bottlecaplogs | mayaka's april catch-all !

A lone Sneasel wanders up along the cliffside, passing by all the various materials set out along the construction site as she scans her surroundings.

"Spinarak said they needed help over here..."

She'd been told that due to her relatively small size, she'd be most useful digging holes to place the support beams in. It seems like someone else has arrived earlier and is already working at one of the marked areas.

"Hey! Is this where we're digging the holes?" she asks as she approaches the stranger with his back turned to her.

Eleanor will find Mayaka sitting at one of the tables in a quiet corner of the Archives, fervently working on a series of drawings in response to Noelle's latest posting on the quest board.

Thinking about clothing like will be useful to train her eye for character design and capturing details. However, after the first set of completed sketches, Mayaka belatedly realises that she'd defaulted to drawing the dresses for a human model. She's never had to think about drawing clothes for a non-human before!

"How would a deer wear this...?" she wonders aloud, sounding a tad bit exasperated.

[ parvati's already listened to toxicroak's brief, probably a few times before now as other groups have passed by. she's mostly here to supervise mayaka and a friend she's bringing along -- someone she's pretty sure she hasn't met yet. and that might be all the better, since she gets to supervise and help somebody learn a new skill.

she stands with her arms folded across her chest, all of her handy-dandy equipment in tow barring her hammer. it's not particularly practical to be lugging it around in a cave (nor is it particularly safe given its size). ]

Hey! I'm over here!

Eleanor doesn't come to the Archives particularly often, today is one of the rare occassions she has. She's been drawn to researching miscellaneous things, but has run into trouble reaching the higher shelves so many times (seriously, she used to be seven feet tall--) that she's instead resigned to taking a break in a quieter corner to figure out where to go from here. It's nice in the Archives, she should come more often, even if it is to the chagrin of the chaperone she shook off immediately to poke around.

Her eyes fall to Mayaka's drawings, tilting her head to the side to watch without announcing her presence at all. Her friend seems quite lost in her work, anyway, so she's content to watch in silence.

"I think you just need to think about it horizontally."

[Aelita had listened to the brief. She wasn't sure how much help she'd be, but she had to try. Eventually she'd find something she could do. She was all to happy to follow someone and learn.

So she was bounding over on all fours, her long tail raised behind her.]

I'm here!

[Her limbs are already covered in dirt just from the run here.]

[Mayaka comes dashing up to Parvati, right behind Aelita. She'd been standing at the back of the group during the briefing, and fretted for a moment when the Dedenne disappeared during the chaos of everyone moving off to work on their assigned tasks.]

Lita-chan, you're so small, you've got to be careful about running off like that. [She's already having second thoughts about including the young girl in today's quest, but at least she can watch out for her if they're in the same group.]

Anyway, this is my friend, Parvati-chan. [The Sneasel gestures towards the Tinkaton.]

While Mayaka would usually be more wary about letting someone see her art for the first time, she is deep in 'artist-mode' and takes the suggestion seriously, even though she hasn't even registered who's talking to her.

"You think so? Won't the skirt look different since it only covers the back legs?"

The Sneasel proceeds to draw out some basic shapes on the paper - a four-legged figure, and then blocky shapes to visualise how the different clothing panels would fit.

With that done, she turns and realises that Eleanor is next to her.

"Elly-chan?!"

"Hiii."

Eleanor's resting her chin on her flippers, which are propped up on the closest approximation to where her elbows would be. It's probably not the most comfortable, looking at it, but she's got a good view of the drawings from there. She smiles. A giggle can't help but escape her lips. "Who are you drawing these for, Mayaka-chan?"

Hi!

[ she gives a wave to both friends, before looking down at the tiny dedenne. at least she's bright orange, so she should be difficult to lose sight of in that regard at the very least. ]

You can just call me Parvati too if you want. I don't really mind. [ she smiles. ] We've gotta get a good amount of materials - I've got plenty of stuff to get it with but I'm also okay to hang back and let you two take the lead on the actual finding. Just so you can get the hang of it.

[ it's also not a total truth because tinkaton shiny instinct but. sssh. ]

Mayaka's flustered, but it's pointless to try to hide any of this now that Eleanor's seen it.

"Do you know L-chan? Noelle? She asked for ideas about gothic and alternative styles she could try, and I guess I went a bit overboard here."

Mayaka has at least 10 different ideas sketched out in varying degrees of detail. Some focusing more on the frills and patterns of the skirts, others on head pieces and accessories. But it's always better to get a second opinion on such things.

"I'd like to hear your ideas, actually. What kind of clothes do you think are cute?"

Eleanor's spent a good few minutes admiring all of the detail. These are leagues better than her own drawings. The lines have direction - intent. She supposes all drawings do, but the intent is carefully considered here.

"She's my roommate, actually."

She shuffles in a little closer to just keep admiring the drawings. "Um. I'm not really sure."

It's surprising, for the ever-opinionated Mayaka, to talk to someone who doesn't seem have an opinion, or experience, in an important topic like fashion. Maybe Eleanor's just not the kind who says what's on her mind easily? A simpler question, then.

"Are you both close? Which of these outfits do you think she'd like?"

Eleanor gives the drawings another look-over with Noelle in mind. She knows she likes video games, they've spoken about that a few times while huddled around Dragon Blazers on her portable console. A couple of the outfits look like they could be from the game, now that she thinks about it. She points at one of the dresses, then to a hat.

"There's a character in her game that dresses like that. I think she'd really like it."

Mayaka holds up the sketches in question, nodding agreeably.

"These ones? I kind of liked them too. See, I knew you had a good eye for stuff like this." She gives the Brionne a friendly nudge before moving to pack up the rest of her art supplies into a bag.

"Now that I have a clear idea for the outfit, I'm going to see if there's anything I can get in town that looks like it. Want to join me?"

Eleanor looks away bashfully, trying to hide her smile. "You think so?"

She's not sure if that really counts as an eye for fashion, it was more... recognition. But still, the praise does have her smiling. "Oh, sure! I think I've seen a few Pokemon around who... sort of look like that?"

She can't for the life of her recall what they're called, though.

As the two of them emerge from the Archives and head into the bustling street by the Quest Board, Mayaka holds the chosen sketches in one claw.

"Do you remember which part of town you saw them?" she turns to Eleanor and asks.

"If not, we should go to the shopping street and see what we can find."

Eleanor searches back into the recesses of her mind. The easy thing about her memories in the Bay is that they're not likely o get jumbled up with whatever else she has in her head, which in turn makes it easier to find information. She can't quite... remember, though. The shopping street certainly sounds correct.

"I can't remember. Sorry," She frowns, "the shopping street will definitely have what we want regardless. Maybe they'll be there."

[Aelita paused to wave at the tinkaton. Smiling up at them after glancing back at Mayaka.]

Hello Parvatti-chan. [But at least she wasn't running off again. Even if she was scratching at the ground with her feet.

She'd been in caves, in the mountain and ice sectors. But the walls of those caves had been... perfect, they didn't crumble like this. Fascinating.]

How do you know where to look?

[Mayaka has wandered off close by to experiment digging into the soft earth and rock with her claws.]

Yeah. Are we just meant to dig until we find something? [During the briefing, they were allocated a specific area to comb, but even so, how would they go about doing this?]

Edited 2026-04-12 10:42 (UTC)

Yep!

[ they're looking for iron, so parvati's content to carve out tougher rocks with her tools while the other two take on the softer stuff. the spire's dampness means a fair bit of it already is relatively soft -- which leaves the younger two with plenty to do while parvati supervises and does the more difficult part. ]

Like Toxicroak said, we're looking for iron. But I'm sure finding other minerals'll be just as good! [ thumbs up! ] I'd avoid digging too close into the walls, 'cause we can't be sure how stable those'll be with holes. Stick to what's already been dug out.

[ because above all, parvati holcomb values workplace safety. ] I will be here to keep an eye on you both, so don't be scared to ask me for help.

Mayaka takes another look at the sketch of the gothic lotita style dress.

"I'm not sure if they'll have anything that looks like this, exactly..." she remarks as they make their way through town. "Clothes only seem popular among those of us who got turned into Pokemon. If I could've gotten proper clothes from town, I'd be wearing them already! But I guess it's hard to make clothes when Pokemon can vary so much in size."

[Did until you find something. But not near the walls. Got it... Except Aelita was rapidly realising that she was not built for this.

Her small claws could dig in the softer sections of earth. But she couldn't get through the harder sections and pebbles? She had to stop and haul the small rocks out of the little pit she was making.

It was only about two inches deep when she poked her head back out.]

What other minerals are there?

[She's rolling another pebble out.]

"Humans do as well, though."

Not that it's really Mayaka's point, but clothes as a cultural modesty concept aren't really a thing. Pokemon are animals, at their core, and despite mimicking human society seem content to still hold animalistic tendencies like skipping over clothes and eating one another. Textile weaving doesn't seem very popular either. Eleanor supposes she's lucky that she is a Pokemon whose form seems to mimic clothes. "I've seen plenty of Pokemon about town accessorising, so we could probably find her a hat."

[Mayaka jumps back from the wall in shock after hearing Parvati's advice, and quickly refocuses her attention on the large mounds of dirt that seem safer to sift through.

Midway through this, she can hear Aelita struggling behind her. Mayaka walks up and very carefully uses her claws to help clear the pebbles and rocks still in the little pit the Dedenne was making.]

I don't know much about minerals, but they should be easy to spot in the ground because they'll come in different colours, or they'll be shiny. Right, Parvati-chan?

"Hm... I guess you're right. We can start with that first. A hat."

The shopping street is brimming with activity at this time of day: numerous shoppers trickling in and out of the brick and mortar shops, and many others bartering for goods at market stalls hawking wares ranging from berries to potions.

"Stay close, Elly-chan!" Mayaka tells her friend as she steps into the street to brave the crowd.

I think it depends, but the stuff we're looking for'll be one of the two. Someone else can probably sift through and identify it all.

[ she's here to search for shinies, but she's not too good at identifying unrefined materials. she misses her nice manmade alloys from home at times, but there's nothing wrong with stripping back to the basics. it's interesting to her that the minerals seem to be largely in-line with what she's read about earth's own metals.

parvati looks over her shoulder from where she's carving into a rock. ] They'll stand out for sure - just toss anything that doesn't feel like what you're digging through out, too. Might find a treasure.

Eleanor's gut instinct is to retort with how she's not five, but the amount of people here is... something. She doesn't exactly frequent this part of town, as much as weaving underfoot of larger beings is second nature to her. Not much to buy that interests her, save for the occassional item she might need to bring along for a quest. She reaches out to try and take Mayaka's hand.

mayaka's april catch-all !

going up with impmon

mon makeover with eleanor

steel yourselves! (mayaka and aelita)

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post order - Parvati >Aelita >Mayaka?

yup that's right !

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worse: she's being played by someone who IS opinionated about fashion

LOL ((also that image of noelle and eleanor around the console is so cuteee))

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