062 » that moment of experience / part i

[villagemod]

WHO: Everyone.
WHERE: Eastern/Central/Southern/Western Mathias
WHEN: Day 062
WHAT: A storm rains destruction upon the town.
WARNINGS: (PM this account to have a warning added!)
NOTES: Plotting post over here! Part II details are below.

RECOMMENDED ♫ Deadly Avenger "Creeper"

DAY 062
THAT MOMENT OF EXPERIENCE
“A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one
chooses that moment of experience from which to
look back or from which to look ahead.”
— Graham Greene
The day begins like any other might. The clouds occasionally part to give glimpses of the sun, offering a bit of hope that the hours might pass without incident. It is a hope that is soon dashed, however, for midday brings with it a suddenly darkening sky. Those near the beach will be able to see the ocean churning as all light seems to be bled from the day, the sky darkening into a purplish-black more quickly than is natural, the process taking a mere ten minutes from start to finish.

And then it begins.

The rain is so heavy and pouring so fast that the ground cannot take it all in, sending rivers down streets and leaving lawns as lakes. The winds blow in gusts so strong that they could knock someone over, and the lightning that arcs brightly through the sky is immediately followed by thunder that shakes the town to its core, the tremors almost reminiscent of the earthquakes that plagued the town only days ago.

For some, the storm will be another nuisance of mother nature, forcing them to remain wherever they were before its sudden approach. But for others, it will be far more than that, for this storm is seeking revenge on those who sought to destroy the town. Destruction will rain down and it will not stop until its vengeance is satisfied.




THE NEW ARRIVALS
The newest arrivals to Mathias will wake up on the beach near The Grey Gull. It's a bit chilly out with their wet clothes, but surely there's something to help warm them inside the restaurant. If nothing else, the cowboys' homemade moonshine should do the trick.

---

ABOUT THE STORM
The storm will begin at midday and last until late into the night, only calming in the early hours of the morning. The heavy rain will flood the streets, though it will not be enough to flood the buildings themselves (except as noted below), and the winds and thunder will shake the town with such strength that it will almost seem as if the town is trying to tear itself apart.

But this is not a simple storm. For those residents who took part in any way in the destruction of the Town Hall, History Museum, or Stoker Park house, they will find the storm will destroy their shelter in some fashion. This can include broken windows, caved-in roofs, flooding from the rain, or even lightning striking the building. The details are up to player choice but something will be damaged by the storm.

— All damage to buildings will be repaired by the dawn of the following day as if it never happened at all. There is no way to witness this process taking place.
— If a resident is sheltering in a shared living space with others who did not take part in the destruction of the town, you may choose to have only your character's section of that location damaged. However...
— The storm's focus will follow the resident if they move to another area or location, meaning that the new location will also suffer damage in some way.
— Only those who took part in the town destruction in some way will be targeted by the storm, but innocent bystanders can be caught up in the situation as well.

---

CONDITIONS UPDATE

— THE WEATHER conditions remain fairly typical for early fall: warm days and cool nights. It feels almost like spring arriving except that there fewer red and orange leaves on the ground and more of them oddly returning to the trees and slowly fading to green. It's like watching one of those nature documentaries that have a timelapse of the seasons, only it's going in reverse.

— THE FOG has retreated from some areas!

— Residents may now wander the southern stretch of the forest surrounding Mathias Township — it is possible to leave the paths but potentially unwise to do so.
— The fog has also retreated farther into the western section of town, now stretching across town between Stine Road and Shelley Drive. This has revealed the Chasm in the earth that stretches from one side of town to the other between Stine and Hill Lane.
— Access to the northern section of the forest is still blocked beginning a few dozen yards past the treeline; this section of fog will urge residents to stay huddled within the town proper by inducing a physical reaction of panic and fear.

— DISAPPEARANCES continue! Ellie has vanished while others have returned.

— ALCOHOL supplies have run dry, save for any dregs that have been squirreled away by individual residents. Moonshine can still be acquired by those in desperate need.

---

OOC NOTES

— NEW MAP Thanks so much to Scy for this amazing new map of Mathias!

— PROJECT HELP Your mod needs help with some projects!

— PART II The next part of the log series will be have characters divided up (by OOC choice, not IC) into groups, so be sure to sign up for one asap. Anyone who doesn't make the deadline will be automatically assigned to an available spot.

— UPDATES Don't forget to report updates as they come up! Changes to locations (like toppling a few bookshelves in the library), big plots you have coming up that will affect the game (parties, major property destruction, etc), or exciting discoveries that may tie into the game's mythology (even the things provided by the mod) are very helpful to have in one place so relevant page updates can be made. IC events are also helpful to know about in advance so they can be included in the log write-ups.

— MOD STATUS The usual reminder that it's just Amy steering this ship, so things will are going to be pretty slow for a while. Apologies in advance, and please don't feel shy about pestering me if you're stuck waiting for something. (All outstanding matters will be taken care of in the next few days!)

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Comments

[tinstar]

Wait until Jeff got wind of Tim's grits. Grits were never Raylan's favorite, but he was a good Southern boy, so he ate them without complaint. They weren't bad, but it wasn't cream of wheat or oatmeal. But big breakfasts, full tables for it was a idea Raylan would like to subscribe to, having had a few full table meals here already. Nice to pretend he had a family that gave a shit, for a little while.

Raylan was a man who would sport flipflops, given the right circumstance but birkenstocks were out of the question. It completely had to do with the rest of the outfit that came with it. Polo shirts and khakis. Ew.

The Marshal lifted amused eyebrows at the pointed whisk, and shook his head. "Not where I'm from, no. Mining town, so it's all mostly jeans and shitty t-shirts unless you're goin' to Church, where you put on your very best button up. The hat.. I found it in a shop one day and tried it on." He shrugged, smirking. "It fit."

His head tilted a little as Jeff answered the harder question, nodding slightly at the answer. Just wanted different things. He wondered if the break had been that cleanly put or if it had been a mess. It wasn't his business either way, but wonder he did. Still, the return question got a pained, fake little pull of his smile.

"Use to be. For a handful of years. Now she's Mrs. Hawkings and once her divorce is final, she'll probably go back to her maiden name. She's a court reporter." And god it go so much more complicated from there. They'd be here forever if he went through all of it and he didn't want Jeff's pity. He also didn't want to be totally sober if he talked about it. That made everything harder somehow.

"Hadn't seen her for 6 years after I got sent divorce papers until I got reassigned to the Lexington Office. Wasn't any kids durin' the marriage but.. Tim says I got a little girl now, 'bout a year old."

[bardish]

Jeans and shitty t-shirts. Maybe he would fit right in... until he opened his mouth, anyway. He nods at the story of the hat's origin, smiling, laughing under his breath. It fit. As good a reason as any. Somehow, despite them presumably having the same hat size and everything, Jeff's pretty sure if he went and tried that hat on, it wouldn't quite fit his own head. Likewise, Jeff's guitar would probably look a little bit weird in Raylan's practically identical hands.

Jeff listens to Raylan's own answer to the marriage question, trying to keep an expression of polite neutrality, though he can't stop himself from lifting his brows, then furrowing them, with a somewhat bemused, "Huh..."

Divorce and a daughter. More things they've got in common. All things considered, it's not exactly a unique experience, given the whole 'fifty percent of marriages end in divorce' thing, but it's interesting, right? Same face, same marital status, same fatherhood status...

With a painful exception.

"You never got to meet her?" He tries to keep that note of sympathetic heartbreak out of his voice. It doesn't seem like something Raylan would want, but Jeff can't help the projection; it's too hard not to think of some timeline where things went sour earlier, where Lisa left him before he'd ever had a chance to meet Melody, and his life went some different, lonelier path...

(Also, he still hasn't considered the fact that Tim and Raylan might just come from different points in time, because that's so much to try to wrap his head around.)

[tinstar]

Meanwhile, Raylan was sure the hat would lend Jeff some.. swagger maybe. An example of confidence for half a second before he saw all the issues that lay underneath it. They were the same face - no way Jeff could look silly in it.. Right?

Whatever else he thought was kept behind his well practiced casual nature, the friendly rational man. The friendly rational man with a soft crook of a smile on his face. No, when he was younger, he didn't want kids. But that one case.. It had changed his perspective. Let him glance at a hope for something better than him.

"Winona's only four months along, by my count. Willa hasn't been born yet, for me." Now that he knew she was on the way, that she will definitely make it into the world, he could let himself glance at that hope again despite him being stuck here. "Tim's from about a year later. But he assures me I'm a dotin' father.. Though I didn't get a number on if I've seen her in person yet.. I hope so."

Raylan didn't even brush past how weird the time difference was. It was fine for everyone else until it happens to you. He couldn't explain it, there was no reason for it, so he'd accepted it and taken the good news, what little there was, with it.

[bardish]

"Huh." Jeff blinks. He blinks a few times, in succession, trying to process. Okay... there's a year separating Tim from Raylan. That's weird, like, in a kneejerk kind of way. But he supposes it isn't any weirder than having a Kentucky-born twin from another version of Earth, one with no concept of the Gift.

"I hope so, too," he says. "That first time you hold your kid, it's just..." He breathes out, a smile blooming now that he's managed to move past the whole timeline thing. "I won't spoil it by giving it all away, but it's a moment you'll never forget. Something to look forward to."

Because he has to believe that wherever they are, wherever Mathias is-- in the big, multiversal scheme of things-- it can't be forever. It just can't. Jeff's going to see Mel again, and Raylan will get to meet Willa.

"So. Willa, huh? Cute name."

[tinstar]

He hummed in acknowledgment, in response, to the feeling Jeff is talking about and forced his lips to curl into just enough of a casual smile to get by as something warm. Raylan was sure that what Jeff was saying was true and he supposed it didn't matter when he got to hold her as long as he did get to hold her. And still, there was some part of him regretting what he already couldn't change even though he hadn't done it yet.

He had missed the newborn, watching them breathe at night because you weren't sure if they'd make it, worried for no reason at all beyond them being small and impossibly fragile, vulnerable creatures stage. Unable to resolve the question with his future self, knowing the fact that it had already happened to/for Tim, made him hate himself for whatever he had allowed to keep him away.. Even if that was him directly.

"Yeah," Raylan agreed with an inhale and a faint nod, eyebrows lifting. "But I know I had nothin' to do with it. Not outta choice, mind you, but Winona is.. She knows I don't know shit about names, so it's fine." He doesn't know that he had any better suggestion. "Can't say it ain't fittin' for her roots, if nothin' else."

And speaking of: "Your divorce why you're over on the East Coast? Assumin' that's where/when you got pulled from, I'm only goin' off what Athena told me."

[bardish]

Fuck, Raylan could've taken the words right out of his mouth. Faces aside, the two of them are so different, and yet... when Raylan says stuff like that, the seemingly casual dismissal of, well, himself, then Jeff has to believe there's some other common threads between them besides looks.

"I didn't have a say in Mel's name, either," he admits. Jeff leans in like he's about to impart a real serious confession on Raylan, and adds, "I wanted to go with Zelda. Lisa had the right idea."

Jeff grabs a skillet and sets it on one of the burners, shrugging a shoulder as he considers the question.

"In a way, I guess. It was more like... I followed her there." He makes a face and turns back to Raylan, pointing a finger. "Not like a stalker. I just mean-- we were dating for a year already, and she'd gotten her PhD, and I'd just gotten my bachelor's and didn't really have any plans, so... When she got the job, I went with her." He chuckles softly, then adds, "And when we got the divorce, I was the one who got stuck there."

[tinstar]

Maybe it shouldn't have been a surprise but Raylan didn't know a fraction of a fraction of the shit that Jeff had been through and what he did know sounded pretty friendly and amenable. Not the type of setup where the father would be left out of it. He frowned a little at that but the tension didn't stay there long, very expertly dispelled by the.. well he wasn't sure it was a joke.

"I like Zelda." For what that's worth. Raylan watched Jeff set up and thought about the whole image of him making breakfast for his family. It was sweet. It was hard.

"Like the start of a romcom or one that runs too long." Maybe that meant he had a whole new love movie on the horizon for him. An indulgence but there had to be a little some, not everyone could on his level of pathetic as he was in his personal live. No one should, if they could help it.

"I met Winona in Colorado. She was working as a court reporter there but I.. I met her in a bar.. No mistakin' a Kentucky girl outta place. We were married a few months after and that stayed our home base. We were gonna move out to Miami but.." He bobbed his head, gave a considerate, understanding kinda smile. You know how it is.

"Job takes me a lotta places, so thankfully, gettin' stuck'll be hard for me until I get fired or quit."