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on an island in between there and here | open | nov-jan
Who: Miles, Kitty, Alex, Deon, Mariner, and you!
What: whatever these goblins end up to
When: November-January
Where: Around the island
Warning(s): Midwinter melancholy?
Kitty | we better start praying the weather stays nice (open)
Ever since early November, Kitty's been whittling. Carving, too, and the results are going from 'sharp carrot' to 'vaguely resembling what she's trying to do'. Not as anything to sell, either. Rather, she's both making gifts and honing her own skills.
Today, she's sitting outside, and there's several of what look like half-peeled sticks, the bark hewn away in rough, unsteady chunks. Some have been put aside due to stubborn knots, and others are in a pile where they've passed a first test. She's concentrating, tongue slightly poking out as she slowly tries to shape one of the sticks.
Kitty | because the sun is setting and we're singing in the dark (open)
Kitty doesn't know a whole lot of seasonally-appropriate songs. Which is a shame, really, because she's on a one-man caroling effort through town. She's doing her very best, but perhaps a half-remembered version of ABBA's "Mamma Mia" isn't exactly in the holiday spirit.
Maybe it is, though! Please help her, she's doing her best.
Kitty | lead us out of the darkness (baker ranch, dec 20-21)
The winter solstice sees Kitty sitting up all night, tending a candle. It's not something she's really done before, but she'd read about it and it seems right to do an all-night vigil on the longest night of the year to welcome the sun back.
Of course, she starts to nod off periodically - in the name of fire safety, the candle is encased in a jar to prevent any incidents.
Alex | in the winter, from the water, through the wind (open)
The holidays are an odd time for Alex. He'd ignored them for years on years, most of his life, really, and suddenly within the past five years there's been that odd thing called family happening and quite suddenly he finds himself fiercely missing home because he and Mo and David would let Jamie take them to the cleaners playing dreidel and Marie had managed to get David to get really into doing the whole Christmas-decorating thing to make up for thirty-seven Christmases lost to amnesia, and...
There's an odd sense of melancholy to him as he makes his rounds about town, and he can't even fully mask it. But then again, lots of people do get the midwinter blues, don't they?
Deon | ........soooooo i'm back to shoppers (open)
Deon has brought his wares (dead things) to town to sell. It's probably good for him to stop being quite so insular, he thinks to himself, so once he's in town and sold his dead things, he starts to poke around. Now that he's been out of the Fog's influence for so long, he's not afraid of himself anymore. He's not worried about suddenly having a burst of hunger that leads him to messily devour the closest person. (They all come back quickly, unlike the humans of Ryslig, but he'd still feel awful.)
But he's still not good with cold. He sneezes, and loses his footing, stumbling into someone with his still-beanpole-ish body, all wings and tail and robotic arm...
...and then there's a little shiver-hiccup motion and quite suddenly there is a winged caracal at their feet.
"Ah! Sorry! Sorry!"
He's never transformed out of embarrassment before. Much to consider.
Miles | stop the world, take a picture (open)
No video cameras here. Which would be a problem for Miles, a generally video-based journalist. But he's pivoted to photojournalism; he'd done quite well with that before.
Sure, it's an oldschool camera, ancient by his standards, but he's having fun with it. And surprisingly, it is fun. Really going back to basics.
There's a precious photo he took on this roll, and now he has to finish it up. He's not going to let good film go to waste! So he's taking some carefully-considered photos. Hell, he may even ask if you want to be in one. He'll give you the resulting print free of charge once he's done in the darkroom!
Mariner | suddenly there's something in between me and the sky (open)
It's easy to tell when someone like Mariner is restless, even if she's trying to hide it. She's not quite jumpy, but close. Irritable, too.
And at night she takes a hike into the farmlands, and looks up at the night sky, static and alien. Once it was hers, and the stars meant freedom. Now? Now she's stuck on this stupid rock. There have to be worlds out there just beyond her reach, and she's stuck here...!
Sometimes a frustrated yell can be heard echoing across the fields in the dark. Anyone curious can find her in the snow, kneeling, head bowed in anger and longing and fear that she'll never be able to go back.
"Fuck!"
All/Wildcard | we didn't know where we were but we knew that we were hammered (open)
The Oak & Iron is a hotspot during the winter for obvious reasons, and one of these little monsters may be found there on and off, usually getting a hot drink of some kind. Come say hello?
All/Wildcard | for the love of god, stop bringing toilet paper to the lions club
[Just throw something at me! Dealer's choice!]
What: whatever these goblins end up to
When: November-January
Where: Around the island
Warning(s): Midwinter melancholy?
Kitty | we better start praying the weather stays nice (open)
Ever since early November, Kitty's been whittling. Carving, too, and the results are going from 'sharp carrot' to 'vaguely resembling what she's trying to do'. Not as anything to sell, either. Rather, she's both making gifts and honing her own skills.
Today, she's sitting outside, and there's several of what look like half-peeled sticks, the bark hewn away in rough, unsteady chunks. Some have been put aside due to stubborn knots, and others are in a pile where they've passed a first test. She's concentrating, tongue slightly poking out as she slowly tries to shape one of the sticks.
Kitty | because the sun is setting and we're singing in the dark (open)
Kitty doesn't know a whole lot of seasonally-appropriate songs. Which is a shame, really, because she's on a one-man caroling effort through town. She's doing her very best, but perhaps a half-remembered version of ABBA's "Mamma Mia" isn't exactly in the holiday spirit.
Maybe it is, though! Please help her, she's doing her best.
Kitty | lead us out of the darkness (baker ranch, dec 20-21)
The winter solstice sees Kitty sitting up all night, tending a candle. It's not something she's really done before, but she'd read about it and it seems right to do an all-night vigil on the longest night of the year to welcome the sun back.
Of course, she starts to nod off periodically - in the name of fire safety, the candle is encased in a jar to prevent any incidents.
Alex | in the winter, from the water, through the wind (open)
The holidays are an odd time for Alex. He'd ignored them for years on years, most of his life, really, and suddenly within the past five years there's been that odd thing called family happening and quite suddenly he finds himself fiercely missing home because he and Mo and David would let Jamie take them to the cleaners playing dreidel and Marie had managed to get David to get really into doing the whole Christmas-decorating thing to make up for thirty-seven Christmases lost to amnesia, and...
There's an odd sense of melancholy to him as he makes his rounds about town, and he can't even fully mask it. But then again, lots of people do get the midwinter blues, don't they?
Deon | ........soooooo i'm back to shoppers (open)
Deon has brought his wares (dead things) to town to sell. It's probably good for him to stop being quite so insular, he thinks to himself, so once he's in town and sold his dead things, he starts to poke around. Now that he's been out of the Fog's influence for so long, he's not afraid of himself anymore. He's not worried about suddenly having a burst of hunger that leads him to messily devour the closest person. (They all come back quickly, unlike the humans of Ryslig, but he'd still feel awful.)
But he's still not good with cold. He sneezes, and loses his footing, stumbling into someone with his still-beanpole-ish body, all wings and tail and robotic arm...
...and then there's a little shiver-hiccup motion and quite suddenly there is a winged caracal at their feet.
"Ah! Sorry! Sorry!"
He's never transformed out of embarrassment before. Much to consider.
Miles | stop the world, take a picture (open)
No video cameras here. Which would be a problem for Miles, a generally video-based journalist. But he's pivoted to photojournalism; he'd done quite well with that before.
Sure, it's an oldschool camera, ancient by his standards, but he's having fun with it. And surprisingly, it is fun. Really going back to basics.
There's a precious photo he took on this roll, and now he has to finish it up. He's not going to let good film go to waste! So he's taking some carefully-considered photos. Hell, he may even ask if you want to be in one. He'll give you the resulting print free of charge once he's done in the darkroom!
Mariner | suddenly there's something in between me and the sky (open)
It's easy to tell when someone like Mariner is restless, even if she's trying to hide it. She's not quite jumpy, but close. Irritable, too.
And at night she takes a hike into the farmlands, and looks up at the night sky, static and alien. Once it was hers, and the stars meant freedom. Now? Now she's stuck on this stupid rock. There have to be worlds out there just beyond her reach, and she's stuck here...!
Sometimes a frustrated yell can be heard echoing across the fields in the dark. Anyone curious can find her in the snow, kneeling, head bowed in anger and longing and fear that she'll never be able to go back.
"Fuck!"
All/Wildcard | we didn't know where we were but we knew that we were hammered (open)
The Oak & Iron is a hotspot during the winter for obvious reasons, and one of these little monsters may be found there on and off, usually getting a hot drink of some kind. Come say hello?
All/Wildcard | for the love of god, stop bringing toilet paper to the lions club
[Just throw something at me! Dealer's choice!]
lead us out of the darkness
He carries his bear to the kitchen and makes himself a cup of tea. After tilting his head to listen, he makes a second cup, then moves as quietly as he can to where Kitty's dozing next to her candle. Radar sets a mug in front of her; carefully, he nudges her shoulder.
Soft: "Hey."
no subject
"Hey," she replies. "Thanks for the tea." She glances at the candle - still lit, still going.
no subject
no subject
"Much appreciated," she says. "Really. I think some tea's just what I need."
At the question, she looks pensive. "I don't know. Well, I think? This is the first time I've done this. But it feels like the right thing to do for me, I think. Does that make sense?"
no subject
She must've seen somebody else do it once, he figures, and decided to give it a shot. It's not that different from some of the other people around the island planning to stay up to watch the sunrise. Just smaller; more personal.
But he's curious anyway: "How come you decided to do this and not something else?"
no subject
"I remember something like this. Sort of." Not a real memory. Not a real Yule. Just a hazy false recollection implanted to make her think she's a real person. "I was looking forward to it this year, at home."
Why this, specifically, though? She struggles for an answer for a moment.
"I think it's like...sympathetic magic. Like if the candle burns all night the sun will come back. And staying up with it all night helps remind us that even in the darkest of times there's still light, fighting as hard as it can to beat it back."
no subject
"I like that." He watches the candle flame dance. "Sometimes it's real hard, remembering it's true. Just seems like the dark'll go on forever until someone or something reminds you it won't."
A pause.
"...Does the sun really not come back if you don't do this where you're from?"
no subject
When Radar asks his question, she shakes her head. "Yes, and no. It's...kind of complicated." She makes a face as she tries to figure out how to explain it. "Is the earth still gonna go around the sun? Yeah. And it'll keep on its orbit as the days get longer. That'll happen no matter what we do. Or. Well. Whatever mechanism happens here to do the same."
She takes a sip of her tea, struggling to explain it the way that she half-remembered from false memories and tenuously grasped from her real ones. "There's a book. A funny book. But a smart one, too. Uncle Baz gave it to me to read. And it's about belief, and midwinter, and about how things don't have to be real to be true. Death is in it. But he's nice. He says something about how people need to believe in fantasy because, oh, I want to make sure I have the words right..."
She drums her fingers on the floor. "'You have to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?'"
She has to believe she's real. How else will she become so?
no subject
And that's even softer.
You have to believe in things that aren't true. Isn't that what he and the doctors do every day, back in Korea? A patient will live. A war will end. Today, maybe, the choppers won't come, and tomorrow, maybe, they'll all get to go home.
There's a lump in his throat that wasn't there a second ago, and Radar has to swallow hard to make it go away.
"Yeah." He sounds a little hoarse. "Yeah, I get that. We, um... there's no magic where I'm from, not any kind at all. But I guess we kinda do the same thing, too."
we better start praying the weather stays nice
John says it as he's plunking himself down beside her where she's sitting outside. Picking up one of her success stories, he studies it for a second with a nod of approval before setting it down and gesturing for her to show him her knife.
"Let's see it. Wanna make sure it's sharp enough--believe it or not? Fastest way to lose a finger's with a knife that's too dull, and I'm pretty darn attached to the idea of you with ten little piggies instead of nine. Yeah, I know those are toes, don't care, show the knife guy the cool blade."
no subject
She picks up one of the half-peeled sticks, weighs it, twirls it around, then frowns and puts it back down. She picks up another, putting it through its paces the same way.