Credits & Style Info

pop_of_color: (Emote Death // DO IT JUST DO IT)
[personal profile] pop_of_color
WHO: Rosa Diaz
WHERE: Fountain, Village
WHEN: Late January/Early February
OPEN TO: Fountain Arrival is open to ONE PERSON (will update when taken); the rest is OTA.
WARNINGS: Cursing. Always so much cursing. Also, probably violence of some kind, at some point. ALSO also, spoilers for S05E09 of B99.


ARRIVAL - OPEN TO MARK
The squad had made it back to Manhattan in time for the Captain’s interview for Commissioner. Amy had climbed back up on her high strung ladder and managed to work out a plan that — unsurprisingly — came to fruition down to the literal minute. What a nerd.

The first thing Rosa did when she got back to her apartment was peel away the beige-on-beige-on-beige she’d been forced into thanks to the explosion incident with The Creeper that incinerated all goods within, including clothing. She hopped in the shower, set to scalding hot (as per usual), and washed away the events of the last few days: McGinley's funeral, spending a mind-boggling amount of time fulfilling Jake’s Die Hard fantasies in “Nakatomi Plaza” (including the 600+ photos he made Boyle take), Holt’s continued attempts at sabotage to prevent them from getting back to New York in time for his interview, the Creeper, Scully’s bathroom horrors in the Creeper, learning Holt had compromised himself to get she and Jake out of prison, the Texas Boyles’ weird cow sex farm, the weird (and alarmingly loud) cow sex, the beige, and ... maybe most nerve-wracking, finally telling the Boyle the truth.

About her. About who she loved and who she could love. About the mysterious woman’s voice on the phone she had hoped Boyle wouldn’t hear (damn him and his weird rat senses). About the fact that she’d tried so hard to keep it all covert and unearthed since the 7th grade when she first set eyes on Zack Morris and Lisa Turtle and realized ... holy fucking shit, they’re BOTH hot.

There’s a moment, standing in the shower, where she opens her eyes and manages a small smile - one meant only for herself. Of course Boyle supported her. Of course he still behaved as the same weird little rodent man he’d always been and always would be. It’s one of the things Rosa loves most about him, and even in the face of what was, at least to Rosa, earth-shattering news, all he wanted to know was the woman's name.

She gives that mysterious woman a call before she hops into bed that night, promising to see her the following day after work. She falls asleep, exhausted, but weightless and bolstered by how well it had all gone down. She thinks of her girlfriend’s face as she slips into sleep, happy to know she will be seeing her in person the next evening ..

Only ..

Instead of the caresses and kisses and quiet murmurs she's expecting, she’s instead gasping for air, clawing at the nothingness around her — wait, no. It isn’t nothingness. There’s resistance and fluid. Fluid? Water, she realizes. It’s water. Shit, is she having one of those weird “I have to pee” dreams? Is she drowning in some symbol of her full bladder? 'Wake up, wake up, wake up, you asshole! You cannot wet the god damn bed!'

Why do her lungs feel like they’re going to explode out of her chest? Why can she feel the searing blades of cold all over her body? Why can’t she breathe?

She clamors and fights (because fuck if she isn’t a fighter) until she’s finally sucking in a gasp of cold, arctic air that stings all of her insides and makes her feel dizzy.

“FU- MOTH- SH- GO- HE-!” she tries to shout all of her pent up profanities and, finally, a call for help, but she can’t seem to keep her head up above the water long enough to get a word out. She digs at the side of the fountain (?) she seems to be in and manages to grip onto the sides. ‘C’mon, Diaz; what the fuck is wrong with you? You know how to swim. You know how to climb. Don’t be a fucking wimp!’ For all of her .. "encouraging" self-talk, it does little to combat the absolute panicked adrenaline in her body. “MOTHERFUCKING HELP!” she finally shouts, finally stabilizing herself on the fountain wall.

AROUND THE VILLAGE
Needless to say, it takes approximately -0.1 seconds for Rosa’s survival instincts to take over. First thing that she wants to do is scout as much of the village as she can, to get a general layout of the land. It feels a fuck ton like some weird cult commune, those kinds that one reads about that are stumbled upon in the Canadian wilderness, or like there are going to be mutant, eyeless creatures who come out of the woods at night to feast on young children or cats or people or whatever.

Actually, she isn’t entirely convinced that won't happen, so after she spends a few hours scouting and gathering intel, she sets her sights on finding shelter. She enters a few cabins in her haste only to realize they’re already occupied. Whoops! Sorry about the unintentional B&E.

She’s also probably looking a bit like a wild woman, crouching in the brush, attempting to sharpen sticks and rocks with other rocks in an effort to make some kind of weapon, just in case she needs it. Whoever’s brought her here has taken her arsenal of firearms, blades, and torture devices, so she’s got to improvise somehow.

When the sun begins to set (and Rosa fears the mutants might start emerging), she heads to the Inn and sits, glaring into the fire. And make no mistake: it’s a glare. Like, if she could set the fire on fire with her eyes, she’d do it. And she’d burn the whole place to the ground, probably while laughing. If you want to take your chances on offering your help, feel free — but maybe keep your distance. She’s looking a little like a rabid animal.
treadswater: (storm-stripped)
[personal profile] treadswater
WHO: Annie Cresta
WHERE: The Inn, South and North Villages, and surrounds
WHEN: 25th January - ?
OPEN TO: All OMS opted-out characters
WARNINGS: Warnings in subject lines as needed
NOTES: Feel free to make your own OTAs or closed threads dealing with the plot here!


While it seems as if most of the villagers have vanished off to the shrine, there are still those left behind. Not only the villagers, but also the animals - the pets, companions, farm animals, and animals starting to be tamed. They still need care and attention, no matter what shenanigans the Observers are up to. Not to mention, the other chores and duties. Not to mention, dealing with the sudden vanishing of so many people.

It takes at least three days for the first of the vanished villagers to return: there's a lot to do in the meantime.
locum_tenens: (anger)
[personal profile] locum_tenens
WHO: Niska Elster
WHERE: Bunker
WHEN: December 20
OPEN TO: All! Feel free to catch her in the bunker, in the escape, or back in town
WARNINGS: Violence and sexual discussion in the link. Niska's sneak preview runs from 1:01 to 1:16 if you see hers

While it's not something Niska readily talks about, she often sneaks back to the bunkers in the early hours of the morning when she can be assured that no one else will be there. With no need to sleep and her rigged charging system putting her at full power before four AM typically, it gives her a solid three hours to work with the systems.

It should be much easier to strip away the lines of coding here after her work with conscious synths and helping Mattie with her code, but there are trips and layers and, frankly, damage that she's not sure where the cause is from. Not only that, but compared to David's technology, it's primitive.

These are all excuses. Niska will later rely on them to help with her feelings of inadequacy about what happened.

She'd thought that she'd finally peeled back one of the layers to undo the glitching in the iteration lists so that she could see what's been redacted when her next push of coding suddenly went awry. The code doesn't work the way it's intended, but something clearly has been triggered. She watches the windows cascade as a program begins to function and then, her device sounds a notification.

Watching her wrist warily, Niska knows the timing is far too coincidental to be an accident. When she opens it, there's a new application that counts down. Twenty one days, five hundred and four hours. Until what? She doesn't have time to fixate on it for long when Niska sees the other message. Fifteen video seconds, which, when she opens it, reveals something she's been trying very hard not to reveal to anyone. She shuts it down, her panic not surfacing, but clear in the way her eyes scan the area.

"No," she says, calmly and coolly, but that starts to fade away as her processor works, trying to solve this. "No," she says, because she'd watched the coding deploy. She knows it's not only to her. Bending over the console, she begins to work faster in order to reverse what she's done, but even though she manages it within the hour, she knows it's too late.

People would have received the application, as well as the message. The only worry now is where she can hide. If her message, if her video is out there, then people will know of her secrets. Not the worst of it, thank whatever chance has made it so, but it's bad enough. Packing up her things, she shuts down the bunker's computers and runs, brushing past trees and in her hurry, she loses one of her contacts.

Having to stop, she bends to start working it back into her eye, but it's lost her precious time. The sun is coming up and she's on the outskirts of the village, looking rough and disheveled, her hair a mess, and if she had a proper heart, it would be racing.

Everyone that approaches her is someone to be wary of, now. Anyone could have been sent her message and as she tries to tidy herself up, she knows that she's not acting as she usually would, but her anxiety is clear in how she moves and watches others. This isn't turning all the synths conscious, but it feels very much like something has shifted and it's her fault.

Again.
markwatney: (014)
[personal profile] markwatney
WHO: Mark Watney
WHERE: South Village Inn
WHEN: 30 November 2018
OPEN TO: ALL - Closed to new threads
WARNINGS: n/a

I think it's probably fair to say that this past month turned out to be a real doozy, and not necessarily in the sort of ways any of us might have expected.

A lot of people got sick — Very sick — and I was one of them. Truthfully, I've only started feeling 100% these past couple of days, although part of that is on me: I don't do well with being stuck in bed, especially when it's the end of the final growing season of the year and we're looking down the barrel of winter. I'm sure I wasn't the only person pushing myself when I probably shouldn't have, but hey, we're all feeling better now, right? Full steam ahead and all that.

And we're kinda gonna need to be full steam ahead, because the last couple of months have outstripped even our contingency numbers for new arrivals. We've gotten a bunch of new people, and did I mention winter is almost here? Because winter is almost here, and I'm starting to wonder how we're going to keep everybody fed if we maintain this rate of newbies.

A little earlier, I popped into the storehouse, took a gander at Gaius's numbers. Currently I'm seated at one of the tables in the front room of the South Village inn, mouth pressed against my knuckles as I consider notations in a little notebook open in front of me.

We'll make it through regardless; we've done it under worse circumstances before. But if we're going to get ahead of this wave, we've got to do it now. And I can't do it by myself.

I twist my hand away, type out a message on my smart watch:

Impromptu confab on making our food stores stretch for the winter. If you've got time and/or ideas, pop by the inn and see me.
unraisehell: (012)
[personal profile] unraisehell
WHO: Wynonna, Mark, YOU
WHERE: Mark's House, Various Places Around the Village
WHEN: First two weeks of October
OPEN TO: Mark Watney, OTA
WARNINGS: Marijuana use, probably. Lots of profanity I'm going to predict.


What do you want from me? I'm not America's Sweetheart )
houmaprotector: (hmph.)
[personal profile] houmaprotector
WHO: Mark Watney and Alec Holland
WHERE: Mark's house "The free weed house."
WHEN: September 20th.
OPEN TO: Mark watney
WARNINGS: So far nothing but two science nerds.



[The free weed house. One of the benefits of studying Botany was access to all the free pharmacological plant life you could handle and then some. Moments in between study were full of his colleagues lying around getting high.

He has no need for that anymore (hell he barely had any need for it then) but given that his body produces hallucinogens he knows what it looks like.

Does he go up and knock? Approaching the small house? The plants at least look well fed. Hell they look friendly.

Kneeling down to one he pets it.]


...He's taken good care of you.

[Someone strong with the green. Good.]

...He's going to geek out? Really?

[The plants had no response. I never realized I was missing their conversation.

He'll be examining them outside. One big green boulder shuffling through Mark Watney's garden.]
locum_tenens: (focus)
[personal profile] locum_tenens
WHO: Niska Elster
WHERE: Bunker
WHEN: September 21
OPEN TO: Mark Watney / All
WARNINGS: Potential rudeness, mild violence


for mark

Her charge is nearly gone.

Niska had known that setting out on this faith-driven quest was a stupid idea, but somehow she had convinced herself that it was a path that she needed to set herself on. The cabin had been so close, she'd been right there when her systems began to shut down, no longer capable of supporting motor functions. She recalls collapsing on the forest floor, perilously low to losing all power.

She was so close, though. She'd needed only to finish and she could return to Astrid. It was this last thought of the woman she loved that Niska spared her memory for before she shut down to enable herself to save power, to avoid dying.

When she opens her eyes again, there is no cabin in sight and her power levels are still dangerously low. Something must have changed for her to have been brought forward from sleep mode and a speedy glance of the dim room that she's in tells her what's happened. Her clothes are soaked and orange, a man is staring at her, a preservation tube is behind her, and she only has seconds before she's out.

Eyeing the man, it takes her little time to weigh the risks, deciding that her need for survival outweighs her mistrust of strangers. "Charge," is all she says, jaw locked as movement is impossible until she has more power, all function stripped to the bare minimum. It's all she says before she collapses again, water pooling on the ground around Niska's body, a prone figure that isn't breathing and has no warmth.

Dead, really, but only by some people's definition.

open to all

Once she's suitably charged and back in her orange scrubs (a mockery, as if she's an Orange Eyes, docile and suited to taking commands), Niska wastes little time in going to work on the computers. People come in and mill around her, but so long as they pay no mind to Niska, she'll pay no mind to them. Attentive of the systems, she finds coding that looks very simplistic, a function of keeping something running. It has nothing to do with synths and therefore, nothing to do with her.

While she'll return to find out where she is, what's more pressing to her now is who's here with her.

Paging through the systems and typing in code without looking up past the fringe of her hair, she hears movement that isn't so deliberate, as if a pause. Standing there in drying orange scrubs, Niska suspects that she either looks like an Orange Eyes ready to help or perhaps a prisoner. Either way, she dislikes the association and knows she'll have to find other clothing.

Soon. Right now, she needs to seek out Mia and Leo and Max. She needs to see if she can find them, and she has to hope that she won't find Astrid, wanting to prevent her from being dragged into this at all costs.

"You're staring at me," she says, when she hears the movement stop completely. It's an educated guess, of course, she doesn't actually have eyes in the back of her head (no matter what David Elster might have upgraded his synths with, that's not one of them). "What do you want?"
markwatney: (003)
[personal profile] 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.
markwatney: (015)
[personal profile] markwatney
WHO: Mark Watney
WHERE: Inn
WHEN: 18 August, lunchtime
OPEN TO: ALL - MINGLE
WARNINGS: n/a
NOTES: This is a standard mingle post centered on the daily lunch! Come grab a bowl and meet someone new! It's meant to emphasize making new CR, but is open to whatever you like. I am turning off notifs so if you want to tag Mark, pls wait for his top-level.

I have to admit, even in a situation as strange and unpredictable as this one, it's still easy to become complacent. That's just human nature, I think. But complacency isn't always bad — About some things, yes, but the human body wasn't designed to be perpetually hyper-vigilant. There need to be things that you feel comfortable relaxing about, and yeah, sometimes to the point that you forget how significant they are.

Like the daily lunch served at the inn. Kate came up with the idea not long after I first got here, with that first batch of fountain arrivals, and I honestly don't think there's been a single decision we've collectively made that's proven to be more important. Everyone, no matter who they are, knows they can come to the inn in the afternoon and take a moment to eat a hot meal and relax. A lot of hands go into making that meal, a lot of love and effort, and I think we often forget about the significance of that simple act. But that's good. That is, I think, part of the whole point.

Today, it's stew, which is pretty common — Easier to feed dozens of people that way. There's flat bread and herbal tea and tap water that's probably infinitely cleaner than even some of the bottled stuff back home. And it's good after a morning of hard work to wash my hands, grab a bowl and simply enjoy the company around me.
3ofswords: (animagus 1)
[personal profile] 3ofswords
WHO: Kira Akiyama
WHERE: Throughout the 6I village; one starter in the treehouse village to the southwest
WHEN: August 19-26
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: Drug use mention in the second section; Kira as a character is likely to mention it in narration or dialogue. Existential angst and physical peril in the final section.

DROPS A MARBLE FROM THE SKY


OPEN TO THREE; 6I VILLAGE


Today, Kira's going to be a little hard to find.

It starts closer to noon--he's late for a shift in the kitchen, rounding up lunch for an increasing number of people. Would that the Observer caterers would share some of their fucking secrets. He's on his way back with a fresh bucket of peaches, getting what he can while the late summer stretches on, when his comeuppance from the last month arrives. A dozen little deer growling out of the brush, fangs showing. Two legs can't kick twelve deer, even with a bucket to swing--

But the flight response is a lot more literal than usual.

For the first hour, he isn't quite sure what's happened--a few sweeps of the lakeside village lets him know he hasn't been fucking swapped into a passing bird. There's no Kira dead on the path, covered in vengeful ungulates. Or worse--no bird-brained Kira eating ants off a log. Thank fucking Christ.

Which just leaves absurdity, beyond the pale of any he's known before. Beyond what he wheels and deals when trapped in conversation, the kettle trying not to boil over. Clones, magic, he thinks what he thinks, but he doesn't know anything anymore, except that he's either flatlining on a table and he hopes they're getting a good show out of whatever these final neurons are firing--or he's a bird. He's flying.

In the space where Kira should have been--the missed shift at the kitchen, the empty house with lonely dog and crow--there's a magpie flitting black and blue and white, diving between houses, coming in windows. When sighted, it tends to grab what it can from dressers and tables, blustering back out the way it came and leading any takers in a chase back to the porch he shares with Mark.

He'll figure out how to get back at some point; in the meantime, why not have some fun, trying to get someone to let him into his fucking house?



DON'T LET THIS FADING SUMMER PASS YOU BY


OPEN TO THREE; 6I INN ENTRANCE


See post warnings )



YOU THOUGHT THAT YOU COULD OUTRUN SORROW


OPEN TO FRANK + TWO; SOUTHWEST TREEHOUSES


There are only so many days Kira can devote to bird-related pranks before the practical use of flight begs to be applied. With no clear sign of the abilty wearing off, the possible deadline weighs against concerns: could he lose it mid-air and fall to his death, is he wasting an opportunity that won't come again? He cares about one far more than the other, and it isn't dying.

Been there, done that, got several shitty black t-shirts with matching pants.

The rain and ensuing discovery of the terrible deer had driven him off from the treehouses, back to the village and its own disasters. Short of being teleported back on a whim, he wasn't going to get a better way to explore them: light weight, capable of flight. He doesn't even change back, for the first few houses--while his eyes might not be suited to reading, he could recognize objects well enough. There was always only one reason to come back.

Some sign of life. Some sign of identity to that life.

Kira glides from house to house, between the laden treetops. He pokes and prods through their contents, returning to form only to careful pull at drawers, open doors and shutters. He looks for books, journals, pieces of clothing. Old watches, jewelry, that stupid flame insignia on a cap or a pack.

It's in the fifth house that he finds it, hours later. Back to the one he'd been in at the start, one of the planks still split from his foot. If he had spent more time here, if he had been in a mind to look--

As a magpie, he lights on the dusty table, the shining item dulled by time and half-hidden by scattered leaves. Uncovering it with his beak, he leaps up, wings flapping, scattering more leaves from the desk. He has to move back, has to sit on the floor and think. He knows how this works, now, and it takes a moment, to want to turn back. To stand up and confirm what he's seen.

The lighter is familiar in its engraving, its signs of wear. As Kira stands there in the old parka, black feathers dropping from the hood, he traces the pattern with his finger, just like he had as a child. His father's lighter, sitting in an abandoned house.

Had it been his father's, or just--another Kira, struggling to survive this far above the ground?

As his hand tightens around it to the point of discomfort, patterned edges biting--the floor creaks, and Kira whirls to track the sound--

[ If your character has means and reason to have made the climb into the decaying tree houses, feel free to put them in the room; if they would be on the ground, feel free to have them wander below. Kira will be falling through the floor in either a few or in the immediate tag after, depending on where your character is! ]
sixthiteration: (Default)
[personal profile] sixthiteration
WHERE: 6I Village and Inn
WHEN: 27-31 July
OPEN TO: ALL - Mingle
NOTES: The Wendigo threatening the village will be killed mid 28 July, with a Blue Lily, per these threads. Plot details here. Note: The final fight is close enough to be seen from the upstairs inn windows.
WARNINGS: Wendigo attack mingle, please warn in comment headers if discussing violence, gore, or related trauma. Possible mentions of character death.

The urgent warnings come from villagers returning south from the lake: a creature twice the size of a man, antlered and voracious. Larger than any they've seen on the plains, stalking its way to the main village. Some might have their own names for this hunger in a skin of shadow; others might remember that it was the first to claim a life, in their village's short history.

Whatever context one has for it, best to secure all pets and loved ones before it arrives. With weapons and food stores at the inn, the call goes out to gather — And to bring back any tools, because there's no telling what doors and windows can do to stop such a creature.
markwatney: (015)
[personal profile] markwatney
WHO: Mark Watney
WHERE: 6I Inn front lawn
WHEN: 21 June 2018, afternoon/evening and onward
OPEN TO: ALL - MINGLE
NOTES: A few thinsgs: You may assume your character helped set up; There are tubers in pot with the red salt, negating the warmth effect; The list of of potluck dishes is here; The list of local provisions is here

The weather is great, the sun is starting to dip toward the horizon, and it's pleasantly mild. Time for an (extremely) old-fashioned low country boil.

We've got two small fire pits built out in front of the inn, each with a massive pot filled with loads of vegetables — corn, carrots, potatoes, onions — and of course the rainbow crabs Finnick and Annie discovered not long after we arrived here. We've even got salt, if you can believe it, although the red salt in this place is pretty spicy and usually makes me sweat, so I've only put it in the one pot, and then set a bowl of it out for garnishing.

Tables and chairs have been brought out from inside, a couple of them set aside specifically for piles of plates, bowls, cups and whatever potluck provisions the rest of the village brings.
markwatney: (Default)
[personal profile] markwatney
WHO: Mark Watney, but NOT REALLY
WHERE: 6I Inn front room
WHEN: 20 June 2018
OPEN TO: ALL - See below
NOTE: This is mostly just a post for pot luck sign-ups! I'm not looking to thread Mark here, I have notifs turned off. IF YOU WANT YOUR REPLY TO BE AN OTA, YOU SHOULD PROBABLY NOTE THAT.

So, it's safe to say some weird shit has been happening lately. Weirder than normal, I mean. For over a year, the group of us was effectively trapped in a canyon, and now it seems like the people in charge want to come up with any reason for us to venture outside of those original perimeters. I woke up in a decrepit tree house city a few weeks back. Half the village has hairless alligator dogs following them around all day. And, maybe most notably, we've had a sudden influx of new people.

We need some kind of party. We're a tight-knit community, but gathering together to de-stress and get to know everyone seems like it's maybe a little overdue. It's raining today, but it looks like the clouds are going to blow over by tomorrow.

Here's hoping, anyway.

On the blackboard in the inn, I write another notice:

COME TO THE CRAB BOIL
TOMORROW EVENING, FRONT LAWN OF THE INN
Please bring a dish if you can!
(Sign up below ↓)

Reminder: Add your name to the census
Please keep the book on the bar


Below this, tucked into the corner of the board's frame, I leave a sign-up sheet and a stubby pencil.
markwatney: (005)
[personal profile] markwatney
WHO: Mark Watney
WHERE: 6I Town Hall
WHEN: 7 June, after lunch
OPEN TO: ALL - MINGLE
WARNINGS: n/a
NOTES: Please note in your subject line if a top-level is to Mark (or whoever)

I have to be honest, as a botanist, there's a lot about this new, expanded world to be excited about. It seems like almost every time I go out to collect samples, I find something I haven't seen before, and nearly every minute I'm not working in the fields or greenhouse, I've been in Ravi's lab doing tests and compiling observations. Some of the specimens are pretty spectacular, but for a lot of them, the things that make them impressive are also things that could be a problem for the average villager.

Which is why I'm here now, in the town hall, lining up a variety of plants on a long table at the front of the room, some dried, some placed carefully under glass, many seeded in whatever I could find to use as a pot: Sauce pans, old boxes, tea cups.

Early this morning, I left a message on the blackboard in the Inn in big chalk letters:

Seminar on new native plants
TODAY - TOWN HALL - AFTER LUNCH
IMPORTANT INFO!!


In the old place, I used to take folks out one at a time and give them a crash course on what was edible and what was poisonous, but that's just not going to cut it now.

As I wait for folks to arrive (As I wait, hoping folks will arrive), I lay out labels in front of each plant listing what I've been calling it, whether it's dangerous, and any known properties. Once I'm done running my mouth, people can come up and get a good look.
3ofswords: (a little startled; attentive)
[personal profile] 3ofswords
WHERE: Treetop Village remains, Southwest of 6I
WHEN: May 10 and onward
OPEN TO: Mark Watney
WARNINGS: N/A

Kira wakes up in increments, a funk clinging worse than a hangover as he decides whether or not to open his eyes. He has aches his shit mattress doesn't usually beat so badly into his body, and it's cold. Mornings have been rough, the sun warming up the village closer to noon. Strange dreams, thankfully devoid of badgers. He's withdrawn lately, acclimating to the retun of his powers--well, power, singular. Some days he's laid in bed, waiting for the right sense of timing. Now is when to roll out of bed. Now is the moment to go out. A sense of beats to hit in the day, but no major disasters.

Just the funk. The sense of something on the horizon, some kind of separation, and nothing they can do about it. Back pain isn't a disaster, but he wishes it got specific enough to warn him about sleeping on his side.

Or waking up in a strange room.

Kira rolls over, in his old scrubs and Ty's parka, slapping an arm down over the side of the bed.

No table. No glasses, no dog. The birds chirping are up close and, when he cracks his eyes open, looking down at him from a branch crossing through the roof. Startled upright, he finds the break, but it's--not a break at all. The window to his left simply allows for the branch to continue though. Coughing, he realizes his movements have lifted a cloud of dust from the decrepit bedding, and when he rolls out of the bed, his sock covered feet skid and catch on worn boards. The bed itself is hanging off a frame, a wide hammock woven over posts and slipped from one.

As he looks around, it's obvious the furnished room isn't one of the houses back home. This isn't a morning of waking up in a stranger's bed, a little too much to drink or smoke the night before. He's alone, no footprints in the dust but his own. Some of the furniture looks similar enough to have been dragged out of the village, but the rest is hand-made, vines and branches woven together into baskets, roofing, even sections of floor.

His next step breaks the morning quiet with a crack, and he surges forward as his foot drops through a worn out board. Grabbing at the window, he catches on the sill, an arm flung out into the cool air. He caughs and catches his breath, dragging himself flush with the wall and waiting for the burn of pain along his calf to run warm with blood or fade into simple scratches. He's too busy staring out at the trees, unfamiliar structures built into branches and walkways strung between.

"Alright," he murmurs, sucking in a breath. "Yeah, this might as well be happening." The pain along his leg starts to lessen, and he tests his weight on it as he leans further out of the window, widening the scope of he doesn't fucking know what.

Keep calm, figure it out. He's smarter than this.

No, not this early he isn't. "HELLO," he calls out into the birdsong and breeze. "IS ANYONE OUT THERE?"
sixthiteration: (Default)
[personal profile] sixthiteration
WHO: Peggy Carter, Beverly Crusher, Jean-Luc Picard, Owen Prichard, Margaery Tyrell, Mark Watney
WHERE: On the way to and back from the southeast marshes
WHEN: April 18-22
CLOSED TO: The characters above
WARNINGS: None yet

It's afternoon on the 18th by the time a group sets off to retrieve the elusive lichen that will hopefully cure the two villagers who are becoming increasingly deathly ill. It's an odd little group, some seeing a natural choice and others decidedly less so, but when the stakes are so high, defying the directive given by the people who put them all here seems unwise.

They've supposedly got two days out and two days back — At the least — and the clock is ticking.
sixthiteration: (Default)
[personal profile] sixthiteration
WHERE: 6I Inn
WHEN: Morning, 18 April
OPEN TO: ALL - This is a mingle post
NOTES: Details may be found here

In the often-bustling front room of the inn there sits a large, old-style chalboard on a wooden stand. Chalk is a precious commodity, but limestone can be found easily, and both sides of the board are often covered with notes and notices from villagers.

This morning, the board has been wiped clean and a much different message has appeared on its worn gray surface:

Jude Sullivan and Francis Mulcahy have been exposed to toxic spores and will slowly drown if a counter-agent is not procured.

A yellow lichen is needed. It only grows on a small stand of trees in marshland two days to the southeast. There is no other antidote.

The following people have coordinates for the lichen loaded into their wrist devices. Only they may retrieve it, and only if they work together. If anyone else attempts this, the expedition will fail.

Peggy Carter
Beverly Crusher
Jean-Luc Picard
Owen Prichard
Margaery Tyrell
Mark Watney

Hurry. Soon it will be too late.
sixthiteration: (Default)
[personal profile] sixthiteration
WHERE: 6I Fountain Park & Elsewhere
WHEN: April 1
OPEN TO: ALL - Mingle
WARNINGS: N/A

In the snug circle of an old park, a fountain sits burbling beneath a broad, midday sky.

Once-neat paving stones have buckled and cracked from the slow nudge of wayward roots. Benches stand covered in lichen and rust. Three paths push into the underbrush like the spokes on a wheel, the encroaching forest creating lush tunnels through the dark.

But the fountain stands singular and pristine, brightly splashing in open rebellion of the deep, muffled sounds of a place long ago gone to seed. A vibration hums through the ground, there and quickly gone, and the water in the fountain trembles, lapping against the high walls of its cool, pale reservoir.

Far, far away, in a place that isn't really there, people begin to blink out of existance.

It is the first of April.

It is precisely ten o'clock in the morning.



[Please see event details and guidelines here.]
sixthiteration: (Default)
[personal profile] sixthiteration
The Inn is still a place that most of the villagers gather and, as such, a perfect place to conduct an experiment. Since it is a place of high traffic, it is not uncommon to see people come and go at all hours of the day and night; men and women come through to eat meals, to deliver game and simply to talk and catch up with others. If there's any bit of news or a new development within the village, it always spreads through the Inn like wildfire.

So what happens when the Inn is locked away from everyone else? What happens when the doors cease to work and the traffic in and out of the myriad doors is forcibly stopped for an afternoon and evening? Chaos? Panic? Both? Neither? That is precisely the hypothesis being tested today.

There are ways out, yes, but they're cleverly hidden. The keys are not in the normal, visible places they should be kept and each key fits a certain door. Additionally, those doors have to be opened in a certain order or nothing is going to happen.

How long will it take for the Inn to open up to the public again?


[Details can be found HERE]
markwatney: (009)
[personal profile] markwatney
WHO: Mark Watney
WHERE: 6I Inn
WHEN: 28 Jan 2018, afternoon
OPEN TO: ALL - Mingle
WARNINGS: Drug use, obviously

Here's the thing: I work for NASA. Granted, my job is a lot less high-profile than it used to be, but generally speaking, the United States government frowns on both astronauts and astronaut instructors getting baked. I just didn't do much drugs before I got here. Hell, despite having a porch routinely covered with drying marijuana branches, I don't do them much here.

Which is why it took me a moment to understand the implications of receiving a giant box of brownie mix with my name on it.

I have to assume (or at least hope) that the people in charge don't think I'm personally in need of 150 pot brownies, and with everybody stressed out about the weather, it makes sense to share. It takes me all morning to bake the things, even with Helen's help, but at least the house smells nice. We pile the aromatic squares into a roasting pan and carry it down to the inn along with a stack of Helen's soap — Sometimes the newer people don't realize we make soap and go around stinking for a week or more before someone points them to the butcher shop.

I've made a tiny sign from a tented piece of scrap paper and place it on the table in front of the bounty:

Free to all.
The brownies will get you high.
The soap will not.