markwatney: (003)
Mark Watney ([personal profile] markwatney) wrote in [community profile] sixthiterationlogs2018-09-06 06:54 pm

[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.
3ofswords: (consider down; sidelong; curious)

[personal profile] 3ofswords 2018-09-14 03:11 pm (UTC)(link)
"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.
nonstopnarcissist: AOU (Say again?)

[personal profile] nonstopnarcissist 2018-09-14 10:37 pm (UTC)(link)
"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.
3ofswords: (consider down; chin to hand)

[personal profile] 3ofswords 2018-09-18 06:25 am (UTC)(link)
"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."
nonstopnarcissist: CW (Then it consumes me)

[personal profile] nonstopnarcissist 2018-09-18 08:54 am (UTC)(link)
"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.
3ofswords: (Default)

[personal profile] 3ofswords 2018-09-18 06:11 pm (UTC)(link)
"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.
nonstopnarcissist: CW (But my skin is cold)

[personal profile] nonstopnarcissist 2018-09-18 07:11 pm (UTC)(link)
"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.