Mingle - Emergency Potluck

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WELCOME POTLUCK

Greetings, residents! Those more observant sorts among you may have noticed a large influx of very crowded ferries. In order to welcome our new residents en masse, Town Hall is holding a potluck in Town Square. Please bring a dish if you are able and make a new friend!

All of our newest arrivals need only bring themselves. We look forward to welcoming you all into our community, and may your lanterns always be lit.

This event is open to all! In light of our new influx of prospective players following the Great Sail Migration, we've decided to offer a small public event to tide everyone over until the TDM this weekend.

Comments

[notinflictthem]

"Well hey, glad to hear it. Your dad sounds like a stand-up guy."

Letting his kid go off and make a name for theirself... yeah, he knows what that's like.

"More or less. I didn't really have a choice- I mean, not like how I got drafted, but y'know. Always wanted to help people, couldn't help but stick my nose into situations, steady hands, perfect doctor material. You should've seen his face when I told him I got into med school. I don't know if he was prouder that I was becoming a doctor, or that I wasn't taking after my Grandpa Sparky and trying to scam the government for a living."

Good ol' Grandpa Sparky.

"I don't know how any of the magic junk here works, but... a letter from him washed up in a bottle last month. I don't know if this place does encores for this sort of thing, but. I hope you get word from yours too, eh?"

[notinflictthem]

Entirely seriously,

"Marry me."

[crushed_pearls]

"We learn," Erin murmurs. "This time will be different, Ruby. We're gonna get you some time to rest, and between jobs here we'll get together. Ideas, backup, magic..."

Ruby was always insistent on going back to Remnant.

"I'm not leaving again."

cw: reference to suicide

[littlefairytale]

At what number does the death toll outweigh the value of a lesson learned? she thinks. How many people in Atlas died? How many people lost their homes? How is Remnant ever going to survive after this, when the technological capital of the world has been reduced to debris in a crater?

How is she supposed to tell Erin that she didn't even die in combat, but with a cup of tea in her hand and no more will to live?

Despite it all she wants to thank Erin, wants to appreciate the sentiment at hand, but the guilt chokes her, and for a while all she can do is to cling tighter and hope that says it for her.

"...we'd have to get out of the Ever After first. Do— do you remember that book I got, back on the ship? The one with the gold plate on the front, with the tree carving I made you feel. Turns out that place is real." She laughs, a little emptily. "I-I shouldn't even be surprised, at this point; all our fairytales seem to be..."

[crushed_pearls]

"Sis. Are you telling me I get to kill fairies? Am I hearing an unlimited license to go Apeshit in my future? Johnny's boy is here, I am one portal away from a good chainsaw massacre, you just say the word."

[apocryphalarchivist]

The use of his first name isn't something that goes unnoticed, but it goes unmentioned. It's held close, though, and tucked in a metaphorical pocket - it was a first time, and surely there was a reason for it. He'd find due time to pry.

Fortunately for her, friendly roasting is taken easily. It'd be more stressful if she was too polite with him, wouldn't it?

He chuckles, and opens his arms in a wide gesture down to himself.

"You've got me there. I dress the part now and everything. Now I just need to walk around stormy nights with a lantern, and I think I've got the whole gimmick down to a science."

His amusement doesn't last long on his features, and it fades to something more somber and tentatively concerned.

"I imagine, since you didn't arrive right around when I did, you survived the Unknowing. I suppose if anyone was going to, it was going to be you, but... I'm sorry to hear something else did."

He nods back, towards the potluck, and offers her a sort of half-smile.

"At least the end of things could be worse?"

[skeletonkeay]

Gerry just stands there, watching stoically, his expression failing to move. The only things that give away the fact that he isn't made of stone are his slow breathing, and his eyes.

Stormy grey eyes. Eyes that stare, that burrow, that see into the soul and know. Unnerving and unwavering. Something about his gaze draws out a feeling of paranoia, of being seen and known far too well, of being stripped of one's privacy.

At last, he scoffs. "You're choosing hopelessness," he accuses bluntly. "Fine. That's what I get for helping. Deaf ears. But know that you have made the choice to let the song take hold of you, and you continue to choose it. And when the drums begin to beat, when the screams ring out, when the gunfire cracks the air... just don't forget that you chose it."

He brushes off. Not particularly fast, busy lighting a fresh cigarette, but he suspects John will choose not to follow. To follow would be to want to heal.

[somebodychildofanyone]

"Multiple kingdoms," River agrees with a guilty grin. "Robert really went to town, man's specialty was draugs led by demons - uh, cannibal corpse-people who can still think, is draugs. But he got his in the end, stabbed through the gut by a Hero, as is tradition. He wasn't too bad a teacher, though."

[somebodychildofanyone]

"I got bad news for you about our sex life depending on how you wanna define 'hurt'."

cw: reference to psychological torture

[littlefairytale]

Despite it all, Ruby does almost laugh as she shakes her head, "Most of the Afterans are peaceful. Most of our problems came from uh— this. This cat. And um. Neo, she was back. She..."

A table full of the false faces of the dead. All of her worst fears about herself spoken from the mouths of people she'd failed to save. The girl she loves and loses over and over again reduced to a puppet on a string once more. The man that doomed her morphed into the innocent boy that deserves so much better, bleeding on the ground because of her. Illusions, lies, and yet all too real.

"...really hates me."

[sistermagnetic]

Magne simply blinks at the sudden lapse into English. She recognizes only a handful of words, never having the opportunity to learn more than Japanese (just ask César about the silliness that the linguistic drift causes...)

[somebodychildofanyone]

"Oh that's fascinating. You gotta meet my friend Angel - dead fella, works at the Temple, lives out at Kaspbrak Farm with his partner Eddie, he's got his own kinda pyromancy going on. He can be a bit shy but the more we learn to work together the better off we all are."

[lovethyneighb_or]

Somewhere, he can feel the entire 4077th twitch.

“… I would like to know more, but perhaps you should tell me about it some time,” he concedes, with a gentle smile and a nod. “I’m not sure a potluck is the best place to go into detail about such things. But as for myself… before I was on that torturous prison ship, I was drafted in the Army, in a mobile hospital. And before that, I was a hospital chaplain. I make it my duty to see to the wounded and the sick.”

[thethirteenthchild]

Dahlia's eyes light up with a certain predatory glee. "If I catch you, I'm going to eat you. If you're the one who wins, I leave it up to you."

[yournewsidekick]

OH NO ANYTHING BUT THAT

Nimona yelps with laughter, making a perfunctory effort to squirm away -- her wolf shape dissolves back into a dog, then into a cat as she wriggles in Edgar's arms. But within seconds of sprouting whiskers, she's also purring, as involuntary as the giggles that intersperse themselves between her protests.

[crushed_pearls]

Erin shakes her head vigorously. Back to Japanese: |Sorry, you probably guessed from my accent but I'm unfortunately cursed to be American. English is my native language, I picked up Japanese hiding out from vampires in Tokyo.|

(Uhhh...)

|I would explain but the explanation is actually more insane.|

[hadnoright]

...oh, oh boy.

Daisy goes from biting back a laugh at him following through on her stupid gag to a swallowing down a fresh lump of uncertainty rising in her throat. Unknowing. Right. If his first concern, his first point of comparison, is the Unknowing, then...

Fuck, this is about to get complicated. As if it wasn't already.

"...yeah, uh. This place seems nice enough. Though um— the Unknowing. That's the last thing you remember? The explosion? That's when you got offered the deal?"

[hereticofthewilds]

Not as such, but she does know that showing her face out here in public takes a lot of courage for her, too. She hasn't done it much recently. So, she nods and makes a knowing "Mm" sound with her lips pressed tight together.

"Gifts." She hums again, and her pressed lips twitch almost to a smile. Helping each other is good. It's much better to support each other. Her chin dips as if she's just decided something.

"Yes. Share."

[notinflictthem]

John Jay is 100% trying to joke it off. Which Hawkeye cannot in any capacity call him on, because that call would be coming from inside the house, and he does not want to give anyone any ammo for him in the future. So he adds-

"Oh yeah, it's very slimming. Your eyes look like they've lost fifty pounds. And good, I'm glad you're not in Arizona, free or in jail. Nobody should be in Arizona."

He's a New England boy, Arizona is way too hot and dry.

[umm_shafaqat]

"I am sorry. I should... probably go. I'd hate to bring the mood down any further, for you or the rest."

She pushes back from the table, makes to rise.

[notinflictthem]

"We'll call it 'Pierce and Watson Syndrome'. And we'll submit it for the Nobel prize for medicine," he agrees, sitting down where Watson is.

"Honest. As if I'd try and stiff you out of the prize money."

[apocryphalarchivist]

Ohhh no. He's not loving that tone, or that look he's getting.

A skeptical, almost-fear rises to his face - something tentative, nervous about which way this is going to go, but he's trying to withhold any gut feelings about which way this is going.

"Er... yes?" He starts, brows furrowing with worry. "I mean, I can only hope that it failed, but I-I wasn't there to see it, no. I was told, during the deal, that I wasn't pulling out of a coma, but not the, ah... state of the world, or anything along those lines. I'm not even sure if we succeeded. I hope so, but granted our latest bout of luck..."

He's eyeing her warily, and his uncertainty only grows with every passing moment.

"Don't mince words with me, Daisy, what--- what happened? What brought you here?"

[hate_gettin_older]

"Farm, yeah? Was gonna check out the farms soon anyway, still trying to figure out what kind of work I'm gonna do here."

He shakes his hand out, letting the fire wisp away.

[somebodychildofanyone]

"Well, my offer is still open but hand to God I'm pretty sure announcing an intention to farm might get people lined up to shake your hand too. Unsung heroes they ain't."

[hadnoright]

The funny thing is what brought her here has very little to do with what happened at home. Oh, she knows about her death, but she also knows that whatever was left of her there wouldn't have been person enough to make this deal even if things hadn't gone so differently for her. No, the problems at home have very little to do with her own fate, and everything to do with everything else.

"It's not about what brought me here. That's another story entirely." No point in hiding it, even if she had ever been prone to mincing her words, with the Archivist hiding anything never feels like a sure thing. Though, that doesn't mean she might not try with... bigger things. "The Unknowing failed. You don't have to worry about that. We lost Tim, and you were in that coma. But Basira— somehow reasoned her way out of it before the explosion. Me— it's fuzzy. But apparently I tore apart one of those freaky delivery guys and then. Ended up in the coffin."

And that's not even the half of it...