[MINGLE] Post-Bunker Support Group

[markwatney]

WHO: Mark Watney
WHERE: Town Hall & Inn
WHEN: 6 September 2018, Evening
OPEN TO: ALL - MINGLE
WARNINGS: Warn on your threads, please. PTSD is probably a given.
NOTES: Support group mingle! If your character needs some support after the latest meta plot or just generally, send them on over to Town Hall. Also, feel free to do top levels having to do with signing up for a tube monitoring shift. Please let me know if you want a Mark thread, I have notifs off for the post.

---

So, I have been down to what we all seem to be collectively calling the Bunker. It is... something, to say the least.

For some people it feels like hope and for others despair, and I can honestly see both sides of it. Some people need to feel like they have some control, even if it's illusory — Having a puzzle to possibly solve makes them feel less adrift. For others, it's too much reality, or the perception of, anyway. I can't say I'm personally convinced by any of it.

See, I've been here since the start of whatever this is, with a group that's almost entirely gone now. It's been five months since we were birthed into this expanded world, and I don't know if it's any more real than the last. That isn't me putting on a tin foil hat, that's just respecting the environment. Mars was the same way: You do what you need to do to eke out a life, to survive or even thrive, but it's dangerous to think you have any real control. Everything can go to shit in the blink of eye, and then you're tumbling around in an airlock while your entire food supply is turned to dust.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying people should stop hoping to get home, stop trying to figure it all out. I'm just saying we might all be a little easier mentally if we could express how scary it is to know, deep down, that the rug can be pulled out from under us at any moment... And then to accept that feeling that way is okay.

With that in mind, after a little meditating during my daily work in the fields, I put up two notices on the blackboard in the South Village inn:

Volunteers to monitor the bunker tubes for new arrivals, please sign up for a shift on the paper on the bar.

That's one thing we can do, at least. Just the illusion of control, but still important to some people, and definitely helpful for anybody new.

Below that:

Support Group Tonight
Town Hall - 7:00 PM
Everyone Welcome

I don't know how many people will actually show — We've got a surprisingly stubborn, resilient group, in my experience. But even if it helps just one person, it's worth doing.

[closed] to hell with the sorrow and watered-down scenes

[3ofswords]

WHO: Kira Akiyama
WHERE: Kira's house
WHEN: Early September, shortly after the Bunker distress calls
OPEN TO: Karen Page
WARNINGS: Alcohol and other substance abuse, existential crises

---

He hasn't actually been drunk for several days. Life goes on. The dog needs to shit out of doors, the laundry piles up, Mark serves as an ever present and talking reminder that the crops don't wait for sci fi plots to resolve before needing care.

Mostly, Kira keeps to himself in the days that follow the signals. As with most changes in this place, the ability to fly away from his problems doesn't last, and he's gotten over the fact of his father's lighter enough to start using it. He's just lit the fire pit behind the house, usually reserved for the still, when Aurora paws at the back door and there are only approaching footsteps to explain her excitement.

"I imagine good timing made the reporting gig easier," he greets, making room for Karen on the halved log that serves as a seat.

I work hard, I work hard every day

[nonstopnarcissist]

WHO: (Who is making the post)
WHERE: Inn & House 63
WHEN: September 4/5
OPEN TO: Kat, Constantine
WARNINGS: Discussion of time travel, swearing, tobacco use?

---

Inn

Now that walking isn't half so much a bitch and he's got a fair amount of work in his back pocket (figuratively) and hand (literally), Tony's better able to get a solid assessment of how much shit he can manage in a day. Which isn't near as much as he'd like but more than he probably should considering the whole 'healing up' thing he should be doing. But. He's got a meeting, supplies for what should prove to be an interesting interview, and a desperate need for anything coffee adjacent. He sets up at a far table, laying out the micro tools he'd managed to form the night before, the clock, and a sketch of what he hopes to make.

House 63

At least this time he's not hauling anything bigger than a lighter. Tony makes his way to Constantine's house with a notebook, a spool of twine, and something close to hope. Maybe. Workshopping timetravel isn't something that should be done he knows rationally but-

He has questions. It can't do any harm to ask, right? Right.