sixthiterationlogs | [MINGLE] Post-Bunker Support Group

[MINGLE] Post-Bunker Support Group

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.

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"...Magic candy." God and in that moment he could fucking hear in himself that same flat, deadpan tone from Rogers. An army. From space. Which, fuck, no, is more reason to drink rather than less. "I'll take a shot of adrenaline flowers."

Which will do who something to him but at this point? He'll take the risk.

"Can't be worse than back lab hooch that gets mixed up for a microbatch of jet fuel." Ah, MIT. Simpler, stranger times with a lot more booze and a lot less responsibility. Sometimes he misses it. Sometimes.

"Well, I'm not a scientist," he says, pinkies and pointer fingers up as he carefully pours the clear, yellow-label hooch into an antique tumbler. Without asking, he makes it a double--he's at least reasonably sure it isn't rocket fuel.

"And I'm no longer supervised by a scientist while boiling things in a pot until booze drips out of them." He sets the glass within reach and pours himself a finger of his own. He's always willing to pretend caffeine cancels out alcohol, instead of just adjusting his statistical risk of heart attack closer to baseline. "But the worst I usually get is straight rubbing alcohol for the first few cups, so here's hoping I labeled it correctly."

Tapping the glass closer to Tony in a lazy toast, Kira hocks the shot back, practiced enough to breathe through the sting instead of trying to suck every drop out of his mouth as soon as possible.

"I'll take the rubbing alcohol too. If I'm going to be making lighters and firestarters for the whole village, it'll be useful." Disinfectant, lamp fuel- he'll make a compound that'll work- when he's got some kind of chemistry set up rigged in an adjacent space. Not as much room as he'd like and too many specialized pieces of equipment than he actually needs- a full remodel? Not happening while he's got a project list as long as he is tall.

Maybe later he'll get it figured out in detail, what he'd need if he was really going to redesign the space. Ideally it'd be near the mill but- it is what it is and he'll make it work.

Easier to plan when there's this. Tony tabs his glass against the bar out of old habit before knocking it back, coughing as he comes back up. The vodka had been familiar but this? "Oh that...that's a taste right there."

"And that is an assessment," Kira agrees, taking no offense. The moonshine is something between an acquired taste and a work in progress: he's mostly got the peach mash down, so it'll be shame if the grove shuts down for the winter.

Maybe he'll try something with the red salt. Might actually make rocket fuel. Might just set people on fire from the inside.

Swirling what's left in the yellow jar, he sets it down. "The peach is a little smoother," he offers. "The rubbing alcohol goes to the clinic for now, but I'm sure they can spare a bit. There's a girl, Sam, makes potato vodka. Not sure of her setup, but she might pitch in."

"I've had worse?" Though there's an upward swing on the pitch, there. Something like uncertainty rasped through the desert dry burn on the back of his tongue. Tony needs a moment to roll the absence of flavor around in his mouth for a moment, eyes flicked up and to the left as he genuinely attempts to remember if there is, in fact, anything he's had that was worse.

He's sure there's something.

"It is definitely alcoholic." He can say that with confidence. "Sam's still shows promise but the variables that come with continual set up and takedown could make for inconsistent product. I feel like a dedicated space just for fermentation, distillation, and otherwise making alcohol would probably be best."

"I was going to protest on the basis that having a dedicated space might make it feel like my job, instead of the thing I fuck around with in my back yard," Kira says, swirling a fresh pour in its glass, "but also it's about to get cold, and if the worst thing that brings into town are the badgers, I'm still abandoning ship."

Entertaining as the idea is, tossing alcohol on the garbage fire of their animal encounters.

"Worth reviewing what the buildings are being used for, probably. And if they're out, I used to keep another house behind the inn, in case of overflow. Big brick place with plenty of rooms, sould make it easy to get the results to the bar."

"I was thinking more of adding an extension to the inn." Course that would mean playing with the plumbing- something he's already half planning to give the Inn some kind of workable shower, but if the weather's about to turn? He's going to need to hustle, which'll mean calling in help and designing this shit on the fly. Knowing what they'd want or need RE space would be pretty damn useful, first.

"What do you need, space and tool wise? I've made hooch before but that was...decades ago and not really coming to me." Also he'd had industrial grade equipment grossly misused for the entire endeavor.

The thing about this place, it's never what it looks like on the tin, and it's probably not even what you find underneath. Kira looks up in thought, knocks back the drink with a shrug. Well, in part, the taste just seizes up his entire chest and the shoulders go along for the tic.

Maybe indoors with help with that; maybe not, some of it comes down to being selective about the runoff he keeps, and with supply and demand? He can't always afford to be.

"I know how this place looks, but sometimes they give us things. I've got a stainless steel setup with most of the bells and whistles--I just don't want to take over Mark's kitchen and I have to limit to how many containers I have at a time. So--space to keep the pot boiling and some shelves would do me fine. And some decent ventilation, which--most empty houses have."

There are probably more pressing construction projects than a hooch factory, but Kira's not exactly a city planner.

"Woke up to find a nice sized box of raw materials in the forge with my name on them earlier, so. I am both deeply unnerved by it but glad that I won't have to deal with digging around trying to find raw ore for a little while." Being observed and gifted anything is...weird. At least it's something useful. At least it's something he can literally shape into tools for other people- like nails or specialty parts for building expansions or whatever.

Barton needs a Barn, he needs to remember that.

"Consolidating space between what you need for moonshine and what Sam needs for vodka would be the most efficient- neither you nor Sam want to take up the kitchen which is understandable, making a lab out of food space is generally considered rude- Sam doesn't want to set up anywhere else due to reclusive scientist syndrome; so that's the sticking point here that has me figuring, well. Expansion." Which he'd already started the rough shape of in his head. Doubling down to make space for two set ups? Not that hard.

"And I'm very excited for your Dwarven Wares," Kira says, trying to absorb the sudden heft of his very casual needs into the well booked schedule of a man probably more attached to the work than the moonshine. "But I don't really get how adding a room to the most trafficked place in the village works for a recluse, or my theoretical presence."

Or how that jives with his own desire to fuck off for several days instead of talking about his feelings, and the fact that he's had them for considerably longer than the people now holding the shindig.

"There's more important shit to build, honestly, and by the time you get it together I'll probably have moved into the house next to mine and started using its stove." Exacting conditions have never really been his concern--in anything he's ever done.

"Her concern was setting up somewhere else would make her a hermit. Having the workspace here forces her to socialize. Or. Something? Didn't get the best read on her." He'll have to take a second look later when he swings back by for a space consult. "If you haven't met, maybe you can collaborate? Having someone to bounce ideas off of helps sometimes. Or maybe you'll hate each other on sight. Who knows."

Still, it's on the list as a maybe. Sam hadn't said one way or the other and he's got two votes for 'other things we kind of need more'. Which is pretty well understandable.

"Speaking of stoves- you're my guinea pig here." Tony pulls a tinder box out of his bag, setting it on the bar between them.

"We've had a couple of chats." Otherwise he's been a distant fan of her work, in the sense that he fed the start of his spiral on it until the Village Overlords saw fit to give him a project. One that--keeps him busy, and leaves him liquid coping mechanism for the periods between. "If I see her, maybe I'll suggest just talking to people."

Which is what he does, obviously. He doesn't turn into a bird and fly out to weird tree houses to poke at his own pain, alone, and lash out at the first person to catch him at it. He doesn't drag the super assassin out for some Indiana Jonesing with deadly snakes.

The lighter he puts on the bar next to the tinder box, and the bruising on pretty much all of his ribs--coincidental. "Personally, I'm pretty well covered. But tell me how it works."

"It's about as foolproof as you can get. Firestarters, flint and steel." He flips open the tin to show the waxy bundles of shaved wood and wool, the wooden grips neatly bound with cord to keep the flint and steel from being separated. "Scrape the flint over the steel rod, you get sparks. Light the wax bundle and it'l last long enough to get the rest of the fire going. Instructions are embossed on the top of the tin."

It's pretty well foolproof. No striking, no weird angles to remember, just place, scrape, and go.

"Simple enough," Kira agrees, picking up one of the bundles to examine. The lighter's nice for when he doesn't want to start a whole fire to like a joint, but if he can save it for that? All the better.

If he can, generally, only take it out of his pocket to stare at a dozen times a day and work his way down from there--aces, great. Really working his way up the pyramid to Self Actualization. "I'll give it a go; if you want some help putting them together, I can probably help with the bundles." They're going to need them soon, and there's a very high chance the weed makes him amenable to tiny busywork.

"Mostly it involves soaking the wool or wood scraps in animal fat for about a day until they're well coated and then dipping them in wax. But one kit should be enough for starting fires in the woods or part of a bundle can be used to get a stove going. Come winter I'm pretty sure most people will be keeping embers going all night to heat their homes. If not I'll start some kind of delivery racket, make sure everyone's topped up." Though he'd need help to cover ground- but it's not like there aren't people here that'd mind offering half an hour every morning in the interest of preventing frostbite.

Stocking up on charcoal before then- that'll be the trick. Enough for the village and the forge both.

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[MINGLE] Post-Bunker Support Group

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