sixthiterationlogs | [MINGLE] Crab Boil

[MINGLE] Crab Boil

WHO: Mark Watney
WHERE: 6I Inn front lawn
WHEN: 21 June 2018, afternoon/evening and onward
OPEN TO: ALL - MINGLE
NOTES: A few thinsgs: You may assume your character helped set up; There are tubers in pot with the red salt, negating the warmth effect; The list of of potluck dishes is here; The list of local provisions is here

The weather is great, the sun is starting to dip toward the horizon, and it's pleasantly mild. Time for an (extremely) old-fashioned low country boil.

We've got two small fire pits built out in front of the inn, each with a massive pot filled with loads of vegetables — corn, carrots, potatoes, onions — and of course the rainbow crabs Finnick and Annie discovered not long after we arrived here. We've even got salt, if you can believe it, although the red salt in this place is pretty spicy and usually makes me sweat, so I've only put it in the one pot, and then set a bowl of it out for garnishing.

Tables and chairs have been brought out from inside, a couple of them set aside specifically for piles of plates, bowls, cups and whatever potluck provisions the rest of the village brings.

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Ravi slips half of one of the crabs over to the man on a separate plate so they don't have to Lady and the Tramp this and share, even if it takes him a moment to eye the dog and wait to figure out whether they're actually going to listen to the man's hand signals.

He leans over to see the words on the device, grateful that at least there's hearing here. It would be a shame if he'd been rambling and embarrassing himself for no reason. "Well, now I'm at least relieved about the dogs, but not so sure about you."

"You do know becoming a crazy dog man isn't the hot new sad cat lady of the naughties, right?"

Frank nods his thanks, taking the plate up though he's still looking at the crab quizzically. It really is pretty. Not so sure about you is probably a good stance to take, honestly, so he doesn't bother disputing him. But the rest gets a confused and uncomfortable look as he mouths, 'Naughties...?' Why does everyone here talk like they're from a 1990s Whedon production.

He sets his plate on his knees so he can type back: i like dogs better than people.

"Who doesn't?" is Ravi's instant retort, giving the man a dubious look, because he's got a dog living at his home that he would probably lay down his life for, so he absolutely understands the feeling behind that, but still, it's not like he trotted out Minor here to show how much better than people he was.

Most people, at least, he's got one or two that he thinks deserve a higher up spot. "I mean, so long as you're not sitting there texting them at night, I suppose I don't have to go seeking out a town psychologist."

Nodding his approval again, if this guy likes dogs then he's okay, as far as Frank's concerned. But most people here seem okay just for the fact that they aren't Kilgrave. It's a high bar, clearly.

does it bother you? That he'd rather text on this stupid thing than say words aloud? He'll move onto someone else if he's actively bothering Ravi, but honestly, he's enjoying the quirk.

Ravi isn't sure what the bothering is meant to be about. "What, texting your dogs at night? I mean, I guess people talk to their plants and their cats without expecting a reply," he says, rambling on and not even noticing that he's basically the very same right now, seeing as Frank is essentially a very text-happy plant.

It clicks, though, a minute later. "What, texting? I lived in Seattle before here," he says, waving it away. "Portland hipsters glued to their phones were a stone's throw away. I'm used to it," he guarantees. "Besides, we finally have technology. You'd be mad not to use it."

Frank is used to the ramble, and that doesn't bother him either. It's something of a comfort really, allowing it to wash over him though it doesn't mean he's not listening. There's merely nothing for him to respond to. But if it helps Ravi to talk he'll let the man tire himself out. It's what he's always done, before and after Reims.

i'm not a fucking hipster

They have to get that out of the way first - he's not dealing with that shit here too, even if his hair might tell the man a different story, four months overgrown from its usually rigid military style.

you didn't always?

Or did he mean something else? Reims was similar to this, technology-wise, the Natives didn't have much in the way of modern conveniences. And yet they made the devices each one of them used to communicate, just like this.

Edited (one letter edit is my stREET NAME) 2018-07-06 15:36 (UTC)

Ravi narrows his eyes at the other man, like he'll be the one to decide how much of a hipster anyone is or isn't, That said, this man definitely doesn't look like he's going to be wearing moccasin sandals, eating chia seeds, and espousing the virtues of burlap socks.

"When I got here, I begged, but Village Santa gave me nothing," he says with a forlorn sigh. "When we got to the new version of our little home, we had these watches," he says, showing them off. "Yet, still no Call of Duty or World of Warcraft. Honestly, I'm not sure if texting makes up for the lack of those."

He narrows his eyes, already typing even as he listens.

what was it like before? how long ago did things change? how long were you here before that? after?

It's a lot of questions all at once, but Ravi likes to talk. He'll wait.

So many question, so little time, so much crab in his mouth that he doesn't bother to swallow as he starts to answer them. "I mean, before wasn't exactly different. If you take a mirror and a pencil eraser to take out a canyon, you've pretty much got what the last village was like. No canyon, no antiquated Apple watches," he deadpans.

"I think it was a few months back it changed?" He hasn't exactly been keeping track and the period when Major left, well, that had been hard to keep track. "I was here a while? I don't think a year, it couldn't have been, but definitely more than six months."

"Did you know you can go into video game withdrawal? Because I didn't, not until I got here. It's not a fun experience, I don't recommend it."

Frank isn't bothered by Ravi's table manners, though he still hasn't touched his own food. He's much more interested in the information, cataloging it all and stowing it away for whenever he might need to draw on the knowledge again.

"You ever shoot a real gun before?" he asks left hand bearing the communicator scooping up the crab meat and depositing it into his mouth where he chews - watching the other man for his response. It's the rasp of a chainsaw blade in voice form, but it doesn't crack, carrying under the din of the party around them just fine.

"I'm a medical examiner," Ravi clarifies. "My day roughly involves dead bodies, more scalpels than you can count, and going home to lose myself in a fake world." He has no desire to shoot a gun and that's clearly been proven when danger shows its face and Ravi's reaction has been mainly...

Well, hoping that someone else is going to come along and save him. He stops eating, mainly because talk of dead bodies gives him slight pause (even if it's only slight) and it's not exactly lunch talk. "I take it you have? Or just want to?"

Well, that isn't what he expected, and it gives him pause. He sets his plate back on his thigh and tries to picture it. There's nothing wrong with not being a soldier. In fact, he thinks it's better than it isn't, thinking of the VA support group and all the veterans he'd met in Reims. Frank pushes out a breath and nods. Besides, nerds have a special place in his heart.

"I was a Marine." COD doesn't have anything on him, sorry Ravi. "Kind of takes the fun out of those games when you did it for real."

Ravi always thinks about the psychopath brain that Liv had been on when soldiers come up in conversation, even though Frank definitely doesn't strike him as unfeeling in that way. "I definitely wasn't wanting to rush over anywhere and fight. Trust me, it's all about the button mashing for me," he guarantees with a nod of his head.

He hopes he's not being insulting, seeing as he doesn't want to get on a Marine's bad side, that's genuinely not what he wants out of a crab boil.

It doesn't offend him, though it does remind him of David, something like longing entering his expression then. Missing his friend feels as selfish now as it did that first month in Reims. And considering he had then showed up at the second Arrival Day... he needs to stop thinking about it right now. If returning to New York was a true memory, then David is safe with his family. Safer than he'd ever been in Frank's care, as exorbitant as it was. No, the Liebermans are much better off without him, even if it means he has to endure another one of these places alone.

"You're a science guy, right." It isn't a question, voice low and even. Not like any nerds in Reims ever had an answer, but he still has to ask. "You deal in facts, so. How does a place like this operate?"

Ravi narrows his eyes at his doggy-leader friend, wondering what part of this strange mad place looks like it has a fact involved in it. "I guarantee that no matter how strange my world was back home, and it could get awful what with the drug dealers and the murder..." And the zombies, you can never forget the zombies. "...none of it holds a candle to this," he assures.

"The only facts I've got is that I think this place deliberately wants to mess with our heads," he opines. "Also, I think we're experiments and they take samples, but for what? I don't know. I just know that a lot of what we seem to be presented with seems very similar to what I put my lab rats through."

"Rats in a maze," Frank repeats. Yeah. It's apt. Some people thought Reims was an experiment too, but set in place by whom indeed. "Has anyone ever met natives of this place?"

"No one," Ravi says, and the air of frustration is clear in his voice. It's not that he's whining, exactly, but he does feel a little like it's not fair. "And, if I'm going to be someone's science experiment, then I'd like to at least get to meet them and ask about their controls."

Though, that level of awareness would muck up the whole experiment, which means he understands it. Is this what his rats think of him? It's a rather depressing reality, if that's the case.

"How do we know for sure someone's watching?" Frank always thinks someone or something is watching, but he'd also seen magic. Really fucked up powers. He's willing to believe just about anything these days.

"I don't think I'm sending myself secretly boxed up gifts in the middle of the night, especially not when there's not exactly a Trader Joe's to run to to pick up ice cream the way I've been left," he deadpans. There had been other indications, but to him, it all reeks of a lab environment.

"There was a sample room, too. We couldn't get in, but there were blood vials, equipment, and it wasn't dusty. That was in use," he guarantees.

The gifts thing he's used to, though they had been brought by people he could interact with in Reims. They claimed it all came through the Reset chambers just like the people did, but there were enough people who had mistrusted the Natives. Still, it's the first Frank is hearing of a sample room.

"Where?" Did they find it.

"It's in the canyon. It was in the canyon." It's strange for Ravi to have to rephrase things like that, seeing as you shouldn't have to. After all, it's not like a canyon should just vanish, and yet, it's like some nefarious god-type had literally picked them up with a pinch and resettled them, just canyon-less.

"I think I tried breaking that glass with about anything you could find, no luck," he complains.

This is all strange, of course it is, but Frank believes every last word. It's obvious in the rapt attention now taking up his face, dogs and texting forgotten in favor of their conversation.

"So when you guys started to figure shit out, they changed the whole game." That's what it sounds like to him anyway. "There must be another place like that now, then. We just have to find it again."

"There's a whole other civilization and a giant ocean, if you feel like exploring," Ravi says, and while he's interested in the other village and has gone over there, it's just really, really far and hiking isn't exactly a hobby he's ever enjoyed.

"Be my guest. Maybe you can have the dogs carry you along, but I've not found a thing over there," Ravi admits. "It's more like a wasted trip for me at this point."

He considers the merits of it, not having explored the other village much yet. He's sure he will in time, shaking his head at the quip about the dogs.

"So that's it for you, huh? You're giving up?"

"I'd like to think of it more as waiting patiently for something to change instead of beating my head against the wall," Ravi clarifies, because no, he hasn't given up. He's just tired of trying the same stupid thing. "God forbid anyone else gets taken, but I'm ready to help. I've got my experiments."

"Beyond that, why not enjoy some rainbow crabs?" he says, because otherwise, he will probably go insane.

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