[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.

Comments

[fwips]

"The future, like when I'm from?" Peter asks, and then nods. "Yeah. It seems weird and complicated, but it's actually the simplest explanation, at least for some of us here. I don't know if what's happening here with the tubes and stuff, that it has anything to do with Thanos— I really don't think it does. I think maybe it's just coincedence."

He pauses, leaning in. "Did you know that for each person you know here, or at least know is from your own universe, you're exponentially more likely to have someone else you know show up? I've run the numbers. And the people from our universe, the one directly affected by Thanos, are the biggest group. I don't know how it works, but I really think certain groups of people put out a certain kind of energy signature or something like that that makes them more likely to end up here."

[womanofvalue]

Peggy's noticed something similar, though in her case, it's not that she knows them so much as there's a flicker of recognition in their eyes when it comes to knowing her. "Do you think that it could be tied around some central person?" she suggests, because the one thing that throws off that theory is that Peggy wasn't even alive anymore when this Thanos came swanning in.

Then again, she's plenty connected to the people who were, which makes her wonder. "Or is it just that past, present, future, they don't matter when it comes to a being like this Thanos of yours?"

[fwips]

"I mean, that would be the simplest explanation, but I don't know." He'd not even considered that any one person might be the main draw, at least for their universe. The person most likely would be Cap, but that doesn't work for everybody.

"What if it's more like a six degrees thing? Like a chain? You were here at the beginning, right? What if it started with you? And you know Cap, and Cap knows a bunch of us, and we each know other people."

[womanofvalue]

Peggy can't help feeling a slight twist in her stomach, seeing as she'd hate to be the one who's guilty of drawing all these people in. Is it better or worse than thinking about her being worthless and only her connection to Steve mattering. She's sure that her face gives Peter an insight into how complicated that suggestion is.

"I always thought it had something to do with zero matter when I came here," Peggy notes. "That it broke the world enough and filtered through to pull at people. Maybe there is something connecting all us. Maybe we all serve a specific purpose." Her brow is furrowed as she thinks about that, but can't understand it. "Honestly, for what, that's the question."

[fwips]

"I mean, that's kinda what everybody wants to know, yeah," Peter agrees with a nod. "Even if it's random how we all got here, there's still somebody in charge, and some days it's just like... They're only going to give us what they want us to have, whether it's electricity or weird gift boxes or knowledge, and then what's the point? But I'm not very good at leaving problems unsolved, so." He shrugs.

[womanofvalue]

"For a very long time, I suspected that we were pets of a sort," Peggy admits, though she's stopped that recently. Things have been happening to her that feel less like someone prodding at a pet and now are trying to conduct experiments. She's absolutely not feeling like she understands, but she can see things taking shape.

She eyes Peter like she's working a problem in her head. "I don't like leaving problems along either, so even if this drives us mad, I'll be right at your side with you."