first one to make that doctor who joke loses

[birdsbirdsbirds]

Who: Everyone! All of you!
Broadcast: Maybe!
Action: Definitely!
When: Anytime during the toxic moon event!

---

[boy oh boy, isn't everyone just so excited to explore this... charming... place...?

this is a game-wide mingle and the timeframe isn't super-important, so throw in with whatever you want! play war games, go shopping for gas masks, get lost in the wilderness, hide up in the Iskaulit and refuse to set foot on the moon, anything goes.

here's the main event info post for reference! have fun!]

Comments

[mucked]

The ones you see. The ones that aren't there.

[ with bold strokes, she fills in the blanks that they'd both left so intentionally blank. it isn't like she hasn't known -- hasn't seen the symptoms, nor witnessed the particular way his gaze shifted in more distressing moments. ]

[theroadwarrior]

They're only real if I let them live. They cannot touch me; they're dead and gone.

[He stares ahead, expression carefully blank.]

But they are... Noisy.

[A long pause, one Peggy may recognize by now as simply a heavy weight mid-reply instead of the end of one.]

The last time anyone spoke my name -- anyone... alive -- I was, mm... twenty years old.

[mucked]

[ she can be patient; she waits. ]

I'm not them. None of us -- none of us, here in the fleet, are them. [ she bites her bottom lip, for once uncertain. is she fighting the wrong battle? ]

No matter what we call you.

[theroadwarrior]

[He shakes his head.]

I know you're not them.

... It's, ahm, just... easier to tell when the voices are here — [He puts his finger to his temple.] — and not real, when they know my name. It's... just... a way to ignore them.

[mucked]

It's your canary in the coal mine. [ she flips, quick-like, to sympathy. ] Your litmus test.

[theroadwarrior]

Mm... Sometimes, on a good day, I never have to hear my name at all.

[His gaze flickers to her from his periphery, just a moment's glance. He's smooth-faced and more youthful and cleaned up — but the battered road warrior is still so very prominent in the way his expression sits, and despite all the steps taken and progress made in Peggy's presence, it's abundantly clear it is a hill among mountains; Max is a fractured mind, and he knows he'll never be... normal. Something in his head is damaged, not functioning properly, like the belt in a car that's snapped and has to be left in the sand. Max has never believed he could function like he did in the past, as a youth. He labels himself crazy. Others do, too. He believes in it, fully. A criminal psychotic. He's not so far gone that he can't see the whole-minded, normal men and women walking all around him. He's not so far gone that he can't tell he's a sore thumb trying to keep up with everyone else's stability.

The voices are reminders, that coping is hard, that adapting to normalcy is a struggle akin to throwing Max into the ocean and watching him make progress, get tired, and get dragged back towards where he'd originally started. But... progress is made. For every moment he drifts, there's a small push forward.

There's something helpful in trying.

He wonders if Peggy knows, that she's one of perhaps two or three people he even discusses these things with. Hell, Max doesn't even know he does it, sometimes. It just seems to be a role she's elected to fill, and for some reason he can't understand, he's allowed her that clearance in his life.]

... Today's not a bad day. The focus helps.

[mucked]

Working on the cars -- the vehicles, down on the planet. Focus, I see. [ and there are gears in the back of her mind beginning to whir and wonder. can that level of focus be adequately recreated on the ship? once they leave this planet, will max descend into a series of not-so-good days.

silently, the small pieces of a plan begin to form. ] Do you like other similar work? Mechanical. Engineering. Busy work for the hands?

[theroadwarrior]

[He hums an affirmative, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

No matter how often they do this, he still finds some discomfort in discussing it. All of it. Regardless of how it could help in the long run, he always feels that itch to flee from her, from them, from everyone. It comes and goes like ocean waves; he squashes it down well enough. He's here. He couldn't leave anyway. The shuttles can't take you far. He reminds himself of that before he ever gets bad enough to go through with a death march into space.

Imagine how furious Peggy would be at him, if he inadvertently killed himself doing such a thing. It's not worth being kicked around in the afterlife later. If he's permitted an afterlife, anyway.]

I've been thinking about taking apart a shuttle.

...

Just, hm. To see if I could put it back together.

[... He's still considering it, too. But whatever.]

Want to see how these things work, so I can match them if I need to.

[mucked]

You should do it. [ her (current) rank of first mate should allow her that much authority, she hopes. peggy dips her chin. ] I wouldn't mind seeing what they're made of -- or if the Atroma allow them to be disassembled at all.

[theroadwarrior]

It'd be...

[He stops, tries to find the words for it, and is quickly reminded of his conversation with Felix. What do you like to do for fun? He asked, and Max thought he was crazy, too. Because fun is not helpful. Fun is not useful in the long run. Max has not indulged in something that felt fun since... he can't remember. But it's simply not in his vocabulary. Except, perhaps, in the sense that other people tell him he's no fun.

Which he doesn't want to be. Fun is not going to get you anywhere.

He huffs.]

Could be... fun.

[He does like taking things apart. It's... sort of... like fun, right?

That's about as much fun as he indulges in.

Working on new technology, new vehicles.]

[mucked]

Fun, [ she concedes. ] And messy. So have your fun and then be certain to clean it all up, afterwards.

[ she sensed his discomfort with the word. fun. perhaps if she folded duty into the occasion, he might make his peace with it. ]

[theroadwarrior]

[Hmph.]

Yes, mom.

[Even if I'm older than you.]

[mucked]

...Is that meant to insult me? Get a rise, perhaps? [ she smiles, indulgent. ]

[theroadwarrior]

Nn... Depends.

Is that not how to reply to someone who sounds like someone's mother?

[mucked]

Oh, it is. [ ... ] Your mother sounds damned sensible, if you ask me.

[ preen, preen. ]

[theroadwarrior]

Ahm -

[He blinks, glances at her.

To ruin this moment or not. Well. He's always been one for blunt honestly.]

Didn't mean my... uh. Don't remember my mother. Never met her.

[mucked]

[ thoughtfully, and altogether too keenly: ] Understood. Only -- it begs the question of whose mother you're saying I sound like?

[theroadwarrior]

... Old children's books.

[He clears his throat, looking ahead.]

We were all kids, at some point.

[mucked]

I suppose that's true enough. [ and yet she doesn't exactly believe his reasoning. there's something she's missing -- not catching. ] Who does that make me, then, precisely? Old Mother Goose?

[theroadwarrior]

[He rolls his eyes toward the heavens.]

Nosy Mother Goose.

[mucked]

Some of us need to be nosy. [ she scoffs. ] Helps us keep a watchful eye over the rest of you lot.

[ she talks about it as though it's a protective virtue. ]

[theroadwarrior]

[he wrinkles his nose

SO OFFENDED]

I don't need a watchful eye.

[mucked]

Oh, yes you do.

[ BROOKING NO ARGUMENT. ]

[theroadwarrior]

Did just fine without a watchful eye for most of my life.

[He doesn't look at her as he says it, but there's an aura of stubbornness there.

He's capable enough, a-thank-you.]

[mucked]

Doesn't mean you needs must go without, now. Former austerity does not exclude you from present advantages, you know. Enjoy what you have while you have it.

[ including friendships. ]