucking pod, here's the guy that should be dead, go down and play muckglucks and don't tell or else, but that's not a threat, la la'. It's one thing if it's my shit. If it's something I've done. I can handle that. This?

[She reached for her glass, tipping it back and downing half of it.]

This is someone else's shit show.

[ukase]

Don't forget your world and everything you were familiar with is destroyed. [He decided to add that so the full scale of her potential frustration at the situation was complete.] Might be someone else's shit show, but it's still impacting your muckgluck life, so you either take it or you change the rules of the game to suit you.

[He hadn't decided where he personally fell on this matter, but he knew where his skills would take him eventually. That was an inevitability as far as he was concerned, especially with no particular prospects as he was now. So, he'd change the game, play and see what happened.]

You've been drawn in, so it's your shit now too.

[assholic]

Thank you, Captain fucking obvious. This isn't the same. This is...

[Her hand waved around her, taking in the room around them, the bartender watching over the drunk flock to make sure nothing happened, and the planet in general.]

Fucked. It's like walking into some asshole's fanfic about being on a lost world and ooh, there's a pretty rock let's pick it up oh my god, a fucking dragon. This isn't my shit. My shit is mine. This is someone else plugging the goddamn toilet.

[ukase]

[He would give her points for creativity at the very least. He waved the bartender open and actually asked for a glass of water, ignoring the look he was thrown. It wasn't for drinking yet anyway.]

But you're still involved now, so you gotta figure out your shit and find a way out of it or to make them leave you alone.

[The water arrived and he picked up a bar napkin and dipped it in the water.]

Let me see your hand. Looks like the ground won to a degree.

[assholic]

What?

[She hadn't even been paying attention to the stinging throb in her hand. Pain was muted by the alcohol and the rage in her mind. But once he gestured to it, she felt the cuts and bits of dirt, moving to wipe her hands on the sides of her jeans. She could tell him to fuck off. Maybe another time she would. But she was tired just then. Tired and sore and a little more vulnerable than she wanted to be. So she just slapped her hand on the bar and rolled her eyes.]

I don't know if there's a way to do that. Apparently they don't let you die here. You just wind up back in the pods and they pop you out later. Or keep you in there. It's too... It's like gods playing Barbies.

[Her tone said what she thought of that idea; she didn't fucking like it.]

[ukase]

[He waited her out when it came to her hand; either way, someone was going to have to have a look at it, and it may as well be him. When she slapped it down, he grabbed her wrist and brought it into better light where he began to wipe and dab at the dirt and blood there, cleaning up her knuckles.]

Seems like you should have something to live for or else you'd already have put yourself back in a pod. You must have some skills aside from fighting you can put to use to better the situation, yeah?

[assholic]

I have survival skills. And an enormous tolerance for shit. I-

[She looked down at him cleaning her hand, feeling the alcohol making her warm, making her tongue a little looser.]

I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do here. I'm only fighting in the arenas because there's nothing else that works. I'm not going to fit in cleaning up after animals or serving assholes that I'll wind up throwing out a window. I was a PI back home because I was good at finding shit out and I worked by myself. I can't handle a 'real' job. This is... I don't know what to do.

[ukase]

I'd contest the tolerance for shit if you're talking about throwing someone out a window.

[He'd give her the point about survival though. She had clearly been through her share of crap, and this place wasn't exactly going each her either. He continued to clean though, keeping his head down and putting the napkin in water again when he needed a cleaner patch.]

I hear there's a guy named Cree that values information. Why not be a PI again and find the kind of information that he would find value in? Be your own boss again.

[assholic]

Because that's picking sides here. It's one thing to make my 'services' available to both cities, but siding with one or the other seems like I'm playing into whatever bullshit game the-

[She paused, remembering where they were.]

Certain people seem to want us to do.

[ukase]

Then sell your services to both sides and don't take one. It's as simple as you want to make it, but you got skills and it's probably a waste of them to just punch things in some gambling arena.

[However, he understood that she was going to do whatever she wanted. He just thought that she could find a way to release the frustration of being part of this. After all, likely there was a plan for integration anyway.]

Mercenaries work for the money. They don't take a side; they go to the highest bidder.

[assholic]

Yeah, well, I don't want to be a merc.

[Odd for someone that went to the arenas as much as she did, she didn't actually like the idea of fighting as a profession. She'd turned down numerous bodyguard gig offers before, and that mentality still held true. Hiring her to take pictures or get info was one thing. She only hurt someone on her own time.]

[ukase]

But you don't want to take sides.

[He pointed out the obvious of what she had already spoken. He finished wiping up her hand, and it looked better. Nothing was broken, so that was something.]

Only lame assholes complain about the situation and do nothing to change it.

[assholic]

Only lamer assholes point that out to lame assholes. Bet you like to kick dogs while they're down, too.

[ukase]

No regular assholes point that out to lamers. I'm exploring my options before I jump into anything, but I'm perfectly comfortable changing the rules to fit me.

[He gave her the hand back, though they probably should have bandaged it. Sorry, the only bandage material he had was for his arm.]

I only kick puppies. They make better noises.

[assholic]

Somehow, neither of those revelations surprise me.

[She reached for her glass now that her hand was her own again, sipping and looking at him sideways.]

Tell me something -- if your... whatever shadowy organization had known just how effective Kilgrave could be at getting whatever he wanted, would they have gone after him themselves? Or is it just because he stayed low-brow that you kept out of it?

[ukase]

[He offered her a glance from the corner of his eyes.]

That's above my pay-grade, but I can assume, as long as he stayed low and minimally invasive, they would have allowed normal authorities to take care of it somehow. If he started to make real noise, they have teams to deal with people like him.

[assholic]

'Minimally invasive'...

[The words stuck in her throat, cloying, causing a bitter sort of rage to make her hand tremble a little. She thought of her time with him. Of what she'd seen. What he'd done. Of what he'd done afterwards, how much more terrifying he'd become in trying to regain control over her. She felt fury settle over her like a familiar blanket.]

Normal anything couldn't handle him. I'm starting to think your little squad did more harm than good.

[ukase]

[Rumlow couldn't do more than shrug his shoulders. It wasn't his call, and let's be real, Kilgrave was the kind of person that Insight was designed for. Scum like that would have no use of any kind of power with a targeting system as good as Insight's.]

You want to complain, talk to the higher ups. Oh wait, you can't 'cause they aren't taking any calls with a dead world.

[assholic]

Exactly. So I get to bitch and whine to you about shit you can't control. Welcome to womanhood.

[ukase]

[He snorted and smiled, lifting his glass to his lips and taking a bigger sip. Right, so she was just going to bitch at him because he was likely the only person who had seen and knew about Kilgrave.]

Are you inviting me to a female-run fan-club? I can say men are pigs and dicks are the worst... but I think we both know only one of those statements is correct.

[assholic]

[Why not? Bring in more people from SHIELD or STRIKE or HYDRA for her to bitch at and she might.]

That dicks are the worst? Yeah, can't really argue that. Wouldn't want to insult pigs with the other one.

[ukase]

[Clearly she didn't have enough people to bitch at. She was going to be one of those old people that scathing barely coherent letters to the government someday. Maybe even someday soon if she developed a shit she could care about.]

See, part of the club already? [He shrugged.] We're about the same. Live and eat from a sty, willing to gore anyone on our property and spend a lot of time trying to decide who we can get to eat our bacon.

[assholic]

Pigs are genuinely intelligent. Can't say that for dicks.

[She sipped her drink, watching him and feeling that edge of panic, guilt, rage, and nausea still tickling along her skin. But the banter was just as casual and habitual as breathing for her. She focused on that instead, because it was better than remembering.]

[ukase]

I managed to get mine into you, and I'm thinking that was a smart decision on my part.

[He grinned at her lewdly because there was always time for referring to their little adventure on the space station. The banter was necessary to keep the wheels on the road in his opinion otherwise she would just drink herself into unconsciousness and probably literally end up sleeping in a ditch.]

[assholic]

[Wouldn't be the first time. Jessica had a tendency to go down some self-destructive paths when she was hit with large doses of guilt, shame, or impotent anger. She'd just had a heavy dose of all three. The rest of the glass was finished, and she poured herself another.]

You say that like you're part of some elite club. Don't flatter yourself.