[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.

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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

[fishingfortrouble]

[To be perfectly honest, Phryne's mostly shown up out of curiosity. She's not against the idea of a support group, to be perfectly honest, but given that she hasn't any idea as to what it's for, she willing to accept the possibility that it's something that she doesn't need. When it turns out that most of the people are talking about the bunker, however, and people's reactions to that particular realization she mostly tunes it out. After all, she hasn't exactly got any other frame of reference for the way things work and is hardly about to talk about her reaction to arriving.

(She could, of course, probably use something like a support group, given that she's not really thrilled about any of this. But that doesn't mean she's even done so much as admit it to herself, much less considered mentioning it to someone else.)

Instead, she lets her eyes wander across the room, getting a feel for what everyone else is up to. Unsurprisingly, most of them seem to be busy with the actual business of the support group, but when she spots Steve, quietly drawing away her curiosity is piqued and she makes her way over without so much as a second thought.]

Anything catching your eye?

[She can't tell what Steve is drawing, or at least can't without trying to catch a look (which she hasn't done yet, for all it's a possibility). But she can tell that he's drawing something, whatever it might turn out to be.]

[ex_enlisted288]

[ The fellow in the corner is another member of Clan Denial, although probably more overtly so than Phryne. He's there to lend support to others, mostly to people he does know who are having a really difficult time with the discovery. He's also there because it can't hurt to listen.

Even if he's one of those not quite as affected as those who have lived here longer.

When she approaches, Steve is working on a group sketch, although it's less proper sketch and more just a collection of lines and curves to mark where each person is seated, with suggests of facial features and hair. And clothing, in some cases. ]

Sure, lots of things are. [ His gaze flickers up, looking her over briefly, ] Ma'am.

[fishingfortrouble]

[Even a collection of lines and curves can be interesting in the right hands. Not that Phryne is particularly inclined to comment on that just at the moment, but she's known enough artists to know that not everything is about something directly correlating to what it's supposed to be indicating. Not to mention that it probably is difficult to accurate capture everything about a person in a meeting like this, when people are still moving from time to time.

(Perhaps not as much as they would be in any other situation, but still. It's not like people are sitting stock still either.)]

Well, yes, I should imagine so. But is there anything of particular interest?

[A pause, and then:]

And please, call me Phryne.

[ex_enlisted288]

Not particularly, no.

[ It's mostly just to keep himself occupied, even if occupied with something that once gave him joy and not a little pride that he could create beauty. Now it's to stop him walking out and dishonoring the troubles of other people.

To maybe keep his screams locked inside his head. What a dark outlook he's attained. ]

Alright, Phryne. You offering to be the interest on the page?

[ The woman does have striking features and not a bad idea. Regardless of where it came from. ]

[fishingfortrouble]

[Sometimes that's all one can do, after seeing things like the horrors they both have. Not that Phryne is any more likely to actually admit to it than Steve is, to be perfectly fair. But she's no stranger to the idea of there being things that you just don't talk about, be that the nature of what one happened to see during the war or... more personal affairs.

But she's more than willing to leave those particular thoughts in the recesses of their respective minds and turn instead to the more immediate topic at hand.]

If that should be where inspiration should happen to strike.

[She's not going to directly ask that he draw her. But she has served as an artist's model before (albeit under significantly different circumstances), and even apart from that she's well aware that she has the sort of figure that is more than a little eye-catching.]