in the middle of summer [ OPEN MINGLE ]

[postictal]

Who: Anyone!
What: Catch-all Denny mingle for the last week or so of July
When: Anytime between July 25th and July 31st
Where: Denny
Warnings: Label your stuff if it comes up



[Feel free to use this as a catch-all for whatever your character might conceivably be doing here. Are they loitering outside? Delivering supplies/food? Helping improve the place because god it certainly needs it? Cooking? Socializing? Eating? Just wanting to booze it up? GO WILD.]

[There are nominal rules but if you don't get caught you don't have to deal with them, so you do you.]

Comments

[postictal]

[Tim snaps one of the flares out from the gun's casing, thumbing a sheen of dust off its exterior, and slots it back inside with a soft click. They've been lying around for a while; it's good to make sure they all still function as they should.]

Traded some stories for them. It was supposed to be a kind of emergency system, but it never really took off.

[tuskenlancer]

They seem like they'd be useful.

[ Not everyone has comms like her and Wash, after all. Of course, handing them out is one thing. Making sure people actually use them like they're supposed to is another. She hesitates, looking them over. That's a lot of flare guns. ]

...Where does the Storyteller get all this stuff?

[postictal]

They were more useful for burning plants.

[In fact, he's pretty sure that's where they got the most mileage - back on Ziziphus. Not that he'll complain, mind. It was better than people getting snared in Bliss's vines again.]

Presumably the stories give them the power to...I dunno. Retrieve them? Make them? Everything looks like it was dragged through a dust-storm to get here, so your guess is as good as mine.

[tuskenlancer]

...Maybe as much dangerous as useful, then.

[ Good when vines are trying to kill you, not so good when you're trying not to burn down a whole island ecosystem.

She looks at the flare guns a moment longer, then flicks her eyes up to Tim's. ]

Do you think they know how it works?

[postictal]

Probably.

[He can only meet her eyes for half a second. He's not great with eye contact, it turns out. But he certainly has a reason to look away - busy occupying his hands with cleaning out the fucking guns he blew something like ten stories on.]

Good luck trying to get answers from them. I think there's a ninety percent chance they're lying about what they're remembering.

[And he can say that because he would do the same, and has.]

[tuskenlancer]

[ Too bad for you, Tim, she's interested now. She keeps her eyes on his face long after he looks away, clearly intrigued. ]

Uh-huh. [ This is meant to be encouraging rather than dismissive. ]

So...what do you think they're remembering that they're not telling us?

[postictal]

I just think it's convenient that they start to recall things right around the time they come in handy.

[If his amnestic tendencies worked like that, it'd probably make his issues a thousand times more manageable than they actually are or ever have been. It's never been as simple as crossing the same ground as before.]

Maybe it's different for gods. I dunno.

[tuskenlancer]

Wouldn't gods know everything, all the time?

[ Okay, maybe that's not always how it works, but... ]

So you think they're...what? Trying to control us? Control what goes on around here?

[postictal]

I think they're controlling how much we know way more than they should.

[Connor's words have stuck with him. Why are they alone? Why keep them all isolated, when it's clearly not doing anyone any good? Why can't there be more than a handful of islands at any given time? Wouldn't it be helpful if the gods could...interact?]

[Don't they miss each other?]

Anyone tell you about Bliss?

[tuskenlancer]

[ Bliss? She thinks for a moment, trying to place the name, then silently shakes her head, pulling up a chair as she does so. This sounds like it might take a while. ]

[postictal]

There was this island. Ziziphus, last one we went to. The god there was...well, they were Bliss. Didn't feel much like talking to us, or doing anything but using us for...bliss.

[So gods and wisdom are a little less linked, he suspects, than is the general consideration.]

[tuskenlancer]

O...kay...

[ Is it though. ]

Is this gonna be, like, an X-rated story, or -

[postictal]

I mean they wrapped us up in vines, put us to sleep, and trapped us in fantasy worlds where everything was perfect so we could feed them with our fake happiness.

[Tim, alas, is not familiar with hentai, and therefore could not point out that this is probably an X-rated scenario in a lot of ways. Tough luck.]

It was killing us, so we killed them first.

[tuskenlancer]

...You killed a god?

[ Not that she approves of any god who would do anything like that. CT has a special loathing for anyone who thinks it's all right to trap other people for their own entertainment. She's seen more than enough of that.

This is more about the logistics of the thing. ]

How?

[postictal]

A lot of fire, mostly. Those vines were a part of them.

[He wasn't in the thick of it. He was too busy scrabbling through plant matter looking for people still trapped in the midst of it, before it would be too late to claw them out.]

Apparently the Storyteller helped, but I wasn't there for that bit.

[tuskenlancer]

[ CT winces. She can only imagine how awful that must have been. An entire island, burning.

Apparently the gods are killable, though. Well, that's good information to have. ]

Do you think the Storyteller knew it was going to happen?

[postictal]

[He has to consider that for a moment. It's possible. It could have been a front, a song and dance to keep people from prying. It's rude to ask after people who are still obviously grieving. He knows the tells when someone is lying, astute a liar as he is himself, but those are largely human tells; the same rules don't strictly apply to gods.]

[There's a rule for that. Something razor? He doesn't know the word for it.]

[In the end, he settles for the only conclusion he's been able to draw.]

If they did, they really didn't want it to.

[tuskenlancer]

Or -

[ Hear her out here. ]

Or they just want you to think they didn't want it to.

[postictal]

I dunno if they're that good of an actor.

[But...honestly, he's not entirely convinced himself. Mostly because he simply assumes everyone is capable of deceit by default. Paranoia. It's a hell of a thing.]

If they are, they'd have a hell of a lot of explaining to do.

[tuskenlancer]

[ It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you!! Just ask CT. She knows.

She shrugs her shoulders, mock-casual ]

Why explain when they can just summon another god to destroy anyone who starts asking too many questions?

[postictal]

Then why do they keep bringing us back?

[Doesn't fit the motive, or the reason behind it. Plenty of people have asked them questions, and have gotten answers that vary from "that's just kind of how it is" to "I wish I could tell you but I can't really remember" - both of which are pretty convenient get out of jail free cards, as far as he's concerned.]

[tuskenlancer]

Maybe we haven't pissed them off enough yet.

[ She shakes her head, dismissing the idea. ]

I don't know. I haven't - other people have been here a lot longer than me. I don't know what's going on.

I just...don't trust it. Any of it.

[postictal]

That's probably the smartest instinct.

[Plenty of people have cozied up to the Storyteller - defended them, befriended them, given them plenty of leeway. Tim isn't among them. He's too goddamned suspicious for that, and always has been as a baseline.]

But I'm sure as hell not gonna ask them any questions that might make them angry. [That was always the difference between him and Jay - one of them, anyway. Jay was more direct, at the expense of his own self-preservation.]

[Tim plays closer to the chest.]